The book is written on the simple premise that the men who wrote this document (along with The Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights, which together are the definitive founding documents of our country and the Rule of Law in America) were highly intelligent and experienced Statesmen who had lived under the yoke of tyranny under King George III. The distinction here is that they were Statesmen, not politicians. The words they wrote were well-considered and reviewed in order to ensure they communicated the intent of the founders.

They wrote these documents not obfuscate and confuse, but to share and enlighten.

Using less than 5000 words, the founders created a nation, conceived in liberty and the belief that all men are created equal, that they were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.

In a time when our leaders are men and women skilled in confusing and avoiding simple facts, it is prudent to have a simple interpretation of the foundational documents of our nation; The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and the Amendments to the Constitution.

I've also included other important, but often misunderstood documents, such as The Gettysburg Address and The Emancipation Proclamation.

The intent of this book is not to be a rehashed version of The Project Management Institute's (PMI(r)) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK(r)). Many excellent books already address these topics very well. The aim of this book is to provide some assistance and insights for Project Managers who might find themselves overwhelmed by the PMBOK(r), or a new Project Manager who wants some help getting started and getting organized.

The goal of this book is to provide some insights and guidance for those Project Managers who find themselves managing projects in a functional or weak matrix organizational structure; organizational structures in which the Project Manager has little if any official authority or power. Typically, these will be organizations that have gained a nebulous realization of the benefits of Project Management; but have not fully committed to converting to a strong matrix or project-based organizational structure.

This book takes the readers beyond the theoretical aspects of Project Management and introduces them to some practical applications of the trade. While much of the focus of this book will be on the Information Technology industry; the tips, tools, and techniques introduced here can apply to any project in any industry and will support revenue projects as well as development projects.

Do not be alarmed if you are not a Project Manager, the Scorecard can be used in other realms, limited only by your imagination. At the very least, this exercise will illustrate the capabilities of Excel and teach some valuable techniques in the process.

The book assumes the reader knows nothing about Excel and progressively elaborates upon each exercise and technique, building knowledge while providing insights into how to make Excel work for you. It will not overpower you with advanced techniques and vague tips that you may never use.

Each subsequent chapter will build on previous work so that by the end of the book, you will have a fully functional (and modifiable) Quality Scorecard and an understanding of how it works.

The concepts learned here will be valuable in any context.

The final chapter will be a discussion of the Concept of 'Quality by Design', which is the foundation of the Quality Scorecard

{While writing this book, my employer of four years decided to ‘eliminate’ my position. They gave me 25 days notice. By following my own advice from this book, I accepted a job offer, less than two weeks into the job search, with a twenty percent increase in salary.}

While quality standards have been developed for the more traditional environments and industries, corporate Information Services Departments lag behind.

Borrowing heavily from one of the most regulated industries in the world, American Food and Drugs, we can identify four key metrics and focal points of opportunity to improve the quality of Corporate Information Services efforts.

Communications gaps that exist between the business-savvy sponsor and the technical-minded analyst often increase the complexity of defining business requirements. In many instances, neither party is willing or able to adopt the dialect of the other. This is why it is critical that that the Project Manager document a clear understanding of each requirement, couched in terms that all parties agree with and can understand.

The typical executive business sponsor will frame the request in broad terms, often phrased to coincide with the broader strategic goals of the organization. Sometimes, this phraseology is a result of not understanding how to define the key deliverables to others. This frequently happens when an executive instructs a subordinate to have IT develop a solution. What the subordinate perceives as the project definition may vary significantly from what the executive intends to convey.

With just a little planning and awareness, individuals can change their potential lot in life from victim to that of a survivor. Again, intent of this book is to help individuals prepare to survive disruptions in our modern society. The reader will not find all of the answers in this book; perhaps you will find no answers in this book. I hope that this book will point some in the direction of survival. As with any planning process, start with a survival list of what you need to survive. From this list, you can develop a survival pack and bug-out bag, or a survival bag, ready for immediate use, enabling you to act with confidence that you have the basic tools for survival. This book provides the foundations of a survival bag.

Again, this is not written as the definitive survival manual, much of what you read will be suggestions that may not be applicable for every situation. With a little luck, no one will ever have to use the advice of this book on disaster survival. That being said, many experts expect a nuclear device to explode on American soil within the next few years.

The concept of this book is based upon total societal collapse, with little or no hope for restoration of life as we know it. Many people will read this and immediately discard it as ‘rubbish’ since it is in opposition with their beliefs. Hopefully, others will read it and say, “Hmmm.”

Along with this legend is the belief that her thesis was immediately seized by world Governments and classified as ‘Top Secret’ and all traces of it removed from ANY intellectual repository. That is what piqued my intellectual inquisitiveness. How would one go about writing a document that the Governments of the world deemed so important that it be protected from access by the vast majority of humanity? What could a document contain that was so critical that it would be removed from sight?

If the ‘legends’ are true, then the frightening aspect of this is that a very highly placed member of the Administration is a proponent of eliminating billions of people. I will not use specific names or position titles, or even the legendary thesis title. I will let you do your own research and come to your own conclusions.

>p> This essay is an academic exercise and is for entertainment purposes only; it is not based on any special insight or restricted knowledge.

With a past tinged by witchcraft and forged in war, he fights satanic evil in his own fashion, often without regard for human laws. His self-appointed mission is to stop the practice of human sacrifices and the spread of Satanism. While many witches may be benign, Jack has discovered that a malignant sect of Witchcraft is bent upon the destruction of humanity as we know it.

Becoming disheartened, he considers resigning from his adventures and pursuing a budding romance with a fellow worker, Denise Coles. However, his life becomes more complicated when he discovers a coven of powerful witches in his own bank. He turns to friends and associates from his past and the Viet Nam net work to find allies in his battle against the evil witches.

The powerful young witch, Laurie Nevins, leads the attacks against him and threatens to steal his new-found love as a sacrifice for her covens. The intensity of her attacks grows in proportion to the growth of her powers, forcing Jack to struggle with increasingly violent attacks while trying to preserve his conservative image at work.

One snowy night, Laurie stages a life-ending attack upon Jack, apparently leaving Denise defenseless and vulnerable. Her elation at Jack’s death is short-lived as she learns that the adventurous banker is not an easy kill.

Jack enlists the aid of a friend and takes the battle to Laurie and her three covens as she attempts to sacrifice Denise during a blizzard. As the night wears on and time runs out, Jack battles the three covens and attempts to rescue Denise. The two lovers discover new strength of character as the powerful witch uses her vast repertoire of power and magic to end their lives.

In the process, she forms an unlikely partnership with another Master Witch, Yvette DuBois, who also shares an unpleasant history with Jack Mitchell, known as The Witchhunter.

While training her covens, the young witch discovers that one of her coven members has lycanthropic tendencies; she is a werewolf. Protected and aided by the gigantic beast, the young witch plots her revenge on Jack Mitchell and his wife by kidnapping their daughter for use as a sacrifice to open the portal.

However, Mary Beth discovers some undesirable ‘human’ emotions that came with her new body. She develops strong feelings for a young man. These new emotions confuse the witch as she pits her inhuman desires against internal human emotions.

Jack and his wife, Denise team up with the Private Investigator, Jim Lyon and Flame Vasquez again to save his daughter before the witches can sacrifice her and destroy the fabric that separates the worlds of humans and the demonic.

Responding to Jack’s plea for help, Jim and Flame reunite months after their battle against a serial killer in the Wichita storm drains. Most of their experience is with the darker side of humanity and not with the supernatural.

This story follows a young man’s growth through the war, starting with the innocent ideals of a Midwestern farm boy. The Army and the war worked to change his perceptions for all time.

With growing wartime experience, the youth changes emotionally as he makes difficult life and death decisions and completes intelligence missions under obscure political guidelines. With the passage of his innocence through the war, he is awarded medals and shame.

While many found that conflict to be abhorrent, the veteran served with pride and came home to a country not ready to accept them. Until recently, many Viet Nam veterans were shunned or ignored on Veteran's day.

The most common question asked of those who returned is: "Why did you go? You could have refused or gone to Canada."

I always respond, “It was a Question of Honor.” Most people just shake their heads and walk away.

If they have to ask the question, they cannot understand the answer.

This man, Mabus, ascended the American throne, not by rightful election of the populace, but by enormous propaganda efforts and fraudulent voting practices, funded by his foreign masters who counted among their numbers dictators, terrorists, and rabid socialists bent upon the destruction of America. He uses the Cloward Piven strategy to destroy the economy and rewrites the story of America to match his delusional view of the world.

Mike Robinson, an Army veteran, tried to remain neutral; hoping that the legitimate political processes would solve the Mabus problem and restore sanity to America. However, when Mabus ordered the wholesale incarceration of loyal Americans by purple berets and UN soldiers, hopes for neutrality vanished. He finds himself living in a Post-Apocalyptic America, ravaged by political thugs and New World Order bigots.

Escaping from a brutal concentration camp, Mike joins forces with other people of the book trying to restore their country to its erstwhile greatness. With the military in exile, the small band of loyalists wage a relentless war against the domestic enemies of America and its Constitution. The second American revolution gains momentum as they challenge the disastrous policies of the evil dictator bent upon the destruction of America.

Mabus - Nostradamus' Third Anti-Christ

Initially, Jim was ambivalent about The Butcher, being willing to leave that matter to the police and other detectives, until The Butcher starts killing his friends. That made the killer’s actions personal.

The detective develops a computer program that allows shim to predict when the killer will strike again. The matching of wits takes on a more threatening aspect when the killer realizes he has a nemesis and accepts the challenge. However, the killer raises the stakes in the game by targeting Jim’s friends.

Three of his friends, Meg, Susan, and Flame are attacked by the madman, who has some decidedly supernatural capabilities. They each fight for survival in their own style as The Butcher is bent upon taking Jim’s friends away from him.

In his investigation, the detective is forced to use his wits and weapons to protect his friends and himself from a madman who grows bolder with each murder. While Jim can predict when the madman will strike, he must figure out how he travels through the city without being seen and how he can so easily escape capture.

This story is based on an actual Delphi rewrite of a program I developed to predict activities of BTK and validated by Jack the Ripper and the Boston Strangler.