Due to her newfound convictions, Angel’s event planning company now offers only wholesome entertainment. Clients who booked bachelor parties months ago are furious and demanding refunds. In a desperate move to pull her business out of its downward spiral, Angel compromises. . .and a teenage girl is rushed to the hospital. She compromises a second time and almost loses the rescuer she’s always dreamed of. Wade stops to help a damsel in distress on the highway and ends up falling for the feisty redhead. But is he willing to wait while Angel figures out how to do things God’s way?
From one of the brightest and most acclaimed new lights in YA fiction, a fantastic new novel about a bi Black boy finding first love . . . and facing the return of the mother who abandoned his preacher family when he was nine. There's always been a hole in Gio's life. Not because he's into both guys and girls. Not because his father has some drinking issues. Not because his friends are always bringing him their drama. No, the hole in Gio's life takes the shape of his birth mom, who left Gio, his brother, and his father when Gio was nine years old. For eight years, he never heard a word from her . . . and now, just as he's started to get his life together, she's back. It's hard for Gio to know what to do. Can he forgive her like she wants to be forgiven? Or should he tell her she lost her chance to be in his life? Complicating things further, Gio's started to hang out with David, a new guy on the basketball team. Are they friends? More than friends? At first, Gio's not sure . . . especially because he's not sure what he wants from anyone right now. There are no easy answers to love -- whether it's family love or friend love or romantic love. In Things We Couldn't Say, Jay Coles, acclaimed author of Tyler Johnson Was Here, shows us a guy trying to navigate love in all its ambiguity -- hoping at the other end he'll be able to figure out who is and who he should be.
Discover the hidden ways to raise your organizations’ customer service experiences from ordinary to extraordinary. If you want to know how strong your company’s customer service is, ask your employees to describe what their work entails. Then pay attention to whether they simply list their duties and tasks or if they speak to the true essence of their job--to create delighted customers who will be less price sensitive, have higher repurchase rates, and enthusiastically recommend the company or brand to others. The latter should be every employee’s highest priority, because when it’s not, your customers are merely the recipients of a transaction, not an experience, and transactions do not make for a lasting impression or inspire loyalty. In Delight Your Customers, customer service expert Steve Curtin makes a compelling case that customer service managers need to shift from monitoring service activities to modeling, recognizing, and reinforcing the behaviors that create happy and returning customers. Things such as: Expressing genuine interest Offering sincere compliments Sharing unique knowledge Conveying authentic enthusiasm Providing pleasant surprises Delivering service heroics when needed Simply based on their own personal experiences, everyone knows that great customer service is rare. So why wouldn’t you want to provide a unique, caring, and beneficial experience for all your customers to rave about with others? With the real-world stories, examples, and strategies shared in Delight Your Customers, you can take the customer service experience you offer from ordinary to extraordinary.
The Nature and Value of Happiness provides a historic and contemporary overview of the philosophy of happiness, with critical evaluations to help students analyze the material and trace the evolution of a deeply nuanced concept. Addressing how the modern notion of happiness has changed from its ancient origins, Christine Vitrano attempts to clarify the precise value of happiness. This search leads Vitrano to examine topics such as the moral requirements of happiness and whether happiness can be considered the greatest good or simply one good among many. The philosophical theories are presented in a way that is accessible to anyone interested in learning about happiness, regardless of previous philosophical study. All technical terms and concepts are clearly explained, and illustrative examples tied into the text bring the material to life and help establish the relevance of the subject to readers. The ultimate goal is to reach a definition of the nature of happiness that best reflects the way we use the word today. This book is a welcome addition to the growing literature on happiness and is ideal for initiating provocative discussions in courses on happiness and ethics.
Whimsical Times: Memories from Hong Kong distills on its pages the sensations and reflections of Mukta Arya, a writer and poet who works as a human resources professional in Hong Kong. Over the course of her time in the city, she captured in writing her experiences and the thoughts and feelings that sprang from the events and observations of her days. Even the small details of Hong Kongs life prove worthy of reflection. For instance, the author draws in the reader by illustrating the wonder and mystery of the ordinary: The glittering shops in Hong Kong with every possible type of bling available- for phone covers, bags, clips, purses, ipad covers..you name it and they have it. The glitter can actually kill a person by the combined strength of the coloured rays! I always used to wonder who are the target buyers for these really, really BLINGY articles which seem to be shouting boldly -LOOK AT ME. Why would someone actually buy these in-your-face things...and guess what? I was in for a surprise, a very big surprise. If you find joy in connecting with the deeply human moments of life, particularly when they arise from unusual and unexpected locales, then Whimsical Times: Memories from Hong Kong will satisfy you with its personal musings on life in that city. In the end, the lessons Mukta Arya extracts from her reflections reveal the universal truths of human life, whatever place one calls home.
Is googly a metaphor for surprises of all sorts? Can hat tricks turn contrarian to transform into a metaphor for successive defeats? Where do you use umpire and referee as metaphors? Are they really two different metaphors? As you sprint towards the finish line, as the start line becomes a mere blur in the circuit of life, on which metaphor should be your focus? Why is your finish line only as good as your start line? How are these two metaphors connected? Is sprint a metaphor for any short and speedy spell of running? When are you likely to short circuit the circuit metaphor? Can stymie be a metaphor for frustrating your initiatives totally, stem and root? When does your food turn into a mulligan stew? How did the common defence strategy of sandbagging turn into a billiards metaphor? Marathon and steeplechase - which is a metaphor for endurance and which is a metaphor for perseverance? Is volley a metaphor for a hail of compliments? Should salvo surprise and sear to be a metaphor? When do you turn gambit into a weasel metaphor? Why should chequered be a metaphor for our basic life philosophy? Which pawn metaphor is extremely negative? When do you run the risk of stalemating the stalemate metaphor? When does stalemate on ground become a diplomatic checkmate? All metaphoric googlies! Springing nasty surprises and visiting you unannounced! Do not get caught off guard!! With Not the End of Metaphoric Madness, you need not feel checkmated. This book is sure to help you out of your metaphoric dilemmas. It will also assist you in upholding metaphoric propriety and ensure you do not commit a serious metaphoric faux pas.
If you are a long-time Alaskan hunter and trapper or an adventurous person that has dreamed about wilderness experiences in Alaska, you will not be able to put this book down. As other have said, “ Marty is the real deal” when it comes to a person who has lived the wilderness lifestyle in Alaska. Luckily for us readers, Marty was willing to share his wonderful stories (some humorous, some harrowing) in this book. - Ted Spraker My good friend, Marty Meierotto, has lived a life that most of us have only dreamed of. His new book is filled with true life adventures that reflect both the joys and hazards of living in the remote Alaskan Bush. It is definitely a read worth your time. John Daniel President, National Trappers Association When I first met Marty Meierotto, I thought he looked like the vending machine repairman at a bowling alley in Cleveland. Three days later, having gotten lost in the Arctic while trapping with him and having him rescue me, I realized that there was nothing the guy couldn't do. Read this book and you'll see what I mean. -Bill Heavey editor-at-large Field & Stream
A self-contained introduction to adaptive inverse control Now featuring a revised preface that emphasizes the coverage of both control systems and signal processing, this reissued edition of Adaptive Inverse Control takes a novel approach that is not available in any other book. Written by two pioneers in the field, Adaptive Inverse Control presents methods of adaptive signal processing that are borrowed from the field of digital signal processing to solve problems in dynamic systems control. This unique approach allows engineers in both fields to share tools and techniques. Clearly and intuitively written, Adaptive Inverse Control illuminates theory with an emphasis on practical applications and commonsense understanding. It covers: the adaptive inverse control concept; Weiner filters; adaptive LMS filters; adaptive modeling; inverse plant modeling; adaptive inverse control; other configurations for adaptive inverse control; plant disturbance canceling; system integration; Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) adaptive inverse control systems; nonlinear adaptive inverse control systems; and more. Complete with a glossary, an index, and chapter summaries that consolidate the information presented, Adaptive Inverse Control is appropriate as a textbook for advanced undergraduate- and graduate-level courses on adaptive control and also serves as a valuable resource for practitioners in the fields of control systems and signal processing.
