A sad day....

I was going to do my first post-election day posting about my thoughts on the day and the races... but I just got hit with a stunner.

One of my favorite authors, Michael Crichton, has died at the age of 66.

I've read several of his books, including "The Andromeda Strain", "State of Fear", "The Terminal Man", "Airframe" and "Disclosure". Several of his books became best-selling movies, out-Grishaming John Grisham himself.

What I appreciated about Crichton, is he took what could have been very dry, mundane material and made it fascinating. Read through "Andromeda Strain" and you'll see what I mean. He takes the scientific method, which we all learned about ad nauseum in high school science, and makes it relevant and exciting when it comes to dealing with a deadly virus from outer space.

And of course, he's best known as being the creator of the hit TV series "ER".

He was, for lack of a better term, a polymath. He was a medical doctor, researcher, public policy analyst, author, screenwriter, teacher, anthropologist, actor, and director. And I'm just getting by as a sports director!

Crichton was a unique voice in modern literature. I'm going to miss not seeing anymore new novels.