End of the year post for 2011

It's been exactly one year since I started this blog.  Last year on the 30th of December I was digging out our beach house after a strong nor'easter dumped several feet of snow on coastal New Jersey.  This year it's 62 degrees F. as I type this and today I drove my bugeye sprite to the liquor store with the hood down.

First things first.  Xenopus required a quick bath before going to town.  Nigel the Mini Cooper looks on with interest.  It was in the low 40s when I got under way so I decided to put the side screens on.

Our first destination was Bay Ridge Wine & spirits.  We needed to pick up several bottles of Champagne for tomorrow night.  This is a good bottle shop with a wide selection and the fact that it's also cheek by jowl with a West Marine store doesn't hurt in my book.

With the Champers procured I headed down to the city dock area to see what if anything was going on this last Friday of the year.  A crew was busy erecting large tents for tomorrow's "First Night" in Annapolis celebration.  We attended this a few years ago with relatives up from Georgia and froze our butts off.  This year should be pleasant but we have other fish to fry.

Looking out across the barren mooring field towards SSA there wasn't a boat to be seen--not even the usual Laser frost bite guys.

The same empty scene greeted the eye on the Naval Academy side of the harbor.

Tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer than today but I won't have time to drive Xenopus so I wrestled with the cloth hood which I rarely use and cleaned the oil off the garage floor.  This may be Xenopus's last ride until April since I don't take him out once the highway dept. starts salting the roads.

Xenopus will end his 52nd year with a palindrome on the "clock".  Maybe I ought to play that number on the Pick-5 lottery!