Chances are that if you are reading this review you will be aware that there is not a plethora of writing about jet boats.

Mr Krinak started jet boating in 1990 and obviously got the bug, and felt strongly enough about it to write this his first book, seven years later.

It is an honest and forthright account of types, sytems, buying advice, maintenance and basic piloting techniques. The authors style is personable and anecdotal. His personal background as a career aviator is quite apparent, as evidenced by a three page section on the selection of proper sunglasses. But for all that, its not intrusive. There are plenty of B/W photographs and a reasonable number of diagrams.

The main points of criticism are that, while ostensibly a book about jet boating in general, its information is mainly relevant to the American Pacific Northwest. All the boats are huge by international standards and there could be more discussion about the variety of boat styles and applications. Also the term "jet sled" is unknown outside the USA.

The section detailing the two main types of jet units has no diagrams and fails to note the axial-type pumps get a boat up on plane quicker. Similarly there is no discussion on deep V hulls, fuel preparation, specific engine configurations, bilge pumps, whitewater splash covers or the use of heat exchangers. Might have been good to see some historical info and an index as well.

Perhaps we might see a second edition that addresses some of these areas.

These criticisms aside, a jolly good first book and probably a "must-buy" for someone getting into the sport. And well done to Mr Kirnak for having the courage of his convictions to write it.

This book is a disappointing departure from Waters, a poet whose early poems spoke with a tensial strength, but these poems are full of a solipsistic vision that never leaves the patio-- even the historical poems, or poems which should be heartbreaking, rely on an overly cautious formality that just left saying, so ... poem after poem, no investigation into figurative language and its usages, no emotional risk taking. Only control.

Michael Waters brought together a collection of poems that
brings mixed reviews from me. I didn't really like the
poems that were not written with a narrative style. Many of
them seemed too ambiguous and didn't really keep my
attention as well as I thought they should have. I like poems that are more
straight forward and simple, with a complex meaning deeper
inside (much like a lot of William Blake's work). This is
not Waters' style and that is probably why I have these
problems with his book.
Note that I did say that I have 'mixed reviews for the
book.' There were a lot of things that Waters did do that I
really liked. I enjoyed some of his poems simply because of
the topics. Most of the poetry in the poem dealt with sex
in one way or another. His poetry has a very smooth flow
and often times a sexual connotation was thrown in to break
up the reading and re-capture the readers attention (at
least that's what it did for me). I liked the sexual nature
of the poems and how he used this topic to cover such topics
as love lost, a teenager being horny, bathing or even a
metaphor for nature. In one of my favorite pieces, Voyeur,
Water's makes reference to leaving the blind open while
having sex just to add a little thrill to the process.

'...their lovemaking self-conscious, a rehearsed
choreography of mouths and genitals
for the imaginary voyeur who quickened their pleasure with
his presence.'

He makes the point that just the idea that someone could be
watching is enough to cause arousal.
The author also used the idea of God a lot in the book,
especially at the end. This could of been a resolution of
some sort, but I'm not sure. God is seen as an everyday
person just doing his job in poems like 'Driftwood.' Jesus
Christ is even compared to James Brown in 'Christ at the
Apollo:1962.' I like these metaphors because I think that
it keeps the reader into the poem and always looking for the
next clever thought by the poet. These, along with the
intense imagery of body parts in a lot of his poems are the
positives I found in Waters' book. However, in a lot of the
poems I felt like the flow became so steady the reader could
become lost in the words that didn't have a lot of
direction. That is why I enjoyed the sexual breaks so much.
While I enjoyed a lot of the poems, the style that Waters'
uses is not the one that I particularly prefer.

When I ordered this book I thought it was a collection of stories gathered from people who have moved off the grid with some techniques and practices thrown in. Instead what I've found is that it preaches to the choir.

The emphasis is on explaining how we waste energy through our daily on-the-grid lives and what doing so costs in "real" terms of "dead dinosaurs" turned crude oil deposits. If I'm buying this book then it's assumed I already have some concern for the environment and my energy usage, that I already want to "get off the oil" addiction my nation has. Why propound it over and over and over in this book. Why preach environmentalism in a book bought by environmentalists? Why not give them the info they need and the courage to do it through depicting others who've done it already?

There are some stories of how others have gotten off the grid but they are short and don't really go into any of the problems one may encounter or how they can be overcome.

A disappointing book that so easily could have been much much better.

I found this book very disappointing. I was looking for more of a "How-To" book which would provide answers and ideas for a mountain cabin. Instead I found it to contain warm hearted informtion in the form of short stories. At a minimum this books title should be modified to "The Independant Home - Good Hearted American Stories of Living Well with Power from the Sun, Wind, and Water.

Michael Potts traveled the country to interview the new pioneers who are generating their own power. He wound up with a book that is not so much a technical manual as an introduction to the many subjects that pertain to making an independent home: choosing a site and materials, power generation (photovoltaics, wind turbines, hybrid systems), storage batteries, inverters and control panels; appliances, maintenance and repair, gardening and waste disposal.

Independent living is, in short, a great opportunity for anyone compulsive about details, control, and doing it yourself. It is an opportunity to be a settler, and regain some independence, but with the benefit of today's technology.

It would be easy to dismiss the new pioneers as hippies. But at this point in our history, with mounting evidence about the dangers of relying on oil, the subject of renewable energy has become much more conventional. Far from Luddites, these people retain their high-tech habits and possessions, such as computers, TVs, stereos, cars, and air conditioners. But because they produce their own power, they are much more careful with it. Many of them are engineers. Nearly all of them have engineer's habits in their endless tinkering and tweaking, their love of gadgetry, and their search for the next technological improvement. I particularly enjoyed the brief interviews with some of the movement's leading lights: Amory Lovins at the Rocky Mountain Institute; Karen and Richard Perez, the publishers of Home Power Magazine; and Paul Gipe, an owner of wind farms.

As Russell Kirk wrote, nothing is more conservative than conservation, so there is much here that ought to warm the conservative heart: family, localism, community, smallness, decentralization, independence, self-reliance, responsibility, resourcefulness, craftsmanship, and stewardship. The sort of lives that these people live are much more in tune with the local, decentralized United States outlined in the Constitution and The Federalist, the sort of country which existed before the Wilsonian fascism of 1914. By contrast, it was Marx who used the phrase "the idiocy of rural life" and who praised the breakup of traditional communities. The bureaucratic, multinational corporations of our time are much more socialistic in outlook and behavior, contemptuous of roots and continuity, dependent on government money, federal favors, and centralization of power.

This was my first venture into the field of independent home-building, and I had only a few reservations: some predictable left-wing cliches and cheerleading, lapses in organization, blurring of Potts' interviews with his own comments, and a loss of focus perhaps due to the ambitious attempt to write a "whole guide" to home-building rather than a modest introduction to a vast subject. When the book remains modest, it succeeds. It should fire up the pioneers among us.

Michael E. DeGregorio's attempt to entrance the reader with thewonder and majesty of the ancient sport of surfing falls woefullyshort. The literary quality of "The Secret Spot", DeGregorio's second novel, is roughly on par with preadolescent fiction such as "The Baby-sitters Club", though it lacks the plot line, character development, and grammatical quality of even such elementary literature. The dialog is contrived, with little resemblance to the language of actual teenage surfers which is less philosophical, more crude, and ultimately more real. Kem Nunn's "Tapping the Source" and "The Dogs of Winter" offer a more genuine glimpse of surf culture, explored with all of the essential elements of a satisfying read. Non-fiction works such as Daniel Duane's "Caught Inside" and the Greg Noll biography "Da Bull" also provide access to the spirit and soul of surfing. "Secret Spot" is an amateurish effort which bears no relationship to these excellent examples of the genre of surf literature. The introduction, written by the wife of modern surf legend Wingnut, is insightful and well written. It's all downhill from there. END