There are some very nice dolphins outside...
...but it doesn't seem like the architecture I've come to expect from a capitol. It looks like somebody just copied the Louisiana building but without any of the architectural details that normally give a capitol its character, like Alabama's clock, or California's man-eating bears. I suppose that's a good thing from a tax-payer perspective, but it's still surprising. Having a walk around the building, I discover this on the other side:
This, I find out, is the old capitol building. The larger building with the dolphins is the new capitol. This building has a lot more of the character I've come to expect from a state capitol, like the brightly striped window overhangs that look like they were made from Where's Waldo sweaters.
The old capitol building is surrounded by Florida's state memorials. There are several items dedicated to fallen police officers:
That last memorial even has a miniature version of itself right beside itself:
I'm not quite sure why you'd put an exact duplicate of a thing beside the original version of the thing.
Continuing around, I find another purple heart memorial like the ones I've seen at several capitols now. Doing some research, I find out the Military Order of the Purple Heart is a group composed of combat veterans who have received the Purple Heart medal, and the group was founded, "for the protection and mutual interest of all who have received the decoration."
This memorial is to commemorate the life of Captain John Parkhill, who died leading Florida's last fight against the Seminole Native Americans. I feel like if he was from Arizona or New Mexico it probably would've been more a celebratory headstone shaped like a toilet.
The two giant walls with a flag in the middle are a dedication to those who served in the Vietnam War.
The Tallahassee memorials are spread out over several blocks, so you have to do some searching to find them all. Hidden behind some bushes I find one dedicated to World War II veterans. The old man reminds me of my grandpa (even though he served in the Korean War), so I decide it's my favorite memorial yet, which isn't a thing I thought I'd ever have before this trip.
I'm not sure if it was a capitol owned monument, but this was a memorial I found dedicated to those killed by drunk drivers on the roadways of Florida.
Florida also contains a monument declaring them a member of the Sri Chinmoy International Peace Blossoms. Sri Chimnoy was an Indian spiritualist who started teaching meditation in the west during the mid 60s. His International Peace Blossoms are a group of over 800 landmarks in 50 nations dedicated to achieving peace.
After seeing another Liberty Bell replica, which I won't take the time to show because why, I find this memorial for the men of Leon County who fought in the Civil War, which was raised by the women of post-Civil War Florida.
While Florida has a hand full of unique and interesting monuments, I can tell it's never been a big focus of theirs. And while it probably shouldn't be with other things a government could be doing, it's still nice to see a sign projecting some future growth on my way out:
Leaving Tallahassee, I look for a local place to eat lunch but see nothing of interest, so I hold out until I see a sign for the Red Onion Grill in Lee, a place that may or may not be local, but is new to me nonetheless. The visit isn't anything exceptional; it's a simple, quiet, gas station diner, occupied mostly by older people. It's the type of place you expect either nothing exciting to happen or a SWAT team to suddenly bust in and start shooting because it's secretly a front for selling meth: there's really not a middle ground. Unfortunately, it was the former, so I continue on with the rest of my day, which is a 5 and a half hour drive to Punta Gorda. It's pretty late by the time I pass by the city of Tampa, so I decide to take an exit and pick up dinner at Walmart.
Tampa is one of the biggest cities in Florida, so at this time of night I expected the streets to be filled with homeless, drunks, and drug dealers (or any combination thereof). Surprisingly, I saw none. There were almost no cars on the road either even though I was passing skyscrapers, normally a sign of consistent population. It was almost like everyone in the city had vanished. Maybe Tampa has a city wide Easter pageant where everybody pretends to disappear like Jesus. If that's really what happens, their egg hunt must be amazing.
After picking up a sandwich, I continue south on the interstate. At one point, traffic starts to slow down: there are police lights up ahead - LOTS of them. I see road flares, too. I've never seen the police use road flares before. I figure it could just be a Florida thing, but it still seems like something big is going on. I turn on my dash camera to get footage.
There's several police cruisers, an ambulance, and a fire truck. I start to wonder if I'm going to see something awful when...yep, that's a dead guy. On the side of the road is a body covered with a blanket. I've never seen a dead person outside of a funeral. I think about how awful it's gonna be for one of the officers to call up the family and tell them their relative died, and on Easter's Eve of all nights. Near the body are some police and firemen talking though, and they seem to be taking it pretty well. Why shouldn't they though? They've probably seen this sort've thing quite a bit by now. It makes me wonder whether it's better to not see something bad enough times you can still find it awful, or if it's better to see it so often you're numb to it.
Moving onward, I finally reach my destination. Unfortunately, tonight's Rest Area is not as inviting as the previous: there are very visible signs stating you can not stay at the rest area for longer than 3 hours. What the hell? Who came up with 3 hours? How is that a reasonable level of rest for someone who may very well be a trucker traveling up and down Florida for a delivery? After traveling to the other side of the country and back, and having been woken up by a guard after my first night on the road, I continue to not understand why there are time limits less than 12 hours on Rest Areas, but 3 has to be the most awkward and ridiculous yet. There's a guard at the area who looks like she may not care enough to actually wake me up, but there's also a sheriff patrolling the area who may feel the need to remind her, and I don't feel like getting woken up 3 hours into my sleep, so I head to a nearby Knight's Inn. There's a truck station across the street from it that's completely packed: I guess truckers don't like being woken up 3 hours into their sleep either.
* * * * *
I'd never stayed at a Knight's Inn before, but it was a pleasant place from what I could tell. My perspective is that of someone who lives out of a car though, so maybe my opinion is skewed. Either way, I awoke refreshed and headed for Fort Myers. I plan on getting to Miami today where I've very luckily come in contact with another friend of mine: an old college mate, Jeremy, is currently living in the area, and he's welcomed me to join him and his girlfriend, Kasey, while I'm in town. Being Easter, they have other plans to attend to first, so I tell Jeremy I'll be traveling/burning time, and he can contact me whenever he's ready.
Once in Fort Meyers, I stop for an hour or two in a Starbucks. While there, I overhear an off-duty employee telling one of her co-workers about a boy that's interested in her. She says something to the point of, "He thinks he loves me, but love isn't real: it's just an emotion developed by the brain. He's cute though, so I'll play along to take advantage of him physically." She sounds like a cold, emotionless, monster; I find myself surprisingly attracted to her.
I leave the Starbucks to burn some more time at a McDonald's outside of Miami when Jeremy text me saying they're done with their plans and I should come over. Shortly after, I find myself lost in a Miami apartment complex. I'm looking for the apartment number Jeremy gave me, but I only see letters on all the doors: this is a very bizarre feeling. It's one thing to be on the wrong floor or in the wrong building, but when you find yourself looking at the wrong set of alphanumeric characters, you have no idea how to fix the situation. With a phone call, Jeremy helps me find the place though. Walking in, I notice there are white marble floors and a giant mirror on one of the walls. Being in Miami, my first thought is, "This place totally looks like Scarface's apartment."
Through discussing the usual catch-up conversation, I find out Jeremy's moved around quite a bit since leaving school. At one point he was working in Jonesboro, Arkansas for a company called RSI, a point I can only remember because he reminded me 3 months later when I started working for the same company at their Augusta branch. The reason he's now in Florida is for Kasey. The two of them met while in Arkansas, and after developing into a relationship, Kasey decided to move here closer to her family. His current job allows him to work from home which is basically 1 step away from every developer's dream (working from home AND owning the company). And while he enjoys it, he tells me it's definitely not for everybody: there's a certain amount of discipline required to not just check into the morning meeting and go back to bed, though you can often get away with coding only in your underwear.
While discussing my travels, Jeremy, Kasey, and I fall into an unexpectedly unique and interesting conversation: none of us can find white queso dip. This comes up because I mention I haven't been able to find any since starting my trip, even though I've been going to the most Hispanicly influenced areas I've ever been to, making me question the authenticity of queso dip as a Mexican dish (surprise). Jeremy and Kasey say they've only found one restaurant that serves it since moving to Miami. This conversation might be a mystery to those of you who don't live in certain parts of the south east, as apparently we're the only people that have it, but most Mexican restaurants in the area serve a white, melted cheese called queso dip. Some restaurants put beans or beef in it as well, though I personally prefer it 100% pure cut. This stuff is so good, the entire appeal of probably 10-20% of the items on an average Mexican menu in the southeast is being drenched in queso dip. Have a taco? Dump queso on it and now it's Taco Con Queso. Have a burrito? Dump queso on it and it's Burrito Con Queso. Just have queso? DUMP IT IN YOUR MOUTH HOLE. Yet nobody west of the Mississippi, south of Georgia, or, I'm guessing, north of the Bible Belt, is aware of its existence from what I can tell.
Concluding our initial conversation, Jeremy tells me, "We don't get a lot of guests, so it's nice to have somebody visiting; feel free to stay as long as you want." It's nice to feel so welcomed. We discuss what to do for the rest of the day, which is already becoming night, and agree it would be nice to stay in. Jeremy tells me of the legendary status attached to Kasey's mac and cheese and hamburgers, and I am more than willing to test these qualifications. We play video games for a bit, eat a great dinner, and before long the day is up.
* * * * *
"Yeah, I saw you, I know you're awake." Jeremy had opened the door for work which woke me up for a second. I turned my head to see him just as he walked into the living room. Once I realized it was him getting up for work, I turned my head to go back to sleep, right as he turned his head to see me turning my head, so it looked like I was avoiding him. It was one of the very awkward moments my personality seems to catalyze. Luckily, Jeremy's not a psychopath, so he doesn't seem to mind. After sleeping a bit longer, I get up and prepare for my next destination: today I go to Everglades National Park.
The Everglades is another one of those places I've heard of my entire life but never seen for myself, so I'm pretty excited about going. Hitting the Visitor Center first, I learn the Everglades are apparently super endangered. Not just normal endangered: super endangered. And it's not a particular animal or plant being threatened but the entire ecosystem. In fact, Everglades was the first National Park created for the purpose of saving an ecological system. All threats against the Everglades are rooted in the fact it's heavily dependent on water to exist. When southern Florida was first populated by settlers, they saw the marshy land as a good opportunity for farming. However, as more and more people moved to the region, to the point Miami is the second most populous city in Florida, a lot more water needed to be used, not just for farming, but for drinking, bathing, and other general human use. Aside from animals' and plants' now lacking enough drinking water for themselves, wild fires that used to stop burning at the water sources could now spread further than they used to. On top of this, the water that remained was becoming unhealthy for the wildlife due to mercury poisoning and other forms of pollution.
Feeling educated on why the park exist, I ask a ranger where I should go to hike. The ranger tells me that Everglades is one of the only parks where you can walk anywhere you'd like so you don't have to stay on a trail. This is slightly disconcerting considering my proxy to alligators at any given point in this park, and I wonder if I misunderstood what the ranger said or if he was just really bad at giving advice. Either way, I'm no Alligator Dundee and I'm not gonna pretend I am until I lose a limb, so I take his suggestion of visiting Anhinga Trail instead.
Anhinga Trail is only 0.8 miles long, it's completely flat, and it's even got handrails. It's not a challenge in any way, but it's exciting nonetheless due to the abundance of animals in the area, like the bird above, which I can't distinguish between a great cormorant or a double-crested cormorant, but I'm pretty sure it's a cormorant if you cared, and it was perfectly content standing just a few feet away from the walking path. There's lots of wild life below the water as well, like this Florida gar...
...and tons of large-mouthed bass.
Going into the park, I was hoping I'd see an alligator but didn't want to get my hopes up too high. Anhinga Trail is croc full of them though, so it doesn't take long for me to see one...
He's just sorta laying there. Not particularly exciting, but that is what reptiles do, and I'm certainly not gonna be the one to tell him to move. It's still fun to see one though. Moving on, I see another gator that seems slightly peculiar to me...
He's laying across the river rather than in line with it, so his face is being pushed into the bank while simultaneously bending his back all out of wack. I can't help but wonder why he's doing this. Does his nose itch? Did his chiropractor suggest he sleep in this position? I suppose I can't be too judgmental, I've napped in some odd positions before, too.
I also see several turtles on the trail but...well, y'know, they're turtles.
I'll say again, there are a LOT of alligators on Anhinga Trail.
The alligators were pretty neat to see, but probably the most interesting animals to watch were the black vultures.
Unlike the alligators, vultures aren't very uncommon to see in the wild. The vultures here are interesting because of how they act though: their comfort level around humans is similar to the crows I met in other National Parks. The one above not only let me shoot a photo of him from a few feet away, but wouldn't go away once I was done taking the picture. I wanted to continue along the path, but it was only 4 or so feet wide and I didn't wanna get that close to the thing: he might not look it in the picture, but that was a big bird. Vultures also eat rotten meat, so there's no telling how many bacteria were on its beak and claws, so I didn't find the idea of fighting it as favorable to me as most of my imaginary animal fights. I finally decide to slide by him though, watching cautiously, wondering if "black vulture infection" was going to be the thing to put me down after all these years.
Further down the trail, I see a group of vultures eating the carcass of a dead alligator that looks like it's about to explode. The vultures are surprisingly social creatures. There's a grassy area on the trail where a large group of them have gathered. They don't seem to be eating, pooping, mating, or fighting, so the only other option I could figure is they're just hanging out, talking about how their week is going, if they've had any good rotten flesh lately, and if Vicky is really seeing Jim behind Adam's back (that tramp).
Finishing up at Anhinga, I decide I'll try Christian Point, a trail near the end of the roadway. It's 1.8 miles one way, promises a diversity of habitat, and ends at the coast. However, when I can't find Christian Point Trail, I end up at the Flamingo Visitor Center beyond it. Confused at how I could've missed it, I get out instead and enjoy my first view of the Florida waters.
I'm definitely not in South Carolina anymore. The water here is beautiful, blue, and clear, the sort've thing I thought only existed in movies. Knowing I'll get to see more later, I plan my next move. Since I can't find Christian Point Trail, I'll settle for...Snake Bight Trail. It's a 1.6 mile one way trail that apparently has a hardwood hammock, tropical trees, and ends at the coast. I have no other expectations about this trail but figure it's about the right size and will give me an excuse to visit the coast again.
The parking area for Snake Bight can only fit about 3 or 4 cars and I was the only one there: this should've clued me in to the adventure ahead. As soon as I open my trunk and start deciding what to bring, I start feeling them. I'm not even on the trail yet and already mosquitoes are biting me. Luckily, I brought bug spray for the trip - bug spray with deet in it. I don't know what deet is but I've heard mother nature hates it. However, I'm starting to itch just thinking of this memory, so I can't imagine how awful the trip would've been with anything less.
Snake Bight appears on the map, and in front of me, to just be one long straight away.
It also appears, if one were foolish enough, to be a place that might be considered pleasant. But I am no longer a fool. Snake Bight trail is not a pleasant place. It is a harsh, unmerciful mistress of pain and suffering. The mosquitoes by far were the worst part. My initial encounter with them was laughable compared to the rest of the trek. I normally just spray my arms and legs with bug repellent, maybe the back of my neck and ears. But less than 50 feet onto the trail I could feel them attacking my face. Face mosquitoes? I've never had mosquitoes attack my face before. I guess I figured mosquitoes just didn't like face blood. Knowing I have no other choice, I close my eyes, scrunch every facial orifice I have, and shoot myself in the face with bug spray. This is just the first time though. Every 100 yards or so I have to respray some part of me, whether it be my legs, arms, neck, or face. And even then, there's always a mosquito landing on me, stealing my blood like the blood sucker she is. And heaven forbid I have to stop walking for something: walking briskly is the only way I can get away from half of them.
Next to the mosquitoes, the worst thing about Snake Bight is the smell. Running parallel to the entire trail is this:
...a long reservoir of stagnant, stinking, swamp water. The water is probably the main reason for the mosquitoes as well, but the smell is definitely all its fault. When people use the term, "swamp ass", this is exactly what they're referring to. This place has the smell of a nasty wet butt that has not been properly cleaned being churned out in gallons by swamp water, and I don't have enough bug spray to cover that up.
That's not to say I didn't experience some cool things on the trail as well. At one point I saw a pileated woodpecker with bright red hair pecking into a tree:
I'd never seen a woodpecker actively pecking wood so I decided to film it, at which point he stopped doing it, so now I have 22 seconds of a woodpecker not pecking wood that I had to stand still in mosquitoes to get: even the woodpeckers here are awful.
While pushing through the trail, there are a couple times I consider giving up. It's not like there's anything particularly special I'm headed towards, and it's a one way trail so it's right back through this mess when I'm done. It's at this point I start comparing Snake Bight to the other trails I considered giving up on: I've hiked up the largest mountain in Texas, I went up a mountain so cold the waterfall on it was frozen, and I climbed buttes made of jagged, sharp stones in the hottest place on the planet...and I'm seriously considering turning around on this 1.8 mile, 0 elevation gain, straight away. Hiking in those other places was like saying I got in a fight with Mike Tyson. Hiking Snake Bight is more like saying, "I've got chronic diarrhea and the doctor gave me a prescription for something called Placebodryn." They're both very painful situations to be in, but they're entirely different flavors of pain.
I get to a point where the ground changes from dirt and leaves to fallen beach grass. It's here I know I'm starting to get close. Not much further and...
*SLITHER!*
OH SHIT, THAT WAS A SNAKE! Where did a snake come from?! Oh my gosh, this place is called Snake Bight Trail, how did I just pick up on that? I am such an idiot! Luckily, I must've spooked it because by the time I looked down to see what was making the noise, all I saw was 6-8 inches of tail squirming off the trail and into the bush. However, I too am spooked now, so I take my knife out, which I only brought along because Florida panthers are apparently a real thing, and continue on the trail, looking much more closely at the ground now. I see a clearing up ahead though. I'm almost there! I can see the beach. Right before I hit the clearing, there's a rough patch of mosquitoes. I lean my head down and spray ahead, charging through the ruthless beasts. The trail suddenly turns into a boardwalk. As I approach the end, I realize it doesn't actually go to the beach. The boardwalk just ends. It's not even open ended so you can walk to the beach if you'd like: it's a closed off platform that you can kind've see the beach from.
What the platform actually leads you to is...oh my gosh...what is this? This is awful. It's absolutely hideous. It smells like someone collected ten thousand rotten eggs and smashed them together to make a rotten egg paste, and then they took that paste and mixed it in with the swamp ass water. Yes...yes, by the looks of it, that's exactly what happened here.
This is what I've been suffering to get to. It's like winning a marathon and finding out the prize is getting hit in the legs with a baseball bat. I snap a quick photo so I never have to come here again and start thinking fast. I've got a bad smell, horrible mosquitoes, and now snakes to worry about. Luckily, there's almost a sweet spot between the ass mud and the mosquito swarm where neither is too over bearing, so I prepare there. The first thing I do is drink plenty of water so I have to stop as little as possible on the way back. Next, I drench myself down with insect repellent. Then, I make the decision I'm not going to put my knife or bug spray away until I get back to the part of the path that's dirt. Knife in right hand, because that one's kinda more important, and spray in left in case at any point I start feeling a surge of bugs I don't have to stop and reach behind me for the spray. Feeling well prepared, and more than ready to leave, I charge forward, spraying my way through the wall of bugs ahead. On my way out of the grassy area I do stop once to take a picture of this:
It seems a baby crab lost his way at some point and made it this far before dehydrating and becoming a husk of himself. This place brings nothing but death and misery: damn you Snake Bight Trail.
Continuing on, I leave the grassy area, tuck my knife and spray away, and have a fairly uneventful time finishing up the trail. It's not until about 100 yards from my car something else exciting happens. Aside from the mosquitoes, the environment had been very silent. Suddenly, 12 feet ahead of me on the right side of the trail, the ground burst to life: it metaphorically scared the crap out of me.
A red-shouldered hawk had been sitting on the ground, and, after worrying about snakes for so long, I somehow didn't notice him there. It's a pretty tough looking bird, but I'd still rather fight it than the vulture. After taking the hawk's picture, I continue to my car. Getting in the driver's seat, the first thing I think is, "Screw the Everglades, we don't need em: put an interstate over it."
When I get back into cellphone signal, I see I've got a message from Jeremy: he's wondering if I'll be joining them for dinner. I tell him yes and head back to the apartment. Jeremy and Kasey want to show me the rest of Miami, so we head to a restaurant located in a shopping outlet that requires traveling a fairly scenic route to get to. The first thing I notice is how much money is in Miami. I suppose it makes sense as expensive as it must be to live here, but I didn't expect BMWs and Mercedes to flood the streets like Honda Accords in any other town: they're the middle class vehicle here. The real ballers are in Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, or, if you're feeling very humble about yourself, a new Jaguar maybe.
Taking a bridge to cross the Miami River, I get a terrific view of everything around us. The Metropolitan area is huge: easily 40-50 buildings at least 20 stories high (though that's definitely the low end). Not impressive by, say, New York standards probably, but compared to the Aiken-Augusta area, or even Columbia for that matter, the cityscape is crushing. The buildings are all very nice looking, too. I noticed this even in the earlier parts of town and it makes me think looks matter a lot in Miami. I end up seeing many people in the streets later on who I think would agree: there were many individuals I passed who gave off an aura of not only wanting to look good, but look cool as well. Overt coolness is so uncool though...
The place we eat is Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., a Forrest Gump themed seafood restaurant. Even though it's centered around a movie, the way it's furnished and decorated reminds me more of a Hooters for some reason. The food is good, though. Afterwards, we walk around the shopping outlet so I can see more of the culture. Along the way, we stop in a Starbucks. Jeremy's been following my blog and is well aware of my newfound appreciation for the place before telling me...
"There's a recipe they can make you that taste just like cotton candy."
"...I love cotton candy."
Jeremy asks the woman behind the counter, "Can you make him one of the frappuccinos that taste like cotton candy?"
"Cotton candy? There's one that taste like Trix."
After much deliberation over what the correct recipe was (FYI: Starbucks has a lot of secret recipes you can look up), I'm made one of the Cotton Candy/Trix frappuccinos. It really does taste like cotton candy and could pass for Trix as well: delicious. We walk around more after Starbucks, go into a couple stores, and begin returning on the opposite side of the outlet. We stop in an ice cream/sweets shop on the way back. Jeremy and Kasey have a couple samples before ordering, in which time the woman directly behind us huffs about the time it's taking us to order (which wasn't very long). She's had a very grouchy face since the moment she walked in. My initial thought was to tell her, "You're in a really bad mood for someone who's about to eat ice cream," but I resisted, instead asking politely, "What flavor are you getting?" "I don't know," she retorts. When it's her turn to order, she rattles off, "[some super long adult sounding boring flavor] tracks." She knew damn well what flavor she was getting.
After ice cream, we head back to the car and then to the apartment. When waiting for food at Bubba Gump's, Jeremy and Kasey showed me a trivia app called QuizUp. One of the trivia categories was about a game called Minecraft. I mention I've never played it before, and Jeremy says he has it so we can play once we get home. For those who don't know, Minecraft is a computer game that's basically a digital form of playing with LEGOs. You can grow or find resources, combine resources to turn them into new resources, and, ultimately, use those resources like blocks to build structures. It's apparently a lot of fun, but I've always avoided it, worrying productivity in my life would go down significantly if I played.
Jeremy and I log into the game on different computers. He shows me some basics, we build some things, and once we've been playing a little while, he decides it's time.
"We're gonna go somewhere."
"Okay."
"Put the sword and armor you have on back in the chest. You're probably gonna die and you'll drop it."
"Okay."
"Alright, here's some less expensive armor/weapons. Now you see that purple thing?"
"Yeah."
"Go through it."
"I don't wanna."
"Why not?"
"It looks scary."
Following Jeremy into the purple thing (a portal), we end up in a hellish/fire world called The Nether.
"This is a place we can get a lot of rare resources. You see those guys with the swords?"
"Yeah."
"They're really strong but won't attack you unless you attack them, so don't attack them."
"Okay."
Much exploring later:
"Hey Jeremy, I wanna attack one of these guys and see what happens."
"If you do that, we will die and lose everything."
"Okay."
A little bit of exploring later:
"I think we have enough, we can leave now."
"Okay, I'm gonna attack one of these guys."
"Please, don't do that."
*Does it.*
"AAHHH, I DID IT!"
"Run away! Where are you?"
"They got me."
*sighs* "Where'd you die? I'll get your stuff."
After getting my stuff, Jeremy tells me I can respawn, but I'm not gonna be where he and Kasey built their house.
"Press [some button]."
"Okay."
"You see that number?"
"Yeah."
"That's how many blocks away you are from our house."
"Who builds their house 60,000 blocks away from their respawn point?!"
"We wanted to find a good spot. Location, location, location, man."
"So I have to run back?"
"Yep. And since it's your fault, I don't feel like staying awake for it, so good night! Play as long as you want, but change world's once you get that character back home, please."
"Good night."
Kasey stayed awake a little longer to help me get back home, possibly in part to it being her character I killed. After she left, I played a couple hours longer on a testing world. Once I was done, I got on my computer to do some planning for tomorrow when I learned some disgruntling news...