GO ‘HAWKS!  WOOO!  I kid, I kid.  I don’t give a fucking fuck about amurrican roids ‘n’ brain damage -styled football.  But the Seahawks have been around in the periphery of my consciousness many a year.  Seahawk is another word for osprey, so just to squeeze more wordcount out of these birds, I’m gonna talk about hucking the ol’ pigskin.

Colors:  Green and blue are the team colors.  Those colors don’t go great together, in my humble opinion.  Too “Captain Planet.”

Local Billionairism:  One of Bill Gates’ old buddies Paul Allen owned the ‘Hawks while he was alive, and I indirectly worked for his ass during a few of those years.  I don’t much care, but it puts me in mind of the bitter fact I have, in past jobs, been close enough to some famous billionaires that I could have just reached out and… I kid, I kid.  Unless..?  No, no, of course not… … …

The Kingdome:  Sports arena sponsored by local TV station King 5, started losing bits of roof, got replaced expensively.  Subject of much one note local humor.  Speaking of local humor, I have some affection for the old TV show Almost Live!, which, last I checked, was airing in reruns after SNL on NBC.  That last checkin was a long-ass time ago.  As was the moment in history when Bill Nye was on that show.  For whatever that’s worth to whoever.  Enjoy some Pat Cashman.

Good times.  Anyway,

Parking Garages:  You can tell a lot about sportball fandom by how badly they fuck up the parking garages nearest the playing fields.  I never noticed any especial damage for the women’s soccer or the hockey teams, but baseball, men’s soccer, and football would definitely leave their mark.  People get messy.  Baseball fans are just tipsy enough to accidentally drop their wallets or other little bits and bobs.  Soccer fans leave half-eaten boxes of oranges, clothing items, and other oddities.  Football fans invariably knock the garage’s gatearms off their posts.  One time a rich drunk fucko that came to get his eighty thousand dollar SUV -after the garage had closed for the night- crashed it through two concrete bollards and a metal roll-down fence, in order to get home.

That’s my menial job’s eye view of amurrican football.

How about some birds?  One time in a gas station parking lot in Federal Way, I heard some bizarre bird calls from the treetops, and busted out the birdy app.  It was ospreys, having the biggest conversation I’ve ever heard from them.

Accipitriform birds of prey -hawks, eagles, old world vultures, ospreys- usually nest on broad platforms at the tops of tall trees.  On a cellphone tower near the Walmart I used to work in, I once saw some ospreys hanging out.  Trying to nest?  What was interesting to me about this sighting is that one of the birds had a whole-ass cardboard box in its talons, and was flying it up the tower.  Was there anything in the box?  Tasty fish?  A gwyneth paltrow head?  An Alice in Chains?  A British one-hit wonder?  Or was it nesting material?  I just think it looked cool.

Ospreys are sooo easy to see here, around the Puget Sound.  Go close to water.  Look at treetops, or out in the shallows.  Watch them grab fish.  A sunny day is best because the fish are often shiny and silver, which makes the birds easier to spot at a distance.  Once saw one when I was walking across the Ballard Bridge, resting briefly on a street sign there.

Ospreys are one of those birds with worldwide distribution, so you might know about ’em no matter where you are.  They are white and brown, leaning toward the white.  Heads are white with a dark brown mask.  They are famous for reversing one of their toes to get a better grip on a fish.

I had a birthday a few years ago where I went to the beach.  Briefly I waded out to get a better look at a heron, and an osprey flew by at the same time.  Fun.  But the water was piss warm and full of slimy kelp and humans.  Ugh.

The US military has a tilt-rotor aircraft called the Osprey, courtesy of Boeing.  It looks cool, looks like a good design to do vertical or short takeoff & landing.  But it’s been problematic enough to call into question whether any aircraft built on that idea can ever be fully safe, over the years taking dozens of soldiers to their graves.  On the other hand, maybe it’s just motherfucken Boeing.

Bird doesn’t have that problem.  Nature wins again.

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