A guided tour inside the world of bees Overtaxed and underrecognized-and now disappearing in alarming numbers- bees are the unsung heroes of the food chain, essential for the pollination of more than ninety of the crops we eat. The hardworking, humble, and matriarchal bee finally gets her due in this engaging and expertly written guide that will appeal to anyone who's ever been curious about the mysterious and always-buzzing world of bees. Beekeeper Susan Brackney explains: • Why honeybees are disappearing-and what we can do about it • Who's who in the hive-the queen bee, the workers, and the drones • Bees by the numbers-the number of bees per hive, the number of wing beats per second, and other fascinating facts • Gardening tips to attract and support honeybees • The beekeeper's trade-the essential equipment and the latest tools, a day in the life, and more • Honey, pollen, wax, royal jelly, mead, and other products of the sweet life • The secrets behind making a bee beard (or bee bikini) with live bees ...and much more
Moraine, Wisconsin's annual Harmony Festival is anything but harmonious for Story Fischer, as a dead body makes an uninvited appearance in the parade-and the person who may be responsible for putting it there starts dating Story's mother...
Unlock better opportunities with a new strategy for reinventing any business model. Succeeding with a new business whether in a corporation or a venture based setting requires taking a leap of faith. But in order to grow, the business will need to morph and adjust many times before it meets the needs of a viable market. "Getting to Plan B" guides you through specific steps to effectively reinvent your entrepreneurial business model.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Hallelujah Anyway, Bird by Bird, and Almost Everything, a spiritual antidote to anxiety and despair in increasingly fraught times. As Anne Lamott knows, the world is a dangerous place. Terrorism and war have become the new normal. Environmental devastation looms even closer. And there are personal demands on her faith as well: getting older; her mother's Alzheimer's; her son's adolescence; and the passing of friends and time. Fortunately for those of us who are anxious about the state of the world, whose parents are also aging and dying, whose children are growing harder to recognize as they become teenagers, Plan B offers hope that we’re not alone in the midst of despair. It shares with us Lamott's ability to comfort and to make us laugh despite the grim realities. Anne Lamott is one of our most beloved writers, and Plan B is a book more necessary now than ever. It is further evidence that, as The New Yorker has written, "Anne Lamott is a cause for celebration."
Is this happily ever after? Lucy has her life planned out: she'll graduate and then join her boyfriend, Luke, at college in Austin. She'll become a Spanish teacher and of course they'll get married. So there's no reason to wait, right? They try to be careful. But then Lucy gets pregnant. Now, none of Lucy's options are part of her picture-perfect plan. Together, she and Luke will have to make the most difficult decision of their lives.
Offers self-assessments, check lists, and tips on starting a new business; disusses the time, money, and resources needed to succeed, and shares stories of people whose business ideas did, and did not, work out as they hoped.
Why has Facebook been so limber, evolving so successfully even after a number of stumbles, while Myspace stalled and lost ground? Why was Wal-Mart able to expand so successfully into new offerings, such as groceries, while H&R Block dramatically failed to expand into offering financial services? The answer, David Murray reveals, is that Facebook and Wal-Mart both started with business models that empowered them to effectively adapt their plans as they executed them. The failure of detailed strategic plans that have taken a great deal of time and money to develop is one of the worst problems in business, and it’s ever more urgent as the pace of change in business continues to accelerate. Murray, author of the acclaimed Wall Street Journal bestseller Borrowing Brilliance, argues that valiantly sticking to even a well-thought-out Plan A is the road to disaster. The greatest success comes to those who know how to construct and implement an adaptive Plan A that has within it the means of evolving into a superior Plan B by responding to problems confronted, discoveries made, changing market conditions, and the competition. Writing in a lively, engaging voice and using a series of specific examples drawn from companies including IBM, Intel, Facebook, American Express, and Kaiser Permanente, as well as from the art of war, including the Battle of Gettysburg and the D-Day invasion, and even from the space program, Murray presents powerful methods for constructing a plan that has the mechanisms for adaptation built in. Drawing on a wealth of research, he explains why we are fairly good at short-term predictions but why, in our ever more rapidly changing business world, even the best laid plans will eventually go astray. He then introduces the best techniques for creating an optimal original plan that takes into account our limited ability to predict, showing that vital to this process is that it be constructed so that we are alerted in time to make the right changes. In a brilliant discussion of strategy and tactics, he shows that the core of this adaptability is making sure that your strategy and tactics are well aligned with one another and that you have established the right metrics for measuring results. He then details precisely how to adapt throughout the execution process by constantly monitoring and assessing results, developing worst-case scenarios, and recognizing unanticipated opportunities. Plan B is an essential guide to harnessing the forces of change to achieve long-lasting success despite the most vexing challenges.
No Plan B - The third book by Randal Wiedemann - helps Christians recognize the temptations to go it alone and trust themselves rather than God. The message of our age is to have Plan B ready, in case God’s plan doesn’t work for us. Sooner or later, we are faced with the failure of Plan B. Having made a mess of things, we often try to make things right on our own, only to drift further away from God’s ideal plan for us. Eventually, we begin to believe we’ve burned our bridges back to Him. Randal provides hope by sharing stories of men and women in the Bible who made their way to Plan A. Some were tempted by Plan B, but stayed with Plan A. Some were beguiled and gave in to Plan B, eventually realizing their need for redemption and restoration to Plan A. The true heroes of the faith learned how to persevere and deliberately live in Plan A the rest of their days. If you too have ever entertained the hope of living a life in the center of God’s will, No Plan B is an excellent step in your journey.
Provides alternative solutions to such global problems as population control, emerging water shortages, eroding soil, and global warming, outlining a detailed survival strategy for the civilization of the future.
