This beautiful scenery is from the small farming village of Møll, near Mandal, Norway. The name literally means “moth”, as in the insect. Also, the house is currently to let.

It’s house hunting time again! What?  Don’t I usually write “apartment hunt”?  Well, yes, but today I saw advertised a whole house within my price range.  It is a bit into the countryside, as can be expected, but not really far from the neighboring city of Mandal.  Close enough that there are regular commute buses passing more or less right by the small farm on which the house lies, from what I can see.

It is not a farm house, though, it just happens to lie on a farm.  Those are definitely fields, not lawns, in the aerial photo I am studying.  Also, the river is only about 10 meters / yards away. I don’t mind this either way, but with some luck it may discourage families with toddlers, meaning less competitors for me.  And competitors there must surely be.  While the house is small, it is still large enough for a couple or a small family.  (There are supposedly 3 bedrooms.) It will be rented out for five years – again, ideal for me but not for people who may change jobs  or even lose their job.

I am not going to get my hopes up too much.  It seems just a little too good.  But it is certainly worth inquiring, I think.  I would much rather rent a small house in the countryside than a basement in the suburbs, not to say an apartment in a block. Ew.

It started last night, I think. At least that’s when I became aware of it. My main computer was occasionally making small sounds of the “frrzzt!” type. You know, not unlike the sound of insects being fried to a crisp in the electric insect killer. Now, you occasionally hear about the being bugs in the computer, but it seemed unlikely to be literal. At least since the sound repeated from time to time. Usually this computer is running night and day, since this is where I run “folding at home”, a program that contributes to the science of protein folding. But this night I turned the computer off. I really didn’t want it to catch fire during the night!

This afternoon, after work, it was much worse.  I also noticed another disturbance in the electric force, which I had also noticed a few times yesterday afternoon:  The kitchen ventilator made FRRZZT sounds randomly when off.  Yes, they were louder than the ones made by the computer. Also, the light blinked.  Today, the computer also rebooted.  But only the big black quad-core computer.  The slightly smaller and a good deal cheaper tri-core computer that stood beside it was fine.  As the afternoon went on, the computer rebooted more and more often.  Cutting off the power to the kitchen equipment did not stop it.  Eventually I took the computer into the living room (which is uncomfortably cold at this time of the year, by the way) and booted it there, with an older screen.  It purred happily.  No suspicious sounds, no reboots.

Back in the home office, I connected the tri-core to the big widescreen monitor.  It may be slightly slower than the other, but not slow for ordinary use.  A bit slow when playing Sims 2, but that is pretty much it.  Well, after a short while it rebooted.  Actually, it just turned off, but the effect was much the same, since I turned it back on.  And a while later, it rebooted again. Not nearly as often as the other had, and there were no strange sounds, but occasionally the lights would flicker, and sometimes when they did, the computer would reboot.

Well, it must be the monitor then, logically.  But just to be sure, I carried the widescreen monitor into the living room and connected it to the big PC.  Since then they have been running happily for hours.  No symptoms of any kind.

The tri-core mostly works fine too.  But once every few minutes there is a small flicker in the light, and once every couple hours there is a major flicker and the computer turns itself off. So clearly there is still something in the room that sets it off.  But what?  I don’t know. Perhaps a rodent has been gnawing on the power cables in the wall somewhere.  Or perhaps there is a defect in some minor electrical equipment in there, some small gadget I have not suspected. I have a lot of gadgets each drawing a tiny amount of power.  Also, I have the Linux laptop up and running again in that room.  It had been off for a few weeks. Hmm… but it does not blink or act strange in any way.  Still, perhaps I should turn it off before going to bed.  And the tri-core too.

Today I actually visited and looked at the apartment I wrote about yesterday.  It is really just the basement of a house.  This is pretty common here in Norway, as you can rent out these without paying tax for them.  I lived in one such for about 20 years, in the original Chaos Node.  This is about the same size as that, looks a little smaller to me but not drastically so.  And I have less stuff now.  Much less stuff.  Of course it is rather small compared to the House of Chaos, or Fortress of Solitude, where I live now.  The difference is again not drastic, since there is so much of the landlord’s stuff standing around here.

The thing most difficult to adjust to would probably be to not have a house for myself anymore. It is quite habit-forming.  But affordable houses are far out in the countryside where there are no buses or trains.  You don’t come across an arrangement like I have now many times in a lifetime.  Most people probably don’t come across them ever. Even for me, one of the luckiest humans around, it did not last.

Anyway, the apartment faces out toward the wild forest.  It does not have floor heating like the Chaos Node had, but it has a wood stove and free wood.  And being a basement, it is naturally less of a frying pan in summer.

I told them I was interested, and the husband seemed rather enthusiastic about it.  But here in Scandinavia, the women have the final word on all domestic matters and some other matters as well. If she is uncomfortable with a single male living in the same house as their little girl, I’m off the list immediately. And given the prejudices around here, that could well happen.  A man is only borderline human until he has a woman to vouch for him.  Women do rule these lands, but subtly, with a silken glove over their iron fist.

At least I think I conveyed well that I was stable, well employed, financially comfortable, and experienced with living alone.  The majority of single men looking to rent are just crashing somewhere while looking for a new woman to attach themselves to.  Or worse, they are insane or on drugs.  My friendly, calming aura pretty much puts me out of that category.  (And I did not even need to sing to them… They do have a dog though, so I may still need that calming song.)

The apartment was not really finished, although officially they planned to rent it out from tomorrow.  It may be finished tomorrow in the sense that the paint begins to dry before midnight tomorrow, but nobody would move in that fast.  Anyway, in some days I will presumably know whether I get it or not.  In the meantime, I keep throwing away stuff. Today went a bunch of trashy supernatural romance novels.  (If you need to know, Margit Sandemo was my inspiration as a writer for a long time:  Even though she never wrote well in the sense that a literary critic would acknowledge, her books sold like hotcakes. )

Anyway, there went my day.  Oh, and we had a very important event at work today, but it went better than expected. I can’t talk about it though.  We have pretty high standards of secrecy, for reasons you would know if you knew what I was doing.

Is it a sign from the Light?  Probably not, but this picture is taken from the bus stop closest to today’s apartment hunt.  It was taken this summer though, before I knew I had to move this fall.

Another day, another apartment hunt! Today I was biting on a freshly announced apartment about half an hour’s walk from my current home, but on nearly the same elevation.  Most of the distance is along the same way I use for my Sunday walk,  which is a bike / pedestrian road along the main road which again is vaguely following the river.  Near the grain fields I have photographed so often, you turn away from the river and toward the hills.

The name of the road is “Grakleivveien” which means roughly “the horny climb road”.  There may be other meanings, but that’s the obvious one.  The Norwegian word “gra” means horny as in hungry for sex, but the common usage is restricted to horses.  Colloquially it is used for people too. I know I heard it used that way when I was a teen.  (The details of why I would hear that is beyond the scope of today’s entry…)  The word “kleiv” refers to a steep road up a hill, from the Norwegian word “kliva” which means to climb.  From the small village where I grew up, I remember there was a farm called “kleiva”, which was where the country road climbed from the bridge across the river and up to around the level of the other farms.

This apartment is cheaper than the one I mentioned yesterday, but less stand-alone.  So how feasible it is would depend on the immediate neighbors.  I am kind of spoiled by having the whole house to myself  here (although I could not use the whole house, as the landlord was stashing a lot of stuff and had the basement set aside for himself, although he very rarely used it.)  Anyway, an affordable home, fairly large, close to my current location… it could be worse. Also the road is surrounded by primeval forest, so you don’t get that intensely urban feeling. And the bus I take to and from work passes a fairly short walk from the house, although further away than here.  Actually I kind of like having to walk a bit to the bus.  It is an excuse to use the body while I have it, instead of doing pointless exercises just for maintenance.

Speaking of which, I did not get particularly stiff and sore from yesterday’s walk.  My resting pulse is higher, as usual the day after an exercise, but it does not hurt anywhere.  Perhaps I am not as old as I feel?

This is a picture of the same road, taken in spring. Yes, I have been there before sometimes. You can’t really see from the picture that the road is rising steeply, because there is nothing flat to compare it to, but you certainly notice when you walk it.

This evening, I took a walk to a place called The Magnus Valley.  Well, actually since this is Norway, it is called “Magnusdalen”, but it means the Magnus Valley.  I did not even know that until today, when I checked again for some new place to live.  This house I am renting is about to be sold, so I have to be out before December 1. There is still plenty of time, but my experience is that suddenly there is not plenty of time anymore.  So pretty much each day I check the on-line database over houses and apartments for rent in this province (and parts of the neighboring province as well).

Today there was one in the municipality where I live now.  In fact, it was within walking distance. Well, if you’re willing to walk for more than half an hour each way.  And mostly uphill to get there, and downhill to get home.  There is a vertically divided house for rent (only for one year though) and from the map it looked like it was in the general area of Magnusdalen. Actually it is on the neighboring hill, SvalÃ¥sen, which means the Pleasantly Cool Hill. Sounds like somewhere I’d like to live, although the name is probably exaggerated now.  It probably used to be covered in trees, like the surrounding hills, which would account for the pleasant coolness in summer.  Or it could be named for the bird swallow, which is called “svale” in Norwegian.

Anyway, I took a walk, though I did not actually go to that particular house,  just the general area.  I am not going to go see it until I have talked with the owner. I tried to call today but did not get through. And anyway, it is about kr 1000 (roughly $200) a month more expensive than the others I have looked at, which are only slightly more expensive than where I live now.  There is a large apartment near where I used to live before I moved here, for instance, at that price.  On the other hand, finding a place within walking distance would mean I could carry all the small stuff there and only need help to move the stuff that is too heavy to carry.  I could probably get a friend to help with that. This may or may not save me $2400, but probably something in that range since movers are ridiculously expensive.

Also carrying a bag of books or clothes there each day would be awesome exercise.  As I said, it is a lot of uphill.  There is a steep hillside from the valley where we live and up to the surrounding terrain.  Well, two hillsides with a short walk between them really. Then there is a more gentle ascent, and finally  you have to walk up the actual “pleasantly cool hill” to where the houses are.  I took it easy today, but it was still a useful workout. Actually walking down the steep hills is harder on my legs and knees and toes. I would not be surprised if I am terribly stiff and sore tomorrow. After all, I have reached the age where you have to warm up before warming up…

Still, I remember from the botched move, where I carried things over to the new apartment pretty much every day (and sometimes twice a day) that it was quite good exercise, and that was a much less extreme terrain – mostly flat actually – and perhaps half the distance.  Combined with my carrying a bag of used books or comics to the used book store (taking the bus to the city of course), I actually had calluses after the move was finished. Seriously. Thick hard skin where I had held the handle of the bags, day after day for more than two months. I lost weight too, but then I lost weight a lot during that year.  It was the same year that I had to stop eating fat because I could no longer digest it, so it took me some time to get adjusted to eating twice as much carbs instead.  But I still think all the carrying stuff each day had something to do with it as well.

Anyway, this is the kind of things I think about these days.  Oh, and other things too: I think a lot.  But having to move does tend to grab one’s attention somewhat.

Fridays seem to be popular days for people to be away. This time, every one of my coworkers in this region was away.  As was my boss.  We are usually five here (my boss is in Trondheim) but everyone had some reason or another for being away.  None of them was the swine flu, or even sickness at all, luckily.  So, I got some inspirations for streamlining my work routines.  Let’s see if they are still there on Monday.

The landlord called me to tell that he had cut the lawn with his motorized lawnmower.  It has rained pretty much daily (not counting Sundays) for three weeks, but the last couple days have been fine, so I had started mowing again. The grass had grown pretty fast in the meantime, so it was pretty hard work.  So in that regard I appreciate not having to make my way across all the lawns – the house is practically surrounded by them.  I am sure I can find some other exercise if the weather is good.  The grass needs to be raked away at least.  But not today. It was almost dark when I came home, for the first time since sometime this spring.  Around Easter I guess.  The autumn is truly drawing close.

My wrist hurts when I type now, but it will probably recover pretty quickly.  It is a lot more robust than it used to be even a few years ago.  So even though I can feel I am growing older, not all things are just getting worse and worse.  A low-fat lifestyle seems to agree with me.