Monday. Lights out before ten, awakening and up just after six well before the alarm. OK, another day, how's this one going to play? Tired yesterday and the day before. Comfortable enough, but no interest in doing anything other than switch between selections on the tablet and avoiding spending time on the journal. “I'm tired, don't want to go anywhere, what's for dinner?” - Not the stuff one wants to be remembered for.

You could, you know, just start this over.

Clear skies, a sunny day ahead. Not a bad walk to and from breakfast, although the picture I took of the pandorea vine was amateurish to the point of embarrassment. Using the older D2Xs camera with the 17-55mm lens, I dialed down the exposure by two-thirds of a stop, but fumbled to find the switch that allows spot metering and thereby didn't expose for the light on the leaves (the mid-tones) and ended up exposing for the light on the (bright white) flower. If this is Greek to you, fine, but it should be engraved early on into the brain of a photographer.

We're drifting.

Maybe start over again. Later.

Later. Another rather slow morning feeling tired and, toward the end, more than a bit spaced out and so to bed until the head cleared and the day came together again. A bit of the fear enters in the middle of these things - is this now the norm, are we indeed over the hill, fried? - but it soon dissipates once we're feeling better. So, another day, another week, another what in the hell is going on here?

We'll walk over to the apartment house construction site to take today's pictures, not sure we'll get to Latham Square until tomorrow when I have a haircut scheduled. Still feel paranoid about the cameras, gives me a much clearer picture of what they're talking about when discussing PSTD and returning soldiers. If I can feel this off with but a brief incident like mine, what must they feel spending a year worrying over IED's and watching their friends evaporate whenever they find one?

Now, now. We're not talking PSTD.

I understand, just noting. Hard to really understand a subject unless you've (at least slightly) experienced something like it. Another reason I really don't fundamentally understand how lucky I was when they diverted me to Korea instead of sending me to Vietnam.

Later still. The afternoon has gone well. A walk to the apartment house construction site to take a set of pictures, a walk back thinking I really didn't want to go anywhere else, even on this sunny (and a bit too warm) day, so on to the computer to put together two more apartment house sections and post them to the web sites. We're now only one section behind. Of course I still have to process the apartment house pictures I've just taken, but, well, we'll deal with that later.

Evening. The camera insurance people just called. I was worried the reimbursement would be way short in reordering the equipment, but they came through much better than I'd thought they might. Life is good, just less good when you're out on the streets carrying a camera, here in Oakland.