Catching Idle Butterflies

Every journey . . .

. . . begins with a single step.

Who said that? I'm too lazy to look it up.

Have a few different subjects to write about, so my apologies making your brain jump around a bit.

I finally printed out all 333 pages of my novel to begin rewriting. Last night I started bleeding over what I want changed with a sparkly purple inked pen. To my surprise, I'm crossing out a bunch of stuff, not to shorten the book, but to change the scenes enough it will add more suspense.

I'm excited about the changes, though. Good thing, because if a writer isn't excited about what he or she writes, neither will the reader.

At the same time I write this, I'm downloading an update for my Palm PDA that will correct the new Daylight Savings dates. I added it up a few days ago. This year it begins on March 11 and ends November 11.

That's 8 months! We spend more time on the wrong time than on what the sun and earth used to tell us. Hell, why don't they force us to be on DST all year, instead of messing with our internal clocks twice a year? I just got used to being on real time, and now we have to go and screw with it again on Sunday.

Some of you like DST, and for you I'm happy. For me, though, especially living so far north and having long days to begin with, it's pointless.

Besides, I don't like the government messing with the clocks because it believes I can't conserve my own energy usage.

Last night Dave and I went to a couple's house (Cindy and Buck) for dinner and to talk about home-brewing beer. Dave's been doing it for years now, and they're just getting started.

As with any get-together, politics entered the conversation. I won't get into much of it, but Buck made a very interesting - and valid - point:

"Here we are going into countries to so-called spread freedom, while at the same time our government is chipping away at ours here at home. It doesn't make much sense."

No. It doesn't.

Note: If you want to debate this, go for it. I ask only one thing of you. Don't blame it all on the President. There are others equally, if not more, responsible. He is but one man with only a certain amount of power. He still has to answer to Congress, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the US citizenry. Our President only gets away with as much as we and the other branches of government allow. That's true of Bush, of every president prior, and whoever comes after.