My new full-time job

I know, I know. It's been even longer this time than normal. But I have a good excuse! For those that don't know (which is probably 90% of you since I'm apparently very bad at informing people of stuff), I got laid-off from Teradyne back in mid-November. After surviving some 15 or so lay offs, including 2 earlier in 2008, I finally ended up on the wrong project at the wrong time. So instead of spending a few hours a week trying to look for a better job and having to make up excuses as to what I'm doing on interview trips, TER is now paying me to stay home and do it full time! And as a bonus, I have plenty of time to work on projects around the house and goof off every day.
However, while it didn't really bother me at first, turns out it did. While I wanted to leave anyways, it's a bit insulting to have a company that's leeching money so quickly to tell you you're not good enough to work for them any more. Especially with some of the jerks that got kept (No, not you, Tom)! I know that this wasn't a performance-based layoff, but it still hurt. Couple that with the fact that no one is hiring in December this year, and it sucked. Tough to keep your head up when you can't even get interviews anywhere.
But like a Christmas gift from the universe, things seem to finally be turning around. Got a couple interviews and know of a few things that should be opening up in January/February. Not sure if anything is going to end up being the job I'm looking for, but at least things are happening finally.

In brighter news, we're well in the heart of bowl season. I'm watching Northwestern take on Mizzou right now. Not a power-house match up here, but it's been a pretty good game. And because Northwestern is not only a fellow BigTen school, but also the home-town college for me, I have a vested interest in the game.
And with bowl season comes my week+ of horrible eating. For dinner tonight I've so far had 8 buffalo wings, a bowl of New York Cheddar and Herb Kettle Cooked potato chips (no that isn't unnecessary detail!), and now I'm eating chips and salsa. And a "few" beers. And tomorrow I have 3 more excuses to keep doing it! Not until 4pm, so I'll have to be productive in the morning and afternoon.

Now I'm sure everyone is reading this and wondering what I got for Christmas. I am the center of y'all's universe for crap sake! While there were many awesome gifts, the cornerstone of this year's crop is Rock Band 2 for our Wii. Unfortunately I haven't quite rocked out here at home. The drums are being UPS'ed as we speak, and I had a job interview this afternoon. I pretty much knew that there was a non-zero chance of me calling to reschedule the interview if I started rocking out today. So instead I'll just wait until Hayley goes to bed shortly and set it all up. Seems to be the perfect activity to try and do quietly while getting drunk. Am I right, people?!!

So until next time I'll just be sitting here at home living off of my fairly generous severance package and unemployment insurance. Have fun at work suckers!

Man vs Survivorman

Most people are at least aware of the 2 major survival shows on televsion; "Survivorman" and "Man vs. Wild". Many of those have watched at least an episode or 2 of either of them. Most of you that read this are also aware that my father and I do a remote wilderness camping trip in Canada every summer for 2 weeks. So you'd think that I'd be over-joyed that there are 2 shows that could be covering some important skills for us. But in the words of the immortal Lee Corso: "Not so fast!!"
Let me quickly get the non-viewers up to speed, while also prepping for where this is going. Survivorman is done by Les Stroud. He takes a few cameras and a couple basic things like a Leatherman tool and heads to remote areas around the globe with the intention of surviving for 7 days. Essentially he's mimicking the infamous "worst case scenario" of any trip to a remote locale. But he's out there all alone with his cameras and no help. "Man vs. Wild" is done by Bear Grylls. Bear takes a camera crew with him to remote locations and does incredible stunts and has wild adventures for a day or 2.
In 2004 when I first saw the trailer for Survivorman I was pysched. Here was a survival expert heading to a similar area and a similar time to when we do our camping trips. And it lived up to it's billing. I picked up quite a few little tricks we could use in the event of an accident. How to start fires correctly with just bark and sticks, what types of things you can eat, how to correctly set up shelter, etc. But the best part to me was that it was realistic. He's not doing anything you wouldn't really do if you were in a life-and-death situation. Namely, no unnecessary risks.
Bear does his show in the exact opposite way. While he's also trying to survive an extreme situation, he does non-stop risky things to create drama. Some things he does are good, but it's not realistic overall. But when you have a camera crew following you around and you're only out for 1 or 2 days you can do that. I know, Les apparently has a crew nearby that he checks in with every day, but they do not intervene in anyway during his week.
We've been very fortunate to have never gotten into any bad situations, although not without some pretty close calls. And there's only so much you can do to avoid that. What you can do is listen to the ranger when you go in and do what they tell you to. (Quick primer: We go into the Quetico Park. You stop at 1 of 6 entry stations to pay your fees and check-in and get some quick updates. What are the water levels like, any new dangers, accidents, fires, etc. We've then proceeded to go 7 days without seeing another human being on some trips. Typically it's 2 or 3 days b/t sightings, and even then it's typically just the glint of the sun off a canoe on the other side of the lake.) And yes, people that don't follow basic safety instructions don't always come back. ~4 years ago a guy drowned not 2 miles from where we typically camp. So I do know that if Bear actually tried to do most of things he does in a real survive situation he wouldn't last long. There are times when extreme measures are required, but certainly not on day 1 or 2. Climbing a rocky waterfall instead of hiking for an hour to get around it? Wreckless and stupid. Swimming under a log jam of unknown size in a canyon? Also stupid. These are the types of stunts that get people killed. When you're out there all alone a badly sprained ankle could be all it takes. Or a deep cut. A concussion. Any number of seemingly small injuries suddenly become a situation. And with all the dangers we face on our trips, that's what scares us most. Bears, violent thunderstorms, high winds, all have nothing on a simple sprain or infection.
In short, anyone that does outdoor activities should take the time to watch at least a few episodes of Survivorman. While the specific situation may not apply every time, the skills he uses are typically the same. Stay dry, stay warm, find food and water. The more ways you know how to do those things, the better your odds of survival are.

Winter Doth Approach

This year's World Series was actually pretty enjoyable for me. But still nowhere near the WS's of yore. I did really enjoy seeing a couple teams play small-ball and do the fundamentals in order to win. And every games except for 1 was right down to the wire. But I really just didn't care all that much about who won. I'm thrilled to see the title come back to the NL where it belongs, but I had no real connection to the Phillies. Good or bad. And nothing for the Rays except the knowledge that it's good for baseball to see a small market team full of kids make it to the show. Each of the last 5 years or so I've had either a team I liked, a team I hated, or some other great sub-plot to draw me in. Something at stake. This one? Not so much. So while I did enjoy watching the games, I felt no compulsion to stay up late to see who won each game and now I have kind of an empty feeling inside. Couple this with the fact that Purdue's football team is getting beat pretty much every week and not being able to watch hardly any Bears games, and I'm hitting a lull. The teams that are doing well I can't see; the teams that aren't I can. It's not fair.

In happier news, last weekend I finally used a 2-year old birthday gift from Hayley and went up for my "Discovery Flight" in a Cessna. It was really cool. I show up at the airport and spend a few minutes talking to the pilot about my background in regards to flying, what I want to do, and how the day will go. Then we stroll out to the plane and hop in. It was surprisingly cramped. Turns out a Cessna 172 doesn't have much room in the cockpit. Who knew?! I then got to taxi pretty much all the way from the hanger to the runway. It's actually a bit tricky to do. You can't use the steering wheel to do anything. It's all done by the foot pedals and a bit hard to get the hang of. Then pretty much as soon as we were off the ground he turned the controls over to me again. He guided me out to a safe area where we wouldn't interfere with planes coming and going and just tooled around a bit. I was much less aggressive than I thought I'd be. We had quite a bit of turbulence to deal with and the plane was quite responsive. So all the jostling and bouncing around took away a bit of my eagerness to really play around. He then let me bring it almost all the way in before taking control just long enough to touch it down. All in all, pretty awesome. And now I'm thinking seriously about getting my license. Trouble is it'd cost about $10k over the span of a couple months to get it. That's a tough pill to swallow right now. Even so, I've already thought about the possibilities of renting a plane to fly to Chicago for trips instead of relying on the major carriers. Or when we have to go to Long Island, that's just a 45-minute flight instead of a 4+ hour drive! Nice.
And with that, time to drift off to bed.
PEACE!!

2008 Campaign

I think something good has happened this election season. As much as I hate the election process we have in this country, I wanted to point it out. After having to sit through 2 elections where the republicans were forced to dance around every issue to protect Bush, we finally seem to be getting into real national-level issues in the debates. Talk on how we’re going to handle the 2 non-wars we’re involved in. Foreign relations with our current enemies and countries liable to become enemies if they aren’t handled appropriately. Details on the 2 candidates proposed tax systems. Turning around our sputtering economy.
During both of Bush’s campaigns it appeared that they had to talk about random crap to try and get an edge. Bush couldn’t speak intelligently on the standard things like the economy and foreign relations, so they had to fight about stem cell research and the place of God in schools. Essentially, moral issues that only affect a small population. And while I feel that some of those things are issues that could be used to select a candidate, they most certainly should not be the key issues.
Everyone has their own personal reasons for voting a certain way. We all have key points that we want reflected in our President. But there comes a time when you have to ask yourself if your reasons are selfish. You have to look at all the things a candidate stands for and decide where you need to make your compromises, and hopefully those compromises are the selfish reasons. The republicans have been very effective at getting people to do the opposite. They really convince people that you need to vote based on personal, moral issues instead of what’s best for our country. Hell, they got people to elect a President that crippled our economy and indirectly caused thousands of people to be brutally killed in the name of some petty moral issues.
So fortunately this election has so far been mostly free of that crap. Joe the Plumber was hopefully nothing more than a flash-in-the-pan hot button McCain used to avoid going 0-3 in the debates. The talk of the candidates’ former associates has been touched on here and there, but has been over-shadowed by more legit issues.
Living in Massachusetts comes with some ups and downs during these elections. One of the more frustrating issues comes from this being a clear Democrat state. There is no way a Republican could ever take the state. Therefore, my vote doesn’t really count here. I can’t really influence who wins, just pad numbers one way or the other. That sucks. As empowering as voting can be, it’s taken away when you know you can’t make a real difference. However, the up side is that I don’t have to put the same level of thought into my vote as I would in a swing state. And this year appears to be one where some thought would be required. I’m 75% sure of who would be the better President, but both sides have some policies that I really don’t like.
Obama’s tax plan is starting to worry me more and more. It sounds awesome on paper. 95% of the population won’t see an increase in tax (35% of which aren’t paying any to begin with). I probably stand to make out a bit better under his plan. And yes, the rich make more so they could be asked to chip in more. But is that really right? Some of those people fought and struggled to get where they are and deserve what they now have. Why should we take away a greater percentage of what they earn? Was America really founded on the idea that we all share everything we make? Hells no!! The founding fathers were all rich white guys that horded their money and never dreamed of having to give 50% of every dollar back to government. Shit, they would have left Britain in control if they knew that’s where we’d be today.
And why should Joe the plumber have to chip in more when he’s only making a quarter of a million dollars a year?! I mean, how can he afford to eat on only $250k/yr?!!

Ahh, that familiar sting of defeat

I had a venting write-up of games 1 and 2 of the Cubs NLDS all ready to go, but I never posted it and now it's pretty much a moo point. (no that's not a typo, figure it out if you want.) The Cubs completely fell apart and were swept by the Dodgers. And not in competitive fashion. They got beat like a red-headed step child riding a rented mule. They got Rodney King beat. They got...you get the picture.
Right now it's more shock for me. I'm mostly through my newly formed traditional bottle of champagne, which is taking the sting out of things tonight. After feeling like I jinxed the Cubs in 2003 by buying a bottle of champagne mid-playoffs, I decided that I'll now buy a bottle at the start of every season, then consume said bottle after the final out is recorded. If we win, it's a celebratory bottle. If not, I get what I have right now. Something tasty and bubbly to let the healing begin. And this is no sparkling white wine. I only want the best no matter how the season goes down.
Quite frankly, the Cubs got beat in every facet of the game. They allowed their starting pitching to lose game 1, their defense to lose game 2, and their (lack of) timely hitting to lose game 3. It's almost poetic in it's futility. And in some ways, the non-competitiveness of the games made them easier to take. It's not like game 6 of the 2003 NLCS where we were cruising along 5-outs away from our first World Series appearance since 1945 and then collapsed. No no, we were never really in the first 2 games. We were winning for a couple innings in game 1, but that was quickly fixed and the Dodgers never looked back. The last lead we had was the going into the top of the 5th in game 1. That's it. Last time. Not even close in game 2, and while we were close on the scoreboard in game 3, you could tell that it wasn't close on the field. We wasted every opportunity given to us. Any brief flicker of hope was extinguished by our futility. The Dodgers didn't beat us; we beat ourselves. In spectacular fashion.
I can't believe we actually hit 100 years. And I really thought this would be the year we did it. I allowed myself to believe again. All year long I thought that this would be it. And now I have to admit I'm not sure that we'll ever win it all again. I really hurts enough that I'm doubting things that much. It's even hard to blame it on the curse this time. There wasn't 1 or 2 moments that you can look back on and say that the curse got us. Maybe the curse was especially strong this year and forced the entire system to fail. I don't know.
And as far as I can tell, this whole October baseball thing is very over-rated. It's been nothing but pain for me in my life. Swept in the 1st round this year and last year. The painful and well-documented collapse in 2003. The beating from Atlanta in 1998. Luckily I don't remember 1984 and 1989, or this would be even worse! I guess it comes down the great debate: Is it better to have loved and lost or to have never loved at all? And while I can't answer that right now, I should be able to give a good answer in about 56 weeks. I mean, we've got most of our starting rotation returning, some great young hitters coming up through the system, and lots of great young arms that gained experience this year. Next year, baby. Next year is going to be the one. I can feel it already.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for....breast milk?

This article consumed me for the first hour or so yesterday at work. I was just so flabbergasted that I couldn't function for a bit. I'm sure by now everyone's already heard and read about this, but just in case:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/odd_breast_milk_ice_cream
It's hard to even know where to start with this one. There are so many obvious problems here that it's hard to focus and write something coherent.
I'll start with some simple fact-based things. The article points out that you need 1.5 gallons of milk to make 1 gallon of ice cream. Ben & Jerry's FAQ section reports that they make and sell 18 million gallons of ice cream every year, thus requiring 27 million gallons of cow's milk every year. That's alot of milk! Now then, how many cows do you need to do that? I don't know anyone in the dairy business, so I had to fall back on my good buddy The Internet. Seems that an average cow can produce about 8 gallons a day of milk. At 27mil gallons a year, B&J needs just under 74,000 gallons each day. Therefore, they need to get the milk of 9,250 cows every day to make ice cream. Alot of cows, but not unreasonable.
You'd think that being married to an OB-Gyn resident would give me an inside track on finding out how much breast milk a woman can produce each day. In the words of my boy Lee Corso, "Not so fast!". So I had to once again fall back on my good buddy. I'm guess you could get 32oz (2 pints) from a lactating woman every day. So if B&J really wanted to make a switch they'd need to get 296,000 women to provide their breast milk in order to make ice cream. Or put another way, it'll take 1 woman 6 days to produce enough breast milk to make a single gallon of ice cream.
So clearly this just cannot work from a logistics stand-point. But let's move on from that. Let's say they decided to do a small-batch run and could get the volume required. One thing you can count on from cow's milk is a consistent taste and nutritional quality (more or less). They are fed a very consistent diet and said diet doesn't vary much from farm-to-farm. That's not true with women. You can't control what they eat and therefore the quality of their milk. So you'll have a problem making each gallon taste similar and getting a good manufacturing process. If the fat content changes enough from batch to batch you're going to have problems. Women also haven't been bred for a good-tasting milk. So it's not like they can just swap it out and no one will known the difference.
Personally I'd eat it at least once. I'll try damn near anything once for shits and giggles. But most people wouldn't touch this stuff with a 10-foot pole. The mere thought of consuming breast milk disgusts most people. PETA was clearly just looking for a way to get themselves back in the spotlight in a less negative way. They've been beaten up a bit lately and needed something to change perceptions and get some support again. And they likely did it.
Not surprisingly, Opie & Anthony actually made some breast milk ice cream yesterday morning. Apparently an intern has a sister who's lactating and want kind enough to donate some. Not sure how good the interns are at making ice cream, but it was described as 'gamey' with a pretty terrible after-taste. But initially it tasted just like regular vanilla ice cream. So maybe there's hope that we'll see a special edition in the future. Of course, if Hayley and I ever spawn an offspring, you never know what could happen....

Why all the Negativity?

I finally reached a boiling-over point regarding this political campaign. I'm used to each party attacking each other, but I don't recall regular people and bloggers being so aggressive in attacking a candidate. Maybe it's just my friends, but I've been seeing a pretty steady stream of anti-McCain videos, blogs, articles, etc. These are the same people that will talk about how the republicans are being un-fair when they attack Barack for his policies and personal issues. If you say anything bad about him you're either a racist or you think he's a terrorist. But somehow it's perfectly fine to create a YouTube video that goes on for 5 minutes about how McCain is a war mongering monster that's just out to kill everyone else in the world.
I'm certainly not a fan of McCain, but I really don't hear people say much about what Barack is going to do besides "not what that facist McCain would do!". What's his plan to get us out of this economic funk? How does he plan to handle aggressive rogue nations like North Korea, Iran? What is he going to do about the health care situation? Medicare, health insurance, required or not? Can we get an accurate read on how many of his announced initiatives he'd actually be able to get through Congress and the Senate? I never hear any Obama supporters bragging about that. Or bragging on what he's accomplished in his political career so far. Really you only hear about what he did in college. And he did do some great things. But they didn't involve judging what your supporters really wanted and what compromises would be required to make it happen. Didn't involve dealing with other countries that really didn't like you.
"Luckily" for me my vote really doesn't matter so I don't need to get too involved. Massachusetts is so overwhelmingly democratic that it doesn't matter who you vote for. But the fact that Obama's supporters have been so negative and ruthless in their attacking of McCain has me worried. I think we may be getting into to situation where people will support him because they get sick of the relentless attacking of him on a personal and professional level. And not that they have Palin to take shots at it's getting even worse. It's pretty clear that she's horribly unqualified to be the VP of this county. You don't need to go out of your way to attack her and point it out. Maybe you should take that energy and use it to spread positive messages about Obama and Biden. Educate people on their policies and what they plan to do. Tell us about their history and how that should convince us that they are just blowing smoke up our asses right now.
So here's what I plan on doing; next time I hear anyone bad-mouthing McCain/Plain I'm going start drilling them on Obama/Biden's politics. See if they acually have real reasons for their choices and aren't just toeing the party line and picking the guys that "aren't Bush".

Couple Camping Stories

I know you're all eagerly awaiting to some most excellent stories from the camping trip. Trouble is, I need to wait for my dad to type up and send out this year's journal before I can really re-tell most of them. Yes, we keep a journal while we're there. It's amazing how much each day just blends right into the next when you don't. Since we stay in the same base camp for the entire trip, we don't have any geography references to date our memories. And even if we did, you tend to just forget alot of really great little things after a week. We've got hundreds of things that we both totally forgot about until we read through the journal. And it's usually the little things that really make me smile.
But I do have a couple bones I can throw out there today.
1) I know alot of people out there are probably dying to get their hands on a new and unique thigh workout. And I've got a great one you can do at home with $5 in equipment. Here's what you do...go get a small garden trowel (little shovel for those that don't know) and a roll of toilet paper (or some napkins that you "stole" from Hardees when you stopped for breakfast on the drive up to the Boundry Waters). Then just wait around until the next time you have to take a crap. When you finally do, go dig yourself a small hole in the yard and take a crap in it. This works even better if the ground is dirty and full of pine needles, there are mosquitos buzzing around, and you really have to go. Nothing is more fun then frantically trying to dig a hole deep enough for this job in an area with very little soil and, in the words of my dad, "mosquitos big enough to rape turkeys".
2) We actually saw the end of a rainbow and there most certainly didn't appear to be a pot of gold anywhere to be found. It was our last day in the Quetico and we were just chilling in camp while a collection of drizzly little clouds broke up an otherwise sunny day. While standing under the rain fly waiting one out we looked up and saw a quite magnificent rainbow arching right down to the water's edge on the other side of the lake. As the drizzle moved by the end moved out more towards the middle of the lake, then retreated back into the trees and beyond. We've seen some pretty amazing displays by nature up there, but that was definitely unique. I didn't even know it was possible to see the end of a rainbow. I figured it was just another part of the myth. But there it was, clear as day and landing right on the water. And as we joked about where the gold might be, the same guy that said that great line about the mosquitos says, "maybe this is just nature's way of telling us that this whole area right here is our pot of gold." Fortunately I've yet to see any crazy Leprechans chasing after me to get any of it back.

Back in Black!

Well, I'm finally back from the woods. It's really amazing what 10 days in a canoe completely removed from everything except nature will do for you. Strip away all the pressures and problems of your life, and everything is just perfect.
Granted it'd be considerably harder if we were living there full-time and all. We go up there with enough food and clothes for 10 days, not 10 years. We don't have to worry about caching food for the winter. Or somehow making and repairing our clothes. But that's not my point. When the sun comes up, we got up. When it went down, we went to sleep. The only thing we really had to decide on a daily basis was where we were going to fish and where we wanted to have shore lunch. Everything else just took care of itself. Rain, wind, cold, you can't control any of it. You just wake up, see what the day has given you, and go about your business doing what you need to do. If it's too windy to safely go out in the canoe, you try to fish from shore and find something else to do. Take a nap, read some of the newspaper we bring to start fires, explore the island (again). Once you stop trying to force yourself to do things that clearly can't be done, life gets pretty simple.
And once you stop running around so fast you start to notice all the great things around you. When was the last time you just took some time to watch the clouds go by? Or check out a storm front as it moves in or out? How about just watching another animal go about it's day? It's amazing what you can learn about the world around you once you start watching it and paying attention to how you fit in it.
Yeah, I'm going to be all mellow and reflective for at least the next 4 or 5 days. I come back all idealistic about what I want to do with my life, people I need to get back in touch with, changes I need to make, etc. And it all inevitably falls apart as soon as I get back to work. Probably by Wednesday of next week it'll all be over and done. But you never know. Sometimes these changes and thoughts stick with me.
And of course I'll be posting various stories and events from the trip as time goes on. And once Dad gets the pictures developed, I'll post some of those. I know, analog film! But when you have to travel 20 miles to get where you want to get, every pound counts. And neither of us wants to carry in extra batteries to power a digital camera for 10 days when analog works just fine. Pictures can't even capture 1% of the actual image, so we don't need it. The photo just serves as a way to remind ourselves and jog our memory. That's where the real image is. The sights, smells, sounds, etc all together.
But it is good to be back. No more crapping in a hole in the woods. No more wearing the same dirty clothes for 4 days in a row. No more having to slice up ~5 fish every day for lunch and dinner. Every normal activity becomes so much easier to do. Kinda like this! Sure beats trying to send smoke signals over the horizon to try and communicate with someone else.

Spinal Tap and Spiny Chicks

I think the guys from Spinal Tap designed the window fan we have in our bedroom. You may recall that they have amps that go to 11, so when they're at 10 and need some extra kick they have somewhere to go. We can do the same thing with our fan. If we go from 'low' to 'high' and that's still not enough, we can go all the way to 'super'! That's right, baby. Super!
Of course they skipped over 'medium' in the process. And that's what I find a little odd.
It's not like the cheap window fan market is so competitive and ruthless that you need to pull out all the stops to make a sale. So when you have only 3 settings, why go for low/high/super? Especially when 'super' isn't really all that spectacular. It's not like it's blowing us out of the bed when we go there. Shit, it barely even flutters the blankets. Still a great fan, though. Spins both ways, quiet, fits perfectly in the window. I just wish they hadn't pulled that Spinal Tap move.

Has anyone else watched the womens 10m platform diving? Anyone else a little sickened by those Chinese divers? They're like flesh-colored skeletons! All bony and scrawny. And of course they don't make any splash when they hit the water, it's like dropping a pointy steel rod from the platform! I don't want to take anything away from their skill at spinning and twirling in the air, but their size should be considered when the judges are grading their entry. Of course, you really can't start taking away from people just because they have a physical gift. Every Olympic-level athlete has been given a physical gift in some manner. Maybe it's a higher percentage of quick-twitch muscles for sprinters, Phelps' short legs/long torso/long arms, or extra flexibility for a gymnast. But still, these 15-y-o girls have such an advantage given that they have no shoulders and no soft tissue that it's not really fair.
And can we finally say that there is a conspiracy going on this time around? The Chinese have been involved in WAY too many controversies and have gotten too many breaks on the judged events. I'm not saying that the US is getting cheated. I think we've made legit mistakes that cost us medals and opened the door for controversies to be introduced. If we'd executed the way we should have, it wouldn't have been a factor. But the fact is that the Chinese are killing everyone when judging is involved and getting smoked when it's not. That just seems pretty fishy to me. And the Olympic committee is wisely not going to touch it with a 10-foot pole. Too much money is at stake for them and every future host country to seriously entertain the possibility of unethical behavior. They'll just sweep it under the rug and wait for it to go away on its own in 2 months.