By turns graceful and knowing, funny and moving, Niagara Falls All Over Again is the latest masterwork by National Book Award finalist and author of The Giant’s House, Elizabeth McCracken. Spanning the waning years of vaudeville and the golden age of Hollywood, Niagara Falls All Over Again chronicles a flawed, passionate friendship over thirty years, weaving a powerful story of family and love, grief and loss. In it, McCracken introduces her most singular and affecting hero: Mose Sharp — son, brother, husband, father, friend ... and straight man to the fat guy in baggy pants who utterly transforms his life. To the paying public, Mose Sharp was the arch, colorless half of the comedy team Carter and Sharp. To his partner, he was charmed and charming, a confirmed bachelor who never failed at love and romance. To his father and sisters, Mose was a prodigal son. And in his own heart and soul, he would always be a boy who once had a chance to save a girl’s life — a girl who would be his first, and greatest, loss. Born into a Jewish family in small-town Iowa, the only boy among six sisters, Mose Sharp couldn’t leave home soon enough. By sixteen Mose had already joined the vaudeville circuit. But he knew one thing from the start: “I needed a partner,” he recalls. “I had always needed a partner.” Then, an ebullient, self-destructive comedian named Rocky Carter came crashing into his life — and a thirty-year partnership was born. But as the comedy team of Carter and Sharp thrived from the vaudeville backwaters to Broadway to Hollywood, a funny thing happened amid the laughter: It was Mose who had all the best lines offstage. Rocky would go through money, women, and wives in his restless search for love; Mose would settle down to a family life marked by fragile joy and wrenching tragedy. And soon, cracks were appearing in their complex relationship ... until one unforgivable act leads to another and a partnership begins to unravel. In a novel as daring as it is compassionate, Elizabeth McCracken introduces an indelibly drawn cast of characters — from Mose’s Iowa family to the vagabond friends, lovers, and competitors who share his dizzying journey — as she deftly explores the fragile structures that underlie love affairs and friendships, partnerships and families. An elegiac and uniquely American novel, Niagara Falls All Over Again is storytelling at its finest — and powerful proof that Elizabeth McCracken is one of the most dynamic and wholly original voices of her generation.

One-volume library of instant geotechnical and foundation data Now for the first time ever, geotechnical, foundation, and civil engineers...geologists...architects, planners, and construction managers can quickly find information they must refer to every working day, in one compact source. Edited by Robert W. Day, the time -and effort-saving Geotechnical Engineer's Portable Handbook gives you field exploration guidelines and lab procedures. You'll find soil and rock classification, basic phase relationships, and all the tables and charts you need for stress distribution, pavement, and pipeline design. You also get abundant information on all types of geotechnical analyses, including settlement, bearing capacity, expansive soil, slope stability - plus coverage of retaining walls and building foundations. Other construction-related topics covered include grading, instrumentation, excavation, underpinning, groundwater control and more.

This specification prescribes the requirements for classificaiton of low-alloy steel electrodes for flux cored arc welding. The requirements include chemcial composition and mechanical properties of the weld metal and certain usability characteristics. Optional, supplemental designators are also included for improved toughness and diffusible hydrogen. Additional requirements are included for standard sizes, marking, manufacturing, and packaging. A guide is appened to the specification as a source of information concerning the classification system employed and the intended use of low-alloy steel flux cored electrodes.