With a pending deadline of December 31, there are only a couple days left to get your Minnesota Vikings legacy bricks.  These bricks will be part of a Vikings ship platform that fans can meander through outside of the U.S. Bank Stadium complex.
​
Artist’s renderings from the Vikings website look like this:

​

Darn, I really wished I would have ordered the one with the logo. Oh well, I am happy with what I got.
Note, there are some limitations on what you can say, just to keep everything kosher.  I ordered my brick a long time ago, in fact, I was one of the first group of people to order.  I only hesitated long enough to come up with the perfect message and then I ordered it.  I will have more information on that during a special announcement in January.  Sometime around Jan. 21, I’d say.


Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!

One thing many human beings have in common in this world are challenges to live up to other people's expectations.  Sometimes we are willing participants in creating those expectations and sometimes we are not.  Consider celebrities or political figures or being born into a family, whether they are poor or royalty, or marrying into one, for better or worse.  Maybe it's a job that appeared to be something it was not.  On the contrary, perhaps the employee appeared to be someone he or she was not.

Could it be that many of the world's problems are caused by people not being able to be themselves?  When someone can't be themselves or feels they need to behave a certain way to appease someone, it can lead to deceit and trickery, hiding and lying and contribute to copious amounts of unnecessary drama in the world.  It doesn't have to be handled that way, but oftentimes it is.

I am wishing all of you a year of being comfortable in your own skin and being happy to be who you are!

So here we are on the last square of the 2012 game board.  The tendency for our society is to reflect on what went right, what went wrong, and how we can do it better next year.  Kind of like the end of a book and the subsequent analysis of it.  Tomorrow we start a new book, metaphorically speaking.

It’s hard to know what the title of 2013′s book will be until later, but I suppose we could put a title on 2012′s book now.  Of course, we all have a different title for our books.  Mine would probably be called “The Realignment” or maybe “The Awakening” to describe the clarity I experienced this year.  Things I haven’t seen my whole life suddenly became clear to me.  It’s like the debris in the water settled and I could finally see to the bottom of the lake.  I’d say that was a pretty good year to have been the beneficiary of that life reward.

We can think about the theme we would like 2013′s book to be, but only so much of how the book will be written is in our control.  In my opinion, it’s kind of like this.  You can steer the car but you have very little control over the traffic.  The goal is to steer the car the best that you can, knowing that everyone makes mistakes.  So try not to be too hard on yourself or others.    That makes me think about New Year’s Resolutions.

I am one of those people who stopped making giant New Year’s Resolutions a few years ago.  I really didn’t see the point in it.  They say that around 90% of people break their resolutions within a few weeks of making them. “Doomed to failure” say psychologists.  That just sets people up to feel bad about themselves. This is to be distinguished from goal setting which is an entirely different thing.  I think writing down goals and dreams is a very worthwhile activity.

Why not make some resolutions you can try to keep?  Maybe choose something that is a little more reachable?  Here are some I’ve undertaken in previous years and they’ve been fairly successful for me.  These are just ideas, but you will get the drift.

Try to stop using disposable bags.  Take re-usable bags or boxes to the grocery store for shopping.  I keep them in the back of my car.  It took awhile to get into a regular habit but now I rarely use plastic or paper bags in the store.

Turn off the water while I’m brushing my teeth.  I still have to work at that one but I keep trying.

Oh, ok, so there’s only two.  That I can think of anyway.  Well that’s kind of embarrassing.

Here’s one I’m going to try next year.  Come up with a positive expectation for the day before I step out of bed.  Maybe I’ll write it down before I go to sleep so I don’t miss it on a day I’ve slept too late.  I’ll start off easy at first.  Tomorrow’s will be “wish for a Happy New Year.”

If you really insist on making a big New Year’s Resolution and haven’t come up with anything yet, consider picking one from the top 12 resolutions of 2012.

1. Losing Weight
2. Getting Organized
3. Save More and spend less
4. Enjoy life to the fullest
5. Stay fit and be healthy
6. Learn something exciting (I personally like this one.  It’s fairly ambiguous and easy to say you achieved.)
7. Quit Smoking
8. Help Others in their Dreams (oh, they must mean help others achieve their dreams, not head over to so-and-so’s dreams and lend them a hand which might be hard to do.)
9. Fall in Love
10. Spend more time with family (they must not be related to my family.  Just kidding family!)

Here is the source for that information, if you want to see more statistics:

http://www.statisticbrain.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/

If none of these ideas appeal to you, perhaps you could say that your resolution is to keep your resolution (any resolution) for one week.  The above website says that 75% of people keep their resolution for the first week, so then you can call it a success.  My goal is success and doing whatever is necessary to be successful.  Successful people = happy people = happy world, or something like that.

Well, the clock is ticking so I’d like to say that I am hopeful everyone out there has some positive things they can remember 2012 by and I also wish you a smashing good time tonight and a very happy morning tomorrow!  Happy New Year’s Eve!