Episode 146: Costco

Speaker 0 (0:09): Hey, everybody. Welcome back to A Record of Father. Today we're gonna be talking about something that I did today. I went to Costco for the first time since last year and I gotta tell you guys, that calzone is out of this world. I mean, as a fellow black olive lover, I think that something that is really important is that we put black olives in calzones.

Speaker 0 (0:36): And that is what the Costco people have done. That's what they've done for us. You know, they put the black olives in there. They put two different kinds of cheese. They put, I think a chicken, chicken pieces of chicken, sausage in there.

Speaker 0 (0:50): They put ground beef in there. They put peppers, green pepper.

Unknown Speaker (0:55): That's kitchen sink, man.

Speaker 0 (0:56): Onion. And you know what's crazy? Would think one would think with all of these condiments, oh, Zach, isn't it soggy? Isn't it wet? Isn't it nasty?

Speaker 0 (1:07): No. It's not. It's crunchy. Crunch all the way through. Crunchy through and through.

Speaker 0 (1:12): And it's it's nothing short of what I imagined to be the happiest moment of my life in these past fifteen years, you know. My gosh. It's there's something truly

Speaker 1 (1:23): Oh my god. They ate this is what they have. It is $6.99, and it's a pizza dough pocket filled with mozzarella cheese, marinara sauce, pepperoni, Italian sausage, bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, and olives. It has a crispy cheesy crust with a with a filling similar to the former combo combo, and it weighs a pound.

Speaker 0 (1:48): We split one. Yeah. Me and my friends split one. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (1:50): That's like

Speaker 0 (1:51): If you're putting that away by yourself, you're going home and you're you're waking up at 8PM. There's no way.

Unknown Speaker (1:56): That's fat bastard. That's fat bastard.

Unknown Speaker (1:57): No way.

Speaker 1 (1:59): Used do that at the Burrito Brothers downtown when we worked at Global Screws Information. The early years, like, '89, we had the kids. Oh, we gotta get burritos. You call from Burrito Brothers. And they were literally they looked like this big, which you know how you look at Chipotle and you think that's big?

Speaker 1 (2:19): Yeah. One and a half. Easily one and a half the size.

Speaker 0 (2:23): Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (2:24): I mean and and it was the thing that it was like an amazing thing to finish them. But if you finish them, you would have to just sit back in your chair because you'd have to do the Homer Simpson loosening your belt slip. I I mean, seriously, you had to do that. That's how bad it was. And then you would just wait for the rush to the bathroom, but, you know, that was that was the app that was the app.

Unknown Speaker (2:46): Sounds like a good time.

Unknown Speaker (2:47): Sounds sounds like a nice time. Yeah. But

Unknown Speaker (2:52): how's the calcium calcium treat your colon?

Speaker 0 (2:55): Well, I always thought that Costco could make a lot of money if they sold wholesale cigarettes, but they don't. They don't.

Speaker 1 (3:04): Well, there's there's there's a morality clause there. They do a lot of things that are really, really good. They actually pay people. I think the starting wages met the the is 19 or $21 an hour.

Unknown Speaker (3:14): Really?

Speaker 1 (3:15): Yeah. It's a lot higher than most, and they could they could get them for less. They could pay the same as Walmart or they could pay the same as Target, but they don't. They pay more. And they also I think they do health insurance and a few other things.

Speaker 1 (3:27): So they treat their workers fair, which is, you know and also, you know, they they a lot of people like them because they do that. You know? The fact that you don't screw the people that sell me stuff makes me wanna buy more from you. You know? Well, they can have a really good they have a good rep.

Speaker 0 (3:49): Dollar. They kept it a dollar and perks.

Unknown Speaker (3:51): Dollar 99. Yep. I thought Coke and a and a frog sandwich. Right?

Speaker 0 (3:56): Funny enough. I did a SWAT analysis six years ago on Costco on Costco. Yeah. For business one zero one or business hunt one hundred in Northern Virginia Community College. Go Nighthawks.

Speaker 0 (4:11): Go Nighthawks. Go Nighthawks. And that was yeah, that was a great time. She used to work at AT and T and it was so funny because at this time she was telling us, hey, don't worry about work experience. I got my job at AT and T and worked myself up to executive and sales for over the course of fifteen years.

Speaker 0 (4:33): But before I only had a job as a lifeguard and don't worry about experience. Just a college degree will get you there. And that was a lie. I remember that. Thank you for that.

Speaker 0 (4:45): And Okay. Great.

Speaker 1 (4:47): Okay. I I was buying stock of Costco when it was in the the fifties, and it ran to like $1.30 or $1.40, and I was like, wow, that is crazy. I made a 100% of my money in a really quick amount of time. And then I and one of the things that don't I never do, which I'm doing right now is looking back. And I think I sold it for like $1.30 or $1.40.

Speaker 1 (5:19): And right now it's it you know, guess what stock price is without looking?

Unknown Speaker (5:23): $1.50, $1.60, $1.80, $202.20, $2.30.

Speaker 1 (5:34): You should be you should be rising by hundreds.

Unknown Speaker (5:37): Are you fucking serious?

Unknown Speaker (5:38): No. It's $9.90.

Speaker 0 (5:40): Oh my when did you sell that? When did you sell that?

Unknown Speaker (5:44): I don't know. Like, years ago. It'd be the same thing. You know? You look at that stuff, and I did the same thing with Microsoft, and it's like I held

Speaker 0 (5:51): it for four years. $900 a share?

Unknown Speaker (5:53): $9.90. That's what it is.

Unknown Speaker (5:55): I wouldn't have thought that. I wouldn't have thought that.

Unknown Speaker (5:57): No. I wouldn't have been a minute. I wouldn't have been a minute. I would

Unknown Speaker (5:59): have thought that that would

Speaker 1 (6:00): have been really nice. It it it it does it gets big things. It doesn't sell things that are that people, the perception is bad for the environment and stuff like that. It's

Speaker 0 (6:12): That's a very good point.

Speaker 1 (6:13): It's a wholesaler. It has good margins. It treats its people well. It's and it has that annual fee, and the annual fee is just, you know It's great. Like, oh, they gotta they gotta quit that.

Speaker 1 (6:24): And it's like, no. You realize that that's like, I don't know, couple 100,000,000 that they get from the from the users. And it's like, they have a good formula. They do it really, really well, and it's in a warehouse setting.

Speaker 0 (6:36): Well, it's like BJ's or it's like Sam's Club or it's like any of those. You know?

Speaker 1 (6:40): Well, I used them when I was doing my tirade for charity years ago. Remember, like ten years ago? I got in Yeah. When when we had the, I got into I think I was retired at the time, and that was my 40 my first retirement. And I remember disasters happen.

Speaker 1 (7:01): And I thought, like, the best thing you do in a disaster is get new stuff to all the people there. So I figured out that a list of, like, Pampers and diapers and things for depends and

Speaker 0 (7:15): This is for tornadoes, really. Right? That's what I remember.

Speaker 1 (7:17): For the most part. The most part. There was hurricane Sandy because I did that. And then

Unknown Speaker (7:22): I forgot about that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (7:23): Yeah. And I would drive a truck. I would just rent a U Haul, fill it up with four pallets of food. And and first time I did this, I'd go in and I'd just start buying stuff. And I'd load up a cart and load up another cart and load up another cart and load up another cart and then take it out and put it in the truck and come back in and do it again and again and again.

Speaker 1 (7:42): And then I started I asked the lady. She goes, what are you doing? And I said, I was I I said, I'm renting a truck, and I need to get this on a pallet. I I wanna buy a pallet full of stuff, and then I wanna have it put on my truck. And I have a 10 by 14, and then I wanna take it to Henryville, which is the one I remember.

Speaker 1 (8:01): And the lady goes, give me the list. And she goes, when do when do you wanna buy? I said, well, I'm I'm I'm gonna try to leave. You know, I'm getting the truck in today, and I'm gonna leave by midday tomorrow. And she's like she said, come by tomorrow at eleven.

Speaker 1 (8:16): I'll have the pallets here, and we will have a a, what do you call those things? Forklift. Yep. I will have forklift. We'll load it.

Speaker 1 (8:25): Like, what? She goes, and if you park the truck here tonight, when you come here tomorrow, you can just take off. Woah. I mean, that was amazing, sir.

Unknown Speaker (8:36): But did she give you a discount? Did she give you a discount?

Unknown Speaker (8:40): No. I didn't ask. I was I mean, my discount was that they took, they picked up all the stuff up the floor. I gave them a list of items. I was like, it wasn't I mean, it's $10,000, something like that, of of of sales.

Speaker 1 (8:57): They picked every single thing off. They put it all four pallets into the, 10 by 14 truck. Saved all hours. God. Four hours.

Unknown Speaker (9:07): Yeah. Easily. You know? And it was like and I didn't order whole pallets. I ordered, like, quarters.

Speaker 1 (9:13): So they were getting, like, a quarter of canned chicken, and they were getting a half a pallet of baby diapers and then a half a you know, with various sizes. I need small, medium, and large. You know? Because that's what you need when a hurricane hits. You need the shit that happens.

Speaker 1 (9:28): Gloves. I bought, like, you know, a 150 pair of gloves because you need gloves because you're picking stuff up out of your house and you're tearing your hands to pieces. So you need you need some type of gloves. You need, rain gear because all these things were hurricanes and stuff like that. So it would be like, what do you what do you think somebody needs?

Speaker 1 (9:47): Fresh underwear. You know, that's a toilet paper. You know? What do you think

Speaker 0 (9:52): But how did you hand them out when you got there? How'd that work?

Speaker 1 (9:56): Weirdly, when I went to when I went to Henryville, I came in and they were, like, diverting people that were bringing stuff. And they're saying, no. You need to go to a you need to go to Parking Lot 741 and do this. And I said, I'm already here. I'm just gonna come to your church.

Unknown Speaker (10:10): And there was a church in the center of Henryville. And I I just pull up out front, I go in, and I see the pastor there, and I talk to him. And and I'm not religious. Okay. So not to push religion.

Unknown Speaker (10:21): Just to clarify. Yeah. Just to clarify. To clarify. Didn't know that.

Unknown Speaker (10:25): But, anyway

Unknown Speaker (10:26): Just to clarify.

Unknown Speaker (10:27): I just went in. I said, hey. I got a I got a I got a truckload full of stuff. I bought it yesterday. And he's like, what?

Speaker 1 (10:34): And he said, clear the floor because they were they had four stuff there that was nearly expired. And he said and I said, can I get a couple people to help me? And he goes, well, what is it? A car? And I go, no.

Speaker 1 (10:45): I have a truck. He goes, oh, you have pickup truck? And I go, no. I have a U Haul. And he goes, like, what do you mean?

Unknown Speaker (10:53): And I said, I have four pallets. And he said, well, what what what what kind of stuff do you have? And I said, I well, I have diapers. We need diapers. We really need diapers.

Speaker 1 (11:01): I have Depends. Oh my god. We really need Depends, you know, because of old people. You know? It was like because I'd I'd read online what people need right after, you know, and, loaded it up.

Unknown Speaker (11:13): I don't know why we're talking about this. But, because it's it all came from Costco, and Costco made it really, really, really easy.

Unknown Speaker (11:19): Thank you, Costco.

Unknown Speaker (11:21): Yeah. The thing I learned is I did this a couple times, and it was good because it made me feel good and I was doing nothing. So, you know, and you could go and you could

Unknown Speaker (11:30): You're doing nothing. It's so funny.

Unknown Speaker (11:32): You know, so you could you know, I wouldn't make an hourly wage, so I'm driving eleven

Unknown Speaker (11:36): hours. At home watching

Speaker 1 (11:38): So I'm driving driving eleven hours to Henryville. You know? I

Speaker 0 (11:41): mean Watching paintings.

Unknown Speaker (11:42): Driving, I don't know, ten hours to New Jersey or whatever the hell it was out there.

Speaker 0 (11:46): Oh, you did get a New Jersey, didn't you?

Unknown Speaker (11:48): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (11:49): What was that one? That was that Sandy? That was Sandy. Right?

Unknown Speaker (11:51): Sandy. Yeah. There was Sandy

Unknown Speaker (11:53): Oh.

Speaker 1 (11:53): Atlantic City, and there was Sandy, I think Long Island.

Speaker 0 (11:59): We haven't really have we? We had one. I don't know North Carolina.

Speaker 1 (12:01): Long Island, we took the truck. Sandy I took the a eight, and I distributed mattresses. That was a thing. We went into all these people's houses in Atlantic City. It was just it was it was wild when you see a

Speaker 0 (12:14): I remember what was the one recently North Carolina got blown off the map? Fayetteville or what was it? There was one.

Unknown Speaker (12:25): Ash Ash Ashland. Ashville. Ashville.

Speaker 0 (12:29): Yeah. Ashville. Yeah. That was Ashville. Why?

Unknown Speaker (12:32): Anyway Why do I do that?

Unknown Speaker (12:35): What's wrong with me? I can't you know? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (12:37): What's

Unknown Speaker (12:37): I remember I voted twice. But, anyway

Unknown Speaker (12:39): What did you vote for? What was it?

Speaker 1 (12:41): We had an amendment in Virginia to about redistricting and whether or not you vote yes if you want redistricting, which would basically it changes the the number of votes, the number of house members that Virginia sends to congress, and it changes it from six democrats to five republicans, and it changes it to 10 democrats and one republican. So it's called gerrymandering in the middle. Oh, yes. And, yes, I voted I voted to gerrymander because we need to stay competitive with all the at the federal level, all the states are doing this, and they're trying to lopsided the house. So they'll keep in you know, the they'll they'll take represent unrepresented votes and make, give representation give less representation to more voters.

Speaker 1 (13:35): So it's kind of sad.

Speaker 0 (13:37): I remember doing a project on gerrymandering in high school. Yeah. And people told me that it didn't exist and that it was made up. That was my teacher. And then that was also a number of my friends that I asked to sign the petition.

Speaker 0 (13:52): So

Unknown Speaker (13:52): Well, you went to a you went to a stupid school.

Speaker 0 (13:54): So I really did. Oh my gosh. Well, that was actually my friends that went to public schools. Like, he just signed this because my history teacher's an asshole and he's gonna be mad at me if I don't get at least 10 signatures.

Unknown Speaker (14:05): Who is that?

Speaker 0 (14:06): Jesse Gaylord. Yeah. He was just a prick.

Speaker 1 (14:08): He said gerrymandering wasn't happening.

Speaker 0 (14:10): Yeah. He's like, I don't know why you're doing a petition on this when it doesn't exist. And I was like, okay. Alright, mister. I went to a really

Unknown Speaker (14:19): He bad was UVA,

Speaker 0 (14:20): did No. He was an idiot. He went to a really bad school, if I remember correctly, that had like 20 people there or something like that. Yeah. He was a moron.

Speaker 0 (14:30): Then he blamed society for not being able to own a house. Then he said, my parents had to buy my house for me because of the economy. But I'm like, well, you've been working at this school since you graduated college. Maybe if you had a little more higher aspirations, you could have done something with your life instead of teaching track and field because then you're also taking like a half salary or something for just being a gym teacher there or something like that. It was something like that was weird.

Unknown Speaker (14:59): Yeah.

Speaker 0 (14:59): Like he was teaching one class and it wasn't even full time and then he was the track coach and then he was blaming society that he couldn't buy a house. I was like, well, I mean, it seems like your decision making processes are a little awry for a new father. You know? I don't know. Not to be somebody to vilify somebody like that, but

Speaker 1 (15:20): I think it's funny that he was It's kind of deserved, you know? No, but I would think I think it's very funny that he would tell you about his personal experience and espouse that to the class.

Speaker 0 (15:32): Yeah. I mean, generally, those people that say that life has treated me unfairly, it's generally their own fault.

Unknown Speaker (15:39): Oh. Just going to say. I disagree. I

Unknown Speaker (15:41): disagree. Really?

Speaker 1 (15:42): Yeah. I think a lot of people have had it treated unfairly. Well, I mean, it it it it's all the context is everything.

Unknown Speaker (15:50): Well, the world is out to get me. The world is gonna No.

Unknown Speaker (15:52): No. No. I think that

Unknown Speaker (15:53): That's what I'm talking about, bad version. I'm yeah. But I'm Bad version.

Speaker 1 (15:57): People out there in poor neighborhoods that are given shitty schools.

Unknown Speaker (16:01): Oh, of course.

Speaker 1 (16:01): And they have less of a chance of getting what people other people have. If you put someone in our neighborhood in McLean and and you put someone in the, you know, I can't the non the the shitty side of Mississippi, they will not end up at the same place because they didn't have the same opportunity.

Speaker 0 (16:24): That was implied. Education. Through who I was mentioning was. Yeah. I, of course, those people that come from privileged backgrounds, it's like.

Unknown Speaker (16:31): Well, he came from a privileged background.

Speaker 0 (16:33): They constantly say the world is out to get them is what I find to be ridiculous. That was kind of what the implication was. It wasn't about those that come from lower socioeconomic perspective.

Unknown Speaker (16:42): Right. Right.

Speaker 0 (16:43): No. That I completely understand. The system is meant to kill you. I mean, that's really what it is.

Speaker 1 (16:48): It's keep your ass poor, man, so I can make more money.

Speaker 0 (16:50): Really what it's about. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (16:52): And it's kinda sad.

Speaker 0 (16:52): You came from that, though. And that's you saw the cycle. The cycle.

Speaker 1 (16:57): Lot well, a lot of my friends did. Lot I mean, a lot of people I hang out with are people that came from the lower socioeconomic place, and so they have worked themselves up to varying degrees. If if you want to gauge financial, you know, what you own as as a as a modicum of what your success level is. See, I don't I I think, it's it's one trait of what a successful person is. I think there's there's there's, like, so many other traits that, you know, being a good person doesn't just because you have a lot of money doesn't mean you're a good person.

Unknown Speaker (17:36): And that's, I think, the you know, that's the that's the problem.

Unknown Speaker (17:39): I never know.

Speaker 1 (17:40): Think that, you know, we equate success with, just being having wealth. And it's like, well, I think that you can say you should you should temper it with the words financial success. You know? That that doesn't that doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, your personal success. Know, You a lot of people that are that you would look and say, well, he's been divorced four times.

Unknown Speaker (18:06): His kids hate him.

Speaker 0 (18:07): Well, I think it's really interesting that you were talking about the other day, the '99 versus the 1%. But if you take Yeah. I don't even know a percentage of that 1% in this country, lower the range which they receive per year and then go to Thailand. You could live a very nice life

Unknown Speaker (18:25): for a

Speaker 0 (18:26): lot less money and the quality of life is a lot higher because you probably wouldn't be working all the time. So you think about that, right? I think about

Speaker 1 (18:33): that The thing is that the people that are in that situation don't have access to go to Thailand and move all their assets there.

Speaker 0 (18:44): Oh, yeah. Yeah. A 100%. That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (18:46): Why aren't your homeless in New York? Why are you homeless here? And it's like, well, you know, my whole freaking support system is in home is is was all in this area. I know where everything is here, and you want me to go to Missouri because it's warmer? You know, it's like.

Speaker 0 (19:00): Yeah. Yeah. That that's a made up farce that a lot of

Speaker 1 (19:03): people believe in it. It's not realistic that you

Speaker 0 (19:05): homeless people moved to California from the Midwest mysteriously somehow and they just are able to move there because the weather's warm and that doesn't really make any sense because they had to get there. And then it's like, why would they go there? Remember

Speaker 1 (19:23): we had the great, when we were when we were doing Turkey. Was it Turkey? No. The bicycle ride not in was it Turkey? No.

Speaker 1 (19:34): It wasn't. It was Vietnam? It was it wasn't Vietnam either. It was There's

Unknown Speaker (19:40): only two.

Speaker 1 (19:43): Remember we had the guy, the the gay city councilman?

Unknown Speaker (19:46): That was Turkey.

Speaker 1 (19:48): Okay, Turkey. Yeah. And he was telling and he was a city councilman and he talked about Like, Oregon or something, right? Oregon. Was he in Washington?

Unknown Speaker (19:56): Portland.

Speaker 0 (19:56): Oh, Portland. Yeah. Oregon. Yeah. That is Oregon.

Unknown Speaker (19:59): Believe it or not. Okay. Yeah. Oh, wow. Really?

Speaker 1 (20:02): But he talked about that, and he was there with his partner, and they were there with one of the kids. That's right. It was turkey. Okay. And what and I remember him saying that the councilman said that one of the big problems we have with all you you know, in Portland, you see all these kids that are heroin add all this, and it's like and he said, well, the Midwest, he said, they kinda come to Portland because it's the closest and easiest city because of the eye the corridor at the top of the country.

Speaker 1 (20:29): They go that way. And the reason they leave Wyoming and the reason they leave North Dakota and the reason they leave all these places because they're displaced. They have no money. They have no job. So they gotta get to a place where they think they can fit in and work.

Speaker 1 (20:44): And if they're different from anybody in the Wyoming 250,000 total people community, they don't fit in, they're not gonna get a job. They're not gonna they're not gonna survive. So they come to the city and they have nothing, and then that's that's our homeless population. We have a huge

Speaker 0 (20:59): influx. About people from, like, Kansas. The people are like, oh, they always come out to California because they could sleep on the beaches. And I'm like, I don't think that that's true at all.

Speaker 1 (21:08): No. Well, there's you you I mean, if I was homeless, you used to be able to hitchhike. Can't really do that now.

Unknown Speaker (21:16): Can't do that at all.

Unknown Speaker (21:17): Yeah. I know. It doesn't work. Bus tickets are

Speaker 0 (21:20): not as cheap as they used to be either.

Speaker 1 (21:22): Mobility would be a hard thing.

Speaker 0 (21:24): No. Definitely. What I was saying more so is that you have people that make 60 to $80,000 and apply it to other countries around the world that you get a whole lot more.

Speaker 1 (21:35): Yeah. For your balance. You can't be a security guard in Thailand if if you work at the Costco.

Speaker 0 (21:42): That is a good point.

Unknown Speaker (21:43): You know, that's the problem.

Speaker 0 (21:44): Right? What security guards making $80 a year?

Unknown Speaker (21:48): Well, mean, you know. I guess Brink's.

Speaker 0 (21:50): I guess Brink's, right? I wonder how much they make a year.

Unknown Speaker (21:55): Yeah. What do

Unknown Speaker (21:55): think about Brink's?

Unknown Speaker (21:57): I I don't.

Speaker 0 (22:01): Private security is is pretty well paid, though.

Unknown Speaker (22:04): No. What's I mean

Speaker 0 (22:07): For escorting people?

Unknown Speaker (22:10): 23 to 63 per hour.

Unknown Speaker (22:13): Private transportation?

Speaker 1 (22:14): Private security guard salaries in Virginia Brink's. Virginia for Brink's. It's $20.24 dollars an hour.

Speaker 0 (22:21): No. No. No. I'm not saying Brink's. I'm saying for people escorting.

Unknown Speaker (22:25): Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker (22:26): They're, like

Unknown Speaker (22:26): the high.

Speaker 1 (22:27): But that's but those people are, like, ex seals. You know?

Unknown Speaker (22:31): Not always.

Unknown Speaker (22:32): Yeah. Well, they don't hire

Unknown Speaker (22:34): Not always.

Speaker 1 (22:34): Inexperienced people to put, you know, to protect Michael Jackson.

Unknown Speaker (22:38): No. No. No. They don't.

Unknown Speaker (22:40): Which they didn't protect.

Speaker 0 (22:41): Ground level, which is probably Brink's or something like that. And then Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (22:45): You have to work your way up. You have to get five things. Like Harrison.

Unknown Speaker (22:48): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:49): Pretty much. He's got security clearances he's gone through. He's gone through thing after thing after thing. It's like that's somebody that does it's been security for a long time, and he's doing pretty well. You know?

Unknown Speaker (22:58): Worked the booth at

Unknown Speaker (22:59): first and then they 60 to 80, hit thousands

Unknown Speaker (23:02): a year. It's like that kind of stuff. It's like

Speaker 0 (23:04): Well, that's also government security, which is a little different. I thought he's private now though. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:11): Well, a lot of government's private contracting.

Speaker 0 (23:14): They they go and they go. Oh, Private contractors.

Speaker 1 (23:16): 86%

Speaker 0 (23:17): of the government employees are private contractors. It's it's crazy. It's crazy high. 86 to 80 9,

Unknown Speaker (23:25): I think. But Costco still has a dollar 99.

Unknown Speaker (23:28): What I think about too is the pizza Is that a

Unknown Speaker (23:30): hot dog gonna go?

Speaker 0 (23:31): Third largest pizza distributor in the world. It's crazy. Or in the nation. I can't remember.

Unknown Speaker (23:35): One of good things. They do a lot. I mean, I I mean, you got you got to admit that that it's put together well. The you know, you go when you do your you. You get to taste a lot of foods.

Speaker 1 (23:47): They were one of the first to do that, I think.

Speaker 0 (23:49): They stopped doing it because of the pandemic for a while.

Speaker 1 (23:52): Yeah. But they don't but now they they're back to it.

Unknown Speaker (23:54): It's kind of back. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (23:56): I go there and I eat a lot of the little weird things and you get to try them. I don't buy any of them.

Speaker 0 (23:59): You can also buy, like, full cows there or something.

Speaker 1 (24:03): Yeah. I'm sure you can buy whatever you want. Yeah. You can start looking there. I saw that big slip and slide, a giant one.

Speaker 0 (24:10): I saw a T Rex one today.

Unknown Speaker (24:12): And I was asking like, hey. Hey. Hey. And she's like, look at me. No.

Unknown Speaker (24:15): No. That's stupid. Why would you put that in the backyard? You have a pool.

Speaker 0 (24:20): Like I wanna get you know you know the golf game where you flick the ball and it's kinda like an arcade game?

Unknown Speaker (24:27): Yeah.

Speaker 0 (24:28): And it's a stand up one.

Unknown Speaker (24:30): Mhmm.

Speaker 0 (24:30): You can they have one there. Used to. They did two years ago. And you flick the ball and it's like golfing.

Unknown Speaker (24:38): Or you do tabletop.

Speaker 0 (24:39): So cool.

Speaker 1 (24:41): Yeah. They used to have baseball was a good one. You ever do that? No. And you have it and it it drops the ball down the center and you hit the bat and the bat either you can get a home run, a grand slam, a single double out, out, out, out.

Unknown Speaker (24:56): You know? I gotta tell you. You played at the stands club.

Unknown Speaker (25:00): After hours when we broke in. I shouldn't talk about that.

Speaker 0 (25:02): The pinball obsession that you used to have. Yeah. What's the I I understand that now. I went to a pinball bar the other day and I was like, oh my god. I finally get it.

Speaker 0 (25:12): But you know what I don't still understand about pinball? Answer me this question. Answer me this question. The ball can fall behind the paddles anyway and that pisses me off. That pisses me

Unknown Speaker (25:23): Well, you're supposed to know how to move it a little bit to make that not happen. You're supposed to know when you hit it that you're supposed to know physics enough to know that how when you hit a ball, it's gonna go here, there, there.

Speaker 0 (25:32): So it's not random that it just falls behind the thing. No. No. That's four that's behind the thing and I was like, what the fuck is this? Because you're This is crazy.

Unknown Speaker (25:40): You suck at it.

Unknown Speaker (25:42): Oh, well, yeah. Probably.

Unknown Speaker (25:43): Yeah.

Speaker 0 (25:44): My first time since I was 12 playing pinball. And I have to say that I did not remember my skills of when I was 12.

Unknown Speaker (25:51): You you were in the instead of the community college, you couldn't go to the main campus. You had to go to satellite campus.

Speaker 0 (25:56): I had to go to the satellite campus where people that were bad at pinball went.

Unknown Speaker (26:00): Yes.

Speaker 0 (26:00): You ever hear that song, the Who song with a pinball wizard?

Unknown Speaker (26:04): Yep.

Unknown Speaker (26:04): That's a good song.

Unknown Speaker (26:05): Yeah. My brother was a wizard. He was amazing.

Speaker 0 (26:08): He used to get like, what, like 3,000,000 points or was it No. 300,000,000. Was it

Speaker 1 (26:15): He would spot me. He tried to get me to bet him for $10 a game. And he said he said, I'll give you five balls, and I'll spot you a 100,000,000 points. And I'm and I'll only use three. And I'm like, I wouldn't I wouldn't take that bet if you'd only use one.

Speaker 0 (26:32): Never seen somebody that good.

Speaker 1 (26:34): I've never seen somebody that plays until he gets tired. And then he calls me, and he was playing my, with that Jack Sparrow, pinball machine.

Unknown Speaker (26:45): Had Yeah. That was a beautiful pinball machine.

Speaker 1 (26:47): I loved it. You know? I ended up giving it away to a charity or whatever, and they they she said the problem was is that only the people that worked there played it all day.

Unknown Speaker (26:57): That was so funny.

Speaker 1 (26:58): Yeah. And I was like, well, I hope you can get some money for it. Anyway, but he would play that, and he would just go crazy. And he's going like, okay. I'm gonna make it harder.

Unknown Speaker (27:06): Okay. I'm gonna make it harder. And I was like, stop it. Now I can't play. But he was just And just And he moved the machine.

Speaker 1 (27:21): He knew how much to move the machine. He hits the paddle, hits this, hits this paddle. And he would not do like, people go. He wouldn't do that. Ball be coming down, and and he would just and he hit the paddle once.

Unknown Speaker (27:33): And you're like, what what kind of fool does that? You know?

Speaker 0 (27:36): He was the best pinball player I think I will ever see in my whole life.

Speaker 1 (27:39): I've never seen anybody like that. I mean, I I remember him when, he was playing when he was, like, nine years old, 10 years old. No. He would have been 11 or 12 at Ed Ed Shelton's Pizza Box. They had two or three pinball machines there, And he used to, and I think the thing is is everybody came in and played for a dime, and he had a key to unlock it.

Speaker 1 (28:01): And he would unlock it at night and close the shop down at, like, nine or 10:00, and then he would just play.

Unknown Speaker (28:08): Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 (28:10): Because you didn't cost anything. Because it was 10¢ a game, 3 for 25¢. That's what it cost when I first started playing pinball. Think about that. 3 for a quarter.

Unknown Speaker (28:21): Damn. No. A little bit too, but that's another story.

Unknown Speaker (28:26): Anyway little bit.

Speaker 1 (28:27): You know, that's that's that we we've done a bit a little bit about Costco. What else? I mean, when I think about Costco, I think people I I know many people say, oh, it's the $300 store. I know others that say it's a $500 store. I know other I mean, it's just everybody talks all time.

Speaker 0 (28:43): Saving money on groceries even if you Nah. Don't think so, really.

Speaker 1 (28:48): No. I believe you overbuy stuff and, well, if you're two people and you go in there and you get 16 tomatoes, what the hell do you do?

Speaker 0 (28:55): Well, you don't buy produce.

Speaker 1 (28:57): So you don't buy produce. You buy frozen food?

Unknown Speaker (28:59): You buy meat.

Unknown Speaker (29:02): The meat's okay. I don't think it's all that great.

Unknown Speaker (29:05): Really?

Unknown Speaker (29:05): I think it's it's a

Unknown Speaker (29:07): Same meat you have at the grocery store.

Unknown Speaker (29:10): Some of it is.

Speaker 0 (29:11): Ground beef?

Speaker 1 (29:13): It's it's all about percentages and whether or not it's a choice ground beef or this or that or the other. What do they what do they grind up to make that beef? Do they grind up a cow or do they grind up a cat? You know, that kind of stuff. Putting some red dye.

Speaker 0 (29:28): Well, it's the same brand, Kirkland.

Unknown Speaker (29:29): Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (29:30): They have it at the do they sell lot of good things?

Unknown Speaker (29:34): Used to I used to I'm I was a big undershirt fan of theirs.

Speaker 0 (29:38): Oh, yeah. Yeah. You were, weren't you?

Speaker 1 (29:40): Yeah. I I love white t shirts.

Speaker 0 (29:43): They saw the werewolf that's like nine feet tall too sometimes during Halloween.

Unknown Speaker (29:47): Yeah. Oh, I love those when Halloween's there. I mean, they have so many big things, but I don't wanna store all that shit. I would just buy it, put it in my yard, and have somebody take it away.

Speaker 0 (29:56): That's the thing that I think you taught me. It's like you you're trying to throw all my memories of me being a child away so that I I have no memories and I only have two I think

Speaker 1 (30:07): I'm in that to not trying.

Speaker 0 (30:09): Okay? Yeah. You're really succeeding. I remember I went back and all of my trophies were in the trash. I remember that.

Speaker 0 (30:16): That was great. That was a wonderful time.

Speaker 1 (30:19): I'm the one that earned them because if I hadn't driven you there, you never would have gotten them.

Speaker 0 (30:23): That's actually kind of a fair point.

Unknown Speaker (30:25): Yeah. What do you think? So they're really my trophies. Yeah. Don't be don't be selfish.

Unknown Speaker (30:30): Okay?

Speaker 0 (30:31): No. I remember that time in baseball when I I got two kids out and then they gave the game ball to a kid that wasn't even there.

Unknown Speaker (30:38): No. And you scored.

Unknown Speaker (30:39): I remember that. Oh, did I really?

Speaker 1 (30:40): Yeah. You were the only one to score.

Speaker 0 (30:42): Oh.

Speaker 1 (30:43): Yeah. And and it was it was just it was horrible because when he calls the guy to win the game ball, everybody looked at you because it was obvious that you were the best player that day. And you were not a good player.

Speaker 0 (30:59): Oh, I was tear or when I

Speaker 1 (31:00): saw the worst. One day, everything shone.

Unknown Speaker (31:04): Somehow.

Unknown Speaker (31:05): And it's like, to me, it was like if he'd had given you a game ball, you'd have been like, baseball. I did something good, and I got a reward.

Unknown Speaker (31:13): Thank god he didn't do that, though.

Speaker 1 (31:15): And it would have been and it would have been something that would have motivated you, but he turned and he gave it to the kid that pitched the first two innings and then left to go to another game because he was a good player. And he gave it to him, and he didn't hit it. He never hit. He never got on base. He never did anything.

Speaker 1 (31:32): And everybody just kinda, like, looked at the coach in a weird way. And they looked at him in such a weird way, and you were just like, basically, fuck this. And and I was with you. I was like, this is this is I don't know what's going on. I don't know how what you know, because you get politics and that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (31:50): But

Speaker 0 (31:51): Well, that's when you kinda realize

Unknown Speaker (31:53): that he he produced another ball, and he gave it to you and I think you put it in the trash when we were going out the door.

Unknown Speaker (32:01): Oh, I did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (32:02): And I was like, yeah.

Unknown Speaker (32:04): I I yeah. I did.

Unknown Speaker (32:05): Yeah. I got the message.

Speaker 0 (32:06): That was something that you guys taught me very early on. Yeah. That if you ever feel like you're an afterthought, chances are the person making you feel like that isn't worth anything. And I think that that is a very powerful lesson. One for self confidence and self motivation.

Speaker 0 (32:23): Yeah. But also to just to really recognize that you're not beneath people no matter what age you are. You know? Yeah. Because I I think that

Unknown Speaker (32:31): that was And people aren't beneath you.

Unknown Speaker (32:33): Exactly.

Speaker 1 (32:33): You know? Yeah. For the most part, there are some pieces of poop out there that are below everybody and there's there's no doubt

Speaker 0 (32:39): about that you say that. I think you put it in the trash because or I think I left it on the table or something because I was

Unknown Speaker (32:46): A lot of people saw what you did. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because it was a bunch of us leaving, and you just took the ball and you just dropped it.

Unknown Speaker (32:54): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:54): And it was just sort of like, I'm done.

Unknown Speaker (32:56): Exactly.

Unknown Speaker (32:57): You know? And I was just like, woah.

Speaker 0 (32:59): Well, especially coming from the my hands are so broken that I can't even hit a baseball. Yeah. And then I accomplished one thing with broken

Unknown Speaker (33:09): Right. No, you were just nuts. You didn't have any.

Unknown Speaker (33:11): It doesn't matter. Know?

Unknown Speaker (33:14): Always remember the You

Unknown Speaker (33:16): know, what all I'm going to do is I'm going to think about that for the rest of my life. Mhmm. And I'm going to make that the most important thing because that's what matters. That's what you gotta do.

Speaker 1 (33:25): I remember I remember long after that in, like, eleventh grade, you wanted to play baseball

Unknown Speaker (33:32): at school because God. I didn't.

Unknown Speaker (33:34): You used to get sit on the bench.

Speaker 0 (33:35): Yeah. I didn't wanna do anything.

Speaker 1 (33:36): I'm just gonna sit on the bench because I really don't wanna do anything.

Speaker 0 (33:38): Because I think I started smoking weed at point. Yeah. Right. And I was like, I don't wanna do anything.

Speaker 1 (33:43): And I was like, no. You don't wanna do that. You were like, your mindset was really bad. You were like, no. I'm gonna play baseball.

Speaker 1 (33:49): And I'm like, okay. Let's go play catch.

Speaker 0 (33:51): Well, it's because I didn't wanna do anything.

Speaker 1 (33:53): I know. You didn't wanna do anything, but I wouldn't have just let's and I said, let's just go play catch. And I remember going out in their front yard. And now kids in eleventh grade are throwing line drives at

Unknown Speaker (34:04): you, folks. God. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:06): I was throwing them up in the air like this. I was throwing them like that, and you you'd catch, like, one out of three. And and just, like, they're coming at you, and they would hit you in the chest. And I just thought that was like, you got hit. You couldn't catch any.

Speaker 1 (34:23): I threw a grounder, went over your shoulder, and I threw a grounder about as fast as I would throw to a seven year old. And you were you were 14 you were 15 or six you're 16 then.

Unknown Speaker (34:33): Do you remember the last time? You wanna know the last time before that that I played?

Unknown Speaker (34:37): I throw I I threw it a little faster, and you pulled the glove up like this, and I'm like, move the glove. Move the glove. Move the glove. I'm I'm just saying it to myself as the ball's going to you straight at your chest. It hits you in the chest, and you go, nah.

Speaker 1 (34:51): I'm not gonna do baseball.

Unknown Speaker (34:52): Nope. Nope. I'm good.

Unknown Speaker (34:54): Nope. Nope. I Well, know

Speaker 0 (34:55): the last time I caught a baseball was before that? Yeah. Was when I was eight or nine years old.

Unknown Speaker (35:01): Think it

Unknown Speaker (35:02): was when yeah.

Unknown Speaker (35:02): Yeah. But you were like, oh, no. I'll do this. And I'm like, dude, you're not they're gonna you're gonna have to warm up.

Unknown Speaker (35:07): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:08): So it's like, well, let's just go throw the ball. Because I was worried because people that you were playing with, like like, who's who's any good players at all that would have been on the team?

Unknown Speaker (35:19): I don't

Unknown Speaker (35:19): know. Who was the one guy that you got in a fight with on your first day when you went to that school? He's a really good baseball player.

Unknown Speaker (35:25): Couldn't tell you.

Unknown Speaker (35:26): For a private school. We went to his house, had a party. I liked his parents. They were nice. That's nice.

Speaker 1 (35:34): Jeff, Jason, whatever. So Anyway that. You guys got in an argument or something, and then he jumped on your back, and then you slammed him against a wall, and then you turn around in the lockers and whatever. That was that was, like, your second day of school.

Unknown Speaker (35:47): Yeah. That was nice.

Speaker 1 (35:48): It was like, oh, great. This is really starting out well. Anyway, he was really good. He could catch. He'd run and catch a ball and all that kind of stuff like that and flies, which is what you would expect in high school.

Unknown Speaker (35:59): Yeah. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (36:00): I mean, he was not he wasn't, like, public school good. He was private school good. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (36:07): No. The public schools were so good, man. It's crazy. Especially Fairfax County. Oh my god.

Unknown Speaker (36:12): The pool of people. The pool of people they had to pick to was 10 times the size.

Unknown Speaker (36:17): Well, it's also you cut people out of your team too.

Unknown Speaker (36:19): Right. You didn't have to. You didn't have

Speaker 0 (36:20): to have all these moronic, not athletic kids that went to private school. Well, the whole reason they go to private school is because they're not athletes. I mean, that's that's really what happens. For those specific private schools that is

Unknown Speaker (36:34): Yeah.

Speaker 0 (36:34): That I went to. Not like, what what are gonna we say, land in there? Even land in is like not

Unknown Speaker (36:39): Yeah. The thing that it taught you Yeah. Was exercise. I I see him is still have a value

Unknown Speaker (36:47): on you.

Speaker 1 (36:47): It's so weird that you would go to public school and you would be better if you excelled and you really fell in love with something. Could try and you could beat other people and you could really, really, really truly hone your skill. But in private school, that you you you get to do everything. You don't get excessive time, and I think that's the difference. Whereas if you're good at something in private school, you become the star.

Speaker 1 (37:18): You play that position all the time, all and you get more practice than anybody else. If you're in private school and you're good at some but

Speaker 0 (37:25): you're still bad, though. That's the thing. Like, that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (37:27): Private school, even if you're good at it, you don't get any more time than anybody else to a certain degree.

Speaker 0 (37:33): Well, that's the thing too. It's like happiness over being cut from the team. And I mean, yeah, I mean, that's what you get. But I remember our fastest male runner was as fast as the slowest woman's runner in public school at the public school They that I was supposed to go had women that were running 1730s. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (37:56): And I was like, that is that is insane.

Speaker 1 (37:59): Yeah. And you were doing a 19 and you were thinking like, woah, I'm amazing. Was it nineteen twenty?

Unknown Speaker (38:03): I don't even remember what I ran.

Unknown Speaker (38:05): Have something like that.

Speaker 0 (38:08): But we also had a coach that didn't know how to coach anybody. I mean, that was also a thing. They did very little reading, very little participation in anything, really. Yeah. Wasn't very intelligent, you know?

Unknown Speaker (38:22): Run, run more. Run, run.

Speaker 0 (38:23): Run fast today. Run slow tomorrow. Tomorrow, we're gonna run kind of fast, but not really that fast. And then the day after that, we're gonna run slow. And then that was like,

Unknown Speaker (38:33): Well, I think it

Unknown Speaker (38:34): was Research.

Unknown Speaker (38:35): He was looking more towards I don't really know what he was looking towards.

Speaker 0 (38:39): Well, nothing really mattered anyway if you think about it. You know? Yeah. Nothing really mattered because

Speaker 1 (38:44): Yeah. High school's kind of silly. It's kind of a stepping stone to get into college and you want to do that or

Speaker 0 (38:52): And I realized too is a lot of those teachers, if you go to teach high school, middle school, elementary school, you end up kind of either going or yeah, I guess it's always going down and but you end up sinking to the level of that age in your mind. Think.

Unknown Speaker (39:07): Really?

Speaker 0 (39:07): I think you end up becoming kind of infantized in your brain.

Unknown Speaker (39:12): You're saying you're saying something about your nieces?

Speaker 0 (39:14): I mean, but that's really what I what I've saw at that school specifically.

Unknown Speaker (39:20): Yeah.

Speaker 0 (39:20): It was the brain level would just sink like so low.

Speaker 1 (39:25): That being said, what about camel cigarettes?

Speaker 0 (39:29): I love camel blues. I used to smoke k r's when those were a thing but they're not k r's. R's or camel reds and I remember Yeah. Those were a thing for a long time.

Speaker 1 (39:40): I was a horrible red guy, coffin nails from you know, I used to steal Winstons from my dad when I was, like, 15 to, like, 17, 18. I I mean, I even went up going in there and I was 20 some, I would and I need cigarettes, I'd take a hiss. You know? Mhmm. But because he always had

Unknown Speaker (39:58): mean Well, he had, like, gallons of cigarettes.

Speaker 1 (40:00): We bought he was two cartons a week.

Speaker 0 (40:03): That's crazy. I mean How do you do that's so expensive. Yeah. I just think about that. I'm like, that's so expensive.

Unknown Speaker (40:10): Smoking in the olden days. You know? It's crazy expensive. I smoked for thirty years till I was 45.

Unknown Speaker (40:19): Wow. Woah. I've smoked for eight years.

Unknown Speaker (40:22): I stopped for four, five years.

Speaker 0 (40:24): I I haven't been smoking that much, though, because it makes me ill. It makes me nauseous now, and I don't know why.

Unknown Speaker (40:31): Well, that's

Speaker 0 (40:31): good. Tell you. It makes me physically ill and which is weird because I I think subconsciously, I've been I've been

Unknown Speaker (40:39): Trying to be healthier?

Unknown Speaker (40:41): I've been quitting. I think I've been quitting over the past two years. Wow.

Unknown Speaker (40:44): Subconsciously. Well, my worst is cigars. I'm because

Speaker 0 (40:48): when I'm sober, I don't smoke cigarettes anymore.

Unknown Speaker (40:50): Really?

Speaker 0 (40:51): It's crazy. I completely stopped. Wow. Yeah. Which is odd too because when I first started smoking, was 14, 15.

Speaker 0 (40:58): I would smoke a pack a day. And that's that was odd. I I reversed it. Yeah. I was I was really heavy in the beginning and then I stopped.

Speaker 0 (41:06): That's almost entirely

Speaker 1 (41:08): true. Would do more than 10 in a day. Eight, ten cigarettes a day every day unless I drank a bottle of liquor. It's Then I would wake up the next day and I couldn't find cigarettes. You'd wake up.

Unknown Speaker (41:22): I wouldn't want wouldn't want to smoke till early. You're so nauseous because your nicotine I'd poisoned as be like, kiss me. Mastro. And just the rancid smell. Smoking smells.

Unknown Speaker (41:35): When you smoke, it's just so bad. Oh, yeah. I know.

Speaker 0 (41:38): Well, I'm glad I quit vaping. That's why I'm glad I quit. Yeah. About five or six years ago.

Unknown Speaker (41:43): Never like that.

Speaker 0 (41:44): Because I jeweled for what? Three years? Three, four years? Yeah. Something like that.

Unknown Speaker (41:48): Jeweled for a long time. Wintergreen.

Speaker 0 (41:51): And it was that was that that's gotta that's gonna give so many people cancer. There's without a doubt. Everybody's like, oh, it's healthier. I'm like, is it healthier because we don't have any research behind it? Is that why it's healthier?

Unknown Speaker (42:02): You know?

Speaker 1 (42:03): Well, they don't want research behind it that makes it look bad, so they'll do studies that make it look good. They got to get studies that are approved by the FDA or be passed scientific, What do you call it? Where they put it in a scientific journal and it gets where other people can look at it and say, this is not true. How do you prove this? Your sample size is too small.

Speaker 1 (42:24): Your this is too, you know, this and your conclusions are not based on reality and all sorts of things.

Speaker 0 (42:30): What I find so funny

Speaker 1 (42:31): Scientific review. That's what it is.

Speaker 0 (42:33): Is that we banned mango flavored Juul pods only to find a workaround for disposable vapes, which make even more trash because they're not only pod based like the entire system you throw away. And now they're like coconut watermelon rainbow flavored. And it's Well, they're all about kids. That those things are specific. Like, you look at those things and, like, it's cray like, I've never seen something more targeted at, like, a seventh grader.

Speaker 1 (43:03): Well, look at the Mr. Camel that used to see Joe Camille.

Speaker 0 (43:07): Cool, though. He was a cool guy. Like, was guy.

Unknown Speaker (43:09): Cool for a 14 year old.

Unknown Speaker (43:11): Well, well, you call me 14? Is that what you're calling me, dude?

Speaker 1 (43:13): That's when you start smoking. 13, 14.

Unknown Speaker (43:15): Thought he was cool, dude.

Unknown Speaker (43:16): When did you start? I mean, I started

Unknown Speaker (43:18): 14 or 15, I think.

Speaker 1 (43:20): First time I started, I was mean, I told the story before. I think I started at I smoked at eight. I think it fifteen or something. Smoked a bunch more probably at twelve, and then thirteenth and fourteenth was sporadic, and then in fifteen, I was hooked and I was then became a daily smoker. Deal.

Unknown Speaker (43:41): You know? So it was a process. Yeah. I think

Unknown Speaker (43:44): it was fifteen.

Unknown Speaker (43:46): Mhmm. You remember the time do

Speaker 0 (43:48): you remember the time in Greece when I smoked a cigarette in front of you for the first time? Yeah. Do you remember that?

Unknown Speaker (43:53): Yeah. You walked We never talked.

Unknown Speaker (43:54): We never talked about that.

Speaker 1 (43:56): It was dark. It was in the evening. We're going out there and you and you turn. Yeah. You pull out a cigarette and you light it.

Unknown Speaker (44:04): Yeah. And I'm like, oh, fuck.

Speaker 0 (44:07): You know? I remember I just did it too because I was like, I don't know how he's gonna react to this. That was a crazy thing to do in hindsight. If you think about it, crazy thing to do.

Unknown Speaker (44:16): Well, I guess it could have beat you up, but and it wasn't grease.

Unknown Speaker (44:18): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (44:20): But it it it I you know what?

Speaker 0 (44:23): Your reaction wasn't very viscerally. It was just like, well, I guess you've decided to do this. That was kind of just that. Right?

Speaker 1 (44:30): Well, the thing is is that I know that that from my own personal experience, if I was to be nasty and hard and mean on you, that you would go the other way.

Speaker 0 (44:42): Sweat twice as much. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:44): Well, you're just you're, incorrigible asshole. Okay?

Unknown Speaker (44:50): Mean, I'm not that because I am.

Speaker 1 (44:52): And that's and that's what I am. See? So and I knew and I knew that if you said you can't, that is the word you do not say to a Brown. When you say you can't

Unknown Speaker (45:02): It's bad.

Speaker 1 (45:02): You have thrown down the gauntlet of hell, and they will do everything in their power to fuck with you. I would find I probably had cigarette packs empty underneath my pillow. I woulda had butts and put out in my car. It would have been I don't know if you woulda escalated to that, but you would have been like, no. I'm not I'm not smoking, man.

Unknown Speaker (45:22): That's that's not me.

Unknown Speaker (45:23): No. That was not me. Whole thing when

Unknown Speaker (45:25): I And then you would have like, and you would have smoked a cigarette, snuck, come back in, said kiss me. Kiss me, dad. Come on. I don't know if I was that.

Speaker 0 (45:32): That's not cigarette smoke. I was not. Not at 15. No. I was not that aggressive.

Speaker 0 (45:37): That only came until I was 18 or 19.

Unknown Speaker (45:39): Yeah. Then you got put 18

Speaker 0 (45:40): was peak. '18, 19 was peak peak prick Zach.

Speaker 1 (45:44): When did they have the orange hair? That was the

Unknown Speaker (45:46): That was 19. Or was that 18? That was 18.

Unknown Speaker (45:49): 18, 19. Yeah. Right then. When were when you were yellow yellow hair

Speaker 0 (45:53): And then I kinda got out of it finally at 20. Yeah. Well, that was a lucky kind of two years where I was just a dick. Because it was kind of like no. It kinda really was 17 and 16 too, though.

Speaker 0 (46:06): If you think about it.

Unknown Speaker (46:07): Yeah. It really was.

Unknown Speaker (46:08): And you

Unknown Speaker (46:08): were still you were still coming out of it when you were I mean

Speaker 0 (46:11): 16, 17, 18, 19.

Speaker 1 (46:14): Probably a year after you got back from Denver. I don't know what that would have been.

Speaker 0 (46:19): That was 18 still. 18. But I think when I started dating Rena, that's when everything turned around. Is when I started because I went back to school.

Unknown Speaker (46:29): Rena and you were the ones that dyed your hair.

Speaker 0 (46:32): No. But that was 18. I wasn't dating her full time though then. That was just she was just somebody I was seeing at that But then when I started dating her when I was 20 Well, I'm looking at a picture

Unknown Speaker (46:43): of you when you had long hair.

Unknown Speaker (46:46): Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (46:46): Went to Guatemala went

Unknown Speaker (46:48): to was 18? Santa 18 as well. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (46:51): No orange hair.

Speaker 0 (46:52): No orange hair.

Unknown Speaker (46:54): I thought you had orange hair after that.

Speaker 0 (46:56): It was after winter break, which I don't even know when we went to Guatemala. What month was that? Yeah. But Costco yeah. You love the you love the I do.

Speaker 0 (47:10): Did you love the blonde hair?

Unknown Speaker (47:12): Do you think I should do it? No. I thought when I first saw it, I was like, he's he now he now looks the part.

Speaker 0 (47:25): Guatemala. I remember the judgment too. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (47:28): 2017. Remember the judgment. Twenty seventeen, how old were you? December 8.

Speaker 0 (47:33): 2017. December 8, I would have been 17 years old.

Unknown Speaker (47:36): Okay. Yeah. So you were 17.

Speaker 0 (47:40): You were Wait. I had a orange hair when I was 17?

Unknown Speaker (47:44): No. No. You didn't have orange hair there.

Unknown Speaker (47:45): No. That's not true. That's what

Unknown Speaker (47:47): I'm saying. You know? No.

Speaker 0 (47:49): That was until I was 18. After winter break when I was 18. Yeah. And then I got it snipped when I was like 19 or something.

Speaker 1 (47:58): It seemed like you had it for

Speaker 0 (47:59): like sixty years. It did seem like I had it for like three years. But I didn't It was bad.

Unknown Speaker (48:04): It was bad. It was really

Speaker 0 (48:05): I thought it looked great initially. Initially, it looked great.

Speaker 1 (48:08): It did look okay, but but the thing that happened is you got you got skinnier. Oh, yeah. Because you

Speaker 0 (48:15): Well, I weighed a hundred and thirty pounds for, like, two years.

Speaker 1 (48:18): Yeah. You you you got you got even skinnier when you did that. You got a lot skinnier. And you then you and you you you're you're you just you carried yourself like a drug addict. You know?

Speaker 1 (48:36): The little slopey shoulders in the front.

Speaker 0 (48:38): Oh, the slopey shoulders.

Unknown Speaker (48:39): Yeah. The whole the whole thing. Shuffle your feet. You you do.

Speaker 0 (48:45): Well, that's because I was I think I was smoking weed every day from the time that I was 16. Yeah. Until I was 20.

Unknown Speaker (48:52): It was it was a damn skateboards. That's what

Unknown Speaker (48:54): it was. I think it was every day.

Unknown Speaker (48:55): Well, I thought

Speaker 0 (48:56): the whole thing too. It's like, if I had stayed in that skateboarding community, I think I would have actually done a lot better than I did. Really? Yeah. Because none of those people were using drugs like that.

Speaker 0 (49:06): They were smoking weed but they weren't doing anything else other than that. You know?

Unknown Speaker (49:12): Yeah.

Speaker 0 (49:12): And that was very interesting. And I think I developed a really big hatred for the world and who I was as a person because I didn't want to go to school. I don't think I really wanted to go and then it's kind of interesting too.

Speaker 1 (49:25): Was weird you were on this thing. Yeah. And it was this is what I heard. This

Unknown Speaker (49:30): is Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (49:30): What I heard from you is that I need to go to school directly. I'm like, I need to go and you

Unknown Speaker (49:37): said you said, I

Speaker 1 (49:39): don't you I don't wanna go to school, but I need to go now because if I don't go in this in in the next time, I will never go. Well, you made me believe that

Unknown Speaker (49:49): because over time, you're like, don't you think told

Speaker 1 (49:51): me, and that's what I believe.

Unknown Speaker (49:53): Well, I told you that because that's what you were telling me at the the time.

Unknown Speaker (49:56): No. No.

Unknown Speaker (49:56): I wasn't saying saying if you don't go, don't you think you'll never go? And I was like, damn. He's probably right. Oh, I don't remember. I don't remember

Speaker 1 (50:03): replacing it. I I remember you

Speaker 0 (50:04): placing it. There was placement for sure, and that's why I developed it. So you're you're blaming that on me,

Speaker 1 (50:11): and I thought it's funny that you say that because I thought that you said that, and I was like, remember you said that if I don't go now, I will never go. Well, that's funny thing is is we each thought the we each thought the other one thought that's what we should do.

Unknown Speaker (50:27): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:28): Yeah. I thought that you would never go because that's what you said, and you thought that I I I said you would never go because that's what I see. You know? And it's like

Speaker 0 (50:35): That is kind of funny.

Unknown Speaker (50:37): You know

Unknown Speaker (50:37): what I say? I say

Speaker 1 (50:38): it's I say it's your mom's fault.

Unknown Speaker (50:40): I you know what? That's what you always do is you blame a woman. That's what's right. That's what you always do.

Speaker 1 (50:45): You know, the the the the only the the only smart, stable person that that keeps us both of out of jail, we blame her.

Speaker 0 (50:53): Well, that was Right? Yeah. Well And then, Troy. It's kind of interesting too that I ended up going to a public Ivy, which is crazy.

Speaker 1 (51:00): Yeah. The path is is absurd. Well, it'd be better than going to a public pack of sander. Right?

Speaker 0 (51:05): That's what happens when you pick your I still regret not applying to better schools. I feel like I could have gotten into a better school than UVA.

Unknown Speaker (51:12): Still can.

Speaker 0 (51:13): I think I I think I definitely could have. Still can. That's a very good point. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:18): I mean, you're you're like what? 22?

Speaker 0 (51:21): Now? Yeah. 26. Well, that right. Right now

Unknown Speaker (51:25): is Sure.

Speaker 0 (51:26): That's what everybody you know what's funny that you mentioned that is I'm the same age as a lot of the grad students when I was graduating undergrad at UVA. They were all 27 to 30 ish.

Unknown Speaker (51:36): Right. Because they go out in the world and they work for a little bit and they go back.

Unknown Speaker (51:39): And then they're like, want this illusion. Get your

Unknown Speaker (51:41): MBA. Get your MBA.

Speaker 0 (51:43): Well, people go back to school because they miss the illusion of being a good person and they miss the illusion of people telling them that they're doing good at something. Whereas in the world you have nothing except for self affirmation and maybe a few friends to tell you that you're doing the right thing.

Speaker 1 (51:59): I would add to that a lot of people go back because they see it as a new pathway from where they are currently that says, hey, I'm working for this, and this is my job, and I'm and and they can calculate what's gonna happen ten, fifteen years in the future. And they're like, one way to change this pathway is to move over here and to move over here. And if you move over here, what's going to happen? I'm gonna I I can start. I can be on a different track.

Speaker 1 (52:32): I can I can be an investment banker and rise up working one hundred hours a day and blah, blah, blah, blah, and I can do all this? Or I can be I can go in the accounting field, and I can get my accounting degree, and I get a master's in accounting, and I can be a senior accounting guy at one of these big accounting firms. I can be a lawyer. I can do all this other happy horseshit that you can go back and but it can also stagnate. You know?

Speaker 1 (52:55): Because if you go to a shitty MBA school and you get a shitty MBA, well don't have that. I don't you know, I can speak to it, and I've been told that, hey, you should and I'm like, why? And they're like, relationships. And I'm like, you know, when I was 40 I think when I was 45, when I sold the first company and I retired, I had some, mentor friends encouraged me to go to Harvard and do their their MBA program because it's like, at your age, you're like, you're prone or ready to do the next big thing. And I was just like, I don't know.

Unknown Speaker (53:35): You know?

Unknown Speaker (53:35): Don't really want to.

Speaker 1 (53:37): Yeah. I'm I'm I'm a tripper. I can't

Speaker 0 (53:42): Well, the whole thing too is developing an alumni network where you can make friends because when you're old, when you're older, man, like, I'm thinking about new friends that I've made at the age of 25 and 26. Made a couple, definitely made about like seven in the past year, but that's the most since I was like

Speaker 1 (54:00): Yes. I mean, your friend base is people that you went to Denver with. Yeah. University of Denver, people that you went to u UVA with.

Speaker 0 (54:08): Skateboarding as well. People. I mean, still Skateboarding. I still talk about skateboarding was a huge network that allowed me to to befriend a lot of people and then a lot of those people are gone though. I would say about 99% of those people are gone.

Speaker 0 (54:20): Dead. Which is crazy. Other than Christian though, Christian turned out to be like one of my most important friends because we

Speaker 1 (54:27): would When you say when you say gone, do you mean dead?

Speaker 0 (54:31): No. Not dead. The just don't don't talk to anymore.

Unknown Speaker (54:34): Oh.

Speaker 0 (54:34): Just don't don't don't associate. Yeah. Well, they stopped. Well, yeah. They just when you stop skateboarding, I stopped for five years.

Speaker 1 (54:44): And they stopped growing too.

Unknown Speaker (54:46): Yeah. Exactly.

Speaker 1 (54:47): But I remember when you we went into the skateboarding place when you're like 16 and you were near the end because you could drive. And the guy at what the hell was it? Skittles or whatever the hell place was. Son that sold skateboards and stuff and you were looking at the boards and I was really interested in getting your boards. I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (55:06): Was kind of stupid about He said, yeah. And he was 25. He said, I he said, I got interested in girls and cars, I left it. And now that I'm 25, I'm back to it, and I really, really like it because now I do it for me and not for other reasons. It was like, oh, that's different.

Unknown Speaker (55:22): You

Speaker 1 (55:23): kind of have taken that path where, you know, you diverged from it at 16, 17. You started saying, you know, it's cool. I can do it. It's an I'm not gonna be a pro. I'm doing it for fun, but I'd rather drive my car.

Speaker 1 (55:35): And

Speaker 0 (55:36): That's not really true because I got really good until I was about 20. And then when I was 20 and then when I went to UVA, I stopped because I didn't have a community anymore. And then it was me at the skate park skating. And then I think I went back after like six months and I was so not prepared because that sport is like, lose that sport so fast. It's it's crazy.

Speaker 0 (56:03): It's it's like nothing else. Like I I skated for what thirteen, fourteen years and I took five years off and it's gone. It's like almost like it it it would take me six months every two days to get back to where I was. And it's crazy. It's really that sport is crazy.

Unknown Speaker (56:20): You

Speaker 1 (56:20): lose balance on the board.

Speaker 0 (56:22): Not just that. It's just like remembering the placement of feet for certain tricks, remembering how to do certain things, remembering the motion of not only your shoulders, your neck, and your legs, but also your hips. Like, there's things like that. And it's just like it's it's a nightmare to relearn. It really is.

Speaker 0 (56:40): It's the worst feeling in the world.

Speaker 1 (56:42): It's kinda like well, see, I go through my life having sports that I'm mediocre at. Yeah. I mean, I was thinking, you know

Speaker 0 (56:50): good just about when I was 20, and then I don't know why I stopped. I should have kept going. I I was getting really, really good.

Speaker 1 (56:57): I peaked in golf probably in the low nineties. Mhmm. When Bush and I were on the trip to go to Scotland and play, what was it? What is the one? The old course.

Speaker 1 (57:11): Oh, yeah. That because I had to practice every week because I needed a handicap of 24 or less.

Unknown Speaker (57:18): You know

Speaker 1 (57:18): what that means at 24? That means that if par is 70, then you have to hit a 94. You get 24 handicap.

Speaker 0 (57:27): Okay. I see what you're saying.

Speaker 1 (57:29): And you're looking for people like, I got a seven handicap, which means that you consistently hit whatever bar is on that course. It's usually in the seventies, and it's whatever your number plus that. And then there's, you know, golfers that, you know, were like, they hit in the sixties and you're like, woah. You know, just crazy. Mhmm.

Unknown Speaker (57:51): Different different different animals. Well, I think

Unknown Speaker (57:53): that's our episode. Very

Unknown Speaker (57:54): different. I think we're good. Whose episode? I think we're done. We talked about Costco and Camels.

Speaker 1 (57:59): Is that what this is? We sure did. This

Speaker 0 (58:01): is Costco and Camels.

Unknown Speaker (58:02): Very easy.

Unknown Speaker (58:03): Alright. I think you guys are good to sing. Hello. Thank you for

Speaker 1 (58:07): listening, and we're posting a lot more stuff on YouTube.

Unknown Speaker (58:10): Yeah. All these social media platform. We're gonna have a TikTok account too.

Unknown Speaker (58:14): Yeah. We gotta see that.

Speaker 0 (58:15): TikTok, Facebook, Instagram. Yeah. Did you give them the LinkedIn password yet?

Unknown Speaker (58:22): I'm not sure how to do that.

Speaker 0 (58:23): I'm having a Yeah. That if you don't want your personal, you're gonna have to figure out a way to separate it. Did you create the page through your Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (58:30): It's completely linked to my personal, so I gotta figure out a new way.

Speaker 0 (58:33): Just we'll just have him create one then. Yeah. And then LinkedIn thing. Yep. Go follow those pages.

Unknown Speaker (58:40): I like that. That's better. Alright. We'll talk to you later.

Unknown Speaker (58:44): Bye bye. Party on.