Minor League Baseball Standings : All North American Leagues, Through 1999 Review

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(More customer reviews)Content-wise, this book is virtually identical to The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball (Johnson & Wolff) at more than twice the price, though arranged a bit differently. This book is organized by league and includes cumulative summaries by team and major league parent (and best and worst seasons, for active leagues), while The Encyclopedia is by year and includes individual statistical leaders by league and notes of interest for each year; the former has various summaries in appendices, while the latter has a section on all-time minor league records and individual records by league; the former has an extensive alphabetical index, while the latter has sections organizing teams by league and state, and leagues by year; the former has no text, while the latter has several pages of text covering minor league history.
The guts of both books - minor league standings - are the same. Both exclude the standings of non-signatory leagues from the 19th century. Both contain some (the same?) inaccuracies where wins do not equal losses for some leagues - an appendix in this book includes a list of such instances, most of which are attributed to "unknown". I checked various editions of The Sporting News Baseball Guide and was able to find the correct standings in all cases since 1970 - while the errors in The Encyclopedia may have been typos, their recognition without resolution in this book clearly points to less than thorough research. In addition to the Guides, The Sporting News itself has carried minor league standings throughout much of its history, and is available on microfilm in large libraries and from SABR.
All in all, I was very disappointed in this book. I had hoped that it would fill in the data missing from The Encyclopedia, but instead ended up with an expensive copy. Though most of the data in this book is accurate and interesting, it adds little new material - get The Encyclopedia if it's still available, or wait for its next edition.

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This comprehensive reference is a complete source of information on the teams and leagues that have comprised minor league baseball in North America. The work contains team names, franchise relocations, major league affiliation and final standings for over 400 separate minor league entities dating from 1883 through 1999. The book is divided into two sections: active leagues through 1999, and inactive leagues. Each section contains final standings by season and cumulative rankings by both franchise and affiliation. Appendices include year-by-year ranking by major league franchise (all leagues); cumulative ranking by major league franchise (all leagues); leagues ranked by games played; missing information or instances where standings are not balanced are noted. Indexing is by team name and franchise.

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The Healing ADD Power Program Review

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(More customer reviews)I picked up this program at a local educational resource center. I was amazed at the amount of detailed, helpful information this program contained. I am a therapist who just happens to have a wife and two children with ADD, so I thought I was well informed on the topic, but this resource was so enlightening. I like that it was based on cutting-edge scientific research, and yet provided practical, appliable tips to help every type of person with ADD. It combined medical information, but also included homeopathic treatment, exercise, nutrition, etc. It is good for both the layperson and the professional. I would recommend it to everyone who has interactions with people who have ADD (which is everyone!) Excellent resource.

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The Healing ADD Power Program is a comprehensive guide thatgives you clear answers, providing steps for healing and hope.Through this program you will learn specifically what type or types of ADD are present in your child or yourself and learn specifically what you can do about it!The program outlines what kinds of medications usually work for each type and why, along with non-medicinal alternatives and treatment regimens that can help bring brain function into balance.The Healing ADD Power Program also gives valuable strategies for dealing with difficult behaviors, family conflict, school, and work interventions, and even sleep patterns.This extensive workbook also includes checklists, questionnaires, and summary sheets for those with short attention spans as well as a 2-hour DVD program that illustrates each of the ADD types.

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Fast Boats and Fast Times: Memories of a PT Boat Skipper in the South Pacific Review

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(More customer reviews)I am fascinated with PT boats and their crews during WW2. I guess it goes back to McHale's Navy tv shows (in b/w no less). How come we don't feel the same way about our troops and our country today? It starts with the president, folks.
Sorry for editorial but we are so far away from the country we used to be in WW2. Read on about real heroes and a country that loved them.

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In the gruesome battle for Guadalcanal, David Levy was skipper of PT 59, one of several Patrol/Torpedo boats that were among the first U.S. Navy vessels to engage Japanese warships at the beginning of World War II. Dave's wartime experiences in the South Pacific marked one of the most transformative periods in his life. In the Navy he quickly learned to assume a "deal-maker" persona that helped him get along with fellow PT boat skippers, many of whom, like future president John F. Kennedy, came from privileged East Coast families. He got to be known in the Navy by the nickname "Hogan," famous as "the guy to go to," who could get things done, organize parties well-stocked with liquor and women, obtain supplies when none seemed available, and, in those early, desperate days of the battle for Guadalcanal, also perform in the top ranks of competent PT boat skippers. The PT boats were small, maneuverable, and fast, and they were given the seemingly impossible mission of regularly engaging and sinking the much larger and more numerous destroyers, cruisers, and battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Dave's PT 59 was in the thick of all the action. These brave PT boat skippers, many of whom were graduates of Ivy League colleges or the U.S. Naval Academy, were a hard-partying group, and their "fast times" during World War II epitomized the intensity with which life was lived by those who, like Dave, were fully engaged in the deadly struggles of the Pacific War. Dave's wartime experiences shaped the rest of his life, a long journey that has included a successful law career, annual ski trips to his vacation home in Aspen since the early 1950s, and fishing all over the world.

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Original Corvette 1968-1982: The Restorer's Guide 1968-1982 (Original Series) Review

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(More customer reviews)I found this book as well as Falconer's other corvette reference books well stocked with great looking original corvettes. You don't just get pictures though. He accompanies the photos with lots of information and data associated with each production year. What I like most of all is it appears most of the corvettes are tagged and street driven, not pampered show cars. I will keep this book around for a long time.

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The third generation Corvettes, built from 1968 through 1982, are the most affordable and frequently driven 'Vettes, barring the new models. This all-color guide is written and designed for enthusiasts attempting to determine which parts, accessories and colors will restore their cars to factory-original condition. A huge selection of color photography depicts all editions from these Corvette model years - including the ultra-fast L88 454 and ZL1 427, in addition to the standard 350 - while carefully detailing engines, interiors and bodies. In addition, Corvette authority Tom Falconer provides factory records, comprehensive specifications, detailed parts lists and period literature to present a definitive originality guide.

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Pontiac Firebird V8, 1970-1981 (Haynes Manuals) Review

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(More customer reviews)Terrible, as far as manuals
I own a 1979 trans am, well over 100,000 of these were produced that year alone. this manual has a few, maybe 3 or 4 things that I could use to work on my car. There was no engine harness diagram drawing. Most, if not all of the pictures are for a second gen Camaro.
My advise is to save your money, pick one up at a yard sale, but don't pay more than 2 bucks for it.

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Haynes disassembles every subject vehicle and documents every step with thorough instructions and clear photos. Haynes repair manuals are used by the pros, but written for the do-it-yourselfer.

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Performing Libertinism in Charles II's Court: Politics, Drama, Sexuality Review

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(More customer reviews)Focusing on the five most famous or infamous libertines of the 1660's and 1670's (Rochester, Sedley, Etherege, Wycherley, and George Villiers duke of Buckingham) Webster reads this selective group of libertine's real-life performances and their libertine plays as attempts by their authors to both fashion themselves and fashion new kinds of characters (often based on real-life libertines) to contest normative codes of subjectification. Webster focuses on the political aims and effects of libertine self-fashioning/performance, but the libertines are slippery figures and libertine drama can be read in many ways and made to mean many contradictory things.
Since each dramatist or poet uses the libertine discourse in a different way for different ends it is very difficult to say anything about libertinism that applies to all libertines. For instance the most famous play of the Restoration, _The Man of Mode_,was written by one libertine, Etherege, but loosely based on the exploits of another, Rochester. But Webster does not consider to what extent the play is simply a means for Etherege to make money off of his more famous friend's notoriety. For Rochester writing and libertinism were both socially marked aristocratic activities; but for those who were not born to the aristocratic class and who made their living by their pen, like Etherege and Wycherely, the practice of libertinism could be interpreted as a means to an end; the end being social advancement at court, and a steady income from the theatre. Though each libertine had a separate political agenda, some were Whigs and some Tories, none of them were interested in toppling a political system upon which their status depended. So the libertine was political, but not a political radical as Webster contends. The libertines like everyone else at this time were caught up in the debate as to where power should reside: with the people or with a monarch or somehwere inbetween (ie parliament). Interestingly enough it was the libertines who had the least status that were most loyal to Charles II while the libertines with titles tended to side with the Whigs. To me this seems to be the most interesting of the many libertine paradoxes but Webster leaves it largely unexplored.
Webster is convinced that libertinism waned because the critics of Charles II began to view his libertine friends and the libertine theatre that he sponsored as agents of disorder (a misperception in Webster's view) instead of as agents of reform. The villainizing of the libertine began in the late 1670's and continued throughout the long 18th century. Webster contends that the libertines were very influential but since they never mounted anything like a united front or offered anything in the way of clear political directives (George Villiers would be the exception here as he did have clear political ideas and ambitions) its difficult to see exactly how they could have been perceived as politically influential. They were friends with each other and with Charles II but friends with important differences. Their individualism and their individual applications of a philosophy that was never strictly defined makes it very difficult to say exactly what libertinism meant to any particular libertine at any given time or exactly what the political ramifications of libertinism, if any, might have been. The libertines certainly were very popular in the aesthetic sphere but it is not clear how this kind of popularity translated into political influence.
What makes the libertine seem so attractive in some of the plays is that he appears to be a political free agent capable of determining his own life and unlike the other characters he seems capable of seeing life for what it is, but, in actuality as Webster reminds us, the libertine is very much a part of the social world and must maneuver within that world as it exists. Thus in many of the plays the libertine is portrayed as a strategist (or as Webster calls him a "trickster"). But he's also (often though not always) a character that realizes the limits of his own self-serving practices and at least gestures toward some kind of reform. The extent to which this gesture toward self-reform was a political comment on the reign of Charles II (and if it was a political coment what kind of comment it was) remains unclear. It is also unclear whether this gesture toward reform is genuine or strategic; the ultimate aim of the libertine is never spelled out. Critical reception of libertine plays has been as controversial as the plays themselves. For three centuries a debate has raged over whether the plays were meant to celebrate vice and folly or expose it and censor it.
As far as audience response to the libertine Webster has a theory for that too but very little real evidence to support just how the audience perceived libertinism as it was performed on stage. Webster argues that the character made people conscious of themselves as judges of their social and politicial worlds and of themselves and this is certainly possible and various versions of this view have been argued and forwarded by others, but its also possible that the public wanted quick fix solutions and were not particularly interested in the theatre as a forum for public debate but were more interested in the theatre as a place offering escape from the complexity and confusion of the social world, and the fantasy/illusion of independence that is roguish romance would have offered an attractive few hours of entertainment. Whether the plays offered a relief from subjectification or an analysis of it or both is uncertain. To what extent these plays are an accurate representation of the social world and to what extent they exagerrate or distort the social world and with what purposes/intentions those exagerrations/distortions are made, if that is in fact what they are, is unclear. These uncertainties inform all studies of the Restoration stage. Audience response like authorial intention is purely a matter of speculation.
Libertinism is effective as a critique of norms and status and power but it really offers nothing in the way of solutions to the age's anxieties about the unstable nature of these abstractions/constructions on which society rests and relies and with which it legitimizes itself; and thus the plays often end ambiguously. In his conclusion Webster discusses Jeffreys' 1994 play and the 2005 movie version of _The Libertine_. Even though the play and film end as ambiguously as the original libertine plays often did (as it is unclear whether Rochester's repentance at the end of the play/film is genuine or just a mock repentance) Webster elides this ambiguity which has been central not just to Rochester's mythos but to the libertine mythos in general. Webster does not acknowledge that there is ambiguity in this ending; he simply avoids it altogether and ends his book with the generality that the lasting appeal of the libertine is his unapologetic pursuit of pleasure which unnerves a society that is obsessed with containing sexuality in moral codes. This tendency to sweep away ambiguity with generality seems to be a habit of mind that informs many of his readings, including his reading of the ending of _The Man of Mode_.
*Webster is arguably more comfortable with his theoretical armature than with the plays themselves. Plus the omission of poetry (where sexual topics were treated with much more candor than was permitted on stage) leaves this study feeling curiously incomplete and shallow. Theres a lot of information here but also a lot of speculation. I found this book valuable because it does raise a lot of interesting issues even if I do not always agree with the readings of the individual plays or the much too pat conclusions.




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Performing Libertinism in Charles II's Court: Politics, Drama, Sexuality examines the performative nature of Restoration libertinism by reading reports of libertine activities and texts of libertine plays within the context of the fraternization between George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, Sir Charles Sedley, Sir George Etherege, and William Wycherley. Webster argues that libertines, both real and imagined, performed traditionally secretive acts, including excessive drinking, sex, sedition, and sacrilege, in the public sphere. This eruption of the private into the public challenged a Stuart ideology that distinguished between the nation's public life and the king's and his subjects' private consciences. Although this eruption was contained by the early 1680s, the libertine performances this book analyzes nevertheless played an important part in the history of English radicalism.

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Click: A Story About George Eastman (Creative Minds Biography) Review

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(More customer reviews)This 56-page book is obviously a children's book. Considering that George Eastman, the man who figured out how to bring the delights of taking photographs to everybody, was a bit of a boring story, the book does a decent job of making his story interesting to children. Kodak is one of the most famous brand names in the world. The originator of that name was a man who worked in a bank to support his widowed Mother. After failing to master playing the flute as a hobby, he took up photography. Doing photography at that time meant carting around 50 pounds of equipment including chemicals, glass plates that became the negatives, and a portable darkroom for quickly processing the pictures immediately after the photograph was taken and before the exposed chemically treated wet glass plates dried.
Eastman heard that the English had developed a process for making a dry coating for the glass negative plates. Eastman basically invented a similar gelatin process for making dry plates. It was very successful and made photography much easier. He then decided that rather than individual glass plates it would be easier if
the individual negatives could be put onto a roll. Later, he combined his rolls of dry coated film into a camera that could be bought inexpensively and once the pictures were taken, the entire camera was sent to Kodak for processing. The finished prints, negatives and a new fully loaded camera was sent back to the photographer. Eastman eventually made the process even simpler and quicker by making rolls of film that the photographer could reload into his camera so only the exposed roll needed to be sent to Kodak for processing and printing. Eastman believed in mass production via assembly lines and soon his Brownie camera was available at a price that even children interested in taking photos could afford.
The development of these chemical and industrial processes isn't exactly an exciting story to most children so the author also points out how George Eastman donated much of his fortune to good causes including MIT and Tuskegee, a school for black students that was struggling to survive. The author does a pretty good job making the biography interesting to children by including some of Eastman's hunting and fishing expeditions along with his interest in personally cooking for his expedition guests. Thomas Edison used Eastman's camera and film to develop motion pictures.
All in all, this is about as interesting an introduction to one of the important pioneers of photography that I've seen that will be able to capture the attention of a younger audience. Everyone has heard of Kodak, but few know the remarkable story behind the name or the importance of it to photography in all its forms.

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Follows the life and career of the man who revolutionized photography by developing a camera simple enough for anyone to use.

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Class Warfare: Besieged Schools, Bewildered Parents, Betrayed Kids and the Attack on Excellence Review

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(More customer reviews)The day before I wrote this review, New York Newsday published a telling story about education in New York City. Teachers in multiple subject areas were nearing open revolt over being forced to adopt the latest pedagogical fad, something called the "workshop model" that limits instructors to just ten minutes of direct instruction each period. Students are then supposed to work in groups for 25 minutes, after which the teacher is granted a five-minute closing. In some schools, administrators were actually "writing teachers up" for not adhering to the workshop model, the equivalent of a formal reprimand.
How can anyone teach chemistry or physics or math with just ten minutes of daily lecture time? Martin Rochester would no doubt happily cite New York's implementation of the "workshop model" as another instance of progressive miseducation. In his book CLASS WARFARE, Rochester takes on the progressive education establishment, represented in large part by school boards and university schools of education. In the author's view, the war is between traditionalist parents and progressive educators, and he sees the parents (and their children) losing most of the battles.
Rochester draws heavily on first-hand experience as an activist parent in the Clayton school district, near St. Louis, where he estimates he has attended 275 out of 280 school board meetings since 1988. He also bases his arguments on observations of students' work at University of Missouri - St. Louis, where he is a professor of political science. Over the course of five core chapters, he tackles the big issues of modern pre-collegiate education: ability grouping (or tracking), multiple intelligences theory, the self-esteem movement, "back to basics" versus fuzzy math and whole language instruction, and the teacher-as-facilitator model of constructivist education. In each case, he sees these approaches as lowering standards and expectations, teaching to the bottom and suppressing the top, and avoiding conflict and accountability. Rochester approaches each topic with an entertaining and informative mixture of published sources, expert opinion, and personal anecdotes.
CLASS WARFARE contains some powerful and important messages about the American public school system. Having said that, it is important to note that his message comes in a badly flawed package. To begin with, Rochester's approach is one-sided in the extreme, as if all progressive ideas were equally deleterious to American education, without any redeeming qualities. Having taught math in a New York City high school for six years, and being a traditionalist myself, I can say with absolute certainty that such a position is wrong.
Second, the author's tone is far too cynical, packed with bitter sarcasm, ad hominem attacks, and nonsensical slippery slope arguments that weaken his case. Instead of the balanced critical voice of a Diane Ravitch, Rochester comes off as a barely subdued version of Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly. Consider for example, his dismissal of Rousseau's views of pedagogy by accusing the eighteenth century philosopher of "abandoning all five of his children while they were infants," a typically Limbaugh-style ad hominem attack. Or his childishly petty categorization of a statement by Bob Clapp, an instructional technology specialist at U of M - St. Louis, as "clap-trap." Or, "if NCTM had told these folks to jump off a cliff, they would have done it, but not before telling us what a wonderful idea it was." Or that "some of the people behind these reforms may well have been hit in the head by one dodgeball too many when they were youngsters...." Or his corny adoption of the name "Deep Rote" to identify his insider source in the St. Louise school district.
Third, after spending seven chapters trashing every progressive notion about education from the last fifty or more years, Rochester's sudden call in Chapter 8 for a "balanced pedagogical paradigm" stands in sharp contrast to the preceding 220 pages of his book. More insidiously, his solution includes a strong but undefended recommendation for school vouchers, not on the grounds of pedagogy, but on the democratic grounds of increased choice. Perhaps his real agenda sneaks out in this last chapter when he (inadvertently?) refers to public schools as "government schools" (page 236) and when he says on page 227 that public schools "are likely to remain the primary educational service provider in America for years to come." Likely? One can hardly escape the sense that Rochester would prefer otherwise.
Prospective readers should take note that Encounter Books is a highly Conservative publisher, having produced attack books on Hillary Clinton, Noam Chomsky, and most recently, the environmentalist Judi Bari. Encounter is backed by the right wing Bradley Foundation (financial supporter of the classic right-wing smear book, THE REAL ANITA HILL by David Brock as well as THE BELL CURVE) and the Olin Foundation, among others. Nevertheless, many Conservative views on education have merit, and our national education system needs a healthy debate between traditionalist and progressive positions.
Despite its faults, I strongly recommend CLASS WARFARE. Read Martin Rochester's book with a grain of salt, and then do as he has done - attend your community's next Board of Education meeting.


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Jadine Review

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(More customer reviews)Julie Bigg Veazey has an excellent story telling skill and style, as she picks up from the first page the reader's interest in this seemingly ordinary character, Jadine Tomecelli. In a sequence of fast moving chapters laden with detail, Veazey begins to sculpt the character of Jadine by exposing her actions and packing an immense amount of depth into her personality. Being a victim of early abuse began to turn Jadine's disposition ever so slightly into experimental violence, then ultimately escalating to fully fledged killings, as we are taken on a journey of events of Jadine's deranged behavior. The book's episodes become chilling as she grows up through her high school years, changing her name to Jade, and seeks comfort in her friend Billy-John; an Indian boy nicknamed "Bear." It's not the action of "pushing a person down the stairs" that is so fascinating a story element but the way in which Julie Bigg Veazey captures the thinking of Jadine and writes about her justification of violence which draws the reader into the very personal space within Jadine's mind. The reader is taken through her life, inside her disconcerted mind of malice and mayhem, murder and mercy killings, vengeance and violence.
The plot's setting can best be summed up in the Rochester High School's report for Jadine's personality profile: "She was an immature adolescent, battling conflicts resulting from a number of early traumas, including so many losses ranging from abandonment by her mother, the drowning of her stepsister, to the death of her stepmother and the estrangement (of) her father." Furthermore, the report stated, "She suffers from a deep sense of rejection and resents the great sacrifices and kindness offered to her by the townspeople of Rochester."
The book at times reminded me of having some of the key elements found in classics such as Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, with some of John Steinbeck's character development of Lennie and George in Of Mice and Men. Her descriptive language is laced with "storyboard imagery" which would appeal to the director's eye of someone like Quentin Taratino. However Julie Bigg Veazey has a unique written voice, and her snippets of chapters sew Jadine into a patchwork quilt of many descriptions, complex emotional levels and psychological twisting elements. The reader builds a bond with Jade, Jadine's preferred new name, although she is an antithesis to society. Raising a masterful tide of suspense, the reader is challenged to guess at what the foreshadowing of the plot would ultimately reveal. It is a gripping and unforgettable tale based upon a little known true story of an anonymous person.
Jacketed in original cover art showing a portrait of a young lady looking into a box, you are drawn into the story before the book even begins. Julie Bigg Veazey has created a work in Jadine which no doubt will be applauded by fans loving psychological suspense thrillers of deep character development. I recommend this to the seasoned reader seeking originality of credible characters within a story having all of the elements of making indelible memories.

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Jadine is a chilling portrait of a young orphan making her way in a hostile world. Beginning in rural New Hampshire and leading to the back door of privileged Boston, Veazey explores with emotional precision, the complex, seductive contradictions of Jadine's life that is indelibly shaped by doings not her own. She is capable of violence without remorse, even as she gently cares for the elderly and yearns for her lost love, Billy-John, a Native American orphan. Resisting tidy resolutions, Veazey enlists our sympathy, shock, disapproval, and finally, compassion, in this insightful, stark tale.

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Arthur Shawcross: The Genesee River Killer : The Grisly True Crime Account of the Rochester Prostitute Murders Review

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(More customer reviews)If you want to know anything about the Genesee River Killings then this is the book you are after, it goes into the detail you want and leaves out nothing. A great read and a good reference point for those studying the serial killer genre. Highly recommended.

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From February 1988 until his capture nearly two years later, convicted child killer Shawcross terrorized the city of Rochester, New York, with his spree of savage slaughter. The gruesome details of his crimes shocked the court, but paled before the facts about his abused early childhood and his tour of duty in Vietnam where he first tasted human flesh. Photographs.

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Maximizing The Enterprise Information Assets Review

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(More customer reviews)Sevilla and Wells have done it again: provided a user-friendly, information-brimming, detail-driven compendium of ideas that work and help you work better. Readers and organizations will owe the authors a debt of gratitude for helping convert data to knowledge and knowledge to the wisdom that ensures results.

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The ramifications of this new Information Age are still not well understood. Most businesses do not know how to turn their information into a beneficial capital asset. Unfortunately, their focus has been almost exclusively on technology, while human and managerial factors are left unexplored.Maximizing the Enterprise Information Assets defines practical, winning techniques for building an environment that takes advantage of all of a company's information resources. This innovative work defines information assets not only as patents, trade secrets, and marketing data, but as all information contained within a company.This groundbreaking book:¨Defines information assets¨Identifies barriers that lessen information's value¨Explains how information can be strategically distributed¨Describes the relationship between information and strategic planning¨Explores methods to exchange valuable information among employeesCorporate officers, directors, and IT managers will find this book invaluable for creating a positive, profitable work environment in which information assets are properly managed and distributed, encouraging revenue growth and worker satisfaction.

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Throwing Bullets: A Tale of Two Pitchers Chasing the Dream Review

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(More customer reviews)A hardcore fan looking for stats and game stories will not rate this book a five but if your are looking for a real life baseball story mixed in with some small town Americana this is the book for you. The author follows Francisco Liriano and Justin Olson throught the 2005 minor league season. But this book is alot more than that it also is the travel from one small town to another and the life around minor league baseball. The author interviews the small teams PR people, owners, GM's, coaches and just the team guys that have been around for years. This book gives you the Minor League flavor from Buffalo to New Britain and every stop in between. All baseball fans know who Liriano is and you will get some insight into him but not much. It's a quick read and enjoyable from my perspective.

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Long time journalist and baseball enthusiast, Roy Rowan, takes the reader inside the hearts and locker rooms of two of minor league baseball's hottest pitching prospects. Pitching for the same team and against each other, they are from to different worlds. Justin Olson was raised on baseball in America's heartland, while Francisco Liriano discovered his skills in the sandlots of the Dominican Republic.From the sweaty bus rides of the minors to the bright lights of the big show, Roy Rowan takes the reader through the small cities and resolute players who step onto America's baseball diamonds every summer, determined to preserve America's past-time.A story for anyone whose ever dreamed of making it to the big leagues, this is an incredible baseball tale-with the grit, determination, and hope to make it a sports classic

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Rochester Cathedral: The Influence Of Minds Review

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(More customer reviews)Though the book is short, it is long enough to convey the significance of the theology, and unique perception of the universe, that lay behind the design of the cathedral.
A great idea for tourists interested in more than effigies and arches, this 'pocket book' offers an intriguing insight into what really formed the foundations for such vast constructions - passion and faith.
A few Latin terms I didn't understand, but it didn't detract from the text...I came away wanting to investigate these characters further, which is always a good thing!

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This unique exploration into the cathedral at Rochester, in Kent, England, focuses on the minds behind the edifice, e.g., William the Conqueror, Lanfranc of Bec, Anselm of Canterbury, and the famous Bishop Gundulf.Emphasis is on these characters' personal theologies, mediaeval numerical symbolism, and how such concepts became part of the fabric of the cathedral.A pocket guide to the influences seldom discussed in tourist literature.Illustrated with black and white photographs and sketches.

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Musical Creativity in Twentieth-Century China: Abing, His Music, and Its Changing Meanings (Eastman Studies in Music) Review

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(More customer reviews)This work is a combination of the anthropological and historical study of Chinese society and the musicological analysis of Chinese music. Abing was a key Chinese traditional musician who lived in the city of Wuxi from the 1890s to 1950. Initially a Daoist priest, Abing went blind and became a street musician. It was in this guise that he was recorded by a visiting team of musicologists in 1950. (Recordings from that session are on the CD with this book.)
His music, which analysis shows to have been improvisatory in nature, was then taken up by players of erhu (two-stringed fiddle) and pipa (four-stringed lute) in the Chinese music conservatories. In this process the music became fixed in notation and turned into set compositions to be performed in concert-style renditions, often arranged with the accompaniment of other instruments. Meanwhile, the details of Abing's life have been reinvented several times by the cultural establishment, and he became (after his death) variously a hero of the downtrodden masses, an outspoken class revolutionary, a romantically inspired composer (like Beethoven).
In short, the book shows how one echelon of Chinese musical culture was transformed in the twentieth century, on the one hand by imported Western musical ideas (the composer, the piece), and on the other by the social and political currents of the day.
As a contribution to ethnomusicology, it argues for a greater attention to the analysis of music as a means of unlocking historical clues. It is also one of the first books to fully apply the cross-cultural perspectives of ethnomusicology to Chinese music. (Of course, I have to choose 5 stars!)

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This work examines the multiple and conflicting interpretations created around the life and music of the blind folk musician Abing (1893-1950). Abing is a household name in China, but despite the central place he holds in Chinese music, he is little known, and his music rarely heard, abroad. This detailed study of Abing, and the accompanying CD compilation of his most well-known works, reveal much both about this unjustly neglected composer, and about the recreation of traditional music in contemporary China. Particular attention is given to the problematic category of the musical `work' in a tradition which relies heavily on improvisation and creative reworking of material; Abing's music has also taken strikingly different shapes since his death, notably in arrangements, some involving Western instruments, which have adapted his music to changing tastes and ideological trends, both in mainland China, and in Taiwan and overseas.Dr JONATHAN P.J. STOCK is Lecturer in Music at the University of Durham. Contains audio CD

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535 Wonderful Things You Can Do This Weekend: A Guide to the Annual Events in the Mid-Atlantic States Review

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(More customer reviews)The book has a nice sampling of the things to do in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, and Maryland. It's divided by season, month and state. Each activity includes contact information (including website addresses), a description of the events, and insiders tips. It's a great companion for people who are looking for local events in their area throughout the year. It includes state and county fairs, a nice listing of First Night Celebrations, and other resources. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys local events in their area.

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Quality By Experimental Design, 3rd Edition (Quality and Reliability) Review

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(More customer reviews)Confused by ponderous text books?
Befuddled by incomprehensible equations?
Stymied by what to do next?
Miffed by academic professors who never designed an experiment in real life?
Put off by tricky SAS code?
Unable to do the job for your employer?
Shortchanged by the simplicity of a Six Sigma training class?
Ready to go back to the "old trial and error" methods?
Then you need Tom Barker's easy to read, right on the mark, student oriented guide to understanding and applying Design of Experiments - Quality by Experimental Design - 3rd Edition.
This book has been written for students who need to apply DOE, not the stuffy academic community that only thinks of the mathematical rigor. The equations in Tom's book are the same rigorous mathematical foundations as in any other book on DOE, but are set in a context of application. They are explained in simple language, not derived from axioms or lemmas. Equations in Tom's book come to life and do something for the reader. That something is the systematic and efficient uncovering of the complex reasons for product or process success and failure.
Barker's book is written for the current practitioner and the future practitioners of Statistical Experimental Design. Tom shows how to plan, how to build, and how to interpret and then how to use the results of powerful experimental design configurations. His insights are based on his experience at Xerox Corporation where he personally used DOE on thousands of investigations that were fruitful in the commercial development of the fledgling science of xerography that has become the successful product we all take for granted today.
As a student, you need this book now to help you understand the confusion in class.
As a product or process design engineer, you need this book now to make your efforts to get results fast and with excellent confidence.
As a manager of product or process development, you need this book now to enable you to lead your teams to success in the short development times allocated by the mandate of the ever decreasing product development cycle.

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Continuing a best-selling tradition, the third edition of Quality by Experimental Design uses the same easy-to-read and understand format that made the previous two editions so popular with newcomers and experienced readers alike. Completely revised and revamped, the third edition has lost none of the features that made each of the previous editions bestsellers in their own right. Written in Thomas Barker's trademark, conversational style, the third edition includes new topics on inference, more realistic practice problems, examples using Minitab, and a large dose of Robust Design philosophy and methods. Barker integrates the Robust Design, sometimes known as the Taguchi approach, as a natural part of the design effort and establishes a criterion for measurement variables. He provides step-by-step guides to the Minitab software that give you the ability to apply the concepts in practical applications and includes easy to use experimental design templates. The author presents the mathematical aspects of statistical experimental design in an intuitive rather than a theoretical manner.Emphasizing both the philosophy and the techniques for setting up experiments, the book shows you how to achieve increased efficiency, timely accomplishment of goals, visualization through graphical and numerical representation, and control of the experiment through careful planning. Those new to QED will find some of the most powerful ideas in scientific investigation and engineering understanding in this book. Seasoned QED'ers will appreciate the new insight it offers and timely reviews of subjects in which they may have become a bit rusty.

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Chevrolet Chevelle, Malibu and El Camino: 1969 thru 1987 (Haynes Manuals) Review

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(More customer reviews)I recently purchased this manual for my 1979 GMC Caballero. It really only gives basic and General information about the vehicle..... If you have had shop class or have worked on Chevys before this manual is a waste of time and money. I just ordered a factory service manual they are very detailed and explicit and contain information that is pertiant to your model instead a generalization like Haynes.... Haynes has few diagrams and illustrations are often of a different model with a different part....
If your an novice this book might be ok but if you wanna know the extra I would recomend the factory service manual it cant be beat.

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Haynes disassembles every subject vehicle and documents every step with thorough instructions and clear photos. Haynes repair manuals are used by the pros, but written for the do-it-yourselfer.

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