July 14, 2025 • 38 mins
We kicked off the program with four news stories and different guests on the stories we think you need to know about!
Shark and Ray Awareness Day - Their importance, and the type of research being done on them… Nick Whitney PhD - Senior Scientist and Chair of the New England Aquarium’s Fisheries Science and Emerging Technologies Program in the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life stopped by.
Advice on how to choose a good watermelon! Stephanie Barlow - Senior Director of Communications for the National Watermelon Promotion Board shared the delicious details.
Summer 2025 Olympic Memorabilia Auction. Items include a Paris 2024 gold medal and three historic Olympic medals from diving legend Greg Louganis alongside rare Olympic torches and medals spanning over 90 years of Games history! Bobby Eaton - Olympic Specialist at RR Auction checked in.
Staying “cyber-safe”. What are some of the cyber threats keeping CEOs and IT Directors up at night and how you can learn to stay safe from phishing scams and more. Danny Jenkins - ThreatLocker CEO & Co-Founder joined Dan.
Shark and Ray Awareness Day - Their importance, and the type of research being done on them… Nick Whitney PhD - Senior Scientist and Chair of the New England Aquarium’s Fisheries Science and Emerging Technologies Program in the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life stopped by.
Advice on how to choose a good watermelon! Stephanie Barlow - Senior Director of Communications for the National Watermelon Promotion Board shared the delicious details.
Summer 2025 Olympic Memorabilia Auction. Items include a Paris 2024 gold medal and three historic Olympic medals from diving legend Greg Louganis alongside rare Olympic torches and medals spanning over 90 years of Games history! Bobby Eaton - Olympic Specialist at RR Auction checked in.
Staying “cyber-safe”. What are some of the cyber threats keeping CEOs and IT Directors up at night and how you can learn to stay safe from phishing scams and more. Danny Jenkins - ThreatLocker CEO & Co-Founder joined Dan.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's nice eyes with Dan Ray. I'm telling Easy Boston's
news Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thank you very much, Madison. Yes, I am back tonight
after seven days, seven days that encompassed the fourth of
July and my birthday, I have returned. I'm sure many
of you are thrilled with that. I am too. Actually
I missed all of you. I really did. At the
same time, vacation is never a bad thing if you
(00:28):
had the opportunity to take it. Good evening, everybody, and
welcome back in on this particular mon Day. A friend
of mine has changed the word Monday to Monday because
Monday tends to be the toughest day of the week
and coming back from vacation it could be literally called
Mon Day again. My name is Dan Ray. I'm the
actual host of this program. I want to thank Morgan
(00:50):
Wyatt and Bradley Jay who sat in for me in
the last seven nights last week and Thursday and Friday
night of the week before. Gave me an opportunity to
spend some time away with our friends and family, which
is always great. But I am back and ready to
rock and roll tonight. Rob Brooks, I don't know when
Rob gets vacation. He says, there's always work and Rob
(01:12):
is back there tonight. He's all said, we will be
talking about some interesting subjects tonight. During the first hour.
We have four very interesting guests, and then we're going
to dive, do a deep dive into the continuing market
basket drama. I think all of you know that the
company decided last May, the end of May, to place
(01:32):
the CEO, Arthur T. De Mulis, on sort of a
sabbatical of sorts. I guess we're going to talk to
two of the long time employees and colleagues of Arthur Demulis.
Tom Gordon and Joe Smith will be with us, and
then we're going to go back and revisit the controversy
that is raging in Newton, and that is the No
(01:54):
Nantum neighborhood, which is traditionally an Italian neighborhood. They do
a big festa this week, the Feast of Saint Mary
of Carmen, and that begins on Wednesday night. But this year,
for the first time in a long time, there will
be no Italian flag painted on the street. We talked
(02:15):
about that on June thirtieth. We'll talk about it again tonight.
But first off, tonight. It's summertime and when the living
is easy, you always have to think about sharks. And
it is today Shark and Ray Awareness Day. That's our
a why so explain to explain all of this with us.
We're delighted to introduce something doctor Nick Whitney, who could
(02:37):
be either a doctor or a professor because he has
that PhD. Which do you prefer, doctor Nakeo? Do you
prefer them both?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (02:46):
You know what, I'm fine if you've got a sick shark,
but not good if you've got a sick person. So
you can just call me Nick.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
It's fine, fair enough, Nick, I appreciate it very much.
So what do you do today to celebrate Shark and
Ray Awareness Day? I'm sure there's somewhere there's a celebration
going on, but many people are concerned obviously about sharks.
And I assume when you talk about rays, you're talking
about none of my relatives. You're talking about rays that
are in the water that can sting.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
That's right, absolutely, And we're celebrating sharks, rays and skates
their other relative at New England Aquarium today with we've
had some of our scientists there doing some some talks
some of our aquarus giving talks of the Giant Ocean Tank.
We've had some virtual reality goggles in the aquarium today,
so guests have been able to come in and put
those goggles on and be in the field with us
(03:38):
virtually as we go out and we tag sharks in
different areas on our research projects. So we're having a
good time today with sharks and rays at the New
England Aquarium.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Well, I got to be honest with you, Nick, tagging
a shark is not my idea of a good time.
I'm sure that you know what you're try it well,
you know there's a few things that I haven't try.
But how dangerous is that? All honesty? You folks are
out there on the water, you have to I guess
get the shark. They'd get the shark into the boat.
(04:08):
Tell us about that process. For those of us who
are not as hip to this as I'm sure you've been,
you are and have been for a long time.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Sure, it's different depending on the species and the project,
and it can be dangerous, but it's usually not the sharks.
So I've lost a tooth and had a couple other
major injuries that had really very little to do with
the shark and just have to do with other people
working around me or slipping on wet boat decks, which
(04:37):
is always dangerous. But for most of our projects, we're
going out and we're fishing for sharks, sometimes with recreational
fishermen or commercial fishermen, and we're trying to catch them
on a baited hook and then we bring them up
alongside the boat. And once they're alongside the boat, we
usually will roll them over onto their backs. If you
roll a shark onto their back, they go into this
(04:58):
sleeplike state called tonic immobility.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, how can identify with that? Serious?
Speaker 4 (05:06):
So probably just like you. They calm right down and
we can perform measurements and tagging and take samples and
they they typically just lie there and behave and then
when we're done, we roll them back over and remove
the hook and turn them loose and they're on their way.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Wow, I got it. How'd you lose it too? I mean,
by the way, we have doctor sal So as an
implant dentist. Whatever our advertisers is coming on at eight fifteen,
you should be listen. Did you did you catch us?
You know astray elbow? As you guys were wrestling the shark.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
Well, so on one of our projects, my favorite project, actually,
we study these mating nurse sharks down Florida Keys and
the only area in the world where you can reliably
observe shark's mating on a predictable basis, and they're so
distracted by mating that we can sneak up on them
and catch them with these huge dip nets that have
ten foot poles. And my colleague and I where each
(06:01):
each had a shark that we had dipped in our
dip net, and I was running around behind him just
as he swung the handle of his net around and
it hit me right in the mouth and knocked out
a tooth. So that was that's a perfect example of
an injury that was not the shark's fault.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
So it was interesting. I read a little bit. I'm
fascinated by sharks. They are about five hundred species of
sharks in the world, and we have something called the
Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, and that is such
an important asset to the aquarium and also an asset
(06:38):
to the country. Explain to us how important the Aquarium's
Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life is. I mean it must,
it must be a fascinating place to work.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Yeah, it really is. We have around forty yrself full
time research scientists in the Anderson Cabot Center, and we
focus quite a bit on the North Atlantic right whale,
but then we also have people doing work on sea
turtles and a lot of fisheries work, and then of
course the sharks. Sharks, skates, and rays are another specialty
(07:12):
area that we focus on. We also do science in
the main building. We have some of our aquarus are
doing great work and research science side, But in the
Anderson Cabint Center we're out there in the ocean every
day that the weather allows, trying to get samples and
get animals tagged and do photo id on certain species.
So we're trying to save the blue planet, as we
(07:34):
like to say.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well, it's interesting. I don't know much about sharks though, obviously,
like everyone fascinated by them, and you hear all the
stories of shark sightings, and every once in a while
there's a shark that takes a bite out of some swimmer.
And obviously whenever you get out into nature, you run
the risk of being impacted by nature. But I read
(07:59):
a study about twenty years ago by a professor from
McGill University when we were all concerned about shark bites
and shark attacks, and he did a study and I
don't know if you could find it, but it was fascinating.
He said that more people died every year from coconuts
falling out of coconut trees on their head than people
(08:23):
died from shark attacks. Have you ever heard of the
accuser professor out of McGill, And it sounded to me
like he knew what he was talking about. He did
some really interesting research. You ever heard of that study?
Speaker 4 (08:33):
I have heard of that study, and I think that
was that was a particularly bad coconut year. I don't think.
I don't think every year necessarily the coconuts kill that
many people. But it's just a matter of the law
of averages, right. There's a lot more people that find
themselves lying under palm trees in danger of coconuts than
there are in danger of getting bitten by a shark
(08:56):
most of the time.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
You know. I think that was the point that he
was trying to make because there was a bit of
a hysteria. I know that that after Jaws, there was
a big hysteria about sharks, and he basically, you know,
sharks don't get great publicity. They got to get a
better pr agency. We see sharks down on the cape
having their way out on Montamoy Island with these with
(09:19):
the sea populations, you know, you do not want to
be a seal on Montamoy Island anytime in July and August.
And so they have to live too, And I think
we need to kind of I guess you'd probably agree
with me. You got to sort of understand it's part
of nature.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Absolutely, it's it's part of nature. And whenever you have
a large amount of shark food in one area, that
will tend to attract sharks, whether it's bait, fish working,
or seals or whatever the case may be. And so yeah,
if you find yourself out there in a place that boy,
you notice there's a lot of shark food around, it's
good good to pay atten into that and be a
(10:00):
little extra careful. I'll also Dan, I'll do you one
better than the coconuts. Vending machines apparently also kill more
people every year than than sharks.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Vending machines tipping over some knucklehead is trying to shake
the vending machine and get his bat Oh.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Exactly, Their candy bar gets stuck and they start rocking
the machine back and forth and it lands on them.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
So well, you man, you're a man who looks at
the world similarly to me, and I've been I've really
enjoyed chatting with you. I really do, I really have.
And again, people can celebrate Shark and Raise Awareness Day
today or any day of the year's Shark Week July
twentieth to the twenty six And of course a visit
to a New England aquarium is a great experience anytime
(10:45):
of year, whatever the age. Nick, thank you very much
for your time tonight.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Thanks so much. Always a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
All right, good night. When we get back, we're going
to talk about another summer related item, and that's watermelon
because we're going to speak with Stephanie Barlow, who is
a member of the National Watermelon Promotion Board. I was
not even aware there was such a thing as the
National Watermelon Promotion Board until I read the rundown tonight,
(11:19):
but I guess this proves for every purpose there's a board.
We'll be back with Stephanie Barlow. By the way, you
want to check out the new and improved iHeart app.
Just go to your app store and pull it down
for your tablet, for your laptop, for your desktop, whatever
device you have, and make WBZ your first choice, your
(11:44):
first preset, and therefore we will always be together, only
separated by a fingertip, no matter where you are in
the world. It is a great app. I use it.
There's also a way in which on that app when
you pull it down, and even I could figure this out,
there's a reat. There's a white microphone inside of a
red circle, and you press on that and you can
(12:05):
send us a message for thirty seconds. Keep it clean,
and we will play it on the air in all probability.
My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside. Will be right
back talking about watermelon.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
It's Nightside with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
I learned something every day, and today I learned that
there is a National Watermelon Promotion Board and with us
is the senior director of Communications for the National Watermelon
Promotion Board, Stephanie Barlow. Stephanie, welcome to Nightside. How are you?
Speaker 5 (12:38):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm doing great.
How are you?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I'm great now. I know that when you were going
through college. You were not thinking that you're going to
serve on the National Watermelon Promotion Board. But we're a
watermelons produced in this country? Is it everywhere? Is there
a region of the country that sends us this beautiful
summer delight?
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Well, in fact, in the summertime, really watermelon can grow anywhere.
It only takes three months to grow. You just need sunshine,
you need bees, and you need water. But commercially, what
we're getting at the grocery stores comes a lot from
the southeast Florida, Georgia, also Texas, California, and then they
ship up north in those verticals, but you know, nearer
(13:21):
to the Boston area there, the Maryland, Delaware area is
going to be coming into peak season for commercial watermelon
production in just a couple of weeks time, early August.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
So I just like other fruits and vegetables, they start
earlier down south, and they peak earlier down south, and
they eventually work their way up here. We have crops
up here, blueberries up in Maine. I'm sure there are
other places they produce blueberries. So how long a watermelon
has been around? I mean, are they are they a
(13:58):
product that is is endemic to North America or is
this a product that's grown around the world.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
Oh, it's definitely grown around the world as far as
we know. Food historians have said that watermelon originated way
back in ancient Egypt in the Saharan Desert area, over
five thousand years ago, so it's quite the history. It
is in fact grown around the world, in ninety six
countries worldwide. America, I believe it's the number four producer
(14:29):
and consumption of watermelon. China's number one. But watermelon, it's
so big, it's so heavy, it's very perishable. It's best
ones fresh. Once you cut it from the vine, you
have to really have it consume it within thirty days,
so you're never getting watermelon that's from too far away.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Wow. Now you have some tips. When you go to
the store, most of us up here, there'll be a
big bin, generally a wooden bin, and there'll be watermelons
in there. So the best site, how do you pick
out the best watermelon?
Speaker 5 (15:00):
There are a lot of tips and trips out there
on the internet, but we here at the Watermelon Board.
We've been around since nineteen ninety. Funded by all the
watermelon farmers. We promote what we call the looklift urn method,
which means three things. You look at it. You want
to look for a nice looking watermelon, no gashes, no cuts,
(15:22):
certainly no leaks or anything like that. You want to
lift it up. It's ninety two percent water, so it
should be very heavy for its size, no matter if
it's a miniature or a full sized big watermelon. And
most importantly, you want to turn it over. Turning it
over looking for a buttery yellow ground spot. That is
the spot where the watermelon sat on the ground while
it ripened on the vine. So the looklift urn is universally,
(15:44):
universally the best way to try to pick out the
best watermelon from that bin of all the watermelons. There
are lots of other methods out there. Certainly farmers will
tell you about stripe patterns or stems and things like that.
They might be more dependent on variety, which we don't
see at the grocery store. When we are selecting our
(16:08):
shopping for watermelons. We see seedless, maybe we see seeded
the old oblong ones, but we really don't see those
different varieties. There's even varieties that don't have any stripes,
so we.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Really you just said, imagine your words seedless. Are the
seedless watermelons?
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Yes, seedless as in the best they describe the seedless watermelon.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
It's like the mule.
Speaker 5 (16:31):
So the mule is the sterile offspring of a horse
and a donkey. I don't know if you knew that
or not, but this is a very like elementary genetics question,
cross breathing lesson. So the seedless watermelon was crossbread from
two different sets of parents of seeded parents for those
different traits and properties, just like the offspring of parents.
(16:51):
It's not themo But truly, there is no such thing
as a purely seedless watermelon. You're going to have those
little white empty seeds. So there were a seed and
not fully mature, and there might be a couple of
black seeds arrently still in there, but those will not
sprout watermelons because they're sterile. So steedless watermelons have been
(17:13):
around for about seventy years now, and it really changed
the game as far as how we're enjoying it at home.
You know, easy to cut, less waste, lots of fun
recipes to use, but don't come down to getting that
watermelon in your grocery cart in the first place. And
you want to pick out the best one with that
look left turned.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, I remember it. I was about ten. We were
eating watermelon one day and one of the kids who
was eating watermelon that night had an appindct to me,
an emergency appen deck to me. So for a long
time I always related eating watermelon. I assumed he must
have swallowed a seed mark. I was not a medical
student either at that time or even now, but I
had this sort of mental block where I wasn't too
hip to watermelon. Slowly but terrifying it was. Yeah, I
(17:53):
mean I was traumatized. Poor Steedeacocks had an appendectomy from
eating a watermelon, and you know my close friends are Yeah.
Obviously it was not you know, causally related, it was coincidental,
but it did have an impact on me. That's why
I asked your watermelonfil I have saved that life experience
(18:18):
just for this interview. I want you to know.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
So glad you shared it, even though it's scary. But
you know, there's also the old wives tale about swallowing
the watermelon seed, you know, like you see some pregnant
ladies with the funny t shirts like I swallowed the
watermelon seed to the belly.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I think we were told that, you know, he must
have eaten a watermelon seed. But but so watermelons, when
does the year end? If you want to get watermelon?
Obviously we're in the peak time right now. How how
how long will they last?
Speaker 5 (18:51):
Well, the US domestic okay, watermelon market is going to
go all the way through September because even and then
down here in Florida where our office is, we actually
get a second fall crop because it's such a warm
fall that will still ship up north. You know, the
peak months for the US watermelon are really starting in
(19:12):
April ending September for the supply. But then we actually
have been having a lot of support from imported watermelon,
so that there is watermelon year round in grocery stores.
So come falling into winter, you might see more of
the fresh cuts or those mini watermelon sizes are like
a big grapefruit or cantalope sized. Those are a little
bit more efficient for those wintertime months.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Stephanie enjoyed the conversation, learned a lot about watermelons, and
have finally assuaged all of my apprehensions.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
About eating watermelon and swallowing.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Stephanie, you folks want to get more information. You must
have a website watermelon dot org. Oh how about that
watermelon dot org. What a great website. I'm going to
check that out tomorrow. Thank you very much. Stephanie enjoyed
the conversation. I really did. Thank you.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
When we get back right after the news at the
bottom of the hour, you were going to learn how
you could own an actual piece of Olympic memorabilia. This
is on the level, this is this is the real deal.
Going to be talking with Bobby Eaton. He's the Olympic
specialists that are our auction. We'll be back on Night
Side and think about this one. This is going to
(20:23):
be an interesting all the interviews tonight, but this to
me is the one that is the most fascinating. Olympic
Memorabilia auction coming up on the other side of.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
The news with Dan Ray I'm w Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Well, this is going to be a very interesting interview
with us as Bobby Eaton, he's an Olympic specialist at
are our auction. Bobby Eaton, welcome to Nightside.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
How are you good to good to finally talk to
you Dan.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
I'm excited you folks are in New England Institution. It
seems you're based up a little north of us.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Right, I would I would think.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
So.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
My dad started the company about fifty years ago, so
we've been in that, We've been in the New England
area our whole life.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Wow. Now you have a big auction coming up. This
is called Olympic Memorabilia Auction. There are I want to say,
hundreds of items that are related to the Olympics. Is
that an understatement?
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, three hundred and fifty plus items, including over sixty
seven winners medals.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
So here's the question. Yeah, and we're going to get
to the specifics. But how the heck do you get
access these are These are the original, legitimate, These are
not fake. These are real deal items, medals that were
awarded to people or won by individuals at Olympics. How
does all of this stuff come into your custod so
(21:50):
you can run the auction?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Dan, That's a good question. So a lot of the
items come from collectors that have acquired them over you know,
the last fifty sixty years, usually coming from individuals families
who have either passed away or you know, they might
have run into you know, some money trouble or something
(22:14):
like that. But usually the case is is that they're
either coming from families and directly from athletes that you
know that they want to pass it on.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So let's let's talk about some of the specifics because
I know that there are a lot of people in
my audience who are really into sports. And certainly no
no sport is you know every four years will you
get winter off? There are the off years now, But
for example, you have a twenty twenty four gold medal,
do you disclose who won that gold medal?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
So in this case, and and this is something that
happens very commonly, is that the athletes, they do want
to sell their medal, but it's it's it's okay for
them to not state who they are. Sure they don't
want anybody looking down upon them, and they've achieved such
success that it's okay. And I and in this case,
(23:11):
this is a track and field medal, but I'm not
going to disclose the actual athlete until after the winning
bitter purchases the item.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Okay, So so at least the winning bidder will come
to find out whose medal they now own.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Correct?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Correct?
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Okay, some of the medals and there there are some
certificates and some diplomas. I saw one from Johnny Wisemal. Great. Yeah,
for the early nineteen twenties. I do my homework on
this stuff. I want you to know. Fantastic, yea, So
give us give us some of the other highlights. You
also have Olympic torches. Everyone knows that the Olympic torch
(23:53):
generally is extinguished and then it's it's relt I think
every time in Athens, and it traverses the world and
they time it so that it reaches the side of
the next Olympiad the day that on the night that
the Olympiad starts. Tell us about these torches, which were
actually in some cases either used to light or were
(24:18):
handcarried by athletes from various countries. You know, I believe
it starts in Athens every year and it ends up
wherever it is in the world. If I'm wrong on that,
feel free to correct.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Nope, Nope, nope, You're totally correct. So the interesting thing
is is when I got into Olympics, I had no idea.
I always thought there was one torch, right, and they
passed it along. But after being in the business for
so long, the first thing I realized was that some
games had as low as twenty torches. And there's actually
(24:49):
a game nineteen nineteen sixty four Inchsbrook that had one torch.
So the rarity of torches is thing because the Winter
Games they didn't they didn't always make a lot of torches,
but something like Atlanta they probably made ten to fifteen
thousand torches.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Wow wow. And do the bidders for the torches, did
they have to figure out how rare a commodity they're
bidding on or do you make that pretty clear?
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Good question? Yeah, So torches are dictated price wise by rarity, right,
So if there were twenty torches versus fifteen thousand torches,
the price is going to be a lot higher. The
one that sticks out to me in this auction is
we have a Grenoble torch and they made twenty six torches,
(25:45):
so that one Winter corre something like that. You got it,
You got it. So that one is estimated at about
one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Wow wow. And the less expensive torches give us maybe
your audience. Not every one in my audience is going
to be able to spend one hundred and fifty or
one hundred or two. I hate they'll tell you that,
but someone might be looking for Give us, maybe what
one of the less expensive expensive torches from an olympiad
(26:19):
where there were many more torches produced and utilized. Give
us a dan.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
The one thing that I love about Olympic collecting is
things can start. You know, a participation medal can be
one hundred dollars right all the way up to a
couple thousand. But torches, which which are my favorite and
what I collect? You know, the average torch is anywhere
from one thousand to twenty five hundred, so most of
(26:47):
them are in a reasonable range to acquire.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
And this is how long did it take you to assemble? Again?
You have? You said three hundred items? It looked to
me like five hundred, seven hundred, So when I said hundreds,
I made a guess, but I was thinking more in
the seven or eight hundred range. There's a lot of items.
How long did it take you to assemble this presentation?
Speaker 1 (27:14):
So with our auction, we do two sales a year,
so I have six months to acquire another you know,
three hundred to five hundred pieces, so not a long time.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
So but what I'm saying is do you do an
Olympic auction every year or every few years or how
does that work? Oh?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Two a year, two years, yes, so you have every year?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Absolutely, So a lot of the a lot of the items,
you know, they could come from a like in this one,
I had a collector, good friend of mine, who wanted
to sell his collection. So you have that. People collect
for twenty thirty years and they're getting to the age
where you know, they wanted to move on to another collector,
(28:06):
so then they'll sell. You know, they might have ten winners,
medals and five torches, so it stacks up pretty quickly
that I can put together another sale.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Wow. And all of these I assume come with some
letter of authenticity or some similar document.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
For sure, every item that we sell comes with an
R or auction certificate. But we also use outside I
use three to four outside experts one guy that's just
as torches. So there's experts in each field of each
category of the Olympic collecting world, which is great and
(28:44):
it brings the community together because I use a lot
of collectors to help authenticate stuff. And the great thing
is a good amount of them come from athletes, so
it's being authenticated from the athlete themselves, just like the
Greg Lugainis medals that we have in this.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Upcoming the US diver. So his collection and medals are
up are an available, I assume an incorrect or are
you selling them as a group.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
We're selling them an individual form. So we're selling three
out of the five that he was awarded, but some
of his most important ones. I think we have his
his nineteen seventy six which was the first one silver
that he won for platform ten meter platform. Then we
(29:35):
have his nineteen eighty four gold for springboard, and then
his eighty eight goal for platform.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Again an amazing, an amazing diver, and amazing that he
could maintain being at the top of that sport for
those many Olympics, that's for sure. So the big question,
Bob is how can folks get involved in this auction
if they are so inclined.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Sure, it's just www dot orr auction dot com and
the auction is going to end Thursday night. So you
just go online, you registered to bid, and you get
approved immediately and then you can place your bids and
if you have any questions they can they can contact
me at Bobby at our auction dot com and I
(30:20):
can go over all the collecting nuances and get them
excited in buying some Olympic material.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
So this auction ends this Thursday night, which is seventy
two hours from now.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Correct correct?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Okay, how long has the auction been ongoing?
Speaker 1 (30:38):
We put them up thirty days prior to the auction close.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Wow, So okay, best of uck. I really enjoyed this conversation, Bob.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
And anytime. I really appreciate it. Big fan of yours.
And hopefully we can chat soon.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Anything that's related to sports or politics in terms of auctions,
let us know, because I think it's amazing this type
of memory. It was with a friend of mine last
night who showed me a grandfather's clock that he had purchased,
a beautiful piece of furniture, beautiful clock. I mean it
stood over six seven feet tall mahogany. And I looked
(31:17):
at him, I said, what the heck did that cost you?
And this was from like the eighteenth century or the
seventeen early seventeen hundreds. He said it cost him like
twenty five hundred dollars. It's amazing the items that are
available that people with they don't you don't have to
be multi millionaire to participate in an auction, and I
(31:37):
would highly recommend our option. Bob Eaton, thank you so much.
This has been fun.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Thanks thanks be to them.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Talk soon. Absolutely, we get back and we talk about
staying cyber safe. Well, explain what it means. A lot
of cyber threats keep CEOs and IT directors up at night.
Believe me, we're going to talk with Danny Jenkins. He's
the CEO and co founder of threat Locker. This isn't
important stuff. We'll be back on Nightside right after this
quick break.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
You're on Nightside with Dan Ray. I'm delling YOUBSY Boston's News.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Radio, delighted to be joined by Danny Jenkins. Hees the
CEO and co founder of threat block are going to
talk about staying cyber safe. Those are terms Dan that
perhaps everyone in my audience is not familiar with. So
let's talk about cyber threats. That's an umbrella term, I
believe tell us the extent of things that people need
(32:32):
to be concerned about these days. How are you, good
evening and welcome to Nightside.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Good evening, and thank you for inviting me this evening.
So it really is quite expansive when we think about
how our lives have changed over the last twenty years.
We've gone from barely using computers to everything involving computers.
Our taxes, our jobs are email communications, our banking is
all online. And alongside that is cyber crime equally trying
(33:00):
to get it. And this could be something as somebody's
trying to fish and steal your credit card number, your
social security number, steal your identity, right through to ransomware
attacks that are affecting businesses and shutting down hospitals.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yeah, well, when you talk about ransomware, most of those
are coming, as I understand that, from overseas and particularly
places like Eastern Europe and Russia. Am I wrong on that?
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Or so most of the attacked end or are executed
in the final stages in countries that have non extradition
treaties with the US and are less likely to prosecutor
in Russia being a huge part of that. But in
addition to that, a lot of it starts with someone
(33:44):
in the US. It starts with someone in Australia or
Canada or all over the world. Because what's actually happening
is someone will gain access to your system and then
they'll sell that access to someone who's actually going to
execute the attack. So there'll be organized gangs essentially that
will organize payments, they'll have quotas, they'll try and get
on systems, they'll figure out how much money, they'll look
(34:06):
at your insurance, how much you have in your bank
that tends to be executed. Mostly Russia's the biggest single sauce.
But in between that, that access is actually got by
local people.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
The FBI are.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Prosecuting thousands of Americans every year for actually giving that
initial access to the attackers.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
So let me ask you this, are any of these
hackers you know, particularly dealing with ransomware? Can you trust them?
Meaning if they ask some company or some hospital or
some city department, we want X, and we'll never come
(34:46):
back and bother you again. As corrupt as that is,
are there some whoever reputation of actually doing it once
and not coming back or can you not trust them
in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
So I think there's some stats on this that in
something like ninety four percent of cases, when you pay
the ransom, you get your data back. It's hard to
know if they do anything else and you're furious with
it it's hard to know if they sell it, and
we kind of have the staying where if you get
ransomwhere you get seven years bad luck. And that is
because the bad guys have essentially just taken your customers details,
(35:23):
your contracts, your invoices. Now they may not directly attack you,
and I think in ninety four percent of cases when
the ransom was paid, the data was restored back to
its original state, but they may go after your customers
and your partners and the people you do business with
because now they've gotten in. And quite often the hardest
part of getting into a business is finding an angle
(35:44):
where somebody will trust you. So if you know I'm
going to get an invoice from ABC Plumbing every every month,
and then suddenly you receive an invoice from something that
looks like ABC Plumbing, you're more likely to trust it,
and that could give the attack it in access to
your business, and that one of the things that they'll use,
even though they may not directly dump the data on
the web. And I don't like paying anyway. The problem
(36:07):
is when you're paying, you're essentially funding organized crime. So
if you don't have to pay, you should do everything
in your power to avoid getting hacked in the first place.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
So if you avoid the problem, that's great. It's like
if you don't have a toothache, you don't have to
go to the dentist. I guess theoretically, however, once you
got that tooth that toothache, you gotta go to the dentist.
Once you're hacked, as a company, as a public agency,
as a school, is there any way to stand up
(36:37):
and say, you know, no way we're paying or are
they just gonna run rough shot over you. You really are
in a between a rock and a hard place, and I.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Think it depends on how much resiliency you have. Do
you have good backups in place? What data? What is
your relationship with your clients? When the NHS in the
United Kingdom has been hit multiple times over, they never
pay the But also they're the only healthcare chain in
the UK, so what is it Their customers aren't going
to go back to them, It's not an option. So
it depends on how strong you are as a company,
(37:10):
what types of services you provide. Is the reputation damage
going to be too big for you? And also can
you get your data back? If you're an insurance company
and all of your data and backups are gone. We
saw clone your pipeline MGM. Those guys are almost left
back into a corner, so they have no choice but
to pay, and then it often costs, even after the
(37:31):
insurance payoffs, millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in recovery.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Well, look, this is fascinating. In terms of individuals who
have computers. The bottom line is, if you don't recognize
the person who has sent you the email, don't open
the email because if they really do know you, they'll
have your phone number, they'll call you. Just stop opening
(37:56):
any email that you do not recognize. I think that's
the rule of thy right.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yeah, clicking on a link and putting your credentials in
might do. But if you don't recognize it or it
seems out of place, because quite often these emails, if
somebody gets hacked, they'll use their email account to email
all of their friends. So if it seems that place,
if someone's asking you to wire amount of money, send
your driving license, even if it's your best friend, to say,
(38:22):
why would they do that, let me pick up the
phone and call them.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
You bet you, you bet you. Danny Jenkins, this was
great I'd love to have you back.
It's nice eyes with Dan Ray. I'm telling Easy Boston's
news Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thank you very much, Madison. Yes, I am back tonight
after seven days, seven days that encompassed the fourth of
July and my birthday, I have returned. I'm sure many
of you are thrilled with that. I am too. Actually
I missed all of you. I really did. At the
same time, vacation is never a bad thing if you
(00:28):
had the opportunity to take it. Good evening, everybody, and
welcome back in on this particular mon Day. A friend
of mine has changed the word Monday to Monday because
Monday tends to be the toughest day of the week
and coming back from vacation it could be literally called
Mon Day again. My name is Dan Ray. I'm the
actual host of this program. I want to thank Morgan
(00:50):
Wyatt and Bradley Jay who sat in for me in
the last seven nights last week and Thursday and Friday
night of the week before. Gave me an opportunity to
spend some time away with our friends and family, which
is always great. But I am back and ready to
rock and roll tonight. Rob Brooks, I don't know when
Rob gets vacation. He says, there's always work and Rob
(01:12):
is back there tonight. He's all said, we will be
talking about some interesting subjects tonight. During the first hour.
We have four very interesting guests, and then we're going
to dive, do a deep dive into the continuing market
basket drama. I think all of you know that the
company decided last May, the end of May, to place
(01:32):
the CEO, Arthur T. De Mulis, on sort of a
sabbatical of sorts. I guess we're going to talk to
two of the long time employees and colleagues of Arthur Demulis.
Tom Gordon and Joe Smith will be with us, and
then we're going to go back and revisit the controversy
that is raging in Newton, and that is the No
(01:54):
Nantum neighborhood, which is traditionally an Italian neighborhood. They do
a big festa this week, the Feast of Saint Mary
of Carmen, and that begins on Wednesday night. But this year,
for the first time in a long time, there will
be no Italian flag painted on the street. We talked
(02:15):
about that on June thirtieth. We'll talk about it again tonight.
But first off, tonight. It's summertime and when the living
is easy, you always have to think about sharks. And
it is today Shark and Ray Awareness Day. That's our
a why so explain to explain all of this with us.
We're delighted to introduce something doctor Nick Whitney, who could
(02:37):
be either a doctor or a professor because he has
that PhD. Which do you prefer, doctor Nakeo? Do you
prefer them both?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (02:46):
You know what, I'm fine if you've got a sick shark,
but not good if you've got a sick person. So
you can just call me Nick.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
It's fine, fair enough, Nick, I appreciate it very much.
So what do you do today to celebrate Shark and
Ray Awareness Day? I'm sure there's somewhere there's a celebration
going on, but many people are concerned obviously about sharks.
And I assume when you talk about rays, you're talking
about none of my relatives. You're talking about rays that
are in the water that can sting.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
That's right, absolutely, And we're celebrating sharks, rays and skates
their other relative at New England Aquarium today with we've
had some of our scientists there doing some some talks
some of our aquarus giving talks of the Giant Ocean Tank.
We've had some virtual reality goggles in the aquarium today,
so guests have been able to come in and put
those goggles on and be in the field with us
(03:38):
virtually as we go out and we tag sharks in
different areas on our research projects. So we're having a
good time today with sharks and rays at the New
England Aquarium.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Well, I got to be honest with you, Nick, tagging
a shark is not my idea of a good time.
I'm sure that you know what you're try it well,
you know there's a few things that I haven't try.
But how dangerous is that? All honesty? You folks are
out there on the water, you have to I guess
get the shark. They'd get the shark into the boat.
(04:08):
Tell us about that process. For those of us who
are not as hip to this as I'm sure you've been,
you are and have been for a long time.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
Sure, it's different depending on the species and the project,
and it can be dangerous, but it's usually not the sharks.
So I've lost a tooth and had a couple other
major injuries that had really very little to do with
the shark and just have to do with other people
working around me or slipping on wet boat decks, which
(04:37):
is always dangerous. But for most of our projects, we're
going out and we're fishing for sharks, sometimes with recreational
fishermen or commercial fishermen, and we're trying to catch them
on a baited hook and then we bring them up
alongside the boat. And once they're alongside the boat, we
usually will roll them over onto their backs. If you
roll a shark onto their back, they go into this
(04:58):
sleeplike state called tonic immobility.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, how can identify with that? Serious?
Speaker 4 (05:06):
So probably just like you. They calm right down and
we can perform measurements and tagging and take samples and
they they typically just lie there and behave and then
when we're done, we roll them back over and remove
the hook and turn them loose and they're on their way.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Wow, I got it. How'd you lose it too? I mean,
by the way, we have doctor sal So as an
implant dentist. Whatever our advertisers is coming on at eight fifteen,
you should be listen. Did you did you catch us?
You know astray elbow? As you guys were wrestling the shark.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
Well, so on one of our projects, my favorite project, actually,
we study these mating nurse sharks down Florida Keys and
the only area in the world where you can reliably
observe shark's mating on a predictable basis, and they're so
distracted by mating that we can sneak up on them
and catch them with these huge dip nets that have
ten foot poles. And my colleague and I where each
(06:01):
each had a shark that we had dipped in our
dip net, and I was running around behind him just
as he swung the handle of his net around and
it hit me right in the mouth and knocked out
a tooth. So that was that's a perfect example of
an injury that was not the shark's fault.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
So it was interesting. I read a little bit. I'm
fascinated by sharks. They are about five hundred species of
sharks in the world, and we have something called the
Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, and that is such
an important asset to the aquarium and also an asset
(06:38):
to the country. Explain to us how important the Aquarium's
Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life is. I mean it must,
it must be a fascinating place to work.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Yeah, it really is. We have around forty yrself full
time research scientists in the Anderson Cabot Center, and we
focus quite a bit on the North Atlantic right whale,
but then we also have people doing work on sea
turtles and a lot of fisheries work, and then of
course the sharks. Sharks, skates, and rays are another specialty
(07:12):
area that we focus on. We also do science in
the main building. We have some of our aquarus are
doing great work and research science side, But in the
Anderson Cabint Center we're out there in the ocean every
day that the weather allows, trying to get samples and
get animals tagged and do photo id on certain species.
So we're trying to save the blue planet, as we
(07:34):
like to say.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well, it's interesting. I don't know much about sharks though, obviously,
like everyone fascinated by them, and you hear all the
stories of shark sightings, and every once in a while
there's a shark that takes a bite out of some swimmer.
And obviously whenever you get out into nature, you run
the risk of being impacted by nature. But I read
(07:59):
a study about twenty years ago by a professor from
McGill University when we were all concerned about shark bites
and shark attacks, and he did a study and I
don't know if you could find it, but it was fascinating.
He said that more people died every year from coconuts
falling out of coconut trees on their head than people
(08:23):
died from shark attacks. Have you ever heard of the
accuser professor out of McGill, And it sounded to me
like he knew what he was talking about. He did
some really interesting research. You ever heard of that study?
Speaker 4 (08:33):
I have heard of that study, and I think that
was that was a particularly bad coconut year. I don't think.
I don't think every year necessarily the coconuts kill that
many people. But it's just a matter of the law
of averages, right. There's a lot more people that find
themselves lying under palm trees in danger of coconuts than
there are in danger of getting bitten by a shark
(08:56):
most of the time.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
You know. I think that was the point that he
was trying to make because there was a bit of
a hysteria. I know that that after Jaws, there was
a big hysteria about sharks, and he basically, you know,
sharks don't get great publicity. They got to get a
better pr agency. We see sharks down on the cape
having their way out on Montamoy Island with these with
(09:19):
the sea populations, you know, you do not want to
be a seal on Montamoy Island anytime in July and August.
And so they have to live too, And I think
we need to kind of I guess you'd probably agree
with me. You got to sort of understand it's part
of nature.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Absolutely, it's it's part of nature. And whenever you have
a large amount of shark food in one area, that
will tend to attract sharks, whether it's bait, fish working,
or seals or whatever the case may be. And so yeah,
if you find yourself out there in a place that boy,
you notice there's a lot of shark food around, it's
good good to pay atten into that and be a
(10:00):
little extra careful. I'll also Dan, I'll do you one
better than the coconuts. Vending machines apparently also kill more
people every year than than sharks.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Vending machines tipping over some knucklehead is trying to shake
the vending machine and get his bat Oh.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Exactly, Their candy bar gets stuck and they start rocking
the machine back and forth and it lands on them.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
So well, you man, you're a man who looks at
the world similarly to me, and I've been I've really
enjoyed chatting with you. I really do, I really have.
And again, people can celebrate Shark and Raise Awareness Day
today or any day of the year's Shark Week July
twentieth to the twenty six And of course a visit
to a New England aquarium is a great experience anytime
(10:45):
of year, whatever the age. Nick, thank you very much
for your time tonight.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Thanks so much. Always a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
All right, good night. When we get back, we're going
to talk about another summer related item, and that's watermelon
because we're going to speak with Stephanie Barlow, who is
a member of the National Watermelon Promotion Board. I was
not even aware there was such a thing as the
National Watermelon Promotion Board until I read the rundown tonight,
(11:19):
but I guess this proves for every purpose there's a board.
We'll be back with Stephanie Barlow. By the way, you
want to check out the new and improved iHeart app.
Just go to your app store and pull it down
for your tablet, for your laptop, for your desktop, whatever
device you have, and make WBZ your first choice, your
(11:44):
first preset, and therefore we will always be together, only
separated by a fingertip, no matter where you are in
the world. It is a great app. I use it.
There's also a way in which on that app when
you pull it down, and even I could figure this out,
there's a reat. There's a white microphone inside of a
red circle, and you press on that and you can
(12:05):
send us a message for thirty seconds. Keep it clean,
and we will play it on the air in all probability.
My name's Dan Ray. This is Nightside. Will be right
back talking about watermelon.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
It's Nightside with Dan Ray on Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
I learned something every day, and today I learned that
there is a National Watermelon Promotion Board and with us
is the senior director of Communications for the National Watermelon
Promotion Board, Stephanie Barlow. Stephanie, welcome to Nightside. How are you?
Speaker 5 (12:38):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm doing great.
How are you?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
I'm great now. I know that when you were going
through college. You were not thinking that you're going to
serve on the National Watermelon Promotion Board. But we're a
watermelons produced in this country? Is it everywhere? Is there
a region of the country that sends us this beautiful
summer delight?
Speaker 5 (12:58):
Well, in fact, in the summertime, really watermelon can grow anywhere.
It only takes three months to grow. You just need sunshine,
you need bees, and you need water. But commercially, what
we're getting at the grocery stores comes a lot from
the southeast Florida, Georgia, also Texas, California, and then they
ship up north in those verticals, but you know, nearer
(13:21):
to the Boston area there, the Maryland, Delaware area is
going to be coming into peak season for commercial watermelon
production in just a couple of weeks time, early August.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
So I just like other fruits and vegetables, they start
earlier down south, and they peak earlier down south, and
they eventually work their way up here. We have crops
up here, blueberries up in Maine. I'm sure there are
other places they produce blueberries. So how long a watermelon
has been around? I mean, are they are they a
(13:58):
product that is is endemic to North America or is
this a product that's grown around the world.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
Oh, it's definitely grown around the world as far as
we know. Food historians have said that watermelon originated way
back in ancient Egypt in the Saharan Desert area, over
five thousand years ago, so it's quite the history. It
is in fact grown around the world, in ninety six
countries worldwide. America, I believe it's the number four producer
(14:29):
and consumption of watermelon. China's number one. But watermelon, it's
so big, it's so heavy, it's very perishable. It's best
ones fresh. Once you cut it from the vine, you
have to really have it consume it within thirty days,
so you're never getting watermelon that's from too far away.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Wow. Now you have some tips. When you go to
the store, most of us up here, there'll be a
big bin, generally a wooden bin, and there'll be watermelons
in there. So the best site, how do you pick
out the best watermelon?
Speaker 5 (15:00):
There are a lot of tips and trips out there
on the internet, but we here at the Watermelon Board.
We've been around since nineteen ninety. Funded by all the
watermelon farmers. We promote what we call the looklift urn method,
which means three things. You look at it. You want
to look for a nice looking watermelon, no gashes, no cuts,
(15:22):
certainly no leaks or anything like that. You want to
lift it up. It's ninety two percent water, so it
should be very heavy for its size, no matter if
it's a miniature or a full sized big watermelon. And
most importantly, you want to turn it over. Turning it
over looking for a buttery yellow ground spot. That is
the spot where the watermelon sat on the ground while
it ripened on the vine. So the looklift urn is universally,
(15:44):
universally the best way to try to pick out the
best watermelon from that bin of all the watermelons. There
are lots of other methods out there. Certainly farmers will
tell you about stripe patterns or stems and things like that.
They might be more dependent on variety, which we don't
see at the grocery store. When we are selecting our
(16:08):
shopping for watermelons. We see seedless, maybe we see seeded
the old oblong ones, but we really don't see those
different varieties. There's even varieties that don't have any stripes,
so we.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Really you just said, imagine your words seedless. Are the
seedless watermelons?
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Yes, seedless as in the best they describe the seedless watermelon.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
It's like the mule.
Speaker 5 (16:31):
So the mule is the sterile offspring of a horse
and a donkey. I don't know if you knew that
or not, but this is a very like elementary genetics question,
cross breathing lesson. So the seedless watermelon was crossbread from
two different sets of parents of seeded parents for those
different traits and properties, just like the offspring of parents.
(16:51):
It's not themo But truly, there is no such thing
as a purely seedless watermelon. You're going to have those
little white empty seeds. So there were a seed and
not fully mature, and there might be a couple of
black seeds arrently still in there, but those will not
sprout watermelons because they're sterile. So steedless watermelons have been
(17:13):
around for about seventy years now, and it really changed
the game as far as how we're enjoying it at home.
You know, easy to cut, less waste, lots of fun
recipes to use, but don't come down to getting that
watermelon in your grocery cart in the first place. And
you want to pick out the best one with that
look left turned.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, I remember it. I was about ten. We were
eating watermelon one day and one of the kids who
was eating watermelon that night had an appindct to me,
an emergency appen deck to me. So for a long
time I always related eating watermelon. I assumed he must
have swallowed a seed mark. I was not a medical
student either at that time or even now, but I
had this sort of mental block where I wasn't too
hip to watermelon. Slowly but terrifying it was. Yeah, I
(17:53):
mean I was traumatized. Poor Steedeacocks had an appendectomy from
eating a watermelon, and you know my close friends are Yeah.
Obviously it was not you know, causally related, it was coincidental,
but it did have an impact on me. That's why
I asked your watermelonfil I have saved that life experience
(18:18):
just for this interview. I want you to know.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
So glad you shared it, even though it's scary. But
you know, there's also the old wives tale about swallowing
the watermelon seed, you know, like you see some pregnant
ladies with the funny t shirts like I swallowed the
watermelon seed to the belly.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I think we were told that, you know, he must
have eaten a watermelon seed. But but so watermelons, when
does the year end? If you want to get watermelon?
Obviously we're in the peak time right now. How how
how long will they last?
Speaker 5 (18:51):
Well, the US domestic okay, watermelon market is going to
go all the way through September because even and then
down here in Florida where our office is, we actually
get a second fall crop because it's such a warm
fall that will still ship up north. You know, the
peak months for the US watermelon are really starting in
(19:12):
April ending September for the supply. But then we actually
have been having a lot of support from imported watermelon,
so that there is watermelon year round in grocery stores.
So come falling into winter, you might see more of
the fresh cuts or those mini watermelon sizes are like
a big grapefruit or cantalope sized. Those are a little
bit more efficient for those wintertime months.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Stephanie enjoyed the conversation, learned a lot about watermelons, and
have finally assuaged all of my apprehensions.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
About eating watermelon and swallowing.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Stephanie, you folks want to get more information. You must
have a website watermelon dot org. Oh how about that
watermelon dot org. What a great website. I'm going to
check that out tomorrow. Thank you very much. Stephanie enjoyed
the conversation. I really did. Thank you.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
When we get back right after the news at the
bottom of the hour, you were going to learn how
you could own an actual piece of Olympic memorabilia. This
is on the level, this is this is the real deal.
Going to be talking with Bobby Eaton. He's the Olympic
specialists that are our auction. We'll be back on Night
Side and think about this one. This is going to
(20:23):
be an interesting all the interviews tonight, but this to
me is the one that is the most fascinating. Olympic
Memorabilia auction coming up on the other side of.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
The news with Dan Ray I'm w Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Well, this is going to be a very interesting interview
with us as Bobby Eaton, he's an Olympic specialist at
are our auction. Bobby Eaton, welcome to Nightside.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
How are you good to good to finally talk to
you Dan.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
I'm excited you folks are in New England Institution. It
seems you're based up a little north of us.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Right, I would I would think.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
So.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
My dad started the company about fifty years ago, so
we've been in that, We've been in the New England
area our whole life.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Wow. Now you have a big auction coming up. This
is called Olympic Memorabilia Auction. There are I want to say,
hundreds of items that are related to the Olympics. Is
that an understatement?
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, three hundred and fifty plus items, including over sixty
seven winners medals.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
So here's the question. Yeah, and we're going to get
to the specifics. But how the heck do you get
access these are These are the original, legitimate, These are
not fake. These are real deal items, medals that were
awarded to people or won by individuals at Olympics. How
does all of this stuff come into your custod so
(21:50):
you can run the auction?
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Dan, That's a good question. So a lot of the
items come from collectors that have acquired them over you know,
the last fifty sixty years, usually coming from individuals families
who have either passed away or you know, they might
have run into you know, some money trouble or something
(22:14):
like that. But usually the case is is that they're
either coming from families and directly from athletes that you
know that they want to pass it on.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So let's let's talk about some of the specifics because
I know that there are a lot of people in
my audience who are really into sports. And certainly no
no sport is you know every four years will you
get winter off? There are the off years now, But
for example, you have a twenty twenty four gold medal,
do you disclose who won that gold medal?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
So in this case, and and this is something that
happens very commonly, is that the athletes, they do want
to sell their medal, but it's it's it's okay for
them to not state who they are. Sure they don't
want anybody looking down upon them, and they've achieved such
success that it's okay. And I and in this case,
(23:11):
this is a track and field medal, but I'm not
going to disclose the actual athlete until after the winning
bitter purchases the item.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Okay, So so at least the winning bidder will come
to find out whose medal they now own.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
Correct?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Correct?
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Okay, some of the medals and there there are some
certificates and some diplomas. I saw one from Johnny Wisemal. Great. Yeah,
for the early nineteen twenties. I do my homework on
this stuff. I want you to know. Fantastic, yea, So
give us give us some of the other highlights. You
also have Olympic torches. Everyone knows that the Olympic torch
(23:53):
generally is extinguished and then it's it's relt I think
every time in Athens, and it traverses the world and
they time it so that it reaches the side of
the next Olympiad the day that on the night that
the Olympiad starts. Tell us about these torches, which were
actually in some cases either used to light or were
(24:18):
handcarried by athletes from various countries. You know, I believe
it starts in Athens every year and it ends up
wherever it is in the world. If I'm wrong on that,
feel free to correct.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Nope, Nope, nope, You're totally correct. So the interesting thing
is is when I got into Olympics, I had no idea.
I always thought there was one torch, right, and they
passed it along. But after being in the business for
so long, the first thing I realized was that some
games had as low as twenty torches. And there's actually
(24:49):
a game nineteen nineteen sixty four Inchsbrook that had one torch.
So the rarity of torches is thing because the Winter
Games they didn't they didn't always make a lot of torches,
but something like Atlanta they probably made ten to fifteen
thousand torches.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Wow wow. And do the bidders for the torches, did
they have to figure out how rare a commodity they're
bidding on or do you make that pretty clear?
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Good question? Yeah, So torches are dictated price wise by rarity, right,
So if there were twenty torches versus fifteen thousand torches,
the price is going to be a lot higher. The
one that sticks out to me in this auction is
we have a Grenoble torch and they made twenty six torches,
(25:45):
so that one Winter corre something like that. You got it,
You got it. So that one is estimated at about
one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Wow wow. And the less expensive torches give us maybe
your audience. Not every one in my audience is going
to be able to spend one hundred and fifty or
one hundred or two. I hate they'll tell you that,
but someone might be looking for Give us, maybe what
one of the less expensive expensive torches from an olympiad
(26:19):
where there were many more torches produced and utilized. Give
us a dan.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
The one thing that I love about Olympic collecting is
things can start. You know, a participation medal can be
one hundred dollars right all the way up to a
couple thousand. But torches, which which are my favorite and
what I collect? You know, the average torch is anywhere
from one thousand to twenty five hundred, so most of
(26:47):
them are in a reasonable range to acquire.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
And this is how long did it take you to assemble? Again?
You have? You said three hundred items? It looked to
me like five hundred, seven hundred, So when I said hundreds,
I made a guess, but I was thinking more in
the seven or eight hundred range. There's a lot of items.
How long did it take you to assemble this presentation?
Speaker 1 (27:14):
So with our auction, we do two sales a year,
so I have six months to acquire another you know,
three hundred to five hundred pieces, so not a long time.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
So but what I'm saying is do you do an
Olympic auction every year or every few years or how
does that work? Oh?
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Two a year, two years, yes, so you have every year?
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Absolutely, So a lot of the a lot of the items,
you know, they could come from a like in this one,
I had a collector, good friend of mine, who wanted
to sell his collection. So you have that. People collect
for twenty thirty years and they're getting to the age
where you know, they wanted to move on to another collector,
(28:06):
so then they'll sell. You know, they might have ten winners,
medals and five torches, so it stacks up pretty quickly
that I can put together another sale.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
Wow. And all of these I assume come with some
letter of authenticity or some similar document.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
For sure, every item that we sell comes with an
R or auction certificate. But we also use outside I
use three to four outside experts one guy that's just
as torches. So there's experts in each field of each
category of the Olympic collecting world, which is great and
(28:44):
it brings the community together because I use a lot
of collectors to help authenticate stuff. And the great thing
is a good amount of them come from athletes, so
it's being authenticated from the athlete themselves, just like the
Greg Lugainis medals that we have in this.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Upcoming the US diver. So his collection and medals are
up are an available, I assume an incorrect or are
you selling them as a group.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
We're selling them an individual form. So we're selling three
out of the five that he was awarded, but some
of his most important ones. I think we have his
his nineteen seventy six which was the first one silver
that he won for platform ten meter platform. Then we
(29:35):
have his nineteen eighty four gold for springboard, and then
his eighty eight goal for platform.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Again an amazing, an amazing diver, and amazing that he
could maintain being at the top of that sport for
those many Olympics, that's for sure. So the big question,
Bob is how can folks get involved in this auction
if they are so inclined.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Sure, it's just www dot orr auction dot com and
the auction is going to end Thursday night. So you
just go online, you registered to bid, and you get
approved immediately and then you can place your bids and
if you have any questions they can they can contact
me at Bobby at our auction dot com and I
(30:20):
can go over all the collecting nuances and get them
excited in buying some Olympic material.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
So this auction ends this Thursday night, which is seventy
two hours from now.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Correct correct?
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Okay, how long has the auction been ongoing?
Speaker 1 (30:38):
We put them up thirty days prior to the auction close.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Wow, So okay, best of uck. I really enjoyed this conversation, Bob.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
And anytime. I really appreciate it. Big fan of yours.
And hopefully we can chat soon.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Anything that's related to sports or politics in terms of auctions,
let us know, because I think it's amazing this type
of memory. It was with a friend of mine last
night who showed me a grandfather's clock that he had purchased,
a beautiful piece of furniture, beautiful clock. I mean it
stood over six seven feet tall mahogany. And I looked
(31:17):
at him, I said, what the heck did that cost you?
And this was from like the eighteenth century or the
seventeen early seventeen hundreds. He said it cost him like
twenty five hundred dollars. It's amazing the items that are
available that people with they don't you don't have to
be multi millionaire to participate in an auction, and I
(31:37):
would highly recommend our option. Bob Eaton, thank you so much.
This has been fun.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Thanks thanks be to them.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Talk soon. Absolutely, we get back and we talk about
staying cyber safe. Well, explain what it means. A lot
of cyber threats keep CEOs and IT directors up at night.
Believe me, we're going to talk with Danny Jenkins. He's
the CEO and co founder of threat Locker. This isn't
important stuff. We'll be back on Nightside right after this
quick break.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
You're on Nightside with Dan Ray. I'm delling YOUBSY Boston's News.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Radio, delighted to be joined by Danny Jenkins. Hees the
CEO and co founder of threat block are going to
talk about staying cyber safe. Those are terms Dan that
perhaps everyone in my audience is not familiar with. So
let's talk about cyber threats. That's an umbrella term, I
believe tell us the extent of things that people need
(32:32):
to be concerned about these days. How are you, good
evening and welcome to Nightside.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
Good evening, and thank you for inviting me this evening.
So it really is quite expansive when we think about
how our lives have changed over the last twenty years.
We've gone from barely using computers to everything involving computers.
Our taxes, our jobs are email communications, our banking is
all online. And alongside that is cyber crime equally trying
(33:00):
to get it. And this could be something as somebody's
trying to fish and steal your credit card number, your
social security number, steal your identity, right through to ransomware
attacks that are affecting businesses and shutting down hospitals.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yeah, well, when you talk about ransomware, most of those
are coming, as I understand that, from overseas and particularly
places like Eastern Europe and Russia. Am I wrong on that?
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Or so most of the attacked end or are executed
in the final stages in countries that have non extradition
treaties with the US and are less likely to prosecutor
in Russia being a huge part of that. But in
addition to that, a lot of it starts with someone
(33:44):
in the US. It starts with someone in Australia or
Canada or all over the world. Because what's actually happening
is someone will gain access to your system and then
they'll sell that access to someone who's actually going to
execute the attack. So there'll be organized gangs essentially that
will organize payments, they'll have quotas, they'll try and get
on systems, they'll figure out how much money, they'll look
(34:06):
at your insurance, how much you have in your bank
that tends to be executed. Mostly Russia's the biggest single sauce.
But in between that, that access is actually got by
local people.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
The FBI are.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Prosecuting thousands of Americans every year for actually giving that
initial access to the attackers.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
So let me ask you this, are any of these
hackers you know, particularly dealing with ransomware? Can you trust them?
Meaning if they ask some company or some hospital or
some city department, we want X, and we'll never come
(34:46):
back and bother you again. As corrupt as that is,
are there some whoever reputation of actually doing it once
and not coming back or can you not trust them
in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
So I think there's some stats on this that in
something like ninety four percent of cases, when you pay
the ransom, you get your data back. It's hard to
know if they do anything else and you're furious with
it it's hard to know if they sell it, and
we kind of have the staying where if you get
ransomwhere you get seven years bad luck. And that is
because the bad guys have essentially just taken your customers details,
(35:23):
your contracts, your invoices. Now they may not directly attack you,
and I think in ninety four percent of cases when
the ransom was paid, the data was restored back to
its original state, but they may go after your customers
and your partners and the people you do business with
because now they've gotten in. And quite often the hardest
part of getting into a business is finding an angle
(35:44):
where somebody will trust you. So if you know I'm
going to get an invoice from ABC Plumbing every every month,
and then suddenly you receive an invoice from something that
looks like ABC Plumbing, you're more likely to trust it,
and that could give the attack it in access to
your business, and that one of the things that they'll use,
even though they may not directly dump the data on
the web. And I don't like paying anyway. The problem
(36:07):
is when you're paying, you're essentially funding organized crime. So
if you don't have to pay, you should do everything
in your power to avoid getting hacked in the first place.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
So if you avoid the problem, that's great. It's like
if you don't have a toothache, you don't have to
go to the dentist. I guess theoretically, however, once you
got that tooth that toothache, you gotta go to the dentist.
Once you're hacked, as a company, as a public agency,
as a school, is there any way to stand up
(36:37):
and say, you know, no way we're paying or are
they just gonna run rough shot over you. You really are
in a between a rock and a hard place, and I.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Think it depends on how much resiliency you have. Do
you have good backups in place? What data? What is
your relationship with your clients? When the NHS in the
United Kingdom has been hit multiple times over, they never
pay the But also they're the only healthcare chain in
the UK, so what is it Their customers aren't going
to go back to them, It's not an option. So
it depends on how strong you are as a company,
(37:10):
what types of services you provide. Is the reputation damage
going to be too big for you? And also can
you get your data back? If you're an insurance company
and all of your data and backups are gone. We
saw clone your pipeline MGM. Those guys are almost left
back into a corner, so they have no choice but
to pay, and then it often costs, even after the
(37:31):
insurance payoffs, millions or hundreds of millions of dollars in recovery.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Well, look, this is fascinating. In terms of individuals who
have computers. The bottom line is, if you don't recognize
the person who has sent you the email, don't open
the email because if they really do know you, they'll
have your phone number, they'll call you. Just stop opening
(37:56):
any email that you do not recognize. I think that's
the rule of thy right.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yeah, clicking on a link and putting your credentials in
might do. But if you don't recognize it or it
seems out of place, because quite often these emails, if
somebody gets hacked, they'll use their email account to email
all of their friends. So if it seems that place,
if someone's asking you to wire amount of money, send
your driving license, even if it's your best friend, to say,
(38:22):
why would they do that, let me pick up the
phone and call them.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
You bet you, you bet you. Danny Jenkins, this was
great I'd love to have you back.
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