Back in the Saddle

Took some time off from posting while I took care of some work, but it's time to check back in. And football is where we'll start from.

Fox did not televise the Arsenal game so I didn't see that match, but I did see RVN's sweetacular flying kung-fu volley of death game winning goal on the highlights show. With the win, their 5th straight, the Gunners are climbing back up the table.

Other EPL news: Graham Poll is a horse's ass. Is there a worse referee afflicting the Premiership? I caught the Chelsea-Aston Villa match and the whistle-blowing was so one-sided - generous to the blues and injurious to the Villans - as to suggest Poll had his wager on Mourinho's Millionaires. But no, this was Graham Poll, the referee who can't even count yellow cards. This game belonged to Aston Villa. Their goal was a quality sequence with a cross-the-box switch and 2 headers to the back of the net. Sharp stuff. Chelsea scored when Poll decided that John Terry could remove the keeper from the play so that Didier Drogba could lovingly roll the ball across the goal line. Git!

And finally, a non-soccer note. This week I was visited by a lovely immature red-tailed hawk who alit in a neighbor's tree and stayed there just long enough for me to run in, slap the telephoto on the camera and get out to snap a few shots before he flew off. When I first saw the bird approach, I thought he was an osprey, due to his coloration. But on closer examination, clearly an adolescent red-tailed hawk. Beautiful bird.