At midnight we ushered in 2013 and now we have 365 fresh days to make our mark on this year. Last night I had a great time celebrating the arrival of the New Year with Paige and another couple. After a fabulous dinner at the Depot, we joined hundreds of other Missoulians in downtown to welcome yet another resetting of the calendar. For a variety of reasons I have a great feeling about what this year will bring. I have had this feeling since Christmas ended and it was just reinforced this morning at mass as I just had positive and calming vibes running through my veins. I am excited for 2013!

I do want to touch on 2012 just a bit though. I will count this past year as a success mainly because I ended the year better than where I started it. At the onset of 2012 I had just wrecked my car and was feeling pretty low. However, as the first few weeks passed I started to regain a little bit of my swagger and my personal outlook of myself slowly started to improve. By the end of the month I had purchased a new car and I had pretty much moved on. From there, 2012 was not that bad at all.

Highlights from 2012 include attending the NCAA Tournament in Albuquerque with the Griz, developing this blog to its current state, watching www.gogriz.com grow substantially, guiding the Griz social media program to the top spot among all other schools in the FCS, seeing some amazing concerts including the American Country Awards, traveling to various different places across the country, and meeting my wonderful girlfriend.

In the broader picture, 2012 was circled for me simply because it was the year of the Summer Olympics and of the Presidential Election. Both of these events provided me with great entertainment and a heavy sense of patriotism. Unfortunately, 2012 will always be tarnished because of the sickening tragedy in Connecticut. No matter all the positivity and prowess our country exhibited from winning the most medals at the highest valued world athletic competition on the planet or from pulling off another flawless example of democracy, we were faced with the cruel reality that we still have much to work on.

In talking about New Year’s resolutions today, my priest reminded us all to take each day one at a time. Don’t get too far ahead of yourself and look days, weeks, and months down the line. We need to focus our attention on 24 hour intervals. It is easy to get overwhelmed and discouraged when we see that we have a long road in front of us but if we chop that road up into little blocks, it makes things much more manageable. I do have my resolutions ready to go and I might (not 100% sure) share those with you guys tomorrow.

Let me give a BIG THANK YOU to all of my supporters who took time to read this blog in 2012. This past year was a big one for Don’t Blink. I quadrupled my average reading audience per post and underwent a major site makeover. You guys are a big part of my motivation and I will continue to try to get better and provide more interesting content in 2013. Happy New Year! Don’t Blink.