I have been listening to lessons 61-68 on CD during my commute. Last night I went through all of the online material for lesson 63. I am impressed. I like the pace and the level of repetition. It seems like a good learning approach.

I think this is perhaps a good starting point for me. I picked lesson 63 because of the dialog (61 and 62 seemed to be review). I liked the online review questions about the dialog. I need to also work in some flash card exercises so that I can get some focus on character recognition.

Kirin is great. Her voice is clear and she is easy to understand.

I have a close Chinese friend who listened to some of the recordings on my IPod - she said go with CLO. She constantly remarks on my great accent which she says is always the biggest problem.
I travel a great deal and knowing Chinese, even a little, can only be helpful when 1/4 to 1/3 of the worlds' population speaks Mandarin Chinese. You are doing a great job - I seem to be going very slowly; however, my friend says I am not but rather she is impressed with where I am and again is most concerned about the correct accent.