Randall’s Ramblings, January 4, 2026

Hope everyone has a healthy and prosperous new year! All the best!!

The Michigan Wolverines (18) football team played Texas (13) in the Citrus Bowl on New Year’s Eve. Unfortunately, the Wolverines were upset 41-27. They finished the season at 9-4.

The Detroit Pistons had a somewhat bad week,  dropping two consecutive games, although they managed to win one. They are still in first place in the Eastern Conference’s Central Division with at 25-9 record, six games ahead of second place Cleveland who they play tonight. Hopefully, Detroit can get back to their winning ways!

The Michigan Wolverines basketball team continued their winning ways, beating the McNeese Cowboys 112-71 and the USC Trojans 96-66. The Wolverines are still ranked second in the nation and have a 12-0 record. Meanwhile, the Michigan State Spartans (9) split their two games, beating the Cornel Big Red 114-97, while losing to the Nebraska Cornhuskers 58-56. The Spartans are now 12-2.

“Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it’s the answer to everything. … It’s the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it’s a cactus.” — Enid Bagnold. Compliments of https://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/72-of-the-best-quotes-about-writing.

So who was born on this date in history? Let’s find out who in the writing world was born on January 4th, the 1st Sunday of 2026 and the first one in January. (Compliments of https://www.onthisday.com/birthdays/).

Franciscus Aguilon, Belgian Jesuit physicist, mathematician and architect (book on Optics “Opticorum Libri Sex); Jakob Balde, German poet (Jephthe); Sir Isaac Newton, English physicist, mathematician and astronomer (Gravity, Laws of Motion); Paul-Louis Courier, (de Mere), French classical scholar and pamphleteer; Jakob Grimm, German philologist, folklorist and editor of “Grimm’s Fairy Tales; Louis Braille, French educator and inventor of a system of reading and writing for the blind; Isaac Pitman, English teacher and inventor of Pitman shorthand (Stenographic Soundhand); Casimiro de Abreu, Brazil, poet (Meus oito anos), novelist and playwright (Camoes e o jau); Svend Fleuron, Danish writer; Alfred Edgar Coppard, English short story writer (Black Dogs & Other Stories); Wilhelm Lehmbruck, German painter, poet and sculptor (Seated Youth); Max Eastman, American critic, essayist, and editor of The Masses; James Bond, American ornithologist and expert on birds of the Caribbean (Birds of the West Indies); C. L. R. James [Cyril Lionel Robert James], Trinidadian historian (The Black Jacobins), journalist, intellectual and socialist; Bobby Tulloch, Scottish ornithologist, and writer (Bobby Tulloch’s Shetland: An islander, his islands and their wildlife); Robert Lindsey Jr., American journalist and author (The Falcon and the Snowman, Ghost Scribbler); Gao Xingjian, Chinese-born French novelist and dramatist (Nobel laureate, 2000); Doris Kearns Goodwin, American historian and writer (Team of Rivals, No Ordinary Time); Alicia Garza, American writer and civil rights activist (co-founded #BlackLivesMatter); and Nabila Jamshed, Indian humanitarian, public speaker, and author (Wish Upon a Time – The Legendary Scimitar).

Any names familiar to you? There were three for me this week: Sir Isaac Newton, Jakob Grimm, Robert Lindsey, Jr. Whether you recognize anyone on the list or not, if today’s your special day I hope you have a great one!

My Published Work

I found out on New Year’s Eve that Mission: Yemen is now on the semi-finalist list for the 2025 Chanticleer International Book Awards for Global Thrillers.

The finalists should be announced some time in late February. I’ll keep you posted.

My Work in Progress

I’ve gone back to a story I began a few years ago, Abydos. The first three chapters have been posted to one of the online subscription writing sites I use. So far, there have been twenty-one chapter reviews. As always, plenty of positive suggestions to improve my writing.

As a reminder, here’s what the story is about:

History professor Sylvie Burness and her husband, Charles Wilkie, a renowned Greek archaeologist, are seeking a new project after spending years cataloging Celtic sites throughout the United Kingdom.

Long fascinated with Egypt, Charles proposes an excursion to one of the lesser-known locations, Abydos, a historic city that played an important role in ancient Egypt. Sylvia agrees and together they plan their trip.

Unbeknown to them, an unethical antiquities group called Guardians of Shadows are using one of the Abydos temples as their hideout.

Will Sylvia and Charles be able to evade this group and escape with their lives or will they be entombed in Abydos for generations?

This brings us to an end for another week. I hope you found something of interest. If you have any suggestions for a topic you’d like to read about, please let me know. Until the next time, thank you for reading and hope you drop in again.