Well, it’s the last day of 2008; tis the season for end-of-the-year reviews. Remember those Top Ten Anti-Resolutions that I made back on January 1st? Maybe we ought to check in and see how much regress I made in doing those things “that I know, absolutely without a doubt, I will never, ever do this year…”

1) Serve on another committee. No problemo, 100% failure on this one. That Machiavellian committee experience back in 2007 got that little itch out of my system for decades to come. I fastidiously avoided large rooms with conference tables and PowerPoint projectors or any situation where more than 2-3 people were gathered together gesticulating madly while arguing over petty politics and personal agendas.

2) Mistake an automatic shower self-cleaning unit for a shampoo dispenser. Check. Or is it not-check? I was at Mom’s house twice this year and in neither instance did I get spritzed with ammonia. I did have a run-in or two with a rogue lawn sprinkler, though.

3) Take it for granted that the Crimson Tide has a game in the bag. No chance of that after the Lo-Mo debacle. In fact, if anything, I underestimated them. 12-1 at the end of December? Not in my most technicolor houndstooth dreams.

4) Run two days in a row. Total failure. In fact, sometimes I even stretched it out to 3, 4, even 30 days without hitting the asphalt.

5) Not take a real vacation. Not only did I not not take a vacation, I took two–one to Florida and one to Washington, DC (wrote about both of them in The Huntsville Times). I have a real itch for not going to either St. Louis or Colorado in 2009 (maybe neither?). We’ll see how unsuccessful I am at that.

6) Do an early morning workout consisting of 2 x 1600, 2 X 800, 4 x 400, 4 x 200 repeat intervals on the Grissom High School track. Closely related to #4, I’m proud to say I didn’t go anywhere near the Grissom track this year, and I have the extra 10 pounds to prove it. What with my ongoing battle with chronic Achilles tendonitis, “Turf Toe” (Stop laughing–it’s an orthopedic condition, not a flesh-eating fungus) and Sister Sciatica (more scary–and painful–than a nun with a ruler), speed work was totally out.

7) Teach a Sunday School class. Blew that one too. Frankly, I’ve enjoyed the break. I’m more at ease tapping on a keyboard these days than speaking behind a lectern, and I don’t see that changing in the foreseeable future.

Engage in another debate with an atheist online or anywhere else. Nope, didn’t do that either. Didn’t even see Ben Stein’s “Expelled” and have no plans to. I did get into a few political debates, though. Man, am I ever glad that election’s over.

9) Use the phrase “Which is better, Alabama or Auburn?” instead of “Which is better, one or two?” when I grow bored of doing refractions day after day. No need to. Everybody knows the answer to that one anyway. Right Tommy? (Roll Tide!)

10) Take the people (especially my family) and the small moments of pleasure that are a part of each day for granted. Thankfully, I bombed this one, too. I even had one of my own sons tell me that I really stunk that one up. It was one of the highlights of my year.

My top anti-resolution for 2009? To make another Top Ten list of anti-resolutions. I’m pretty sure that’s not happening.

Happy New Year, everyone.

If you and your family are casting about looking for something to do this holiday season, take them to see the movie “Marley and Me”–it’s a good old-fashioned emotional flogging they’ll never forget.

Owen Wilson is surprisingly sober, Alan Arkin is a cuddly curmudgeon, Kathleen Turner is downright scary and Jennifer Anniston shows off more range of emotion than skin for once. And Marley (well, Marleys since 22 different yellow labs were used in the film) is a charming rascal of a mutt.

Warning: It may be inappropriate for a large majority of pre-tweeners due to the emotional intensity. Plus there’s some “mature” subject matter (e.g. Marley humping Kathleen Turner’s leg, Jennifer Anniston’s bare back) that you may feel the need to explain.

Needless to say, Amazing Gracie the Wonderdog has been reaping “extra benefits” since her ‘rents watched a tear-jerker dog movie on Saturday, and there’s not a dang thing the NCAA can do about it.

If you go, remember to stop by Sams and pick up a jumbo pack of Kleenex on the way to the theater. Keep them on your lap and then starting passing them out to the people beside you, in front of you and behind you. They’ll appreciate it.

I hadn’t seen that bad a case of epidemic Ocularis Hyperlacrimus in a theater since “Old Yeller.”

“Our pew” is on the right hand side, two thirds of the way back. That’s where we always sit when we attend Christmas Eve services at our second church home, Episcopal Church of the Nativity in Huntsville. I’ve written of our experiences there before, and as longtime readers know, that’s our refuge where we occasionally go in order to escape the tyranny of the modern (e.g. PowerPoint!) and surrender instead to the power and holy mysteries of the liturgy.

Picture in your mind the quintessential Christmas Eve setting: an old, storied building topped with a 150 foot Gothic Revival spire reaching toward the heavens, the nave bathed in soft candle light and bedecked with festive, seasonal greenery, a 12-foot Christmas tree near the front, beckoning with a thousand starry lights. Hear the beautiful prelude of sacred selections by talented young musicians like our friend Matthew McDonald on the bassoon and Native Huntsvillian Susanna Phillips, a product of Nativity and Julliard, and now one of the world’s rising opera stars, who just last week made her Metropolitan Opera debut in New York in the role of Musetta in “La Boheme.”

I had wondered if she would even make it back to Huntsville with her busy schedule, but there she was, singing her trademark Cantique De Noel (“O Holy Night”) and smiling brightly, eager as always to share her gifts and contribute to the community of believers who nurtured her and sent nearly 140 hooting and hollering supporters (Brava! Brava!) to her Met debut, much to the astonishment of her fellow cast members.

Then hold in your mind’s eye the glorious processional, the fragrant incense, the bowing and reverencing as the crucifer passes by. Then the scripture readings, including one from Titus by my friend Ed from work (I was so proud!) and the stirring passage from Luke 2 (“Do not be afraid!”). Hear the soothing, but stirring homily urging us all onward in the spirit of Christ, and then the recitation of The Creed, the Prayers of the People, the gentle breeze created by the sitting, the standing and the kneeling. Picture The Peace, the kisses and gentle touches passed between lovers, the smiles, handshakes, hugs and greetings of “Merry Christmas” and “Peace to you” passed between perfect strangers bound together in one body–strangers no more.

Try, and I know this is hard, to picture three teenage brothers who, left to their own devices, might be awash in testosterone and their thousand meaningless disagreements, greeting each other, a little reluctantly, but when you’re caught up in the moment like that it’s okay to let go, with handshakes and season’s greetings. That, in and of itself, is a Christmas miracle.

Hear the call to The Table and see the going forward, the kneeling and supplication, everyone, regardless of station, laid bared and level, exposed for who they are–beggars at the feast. The folding and extension of the hands, The Body Broken, The Blood given freely, for me and for you. And then the return to our pews, all smiles now, refreshed in time of famine, renewed and strengthened for the work that lies ahead.

Then picture the recessional and hear the chorus of the closing hymn, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!” See the choir as they wrap lovingly around us, one body now united now in song and praise. Then imagine the voice of Susanna approaching from behind you, soaring like that of an archangel on the final verse, and then see her out of the corner of your eye beside you, on the right hand side, two thirds of the way back, just like 2 years ago, which is exactly why you chose that spot in the first place, hoping that it would happen again–and, praise be to God, it did:

Mild he lays his glory by,
Born that man no more may die:
With th’ angelic host proclaim,
“Christ is born in Bethlehem.”
Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”

Hold all that together–see it, hear it, imagine it–and you’ll know what it was like to stand in our shoes as we caught a glimpse of glory near the corner of Eustis Avenue and Greene Street at the break of Christmas Day.

The Celtic Christians spoke of “Thin Places”–locations on this earth where the presence of God is so strong that they serve as doorways or portals between this world and another.

As Susanna, a woman who was placed on this earth to sing, stood beside us and serenaded us early this Christmas morning, we could only smile at the great effusion of light and life. We realized that we had found our own “Thin Place,” right hand side, two thirds of the way back, and the veil between heaven and earth suddenly became so diaphanously thin, that we nearly fell through to the other side.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Actually, it’s no longer hypothetical. I now have an authentic Facebook update and this is what it says:

“Michael is now ‘friends’ with Number One and Number Two Sons (they took it like men). Number Three still doesn’t know. Heh.”

I am now fully assimilated into the collective hive. Resistance was futile.

My Facebook status update (if I had one) would probably read something like this:

“Mike is really digging ‘Straight No Chaser’ right now.”

Not the drink (although my father-in-law, bless his heart, did slip me a little shot of whiskey last night after I threw out my back pulling down the stairs to the attic), but the a cappella music group which is all the rage after their Youtube video spoof of “Twelve Days of Christmas” recorded 10 years ago when they were all in college at Indiana University (Hoosiers do music?) went hog-viral last year about this time.

That led to a group reunion, a recording contract with Atlantic Records and a new Christmas album “Holiday Spirits” which I downloaded from Amazon Saturday and, as my hypothetical Facebook status says, am “really digging.”

Speaking of the “Twelve Days” Youtube video, it was yanked from that site yesterday by Warner Music Group (apparently they removed all their artists’ videos yesterday–Merry Christmas!), but thankfully it can still be seen here.

Back to the Facebook thing for a second. I’m just curious: among my adult readers (that would be the large majority) are any of you on Facebook and of those how many have kids who are also on and who looked at you with an expression of abject horror when you told them you were going to join?

Did you “friend” your kids?

Did they “friend” you back?

Is the word “friend” a verb?

Are mine the only ones who have threatened to “disown” me if I join?

If they “disown” me can I “disown” them right back, thereby shutting off all forms of life support including high speed internet access?

Can I still use the word “dig” without being booted off Facebook?

I need help here, people.

My first patient was already in the chair at around 8:05 yesterday morning when an electronic sensor at the Monroe Street substation near the downtown library detected a problem with the transformer and proceeded to shut down the power to approximately 20,000 customers, from Monte Sano Mountain in the east, to Research Park in the west and south to Airport Road.

But I didn’t know that at the time. When the power shut down, I’d been microwaving my morning vitamin drink, a staple during the winter months when I’m daily assaulted by the medical dictionary’s worth of viruses that my patients exhale into the office air.

“Uh, sorry, my bad!” I called out to a colleague in the office next door to the break room.

Word quickly circulated through the office that it was my fault, and the ripples of laughter spread into the waiting room, normally a loud, riotous place at that time of morning, but where dozens of patients and their family members now sat quietly and still, wondering what had happened, and more importantly, what was going to happen next.

It’s interesting how adults, even seasoned professionals, will respond to a sudden break in the routine. Without electricity, we were dead in the water, unable to operate the computers and equipment necessary to do our jobs. What if the electricity didn’t come back on? Did that mean we would have to reschedule our patients and go home?

As we gathered at the window and watched the ensuing traffic snarl at the corner of Gallatin and Governors, we were like schoolchildren on the morning of a light dusting, gazing anxiously at the glow of the TV at 6:00 AM, hoping to see our district’s name go scrolling by at the bottom of the screen. [...]

As a licensed eye care professional, and moreover one who is interested in maintaining said license until such time that I retire and/or write my first multimillion dollar bestseller, I cannot say that I wholly endorse this particular Eye-dea.

Still, the thought of www.ocularfusion.net appearing on average every 5 seconds whilst tatted across the superior eyelid folds of an army of Fusioneers does bring a smile to my face.

If you’re among the (*cough*) “elite corps” (aka “The Fusioneers”) that has registered here, you received an email this morning containing a sneak preview of a new blog that I’m rolling out.

It contains the community columns that I wrote this past year for The Huntsville Times, not to mention a “bonus track” from the early years.

Oh, and a few other tidbits, such as a picture of me (kudos to Number One Son for his mad photography and computer animation skillz) and my real name (like it’s so tough to figure out).

You see! Membership really does have its “privileges.” I’ll eventually make it more public, but for a little while at least, you guys get to breath some very rarefied air.

If you’re a regular who’s registered and you didn’t receive it, there’s probably a problem with the email that you used when you signed up. Just let me know and I’ll send it to you.

If you haven’t registered, either sign up or email me and I’ll send it to you, too. Remember, nobody sees your email address except me. I promise not to sell you out to Googlezon, no matter how deep the next Great Depression gets.

I’ve been wanting to get those columns under “one roof” for a while so that they could be more easily accessed, but I had to wait until the rights had fully reverted back to me. It’ll make it easier to send them to friends and others, such as any editors desperate enough to hire me for additional work, who might be interested in reading them.

It was a real eye-opener sorting through my registrants and trying to figure out who was legit and who wasn’t.

Sorry, Russian spammers KSGHWOUR%$!+)% and BNSDBB*&@#!*+^, but you’re out of luck. But you know how much I appreciate your relentless, 24/7, computer-generated attempts at international goodwill and cooperation.

And a special note to registrants “AuburnFan” and “WAREAGLE93.” I couldn’t decide if you guys were legit or not. You may very well be since I do have a number of pretty decent Barners in my circle. But then again, you’ve never left a comment, so I couldn’t be sure.

Not that I’m blaming you considering what has happened this year. And then there’s that very special Christmas present you received from your AD, UP and “Lord Lowder,” Emperor of the AU BOT–your new Head Coach “Lump O. Coal.”

Uh, were y’all “bad boys” this year or what?

But I’m not one to pile on like Mt. Cody, who by the way, was named First Team AP All American yesterday along with Andre Smith and Antoine Caldwell. Nosiree, if you’re the real deal, and not just mere spammers, let me know and I’ll send the link to you, too.

Oh, and one more thing: “Merry Chizikmas” and “Roll Tide!”

Dedicated to Dad.

God rest ye merry, gentleman.

I broke through the Marvin-induced writer’s block last week and managed to turn in my last Huntsville Times community column before the deadline.

It wasn’t easy, though. But I just sat down and forced myself to brainstorm through the dusty annals of Christmases past for that just-perfect Yuletide memory to share in what I envision as a sort of coup de grace of a grand finale.

Come Sunday, check back here and watch me wrap up paganism, death, evolution, guns, whoopee-makin’, spittin’, a balding, 40-year-old man armed with a pitch pipe and an attitude, a Bible-bangin’, red-faced Church Lady (think Dana Carvey in SNL), the, ahem, “fruit of the vine” and a “par-tri-udge, in-uh, pear-treeee” into a neat package and top it off with a big red bow.

Just think of it as a very special “Kitchen Sink Christmas,” from me to you.

Yeah, I’m kind of going for broke on the last one. What are they going to do, fire me?

Marvin the Goldfish is like a Timex watch–he just keeps going and going and going…

His spirit I mean. The body itself is still in a sandwich baggy, buried deep in our freezer somewhere between the ground beef and the ice cream. That is, unless Eyegal got him mixed up with the frozen tilapia.

Final arrangements are incomplete, but ongoing. More on that shortly.

You may recall the readers who reached out to us in our time of Marvin-mourning with a very kind offer of a replacement goldfish. Yes, I know, it goes without saying that Marvin is irreplaceable, but it was still awfully nice of them.

So last Saturday, Eyegal and I ventured up North Memorial Parkway to search out Trevor and Jeannie Cole, owners of the the outdoor garden/nature store, “Across the Pond.” They were having an open house that day, so our timing was perfect. We were met at the door by Jeannie and her lovely daughter Olivia who exclaimed, “Welcome to Across the Pond, and Merry Christmas!”

Honestly, she had us at “Welcome.”

Jeannie is an assistant district attorney, but when she’s not busy busting up crack houses and seizing the assets of drug traffickers and turning them toward better uses, she works alongside her husband Trevor sells bird feeders (every shape and size imaginable), garden statues, pottery, landscaping materials, pond supplies and the world’s largest collection of Tilley Hats. Basically, anything you might need to set up your own private nature preserve.

Trevor is a native Englishman (“Across the Pond,” get it?) who has nurtured a livelong love of nature and parlayed it into a successful career as an expert in birding, water-gardening and fish-keeping. He and Jeannie have traveled all over the world, especially Asia, to improve their expertise in those industries and share it with the people of North Alabama.

Speaking of which, Trevor has been “stuck” here since 1992 with a lovely family and surrounded by many friends and customers who don’t understand the attraction of Grand Prix auto racing and “football” played without helmets and shoulder pads.

The poor bloke. At least he has Fox Soccer Channel.

They showed us around the store and then took us into The Fish House. You’ll never guess what we found there:

Marvin never got that big. These are more his size:

As I stared at tank after tank of beautiful, pond-quality goldfish, I began to imagine that maybe Marvin was someplace like this, swimming among all those other goldfish “who have gone on before,” munching on fortified fish flakes forever and forever…

My reverie was interrupted when Trevor and Jeannie told us about their plan to laminate my Huntsville Times column and place it, along with a picture of his “parents,” in The Fish House as a memorial of sorts and a reminder to potential customers of how owning goldfish can be among life’s more enriching experiences.

Eyegal and I were thrilled beyond words. We knew that was just the way Marvin would have wanted it.

This is what I think will happen: People will come to The Fish House. Oh yes, people will come, Trevor and Jeannie.

They will drive up Memorial Parkway “for reasons that they can’t even fathom.” They’ll arrive at Across the Pond, “innocent as children, longing for the past.”

“Of course, we don’t mind if you look around,” you’ll say.

Then they’ll read Marvin’s moving memorial, gaze upon the thousands of goldfish swimming joyfully in those high-tech tanks and “they’ll feel as if they’ve been dipped in magic waters. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it; for it is money they have and peace they lack.”

Goldfish–they “remind us of all that once was good and could be good again.”

Ah, good times.

Thanks to Jeannie, Trevor, Olivia and all the good folks at “Across the Pond” for your kindness and hospitality. Needless to say (but I will anyway), if you’re near Huntsville or Florence and find yourself with a hankering for the simple pleasures of outdoor life, then Jeannie and Trevor are the go-to people for all your birding, ponding and statuary needs.

As for Marvin’s remains, Number Two Son, the one who extended Marvin’s life by one week with his mad YMCA rescue skillz, apparently feels that a simple “burial at sea” is not dignified enough and has other plans.

You might recall that he’s the one with a special knack for making friends with law enforcement officers from various jurisdictions. In fact, just this past weekend he made another special friend in the tiny hamlet of Piperton, Tennessee.

So not surprisingly, the plan involves dark clothes, black face paint, cover of darkness and is most likely illegal.

If this goes down, I’ll let you know the details, including whether or not I bailed him out of jail.

When I think about it, having a friend in the district attorney’s office might not be a bad thing.

It’s official–Bama versus the Utah Utes in the Sugar Bowl.

But you know how people from Alabama stumble over big words. What is a “Ute” anyway?

Fortunately, Joe Pesci has the answer.

Long time reader and commentator Carolinagirl is back from “playing” in The Sandbox, but she’s a little glum this morning after her beloved Army Black Knights were keelhauled yet again (their 7th straight loss ) by the Navy Midshipmen in the annual Army-Navy game.

Chin up, cg. Here’s some camo eye candy that should brighten your day:

Both teams were sporting the new Nike “Enforcer” uniform, but Army’s camo threads were over-the-top-o’-the-trench AWESOME. When I saw them I yelled, CHARGE! I immediately gathered everybody in the house to see them and called Number One Son at Bama to make sure he saw them too.

Forget Penn State all white, green Irish jerseys and Georgia black (not that The Dawgs would want to remember). These uniforms will be enshrined in the Sartorial Hall of Fame.

Of course, you’ve got to do more than look good. You’ve got to play good too, and Army has a way to go in that department.

Next time, I would suggest bringing the howitzers. Or maybe those Delta guys from that TV show “The Unit.”

Go Navy!–for obvious reasons.

Wow, a “Game of The Year” that finally lived up to its billing. ‘Grats to the Gators for beating us straight up, fair and square.

We’re still a year or two away from having the full compliment of personnel to be able to beat a team that deep and talented, not to mention a once-in-a-generation player like Tebow.

Disappointing, yes, but the Crimson Nation is very proud of this team and what they’ve accomplished this year and the way they played today. Still, two Bama mistakes led to two Gator scores–remember what I said about having to play a perfect game?

But did anybody in their right mind expect the Tide to be 12-1 in 2008? I don’t think so.

Texas or Oklahoma, it doesn’t matter–Tebow and his Doo-Wop boys will beat them. Has anyone ever seen a player like him? I haven’t. Maybe we really should have tried to slip some Kryptonite into the Gatorade cooler on the Florida sideline.

As for the Sugar Bowl, that’s still pretty darn sweet (thanks for all those sugar packets, Gator fans!). Believe it or not, I’ve already heard one commentator say how great a team Utah is and how Bama “shouldn’t want any part of them.” Go ahead, make my day by making us the underdog in that one.

I say, woe be unto the Utes or whatever team we play.

Roll Tide, Roll.

…34, 35, 36…and one to grow on!

Kinda creepy, huh?

You know I’m just kidding, right?

You know, I know, heck, we all know that Tommy Tuberville’s sudden “resignation” this week had absolutely nothing to do with the “Beatdown in T-town” Saturday, right? Right?

If not Nick Satan, then maybe it was Karma…

I know I’ve gone on and on about the whole “finger thing,” but the fact is, after 6 straight wins you have to expect that. This is the SEC, not the ACC, for Pete’s sake. When it comes to football, one expects the knife to be twisted in the small of the back under such circumstances.

But what about holding up another finger before the big game?

Now when I first read on some of the Bama blogs that CTT and the Auburn players were holding up 7 fingers when they disembarked from their buses and made their way into Bryant Denny Stadium last Saturday, I frankly didn’t believe it. Had it not been for an eyewitness account from the presumably more neutral New York Times, I might have continued to blow that one off as so much apocrypha.

I mean, what were they possibly thinking? Given the way the season had gone up to that moment, doesn’t that represent some kind of pathological disconnect with reality? Did anyone get a whiff of what that was they were smoking on that bus? Was this mere “fire up the troops, into the Valley of Death rode the 600″ bravado, or did they really think they were a shoo-in to win? I mean, come on, surely Tubbs was thinking “we just gotta keep this one close and then maybe they’ll hand it to us on a silver platter,” right? Right?

I’m thinking that the football gods, one of whom was wearing a Houndstooth fedora, were looking down on that. And they were not at all pleased.