June 24--In my recurring dream

In my recurring dream,it is around 1957 or 1958. I'm not sure. Sometimes it is later--1960. I already told you about the car I drive. A mid-50's Bel-Air Wagon, which I bought used. I keep it parked behind a service station next to a creek. The service station is on Sir Francis Drake Blvd, which runs through Marin County and out to the coast.



There is a bridge over the creek. On the other side of the bridge are houses. In my dream, I rent the downstairs apartment in the third house up from the bridge. It is my grandfather's house, and I rent it from him. In the dream he is in his mid 50s, a little younger than I am now. It is only him in the dream--I never see my grandmother, although she is there somewhere. I never see the younger version of me either. I would be about one or two years old. In the dream I am aware that there is a baby me out there somewhere, and that baby me comes to visit sometimes. I'm usually somewhere else when that happens, I guess.

In my dream I am in my early 30s. I tell my grandfather I am a photographer on assignment from some magazine back east, taking pictures that will be for a story about Northern California. I have a couple of cameras and take pictures in the dream. Sometimes I try to figure out how to get the pictures back to 2016 where I am from. I haven't quite figured that out yet. Did I mention I am a time traveler in the dream?

I have a different name in the dream--Danny O'Connell. It is a mash-up of a couple of fake names I have used over the years for things like making restaurant reservations and things like that. Everyone has a couple fake names, right?

I have been having versions of this dream for years and years. Having the car is a fairly recent development. Now I can drive around in the dream. Mostly I drive to places I have been in real life, to see what they looked like in the 1950s. I drove across the country once. I have thought about flying to Europe to see the Beatles in some club before they become famous. I'll be sure to take pictures.



My grandparents' house. I know why it is in my recurring dream. When I was growing up, it was the place I felt most at home. I still have a key to the downstairs door (although I am sure the people who live there now have changed the locks). It still feels like the place I grew up.

June 25--seven years

I went out early today to plan out an Ingress field. I wanted to practice on a small scale so I could start to figure out larger fields down the line. I spent a couple hours yesterday clearing potential blocks and stuff like that.

It was a straightforward field--right up the main street of our town. I have made layered fields before, but generally only three or four layers. This one would be 9 or 10 layers.

I got up early and walked up and down the street collecting portal keys. You need a key to link to the portal, and two keys if you want to make a field. It was a nice morning, and I took time to look around at the scenery.

I had a phone conference with my fellow doctoral students at 8 am, so got home in time for that. We are all progressing in our projects, and chatted about them and stuff unrelated to school. I am glad we have bonded as a group and can use each other for support.



Something I came across as I was walking through town.

In Ingress, there are these checkpoints throughout the day where scores are tallied, so if you are going to do something, you do it right before a checkpoint. The checkpoint I was aiming for was at 10 am. I ran into a couple of snags, but figured them out and was able to make my field before the checkpoint. Then I took it down and did it again.



It stayed up until just before the next checkpoint at 3 pm, when my nemeses from the south came up and took it down.

After all that I read a book for a while.