Tuesday. To sleep early enough to awaken around six, still thirty minutes before the alarm, to get up and get out the door and walking to breakfast on a very overcast morning. Ah, well. Feel reasonably good, we'll not complain.

I need to do a couple of things today. One, schedule a trip to Portland to visit with the sister and two, take a god damned self portrait, get the little strobes in order. Will we do either?

Later. A late morning bus downtown to get off at Latham Square again to find but three workers busy on site, but taking the usual set of pictures before turning right around and catching the return bus back home. Although I got off at the apartment house stop it was during the noon hour and I decided to walk on and skip taking any photographs until later in the afternoon, if I got it together to take photographs later in the afternoon. Feel well enough, just, you know, unmotivated.

The second and last set of camera strobe batteries are finishing up charging now in the early afternoon, we'll set up the backdrop and the tripods now for the self portrait. No, it's not quite done yet, but we will (either do it or erase this comment). Still overcast, but warm, the usual not overly uplifting news droning on in the background. Now, where's the calendar? When to head north to Portland? We can do this. Hup.

There should be an exclamation point after that hup!

And I should be pouring over this and next month on the calendar, right now and I'm not.

Later still. It has indeed been a while since I've used the strobes and it's taken a while to get them all together and to charge the forty-eight AA batteries they require. They are all together and mounted on their stands, but I'm less together and need to rest before we continue. Like until tomorrow.

A walk to the 7-11 look-alike, taking pictures at the apartment house construction site along the way so I didn't have to take them carrying a plastic bag with the large bottle of diet Coke (we finally finished the last one earlier this afternoon), the bean dip, the Doritos and the Good & Plenty. Lunch, you understand. Bean dip for vitamins, Doritos for crunch, candy for dessert and diet Coke for later, maybe tomorrow.

Looks like we're all set.

Indeed. I've made a list of potential weekends to head up north, maybe talk with the sister this evening to see what makes sense from her end. Drive? Can I still drive? The train? Hard to say, but a decision will have to be made. Certainly for the train to see if a sleeper is available. People book these things well ahead.

Otherwise more time on the tablet. I know they track the things you watch and use them to make suggestions for others you maybe interested in watching, but I'm sure they also track them to categorize you in various ways I don't like to think about. Why did I watch this particularly dumb one and give it a “4” or that particularly good one and give it but a “3”? I don't see that they lead to good suggestions for new movies, how off are they in categorizing you in other ways (that they then sell to others)?

I've watched more than one funky Chinese or Japanese or Korean soap opera/movie. I spent that year long ago in Korea and it somehow still has a tug. What aspect of this or that movie is used to describe my inner person?

As in you're an idiot with no taste other than in your mouth?

Am I being too paranoid?

Not since Edward Snowden.

Evening. More time on the tablet, a quick look at Charlie Rose at eight to find he's going over the Iran agreement, not something I'm interested in, particularly given all the “information” that's been dominating the news this day/week/life. No way for anyone to know what's happened there other wait whatever number of years to find out. Better peace than war is my unoriginal thought. So we skipped Charlie Rose for the evening.