The Know-It-All's Guide to Life: How to Climb Mount Everest, Cure Hiccups, Live to 100, and Dozens of Other Practical, Unusual, or Just Plain Fantastical Things PDF
Preview The Know-It-All's Guide to Life: How to Climb Mount Everest, Cure Hiccups, Live to 100, and Dozens of Other Practical, Unusual, or Just Plain Fantastical Things
How To 1 The Know-it-all’s Guide to Life How to climb Mount Everest, cure hiccups, live to 100, and dozens of other practical, unusual, or just plain fantastical things By John T. Walbaum THE CAREER PRESS, INC. Franklin Lakes, NJ 1 title cip.p65 1 1/29/2003, 3:32 PM 2 The Know-it-all’s Guide to Life Copyright 2003 by John T. Walbaum All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press. THE KNOW-IT-ALL’S GUIDE TO LIFE EDITED AND TYPESET BY NICOLE DEFELICE Cover design by Cheryl Cohan Finbow Printed in the U.S.A. by Book-mart Press To order this title, please call toll-free 1-800-CAREER-1 (NJ and Canada: 201- 848-0310) to order using VISA or MasterCard, or for further information on books from Career Press. The Career Press, Inc., 3 Tice Road, PO Box 687, Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417 www.careerpress.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Walbaum, John T. The know-it-all’s guide to life : how to climb Mount Everest, cure hiccups, live to 100, and dozens of other practical, unusual, or just plain fantastical things / by John T.Walbaum. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-56414-673-1 (paper) 1. Life skills—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Self-help techniques. I. Title: How to climb Mount Everest, cure hiccups, live to 100, and dozens of other practical, unusual, or just plain fantastical things. II. Title. HQ2037 .W35 2003 646.7—dc21 2002041250 1 title cip.p65 2 1/29/2003, 3:32 PM How To 3 Dedication For my wife, Margot. Without her constant love and support, this book would not have been written. Acknowledgments I am indebted to many people for their assistance in preparing this book. In no particular order, I would like to thank Gordon Janow with Alpine Ascents International on climbing Mount Everest; Kyle Steckel with Military Adventures and Greg Claxtom of Incredible Adventures on flying MiGs; Paul Turner on being a movie extra; Jim Carlson on jury selection; Amir Aczel of Bentley College on income tax audits; Anita Walbaum and Ed McClure for IQ Tests and Ques- tions; Claudia Bourne Farrell with the Federal Trade Commission on identity theft; Evan Cattanach of Schieffelin & Sommerset and Rich- ard Paterson, master blender at The Dalmore, on single malt whisky; Dave Hughes on curing hiccups; Dr. Jack M. Gwaltney at the Univer- sity of Virginia School of Medicine on avoiding the common cold, and Mark Johnson on Allocating Your Assets. I would also like to thank Gary Webb and Bob Soukup for re- viewing the first draft and, despite their better judgment, foolishly encouraging me in this endeavor. And thanks, of course, to all the people at Career Press, especially Mike Lewis, who saw value in my manuscript. There are surely others I should mention and I regret their omission. 3 2 dedi ackno.p65 3 1/29/2003, 3:32 PM This Page Intentionally Left Blank Contents Introduction 9 How to travel to space 11 How to join Mensa 14 How to try your own case 16 How to decode Wall Street 17 How to hire a contractor 19 How to get rid of the budget surplus 23 How to take the cure 25 How to gain a firm grasp of the obvious 29 How to get a good night’s sleep 30 How to become a movie star 33 How to launch a new career 35 How to get your hair back 36 How to eat an artichoke 40 How to buy a used car 41 How to select an ear of corn 45 How to get a patent 46 How to become a day trader 50 How to protect yourself without buying a gun 54 How to cure hiccups 56 3 TOC.p65 5 1/29/2003, 3:32 PM How to dodge speeding tickets 58 How to photograph an active volcano 64 How to drive like Richard Petty 65 How to go public 66 How to live like a king for a day 72 How to avoid an audit 73 How to climb Mount Everest 77 How to calculate your fortune 82 How to pack for a business trip 83 How to crash a black-tie party 85 How to make great chili 87 How to improve your memory 88 How to solve the problem of public schools 92 How to cure tennis elbow 94 How to get an audience to pipe down 95 How to beat the odds in Vegas 97 How to hit out of a water hazard 102 How to obtain a title of nobility 103 How to resurrect a dead philosophy 107 How to cure bad breath 107 How to eat with chopsticks 111 How to do a swan dive into an empty pool 112 How to find Blackbeard’s treasure 113 How to avoid hitting a moose 115 How to avoid inheriting the Earth 117 How to remove a tattoo 117 How to tell if a president is any good 119 How to prevent jet lag 119 How to get elected to the Senate 123 How to get blood from a stone 130 3 TOC.p65 6 1/29/2003, 3:32 PM How to stop solicitors 131 How to avoid gridlock 133 How to correct your credit report 134 How to ace an interview 136 How to get admitted to Augusta National 143 How to avoid being hit by lightning 144 How to travel in style 147 How to drink like Hemingway 152 How to make great grilled chicken 153 How to learn to fly fish 155 How to prevent identity theft 158 How to compete at altitude 160 How to watch the Tour de France 161 How to get rid of tailgaters 167 How to avoid jury duty 167 How to choose a Christmas tree 169 How to lose weight without dieting or breaking a sweat 170 How to fake it at a bullfight 171 How to conduct like Toscanini 172 How to fly a jet fighter without joining the armed services 177 How to vex the terminally pleasant 180 How to cure a mid-life crisis 180 How to cut an onion without crying 182 How to improve your public speaking 183 How to save the Earth 184 How to turn a mountain back into a molehill 187 How to get rid of all those frequent flyer miles 188 How to live to 100 189 How to run a democracy 192 How to win a basketball game when your team is down by two with the ball and 30 seconds remaining 193 3 TOC.p65 7 1/29/2003, 3:32 PM How to select a single malt scotch 194 How to run with the bulls 198 How to become a Scrabble master 200 How to prevent mosquito bites 206 How to choose a fast food 209 How to remove a fishhook 216 How to avoid catching a cold 217 How to permanently cure a slice 220 How to tell if you are getting fat 220 How to get rid of a fruitcake 221 How to become a billionaire 222 How to train a basset hound 223 How to listen in on the CIA 224 How to allocate your assets 226 Additional resources 233 Index 249 3 TOC.p65 8 1/29/2003, 3:32 PM How To 9 Introduction Like millions of other Americans, I treat bookstores as my private library. When I want to know something, I pull a how-to book off the shelf, skim it, furiously take mental notes, and then return it to the shelves for the next consumer to rough up. It’s no wonder bookselling is a tough business. Well, who wants to spend $30 on a book just to look up how to cut crown molding (upside-down and backwards) by the way? Don’t get me wrong. I love those old Time-Life guides with illustrations of people wear- ing bell-bottom pants installing their own ceiling tile. Step-by-step books are great for hobbyists and weekend carpenters. But let’s face it, most “instructional” books are overloaded with arcane details just so the au- thors can show how smart they are. Then there are books that purport to offer the “secret” to something (losing weight, curing wrinkles, growing hair, etc.). The trouble is, you might read one book only to find another one pushing a completely different theory. Take a stroll through your local library and you’ll see that the half- life of each new miracle cure is about six months. Who has time to keep up with all this stuff? You need the straight scoop and nothing but. Life’s too short, after all, to waste time plowing through books written by fast-buck doctors, talk-show hosts turned authors, and former vice presidents. So to make your life simpler, I’ve written the Know-it-all’s Guide to Life, a wry, wisenheimer’s look at approximately 90 subjects, ranging from the practical (how to stop solicitors) to the fantastical (how to travel to space). Although it’s lighthearted, the material presented is serious. Each chapter is a distillation of the best advice available on a given topic. I’ve done the research so you won’t have to. Besides my personal experience, 9 4 intro.p65 9 1/29/2003, 3:32 PM
The list of books you might like
