Thursday. In all my controlled babbling yesterday I suggested (to myself) that I go to bed at nine and see if I couldn't get to sleep and then be able to get up at five forty-five in good fettle. Well, get up feeling in good fettle after the world came into focus, a matter of say half an hour or so. Oddly enough it seems to have worked: getting to bed before nine, getting to sleep with no more effort than I have in getting to bed at ten or eleven and now up with the alarm (on a cool and overcast morning), to breakfast and back just like that. And looking forward to whatever follows.

We'll leave it there. How many times have a said such and then slumped into something quite different by the next paragraph? So we'll know. I have a bank to visit in order to sign some papers and there's a thought in the back of my head of actually attempting to clean one of the camera sensors.

I think of cleaning them like I once thought of changing the strings on the guitar for the first time, only the thought of cleaning the camera is much more troubling. Changing strings was easy. Takes a little time, but it's straightforward with little or no chance of screw ups. Why I'd even think it was a problem I don't know. Maybe I'm alone in such thinking, but I suspect I'm not.

The camera sensor is altogether another animal. Still, if I screw it up I'll send it to Nikon and have them take care of it, I've been in the practice of sending them in to have them cleaned and serviced every two years or so anyway (I'm a little late, lately), but having acquired all the variously advertised gear to do it (anti-static this and thats) it's time to just sit down and do it. Hup! Hup! hup!)

Yes there's dust of some kind on the surface. There are pale little spots on the photographs in areas where there's, say, a clear sky involved and it takes some time, not a lot of time, but time to eliminate them in Photoshop. How can I say I'm a photographer if I don't clean my own equipment? Well, the CMOS sensor, the heart of the beast. I do take care of the glass, the surfaces and the contacts and such, we're not completely incompetent.

The way you clean your apartment?

I have my priorities straight. Others may disagree with the order. Now, let's see. I said I was feeling pretty optimistic this morning. Let's see how it lasts when we get into the next paragraph.

Later. A walk down to the new bank, as planned, signing something to do with the checking account and any fees I might have to pay should I write a check larger than my balance. They'll cover the overdraft, but of course for a fee. Not a large fee, from what I was told, but a fee. OK, but this is a bug-a-boo of mine. Banks find such overdrafts very lucrative and push the hell out of them at every chance they get. I passed on the overdraft coverage for the debit card and thought that was it, but evidently they have a program to cover overdrafts made by check.

We'll let it lie, but it ruffles my feathers as it's primarily used to charge people who can least afford it say 25 percent and more interest on similar transactions. There are times in this life when, I suppose, you need to hit a loan shark, but that doesn't make loan sharking a moral choice in this life. IMHO. Mumble.

Anyway, a nice walk, although now the sun has burned the overcast away and it's obviously going to get hot out there again this afternoon. I may have had my walk for the day. I passed by this on the way to the bank. It's more interesting when you see it in context. What were they doing last night? Why did they leave it behind when they left? I didn't check to see as I returned, but I would suspect someone passing by had picked them up. I like candles, have tea lights and such all over the place. One of life's little mysteries I guess.

Later still. A walk to the local convenience store to buy two one liter bottles of Diet Coke. I like to keep one in the refrigerator and drink a bit now and again. A one liter bottle lasts for about a week and the convenience store sells them two for three dollars, more than the local supermarket, but they're cold and I was out. A more sensible me would remember to buy them at the supermarket, that more sensible me I've yet to meet. I hear about him now and again, though, clear headed, plan ahead asshole that he is.

Now, now.

The explicative doesn't really apply. I'm OK with the bugger, everyone has one, no way to get rid of him, so let it lie - go with the flow, don't sweat the can't be changed - and all that crap.

So?

So it is indeed warm out there, this first day of fall, sitting here now with the cold bottle of cleverly mixed chemicals, some of which is water we're told. Odd to think I'm not regretting the loss of summer, but we've many opinions here on the left coast about the weather, one subject of conversation that will never fade out.

Evening. A fair amount of guitar today. Wasn't thinking about it particularly, but realized I'd been watching television and playing for a number of hours. Hmm. A clear headed evening, a bit of something or other in the mid-afternoon, but nothing to do with this “tiredness” bit, so we're happy about that. To bed just after ten, this evening, as late as I should let it get.

Watched an Inspector Morse on public television. Both like and dislike the fellow, like and dislike the series, but then I've been off all of the old English series now for a while. Have trouble watching Sherlock Holmes anymore, which is downright weird, perhaps even criminal. But so it goes.