Saturday. Up and about before the alarm this morning, to breakfast and back well before eight. With only the Chronicle and the Tribune to read on Saturdays it doesn't take nearly as long to finish up. Sundays not a problem as the papers are larger. If I had the Times to read on Sundays I'd never finish breakfast so I don't subscribe to the Times on weekends.

I mentioned yesterday being a pretty funky day, although it seemed to clear up a bit as we got into the evening. I suspect I should be more concerned. Still, I was able to shuffle things around in the living room and set up the lights and camera for the head shots later this morning. They shouldn't take long, we'll have lunch after and I'll have to decide if I want to photograph the fire dancers in San Francisco in the early evening. Fire dancers. After seven. In San Francisco. I wonder. Realistically I'll flake, but reality isn't much in evidence around here anymore. Who knows? Fire dancers. How to photograph fire dancers?

Later. A good day, feel pretty decent, much better than I did yesterday. Babble, babble. Still, good to report.

I set up and tested the lights with a posing chair and bench this morning. I need to test the setup further, but I was able to adjust the lights and create a reasonable result. I need to work with this further though, need to do more of these over the next few weeks. Ms. P came by just after eleven and we took all of maybe twenty minutes to do the shoot, then took off to a local Thai restaurant where we had lunch. A nice addition to a day, pictures and a good time, someone I worked with at my old company. Sometimes friendships last.

Back then to go through the pictures and debate making a sake run. Probably not. I could, I couldn't, but why? Just to get out the door? To fuzz the brain? Fill the evening? Time to pick up the guitar now and get in my practice for the day. Not good to go so long into an afternoon without having started any playing.

The fire dance later in San Francisco? Probably not. It requires a monopod or a tripod for the low shutter speeds, something I'd like to try, but taking a tripod over to San Francisco and back this evening doesn't sound like something I'd particularly want to attempt. This marks two fire dances I've flaked out on now, probably indicative of something I should better understand.

Later still. Spent an hour or so with the guitar, the fingertips still in the middle of adding to their callouses. Again, I've been changing the position of the fingers, pressing down more effectively and harder from the top, something that everyone develops as they practice and learn better technique, I suspect, and the fingertips are getting deep little red grooves from the strings as I play. All to the good, the longer I'm able to play without the fingertips failing the better, more callouses are welcome down here in the coal mines near the Oakland coast. (Hup! Hup!)