Saturday. A little better. I got to bed early, awoke to the alarm at six, dozed off for another half hour before getting up, getting ready and off to breakfast with the papers. Back home at eight, some futzing around doing this and doing that before heading out for the ATM at nine, going to the ATM being a good excuse to get in an early walk and see what the people at the farmer's market were up to.

Back now thinking of lunch. I lost a couple of pounds on the trip, seem to be set at 155 now, don't want to get any lighter. Mr. M shot a couple of photographs of me using one of my cameras and I thought it captured the more than a little beat look of many hours on the road. The perpetual frown doesn't really help either, but beggars can't be choosers.

So, this morning, looking at one or two pictures taken while driving down Highway 5, passing Mt. Shasta, stopping at a number of the rest stops to stretch. I'm good at stopping at rest stops to stretch. Call it an indulgence. And a bit of insurance I don't fall asleep at the wheel and drive head on into a line of tanker trucks making emergency deliveries of oil dispersant to the Gulf. Remember the Gulf? It seems to have continued to make the news while I was travelling.

Time to stop, have lunch, come back later when the head is screwed on a bit tighter methinks.

Later. OK, a bit better. A bus downtown to check out the corner of Webster and 19th where some idiots shot and killed a guy recently in a robbery, the corner one I've been by many times. Well, I was a block off. I was thinking Franklin and 19th, Webster is the street I drive down to go downtown, it being one way south, where Franklin is one say north. But still, too close by, too stupid an act for the area. Not that it isn't too stupid an act for any area.

A quick check to see if they were selling bus passes on the weekend (they weren't and don't), a walk to the City Center to have a chicken Caesar crêpe, a walk then to the music store for more guitar picks (why I'm short after the ten I bought last month I don't know) and a bus back to the apartment getting off a little early to pick up and eat an ice cream cone on the rest of the way home.

Life is good, the sun is out, the weather now at two in the afternoon just a hair too warm. Which means real people like it a whole lot, where I only like it a lot. It's my guess it's the Icelandic blood and disposition.

An email from Mr. M saying Mrs. M flew through the colonoscopy without trouble and included a picture taken while we were checking out the walking trail in Ashland near the theater. Yup. That's me. Not so tired looking when I'm shooting.

An email also from Mr. D suggesting the demand for the Seagull screed is building, giving me a requested poke to let me know the writin’, it is a waitin’. So today we do a first draft. Today we start a first draft because in responding to his email I made ill advised promises as to when I'll send it to him. Here in Oakland.