Acknowledgments

This book started out as a high-level conceptual book and morphed into a hands-on detailed book. There were actually close to two books written to arrive at this one. Therefore, writing this book was a lot of work. I thank my wife, Patricia, and son, Matthew, for their patience and understanding! I look forward to spending weekends and nights with both of you again. I also look forward to spending weekends playing baseball, basketball, and football with Matthew again. Again, thank you to both of you.

I also want to thank the people at Pearson, who are far more patient than anyone else I have ever known. They somehow remained steadfast through this project. In no particular order I would specifically like to thank Mark Renfrow, Neil Rowe, Joan Murray, and Karen Gettman for their patience and confidence. I would also like to thank Barbara Hacha at Pearson for copyediting the book and making it more readable. I would like to thank David Franson and Richard Olson for technically reviewing the chapters and many of the labs. I would also like to thank Kai Middleton for stepping in at the last moment and reviewing a couple of chapters and labs. Finally, I would like to thank Betsy Harris for managing the copy-edit process and getting this book to you.