I would not recommend this video. I rented it at a yarn store in San Rafel, CA. with the intention of teaching crochet to students. I found that it did not teach the basic foundation stitch for crocheting, which is going through BOTH loops on stitch, unless called for in a pattern. The booklet was not well written. The video was not interesting, fun or creative. It also is very expensive.

Although the booklet would not have helped me much without the video, I think the video does a wonderful job of teaching the basic stitches of crochet. I bought it 7 months ago...and have raved about it since. She moves slowly...and when you finish the video, you have a sample of each stitch type. Now that I have finished learning to crochet with the video, I can make everything in the booklet. Peope that already know how to crochet would not have any problem following the directions given in the booklet.

If you are interested in mollusks, I stongly suggest finding another source of information other than this book. For the amount of actual facts and research done for this text, it is not worth the price.

I really really want this book but i don't have enough money! its a very good book

The Great Earthquake of 1906 that leveled and burned Chinatown along with much of San Francisco put an end to the opium dens, whorehouses, and gang meeting houses that had marked the Chinese quarter of the city since 1852. When Chinatown was rebuilt, it was by American-Chinese who played by new rules, had different interests and wanted the 'good life' as available in California in those days. "Hatchet men", like dinosaurs, trudged off into history.

Richard Dillon compiled a long-winded saga of the intricate relationships between legitimate Chinese companies (or benevolent societies), the American police, and Chinese gangs. He did it mainly by delving into newspapers and government inquiries, reports, and court ordinances of the second half of the 19th century. Turning up a huge amount of information, he ran into trouble trying to digest it for readers. The text contains too many names, too many details of too many crimes for anyone not engaged in research to keep straight. The basic theme is very interesting however. He examines the rise of Chinese criminality from 1852, when first there was a substantial Chinese population in the city, to the end of the century. In the early days, Chinese remained law-abiding residents of the USA for the most part, though they had two weaknesses---opium and what Dillon calls "slave girls", i.e. women imported for the purpose of prostitution. Slowly however, the rise of clan and village organizations that fought each other for mastery of criminal activities in Chinatown signaled a breakdown in law and order. Chinese lived under a reign of terror during the 1880s and '90s. Hatchet-wielding killers silenced any opposition to their sway. The police had a very difficult time dealing with the problem especially since the gangs were not slow to bribe inquiring officers. These gangs are called "tongs" in the text: the details of their names, activities, leaders, and victims are extremely numerous. Eventually, tighter police control and the increasing readiness of more-Americanized Chinese to speak out against their oppressors put an end to the warfare. But the "hatchet men" or hired killers had their day. If you are interested to know what it was like, you can read this book, though it could have been better organized.

In America, we have had or still have gangsters of many national origins. They mirror our population. The Italian mafia is well-known thanks to Hollywood, then we can count the Jews, the Vietnamese, the Jamaicans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians, and the Russians. I am sure this is not an exhaustive list. Why the Chinese should be seen as exotic is part of a larger question. They were just gangs operating in their own cultural style. Dillon attempted to place his study in the framework of the progress of tolerance to Asian settlement in California, but I think this theme got overwhelmed in the details of cops and killers.

This is a nice reference book if you are trying to decide whether to purchase a ready-made wedding dress, whether you have the sewing skills to do so, or if it will be economical. The book provides a lot of information in assisting you in designing or choosing your wedding dress design. It is a book you would want to take to a discussion with a professional seamstress to aid in designing your dress.

The reason I can only give it three stars is that you will need other reference materials before you begin to sew. The book would have been improved if it had color photographs.

This book is an accurate accounting of the lives lost by coal miners in the line of duty. One of the particular incidents in the book refers to my Grandfather who died as a foreman in the Pursglove mine. He was presented the Carnegy Metal for his attempt to save other trapped miners. This book is a good reference, but it could have a little more details to be an excellent book. Mr. Lacy Dillon also wrote another book "They died in the Darkness" which covers other disasters not in this one. Another of his books, "I'll Remember You in the Morning", a fictional writting is very good to give the reader the feeling of the times when these disasters took place.

In prose both precise and unsparing, Dillon turns back time to the 1950's, when lives are defined by narrow, predetermined roles. In the opening scene, a man and a woman are on a road trip; he is charismatic, she cautiously observant, weighing every statement in an effort to please him.

Lorle is remarkably beautiful; Edmund is her psychiatrist. Crossing an ethical line, he has embarked on a passionate sexual affair with his patient, at the same time repulsed by his own behavior. For Edmund, "revulsion inflamed desire, desire inflamed revulsion." Engaged in a silent struggle for dominance, they are victims of the times, their personal boundaries rigidly dictated by propriety. While he battles to master his sexual attraction to Lorle, he is already configuring escape plans. Unaware of Edmund's preemptive machinations, Lorle's every thought revolves around him, how to please him, think like him and position herself for successfully keeping his affections. But the writing is on the wall.

Due to mechanical trouble, the lover's trip is cut short. Luckily, a local man, Vern, offers the couple a ride to the airport. Flattered by Edmund's praise of his humble quarters, Vern invites Edmund to return, to escape for a few days. Edmund seems enthusiastic, but never reciprocates as expected. But when they return to the Bay area, Edmund breaks off the affair, although still tormented by his ungovernable lust for this woman. For her part, Lorle struggles against relapse, determined not to lose any more ground to the man she both resents and idolizes.

Visited by a Ned, a childhood friend, Vern is ridiculed for his back-to-nature lifestyle. Ned accuses Vern of hiding in the past and invites him up north, to sample the endless selection of available women in an area suddenly bursting with self-awareness and changing values. Arriving at Ned's shabby apartment, Vern explores city life, as well as consciousness-raising in Big Sur. Suddenly Vern's familiar rural home is no longer enjoyable; neither is Ned's constant hustling admirable. At a loss, Vern contacts Lorle in an attempt to locate Edmund.

As soon as Lorle answers the door, Vern is reminded of his strong sexual attraction to this woman he barely knows. Impulsively, he asks her on a road trip to Mexico. Compulsively, she accepts. Already both have secretly committed to nighttime intimacy. What surprises them is the difficulty of communication during the daylight hours, each so intimately aware of their own shortcomings. Like Lorle with Edmund, Vern is plagued by jealousy of her time with her former lover, inflamed by his own fertile imagination. And so the past is destined to repeat itself in an endless cycle of déjà vu.

Of the three prominent characters, the true disintegration is that of Edmond, burdened by his own uncontrollable lust and lack of ethics, burned out by too many years listening to other people's problems. A man on the edge, anxiety leaks through years of self-discipline. The source of his own destruction, Edmund's professionalism no longer provides sufficient armor against the passage of time. Each of the protagonists is constrained, their behavior dictated by appearance rather than self-esteem. The social mores and personal isolation of the 50's is skillfully skewered by Dillon and displayed for relevance and observation. The times, they are a' changin', but the timid, who fail to evolve, run the risk of missing the boat altogether. Luan Gaines/2003.

This Higgins book has a female assassin who uses a motorcycle
as her means of helping with her killings. In real life our
master assassin is Grace Browning an actress. She is in the services of a group called September 30. Their goal is to use the assassinations to create chaos and install a Communist state.
Her superior is an old KGB agent who is on Prime Minister John Major's staff. Of course it falls on our hero Sean Dillon to stop this group. He comes through as usual.While this is an

interesting book it is no where close to the caliber of "Eye of
The Storm".

Sean Dillon was once the most feared soldier in the Irish
Republican Army, until one day he had enough of the destruction.
Now he works for the other side, the most successful agent in the
British government's fight against terrorism. But when he is
rescued from an ambush by a member of "January 30," the newest
and most dangerous terrorist organization, he has to wonder who
his friends and enemies really are.

This is the nucleus of Jack Higgins' Angel of Death. And this
novel is as well done as all of Higgins' other works. It has
interesting characters, plenty of action, and well-written
dialog.

Part of the fascination in this particular book is the inside
view we get of "January 30." Instead of the typical politically
motivated fanatics, this group is composed of four persons - a
Russian spy, a member of the British government, a college
professor, and a young actress - united by the excitement of the
hunt. For the spy, the purpose of their activities is a chaos
that will ultimately yield the collapse of the British system,
but the others are much more interested in the action than in the
results.

When the group saves Dillon, therefore, it was not out of any
hidden loyalty to the government. When he becomes involved in the
government's attempt to achieve a stable peace in Northern
Ireland, they know he will have to die. The struggle between the
two is a major part of this novel, and Higgins is quite skilled
in showing us both points of view and yet maintaining suspense.

But there are a number of other plots intertwined. At one point,
for example, Dillon goes to the Middle East to deal with the arms
dealer who had set up the ambush that opens the novel. He is
there for only a few hours when he is recognized and captured by
one of the many factions that are at war there. You know he is
going to escape - it's much too early to kill of your main
character - but I think the way it's done will surprise you.

Higgins also involves the United States in the story. In order to
maintain the cease fire that is in existence in Ireland, the
British Prime Minister requests President Clinton to send Senator
Patrick Keogh (a modern JFK) to mediate between the two factions.
But extremists on both sides are determined to prevent any real
peace, so Dillon is selected to act as his body guard. And now
"January 30" comes back into the picture.

This is a true page turner; I began it one Saturday morning and
finished it before I went to bed that night. I had to know how it
turned out before I could go to sleep!

This is a classic. A superb and unique story that shows the reader just how great a book can be.

It's rare that I don't finish a book, but after two-thirds of this disaster, after it became clear that it was getting worse, not better, I finally gave up. I even considered sending it back to Mr Dillon. Ghastly. Awful characters, silly plot, contrived scenarios and -- oh, what's the on floor? -- ANOTHER NAME. RUN, DON'T HIDE FROM THIS!

This book was originally a weekly humor column crossed with a low-grade soap opera, and as light farce and satire of Silicon Valley characters, companies, and customs, it succeeds cleverly. Of course, the author knows virtually nothing about technology (or at least ignored it in the book), the characters are tissue-thin, and the plot is ridiculous. In a farce, these are not bad things. This book makes even lightweight stuff like Po Bronson's "The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest" look like a scholarly disseration, which is not, again a bad thing (considering Bronson's questionable grasp of tech--though his book is good, too). At very least, it's a fast read and you'll get a better feel for the absurdities of Silicon Valley.

Dillon peppers this high camp tale with a combination of both real and loosely veiled references to industry luminaries and key events. The quasi-serious tone gets a bit tiresome at times, but for anyone familiar with the vendor end of information technology, this book accomplishes an hilarious send-up of every cliche and vice that plagues modern Silicon Valley.

I would give this book negative five stars. However I am not allowed to. Don't waste your money in such an incomplete book unless you want to purchase a very expensive paper weight. This book is GARBAGE.

Dear fellow readers:
I borrowed this book from a friend, who used it in a university course. It was said that the examples used in this book were not sufficient enough to get the grasp of the concepts. I am sorry to say that this is not the only problem with this book. Although this is very complete book from concept to application point of view, the problem lies with the road the authors have taken to explain those theories. The topics are simply skimmed over and not much elaboration given to both development of the equations and application of those equations. As mentioned above the examples did not clarify my confusion any further. This left me confused and not as clear a picture as I hoped to gather. Perhaps this book is best suited as a reference for a person who is well versed in this topic and not a novice.

Very well written and updated, I especially like the way the authors have implemented MATLAB scripts in many of the more advanced matrix methods. BUT, do not use JUST this book, theory is unclear in many cases, and the proof to many of the equations (Vibrations is very math intensive) is brief, too brief in some cases. This book could easily be 200 pages longer. The main advantages of this book are that it covers many topics in advanced vibrations and over 500 end of chapter problems, many of them of higher difficulty. In short, if you already have some skills in Vibrations, this is a great book, but if you're using this text as an Intro to Vibrations, use as backup a friendlier book, such as Steidel's to get revved up. I used 3 sources for my course! By the way, I recommend Schaum's Outline for Mechanical Vibrations, many good examples there.

I read this 33 page book in 30 minutes. It did not provide me with any new information. I was and still am looking for information on "Clomid". My doctor will be prescribing that to me shortly and I thought I was getting a book that would explain the medicine in greater detail. All information in the book I already had heard or read before.

I was looking forward to reading this short book to help take my mind off the infertility craziness. However, I found the book to be as thin on content as it was in size. I guess I expected too much from a 33 page book, but a reiteration of things I already knew and had heard in many other places was not what I expected. There is very little original content in this book and if you've been on the infertility ride for more than a month, you already know everything in the book. I was hoping for new insights, original ideas, personal stories that would touch me and help me connect with my own feelings. None of that happened. I don't know that it's even worth the $4.

In the midst of the "infertile blues" here you will find some encouraging and light reading. 33 pages packed with the author's real life experience and some good laughs. Included are great visuals that illustrate the author's wisdom. Read this for enjoyment and encouragement and then read Toni Weschler's "Taking Charge of your Fertility;.." for all the specifics and guidelines.