Thursday. To bed early last night, up two hours later than usual to go to breakfast and back, home well after ten in the morning. Overcast. Still, something like ten or eleven hours of sleep which I must have needed. I'll leave it at that, as I'm thinking of a short nap right now, not sure why after that much sleep. We'll just go with the flow and see if later we're up for a walk. Not up for coherent writing after looking at yesterday's entry before posting but, I'm afraid, for good or ill, I'm becoming more accustomed to it.

Later. A bus downtown, the idea that got me going was to have a cup of coffee and a raspberry shortcake cookie at the Rotunda building, which I did. OK, sitting there, watching the people go by, getting up finally to walk up Broadway keeping an eye out for the bus, catching it around the corner on Grand, home now feeling better. The coffee? The fresh air? Who knows, I seem to finally be together now here in Oakland at one in the afternoon.

Walking through the plaza in front of City Hall I noticed this palm. I assume they've just trimmed it or even just planted it (strange thought, but I could check my old photographs), either that or this is the first time I've noticed it and realized I haven't seen the top of one of these up close before. My, my. Funky headed or not, tired or not, it was nice to stumble over. Nicer still if the exposure and the focus were better.

So we'll leave it at that. I looked up side effects for this inhaler stuff I've been on this last month since seeing the pulmonary doctor, recalling I'd thought it might have been a problem back then when I first started taking it and it coincided with0 many new and novel not seen before symptoms. I stopped taking it back then and maybe I'll do it again as “tiredness” is on the list. My allergy problem is minor, has been minor now for the last year, and I'd rather just put up with it (a cough stirring up some phlegm once in a while) than endure this tiredness stuff I'm experiencing now (if it's the culprit).

But hell, we're feeling better at the moment, the sun is out, I'm thinking a walk down to the supermarket. Best to go to the supermarket when you're not hungry or you'll find your bag has been filled with raspberry shortcake cookies.

Later still. A decent walk in the sense it was clear headed compared to recent walks. I ended up at a local Bank of the West. Wells Fargo sent me an email yesterday saying they were going to start charging me $15 a month for my checking account. I moved from BofA to Wells when they started charging for my account and chose Wells Fargo because they, like BofA, have ATM's scattered throughout my neighborhood. I was willing to go with another one of the evil too big to fail banks for their ATM's. So much for following one's conscience.

But I guess I'm ready to go with a small local bank and shed both the Wells checking and the BofA Visa card. I'll make bigger withdrawals when I'm near one of their (two) nearby ATM's and I'll walk farther when I'm not. I say I'm not happy with the way we've been screwed by organizations like BofA, Chase, Wells and the rest, but I haven't been willing to do anything meaningful about it. Now, evidently for $15 a month, I am. No gold stars, given the reason, but time to follow through. Doodle-dee-do.

Sitting with the bank rep filling out the paperwork I noticed I'd brought the case for the glasses, but without the glasses, having left them in front of the computer. There's a story there too long to go into that explains the reason this is a first, but then I realized I'd gone out the door with a camera without its memory card, the card still sitting in the reader beside the computer where I'd left it.

I've done that with the later D3 series cameras, but they have two reader cards and, although embarrassing, I haven't missed any pictures. Didn't miss any this afternoon either as nothing triggered the trigger, but both lapses of memory together make for old coot losing his marbles stories. Such is life. I've put a spare memory card in the fanny pack I wear when I'm out in just a t-shirt, maybe put another in the jacket when it gets colder.

Speaking of which, it getting colder, the arctic sea ice has evidently reached its minimum. It usually happens in the middle of September and, although they're saying it could conceivably open up again depending on the winds, 2011 has evidently finished in second place behind 2007 as the most open since we started satellite observation.

I go here to check every now and then, the only reason I put the graph up on my site instead of a link to their's is because it changes every day. Why do I check, why do I put it here, why do I mention it? I'll tell you when I know why I track gas prices at the station across from my morning restaurant. Quite honesty I'm not really all that curious. Obsessive behavior is only relevant when it gets too much in the way. Hey. Just a little in the way isn't worth the effort.

Evening. So it continues to go well as it usually continues to go well into the evenings. Paid some bills, paid all the bills, actually, not sure why I tend to put them off until the last minute. There are one or two things coming up over the weekend and there's a teeth cleaning scheduled for tomorrow morning, but otherwise the coming week is clear and I could, say, drive up the coast should I so desire. Need to do something to break the routine. I keep saying that. Is there such a thing as saying something too many times without a whit of follow through? I suspect, if you're an idiot.