Happy New Year, I guess.

I was at my desk at the JAC till 7 PM last night flogging paper for the Department of Juvenile Justice, then I had a quiet dinner at the local Golden Corral, then I hit the home boat after checking in with the Redhead via phone line. She was not going out, and was concerned that I might ask her to go ride around town with her. She compromised by coming to me and watching the rest of the world careen into funeral homes and into the drunk tank on TV. Her argument was that New Year's Eve is one of those "amateur nights" when people who don't ordinarily drink get out on I-4 and try to maneuver their huge clumsy SUVs down the concrete ramp to the hospital. She preferred coming over here and watching Zeta-Jones in "Chicago" on the DVD while I found ways to ignore the sound of tortured metal from out on 17-92.

I never have been much for making New Years resolutions. Seems a little too institutional for me. Most of my goals are long term, and I don't need any external benchmarks to keep track of my progress.

Goal 1 - I want to have ONLY those people around me that matter to me. That's not complicated. And... mission accomplished.

Goal 2 - I want to do good work. In my life I've been lucky enough to do all the things that I ever wanted to do: I wanted to teach at a university. I have. I wanted to own my own business. I do. I wanted to take a boat around the world. I have. I wanted to write books. I have. Heck, some of them were even read! I wanted to get a pilot's license and fly my own plane. I have. I wanted to find that elusive G-spot. No problem. So who needs a yearly report card?


The only complaint that I have is that I haven't managed to find a car as good as my old 1979 Mercedes Benz 220-D or the old 1970 MGB that I had in my college days. These days I have a Volvo 740 Turbo that seems to spend two thirds of its time in the shop while being given transfusions of American currency. I like the car, especially the turbo part, but for God's sake! Like I said, I wish I had my old Benz back. It died an honorable death by ingesting its own fuel injector pump after carrying my fat butt over 400,000 miles safely and silently. As it drifted to the side of the road after having the injector pump self-destruct the air conditioning was working perfectly and the old FM radio was working perfectly. Hell, even the upholstery looked good. I wish I had fixed that thing. I could have replaced a dozen whole motors in that car with what I've invested in that damned Swedish harpie. Sigh.

Maybe I do have some New Years Resolutions. In the next year I intend to find some peace in the vehicle department. And maybe be the first guy in the marina to have one of those nifty shoebox sized P-4s that IBM is peddling. And..and... and... maybe one of those nifty flat screen monitor/TVs. Gimme, gimme, gimme.

Ah, dreamer.