Tuesday. To bed at ten-thirty after watching a Scandinavian police procedural on television last night. Another one of these mysteries I've seen before, but had no idea who the perp might be until he was revealed at the very end. No complaints. A bit buzzed, but then we all know that from yesterday's entry. Up at seven-thirty, to breakfast and back before ten. The sky is overcast, but I'm seeing the occasional brief flash of sun now that it's approaching eleven. Looks like good light for taking a walk.

I rambled on last night about finding various “lost” DVD's, framed pictures and such. I have a very slight urge this morning to carry it on. Be interesting to see if I do. Less interesting to the point of disheartening if I don't. Or won't.

Later. A bit of a Kismet moment, perhaps, Mr. D coming by to pick up a CD needed to repair an operating system glitch on his laptop, I welcoming him to the apartment and realizing I really didn't have anywhere for him to sit. Well, I moved the guitar case off a chair and moved the chair, but really, no place to sit?

I've been talking about it off and on, most recently on, about cleaning up this place. They picked up the paper products in the recycle bin this morning, there are now two totally empty containers sitting all alone in the garage. I could half fill one with a little effort, free up space on the shelves for the books scattered about I actually want to keep. That I tell myself I want to keep, not that I'd read them again or finish reading them if they're more recent. You understand.

A walk after noon to the usual place for coffee, a piece of poppy seed cake and mixed fruit, heading along the lake shore. I photographed the small pile of mussel shells left over from a gull's lunch to document that there are indeed mussels in the lake, lots of them evidently that feed a lot of birds. A framed shot of a coot because I felt like it. No particular imagination in the framing or the bird, but if I relied on imagination alone I'd never take another shot.

Anyone who lives in the Bay Area is aware of the natural gas pipeline problems that were discovered after a Pacific Gas & Electric feeder line failed in San Bruno in September, killing eight people and destroying a number of houses. It's since been found their line maintenance system has been broken for decades, enabled by the state board that oversees gas line safety.

Just under the Highway 580 overpass I noticed this, taking the picture just to see how the color would contrast with the darker cement, a kind of legal grafitti I mentally group together with the less legal spray can set. Then I realized the markings were quite recent and they identified access points to gas lines buried beneath. Maybe they really are taking their obligations more seriously now that they've been caught. Until time passes and we learn otherwise when we have another one blow up.

Underlines the main reason I don't trust nuclear power. Not because it can't be made safe, but because you can't watch their management twenty-four seven, day in and day out. It's the politics and money that will guarantee their failure, not the engineering (although that's a crap shoot with the current crop). People are people and you can't just fix them with a wrench.

Now, now.

I know.

Later still. Putting things in order last night turned up six tape cassettes high up on a shelf in a case, none of them marked, so I popped one in the player to see what it was. An interview with a farm manager that I finally remembered then when it was done. It took me time to recognize my own voice. Not a bad voice, maybe too good to be mine, the questions seemed to be intelligent, the interview done in Harlingen, Texas in the early seventies on a hot summer day. I was trying to find out exactly what had happened to a stolen Grapefruit crop from an orchard owned by one of our company managed investor groups. An interesting trip, that. Taught me, like nuclear reactors, investments made far away in foreign lands need to be monitored. Routinely. Closely. Or they'll steal your grapefruit.

Is that some sort of made up story to make a point?

No. A different life lived a long time back.

Evening. Old bills and fliers inhabiting my desk: gone. FedEx reporting the cameras were received by Nikon today: good.