I may be getting a little too insular here, not enough contact with the outside world. You think about such things in the middle of certain experiences such as the one I had yesterday out on the astral plain. Or in the astral plane. Hard to tell. OK. Best not to get caught in a isolationist's descending to the bottom spiral rut, we need to be careful about our ruts. Ascending ruts, now, a different matter. We are into the better ruts. Every day is a new day and I did received a new lens yesterday, so time to go out and see if it works. Here in Oakland.

I'll have the Carnaval photographs finally posted later this afternoon. Might as well link to them here. I like them. They're uneven, don't necessarily tell a story (I haven't been trying to tell a story, but lately I've been considering what I might mean by a “story” and how one might slip one in), but they are indeed candid portraits of the kind I obviously like. No complaints.

Later. A walk in mid-morning to the bank for some cash - down to but a dollar after breakfast - a walk then back to the apartment stopping briefly to sit by the lake. No naps, feel pretty good, quite a bit of time spent then sitting here finishing the Carnaval photographs. A walk out again late in the afternoon to shoot one or two pictures with the new lens. Certainly don't want finishing up the old ones to get in the way of taking new ones.

Neither of them are special - the lighting, the angle, the photographer - but I wanted to see how fast it focused and how close a 300mm f 4.0 lens brings familiar things in at a known distance. Adding a teleconverter can double the focal length (I'll try this tomorrow), 600mm at f 8.0 and the new camera will autofocus at f 8.0, a big deal as it's something my earlier model cameras can't handle. So we'll see, but on another day when I'm fresh and there are more birds about.

Otherwise there doesn't seem to be any damage from yesterday's adventure, the head is a little fuzzy, but the head is always a little fuzzy. Some of it to do with the aging I suspect, some of it to do with floating about in my own little fish bowl with little outside comment.

They say it's good for creative work, floating about in a bubble, but I've always had my suspicions. Probably not good to be too far off in your own head no matter how well you say you can handle it, but it does get worse as you age and so I suspect we're going to see, deedle-dee-dee, where it ends unless something comes up. “Sometimes things come up,” mumbled the man on the hill as he was lighting his pipe.

Later still. A good long session on the guitar. The five fret stretch is still a miserable experience on the ears and on the fingers, but I guess it will get better (easier) over time. My guitar teacher does it without apparent effort, his hand and fingers just shift naturally as if he really didn't have any trouble stretching. I've got my hand and wooden fingers wrapped tightly around the frets like a six legged bug in a death grip.