where have we been...

Seasonal item #1: Well, it is October and the Red Sox are playing like prospective champs. I will admit to being just a play-offs baseball fan (i.e I really only watch when the play-offs are in session), but following the Red Sox is more of a religious fanship.

Howard Bryant has an interesting article on ESPN.com about why the Red Sox of the last five years aren't the same Sox that our grandfathers worshipped. He maybe takes the Sox vs. Yankees as merely the different sides of the same, very expensive coin analogy a little far by suggesting that the psychology of Red Sox fans has either changed or should somehow change. But interesting it is, nonetheless.

And to the guy who booed my Red Sox hat while we were waiting for brunch with friends on the Upper West Side: there are two teams still playing baseball right now and neither is the New York Yankees. Both those teams still have a manager, too. And a third baseman. And a catcher. And most of their pitchers. But I wonder if the Yankees would like still Eric Gagne? Anyways, I digress. To that guy: why the hell are you booing a stranger when you're carrying carry-on luggage?

Seasonal item #2: While Dan at shotonsite might disagree with me (again), U.Michigan wins against Minnesota but not in a fashion that makes me think that the November 17th game against Ohio State will go the same way. If Michigan keeps needing a whole quarter, let alone a half, to get itself settled and start scoring, Ohio State will have racked up enough points to put in the B-team for the second half.

Seasonal item #3: Can your Vizsla do this? I hope not. Jozsi somehow managed to find my two-week-old phone and adjust the screen settings considerably.

Seasonal item #4: We did manage to hunt up a very nice hen pheasant up at Newburgh this past Thursday. I was a little surprised when we found it -- and the amusing part of it was showing Jozsi the pheasant after we had picked it up. There was definitely a double-take in his scheming little brain as he realised that this was definitely a whole lot bigger than a quail. But he buckled down, figuring that if he could destroy a cell-phone, he could get a pheasant in his mouth. Ditch-chickens 2 Team Vizsla 1.

One of the ways I like to pay tribute to the birds we kill is to pluck a few feathers and put them in my gun case. It's an interesting paradox: we honor the beautiful birds we kill by hunting them. And keeping a few feathers gives me a constant reminder of how beautiful what we're chasing is and the need to, nevertheless, hunt them with respect.

National Geographic Magazine this month has a nice article on hunters as conservationists. Again, it's a similar paradox to John James Audobon's attempts to amass information to ensure the preservation of species, that in order to save them, he still had to kill them.