Contrary to simplistic portrayals of either blissful relaxation or bewildered depression, adjusting to retirement is every bit as complex and ambiguous as life’s other transitions. In Launching Solo, six retirees describe what actually happened during their initial months out of the workforce: what went smoothly, what proved bumpy, and what they came to either desire or fear. Sometimes, their reactions took them by surprise, while other developments unfolded much as they had expected. These informal conversations with ordinary people are supplemented with brief mention of key research findings. By focusing on the stories of single people, the complications of getting along with one’s partner are set aside to highlight the types of pleasures and personal challenges that retirement brings—challenges that arise regardless of marital status. The good news is that most people like being retired, but their contentment may not emerge instantly or automatically. Launching Solo is a pleasant, yet thought-provoking, read for everybody leaving paid employment to embark on a new way of living.

For as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a pilot, and when I first saw F-80 fighter jets making practice gunnery passes on a firefighting training tower in Anchorage, Alaska, I knew I had to become a fighter pilot. This experience happened when I was 12 years of age and during the period of the Korean War. Seventeen years later I was invited to join the Oregon Air National and informed that I was going to become a fighter pilot in the 123rd Fighter Interceptor Squadron, in Portland, Oregon. The squadron is known as the “Redhawks,” My journey in this chapter of my life began in Miles City, Montana, the place of my birth. Miles City bills itself as “The Cow Capital of the West”, holds an annual bucking horse sale in May of each year, and was the only American city in the contiguous United States to be bombed during World War II. That feat was accomplished by our own U.S. Army Air Corps. On both sides of my family, my grandparents were ranchers and farmers, and the hired workers on the ranch were trustees from the Miles City jail, reform school teenagers, and German POWs. I spent summers in the country and rode a full-size horse at the age of five. I didn’t ride a bicycle, however, until the age of eight when my family moved west to Portland, Oregon. Circumstances in my life, extending into early adulthood, generated a host of highly unusual real-life stories, ranging from the humorous to the tragic, several of which were woven into the fabric of then-current events that made their mark in history. The interesting people I came into contact with during these events contributed significantly to the richness of the experiences. A divorce and remarriages by both of my parents sent my already active early life into a tumultuous spin. In eight grades of schooling, I attended six different elementary schools in three different states plus the Territory of Alaska. Although we were settled for my years in high school and college, those disruptive moves created a restlessness within me that made it a challenge at times to remain focused on my studies. My selection as the University’s Air Force ROTC Drill Team Commander and the program’s Flight Indoctrination Program in which I received my Private Pilot License, imbued me with the direction and confidence I needed to successfully complete Air Force pilot training which I did in South Georgia. My first assignment after pilot training was as a T-33 jet pilot training instructor in Texas. The T-33 was the trainer version of the Korean War vintage F-80. In meeting my “need for speed”, I later converted as an instructor into the supersonic T-38 trainer. After four years of instructing basic flight training, I was reassigned to Korea as a Forward Air Controller and became the Air Division’s T-33 flight program manager. When I completed this overseas tour, at the height of the Air War in Vietnam, I resigned from the Air Force and joined the Oregon Air National Guard. This started a new chapter in my life.

This book presents a rich compilation of real-world cases on digitalization, the goal being to share first-hand insights from respected organizations and to make digitalization more tangible. As virtually every economic and societal sector is now being challenged by emerging technologies, the digital economy is a highly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous place – and one that holds substantial challenges and opportunities for established organizations. Against this backdrop, this book reports on best practices and lessons learned from organizations that have succeeded in overcoming the challenges and seizing the opportunities of the digital economy. It illustrates how twenty-one organizations have leveraged their capabilities to create disruptive innovations, to develop digital business models, and to digitally transform themselves. These cases stem from various industries (e.g. automotive, insurance, consulting, and public services) and countries, reflecting the many facets of digitalization. As all case descriptions follow a uniform schema, they are easily accessible, and provide insightful examples for practitioners as well as interesting cases for researchers, teachers and students. Digitalization is reshaping business on a global scale, and it is evident that organizations must transform to thrive in the digital economy. Digitalization Cases provides first-hand insights into the efforts of renowned companies. The presented actions, results, and lessons learned are a great inspiration for managers, students, and academics. Anna Kopp, Head of IT Germany, Microsoft Understanding digitalization in all its facets requires knowledge about its opportunities and challenges in different contexts. Providing 21 cases from different companies all around the world, Digitalization Cases makes an important contribution toward the comprehensibility of digitalization – from a practical and a scientific point of view. Dorothy Leidner, Ferguson Professor of Information Systems, Baylor University This book is a great source of inspiration and insight on how to drive digitalization. It shows easy to understand good practice examples which illustrate opportunities, and at the same time helps to learn what needs to be done to realize them. I consider this book a must-read for every practitioner who cares about digitalization. Martin Petry, Chief Information Officer and Head of Business Excellence, Hilti

"The extraordinary illustrated biography of the original ""shock rocker,"" published to coincide with his 75th birthday."

Shattered Dreams delves into the personal stories and recollections of several men and women who were in line to fly a specific or future space mission but lost that opportunity due to personal reasons, mission cancellations, or even tragedies. While some of the subjects are familiar names in spaceflight history, the accounts of others are told here for the first time. Colin Burgess features spaceflight candidates from the United States, Russia, Indonesia, Australia, and Great Britain. Shattered Dreams brings to new life such episodes and upheavals in spaceflight history as the saga of the three Apollo missions that were cancelled due to budgetary constraints and never flew; NASA astronaut Patricia Hilliard Robertson, who died of burn injuries after her airplane crashed before she had a chance to fly into space; and a female cosmonaut who might have become the first journalist to fly in space. Another NASA astronaut was preparing to fly an Apollo mission before he was diagnosed with a disqualifying illness. There is also the amazing story of the pilot who could have bailed out of his damaged aircraft but held off while heroically avoiding a populated area and later applied to NASA to fulfill his cherished dream of becoming an astronaut despite having lost both legs in the accident. These are the incredibly human stories of competitive realists fired with an unquenchable passion. Their accounts reveal in their own words--and those of others close to them--how their shared ambition would go awry through personal accidents, illness, the Challenger disaster, death, or other circumstances.

This re-release of Alice Cooper at 75 (2023) celebrates the godfather of shock rock’s life in a photo-filled retrospective detailing 75 key releases and life events.

A self-guided handbook for achieving work and home life balance through task management and improved processes and workflow using ClickUp, AI, and automation Key Features Master ClickUp's core functionalities, automation, and integrations to become a ClickUp power user in all areas of your life Discover new habits and goal-setting methods to accomplish your personal and professional goals Learn with step-by-step guides, FAQs, and a downloadable workbook Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Book DescriptionDo you want to start a business or turn a hobby into a profession, but feel like you're running out of time? Do you want to become a productivity powerhouse, effectively juggling personal and professional responsibilities? Does your team need help boosting efficiency? This comprehensive guide provides practical strategies and action plans to optimize your work and home life using ClickUp. Achieve project success by setting meaningful KPIs, creating team dashboards, generating real-time reports, and extending ClickUp with integrations. You’ll learn how to implement and optimize your workspace structure, project management, processes, workflows, automation, AI, and how to use ClickUp Brain as a knowledgebase. This book also helps you master ClickUp for home life by using it to manage personal tasks, plan vacations, collaborate on projects, maintain interactive inventory, and track household chores. Finally, you'll explore advanced features, goal setting, and personal approaches to maximize your leverage of ClickUp as your 'accomplishment system. Whether you're a seasoned user or just getting started, this ClickUp handbook provides best practices and highlights common mistakes for implementing and optimizing ClickUp to unlock its potential and achieve your goals.What you will learn Manage the fundamentals of ClickUp and learn feature utilization with ClickApps Explore new habits, routines, and simplified project management with ClickUp Manage personal tasks, plan projects, and collaborate on personal events Grasp advanced process writing strategies and automation planning for complex challenges Use ClickUp Brain and AI to automate tasks and improve teamwork Optimize project workflows, task management, time tracking, and integration with other tools Leverage ClickUp for continuous personal and professional growth, achieving a balanced work and home life Who this book is for This book is for anyone who wants more out of life and wants to reclaim time in areas that matter most. It will help everyday people, professionals, entrepreneurs, business owners, project managers, hobbyists, and anyone seeking to enhance their time management skills and productivity. Whether you’re an experienced user or new to ClickUp, this book offers valuable insights, including ClickUp's AI features.

In Soundtracks of Asian America, Grace Wang explores how Asian Americans use music to construct narratives of self, race, class, and belonging in national and transnational spaces. She highlights how they navigate racialization in different genres by considering the experiences of Asians and Asian Americans in Western classical music, U.S. popular music, and Mandopop (Mandarin-language popular music). Her study encompasses the perceptions and motivations of middle-class Chinese and Korean immigrant parents intensely involved in their children's classical music training, and of Asian and Asian American classical musicians whose prominence in their chosen profession is celebrated by some and undermined by others. Wang interviews young Asian American singer-songwriters who use YouTube to contest the limitations of a racialized U.S. media landscape, and she investigates the transnational modes of belonging forged by Asian American pop stars pursuing recording contracts and fame in East Asia. Foregrounding musical spaces where Asian Americans are particularly visible, Wang examines how race matters and operates in the practices and institutions of music making.

Based on the author’s research in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and other urban areas in Vietnam, this study of contemporary Vietnamese popular music explores the ways globalization and free market economics have influenced the music and subcultures of Vietnamese youth, focusing on the conflict between the politics of remembering, nurtured by the Vietnamese Communist government, and the politics of forgetting driven by the capitalist interests of the music industry. Vietnamese youth at the end of the second and beginning of the third millennium are influenced by the challenges generated by a number of seemingly opposite ideologies and realities, such as "the past" versus "the present," socialism versus capitalism, and cultural traditionalism versus globalization. Vietnam has undergone a radical demographic shift with a very pronounced youth movement, and consequently, Vietnamese popular culture has been radically reshaped by a young population coming of age in the twenty-first century. As Olsen reveals, the way Vietnamese young people cope with these opposing and contrasting forces is often expressed in their active and passive music making.

The second book of the Brazilian Music Records series features Acabou chorare, a mix of Jimi Hendrix's distorted rock and João Gilberto's bossa nova beat, with Novos Baianos at their best. In the book, the journalist Marcio Gaspar interviews musicians and other artists linked to the large Novos Baianos community to review the history of the album that blended rock, samba, bossa nova, experimentalism... and had an unprecedented impact on social behavior. As Paulinho Boca states in the book: "We were perhaps the first opinion leaders of Brazilian youth. Leaving the buildings for the squares, a new race". The Brazilian Music Records series, published in Portuguese and English, is edited by the music critic Lauro Lisboa Garcia.