I did talk about driving up the coast last week and, although I say I'm going to do lots of things that I have no intention of doing (at least in retrospect), I still plan on a short trip up the coast. Getting together with Mr. E and Mr. S on Wednesday at Roy's, however, we decided on taking in a AAA baseball game in Sacramento next week, a train trip to Sacramento in the morning, watch the game, maybe take in the railroad museum and a favored brewery pub, a train ride back. Mr. E is on his fifth or sixth interview with the same company for a job, but we're assuming it won't come through in time to mess up our schedule. Then a trip up the coast. I need to do this for the perspective if nothing else. Why do I talk about going up the coast? Well, if I go up the coast, maybe I'll find out.

What they call a “partly cloudy” day, by the way, at least on the Yahoo weather site. It's eight in the morning now, back from breakfast (three pancakes, mixed fruit and coffee - gotta keep the eggs and bacon within a reasonable limit) and the sky is indeed overcast with conceivably it could rain later grey clouds.

The Facebook San Francisco Street Photographers group listed something called a Maker's Fair this weekend in San Mateo and I've thought of going. They charge twenty-five dollars for a day pass, more than I'd like to spend, but within budget if the thing turns out to be at all interesting and ponies up some pictures. Inventions. I believe it's about inventions. People coming up with good ideas and fashioning them into physical form, some green, some not so green, I don't really know what it's about. Except they've done this before and it fits in with Obama's push for innovation, it says so on their web site. Will I go? Hard to know this early on a Saturday morning.

Later. I popped the 180mm f 2.8 lens on a camera and headed out, thinking it was small and light for a telephoto and I haven't used it for a while, maybe it will encourage me to see differently and take a picture at the local farmer's market, a conceit used by photographers who think they need to shake their routine (I do this a lot). A walk through the market all the way down to a bagel shop, with the camera over my shoulder and not in my hand, to sit outside at one of their tables to drink a cup of coffee and watch the crowd.

And there were crowds this morning at the farmer's market all the way to the bagel shop, let me tell you. No thought from the number of people there's a recession going on, although the local highways have much less traffic now since things started falling apart. So a decent day, I would say, all of one picture taken as I came out of the local branch library that Pamie's been helping these many years. I guess this is good, some walking in, the sky still cloudy at one in the afternoon, the temperature just fine.

Later still. I drove over to Long's Drugs, a really large Long's Drugs that sells just about everything, and bought two plastic storage boxes. I drove more aggressively than I like and I was pretty much in cranky old man mode standing in line. No, I didn't let it show (very much), but why? I wondered if my blood pressure was up. Cranky old man mode, right? No, ninety-something over sixty-something. Cranky old man mode generally means I'm sharp in mind as well as tongue (which is why I keep my mouth shut), but I find other cranky old men offensive when I run into them myself. Pain in the butt. Yoga, maybe? Something I'd never do I'd bet. Alcohol works, but at no small cost.