  The ALFALFA blind HI survey will enable a census of the distribution of
gas-rich galaxies in the local Universe. Sensitive to an HI mass of 10**7 solar
masses at the distance of the Virgo cluster, ALFALFA will probe the smallest
objects locally and provide a new consideration of near-field cosmology.
Additionally, with a larger, cosmologically significant sample volume and wider
bandwidth than previous blind surveys, a much larger number of detections in
each mass bin is possible, with adequate angular resolution to eliminate the
need for extensive follow-up observations. This increased sensitivity will
greatly enhance the utility of cosmological probles in HI. ALFALFA will
eventually measure the correlation function of HI selected galaxies in a large
local volume. The larger sample and volume size of the ALFALFA dataset will
also robustly measure the HI mass function (HIMF). Here, we present the
preliminary results on the distribution of local gas-rich galaxies from a first
ALFALFA catalog covering 540 deg**2.
