Home alone now. Finally. This is the thing that I need more than anything. Time. Quiet. Alone.
Home alone now. Finally. This is the thing that I need more than anything. Time. Quiet. Alone.
Will is gone backpacking for the next 4 days, after having been gone boating at the McKenzie for a long weekend. This is good. I really need time alone. Every time I get some I get happy again. I'm just too crowded living closely with someone who is retired. I don't want to hear his every thought. The silence IS golden. Yesterday I went kayaking with friends. I had some work last week and another day of work coming up. Underemployed. I'm not spending any money, not buying things on the internet or going to the store. In about a week I'll be packing up to head for the Middle Fork Salmon, a 100 mile 7 day self-support river trip.
Anyway now I'm in the middle of watching the first episode of the new Netflix series (of 4) about Trump. It's paused. The first episode is entitled Manhattan, and it's about New York in the mid-70's as much as it is about Trump. The city was nearly bankrupted, lays off its cops and garbage guys, and the murder rate climbs. Trump secures a 40 year tax break from the city so that he can restore a historic hotel. Trump sounds the same talking about that hotel in the 70's as he sounds now when he speaks. His words are superlatives--fantastic, terrific, the biggest, the greatest. He meets a defense lawyer who knows how to bully and bluff. It becomes clear immediately that this program is setting the stage for us to actually understand him, instead of demonizing or idolizing. I appreciate that. A little nuance is due on all sides. On All Sides.
Tomorrow I may go paddle up to Willamette Falls with Kevin and Sue. Hoping to hear back from Mindy. I have a few friends here but seem to see them too rarely. I mean to fix that.
More later, I'm going back to see the rest about Trump and Manhattan.
How People Die in Grand Canyon
Aug. 25th, 2015 12:01 pmby Tom Myers and Michael Ghiglieri
This book logs all the mistakes you can make at the Grand Canyon. There's an interview with the authors here. There have been some changes since the first edition. There are more environmental deaths, climbing deaths down in the canyon, and suicides than when the book was written. There are fewer deaths overall and fewer falls from the top of the canyon. Perhaps the park has improved safety and access to cliff tops to cause this change.
Q: What are common risk factors for death at the Canyon?
A: "Men, we have a problem," Ghiglieri said to an audience at NAU's Cline Library this winter, displaying a graphic with a skull and crossbones.
Being male, and young, is a tremendous risk factor, he and Myers found.
Of 55 who have accidentally fallen from the rim of the canyon, 39 were male. Eight of those guys were hopping from one rock to another or posing for pictures, including a 38-year-old father from Texas pretending to fall to scare his daughter, who then really did fall 400 feet to his death.
So is taking unknown shortcuts, which sometimes lead to cliffs.
Going solo is a risk factor in deaths from falls, climbing (anticipated or unplanned) and hiking.
Arrogance, impatience or ignorance also sometimes play a part.
SOURCE
http://azdailysun.com/news/local/canyon-deaths-and-counting/article_ba588a05-e816-55be-87f6-80f15b76f744.html