Thursday. To bed at a decent hour, if ten is a decent hour. Up this morning, though, closer to eight after what I assume was a decent night's sleep, to breakfast and back at the usual place under a bright sun, noting the four cent increase in gas prices. Kind of like watching a roulette wheel, watching those gas prices: up, down, up, down. And then up. We know where they're going, we only wish we knew where we were going. Not so far on four dollar gas one might suspect.

Mr. D is coming by to the pick up the laptop at eleven, so we'll skip out on the laundry until tomorrow. Or next week. A trip downtown later to see what is what with the Occupy area. There was some scuffling last night as evidently there was some attempt at, well, re-occupying, something I sensed with the increased activity I noted yesterday while passing by it at noon. Not that I'd have liked to have been there when the eviction got underway, but I'd like to have documented what I saw in the prelude. Such is life. And photography.

Feel OK. With all the navel gazing I do here that's enough said for today. A little recap before bed, cut out all the ups and downs in between. The attitude is good and that's what counts, the other things tend to evaporate as the afternoon and evening approach. No beer, though. Not this afternoon. Best to do that in the evenings and then go to sleep.

Later. Mr. D came by to pick up the laptop, so good, the job done. A bus then toward the downtown to hit the ATM (again), walking on to the Occupy area. Lots of police, lots of security people, no tables off to the side where the teepee had been set up (their permit was revoked earlier this week), no tables, signs and such at the entrance. They did indeed clean them out yesterday evening and it would have been nice to have had some before for these few after pictures. But then it would be nice to have many things in life, some of them useful.

Nikon emailed me with an estimate to say they'd received the D3, so that's in the works. I assume I'll get it next week. No email on the D2Xs yet, but I suspect I'll receive it later this afternoon and, if not, then tomorrow. Painful to have them gone, but it will be nice to have them back all clean and dust free, deedle-dee-dee.

I suspect the dust came from one or two specific outings where I made a lens change under difficult conditions. I'm wondering if they were done in a rain. I don't often change lenses in the field, one benefit of having more than one camera body while shooting. The old D2X I'm shooting now while the other two are at Nikon, the oldest of the cameras, shows no dust at all. The D3s that will go in when the current two cameras come back, is also spotted. Nothing too terrible, but annoying. Good equipment deserves good care. First time this has happened, thought, and I've been shooting for a long time. We'll see. Whether we want to or not.

The day has been warm and sunny, I've actually got the sliding glass door to the balcony open with the fan turned down low. I know this isn't unusual here, I've lived here long enough, but it's still a little surprising to someone who grew up in Seattle and then just outside of New York City. Warm and sunny in the first week of January, no rain in this last month. I suspect the people born here never wonder about it, the way their world has always been, no surprises in it at all.

Later still. Some time on the guitar, some time futzing with today's pictures in the Occupy area. They aren't that good, I like these better than any of the others I took today, I need to work on that. No reason to take a picture that doesn't work. Easy to say, not so sure it's easy or the idea is right. Just shoot, let whatever quality comes out of it will drive you to fix it, don't sweat. Hup!

To bed early tonight. I've been tired today. I understand why that one pint of beer yesterday might have had the effect it had. On top of feeling a bit tired: no double vision issues, nothing going on out of the ordinary with the sinus-upper palate thing, but tired and adding a little alcohol on top did, well, what it did yesterday. A little of this, a little of that. The hell with it, I'm going to bed now, see what the morrow is like.