smattering

I got to work this morning and had an email from a customer wanting to add himself to the existing license we have with his company. But he typed: Would you please ass me to our license?

That's good stuff.

I have never read anything by this Nick Hornby person. Should I?

I have photos of the first day of (de)construction in our basement! But they're trapped on my digital camera. Neener.

Over the weekend I read In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made -- by Norman Cantor. MSH and I were at B&N on Friday night and I thought it looked very interesting, so he bought it for me. (MSH isn't a big proponent of something I like to call the LIBRARY.) It was pretty good, but a little too academic--like he just transcribed some lectures or reworked a longer paper. He rambles on a bit, he repeats himself--sometimes he gets off topic and since he's not giving a lecture, I can't look back on the blackboard to remind myself of dates, personages, etc. And he jumps wildly forward in time, comparing some group of people to Americans raised during the Great Depression who went on to fight in World War II. And boom, then back to the 14th century we go! Basically, it wasn't the gripping type of historical writing I enjoy. Like, say, Barbara Tuchman. That woman could make Cream of Wheat so interesting you couldn't put it down. I couldn't help feeling a bit cheated, like THIS is why I like to go to the library. Now I have a $13 book which, if I'm lucky, the bookstore down the street will give me $4 in trade for. THAT BEING SAID, it does have fascinating insights into what the Black Plague might really have been and what caused and exacerbated it, how it changed the course of history (which has been left out of many a historical treatise I have read,) and how history might have been different if it hadn't swept through Europe like a scythe. So if you're into that kind of stuff, check it out. It's not a long book. But get it at the library.

On Sunday I did go to the library and pick up a hold--Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon -- by Thomas M. Myers, Michael P. Ghiglieri. I saw this book in the gift shop when we were at the Grand Canyon last month and it appealed to the macabre in me. And it does not disappoint. I cannot put this freaking thing down! While we were there, we made a short (2 miles round trip--1.5 hours) hike in the morning down a portion of the Bright Angel Trail from the South Rim, and frankly if I had read this book first, I'm not sure I would have set foot inside the canyon! The first part of the book is all about people dying (or nearly dying) of heat stroke/dehydration/exhaustion. It seems as if in the climate of the Grand Canyon (probably exacerbated by yokels such as myself popping in from much lower elevations--fun fact: Grand Canyon rim is at 7,000 feet--it's in the second highest plateau in the world, the highest being Tibet) can get you into spitting distance of death without you (ie, the yokel) realizing it. You need a minimum of 2 gallons of water per day, and you cannot (as is posted everywhere) make it down to the river and back to the rim in one day. But does this stop people (mostly able-bodied males between 17 and 30--also the most expensive to insure!)? No, dear reader, it does not. Another significant risk factor seems to be hiking alone. Just don't do it. Especially if you are one of the males in question, you just seem to get cockamamie ideas into your head while hiking alone, usually "It's devilishly tiresome that this clearly delineated trail heads downhill at this point. I will head off-route and get straight up, making my own 'shortcut.'" Once you're in trouble, severe dehydration,* much like deep-sea scuba diving** or extremely high-altitude mountain climbing, makes you crazy in a hurry, and then you do really insane, tragic things. Like not drink the rest of the water in your pack. Or pass up your near-death nephew on the trail, while you yourself have a pack full of water, to go ahead to the ranch, mix up some Gatorade, and return to him.

The being alone and thinking up crazy things to do thing makes sense to me--it could be as simple as missing a turn in the train--but I have never been alone in anything that could possibly be termed the wilderness, so my yokelness has never been given free reign. Hopefully, it never will.

More on this later--there are other categories of death, of course.

It seems this is not the only book about dying in National Parks.

*And, I reiterate, the Grand Canyon seems to be an express train from mild dehydration to severe dehydration.

**For more on this, see a relatively mediocre book whose subject matter is so fabulously gripping you will not be able to tear yourself away.

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UPDATED TO ADD:
After bitching about the black plague book to my boss, who recognized the guy's name, he looked him up and it was revealed that Norman F. Cantor is currently deceased and is "America's most popular medievalist." Well, don't I look like the effin' asshole. My boss was also unsympathetic about the lack of zest in the writing, because Mr. Cantor is (was) a professor, and thinks I'm obsessed with death. Just because of these two books in one week.