Wednesday. Awake an hour before the alarm. Good grief. Why? I'd gotten to sleep not long after ten, but five is too early. Still, awake that early, I booked a train to Portland for the coming Thanksgiving holiday, a sleeper. We're not driving this time.

Out the door to breakfast on another clear morning, back to finish yesterday's stirring entry and post before attempting a nap. No sleep, but some time in the clouds, feel better.

One of the reasons I used for not driving was I'd learned my Element was on the recall list for both driver and passenger side air bag replacement. Don't want to drive to Portland with a potentially fatal air bag installed. Right? Three or four news stories and a lookup online and I'm worried about driving a car I've driven now for ten years. Called the dealer. They're replacing them Monday morning. No reason to fret.

You wanted to take the train, anyway. You figured with the motel costs, gas and such you'd be spending almost as much as you had to pay for the train.

True, but boy-howdy is it easy to use something like that as an excuse. Not just an excuse, but an excuse that bugs you. Five million cars on recall and there've been half a dozen deaths? What are the odds? Yet I did think about it, think about driving those seven hundred miles.

Later. A walk over to the construction site to take a rather skimpy set of pictures, I may have to go by again later. A video crew of some kind was sitting over by the lake, a not uncommon sight. Took a couple of snapshots and then headed back to the apartment.

There's a demonstration planned (National Day to Stop Police Brutality) by the City Hall later this afternoon starting at one, so I figure I'll go downtown for lunch and then see what kind of crowd develops. Not that we've ever had a history of blue on black violence here in Oakland, of course.

Later still. I wasn't expecting the crowd I found when I arrived downtown at the corner of 14th and Broadway, something like one or two hundred people had arrived with all kinds of signs and a long list of speakers. The real deal.

I hadn't been up for bringing two cameras, so brought one with the 24-120mm lens. A good compromise for traveling light. What the hell? A good hour and a half taking pictures, the crowd eventually marching up Broadway to 17th and then off toward the police station and the jail, I splitting off at 17th and walking on to catch a bus (that never came).

Tired, when I got back to the apartment, but downloaded the pictures (I'll stretch them somehow into a section) and then settled down for a nap. An attempt at a nap. Tired, but the right kind of tired after all the walking around and then the two miles back. Worth at least a pat on the head and a drink, if I still did such things.

Evening. Forgot the second game in the series was on until after seven. Nothing on T.V. on Wednesday nights was the the little routine running in my head. Ah, well. The brain, the ruts, the fog, the sinuses. We have a whole list we can pick from when we need excuses. Still, when I dialed into the game I arrived just in time to see the Giants being hammered.

I've been wondering if I haven't been running a very slight fever today and then just now suffered from a very light case of the chills after the game, cured by putting a shirt on over the t-shirt and then saying the hell with it and crashing.