I did talk with the waitress about MSG and, although she didn't think they used it, they do sprinkle quite a bit of a mix of dry “seasonings” (primarily Accent, salt and pepper) on their breakfast meats and country potatoes and they may include it in the egg salad, she wasn't quite sure about the egg salad. So I looked it up on the web when I got home. Accent: aka, Monosodium Glutamate. Bingo! And it's taken me how long to figure this out? To ask? MSG? Lots of it?

OK, she said no problem for them cooking for me without it. I'll experiment with a pork chop tomorrow, as I have a guitar lesson this morning, and I don't want to be too far off into other realms when I'm playing. On Monosodium Glutamate.

What to say otherwise? The sky is filled with scattered clouds, but the sun is dodging around them and I suspect there's good weather for the day ahead. Can't ask for more, here along the uncharted coast of a somewhat famous waterway in Oakland.

Later. Not a bad lesson, not so good on the series of chords used in George Harrison's Taxman for reasons I understand. But we're making progress. The finger picking riffs went well, we're on to new ones. Better hammer-ons and take-offs, if that makes any sense. Better hammer-ons and take-offs are are necessary skills in this guitar playing business.

I'm home now at noon, the weather out there is cool, but looking better. Off to lunch, I think, a no MSG lunch to prepare us for guitar practice. Hard to practice while you're in bed recovering from ocular misadventures. One less misadventure added to the list, maybe, in figuring out this ocular- MSG disaster adventure.

Later still. A look at the Dell web site to see how the new computer workstation is doing, the original order saying it would be done and shipped tomorrow for delivery by Thursday of next week. Surprise. It was shipped Monday and is due (according to FedEx) to be delivered this afternoon (I say this because it is afternoon and it's hard to see how it might be delivered this morning) so I guess I know what I'll be doing later. We'll put off lunch until it arrives.

Which means it will undoubtedly arrive this evening.

Which means it will undoubtedly arrive this evening. Right. We'll go to lunch (and leave the usual note on the mailbox asking they ring the apartment manager).

Evening. That went quickly, the afternoon and now the evening. The computer arrived around three in the afternoon (skipping lunch) and sucked up all the energy around here until about eleven (when the Sherlock Holmes series finished). OK, I'd pretty much done with the computer by the time Sherlock started at ten, but now I have a new machine sitting in a newly cleaned up computer area (the difference is amazing) and, although there are things yet to be completed, we're almost done.

I've still got a couple of hours to juggling to do, moving a drive or two, finishing reinstalling software (too much of that, a pain in the butt getting the online registrations sorted out), but we're in a good mood with something to show for it. Hup. A good day, I'd say.