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This one’s been making the rounds. My buddy, Chris in Idaho, sent it along.

And then it dawned on me.

With these guys dug in around the back yard, perhaps I could sleep a few more mornings more peacefully.

So if anyone has an active GI Joe animation project going on out there, let me know. I could use a squad or so.

More later from your pal, bitterman.

Fall bird activity is in full swing here at Casa del bitterhombre. That is why the last half dozen mornings I have been breakfasting on the back porch. I was subjected to many migrant bird study details while in the Park Service. While at the University of New Orleans, one of my favorite all time teachers was not only a number crunching, data generating stats machine, but also an avid birder. Thusly, quite a a lot of the field work we did for Quantitative Methods dealt with birds or bird populations.

It seemed to have had some residual effect. I enjoy watching birds.

Not just any birds. Larger avians I generally take a pass on; that is, anything much bigger than your average backyard robin. I like the smaller, more comedic, never still a moment - type birds.

My favorites by far are hummingbirds. There is a lot of life packed into that little chassis.

A few interesting facts about hummingbirds:

• Hummingbirds are built for power and dazzle, hummingbirds are little more than flight muscles covered with feathers. 30% of a hummingbird’s weight consists of flight muscles.
• Hummingbirds require lots of energy. They have the fastest wing beats of any bird and their hearts beat up to 1,260 beats per minute.
• A Hummingbird’s flight speed can average 25-30 mph, and can dive up to 60 mph.
• In their non stop quest for fuel, Hummingbirds may visit 1,000 flower per day. For protein, hummingbirds eat spiders and strain gnats from mid-air.
• The hummingbird’s tiny brain, 4.2% of its body weight, is proportionately the largest in the bird kingdom.
• Many species that migrate to the U.S. travel impressive distances. Many ruby-throats make a 2,000 mile journey between Canada and Panama. The trip includes a non-stop, 500 mile flight over the Gulf of Mexico.
• Hummingbirds are very territorial and will aggressively protect nectar sources especially when migrating.
• Hummingbirds have a unique way of keeping warm or conserving their energy - at night, or any time they cannot get enough food to fuel themselves - they go into torpor - a state in which their metabolic rate is only one-fifteenth that of normal sleep.
• A hummingbird can rotate each of its wings in a circle, allowing them to be the only bird which can fly forwards, backwards, up, down, sideways or sit in sheer space.
• Hummingbirds have weak feet and are more at ease using their wings even to shift in the nest or on a perch.
• Hummingbirds can live a decade or more in the wild.

So I have my oatmeal and the hummingbirds have their sugar water and we bid each other a good day.

More later from your pal, bitterman.

I’ve never been a big fan of Max Biaggi. 

It always amuses me when people speak of the Rossi/Biaggi battles or the Rossi/Biaggi rivalry.  Neither really existed.  Valentino Rossi was always dominant.  Rossi seemed to toy with Max, knowing just which buttons to push to gain access to his head.  Vale wiped so many Euro tracks with Max’s face that they actually had a bit of a dust up and came to blows in a stairwell before a post race press conference at the 2001 Spanish Gran Prix.  Max was never really a challenge to Valentino, and the frustration showed in how he dealt with the press and his teams and machinery.

But there were a few times they tangled and made some entertaining moments on the track. 

Who could ever forget the race at Suzuka in 2001?  Biaggi gives Vale the chrome elbow, running him completely off track.  Rossi passes him back a turn or two later and gives Biaggi Galileo’s finger, or as we say in the states, the rigid digit salute.

Biaggi started shoveling the bulk of the blame for his lackluster racing on the performance of his teams and his bikes.  Suddenly, old Max lost a lot of credibility with the press and the series.  Rossi continued to win.  Biaggi burned bridge after bridge in a losing effort to save face.  In 2005, he lost his MotoGP ride after negotiating with all big four Japanese manufacturers despite the huge Camel sponsorship in his back pocket. Even the satellite teams turned up their noses at him.  Defeated and battered by both Rossi and the press, Max bowed out of MotoGP in 2006, perhaps to ponder what his Roman pride had gained him.

Max immediately popped up in World Superbike for 2006 with Corona Alstare Suzuki.  There were typical highs and ego driven lows for Max while racing for Corona Alstare.  Despite an honest effort and a third in the Championship for 2007, the team disbanded for lack of a sponsor deal.  For 2008, he signed to ride a Ducati 1098R with Sterilgarda/GoEleven alongside former MotoGP rival Ruben Xaus.

Even though I, along with most of the masses who follow MotoGP with any regularity, always chalked up Biaggi as a whining, preening little bitch, I was thumbing through the latest issue of RoadRacer X and ran across this photo and had to admit……

courtesy RoadRacer X

If there were a podium spot just for sheer style in riding a GP bike, old Max would have his feet on the box every blasted time.

More later from your pal, bitterman.

I’ve collected 8 new buoys to throw out on the jet ski course. That’s 12 total and that’s a big, ass-kicking jet ski course.

Not that 5 buoys couldn’t do an adequate job of depleting my meager reserves of fortitude. Twelve is more than 5 and that makes it better. The wind is supposed to be banging out of the north, so it will make for some interesting chop. And I suck in the heavy chop.

Anyway, the ski is prepped, I have 15 gallons of fresh premix, and the togs associated with riding skis in the Bay are present and moderately fresh smelling.

If anyone wants to join us, the course will be laid out in this general area.

View Larger Map

A direct link to Google Maps can be found here. I will be found there tomorrow, wreathed in two stroke smoke and tule weeds.

More later from your pal, bitterman.

It’s Sunday and I got nothing. 

So here’s a blurb on yet another worthless Federal Holiday.

From the dreaded Wikipedia…….

Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September. The holiday originated in 1882 as the Central Labor Union (of New York City) sought to create “a day off for the working citizens”.

Congress made Labor Day a federal holiday in 1894. All fifty states have made Labor Day a state holiday.

Traditionally, Labor Day is celebrated by most Americans as the symbolic end of the summer.

Labor Day has been celebrated on the first Monday in September in the United States since the 1880s. The form for the celebration of Labor Day was outlined in the first proposal of the holiday—a street parade to exhibit to the public “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations,” followed by a festival for the workers and their families. This became the pattern for Labor Day celebrations. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civil significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.

Oh and good luck to all my people on the Gulf Coast.  You so do not deserve this a second time in three years.  But perhaps with climate changes and other things, the time to leave the warm coastal areas and move a bit inland has come.

More later from your pal, bitterman.

Seems like everyone is warming up their shooting irons.

Eric has a hankering to off some coyotes stirring up trouble around his parts.  I’m fairly sure that he’ll end up waxing poetic about nature and the more cerebral aspects of the experience.  It’s been his MO as of late.  I can remember more than one post regarding the hunting of the coyote that ended up with the consumption of a pack of Camels rather than .223 rounds as he lounged against a mossy log.

As for me?  I am ready for bloodshed and have the pictures to prove it.  When those maurading, nut burying tree rats come calling this year, there will be a hefty price to pay.

I retired the Silver Shadow for a more updated model from the air rifle purists at Gamo.  Behold, pinheads.  For I give you the Gamo Varmit Special.

A closer look at the cockpit, complete with laser site, combat lighting, and a nice little scope.

With special Raptor ballistic coated ammo, it’s guaranteed to reach out and touch the most hearty of Red Squirrels with a muzzle velocity of 1250 fps. You can even hear it crack as the round goes supersonic. Just the things I like.

I started out sighting in on my pellet trap at about 30 yards. You can see by the damage to the little iron ram that there will be no joy in Squirrelville this year.

I moved my sighting chores up to a little cardboard target stapled to a backboard I screwed to the backyard fence. Again, the distance is about 30-35 yards. The outer ring I drew about 2.5 inches in diameter. The inner ring is barely .75 inches round.

I grew tired trying to adjust windage and elevation off malformed lead pellets. Thus the chile dippers out there on the periphery. The two dead in the center are the ballistic ammo. Damn near one on top of the other, ala William Tell.

There will be blood this year. Much blood. Squirrel blood. I predict it.

More later from your pal, bitterman.

The girl was half naked, fer chrissakes. Not an excuse that would hold water, mind you, but it would have been almost impossible to pass the leggy beauty by without at least a cursory glance. And that’s what I thought I had accomplished. One single cursory glance.

From the passenger seat of the Z car, Wifey burst into laughter. Knee slapping, snorting laughter, in fact.

“Did you see the look she gave you?” she managed between hearty guffaws. “Oh my God. You might as well have presented her with the bloody chain saw and hid the box of candy!?”

I’ll admit is was one of the more disgusting feelings I have experienced. And my heart truly sank to my feet when the reality and the gravity of the situation finally set in.

There was a time - albeit quite a few years ago now - when a cursory glance at an attractive female would have brought about a coy smile or a bouncy step or perhaps a toss of the long blonde locks over the shoulder to intice a better look. There would be no wolf whistles, no hey baby’s; just a short moment of eye contact, mind you. And in return, I received an acknowledgement that my attention was approved and enjoyed, separate and unrelated to any level of attraction there might be.

And then as simply and purely as it had begun, it ends with each continuing upon their individual journey.

It could be simplified to the oft-maligned butt-sniffing dogs who cross paths in a park. Without dust-up or fanfare, they part ways socially bolstered and renewed by the encounter. It is merely an affirmation: I’m ok and you’re ok. We have sniffed butts in approval and discovered we are of the same cloth. We are indeed the beautiful people. Now we may move on, peacefully.

But it is official. I have moved beyond that unknown age divider never more to return. My baby face will no longer carry me and the cursory glance at a female form without overtones is gone. No measure of baggy shorts and Van’s hitops and backwards hattery will reverse the clock. No measure of bellowing innocence seemed to change the laughter-filled jury. Now, I leer, apparently, and with some amount of conviction even. And I swear to you as my witnesses, dear pinheads, that leering was never my intention.

I suppose this is the first stages of that unknown mechanism what drives men into forseen areas of cantankerism and old fartery; when we quit caring about the ear hair and the crusty toenails and the coffee breath and retreat to comfort and familiarity and simplicity.

Hey! You kids get the hell outta my yard.

It’s sad, I know.

More later from your pal, bitterman.

Most all college schedules start on Saturday. A certain member of The Orange Den of Iniquity who is my boon friend, that is until those square headed neanderthals from the hills of East Tennessee appear on the schedule, pointed it out here.

Praise be, praise be. Football season is finally here.

Our beloved Ole Miss Rebels go into action under the leadership of new head coach Houston McNutt at home against The University of Memphis. Considering McNutt left SEC rival Arkansas on what amounted to a midnight boat after a stellar career as head coach of the Hogs, here’s hoping the juju is gone and our always small but walking tall Rebels will have a winning season.

Ah, to be in Vaught-Hemingway just once more on a crisp, blue sky, Fall Saturday and hear the announcer’s booming, God-like voice over the public address system; to stand in unison with your SEC brethern and root the Rebels on to victory; to participate in everything that is pure and holy about SEC football; to figure out how to get the two fifths of sour mash past the gate search.

And to get us all in the mood, here is the Ole Miss Marching Band warming up the crowd by plowing through all the stadium cheers to the delight of those gathered. Please note the abundance of red stadium type cups in attendance.

Please stand when Dixie is played and will all gentlemen be kind enough to remove their head gear. And it’s ok to cry if you are far from home and miss your kin.

Hotty toddy, y’all
More later from your pal, bitterman.

It’s Monday for me. I sit, coffee closeby, mentally preparing for the following 10 hours behind the counter of a motorcycle shop. Perhaps I’ll spin some wrenches in the course of this day, but one thing is for sure.

There will be those that are…..how shall I say it……mentally deficient. There is no stopping it. The door is open to all who dare entry. Ask Bastian. He knows. He used to be one.

So in closing, I ask the age old question. Does anyone know where the applications are for the job that requires you to sit on a crystalline white beach and people send you checks?

You folks have a nice Tuesday.

More later from your pal, bitterman.

My nephew, Madden, who is almost three and thinks Uncle bitterman is the coolest thing since the beer huggie, digs the motorcycle stuff.  So if you will indulge me for a bit, this next little ditty is exclusively for him.

From the weekend of August 16th, 2008. Buttonwillow Raceway is the location. And Uncle bitterman, your humble tour guide, is casually counting tumbleweeds with the beginners in the C group.

And I also realize that The Who might be a bit much for a three year old, but you don’t know what I’m up against.

More later from your Uncle, bitterman.