Descending a ramp to get the hell out of the Florida Citrus Bowl, “The Victors” made its way through the bowels of the old stadium and into my pissed-off ears. Michigan, which had been beaten by a Division I-AA team a mere four months earlier, had just beaten my beloved school by six points, and I was in no mood for any Big 10 revelry. It was about 4 p.m. on Jan. 1, 2008, and my year was off to a shitty start.

Lucky for me, 2008 was a leap year, so I still had 365 days to turn it around. And indeed I did, but not solely by my own volition. The following helped:

The Alligator staff and the hours we spent at budget meetings, on deadline, playing trash-can basketball, putting out newspapers, etc., etc.; the fleeting moments I got to see my girlfriend in between all of the aforementioned madness; graduating; getting a job; The Gaslight Anthem; “Wall-E”; Florida 49, Georgia 10; Florida 45, Florida State 15; Florida 31, Alabama 20; indulging myself with a MacBook and a bathrobe; covering an Obama rally on the eve of Election Day; and the West Coast: Disneyland, the Moz homestead, and driving up the Pacific Coast Highway, celebrities’ beachfront Malibu homes on one side and the Santa Monica Mountains on the other.

Onward and upward, to England, a trophy made of Waterford Crystal, a haircut — a year of downright refusal…

Tuesday was my last day of work at the Alligator. Thursday was our semesterly banquet and party. Now it’s all over, and I’m starting on a career of working at newspapers at which the amount of profanity and nonsense probably won’t be tolerated. I’m going to miss it, and I chronicled my sadness and appreciation in a column Wednesday.

We had a pretty good run.

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This photograph ran on the front page of the newspaper I’m now editor of on Nov. 17, 1992.

I found it going through archives on Wednesday night.

Since our last episode, I made it back from Munich alive (but without my watch; lost it on the plane), finished the semester without going into a diabetic coma from all of the Coca-Cola on the sleepless/sleep-little nights and have been named the editor of The Independent Florida Alligator.

It’s been a whirlwind. Now I’m home for Christmas in Port Orange, listening to a great Morrissey bootleg from a recent show in Boston and hanging out with my dog, who just found a Scooby Snack she hid hours earlier. Needless to say, we’re both pretty content.

I’ve still got a few more presents to buy, but I bought myself one today: “Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72.” I was looking for journalistic inspiration before I start my new job, and since “All the President’s Men” is back in Gainesville, I figured, Why not buy a book by a man who I would never, ever emulate? It’s been a great read so far though. I wonder how HST would do on the campaign trail right now, going into grocery stores with the Clintons and Magic Johnson. He’d probably just drop dead near the shopping carts. I’d also like to know how Lewis Black is holding up, but that’s for another time I suppose.

For now, I need to get to making application packets to send out to newspapers tomorrow, if in fact the post office is open on Christmas Eve.

And tomorrow I really, really need to experience Clark W. Griswold:

Hey! If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I’d like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people and I want him brought right here, with a big ribbon on his head, and I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is. Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where’s the Tylenol?

The gift that keeps on giving the whole year.