William and Kate

This is the day after. William and Kate are finally married. Now they are Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. It was a wonderful wedding. We taped it. Seven hours of commentaries and other not so interesting stuff. We watched much of the seven hours in fast-forward. Kate was a beautiful bride, but aren’t most brides beautiful? Even in wedding gowns that don’t cost $50,000.00. One of the women they interviewed, they were dressed in wedding gowns, just for show I assume, said you can buy a dress for 2 pounds, after another one said she paid 20,000 pounds.
Who the heck were those two women sitting behind the Queen? Those hats! Wow! And that blue dress or skirt one of them was wearing…all bunched up. Whoever designed those must have had a few drinks too many or been on drugs. Speaking of hats. I haven’t seen that many ugly hats in one place for a long time. I’m surprised some of them stayed on the heads of their wearers.
Coming back to the wedding dress. Some designer/commentator said that there will be many imitations in the near future. Why? What’s wrong with other designs? Don't designers have their own ideas anymore, as ugly and ridiculous as some of them are (I'm talking about the designs!).
It confirms my theory that most people are monkeys…monkey see, monkey do. Or possibly sheep. One sheep does something and all the others follow. Just look at the young people these days. Tattoos, rings in ears, noses, lips, eyebrows, and places I don’t want to mention. Torn jeans, clothes two sizes too large, pants falling off their butts, crotch down to the knees (it is beyond me how they can even walk), baseball hats with the shield in all directions except the correct way…to the front. Unless you’re playing baseball, then you turn the shield to the back. They want to be individuals, free spirits, but they don’t seem to realize they are only following a trend most of their peers are following. No individuality there.
At least the weather held out. It didn’t rain and it allowed the couple to ride their open coach. It turned out to be a fairytale wedding. Apparently, 2 billion people watched it on TV, trying to escape their mundane life for a short time and dream about a world where everyone is happy, dream about kings and queens, princes and princesses. Many young girls probably dreamed about meeting their prince.
Fortunately, no crazies tried to interrupt a beautiful happening so many people enjoyed by creating chaos and committing violence. Our world is full of troublemakers and people who will not allow others to live in peace and harmony. Maybe some tried to destroy a few joyful hours, luckily without success, but we won’t hear about that.
Let’s hope this Royal Couple stays together and enjoys a happy future. Maybe some day they will be the King and Queen of England.
Fairy-tales still come true.

Game of Thrones

I watched the second installment of 'Game of Thrones' yesterday. Wow! What a show. George R. R. Martin's fantasy book series 'A Song of Ice and Fire' made into a TV series. What an excitement it must be for a writer to see his/her novel come to life in a movie or TV series. The show has been renewed after 4.2 million viewers tuned in to watch it at its debut April 17. There are at least 20 one-hour shows. I can't wait to see them all. I am hooked.
We are also watching 'The Borgias', a series about the Pope and the Church. Great Show. Apparently, the show is also quite popular and has been renewed for a second season.
Watching these shows is a wonderful change from all of the cop-shows aired these days. Mind you, we like 'Blue Blood' and 'The Chicago Code', also 'NCIS: Los Angeles, 'The Mentalist'.
I've taped a few episodes of 'Camelot' but we haven't had a chance to watch them yet. Another King Arthur remake but it is supposed to be a good show. We'll see.
My wife and I we love those type of shows. We watched 'The Pillars of the Earth' and 'The Tudors' and we were sorry to see them come to an end. It is a good thing the movie makers are always coming up with some good new shows. Of course, let us not forget the writers who wrote these stories in the first place.

Free pdf copy of Outpost Epsilon

Anyone interested in receiving a free pdf copy of Outpost Epsilon please send me an email to hegro@shaw.ca. If you would like to read an excerpt go to my website Herbert's World or go to Melange Books, LLc.

Iceworld

I managed to finish editing Book Six in my Xandra series. It is 67,600 words long. Now I have to do one final reading just to make sure there aren't any mistakes I missed and to see how the story flows without being too critical about grammar or sentence structure. I'll probably miss some small errors, it is inevitable. Our brains are strange and wonderful with their ability to overlook certain things and fill in the blanks. I hope I'll catch most of the possible mistakes (maybe all?). I like to make it easy for the editor.
My book 'Outpost Epsilon' is featured today on NightsofPassion.wordpress.com together with a few Melange Books Authors. The reason for that is that my trilogy 'Lizard World' will be released this summer and fall. Outpost Epsilon is the forerunner to the trilogy. If anyone is interested send me an email and ask for a pdf copy of 'Outpost Epsilon'. It is free for the asking.
I will also give away a few pdf copies of Book One of the Xandra series, 'Daughter of the Dark', since I've been talking about Book six. Just send me an email to hegro@shaw.ca

Is Spring really here?

This is supposed to be Spring. Is Mother Nature playing games with us or is she getting old and senile? We woke up to an inch of snow this morning. Here is what our backyard looked like.



This is what it looked like a week ago:

The Xandra, Book Six

I finished the last chapter of Book Six in my Xandra series today. I even came up with a title. Iceworld. The book is 67,000 words long. But now comes the job of reading it from the beginning and editing it.
Book Seven is already in my head but it will have to wait a bit before I start with it. There are a few domestic things to be done first. Tomorrow I will cut some twigs from the Pussy willows. They are in full bloom right now. Just ready for Easter. And then I have to filter and bottle two carboys (46 liters) of wine. The wine (one red and one white) has been aging for a few months now.
We went to the movies today and watched True Grit. We were a bit disappointed. The movie was slow, too much talking. Had trouble understanding the actors. They did not pronounce their words clearly. I find that a lot these days. People mumbling their words, in the movies, on TV and in real live. Even the music these days is hard to listen too. No outstanding melodies, and most of the time I can't understand the words. It can't be my hearing or can it be?
I have no trouble understanding the old songs or the actors in the old movies.

Of Juncos and Robins

Juncos and Robins. Not the title of a new novel. Juncos are a subspecies of sparrow. The ones we have here in Manitoba are the Slate-colored Juncos. They have a light gray belly and dark-gray, almost black, hood and back. They usually come in small flocks to our place and hang around for a few weeks, picking seeds from the ground, and then they are gone until in the Fall, when they come back to pick the seeds from flowers we grow.
I have no idea where they hang out in the summer. Anyway, a few have been here now for a couple of days or so. Last year I saw the first ones around the same time.
A pair of sparrows has moved into our birdhouse. I’ve seen them making out on the perch in front of their home. A good sign. Last year we had only two pairs breeding in the house. We must have had around thirty sparrows coming to the feeder and spending their time among the shrubs and flowers in the summer, but they all disappeared over the winter. Perhaps they found a warmer, more protected place, like an old barn. I don’t know. For a while we had only one lonely guy coming to feed, and four Chickadees, also 3 pairs of Bluejays the odd time.
Today I saw my first Robin. Poor fellow was looking for worms, but the ground is still too hard for the worms to appear. We have quite a bit of water standing on our property and there is still some snow. It will probably melt away in the next few days.
I just checked my archives and found that I saw the first Robins March 29 in 2010. Either they are late this year or, which is most likely, I just haven’t seen them before today.
A couple of days ago I watched a pair of Bald Eagles courting each other above our house and I also saw a small flock of Pelicans and a large flock of Blackbirds. They’re all coming back to spend the summer.
It is cloudy today. It rained yesterday and last night. A good time to stay home and watch a movie. We don’t really need the rain, because of the flood.

The first ducks

I saw a small flock of ducks yesterday. Also a large flock of blackbirds a few days ago. It must be Spring. The water in the Red River is rising rapidly and a few houses north of Selkirk are already under water. There is more to come as the snow melts and when the water comes down the Red River from the US.
My article published at AllVoices about the burning of the Qur'an and its consequences in Afghanistan attracted only 31 readers so far. I guess people don't care that much any more about these things. Every day we hear upsetting stuff on the news. We get hardened to it. The price of gas jumped ten cents over night. I filled up the gas tank of our car yesterday and it cost me $3.50 more than it would have cost me had I filled it one day earlier. That probably upsets people more than the murder of a few people in the Middle East by a bunch of fanatical religious nuts. Go figure.
I'm coming to the end of Book Six in the Xandra series. So far I've written about 64,000 words and I'm quite happy with the story.

Religion and Peace on Earth

So this fanatic preacher burns a copy of the Quran. A despicable act to be sure, an act of hatred and intolerance, but all he really did was burn a book. We don’t even know if it was an actual copy of the Quran. For all we know it could have been a copy of a novel he hated. Obviously, this man hates many things.
On the other side of the world this act spawns more acts of hatred, intolerance, and even violence. A mob of religious fanatics murders innocent people and even cuts the head off one person. This is much worse than just burning a collection of printed pages bound into one volume. This is such a savage act and hard to imagine, much less accept. There has to be something wrong with religious leaders who teach their followers such hatred of people of other faiths.
History is full of acts of violence committed by religious fanatics. We’ve had wars fought over religion, women accused of being witches and burnt at the stake by the Church, men tortured and thrown into prison because of their beliefs, and so forth.
Nobody has a direct line to God, if in fact there is one, no matter what the religious leaders preach. The religious books were written centuries ago by men claiming to be inspired by God. Who says what they wrote is the truth? Maybe they made it all up? Stories spawned by their fertile imagination. I’m a writer. I spin tales of the imagination. Some people may not like what I write, might even condemn me for it, because they believe it is something you shouldn’t write. That’s okay, it is their right, and it doesn’t bother me. I don’t hate them for it.
I won’t say what the so-called Holy Books teach are lies. I would never make such a claim or accusation, because I don’t know the real truth. I am not an Atheist, I was raised as a Christian, but that doesn’t mean I have to believe everything I was taught without question. Nobody knows the truth. Every religious group claims what they believe is the right religion, the only one. Everyone else is wrong and has to be hated, shunned, or outright killed. That to me is the greatest sin and crime. It is not something civilized people do. It is barbaric and ignorant, and it belongs to the history and growth of the human race.
What we have to teach in our Schools, Churches, Temples, Synagogues, Mosques, and whatever we call our places of worship is tolerance and love for our fellow human beings, no matter what they believe or look like. After all, we have to share this planet with each other; there is nowhere else to go. We should concentrate on making it a better world to live in, a world with clean air and water, a place where people don’t go hungry and have a place to sleep in peace, a world without crime and violence. I know it is a dream but it is possible. We just have to work at it.

Interview at Unwritten

Check out my interview today at Unwritten. Just click on 'Unwritten' and it will take you there.