After wading through many different NT 4.0 Administrator Bibles, I found this book to be an excellent read. Having not had previous experience supporting an NT environment of any kind, I was looking for some serious help to get up to speed. Well this book did it.

My copy of this book now sports many little "sticky" markers and is wonderfully colored with highlighted and underlined notes. The only "bible" that I've read completely.

This book is well written, easy to follow and does not need to be read in sequential order. I jumped from chapter to chapter and still found the information useful. I have now jumped from "scared" to try it, to "hey let's dive in mode." It's a wonderful feeling when you can get information from a book and feel confident to stride forth into the strange and unknown.

I found an acronym that was new to me, and told the publisher. The next thing I knew, I received a surprise e-mail from the author explaining the acronym with examples. So how many authors do you know that will take the time to answer your questions?

Paul Villanueva has all of the outward indicators: high risk /high profile assignments (i.e. street crime enforcement, undercover narcotics, etc.), a "trophy-class" beautiful wife, many toys (Harleys, sports cars, Kubota tractor, swimming pool, ranch house on acreage), and the ability to bench-press a medium sized sedan and on and on.

Along with this image comes a tendency to relate mostly with other cops or immediate family members, and an instinct to mask all feelings to a great extent. After all of this, he is able to put these learned behaviors aside and make a very open and sensitive accounting of dealing with intensely personal events and their impact on him.

So far, I have one other impression; that he is able to include his reliance on his faith without being bombastic about it, (something others in their pontifications were not able to do).

Chief Brian Hebbard
Chief of Police
Commerce City, Colorado

Villanueva writes from experience. Having lost relatives and friends to death, he learned valuable lessons on living life differently. When his father died last year, and his father-in-law died two months after, he took a journey into making sense of all the pain and despair. After much study and reflection, Villanueva put together a tight systemetic approach to understanding loss and getting to the healing part of living.

I found the book's contents very helpful in my own time of grief and need. The book discusses the diffilculty some have dying in the modern world of medical breakthroughs, and Villanueva gives a very helpful dying timeline for those who may be anticipating death in a hospice or terminally ill environment. He examines the naturalness of death, as well as the afterlife. However, Villanueva ties it together with the thought that we all leave a legacy here on earth while we live.

I found the chapter on anger helpful, and appreciated the good news that sadness, dispair, anger, and loss can at times lead one into greatness and discipleship. Villanueva relates well with his reader, and emphasizes learning and growing through the grief and loss process.

The book has a very practical appendix that discusses practical matters as funeral expenses, con games, rip-offs and financial matters relating to the death and dying business.

If you are experiencing loss or know someone who is, please do yourself and them a favor and get this book. Very helpful and spiritual.

This book clearly describes multiple methods of travel
and why you might decide to choose the method which he calls "threading." A method of travelling that many backpackers who have taken multi-week trips or longer might already be familiar with, but clearly outlined and compared with other methods.

The author also describes route planning, and living on the road. While I have not read these latter two sections yet, the quality of writing and advice in the 1st section is good enough for me to warrant giving this book 5 stars.

As an earlier reviewer stated, most will find many nuggets of information, save for the most seasoned of travelers. Even for those - it's nice to hear another voice. This book is how-to book, not what.