The Adventures of Lacey Caroline

Good morning Connecticut.  Despite the burning pains in my shoulders and the tightness of my lower back, I couldn’t have slept better.  I opened my eyes to the rain, dousing the wooden porch, soaking every fiber and drowning the planks through a constant bombardment of water.  And while the clouds had kidnapped the sky, I realized that sunshine really is only a state of mind.  I woke up, as I have been the past few days, with alacrity and eagerness.  Allow me to elaborate. 

The last band related blogs were my kick-starts, the jump off into what is going to be an amazing upcoming year.  I wanted to clear up the loose ends that were left dangling when my ties with The Best Week Ever were abruptly cut.  I hope I did a sufficient job but if not, by all means, let me know and I’ll do my best to give peace of mind.  

I went home and finished my summer job, a great experience that gave me so much time to gather my thoughts and experiences into a thick catalog.  I was able to discover myself and roads I wanted to forge forward on.  Thanks to a few other very special people, I found a serious place of contentment in my life that had been eluding me that last few years. 

The first week of August, I found myself in Rhode Island with Spencer and Jordan.  First of all, if you’ve never been to Rhode Island, I HIGHLY recommend you make a trip.  The scenery is amazing, the people are nice, and the beaches are probably the cleanest things I’ve ever seen (ah, cue the Jersey shore jokes…).   I, for one, am a country girl and favor the countryside over anything; Rhode Island countryside did not disappoint in the slightest. 

The three of us, with the addition of our lovely friend Skye (Sweds… weird folks with weird names…), barricaded ourselves in an empty house out in the Rhode Island countryside.  The smells, the environment, the people, everything made the area a prime and perfect song laboratory.  We sat down day one to pick up where we had left off previously.  The three of us began to craft songs that we all felt, in our hearts, were where we wanted to be.  The musical vibes and emotions drew everything from laughs to tears to fights to bonding moments that I wouldn’t trade for the world. 

As I said previously, these songs are a solid continuation of the best parts of The Best Week Ever with an influx of new ideas and sounds that TBWE never wanted to try or pursue.   I would like to stress that these songs are not necessarily an attempt at TRYING to continue The Best Week Ever.  I love TBWE and what we tried to do, but things started to head down a road I, musically, didn’t feel comfortable with.  The fact that these songs pick up where TBWE left off is merely coincidental.   I suppose my point to saying this is that we don’t intend to limit or amalgamate our sound or ideas or songs into one defined genre.  I also, as many others have started formally expressing, believe that music is about self-expression, art, and exploration.  It would be rather antithetical to the entire idea of what it means to compose music to AVOID exploration of the world of sound.  I want everyone to be assured that we will write what we want and we will allow all of our influences to shine in our songs (as all three of us are classically trained musicians, we draw from a number of unconventional genres).  We don’t intend to hinder ourselves because that is a disservice to the world of music and to the listener. 

We’ll be making A LOT of announcements, pictures, music clips, videos, within the coming months and we hope you’re all hanging in there with us.  We’re going as fast as we can!

We love you and all of your endless support.

Love,

Lacey

My proudest moment is looking at a place I’ve come from and being happy to be where I am now.  Finding contentment in the single moments in life is a challenge for many people.  It used to be a challenge for me; sometimes it still is.  However, with each day that passes, I find strength in myself, comfort in my surroundings, as if I’m waking up every morning in a blanket.  This blanket happens to be stitched from the finest threads and composed of the softest, most tender pieces of cloth that mankind could hope to imagine.  Those bits of fiber are a combination of air and life; love and hope; happiness and sadness; all the things that combine to make up the world around us.  It’s beautiful at times, ugly at others.  Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it comforts.  But no matter what it is, or what it does, it is always there.  Maybe, possibly, that is the most truthful and honest fact we as participants in this universe can remember.  That is, no matter what happens, how lonely you feel, you’re never truly alone.  The world surrounds you as this blanket of life, in an effort to let you sleep at night.  It reassures you that you’re never truly lost, never honestly alone.   It allows you to feel safe when you thought you couldn’t before.

I’ve come from a place where I thought I would never be happy again.  I lost the one thing I loved the most in the world and all hopes to replace him were quickly burned to the ground.  I looked for an answer and for a way out.  I looked to be saved by someone or something.  No one ever came to my rescue like I wanted it to.  I thought that I was going to be lost and forgotten about and that the only way to save my heart from destroying itself was to fall back into the world I came from, despite the horrible repercussions that would have on me.

I did fall.  Time and time again. 

Then, I hit the ground.  Face down; I felt the dirt between my teeth, under my fingernails, in the pores of my cheeks.  I felt the Earth’s humbling parts covering me as it would an animal.   I had never felt so disgusted in myself as I did then.  What was I?  Was I really that pathetic of a human that I couldn’t move forward?  Was I really that sad that I couldn’t find the motivation to stand up and progress in my own life?  He had moved on.  Now it was my turn.  I just needed to find the strength in myself to do it.

I stood up.  I brushed off the dirt.  I walked forward.  My legs felt broken, my hands felt crusty and dirty.  The light felt like it weighed a thousand pounds on my eyes and I couldn’t stop from tearing up and crying every time I tried opening my sockets.  This was what I should have expected.  Moving on and moving forward is never easy.  It hurts and it’s painfully honest.  It holds back no niceties and allows everything to come into the light.  No part of one’s ego is safe from the brutally honest facts of reality. 

Each day that passed by, I felt blood come back to the different parts of my body.  My fingers, hands, and toes began to move with the peachy color they had when I was a child, embodying innocence.  I lifted my arms, move them up and down, felt the air particles meet the individual hairs that sprung from the follicles and ask them if they’d like to dance.

The blue of my eyes returned, as if they borrowed colors from the ocean.  The lashes on the lids grew longer, darker, stronger, and fluttered to a beat that would make any butterfly’s wings jealous. 

My hair found the courage to peak from its shell.  Slowly but surely, it emerged, growing longer, bold in brown and blonde, ignoring intimidation from the wind, snow, rain, and sun, determined to lay strong in the face of knots and tangles.

As for me?  When all of your allies are ready to stand by your side, armed for battle, and ready to fight off your demons, your mind has no choice but to answer to her troops.  With the call to duty, the general braces for war and commands, “March on men”. 

The fight was then.
The fight was won.

And now here I am.  A new person.  I am stronger than I was before.  I have my scars, I have my battle wounds, but they are only a reminder.  They help me remember where I’ve come from and where I’m going.  To remind me where I’m supposed to be.

I’m happy where I am now, and I’m happy for those who helped me get here.  I’ve lived love and lost love and I’m better for every memory.

And for every memory comes a lesson with it.  This war left me many memories and many corresponding lessons, but one stands out, like a guiding light in the dark, to be shared with the world:

The only way you can make it through the fight is by believing in yourself, because yourself believes in you.

Thank you for everything you’ve taught me.
(you know who you are.)

9:33 am, my train pulled out of New Haven Union Station.  As I peaked around the track at all the other commuters and traveling families, the Wednesday morning sunlight wrapped around my cheeks.   I asked the lady standing next to me if this was the correct track to Grand Central Station, and as she nodded with a polite smile, I felt a sudden awakening inside my heart that I haven’t felt in a while.

I’ll start at the beginning.  December 23^rd, I announced my departure from The Best Week Ever.  There was a large amount of speculation and mixed emotions in response to why I left, but instead of entertain those opinions now, I’ll just say that it was done with the best interests of everyone in mind.  And as months carried on, I’m glad to see that everything panned out well for a majority of the people involved, reaffirming my belief that I made the right decision to leave (with that said, That’s Outrageous’s CD, Teenage Scream, hit stores a few days ago, so I hope everyone goes and picks up a copy!).  When I left, it was to pursue other musical endeavors, mostly regarding sound.  I wasn’t fully content with the musical avenue we were heading down, so on my departure, I reached out to a couple friends of mine named Spencer and Jordan Hillman.  They were involved with The Best Week Ever for a short stint, which is how we came into contact.  The two of them (brothers, I’ll add) are probably two of the most talented musicians I’ve encountered through my musical pursuits.  In continuation of that, the purity music holds in their hearts is what really attracted me to reaching out to them.  I wanted to make music that was passionate and meaningful, composed and driven by our love for sounds rather than anything else.  Thankfully, they accepted my offer and we started carving out our own path together. 

I’ll spare you the unnecessary details of my past few months battling a lot of demons and sharing hands with a lot of angels.  I will just say that as I left my first semester of my last year in school, I felt an uncomfortable nostalgia come over my life.  It wasn’t necessarily bad and it also wasn’t necessarily good; it was the epitome of different.  Walking through Cornell’s campus, I felt the wind wrap around me. As I stood at the top of the Slope, I watched the landscapes of upstate New York morph in shape, color, and design.  I was witnessing my life changing; I was growing up, and there was nothing I could do but accept and embrace it.  With that, my experiences started to develop before my eyes.  The battle between law school and my love for music became even more enraged; the battles I had been fighting with people who I used to call the loves of my life became more daunting and seemingly unending.  I didn’t know what to do except put all my focus and energy into the summer fellowship I had acquired (my parents would kill me if I came home from school with no summer job), and into writing the songs that I wanted to write.

I’m always writing.  I sit on the train into NYC five days a week and listen to what the world around me is saying.  I constantly write down ideas and record melodies and hooks, hoping to crack into something that might pose to be useful later.  As I felt myself growing up, I did my best to channel everything I had into stories, lyrics, and melodies that would strike hard at the heart of every listener.

Moving forward, these past few days, I sat down with Jordan and Spencer to look at the songs, ideas, and demos that I had cultivated on my own and we began hashing through my mental mess to try and sculpt something beautiful.  With that, I can proudly say (with immense excitement) we’ve officially begun writing for our first release.  Just a few songs in and already it sounds like something we’ll be more than proud of.  I won’t give too much detail, but to quell suspicions and develop interests, we definitely feel that these first few songs released will give the fans of TBWE the full EP they had always been wanting, looking, and waiting for.   As we embark on the writing process, I really hope that everyone who listened to TBWE will find it in his or her heart to support us.  To us, you all are the ones who make this worth it and I couldn’t be more grateful.

I’m writing this to let everyone know what’s coming, especially as I hear a few rumors floating in regards to where I might have disappeared.  Well, it’s taken a little bit of growing up and a lot of support from all of our friends and family.  They have supported us endlessly, from letting us sleep on their floors to feeding us when we were hungry, but most importantly, giving us any helping hand they could, as we found ourselves and strength in our feet to stand up and walk on our own.  We owe you everything. 

Thank you for reading this.  I know I can be quite the lengthy writer, but I just want to make sure that anyone who gives a thought about me is fully cued in on what I’ve been up to lately.  I’m always on twitter (follow me! @LaceyCaroline, as well as @SpencerForHire and @JordanWillFly) and I try my best to be accessible for any questions, concerns, or casual chitchat.  I never want to leave anyone hanging, so just drop me a line and I’ll always do my best to respond.

Thank you again.
Your faith means the world to me.

Lacey Caroline

I don’t want anyone to ever tell me to move on.  

I feel like it’s a curse to be driven by emotions and impulses, but unfortunately, it is what I’m best at doing.  Not only am I awful at taking my own advice, but I’m awful at taking the advice the universe gives me through symbolic reference.  I’m sure I’m not the only one, but every little thing I encounter throughout my day, I take to mean a little more something than nothing.  If you consider me crazy for doing so, then that’s fine.  I’ll be completely accepting of your ignorance towards life’s little footnotes if that’s what works for you.

However, as I stated, I’m sure I am not the only person who sees more than what is really there.  I only say all of this because I’ve recently had to struggle with some (granted, not the most) very difficult decisions I’ll have to make in my adolescence regarding my future.  And while I like to pretend like I know what’s going on in my life and would absolutely love to appear like I have it all together, in reality, I’m a house built out of cards, upon the Rio De Janeiro.  It’s not as if I’m a hopeless soul, heading down a path of imminent doom, I’m just an absolutely terrified puppy who shudders at the thought of making the wrong decision.  The concept of “the past” scares the crap out of me, and I know it does for other people as well, even if they don’t recognize their fear as being “the past”.   Immutable actions terrify me, partly because I shiver down to my bones at the idea of committing to something so irreversible.  The “past” erases freedom and free will.  An action is an action that an individual will be held to until their dying day, with no “command+Z” shortcut key. That is what terrifies me.  I never want to hurt anyone, but I know I have.  I never want to make a bad decision, but I know I will.  I feel the best I can do is approach my decisions with the best interests at heart, and try to do the right thing the best to my ability.  I think in a world with so many people and so many decisions, that’s the most we can all hope for.  That is the place where our freedom and free will rest; in our choices.  So choose wisely, because the past makes no u-turns.

This all brings me back to my impulsive nature.  Good decisions are made rationally, aren’t they?  At least that’s what Aristotle will lead me to believe, with his theories of Nichomachean Ethics.  Artistotle, as I’m sure you all know, distinguished 3 types of souls in his quest to find what separated human beings from other living things (such as plants and animals).  He wrote that a nutritive soul is just the ability to live, which even plants have.  Then someone asked (probably during Aristotle’s dinner), “Well, what about a perceptive soul?”.  To that, Aristotle replied (in an irritated fashion because no one likes having their dinner interrupted. Not even for philosophy), “Yes, but even horses perceive”.  Finally, (because he was sick of being bombarded with questions and just wanted to finish the eggplant casserole and chickpea salad Mrs. Aristotle had made for him so he could go see the new Green Lantern movie because Ryan Reynolds is such a babe) Aristotle proclaimed that it is a practical soul, in a more proper sense, that makes a human a human.  

However, while I take no stance on disagreeing with Mr. Artistotle (Ryan Reynolds is TOTALLY a babe), the ability of the human heart and instinct to guide judgment can’t be ignored.  There is a good deal to learn from the sometimes deemed “irrational” behavior of impulsive actions. If there is someone out there who can be rational, irrational, objective, and subjective all at the same time, I would love to meet you and shake your hand (Aristotle would too, but he said the movie isn’t over for another 45 minutes).  The funny thing is that we’ll probably never get to shake hands, as you’d forever be trying to decide whether you should shake my hand or not.

Follow my lead or not, but while rational thinking has a special place in my heart (ironically),  I’ll most likely always be the more irrational decision maker at the more pivotal times.  The thing is, my decisions will SEEM rational to me at the time I’m making it, yet through retrospection, I probably feel differently, hence the learning experience.  There are so many important questions to take into consideration when dealing with ANY decision.  It’s safe to say that, regardless of whatever decision maker you are, the most important factor to remember is that you can’t AVOID making decisions and you can’t avoid the past.  It will always be there, frozen in time, acting as a statute that not even acid rain can deteriorate.  

But instead of focusing on the past itself in an empirical sense, I think it’s more important to revel in the lessons that are taken from the experiences.  This is the foundation of making good decisions for the future.  You see kids, Aristotle would never shy away from making a decision.  That is exactly why he went to see the movie Green Lantern.  Aristotle has perfectly demonstrated that bad decisions happen all the time.

      I feel like an explanation is due to those who have followed, supported, and/or loved The Best Week Ever.  So, with that said, I’ll do my best to convey the emotions and internal battles I’ve been fighting over the past few months through this “letter”. 

      Well, another semester of college completed is always another semester where I am blessed with a mild panic attack due to the terror I feel over determining the direction my life is headed.  Starring out the window on the drive home (cliché, I know), I started recalling the reasons that pulled me into music in the first place.  I reappeared in my room as a little 14 year-old girl, my world completely enveloped by the many facets of the “Drive-Thru” era (because we ALL know Drive-Thru has its own era).  I’m not completely sure if it was Kenny Vasoli’s swooning voice and bleach blonde tips or The Early November’s acoustic EP, but I was utterly convinced that every night was another story, that I should stop expecting change because he’s just a lost cause that I’m waiting on, and that nothing that mattered more than a drive on Sunday.  Snapping back to reality, I realized that it was only Saturday, that I wasn’t 14 anymore, and that I had a very important decision to make about my future.

      I started in music because I loved it.  I loved the notion of creating something that has the ability to evoke emotions in someone else.  I get chills throughout my body when I hear a song that truly moves me.  I started writing music because I had so many things in my life that I needed to get off my chest.  From death in my family to happiness with my friends to crushes on boys to my own insecurities, music was and is my way of shaping, explaining, and releasing the stresses and emotions I face.

                    The good news is that music still holds that sanctity for me. 

That bad news is that I don’t believe The Best Week Ever is the right outlet for me to do it in. 

            I hope that I’ve given some clarity into my musical up bringing to help explain why The Best Week Ever isn’t the best place for me anymore. I joined TBWE because Tom and James had a sound that I was really attracted to.  I still love the songs we originally did and, while I do love the new songs we’ve done, they are a musical direction that I’m personally not ready to go in.  I want to be as clear as possible: My decision to leave is solely based on the differences the band and I share in preference when making music.  For me, there aren’t any hard feelings and there won’t be any name-calling, defaming, or bitter tongue action.  I love the boys, they’re like my brothers and I hope the best for them in whatever they do.  I simply believe that I have a right to be happy and I need to go wherever I’ll be able to accomplish that.

             I love The Best Week Ever. I love the experiences, the memories, and every single person that has given the band a second of their life.  I’m so grateful and appreciative for EVERYTHING I’ve been blessed with while in this band.  Every single person I have encountered has changed my life in some way and I could not be more thankful for the support of all The Best Week Ever fans and people who became a part of one of one of the best experiences of my life.  I know I owe so much to everyone involved and I wish the band and the boys the best for the future.  

            I am so sorry, and I truly hope that everyone who cares about, listens to, enjoys, or feels even vaguely interested in the band please continue to do so. I am only one part of a great idea and I have no doubt that it will continue to grow in my absence.  The boys will continue to write and produce great songs.  Whether that’s under the umbrella of TBWE or not is their prerogative, which I support however they decide. 

            Speaking for myself, I have no intentions of leaving music behind.  Music is the lifeblood to a dream that I’ve had since I first picked up my cello.  It’s something sacred and if I can guarantee anything, it is that you’ll be hearing from me again.  So, before I pass out from unfortunate sleep deprivation, I just want to reiterate my point one more time:

Thanks for everything… You know how much this means.

Love,
Lacey

Is it possible to simultaneously feel so incredibly inspired, feeling so lifted in your heart with all the power to take on the world and every challenge along the way, while at the same time cowering in the presence of hardship and adversity?  If it wasn’t possible before, it definitely has become a possibility… leave it to me to light the way.  I wonder if it’s a curse or a blessing, the ability to want to achieve so much with such little time and resources.  I sit in my room, completely procrastinating on my actual work (which is TECHNICALLY work I should do, but at the same time, there is no pressing need to actually do it;  consider it an excuse to not go out tonight) thinking and bogging down my mind with all the goals and aspirations I have.  Should I do Teach For America after my undergrad?  Should I go straight to law school? If I do, should I start preparing my application now?  What about my Honors Thesis proposal? When the hell is that due and how much do I need in it?  What if I go to Graduate school before law school?  If I do that, what will my focus be?  Should I just say fuck everything and pursue music?  If so, how do I secure my future with academics before I take time off from it?  How long will that time off be?

…Enough with the questions, but you get my point…  And please, don’t let me lead you astray, to believe that only poor I am faced with these challenges.  My point here is that I, just like every other paranoid, anxiety stricken, college senior, am facing a plethora of decisions, all which need to be made rather quickly and soonish.  Or else what… I don’t grow up? I don’t get a good job?  I’m not successful?  I don’t make a lot of money?  I disappoint my family?  I let down my own dreams and hopes?

I feel all these can be summed in failure.  Failure has easily been my biggest fear.  If you know anything about me, you know that I will work until my heart is made to stop beating by some external force, before I allow myself to fail.  But why is failure such a big deal?

Okay, so we’ve established the problems…  Taking it back to my Debate years, let’s get sophisticated and call those problems “harms”.  Now that that’s settled, let’s figure out what makes these “harms” and what keeps these so-called “harms” from fixing themselves on their own?  There’s something inherent in our lives and the world we live in, that exists for every person, and is so general yet so specific at the same time, to control each and everyone of us.  Let’s call that “inherency” (oh, you fancyyy, huh?)

I wish I could have been there, when those couple of guys sat down in a room one day and decided to write the handbook on social and cultural norms for this country.  I’d probably interject at every other point, just to make sure they establish that the Discovery Zone would never go out of business, to make sure that I would always be a Toys R Us kid, and to secure that it become social custom for men to wear high heels (See how much YOUR feet like it after a night in them!).  That’d just be me though…

What was I saying?   

Right, social norms. Like I said, we can safely say that society has established all these rules for the future generations to follow.  It’s interesting to know where these rules come from, but I think it’s also important to know that if you DON’T know where they come from, it’s not a huge deal.  In all honesty, being ignorant to the foundation for cultural norms you live by is sad, but I mean, if you did know where the norms came from, would your behavior change? Probably not…  If you knew that the only reason we celebrate Christmas in December is in respect to the Pagan ritual of the winter Solstice, despite the fact that Jesus was ACTUALLY born in March (or April, not sure), would that make Christians (or everyone for that matter) not celebrate Christmas in December anymore?

How about the fact that when you think of God, chances are you imagine an old man with a big long white beard?  Does it change the way you imagine God if I told you that you believe such an appearance because of the impact the images of Zeus, the GREEK  Pagan God, had on the world?   Probably not.  Is that information still very important to know? Sure.  All information is important, even when other parties deem it irrelevant, someone out in the world finds that same irrelevant fact important.  To each is own.  

I apologize for continually getting off topic.  My overall point is, we make decisions because we want to appeal to the beliefs that society has embedded in our minds.  Why do I want to go to law school?  Sure, money, status, and all that other shit, but ultimately (for me at least), it’s because society has raised me with the notion that “Justice” is good and “injustice” is bad.  Those societal super powers have also engrained me with the concept of wanting to do “good” over “bad”, therefore, it’s only natural that I look to a profession that has all the becomings of a societal good.  If going into law was deemed as negative by society, with no individual benefits (personal growth, happiness, etc) how many people do you think would really do it?  Not as many lawyers would exist if it wasn’t for the esteem that society has placed on such things. No little boy or girl in their 3rd grade class tells they teacher, “When I grow up, I want to be a criminal”.  And if they did, we’d all be severely concerned.

Back to my point of all this,  you need to do things that you love, because you love them.  I’ve watched a lot of people in my life, live out their years doing things that they hate or dislike, simply because of the standards set forth by society.  I know plenty of kids going to medical school or planning on it because of the pressures of their family to become doctors.  I’ll never make my kid chose a profession they don’t enjoy. We only live once, and I know that phrase is used so often, but there’s a reason for that: because it’s goddamn right!  

I have so many dreams and goals and ambitions.  I know I can’t have ALL of them, but I know that if I work hard and do things the honest way (notice I say honest, not “right”.  Who knows what’s right without society defining it for you.  Honesty is something that can hold water regardless of society’s decisions) then I might be able to get close to all the things I want to do or achieve.  I think that’s the most important part.  If I can have faith in myself and my abilities as a productive human being with a good heart, then I think I’ll be okay.

John got it right… All you need is love.

I wish I was one.  There are three of them in my study room right now, arguing about the velocity a plunger falls through the water.  Apparently, at 45 Newtons, the plunger will fall a distance of .13m through the water in a toilet.  I talked to them about the real life application of these problems; I see my fair share of these awkward problems in economics.  ”When the hell am I ever going to need to know this crap?”, I’ll always mumble under my breath, listening to Professor Hutchens go through the most irrelevant information about labor figures and statistics.  

Then I remember why.  Watching them go through the problems, watching their minds work together, listening to them struggle and brainstorm ideas, numbers and figures reminds me why all of this is important.  

Way too often I see people who have amazing potential and let it waste away.  It’s really sad to see the thinning of brain material, the most fantastical material on the Earth; something that has the most incredible ability to relay and store information that can change the world around it. 

Listening to these Engineers and engaging in their passion for Fluid Mechanics (yes, they are passionate about the movement of fluids), I was forced to ask myself what I was doing in a room with such brilliant people.  It’s hard to not feel insecure when surrounded by minds that work like they do here.  Kids… they’re just kids… and somehow, they have found the ability in themselves to overcome the most challenging problems and assert themselves in a mature and dedicated fashion.

Like I said, it makes me question what I’m doing here…  I barely graduated high school, I barely made it through those classes without my teachers telling me that I was never going to amount to anything.  And now, I sit in the same room as three kids who have all the capabilities to change the world with their knowledge.  Situations like this can make one feel very overwhelmed and intimidated.  It’s a good intimidation though.  The kind that make YOU want to work harder.   It makes you want to rise to be as good as they are, or as you perceive them to be.  Remember, everything is a perception.  I’ll hold myself to my perceptions and take responsibility for whatever consequence they hold, thanks.

So where does that leave me?  It leaves me putting my head back down into my book (in my case, it’s Labor Law in the Contemporary Workplace, but for any general application, any book will do) and getting back to work.  Work is what’s important; work is what makes the world advance.  Notice I say advance and not move.  Move simply implies that subject isn’t stationary, but doesn’t necessarily conclude that progress is what is being made.  Movement could imply regression to a prior state, which would be a waste of time and knowledge, both of which are incredibly valuable and expensive.  

I won’t consider myself a super hero, but if there’s one thing I will try to save, it will be education.  These engineers are only the best example of successful education I can base my ideas off of.

At the end of the day, at least we know a plunger will fall through the water at 45 Newtons of pressure.