Sunday. Mixed clouds and sun out there as I awoke around seven, turning off the alarm before it went off at five forty-five and then sleeping in for the extra hour. To breakfast and back by eight-thirty, not sure why it's important to mention the exact time, although it has some meaning to me I guess when I'm in the middle of getting up with a brain reboot in progress and wondering, when it's done, if the necessary software will have loaded in one piece.

Reboot? Load?

I never thought in such terms when I was earning a living as an actual techie, must be some kind of subconscious welling up of dark days gone past. That or my hassles with Roxio 2011 yesterday, trying to burn a set of DVD's. A nightmare without the night. I did rather like my life earning a living as a techie. Allowed a certain level of comfort without direct involvement in many of the tacky political swirls that govern corporate life. Or whatever you might call them. Dilbert has a list. Not good, not bad, just nice to have been able to play for so long without having to pay the usual price.

Later. A nap. A lay the body down for an hour to let the brain cloud as the radio turned down low in the background drones in and out of consciousness. Good old NPR with its predictable, but sometimes interesting news. Interviews. A cliché, of course, old folks listening to NPR. Gets icky listening to them praise themselves when they're raising money, but I still send them money none the less. Probably best to avoid such altogether, but I seem to need something playing in the background as I stumble on, maybe to keep me from thinking anything too far outside the box. It can get cold outside the box.

A bit of guitar later, I think, when the motor comes up to speed after my “nap”. Not aware of anything going on out there I might like to photograph. I mentioned yesterday wasn't all that productive, although I did get something like half a dozen pictures I'm happy with. That's good, by the way, we like to say one is enough. But we like at least two, doodle-dee-do, and three (just between you and me) is more than nice.

It's actually a bit cold here in the apartment at what is now ten in the morning, I'm thinking of turning on the heat. They were saying rain and hail in some parts of the bay area, not sure which. Mid-May rain and hail? Maybe. My weather memory isn't good, although it's seen it's share of the weird around here. Still, seems cold, seems unusual.

Then again we don't have the Mississippi running its banks next door, don't have the drought that's withering parts of Texas and the adjoining states, don't have any tsunamis kissing the beach. We won't mention earthquakes. We have earthquakes. We're due for a big one. So we'll not mention e***!!!, keep a buttoned lip. Pray to the Earthquake God to keep his sleep. Her sleep. We are multi-cultural here on the artichoke farms of Oakland and show no sexual preferences other than with whom we may take to bed and even then, given my level of sloth, there's little or nothing to report.

Later again. A walk down to the morning restaurant around noon for a small cup of coffee taking all of two pictures, stopping to browse for a few minutes at Walden Pond and noticing a music instruction book on slide guitar. We'll get into that later when I'm further along.

I don't buy much at Walden, some of it to do with the fact I have most of the photography books I'll ever want (or look at again) and (I'm afraid to admit) current titles, when they're released, are much less expensive on Amazon. Crass, I know. I don't like what big banks have been up to either, yet I keep my checking account at Wells Fargo because of their many local ATM's. So much for defending “deeply held” principles. “Deeply held”at what depth?

I did work on While My Guitar Gently Weeps, going through more of the notes converting them to tablature (just practice from the notes, idiot!) and filling in the fingering for the sharps and flats. It's really just a matter of getting the sequence down and then practicing it over and over until you can play it flawlessly from memory. How long does that take? As long as it takes, why ask? But we do ask, do we not? Rather like changing your bank. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't, depends on the tune and maybe the spine of the man on guitar.

It's a funky headed day, as it always seems to be a funky headed day anymore, but we have things to do: a song to learn, DVD's to make (I've set up a work around using another computer running an earlier version of Roxio and Windows XP) and prints to print and frame. Hup. Hup. We'll get some of that done today, I think, our own history aside.