The Mud Cat, my seven-year-old Bengal, aka Pi, has been battling a fever and loss of appetite caused by a liver infection. This morning, for the first time in a week, he ate a few bites of canned cat food and lapped up a tiny bit of milk. Also the vet measured his temperature at just below 102 degrees F, almost normal for a cat. Previously it was 104.
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The Mud Cat Is Starting to Feel Better
Posted in Pi
Lucky Day
At Kitsap Regional Library a little green shamrock sticker denotes a “lucky day” book—one that’s reshelved right away instead of going to the next person on the hold list. Today I got lucky at KRL’s main branch. After all, what’s the expected shelf life of the latest Robert Crais novel in the new-book section during a rainy Saturday afternoon in February?
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Posted in Books & Movies
Buoy Collection Envy
Which collection do you prefer?
If you live near the water, I trust your answer to the question posed in the photo caption isn’t “none of the above.” Of course that assumes you, at some point, have seen and admired someone’s collection of weathered fishing buoys and possibly considered starting one. Sadly the group of floats and buoys I have salvaged from Puget Sound beaches, drab and lacking variety, is the one at the bottom. It’s a long way from matching the color and character of the upper collection, displayed on the shed of an unidentified Cape Cod beachcomber (and featured in Araks Sharing Beauty blog).
Posted in Home
Displaying the Bird
Treasure Island gull
One of my volunteer jobs is to maintain the web site for the Treasure Island Country Club, the homeowner’s association for the island where I own a vacation place. The web site looks dated and could use a professional redesign. It was created in 2002, back when 17-inch monitors were still a luxury, well before social media and Web 2.0. I use an older version of Microsoft FrontPage to keep it updated. Today I added a new feature so at least the URL looks cutting edge when you view it in the address bar or in a favorites list. Instead of the default Internet Explorer symbol, there’s now a custom icon displaying the official Treasure Island seagull.
Microsoft calls these icons “shortcut icons” and has been supporting them since I.E. 5.0. But their popularity has taken off in the last year or so. It’s surprisingly simple to add one. All you need to do is to save an icon to your web site’s root directory with the default file name favicon.ico. (The browser does the rest.) The icon needs to be square in size, at least 16 x 16 pixels, and in icon format. Since I don’t have an icon editor, I created a square bitmap in Microsoft Paint of the Treasure Island seagull on a dark blue background. I uploaded the bitmap to one of the free icon-generator web sites, followed the steps there, and saved it as a 32 x 32-pixel icon. That’s all there is to it.
Posted in Uncategorized
Bucking the Experts
Normally the Mud Bay blog refrains from predicting the outcome of sporting events. For starters, it is too easy to be proved wrong. Plus a prediction should be backed by a wager to carry any weight. Online gambling is illegal in Washington. So my prediction is caveated with the subjunctive. This post is about the way I would bet on the Super Bowl if I didn’t live in a nanny state.
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But Do They Belong to the Same Party?
Last week while reading The Truth About Cars web site I learned that Carl Levin, the long-time senator from Michigan, has a brother serving in Congress. That wasn’t the point of the post—it was about additional subsidies for electric vehicles proposed by U.S. Representative Sander Levin—yet it got me to wondering if there are any other siblings currently making the nation’s laws. There are, although not as many as in two previous Congresses.
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Posted in Government
Closed on Sundays
January 30th was the last time the Port Orchard Library—or any Kitsap Regional Library branch—was open on Sunday. It was a downer day for me. Stopping by the funky old gray-and-blue building on the Port Orchard waterfront was part of my Sunday afternoon routine.
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Posted in Books & Movies, Government
No Wonder Mine Taste Different
Every so often I make tacos at home. No matter what preparation techniques I try, I cannot duplicate the taste of the ground beef used by Taco Belle in its crunchy tacos and taco salads. (Whether that’s a worthy goal is not the issue here.) A lawsuit filed recently against the fast food chain may explain why.
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Posted in Business Beat, Home
King Tide Morning
High enough for you?
The Kitsap Sun said the last few days have seen the highest tides of the year, calling them “King Tides.” Further, it invited anyone so inclined to post tide photos on a flickr page to help the state Department of Ecology document them. Until this morning I wasn’t able to participate. The tides have reached maximum height well before sunrise, so it’s been too dark out to do much with my inexpensive digital camera. The photo included above was taken right at high tide (7:56 AM) and shows a 14.0-foot tide at the north end of Mud Bay. There was enough light for the Mud Cat to point out the water’s edge.
I’m a bit confused. In January 2010 I wrote a blog entry about perihelion tides, extreme high tides that occur when the earth is closest to the sun and the moon is also exerting maximum gravitational effect on the tidal range. For comparison the photo I posted last year shows water on the land side of the small bulkhead behind the Mud Cat. That high tide was listed as 13.8 feet. So are the tide charts incorrect or did something else like storm surge or heavy rain cause the higher water level?
Posted in Mud Bay & Rocky Point, Pi
When Tweets Aren’t Enough
Golf fans on the go who used to depend on tournament tweets to keep updated have a better option this year. They can catch PGA Tour events live on the radio. All they need to do is subscribe to SiriusXM satellite radio and tune to Channel 209, the PGA Tour Network.
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Posted in Sports
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