San Francisco Book Review

RANDI McKINNON came to USA from Norway in 1959 and settled in Oregon. After working in food service 40 some odd years as a chef and baker, she retired. Thinking retirement was boring, she needed something new to do. Her correspondence with friends almost always turned into what they called ’book editions.’ Of all her hobbies, she likes writing the best and decided to take a correspondence course in writing children’s books. Most of her stories are fiction, as she embellishes on stories from her childhood. In the village where she grew up, it was far between houses, so she had no playmates and had to make up her own games. Trolls and fairies were believed to be real, according to her grandparents. So remembering this, gives her a lot to write about. Some of her sentence structures may not be quite correct, as she sometimes mixes her two languages together. 

LANCE HORTON is a member of the SMU Creative Writing Program, The Writer’s League of Texas, Backspace.org, and an associate member of the International Thriller Writers. In 2007, he was a finalist in the Writer’s League of Texas’s annual manuscript contest for best thriller. Lance resides in Dallas, Texas, where he is at work on his next novel.

VERA LEINVEBERS was born in Latvia and began her first piano lessons at the age of five. She has gone on to perform for audiences across Europe and North America, including multiple appearances on radio and television. She currently resides in Toronto, where she teaches piano lessons at her private studio.

R.M.A. Spears retired from the US Marine Corps in 2009, having served 27 years in the Navy and Marine Corps.. While serving in AOCS Class 06-78 in the US Navy, he contributed to the script for a movie that would go on to be An Officer and a Gentleman. His educational credits include a BS, MBA, OCS, AOCS, TBS, IOC, AWS, CS, OIF, OEF, DUI, and a cavalcade of inglorious civilian occupations. He resides in the ancestral home he salvaged on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River in rural Missouri.

H. Allenger earned a BA in public administration and an MA in international relations. After thirty-one years with the Seattle School District, he is now retired and pursuing his true passions, which include mythology, archaeology, and writing. He currently resides in Seattle, Washington, and enjoys traveling the world.

Dr. Boyd O. Gray grew up on a Missouri farm where his father pastored churches and he became intrigued with events of the end times. After spending twenty years in the military, Dr. Gray graduated from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1979. Since then, he has enjoyed a lengthy career as a pastor. Dr. Gray currently lives in Missouri. Ross Rojek interviews Dr. Gray about his book, Joshua Called to Lead.

Dr. Noyes, practiced in Forest Grove, Oregon forty years, retiring in 2000. Served as US Army physician in Vietnam 1967-68; In 1971 he was the surgeon for a mission hospital in Phuket, Thailand; He received a Master's Degree of Public Health in 1979. His special interest in medicine has been nutrition and preventive medicine and for forty-five years conducting seminars. These seminars have been conducted in USA and several other countries. Since 1971 Dr. Noyes researched the origin and foundational principles of the New Age alternative medical therapies in order to gain an understanding in depth. This information is presented in this book.

Byron W. Lacy was born in Burnet, Texas on March 21, 1950. He is a fourth generation Texan and a fourth generation abductee. Byron’s Great Grandfather, George W. Lacy, came to Texas in the early 1850s. George and two of his business partners donated the granite to build the current Texas state capitol. He also started a dog breed which is now called the Blue Lacy and is the state dog of Texas.  Byron received a B.S in English and an M.A. in art, in 1977. Then he received a M.F.A. in Graphic art in 1978. He has exhibited in galleries and Museums throughout the United States. Byron has worked as a Summer Camp Director, Cook, Carpenter, Plumber, Electrician, English and Art teacher, Freelance Artist, Eligibility Specialist for Texas Department of Human Services, and Investigator for Texas Child Protective Services. He has used these skills in researching his own abductions. He also tries to help abductees, especially newbies, gain perspective of and cope with this phenomenon in their lives. He has lectured at the Houston UFO Network about incidents where his life has been saved by aliens. Byron’s first contact with aliens was in 1955, age 5, but his parents did not allow him to talk about the events, and so he did not understand the significance of these events. Strange occurrences over the years led him to believe they were caused by guardian angels. In 2009, everything changed. A Stargate, like in the movie of the same name, but without a metal frame and only 6 foot across, opened up in front of him two different times a week apart at the same busy intersection. A friend said he thought Byron was an abductee. After some hesitation he researched alien abductions. What he found changed his life, and his view of reality, forever. This revelation caused him to reevaluate many strange incidents throughout his life which had no logical explanation other than guardian angels and led to one conscious contact with three grays and a mantis a few months later. This contact permanently changed Byron’s personality.  Byron now lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, where he spends his time writing, creating sculptures and paintings, studying psychology, metaphysics, and researching his and others, alien abductions, and trying to help himself and others to gain perspective of and cope with this phenomena in their lives.

Dr. Boyd O. Gray grew up on a Missouri farm where his father pastored churches and he became intrigued with events of the end times. After spending twenty years in the military, Dr. Gray graduated from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1979. Since then, he has enjoyed a lengthy career as a pastor. Dr. Gray currently lives in Missouri. Ross Rojek interviews Dr. Gray about his book, Looking Into the Revelation.

Ross Rojek talks with Scott Stawski, author of Inflection Point: How the Convergence of Cloud, Mobility, Apps, and Data Will Shape the Future of Business.A recognized expert in information technology, Stawski is an executive with Hewlett Packard, the world’s largest technology services company. In his role as a Global Area Sales Leader, Stawski is responsible for managing the sales and revenue generation activities for HP’s largest and most strategic global accounts exceeding $600M in revenue annually. Stawski is a recognized expert in Analytics and Data Management, Technology Strategy, Outsourcing and next generation Application Transformation to the Cloud. He and his HP team help companies transform their business through the vast amount of information available in their extended enterprise.Today, a hurricane is forming, and businesses are headed straight into it. This hurricane is arising from the convergence of several enormous trends in information technology, including cloud, mobility, Software as a Service, and Big Data. In Inflection Point, Stawski shows how to harness these fierce winds of change, put them at your back, and sail towards greater competitiveness and customer value. Stawski explains the strategic implications of today’s new technology paradigms, helping you reshape strategy to embrace and profit from them. You’ll discover how technology and other factors are driving a radical new round of disintermediation, reintermediation, and disruption–and what that means to you and your company.

Ross Rojek talks with Scott Stawski, author of Inflection Point: How the Convergence of Cloud, Mobility, Apps, and Data Will Shape the Future of Business.A recognized expert in information technology, Stawski is an executive with Hewlett Packard, the world’s largest technology services company. In his role as a Global Area Sales Leader, Stawski is responsible for managing the sales and revenue generation activities for HP’s largest and most strategic global accounts exceeding $600M in revenue annually. Stawski is a recognized expert in Analytics and Data Management, Technology Strategy, Outsourcing and next generation Application Transformation to the Cloud. He and his HP team help companies transform their business through the vast amount of information available in their extended enterprise.Today, a hurricane is forming, and businesses are headed straight into it. This hurricane is arising from the convergence of several enormous trends in information technology, including cloud, mobility, Software as a Service, and Big Data. In Inflection Point, Stawski shows how to harness these fierce winds of change, put them at your back, and sail towards greater competitiveness and customer value. Stawski explains the strategic implications of today’s new technology paradigms, helping you reshape strategy to embrace and profit from them. You’ll discover how technology and other factors are driving a radical new round of disintermediation, reintermediation, and disruption–and what that means to you and your company.

Albert L. Lamarre continues his exploration adventures as a world traveler during retirement. He has a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and a master’s degree from the University of Western Ontario, both in geology. He and his wife, Janet, live in Dublin, California.Mountains, Minerals, and Me: Thirteen Years Revealing Earth’s Mysteries is an account of the thrills and adventures of author Albert Lamarre, a young exploration geologist who learns not only about the rocks he is exploring but about himself. Enjoy his journey as he vividly recounts his first exposure to the geologic wonders of the western United States, the unforgettable characters he met along the way, and the scenic wonders of beautiful landscapes in which he worked. Follow him over a thirteen-year period as he grows from a wet-behind-the ears new college graduate to a respected professional geologist who made contributions to the country’s natural resource base. The personal discoveries described here will resonate with many readers.So sit back and enjoy his exploration exploits―from being held captive at gunpoint by a Texas rancher’s daughter, to having his Tucson company-office bombed, to being left in absolute darkness in an underground mine in Idaho, to coming face-to-face with a rattlesnake in northern Washington. 

San Francisco Book Review Associate Editor, Steph Rodriguez, met up with musician, record producer, and author Larry Livermore at Well Grounded Tea Coffee Bar in El Cerrito, Calif.  to discuss the second installment of his memoir series, How to Ru(i)n a Record Label. Livermore and business partner, David Hayes, founded Lookout! Records in 1987, an independent record company based in Berkeley, Calif. that captured the East Bay punk rock sound. Lookout's roster of EPs and full-length records include bands like the Lookouts, Mr. T Experience, Operation Ivy (who would later form Rancid), Isocracy, Zero Boys, Screeching Weasel, The Donnas, The Groovie Ghoulies, Green Day, and dozens more.

Theresa Santmann found herself in a world far from the farm of her youth in Ellenburg, New York. Despite the fact that she had a husband with ALS, two very young children, and no way to care for her family and pay the mounting bills, she rose to an unusual challenge. She found a four-apartment rental property in Babylon, New York and turned it into an adult home, the Little Flower Residence, where her husband became her first patient. She returned to school for nursing and began a new life that changed the lives of everyone around her.Theresa’s resourcefulness led her to becoming a registered nurse. She was the first woman in New York State to obtain an FHA-backed loan to build a 160-bed nursing home, with only a woman’s name on the application. She operated one of the most successful nursing homes on Long Island, invented and patented a unique walker, became an airplane pilot, and so much more. One of her more daring escapades was overcoming a navigational challenge with her disabled husband and two young children on board their thirty-seven-foot boat, Wicky One, from her home in Babylon to Canada. She plotted the course through the waterways; Fire Island inlet, west in the Atlantic Ocean, up the Hudson River, past West Point, and beyond. Soon there was another challenge, the locks that she had never navigated nor witnessed. She managed till finally there it was, Lake Champlain.Theresa is the author of In Gratitude to My Guardian Angel. You can also read our review of In Gratitude to My Guardian Angel.She's interviewed by SFBR's, Elise Ramsay.B

Theresa Santmann found herself in a world far from the farm of her youth in Ellenburg, New York. Despite the fact that she had a husband with ALS, two very young children, and no way to care for her family and pay the mounting bills, she rose to an unusual challenge. She found a four-apartment rental property in Babylon, New York and turned it into an adult home, the Little Flower Residence, where her husband became her first patient. She returned to school for nursing and began a new life that changed the lives of everyone around her. Theresa’s resourcefulness led her to becoming a registered nurse. She was the first woman in New York State to obtain an FHA-backed loan to build a 160-bed nursing home, with only a woman’s name on the application. She operated one of the most successful nursing homes on Long Island, invented and patented a unique walker, became an airplane pilot, and so much more. One of her more daring escapades was overcoming a navigational challenge with her disabled husband and two young children on board their thirty-seven-foot boat, Wicky One, from her home in Babylon to Canada. She plotted the course through the waterways; Fire Island inlet, west in the Atlantic Ocean, up the Hudson River, past West Point, and beyond. Soon there was another challenge, the locks that she had never navigated nor witnessed. She managed till finally there it was, Lake Champlain.Theresa is the author of Life in Babylon.