Today is the day we switch from Eastern Standard Time to Eastern Daylight Saving Time. We all know that the purpose of changing the clocks is to transfer an hour of daylight from morning to evening. Science has proven that we use less electricity that way because we are more likely to turn a light on in the evening than in the morning. If it’s light one hour later, that’s one hour less that the light is on, so we save money. That way we have more money to build bombs to drop on people in countries we have invaded…scratch invaded…countries where we have come to their aid to give them a better life.

Anyway, not turning on the light in the morning has its drawbacks. This morning, when we were getting ready to go on our normal Sunday run, I reached for my running shoes and they weren’t where I usually keep them. Then I remembered that I ran in them Thursday and left them on the front doormat to dry. I had forgotten to put them back in the closet, so I went out, grabbed them, and put them on, all in the dark…remember, science says don’t turn on the light so I didn’t. I’ve felt really good on my recent runs and, about a mile into the run, I started thinking I was running with a couple of two-by-fours strapped to my feet. I looked down and I had mistakenly grabbed an old, worn out pair of running shoes that I use to mow the lawn at the cottage.

Of course, I’m too cheap to buy work shoes, and the old worn out running shoes are fine for that kind of use. After they’re worn out from running and have no cushion left and half the soles are worn through, I further break them down by walking around in wet grass and they go through several “wet-dry” treatments. Needless to say, my feet weren’t in the best of shape when I got done. Thankfully, I was able to use Brian’s Father’s Day present, a foot massager, to nurse them back to health. Just think…a foot massage with no paybacks.

I picked up nine cases of empty beer bottles from one of the guys in the Kalamazoo brewing club this past Wednesday morning. Most of them still have their labels. Most people wouldn’t care about that and would just put a sticker on the bottle over the old label, telling what kind of beer was in it. You know me well enough to understand that wouldn’t do. So I’ve been cleaning off the labels and washing the bottles. When I use them to brew, I’ll wash them again and run them through the sanitizer. With all the work it takes, these free bottles become costly based on time spent. If I were working, I’d go through that calculation, decide that my time is worth more than the cost of new bottles, and turn these in for the bottle deposit. But when you aren’t working, your time is worth nothing, and that’s why I’m washing bottles.

I usually don’t talk politics…well, maybe I do sometimes…and I never talk about how I agree or disagree with U.S. foreign policy…well, except for the first paragraph today…but I’m completely fed up with the Michigan/Florida primary fiasco. In Florida, the state Republican leaders moved their primary in violation with the national Democratic party rules and made their primary not count. Without picking on only the Republicans…in Michigan the state Democratic leaders did the same thing with the same result.

Now there’s a national debate as to how to fix it. In my humble opinion, it can’t be fixed. In all fairness, if we have a “do over”, we’re rewarding political arrogance and someone (us) will end up paying millions of dollars for it. If we don’t have a “do over”, Florida and Michigan voters won’t help decide the party nominee, and the party will probably not win back enough support from the disenfranchised voters to win in the national election. The sad thing in all of this is that the average voters on the street…you and me…are the victims. We had nothing to do with the changes, except for the fact that we elected these jack^&&*& to represent us, and if we re-elect them again, we deserve what we get.

Just (Sixties Protests Are Back…Vote The Bums Out) Jack