The quest for self-knowledge and awareness has gained increasing popularity over the past several decades, with an explosion of beliefs and methodologies. Central to these practices is the exploration of past lives. From the curious layperson to the traditional doctor of medicine, people are employing various techniques in an effort to facilitate this experience.

Certified hypnotherapy instructor Mary Lee LaBay has written Past Life Regression: A Guide for Practitioners as a comprehensive text for beginning as well as veteran therapists. Ms. LaBay covers both basic and advanced techniques in a philosophical context, to help practitioners generate maximum healing and change during the past life session. Through case studies and concise instructions, the author demonstrates practical and elegant uses of these techniques that allow the client to discover life purpose, aspects of their relationships, roots of disease, addiction, and phobias, as well as a wide range of other life issues.

There are four Appendices. The Appendix A contains units of measurements from the Système International d'Unitès along with some selected physical con stants. The Appendix B contains a listing of Christoffel symbols of the second kind associated with various coordinate systems. The Appendix C is a summary of use ful vector identities. The Appendix D contains solutions to selected exercises. The text has numerous illustrative worked examples and over 450 exercises.

In 2001 a group of academic rheumatologists with an interest in medical education began to meet together to discuss how to improve rheumatology education for residents training in internal medicine. A curriculum was developed to address the needs of medical residents and to help trainees gain understanding and confidence in managing problems in rheumatology. The Canadian Residents' Rheumatology Handbook was designed as a practical, companion manual for this curriculum.

The first edition of this comprehensive handbook is divided into seven thematic sections. The first three sections address the "Approach to..." common presenting problems of patients with evolving rheumatic diseases, selection and interpretation of laboratory tests and imaging, and therapeutics. Selected rheumatologic emergencies are addressed next. The last two, well- illustrated sections address the approach to physical examination and the approach to joint aspiration and injection techniques.

The individual chapters have been written by rheumatologists from across Canada who have an interest in education, and are excellent teachers at their own institutions.

Although this handbook has been designed for residents in internal medicine, it will be an excellent resource for residents in family medicine programs, practicing physicians and medical students. Allied health professionals and nurse practitioners will also find that it is written at a level that is clear and easily understandable, and will help them to better manage their patients and clients.

Communal living comes in many forms. Although we'd all like to forget the absolute failure of past attempts, there exists a much more refined and high-tech version that can be quite amazing to learn about. When done correctly, living communally can dramatically lower our society's environmental impact while maintaining our privacy and while actually increasing our standard of living. Such homes would have corporate telephone and server computer systems, segregated living areas, and master bedroom suites with full entertainment centers, personal computers, and ample storage space. There'd be wider hallways, soundproof materials within the walls and floors, and top-quality appliances to meet expected demands. Such homes can have 46-seat movie theater/conference centers, game room/sports bars, libraries, craft rooms, and even a multiuse racquetball court - all features that help to offset any perceived lack of privacy.

Most importantly, such homes would have professionally-equipped offices, sub-industrial-scale workshops, and garage bays able to hold large trucks. These features allow residents to establish comprehensive home-based businesses unlike any other. Being able to work productively right from home will allow highly skilled residents to launch an absolute renaissance in the quality of living that middle-class citizens can achieve. Craftsmanship would improve and more durable, commercial-quality homes could be built with the savings realized on travel-related expenses alone.

This book contains the conceptual floor plans for ten communal homes. There are thought provoking four- and seven-bedroom extended-family dwellings that far outperform contemporary homes. There are 11-, 12-, and 23-bedroom units with extensive shop and office facilities. There are larger 42- and 81-bedroom units with more activity areas than most small towns have. There's even a theoretical 21-level mid-rise facility offered that would fill the core of a professional stadium. All of these designs have emergency-enhanced features (such as extensive visitor accommodations) to help families better cope with region-wide disasters. A map of the United States showing potential disaster areas to avoid is also included for consideration.

All drawings are presented in an easy-to-understand, clutter-free format. This allows readers to focus on the design's true performance, not its aesthetical appearance. Readers are provided with a wealth of supporting information. Chapter by chapter details describe just how functional, efficient, and even how downright enjoyable such arrangements can be when homes are specifically designed for such intensified living conditions.

No longer do we have to embrace a lottery mentality of foolishly thinking that we can simply win our way to a better life. When we go about life so decisively as this, we can systematically achieve a far higher standard of living as well as lowering land consumption 60% to 95%. With lower level parking garages, flat/usable rooftops, and hydroponic/greenhouses, no home could ever get anymore environmentally friendly than these. Indeed, greater self-sufficiency at the home level is the key to reducing our society's infrastructure overload and it allows us to better cope with natural disasters and regional blackouts!

This is a full-size (8.25" x 10.75") book containing seven chapters, nine appendix sections, and 52 B&W line drawings and photos.

Enjoy!
Eco Author Chris Eldridge

Behind every successful business is the implementation of a superior strategy. Winning firms earn their success. To do this, business organizations have to first develop a superior marketing plan and implement this plan via effective sales and customer plans. Therefore, both marketing and sales have to work as one system.

In this powerful and practical book you will learn the following:

- How to understand customer needs and value drivers.

- How to segment your markets and customers.

- How to analyze customer, competitor and market data to develop superior marketing plans.

- How to translate marketing plans into actionable sales and customer plans.

- How to work with templates and actual plans to guide your own business.

- How to get marketing, sales and other functions working together to focus on the customer to help you get a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

In the late 1980's, a powerful leader of a Mexican drug cartel, Raoul Ramirez, has found some Mayan hieroglyphs that describe how to create a drug that was once used during ancient Mayan sporting events. He sets up a first time contact with Simon Fung, a leader of a Hong Kong triad, where he figures the drug can be distributed. Whan Chan, an elderly businessman in Hong Kong, informs Fung that he is not longer going to launder his money. Chan is soon found murdered and his son, Raymond, takes over the business. After working with the local police, and getting no results, Raymond becomes obsessed with finding his father's murderer. He asks his brother, Blake Morgan, a member of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) and a one-man army, to find the man who murdered their father. Blake, who was never very close to his adopted father, has DEA matters that he must take care of before he can return to Hong Kong. But when Raymond ends up dead, Blake returns to Hong Kong and finds himself caught up the biggest drug creation plot he could ever image. Now he must trust his survival instincts and keep one step ahead of the Hong Kong triads and the Mexican drug cartels all the time searching for the murder's of his adopted family.

Dragon Tamer is the first book published by Ray Williams. It is a thriller involving DEA agent Blake Morgan and his struggle with not only his inner dragon, but the dragon-tattooed gangs in Hong Kong.
There is always one thing that I really enjoy in a good book: quick dialog. Dragon Tamer by Ray Williams does not disappoint in this category. This story moves along at a very good pace keeping the reading fully engrossed in this tale of drugs, technology and deceit. I really enjoyed the main character of the story, Blake Morgan. I thought that this book was a good introduction for him and I hope to see more of him in future books. Ray Williams spins an interesting tale that all readers can enjoy. Since this book is considered a thriller, I thought that there could have been more things occurring in the story that would have gotten my heart beating a little faster. Overall, I really enjoyed the book and I found myself sneaking in a few pages of reading whenever I could. So, if you are looking for a tale about a DEA agent using his well-trained skills to hunt down the biggest drug threat in the last century, Dragon Tamer by CRay Williams is something you should pick up.
I rated this book a 7 out of 10.

As reviewed by Conan Tigard
March, 2003

A global criminal conspiracy comes to life in Ray Williams' debut novel, Dragon Tamer. Drug traffickers from a violent Hong Kong triad and a ruthless Mexican drug cartel, aided by a powerful corrupt force in the CIA, plan to market an ancient Mayan drug. One man, Blake Morgan, a hard-case DEA agent, can stop them. Morgan must battle his way through a vortex of darkness, corruption and a web of deception to tame the dragon-like criminal conspiracy while taming his own tormented spirit.

"Dragon Tamer is a complex story that was carefully drafted after years of research into the world of drug trafficking and organized crime," says the author, Ray Williams, "and also a story of personal transformation for the protagonist, Blake Morgan. ItÕs like Traffic meets Conspiracy."

"Dragon Tamer is an authentic, action-packed thriller that will keep the reader anxious to turn every page to powerful climax," says Richard Ladds, a former member of the Hong Kong Police Force.

With action spanning the globe from Hong Kong to Costa Rica, Mexico and the United States, and a full cast of characters from Blake Morgan to his love interest, Angela Townsend, a Special Prosecutor, and their arch villains, Simon Fung, the head of the Hong Kong triad, Raoul Ramirez, the head of the Mexican drug cartel and Jack Cross, the corrupt CIA official, Barton's debut novel sizzles.

The mythologies of the people of the southwest coast area shared many features. Creatures from nature such as Raven, Crow, Whale, etc., were believed to have special powers and appear in various forms in the art of many of the tribes of the area.

All the stories entertained the children but often contained a lesson as well. A lesson, of respecting the land, sea and animals the legends are an important part of our life and were told for specific reasons, these would teach values and beliefs thru humor. Variations of a story from tribe would be adjusted to fit a specific situation or to teach a child a specific lesson.

Seeing and hearing our stories in a new context should motivate pride in our heritage.

Cello Playing for Music Lovers provides beginners and intermediate students with an authoritative, step-by-step guide to learning to play the cello. The book includes musical examples from folk, Broadway and classical traditions. It illustrates correct playing positions with twenty photos. Written from the student's viewpoint, it:

• teaches all the required skills, including
• reading music,
• using the bow effectively,
• analyzing musical structures,
• improvising, and playing by ear.

The book starts from scratch with songs transcribed for beginners and advances gradually to 4th position Included are folk songs, hymns, Broadway standards like "Some Enchanted Evening," and classical selections like a Bach Prelude and Sarabande. Later sections explore some music theory and how to play in chamber music groups. Gifted cellist Erik Friedlander plays the 116 musical figures discussed in the book on the accompanying play along CD.

The author, a Ph.D. and experienced teacher, presents this fascinating material in small, logical steps. As cellist Aaron Minsky said, "Your idea that the cello can be enjoyed on a simple level even within a few weeks of study is very true. . . This book will bring the joys of cello playing to many people who would not have believed it possible."

Playing the cello will give any music lover unparalleled satisfaction. If you always wished you could do it "in your next life," do it now.

As a profession, marketing is evolving, no longer based almost exclusively on conceptual content. That conceptual content will always have an important role to play in marketing, but the 21st century requires more analysis and rigor in marketing decision making.

Much of marketing resembles design engineering - putting together concepts, data, analyses, and simulations to learn about the marketplace and to design effective marketing plans. While many view traditional marketing as art and some view it as science, the new marketing increasingly looks like engineering (that is, combining art and science to solve specific problems).

Several key forces are changing the marketer's job:

• Pervasive high-powered personal computers networked are everywhere.Exploding volumes of data are readily available.

Firms are reengineering marketing activities. And those firms are reorganizing more generally, leading to flatter organizations. Marketers need much more than concepts to fully exploit available resources: they need to move from conceptual marketing to marketing engineering. In this book we integrate concepts, analytic marketing techniques, and operational software for training the new generation of marketers, and help them become marketing engineers.

The Caring Dads program is one of the first group intervention manuals designed specifically for men who have maltreated their children and / or exposed them to domestic violence. Developed and piloted over five years, this 17-session program draws from best practices in the fields of batterer intervention, parenting, child maltreatment, behavior change, and working with resistant clients. The Caring Dads manual provides clear, easy-to-follow guidelines and activities for the implementation of the program and is a useful tool for both experienced and relatively novice service providers. Intervention strategies are adapted from motivational interviewing, psycho-educational, cognitive-behavioral and emotion-focused approaches. The program is organized around four therapeutic goals: engaging men; building positive parenting; recognizing and countering abuse; and rebuilding trust with children. Each goal is presented with a rationale and general overview followed by detailed session plans. In addition to providing specific group activities, session plans include process notes, client worksheets and homework assignments. Materials are further annotated with icons to draw attention to challenging issues and special considerations for clients who have perpetrated abuse towards their children’s mothers. In addition, the manual includes introductory chapters that provide a roadmap for community planning in the delivery of service to this group of fathers. The formation of a community advisory committee is outlined, with specific issues for the committee to address to ensure that the program is implemented in a way that provides accountable service to children, women, men, and the larger community. Practical considerations such as facilitator selection and service agreements with clients are also addressed in the introductory chapters. The manual is written for a range of professionals who may be working in batterer intervention, children’s mental health, or child protection agencies. The Caring Dads manual fills a significant gap in the provision of services to maximize the well-being and safety of children in every community.