The Sun Sets On 2011

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We close the office early on Christmas and New Years Eves. Since the holidays are on Sunday this year, we let everyone run for the exits early on Friday. By 4:45 yesterday afternoon I had long been the last rat on the ship but I was rewarded when I looked up from my desk and saw this. There was a heavy lid of clouds over the area but it had a sharp edge, leaving just a degree or two of clear sky above the horizon. As the sun was just about to set, it looked like a cosmic-sized red stage light had been trained on downtown. My camera was in my briefcase so I started shooting madly from my office windows.

Thus ends 2011. I'm not sad to see it go. Although we had some good times - Carolyn and I visited Costa Rica and France - it was a very difficult year for our law firm, for a complex combination of reasons but mostly evil federal bureaucrats. A family member faced some serious personal challenges. I've never worked more hours. But Carolyn and I are healthy and still actually like each other after 38 years, I work with the finest group of people you could imagine, and my right index finger and camera shutter still work together in happy harmony. Thanks to all of you who have left comments and encouragements on STL DPB this year and given such interesting images to all of us. This blog will soon reach its fifth anniversary. You keep me going.

Tomorrow is picture of the year day. I'm posting a pair that go together. Not everyone will like them but I really do. (Some may remember that my original nom de blog was Strangetastes.) This evening our town has First Night, a spectacular assortment of in- and outdoor entertainment and I always get some great shots. It's freakishly warm today (forecast high of 63 F / 17 C) so the place should be hopping. Those pictures will start with Tuesday's post.