I went and done it. On Wednesday, to be specific. I’ve gone and put myself deeper in debt than I already am. For those of you who know me very well personally, you know that this has been a long time coming. I’ll keep the suspense down to a minimum though:

Bulldog finally got his Harley. I’ve been waiting for this for what seems like a lifetime. If I can find my camera today, I’ll take a pic or two and add them to this post.

Here’s what I got: 2007 H-D FLHX Street Glide. Pewter Denim in color. What that means is that instead of your traditional clear coat over the actual color, this paint scheme is flat, no gloss. I like it because of its innate ability to hide nicks and scratches (Not you, Nick! Don’t think we could ever hide you!). So, if you’re imaptient like me, you can always head over to Harley’s website and click through the various links for 2007 Touring bikes and check it out.

Too bad the weather has just turned nasty again or I’d be out riding instead of putting this post up!

 UPDATE: Ok, I finally got a pic for all of you:

A new year, a new AOTW award. This time, the honors go collectively to the department of the ARMY that decided to send out requests for return to active duty just after Christmas. All told, there were about 5100 letters sent to officers asking them to consider returning to active duty. Now that, in and of itself, is pretty common procedure when you’re facing the lack of personnel that all branches of the military are experiencing right now. But for them to win the AOTW, they had to do something, well, asshatted. Apparently, among the list of 5100 officers were 275 wounded or killed officers. And knowing the efficiency of our Armed Forces, guess what happened?

You guessed it! All 275 received letters requesting their return to active duty! Needless to say, the families of these men and women are shocked, SHOCKED I TELL YOU! at the insensitivity of the U.S. Army on this one.

From CNN.com:

The letters were sent a few days after Christmas to more than 5,100 Army officers who had recently left the service. Included were letters to about 75 officers killed in action and about 200 wounded in action.

So there you have it, another Asshat of the Week Award handed out. Let’s hope this kind of flagrant asshattery stays out of areas that will get our soldiers killed or wounded.

Another year has passed and with it a lot of things have happened. Saddam’s body has just recently been set to swinging, James Brown, the Godfather of Soul has died, President Ford passed away, and we had a surprising (to some) election in which Democrats take charge a few scant days from now.

For the beginning of this new year, President Bush defies logic once again (did you doubt it?) and declares that we will indeed be increasing the numbers of troops in Iraq as part of a “surge”. The only surge I see happening is the surge of young men and women that will be coming home either in a box or missing a few pieces.

I’ve missed offering up my commentary on some of this past year’s important events and for that I apologize. The truth is that there are so many other folks out there that offer up much better critiques of these events than I could. Hopefully that will change now that we’ve changed the calendar, but I make no resolution to do so. Making New Year’s Resolutions is asking for some bad juju. God knows we have enough of that going in this world already. Once again, I want to thank my loyal readers and commenters for your faithfulness to this little sliver of the blogosphere. Folks like you, by reading and providing your feedback or commentary, make this all worthwhile. I may have changed some minds about some things and I have been informed by all of you in some way or another throughout the course of this year. Let’s keep it going. I’m actually rather enjoying my little community here. I count every one of my constant commenters as a friend even though I’ve never met most of you. Your thoughts and comments are appreciated.

So with that, I hope that you all had a Merry Christmas (yeah I said it.), Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, or even Festivus (for the rest of us), depending on which way you roll. I trust you all stayed safe over New Year’s and got a cab or ride home from a designated driver if you chose to eat, drink, and be merry. Unfortunately, I had to work. I now raise my glass to each of you wishing that this new year brings health, happiness, and our troops home safely.