Here’s a quote from Andrew Sullivan’s blog that echoes very closely what I’m feeling about President-elect Obama:

Nothing in my life has actually changed in the 30 minutes since it was announced Obama will be our next president. I have the same bills, the same amount of money in the bank, my dishwasher is still broken, and my 5 month old beagle won’t stop peeing on my carpet. Everything in my life is exactly the same as it was 30 minutes ago; and yet I feel as though everything is different.

I feel so much hope.  I feel so much pride. I feel like my one vote was a single drop of water in a great Tsunami of change. I feel like I was one of a million voices screaming in the night, " I love my country and I’m taking it back!" I’m so proud of the country that I love and have so much hope in my heart that we can together heal the wounds that have been such a source of pain and anger to us all.

I know Obama isn’t going to fix the economy overnight, I know he won’t be able to provide healthcare to all Americans by February ‘09. I know Obama isn’t a Messiah who four years from now will have turned this country into a fabled utopia. But I also know Obama will make moral decisions. I know Obama will try to unite where others try to divide. I know Obama will help to make America the beacon of hope it once was to others. I know that at 27 years of age, I witnessed one of the most important and hopefully glorious chapters in American history.

I know hope.

Ok, I really don’t have an excuse. August was busy with two conventions back-to-back. I went to GenCon in Indianapolis and participated in the writing track there. Then I went to WorldCon in Denver, which was a great time. I was really not enthused about going at the beginning of the trip, but in the end, I’m glad I went. I tackled a few critiques of friends’ novels after that, which, along with all my other writing endeavors, has been keeping me very busy.

Probably the most time consuming activity, however, (other than sleeping and work) has been politics. Hi. I’m Brad, and I’m a political junky. I can’t seem to get enough of this soap opera that has unfolded over the last nine months. And I’ve stumbled across a handful of websites that update many times per day. I’m practically glues at times, switching between them, seeing what the latest scuttlebutt is on McCain or Obama. I don’t like to foist my views on others, but in case you’re wondering, I’m pro Obama.

I’ve been working on my latest novel, The Winds of Khalakovo, quite a bit. I finished rewriting and polishing the first ten chapters so that I could send it off to my agent. That’s done, and I’m working on the rest now. I’m hoping to have a good second draft done by the end of this month. No, I’m committing to it! You heard it here first.

I’ve also had a few nibbles on some short stories, but nothing confirmed yet, so I’ll hold off posting any news for now. More info as I have it, but keep your fingers crossed for me.

Ironically, I sometimes don’t realize how much stress I’m internalizing about what we’re doing to this planet until something like this comes along:

Researchers have made a major advance in inorganic chemistry that could lead to a cheap way to store energy from the sun. In so doing, they have solved one of the key problems in making solar energy a dominant source of electricity.

Daniel Nocera, a professor of chemistry at MIT, has developed a catalyst that can generate oxygen from a glass of water by splitting water molecules. The reaction frees hydrogen ions to make hydrogen gas. The catalyst, which is easy and cheap to make, could be used to generate vast amounts of hydrogen using sunlight to power the reactions. The hydrogen can then be burned or run through a fuel cell to generate electricity whenever it’s needed, including when the sun isn’t shining.