Thursday. Up about the same time without the alarm, off to the bus stop this morning to catch the bus, go downtown and buy my morning papers. I turned the delivery back on, but it won't start until tomorrow. Still, a little different way to start a morning, back then on the bus to the morning restaurant (no, I didn't even think to go somewhere else) sometime just after seven and now home after nine. Hup. Hup.

Overcast, we've been having cool, overcast weather for these last few days, seems a little strange but maybe not. Again, I have trouble keeping track of the weather in the Bay Area, it isn't consistent and my memory is shot. I wonder if there's something called “weather memory”, something more than being able to recall an extreme storm or unusually warm week in the past? If there is, if there isn't, it's not something I've got.

The mood is good, we'll see how the later morning evolves. It usually devolves, does whatever it does, but so far so good. I need to send a couple of the camera bodies down to Nikon in L.A. to be cleaned, their image sensors, but also for their two/three year checkup. I've done this in the past, haven't done it recently. It isn't cheap, isn't all that expensive, but I've let it go too far and it needs to be done.

You're chickening out on cleaning the sensors yourself.

Maybe, maybe not. I'll try cleaning one of the older D2X cameras and see if it's rocket science or not. I've got dust on all four of the cameras I routinely use, not too much, but enough to want them sorted out. I suspect it's no big deal, but I'm good at putting things like this off. Think how long it was before I changed the guitar strings. Now I buy them by the dozen and change them at least every month without thinking. Or blinking. Or breaking the guitar.

Later. A walk down the way to the usual café around two passing the Grand Lake theater and noticing two young women camped out against the wall. A light bulb went off. Are you waiting in line for the midnight showing of the new Harry Potter movie? Yes. My, my. Their web site says the midnight show is sold out, so I assume they have tickets and are looking to get the best seats. Why should I be surprised? I guess all the hype is real, not that I particularly doubted. Ah, well. A function of age. I'd have been there with them, I suspect, if I were their age.

You've never been very good about standing in lines.

I stood in line with friends to see the first Star Wars movie in San Francisco. I hadn't see the previews, hadn't really followed the hype, but my friends had seen the previews and read the hype and were fired up to go, me in tow. No complaints. I assume Harry Potter is another Star Wars, but maybe on steroids, given the fact it first appeared in book form, volumes one through however many there now are.

You don't know anything about them.

I've read the first two of the books, seen two or three of the movies, although I'm not sure which ones. I don't mean to belittle the series, I understand their appeal, it's just they came out when I was maybe too old to catch fire. A little smoke, no fire, don't mean to seem grumpy about it. I gave the two ladies a thumbs up and a “far out!” as I passed and meant it too. Doodle-dee-do.

A cup of mocha coffee (still not sure I'm overly fond of their mocha coffee) sitting out at a table on the patio, the sky overcast, but warmer than it was this morning with an occasional peek of sunlight squeaking through. Still lots of clouds, it will go down as an overcast day, all day, here along the coast.

Some time on the guitar, more to go. I have been playing the chords long with the song (Imagine) and going through the barre chord sequences he's given me for the lesson. I need to memorize the barre chords. (Repeat it three times, sir: “I need to memorize the barre chords.”) Yes I do.