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Overview
Alan is once again flying, so we discuss how flying has changed over the last several decades. Using websites and apps and the ability to get up to the minute updates and seat changes.
We discuss pandemic games that we’ve played.
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Stephen: you’re sitting sideways on the airplane. it’s
[00:00:04] Alan: I got, I bought three seats so I can stretch out a little bit. Exactly. Yeah. Should put the arm rests up. So
[00:00:12] Stephen: it looks so realistic.
[00:00:16] Alan: I’m quite proportionate. You know what I mean? I’m in a little kid seat or something, but right. . And so obviously prompting us to talk about this.
I’ve been doing tons of travel because of coming out to see my parents in California, at least my mom, because my father passed away. And boy, there was a golden period about 10, 15 years ago where websites really had every airline and they really accounted for every feature and every price you might pay and you could go on and find the best deal.
And if you’ve done any of that kind of travel search lately, It’s next to impossible. The number of airlines don’t cooperate with the big aggregators, they do their own thing or whatever, the information they supply to the aggregators is the basic will get you a seat on the airplane. And then it’s oh, you wanted oxygen.
You wanted like food and drink is a thing in the past. Everybody charges for those kinds of things, but you can choose to pay for a different seat. They now have a little thing, where depending on what your preference is and it’s amazing you get a the price differential between just getting on the plane and then how they try to upsell you.
I’ve been because I’ve been doing it so often. I’ve been trying to use spirit frontier not so much jet blue, because I don’t seem to fly where I want to, but they’re the more budget airlines Southwest compared to the big Delta and American, whoever else. But having said that, it’s just amazing how once you have a seat, every time you go to the website, like if you wanna put in your TSA pre number, it walks you through a whole bunch of screens that say, Hey, did you want to add a bag?
You’re sure that you don’t have any bag. You know what I mean? And if you have a bag, you’re sure you don’t want another bag and here’s the seat on each of your legs. And it’s just amazing how I find it next to impossible. And so it’s kinda who have I learned to what’s the combination of trust and least hassle, and I know I’m gonna get screwed, but who screws me the least.
You know what I mean? It’s just. I want it to be that the some website would say, I’m gonna fight for the consumer in a capitalist world. It’s all about you have perfect information, so you can make a perfect decision. And any step away from that is anti-capitalist even though everybody talks about how we’re all about capitalism, we’re all about price, competition.
We’re all about living in this wonderful country of ours then do everything they can to subvert it. so it’s just, oh, I, and once you start so for instance, I’m gonna be picking seats. Cuz sometimes it matters to get from Cleveland to San Diego. It’s usually a a long leg, like from Cleveland to Las Vegas and then a short leg.
And especially sometimes I’ve taken a red eye flight because that’s the only way to keep prices down. But man, sit sitting four hours in a middle seat is just torture. And not only for me, but for I’m a big guy, the people on each side, they just stand to see me come walking down the aisle and say, oh I have 22 B I’m right there with you.
So I and now we get to the geekery, I guess it’s not only, geekery trying keep track of all those things. Even picking seats is like now I’ve been on similar planes, this flight similar. Again, and again, what seat do I really want? Because what I want is the window seat, so I can go to sleep if I can on the plane.
You can see from the placement of the window there, sometimes it’s right here where you’re not able to Nestle it’s right where you, it isn’t comfortable. So well, do I need 24 instead of 22? And it also matters what side of the plane you’re on because if you’re flying out and the sun is to the south right side of the plane, Mr.
Melanoma has to not hit direct sun for four hours. Am I gonna have to have the screen down all the time, just out of avoiding this inquisition level lighting , that’s coming from the sun through my window. We know where you.
A little bit of when, once you get to know the airports, you’re like by luck once in a while, I’m like, oh, I got off at a 14 and I’m getting back out in a 12. That’s so nice compared to having to get a people mover, go to another terminal occasionally the aggregators and their algorithms don’t do well.
You’re gonna be on the same airline all the way through. You’ll be on spirit on one leg and then frontier on another and they’re in different terminals. So then, and if you got I’ve had times where I have a 35 minute time in between they start seating it like 30 minutes before, maybe 45 minutes before the flight.
So immediately I’m like, where am I? And I gotta go to the bathroom. Cause that was a four hour flight. And then I gotta make sure I know. And when you see that you’re going from a to B it’s ah, Gotta get outta the
[00:05:18] Stephen: people mover. And depending a to B, if you’re in Atlanta, you could be like a to G and it’s 5.2 miles.
[00:05:27] Alan: exactly. And I’m, it’s thank you. The example I’m giving is actually an easy one. There, there really do have, it’s just amazing that you don’t know all this information when you’re buying this. And then only when it’s reveals you, it’s I gotta hustle I don’t wanna make the OJ reference, but there used to be the commercial look.
I’m gonna have to like vault over people just to get to my gate on time. And if it was Southwest where it’s not reserved seating, it really matters that you’re there to line up because it matters that you get a better seat, luckily with reserve seat and you don’t have to worry about that.
But I got, I’ve been there where I really was, like, they announcing on the thing overhead two minutes before gate closing, closed the door. Yeah. We will not reopen the door. And luckily I only have my. My little roll. My, I have a laptop bag that rolls, but it’s amazing.
You can’t get up to speed when you’ve got this little thing that you have to real wheel behind you and like the moving walkways for whatever reason, they’re cutting back on energy and they’re not running or I’m there at the airport when there’s enough pedestrian traffic to justify it.
So they’re not running. And so I can’t even all the usual, maybe this’ll help you out. They’ve turned all that crap off for me. I’m on my own. so I just, again, the geekery aspect is now that I’ve done this, like five times, I’m very aware of, okay, I’m in a danger zone on this particular thing. Cause I’m here and I immediately got a.
Where am I going to, and how far away is it? And I’ve had I often will try to get a tin and a drink just like when you’re stopping on the road I can fit in a tin, but I can’t get drink or food or anything. And by the time you travel six, eight hours, you can be pretty stomach growly.
Yeah. You know what I mean? By the time you get there.
[00:07:12] Stephen: So it, I, I do the thing that is nice now, I’ve seen the little video clips and pictures and stuff back in the day, people were like walking around and they were all dressed up suits and ties, and they’re eating like constantly. When was the last time they served meals on airplanes absolutely
[00:07:30] Alan: was little crystal and insult and pepper.
Cause it was so special
[00:07:33] Stephen: But I do like that. You could get text messages with updates, you can go and check and see what’s running on time and not those things are great nowadays.
[00:07:43] Alan: That’s true. I have, I almost always I do whenever I can sign up for the SMS messages and stuff like that, and they’ve saved my bacon a couple times where they’ll have a gate change and no lie, just the previous trip on the way home, I had gone from a to B because that was the next leg.
And then they announced no it’s really is leaving from a and so after I’d been sitting there, I’m like, after a while you realize something’s up, where is everybody, but have posted anything on the big board yet. And then you find out and then it’s okay. And there’s this little. Kinda like seeing birds in a flight where one bird follows the other, when you see people start to stream towards the people movers, like I betcha.
That’s all the same people that are screwed. Like I am, who sitting around here and now they gotta recon congregate. There’s hoping they don’t fill up the drain because then I lose 10 minutes or whatever waiting for the next one. Oh, it’s
[00:08:32] Stephen: the scrubbing bubbles of airports.
[00:08:36] Alan: and what’s funny is I’m a big guy.
And so I tend to not use my size, but if I’m gonna miss my flight, I’m gonna push my way out of that train. No matter how much people are already packed on there you like you lose your body bubble and especially we haven’t gone into this. It’s COVID is still around. I jumping a little bit ahead.
I try to, the reason I’m out here is to visit with my mom and every day, while I’m here, I got when I was there the second day here, one of the staff leaders came up to me and said, we’ve had a COVID outbreak. Five people in the ward have gotten it and one staff member. And so you’re gonna have, we’re gonna go into a kind of emergency mode.
Your mom is, and they didn’t let me know then that my mom was not one of them. But then I was like, okay, what can I do? And that now it’s turned out, okay. We get to meet outside in the courtyard. So there’s fresh air. And I keep my mask on and she’s safe because they’re keeping the people who do have it isolated quarantines.
They, everybody there has PPE on and stuff like that. But it’s when, on all of this, in the airport, on the flights 2%, like I look around and I see me and maybe three, four other people. And honestly, I’m fully vaccinated. I probably could do without the mask, but I don’t want to take any risk of. Me being, getting it, being a carrier, not knowing it, bringing it in to this closed facility where my mom is and me leading to my mom having problems or anybody else there in the ward.
So it’s it’s around us. It’s still here. It might be that it’s not the most legal variations when it first got on the shore, but that’s how viruses work. They become more transmissible and less lethal. So they, their reason for life is to continue to transmit within a population. They become more efficient in all those ways.
Now it’s not deep involvement. Now it’s a cough. But, and I think I mentioned from the last time when you’re on an airplane and someone has a deep cough. And they’re not masked. It’s I don’t care if it’s COVID or not. What are you, Mr. Tuberculosis, Mr. Whatever. You’ve got. Why in the world? Are
[00:10:44] Stephen: you on this flight?
Oh yeah. I love people like, oh yeah. I had pneumonia and bronchitis and I have a bit of a fever, but I’m okay.
[00:10:54] Alan: and they’re like two rows away and especially tragic of course who’s gonna change their travel plans just because they got a little bit sick, but then you hear a baby crying because it’s so stuffy and in between crying, it’s snoring and they don’t have any, they don’t even have they’re not covering their mouth in any way.
They’re just a snot and droplet fountain. Oh my God. So
[00:11:22] Stephen: that I hope that’s book somewhere. So many every conversation about COVID nowadays, before it was. Oh, my God, a tragedy and a pandemic. And now it’s man, this country is so filled with irrational, with stupid, with reckless, with selfish. It just breaks my heart. I don’t want to get it. I don’t wanna bring it to anywhere else.
[00:11:45] Alan: And yet I don’t, maybe other people are, Hey, I’m vaccinated. I’m boosted. I’m okay. And yet there’s not that sign necessarily. You know what I mean? That there’s not the sign of everybody is still being cautious when someone coughs, some people reach for their masks and others don’t. Yeah. And so it’s, oh Here’s a geek reference for this.
[00:12:07] Stephen: So there’s a couple games this make me think of there’s the board game pandemic you’ve cooperative, great game, difficult game. But it, you can obviously it’s not a real life simulator or anything like that, but just the fact of how difficult it is and how the stuff will spread in the game through the mechanics, it gives an idea.
And yeah we, we actually
[00:12:29] Alan: played the year and it’s not only a single version. They had a year long version. Yeah. I think I might have mentioned this where Colleen and I and Steven, Amy played that monthly for a year. And if we didn’t win, we were doing really well going into the 11 months, 11th months, and it is perfectly built.
So that. There’s so many things that you’d have to have incredible luck and skill and preparation, to be able to survive the last outbreak of we, and we played that last round twice to see we didn’t do this. Can we try this variation? And we got thundering killed, so that’s the, a great to that’s what we’re facing legacy version or something like that.
[00:13:10] Stephen: Where it’s a one play or something, right? Yeah. It,
[00:13:14] Alan: anyway, I there’s a prepared me for this, that we want, you get something that infectious, it’s just, all you need is one person coming to the wedding and 150 people. Get it. Yeah. You know what I mean? All you need is one person at a concert, one person at a, all the super spreader events that we’ve read about it.
It’s all so predictable. And yet people don’t.
[00:13:34] Stephen: I don’t know, it’s all a conspiracy then there’s a an iPad game. It’s I’ve got it. Xbox. I forget the name of it, but it’s you play the virus. Where you’re trying to take over and destroy the world. And you get points as you do things to, to enhance the virus and change it.
Because if you just stay with Windborn, then they develop the humans develop things to protect themselves and vaccinate and blah, blah, blah. So you have to mutate, you have to change, but you have to take over enough of the world to get points, to be able to do that. And right. It’s a good game.
It’s interesting. Cuz they show a map and you see the red spreading and they’ll even show like planes and some will go red. It’s oh somebody’s infected on there. They’re spreading it to another country. That’s
[00:14:24] Alan: very effective to see. Yeah. Patient zero is bringing it to this whole country exact where they have no defense.
Yeah. I, I we’ve talked about this a little bit before I did work with genetic algorithms for a couple years. A programming technique that mimics natural selection in order to solve difficult problems. One of the things that I would say in that game is. It is I’m willing to bet that the smarter strategy is not to try to do your quotes, intelligent design and make decisions for the virus.
You should randomize everything. I can do three things, roll a die one to two, three to four, five to six. And just the that’s the way that nature works is I’ve got a population of a hundred thousand and I’m gonna cause random mutations in a hundred of those, but you don’t know what, and you don’t know where and that’s what’s maddening is there’s no pattern to be found some spot activity random changes in DNA and RNA cause new things.
And by the most effective new things are what work, but there’s always that catch up of we didn’t know it was gonna do that. Now we have to find out what it’s doing in the first place, then code against it, meaning antivirals and whatever like that. My, my guess is if you just played the virus, a mindless voracious
[00:15:42] Stephen: replication machine, but play it like Kirk plays chess against Spock
[00:15:47] Alan: like that. Exactly. No, no predictability. Don’t try to be anyway. I have a lot of confidence that nature in trying everything and seeing what works is smarter than a person, supposedly trying to predict the future.
Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It’s ,
[00:16:06] Stephen: I’m gonna try that now. I wanna go play the game. I’ll try that later tonight and see how it goes.
[00:16:12] Alan: Especially depending on who your opponents are, they’re gonna be like what do you mean? You’re not I’m doing the most effective strategy. I’m just letting the wind take me.
[00:16:21] Stephen: In that game. It’s just you as the virus against the computer AI, which is human. Ah, it’s
[00:16:27] Alan: not other players. Got it. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
[00:16:29] Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. But it’s fun game. It’s one of those that I like. I like it because I can play a quick game and just it’s almost for me a relaxing, one of those nonsense relaxing games or if I really wanna just push it, go up on the expert level and make and get rid of some restrictions and things to make it difficult and just for a challenge.
So it’s a good game. Good That’s often I play civilization in that same way, too, when I want just something fun to do, I’ll play it at the low level. And then I’m more able to compete for resources, predict what the computer’s gonna do. If you play it at a high level, you’re like, I really gotta pay attention and I really gotta get lucky and I really gotta use terrain and all the other things, you have to be very involved instead of.
[00:17:14] Alan: I’m gonna do this in between other things yeah. I don’t mind losing a single player game against the computer, if it’s a good challenge. If I know I’m really having to push myself and I still lost, then it’s okay I’m gonna do that again later. You get that challenge the easy games I do that with some of my deck building card games I play on against the computer just to relax expert hard and restrict.
[00:17:39] Stephen: Cause if I just do it on easy, I can almost just sit there and click, and win. You get that challenge.
[00:17:46] Alan: I like that. There’s a very good game called strategic conquest. There was a world domination game. For the Mac probably 25 years ago, I don’t think that they are they’re producing anymore.
[00:17:58] Stephen: Did you have to like, get it running with punch cards? It’s
[00:18:02] Alan: yeah, actually you mean the state of the art Macintosh user interface that was better than anything? Yes. That one that’s right. So it and actually this is funny. The same company made a solitaire game. That was the first one where instead of having to click drag and place cards correctly, you could throw it towards where it should go and it new enough to go black goes on red and seven goes on eight and so it was twice as fast in playing solitaire with just how it would it would do what it could anticipate.
And only when there was you threw a two. And do you wanna put it on the ACE or do you wanna put it on the three. And then either ask you, or I think it would probably do a default. And if you wanted to undo it, you had to say, oh no, I meant to go on the three, cuz I don’t wanna build the ACE. I just wanna get to the cart underneath whatever the reasoning might be.
So they actually. Just like a game called the fools errand, where one of those breakthrough games that really showed off, we can make a game. That’s just not only a simulation of what you’ve done before. We can have a little bit of computer smarts. That’ll make it that it’s faster. It’s easier it’s doing what you would do.
If I could flip cards like boss’s name, Rick doesn’t matter where I had, where I could do it accurately then of course that’s how I would play solitaire. I wouldn’t discreetly put cards on top of cards. That’s go, Ricky J by the way, God, I love that the brain works that way. You, it just, every time that happens, I’m like, okay, at least that’s still with me.
I might not remember everybody’s names nowadays. You know what I mean? Whatever little bits of me are fading as I get a little bit older, but it’s just so cool that I still have those little style clerks that are going through it here it is. And anyway
[00:19:48] Stephen: So what other topics you wanted on?
Cause you know we do our normal, Hey, what do you wanna talk about? Okay, here’s about five hours worth of stuff and we do five hours of stuff every week. So we only talk about an hour or so. So we’ve really got a backlog of about 40 episodes without that’s anything new happening
[00:20:08] Alan: and it’s kinda like a, to do to-do list.
If you didn’t get to it and it’s four weeks later, it’s I guess it never needed to get done.
[00:20:15] Stephen: You know what mean? I found a list. I’m like, oh, there’s my old list of relentless geeky topics. And oh, we never did talk about that. Did we?
[00:20:23] Alan: right. And it’s funny I will say so. To address exactly that.
I get a lot of magazines still. I tend to, like when I go to lunch, I read a magazine instead of checking my phone or like that, because I like that experience of actually reading and reading a longer article. That’s more thoughtful than just the snippets of the little bits that you make a mosaic album once in a while, that backlog becomes great enough that I’ll read a magazine, no lines, that’s like a quarter old, an old time or Newsweek or this week or whatever else it might be.
And it’s very interesting to read from three months ago, here’s the hot issues and which ones are still hot and important and which ones were overhyped and faded away. And so you’re very aware of the news cycle about how it’s gonna, everything’s gonna be it’s now it’s big. You gotta worry about it. And it’s all that it caters to fear, not interest, in a lot of ways, so it has helped me to like, Always I have the guy sitting on my shoulder going, how important is this gonna be in a quarter in a year? We’re still fighting a war in Ukraine, but Ukraine news is no longer day to day. It’s faded from the main topic.
Yeah. Now we’re dealing with. It’s the job’s decision about abortion. Now we’re dealing with the January 6th in hearings about the insurrection and things like that. And so I get that there really are important things that we really should focus on while the news cycle is going, but there’s also so much hype, so much crap that includes and pushes other things out.
You know what I mean? And,
[00:21:52] Stephen: and actually, and I love that too. I’ve got a stack of magazines on my bedside stand. I they get release those special edition things, which is like one magazine, all devoted to one topic and they come out like exactly reporter history of the who or something like that.
Yeah. I get a bunch of those that I enjoy. But believe it or not a lot of the other magazine’s business insider Newsweek that stuff. When I am in the mood to peruse one I’ll check it outta the library through my Kindle. You can do it digitally, yeah. Because I don’t know when I’m gonna read that but.
That does let’s geek this out. The news has changed obviously most people read the news online on their phone. Newspapers have taken a huge declining hit over the last 20 some years. Absolutely. But the cool automated thing is there are news apps on my phone where I can say I’m interested in this type of news and this type of news and this type of news.
And I will yeah. And read it from this source and this source, but not this source. And you really curate what you wanna hear and see, and then individual items. Okay. I don’t wanna hear anymore about Donald Trump and they won’t pull in more Donald Trump, but other political news or you can really.
That’s so geek Curry right there, but yeah it takes time to flip through a newspaper to find those one or two articles here. It’s just, everything’s what I want.
[00:23:16] Alan: Yeah. It’s kinda funny, a friend of mine, bill slacker, and I had a talk long ago, honestly, maybe 30 or 40 years ago about when that becomes available, what would you do?
And he really was much like you, I’m gonna get pretty much exactly what I want. And only from certain news sources. And I was a little worried about, would I silo myself too much that I would, because I already like the quality of the reporting and the voice of this that I might miss. The random things that I also discovered, like when I walk through a bookstore, I usually go to my science fiction and fantasy and my humor and my puzzles and various other things.
But once in a while, when you’re walking by an endcap, you’re like, oh, that’s intriguing. I didn’t know that guy was not only working in science fiction, who was also doing and a, just a cool cover or whatever. So I was like, I would have to have some percent, 10% just random things through my SIV so that I would be occasionally surprised, maybe chagrin, maybe delighted, but I would get new things.
You know what I mean? I wouldn’t wanna be that I really. Narrowed myself. And once in a while it would be let that through. And that’s utter crap. So please never again from whatever America, a N whatever the
have. We talked about this before Colleen works for America, United life, a big insurance company that does big retirement plans, 401ks, and four, three BS. Now there’s America United news network that they’ve actually had. They’ve been mistaken for them and America, United news network is crazy.
It’s one of those bad news sources like Infowars and they really, they don’t cater to fact they, they are all about propaganda. And so when Colleen comes in and has to explain, no, that’s not our news wing we don’t do that. we do this thing where we help you retire safely it, but it’s.
There used to be that people would try not to step on each other’s names. And that stopped a while back that now there is such a proliferation of crap that they just grab whatever they want and
[00:25:21] Stephen: count on their own. And they sometimes do it on purpose. Just look at websites.
Yeah. Yeah. There’s websites that instead of mikemicrosoft.com, it’s Mike cor.com. They just switch twos. And when you go to it, it looks identical to Microsoft. So you click log and you give your username password and you just gave the hackers your information.
[00:25:44] Alan: Yeah. Yeah. Big a to talk about. Cause there’s so many examples, but one of the ways in which if you’re at all a critical thinking news consumer, you started to be aware of.
Wow. They just called that bill in Congress, the clean air act. And it’s nothing like that. It enables pollution. It’s they, you can name things, anything that you want like the, whatever the various different packs that have sprung up Americans for prosperity. And it’s not about that. And Americans United and it’s one of the most bigoted.
It’s just the weirdest thing to see the shamelessness with which people lie and try to put on a they’re the Wolf in sheep’s clothing. And they’re just trying to get the sheepies sounding thing so that they can have you before you’re aware of how much you’ve been fooled and it’s maddening, you
[00:26:35] Stephen: know?
Okay. So one of my all time, favorite authors is Michael Criton. Okay. When I read Jurassic park first, book it by his, I read I was just blown away by it because he is a fiction writer. I understand that he rides mostly action. I understand that it’s but. He also throws science in there and it’s
[00:26:57] Alan: usually, it’s not unbelievable.
It’s actually one step removed from what we know about today, you
[00:27:02] Stephen: know? Yes. Yeah. It’s a lot like Harry turtle, dove, writing, alternative Yes. That he puts. There in those books the guns of the south, there’s a million in one facts and real stuff about the civil war. He just throws in his own take on what they actually said or that type of thing and exactly.
And machine guns. So right. Those
[00:27:28] Alan: little perturbations make the rest of it all the more believable because all the rest is authentic and correct. You know what
[00:27:34] Stephen: Okay. And who was it? Arlington cemetery started out as Lee’s house and it became a medical for all the people killed, shot, whatever, and they started burying him and it turned down.
I never knew that. Why did I go to school and never learn that? And I had to read a fiction book to learn that cause that’s the truth. My point is. There’s a book by Criton called state of fear. And I know it’s a little older now, but he covers this topic and I know it’s a made up organization and I know what they do is probably made up mostly
[00:28:10] Alan: But some, they read this book and said, what a great instruction manual. Yeah, exactly.
[00:28:15] Stephen: Pulled this off. But some of the stuff he talks about with the news and the propaganda, and he tries to, to get characters in there that have different viewpoints in different sides. Yeah. And the biggest thing is when they’re going for a court case, and they’re talking about climate change and stuff like that, they’re bringing in real data real.
Issues because it’s the lawyers trying to find all the holes and they’re exploring both sides of it. So those now it, did they really see an increase in the Atlantic ocean of this many temperatures and this not necessarily, but the actual what, how they used the data. That was the more important point, how they twist it to look how they want, but that I’ve read that book two or three times, and yes, I know it’s fiction it’s made up, but there’s things in it that I can see in the real world.
I’m like, oh, I think differently about certainly. And I’m like going on. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. If you’ve never read that book, I so recommend it’s oh, has not.
[00:29:15] Alan: I’ve read like maybe four or five Criton, but I haven’t read all of his, and he’s another guy I truly should, because I really admired that he was a good, hard science thriller writer.
You know what I mean? Some people just the premise for the book is implausible and yet. I like it where it really is. Wow. It’s tomorrow. It’s not today. It’s just one little extrapolation, but what will really
[00:29:37] Stephen: happen? Jurassic park with the, getting the blood in the mosquitoes and the Amber from the, that was real, they were really doing that.
Now. It wasn’t viable. They didn’t make it work, obviously that next step. But at the time that was a new discovery. So again, he’s using the real stuff. And it’s funny because you mentioned the Jane Hawk books, which you’re reading, I’m actually on book two I’m exactly. Oh, there’s another Creighton book called pre which deals with the same thing with nanotechnology and taking over human bodies to make ’em perfect, but it sucks their soul, their life out of ’em essentially right.
Similar type of thing to the Jane Hawk novels.
[00:30:17] Alan: Yeah. And so thank you. What a wonderful segue. I really like Dean Koons in a way that. I was almost not wanting to like him because my first experience with him was kinda like monster books. There was a, maybe I’m trying to think. He had a couple early things that were translated into TV or movies that I thought were lightweight and unbelievable, but I stumbled onto a series of his called odd Thomas.
Oh. That that they’re really good. And in a way, He spins good phrases. I like people. It’s not only the plot and what they’re writing about, but the craft that they put into it. Yeah. But some of those, his sentences are so beautiful that Colleen and I have our last half hour in bed when we’re reading our books and I’ll be like, listen, this sentence, listen how perfectly crafted this is.
And so I really like that. And then once I fell into him with odd Thomas, I then started to investigate. I read his Frankenstein books. Now I’m reading the Jane Hawk books. I’m trying to think. And he has probably honestly, 40 or 50 other. Individuals. And sometimes there’s shared bits, but they’re not necessarily a series.
As I have the series reading type thing that I just like that usually better. Cuz I like to see things played out over time and have returned to familiar characters. They become friends or whatever, but I like his writing so much that now he’s one of the guys I’m inspired to say, let’s go all the way back to book one.
Even if I, if he was rougher, when he was at the start, I kind of wanna read everything that he’s done because I really like him as an author. I trust him, you
[00:31:51] Stephen: know, his older stuff. Very much is more on the horror vein and pretty much stays along those lines. He’s gotten into more thriller in these last couple decades.
It almost splits, keep that in mind and his horror stuff is hit or miss there’s some that I’m like, wow, that was really good. And there’s some that I’m like, okay, I’m done with this one. It just wraps, there’s a movie called Watchers or something where that’s a pretty good one.
Okay. Watchers actually is one of my top 10 books of all time. Cool. Did I name that one? Is that the one with the Oxfam, the composite creature,
or is that a different one? No, the Watchers has the the gold retriever.
[00:32:31] Alan: That’s intelligent that’s been uplifted. Yeah. So that he’s intelligent now.
Okay.
[00:32:36] Stephen: Yeah. And if you like odd Thomas, which I’ve read those books a couple times. Okay. I think the last three were little. I think he started it. And realized, oh, this could be a whole series. And as he got done with the first three, he’s what do I do for a whole series? And I, it started changing for me in book four.
I think the first three are the best. Yeah.
[00:32:58] Alan: They have a good combination of whimsy and action. And by, and as the threat grew and his awareness of what might have to happen in the world it got, they got not just darker, but like more doer they were still okay and fun, but not as whimsical as the first series.
[00:33:16] Stephen: I could be wrong, but I feel that after book three, That’s when he actually came up with, what do I need for the overarching plot for the last four? Cuz they almost don’t seem to fit for me. But if you love those books, get the audio books because the narrator nails odd Thomas’s tone and sound. And that’s how I discovered the books through audio books.
And I love the audio so much. I’ve listened to it a couple times and went and bought the books. So I highly recommend the audio. Some people audio’s subjective. Some people are like, oh, I, it doesn’t like, it doesn’t sound like my head. It throws me off, but I thought it was perfect. And if you’re looking for good books, look for the seize the night the main character in there has pro something.
If he, I forget the name of it, but he’s. Has no melatonin. So he is like an, almost an albino and he can’t go in the sun. Okay. And that’s a good story. And they actually have a crossover story between that one and odd Thomas at one point. So interesting. Okay. He sees the Knight’s a good one. Very good. It, I
[00:34:23] Alan: My kind of funny, whatever my obsessive nature is, I tend to not, if I’m gonna do it, I tend to like let’s, if I’m gonna read Joe Nebo who is a good Swedish or Norwegian, I think Norwegian.
I think Oslo, right? Yes. A thriller writer when I discovered him and it was like, oh, I got the third book. don’t wanna read the third book. I’m gonna read the first one. And then the second one, and then the third one. So I had to go on the hunt and the hunt is part of the joy of it for what I need to find it, but just that I’m probably gonna go and read like happily within the first few pages of the book.
They have other books by Dean Koons I think that they’re in chronological order. So I’m gonna make myself a spreadsheet and I’ll keep track of what, I’ll be able to find it in good condition. It matters to me that I have a. Not just a reading copy, but that I still have a good copy. But if the book’s 30 years old, will I really find something where it isn’t chewed on uses the door
[00:35:20] Stephen: stops?
A lot of his stuff has gotten reprinted, so you could probably find a reprint copy with a good cover and stuff. That’s probably true.
[00:35:28] Alan: Keep it in circulation.
[00:35:29] Stephen: Yeah. Now one of the other writers, I remember reading when I was young, John Saul, horror writer, big name and stuff. I went back and I read a few of his books, even one of ’em that I remember loving when I was a kid.
And I’m just like, eh he’s not grabbing me. I’ve read two or three books again as an older adult. And I’m like, eh, but what I heard was I was talking to somebody I’m not gonna name names this time, but somebody in the industry that has like had lunch with Saul and is a bigger name in that realm.
But he said, oh That’s probably because he does not like riding horror. He wanted to be a thriller writer, but because horror was big, his agent and publishing company made him do horror. And now he got known as horror. So that’s all they’ll print. They’re like, yeah, we’re not gonna print something.
That’s not a horror novel. What a sad trap to be in that. That’s not the love that
oh man. But I, but the thing is in today and he’s older now is that he might be like a screw. I’ve done this for 40 some years. I’m not changing now in today’s world, all he has to do is come up with a pen name and he could even, Michael Criton even made some books under a pen name, and now they publish ’em as Michael Criton writing ads, writing like Richard, John Lang think it is or something.
[00:36:43] Alan: Yeah. Honestly, I know that’s happened for people. Like you said, that want to work in a different field. JK Rowling did it from post Harry Potter or people are just so prolific that they can’t flood the market with. Five Steven books a year, so they have to put it out so that there’s more shelf space or something.
That’s
[00:37:04] Stephen: all my recommendations for deans books.
[00:37:07] Alan: That’s I’ll out there. Is it not do not Robert R O he does the repairman Jack books, you and I, why can’t I think of his name? It’ll come to me again. Come on to file clerks. I picked the first one up because I read a pull quote from Steven King that said one of my favorite series you haven’t heard of is repairman Jack.
It’s I think lot of Stephen King, I, and he’s also is a very good interconnected series about Kind of demons or at least other worldly presence coming into the world. And the organization that here that worships them and supports them and other people that are aligned to repairman Jack, being one of them to try to stop all of those incursions and their repairman Jack the fun of the character is he’s a guy who’s made a point of living off the grid because he takes on jobs for people that have been abused by either the system or especially a bad part of the system.
And he will help even the odds he’ll repair the problem. And while the overall tie of the books is fighting this big MENA, he’s also dealing with these other smaller cases that every one of those little comeuppance is very satisfying with. Here’s the dirty auto dealer that sold somebody a lemon and how do we get back at him or something like that.
So they really are. They’re a good read. And then he had a very good He saw Paul Wilson, Paul Wilson, Paul F. Wilson, Paul O. Wilson. Anyway he actually one of those cool things where for the last three books, he had something like, okay. Where coming up to, he has not only the repairman Jack books, but he also has the adversary cycle and a couple other series.
He did medical horror for a while. He did things about longstanding conflict between good and evil vampire and a noble guy. And he finds a way to tile all that together into the book night world. And so he says, I’m coming to the point in repairman, Jack, where it’s all going to come together and Collisions and cataclysms because of it.
So this isn’t three individual books think of this as what’s called a river novel, I’m just gonna cut it off at 300 pages, cuz that’s what they’ll publish. But it really is going to be like the next minute is the start of the second book. So I really liked that he was aware of what he was creating and said to his fans, strap yourself in we’re going on this wild ride that I’ve come up with.
I’m really proud of what I’ve done and. I think that he might, it’s interesting, you said earlier that he felt himself a little bit in the trap of a lot of other things. He had written nothing, I think had been as successful as repairman Jack. And yet he had a conclusion for the series, like somebody was gonna end and then what am I gonna do?
Then they turned out, they backed a dump truck of money up to his house. And he said, okay, I’ll write a couple prequels of him as a teenager. And I don’t really know that, but I suspect that some of the other things that he put in between or subsidiary characters or spinoffs or whatever it’s because somebody said.
Please don’t leave money on the table. If you can give us a couple books of young repair, man, Jack, we want to publish them. you know what I mean? That kinda thing.
[00:40:18] Stephen: So do you think the dump truck was full of hundred dollar bills or pennies? Cause you know, that makes a difference. It’s my,
[00:40:25] Alan: yeah. I always pictured as full of like hundreds so that even as you open the gate up, when they start flooding around, you would chase down each one of those hundreds, you might leave a couple pennies on the ground, but you’re gonna go after the
[00:40:35] Stephen: hundreds it kinda goes back to the old, what weighs more, a ton of hundreds or a ton of pennies.
[00:40:41] Alan: exactly. I think that’s a reference by the way to a Simpsons episode, doesn’t crusty the cloud say wow, how did, why did he sell out? And it’s I’m not made a stone.
[00:40:53] Stephen: right. Yeah. Yeah. So
[00:40:54] Alan: I took the kids to the happiest place in the world, Tiana.
Anyway, it’s good to attribute the. The phrases that I’ve adopted Simpsons is
[00:41:06] Stephen: a good source. Yeah. Simpsons has done so much exactly. They’re almost alternative history at this point.
[00:41:14] Alan: honestly, how many times has a, almost played out verbatim, right? From the parody that he created over the Simpsons?
Yeah, because we do have shameless politicians and shameless performers and whatever else it might be. And they don’t realize how absurd they sound when they’re saying something that somebody wrote to get ridiculous. Embarrassing.
[00:41:34] Stephen: Laughs. I watched a YouTube video that they took. Actual talk that Trump was doing at one point explaining something and they turned it into a drunk history episode.
it would be so
[00:41:48] Alan: easy. Exactly. Cause it wouldn’t be any trickery. There would just be putting together the right blur that he
[00:41:55] Stephen: said, and they weren’t even putting editing it or anything. They took it straight and it was just like, oh my God, that’s I’ll
[00:42:03] Alan: I’ll tell you to jump back a little bit. So here we are reading Jane Hawk.
And one of the things that I like about him is he doesn’t just deal with the protagonist, the antagonist kind of the the opposing forces. He gets into the head of all different kinds of characters and gives you what they’re doing from their perspective. And it’s very, a very good illustration of everybody’s the hero in their own story.
You could be a stone cold social path, but if what you think you’re doing is. Fighting for justice making the world a pure place. Doing what your daddy would’ve wanted you to do. Just what you do is psychotic. It’s crazy. Yeah. And its disturbing how well he writes those though. You know what I mean?
That it’s
[00:42:47] Stephen: Makes his wife sleeps in a locked room by herself. I’m sure
[00:42:50] Alan: exactly. He’s got that look at his eyes tonight. He went too deep, you know that.
[00:42:55] Stephen: Even saying that the motives, these guys are giving for what they’re doing, okay. On the surface on paper, you could say, okay, I can under, but it doesn’t really work that way.
It’s just, it’s so out there psychotic that they’re making it a better world by predicting. Who’s gonna make it a worse world. It’s just, wow. you can’t even wrap your head around how disturbing it can be to hear some of that. It’s
[00:43:23] Alan: There’s a, what’s interesting about the books is there’s conspiracy theories abound.
But it’s not only bad guy, conspiracies, there really are groups that are continually monitoring to make sure that when they see bad patterns arising, they don’t let it blow up. They like get over there and nip it in the bud. They, so to see the, and I guess there’s all kinds of spike thrills that were always about this when you read a John LA car book or a Ludlam or whoever the continually shifting awareness of each other, the alliances, the defections, the betrayals the generational saga of what’s going on for people that have been on opposite sides of that spy chasm for a long time.
And that they actually they’re very simpatico. They understand what each of them is going through, that they live in this wilderness of mirrors and that nobody understands. The whole world doesn’t understand you guys, but you understand each other and it creates this interesting bond, kinda like Batman joker, kinda where there’s a need for each other.
And so that’s a lot of what I get from the Coots books is that he really does have. Of course not all the way plausible, but good enough to be useful things about that. There really are all kinds of government agencies that sometimes cooperate and sometimes conflict, but they’re all doing their job hope and security versus the FBI versus the CIA versus name, the next six made up ones that he has.
And that it like happens in the real world. Those things aren’t perfect and pure. All you need is a fanatic getting in charge and all the resources of that organization now get turned twisted into not the original cause that this thing was meant to operate about. So I like that, that they’re at the heart of it.
They’re very human because they talk about people have motivations that I people are 17 layer cakes and most of the time we see like maybe the icing and maybe we’re aware of, does it have a soggy bottom or not to quote the great British baking show, but they’re very complex. And when he goes into what kinds of things like this, guy’s a stone cold killer, but won’t kill a child.
And that’s a trope within the assassin community, no women, no children, but then you find out that there’s very proficient women assassins. How would you deal with it if they sent one of those after you? He just, he does very interesting little morality plays and little what really motivates a person.
And then they surprise you that as, as much as they’re. Really evil. They like kittens or whatever else it might be. They appreciate the beauty of nature, even if they just splatter blood all
[00:46:02] Stephen: over it. You know what I mean? Along those lines, just the protagonist of the whole thing is so many sides.
She’s. A rogue FBI agent, but she’s rogue because of what happened to her husband. And she knows there’s a problem and she wants to prove it, but she doesn’t have the backing of the government. So they’re hunting her and she’s hunting the bad guys and they’re starting to hunt her now, too. And some of the stuff she does is a little outside the law.
So does that make her a bad guy? It’s that anti-hero aspect, but she’s also a woman protecting her child and trying to find out what ha so you’re right. You’ve got these mixed emotions, which I think is exactly what he wanted to do. It’d be totally different if it was just some FBI agent trying to hunt this down some guy or right.
[00:46:49] Alan: It’s funny I’m into it now and I’m wanting to. Finish it before I get on the plane. Cause I know instead of sleeping, I’m gonna read this book and maybe that’s okay. If I wanted to watch reading a great book, boy, the time just disappears. Yeah. I’m gonna be on a four hour flight from Vegas to Cleveland.
It’s oh, we’re landing. I love . I love a book. Good enough for that. So maybe I’ll save it. Maybe I’ll devour it. We’ll see what
[00:47:14] Stephen: happens. As long as you don’t get a seat, mate, that’s going so you fly often. Wow. Look at that weather. It’s oh, shut up. I don’t care. I don’t know you. I won’t talk to you in yeah.
Hold my book up between us. Can you see? Yeah,
[00:47:29] Alan: honestly, I haven’t had anybody attempt to accomplish. With me on a plane in a long time. And I’m not like Mr. Prickley pair I don’t look don’t talk to me. It just is, everybody’s gotten used to yeah. That little body bubble and they stay to themselves.
Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t initiate and they don’t seem to do it either only, occasionally I’m unpleasant it’s like they have to get up to go to the bathroom. Yes. I’m getting up. I’m not can’t you hold it Yes. Real quick little bit. So we always go back to some health issues and.
[00:48:00] Stephen: Tech and all that, we have our watches and stuff. So I’ve been upgrading a few things. So I got a new chair desk chair probably the it’s like a $280 desk chair for my computer because I pull a desk, a drawer out. And when you have arms, you’re always typing like this or you’re like this, and right. So these arms flip up out of the way, but I can pull ’em down when I need it to feel comfortable.
So I don’t feel like I’m gonna fall over. Good for you. It’s got an adjustable back adjustable seat up and down. I got a new thing for my feet, so it’s got me at that right. Angles.
[00:48:33] Alan: Exactly. Everything is perpendicular and
[00:48:35] Stephen: good for you. So for my lower back my lower back has been hurting and I guarantee it’s this old bed that I put back up that I still had that I had to use.
And I’m like, I can’t do this. I’m going to go another 10 years or something with this bed. Are you crazy? And I’m gonna be walking stooped over and not be able to stand up. So I went and got a bed and it’s a nice bed. A nice head, but the cool thing was, I. We talked about this too. I got the floor model.
So I got the mattress with the adjustable base. Some pillows and a mattress topper for just a little bit more than the whole mattress was if it was brand new and not the floor model. So very good. And the, and this is the cool part, the adjustable, and of course it’s all tech, it’s got whatever technology.
So if I’m laying there and the dog jumps on it, it’s not go bounce me around and wake me up. It has the foam that conforms to you and and the pillows have cooling technology. So you don’t sweat and get super hot. It. Base,
[00:49:36] Alan: there really are advancements in materials and stuff like that are worth doing that.
Like you said better beds better pillows. Very good.
[00:49:43] Stephen: It’s guaranteed for 10 years, but they say they normally last 20 to 25. Fantastic. If some move wrong over the next 10 years they fix it, they replace it, whatever. But the bed, the base is adjustable. You and I’m like, wow.
I wonder if I could tie. In test it, if my head’s up more, what’s my snoring the next day on my Fitbit. Okay. Now we’re getting into the data, let’s see what really works. If my legs are up or they’re bent, or if it’s whatever different, how’s my sleep compared know, let’s do a week of each difference and compare them and check and whatever.
So
[00:50:22] Alan: You’re not the only one doing that. And thinking of doing that, there’s a whole bunch of body hackers that’s what they do is they literally collect data on themselves all the time and they use that to tune I’m better in the morning than in the afternoon. I have less pain if I wear this kind of shirt instead of this.
And you, it’s funny. Some of the things they found out you’d. Why I wouldn’t even have thought to differentiate in that way, but it inspires me to monitor my sleep the big things and see, what am I eating? Obviously, that’s a big one, but also what am I doing and what am I doing it?
And you’re saying, let. The data guide you, you know what why wouldn’t you do something that’s gonna make you healthier. That’s gonna get you more
[00:51:00] Stephen: restful sleep. And there’s a couple things. A lot of people don’t think are as important as they really are. Sleep is huge.
That’s one of the biggest ones for your health. You know what you’re eating and moving exercise, not sitting all the time. That’s big but I was even talking to when I was buying the bed chiropractors. What sold me on chiropractors was I’ve always had issues with my sinuses and breathing and allergies and just, I used to get shots because I was so bad year round with allergies and can’t breathe and that’s strong
[00:51:36] Alan: histamine response or something,
[00:51:38] Stephen: whatever does, yeah.
That, yeah, I’m an overachiever because that’s why I can’t breathe because one little bit of pollen and my sinus that my allergies kick in and it just floods it as if it’s the worst thing ever. So I’m an overachiever in that regard. You me as autoimmune diseases really are like that, right?
[00:51:55] Alan: Yeah. That your body over response to intrusion and it can actually cause all those, all the inform to the opposite things you don’t want. And it can actually be like, wow, something about you. I think it’s an intruder. And then you. Really bad results. Anyway morning. Yeah.
Right when you’re perpetually in a combat your body never gets, okay, we’re all safe now.
[00:52:16] Stephen: it is either nothing or open the floodgate that’s all you get. The bed. I can raise my head so that should help the sleeping, but one of the other things, the drainage. Okay. Yeah.
One of the other things I’ve discovered in my life is chiropractors and I haven’t been able to go cause of we can talk healthcare too. yeah, but what sold me on it was I was talking to the. The Chi first chiropractor I ever went to and they say we can help with sleep. We can help with snoring.
Oh, okay. And we could help with allergies. I’m like, how the hell do you help with allergies? They’re like a lot of times the problem is things get caught. And it that’s what starts triggering it. So the nerves coming out of the base of your skull, if they’re compacted a little bit, it makes it think that your.
Allergies are acting up and that’s the sinuses. Yeah. They get swollen a little bit in reaction to that. Okay. He said, so if the nerve is UN pinched, it opens that up. And that’s one of the things I’m like, okay, whatever. So he did his adjustment. They don’t like to call it, cracking your back. It’s an adjustment.
Okay. And literally a, I felt my sinuses drain. I literally felt it drain in my, and I. I’m coming back here. If I would go two, three times a month, which gets super expensive, I probably would be able to breathe a whole lot better. So it is a goal of mine right now I’m getting a better bed.
So hopefully that’ll help
[00:53:43] Alan: yeah, I must admit I’ve been a big fan of massages for a long time, because I’m well aware of, I store tension from my writing, from my poor body posture, whatever else it might be and getting that relief in my neck, in my forearms I got mouthing muscles to get over strained.
It really does me good. I’ve always been a little bit spooked by chiropractory because of that, the adjustments are like making big popping noises and stuff, and I just so much don’t want to be, oh, that was inconvenient. I’m now paralyzed. I don’t think that really happens, but that in my mind is so scary.
Absolutely. That I, I must, I also have I don’t know that I want anything drastic or muscle
[00:54:25] Stephen: nerve stuff I’ve gotten over that just because I’ve gone to enough chiropractors over time. Okay. And I’ve also got, you had
[00:54:32] Alan: good results. Yes. Which is that would be a convincer for
[00:54:34] Stephen: me is yes. So I’ve also got scoliosis.
So on this side of my back, my muscles are pulled, stretched on this side. They’re bunched up and you can even see if you look at me next time. We’re standing there sometime watch my one shoulder is lower and the other is higher one or the other cause of that. But if I go to a chiropractor regularly and I stretch there’s, it’s not just a cure pill.
I still gotta stretch and do some exercise for strengthening. But when I do that, okay, you literally can see my shoulders balance out over a month or two. And then if I stop going, they drift again. And my one leg is a quarter inch shorter. And if I go to a chiropractor enough it balances that out.
And I don’t feel the stretch and pain on that either. So your
[00:55:20] Alan: feet is more
[00:55:21] Stephen: regular. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, definitely some they don’t have that on the Fitbit watch to monitor yet electrical signals through your skeletal frame to tell you what’s off. That would be cool. A little scary.
There’s our nanobots coming in again. Exactly. But yeah, so I’m getting this bed I think they’re delivering it Thursday. But yeah, so I’m getting it Thursday. I’ll sleep on it. Thursday night, then Friday, I’m going camping for the whole weekend. I’m gonna sleep on a stupid air mattress, so right.
That’s
[00:55:50] Alan: let’s get all perfect. And then go over here. We’re
[00:55:52] Stephen: gonna undo my cats are going enjoy the bed for the weekend
[00:55:58] Alan: co Colleen and I laugh about, we’re just not big campers. We must admit our idea of roughing. It is no remote control. You know what I mean? So when we like my, again, my image, unfortunately, is did I pitch my tent, like in an anthill, on a rock with the water flowing down when it starts to rain?
You know what I mean? I just I really like the out of doors, but I want to be done with it at the end of the day and go to a hotel room where I have a good bed and a good lock and a good shower. I’ve done 15 mile hikes, but I didn’t then. Unroll my, my, my sleeping bag. I got really restful sleep and that enabled me to do it the next
[00:56:38] Stephen: day.
To be fair. I have done big camping. I’ve done backpacking in the mountains, carried everything on my back. I have done that, but I’m over 50. I wanna go and relax and enjoy myself. So I’m staying with my cousin who has a camper, which is really just a mobile, small mobile hotel room a campground so it’s more for relaxing with family.
Camping.
[00:57:03] Alan: I’ll tell you a term that just appeared on my horizon. Like maybe two years ago was glamping. Yes. Glamor, camping, where it’s we’re around a camp flyer and I’m having CRI Suzette somehow. You know what I mean? And I got electricity and wifi and a TV. Yeah. That’s what my cousin does.
[00:57:19] Stephen: He’s I’m camping. I’m like Gary, you’re not camping.
[00:57:23] Alan: there’s not a lot of
[00:57:24] Stephen: roughing it going on. No, I’m like when you can get up and go have someone and get a hot coffee and have warm shower, that’s not camping, Gary. .
[00:57:35] Alan: Yeah. I’ll tell you that. We also often talk about this.
I love the material science that has let us come up with this sleeping bag is good to negative 20. If you just put yourself in it and have your little portion, I had
[00:57:46] Stephen: one of those you can survive negative 20 overnight. Wow. The fact that it’s all perfectly fluffy air trapped, and that you it’s something you can carry that you can roll it up. I just love that someone Patagonia, whoever else has come up with all these, when Colleen and I go to our ban mountain film festival each year to see all the adventure films, they have all the advertisements for the various different, these guys make the perfect backpack, the perfect bed, that kind of stuff.
[00:58:14] Alan: It’s yeah, but when do we go where it’s negative 20
[00:58:18] Stephen: you know what I mean? I have slept in a tent in a sleeping bag and it was negative 12. We had a small blizzard. Wow. So they call, we did a, got our in Scouts. We got our polar bear camping badge, and I had one of those where it was. Yeah. So the interesting thing was they were four man tens, but because we knew.
Blizzard was moving in and we were expected to get eight inches of snow and negative temperatures and stuff. We put five and six people into a tent just to help with the share all the body heat. Exactly. Yeah. Even though we’re all in our sleeping bags it was better. We woke up in the morning and all of our breath had frozen condensed on top of the thing.
And it was snowing inside the 10 on top of us. created
[00:59:00] Alan: your own personal weather. Yes.
[00:59:01] Stephen: Yeah. That’s very funny. So I’ve done that. I see. So that’s when I say, and I have started campfires in the rain with no like gas or kerosene and only two matches. I have done that. So I do, I can brag because it’s just the truth.
That’s just what I, yeah. Yeah. It ain’t bragging if you’ve done it, but I don’t choose to do it now. Alright. It’s getting late, man. Always
[00:59:29] Alan: good. Good book recommendation today. Yes. Wonderful. I’m looking forward to the next thing yep. Very
[00:59:35] Stephen: good. Have a very good fourth.
[00:59:37] Alan: Yes, we will.
I’m coming back in town and we have we’re gonna see some fireworks for the first time in a long time. When we’re home, I shouldn’t say in a long time, we love it. When we get to go to our lake and see a nice firework display and not be well, we’re on the top of a garage in a foreign city where we can just barely make things out.
It’s nice to have that little hometown feel and all the kids and dogie and everything running around. So right. Happy independence day America put the independence in that. How about that? bye. All right, man. Later. Take care. Bye bye.
