From any perspective, the ideal construction project is one in which the contractor shows up on your doorstep with the right price and all of his tools, people, and equipment ready to start, and builds exactly what you want for the price you want and finish on schedule. Everyone then goes away, happy as clams. This is the ideal, but it never occurs.

The world is a competitive place; to survive, contractors must think competitively in order to win work. They must find a way to complete a quality project for the lowest price. Circumstances can easily derail even the best plans and contractors, but with planning, delays and cost overruns can be minimized.

This handbook helps guide the construction manager through the trials and tribulations of selecting, expecting, rejecting, prompting, requiring, and documenting what the contractor produces on the project.

Contracts can be written that foresee common problems and provide the construction manager with their resolution. The concepts in "Field Guide for Construction Management" can help you do just that.

Household archaeology has traditionally relied on architectural remains to investigate the role of households in the wider community, often ignoring the information that smaller artifacts can provide about the individuality of household members and the complexity of domestic relationships. Arguing for a closer, multidisciplinary examination of all the evidence at hand, "Archaeology of Household Activities" brings together recent archaeological research on domestic dwellings in pre-Roman Britain, Classic Mayan civilization, Greek and Roman cultures, and colonial Australia and the Americas. Using artifact-based approaches to explore the spatial, gender and status organization of household activities, the contributors provide a more holistic view of the dynamics of domestic life in communities of the past.
Contributors: Rani Alexander, Penelope Allison, Bradley Ault, Marilyn Goldberg, Vincent LaMotta, Susan Lawrence, Eleanor Leach, Brian McKee, Karen Meadows, Lisa Nevett, Michael Brian Schiffer, and Suzanne Spencer-Wood.

Buying a home is part of the American Dream. But high down payments, credit concerns, conflicting real estate advice, and a confusing array of experts - all wanting a piece of the pie - can take what should be one of the most exciting and fun experiences in life and turn it into a nightmare!

Now, for the first time in print, highly successful real estate entrepreneurs Joseph M. Farella and Earl Myers take everything you ever thought about buying your first home - or your fifth - and turn it upside down with the Insider's Secrets that have helped thousands who have attended their standing-room-only Homeownership Now events.

Learn:

• Why you should never just call a realtor's name you see on a For Sale sign
• How to set up your own team of experts who will be looking out for only you
• The fallacy with spending years saving for a down payment
• How to discover dozens of mortgage programs your bank will not offer
• The key to being competitive and successful in buying the property you want
• AND . 22 Insider Secrets that will take you from just wishing for a house.to making that dream a reality!

A journal to fill with your own garden musings, writings, observations and sketches. Each page starts with a quote from arcane to modern about gardens and gardening, giving you something to ponder as you exercise your green thumbs writing about your own adventures in horticulture. A great way to keep track of your gardening trials and triumphs, a journal about your garden in it's own book makes a great reference. An excellent way to scrapbook, you can add your findings over the summer to the back of the book for next season's garden or write them down as you go along. You and your family will enjoy looking through it and remember the recipes you made with the food you grew, marvel at the pictures you saved of the arrangements that graced the table.