Next....
Still terribly dull for some reason. But more words are being written.
Mitchell did a quick change into his official "tourist friendly" outfit, complete with T-shirt that had SB Aquarium on the front and "Ask me about the Sharks" on the back. He clipped his bluetooth-esque earpiece to his ear, putting his radio in his back pocket. "Testing, testing..." he tried a few sylables as he was walking up to the front information desk. "Hear you loud and clear," the switchboard notified him. "Alright, I'm doing the tours if anyone needs me, Linda."
"Roger that, boss."
"I wish people would quit calling me boss," he muttered, knowing Linda would be the only one to hear it. He could almost hear her smirking back. Nobody really liked the way Tyler ran things, he was a bit cold and impersonal. But everybody liked Mitch. Secretly, he knew they hoped he would get the Administration job whenever Tyler quit. But it wasn't something he was looking forward to. He liked the field work, there wasn't anything in the world that would get him to give that up. Getting out there in the water wasn't the same as wading through the politics of grant money and kissing up to people like Walter Mitner.
No, he preferred a more interested crowd. Like the classroom of young kids coming towards him, being herded by a slim slightly harried schoolteacher. "Alright, kids," he said, slapping his hands together and rubbing them a bit maniacally. "Who wants to see the sharks?"
There was a chorus of "ME! ME! YES!" from various members of the tour group. Mitch led the way through a slightly darkened hallway to the shark tank. The large window took up the entire wall along the corridor. Inside was a small replica, a snapshot of the coral reef out on the ocean floor. Various fish and animals moved and flitted between the coral ridges and sandy floor. But up above everyone was a group of large mean looking sharks. There was a couple of gasps from the younger girls and a few of the boys pressed up against the handrailing, wishing they could get closer. "Cooooool!" they all echoed around. The teacher was grateful for their attention being diverted to one collective thing and took care of the more scared children at the back.
"What can anyone tell me about sharks that they know? Anyone?" Mitch liked to open up the floor to see what they already knew. He never did like teachers that tried to teach you stuff that you already knew. One of the boys raised his hand excitedly. "They eat people!" The marine biologist smirked. "Well, yes and no. Yes they are carniverous, which means they do eat meat. This includes fish and mammals, whatever they are able to catch. But usually they do not go for humans. They would prefer something smaller and less apt to fight back, such as a sick or diseased animal or something like a sealion. Did everyone see the sealions yet?" There were some nods around the group as one of the sharks swam by the glass a bit closer than the rest. "The people who usually get attacked by sharks are surfers. This is because when they're on the surfboard and paddling, from the bottom the shark thinks they are a sealion and they go up to investigate."
There they were. Her friends. Dre and Tom were circling around up and down, making use of each others momentum as they swam. She put on a burst of speed, darting over and swirling around Dre with a hello. I've brought it, see? she said. He broke off from his friend to look at the thing she'd brought. Strange object, he nudged it with his nose. Is it for eating?
No, I don't think so, she replied. It does not taste like food. She tossed it to him and he gleefully nudged it back, causing it to rise to the surface and bob above the water. Fun thing, he told her, swishing by to rejoin the rest of the games going on. The girl swam up to grab the brightly colored ball, her tail arcing down as she dove again. From far away, the only thing seen was the flip of a fish tail. Nothing more.
Mitch had finished up a couple of tours and was walking around the aquarium outside for a break. The sealions were barking at each other as they were being fed from one of the staff off to the side. "Easy, Larry. Not so fast." The man down in the pit nodded, slowing the rate he was tossing fish at the animals. "How's Suzy doing?" Mitch called down, leaning against the rail. "Missing you, Boss. Pretty sure she's got a crush on you," Larry called back up with a knowing smile.
"I think you're getting sentimental on me." Mitchell scoffed back as he started to walk away. "And quit calling me boss!" He could hear Larry snickering behind his back as he left. Suzy was their resident Orka whale. Rescued off the coast when she was little, she was the aquarium sweetheart. A very, very BIG sweetheart. And she seemed to have a fondness for Mitch in particular. He made his way over to the big display arena to see how she was doing.
Tony was there, rubbing her nose as he stood on the platform, talking to her in low tones that Mitch couldn't make out. The minute Mitchell came over to the side of the tank, Suzy was pulling away from Tony and making happy whistling noises as she swam her large black and white body over to where Mitch was. "Hey, girl," he said as she nosed a wave of water over the side at him. He rubbed her nose, "Missed me?" She squealed and opened her mouth as if expecting a treat. "Oh no, I'm afraid Tony's got the fish today. Not me."
"She's in rare form today. Did three jumps in a row at the end of the set." Tony dove in, swimming over to join the other two. Suzy moved off once she realized there wasn't any food to be had at the moment, her dorsal fin cutting through the water and away as she started to circle the tank.
"Is that so?" Mitch said, in reply to Tony's statement. He sighed as he watched the orka surface and dive around the large pool. "What's on your mind, Mitch?" Tony asked, searching his face for clues. Mitch rubbed his eyes. "Oh nothing, just...tired of routine." He looked around a bit conspiratorily before asking, "You want to blow off work and go test those rebreathers?" Tony's eyes sparkled the way they do when he's really excited about something he shouldn't know about. "You mean it, b-..." he caught himself before finishing that last word. Mitch pointed at him. "Call me boss again and I won't take you with me. I'll leave you to scrub out the sea cucumber tank."
"What? What? I didn't say it!" Tony shrugged, causing him to lose his grip on the side of the tank and dunk his head underwater where he kept up his innocent face and shrugging through the glass. Mitch knocked against the glass near his face with a grin. "See you in a half hour, Tony." Underwater Tony gave him a thumbs up as Mitch walked away...and then had to try and keep himself from being squished by Suzy who had come back to see Mitch off. A slew of bubbles came from Tony's mouth as he tried to talk her off of him till he broke the surface. "Try to drown me, huh?" Mitch heard him say before he left.
Sarah's office was immaculate. At least it was in comparison to his own messy desk. Everything stacked neatly in organized piles, rows and rows of file cabinets. She was sitting at her computer, headset on, listening to the communications they had recorded today. "The rebreathers are ready for you," she said the minute he came in. "I figured you and Tony wanted to take them out today." Mitch wondered how she could hear him come in over the squeals of the dolphins in her ears. "Um, thanks...how's it coming with our mystery sounds?"
"Not so good," she took off the headset, frowning. "I can't seem to isolate it enough. I've tried boosting it up to normal human ability to hear but that didn't help. This is all I get." She unplugged the headset and flipped on the speakers. Soon there was a low rumbling followed by a squeak or two that didn't quite sound dolphin to Mitch. "You sure it's an animal?"
"Positive. That's not metal or plastic making that noise. I've checked through the computer database three times. It's definitely an animal. I'd bet two months pay on it."
"Well, hopefully you won't have to do that." Mitch smirked. He picked up the case of rebreathers as Sarah plugged her headphones back in. "You sure you don't want to..." He turned to her but she was already lost back in her research. Guess she's not wanting to come this trip, he told himself.
Later, he and Tony were motoring their way along out to sea to try out their new toys. Mitch was in a wetsuit now. The mist had cleared off of the ocean and you could now see for miles, or at least it felt like that. Sea birds dipped and swooped overhead, stopping now and again to dive at a fish or at each other if one got in someone else's territory. The breeze was slightly cooler out on the ocean but it was still plenty warm enough for the time of year. Mitch drove them out to their favorite diving spot and cut the motor as Tony dropped the anchor. "Hey, we've got some company," he heard Tony exclaim. Off the starboard side was a giggling pod of dolphins. Mitch walked out to the side where Tony was. "Should be more fun with an audience," Tony said with a cocky grin, fixing his mask over his spiked hair. Mitch agreed and worked on opening the case up to pull out the rebreathers. They were pretty straightforward. "Alright, one of us is going to have the new equipment, the other will have regular snorkeling gear and scuba tank standing by just in case."
"You're gonna make me play lookout, aren't you?" Tony grumbled. He was all anxious to try the new stuff...but then again, so was Mitchell. And he could pull rank on him in this instance. Mitch grinned, "Yup, I'm afraid so. Don't worry, I'll tell you exactly how it goes." He ducked as Tony splashed some water over at him. "Then we'll switch, I promise!"
A few more tests above the water and Mitch was ready to go. He sat on the little section of the boat that had the ladder leading down to the water and adjusted his goggles. Tony was fiddling with something off to the side for some reason. "What's that?" Mitch asked, curious. As Tony turned around, he could see the long tube like gun he had in his hands. "Whoa, now, what did you bring that for?" Mitch knew why he brought it, Tony liked using the tranq gun for some odd reason.
Tony grinned. "Well, there've been some shark sightings in this area. You'd rather get eaten I take it?" Mitch considered this and begrudgingly agreed. "Suppose these rebreathers don't work," he asked as Tony was working on putting on his own snorkeling goggles. "You going to hold that and me up out of the water?"
Tony paused. "I could shoot you first, if you'd prefer?"
"Funny." Mitch said dryly. "Ok, see you down there."
There was the dull splash as he hit the water and sank down beneath the waves. Sound was duller down here, as if there seemed to be more room for sound to move in so you could only hear a section of it at a time. Mitchell stroked a bit, getting a feel for breathing through the mouthpiece. It seemed to be alright for the moment. The water was warm, a comfortable 50 degrees or so. Stroking downwards, Mitch waited for Tony to join him. He turned over to see the young marine biologist knife through the water like a practiced diver. They both gave each other the ok signal before proceeding downwards towards the coral reef. Mitch checked the homing signal on his wrist, making a mental note of which direction the boat was in.
Their friends the dolphins were waiting for them. Their whistles were echoing all around as they squealed and chattered with each other. This was the part of his job that Mitch loved. Slipping through the water, exploring what lay beneath the ocean's surface. Watching dolphins was akin to watching an underwater dance of sorts. Like humans, they had to breathe now and again so a few would surface at times and come right back down into the thick of it. Some of the dolphins were already getting interested in the newcomers. Mitch pulled up for a second as one of them nosed against his stomach before circling around, sort of a hello. Tony was trying to get his attention. Mitch turned to watch his signing as Tony was saying "Sarah. kill. us." He meant that Sarah would have loved to come with them, this was most likely the pod of dolphins from that morning they'd been tracking. Mitch nodded, yes she probably would be envious of them being here when she had been back at base trying to decipher their squauks and squeaks all day long.
There was a sense of sereneness about all this. Being down there with the dolphins, just floating. The rebreather was performing well at this depth. Mitch was actually pretty impressed. Tony pointed upwards, he had to surface for a breath. Mitch nodded, watching him go, him still carrying that tranq gun strapped to his back. There was little chance they would actually use it. Dolphins and sharks were pretty much equally matched, no shark was going to stumble into a pod of dolphins unless he had a death wish. Two of the dolphins were bopping him back and forth between them as they would swim by. Mitch was pretty sure it was the same two dolphins at least. Difficult to tell them apart but one of them had a scar, most likely from a motorboat prop, along the back of his tail. Mitchell stroked, turning over as that dolphin went by again, inspecting the scar. He regretted not having his underwater camera with him, they could probably figure out which dolphin this was just from that scar alone if he was already catalogued in Sarah's hundreds of files back at base.
Feeling a bit braver, he stroked towards the sandy bottom of the ocean. There were a few schools of fish nearby trying to scoot their way past the dolphin pod without being seen... or eaten. A crab was making his way sideways along the ocean floor, fixing Mitch a look with his stalk like eyes as if to say, "I dare you to touch me, come on bring it punk." The Stallone of the sea world, Mitch chuckled inwardly to himself.
That's when it happened.
There was a quick movement nearby. Mitch was turning to look and was startled as a large creature flew past him, barely missing clipping his head as they took out the small fish that had been swimming near him. That fish didn't know what hit them. All Mitch saw initially was a long grey flowing tail suddenly extremely close in his vision. He tried to quell that fight or flight response, the worst thing one could do while swimming was to panic unnecessarily. Most drownings occured from such happenings. He shut his eyes for a second, calming his breathing down before opening them again and looking around cautiously. It hadn't been a dolphin, he was sure of that. The collapsed tail had been more akin to that of his beta fish back home or the flippers of a sea otter when they were zipping through the water. But this had been a lot bigger than any of those animals. Mitch turned around, searching the ocean with his goggles. The dolphins were still there. But where had that other creature gotten to? They must have zipped off pretty fast.
Tony was back and Mitch tapped him on the shoulder, signing he'd seen something new. Tony made to grab for his tranq gun but Mitchell shook his head, miming an exasperated facepalm, no nothing dangerous like that. Tony mimed, where is it? Mitch was still trying to figure that out himself.
Mitchell did a quick change into his official "tourist friendly" outfit, complete with T-shirt that had SB Aquarium on the front and "Ask me about the Sharks" on the back. He clipped his bluetooth-esque earpiece to his ear, putting his radio in his back pocket. "Testing, testing..." he tried a few sylables as he was walking up to the front information desk. "Hear you loud and clear," the switchboard notified him. "Alright, I'm doing the tours if anyone needs me, Linda."
"Roger that, boss."
"I wish people would quit calling me boss," he muttered, knowing Linda would be the only one to hear it. He could almost hear her smirking back. Nobody really liked the way Tyler ran things, he was a bit cold and impersonal. But everybody liked Mitch. Secretly, he knew they hoped he would get the Administration job whenever Tyler quit. But it wasn't something he was looking forward to. He liked the field work, there wasn't anything in the world that would get him to give that up. Getting out there in the water wasn't the same as wading through the politics of grant money and kissing up to people like Walter Mitner.
No, he preferred a more interested crowd. Like the classroom of young kids coming towards him, being herded by a slim slightly harried schoolteacher. "Alright, kids," he said, slapping his hands together and rubbing them a bit maniacally. "Who wants to see the sharks?"
There was a chorus of "ME! ME! YES!" from various members of the tour group. Mitch led the way through a slightly darkened hallway to the shark tank. The large window took up the entire wall along the corridor. Inside was a small replica, a snapshot of the coral reef out on the ocean floor. Various fish and animals moved and flitted between the coral ridges and sandy floor. But up above everyone was a group of large mean looking sharks. There was a couple of gasps from the younger girls and a few of the boys pressed up against the handrailing, wishing they could get closer. "Cooooool!" they all echoed around. The teacher was grateful for their attention being diverted to one collective thing and took care of the more scared children at the back.
"What can anyone tell me about sharks that they know? Anyone?" Mitch liked to open up the floor to see what they already knew. He never did like teachers that tried to teach you stuff that you already knew. One of the boys raised his hand excitedly. "They eat people!" The marine biologist smirked. "Well, yes and no. Yes they are carniverous, which means they do eat meat. This includes fish and mammals, whatever they are able to catch. But usually they do not go for humans. They would prefer something smaller and less apt to fight back, such as a sick or diseased animal or something like a sealion. Did everyone see the sealions yet?" There were some nods around the group as one of the sharks swam by the glass a bit closer than the rest. "The people who usually get attacked by sharks are surfers. This is because when they're on the surfboard and paddling, from the bottom the shark thinks they are a sealion and they go up to investigate."
There they were. Her friends. Dre and Tom were circling around up and down, making use of each others momentum as they swam. She put on a burst of speed, darting over and swirling around Dre with a hello. I've brought it, see? she said. He broke off from his friend to look at the thing she'd brought. Strange object, he nudged it with his nose. Is it for eating?
No, I don't think so, she replied. It does not taste like food. She tossed it to him and he gleefully nudged it back, causing it to rise to the surface and bob above the water. Fun thing, he told her, swishing by to rejoin the rest of the games going on. The girl swam up to grab the brightly colored ball, her tail arcing down as she dove again. From far away, the only thing seen was the flip of a fish tail. Nothing more.
Mitch had finished up a couple of tours and was walking around the aquarium outside for a break. The sealions were barking at each other as they were being fed from one of the staff off to the side. "Easy, Larry. Not so fast." The man down in the pit nodded, slowing the rate he was tossing fish at the animals. "How's Suzy doing?" Mitch called down, leaning against the rail. "Missing you, Boss. Pretty sure she's got a crush on you," Larry called back up with a knowing smile.
"I think you're getting sentimental on me." Mitchell scoffed back as he started to walk away. "And quit calling me boss!" He could hear Larry snickering behind his back as he left. Suzy was their resident Orka whale. Rescued off the coast when she was little, she was the aquarium sweetheart. A very, very BIG sweetheart. And she seemed to have a fondness for Mitch in particular. He made his way over to the big display arena to see how she was doing.
Tony was there, rubbing her nose as he stood on the platform, talking to her in low tones that Mitch couldn't make out. The minute Mitchell came over to the side of the tank, Suzy was pulling away from Tony and making happy whistling noises as she swam her large black and white body over to where Mitch was. "Hey, girl," he said as she nosed a wave of water over the side at him. He rubbed her nose, "Missed me?" She squealed and opened her mouth as if expecting a treat. "Oh no, I'm afraid Tony's got the fish today. Not me."
"She's in rare form today. Did three jumps in a row at the end of the set." Tony dove in, swimming over to join the other two. Suzy moved off once she realized there wasn't any food to be had at the moment, her dorsal fin cutting through the water and away as she started to circle the tank.
"Is that so?" Mitch said, in reply to Tony's statement. He sighed as he watched the orka surface and dive around the large pool. "What's on your mind, Mitch?" Tony asked, searching his face for clues. Mitch rubbed his eyes. "Oh nothing, just...tired of routine." He looked around a bit conspiratorily before asking, "You want to blow off work and go test those rebreathers?" Tony's eyes sparkled the way they do when he's really excited about something he shouldn't know about. "You mean it, b-..." he caught himself before finishing that last word. Mitch pointed at him. "Call me boss again and I won't take you with me. I'll leave you to scrub out the sea cucumber tank."
"What? What? I didn't say it!" Tony shrugged, causing him to lose his grip on the side of the tank and dunk his head underwater where he kept up his innocent face and shrugging through the glass. Mitch knocked against the glass near his face with a grin. "See you in a half hour, Tony." Underwater Tony gave him a thumbs up as Mitch walked away...and then had to try and keep himself from being squished by Suzy who had come back to see Mitch off. A slew of bubbles came from Tony's mouth as he tried to talk her off of him till he broke the surface. "Try to drown me, huh?" Mitch heard him say before he left.
Sarah's office was immaculate. At least it was in comparison to his own messy desk. Everything stacked neatly in organized piles, rows and rows of file cabinets. She was sitting at her computer, headset on, listening to the communications they had recorded today. "The rebreathers are ready for you," she said the minute he came in. "I figured you and Tony wanted to take them out today." Mitch wondered how she could hear him come in over the squeals of the dolphins in her ears. "Um, thanks...how's it coming with our mystery sounds?"
"Not so good," she took off the headset, frowning. "I can't seem to isolate it enough. I've tried boosting it up to normal human ability to hear but that didn't help. This is all I get." She unplugged the headset and flipped on the speakers. Soon there was a low rumbling followed by a squeak or two that didn't quite sound dolphin to Mitch. "You sure it's an animal?"
"Positive. That's not metal or plastic making that noise. I've checked through the computer database three times. It's definitely an animal. I'd bet two months pay on it."
"Well, hopefully you won't have to do that." Mitch smirked. He picked up the case of rebreathers as Sarah plugged her headphones back in. "You sure you don't want to..." He turned to her but she was already lost back in her research. Guess she's not wanting to come this trip, he told himself.
Later, he and Tony were motoring their way along out to sea to try out their new toys. Mitch was in a wetsuit now. The mist had cleared off of the ocean and you could now see for miles, or at least it felt like that. Sea birds dipped and swooped overhead, stopping now and again to dive at a fish or at each other if one got in someone else's territory. The breeze was slightly cooler out on the ocean but it was still plenty warm enough for the time of year. Mitch drove them out to their favorite diving spot and cut the motor as Tony dropped the anchor. "Hey, we've got some company," he heard Tony exclaim. Off the starboard side was a giggling pod of dolphins. Mitch walked out to the side where Tony was. "Should be more fun with an audience," Tony said with a cocky grin, fixing his mask over his spiked hair. Mitch agreed and worked on opening the case up to pull out the rebreathers. They were pretty straightforward. "Alright, one of us is going to have the new equipment, the other will have regular snorkeling gear and scuba tank standing by just in case."
"You're gonna make me play lookout, aren't you?" Tony grumbled. He was all anxious to try the new stuff...but then again, so was Mitchell. And he could pull rank on him in this instance. Mitch grinned, "Yup, I'm afraid so. Don't worry, I'll tell you exactly how it goes." He ducked as Tony splashed some water over at him. "Then we'll switch, I promise!"
A few more tests above the water and Mitch was ready to go. He sat on the little section of the boat that had the ladder leading down to the water and adjusted his goggles. Tony was fiddling with something off to the side for some reason. "What's that?" Mitch asked, curious. As Tony turned around, he could see the long tube like gun he had in his hands. "Whoa, now, what did you bring that for?" Mitch knew why he brought it, Tony liked using the tranq gun for some odd reason.
Tony grinned. "Well, there've been some shark sightings in this area. You'd rather get eaten I take it?" Mitch considered this and begrudgingly agreed. "Suppose these rebreathers don't work," he asked as Tony was working on putting on his own snorkeling goggles. "You going to hold that and me up out of the water?"
Tony paused. "I could shoot you first, if you'd prefer?"
"Funny." Mitch said dryly. "Ok, see you down there."
There was the dull splash as he hit the water and sank down beneath the waves. Sound was duller down here, as if there seemed to be more room for sound to move in so you could only hear a section of it at a time. Mitchell stroked a bit, getting a feel for breathing through the mouthpiece. It seemed to be alright for the moment. The water was warm, a comfortable 50 degrees or so. Stroking downwards, Mitch waited for Tony to join him. He turned over to see the young marine biologist knife through the water like a practiced diver. They both gave each other the ok signal before proceeding downwards towards the coral reef. Mitch checked the homing signal on his wrist, making a mental note of which direction the boat was in.
Their friends the dolphins were waiting for them. Their whistles were echoing all around as they squealed and chattered with each other. This was the part of his job that Mitch loved. Slipping through the water, exploring what lay beneath the ocean's surface. Watching dolphins was akin to watching an underwater dance of sorts. Like humans, they had to breathe now and again so a few would surface at times and come right back down into the thick of it. Some of the dolphins were already getting interested in the newcomers. Mitch pulled up for a second as one of them nosed against his stomach before circling around, sort of a hello. Tony was trying to get his attention. Mitch turned to watch his signing as Tony was saying "Sarah. kill. us." He meant that Sarah would have loved to come with them, this was most likely the pod of dolphins from that morning they'd been tracking. Mitch nodded, yes she probably would be envious of them being here when she had been back at base trying to decipher their squauks and squeaks all day long.
There was a sense of sereneness about all this. Being down there with the dolphins, just floating. The rebreather was performing well at this depth. Mitch was actually pretty impressed. Tony pointed upwards, he had to surface for a breath. Mitch nodded, watching him go, him still carrying that tranq gun strapped to his back. There was little chance they would actually use it. Dolphins and sharks were pretty much equally matched, no shark was going to stumble into a pod of dolphins unless he had a death wish. Two of the dolphins were bopping him back and forth between them as they would swim by. Mitch was pretty sure it was the same two dolphins at least. Difficult to tell them apart but one of them had a scar, most likely from a motorboat prop, along the back of his tail. Mitchell stroked, turning over as that dolphin went by again, inspecting the scar. He regretted not having his underwater camera with him, they could probably figure out which dolphin this was just from that scar alone if he was already catalogued in Sarah's hundreds of files back at base.
Feeling a bit braver, he stroked towards the sandy bottom of the ocean. There were a few schools of fish nearby trying to scoot their way past the dolphin pod without being seen... or eaten. A crab was making his way sideways along the ocean floor, fixing Mitch a look with his stalk like eyes as if to say, "I dare you to touch me, come on bring it punk." The Stallone of the sea world, Mitch chuckled inwardly to himself.
That's when it happened.
There was a quick movement nearby. Mitch was turning to look and was startled as a large creature flew past him, barely missing clipping his head as they took out the small fish that had been swimming near him. That fish didn't know what hit them. All Mitch saw initially was a long grey flowing tail suddenly extremely close in his vision. He tried to quell that fight or flight response, the worst thing one could do while swimming was to panic unnecessarily. Most drownings occured from such happenings. He shut his eyes for a second, calming his breathing down before opening them again and looking around cautiously. It hadn't been a dolphin, he was sure of that. The collapsed tail had been more akin to that of his beta fish back home or the flippers of a sea otter when they were zipping through the water. But this had been a lot bigger than any of those animals. Mitch turned around, searching the ocean with his goggles. The dolphins were still there. But where had that other creature gotten to? They must have zipped off pretty fast.
Tony was back and Mitch tapped him on the shoulder, signing he'd seen something new. Tony made to grab for his tranq gun but Mitchell shook his head, miming an exasperated facepalm, no nothing dangerous like that. Tony mimed, where is it? Mitch was still trying to figure that out himself.