To celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, my wife, Linda, and I went to see NYC for the week of 8 - 12 November. I had been once before, but Linda had never been there. We had a fabulous time! We had good weather, mostly in the 50s with wind but no rain. We saw all the main tourist sights: Empire State Building at night, Macy's, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Times Square, The Hershey's and the M&M stores (Linda loves her chocolate!), Wall Street, Chinatown, Little Italy, Metropolitan Art Museum, Natural History Museum, Rockefeller Center with tour, Top of the Roc, the horse-drawn carriage ride through Central Park, two Broadway shows (Phantom of the Opera, which was truly spectacular, and Chicago). We rode a lot of taxi rides. We were surprised how many New Yorkers said they had never seen the major tourist sights. Thousands and thousands of people make a special trip to NY to see these sights and these folks live there and never have bothered to go see them. Weird! Come on, folks, if you live somewhere with tourist attractions, go see them!
As soon as we returned to Shreveport, both Linda & I came down with a bad cold with major congestion. Yesterday, after eleven days of coughing and blowing, Linda went to the doctor and got a shot, some antibiotics, and prescription-strength decongestants. She feels better already. I guess I will have to go see the doctor later today. This cold has been hanging on for twelve days now and doesn't seem to be going away by itself. I hate colds!
This week is busy: today (the 23rd) is our 25th anniversary; on the 24th Linda turns the big 6-0; and then the 25th is Thanksgivings. My daughter Ginny will be here Wednesday but leaves early Thursday morning to attend the Dallas-N.O. NFL football game later that day. I think Linda went to the doctor's yesterday just because she wanted to be able to clean the house and do all the cooking for Thanksgivings. She decided she has too much to do to be sick any longer!
Hope everyone has a great Thanksgivings. Overeat and enjoy yourselves!
Cheers!
Harry
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Sunday, October 17, 2010
"Aldric and Anneliese" should be out early 2011
My next novel, which is an action/adventure/romance set in the sixth century, tells a tale of nation building, battles, betrayal, tragedy, desperation, love, redemption, revenge, chivalry, honor, and more. The main characters are Reinhardt (a clan leader with a dream), King Edmund (son of Reinhardt and chosen to fulfill his father's dream), Aldric (Edmund's friend, champion, and protector), Nikolaus (Edmund's cousin), Queen Ursula (Edmund's queen), Dietmar (Ursula's brother), and Lady Anneliese (Aldric's true love).
"Aldric and Anneliese" is in the final stages of being edited by Barbara Ehrentreu, one of 4RV's finest editors. Hopefully, A & A will be published early in 2011. Please put it on your calendar to check it out then. The front cover has been designed already. Aidana WillowRaven (see: http://willowraven.weebly.com/1/post/2010/10/cover-art-design-for-harry-gillelands-aldric-anneliese-in-final-stages.htm ), who is VP of Operations, as well as Art Director at 4RV Publishing, designed this fabulous cover. I'm getting excited about having "Aldric and Anneliese" published in just a few more months!
Cheers!
Harry
Monday, October 11, 2010
Secretariat
My wife, Linda, and I went last Friday to see the newly released movie, "Secretariat". We both thoroughly enjoyed it. It was the equal to the Seabiscuit movie we thought. We highly recommend the movie.
Seeing the movie inspired me to write this acrostic poem:
A Horse Of Legend
Speak his name with reverence.
Everlasting fame is his.
Consider his record times with awe.
Racing may never see his equal.
Even the experts stood in wonder:
Triple Crown-winning champion
A “tremendous running machine”
Record 2:24 on dirt, mile-and-half track
Incredible 31-length victory at Belmont
A king among thoroughbred racehorses
The fastest racehorse that ever raced
Cheers!
Harry
Seeing the movie inspired me to write this acrostic poem:
A Horse Of Legend
Speak his name with reverence.
Everlasting fame is his.
Consider his record times with awe.
Racing may never see his equal.
Even the experts stood in wonder:
Triple Crown-winning champion
A “tremendous running machine”
Record 2:24 on dirt, mile-and-half track
Incredible 31-length victory at Belmont
A king among thoroughbred racehorses
The fastest racehorse that ever raced
Cheers!
Harry
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
We bought pecans today.
This week we planted a red maple tree in our backyard. Maybe it should have been a pecan tree instead. My wife Linda uses a LOT of pecans each year in her baking and cooking. She puts pecans in various cookies, casseroles, desserts, pecan pies, plus serves them roasted. She uses a lot of pecans each year. This past year she ran out of pecans. Today we restocked our freezer with new pecans. We bought 40 pounds of shelled pecans. They are really tasty, plump pecans, but, my oh my, were they ever expensive. They were over $41 per 5-pound bag of the shelled ones. And we bought 40 pounds! That came to $344 for a year's supply of pecans. We should have planted a pecan tree in our back yard!
Cheers!
Harry
Cheers!
Harry
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Busy week!
This is turning out to be a busy week for my wife and me. Yesterday I bought a red maple tree from the nursery that is supposed to be planted in our back yard sometimes this week. Today we had a man out to the house to see about repairing our Corian kitchen counter top that has a small crack near the cooktop. Tomorrow we are getting our newly purchased Laz-y-boy sofa, loveseat, & recliner-swivel-rocking chair delivered. Then we hope to get our old furniture picked up by Goodwill later in the week. We are also trying to get a half cord of seasoned oak firewood delivered and stacked later this week. Plus Linda baked some gluten-free almond cookies and shipped them to my sister in Georgia who just came home from the hospital after surgery on her broken hip. Tomorrow Linda is baking a pound cake for my 92-year-old father in Macon, Ga and shipping it to him. Thursday Linda is going to Arcadia to shop & eat lunch with her Aunt Nellan. Friday morning we go to estate sales. Then Saturday is football! I hardly have time to work on the editing of the book I am editing from 4RV Publishing. Busy week!
Cheers!
Harry
Cheers!
Harry
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Signs of fall -- Hummingbirds abound
Tomorrow, 22 September 2010, is the first official day of fall. Here in Shreveport we are still having near record high temperatures in the upper 90s to 100 F. It doesn't feel much like fall! However, there are signs that fall is coming. College football is underway. On our last trip over to Ruston Linda pointed out several trees already beginning to turn yellow. And, the hummingbirds are swarming around my three sugar water- feeders tanking up for their migration south. All summer we have only two or three that visit these feeders at any one time. This morning we counted at least ten, maybe twelve. Five were sitting and drinking from one feeder alone. I love this time of the year when we have so many hummers visiting the feeders. Before too much longer they will all have left, not to be seen again until next June. I guess I had better enjoy them the next few weeks! I am ready, I said READY, for cooler weather to arrive. We had a near-record hot August, followed by another record hot September. Bring on the cold weather!
Cheers!
Harry
Cheers!
Harry
Monday, August 23, 2010
Bailouts Saved America From 1930s-like Depression
Alan Blinder, former vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve, and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics and former advisor to Republican presidential candidate John McCain, have reported that econometric models confirm that the bailouts and stimulus packages saved America from suffering through another 1930s-like Great Depression. That is, the bailouts and stimulus packages worked!
Without the bailouts of the five “too big to fail” financial institutions, followed by the stimulus packages, they predict the real gross domestic product would have fallen a stunning 12 percent instead of the actual decline of only 4 percent. Twice as many jobs (some 17 million) would have disappeared, instead of the job loss actually suffered. Unemployment would have reached 16.5 percent instead of the 9.5 percent it did.
Furthermore, while the current deficit in fiscal year 2010 will hit $1.4 trillion, this amount is considerably LESS that what it would have been without the bailouts/stimulus packages. With no bailouts/stimuli, there would have been a severe lowering of tax revenue coupled with increased social spending requirements. Without the government spending that was done, they project that the 2010 deficit would have been over $2 trillion, the 2011 deficit would have reached $2.6 trillion, and the 2012 deficit would have been $2.25 trillion. Obama’s and the Democrats’ spending actually has resulted in lowering the deficit compared to what it would have been without this spending!
I have long maintained that history will show that the Republican administration of Bush/Cheney was a financial disaster of epic proportions for the American economy. They came into office with a yearly budget surplus under Clinton and ran it into a $1.1 trillion yearly deficit when they left office, if the costs of their two wars are included as rightly they should be (instead of keeping them as “special appropriations” outside the formal budget). They more than doubled the total federal deficit from $5 trillion to more than $10 trillion. Their policies let corporate greed run wild, causing the housing crisis, followed by the Wall Street derivatives crisis. They brought the American economy to the brink of national bankruptcy (a fact few Americans seem to fully comprehend!), endangering the world economy as a result. Please recall before he left office Bush began the bailouts with a $400 billion bailout to try to save the country’s economy.
Anyone who came after Bush/Cheney would have been faced with this choice:
Do nothing and watch America slide into a Great Depression with millions bankrupted, with 17 million jobs being lost, with every American who had a mortgage or credit card balance held by one of the endangered banks having to pay off their balance in cash on the spot or declare bankruptcy as those banks fought desperately to avoid going under, see the deficit soar by trillions more than it has, watch the American dollar fall in the world market and be replaced as the world monetary standard by the Euro, driving up the cost of all imports (say oil), etc OR Try to save the economy by bailing out the five “too big to fail” financial institutions and passing stimulus bills to shore up the economy. Obama did what anyone who was president in 2008 would have had to do. Yes, even McCain and Palin! History will blame the previous Republican administration for causing this disaster and will credit the Obama Democratic administration with saving the country. Ask any economist.
How can Republicans keep getting away with fooling their tea-baggers that Obama is at fault for running up the deficit and causing the economic crisis? Are they really so ill-informed that they don’t see what happened to the economy under Bush/Cheney and how Obama has done what was necessary to save America? Is Fox Entertainment (not really News) that effective in brainwashing them? I just don’t understand Republicans. And those ‘gentlemen’ will most likely succeed in regaining power to have another go at ruining America while transferring more wealth from the middle class to the elite rich class. Will the blind never ‘see’ how the Republican Party is duping them and playing them for fools? If you don’t make at least $300,000 a year and you vote Republican, you just flunked your IQ test!
Source: Newspaper column entitled "Washington saved America's economic hide" in The Shreveport Times, editorial page on Monday, 23 August 2010, by Froma Harrop, of the Creators Syndicate, Los Angeles, CA.
Without the bailouts of the five “too big to fail” financial institutions, followed by the stimulus packages, they predict the real gross domestic product would have fallen a stunning 12 percent instead of the actual decline of only 4 percent. Twice as many jobs (some 17 million) would have disappeared, instead of the job loss actually suffered. Unemployment would have reached 16.5 percent instead of the 9.5 percent it did.
Furthermore, while the current deficit in fiscal year 2010 will hit $1.4 trillion, this amount is considerably LESS that what it would have been without the bailouts/stimulus packages. With no bailouts/stimuli, there would have been a severe lowering of tax revenue coupled with increased social spending requirements. Without the government spending that was done, they project that the 2010 deficit would have been over $2 trillion, the 2011 deficit would have reached $2.6 trillion, and the 2012 deficit would have been $2.25 trillion. Obama’s and the Democrats’ spending actually has resulted in lowering the deficit compared to what it would have been without this spending!
I have long maintained that history will show that the Republican administration of Bush/Cheney was a financial disaster of epic proportions for the American economy. They came into office with a yearly budget surplus under Clinton and ran it into a $1.1 trillion yearly deficit when they left office, if the costs of their two wars are included as rightly they should be (instead of keeping them as “special appropriations” outside the formal budget). They more than doubled the total federal deficit from $5 trillion to more than $10 trillion. Their policies let corporate greed run wild, causing the housing crisis, followed by the Wall Street derivatives crisis. They brought the American economy to the brink of national bankruptcy (a fact few Americans seem to fully comprehend!), endangering the world economy as a result. Please recall before he left office Bush began the bailouts with a $400 billion bailout to try to save the country’s economy.
Anyone who came after Bush/Cheney would have been faced with this choice:
Do nothing and watch America slide into a Great Depression with millions bankrupted, with 17 million jobs being lost, with every American who had a mortgage or credit card balance held by one of the endangered banks having to pay off their balance in cash on the spot or declare bankruptcy as those banks fought desperately to avoid going under, see the deficit soar by trillions more than it has, watch the American dollar fall in the world market and be replaced as the world monetary standard by the Euro, driving up the cost of all imports (say oil), etc OR Try to save the economy by bailing out the five “too big to fail” financial institutions and passing stimulus bills to shore up the economy. Obama did what anyone who was president in 2008 would have had to do. Yes, even McCain and Palin! History will blame the previous Republican administration for causing this disaster and will credit the Obama Democratic administration with saving the country. Ask any economist.
How can Republicans keep getting away with fooling their tea-baggers that Obama is at fault for running up the deficit and causing the economic crisis? Are they really so ill-informed that they don’t see what happened to the economy under Bush/Cheney and how Obama has done what was necessary to save America? Is Fox Entertainment (not really News) that effective in brainwashing them? I just don’t understand Republicans. And those ‘gentlemen’ will most likely succeed in regaining power to have another go at ruining America while transferring more wealth from the middle class to the elite rich class. Will the blind never ‘see’ how the Republican Party is duping them and playing them for fools? If you don’t make at least $300,000 a year and you vote Republican, you just flunked your IQ test!
Source: Newspaper column entitled "Washington saved America's economic hide" in The Shreveport Times, editorial page on Monday, 23 August 2010, by Froma Harrop, of the Creators Syndicate, Los Angeles, CA.
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