Thanksgiving, wake me when it's time for desert.

It is Thanksgiving, and as so many people wake up, have their morning libation, look lovingly on family, home and life, and ponder that age old question, to shop or not to shop today.

It is being debated venomously, angrily all over the facebook pages of United States citizens,  "Like this if you think Thanksgiving day shoppers should rot for all eternity. comment if you are one of the godless, blatant consumerists that are going to ignore your loved ones and all that is holy and go shopping."

Which side of this timeless debate are you going to take?  To thine own self be true.

The Columbus Dispatch has reported one respondent as saying, "if my guests got up and left early to shopping their next Thanksgiving dinner (would) not be at my house."

Bully for you, Mr. M##@#@ski of the Northeast side!  It is time we take a stand.

If you have people over and they say they are going shopping duct tape them to their chair, feed them some pie, a glass of wine and turn on the football game.  That, my friends is what Thanksgiving is all about.

Pie, wine, football, leftovers, and falling asleep right in your chair, after changing into the stretchy pants.  And thinking, I am so full, wait are there any of those little rolls left.

"Hey, somebody want to get me a couple of those rolls, put some turkey, and stuffing on it, and pour some gravy  over the top of the whole thing?  I could use a beer, too."   You scream, right before falling asleep.

But, greed, and avarice are threatening our afternoon naps, friends.   Using the pretense of fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas several large chains have decided to move Black Friday to Thanksgiving Thursday.   We need to boycott this, ignore this desperate attempt to separate us from our money.  We need to prove to retailing giants that we are smarter than that.  Or if you are going to go, would you get me a piece of pie first, with some extra whipped cream.  And, maybe a blanket, and a pillow.

Hunting, in the kitchen.

My cousin, Mike (we call him Handsome Mike in our family) who keeps up on technology, (he has a smart phone, a laptop computer and a convertible) told me about a breakthrough in the science of hunting.

He bought a pan that, when heated, gives off fumes toxic to birds.  According to Mike, who knows how to read, and type so this is probably verbatim, it says "Nonstick cookware can emit fumes harmful to birds." Somehow, scientists have isolated the kill switch inside the birds nasal cavities. 

With Thanksgiving coming and this is a boon to hunters everywhere.  Until this important advance, a

Hunter, it's whats for dinner.

hunter had to sneak up behind the turkey and smash him over the head with the pan.  This was not always easy.  Turkeys can get big and mean, with a superior sense of smell and vision and a human sensing radar.

I remember the tragedy of '87, when we had a few too many beers and decided to go get the Thanksgiving turkey with nothing but a sauté pan, a gravy boat, and a soup ladle.  It was a disaster, we lost two distant cousins and a great uncle.  Nobody was too thankful that year.  I can't talk about it too much because of the gag order enforced after we settled the lawsuit.


We learned to go armed with 14" skillet, a cast iron 5 quart dutch oven, and a square grill pan with a corrugated bottom, and plenty of spatulas, steak knives and one of those wicked looking cleaver things they use in Asian grills.  Normally, that was plenty, but if the turkeys sensed your presence and managed to perform a flanking maneuver and roll up behind you, well, I pity the hunting party that makes that mistake.

Early hunting implements, used to
bag the first Thanksgiving turkey

Now, thanks to modern technology, all you need to do is invite the bird into your house, maybe on pretense of "well, Mr. Turkey, this year we are having fish, for Turkey Day,"  fix a small batch of pierogies, maybe a quesadilla, and boom the turkey keels over dead, practically right into the roaster.  

Technology is wonderful, isn't it?

*Which is not that technologically advanced, but he is very happy about it and it only seemed right to mention it.

Explaining the beginning.

In the beginning there was light, and there was darkness, an emptiness, a void incomprehensible to humans today.  The vacuum was absolute, and terrifying.

"Man, you should have seen the one that got away."

And man saw the birth of the first "fishing story," with illustration. 

Nobody really wanted to dispute the stories, they were all playing the same game.  Certainly nobody really wanted to go out and try to hunt anything down, there were things out there ready to hunt, kill and eat them.

Then one day, one of them said.  "Hey, I'm going to go get a cup of coffee, anybody want one?"  They all placed their order, and after drinking a few sips of the delicious goodness, the sweet nectar of the gods, the delightful, caffeinated, dark liquid, they went out and killed some stuff.  And they thought, "hey, this ain't so bad, maybe next time we will add a shot of milk, and some sugar."  

Soon, they were building city states, developing systems of hand writing, spoken communication, and mathematics.   Followed quickly by the invention of the telephone, railroad automobile, jet plane, and drip brew coffee maker, with auto stop (or as my old boss, Kathleen called it, "the gotta have a cup feature").  The single most important device in history, and probably the future.

For the sake of brevity I have left out a few steps, but we will cover those in a later lesson.

Every morning, when I pour myself that first cup of delicious, life affirming, magnificent coffee, I say a silent prayer of thanks that the dinosaurs didn't think of it first.

Work, without end.

It has been very busy where I work, there are orders, shipments and phone calls, faxes and emails, the place is buzzing with the excitement of a wonderful holiday season, and we work hard to deliver joy around the world.  It is more than a job, it is a duty, a trust, a privilege.  We work long hours, with a smile on our face, we toil until our backs ache, and our fingers hurt, and our feet are sore, and we like it, we are happy about it!  Sometimes we are so busy we can't even come to work, and we send an email, "I am so busy, I will be working from home today."

We'll leave a light on for you.

Seconds after the email announcing a sad day without our cherished associate the nearest person will rush over to their work station and turn on the light.  It is a ceremonial in nature, and people will often stop and say hello to the light in honor.

Besides, just because they are working from home does not mean they should work in the dark, we are not animals, after all.  Not that I think all animals enjoy working in the dark, but several of them prefer the dark.  In fact many animals are such dedicated third shift associates (including the appropriately named Panamanian Night Monkey, and the oddly named Paradoxical Frog, which may or may not be a frog, or a paradox) scientists even developed a word for them, Nocturnal.  But, that really is not what we are talking about today.  

We are a small company, and we have very few formal requirements, so people who are working from home don't really send an email as to when they stop "working," and start "not working" from home.  This leads to some uncomfortable decisions, "do we shut off the light?" what if they are not done working?  

Besides, in some ways "shutting off the light" seems so final, similar to "pulling the plug" or "terminating with extreme prejudice."  

"Hey, what ever happened to ol' Bob?"  

"We had to shut the light off on him.  It was a tough decision, but it was for the best."

There is a lesson here, share information, data is critical for decision making, update people on your activities, you are not alone, and people need to know.  And, if you are going to work from home channel 6 shows old Bugs Bunny cartoons at 2:30 Eastern Time, man, that Bugs kills me.

Today, it defies description.

Recently many things from the past have been surfacing, applied in different times, towards different audiences, and with varying degrees of success.  Everything old is new again, except me, I guess, I am still old, but, last night I stopped briefly at the store, a task normally left to my wife, who is much hardier, and able to withstand the joys of holiday crowds, bustling, hustling, pushing, shoving, clawing, scratching, fighting relentlessly, ruthlessly, without mercy, for that bag of oyster shaped crackers, (right now part of the 10 for 10 deal) willing to trample all over the top of a humble, innocent, meek bystander who just happened to go with his wife for a "quick trip" to the store "to pick up a few things," and was foolish enough to be standing in front of the canned meats, (on sale this week, for the ridiculously low price of  *****, so low they won't let me publish it here).

What was I saying?   Oh yeah, anyway, last night I stopped and saw this woman wearing a sweat shirt emblazoned with "Today is the first day of the rest of your life."  It was flowery, ornate, and vibrantly colored, the sweatshirt was white, and pristine, and it was obviously new.  Someone had thought to take this simple sentiment, once used to signal rehabilitation, hope and change, and make a few quick bucks.  Good for them.

It did remind me of when I first remember seeing that saying, and how profoundly it affected me.  I was young, and impressionable, and it seemed, at first, a good omen, a sign that things could always get better, and there was a bright, sunny future waiting.  Wow, it seemed, at first, a great slogan.

But, then it struck me, today was the last day of the first part of my life.  I was no longer a child, years of responsibility lay ahead.  Alarm clocks, jobs, paychecks, mortgages, and crushing adulthood were to be my reward for successfully navigating the treacherous, slippery trail of childhood.

Then it hit me, like a lead brick, this was a sign, from the heavens, that my kids were getting older, and I had done a halfway respectable job of molding them into fine young men (or at least I had been smart enough to stay out of the way while my wife raised them correctly).  I had worked hard, and been a productive member of society, keeping a job, paying taxes, on the odd occasion, even voting.  And it was time to start thinking about the next chapter.

It is not easy to face this, there are troubling decisions to be made, and options need to be weighed, it can be difficult, and terrifying to reach this stage, but I made it this far, and with a little help I will get through the next bit.

So I ask you, Life Explained Nation.  Should I start planning a Second Childhood, or Mid Life Crisis?  Either way, it is going to be great!

And if I see that lady with that sweatshirt I will thank her.

Mankind pulls through, again. How do we do it?

Last night we watched Pacific Rim, a great movie, about monstrously big aliens invading through the ocean floor battling giant robots.  Does a great movie need anymore than that?

Anyway, the aliens come through the ocean floor because...  Well, I'm not sure why they come through the ocean floor, but they do.  And they are big, mean, lizard looking things, not regular lizards, more like a diabolically designed alien lizards with a neon light kit.,Plus, they have one of those alien sound generators, that make the low pitched, undulating, creepy hum.  A noise that is very popular with alien invaders.

When the lighted, alien lizards first start showing up they smash up cities and destroy buildings and just make a real mess of things.  Danged lighted, alien lizards anyway.  Our puny, conventional Earth weapons are of no use against them, which really did not surprise anyone.  We all kind of saw that coming, but we had to try, right?

Don't worry, mankind leaps quickly into action and builds a series of giant robots, and call them Jaegers, (because it reminds them of the tasty alcohol of their youth) to smash things up, too.  It doesn't take to long until robots and giant lizards are using each other to smash things up all over the place.  Stomping around, throwing each other through buildings and onto parking structures, it is a real dance of destruction, and we start to get the upper hand, maybe, for a while.

Cities are reduced to rubble, people are forced to flee, on foot, because cars are always the first casualty of alien invasions.  I think they know about our love affair with the automobile, and do it just to hurt us, alien invading bastards, anyway.

Soon, though, the aliens start adding new accessories right at the factory, claws, and hooks and electromagnetic pulse generators, and little coolers big enough for a six pack of beer, soda pop, blue tooth stereos, and power windows...  oops, that was something that I saw at the auto show last year.  And they begin to gain an advantage.  The fighting intensifies, things look bleak.  Vegas puts the odds at 6 to 2 aliens, and people are jumping on that action.  Fools!  Never bet against Hollywood robots

The governments of the world decide this might not be a good idea, robots, and lizards performing mixed martial arts all over the worlds population centers, and as governments have so often done in the past decide to build a wall.  Which doesn't work very well, it never does, does it? But, we had to try right?

Don't worry, though, we send a few brave souls in the last remaining giant robots down to the bottom of the ocean, through the opening, and into the giant alien lizard world (and we become the alien invaders, what a plot twist) where they detonate a "nuclear device," closing the path to the aliens, and, if I might add putting a little human foot to giant alien lizard butt.

They manage to escape in little bitty life pods, (that look remarkably like a Tic Tac breath mint (this statement was bought to you to the by the good people at the Tic Tac Breath Mint Conglomeration (don't you wish you had a tic tac now?))) back through the rapidly disintegrating gateway, up through miles of ocean, and against all odds of survival, they survive.

Whew, that was close!

Brotherhood, does it end at the stairwell?

Trying to establish a beachhead against the very secrets of life itself makes for a close group, like a  team that faces injury and adversity and overcomes and perseveres it forges tight, familial relationships that are stronger than steel, more flvexible than rubber, and more enduring than time itself.

Naturally it was with great joy that we here at life explained announce a new addition, a new productive member of our tight knit, clan like family.  It is a shiny new printer!  Not exactly new, it

What a machine, it is like a
spaceship!

was used, but it really cranks out the pages.  It is a beauty, and all of us are very happy, the whole family like organization.  Top to bottom, left, right, north, south, east, west it is a joyous occasion.

One of the features the whole family enjoys is a delightful mechanism that is buried deep inside.  An ingenious mechanism called a duplexer.  It takes a printed page, flips it over, somehow, and prints on the other side.  Those wizards at Hewlett Packard are working some powerful magic here, friends.

One of the things the whole team enjoys so much is the sound, it whizzes, and whirs, and then spits out the page with a satisfying thunk, a sound that screams finality, and a job well done.  It is a pleasure to walk over and pick up the page, and give the printer a smile and a little pat, and if nobody is looking, maybe a little hug.  Nothing creepy, a manly, macho hug between two hard working team members, fighting the good fight, facing extreme hardships, and still printing shiny, wonderful documents that resemble art.

It was a nice and new when it was used to
print the Warren Commission Report 

Yes, everybody in the whole company is thrilled with the new addition, well not everybody.  It was destined for the people upstairs, but our deep cover agents managed to intercept it in transit, and we put our giant, slow, old printer in the box, and that is what the poor saps got.  Take that, you elitist, salad eating desk jockeys, print on that dinosaur, and like it!

A Cautionary Tale

This weekend we stayed at the Embassy Suites, in Lousiville.  We were going to the season opener for the defending champions; The Louisville Cardinals (Go Cards!).  The football team from Morehouse Univeristy was also staying in the hotel.

It was kind of cool, some of the players came down to the lounge and hung out while we were having a drink and many of them were having breakfast at the same time as we did.  They were all very polite, and well mannered.  It was like one big happy family, us and the Morehouse football team.

I even looked them up on the Internet (you have to love technology) and would say "Go Tigers" as they got off the elevator.  They seemed to enjoy having a new fan, and always said thank you, and and smiled graciously.

Morehouse is a University in Atlanta, Georgia, they were playing Kentucky State in Frankfort.  These  are not big football schools, so the score was not reported on Sports Center Saturday, or anywhere that I could find.   

But, since we had been friends for a while, sharing the hardships of the road, and enduring one of the slowest elevators ever made, I had a stake in the outcome, and genuinely wanted them to win.  They moved on after the game and did not "return to the nest."

Sunday morning, I went down to get a cup of coffee, we were staying on the sixth floor, and with the "speed" of these lifts, it could take some time to get down there.  So, I decided to look up the score of  Morehouse's and my game.  I would have plenty of time.  

On the fifth floor the elevator stopped and two women stepped in, we resumed the long, slow descent.  I went back to reading the account of the game, my friends, the Tigers of Morehouse got beat, and I was a little disappointed.

The elevator stopped, and I got off, just as some cranky people were getting on.  Since my powers of observation are so keenly refined, as soon as I rounded the corner I noticed that it was not the first floor, the land of coffee, and juice, at all.  It was the second floor, the home of cranky people and elevator stoppers.  

I had to think fast!  The elevators had glass walls in the back, so if I got back on everybody in the breakfast area, would know I made a mistake, and since the breakfast area was in a courtyard in the middle of the motel, and every room in the place had facing windows it was possible that everybody in the motel would see my mistake.  And I would be the joke du jour, "Hey, how was the second floor, dummy!?"  That didn't sound fun.

I devised a perfect plan.  I would take the stairs down to the first floor, and no one need know of my little tactical error.

Every great plan has a few flaws, this plan had one. The stairs only had one door on the first floor, and it went outside. and I was dressed in gym shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops, and it was November, in Kentucky.

I had to think Fast!

Here I am, outside.

Evaluate the situation, devise contingency plan, done in nano seconds.  Time for a quick disguise, and my alter ego, a traveling tourist photographer.  "Tim, you amaze me at times!"   I walked around the building snapping photos, and taking little notes.  Nobody the wiser, I went back inside, took a few photos, and moved ahead, another day saved by lightning like thinking and flexible reasoning.

Walking in, almost home
and dry

I got my coffee and headed back toward the elevator, feeling content, and successful.  Just to finish the act strong, you have to sell these things, you know, and since I was waiting for the elevator anyway, I took a last couple of pictures of the lobby.

The elevator showed up, and a woman got off, kind of angry looking and in a hurry, maybe from the second floor, and went barreling around the corner almost running into into an older gentleman who was not really paying attention, and somehow overlooked the intense, fast moving, purposeful woman, wheeled suitcase in tow.  He almost spilled his full cup of scalding hot coffee on her, which would have made her even angrier, and perhaps have blown my op.

Just one last shot to sell the cover ID

He got on the elevator with me, and said, "that was pretty close.  I should have been watching where I was going, but I was wondering that you were taking pictures of."

I said "the lobby."  And he seemed content with that.

There is a lesson here, don't text and drive, and don't surf the Internet and ride the elevator.

Saturdays should always be this good.

This morning we are in Louisville, KY.  We are here to watch the reigning national champions raise the banner to the rafters.  And then play Charleston in a game of baskeball.

I have been a Louisville Cardinals fan since the days of Darrell Griffith (Doctor Dunkenstein), Scooter McCray, Pervis Ellison, those are names that still bring a smile.

Here is a picture of Doctor Dunkenstein
jumping over a player during a game.  That is
still cool.

Also, I have been a Rick Pitino fan since he took Providence so far, so quickly.  He is a fiery, emotional, demanding coach.  I have read that his half time "speeches" can peel the paint off of locker room walls.  His teams play defense from on basket to the other.  Because of that defensive aggressiveness no opponent's half time lead is ever really safe.

Since this is the season opener and most teams don't schedule real games to open their season (well, some teams schedule real teams, Charleston is a good example) they probably won't need a Pitino style comeback to win the game and thrill the fans.  But, I don't care, I don't want an exciting, close game, that keeps me on the edge of my seat.  I want a blow out, lopsided victory that leaves me time to enjoy the game, the fans and the spectacle.

Speaking of enjoying the spectacle, Coach Pitino emailed me yesterday and said there were "great festivities" before the game.  Of course, I emailed him first and he responded, but that counts.  

Anyway, Go Cards!  I will have a full report on the game.  If you can wait that long.

Laissez Faire, or Authoritative Management Styles, Which is Better?

Yesterday, I posted about my decision to alter, or ratchet up, my managerial style, you can read about it here  (The New, Or Slightly Different Me.).  And a very bright, educated person who is studying, well I am not sure what she is studying, but it is very complex, (and she writes a wonderful blog about the experience, and manages to keep it simple enough that even I can understand the the posts, you can read, enjoy and follow it here http://cynthiabreneman.blogspot.com/) asked why, since I was such a unqualified success, and doing such a remarkable job of guiding my associates through the rigors of daily employment, biweekly pay periods, and the demands, benefits and hazards of the upcoming college basketball season, would I change my style?  I think that was the question, maybe not quite verbatim, but the sentiment was similar.

I can answer that question in three words, Cynthia.  Brazilian Wandering Spiders.

Recently, at the largest banana distribution facility in Brazil, the manager in charge of banana inspection, certification, classification, and venomous spider removal became a little complacent.  Oh sure, he made sure the inspector, the certifier, and the classifier were on the job, and doing well, but, he stopped for a little Brazilian coffee (which is supposed to be very tasty, by the way), and thought it would be a decent thing to bring a cup for all of his employees.

While he was enjoying a cup of the delicious, dark, tasty coffee with his employees, including the venomous spider remover, a whole shipment of bananas left the building, bound for the UK crawling with Brazilian Wandering Spiders.  They were recently spotted on bunches of bananas in London supermarkets.

Brazilian Wandering Spiders are considered to be the most venomous spider in the world.  But, according to the "Mirror" out of 1,000 bites only 10 will be fatal, which is extremely good news for 990 bite victims.  They are very aggressive, and as the name suggests do not build webs, preferring to walk around looking for trouble.  And, as is so often the case with wandering troublemakers, they are nocturnal, and rest during the day.  Which makes it very difficult for them to find meaningful employment.  So, the cycle perpetuates, sleep all day, walk around, causing problems at night.

You see, Cynthia, this is the price a manager pays for trying to be a "good guy, trying to "ease up" a little.  One day people are calling in because they "feel too good to work" and the next Great Britain is being evacuated because of the invasion of Brazilian Wandering Spiders.  Though, the spiders are asking to be referred to as British Wandering Spiders, thinking it sounds much nicer, and is more accurate.  Arachnologists are undecided about the name change.

This is not going to happen on my watch.

Managing for Success.

Yesterday, I announced to the world, at least the very small percent of the world who read this stuff, that I was going to be a kinder, gentler fan (see this, kinder, gentler fan,  I was going to appreciate the effort and applaud the results.  I told my friend Susan that my new motto was "I am a fan of the team, not the score."   Which, I think was ingenious as far as mottos go.  I was thinking about having a shirt made with that logo, but it would require too much explanation, so I scrapped the idea, temporarily, until one day the undead ghost of that fantastic thought rises from its shallow grave to haunt the landscape of free enterprise, hand me the right phrase, and turn me into a semi-retired millionaire.   But, that will have to wait.

Until I am independently wealthy, though, I need to maintain my edge, I need to keep sharp, and vigilant.  Waiting around every corner is a potential ambush, a chance for competitors and subordinates to gain an advantage.

As a fan I might be forgiving, but as a human, I will be a ruthless tyrant, running things with an iron fist, demanding obedience, and subservience, loyalty and blind, unquestioning fealty.

From now on I am the fastest rat in the race, the biggest dog in the pound.  As Graham Parker warned, so eloquently, "out in the jungle there's a war going down, you wind up eating all the new friends you found."  And, they will be delicious.

I ask no quarter, and I give none.  I am a monstrous, despicable, machine of oppression, crushing all who dare stand before me.  My supervisory style will be based on the teachings of Sennacherib, a manager in the Assyrian Empire in the 7th century.  Here is his how he handled problems.

"I threw down the city and its houses from the foundations to the summits...I knocked down and removed the outer and inner walls, and the temples and all the brick-built ziggurats and threw the rubble into the Arahtu canal, and after I had destroyed Babylon, smashed its gods and massacred its population, I tore up its soil and cast it into the Euphrates so that it was carried by the river down to the sea." 


Now, there is a guy who knows how to effectively deal with problems.  And that is how I am going to model my behavior from now on.  He had no use for attendance/tardiness policies, focus groups, or market research, he didn't touch base with, or reach out to, people.  When there was a problem he addressed it quickly, efficiently and cared little for the opinions of accountants or customer service associates.  Billing questions were answered with invasion, and destruction.  Trust me, people paid their bills, on time.

That is the way things should be done.  Smash, and burn, and trample, and crush.  When I see a potential problem it will be the next pile of rubble.  Someone takes a long lunch someone finds there whole department super glued to the ceiling.  I am going to be an uncaring, unforgiving rock of seething, barely controlled violence and anger.

Now, about that raise, how high would you like the gallows?

A Saturday Decision.

The weekend is over, and as much as I don't want to confess to this little crime, I am a big college football fan.  And my team won on Saturday.  Won in thrilling fashion, too.  Down by three, with less than two minutes left they got the ball at their own 18 yard line, and with 4 seconds left threw a huge prayer of pass into the end zone to score the winning touchdown.  It was amazing!  And I was delighted by their good fortune.

Now, if they somehow manage to win the rest of their games they will win a conference championship for the first time in many years.  And, I have started to let hope creep back into my thinking.

I should know better, because twice this year they have managed to fall completely apart and lose games leaving me sad and mourning, and a little angry that I have given so much importance to the performance of people I have never met, young men who are about the same age as my son.

Yet, here I am, again, moving the dial from casual indifference to hopeful optimism, and thinking of glory days in the very near future for young men who work so hard, and endure so much criticism and carry so much extra weight because so many people are counting on them to do so much every week.  Their talent is unbelievable, their burden is terrible, and I don't envy them the expectations, it would crush me.

And the risks they face are horrendous.  Football, played at that level is a violent sport filled with unimaginably vicious collisions, and every week someone gets hurt, and with almost every injury fans watching on television get to hear some version of the same mindless drivel.

"Well, Bob, that is could be huge, they can not afford to lose him."  Yep, here is some young man, writhing in agony, potentially facing long hours of surgery, and months of intense, often painful rehabilitation, and I am worried about how the team is going to deal with this tragedy, poor team, anyway.  Who does he think he is getting hurt like that?!!?!

But, if the game is lopsided, long since over, and there are players whose names never grace the sports page are in hoping for one, brief moment of glory, and to hear their number called out over the PA system just this once, gets hurt, then the tone is so different.  "What a tragedy, a fine young man, let's all hope for the best."  Of course, that sounds so much better than, "well, Bob, that is not much of a loss for the team,  he could change uniforms and play for the other team, and no one would even notice."

Somehow, sportscasters can make lessen both injuries, turning them into mundane talking points, sometimes I swear they get paid by the word, quantity as a virtue.

So, I have vowed to be a big fan, every week, and when they win I will celebrate their success, and when they lose, I will celebrate their effort, and then I will go back to whatever I was doing and hope nobody got hurt very bad.