In a few war-torn countries, food is still scarce. In most of the developing world, worries are such as getting new shoes for the kids before they outgrow the old. In America, millions of unemployed wait in various degrees of dread for the utility bill, after a summer so scorching hot, a friend compared it to Satan leaving the door to Hell open. (One may doubt the door to Hell is in America, but if the road to it is paved with good intentions…)

So what do we worry about in scenic Norway?

Me, I fed my electronic pulse watch with my age, weight and sex. (“Male”, as “No, thanks” was not an option…) The watch calculated my exercise frame to be from 117 to 133 beats per minute. Fine. But it also insists on beeping if my pulse is outside the boundaries. Beep! Beep! And it just so happens that walking fast usually takes me to a pulse of 115, and there it stops. So, alternative 1, walking through the town with my watch beeping furiously.

If on the other hand I try to run, my pulse quickly goes over the higher value, and the watch beeps even faster. Beep beep beep! And more importantly, running also triggers my exercise asthma. So it is something I just don’t do, unless the alternative is likely death.

The obvious solution is to run a few yards to get the pulse up, then walk until it approaches 117 again, and run some more. Unfortunately this looks just as crazy as walking around with a beeping watch. That was not much of a problem way out in the countryside, but the first and last 15 minutes are through the town where hundreds of people are staring, at least if you act crazy.

So how did I solve this? By listening to the voice in my head telling me to Google for the product name and how to turn off sound. A PDF of the user guide (which I had lost) contained a description that, with a little trial and error, did the trick.

So the key to not be seen as crazy is to listen to the voices in your head. Bet you wouldn’t have thought of that!

(OK, it is not literally a voice, like with schizophrenia. More like an independent thought. Still, it amuses me.)

Anyway, I sped up once I was out of the town center, and burned 700+ calories, so I thought it was worth it.

“The grownup wish of cultivating wholesome young men will never come true.” That is a lot more convincing if you aren’t listening to Bach.

I may be a pretty happy person overall, but I am far from perfect. For instance, I am rather incompetent at my job. Even though I now love it, in theory at least, I seem to have a hard time improving. I am not even looking to advance in my career, more like being able to fill a whole workday with actually useful work when there is not an emergency.

In all fairness, our staff is dimensioned to handle a near-emergency. We do get overloaded when all khaos breaks loose, but we do have some over-capacity on a quiet summer day. Anyway, I am sure I could expand my ability and scope with more dedication. But it didn’t happen today either. And then I went home.

***

I came home about half past five (17:30), or an hour after I left work. I sleep or read on the bus home, so that is time well spent. But after that the hours went by, and by the time I took my daily walk the clock was a quarter to nine (20:45). As I walked, I wondered how I had managed to spend that much time doing nothing.

Well, part of it was writing yesterday’s entry. Even though I backdated it to the time I went to bed yesterday, I had it only sketched out in my head. It changed a bit in writing, and grew larger, and there was the actual physical writing as well. So that took some time.

I read and commented on a couple illustrated Sims stories by an online friend. I know from experience how much work goes into Sims stories. Even though my own Micropolis story line was edifying to myself and others, I just don’t have that kind of time on my hand anymore, I feel. In addition to playing the game, you have to take pictures, and later write out the story and resize the pictures, perhaps adding captions or effects. Anyway, I didn’t do that today, I just read and commented, which I feel they deserve.

I spent some time catching up with an unexpectedly long discussion in which I had participated earlier in the day on Google+. The question was basically whether government was universal or a human invention. I weighed in with the conviction that on another planet, people may not need government because they all follow the voice in their head, which would teach them everything and remind them of everything. Opinions were somewhat divided on whether this was a good thing, but I think it is clear that it would make government as we know it superfluous.

Furthermore I opined that even on our planet it is possible for an individual to outgrow the need to be governed by others, and instead govern oneself. I don’t think that is particularly far-fetched, since there is already considerable variation in how much various individuals need to be governed. And even the same person can change over time.

I also spent a little time setting up the Galaxy Tab with the new SIM card, which arrived on Friday but the PIN code did not arrive until today. Once it had a new SIM card, Google’s 2-step verification stopped recognizing the whole tablet. So I had to generate a new verification password for that as well.

But at least I found time to listen to Bach’s Toccato and Fugue in D minor for organ!  Surely that at least is time well spent. I reserve judgment on Ryuho Okawa’s assertion that Bach was actually an archangel, but I can understand why someone would think so. I do believe his music has increased the happiness of many people: Not mainly in the form of an immediate, upbeat joy, but rather by refining – or calibrating? – the soul of those who have reached a level where this kind of music can touch them.

Perhaps I should consider more seriously my threat of listening to some Bach each day – except each day is already this short. In fact, it is over right about now. It is my scheduled bedtime, and I have not even found time to play computer games or watch anime! What is the world coming to?

My earthly father Erling Itland, my brother Arnar Itland and his wife Oddfrid. I almost missed them, due to the recent disturbance in the force.

I had believed, or at least fervently hoped, that the string of unlikely coincidences would come to a halt now that the Galaxy Tab was in my grubby hands. Not quite so. Remember what I wrote on Saturday, when I had moved the SIM card from the mobile phone to the tablet? “People who know me well enough to call me, know me well enough not to. They will instead send a mail or, failing that, a text message.” Yes, that is how it has been so far this year, and some time before that, if I remember correctly. Not this weekend though.

For the first time in so long that I don’t remember last time, someone unexpectedly called my cell phone. On Sunday evening. I was probably out walking, but in any case, I did not hear the tablet ring. (I assume it rings when you phone it, because it can be used as a mobile phone. Headset strongly recommended.) So, after hundreds of days of not getting a call while I carried my phone on me pretty much everywhere except in the shower, the day after I stopped wearing it everywhere, it rings. The chance is, obviously, one to a couple hundred or so. Not a miracle, but extremely suspicious given the string of unlikely events before. Just saying.

***

The person who called was my older brother Arnar, who wanted to visit me together with his wife and our earthly father. I have three older brothers, actually; Arnar is the saintly one. Luckily he is also the one who has a lot of children, with the enthusiastic cooperation of the aforementioned wife. I dare say there was no coercion involved in the mass production of offspring, certainly not from his side. And it has paid off handsomely: Several of the children have grown up to become awesome. Twinkling lights in the gene pool and all that.

Anyway, I found the “missed call” messages on the phone the next morning. It turns out that the three of them had made their way to Riverview and found it deserted, then a neighbor had helped them find out where I had moved (well done, neighbor). So they came here, and talked with the lady upstairs, but did not find me. -_-

Luckily, they had some time tonight as well, so they stopped by a couple hours. It seems to be about ten years since I have seen my brother and his wife. I was not aware that it was quite that long, but I knew it was close to that. The father has been here on the south coast once or twice since, as have the other two brothers with family. If Mohammad will not come to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammad, evidently.

The amusing part was that we interacted pretty quickly as if no time had passed. Of course, much time has passed, and I at least have changed a lot lately. But we did not talk about that.

They thought I looked the same as I did 10 years ago, but that is not actually true: My hairline has been steadily receding. It now looks like Arnar’s did 10 years ago. In fact, we seem to grow more and more alike physically with each passing year. However, unlike me he can still eat fat. In fact, they all did so with great enthusiasm, having brought eggs and butter and borrowing my frying pan.

In any case, it was a welcome visit, and I am glad they had this extra day so I did not miss them just because I made another assumption. It was that close, and it is not certain that we are going to all meet again in this life. I am fine with that, really, in the sense that I don’t feel I have things I need to do or undo between us before we leave this world. But I certainly enjoyed their company. As I have said before, my family would have been my friends if we lived in the same part of the country. But we don’t. To some degree, I guess, we don’t even live in the same world. (For instance, they don’t live in the English-speaking world, as my brother pointed out in passing.) They seemed quite happy with their lives, though, and so am I.

This kind of situation turns up often in comics.

This refers back to my entries “Internet Rationing” and “More divine (?) comedy“, about the numerous and unlikely obstacles that arose to me getting the level of Internet access I was used to until July this year. I chose to present these in a lighthearted way – after all, it is not the end of the world if I don’t get to watch new anime or play YouTube the last half of the month. Billions of people don’t get to watch YouTube at all.

Still, a part of me worried if I was stretching things too far. The fate of Balaam came to mind, the prophet who didn’t take a hint and whose donkey eventually had to speak out loud. Even though he survived that particular episode, he came to a sticky end later. I haven’t, so far. Not sure about the people who were involved in the collision today.

See, I had expected some comical ineptitude from the Norwegian postal service. It is still owned by the state, after all, even though it is now organized as a business. As a fiscal conservative – or what we here in Norway call “non-socialist” – I feel obliged to expect  ineptitude from anything state-owned, until there is proof of the opposite. Well, there is proof of the opposite: They discovered that I had moved, while the Samsung Galaxy Tab was still on its way, and redirected it to the post office nearest me. I could follow its progress using its tracking number, and saw that it was waiting for me. It was almost too good to be true. (How often have I said that phrase now?)

The post office closes at 17 (that’s 5 PM in English) so I decided to go home a little earlier today and pick it up. I printed out the collection form at work, and took the earlier bus. Now you can see what I mean. Yes, there was a collision this particular afternoon. No, it did not involve me or the bus I was in. Not except that we were delayed and arrived at the bus station – about 100 yards from the post office – ten seconds to five.  I am not really that fast while carrying a heavy laptop.

You couldn’t make this stuff up. Or you could, but your publisher’s editor would demand you cut it before accepting your novel. Reality, of course, differs from fiction in this, that it does not have to be realistic.

I am not ready to laugh at it all until I know what happened to the people in the cars. There were ambulances, but the cars did not look like the kind of wreckage that leaves body part lying around. They should be fine if they used seat belts and did not have a heart condition. But I have a browser window open on the news report still, waiting to find out how much they had to sacrifice for me to not get my Android device on a Friday afternoon.

Ah, the news are in. One person was sent to hospital for a check after experiencing back pain, the other five were physically unharmed. That could certainly have gone much worse! I feel relieved.

Still, as the Main Character of my story, I hope this thing can turn from a curse to a blessing from now on, somehow.

I am not entirely crazy enough to feel sure three cars collided just to keep me away from my toy for a night. If so, I would certainly be obliged to do something extreme this night to make up for it! But I am led to believe that most of us are the main characters in our own stories, even people who to me seem pretty bland and who even feel so themselves. Evidently not everyone feels life is an exciting adventure that they would love to continue for ever and ever. I do. But on the other hand most people are important to someone, and in that regard I am probably one of the least important characters alive.

In either case, it is rare that a good chess player moves a piece, be it king or pawn, with just one purpose in mind. Of the best players one may say that “even his plans have plans”, and the Light is certainly more forward thinking than even that. Even if everything happens for  a reason, I think very few things happen for only one reason.

The series of coincidences that have racked up about my broadband access is certainly long and unlikely, but there is no single thing in that list that would not be reasonably normal on its own. It is just the way they go on and on that makes it disturbing.  And that is visible only to me, just like the star constellations in the sky are visible only from our solar system: The stars in them are frequently far, far apart and not related in any way except for being aligned as seen from our little speck of space.