Emerging from a very protective, strictly Catholic, middle class family, Henry is equipped with a bachelor's degree, and an attache case when he enters the world of work. Lessons including tax avoidance, tax evasion, loneliness and blackmail are soon some of the problems he faces. Those plus a few years of military service convince him that his first love must be teaching. In the public schools, new words enter his vocabulary and he faces new challenges. In a small, conservative school, these battles center around the Who, What, Where, When and How of journalism. The problems are who may a new teacher date, what teaching methods are allowed, where may a new teacher live and drink, when must a new teacher be home and how long will the students and parents continue to educate him. The problems and vocabulary change when Henry signs a contract to teach in a large, metropolitan high school in Nevada. Now there are lessons to be learned about theft, wedding chapels, prostitution, Keno, legal guardianship, child neglect, child abuse, parole, comps and under cover police acting as students. On the other side of the coin are lessons in trust, love, scholarships, financial aid, advanced placement, real estate and fellow teachers to add humor and understanding to all the problems. The thirty year run in education is a rewarding, challenging, enjoyable and humorous life. With those lessons learned, he feels prepared for retirement.

Real life is the birthplace of the best stories. The tales related in Lines From the Times are drawn from real life. Lacking the length of a short story, these tales are pithy reflections on life as it is encountered by the author. From a little girl's conversation on a park bench, a grown man flying a kite in the church yard, a daughter's attempts to rein in an indulgent grandfather, a homeless man or a drug-influenced woman seeking direction, an adventure getting children off to school, strangers passed along life's journey, all combine to entertain and delight. These are not sermons by any means, but hey are parables of life where one finds a lesson taught, a prejudice challenged or a value uplifted. Lines From the Times is a mirror held up to our age reflecting our beauty and our blemishes. There's love in these pages; there's sadness for love not shown. There's acceptance here; there's rejection. We can find ourselves tucked inside the stories, ourselves at our best and at our worse.

What happens when you take genuine Facebook quotes, gather them together, and try to connect them? You get a heated confrontation between rival time-travelers. You get the untold romance of chess-champion computer Deep Blue. You get a secret society of comedians bent on world domination, not to mention vital, brutally untrue information about international politics, artificial sweetener, cyborgs, the lifestyle of the modern geek, the meaning of your dreams, and other issues of equally tremendous importance. The Jumping-Off Point weaves from one quote to another, generating a picture of a world you never knew existed...because it doesn't.

1975 Kenny fell in love with motorcycles; it was his gateway to freedom. Motorcycles were a big part of his life, and in 2008 a near fatal motorcycle vs car accident changed his life forever. This book details the events of his life and struggles with rehabilitation.

Author BiographyEveryone's heard of the 'Good Old Boys' in the Deep South. This is about one J. Carroll Barnhill who likes to say, "seven twenty seven and thirty three and I've been here a while as you can see." Born, bred and raised in Bradenton-Manatee County, Florida, he attended all Manatee schools, receiving a Distinguished Achievement award in Junior High. In Manatee High School, he received the Outstanding Senior Award, football, track, President of the Florida Future Farmers of America, National Honor Society, Best Physique, football scholarship, a Boy Scout and an Assistant Scoutmaster.Carroll has five children: three boys, two girls, nine grandchildren and four great grandchildren. He worked at a dairy farm from age 12 to 20, and had a 29-year career at Florida Power and Light Company.He won many horseshow trophies and championships, also judged and helped organize two horseshow circuits. He traded his first cow for a Pinto mare and raised its foal, "Rocket," featured in a book about famous horses of all breeds, entitled "Hoof Prints in Time."He went to Chicago and brought back the thoroughbred stallion, 'Springside, ' grandson of 'Man O'War, ' thus beginning his lifelong ambition to breed, train and race thoroughbred racehorses, winning over 400 races, several stake races and set track records. He was also voted "Outstanding Performer" by the Turf Writers.He will tell you a horse bucked him off in 2004 which finally lined up his brain cells and then wrote his first poem. He is always surprised when people like his "silly little poems" and tell him he is "blessed, talented and gifted." His reply is, "I just do it for fun and to make people happy."Carroll's football coach, Wheeler Leeth always said, "Stay in your own pond." So here Carroll remains in Manatee County.

Randall Munroe is . . .'Nerd royalty' Ben Goldacre 'Totally brilliant' Tim Harford 'Laugh-out-loud funny' Bill Gates 'Wonderful' Neil Gaiman AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The world's most entertaining and useless self-help guide, from the brilliant mind behind the wildly popular webcomic xkcd and the million-selling What If? and Thing Explainer For any task you might want to do, there's a right way, a wrong way, and a way so monumentally bad that no one would ever try it. How To is a guide to the third kind of approach. It's full of highly impractical advice for everything from landing a plane to digging a hole. 'How strange science can fix everyday problems' New Scientist 'A brilliant book: clamber in for a wild ride' Nature

With the intent of educating and sparking discussion among younger generations, Willie Lattimore shares an intriguing insight into life in rural America during the 1960s and beyond in his memoir. In this time, the Lattimore family endured hardship, shared joys, and expanded the roots of the family tree. Willie begins with a retelling of his childhood growing up in Louisville, Alabama, where he enjoyed eating cornbread pancakes, horseback riding, fishing at the Blue Hole, and watching his logger father play on a Negro League baseball team. As he details his unique coming-of-age journey, Willie shares an entertaining glimpse into what life was like during a time when racism was prevalent, food was preserved in unusual ways, corporal punishment was the norm, and castor oil was the preferred remedy for every ailment under the sun. Throughout his narrative, which continues through his military career, Willie demonstrates how he relied on his church teachings and moral upbringing to make good choices and overcome challenges. Never Forget... combines humor, photographs, and real-life adventures with the goal of preserving the wonderful history of the Lattimore family for generations to come.

Liz Lally didn't know that Tom was a cartoon character when she agreed to marry him-but their honeymoon, more than forty years ago, was a good first indicator. Liz's groom had neglected to make reservations and ended up taking her to a run-down hotel with prostitutes prancing at the front door.

That was just the beginning of Tom's morph from Liz's Prince Charming into the goofball cartoon character everyone knows him to be today.

Here, Liz delivers laugh-out-loud, true tales about sharing a home and raising a family with a quirky man who lives by a logic all his own. Wives everywhere will commiserate when Liz awaits an intimate anniversary celebration for two as her husband coordinates a golf trip for twenty, yearns for the handyman-husband who walked through their new house decades ago and planned all the remodeling projects he'd accomplish (Tom's first, the "playroom," is still under construction; never mind that the "kids" are all grown and out of the house), and tries valiantly to parent three children with a man who can barely care for himself.

These are the sometimes perplexing, usually hilarious, always endearing antics of a true American character-and the wife who loves him anyway.

It has long been a government secret in the UK that Manchester is the home of man made weather. In neighbouring Salford, cloud machines are manufactured, and their owners are registered and certificated. Cirrus Cumulus and Percival White are two respectable, certified cloud machine operators, working together on a machine called the Nimbus. Down on the ground, they share a home in the Lancashire village of Slaidburn. Cirrus' reserved nature is perfectly partnered with Percival's rather bawdy behaviour. Operating out of Wythenshawe Weather Centre, they make a great team, taking on search and rescue, fundraising, foreign aid, and some more unusual projects. As crew of the Nimbus, they are occasionally called upon to fight criminal cloud activity. Other weather tasks are of vital importance, while some are just bizarre. In this collection of short stories, the crew of the Nimbus weaves magic in the sky but also in the hearts of colleagues and friends alike.