Since the start of time, man has been searching for ways to live a productive and meaningful life. Everyone goes through this thought process, either consciously or subconsciously. The key to finding that answer is to begin asking the right questions.

A great starting point for asking the right questions is a question I asked myself thirty years ago. That question was, What are my core values, principles, or beliefs? In other words, what is truly important to me. I simplified that question to this--What do I believe?

Going through answering that question led to the creation of my personal I Believe list. This was by far one of the most meaningful and life-changing experiences in my life. My only regret is I didn't ask that question till I was forty-four. Regardless of your age, asking the question (What do I believe?) and creating your personal I Believe list will be one of the most important questions and activities you can do to position yourself to living the productive and meaningful life we all long for.

The Question: A Guide to Answering Life's Most Important Question shares my journey of answering that question and then how I used my responses to guide me on each day's adventure called life.

The Appalachian mountain chain once contained the highest and most dramatic mountains on earth. Worn down over time, these mountains still hold some of the most diverse climactic zones and singular geological formations in existence. In East 40 Degrees: An Interpretive Atlas, Jack Williams examines a succession of beautiful but little-known towns along this cordillera (a term descended from the Latin chorda, meaning braided rope), revealing in their layers of history and geography how both their diverse cultural and social circumstances and their geological history were instrumental in forming each town's distinctive character.Referring to the spatial orientation of the Appalachian mountain chain, the east 40 degrees of the title runs from Alabama through fifteen states to the coast of Maine. Each town Williams examines sits within the folds of these mountains or beside a river nourished in their moist uplands. Beginning his record with the continental collisions that shaped each town's history more than 300 million years ago, Williams allows us to see the tenuous web of connections between ourselves and the natural processes that shape this earth. Featuring a wealth of beautiful and significant illustrations and maps, this unique work brings into focus the critical issues of environmental and cultural sustainability confronting us today. Elegant, poetic, and erudite, East 40 Degrees will appeal to architects and landscape architects, planners, environmental historians, ecologists, geographers, and anyone interested in the history and origins of our modern landscapes and towns.

Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

The Appalachian mountain chain once contained the highest and most dramatic mountains on earth. Worn down over time, these mountains still hold some of the most diverse climactic zones and singular geological formations in existence. In East 40 Degrees: An Interpretive Atlas, Jack Williams examines a succession of beautiful but little-known towns along this cordillera (a term descended from the Latin chorda, meaning braided rope), revealing in their layers of history and geography how both their diverse cultural and social circumstances and their geological history were instrumental in forming each town's distinctive character.Referring to the spatial orientation of the Appalachian mountain chain, the east 40 degrees of the title runs from Alabama through fifteen states to the coast of Maine. Each town Williams examines sits within the folds of these mountains or beside a river nourished in their moist uplands. Beginning his record with the continental collisions that shaped each town's history more than 300 million years ago, Williams allows us to see the tenuous web of connections between ourselves and the natural processes that shape this earth. Featuring a wealth of beautiful and significant illustrations and maps, this unique work brings into focus the critical issues of environmental and cultural sustainability confronting us today. Elegant, poetic, and erudite, East 40 Degrees will appeal to architects and landscape architects, planners, environmental historians, ecologists, geographers, and anyone interested in the history and origins of our modern landscapes and towns.

Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

Life outside our nation's big cities comprises a remarkably rich aspect of America--culturally, historically, and physically. Because of the way we move through the country, however--on roads built for maximum expediency--most of us are rarely if ever exposed to these small communities, a trend that is moving these towns dangerously far off the maps of commerce and public consciousness.

In Easy On, Easy Off, Jack Williams takes to the roads of the interstate highway system to explore America's small towns, bringing back diverse examples of both beautiful and neglected places that illustrate how shifts in modern transportation have influenced urban form. Most of these communities are little known beyond their discrete regions, yet their struggles to prosper are universal. Mill towns, county-seat court squares, villages of the Great Plains, mining towns, and California's forgotten Chinese settlements all share similar fates--overshadowed by interstate off-ramp towns and bypassed by high-speed traffic.

Employing more than 150 historic maps and images, unique drawings, and contemporary photographs, Williams convincingly argues that irreversible changes have overtaken the landscapes of small-town America, with each community's economic and social vitality slowly shifting away to other commercial places that attach to our highway interchanges and extrude into strip malls. A tale of success perhaps for the highway system, the more urgent story relayed in Easy On, Easy Off is of the loss of the complex fabric of thousands of small towns that once defined this nation.

Preparation of this volume has been supported by Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund

America has some of the most varied and dynamic weather in the world. Every year, the Gulf Coast is battered by hurricanes, the Great Plains are ravaged by tornados, the Midwest is pummeled by blizzards, and the temperature in the Southwest reaches a sweltering 120 degrees. Extreme weather can be a matter of life and death, but even when it is pleasant--72 degrees and sunny--weather is still central to the lives of all Americans. Indeed, it's hard to imagine a topic of greater collective interest. Whether we want to know if we should close the storm shutters or just carry an umbrella to work, we turn to forecasts. But few of us really understand the science behind them.

All that changes with The AMS Weather Book. The most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to our weather and our atmosphere, it is the ultimate resource for anyone who wants to understand how hurricanes form, why tornados twirl, or even why the sky is cerulean blue. Written by esteemed science journalist and former USA Today weather editor Jack Williams, The AMS Weather Book, copublished with the American Meteorological Society, covers everything from daily weather patterns, air pollution, and global warming to the stories of people coping with severe weather and those who devote their lives to understanding the atmosphere, oceans, and climate. Words alone, of course, are not adequate to explain many meteorological concepts, so The AMS Weather Book is filled with engaging full-color graphics that explain such concepts as why winds blow in a particular direction, how Doppler weather radar works, what happens inside hurricanes, how clouds create wind and snow, and what's really affecting the earth's climate.

For Weather Channel junkies, amateur meteorologists, and storm chasers alike, The AMS Weather Book is an invaluable tool for anyone who wants to better understand how weather works and how it affects our lives.

Additionally, this section contains facts and information regarding blue, white, Indian, and green peacocks.
The book is written in an easy-to-understand format and is based on years of experience with peacock keeping.

The Indian peafowl are animal varieties in a gathering of fowls called birds. The peacock is the name regularly utilized for the type of birds referred to as peafowl. Starting in the wild, peafowl have been tamed for millennia.

The guys are called peacocks, while the females are called peahens. Together, they are peafowl. Peafowl are among the biggest of all fowls that fly. (Ostriches, emus, and other such winged animals are greater, yet can't fly.)

The wonderful quills that cover the tails of a peacock are 5 feet (1.5 meters) long-longer than the fledgling's body-and can be shown in a marvelous devotee of splendid tones.

These long plumes really develop from the fowl's back not the tail. He lifts them by raising them a lot. Peahens are duller than their male partners, with generally earthy colored on their back with a white paunch. Females don't have long tail quills; however they do have a peak on their head and green neck plumes. Indian peafowl are local to India and Sri Lanka,

in South Asia. They've been acquainted with different nations, as shown in parks, zoos, or as homegrown pets. The head and assemblage of grown-up peafowl range from 3 to 4 feet in length and their tail can be 5 feet in length.

Through a clerical error, superintendent of schools Jack Cole finds himself called to active duty in the United States Navy at the beginning of WWII. Cole was never in the Navy and responds accordingly. Thinking he is trying to avoid military service the Bureau of Naval Personnel has him apprehended and flown to Washington DC where he is given the choice of active duty or Portsmouth Naval Prison.

Cole accepts active duty and finds himself stumbling from one hilarious situation after another, completely out of his element and totally unprepared to deal with Naval policy and procedures. Aided by the misinterpretation of his actions by his crew and his unusual leadership style, Cole succeeds far beyond his abilities and becomes a valuable asset to naval operations in the Mediterranean. Along the way, he encounters several love interests and quite by accident is able to prevent some top brass from falling victim to embarrassing incidents.

When the Bureau of Naval Personnel discovers their clerical error, they realize it would be an embarrassment if the public was to find out. To prevent this from reaching the public, a bloodhound Navy captain is sent to apprehend Cole and remove him from duty without disclosing the Navy's mistake.

As the Navy captain tries to close in on Cole, Cole's crew and superiors do everything they can to keep the Bureau of Naval Personnel from finding him. However, after being recognized for heroic actions during the invasion of Sicily, the Navy captain finds Cole and he is put on trial. Things look dire for Cole, but through the intervention of his loyal crew, his superiors, and his love interest's uncle Lyon, who turns out to be Canadian Prime Minister Lyon Mackenzie King, Cole is exonerated.

Though fraught with potential peril at every turn, the misunderstandings and outlandish actions of Cole and his crew are one hilarious adventure after another, which epitomize the nature of every American who when faced with a challenge rolls up his or her sleeves and gets the job done. You will laugh and cry as you ride along with Cole and his crew in this adventure, but for everyone who has ever seen military duty or who has been placed in a situation far beyond their abilities and training you should find kindred spirits in this tale to enjoy as they fumble their way to success.

Main sections of the book cover three ocean coastlines--Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Pacific; estuaries and wetlands; lakes, including the Great Lakes; and rivers, from the great Mississippi and Columbia to backyard streams. Identification guides and interesting information on plants, animals, shells, and other curiosities to be found along each water's edge accompany photographs and illustrations. Useful and inviting sidebars enhance every page:

- Shore Science--Quick hits and fascinating facts of science along the water's edge
- Stay Safe--Alerts about shoreline dangers and how to avoid or respond to them
- Beachcomber's Guide--Illustrated key to objects found in each beach and shoreline region
- Save the Shore--Notes on how humans can hurt--and help--shoreline ecology
- Best Water's Edge--Throughout, Dr. Beach recommends the top beach or shoreline destinations

The book is profusely illustrated with photographs, maps, and explanatory diagrams. An introductory section provides a thorough overview of the basic science of shorelines: How water interacts with land to form beaches; how various kinds of shorelines formed; why large waves are needed to form beaches; how floods and fast-moving water alters river shorelines; how the gravitational pull of the moon and sun cause the tides; why the oceans have tides but the Great Lakes don't; how tides affect rivers far inland; the effects of latitude and climate on the formation of shorelines, including variations in plants and animals. This opening sets up all the science necessary to understand and use the rest of the book.

Life outside our nation's big cities comprises a remarkably rich aspect of America--culturally, historically, and physically. Because of the way we move through the country, however--on roads built for maximum expediency--most of us are rarely if ever exposed to these small communities, a trend that is moving these towns dangerously far off the maps of commerce and public consciousness.

In Easy On, Easy Off, Jack Williams takes to the roads of the interstate highway system to explore America's small towns, bringing back diverse examples of both beautiful and neglected places that illustrate how shifts in modern transportation have influenced urban form. Most of these communities are little known beyond their discrete regions, yet their struggles to prosper are universal. Mill towns, county-seat court squares, villages of the Great Plains, mining towns, and California's forgotten Chinese settlements all share similar fates--overshadowed by interstate off-ramp towns and bypassed by high-speed traffic.

Employing more than 150 historic maps and images, unique drawings, and contemporary photographs, Williams convincingly argues that irreversible changes have overtaken the landscapes of small-town America, with each community's economic and social vitality slowly shifting away to other commercial places that attach to our highway interchanges and extrude into strip malls. A tale of success perhaps for the highway system, the more urgent story relayed in Easy On, Easy Off is of the loss of the complex fabric of thousands of small towns that once defined this nation.

Preparation of this volume has been supported by Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund