Acknowledgments

To the folks at Sams—especially Mark Taber, Songlin Qiu, Tonya Simpson, Charlotte Kughen, and Boris Minkin. No author can produce a book like this on his own. Their excellent work will give me plenty to take credit for later.

To my wife, Mary, and my sons, Max, Eli, and Sam. Although our family has not fulfilled my dream of becoming death-defying high-wire trapeze acrobats, I’m the world’s proudest husband and father in a household of acrophobics.