Friday. It's now just after eight with a load of laundry in the wash, more on the way. Up without the alarm at five forty-five wondering what that was about, as I didn't feel I'd gotten all that much sleep last night, but the day starts well, the attitude good, and again, the first two of five loads are in the wash. All positive stuff.

We ended up not going to the new restaurant in Jack London Square last night, but walked down four blocks from Roy's and had sushi. Which was fine. Some sake, as mentioned, a bit of a buzz, but just a bit, no crossing any invisible lines, home before nine. Life in the fast lane. We spend so much of our lives in the fast lane, do we not?

There's sunlight poking through the clouds and the forecast is for more of the same so we'll finish up the page I started on artandlife later and then head out to properly test this new lens. I bought it, it's within my budget, but I'm feeling a certain level of buyer's remorse. We all know when we've done what we've done is for no really rational reason and I suspect this is one of mine. But what the hell. Hasn't it always been thus?

You've had a decade or two in the past where it hasn't been thus.

There's the edge and then there's the edge. To tell the truth I've never come close. What I've called the edge in this life (couldn't make the rent and such) would still be fat city for others who've actually seen the blackness at the bottom of the pit. Yet I still prattle on like an idiot.

The second and third loads are in the wash, the first two in the drier. A fifth load waits its turn sitting in its plastic bucket on top of washer number one. We'll look at more of these Cherry Blossom pages while it's running.

Later. Pretty good sun outside with the laundry done, approaching noon. Finished up another Cherry Blossom Festival Parade page, although I still need to go through some of the earlier pictures and add the year of the parade. And replace one or two with others I consider better. And spiff one or two up in Photoshop. Not sure why I let that particular section slide. Maybe Cherry Blossom April isn't my best month. Maybe I'm just running on at the mouth. Time to stop. Now, I think.

Later still. My guess is this new lens isn't all that sharp at the 300mm end, but then (again) I didn't take the time or make the effort this afternoon to give it a proper test. A short walk over to the lake heading to the bird sanctuary, taking the occasional shot at the full 300mm on the D2Xs Nikon, which means it was really resolving at 450mm. And they look fine for the web and most of the other uses I might have for them - prints and such - but it doesn't perform nearly as well as its more expensive brothers. Which shouldn't be a surprise.

Then again? Maybe another set of better tests tomorrow. It did get me closer than I've been to some of the birds before, each funky feather in the sharpest focus or no.

Evening. Another session with the Cherry Blossom photos. My walk was a little funky, the sinus-head thing, less trouble with the double vision, but the sessions with the photographs have gotten me pumped. Good. Pumped is good. Still work to be done, some of it having to do with tracking down older images and getting them properly filed, something I've been working on now for a while, but every time I bring up another photograph it feels good, as if I'm starting anew on some exciting project. Which indeed is good. For all my bitching we're making progress.