Looking at a photograph he wasn’t certain, but then few people are trained observers, nor learn the discipline of astronomers and birdwatchers to write down a description of something you want to remember else your memory will embroider it. Nonetheless there was one detail upon which he was bang-on-target, viz: that her collar was (a) a grubby (in her case, reflective) grey colour, and (b) seemed to have a long excess bit dangling down the front. Suzi’s a small cat with a small neck, so there is a good third excess on her collar, the which I usually tuck-in to the beltloops. It’s odd that he didn’t mention a nametag and bell, which usually hang-down in the place where he said the excess was, so perhaps they’ve been removed or ripped-off. It’s still not a definite identification, but he’ll call me back if she turns up again, and moreover he’s no more than 250m away, in a cluster of houses which are built on a near-perfect straight line from my house, down an enticing little alley and along a hedgerow at the back of the school. I made certain to be very polite to him, and he’ll call me if he sees her again. No point in getting my hopes up too high, but… In other news: uh, there is no other news. I am gradually progressing towards using the iBook as my primary compute platform. The only thing that remains is e-mail, and the only aspect of that which holds me back is the fact that I depend heavily upon a homebrew e-mail procmail and alert system which has to be up 24×7 in order to be effective. If I am going to start splitting my e-mail feed of 600..1000 messages per day between two hosts, I am going to have to get very clever or very dumb, and I haven’t decided which to do. Have to sort something out before Denver, though. Reference: any book on basic amateur astronomy observational techniques especially in the field of variable-star observation, and/or the highly commendable Bill Oddie’s Little Black Bird Book from 1980.
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