acknowledgments

This is the first time I’ve written a book. It has been a good learning experience, and also much more work than I anticipated. While I’ve been writing, my career has changed a couple of times and my obligations along with it, affecting the amount of time I could commit to the book. Nickie Buckner and Marina Michaels are the reason this book is complete. If it wasn’t for them, it would have been in editing indefinitely; I was unable to rewrite a couple of chapters in a reasonable amount of time, and Nickie stepped up in a huge way to finish the book. Marina also did more than what was called for in helping the book make it the last 20% of the way as my time became increasingly constrained.

Thank you to my wife, Lilly, who worked overtime in addition to her already exceedingly high normal duties as I worked late nights in the office and sometimes at home to write this book. Thank you to my kids, Victor and Eli, who are awesome; I love them very much. And thank you to my parents for putting me in a position to be able to learn things and get second, third, and fourth chances at life.