Monday. Hmm. Lots of rambling on and on here these last few days (decades, whatever), I'm not sure how good or bad that may be. Typos too, odd little mistakes that get though. Whatever, I've noted it before. Many times. Here in Oakland.

To bed before ten, up with the alarm at five forty-five, off to breakfast and back by eight. I'd forgotten it was Martin Luther King's birthday. A holiday, so I'm sending off that camera, mailing the various (should have been mailed months ago) letters and making appointments tomorrow. And, as with most of my mornings right about now, just after returning from breakfast, I'll say I feel pretty good, a bright sun rising over the buildings next door. Let's hope it holds. Late afternoon yesterday through the evening were similarly nice; the later morning, like many mornings and early afternoons, not so nice.

Still, we'll see. I need to go somewhere today whether I want to or not, just to go somewhere a little different. Take some pictures, see if they're more likely to turn out better in different surroundings by making what is a simple effort. Sounds good anyway. Rationalizations and justifications. Maybe I get off on making them, inventing reasons for things that have no reason, sit and thinking instead of getting up to act.

Rationalizing your rationalizations?

It seems a never ending project.

Later. Ten was too early to be going out for a trip downtown, an hour later at eleven would have been better which was around the time I returned, the air just a bit too cold, although I was dressed warmly, the sun not yet high enough to reach down in between the buildings and onto the sidewalk where your's truly was walking. Briskly. And with purpose. Still, a good outing, feeling pretty good until I had that ice cream bar I picked up at the 7-11 look-alike and the world rapidly turned wiggy for about twenty minutes.

An ice cream bar? Well, it came on as I was on the sidewalk just after I'd eaten it (eaten it rather quickly as I walked) and lasted for, again, about twenty minutes. Visual flashes and balance issues. Otherwise the world is now well again. I'll remember that, watch more closely the next time I have ice cream. Vanilla ice cream with a chocolate coating. Häagen Dazs. Something that will undoubtedly happen soon, given my history with ice cream, now that everything else tastes like, well, something else entirely.

Literally just one or two pictures. Given the cold, the lack of warming under the direct sun, I focused on walking, having a cup of coffee at a café in the Old Oakland area, a walk then through the City Center over to the City Hall where I did take but one or two quick pictures, and then a walk all the way back home. A good close to three mile walk, again a spring, albeit a cold spring, in my step, the attitude good and the world in focus until I had that damned ice cream bar.

For the few photographs taken I did notice a color shift, easily corrected in Photoshop, this in the newly cleaned camera, so I suspect it's always been there. We'll get to doing a color profile, see if that doesn't help, but it makes me wonder why I've only noticed it now. Still, any time you learn something that brings along the craft (or my willingness to notice the obvious) is a good day in my book. Yup.

It's now noon, the sun finally overhead and most of the day still to play. How many times have I said that in the past? A bit frightening you might think if I were paying the proper attention. Not that I've been doing all that much thinking. Gets in the way of the navel gazing, you know. Irritating. Like spelling mistakes.

Later still. A bit hungry, but can't think of anything I would eat, nothing new in that. Some time on the guitar and then some more time on the guitar. We've been going through something called barre chords now for quite a while and I realized, in going back over some of the earlier lessons, that I've forgotten more than a few. I can still play them, the fingering is easy enough, the practice doesn't go away, after all, but I spent some time looking them up again and going back over what I was learning and then playing not all that long ago. My, my. But then I've said that before as well. So many as wells.

The weather looks great, but we'll leave it at that. I suspect I've had my outing for the day. We'll listen to some more news as it drones on in the background now and push forward on the guitar, prepare one or two things that need doing tomorrow. I need to do the laundry tomorrow. I often need to do the laundry “tomorrow”, a day that never comes. So useful: a day that never comes.