Friday. It is Friday the 13th so the picture seemed appropriate. Things go wrong on Friday the 13th. We'll see. We'll be careful. We'll persevere.

I, very slowly, pry myself out of bed this morning at nine, some three hours later than is my norm, swimming through sludge, even though to bed and sleep last night by eleven. I'll just write it off to the times and the age and assume every now and again you're going to sleep like a zombie most of the night and get up with every joint and part fighting, aching and generally not with the program.

Still, to breakfast and back, a nice long leisurely breakfast over the papers, the café with more people than I'm used to when I'm early, but still not at all crowded. Back now feeling reasonably clear headed and well. A slow start, but a start, and now we're feeling OK. We are. Here in the vast river valleys of Oakland.

Later. Messed at little with my usual routine. A short walk down the way thinking I'd stick my head in at the tattoo art gallery to see what had in the way of new pieces. They're an art gallery with graffiti artist overtones, an interesting enough place for a look see now and again, then on to pick up an ice cream cone at my local Seven-Eleven look alike, walking over to the lake to see what the birds were about.

There were quite a few Black Crested Night Herons competing with the gulls and geese for bread that one or two people were throwing to them. I like their stoic, I'll not be flustered demeanors. They're alert, they'll fly if you get too close, but they'll let you get pretty close before they put out the effort. I wonder what the survival value might be in that. So of course I took a picture. Nothing to write home about, but I'd been out with a camera now long enough, I needed to shoot something if only to test to see it was working. So far a not unusual routine.

A walk along the lake saying it's much too early to say have lunch (and a large flask of sake) at the sushi restaurant, still, it was just before two, they close at two-thirty, plenty of time if that's what I really wanted. Sake at two in the afternoon? Not unheard of, but is that really what I want to do? On a Friday the Thirteenth? Here in Oakland?

Back now before three. Had my usual fare with the hot sake, feeling pretty good without going over the top. Without falling over the top. Well, without topping off, popping off or something other off. Or other.

Yesterday I'd maxed out one of my hard drives used to store the second copy of the photo images. I've not backed up photos onto DVD now for some time and I've managed to fill this one with a full terabyte of data. Bummer. So I'm burning DVD's. And I'm making a list of photographs to run as prints. If I'm going to pretend I'll one day do a show I'd better do what I need to do to do a show! Right? Absolutely. I was sure you'd agree. It's just, well, I've said this before. Many times. Maybe it's the sake?

Later still. An evening of guitar practice, not a huge amount, but probably enough to make my two hours for the day, the two note strumming suddenly falling into place. Odd how that goes. You start something, it seems awkward and obviously impossible and then you pick up the guitar at some point and play the riff as if you've been doing it for years. Engraved into the genes.

Anyway, guitar practice and burning DVD's. I understand now why I've been putting it off. The Roxio software still has its problems on a Windows 7 sixty-four bit system, the USB connected burner doesn't seem reliable and the DVD printer hangs after every DVD it prints. But we made progress, backing up some ten disks of data, opening up space on the drive. There are things I can do tomorrow to make this easier and I will (hup! hup!). No, really. I will.