Later. A quick walk out over to the lake and back just to get out of the apartment. Something that happens every morning, don't seem to make any real changes in this particular habit. Packing a long lens to maybe get closer to a bird if one or two should be about (and doing cute bird acrobatics and such) I passed by a young guy sleeping on a mattress he'd put together from two that had been dumped against the fence beside the corner parking lot on Euclid at the base of my hill. I didn't take a picture as I wasn't into that, but took a picture after of the setup as I was returning home and he'd awakened and wandered off.

We have a number of smaller park areas in the neighborhood with benches and such where people can make do with a sleeping bag or blankets and sleep. One of the economic signs, a subconscious notation that adds to a picture of how things are going in the neighborhood. Have I seen more homeless people sleeping out in the open? Have I seen less? How young? How old? How many having animated conversations with people who don't exist?

This is an area where young adults live who want to be close to their jobs and the night life, singles and young marrieds who, if they have children, they're too young to have started school. When the children reach school age they mostly move to the suburbs where the schools are better and they're willing to put up with the commute. And yes, more than a few retired people like me. And, as mentioned, a very small number of people who live on the streets: some panhandling, some not; some sleeping in the open, some in hidden spots; all making you wonder what in the hell has happened that allows this to go on for so long.

I take it that's an aside?

We take our asides as they may arrive, try to make them halfway palatable with a little thought (and not enough editing). Anyway, a (what turned out to be very) short walk along the lake, one or two photographs, back to the apartment to choose another camera and set out this time for somewhere farther along - downtown, Jack London, somewhere, anywhere - and get in a proper walk. Well, get outside. Once I'm outside the walk pretty much takes care of itself.

Later still. OK, the next chapter in the daily rut routine: a walk down to the morning restaurant for coffee and a cranberry scone, a walk then farther on to have an ice cream cone before heading home. Two pictures in total, nothing spectacular, but instructive in that I was using an older D2X camera and the light temperature (white balance) was slightly off. Not by much, but a better photographer would have noticed it and calibrated the camera to bring it back in line. This is the only camera I have so far with the problem, one I don't use all that often, but still, why not use the software and equipment I already have (in hand) to make the correction? And watch for it more closely in the future?

I don't know.

Neither do I. It doesn't necessarily surprise me given my current list of things I've avoiding, but I do wonder from time to time when I face the obvious.

Late afternoon. An afternoon futzing with this and that with a fair amount of time on the guitar. We're making progress. More progress. I guess we're always making some progress.

I have an MRI tomorrow morning at 9:45 that I'm not looking forward to, if only because I'm not too fond of being rolled head first into a narrow tube with my nose an inch from the top. One reason I never wanted to serve on a submarine should the subject come up, not that the subject has ever come up. So, breakfast at the usual hour tomorrow morning and then a drive straight down to Los Gatos, a drive of over an hour. This, I would hope, is the last one we'll be having for a while. A long while.