The introduction alone deeply moved me. In this excellent book, you will recognize people you know, and people you have known and loved. And if you're lucky, like the author -- you may even recognize the beauty inside yourself. Don't get me wrong; Natenburg, a basketball nut, clearly has no lack of self esteem. What is most telling about this brash yet gentle soul is his ability to admit his faults and failures.

The Journey Within: Two Months On Kibbutz reminded me of one of life's most important lessons: that no matter what journey you take as an individual, we are all, in the end, connected. And it is our choice (and duty) to try -- at least try -- to make the world a better place...one smile at a time.

Todd went to the Kibbutz to find something profound, the "Meaning of Life." But what he found is that the value in life doesn't lie in the destination or even in the journey itself. The value lies in the relationships you forge with the people you meet along the way. Two enthusiastic thumbs up for this book.

I thought the movie was really cute and was anxious to read the book. Unfortunately, I was VERY disappointed. The book spent way too little time developing the romance between Nicole and Chase.

After seeing the movie I was very anxious to read the book. It was so good! The plot basically the same but with some new and different things. It also gives you a lot to really think about, which I found to be good in a teen book. Also, the WAY it was written was fun and something I haven't ever seen done before. If you liked the movie, you will most likely enjoy the book too!

very well done with the alternating characters. I can't wait to see Drive Me crazy' it looks so good

I wanted to learn about principals of finance such as depreciation etc...this book is NOT for that. It assumes you know a good bit about finance, but have never heard of Excel...not a likely scenario.

An excellent book that really shows you how powerful Excel can be. But, at the same time, it also teaches you about Finance using Excel. Very, very good. A regret: I would have liked more explanations, in general, on the financial concepts used in the book (especially in the last chapters).

To Dr. Mayes: in your next book, the advanced one a reviewer speaks about, could you give more explanations in general on the financial concepts. Otherwise, keep using this great tool, Excel, or even Access 2000. I refer you to "Building Accounting Systems using Access 97" by James T. Perry, et al. I would think that you could use Access 2000 to apply financial analysis if Access is better suited than Excel, which I am not so sure; although Mr. Perry seems to give quite convincing arguments in favour of using Access instead of Excel.

Thanks for your book that I really liked. I am now up-to-date with Excel and I am keen to learn more about Finance. Thanks to you :-)

This book got me a very comfortable start with spreadsheets, and it is interesting to experience how effective it is in combining spreadsheet proficiency with finance proficiency, as the author intends. Although somebody buying this book today may have concerns with its utility given its publication date, I've just begun using spreadsheets with Excel 2000 and I still found the book immensely useful. You may, however, find yourself yearning for the version of Excel current at the book's publication date simply so you might bypass any dealings with that notoriously --and incredibly-- stupid paperclip 'helper'.

I was very excited when I first saw that book on amazon.com.
But that excitement turned into a dissapointment FOR ME as soon as I read through the chapters.

The reason was that the concepts this book intoduces to the reader are way too difficult to achieve. The proccess of making a physically correct rig that interacts with skin is nothing to dive into with the standart toolset of Maya. Its possible. But overkill. Both for the user and your machine.

A wasted part of that book in my opinion was the clay modelling chapter. If a cg artist wants to learn something about the essentials of modelling with clay, he should buy a book dedicated to this theme, and this topic should have been out of the scope of this book. (Where talking about 50-60 pages here)

The CD is not very intuitive. You have to dig in the folders and find the example scenes. After doing that pray for a reasonable playback rate of a fully rigged plain arm. I never saw my machine struggeling that hard for each frame.

I still give 3 stars for this book because its just that it didn't live up to my expectations. Its a good book though for those who want to exactly achieve that kind of forensic effects. I expected an dedicated rigging book, also having an indepth look on smooth skin - ifluence and blendshapes and wrap deformers and so on. Anyway.

If you really are as obsessive as Todd Palamar and want to dive in an totally different approach in doing your rigs, good luck with this book.

I found this book very useful on learning character setup. It gives a more advance concept through different difficulty of examples depending on how comfortable are you with the chapters. The whole book contain a lot of very useful information and with quite a few industry experience reminder. While you are going through the book with your software, It kind of feels like an very experience industry expert sits in your book telling you all sorts of different valuable knowledge in making 3D creatures & related. As there are a lot of Maya tutorial that's on the market which a lot of them is like reading the software's help file which is totally nonsense. This book is one of the nicer one that I will always recommend this book to anyone that like creature set up & relate.

this is a well written book on maya for advanced readers/users. in-depth chapters about modeling and texturing a fictional animal. how do we texture polygons, subDs and nurbs? alias|wavefront's docs answer no questions here. todd does.

another fine chapter: animating the character's skin by the motion of bones and muscles. rigid and soft body dynamics and a few driven keys.

sadly, the publisher printed this book in black & white which makes some screenshots unusable.

a large portion of the book deals with clay modeling. why not?

Lewis Carroll sends Alice on a second set of adventures in some territory that is beyond our world. This time she crosses a mirror and enters a game of chess. She will eventually become a queen but she will in all possible ways express her deep desire to rebel against a world that is seen as having too many limitations and frustrating rules. She will in a way rebel against the game of chess itself when she comes to the end of it and pulls the tablecloth from under all the pawns and pieces to have peace and quiet, to free herself of absolute slavery. But what is she the slave of ? Of rules, the rules of the game, the rules of society, the rules of education. Of words and their silly ambiguities that enable them to mean both one sense and its reverse, that enable them to lead to absurd statements and declarations that completely block her in blind alleys and impasses. But at the same time, her return to the normal world that transforms those adventures into a dream, is a rejection of such adventures and of such rebellion as being absurd and purely fantasmatic, dreamlike. There is in this book a rather sad lesson that comes out of this ending : children can dream adventures, can dream perfect freedom, but reason brings them back to the comfortable world of everyday life and submission. And there is no other way possible. This book is pessimistic about a possible evolution from one generation to the next thanks to the retension of childish, childlike dreams, forgetting that the world can only change and progress thanks to the fuel those dreams represent in our social engine.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

"Through The Looking Glass" is, perhaps, not QUITE as good as "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland", but it's close enough to still rate five stars. Not, properly, a sequel to the first book, there is no indication at any point in it that the Alice (clearly the same individual, slightly older) from this book ever had the adventures in the first one; there is no reference to her previous adventures, even when she once again meets Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Obviously, the two books are intended as parallel adventures, not subsequent ones.

The most memorable bits from this book are doubtlessly the poem, "Jabberwocky", as well as chapter six, "Humpty Dumpty". But all of the book is marvellous, and not to be missed by anyone who enjoys a magical romp through silliness and playful use of the English language.

(This review refers to the unabridged "Dover Thrift Edition".)

Carrol was a profound and wonderful writer, and Through the Looking Glass... is definate proof of this. Though there isn't much evidence that he was a pedophile, you shouldn't grade his works simply on who he might or might not have been. Through the Looking Glass... is one of the greatest works of literature in the english language, and will continue to be despite the author's supposed problems.

I agree with the principles behind this system 100%: save, invest, give/spend. It's a sound system, and presented at a level that kids can understand (although maybe a little too condescending; my six-year-old was mildly insulted). However, while you're teaching your kids to manage money, you're willing to pay $20 for a plastic bank, some stickers, and a 10-minute cassette tape? I'm not. I was expecting a lot more in the kit (and that's why I'm returning it). Creative parents do as well on their own. This is a prime example of penny-wise and pound-foolish.

This is an awesome tool for kids to learn about saving, investing and spending/giving money. It is visual and fun. I know it seems silly to spend $20 on a plastic 3/part bank, some stickers and a cassette tape, but the visual effect is wonderful for young children. I wish they would have had this around when I was a little girl! It's one of the best $20 you could ever spend on your child.

My daughter (7 years old) has had this for several years. When I tell people how wonderful it works they want to buy it right away. But it's not been manufactured for years! By this now before it's gone. The three parts (one for NOW, one for SHORT TERM GOALS (say, a skateboard) one for LONG TERM GOALS (a car upon high school graduation or a horse). I struggled with credit card debt for years and vowed my daughter would not. If only all children used this system, we'd change the national economy!

I got this book a couple of years ago. I consider myself a pretty good cook, and there's still stuff I go back for over and over again in this book. The meatsauce recipe and the veggie chili have become favorites in my house, and the photographs and layout are exceptional.

This is neither a basics cookbook, nor a sophisticated gourmet chef's collector cookbook. It is in-between. There are simplistic contents on technique, sources, ingredients, getting started, etc., which the beginner on up in cooking experience utilize to prepare great menus.

There are sophisticated recipes that the intermediate cook can sink their teeth into, e.g. Chicken Satlimbocca or Grilled West Indies Spice-Rubbed Chicken Breast with Grilled Banana. Sides are concentrated entrees brimming with flavor, great for beginner to intermediate: Bell Peppers Stuffed with Couscous, or Eggplant Caponata.

Receiving this as a gift, I likely would not have purchased this for myself, as there are just more cookbooks I'm into having. However, I defintitely would give this as a gift to cooking friends who fall in the beginner to intermediate level. There are recipes here for all. Well done. Great photos and layout and instructions.

I am a single guy, and as such, I have not prepared food very often. Getting a little tired of always eating frozen/canned food, or at restaurants, I decided to give this book a try.

The instructions in this book are easy to follow, and the food has turned out well. I could not be happier!

this book was pretty good. it looks like something you could make at home, but the infromation inside is valuable. in one part of the book, though, theres mistakes where the notes on the neck are being labeled.

At first, when I received the book, I was dissapointed by the "hand made" book (its not handmade, but it seems like someone could have crafted it with a copy machine in their garage) I started right in on it and immediately I was making "noise" on my bass. I got two books at the same time and the second book was all fancy and even had a CD, but it was more advanced and a bit too fast and didn't explain the easy steps (Especially since it called istelf "Abosolute Beggining Bass". The "Easiest Bass Guitar Book" is HIGHLY reccomended for a 1st timer who knows nothing about playing bass, its exactly what the title of the book says. I haven't had a real lesson yet but with this book I can actually play a song or two that it included and they sound good. I would reccomend you go through this book entirely before doing any other book, it gives a very good foundation for starting out on your bass...

Yes, there were some typos in earlier versions but they have been fixed in the third printing.

I personally thought this book STUNK! My older brother who is 15 (and in my opinion should by now be reading more advanced books) enjoyed this book ver much and has the whole series. But if your more like me you should probably stick with Lord of the rings and such. The author is deffinaly generated towards people around the age of 7 and 10!

This book rocked. A Must see. The part were Jake and Vald swicth body's it a cool part. Will Jake stay a vampire and have to drink V8 jucie or will he be a human agian? Read and Find out.

Everyone is suspicious of Vlad, the new, pale, custodian. The DITS (Dirksen Intelligence Transfer System [It makes people switch bodies, but it's supposed to just transfer their intelligence levels; created by a guy with the last name of Dirksen]) malfunctions near Vlad, and when Jake's wakes up the next day- he's got a pale face and fangs. Jake uses a sunscreen to make his face look noraml. How will he ever fix this mess?

The animal descriptions are very brief and basic. This book might be good for someone with little knowledge of wildlife but doesnt go into much detail on any animal. It also spends too much time on animals that it even states are rarely found in Yellowstone(ie Lynx) and says almost nothing about more common, although less exciting animals(various bird and small mammals).

After buying many books like this I would suggest checking them out of the library for the length of your visit. We did not see the animals in this guide to back up the information and the locations but found it good for basic information about the animals and their habitats etc.

I found the book to be very helpful. Especially paired with "Scenic Driving in Yellowstone & Grand Teton". Other than the cats, we where able to get out early and find the wolves, grizzly, moose etc.