Saturday. A somewhat uneven night's sleep, but nothing to complain about, up maybe half an hour later than usual, but to breakfast and back before eight, a decent day ahead. They said something about thunderstorms later around here somewhere, but there's nothing to be seen of them in the sky or the wind at the moment and the sun is beginning to break through. There's an Autumn Moon Festival in San Francisco today I was thinking of covering with the Solano Stroll coming up tomorrow, so there's a busy weekend ahead. Good to have a busy weekend ahead.

Part of my morning habit is to look at this page every morning to see how this particular race is running. The arctic sea ice will be at its year's minimum this next week, give or take, and it's close, very close, to setting another record. The dotted line is the current record set in 2007 and 2011 is right on its heels. Go 2011!!! Oh, wait a minute, that's not the idea is it? Climate change, the slower the better, right? Right. Recalibrate. Ease off. Slow down. Ice.

Later. If I was going to shoot the Autumn Moon Street Festival today I should be over there right now taking pictures. But I'm not. Thinking about it earlier I realized I really didn't want to head over to San Francisco and walk up into Chinatown this noon hour, but would rather husband my resources and shoot the Solano Stroll well rested in the morning. I thought about this as I headed out for a walk, thinking there's a farmers market to take a look at (I don't seem to be all that productive in shooting my local farmers market) and there's always a cup of coffee at the morning café, so I had more than enough impetus to get me out, but not to BART and San Francisco.

OK, one or two photographs at the market, one or two more than I usually take. I wondered about the fellow at the left, what was he promoting/doing/saying in an, um, pink tutu, but it resulted in a nice photograph. Later I realized there was a walk against breast cancer going through the farmers market and on around the lake.

All the tables were full out on the patio at my morning café, so I walked up over the hill on Mandana to Lakeshore thinking I'd check to see if there were tables available in front of Noah's, passing by these next to the sidewalk at the top of the hill. Nice. I wonder how often they're moved/disturbed when he or she isn't watching? Still, a nice touch. A bit obsessive, perhaps, but I know about a bit obsessive: not to worry, it keeps him/her quietly and safely in the yard and doesn't frighten any horses. So, a picture or two and then on down the hill. You can see why I more often than not avoid taking this particular route.

Crowded, Lakeshore, but there was a table at Noah's where I had a cup of coffee and a sugar sticky cup cake of some sort, a walk then back through the farmer's market and beyond noting the small groups who were cheering the breast cancer participants on. OK, that explains much. A picture or two because I can't not take a picture or two no matter what.

As I was walking I wondered about my skipping out on the Autumn Moon Festival and realized finally there was no reason to fret. The Solano Stroll will be a big outing tomorrow, best handled without having walked halfway around the world on the day before, and there was a project I've been working on that's coming along and it will give me focus during the coming week.

I really haven't settled on any “projects” as such. Photographers at a certain point create projects for themselves, shooting a series of photographs with a common theme. Doesn't matter what the theme as long as it excites the photographer and gets him/her up and out to do it. Or get inside a studio and do it. But do it. And this little series of lake photographs I've been fiddling with indeed fits this definition. Just a series along the lake with a uniting theme, none of the pictures by themselves giving any obvious meaning really, but viewed together clearly make their point. Doesn't have to shake the world, the one I'm putting together in that sense is trivial, it just has to stir up enough interest to get me motivated enough.

So good. The Autumn Moon fits is an event that matches my ongoing candid portrait interest, but I've been looking for a project with a beginning, a middle and an end (maybe not an end) to add to the mix. Having a specific statement or goal in mind might make me more serious about creating better photographs, might cause me to go back to those doors I was photographing some months ago and bring them to a proper finish. I've started going back out to replace some of the lake photographs with better ones taken from the same spot. So I'm a little hyped, perhaps kidding myself, but hyped none the less. A step forward, I think, in a better direction.

And so?

And so for the rest of the day we'll work with the guitar - the laptop is finally up and running with the needed music playing software now installed - and get most of our practice for the weekend in today, tomorrow the Stroll will probably crowd most of any practice out.

Stretching for rationalizations to skip out on Autumn Moon?

Ask me again next week. I'm as curious about this as you are.

Evening. A nap. How could I go through a day without a nap? Just the one so far, but a nap none the less. Spent time with this, spent time with the photographs, spent time with the guitar and now I'm thinking some sushi and sake down the way for dinner. I was under one-sixty this morning, got to pump myself up.

And the sake?

I'm going to take it as it comes. Sometimes there's a reaction, more often there's not. Keep it to a minimum, but don't wear any hair shirts. We are not into hair shirts. Denim, yes, worn over a t-shirt, otherwise free as the breeze.

How does “free as a breeze” follow from wearing a denim shirt?

I'm thinking, once I become a guitar god, I'll run for office. A bit of practice for running for office where “logically follows” no longer seems to have relevance.

Really evening. It's now really after six, after having sushi and sake down the hill. Feel fine, nothing over the top, a bit of a buzz, but the kind of a buzz you wouldn't notice if you didn't know you'd had some sake recently. We'll see how it goes. More guitar, more camera batteries charging on the desk in the bedroom, the more whatever to watch on television. I had two Netflix movies arrive this afternoon, maybe one of them will make sense. I'd hope.