Happy New Year Everyone!

While the Sage hasn't exactly been on vacation for the last week or so, he has been surrounded by so much family and so many friends that keeping up with a blog has been challenging to say the least.  It's a challenge I'm afraid I wasn't up to.  Even today we're off to my sister's house in an hour or so for our traditional "Day After Christmas Family and Friends Get Together".  It was postponed from last Sunday due to the inclement weather caused by our nonetheless beautiful White Christmas.  We're a big family and to avoid the pressures of trying to see everyone on Christmas Day, and fretting over offending those you don't see, we simply come together the day after, very casually, and...EAT!  (What else?)  This year it's pork BBQ, the product of a homegrown pig and twelve hours of careful smoking by the Sage himself.  Why, I actually feel sorry for those of you who can't join us.

Anyway, my blog is now one year old and I want to thank those of you who encouraged me to do it in the first place.  I was initially skeptical and very worried that I would simply run out of gas in a month or two.  But somehow the liberal Democrats have managed to keep me riled up just enough over the year to want, to need, to vent to someone now and again.  Thanks for listening.  (I do pray the venting was more than mere "electronic grunts" as one wit described the state of contemporary communication.)

With the first day of 2011, our country continues to face serious challenges, many of them dangerous.  But it's a new year and a new beginning, and as good a time as any to start again the long struggle to set things aright.  As Scripture enjoins us, "Fear not!"