Happy New Year!

Picks you up, knocks you down

To: The Readership
From: (me)
Date: Whatever it says at the bottom of the post
Subject: Calendar year 2011, calendar year 2012

Glad you could make it. I hope you had a nice holiday and New Year's.

I had kicked around the idea of going to San Francisco but didn't make it. Instead I went to Morro Bay and Paso Robles for a few days. Wine tasting, long walks on the beach, hikes, sunsets, nice dinners, etc and so forth. A good time was had by all.

Big news of the week is the first track day of 2012 on Friday. As in, this Friday, 6 January.

In a couple weekends I'll be in TJ to build a house for a needy family. That is always a fun trip, depending on your idea of what constitutes 'fun'. The first two years were so back-breakingly hard that I had to take the following two years off. This proved prescient, because although the subsequent houses were much easier (shorter trip, slab was pre-poured) I skipped one year when it rained and another when it snowed. As in, actual snow. South of San Diego. Last year was such a breeze we finished early AND I had time to take a rinse-off after the workday. I'm hoping for more of the same this year. We'll see.

Re: the photo - that's a schooner from Mutt Lynch's with a 5 hour energy floater. Drink them both and you'll be feeling pretty good about yourself. For a while, anyway.