Blending scientific fact and sports trivia, Robert Adair examines what a baseball or player in motion does-and why. How fast can a batted ball goWhat effect do stitch patterns have on wind resistanceHow far does a curve ball breakWho reaches first base faster after a bunt, a right- or left-handed batterThe answers are often surprising and always illuminating.This newly revised third edition considers recent developments in the science of sport such as the neurophysiology of batting, bat vibration, and the character of the sweet spot. Faster pitchers, longer hitters, and enclosed stadiums also get a good, hard scientific look to determine their effects on the game.Filled with anecdotes about famous players and incidents, The Physics of Baseball provides fans with fascinating insights into America's favorite pastime.

Stephanie Klein was an eighth grader with a weight problem. It was a problem at school, where the boys called her "Moose," and it was a problem at home, where her father reminded her, "No one likes fat girls." After many frustrating sessions with a nutritionist known as the fat doctor of Roslyn Heights, Long Island, Klein's parents enrolled her for a summer at fat camp. Determined to return to school thin and popular, without her "lard arms" and "puckered ham," Stephanie embarked on a memorable journey that would shape more than just her body. It would shape her life.

Busted! is a funny, smart, subversive worst-case scenario guide for casual drug users and their tolerant friends.It's the Bible on how not to get busted and what to do if you are. Using celebrity busts, outrageous everyman busts, and the author's professional experience, Busted! is everything you need to know about the criminal justice system, Drug War style, before it's too late. Like a Law & Order episode, the book takes the reader through a typical small-time drug possession case from committing the crime (the buy/recommending a dealer), to handling police encounters like a pro, to getting busted, to spending a night in jail, to fighting your drug bust, to pleading guilty, through trials and appeals, and, finally, punishment - with irreverent humor and expert advice all the way to the bitter end. Busted! also includes drug possession law for the house party, the rave, your roommate's stash; search and seizure on the street, in your ride, in your apartment, and up your ass. Drug War Driving Lessons covers DUI's and drugged driving; also learn how to make your phone call from jail count, how to ace your bail hearing, and protect your Internet privacy. The Dope Law Index includes possession law for marijuana, ecstasy, cocaine and methamphetamine for all 50 states. BUSTED! helps the casual drug user to know his rights, walk the thin grey line between legal and illegal and ultimately stay out of jail.

In April of 1846, Sarah Graves was twenty-one and in love with a young man who played the violin. But she was torn. Her mother, father, and eight siblings were about to disappear over the western horizon forever, bound for California. Sarah could not bear to see them go out of her life, and so days before the planned departure she married the young man with the violin, and the two of them threw their lot in with the rest of Sarah's family. On April 12, they rolled out of the yard of their homestead in three ox-drawn wagons.Seven months later, after joining a party of emigrants led by George Donner, Sarah and her family arrived at Truckee Lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains just as the first heavy snows of the season closed the pass ahead of them. After a series of desperate attempts to cross the mountains, the party improvised cabins and slaughtered what remained of their emaciated livestock. By early December they were beginning to starve.Sarah's father, a Vermonter, was the only member of the party familiar with snowshoes. Under his instruction, fifteen sets of snowshoes were hastily constructed from oxbows and rawhide, and on December 15, Sarah and fourteen other relatively young, healthy people set out for California on foot, hoping to get relief for the others. Over the next thirty-two days they endured almost unfathomable hardships and horrors. In this gripping narrative, Daniel James Brown takes the reader along on every painful footstep of Sarah's journey. Along the way, he weaves into the story revealing insights garnered from a variety of modern scientific perspectives psychology, physiology, forensics, and archaeology producing a tale that is not only spell-binding but richly informative.

Who is really controlling the pen?Editor Daniel Halpern was profoundly curious about the creative process so he asked fifty-five world-renowned writers to briefly muse on "the fictional persona behind the scenes," the alter(ed) ego who takes over when there is true literary work to be done. And the writers responded in a myriad of ways. Margaret Atwood, Frank Conroy, William Gass, Czeslaw Milosz, Susan Sontag, James Michener, Joyce Carol Oates, and others offered snap-shot reflections on the process, some thoughtful and deep, others downright silly. (Edward Gorey, for one, anagrammed his name to introduce all his secret selves, including the inimitable "Ogdred Weary.") Many provided self-portraits, included within.Joyous and wondrous, revealing and surprising, remarkable and ridiculous, Who's Writing Thisis an unmitigated delight an eloquent celebration of self-knowledge and artistic expression that uniquely bares the writer's soul.

Raucous, raw, and reliably remarkable, the century-old football rivalry between the state universities of Texas and Oklahoma stands as testament that hate-based relationships are the most enduring Each year in October the fans of both schools—the crimson-clad huns from OU and the burnt orange barbarians from UT—invade Dallas for a weekend of high-octane hell-raising and reveling in an athletic contest proving that elephants, tigers, and acrobats are not necessary to stage the greatest show on earth. And the football's not bad, either. Runnin' with the Big Dogs details the outlandish and colorful saga of this ferociously entertaining football confrontation. This is the story of pride, heroics, hopes, dreams, and prodigious four-day hangovers. As acclaimed author Mike Shropshire makes clear, the Longhorns-Sooners confrontation is rougher than playing Russian roulette with a shotgun. Built on the passionate fury of their fans (in this case fully earning the term's origin—"fanatics"), the Texas-Oklahoma spectacle is a production line for national champions, Heisman Trophy winners, NFL All-Pros, and some of the most storied coaches in the history of the sport, from Bud Wilkinson and Darrell Royal to Mack Brown and Bob Stoops. The rivalry has produced some of the most memorable football contests ever, though it matters not whether the teams are ranked—every year is a battle royal. As for the people who come to witness the event, Dallas County's top law enforcement official said, "You watch those lunatics and wonder what drives a person to carry on like a crazy destructive madman." That's why Shropshire is convinced that Texas-OU football fans are the best in the country, and the players and coaches are driven to manic extremes to give them performances to remember. The great players, the great games, and the great stories of the wildest weekends in sports—Runnin' with the Big Dogs captures it all.

Five nights a week, Mar a Elena Salinas looks into a television camera and delivers the news to millions of television viewers. But when the newscast is over, she is like so many other women across the country: a wife and a mother, struggling to find balance between her personal and professional life. When Mar a Elena accidentally discovers her recently deceased father had once been a Catholic priest, all she knew was suddenly thrown into question. Turning her investigative eye on herself for the first time, she begins a long, arduous journey for answers. In I Am My Father's Daughter, Mar a Elena tells the amazing story of her journey to the top amid her struggle to come to terms with family secrets. From her childhood in a poverty-stricken neighborhood of Los Angeles and her adolescent years spent working in a sweatshop, to her astonishing break into network television, along with her coverage of some of the world's major events and disasters, Salinas frames her life behind the camera in the same warm and straightforward tone that is her on-air trademark.

The problem isn't with boys, it's with our expectations of them In a book that's part advice and part expose, psychologist and expert on boyhood development Dr. Anthony Rao challenges some of the potentially harmful assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors we've developed toward young boyhood over the last few decades. This is not an indictment of medication therapies in some important instances, Dr. Rao argues that medication is appropriate and necessary. Rather, The Way of Boys is a celebration of natural, constructive boyhood development and an expert, definitive handbook on what to look for and expect in normal growth. Ask yourself these questions:Is his behavior serious enough to interfere with functioningDoes it keep him from sleeping, eating, attending school, or staying safeDoes it persist over a few weeks or moreDoes it show itself more than a few isolated times per day?Does it happen in different settingsHas it been reported by different peopleIf your answer is yes to any of these, your son may have symptoms that need further assessment by a pediatrician or other qualified developmental specialist. But a yes answer doesn't mean your son has a lifelong disorder or that the first line of defense is medication.Boys are being bombarded with a slew of diagnoses ADHD, Asperger's, bipolar disorder at an alarming rate and at younger ages. The Way of Boys urges parents, educators, pediatricians, psychologists, and other developmental experts to reevaluate and significantly change how we deal with our youngest boys. It's time we stopped trying to "fix" young boys. When parents understand the wide spectrum for normal boy development, they can successfully communicate with their son and everyone in their son's life and help him grow into a healthy, smart, strong man.

According to The Waiter, eighty percent of customers are nice people just looking for something to eat. The remaining twenty percent, however, are socially maladjusted psychopaths. Waiter Rant offers the server's unique point of view, replete with tales of customer stupidity, arrogant misbehavior, and unseen bits of human grace transpiring in the most unlikely places. Through outrageous stories, The Waiter reveals the secrets to getting good service, proper tipping etiquette, and how to keep him from spitting in your food. The Waiter also shares his ongoing struggle, at age thirty-eight, to figure out if he can finally leave the first job at which he's truly thrived.

Austin Murphy knows a thing or two about football. His twenty-three years at Sports Illustrated include six covering the NFL and a decade chronicling the college game. In Saturday Rules, Murphy leaves no doubt as to which beat he preferred. Does the NFL have better athletesYes. Does it entail more direct flightsUndoubtedly. Which game is better, more entertaining, less predictableIt's not even close college football wins by two touchdowns. With rich traditions and deep passions marching bands and menageries of living, breathing animal mascots; arm-long lists of ancient blood grudges college football is far more captivating, fan-friendly, and, frankly, more fun than the corporate, clinical, risk-averse, imitation-intensive, hermetically sealed game they play on Sunday.No two programs are more storied than Notre Dame and USC, headed by those ex-NFL rivals and philosophical (and physiological) opposites Charlie Weis and Pete Carroll, perhaps the biggest names in the college game. With the inside scoop on these top-ranked teams, Murphy closely follows their arcs through the 2006 season, up to their late-November showdown in the L.A. Coliseum. He puts you in the field, in the meeting room, and in the huddle as both teams fight to keep alive their national title ambitions.Between trips to South Bend and Los Angeles, Murphy ranges repeatedly into Big Ten country, hooking up with Michigan and Ohio State, whose November 17 collision in Columbus constitutes one of the book's most memorable chapters. He ventures into the proud SEC, bearing witness to Florida's single loss of the season (and the ensuing "rolling" of Toomer's Corner). He is in the Rose Bowl for the season's most stunning upset (UCLA 13, USC, 9), and is in that grand old bowl a month later, as the Trojans are born anew. Murphy is on the field after the national title game, asking the Gators how they pulled off the upset. ("This is a fast . . . ass . . . team!" replies linebacker Brian Crum.) And he makes it his business to drop in on the Boise State Broncos after their miraculous, trick-play-intensive upset of Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.Whether hanging out with members of the Ohio State marching band (including the senior sousaphonist, who will "dot the i" in the Buckeyes' famed cursive Ohio), or sampling the frighteningly potent "Gator-Killer punch" at TGFKATWLOCP (The Game Formerly Known as the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party), or staying up past his bedtime to witness Notre Dame's midnight drum circle, Murphy is the perfect guide for this rich and raucous celebration of the pageantry and tradition, the talismans and rituals, that prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that when it comes to football, Saturday rules.

να ατρμητο καπετνιο ο Αντρα σαλπρει με το πλρωμα του απ να ασφαλ λιμνι για την πατρδα του. Παλεοντα με την γρια θλασσα και τα απρβλεπτα στοιχεα τη φση θα βρεθε σε μια γνωστη ζνη, στην οποα τον περιμνει μια μεγλη κπληξη.

4th Battle of the Titans: Clash between Natural and the Supernatural ΙΙ - The Ascent of the Natural.??The Crystals Series is a storyline in the form of a novel which starts from the very beginning of the creation of the Universe, traverses the whole human civilization, reaches the present and continues into the future, summarily following the evolutionary course of human civilization.??In the first part of the Clash between the Supernatural – Natural, we followed the evolutionary path of life from 50 million years ago to 200 thousand years ago, we witnessed the first battles between the Supernatural and the Natural, the creation of the Balkan Peninsula, the domination of the mammals, but we followed the separate phylogenetic tree of humankind. A summary reference was made to the educational/training system necessary for the development of sentient beings at the three spiritual levels, the ten -faces-, the three consciences, the four paths and the five plagues that directly and indirectly impact on their lives.??In the second part of the Clash between the Supernatural – Natural, 200 to 100 thousand years ago, we witness the slow-paced developmental modification of the Homo sapiens-sapiens, during which, life begins to acquire full self-knowledge. The final trial and oath-taking of Zeus as the Warrior of the Light take place as well as his efforts to take responsibility for reinstating the Natural Forces. Clashes of epic proportions, battles of the Titans and dwells between the Titans and the Olympians dominate the scene.??In the 4th Battle of the Titans, we are witnessing the turning point of nature to the logical, the incarnation of nature with life and its rationalization by Homo sapiens-sapiens. It is the sentient being through which the universe is trying to acquire self-knowledge and self-realization. So, on the one hand, we are witnessing the undiscernible and insurmountable difficulties through which the White Crystal will eventually reach Mount Olympus in the hands of Zeus, and on the other, the easiness with which the Black Crystal will reach Othrys in the hands of Cronos. We are witnessing in fact, the conflict between the rational and the irrational and the transition of man to the logical. Man has fought hard during this transition. His mind was aflame for a series of thousands of years in his effort to address his difficult and inscrutable questions. At the end, he came out victorious, he moved on, but it was a futile victory, since he got carried away into metaphysical and supernatural escape routes. So, the metaphysical and illogical remains latent in his everyday reality and in every one of his thoughts, and emerges in every difficulty. Such titanic battles were fought inside the human mind.

Nora and Blanche are conjoined twins. Nora is strong, funny, and deeply independent, thirsting for love and adventure. Blanche, by contrast, has been asleep for twenty years. Sick of carrying her sister's dead weight, Nora wants her other half gone for good—a desire that takes her from San Francisco to London in search of the Unity Foundation, a mysterious organization that promises to make two one. But once in England, Nora's past begins to surface in surprising and disturbing ways, pushing her to the brink of insanity and forcing her to question her own—and Blanche's—grip on the truth.

In this wicked, laugh-out-loud debut novel, five miserable souls struggle to make their mark on Hollywood, the city of the soulless. Rachel Burt, starry-eyed and clueless, has left behind tiny Sugarland, Texas, and her position as Starbucks employee of the month, to pursue her dreams of becoming a screenwriter. The madness begins when she eagerly accepts a position as assistant to Victoria Rush, an aging television diva with "a little pill-popping problem that two tours of duty at Betty Ford couldn't remedy." Rachel learns the ropes from Michaela Marsh, a never-say-die, plastic-surgery perfect "midget Tai-Bo Barbie." Michaela has spent years (and years and years: she is -- gasp -- over thirty!) trying to break into Hollywood, which has given her a healthy respect for the casting couch; but even sleeping with her slimy agent hasn't landed her a meaty role, and the last pilot she almost got, some ten years ago, went to that little nobody, Lisa Kudrow. Jeb, who operates on pure rage, has been fired from more assistant jobs than he cares to count, and he currently teeters on the edge of insanity under Randall Blume, one of the sleaziest agents in Hollywood. Kecia Christy, a no-nonsense Pisces pining for love and addicted to Krispy Kremes, works for Travis Trask, the hottest teen heartthrob since "that other white boy, Leo." More interested in smoking prizewinning pot with his bonehead buddies than in his next movie, Travis is always looking for the next good party -- until his ex-con brother shows up at the front door. Griffin's intelligence and ambition fail to shield him from endless humiliation at the hands of Johnny Treadway, a crass A-list manager with pec and cheek implants and a perpetual tan, courtesy of the Tropical Rays tanning bed he keeps in his office. Johnny takes all the credit while Griffin does all the real work, and Griffin has begun to suspect that selling his soul might not be worth that overdue promotion after all. Once a week, Rachel, Michaela, Jeb, Griffin, and Kecia meet at a dark, unhip watering hole to commiserate. Soon enough, however, the system spits them out, and they must learn to survive through sheer determination, hard-won industry savvy, and luck. At turns hilarious, poignant, and sinfully gossipy, The Assistants will keep you glued to your seat until the final page is turned.

Remember how simple school lunches used to beYou'd have something from every major food group, run around the playground for a while, and you looked and felt fine. But today it's not so simple. Schools are actually feeding the American crisis of childhood obesity and malnutrition. Most cafeterias serve a veritable buffet of processed, fried, and sugary foods, and although many schools have attempted to improve, they are still not measuring up: 78 percent of the school lunch programs in America do not meet the USDA's nutritional guidelines. Chef Ann Cooper has emerged as one of the nation's most influential and most respected advocates for changing how our kids eat. In fact, she is something of a renegade lunch lady, minus the hairnet and scooper of mashed potatoes. Ann has worked to transform cafeterias into culinary classrooms. In Lunch Lessons, she and Lisa Holmes spell out how parents and school employees can help instill healthy habits in children. They explain the basics of good childhood nutrition and suggest dozens of tasty, home-tested recipes for breakfast, lunch, and snacks. The pages are also packed with recommendations on how to eliminate potential hazards from the home, bring gardening and composting into daily life, and how to support businesses that provide local, organic food. Yet learning about nutrition and changing the way you run your home will not cure the plague of obesity and poor health for this generation of children. Only parental activism can spark widespread change. With inspirational examples and analysis, Lunch Lessons is more than just a recipe book—it gives readers the tools to transform the way children everywhere interact with food.

Abandoned and alone, the fosterling Ilario grows up as the King's Freak, surrounded by all the pomp, intrigue, and danger of the Iberian court. Fleeing a failed treacherous attack, Ilario crosses the sea to Carthage, where the mysterious Penitence shrouds the sky in darkness. There, a strange and awful destiny awaits the would-be painter, one that spans continents and kingdoms. Filled with intrigue, sex, and mystery, Ilario: The Lion's Eye is a stunning tale of secret histories and self-discovery. The adventure continues in Book Two: The Stone Golem.

When Maybell Brumby, frisky, wealthy, and recently widowed, quits Baltimore and arrives in London, she finds that her old school chum, Bessie Wallis Warfield, is there ahead of her. Impoverished and ambitious as ever, Wallis is on the make. Hampered by plodding husband number two, but armed with terrific bone structure and a few erotic tricks picked up in China, Wallis sets her sights on the most eligible bachelor in the world: the Prince of Wales, heir to the throne. Maybell, with her deep pockets, makes the perfect ally, and her disarming dimness makes her the most delicious chronicler of the scandal that rocked a monarchy and changed the course of history.

The impact of four-year-old Spencer's death has rocked the Carpenter family. For Lainie, the loss of her son is unbearable, and now both her marriage and her very sanity are threatened. Her guitar-obsessed, slacker brother Russell isn't doing very well either, and his own love relationship is rapidly coming undone. Then there's Bop, her fierce and crusty 80-year-old grandfather. When he falls in love with a retired stripper, their earthy romance touches each of the Carpenters' lives in unexpected ways.

More than a decade ago, Michael Moorcock's extraordinary Mother London gave stunning new breath and style to contemporary literature. With Bruce Chatwin's Utz and Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, the novel was short-listed for Britain's prestigious Whitbread Prize. Now, with scathing wit and enthralling vision, the author whom the Washington Post has praised as "one of the most exciting discoveries in the contemporary English novel [in] 40 or so years" returns to a city transformed and transforming, and in peril of its life.These are the times and trials of Dennis Dover, former rock guitarist, photojournalist, and paparazzo. Denny inhabits a world of vibrant color, smell, and sound, where novel experience and unpredictability are anchored by steadfast tradition and history. Mother London's many vagaries give Denny Dover joy and succor, always seducing him home from the Earth's terrible places, where the face of death is as common as the blood that stains the local dirt. And London is where Rosie Beck is, when she isn't off elsewhere combating the planet's great ills.Denny's brilliant, beautiful, socially conscious cousin has always been an indispensable part of his being -- his soul mate and his soul. Since childhood they have been inseparable, delighting in the daily discoveries of a life with no limits. But now the metropolis that nurtured them is threatened by a powerful, unstoppable force that consumes the past indiscriminately and leaves nothing of substance in its wake.The terminator is named John Barbican Begg. A hanger-on from Denny and Rosie's youth, he has become the morally corrupt center of their London and the richest, most rapacious creature in the Western Hemisphere. Now, as their cherished landmarks tumble, conspiracy, secrets, lies, and betrayal become the centerpieces of Rosie and Dennis's days. For Barbican has but one goal: to devour the entire world. And the only choice left is to join in, drop out ... or plot to destroy.A sprawling work of incomparable invention, King of the City is eccentric and remarkable, a unique urban love story with a pit-bull bite that confirms the unparalleled literary genius of the amazing Michael Moorcock.

In the era before he created moody private investigator Matthew Scudder, burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, sleepless spy Evan Tanner, and the amiable hit man Keller—and years before his first Edgar Award—a young writer named Lawrence Block submitted a story titled "You Can't Lose" to Manhunt magazine. It was published, and the rest is history.One Night Stands and Lost Weekends is a sterling collection of short crime fiction and suspense novelettes penned between 1958 and 1962 by a budding young master and soon-to-be Grand Master—an essential slice of genre history, and more fun than a high-speed police chase following a bank job gone bad.

This is the story of an unlikely love at the dawn of the electric age in America. In 1914, Toma Pekocevic is a penniless immigrant in New York recently escaped from the bloody politics of the Balkans that has claimed most of his family. He is also a gifted inventor who designs a revolutionary water turbine while working with Harriet Bigelow, scion of a proud Connecticut iron-making dynasty now fallen on hard times. Their attraction is immediate and overwhelming, but every circumstance is against them. Toma's invention is all he has after losing Harriet to a wealthy politician, but he is determined to win her back, setting the stage for a confrontation that could change not only his life but the course of scientific progress.