At sunset, the San Gabriel Mountains form a rosy sculptural backdrop for Pasadena, a city of stately street trees and lush gardens. Attracted by a paradisiacal climate, health seekers and wealthy Easterners flocked to its resort hotels--the Green, the Maryland, the Huntington, the Painter, the Raymond--and built grand residences along Orange Grove and Grand Avenues. Scores of commercial and industrial buildings rose downtown, punctuated by public works, civic buildings, schools, and churches that doubled as works of art, like the Colorado Street Bridge, the Christian Science Church, and the California Mediterranean-style city hall. Preservation efforts have succeeded in putting Old Pasadena and the Pasadena Civic Center on the National Register of Historic Places, and continued restoration has made the city's unique architectural treasures a major attraction in Southern California.

Biography of William H. Pickering, 1910-2004 On the first day of February 1958, three men held aloft a model of Explorer 1, America's first Earth satellite, for the press photographers. That image of William Pickering, Wernher von Braun, and James Van Allen became an icon for America's response to the Sputnik challenge. Von Braun and Van Allen were well known, but who was Pickering? From humble beginnings in a remote country town in New Zealand, Pickering came to California in 1928 and quickly established himself as an outstanding student at the then-new California Institute of Technology (Caltech). At Caltech, Pickering worked under the famous physicist Robert Millikan on cosmic-ray experiments, at that time a relatively new field of physics. In 1944, when Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was developing rocket propulsion systems for the U.S. Army, Pickering joined the work-force as a technical manager. He quickly established himself as an outstanding leader, and 10 years later, Caltech named him Director of JPL. And then, suddenly, the world changed. In October 1957, the Sputnik satellite startled the world with its spectacular demonstration of Soviet supremacy in space. Pickering led an intense JPL effort that joined with the von Braun and Van Allen teams to answer the Soviet challenge. Eighty-three days later, on 31 January 1958, America's first satellite roared into Earth orbit. A few months after that, Pickering's decision to affiliate JPL with the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration set the basis for his subsequent career and the future of NASA's ambitious program for the exploration of the solar system. In the early days of the space program, failure followed failure as Pickering and his JPL team slowly ascended the learning curve. Eventually, however, NASA and JPL resolve paid off. First the Moon, then Venus, and then Mars yielded their scientific mysteries to JPL spacecraft of ever-increasing sophistication. Within its first decade, JPL-built spacecraft sent back the first close-up photographs of the lunar surface, while others journeyed far beyond the Moon to examine Venus and return the first close-up views of the surface of Mars. Later, even more complex space missions made successful soft-landings on the Moon and on Mars. Pickering's sudden death in March 2004 at the age of 93 was widely reported in the U.S. and overseas. As one NASA official eulogized him, His pioneering work formed the foundation upon which the current program for exploring our solar system was built. On this, the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Space Age, it is proper to remind ourselves of the ordinary people who met the extraordinary challenge to make it happen. (most of this is from the left inside flap of the dust jacket) r

The Life of an Activist is a non-fiction narrative that describes key steps on how to become and evolve into an effective activist and community leader. The book describes social movements and provides useful advice on how to successfully manage non-profits to accomplish positive social change that truly improves people’s lives. The author is a lifelong activist who was born in the United States but was deported to El Salvador as a baby. He spent his childhood in El Salvador but moved back to the United States and grew up in South Central Los Angeles during the tumultuous and violent decades of the late 1970s and 1980s. He has also lived and worked in Rochester, Minnesota; Madrid, Spain; Washington, D.C.; and Alexandria, Virginia. In each of these cities, he observed and learned a great deal about social movements and activism. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to improve their own lives and communities through activism. As Gandhi stated, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” The Life of an Activist: In the Frontlines 24/7 will truly be life-changing and inspirational.