Half Century Hangout
We are Half Century Hangout where different perspectives make for better discussions.! John, Luke and Chuck are three guys who grew up differently but became good friends with a lot to talk about. On this show three unique perspectives are brought to the table where we dive into everything from current events to life's big questions. We might not always see eye to eye... But that's exactly why we're here. So grab a seat and join us for honest conversation, unexpected insights, and a few friendly arguments.
Half Century Hangout
Running It Back: Season One Highlights
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Pull up a chair in the garage and take a lap through our favorite moments from season one—where a simple hangout turned into a steady North Star. We revisit the sparks that started it all: rivalries that still raise pulses, food debates that reveal what really matters, and the kind of mentors whose words redirect a life. Family, service, and faith keep showing up, not as slogans, but as daily choices that guide how we listen, disagree, and keep friendships intact across jerseys and opinions.
Welcome back to the Half Century Hangout. And today is a little different. Today isn't just an episode. It's a lap around the track. It's the stuff that made us laugh, the stuff that made us think, and the stuff that reminded us why we started this whole thing in the first place. Because let's be honest, life moves fast. Somewhere between football season stealing 25 hours a week from your soul, school ramping up, families rolling and trying to keep the wheels on the bus, you look up and you're like, Man, I miss this. Not necessarily because we don't see each other, we do, but because we miss this space. We miss the garage. We miss the back in the saddle conversations, the stuff we don't always get to talk about at work. The random stuff, the deep stuff. The how did we even get on this topic stuff. And that's what season one became. We started with the simple things like rivalries and loyalty, Ohio State and Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska, the hierarchy that makes absolutely no sense, but somehow makes perfect sense in a garage. And before you know it, we're talking about road trips, radio baseball like the old days, caffeine withdrawals, and how the smell of coffee can still feel like comfort even when you don't drink it. Then we did what we do best. We took everyday things and realized they weren't really everyday at all. We talked about food, pizza, hot dogs, PB and J's, all the nonsense debates that people get weirdly emotional about. And we landed on the real truth. It's not about the crust, it's not about the cut. It's not about the toppings. It's about who you're sharing it with. Because the older you get, you realize it. You could eat in the fanciest place in the world and the biggest dive you've ever seen. And if you're with your people, it's a good meal. And then season one took a turn. We got into that conversation about reality. And I'm telling you, we didn't plan it like this, but that one hit. Because we live in a world now where everything is real until it's not. You can't watch something online without wondering, is this fake? Is this staged? Is this AI? Is this somebody's perception pretending to be the truth? We talked about how a song can be created by artificial intelligence, get millions of listens, and still leave you asking, okay, but what is real? And then it came back to the simplest thing in the world. Reality is having a friend you can sit across from the table and talk about this stuff with. That's what this is. So today we're giving you the best of season one. Some laughs, some classics, some moments that caught us off guard, and some lines where honestly, we were even surprised ourselves a little bit. If you've been with us since episode one, thank you. If you're brand new, welcome to the hangout. Grab your drink, pull up a chair, and let's run it back. This is the Half Century Hangout season one highlights.
SPEAKER_02:All right, we're live. I think that the thing that guides me the most is probably family and helping others. Became an educator because I really wanted to help others. Started out my life as a banker. I don't know if that was helping others, but helping others get buy things, buy houses, help them get to live on their own and all that kind of stuff. But then moved into education, which is kind of a family tradition in my house. My dad, grandma, mom, sister, uh, wife. Everybody in my family seems to be have something to do with education. But so helping others and and family, big part of my life. And also my faith is a big part of my life, too. So those are those are some North Stars.
SPEAKER_00:I think it's hard to define just one. It is.
SPEAKER_02:The the biggest one probably is the uh the helping others.
SPEAKER_00:So I really try to live by the idea that I do the best that I can to control the things that I can. Yeah. And to do my best to make sure that I'm also listening to others and making sure that my focus is not tunnel vision. You know, I I really try to, you know, in our intro, I know we put that in there, that we want to make sure that we can talk with people and have discussions without it being adversarial. Right. It doesn't have to be just because, but you hear it so many times where you know it's this fight to the death of some over something that you think or that I think. I mean, just because we both think of something differently doesn't mean that you're wrong and I'm right, or vice versa. It doesn't mean anything. As we're sitting here, you with an Ohio State shirt on and me with a Michigan Haitian. Exactly. I mean we can we can still be friends over there.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you got something about that.
SPEAKER_00:I mean come on, not a lot of start the first show with that. But I think I think that that's you know, really trying to be, if you want to say, a good human being, to really just be that person that can listen, that can learn. You know, I mean, I think as I've gotten older, my you know, my dad used to tell me all the time about common sense, but I think it took me a while to really figure out how to actually learn something. You know, there was hands-on, there was always that, like I'm a better learner when it's hands-on. But I think that that listening part and really thinking about it is is the way to do it and the way to learn and to grow.
SPEAKER_01:Um, I think when I think of a North Star, back when I was, I don't know, 16, 17 years old, I was reading the Bible, and Psalm 37, 23 came up in that particular reading for that day. And it says, uh, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delights in his way. Though he fall, he will not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholds him with his hand. And so I guess my north star is knowing that there will always be like whatever steps I take, I know they're being directed by the Lord. You know, be they're being directed by God, and under his providence, things are may not always be perfect, but they'll always be right at some point. It may not be comfortable, but they'll be right. And I think the guy that kind of really helped me process some of those things and was a guy named Rick Click, who was uh you know, high school teacher when I was growing up.
SPEAKER_00:Wait, what was his name?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, you see you heard it. Rick Rick Click Click. Yeah, and maybe he'll listen to this at some point, he'll probably see it out there somewhere.
SPEAKER_00:But well, if you are Rick, welcome.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, absolutely. But he was a he made a huge impact on me and uh kind of kind of helped me develop what that North Star for life is gonna be. And here we are, what, almost 40 years later.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and uh and I think it's it's funny that you say that because I know that was one of the things that I was thinking about as we were talking about topics and things to talk about were people that have have had a huge influence in our lives. And in a meeting that we had a couple weeks ago, we were talking about that, and I remembered one of my teachers whose name his name was Mr. Wire, and he was very soft-spoken but very direct teacher, and he also had the best penmanship I'd ever seen for anybody up to that point, probably since then. And he taught a class that was called Modern Communications Media, and uh I was taking the class and I was kind of my high school educational career, probably wasn't a whole lot of things to write home about as far as academics goes, but I remember writing a paper about something, and he gave it back, handed it back a few days later, and in red ink across the top, it was Mr. Peterson. The hole that you are digging for yourself is beginning to resemble the Grand Canyon. Oh, wow. And I remember it hit me, and I was like, you know, I could probably do so much better at this if I really put my mind to it to do it. And I think his quote there kind of stuck with me. Like it made me realize that, hey, somebody realized what my potential could be. Call you out on it. And I wasn't even thinking myself of making myself or driving myself or being motivated enough to make myself better. But just that quote from him, I think did a huge thing for me to help me be motivated. You know, and I think that's those are the kinds of things that we as leaders, you know, as we aspire to be leaders, I think that that's something that we need to do is find that somehow with the people that are surrounded around us to help them. Whatever that is, like John said, about helping people and about doing something, it's finding whatever that is for somebody, being able not only first to highlight it, but then to get that person to understand it. Yep. Which some people have a wall-up. Let's not, let's not lie, you know. I mean, some people have a wall-up and they don't want to hear it, but I think it's important for us to be able to do it.
SPEAKER_02:Understand it and then act on it. Yeah, that's the hard part, is getting them to actually do what they need to do. Yeah, walking the way of the Lord. Yeah. Yeah, doing your doing your work in the way that you need to do your work.
SPEAKER_01:Here's a thought. Here's a thought. So you have this high school outstanding athlete, number one rated in the in the country, right? So you have this kid who doesn't know much about finances, doesn't know how the bills are paid because he's just not lived in that world. But we're telling him to go to a school and to be happy with a, I don't know,$400,000. Let's say it's$400,000 education, depending upon where you go.$250,000,000, half million, whatever. Be happy with that. All the meanwhile, there's the school and all of these other people that are making multi-millions of dollars by putting him on the screen every Saturday and him playing lights out. Is that fair?
SPEAKER_00:And again, I'm not I'm not disagreeing with you. I just think that we've said it a couple times. There needs to be some sort of a cap. There needs to be some sort of a thing that says, hey, we completely understand that you are helping us with our financial goals to provide programs for our whole school. Okay. So we're gonna give you this. We're gonna give you X amount or whatever it is, or we have a donor that's gonna give you X amount. Whether that's$100,000, whether it's$200,000, whatever it is. I don't know what the number is. Yeah. I'm not here to argue the number. It's just the idea to say, and I I don't disagree with you at all. I really don't. It's just the idea that it needs to be something where it's not the wild, wild west. Yeah, ridiculous amount of time. Because that takes away what, you know, just five years ago, before this really got into it, everybody was talking about because of scholarships and everything else, there was parity coming back to college football. That's gonna go away again.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Look at the power five already. Look at the power five is already miles ahead. Look at the SEC, the big everybody is just miles ahead of these other D1 schools. Yeah, they're miles ahead. Yeah. And the idea is that we can't, and I think it's a bad lesson for kids because it's like whoever's got the more money wins. That's really what it comes down to, which is not a great lesson to teach kids. Yeah, I don't think, because if you're ever in the spot where you don't have the most money, well, what am I gonna do now? Yeah, I don't know what else to do. I don't have anything else, I don't know anything else. I don't know another way, you know. I mean, like you look at some of the it happens in entertainment. Look at the kids who were child actor stars, right? It's the same thing. They grew up in that lifestyle where they were like the G, and they knew once they got old and they don't look the part anymore. Yeah. I mean, what do you do? And and you hate that college athletes might go that way. And I love the idea, even though half of them might turn the volume off when I do it, but the guys that and women that do these sports that then become announcers, some of them I love because you can tell they have the passion for the sport and and they know what they're talking about. Other ones, you can tell when they talk. There's a kid with a journalism degree that could do better than they are. Yeah, sure. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And and you all know who those people are. And I turn the volume down and turn the radio on when those guys are right. I just I just can't handle it. But I I think my concern is most of it Are you talking about Tony Romo?
SPEAKER_03:I think maybe.
SPEAKER_00:He's a mobile guy.
SPEAKER_03:No, I'm kidding.
SPEAKER_00:I think that we committed that up. No, we're leaving that one. I think that I think that it's it's more of the thing for me as it trickles down because everything trickles down just like it did when we were kids. You know, people saw things that Jordan did and whoever, like the shorts, everything happens, right? All these things that trickle down and kids see it. And it's like, you know what? Right now, you're in high school football, you're in Friday night lights. This is your opportunity to just shine. Have fun with your friends and get out there and do it and work your butts off. Whether you're playing volleyball, whether you're running cross country, whatever it is, you're playing tennis. All these kids that we see at our school and doing this stuff, it's like, guess what? This is your shot right here.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And we still want them to think that, right? We still want them to have the dream that says, hey, you know what? I could be that, I could do that. Great, then work your butt off to get there.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Don't wait for the handout. Yeah. Don't wait for the handout. No.
SPEAKER_03:Goes right back to what I said at the beginning of this. The the the the guard at Michigan, who's a 11th grader, he's like, next year, I'm starting. Yeah, but if we no, I don't, I'm not gonna try and beat Chuck out for the guard position. I'm gonna go to a different school where I know I'm gonna play. Yeah, what happened to beating Chuck out or beating Luke? I'm gonna beat Luke out this year, and I'm gonna I'm gonna be the starting guy.
SPEAKER_00:But see, what you said there is that why do they think in the first place that they're gonna go over here to this school and be the starter? It's because somebody told them that some people know what.
SPEAKER_03:And then they get there and they're like, well, hey, I was you ain't you ain't starting, but you'll be you'll be good seconds dream.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. That's just how how it works. I mean, we've all seen kids that have gone to another school and have watched from the sideline. When they could have been in our school playing every Friday night, doing their thing, having a great time, making lifetime memories with their buddies. Right. Like, you know, all of us have those memories. Right. Of, you know, Chuck showed me pictures of we've all seen that stuff. And that's what it's about. Yeah. Is that you know what? I was with my buddies and we we did this and we did this, and you know what? Maybe you weren't national champions or you weren't whatever it was. The idea is that you worked your butt off, you accomplished something, yeah, and you made yourself a better person because of it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, that's really what it is. Yeah, and the beauty of uh uh high school football, particularly for most people out there, for most football players out there, are is is the memories, right? Yeah, the fun. Yeah, like Luca was talking, you know. I remember playing football with you know Marco Coleman and William Cool McKinney and Lorenzo Redman and Keenan Early and all those guys, man. We had an incredible time playing high school football. You know, and I think some of these other things for maybe some of the elite athletes can kind of cloud that it's the fun, like the the real life fun of it.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And I just wonder if we have to like if we're reacting to something when you talk about in a in IM high school, if we're reacting to something that maybe I don't know if we'll see in our in our context or not.
SPEAKER_00:As is normally the case, you know, we come up with a quote, I come up with something. And I think I struggled with it a little bit because there's so many that are there. But desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal. It's a commitment to excellence, excellence that will enable you to attain the success you seek. So whether that player is just bent on the money or making their family in a better position, whatever that is, it's still about the hard work. It's still about the commitment and that pursuit of excellence that does it. It's not just, hey, that guy over there said I can do better or I can make more or I can, you know, whatever it is. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:So go back to the people that you hang out with. So so we have, and this started twenty seven years ago. We have about ten couples that we got get together every other month, and we go out to different places and we go to and we've invited different people to our to our we call it a dinner club. It's an awesome thing. And we have gone to some of the biggest dives that you've ever seen, and we've gone to some of the most expensive restaurants that you've ever seen, and it it's about the people that you hang out with and about the people that you have supper with, yeah. That that make the food for me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I like eating. Well, isn't that isn't that kind of life? Like literally. It's like look at this. Now, could I sit here? Could I sit here in my garage? By the way, we're back at the garage bar. We're here. Right. We haven't been here in a while. There's been a little bit of a being here, by the way. There's been a little bit of a facelift, and we're getting a little different thing. We're getting a little better, but it's kind of like this. I could sit here and talk with myself, which would probably raise a few eyebrows. But the idea is that we love hanging out with each other, and that makes no matter what we're talking about, yeah that much better. We've talked about this from the start of season one all the way through about it's the people you surround yourself with, it's those connections you make with people, it's about all these things. And no matter what you're doing, okay. We actually, I was talking about this today. Somebody was asking about golfing. And Chuck and I, you've talked about this before. I'm not a golfer. I go golfing, but I'm not a golfer. Yeah. It frustrates me. All ends of the earth. It frustrates me. Sure. Because I'm not that good. But you know what? You go out with your friends, you have a good time, it makes it enjoyable. You could have the worst round of golf in your life, but your story later is not going to be it was the worst round of golf. It was that, hey, I was with my buddies and we had a good time. Yeah. You know, it doesn't, and so I think your supper club, it's the same thing. You go, and maybe the food wasn't the greatest.
SPEAKER_02:Maybe it was. Or the service wasn't the greatest. Or something. Anything. But we spent a lot of time with the people that we like being with, and we spent a lot of time with the people we enjoy. Cheers. Cheers. That's that right there. The main thing about food, right?
SPEAKER_00:And I think spending time with people. And that's and that's a that's a common thread, yeah, I think, for a lot of that. And I think it's important that we always we always think about that and remember, you know, about those connections with it. It might be food, it might be something else. But you know what? Surround yourself with the people and it's there.
SPEAKER_02:You might cut your Your sandwich diagonally or in half. Or you might cut your pizza in a diagonal piece or a square piece. But it's who you share that pizza sandwich with that really makes the difference.
SPEAKER_01:We've had quite a few gatherings at my house this year, uh this summer, and you know, whether we're whether I'm cooking on the Blackstone or I'm smoking meat has been with family and friends. You know, each of those pizza places that you guys mentioned has been with family. I think I don't know the amount of times that I've ordered Cassano's pizza with my buddy Duke Gramer when he was growing up. So I the the fact that we're talking about food and even as we're in the space here, is I mean, it builds relationships, right?
SPEAKER_00:And I think that I think that it's one of those things where obviously we have a get together. It's not like I'm not going to put ketchup out if I have hot dogs on the grill. Sure. You know, I'm I'm not gonna have any. But you know what? I don't care what you put on your hot dog, I can care less. It might spurn a conversation.
SPEAKER_01:You know, when I might, you know, you know when I'm drinking the probably the only times I drink old fashions is when Luke makes them for me.
SPEAKER_00:That's all right. John had an old fashioned.
SPEAKER_02:And I'll have to say they are pretty good. Pretty damn good.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, I didn't have one today, but I've just been drinking a little uh little uh cornhead lager today. Yeah. So good times. We could start with what's one of the biggest you know conspiracy theories that we think of. So what's one you want to dive into? Well, you're here in my garage and you see his picture on my wall over here. Yep. Right? So I'm just gonna go scratching his eye. And you actually, yeah, he's scratching his eye with his middle finger, and it's and it's even here. It's it's mine is Jimmy Hoffa, okay?
SPEAKER_01:And I'm just gonna serve it was his middle finger.
SPEAKER_00:It's great. Didn't you really? In that picture, which is one of my favorite pictures of all time, he's in front of the Congress and he's flipping off Bobby Kennedy. That's what he's doing, which which makes the picture even better. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So here you're talking about Bobby Kennedy Sr., obviously. Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So you're talking about Oh, yeah. So you're talking about somebody at the time who was one of the most powerful individuals in the country, the leader of the Teamsters, which at the time was the largest union in the country. Right. And if the Teamsters went down, nobody got anything. There was no goods, there was no nothing. Everything they could shut the country down in a day if they wanted to. But, you know, he was in deep with the mob. Like that's how Vegas got built. Let's not put things aside, right? They dipped into the Teamsters retirement fund, they got money. Vegas is being built up. I mean, it's the mob and they were tied together. Did he know too much? If you watch the movie The Irishman, you watch you watch through it, it's a great movie. But once they get to about the point where they fly out of Ohio to go in when Ed Sheeran goes, you know, it's kind of like, uh, I don't know if that's right. You know, after that it was conjecture, and everything after that is. But that usually is the way the mob works, is that they're not gonna leave trails. That's kind of their idea, right? Okay. So living up and growing in Detroit, growing up in Detroit, that was a big thing. So it was 1975. The moccasins, for those of you that care. That's where the last place he was seen. After that, it's all conjecture. They're digging up people's yards. Right. This phone number that's here, that's people had that's a bumper sticker. And I have it here in the bar for those of you who can't see it, but that's the bumper sticker that people had. If you've got a clue, tell us where and call us. And they were digging up people's yards. There was a farm they dug up. They're not gonna find them. They're never gonna find them. And now almost everybody that was involved in that story is dead. Okay. But to me, that was one of those things where is it fact or fiction? You look at it, there's great info on both sides of it. I think they just hired some dudes in the mafia like they would, and they got rid of them.
SPEAKER_01:So you you think that Jimmy Hoffa, his disappearance is a mafia hit. 100%. So why would the mafia want to take him out?
SPEAKER_00:Because he was going to he had come back like, you know, you you think about it, he was he got sentenced to to jail, and he was in federal prison. Nixon pardoned him. He comes out with the idea that he was never gonna be the the president of the Teamsters again, but he had real strong ideas about what this is and what this is, and the mob knew that he knew stuff that they didn't want to. He probably didn't want they didn't want out. That's what I mean. So they they thought he was gonna yap, which is what they do with everybody. I mean, if you they think you're gonna be a rat, well, nobody, no crime. And there's no way. Who were the uh who were the big players in the in the mafia back then? Well, it was in, you know, it was in the Detroit area, where it's which is where it happened. It was Tony Giacaloni and all these guys that were there that that that you know everybody had an alibi. Like it was actually kind of funny because Tony Giacaloni is a guy that was there that was a big mob guy in in Detroit at the time. And he belonged to something called the Southfield Athletic Club. And he was there sometimes, but on that day, he made sure he was there, and there was at least 40 people that said he came up and said hi to me that day. Like they know, they know what they're doing. Like they're not, you know. So that's just the one for me that I grew up with, and I've always kind of been really enamored with. And so I read a lot of stuff, I I watch a lot of documentaries about it, I listen to podcasts about it. There's a guy named Bernstein in in Detroit that does a great podcast about it. Uh-huh. And they keep going with it. Like it's still not solved. It's it's obviously it's not solved, right? But it's it's great stuff.
SPEAKER_01:It seems like the thing with uh with Hoffa always seems to resurface because as I you guys know I scroll scroll TikTok. Yeah. And so as I scroll TikTok, occasionally I see things about Hoffa. And even recently, within the last probably 18 months, there's well, it's because of the anniversary, because it was like it was it was 50 years. Yeah, and so there was something that came up where they dug up somebody's yard or some piece of ground somewhere, and it ended up not being anything but so there was the the the big story, and I'll just end it with this one for this part is that the big three towers in Detroit, downtown Detroit, on the river, it's called the Renaissance Center, which was then owned by General Motors.
SPEAKER_00:But at the time it was a hotel, it was this big thing, like he went up in the and the the elevators were on the outside of the building, it was glass, it was beautiful, it was right on the lakefront, right? Or on the riverfront, right, you know, facing Windsor. And Tony Giacalone, the head of the Detroit mob at the time when he was going, they there's and there's a witness, right? I don't know how good he is, right? But he had said that he was going to interview for a job because they were hiring at the Renaissance Center when they were building it, and that he went in there and he just caught a fly.
SPEAKER_01:I did.
SPEAKER_00:He caught him, and the thing was that they they saw they always thought one of the things was is that he's buried in the concrete under the Renaissance Center. So when Tony Giacalone was going to court, which the courthouse was down the road, every morning when he'd walk by and go, Hey Jimmy, he'd he'd wave.
SPEAKER_01:How about them buckeys? I'm just disclosure.
SPEAKER_00:Full disclosure, my lights in the garage are red today for Chuck. Um stand-up guy. I'll I'll I'll eat it where I have to, you know, I haven't for four years, but we started out strong. I I was I was hopefully cautiously optimistic at the beginning, but kind of wound up being real low-key watching it because I was gonna stay in Michigan and watch it there. But the weather, we left a little early to try to beat the weather, the storms back here to Iowa. So those are Thanksgiving.
SPEAKER_01:Those first six or seven minutes, maybe ten minutes. The first quarter for Michigan kind of owned. Yeah. I felt there were a lot of wins there for Michigan in that first quarter, you know, stopping us a couple times on the goal line there. That was a that was a big winner for them.
SPEAKER_00:It was it was it was I mean they were clearly a better team than we were, 100%. Oh yeah, 100%. So I think uh, you know, but that's why it's a rivalry, right? He's he's now one-sided. Yeah, I mean, even though over the course of the whole thing, Michigan has more wins in it than Ohio State does. But I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_01:What a classy dude, Ryan Day, though, huh? At the end, did you hear? I mean, like he this is the first time he beat Michigan and the reporters. Did you drink McUltra? I don't think he drinks McUltra. I I would go. Chuck Kaiser drinks a McUltra. Okay. It's a really good beer. Anyways. So, yeah, he was asked. Hey, give me you must have some emotion. Come on, give us something. He goes, Well, we win with humility. Well, there you go. But all right, before we wrap this up, we just want to say this. This is just the beginning. Season one wasn't about being perfect, it wasn't about having all the right answers. It was just a few guys carving out some time to sit down, talk, laugh, disagree a little, and remind ourselves that connection still matters. If any of these moments felt familiar, if you laugh because it sounded like your own garage, if something made you stop and think for a second, then this hangout is for you. And here's the thing: we don't want to do this alone. If you've enjoyed season one, then share it. Send it to a buddy, text it to someone you haven't caught up with in a while, invite somebody to pull up a chair and hang out with us. Because the table is open, the garage door's up, and we are just getting started. Thanks for being part of season one, and we will see you in a few weeks in season two.
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
