BILL BLOG
Thursday January 1, 2026
It’s the first day of the New Year. 2026 it is.
YESTERDAY
It was a quiet New Year’s Eve here at the Whyte House, with one highlight being a phone call over to Germany to wish our daughter Heather a Happy Birthday.
She and her husband were in Cologne checking out a castle and a Christmas market, a castle that my wife and I saw when we took a Rhine River Cruise a few years ago with our friend Brent Burns, and a ship full of Parrot Heads.
And my wife and I are certainly excited that come New Year’s Eve 2026, she and Casey will be stateside to ring in 2027.
HERE IN NASHVILLE
Some 220,000 stayed out late for the New Year’s Bash downtown that featured headliners Jason Aldean and Lainey Wilson.
Me? I was sound asleep before they dropped the “guitar note”.
I’m glad they don’t drop a danged banjo, as that kind of noise would wake me.
A VETERAN
The other highlight yesterday was when George Gilard-Bery gave me a call from Memphis. George was a veteran’s whose story I wrote into a song a few years ago in Memphis at a Freedom Sings USA writers retreat at the VA Hospital in Memphis.
George was calling to thank me personally for producing his song that we wrote with the use of AI that made the song that I recorded with just an acoustic guitar into my phone recorder, sound like a full-blown Nashville-produced record. He told me he played it for a lot of family and friends, and they were all so appreciative and blown away by George’s song. Here’s a few lyrics of his song titled “Nobody Told Me.”
Nobody told me if you got arrested
That you could join the Air Force instead of the Marines
If I’d have known, I wouldn’t have two purple hearts
But nobody told me
Nobody told me that Paris Island
Would be an intimidating hell for 12 long weeks
You can get wounded in Vietnam on your first patrol
Oh, but nobody told me
It was just so great to hear his voice on the phone on New Year’s Eve. This is George and his wife.
Just another reason I love being part of the Freedom Sings USA organization.
SONG OF THE DAY
For the first “Song of the Day” in 2026, I’m going to choose “Better Live It Up,” which Brent Burns recorded. It’s a reminder not to take any days for granted… get out there and live. As this song says, “You’d better live it up, before they put you down.”
HEALTH NOTES
Word is that drugmakers are set to raise their prices on 350 medicines in 2026.
A new large study suggests that statins, cholesterol-lowering drugs, reduce the risk of death for those with diabetes.
The Washington Post is reporting that flu cases are rising with a new strain that makes older people sicker.
HERE’S YOUR SIGN
I think I’ll not throw a 12-roll of those bad boys into my grocery cart. Nope.
AI PAYS
OpenAI pays, and pays big. $ 1.5 million in stock-based pay has been distributed to every employee, including 4,000 of them. That’s 34 times more than the average tech pay.
Wonder how big their Christmas bonus was?
DON’T SEE THIS EVERY DAY
A meteor streaked over the St. Louis Arch last night. Pretty awesome. Check THIS VIDEO out. Taken from the Arch-cam.
Pretty cool way to ring out the old year.
HOT HOUSING MARKETS
According to Realtor.com, these are the 5 fastest-moving housing markets right now.
Lancaster, PA, Springfield, Massachusetts, Reading, PA, Kenosha, WI, and San Jose, CA.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
From Oprah Winfrey:
“Cheers to a New Year, and another chance for us to get it right.”
TODAY
Feet up on the couch, some really big College Football Bowl Games today.
Happy New Year.
Comments
Post a Comment