Did anyone else feel like this new year's had a tad different tone than previous years? Every year we're happy to have an excuse to party on this day.  But it usually feels like we're celebrating the year and toasting to the promise of a new one.

Perhaps it's just me, but this year felt more like "Good Riddance, 2008" than "Happy 2009."

I sensed that listening to the radio the last few days. Watching (painfully) Dick Clark make it through another New Year's show.  Listening to my friend's toast at a small New Year's Eve dinner gathering.

2008 was kinda depressing, at least from my vantage point.  And it seems to have tainted us. Spitzer, Madoff, Blagojevich, OJ Simpson, and others certainly had something to do with it.  As did a recessed economy fraught with layoffs and a stock market plunge.  Recent rains made us forget that the southeast (and NC in particular) suffered a massive drought for much of the first half of the year.  Even the last few days of 2008 even couldn't escape unscathed -- with just a few dozen hours left in the year, tons of coal ash spilled from a coal plant near my hometown of Knoxville, TN -- one of the worst environmental disasters in a long time.  Yuck.

But every year has its share of political scandals, fallen sports figures, and environmental disasters.  And 2008 wasn't all bad.  A record number of voters elected the smartest person in the room to be president.  The Olympics in Beijing were the most thrilling I can remember in my near-34 years on this earth - I spent night after night watching Phelps smash record after record.  And though the Kansas Jayhawks won the NCAA basketball tournament, my Davidson College Wildcats stole the headlines with their improbable run, beating powerhouses Gonzaga, Georgetown and Wisconsin (Davidson, the smallest Div. I school at 1,800 students versus Wisconsin, the largest DI school at more than 50,000 students) before falling by a mere 2 points to the eventual national champions in the Elite 8.

2008 had its moments.  But I'm willing to trade those in for the prospect of something better.  I'll trade W for Obama.  I'll trade the Olympics on TV for a rain-nourished southern summer spent outdoors.  And I'll trade my great memories of Davidson's NCAA run for the chance to watch Stephen Curry and his mates try to pull off another huge upset or two this March (fingers crossed).

So I say we give 2008 the boot, kick it to the curb, tell it not to let the door hit it on the way out.

It's 2009.