Happy 2006

Well, welcome back! It’s been a while since I’ve seen some of you. Yeah, I can tell, the hit counter does not lie. You may have thought "Oh, everybody takes the holidays off, there won't be any new content until at least after the new year". I know some of the bigger blogs shut down for the holidays, but not this one. I was here.

What you slackers have missed is the news that Santa brought me a digital camera! Which means that you can expect a lot more entries about acutely important problems I encounter with my shoes and in-depth real time reports on the condition of my yard, Fun!!

Anyhoo. What did you do for New Years Eve? I headed to Oriental, NC because I heard that there be dragons there.



Dragons in North Cackalaky?

The good folks of Oriental decided that being at the ass end of no where was no excuse not to have a good time, and they have gotten very good at it, read here A history of having fun. They manage to throw a party that is both “family friendly” and fun for adults too! Watch and learn lame “First Night” Raleigh and your dippy acorn drop at 8pm: Grown ups are people too! Entertaining them does not begin and end with keg stands and titty dancers! Mayberry Raleigh does not have to roll up the sidewalks after 9pm or focus purely on the entertainment needs of the pre-school set. The post-school set needs love too.

Oriental is a tiny town, but it has a long history with sailing and boating and we spent our time before the Dragon made its appearance admiring the decorated boats in the marina and adding to the local economy.





There wasn't as many people there as I had thought there would have been, I mean it was on the front page of the New Bern paper! literally dozens of people saw the story! The New Bernians stayed home, but it seemed like most of Oriental was there.



We joined the crowd gathered in the street and waited for the dragon to appear. Everyone was happy and excited – there was a really nice vibe the whole evening and everyone brought a noisemaker of choice, the drummers below were great and moving, very, very fast in the um, dark.



The crowd was very excited.



With Good Reason! Everyone that hadn't turned out to cheer on the dragon was the dragon.









After the dragon went back to its cave we waited around for the Dropping Of The Croaker. There were fewer folks around for the dropping of the croaker but they weren't any less up for it.



And finally, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...



Okay, they have to work on The Croaker.

The next day we got up and along with a lot of others, celebrated the New Year with a trip to the beach.