End of Year Excitment

End of Year Excitement
Maybe calling this blog posting the End of Year Excitement is a classic example of poetic license. I hope my license hasn’t expired yet. I still have lots of writing left to do.
Moving on.

The Year in Numbers
It was an interesting year for me in terms of numbers. Surprisingly, everything added up nicely for me.

The blog finished up the year with a good showing. Of course, it is way off its totals from when I was posting the Woman of the Moment features. That drove travel significantly for the blog. December had 529 visitors who viewed 1,099 pages. The total for the year was 3,878. The cumulative total from when I started the blog in 1995 is 62,299 visitors.

I felt good about my little blog until Doug told me earlier in December that one his blogs, NBA Off Season has over 30,000 followers.

Oh well.

The MINI managed to roll up 6.50 hours of top down driving for the month. It was cold a lot during the month. The year’s total was 209.75 hours; it was a warm Summer. The cumulative top down driving time is 294.25 hours.


The MINI now has 27,693 miles on the odometer.

Excitement
Last week, I was out running errands with the top up. It was 58F at the beach and overcast. I came home and found the building car entrance blocked by a Redondo Beach ladder fire truck and two police cars.

And I missed all of the excitement.

Later that day, I asked one of my neighbors what happened. He said someone had a small kitchen fire that produced a lot of smoke. Someone saw the smoke called the Fire Department. The police possibly showed up because all of the fresh donuts had been sold at the local donut shop or maybe they were bored.

On New Years’ Eve, actually it was early New Years’ Day; I went to Fatburger for a really late meal. They were open until 3:00 AM and I had a coupon for a free bag of fries that expired that night.

I was extremely fortunate to have been able to drive to Fatburger and back home without any problems. The fog was extremely thick; even with my fog lamps and head lights on in the MINI, I could barely see more than fifty yards.

Luckily, I know the way there and back very well.

Last bit or sip of excitement, I received some cocoa from one of my nieces for Christmas. I am not a hot chocolate drinking kind of guy, especially since the only milk in the flat is low fat milk and that is not the best for hot chocolate.

I drink iced decaf mocha from Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf sometimes so I thought about trying some of my instant coffee with the cocoa powder.

I used hot coffee since I thought the hot water would dissolve the cocoa powder faster.

The mixture turned out wonderful. It was sweet, like me almost, and warm.

Thanks muchly Jessie.

University of Utah Football – Go Utes
Our Utes played Georgia Tech in the Sun Bowl in El Paso on New Years’ Eve Day.

The Utes were three point underdogs. At one point, I thought the odds makers made correction predictions. This was right after Georgia Tech scored 14 points in less than a minute in the third quarter.

The Utes came back to tie the game in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter. They won the game in overtime with a final score of Utah 30 – Georgia Tech 27. Since the game was on national television [CBS], I don’t think there is much more that I could add about the game.

I will add that Utah’s win was the first win for the PAC 12 Conference in post season play this year.

Sweet.

Cinema
I did get out to the cinema last week and saw SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS.

I enjoyed the film. It was a nice Summer film that was released at the end of the year as an example of counterprogramming. It has a simple plot line of stopping Professor Morriarity or however his name is spelled. It is a good guy film; it doesn’t require a great deal of thought or understanding to enjoy the two plus hours you spent in the multiplex.

I plan to go see TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY when it goes into general release later this week. Doug saw the film with his movie club and they all loved it.

Doug and the Princess both recommended THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO to me. He’s seen it twice now, something he rarely does with films.

I also want to see a film called THE ARTIST. I am interested in the film because it is largely filmed as a silent movie.


Be well and stay happy.