Sunrise today

 From the deck at Fox Spit

This was the first chance I’ve had since I’ve been here to shoot the sunrise from Dad and Anita’s deck. Every morning has been cloudy except today. Here’s a link to some photos I took around the house on Tuesday.

An eagle’s got to eat, yo!

But this eagle was just messing around

Today I’m making up for a missed photo opportunity of a bald eagle with the shot above, taken at Freeland. This ornery eagle was sitting in a tree minding his own business when he suddenly took off and started chasing a seagull. I’m sure he could have feasted on the smaller bird if he wanted to, but I think he just enjoyed the chase. Ornery thing. 

Got DSL hooked up for Dad and Anita on Tuesday. Because we added a new large, flatscreen monitor and Ethernet, I thought I’d better upgrade their RAM. They were running XP with Service Pack 2 and only had 256 mb of RAM. They have 1 gig now, which should be sufficient. There’s still an open port to add another gig of memory down the road, if they want. We stopped by the phone company to pick up a DSL router. What a change from Lincoln. People were friendly, we didn’t have to wait, and they were actually nice to us. Seems like Alltel makes you wait 45 minutes to tell you they can’t get you what you want. Big difference between a small, locally owned phone company and a large one like Alltel. We were in and out of there in about 15 minutes and they didn’t charge a thing for the router, the filters or anything else.

We had a burger at the Shell Shack, a gas station in Freeland. It was actually pretty good. Can’t say much for the atmosphere, but you couldn’t beat the price.

We baked some monkfish and I grilled some albacore for supper. There wasn’t any fresh (only frozen) salmon at the store today, so we’re snubbing our nose at that. If you ever got a look at a monkfish, you’d think we’d snub our nose at that too. Yikes! It turned out really good though – very tender.

I may not make it to downtown Seattle. I’m having a good time with Dad on the island and I hate to give up a day just so I can go take some photos downtown. I’m still debating though. I have about one more day before I need to decide. Anita is willing to take the bus with me on Friday, so it’s still a possibility.

Birding, monitors and pie

A day of this and that

Two bald eagles sniffed out some breakfast right outside Dad and Anita’s window this morning. The birds were nearly hovering in the air as they watched the water for the prey. It was incredible. So much so that I forgot to grab the camera until it was too late. I did manage to take a photo of Northern Flicker woodpecker (the yellow-shafted form of course) that seemed nonplussed by the predators hovering around him.

Since it was raining I couldn’t take many photos today. I got a great action shot of Dad’s pork chops cooking in the oven. I took advantage of the weather to install a flat screen computer monitor for Dad. It was not without its complications. The monitor wouldn’t work so, after being on hold for 45 minutes, I got some help from the technical service person who told me the minimum settings required for the new monitor. The new settings needed to be established before taking the old monitor off. It would have been nice to know that ahead of time.

We went to the public library in Freeland where I so wanted to shoot a photo of a white-haired man in his 60s who was sitting in a chair laughing to himself as he read Mad magazine. I admire the hell out of that.

We had lunch at the Dog House tavern in Langley where the fish and chips were surprisingly good. A nice delicate batter on the fish! After lunch I ducked into my favorite shop in Langley, Gregor’s rare books. About four or six years ago I passed on an autographed first edition of a Kurt Vonnegut book. I think it was “Slaughterhouse Five.” I kick myself to this day for not buying it, but I didn’t have the money then (nor do I now). The bookstore was all out of Vonnegut books today.

I plan to install an Ethernet card in Dad and Anita’s computer tomorrow so they can get DSL. The broadband service will actually be cheaper than the dial-up service they have now because they can get rid of the extra phone line they’ve been paying for.

Oooh! I almost forgot! I had a slice of huckleberry pie at Greenbank Farm this afternoon. We stopped by as I searched for cufflinks at the thrift stores in Langley and Freeland. No luck, but I scored big on the pie. Sweet! Reminds me of my sister Pam, who was working on fractions as in elementary school. She was explaining the concept to all of us and she said, “Henry Medina is smart. He’s a whole pie. I’m just half a pie.” I wish I was a whole pie.

Here we go!

 
It’s chow time!

I’ll be chowing on some fish here in short order! The plane lands Saturday around 7 p.m., so it will be a late supper. Can’t wait.

I will be posting my Seattle wanderings from time to time and keeping you up to date on what fish I’ve eaten. Mmmmmmmmm, fish.

I will tell you that Monk fish is a strong possibility in spite of this disturbing image. OK, maybe not *that* strong of a possibility. Whew!