A bit hurried reading the papers. The Tribune doesn't have home delivery on Mondays, but the Chronicle and the Times take time to read, so I was a little too hurried as I hadn't been able to get the meter to read my credit card when parking. These meters that take credit cards are a nice idea, but I'm noticing many of them will fail. I wonder how much time and effort they spend repairing them? Not information they'd release unless they had to. Makes them look, well, incompetent. The only problem with holding back information is it eventually makes them look evil.

We'll finish the Dia de los Muertos photographs this morning (did I mention it's raining?), there's still a lot of work to do before we think about the day ahead. Doesn't look as if there's going to be a break any time soon, they're talking about the Giants game being played in the rain this evening which, well, made me remember I'd forgotten there was a game last night and so I hadn't watched it on television.

For someone who does seem to watch his share of television, you don't seem to know much about what's playing.

My television history is spotty. For years, while I was living on Potrero Hill in the seventies, I didn't own a set and now that I have both a T.V. and time, I seem to watch an odd set of not very popular programs. Perhaps more than odd because there are programs on cable currently showing that I suspect I would watch with interest, as I've rented entire seasons of cable programs in the past and enjoyed them. We'll think about this, but starting tomorrow. Tomorrow.

Later. One last section to finish and the photographs will be ready to post. Takes time, although I'm getting better at it. A bit like learning the guitar, the steps forward are small and seem far between. Of course that's something I haven't particularly noticed or complained about, for example, in learning Photoshop and Lightroom. Hard to complain about your progress when you don't seem to care a whit and won't take the time to learn.

The rain stopped and the sun came through a break in the clouds after ten, so off to the morning café for lunch at noon (half a tuna sandwich, a chocolate drizzled puff thing of some kind and coffee), I the only person out on their patio. Still, in a winter coat, sitting in the sun, it was nice with the place to myself.

Home now at one, the Giants seventh game coming up at five (duly informed by my waitress, a baseball aficionado), so maybe it won't be raining during the game (unless it is). One of those “who knows where the wind may blow” days up here perched just next to the rainbow.

So, we have just one last section of photographs left to finish and we'll be done. The sinuses have been acting up and the upper teeth and the back of the head have been hurting this morning. They may be going through changes. The sinuses have been problematic these last several days, but in a way that could indicate progress. I'm assuming against all evidence these things sometimes make progress. For the moment, though, we're behind the curve, so I think I'll take the pain meds an hour early, see if I can slow it down for a couple of hours. It comes and it goes and I've never been totally convinced the meds really have any effect at all.

Later still. The photographs are done and posted, both sections up on artandlife and HereInOakland. I admit to being ambivalent about them (there are always one or two that are just fine), but ambivalent for reasons I understand. I can make changes next time to bring them in line or I can stop being ambivalent and forgive them my sins of dereliction. I'm into forgiving my sins, redefining them in a way that says the world turns more smoothly, puts smiles on children's faces and saves the lives of kitty cats because of their existence. One of the few tricks you can learn from the current political environment, how to define your actions in a way that matches the interests of the people you're screwing over. My sloppy work portends a profound new direction in photographic art (and not a sloppy execution).

Stop!

I know, I know. It's the season.

Let's see. The Giants seventh game in the playoffs is coming up at five and the debate is coming up at six. Which one to watch during the overlap? Maybe say the hell with it and go out for a shot or two of whiskey.

Evening. The Giants seem to be doing well, although I turned to the debate because there's no way I can't listen to the debate, debilitating as that may be. Diddle-dee-dee. Seven to zip for the Giants in the third, though, just now taking a peek.

So the rain held off until the last half of the ninth, the Giants winning nine to zip, the debate rolling along for its ninety minutes. In listening to the pundits afterward I realize I have no idea how the other people watching this may have reacted. They're talking about body language and points made, not the veracity of what they were saying.

I'm not happy with Obama, but again, I'm close to terrified of Romney when I listen to both his foreign policy and economic ramblings. Yet they say the race is almost as good as tied, Obama with just the slightest lead. Perhaps I'm too close to this, but I'm not alone in feeling the fear here in California. Life as an over the top Hunter Thompson fable, fun to read, less fun when it seems to have become reality and the monsters are real.

Everyone reading this has long ago come to their own conclusions, no possible reason to mess with it here.

True, true. It is on my mind, though. Not all the time, no one can properly concentrate on more than one or two obsessions. I figure photography and this journal are obsessive enough for the average old duffer. Naps keep me from going over the edge itself, politics and the economy are but hold overs from dabbling in majoring in both economics and journalism while I was in college. All this may just be a regression to the hobbies and interests of a younger me before I was faced with leaving school and floundering into reality.