Alvin Is Still MIA?

2013 Python Challenge

The challenge dates are January 12 – February 10 and I will be gathering all the news I can for future publication. As of last Sunday, 400 hunters from 17 states had registered and paid the $25.00 fee.

Hold on a second; breaking news is crossing the wire as my two index fingers fly across the key board. Oh no, PETA has filed a protest with FWC over allowing the pythons to be decapitated. Hey, Rene Tucson, PETA is trying to make a last minute pitch to outlaw the ma-che-te as a cruel and unusual punishment means of killing a python. I know you disagree wholeheartedly after you described yours to me. But that’s another story. It claims, and I don’t know how it can be proven, that after a python’s head is removed that it lives for an hour or more in total pain and agony before it actually dies. So sad!!!! But that’s just me!

Hold on another second while an additional wire crosses. OMG!!! Since the Sunday figure was released, an additional 100 hunters have registered and paid the fee. Now 500 hunters from 24 states are in the mix, from as far away as Arizona and New York. I wonder if Rene Tucson really did follow through after describing how he sharpened his ma-che-te to me over the phone? He is one of my kin from Arizona, you know. It is too late for FWC to ban machetes this year, so come on down and bring it with you.

Hey Rene Tucson, I heard Wetto was excited when he heard about the hunt. Did he want to kill snakes or buy the meat for his cafe’s hot dogs? Let me know, I could be in for a considerable sized windfall if I can move the meat to Wetto and leather to Tony Lama in El Paso. The only thing left to get rid of will be the pain and agony in the snakes heads. 

Florida Panther Is Endangered????????

I read all about the horrible panther predicament in the Sarasota newspaper recently. I did a little research and found out there is more to the panther story than meets the eye; much more.

May I digress please? Thank you!

Mama and I went down to the Florida Everglades last Friday. She drove since she doesn’t think I see well enough any more to be trusted. The purpose of the trip was to get a bird’s eye view, no pun intented, of the area to be hunted for Burmese pythons. As you know, the hunt starts this Saturday at noon. Whoopee!!!

May I regress please? Thank you!

Well, on our way out of Naples, the closest town with all the amenities on our side of the Everglades; She decides that we needed to go look around Marco Island. It is one of the 10,000 islands around the tip of South Florida. On a main thoroughfare off I-75 going through residential areas in Naples, we kept seeing yellow caution signs on the roadside with a picture of a panther and sometimes indicating a crossing zone and other times just the panther alone. I told Her it was a bad idea to place panther crosswalks on such a busy street, but She as usual got somewhat argumentative. But that’s just me!

In the article I read in the paper, it stated that a few years ago the population of panthers had diminished down to 30 in the State, all in South Florida. Inbreeding had weakened the population so much they were dying off like flies. But that is another story too! You can’t guess what they did, so I will tell you. The State and Feds colluded and went over to Texas, trapped eight female Texas cougars and released them into the Florida panther population. At that point I said to myself, “Bob, they must be in the same genus”. A previous lesson described that, remember? Jack ass X horse mare = Mule!!!! Now the population is doing so well there are around 160 panther/cougar crosses running around South Florida and the government and environmentalists want to trap and transfer the predators to other parts of the State to feed on livestock, household pets and humans jogging around towns.

Upon further review, I found that the powers to be could have gone to California instead of Texas and moved eight female mountain lions and achieved the same results. The bottom line is that panthers, cougars and mountain lions are not only in the same genus but are the same species, Puma concolor. They are separate subspecies, however, and the Texas and Florida populations once upon a time butted up against each other, making that cross a best choice.

Well guess what? Upon further review, I found that the puma is also the same species but could not find out where they live except on the campus of Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix and St. Joseph’s College, somewhere in Indiana.

May I digress please? Thank you!

My friend Ted and I had breakfast at the ‘Broken Egg’ in Lakewood Ranch Tuesday and I was telling him about the panther signs down south. He said ‘yeah’, as he took his fork and scraped through the left over bits of some kind of omelette on his plate. Before he continued the Breakfast Bunny brought the check and I took out my Visa card. It was my turn to buy. He then cleared his throat and asked me if I had noticed how short the Breakfast Bunny’s shorts were and I said,” no, where”? He accused me of being dishonest and then proceeded to run down the government and the effort to expand the panther territory into populated areas up here where we live.

Ted said he would send me a picture he had that would make environmentalists from Detroit and Cleveland proud to promote panther population increases in Florida. The photo of the panther with a housecat in its mouth is below. It could well have been a child you know. But that’s just me!

On the way out the ‘Broken Egg’, the Breakfast Bunny hollered, ‘see you two in a couple of weeks’. I think she had a pretty good idea we’d be coming back. We noticed that Dick Vitale didn’t show up to sell his books that morning. I told you before that all the basketball announcers kids had gone to college at Notre Dame. ND was given a whoopin’ by Alabama the night before in the BCS Championship Game and he most likely still had his tail between his legs and didn’t want to put up with any teasing for all his bragging.

Ted said he was going to get a ‘Roll Tide’ banner and sneek back over there after dark and attach it to Dickie V’s sales booth. For those of you who don’t know or don’t care, the Alabama team name is the ‘Crimson Tide’. Now you know the rest of the story.

Wayward Pelican!!

A fickle pelican from Maryland, possibly searching for the seafood buffet, attempted to stowaway on the Jewel of the Seas. The upscale Royal Caribbean cruise ship was minding its own business last Wednesday afternoon when ‘Pelunker Pelican’ landed on the port side of Deck 12. Hey, Roy Roseville, that is the left side. The ship was returning to Tampa after calling at Cozumel, Mexico the day before.

Pelunker was easy to spot among the paid passengers and most likely felt out of place. He was apparently spooked by someone or something and in his haste to depart, flew into the ship’s super structure and injured himself. He was probably not only hungry but tired and needed a rest.

Members of the crew captured Pelunker and made arrangements for him to receive treatment through Hillsborough County Animal Services. Doctors treated him for dehydration and a minor wing injury. Pelunker also had a six inch long stripe of the ‘Jewel’s’ paint on the underside of his bill. Hee, hee, hee!!!

May I digress please? Thank you!

The bird, Pelunker, can land in a small space and picked out his spot on Deck 12 to squat, somewhat like the British Harrier aircraft. It is a fixed wing fighter plane that can take off and land vertically like a helicopter. I used to watch them do that at the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, AZ while waiting at Yuma International Airport (YUM) for my flight to Phoenix. YUM is on the MCAS. Some refer to Yuma as Harrier Town USA. My dear friend Steve lives in Yuma and has all his life, or the surrounding suburbs, except while he attended the University of Arizona. Sadly, he was an Alpha Gamma Rho alum, who are quite inferior to Aggie House alums; I might add. Oh well that’s another story. But that’s just me!!!

May I digress further please? Thank you!

Yuma is also the home of the famous ‘Yuma Territorial Prison’; now an Arizona State Park. It sits on a bluff overlooking the beautiful Colorado River which flows by Yuma on its way to Mexico. These days, there is not much ‘agua’ in the ‘Colorado’ as it passes Yuma, only the allocation for Mexico. In its day, before the dams were built on the wild river that cut the Grand Canyon, steamboats with supplies would dock in Yuma, after arriving from the Gulf of Mexico. They call it the ‘Sea of Cortez’ down there.

By the way, the most infamous guest I could find in the prison was a woman named Pearl Heart. She was a stage coach robber, but flirted with the jury during her trial and managed to get an acquittal. The judge insisted that the jury find her guilty of something, so it convicted her of the secondary charge of stealing the coach driver’s gun. The judge then immediately sentenced her to 5 years in YTP. Apparently the judge was peeved because Pearl didn’t flirt enough with him!!! That was a tactical error or her part.

May I regress please? Thank you!

Pelunker, as mentioned previously, could land on a dime but taking off was a different story. He found the Deck 12 runway where he landed a little short and had a feathery crack up!! Ha, ha, ha!!!!! He will be the guest of the Blue Pearl Veterinary Partners hospital through rehab.

I suppose you are wondering how I knew the wayward pelican was from Maryland. That is simple; everyone knows that only pelicans wearing a U. S. Geological Survey Band that states it was attached in Holland, Maryland on September 7, 2012 fly into cruise ships. I wonder why it took Pelunker 3 ½ months to get from Maryland to the Tampa Bay area. I guess he is slow in more ways than one. But that’s just me!

Straw That Broke The Camel’s Back

 

Summer is over folks! But you can’t tell it around here. It is supposed to reach 87°F today. I am thinking about liquidating and moving north. It is apparent that snowbirds from somewhere in New Jersey are out living their welcome by taken over our beach. This photo was on the front page of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune today. Sad, isn’t it? But that’s just me!