Extreme Blindside

After winning Olympic silver, teen snowboarder Jake Taylor is struggling with sudden fame when he’s offered a gig he can’t refuse: becoming a spokesperson for a state-of-the-art athletic training facility. Training for its first competition, Jake relies on his faith to help him find ways to use his fame to help others . . . when athletes mysteriously start getting sabotaged one by one. Time is running out for Jake and his girlfriend, Sophie, to figure out what is going on before he is also sabotaged . . . or worse.

A ten-day Caribbean cruise might sound like a fabulous way to spend the holidays, but Liz would rather be anywhere than stranded on a ship with her estranged father for his high school reunion. While an anonymous note, an onboard mystery, and a cute boy help turn the tide on the unwanted trip, Liz and her father drift even further apart. However, when Liz’s reckless actions create a tsunami of unintended consequences, she recognizes that she’s drowning in pent-up hurt and anger. As her carefully created façade begins to ebb away, she turns to her faith and sets off to chart a new course for her life.

A host of catastrophes, natural and otherwise, as well as some pleasant surprises—like the sudden end of the cold war without a shot being fired—have caught governments and societies unprepared many times in recent decades. September 11 is only the most obvious recent example among many unforeseen events that have changed, even redefined our lives. We have every reason to expect more such events in future. Several kinds of unanticipated scenarios—particularly those of low probability and high impact—have the potential to escalate into systemic crises. Even positive surprises can be major policy challenges. Anticipating and managing low-probability events is a critically important challenge to contemporary policymakers, who increasingly recognize that they lack the analytical tools to do so. Developing such tools is the focus of this insightful and perceptive volume, edited by renowned author Francis Fukuyama and sponsored by The American Interest magazine. Bl indside is organized into four main sections. "Thinking about Strategic Surprise" addresses the psychological and institutional obstacles that prevent leaders from planning for low-probability tragedies and allocating the necessary resources to deal with them. The following two sections pinpoint the failures—institutional as well as personal—that allowed key historical events to take leaders by surprise, and examine the philosophies and methodologies of forecasting. In "Pollyana vs. Cassandra," for example, James Kurth and Gregg Easterbrook debate the future state of the world going forward. Mitchell Waldrop explores why technology forecasting is so poor and why that is likely to remain the case. In the book's final section, "What Could Be," internationally renowned authorities discuss low probability, high-impact contingencies in their area of expertise. For example, Scott Barrett looks at emerging infectious diseases, while Gal Luft and Anne Korin discuss energy security. How can we avoid being blindsided by unforeseen events? There is no easy or obvious answer. But it is essential that we understand the obstacles that prevent us first from seeing the future clearly and then from acting appropriately on our insights. This readable and fascinating book is an important step in that direction.

Downing tools in the allotment where they have toiled for the last six years, Valerie and her husband Wolfram decide to cycle to Germany to visit his mother. Before they leave, Val's guide the Aztec Priest appears among the bean rows and tells her this will be a Vision Quest - and so it turns out to be, not least due to their involvement in Channel 4's 'Real Holiday Show'. In spite of the dangers they encounter on this trip they develop an appetite for foreign parts and embark on many subsequent cycling adventures, all of which turn out more or less disastrously. Travel with them as they ride through France, Italy and their beloved Black Forest - the stoic Val shouting instructions from behind as the hapless blind Wolf does his best to avoid hitting anything. Share their horrors and delights at the larger-than-life characters they meet abroad and the comradeship of their Asian neighbours on the allotments. A heartwarming and spiritual tale of two lives inextricably intertwined - until Fate intervened.

The devastation of a ruined summer. The gift of a second chance. Can Josie learn the lessons she needs ito discover her true self? After a humiliating event and overwhelming peer pressure, 16-year-old Josie flees her home to spend the summer with her aunt on a South Carolina Island. Her fresh start turns into the summer of her dreams as friendships grow, romance blossoms, and a series of thefts surround her with excitement. However, when tragedy strikes someone close to her, Josie realizes there are more important things than her reputation. As she sets out to solve the mystery she has become entangled in, she not only realizes the importance of relying on her faith but along the way also discovers who God wants her to be.

On the blind side is an account of the rehabilitation of some of the men and women Lynda has trained when they lost their sight either through accident or illness or on the battlefield. They are all heroes. Theirs are stories of bravery and courage, of hope and fulfillment. Arriving at the Enid Whitaker Rehabilitation for the Blind at a crisis point in their lives, often suicidal, always downcast, they departed on completion of their course full of new ambition to conquer the world. Running in tandem with the stories of the rehabilitees are brief vignettes from Lyndas own history, glimpses into how she came to take up the work she did. The contents include chapters such as: In the beginningLyndas own background for doing the work Clash of the Titians a case history of one of the students Pancakes and snow...an account of optacon teaching Too much sugar about Diabetes Mellitus The book should appeal to the general reader, to those facing impending loss of sight, and those who are already blind, as well as to professionals in the field of blindness. It is an essentially human story of hope and courage which Lynda had the privilege to witness many, many times in the course of her career as the first locally trained Mobility Instructress in South Africa. Lynda was employed by the South African National Council for the Blind and later by St Dunstans for War Blinded Veterans.Today she freelances in the community.

All's fair in love and war... Mal and Bastian have always known that when Humanity Ascendant declares war on the gods, they’ll be fighting on opposite sides. But that’s always felt like a problem for another day. Not anymore. Mal knows Bastian won’t live to see the end of this fight The only question is how many of Mal’s friends he’ll take down with him. Unless Mal stops the war before it starts. She has one shot, and she’s going to take it. Even if that means defying her god. Even if it means deceiving her allies. Even if it means losing Bastian...

The book behind the Academy award-winning film starring Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw—over one million copies sold. When we first meet him, Michael Oher is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or how to read and write. He takes up football, and school, after a rich, white, Evangelical family plucks him from the streets. Then two great forces alter Oher: the family's love and the evolution of professional football into a game where the quarterback must be protected at any cost. Our protagonist becomes the priceless package of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback's greatest vulnerability, his blind side.