Seasons Greetings, as we pack and head south

Greetings and Seasons Greetings to all our friends and kind readers,

Today, we have concluded our contractual agreements here in the New York market, and have spent the week getting ready to head south to pick up our market surveillance and data collection operation in warmer climates. While the Boat Basin has been kind to us from the standpoint of weather, it is indeed time to "break out the hats and hooters", if you will and pack it in for the 2006 season.

Dr. Emily has already left to organize and coordinate some of the things we will need to gather data as we travel down the East coast via Inter-coastal to Miami, and on to various islands and points south, including Panama, of course. I find as I age, time apart from Dr. Emily seems much more dear, like dog years. It's been many years since we first met in Tampa, when she had just begun her advanced studies that concluded several advanced degrees, and I was returning from a protracted sabbatical from my Agronomy fellowship both in Bordeaux and in parts of Chile.

The night before Dr. Emily took leave in the red blazer to The 95 South, we had the chance to review those early days so many years ago, while sampling a hearty gluping wine, an unassuming little white boxed blend from South Africa that my contractual agreements with our benefactor preclude me from commenting up, apart from the fact that we did illicit a kind of mauldlin emotionalism in we both. Many tears were shed, as we discussed things that happened, and things that had never happened, as well as those things that might have been.

And so, drunk, and without acrimony, we agreed to take up the topic again when Dr. Emily comes home.