Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Friday, June 02, 2006

My computer is still on the fritz

which is why I haven't blogged many detailed posts of late. Yesterday I managed to get about ten minutes in before it shut itself down. It looks like a power supply problem, so when I get a chance, I'll replace the supply. That may be in about two to three weeks, as I'm saving now for rent and payment for the transmission.

I'm doing pretty well, actually. Last night I had some me time and did a little reading, put on some soft music and lit some incense, and generally just relaxed. I'm reading Emily Craig's Teasing Secrets from the Dead. She's Kentucky's forensic anthropologist. She has an interesting background, beginning her career as an orthopaedic medical illustrator, then becoming a forensic artist, and finally forensic anthropology. It's a fascinating field. When I was a child, I loved Quincy, the TV show about a pathologist, and of course I watch things like CSI and Forensic Files, but being able to glean information from skeletons really appeals to me. I've read Dead Men Do Tell Tales, the book by another forensic anthropologist, William Maples, who works in Florida. I remember freaking out my friends by reading a description of the stratification of a body decomposing in a septic system, with various types of maggots and other creatures contributing.

Okay, so people think I'm weird. Considering the popularity of these shows and books, though, I'm not alone in my morbidity.

One of the things I liked first off about CSI was forensic entomology, the specialty of the fictional character Gil Grissom. As a child I loved bugs and studied them, considering a career in entomology. Even as a college student I started out in biology. If I had realised this field existed, I might have gravitated to it, because I am both fascinated by the world of insects and by the physiological processes of death.

Anyway, back to Emily Craig. I've seen her in the news of course, since she heads up the Commonwealth of Kentucky's (we're not really a state, you know) Medical Examiner office and she gets called out to a lot of cases. I didn't realise how much out-of-area work she'd done. But I wanted to get to know more about what she does.

Believe it or not, that's my idea of a relaxing evening. Tonight I'm going to work some more for distance learning, reviewing and outlining video segments, which is a little mind-numbing but I'm learning more about our class through it and how they define humanities.

That's all for now. Back to work, where I've been finding pictures of the Queen Mary for a patron (and you thought medical librarianship was boring).

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