During his life, the author has subscribed to and lived the adage “what can be conceived and believed can be achieved.” This book outlines the writer’s life, his achievements, his failures and his adventures. Have you ever thought of wanting to or wondering what would be required to: 1. Become an officer in the U. S. Army and survive a war 2. Form, own and build a multimillion-dollar stock brokerage firm, with a salary, once prosperous, of $100,000 per month, then lose it all 3. At the age of forty-six, run two marathons, ride a bicycle coast to coast in thirty days, climb the Grand Teton and Devils Tower, run rim to rim of the Grand Canyon, swim Alcatraz to San Francisco then complete the Ironman Triathlon in Kona, Hawaii, doing it all in eight months 4. Be a partner in an investment banking firm 5. Climb high mountains on three continents 6. Live in a village in Italy of fewer than one hundred people, where no one speaks a word of English, for two to three months a year 7. Live for months in a home on a beach in Mexico Live vicariously through the narrative or use the descriptive tales as a primer to do it yourself. Henry David Thoreau is credited with the quote, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and die with their song still inside them.” Quite the opposite, the author’s philosophy of life is “just do it.”

A collection of essays, letters, and personal recollections in which Ruth Picardie records her feelings in the year before she died of breast cancer.

The most comprehensive and authoritative representation in English of the remarkable Shen Congwen canon, ranging from the polished stories that made him a serious contender for the Nobel literary prize in the 1980s to lesser known, extravagant experimental pieces.

Temporary agencies place approximately two and a half million people in jobs each day in the United States. Every year, about twelve million people use these placement agencies to find temporary work. Many Americans, even those who desire permanent jobs, decide to enter the labor market through the portal of temporary agencies. Compared with the post-World War II era, when it was a marginal labor practice, temporary employment is today an entrenched feature of jobs and labor markets. How have temporary employment relationships become so widespread and normalized? In The Good Temp, Vicki Smith and Esther B. Neuwirth provide some novel answers to this question. Their provocative analysis is based on an insider's view of the interior dynamics of a temporary help agency in Silicon Valley. It incorporates a historical perspective on the rise of the temporary help service industry. Smith and Neuwirth document how this powerful industry not only created a new market for temporary labor but also played a fundamental role in the erosion of the permanent employment model. They analyze how agencies themselves came to manufacture and market this reinvented product-the good temp, an employee who is effective and efficient, committed, and sometimes preferable to a permanent staff member. Joining extensive participant observation data with historical analysis, The Good Temp contains some surprising findings about temporary employment today and fills a significant gap in our understanding of this important labor relationship.

Biographies on interesting and influential persons who have lived in the state of Illinois.

Includes reprints of proceedings.