This publication is designed for the tugboat buff, and for people interested in a maritime career. It contains a number of photos, and the guiding principles to take you from entry level up to the wheelhouse. A maritime career can easily surpass a truck driving career in many ways. It pays you if the boat doesn't go anywhere, provides your food and lodging, and has all of the fringe benefits you could want. Check it out

For centuries, men dreamed of cutting a canal across the Florida peninsula. Intended to reduce shipping times, it was championed in the early twentieth century as a way to make the mostly rural state a center of national commerce and trade. Rejected by the Army Corps of Engineers as ""not worthy,"" the project received continued support from Florida legislators. Federal funding was eventually allocated and work began in the 1930s, but the canal quickly became a lightning rod for controversy. Steven Noll and David Tegeder trace the twists and turns of the project through the years, drawing on a wealth of archival and primary sources. Far from being a simplistic morality tale of good environmentalists versus evil canal developers, the story of the Cross Florida Barge Canal is a complex one of competing interests amid the changing political landscape of modern Florida. Thanks to the unprecedented success of environmental citizen activists, construction was halted in 1971, though it took another twenty years for the project to be canceled. Though the land intended for the canal was deeded to the state and converted into the Cross Florida Greenway, certain aspects of the dispute - including the fate of Rodman Reservoir - have yet to be resolved.

Many great accounts of the fateful night of April 14th and 15th of 1912 have been told about the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Over the past one hundred and one years, the stories of the people and the disaster have been explained in art, movies, books, music and verse. This book begins with an original poem I have written to commemorate the ship's first, last and only voyage and the heroics demonstrated by some of those souls on board, some who survived and others who did not. Other wonderful and historic poems from the years immediately following the disaster are included here along with musical tributes, some of which can be linked to hear historic renditions on ebooks and computers. Some of the poems are famous, while others were penned by unknown poets. Newspapers of the day found that they received unsolicited poems by the hundreds on a daily basis - so many that the editor of the New York Times penned an editorial declaring many to be unworthy. The editorial concluded with a harsh admonition to its readers that simply because one had pen and paper didn't anoint them with the talent of a poet. Newspapers of today tend to be considerably friendlier to their declining readerships. What all those who wrote the poems of the Titanic shared in common was the desire of those authors to express shock, despair and sorrow in all the depths of human emotion. In addition, the very best attributes of character, heroics and courage were described in verse and song as exhibited or even imagined to have been displayed by the valiant on board the Titanic. Included here are two original poems penned by me along with my favorite story about the hero dog of the Titanic, Rigel, which I tell to visitors at the Titanic Museums in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and Branson, Missouri, where I hope to see you when you visit. - Ken Rossignol