I’ve been fortunate enough to not be working at Casey’s when the clock strikes midnight on the following year — for 2 years in a row. I won’t be there in a couple of days.

I’ve tried to make it a point to do something for New Years.

I started this a few years back (2010 into 2011) when I took the Metra from Elburn to Chicago to try to spend the New Year at the Billy Goat. Turned out that it was closed, so I had to look for other plans. I eventually spent the evening at a restaurant on Wacker Drive.

The next year was spent closing down Shell, the following year after that was my intermission from Shell, and I closed down Shell the year after that.

For the first time in a while, I had NYE off from Shell. So I decided to think of something unique. I had my grandfather’s truck between cars that I owned and used it to make a trip into Michigan. I celebrated 2015 at a bar in Michiana, Michigan; and then went to the actual state line and made a stupid video of me time traveling between years. After I did that, I rang in 2015 AGAIN at a bar in Michigan City, Indiana.

I rang in 2016 at The Cooler. That was also the night I last took a sip of any kind of alcoholic beverage.

I an working December 31 (a Saturday) from 5 a.m. to noon, and then I am working January 1 from 5 a.m. to noon. That means I am working 5 hours into 2017. So if I want to do something, I need to go to sleep when I get off work on Saturday and wake up in enough time to be awake for the New Year AND my soon-to-come shift.

As much as I would love to do something, I just don’t know what.

LIVE THINKING

Of course, the perfect NYE would be with a beautiful woman on a date somewhere. But I don’t have that right now 😦

Been to Chicago already.

Wonder if some of my Facebook friends have any ideas.

Starting to think my 2015 idea was the ultimate idea.

I’d be open to whatever any friends or family of mine would like to do with me. Until then …

Damn, starting to think about doing the double New Year again.

Don’t think I can swing it this year if I need to be back in town at 5 a.m.

Thinking about a few places up in my favorite neck of the woods … Jo Daviess County.

Wonder if anything is going on at Nora Bar? Just Googled the Nora Bar and found out about a nearby tragedy about someone losing their life on their way to the Nora Bar at 3:30 a.m. for a drink. (For those that don’t know, Nora Bar is — or was — open on Friday and Saturday until 4 a.m.). That could very well mean that there will be nothing spectacular going on there that day — and/or I won’t be able to leave at 3:30ish to head back to Rock Falls. Strike that, not going to Nora Bar.

Really debating about whether to head to that neck of the woods, stay in town, or go visit a college town such as Iowa City or Dubuque.

I guess if I know something in town that will have people I know, it’ll be okay to go there.

But I’m really thinking about starting a new tradition for New Year’s Eve of going somewhere different every year. I don’t do much traveling like I had been because of work commitments. The last real road trip I went on was in July down in Lincoln, but everything else since then was just an offshoot of a newspaper assignment (such as driving by Wrigley Field).

So unless there is something back home with friends and family that entries me to stay local, I think I’d like to head to either Iowa City or Dubuque. Both are college towns 2 hours away, and it will be a different experience for me. Since my night at Sully’s in October, I have slowly come to find out that I find it easier to socialize at places where I know nobody than places where I do know people.

It would also give me an easy opportunity to use some New Year’s pickup lines without being too local. if you know what I mean 😉