Big Red Car here.  Ahhhhh, alive at dawn — the strategy for New Years Eve revelers that is the most important.  Happy to report that all the cubs are home in their beds and alive at dawn.  Low hurdles to be sure but pretty damn important nonetheless.

It is a great day in the ATX already.  Brilliantly sunny, not a cloud in the sky.  Only 39F but supposed to get to 70F today.  Going to be a bit colder for the rest of the week.  We shall see.

Dear and beloved friends, each new year is a new beginning.  We all shed our 2013 snakeskins, molt our shells and enter the new year like freshly manufactured organisms with a clean slate upon which to write.  Grab your chalk, Old Sport.

The Big Red Car is hoping for a new paint job in 2014.  [Please, Boss.  Awww, come on.  I deserve a new coat myself in the spirit of a dash of molting, no?  Boss?  Boss?]

Oh, well, The Boss will do what The Boss will do.  But for the world, the Big Red Car wishes for the following.

Peace

The Big Red Car prays that the world will find peace or that peace will find the world.  That the wars and oppression and violence that man visits upon himself will wither and die.  Please, God, bring us peace.  Let peace overwhelm the world and may we stop wasting lives, money and energy on the work of the Devil.

Competence

The Big Red Car wishes for the Obama administration a measure of simple competence.  It has been MIA for way too long.  You have had enough time for OJT (on the job training), let’s try competence as an alternative.

Let’s attack each and every challenge facing the governance of our great Nation as if there were no political or partisan considerations to be weighed, measured and baked into the solution.

Hey, Republicans, this goes for you also.  Get it together.

Truth

Let’s make truth the gold standard.  [Uhhh, Big Red Car, it always has been.  Duh.  Get it together, Big Red Car.]

Let’s stop trying to spin shit to one’s advantage.  Let the truth marinate in sunlight.  Let it speak without interruption.

Let all politicians rediscover truth and make them best friends.

Work

May you have good work to do and may it be worthy of you and your talents and energies.

Heal our Nation’s economy and let it create jobs that are worthy of our people.

If you work with your head, may you find an avocation that puts you to bed with your muscles taut and tested.  Sleep like an honest hard worker.  The good kind of tired.

If you work with your back, may you find a good employer who values your work and compensates your fairly.  One who anticipates your needs and who sees your welfare as an essential element in the success of his company.  Work hard for that company.  Ride for the brand as they say in cow country.

May every head of any family have the pride of having taken care of their family through the sweat of their brow.  Let this dignity and pride drive the next generations.

Prosperity

May you and our Nation prosper.  May we be good stewards of our economy and drive it to be productive and bountiful.

Let’s stop making war on success and spread the formula and opportunities far and wide.

May your income increase and your expenses decrease.  Save your money and invest wisely.

Love

May you find delirious love in all things.  The kind that shortens your breath and creates heat and light and true affection.

Know that you deserve this.  It is waiting in ambush.  Go looking for it.

Love others like you deserve to be loved and in that reflection let your goodness multiply the benefits.

Good v evil

As good wrestles with evil, put your thumb on the scales of good and justice.  Do some small thing to make evil’s charge more difficult and ultimately unsuccessful.

Speak the truth.  Look evil in the eye and spit in its face.

Do good deeds and pay it forward.  Be your own individual rain drop in a torrential downpour of goodness.

Military

Treat the military with the same dignity and respect that you would if our enemies were at the end of your driveway.

As the wars wind down, don’t throw the veterans out the door and wait until they are needed again.

They are our sons and daughters who have risen to the call to water the tree of liberty with their blood on our behalf.

Honor their sacrifices.  They did it for YOU.

Vanquish our enemies

Let’s see our enemies vanquished.  Kind of a bad thought on an otherwise inspiring and uplifting day.  But, let’s keep it real.

Let’s kill our enemies.  Let’s throw their corpses on the ash heap of history.  Let evil receive its own just rewards and let’s do it quickly.

You

Which brings us to YOU, Old Sport.  Know this — 2014 will be YOUR year.  It will be the best year of your life and it will be scary good.  This is the year it all comes together.

This is the year you land the quadruple Lutz and do it with style.

Go to work knowing that 2014 is your year and be humble when the great stuff that is going to happen actually happens.  Make it look like you’ve been in the end zone with the ball in your hand before.  Because it is going to happen, Old Sport.  It is going to happen.  Make it so.

But, hey, what the Hell do I really know anyway?  I’m just a Big Red Car.