For whatever reason, I’ve been feeling a little, I don’t know, sentimental, about the new year, so I thought I’d take a minute and jot down some of 2012′s more significant personal moments if only to fabricate some closure for myself before heading into the new year. The previous sentence contains five commas, which is probably three or four too many. It is literally a non-stop party around here.

On the blogging front, 2012 started with a few precious embers of promise, albeit a little forced. That promise quickly faded, and I only made two posts after February, the most recent one in May. WHATEVER. When it’s forced, it sucks. So I stopped forcing it. Here is a short list of things:

397: I started running in earnest in late 2011 and I managed to keep it going through most of 2012, save some dry spells in April, the middle of September, and pretty much all of December. In total, I ran just under 400 miles, and around 490 if you include the tail end of 2011. 400 miles is a hell of a lot more than zero miles or even 100 miles, and I’m proud of that. But 397 miles over the course of a year is fewer than 8 miles per week, which is … not very many miles. I ran three races in 2012, a 5k, a 10k, and a 6k. Adding more races to the calendar will help pile up the miles. I like running.

90: Due largely to Blake’s insatiable appetite for brewing, I brewed 90 gallons of beer this year, far more than any previous year by a large margin. I don’t really feel the need to increase that amount, rather there are some significant improvements to be made–namely fermentation temperature control and possibly a new mash tun design–to make the beer better.

32: In May, Russ and I started a podcast called 1 Beer 1 Song. It started on little more than an impulse, but the underlying motivation was genuine: the mutual desire for a creative outlet. The best decision we made was to just hit Record and worry about everything else later. Write that down. We eventually settled into a weekly schedule and finished the year with 32 episodes published. Shameless plug: Subscribe on iTunes and follow us on Twitter. We also have a page on The Book of Faces.

5: This is my fifth season on the Atlanta Falcons Drumline. It is a quirky gig, and I am likely 10-15 years too old to be in the thick of a gig like this. The reality is I get to play sexy beats with my dude friends 8 or so times a year, which I thought was a done deal when I left college in 1999. So, I’m going to keep after it until they ask me to resign, politely or otherwise.

3: I was able to attend GABF for the third time this year. I can give or take the festival itself, but it is hard to find better craft beer ambiance than GABF week in the Denver metro area.

1: In April I rode one airboat through the Everglades in South Florida. Yes, it was exactly like Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach.