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Here In Oakland

Art & Life


   



June 10, 2014

A Little After

Tuesday. And so to bed early enough last night to get to sleep not long after ten, up with the alarm to head off to breakfast on an overcast but somewhat humid morning. We were able to sleep comfortably under a blanket last night as it did cool down and they're saying it will be cooler through the rest of the week, but maybe they're talking about the inland areas where in got up into the three digits. Doesn't look like it's going to get cooler later around here from the early morning feel of it.

The guitar lesson later this afternoon and that's about it. I've been thinking of bringing a really wide angle lens to photograph the dome in the Rotunda building at lunch one the way to the lesson. I'm curious to see if I follow through.

And that's the excitement for the day?

Hey! It's a regular Carnival around here.

Later. The usual walk over to the construction site to see they've got a crew of twenty or more putting the rebar in place, I suspect they'll finish by the end of the week. And of course pictures with a quick up and down walk along the fronting sidewalk. They seem to have become accustomed to my little snapshot routine and pretty much ignore my passing.

Over to the lake to immediately find the goslings and their watchful parents, the goslings seem to be rapidly growing into their ungainly stage (teenage geese/goslings). Some not very clever pictures, I'm not sure they'd have been any better if I'd gotten closer or used a different lens.

You could have gotten down closer to the ground, done something other than just shoot and run.

One, this one anyway, does not get overly ambitious early on an overcast morning or, for that matter, run. I was right to check the weather report, though. Continues in the mid-seventies all this week. Maybe it will be cooler inland, but here, with the humidity, best to get outside early and let the mid-afternoon sun take care of itself.

Later still. Not a bad lesson. A bus downtown to have lunch at Genj's again, the same old, same old chicken salad, didn't bring the wide angle lens on the camera. A walk then to Latham Square to sit at a table until the lesson time arrived and then a pretty good run through the various blues riffs we've been practicing. More were assigned for this coming week. Chuck Berry. I am feeling an upwelling of interest.

Good luck with that.

Who knows? It's been a good day. You can never tell where something like this might lead.

Back to the apartment to then take a brief walk over to the construction site to see where they've gotten now at the end of the day, taking the usual set of pictures. I got up on a narrow brick wall by the apartment house behind them to take this picture, probably best I don't do it again, a fairly far fall. We are too old for fairly far falls. Any sort of falls. We are an adult. We know our limitations.

Walking back I saw the goslings in the distance and walked over to find them in the company of a second brood, five in this one, a little older than the first four. Nothing really in the way of pictures, they were waddling away and I wasn't carrying a long lens, but an interesting find. Two broods, both growing like weeds.

Evening. Yes, yes: nothing on television. I did watch a couple of the “nothings” while playing along on the guitar after downloading the Creedence Clearwater Revival version of Good Golly, Miss Molly. Pretty ambitious for me, downloading the song so that I can practice along with it. Maybe a good sign we're hyped, might even last through tomorrow.

To bed after nine, to sleep by ten. Or a little after.

The photo up top was taken at the San Francisco Carnaval Parade with a Nikon D4s mounted with an 70-200mm f/2.8 VR II Nikkor lens.


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