A father (Tom) hears his son Richard say, "school is ok except I don't like learning numbers or arithmetic." After dinner Tom sits with Richard and tells him a story of a kingdom long ago where the use of numbers is forbidden by King Kcaj and of the chaos that ensues because of it. As Tom's story unfolds he hopes to instill in Richard a sense of the importance of learning numbers, counting and arithmetic along with other life lessons.

What started out as letters of reminisce between two mining partners resulted in the writing of this book. I thought I might share my experiences with others who may never have the opportunity to commercially mine for gold. Unfortunately gold mining is not limited to cleaning out sluice boxes. Of more importance is getting gold into the sluice box. Arriving at the time when you can clean out the sluice box is preceded by many experiences with the local people and the mining crew members.

There is a small planet some 150 trillion miles from Earth and if someone on Earth sends a message to this planet at approximately 40,000 miles per hour, it will take 500,000 years to deliver it. For all of the obvious reasons, including one that the sender doesn't even know for sure the planet is there; there will not be a lot of communication taking place. But in the loosest of terms communication is possible, but it requires a sender who will be extinct hundreds of thousands of years before the message is delivered, doesn't know who they are sending it to, and a recipient who has no idea a...

During the spring of 1918 on the Western Front, an accident occurred involving a large reconnaissance balloon with its two forward observers. The accident resulted in the large balloon breaking free from its mooring and was adrift to the east over German held territory. The accident was no fault of the observers, but for several reasons the U.S. Army declared that the observers were deserters. The story Balloonatics is about these two observers and their fate due to being set adrift over hostile territory as well as being wanted by the allies for desertion. They were in the precarious...

The content of this book consists of 130 different topics, which could be considered controversial by some and not by others. This is totally dependent on the mindset, beliefs and perceptions of the individual reader. To some degree these factors are addressed in this book. The author of this book is not claiming the topics of this book are even accurate. They are only perceived to be accurate by him due to his limited knowledge, experiences, what he has witnessed and what he remembers as to what he has read. From this, he has developed his personal perception of the topics. There are also...

The backdrop for this story is the little known battle of Attu between the Japanese and the Americans during World War Two. Attu is a small island in the Alaska Aleutian Islands, closer to Russia than mainland Alaska. This story is of two Army Airforce Majors who experienced a great deal more of Russia than they liked after they crash landed in remote eastern Russia. For two years they encounter sub-zero temperatures, lack of food, wild animals, Indians, Russian deserters and the Japanese army. Although these two Majors are fictional characters facing such hardships, there were many soldiers...