lover of the north, the weather, the island

if you know me at all, you know what i'm all about. and what interests me. what i like. if i were to go to college again (or at this point to get my master's) it would be in some form of meteorology. i'm ALL about the weather.

however, the only other thing that interests me as much as the weather (if not more) is the U.P. of michigan, the straits of mackinac, mackinac island, ships & sailing around lake michigan/lake huron and finally, the mighty mac, which is the 5 mile long longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere.

so when i turned on the weather channel tonight to a show called "weather ventures" to find the guy talking of nothing other than the weather around the straits of mackinac, i almost keeled over. i turned on the tv to see what appeared to be my backyard. (this picture was the one shown on my tv tonight! kinda weird seeing your backyard on tv, eh?!) it was actually a video shot of the round island lighthouse from the backside of the mackinac island library; one of my most favorite spots on the island.

(for anyone who hasn't seen my messy room, i've basically wallpapered it with sailing charts of the mackinac island area, the straits, and the les cheneaux islands. i've sailed to mackinac once in 1995 from the cedarville area (michigan). i could live there. anywhere in the U.P. live on a sailboat docked, moored in the harbour, or in a cabin by the water. i could never sail enough. (hence the name of my blog...)

so with my little eyeballs GLUED to the tv, i watched a show about mackinac island, the straits & great lakes, and the weather that i had never seen before. LOVED IT. i'm inspired now to watch my "making of the bridge" dvd i got last year while on the island. did you know the bridge is 200 feet above the water? the bridge supports are also amazing--they go down twenty stories into the bedrock. (which is mostly limestone.) did you know that when the winds exceed 60mph they close the bridge? did you know there are 42,000 miles of cable holding up the bridge...if it were all stretched out, it would go around the earth 1.5 times! if there's anyone too scared to drive across the bridge the mackinac bridge authority will take your car across for you. if winds get up to or exceed 100mph, the bridge can sway (very gradually) up to 25 feet in the middle! there are metal grates that make up the inside lanes of the bridge to allow for the wind to pass through so that the bridge doesn't have to withstand more than it is able. the fun fact of the day is this: as the expansion joints move , they sing! any civil engineers out there would know what this means...

only one car has ever blown off the bridge and only one airplane has ever crashed into it. (it can be very WINDY and lighter cars are a bit of a threat...many trucks and campers have been blown over on their sides, but to my knowledge, only one car has ever been blown OFF the actual bridge structure.) as for the airplane, as i learned more tonight, the fog in the area can be INCREDIBLY dense during certain seasons which makes the bridge supports VERY hard to see. although the road part of the bridge is 200 feet above the water, i believe i heard the tops of the towers are 500 feet up. you can see the problem.

mackinac island has only about 400 residents year-round but can have 15,000 or more people on the island at any one time (workers/visitors/etc.) during the summer.

the great lakes makes up one fifth of our world's fresh water. the chicago to mackinac freshwater sailing regatta is the LONGEST freshwater regatta in the WHOLE WORLD! this year marks the ONE HUNDREDTH chicago to mackinac race. HOW AMAZING. i would give ANYTHING to be crew on someone's boat for this race!!!!!!!

in the northern great lakes, the visibility underwater can be up to 100 feet!!! (btw, i drank water out of lake huron while brushing my teeth in the lake off the starboard side of our sailboat, the Dawn Treader, and i was ok! but i wouldn't recommend drinking a LOT of water out of any of the great lakes--especially lakes erie & michigan...) and one thing i left out about mackinac island is that the ONLY highway in the state of MICHIGAN that does not allow cars is on mackinac island. only horses and bikes!

okay...so now i've likely bored prolly most anyone reading this. but if you've gotten this far at least you know a bit more about the state just to the north of indiana! and that i'm a LOVER of the northern great lakes, the mackinac straits, and weather!

new bike

i have a sweet new ride. it's one i have to power myself but i'm glad to have it. it'll be another fun thing to do this summer. i haven't had a bike for 2 years...after having one for about 13 years. it's a good thing. especially if gas prices keep going up. my other option was my old skool skateboard.

The Center

of the Atlanta Falcons visited The Courts last week. he's a really big guy. i could give or take the hair. his NFL pics aren't that great but i like his eyes!

check out our new borders!

we are going to outsource ourselves to death. literally. my gosh. can we be more stupid??? i'm so sick of the embarrassment of being here! i'm TIRED of our government and TIRED of the politics. i'm at a loss here. are our passports going to be american passports? american passports "made in thailand?" or are we selling out our country bit by bit so that we won't have a country left???

welcome to our new homeland! looks like our boundary lines look like the ones on this map i've attached.

UGH.

are you KIDDING me?

okay. so i went to get gas yesterday but i waited longer than i normally would have because i was waiting for gas prices to go DOWN. yeah. well, that didn't at all happen. i paid $3.39 for gas last night. i was at about an 8th of a tank and still paid $55 bucks. i'm so pissed. this is ridiculous. our country produces 7% of the world's oil. yet we act like we produce nearly all of it. but none of our oil refineries have been built/seriously revamped in more than 30 years. are we living in a black hole? or like those birds who bury their heads in the sand? i think we do.

our dollar every day is reaching an all-time low. i guess all i can say is DON'T TRAVEL TO EUROPE! or anywhere else for that matter. unless you also plan on living there and getting a job there as well. the american dollar has tanked and continues to do so. maybe our illustrious politicians can find a way to solve these problems.

HA!

george bush as of about two weeks ago IN A PRESS CONFERENCE had no idea the projected price for a gallon of gas was $4.00. he voiced, AUDIBLY, that he had no idea this was the case. he said "no one told him." apparently the government is no longer "of the people, for the people, by the people." anymore, our "democracy" means whomever has the most money gets into washington. to run the country. we must look like an absolute CIRCUS to those whom we are trying to convince a democracy is the way to go. every vote counts? really? then what about these superdelegates? and now what about michigan and florida?

in my opinion the idea of the electoral college needs to be revisited. the popular vote must stand for something. because as it is, each individual vote does NOT count.

and in a parting note for my fun and uplifting entry today: they're saying my new ipod shuffle as well as other new ipods, navigation systems and other electronics could be full of viruses before the packaging is even opened. they're brand new. not even out of the box yet. this due to the fact that (because we've outsourced our jobs-mostly to china) the carelessness of the workers are putting us all at risk.

and we're outsourcing our military stuff too? are you KIDDING me??? yeah, i guess that seems SAFE. and LOGICAL. who are the boneheads making these decisions???

does this mean we're still a world power? cuz from what i can tell we must be the laughing stock of the world. once again...this is embarrassing.

who can fix it? and is it too late?

time for a new post...

not much going on here! although i do believe i'm too old to pull all-nighters...even IF it was for fun! emily came over last night after work and we were going to make shirts to help encourage shane at his first home baseball game today. it was a long and tedious process. and emily had several mishaps. oh dear. and then i finally went to bed around 6:30 hoping emily would do ok. anyhow, i'm completely unhappy because shane just wrote on her facebook and told her the GAME WAS CANCELLED ON ACCOUNT OF THE WEATHER!!! i am so mad! and i want everyone to know i pulled an all-nighter and it was for NOTHING! i'll get you shane!!!

how 'bout this weather?!??

wow. just a few measly snowflakes here in valpo. mostly RAIN. drenching, soaking rain. a few degrees cooler towards chicago, they got 3ish inches. north of chicago got 6-12 and some places in wisconsin were lucky enuf to get 20. and we don't even have a dusting. i'm not sad or depressed due to the fact that at this point in time, we've only had eleven minutes of sunlight for the past six days (all of february) but becuz we have no snow. they keep talking about how we're getting more snow than we have in a long time but aren't acknowledging the fact that even though that may be true, it melts so fast that we don't even know it was here! i still haven't gone skiing OR sledding yet this year.

then there's those tornadoes. i'm not sure about the new fujita scale though, with the "enhanced" numbers. i'll need to take some meteorology classes or attend a lecture or something. i don't know if mr. fujita (the inventor) would appreciate this. but anyway, the "EF4" tornado must've been huge. i can't imagine a tornado or any other such natural disaster blowing away my college. that would suck. but i wonder where these poor kids will go for two weeks. (why are they only closing union university or whatever it's called for two weeks when the entire campus was destroyed?) wow.

now FEMA and the joke that it is can actually try to make a difference. and restore our hope in our own lousy government. if they can provide for the needs of these students and these towns, my faith will be marginally renewed. but whatever. i'll have to see it to believe it.

okay, i suppose that's about it. oh, and if you live around here, watch out for the potholes. they're everywhere. especially on route 6. your whole car might fall into a pothole. and no one would be able to find you.

YIKES!

cheaters never prosper...giants deserved it

not sure why the giants won other than the fact that eli manning is AMAZING. the last two minutes of the game were fabulous. and it's fitting that new england LOST. how ridiculous of a coach they have!!! how can he sleep at night living/coaching the way he is? and trying to cheat as much as he is? i mean, i know he's getting paid a ton, (relative to me) but these are men throwing and catching a ball on a field. if you can't coach fairly and be a good sport, even if your season & post-season records are perfect, you do not deserve to win. too bad for you. wonder how many other times you taped the signals and didn't get caught.

you go eli. manning bros rock! thanks for making the patriots send all their super bowl championship garb (hats, shirts, etc.) to a third world country.

buh-bye.

GOOD GRIEF, MAN!

well...this afternoon's open gym was rather interesting...

a bunch of guys came to play this afternoon. some of them are on our men's league but i don't believe all of them are. anyway, they brought in the sorriest looking basketball i've ever seen. the one dude asked if he could use our ball pump and we inflated his sorry ball so that he and his friends could use it. we explained that they could go full-court until 4pm and then again from 5-6pm. i explained that we had to cut them down to half-court from 4-5pm since another team would be practicing on the other half of the court at that time.

they were cool with that.

well, another dude shows up and pretty much refuses to use the sorry-looking basketball and offers his driver's license to me to borrow one of our wilson evolution balls. i politely declined, explaining that we have had 46 of our nice basketballs already ripped off and the only way he could borrow one of our balls is if he leaves us $50 to hold for him to use the ball. he provided me with two twentys and i went back and gave him a ball.

around time for him to leave, he came back up to the desk and asked for his money back. i told him to bring back his ball. we switched goods and he left. next thing, i turn around and this one stoopid-looking dude is asking me why i took our wilson evolution back. i explained that his friend who had to leave took his money back and so we needed to put the ball away. he started to get all crazy and began to say, "what, are you serious? UGH! you must be..." and i cut him off with, "EXCUSE ME???"

he stormed off all mad. i reminded him that he brought a ball and that he should use that one.

next thing, a bunch of other guys come up and demand to see a written list of rules, guidelines, and procedures. i asked them if there was anything i could help them with and the one goes on and on and on about how he paid to get into open gym and we should provide him with a ball. my response was, "we've got everything posted online about our guidelines for open gym and it is also posted that we no longer--SINCE LAST MAY--provide basketballs. we've had 46 ripped off already and just don't lend out balls anymore. sorry."

he was floored. began talking about how he was being degraded. and freaked out on why i made that other poor guy fork over forty bucks to use one of our balls that we should be otherwise lending him as it is. i tried to explain to him that this was the other guy's business. if he wanted to fork over the dough, i was more comfortable lending a ball. furthermore, (smiling), i explained that i was being NICE in letting the dude borrow a ball. i told him i shouldn't have even let him use a ball PERIOD.

he hit the roof. asking "didn't he pay the same amount to get in as everyone else," yadda yadda yadda. i then had to explain further that the kids on the other courts with their rack of balls were there in PRACTICES and we provided them with our balls because this is our way of operating and YES, because they rent the court and they actually DO pay more. once you get to the front counter of our facility, you've already passed THREE SIGNS explaining that "YOU ARE TO BRING YOUR OWN BALL TO OPEN GYM."

this guy's logic was WHACK. yup. i said whack. i went inner-city on ya! and i had to keep explaining to this poor man (and i use the term "man" loosely) how we operate and that he would have to bring his own ball next time. he continued to ask me the same question over and over. and i continued to repeat, "sir, just bring your own ball! it's that simple!" wow. idiots.

i'm surrounded by people like this most of the time i'm at the courts. everyone complains to ME. (i usually don't mind the logical complaints, though. but it is still a downer.) but stuff like this gets tiring. and draining. i hate dealing with people who are just like my little kids from the projects but are in grown-up bodies--acting like i OWE THEM SOMETHING.

please.

i hope this guy only ever comes back when i'm there. i'd love to discuss the topic more. or do i mean talk myself in circles with him? what a turd. so as for my title to this post, "GOOD GRIEF, MAN!" this is the reason i write. i spoke to a brainless creature today. someone with a lack of reason. maybe none. ignorant. no sense. hard-headed. whatever you wanna call it. listen dude, maybe you should ask your mommy or granma for a basketball for your next birthday. or next christmas. heavens knows you'll prolly never buy your own ball so you can come and complain to me. about how we owe it to you. or about how you're entitled.

GOOD GRIEF, MAN!

sometimes you have to be told no; someone's always gotta lose

i am sick to death of the way we're babying our youth and young adults of this nation. are we already not screwed with a dysfunctional government? and this two-party political system? our society is going down the tube fast. good thing most people live less than 100 years...so we all don't have to put up with too much of this.

my reason for writing today: check the title. when people play a basketball game or any other game for that matter, someone wins and someone loses. there's hardly ever a draw. but no doubt, those who lose complain. the reffing was one-sided. my kid didn't get to play enuf. so-and-so played for too long. we didn't get all our fouls called.

and what about the whole "social promotion" thing? good grief. well of course! we wouldn't want some poor lazy kid to have hurt feelings! everyone regardless of capability, motivation and progress must be moved to the next grade each year so they don't get left behind and feel sad their friends moved on without them. never mind the kid named diante who missed 98.5 days of school. he must move on to the next grade so that he can stay with his friends! (what the heck? he dropped out of sixth grade anyway!)
and what about that kid tony who made no effort at all? he turned in ONE-HALF OF AN ASSIGNMENT ALL YEAR! but even after the fit that i threw in the principal's office, he was of course moved up to the sixth grade as well.

we're not teaching anyone ANYTHING important. i believe old school is the way to go. you must WORK and take INITIATIVE. you must have some sort of motivation and be DRIVEN in order to move up in any aspect of life. these kids are not dumb. (well...) they know they don't have to do a dang thing in school in order to progress up through the ranks. is anyone aware that the city of chicago is graduating seniors from high school who can't even read? not that they're NOT CAPABLE, but they're unwilling. and since we are rewarding their indifference and whiney attitudes, this'll continue.

the message is: we need to keep everything moving without causing a blip. a bump. a disturbance. we need to try to keep everyone happy. and i for one don't think that ANYONE is benefitting in the end. the children involved nor the society we're graduating them into.

i wonder what will happen when the presidential candidates are told they haven't won and that so-and-so has taken the majority of votes. maybe in the not so far away future we'll have a "joint-presidency" because some of these children who were never told "no" as children won't be able to accept "no" as adults.

and this whole post began because of parents complaining at my place of employment. it got me to thinking.

any thoughts?

getting sleepy...

i'll be off to bed soon but i had to include this pic before i turned in. one day during our international houseparty, (during new year's week when we were in michigan) we had a hayride for the students. when all was said and done and the students had left the area to go back to mariner's cove, i drove back over to old mill point to check on the sauna. as i turned into the old mill point drive, i saw several deer scatter--but one stayed. it just stared at me. i hit the brakes and just watched. i saw that the deer had all been munching on the hay that had fallen off the haywagon. but i guess the one was so hungry it didn't care if i stayed or not. so it continued to munch a bit before wandering slowly off. and i definitely shot it. (with my CAMERA!)

GOOD night.

sickened with sikkens

note to self: next time i use a wood stain or anything of the like, i'll be sure to do it in warmer weather where i can stain it OUTDOORS. i was interestingly sickened on wednesday and i traced it back to breathing amazing fumes from staining my new fun adirondack chair on tues. night that my friend chad made. my chair looks awesome but my roomie & i were not the healthiest of people on wednesday. (and kinda right now...) still not feeling 100 percent. i had the sliding glass door open the entire time with fans on but apparently it wasn't enuf. but i STILL love bringing furniture down from the U.P. that is made out of white CEDAR! (i also have a log bed made of cedar...)

oh, and i hit a deer tuesday night! it was lying in the road--i'm thinking it was already dead--but i was on a two-lane highway (on my way back from the thomae's in laporte on route 2) and there was traffic coming the other direction so i couldn't swerve to avoid it. it was a large deer and my car sorta jumped and skidded into the other lane anyway, but thankfully the oncoming cars i had been trying to initially avoid had just passed.

car's all right. me too.

oh yeah, and "sikkens" is the brand of stain that was recommended to me. it's good quality and my chair looks awesome! i will just need more ventilation next time.

back home again

i'm back and i'm sleepy. AND i'm dogsitting in laporte till january 8th. whew. can't wait to go to bed tonite! more pictures will be coming soon but for now, i'll just add one more from the end of my time up north. we're standing on beaver pond, across m134 from camp. beaver pond is usually a better option for ice skating/hockey. prentiss bay hardly ever freezes enuf to skate on anymore. even the inner bay. sigh. anyway, in this pic from left to right is: andy, abby, me, and chad.

see you again soon with some more pics.

happy new year!

we've been celebrating now for about half-an-hour. (remember, my computer has no idea yet that i'm in michigan and on michigan time. it still thinks it's in indiana.) poor thing. so happy new year! whee!

anyway, today we went to drummond island--take m-134 as far east as it goes and it leads to a car ferry dock. we crossed over to the island on the 11:40am ferry. we then drove around the island, had lunch there, went shopping, and came back. it was cool. the pictures here are mostly of the trip to drummond island. there's a pic of our car waiting to get on the ferry, (the one behind the fedex truck), and a pic of "the northwood," the restaurant we ate at today. oh, and that's a picture of us on the ferry. unfortunately, the deckhands were nowhere to be found when we wanted a group picture. but the captain TRIED to find one. (he even announced it on the loudspeaker!) there were 5 of us that went today: me, marge, farouk, chrysta, and greg.

happy new year...STILL HOPING FOR MORE SNOW! i think valpo is supposed to get 2-4 inches, my friend erica said, and hopefully we'll get even more up here tomorrow. the ski trails could use another dose of white. but i actually heard that it's supposed to be up to 49 degrees here in the U.P. this weekend. YUCK.

yeah, i've been busy outside!

hence the couple of days with no post! two nights ago i was too busy to come into town to blog and last night i had been invited to mike & sue vaal's to hang out (which was hugely awesome) and so now, being that it's sunday morning, i can write while everyone's either at church or sleepin in back at camp.

anyway, yesterday i spent most of my time outside playing and getting video/pics for the dvd at the end of the week. we got about 6 inches of snow two nights ago which was really great. it's actually been snowing CONSTANTLY since we've been here but some flakes are fewer and farther between and others are ginormous and pile up fast. yesterday everyone went skiing (cross country), ice skating on beaver pond, and to the sauna. thankfully there's a huge square hole cut into the ice so that people could actually jump into the water instead of just wading in. it's more fun and dramatic that way. i'll see what i can do to post a video; i don't have any stills of the people at the sauna.

here's what you're seeing: a sign to the skating rink and the path through the woods to beaver pond, which is where we are ice skating this year. lake huron needs more severe weather and frigid cold in order to freeze over solid enuf to skate on. (even the inner bay...) so beaver pond is a great alternative. there's a pic of andy's dog piper and her shadow, me and my fire, (i had just started it so YES, it got bigger!), and a few pics of the skis and skates we have been using. we don't have ski racks outside so we do it old school--pile up a bunch of snow and stick the skis in! seems to work out.

okay, well i have to make sure bob zeeb did ok firing the sauna; it needs to be between 150-180 degrees for this afternoon. i may need to stir the fire a bit and toss in some more logs. see ya later! (just as i wrote "see ya later," a couple of snowmobiles buzzed by me on the main road here in town.) I COULD SO LIVE HERE!!! sigh.

finally up NORTH!

okay. we're here; driving was not too bad. but the entire trip took 9 hours which is kinda disappointing when i've been known to do it in 6.5 hours. oh well. the snow wasn't too bad; i tried to learn how to work my new camera as i drove so here are a few pics of the road conditions. and the EVER-SLOW salt truck that was ahead of me as soon as i got east of spring hill (camp) on route 10. ugh. hopefully HOPEFULLY HOPEFULLY we'll get snow tomorrow. a LOT. that's part of the reason i dragged my cold self out of my warm cabin to check the weather online. i'm hoping for a true blizzard! btw, did i mention that someone else is here mooching off the little log library's wireless? first time i've been here and have had company! some guys in a pickup truck in front of me...

and didja see what shirt ANDY is wearing? i had to get a pic of him in it. i wonder if he did that on purpose. anyway, he's heading to a wedding tomorrow in grand haven. the rest of us are all going to the soo (sault ste. marie) to go ice skating, check out the soo locks, and hang out in the town. it's always a good time.

this is the first time that our winter gathering has been on the "mariner's cove" side of camp. usually it's on the side called "old mill point." anyhoo, i kinda like it better here at cove side. here's a wreath on the taylor lodge sign. well, i'm gonna sign off and check out the weather.

p.s. i HATE that benezir bhutto (sp?) was assassinated. i think we're really screwed now. but it was bound to happen; with all her protests and gatherings and such. ah well, time shall tell exactly how screwed we are!

leaving in an hour or two

i see we had freezing rain last night. poo. oh well. we (dad and i) tried to get a suburban (or other LARGE suv) to rent to go up north but instead got two smaller 4-wheel drive vehicles. we're considering shoving everybody and all their luggage in one, however. we can return one to enterprise this morning @ 7:30 if it ends up we don't need it. but we'll see. i guess it's better to have two and need ONE than to have one and need TWO.

i'll try to post regularly while i'm gone. blogging is no fun unless you have something fun to write about. i'm hoping for a major MAJOR MAJOR snowstorm once we're there. it's about 7.5-9 hours north of here. (about 45 minutes northeast of the mackinac bridge.)

happy trails to me!

heading north soon

well...sorry i took such a hiatus from my blog. i've been insanely busy and with two break-ins at my place of business and a ton of other things going on, (holidays too) i've not had much time to be on the computer at all. anyway, this is just a random update and to alert my avid blog readers that i actually AM still on the planet. (it can also be hard blogging when nothing exciting is going on.)

if i get into town while in the U.P. in the middle of the night, i may blog then--and post some pictures. let me explain that last statement: while in cedarville, michigan, the place we're staying at doesn't have great internet access. in fact, there's none. it's kinda hard in the middle of nowhere to get a signal or even dial-up. so late at night after everyone's gone to bed, i often drive into town and park next to the library and mooch off of the wireless there. usually works great. hopefully they haven't put passwords on it yet or anything. i've been doing this for two years now. usually i like to go during the day and sign in, because that way this new little log library can show that its grant is being used. (they're more likely to be able to keep their wireless internet that way--they got a grant from the state or something.) but since i'm crew this time around (working at cedar campus), i won't have much time during the day to disappear into town for any length of time. oh, and besides that, this little library has rather limited hours anyway.

this little log library is rather new and very cute. i think it was built 2003 or 4ish. after all, it's a small town. yup. a small harbor town. across the street, the marina sells boats & jetskis in summer and snowmobiles all winter. sigh. i could SO LIVE THERE!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BILLY GRAHAM!

YOU ROCK. have a wonderful 89th birthday. you deserve the best.

the dictionary changes for idiots???

this is news to me! there are three words that were highlighted recently that people don't know the proper spelling of (and i'm not sure which dictionary or dictionaries...) but the dictionary is adding extra spellings. so people who are confused and don't know how to spell still are right. I HATE HATE HATE THE POLITICALLY CORRECT WORLD WE LIVE IN SO MUCH. hate it. our society is in the biggest downward spiral! but i don't think we'll die of stupidity like originally suspected; i think we'll finish ourselves off in world war III the way pakistan has recently been ending up. and bush is trying to say that musharraf is undermining democracy? the "president" of pakistan is a freaking dictator! he was never voted in! he just took power! our president is so full of double standards! maybe some of the dictionary "revisions" are for his benefit too.

back to the subject at hand: for example, "vocal cord" shall also now be spelled "vocal chord." some people never did apparently learn to spell the word correctly and they just imagined it as a cHord as in a tone. or a tune. or part of a song.

then there's a "shoe-in." a "shoe-in" means for example, that a candidate will have no trouble winning an election. but i suppose there are so many flies in our country that this spelling has now been added: "shoo-in."

lastly, there's "free reign." example: she has free reign of the house while her parents are away. but now we are including the spelling, "free rein" as in REINS on a horse! how does that even work? REIGN is when you dominate something. you rule. having FREE REIGN makes sense. free REIN is IDIOTIC.

is there anyone else in our english speaking country who has an issue with this? i'm telling you. we've gone from worse to worser.