Yes, the days are still getting shorter, and yes Christmas and New Year’s is still dead ahead on the horizon, but there is a new year beckoning just weeks away. While I used to be philosophical about the whole new year business and whether it’s a time to look backwards or look forward, this year it’s just a “full speed ahead, captain” into that great unknown which will be 2013. Hell, if you had asked me in my teens or twenties whether I could imagine being around in a year prefixed with a “201” I would have told you we’d have gas-less cars and $100 20-minute transporter services from the West Coast to NYC by now. Instead we have a country on verge of bankruptcy, a president whose only concern seems to be that of grounding his political opposition into dust, and whose only concern is to see how far it can go in terms of political correctness, self gratification, and what further boorish, obnoxious, and self-destructive behavior can get them on the next reality TV show.

Now that’s what I call progress. But that’s another subject for another time.

As I say, there’s a new year almost upon us and things for folks (not necessarily me) to look forward to:

A new Star Trek movie arriving in May. Not sure how many people still consider themselves “Trekkers”; I know Tracey used to a huge one but lost interest after the “Next Generation” series and movies ended.

Tracey is, however, looking forward to the release of the latest James Bond flick, Skyfall, on Blu-ray in March.

A reunited Fleetwood Mac tour. I never saw them in concert, but Lindsay Buckingham is one of my rock music idols, it might be worth checking into.

Phil Mickelson plans to tee it up early on the PGA Tour, skipping Abu Dhabi for the Humana Challenge in La Quinta in mid-January. I think it’s a good move for him, as his body really seems to wear down with all the long travel he’s done the past couple of years.

In addition there’s that happy little set of Callaway clubs presently boxed under the Christmas (“Holiday”, for you folks in Rhode Island) tree just waiting to be unleashed at the Superstition Springs driving range in preparation for “Goodboys Las Vegas” the second weekend in February. That alone is enough make the “fiscal cliff blues” go away.

For better or for worse, count me ready for 2013.