Before I forget I did finish the Lao New Year Festival photographs yesterday and posted them to artandlife. Better than those I took last year, let me tell you, and overall I'm happy with them. Same old stuff from me, but the same old stuff is what gets me out with a camera, so no apologies, regrets or complaints.

Plenty of sun out there from the look of it, we'll go with a guitar session and then head out for a walk. I need to visit an ATM after all the excitement of the last couple of days. Excitement can be expensive (something you may have noticed).

Later. A bus to Broadway and the ATM, a walk then back to the apartment taking the odd picture playing with the framing, another of a cormorant I didn't much like until I looked at it in more detail in Photoshop. I figure any cormorant picture is OK if I can resolve the eyes. If I were a bird shooter I'd take the time and learn to expose them properly. I would. If I were a bird shooter photographer.

You do take pictures of birds, you know. Some might say you can't really duck out on taking them better when you do. Doodle-dee-do.

I'm the one here who do's the doodle-dee-do's. Anyway, back home now to do whatever it is I want to get done. The guitar, yes, but I've talked too much about the guitar. I had UPS show up with a Lightroom 4 book early this morning (oh how I wish they would show up early tomorrow morning when that camera is due to arrive!) having given in to an urge to learn the nitty-gritty of how Lightroom is actually (properly) used. How long has it taken me to learn Photoshop to any great degree? A decade? Do I even know it now? (Don't answer please. The ego does need some minimal support to thrive survive.)

The RAW image front end program in Photoshop does a good job and I've used a program called Photo Mechanic for downloads that I do like, but I suspect Lightroom does it all better or, if not better, is more flexible and allows you to spiff up an image without having to go then and manipulate it in Photoshop. We get in ruts. And cranky. And refuse to budge. We do. So there. We now have another book we'll not open and read and our conscience is put to an uneasy rest.

Later still. Still living dangerously, I'm afraid. Hungry, I walked a couple of blocks down and picked up a “personal size” pepperoni and mushroom pizza at the local Round Table franchise. I know I'm hungry when pizza comes to mind, this the first I've had in months. Tasted reasonably good, if you believe anyone can taste anything as fast as I wolfed it down. If you're going to do it, do it badly, I guess. Probably not the best motto in life. But we're wandering this late in the afternoon. Not unusual.

Evening. An interesting Charlie Rose interview with Paul Krugman at eight. Dear Charlie is an example of a Main Stream Media interviewer, someone who stays close to whatever current administration's line by not overly rocking the boat, but he occasionally interviews someone of interest and Krugman is one of mine, an economics specialist who's economic reality fits what I understood from my own studies way back when. Not a great interview - Charlie likes to interrupt and Dr. Krugman isn't as polished a speaker as he is a writer - but I watched it with interest before heading to bed after nine. We're watching our bed times for the while, the reason I think obvious.