Oh, and while your at it...

As my wife likes to point out, I'm not very good at multi-tasking. Shortly into our marriage, she discovered my inability to read the newspaper and listen to her at the same time. I'm pretty good at walking, and I'm pretty good at chewing gum, but if I try to do both at once, one of the activities is apt to get slighted.

For the most part, I've adapted pretty well, though. When Susan is talking, I listen, for the most part. I don't chew gum if I have to be somewhere in a hurry, and if I have the desire to chew some gum, I normally try to find a place to sit down. In our homebuilding business, we build one at a time, and finish it before moving on to the next. It might not work for everyone, but so far it has worked for us.

Today, while we were preparing for the Centerville Archway Days Parade, I saw Tom Saunders, my friend and opponent for the District 54 House seat in this fall's election across the way, so I spit out my gum and walked over to talk to him about the letter I had received from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources earlier in the week.

The letter, which I discussed in a recent entry, informed me of a new law that requires anyone who works on or discovers a building or part of a building that was built before 1870 to stop work and notify the DNR. I was righteously indignant when I asked Tom if he had voted for the bill, and he was brutally honest when he said he didn't know.

It seems so many bills come up each session that many get passed before they can be analyzed, or even read. I don't think that is how it is supposed to work.

There are a few limited things that government ought to do, and the legislature should concentrate on finding the fairest way to fund those limited duties.

It would be a lot easier for them if they just didn't try to do so much.

It would be a lot easier on us, too.