A Walk On The Dock

I was on short vacation, a 5th honeymoon of sorts, and found myself alone on the beach at dawn. My wife is a late sleeper, so mornings are always solitary events for me. The day was starting out cold, with a brisk wind blowing, but I really wanted to get out on the water to watch the sunrise. For some strange reason, the cold in that part of the country seems to also make the water the most beautiful blue that you could imagine. It was perfectly clear, like light blue glass and I could see the tiny baitfish everywhere. I walked out onto this long dock that belonged to our beach apartment, hoping to see some of the larger fish that can be found hiding in the shade under the dock, but they were too well hidden for my eyes that morning. I stood for a while, until the cold started to find ways under my sweatshirt and decided to head back in to refresh the cup of coffee I had been carrying along.
It was then that I spotted something unusual. Two dolphins were swimming along the shore, in very shallow water, too shallow I thought, swimming straight with their dorsal fins splitting the water very much like the shark scenes in the movie Jaws. I was already wondering how a dolphin could swim in what appeared to be two feet of water, when they reached the dock and giant splashing ensued. The first dolphin popped his head up with a big old snook in his mouth. He then swam off and the second dolphin came up with a smaller sheepshead. I watched them swim off into the distance, checking out each dock on the way down the shore.
I thought, man, these guys own this place....

Frozen New Year

We are ringing in the new year with the longest spell of really cold weather that I can remember. It jumped up to 60 degrees today for a few hours and I was ready to whoop it up. They are even saying there is a chance of snow tomorrow. In Florida? Perhaps this is all just to give us a taste of what folks up north have to endure. It sucks to think that it will be too cold to go outside this weekend, but at least my car will start and the roads will be easy to navigate.
I've busted out the treadmill and have given into the idea that many hours will be spent on it before I can get back to running the streets. Maybe this is a really good time to catch up on all those rainyday projects I have saved up.
2010 may be a really interesting year. One thing for sure, it is not starting out ordinary!