Well, back to reality. Overcast, rain earlier last night, but maybe some chance of sun breaking through the clouds for brief periods later. A window opening long enough, anyway, for a walk. To breakfast and back, the day starting like many another.

I wrote that first paragraph last evening and I'm sitting here now after having dumped my laundry in the wash and, well, checking my news sources. How's the market? How's the Gulf? This after spending over an hour reading the three morning papers. We'll take a crack at this “give up surfing the Net” bit, but we'll also see how big the problem. If the drugs don't get you, the Internet will.

They said similar things about television.

I'm sure they said similar things about radio when it was invented and I have no doubt Gutenberg took some flack in his time.

Later. It rained most of yesterday afternoon and there was no chance for a walk, but I was, for whatever reason, dead tired anyway and attempted one or two naps. The sun came out late this morning and so I hopped a bus, had a cup of coffee and a piece of chocolate out on the patio in front of Peet's, taking a picture of the Kangaroo-Monkey Paw out of habit; ambled over to the City Center to again sit at a table and take a photograph of a couple sitting at the base of the fountain - no, I don't know what they were up to either, but there are two people under that blanket - and then ambled, and I do mean “ambled” toward home. Taking my time. Shooting one or two pictures before stopping at a familiar stop and waiting on transportation. Tired, but less tired than I was yesterday afternoon. Different day, same plot.

They've installed something called a Smart Meter just now downstairs. It popped three or four surge suppressors in the apartment, although I'd shut the computer down in anticipation. The local power company has been installing them at all their customer sites allowing you to monitor your electrical usage over the web. No more meter readers, they can see what you're up to and how many watts you been using over the Internet. This is in preparation for such things as variable rate billing (higher rates during periods of peak demand), plugging in and managing your electric car and such for the future.

There's been some controversy about them, some have evidently given false readings and charged individual customers three or four times their usual bill, but they're installing five million of these things and you expect some problems. Time and technology march on. As a former techie I admit to being curious. We'll see. So much, though, for anyone who's been making their living as a meter reader.

Other than that? Well, the laundry is done, folded and placed in their drawers. The drawers are in their drawers. The shirts are on hangers. That's good. They were doing a five year weight certification on the building elevator when I went down to the laundry room, I was the last person in the building to use it for the hour or so it took for the test, and the first person to use it carrying my basket of laundry back to my apartment. Good for me. Progress.

That seems less than necessary to mention.

Maybe so. Anyway, the walk is over, the head and body are still tired, but less tired, I think, for the fresh air and the exercise, the walk itself long enough to qualify as a daily walk, although it was shorter and slower than one might hope. Maybe you just have slow days now and again and I've been experiencing a couple of mine. Still, no complaints. As I said, the sun is out, my mood is good, sitting here typing, and I've only spent ten or so minutes looking at my Internet news sites.

Are you lying?

Only a little. I've been good.

And doing what in turn?

Watching the news on television, of course. Silly question.

Later still. Walking back from the downtown I stopped by the Pro Arts Gallery off Frank Ogawa Plaza near City Hall just to see what the locals were calling art these days. There were some nice pieces, four or five very nice (under my very limited horizon, I don't mean to make mean comments), but I found myself examining the frames people had been using: sizes, colors and the like. Have I mentioned my framing project? Am I beating it too much to death? OK, fair comment, I deserve it. Still, more progress on my own pictures today, I'm sure of it.

As in you haven't started yet?

As in I haven't started yet. (Hup! Hup!)