Pileated Woodpecker

I have a pileated woodpecker in my neighborhood. It was here before me. I first heard it a few weeks after we moved in back in, what was it, 1992? I heard a sound that sounded like Cheetah from the Tarzan movies. I knew there wasn't any monkeys around so I studied the sound. Eventually I connected the sound to the pileated woodpecker. I was out hanging clothes on the line and out of the corner of my eye I saw wood chips flying through the air. A pileated woodpecker was drilling a hole in a dead tree. This is a big bird. Wood chips were flying 3 to 4 feet up into the air in all directions. I froze. I was scared. That bird was doing serious damage to a dead tree. Wood is a hard substance and it's not that easy to get wood chips flying like that. Look at the beak on these babies:

The drilling sounds like a drum! I was afraid it would drill on me. Now where would I get such a crazy idea?
The cartoon Woody Woodpecker would peck people right on the head. I know the pileated woodpecker in my yard is not going to peck me on the head. But it does laugh at me. The Woody Woodpeck cartoon is based off the pileated woodpecker. And the laughter is similar to the cartoon. Sometimes the laughter seems random and other times it does not seem random. If I pull the lawn mower cord in an effort to get it started and it won't start, the woodpecker will laugh. Maybe it laughs when the lawn mower does start and I don't hear it over the sound of the mower, but when I am frustrated by my lawnmower, the woodpecker laugh is not appreciated.