quote for the day

I cannot endure to waste anything as precious
as autumn sunshine by staying in the house.
So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the
open air. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hurricane Tracking

NHC latest advisory:

KIKO SHOULD REMAIN IN AN AREA OF LIGHT SHEAR FOR THE NEXT 48-72 HR...WHICH SHOULD ALLOW CONTINUED STRENGTHENING. THE SHIPS MODEL CALLS FOR A PEAK INTENSITY OF 68 KT...THE GFDL 88 KT...AND THE HWRF 90 KT. THE INTENSITY FORECAST WILL COMPROMISE BETWEEN THESE WITH A FORECAST PEAK INTENSITY OF 75 KT. AFTER 72 HR...THE LARGE-SCALE
MODELS FORECAST INCREASING SHEAR AS KIKO REACHES COOLER SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES. THIS COMBINATION SHOULD CAUSE A WEAKENING TREND.

Light shear (low high-level winds), warm SST's, low core pressure are factors that build a strong hurricane. Gotta love the warm sea temps.

> > > Here's a good website to track Kiko from:

http://www.tropicalactivity.com/

Along with the nice visual from Wunderground, Sandy has a nice neat table to run stats from too:

Track	Public Advisory	Discussion	Marine Advisory
Visible	Infrared	RGB	Water Vapor
Visible Loop	IR Loop	RGB Loop	WV Loop
More Images	Windshear	Windshear Tendency	Historical
Radar	Computer Models

Tropical Weather Outlook	Tropical Weather Discussion
Experimental Graphical TWO	Tropical Cyclone Danger
EPAC Visible	EPAC Infrared

Nice one, Hurrikan.

(Please see the link for the whole table, one column isn't being shown by the blog.)

Cat 2 for Kiko?

Cat 2 or Dog 2?

Look out Cabo San Lucas...

Storm2k.org

Forecasters saying that Kiko could become a Category 2 hurricane by next Tuesday.

TROPICAL STORM KIKO INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY NUMBER 16A
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL EP152007
500 PM PDT THU OCT 18 2007

...KIKO NEARLY STATIONARY...FORECAST TO STRENGTHEN...

ABOVE NORMAL TIDES...ACCOMPANIED BY LARGE AND DANGEROUS BATTERING WAVES...ARE POSSIBLE IN THE WARNING AREA IN REGIONS OF ONSHORE FLOW.

KIKO IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE TOTAL RAINFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 4 TO 7 INCHES OVER SOUTHWESTERN MEXICO WITH POSSIBLE ISOLATED MAXIMUM AMOUNTS OF 10 INCHES. LIFE THREATENING FLASH FLOODS AND MUDSLIDES ARE POSSIBLE OVER MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN.

* * * *
Check out this in the daytime, might be a good sat link.

And here's one of those "I can't see your face in cyberspace" moments...

This was me in Hurricane Jose in St. Martin about 8 years ago.

Yes, it's been that long. We had to get off the beach early that day before being barracaded into the beach club under martial law. And before a coup de foudre (being struck by lightning).

Suzzzz might know this beach,
< style="text-align: right;">Next time I'm taking
the puppy-wuppies.

BooBoo and

Mishka RosieBear

Tropical Storm Kiko Forms in the Pacific

15E.KIKO, TRACK_VIS, 17 OCT 2007 2330Z

click for larger images from NRL

Guess we'll have to keep an eye on this one, eh?

Satellite Pass Info Sensor Latest Next (View All) SSMI 10/17 1403 Z, F-13 0611 10/17 1440 Z, F-16 0860 TC_SSMIS 10/17 1437 Z, F-16 0860 10/18 0331 Z, F-16 1011 TMI 10/17 1841 Z, TRMM 0047 10/18 0931 Z, TRMM 0208 AMSRE 10/17 2032 Z, AQUA-1 0162 10/18 0848 Z, AQUA 0072 WINDSAT 10/17 0124 Z, CORIOLIS 0000 10/17 0127 Z, WIND 1068 AMSUB 10/17 2256 Z, N-16 0348 10/18 0015 Z, N-15 0237 SCATT 10/17 1149 Z, QUICKSCAT 0527 10/17 1240 Z, QUIK 0453

Forecast by: National Hurricane Center
Graphic by: Naval Pacific Meteorology and Oceanography Center

nice animation from Wunderground:
http://icons.wunderground.com/data/images/ep200715_sat_2_anim.gif.

Oh Happy Day

Let me tell you now how to deal with cable companies. It's simple. Keep calling until you get the deal that you want.

The first time I called, I got a ditz who was quoting me prices WAY out of my budget. So I cut it all back to basic, basic cable, 13 whole channels for $13/mo. Not a good deal, but less than what I'm paying now. Then I started looking on their website to see what these price ranges are and found a Family Tier that came with National Geographic for a lot less than she had quoted. So a while later I called again and Ace offered me an even better deal at less money, so that's the one I signed up for. I'll still have Nat Geo and C-Span3, which is all I really wanted when I called six months ago to upgrade then and they offered me the free for $2/mo.

Ok, for a mere $10/mo. more now--I know, I know, MORE! you say? Well, I've had it FREE for six months and it will be an upgrade. So I'm fine with that, I'll still have On Demand too. But aside from getting rooked into a higher bill, I won't have TCM anymore. Oh boo hoo. (where's my poodle pup, I need a cuddle) Oh well, I think I've seen them all already anyhow, but I am going to miss Ben Mancawitz on the weekend. My favorite Young Turk.

So, it's not such a sad ending to a sad day after all.

Cheers!

Sad, Sad Day in Kikoland Today

Well, it's a sad, sad day in Kikoland today. My six-month free trial period for Comcast's On Demand expires tomorrow and I have to call and cancel it. I'm just hoping they'll let me go back to the rates I had previously. If I keep what they've been giving me (free?) for about an extra $2/month (that, I could afford), it will more than double my bill for cable tv and high-speed internet.

In August they were offering a sweet deal I called about, but it was only for NEW subscribers. Naturally their ad on tv didn't say that, although it may have been 'spelled' out on the bottom of the screen for about a nanosecond? If only they had a sweet deal where I could at least just get C-Span3 and National Geo. Really, that's all I want.

In the end, I may have to cancel the internet services and switch to Verizon for DSL. We shall see, I'm not calling until after 3pm so I can at least see one more rerun of The Dog Whisperer.

Fingers crossed. [/end my own private pity party]

/que pasa? This post was removed after some deep soul searching.

Always did like Mark Twain:

Twain penned what he thought was the unspoken subtext of these preachers' sermons, "The War Prayer":

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen".

source: HuffPo

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

He looks like my pretty boy Floyd all dressed up as Santa.

(Looks like the fancy photo thing didn't work, but I'm saving the URL here, so I can play with it again another time.)

618 Rants and Raves: Pet Blogging

Joey reminds me of my Floyd.

That Darn Old Fence

Environmental causes or high tech security sales?

Give me land, lots of land
under starry skys above.
Don't fence me in.

You know I have a lot of empathy for our Mexican neighbors even if I'm not directly effected by stealth border crossings. Being stuck in the middle of land-locked PA and all.

But dearie me, why does the old cowboy song, "Don't Fence Me In" come to mind whenever this debate surfaces?

Now a federal judge in Arizona is challenging the HSD for rushing past environment studies, indeed unprecedented...

U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle said she granted the delay in part because the federal government did not explain why it hurried through an environmental assessment and began building the fence in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area.

Huvelle repeatedly asked the government's attorney, Gregory Page, to explain why the agencies took only three weeks to do the environmental assessment. She said that amount of time was unprecedented and that the government was trying to "ram" the environmental study through and start construction "before anyone would wake up."

Huvelle also questioned why equal urgency was not applied to building border fences in Texas and California.

Source: AP News

True, it's a federal reserve. Is that what makes it 'special'?

And wake up to what? That certain businesses are making a killing with the HSD budget for contract fencing?

WaPo article
[GSA Chief]Doan's husband and her chief of staff both have a military-intelligence background, and she has sold surveillance equipment to the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies -- so she knows how these things work.

She knows how these things work alright. The kind of surveillance/security they mean when they say 'fence' ain't exactly chicken scratch. And if they'd stop all the damn outsourcing from this country, there would probably be plenty of jobs for us all.

What fools Funnel, Inc. takes us for.

O'Reallly vs The Boss

Olbermann will probably be piping in on this one. You know how much he loves Bil0 (and rocking, and NJ). Remind me to tune in.

Ed Kociela | O'Reilly challenges The Boss

Bruce Springsteen is a big boy. He doesn't need me to cover his back. Except, this time it feels so good because the guy trying to knife him is Bill O'Reilly.

[jump]

Not if any cops have anything to do with it. They be rocking...

Cops never give the star treatment. Unless you are Bruce Springsteen.

No. 2: TOP 10 Police Bribes That Never Work
Share this site

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Be sure to read all about it, it's a good one:

What O'Reilly was trying to do was bait Springsteen into coming onto his show. Maybe to resuscitate his rating numbers? Maybe to fawn all over him like the has-beens he airs every Friday night on his icon of the week or whatever that segment he fills with gas is called? Maybe because he's a closeted celeb groupie who just likes to have stars on his show?

Whatever, he's another bloviating jerk...
Be keeping track of this one. ~k

AZRainman : Photoshop Satire: Puppet Fred Thompson: Dumb as Hell

After the GOP debate, my friends are saying Fred's real studly. But still a dud. We've known this for a while now. eh :p

AZRainman : Photoshop Satire: Puppet Fred Thompson: Dumb as Hell

(And there's not a lot of good to say about the rest of them either.)

Kitten Love

Cory only has ONE scratch? Every time I get a new kitty, I end up looking like a sliced ham. Thanks MAW for sending me this one...

The Mean Kitty Song
03:30

This is a video response to MEAN KITTY - Episode 2: Scare Tactic

Cory Williams is an extremely talented young man with a penchant for creativity. He recently found himself the proud "owner" of a kitten he named Sparta. I'm sure Cory uses the word "mean" as a tongue-in-cheek description, because his love for this kitten is evident. ...readers will love this video as much as I did, especially if they also view the accompanying video, "The Mean Kitty's Story," which tells how Sparta came into Cory's Life. The song, "Hey, Little Sparta (The Mean Kitty Song)" was written and sung by Cory Williams. Whatta guy! Whatta kitten!

Cats : Mean Kitty Song

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

God love the cat that winks

Sparta sure is a sweetie pie...

If Cesar Can't Do It, No One Can...

Remember that old cheer? "Cesar, Cesar... He's our man!"

Runing down yesterdays' blogs, I found this suggestion to the Vick question from a football fan :

Michael Vick comes clean

"Here's an idea for redemption. Michael Vick pledges to pay for the care of the Bad Newz dogs for the rest of their natural lives. As fighting dogs, many of them will be unfit as pets. Their life expectancy will be short through no fault of their own. Vick's plea agreement already requires him to pay for their care while they are in government custody. Vick asks the court to let the dogs be kenneled and cared for on him. That's restitution for the dogs. That wins him some points.

"Vick can set up a foundation to fund their care and call it Good Newz Kennels Foundation."

Posted by Master4Caster

I like that.

His post from yesterday is most interesting...

Michael Vick Talking? 12 hours ago by Master4Caster

Yes M4C, it's still about a display of dominance?

The Dog Whisperer's Greatest Challenge?

So, is it time to start blogging again?


Retreat. A word with many connotations. Last spring I retreated from blogging for various reasons. One perhaps being that when the Michael Vick story broke it saddened me greatly to learn the details of a sordid underworld in our supposedly enlightened society. Another reason, it was summertime and I was enjoying the great outdoors as much as I could. Still another was that I found a great new show on tv, "The Dog Whisperer". I had already been a fan of Cesar Millan's by reading his website and didn't even know he had a show until I saw it on the National Geographic channel which I had recently added to my cable. I just can't get enough of this wonderful little Mexican guy who never fails to put a smile on my face. What a natural!

The Dog Whisperer Fridays at 8PM ET/PT

From a CNN report we learn more about the 53 dogs found on the Vick property:

CAUTION: Very graphic details

Watch PETA dog fighting expert say the dogs must die »

True, owners stepping forward will implicate themselves in the illegal activity, but I can't believe PETA (of all people) advocate destroying these animals. From CNN again:

Deadline passes for dog owners in Vick case to claim animals

Read full article »

The very worst case dog, who's health hasn't been permanently affected, should be rehabilitated first. The dog displaying the best pack leader qualities should also be stabilized by exercise, discipline, and affection. The Cesar Way. Balance the pack, become the pack leader with calm-assertive energy, give these dogs the leadership they need in their lives.

Cesar has a dog that he uses on his show named Daddy. Daddy's owner is a rapper. Daddy is the anti-thesis of a dog bred, trained, and living to fight. Someone in the animal-loving world needs to sponsor what could be one of the all-time greatest animal rescue efforts, and who better than a community of people who truly believe in the Power Of The Pack?

This could be Cesar's biggest challange, are there no dogs he can't rehabilitate? I believe he could build a team who would be willing to undertake their rehabilitation by intigrating them slowly into his pack,. What say you, The Dog Whisperer?

Image by LunaC

Rainmaker's Abstractions: Train Wreck on UK Guardian

Rainmaker's Abstractions: Train Wreck on UK Guardian