Pettit shows busy dads how they can be winners not only at work, but also at marriage and parenting. In addition to challenging them to lead their families with purpose, integrity, and involvement, Pettit offers practical ideas and strategies.

"Contributions by John W. Travis, MD"--Cover.

A compelling and controversial exploration of absentee fathers and their impact on the nation.

A moving, funny, inventive parenting memoir, written in a surprising form: an encyclopedia of failure in sports What can a new father learn about parenthood from reading sports almanacs? For most dads, the answer to this question is: nothing. But to Josh Wilker, whose life and writing have been defined by sports fandom, all of the joy, helplessness, and absurdity of parenthood are present between the lines. After all, what better way to think about losing control than Eugenio Velez's forty-five consecutive at-bats without a hit? How better to understand ridiculous joy than the NFL career of Walter Achiu, whose nickname was "Sneeze"? In the stories of sports figures large and small, Wilker finds the pathos in success and the humor in losing. As the terrified father of a one-day-old, Wilker recalls the 1986 World Series, when the moment was too big for the Red Sox. When he finds himself stealing away for an hour of alone time, Wilker thinks of boxer Roberto Duran, so beaten by Sugar Ray Leonard that he finally gave up. And yet, even as the frustrations and anxieties build, Wilker remembers Mets pitcher Anthony Young, who broke the baseball record for most consecutive losses -- and never stopped showing up. Finding the richness of life in obscure wrestling maneuvers and pop-ups lost in the sun, Benchwarmer is a book of unique humanity and surprising wisdom.

‘The Pasta Kidz™ and Petz Adventures’ are humorous, zany, magical and chaotic stories that bring together the pasta-themed Kidz – including Sarah Spaghetti, Rikki Ravioli, Camilla Cannelloni (above) and their creative Petz – Mumbo the Macaroni Dog, Spud the Spaghetti Horse and Val the Vermicelli Snake (above) together in unusual circumstances, engaging with strange magical objects that have a life of their own. The songs, music and humour, told in specially invented pasta language, will engage 4-to-7 year olds in a fantasy world of friendship. The plots and messages reinforce how the Kidz are unique, with different personalities and their own needs. Each tale shows how they help each other, usually with their own individual Petz, and throughout the series we see how their personalities and friendships develop especially when encountering new characters, like the evil and huge Pasta Beasties! In The Inventing Tubes, the first Pasta Kidz™ adventure in a series of up to forty books, Sarah and Marc Macaroni try their hand at inventing fun objects – and get a very grumpy PastaBall to play football with. But Sarah proves that the sport is not just for boys and she tries her hand at inventing her own ball! Every highly-branded Pasta Kidz™ and Petz story, illustrated in beautiful, full-colour detail, contains a moral message and will both inform and entertain young readers.

These proceedings contain lectures presented at the NATO-NSF-ARO sponsored Advanced Study I~stitute on "Computer Aided Analysis and Optimization of Mechanical System Dynamics" held in Iowa City, Iowa, 1-12 August, 1983. Lectures were presented by free world leaders in the field of machine dynamics and optimization. Participants in the Institute were specialists from throughout NATO, many of whom presented contributed papers during the Institute and all of whom participated actively in discussions on technical aspects of the subject. The proceedings are organized into five parts, each addressing a technical aspect of the field of computational methods in dynamic analysis and design of mechanical systems. The introductory paper presented first in the text outlines some of the numerous technical considerations that must be given to organizing effective and efficient computational methods and computer codes to serve engineers in dynamic analysis and design of mechanical systems. Two substantially different approaches to the field are identified in this introduction and are given attention throughout the text. The first and most classical approach uses a minimal set of Lagrangian generalized coordinates to formulate equations of motion with a small number of constraints. The second method uses a maximal set of cartesian coordinates and leads to a large number of differential and algebraic constraint equations of rather simple form. These fundamentally different approaches and associated methods of symbolic computation, numerical integration, and use of computer graphics are addressed throughout the proceedings.

10 simple and achievable steps that can help transform you from an average dad into a great one!