It's been a year already. It somehow feels like 10 years that went by in the span of two weeks. A 10-year span filled with festivals and crime coverage and Occupy Iowa City and school redistricting and landfill fires and restaurant openings and Newt Gingrich.

In short, it's been a blur. I sometimes have very strange dreams.

When I first started with Patch a little over a year ago, it was a constant struggle to find anyone who knew this site existed. The Iowa City Police spokeswoman was dubious about sharing information with me. An exasperating number of phone conversations involved explaining that I did not work for Match.com.

"No, no, Patch.com. Patch like a Nicotine patch."

(Maybe not the best thing to associate the site with, but people got it.)

Today, I only work at Match.com part of the time, so clearly some more outreach needs to be completed. But that's fine by me, because the joy of this job has been getting out and meeting all of you, and hopefully as result producing content that you find valuable in your daily lives. To all of you who are reading this, whether you just found the site today or have been with me since the beginning, I would like to extend a hearty thank you for coming to Iowa City Patch.

Thanks!

I will continue to work to improve the site to be better for you, and plan on starting a regular column updating you on how you can make this site work for you. To further this goal, I want to emphasize that this site belongs to you as much as it does me, so if you would like to suggest changes, ask questions on how to get involved, or give me a well deserved critique, drop me a line at stephen.schmidt@patch.com.

Also as a part of that thank you, I would like to extend an invitation to a party we will be having to celebrate a year of Iowa City Patch. The party, currently scheduled to run Friday from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Mill will not feature free booze (sorry), but it will feature free pizza and cake. We also plan on featuring door prizes, free Patch swag, and an opportunity to meet world famous journalist B.A. Morelli. Everyone is welcome to come!

In addition to the party, this week we will be running some of our favorite Patch stories and photos produced both by you and by me, so watch out for those. Today I will assemble a gallery of some of my favorite photos from the year.

It's gonna be a fun time. I guarantee it. Also, if you fill out our online questionnaire, we may be able to find you your soulmate.

Here's to another year.

Peace, Love, and Souuuuuul.

~ Stephen