Dan Ryan

Saving Christmas is what every child wants to hear or read Sam and his friends receive a visit from Jingle, Santa Claus' elf who tells them that a train with all of the children's letters to Santa has been left behind at the station. Jingle wants Sam and his friends to help save Christmas. The group hook up the little train and fly to the North Pole where they deliver the children's letters to Santa. Sam Sam is a four year old boy whose imagination sees his cubby friends, Marzipan (his faithful cat - who also talks); Spoon, Dish and Tock (the cubby wall clock) come to life and join him on his adventures. This early learning book is superbly illustrated and children will want to read the story over and over, as they too will imagine sharing Sam Sam's adventure.

The General: is a continuation of the story begun in War of the Nations. Admiral James Caldwell discovers an unpublished manuscript written by his father in 1895. This ninth book in the Caldwell Series describes in vivid detail what may have occurred in the United States Military during the life time of Hiram Ulysses Grant, better known as Ulysses Simpson Grant. The narration is by his friend, Admiral Jason Caldwell, born in Beaufort, South Carolina. Ulysses Grant will graduate from West Point, serve in the regular army, resign after the Mexican War, and volunteer for service when the war breaks out in 1861. The historical events of 1822 through 1868 are carefully followed. The imagination of the author provides rich characters in powerful settings from the rivers bordering the State of Illinois to the western theater battlefields of the Civil War. The time old love story between a man and a woman is woven throughout the book when the young West Point officer, marries the sister of his West Point room mate. They have four children, their oldest son, Jesse, is named after his grandfather and accompanies his father (General Grant) on many of his campaigns.Scenes are set carefully with attention to accurate research of the towns along the Ohio River, as well as our Nation's Capital circa 1857 - 1868. The People's Standard History of the United States written by Edward S. Ellis and published in 1895 by Western Book Syndicate and copyrighted by the Woolfall Company have provided background materials, maps of the period and needed information on how the federal government was organized and functioned during this period of history.

This book reflects the many changes that computer graphics technology has under gone in my working life time. I graduated from a teachers college in 1963. There was not a computer of any kind on campus, imagine my shock when my very first college employer (Omaha University) required me to know something about an IBM 1620 and a key punch machine The first part of this book is an account of that experience at Omaha University and later the Nebraska of Nebraska at Omaha. When I moved to Clemson University in 1976, they had a computer and a large Calcomp Plotter but nothing else in the way of computer graphics hardware or software. So, except for a few short sections in chapter one, this history begins with the events of 1963 and proceeds to document what happened to computer graphics for engineering design and manufacturing as practiced by an engineer or technician at Clemson University. The next section of the book contains my experiences as a self-employed consultant (1993-present), my consulting started in 1984 after I completed a PhD in Data Systems Engineering. In 1993, I left full time teaching and became Professor Emeritus at Clemson University. I wanted to start my own consulting company, DLR Associates. Oddly enough, most of my first consulting in computer graphics took place in the Omaha and Pennsylvania areas - not South Carolina. My contacts came from my paper presentations at various ASEE meetings and the annual national distance learning conferences held at the University of Maine. I took a year off to accept a Fulbright Scholarship Nomination from the University of Rookee, India. I was listed as an international member in the Who's Who Directory of the computer graphics industry. In a nut shell, that is who I am. Why, then, did I decide to write this book?