My Little Girl is Turning 1

I may not post much here for the next couple of days because tomorrow my daughter is turning 1 year old. If feels like time has moved so fast as I look back on things, though at the time (especially at night) everything seemed to be moving so slow. Here is a link to my post the day after my daughter was born It’s a Girl and one wishing for an Owner’s Manual.

To tide you over, here is a picture of my daughter from a long time ago:

Oh, and here is a link to my latest Ficlet Strange Things are Afoot at The Rusty Tailpipe (you didn’t think I would post without pimping some of my writing, did you?).

Amazing Quote from “America’s Mayor”

Politics Alert: Anyone who isn’t interested in politics should probably sit this post out. I don’t like to talk about politics much here, but I couldn’t avoid this one.

I saw this quote the other day on Mike Shea’s blog, and it just blew me away. Rudy Giuliani had a speech the other day and dropped this doozy:

“Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do”

No this wasn’t a Saturday Night Live sketch. This is what he actually said. Here is a link to the source at the New York Times. Freedom is about the willingness to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do? Are you kidding me. Well, shucks, I guess us every day non-authority types are just too dumb to question anything those authority types want us to do (or not do). Never question the President, or Congress, or whomever. They are authority, dang it, they know more than us and we should simply cede to them. Just one question: is this the freedom they keep telling us the terrorists hate about America?

And this man wants to be president of the United States of America?

Critique Circle

I think I mentioned here that I’m working on a novel.  If not, well, I’m working on a novel.  It’s going slow (which doesn’t surprise me with the amount of free time I have and my inexperience writing novel), but I think it’s going well.  I hope to finish Chapter 1 soon.  Anyhow, I was figuring since I will have this novel, wouldn’t it be nice to have some people read it and critique it.  Right now, I usually give my writings to my wife and my parents to read, and although they are helpful, they really don’t give a lot of criticism, which I totally understand.  Therefore, I decided to sign up at Critique Circle.

I have not posted anything there yet, but from what I gather you earn credits by critiquing other people’s work, and once you earn enough credits you can post something of your own.  I have heard some good things about this site, so i am hopeful it will help me with my novel.  Have any of you used Critique Circle or any other online writing critique sites?  What were your experiences?