DCV blog, in association with the Phil Foundation, proudly presents ........ Hazard Hawk and his Friends (1.0)

Once upon a time there was a hawk that lived in a high and comfortable nest mere minutes flight into (and out of) a forest that edged up from a swampy start along the sea. For the first few years of his life, this hawk, called Hazard Hawk by his friends for his rather caution-to-the-winds approach to foraging, led a comfortable existence in the canopy with his neighbors. Northern goshawks are known for their single-minded pursuit of prey and have been know to chase chickens into barns, or bloody their wings in shortcuts through thick foilage, even splash kamikazee-style into the sea in pursuit of unsuspecting ducks. Hazard Hawk took it a step further. The forest storytellers would tell tales of Hazard Hawk chasing rabbits into their holes and exploding upwards in flight seconds later out a separate hole, prey in talon. Certainly, the mythic orientation of these stories were but exaggeration, but well-suited in the easy conversations of the forest for a bird whose approach was beyond the norm.

The forest and the surrounding swamplands were filled with all sorts of creatures: birds, snakes, fish, and mammals of all sizes. And generally there was peace. Everyone adhered to the food chain, but it was done without the malice you generally see captured on the Discovery Channel. The animals spent their days in familiar patterns of sleeping, eating, sleeping, mingling, eating, and then sleeping. And while generally the stories at mingling time were light and airy as the fair weather cumulus that formed on the afternoon sea breeze, gloomy fog-filled afternoons often nudged forward tales of distant darknesses both on top of the sea, as well as east of the sea near the edge of the forested swamplands, areas where animals behaved savagely and in accordance with the ways of Man instead of the ways of animals.

The inhabitants of these tales will come into this story soon enough. It is best at this point to introduce you to a character closer to Hazard Hawk. Certainly it seems strange to us to consider a raptor and one of his potential prey to be friends. But that was the case between Hazard Hawk and Cautious Crow. Just as easily as we might slander one of our best friends behind his or her back (but with even more lasting consequences), be assured that Hazard Hawk would have eaten C.C. without a whiff of guilt had he ever been successful at the ambush. But most of the time, C.C. stood sentinel while Hazard Hawk stalked the local crow roost. Over time the two birds struck up small conversations, then larger ones, 'til gradually they were basically inseparable at mingling time. At least, inseparable beyond the safe distance that C.C. maintained.

The two friends were alike in many ways, but most different in their approach to feeding. C.C.'s caution may have even outpaced Hazard Hawk's recklessness. Whether it was some tasty corn or a grubby worm, the security of the situation governed when C.C. ate. His was a defense first mentality. Hazard Hawk had flown once through a series of thorn bushes in pursuit of an especially plump-looking hare (his preferred dining option) only to stun himself against the trunk of a forgotten maple. But in most things, the two birds were more similar than most of the forest creatures. They were both about the same age, in the second summer since emerging from their mother's nest. They both liked to talk which is not to say that they didn't listen. They both loved the vicariousness of added adventures lived from the other's perspective. Mostly, they both liked to explore. The descriptions of new places visited formed the backbone of most of their afternoon conversations.

"The surf was high again today at the point at the sands where all those fish died last year," cawed C.C. on this particular day just prior to the solstice.

"I've been there. It's not that far." countered Hazard Hawk, not as a challenge, but more as an unneeded reminder. Sandy Point was a geographic street corner of sorts, the furthest jut of sand encountered by Bobbin Creek as it joined the sea. Hazard Hawk instinctively preferred the interior of the forest to the open seascapes and had only been to Sandy Point two times in his young life. The first was in his birthyear summer when he had gotten lost. The second was this spring soon after C.C. had mentioned that the fishing boats had begun to make their way north along the shore and how from Sandy Point you could hear the conversations of the freeloading gulls that accompanied the boats out into the deeper waters.

(will write more later ...)

Our trip to Louisville last weekend / Breeders Cup Picks

As has been mentioned throughout the week, the Dolberry clan went to Louisville over last weekend to see Sweet Mo. We had a great time & came away feeling really blessed to have just a great family ... one that just keeps getting better w/ each addition. (The earlier setups were a tease to increase blog traffic through the week. DCV readership lags toward the weekend. Hey, this blog isn't free. Ok, it is free. But still.)

Maybe we'll make Fridays be request night at the DCV.

CSue from Alaska wanted to know more about Tootsie Rolls. OK, I read thru their recently released quarterly earnings report, they seem to be doing well. Certainly, better than some junk food dealers. (Speaking of which, "Junk Food Junkie" may be my favorite novelty song of all time. DYN: It made it to the Top 10 in 1976. But I only gave this like 5 seconds thought, so feel free to suggest others I'm forgetting.) Back on topic, Tootsie Corp sold $186 million dollars of the stuff last quarter alone. Up 7% from same quarter, last year. Not all is sugar & chocolate, though, Tootsie is concerned about rising costs of Canadian products and costs due to increased labeling requirements by the FDA. I agree that it would be hard to label those tiny little suckers. What is that 1 pt font. Give 'em a break FDA, sheesh, it's a Tootsie, how bad can it be? And if you own 10 shares of Tootsie stock, congratulations my friend, that a cool $5.40 in your pocket.

C-Lo writes ... "Dolberry, your racing picks are an invaluable means of identifying the sure losers in any race. Quit holding out on your Breeders Cup picks, jerk!" Thank you C-Lo. Here they are. Caution: I spent less time on these than on the best novelty song decision. Working backwards from the big race, down to the lesser races.

Classic: Perfect Drift is one of my all time favorite horses (others include: Bombay Duck, Gato del Sol, Cryptoclearance, Badger Land, Unbridled, Thunder Gulch, Smarty Jones, Afleet Alex, Barbaro). He doesn't win that often, but he's always around. He's had success at CD. But mostly for sentimental reasons, I'm looking for the Ted Williams career finish with a two length win in the Classic. In second, I like Invasor, I'll bet the horses in Uruguay were glad to see the last of his 8-wins-in-9-starts butt when he shipped over here. In third, it'll be Flower Alley. This horse has been pathetic his last two outings, but Pletcher screamed a fit when he almost was left out of the field. He must know something. Plus we've got the principle at play here how that last team in March Madness, the one that everyone complains about, always seems to win a game or two. I'd say Bernardini (aka "possibly the next Secretariat" #46) gets 5th.

Turf: 1. Cacique 2. Hurricane Run 3. Red Rocks. (An all Irish trifecta.)
Distaff: 1. Pine Island 2. Balletto 3. Fleet Indian
Mile: 1. Aragorn 2. Echo of Light 3. Rob Roy
Sprint: 1. Henny Hughes 2. Thor's Echo 3. Pomeroy
Filly/Mare Turf: 1. Satwa Queen 2. Dancing Edie 3. Film Maker
Juvenile: 1. Circular Quay 2. Great Hunter 3. Street Sense
Juvenile Fillies: 1. Gatorize 2. Dreaming of Anna 3. Appealing Zophie

Have a nice weekend everyone.

Dolberry!

Dolberry Giveaway!

All right, in an attempt to increase blog traffic, the Cheery Vanilla staff have decided to run a promotional giveaway. Free ... to the first responder in the comments section ... a Torino 2006 Playstation 2 game. This game, according to the back of the box, allows one to "experience the chills and thrills of competing in the Olympic Winter Games." It won the prestigious "Poor" rating from the IGN.com reviewers. It currently retails for $6.49 on e-Bay.

APD & I won this as part of an NBC Olympics promotion. During the Torino games, one could play these skiing & bobsled games online. If you finished in the Top 3 of an event on any given day, you won a prize: 3rd place was a NBC Olympics hat, 2nd place was the Torino 2006 game, 1st place was a $100 VISA check card. Since both APD & I have somewhat obsessive personalities, we got pretty good at the game after about 2 weeks of mostly non-stop wasting time on the internet, er, practice. We ended up getting one 2nd place & two third places.

Harder than that was actually claiming the prizes. We got called by the independent verification firm three times to ensure our eligibility for these prizes valued at (approximately) $14.63. They came in the mail today. Picture shown above. The hats are sweet, but alas we do not have a PS2, so not much point in keeping the game.

Someday I hope the time spent on this blog will payoff as grandly ...

Hey. Welcome.

Of all the teachers I had in nearly 20 years of school, the one that I remember the best was (maybe not surprisingly) one of the last ... Tetsuya Theodore Fujita. Dr. Fujita had a fascinating and exceptionally productive life. His skillful reconstruction of severe weather events (tornadoes, microbursts, hurricanes) through aerial photography greatly increased the understanding of these phenomena. By the time I made it to the University of Chicago, Dr. Fujita was winding down. He had quit taking on doctoral students and IMO was being edged further to the fringes of a faculty that was shifting, or had shifted from, away from the observationally-based research (e.g., Horace Byers, Roscoe Braham) that had built the department's reputation. He still had his lab and he still had a small staff and I never detected even a trace of bitterness re: his status as he entered into his last decade of life in 1988.

He was, by far, the most human of all the U of C faculty, at least from the perspective of this lowly grad student.

He tended to speak in proverbs; and the ones he enjoyed the most popped up frequently in his classes on satellite meteorology. My two favories were:

1. "My way's better. What you think?" - The brilliance of this was he truly believed his way was better, but he was just insecure enough to want some nobody grad student to acknowledge it.
2. "Monkey write Shakespeare. You no write Shakespeare." - The theory here was the long-standing concept that 1,000 monkeys sitting at 1,000 computer terminals, over 1,000 centuries ... would eventually randomly write something brilliant. Dr. Fujita didn't think my odds were as good as the monkeys (follow link for my all-time favorite commercial - the "pointer" one).

So, as I start this blog, I do not set out to beat the monkeys. There probably won't be anything that approachs the brilliance of Shakespeare, let alone the brilliance of that monkey commercial. It will likely be a rather vanilla recounting of events/issues/things that I find interesting. Per the name, I intend for it to be cheery as well. There's enough depressing stuff on the internet. If nothing else, it'll be good mental exercise to write.