July 24, 2025 • 35 mins
Today, Doug Pike interviews Dr. Stephanie Handal about blue light and eye care.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. Remember when music sounded
like this, Remember when social media was truly social?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey John, how's it going today?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well? This show is all about you, only theode. This
is fifty plus with Doug Pike. Helpful information on your finances,
good health, and what to do for fun. Fifty plus
brought to you by the UT Health Houston Institute on Aging,
Informed decisions for a healthier, happier life.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
And now fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, here
we go Thursday edition. The program starts right now. Welcome
one and all to fifty plus. Where I don't know
chronological age, just it doesn't mean a whole lot these days. Honestly,
fifty plus, sixty plus, seventy plus seems like every time
I turn around, I'm crossing another one of those milestones,
(01:04):
and glad to do it. By the way, let me
take this off this phone here. I don't want to
look at that right now. Glad to do it, because
the older we get, the more some of us wonder
how we lasted this long. I know a lot of
people who I think, if you'd have taken bets on
who was gonna make it to this age during high school.
(01:25):
It'd be kind of a fun interesting thing to see,
but it might be also somewhat macabre when you got
down to it. Just bet on who's gonna outlast everybody?
And some of us are wondering one way, and some
wondering how much deeper we can make it. It's up to us,
well I get not at all, not entirely, but it
(01:47):
is up to us to do the best we can
with the tools we've got. And some of us take
that to heart, some don't. I don't exercise as much
as I probably should. I still kind of force myself,
if you can call it that, to go out and
play golf in the heat, to go out and fish
(02:07):
in the heat, to go out in the winter time
when it's cold, because I don't want to get dependent
on air conditioning or heating for my overall comfort. Now
what I prefer to be in the air conditioning, Sure
of course I would, But if there's something fun to
(02:30):
do outside, it doesn't take long to talk me into it.
It really doesn't. I'm at the point where I don't
take anything for granted either, and I'm not jealous of
people who have more than me, but neither am I
angry with myself for not having more than I do.
Life's been pretty good to me in a lot of ways,
and for all of them, I'm genuinely grateful. I really
(02:51):
am grateful and gracious. I think that's two good ways
to be I would consider. And for all the talk
I hear about how divided we are as a nation,
mostly emanating from the other side, from the left, I'm
just not having that experience. I say hello to people
and they say hello back. I say good morning, and
(03:14):
they say good morning back. And I'm not talking about
the spam calls where you say where they say hello
and no, I just I'm talking about real people in
grocery stores, in malls, in every place I go. And
it doesn't matter who they are, doesn't matter how old
(03:35):
they are, doesn't matter what they look like. The overwhelming
majority of people with whom I have these exchanges are
cordial and well mannered and appear, through what seemed to
be very genuine smiles, to just be happy to be
(03:55):
there and happy that somebody said hello to them, and
in turn, they got a chance to say hello to me.
So it's working for me anyway. Most I think. I
think the overwhelming majority really of Americans are pretty optimistic
about our future, and they're willing to work with other
people toward common goals. That's how it's always been up
until fairly recently in history in this country. You just
(04:20):
got to work together toward a common goal. Nobody has
to agree one hundred percent with anybody, but in the
end there needs to be middle ground where can we
can both find an opportunity to grow the place. I'm
afraid that the people who say other than that, people
(04:40):
who say that their way is the only way that's right,
artists trying to generate chaos where it doesn't exist. Because
without chaos, without disparity, without bitterness, pretty much nothing they
say makes sense. It doesn't really, and so they just
say it louder and say it more emphatically, thinking that
(05:05):
that's going to change it, and it's not. It's not
going to change anything, all right. Moving to the weather
very quickly, we've got rain in the forecast for tomorrow
and Saturday. Thinks of that yellow blob on the National
Hurricane Center map. It is moved into the Gulf of Mexico,
which it was predicted to do two three days ago
and doing exactly what it was supposed to do when
(05:26):
it is also still predicted to fall apart basically after
it takes a rite and moves inland, and the result
over here in Southeast Texas will be scattered to maybe
some possibly heavy showers and thunderstorms tomorrow, probably not early,
(05:47):
but at least at some point in the day, and
then through Saturday and maybe even a little part of Sunday.
The good news is. The good news is the clouds
in the rain are going to cool us down a
little bit, but that's going to be short lived. Once
this passes, it's back the sunshine and heat and whatever
else is common. Well, the humidity. I almost forgot the humidity.
(06:10):
How could I? How could I forget the one of
the leading players in this theater production. Holy cow, you
can't leave out humidity. It would be there would be
an uproar, I'm sure from all the humidity fans. I
don't know any of those, but they must exist somewhere.
I got friends who think they'll get in eighteen holes
(06:31):
of golf tomorrow, but I'm not sure that's going to
happen for them. I'll cross my fingers, but it looks
like tomorrow. By the time at least that they'll finish,
we might get some rain through here. And who knows,
these guys are all pretty fortunate in life. Maybe the
weather will smile upon them and let them tee it
up on one and get all the way to a
(06:52):
final put on eighteen. Market's two up, two down among
my fab four, with the Russell taking a one percent hit.
That was the worst of it all. The best of
it all wasn't much in the green, but green nonetheless,
and gold lost twenty five bucks an ounce, but was
still closer to thirty four hundred than thirty three hundred
(07:14):
dollars per ounce. Oil up a little bit, but still
south of sixty six dollars a barrel, which means very
affordable to drive around and enjoy our own country and
go take a think of driving vacation, a long weekend somewhere,
maybe a little bit longer than that. Whatever you want
to do, it's your time and your money, and you
(07:36):
are certainly free to spend it as you see fit.
Let's take a little break here, try to stay on
time today. On the way out, I'll remind you that
of late health, the vascular clinics for which I've spoken
now for quite some time, are a good way to
make sure that everything you've got that can be remedied
with vascular procedure is taken care of by a team
(07:57):
led by doctor Andrew Doe of people who are excellent
and expert in doing just that. Prostate artery embolization, that's
their most common procedure over there. Takes an enlarged, non
cancerous prostate and shrivels it down to nothing so you
don't have to have those symptoms anymore. You've got fibroids
for women, you've got ugly veins, head pain in some cases,
(08:20):
even all of that, and so many other things that
are listed at the website, but too many to mention here.
They can do for you, always just in their office.
You don't have to go to the hospital anywhere. Always
within a couple of hours, well usually within a couple
of hours. Some procedures might take a little bit longer,
(08:41):
some might not, And always with the full support of
that entire staff to make sure you get in there
and get out of there in the best shape you can.
You're gonna come out of there feeling better, and you're
gonna heal up fast, not gonna take you along. Most
of what they do is covered by Medicare and Medicaid too.
A late health dot com A L A T E
(09:01):
A latehealth dot com seven one three five eight eight
thirty eight eighty eight. They also do regenerative medicine. By
the way, if you've got chronic pain, they can help
you with that. Seven one three five eight eight thirty
eight eighty eight. What's life without a nap? I suggest
to go to bed, sleep it off.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Just wait until the show's over. Sleepy Back to Dougpike
as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
All right, welcome back to fifty plus, and thank you
for listening. I certainly do appreciate that. Uh, and I'll
offer you another thank you for sharing your lunch. You are.
We're going to talk in this segment about our eyes
and how they're impacted by this essentially kind of a
contemporary bombardment of those eyeballs of ours by blue light.
And to explain, I just happen to have doctor Stephanie
(09:48):
handle on the phone, therapeutic and glaucoma optometric specialist at
ut Heuse Robert Cyzick Center. Welcome to fifty plus, Doctor.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Handel Hi dig thank you so much for having me
my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Believe me so. By the way, I heard you spent
twenty five years as a musician before you shifted gears
to optometry. There's got to be a story, Beino.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
You've read my bio. Yeah I did, I did. I
had a really good run. But I got to tell
you I couldn't be happier doing what I'm doing now.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Okay, And for the record, I'm keenly aware of your
last names association with music, even if it's spelled differently
than that of George Frederick Handel, the German turned brit
who composed throughout the first half of the eighteenth century.
Just so you know that, I know.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yeah, I'm impressed.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
All right. So out of the music hall and into
the light, so to speak. Let's talk about blue light,
which emanates from exactly what in our everyday lives.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Okay, So it emanates from everywhere actually, and the highest
source of blue light, I believe it or not, is
the sun. The screens and the computer screens and the
tablets and the phones, they get a bad wrap, but
blue light, the majority of our blue light, is just
going to come from sunlight. In the what we call
the visible light spectrum. So when we're talking about blue light,
(11:05):
just so that all your listeners are on board, we're
talking about what we call the visible light spectrum. So
of the light that we can actually see when it
comes to colors, blue light is on the one end
of that spectrum. So it's got the shortest wavelength and
the highest energy by comparison, you can compare that to
(11:26):
red light, which has the longest wavelength and the lowest energy.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
In addition to sunlight, and phones and laptops and all
that are TVs also blue light rich. I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
So we're going to get a full spectrum of light
from any device. It just sort of depends on what
spectrum that particular device gives us. We know our electronic
device is the brighter they get, the more blue light
they're throwing at us.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Okay, so and let's just dive into it. What are
the risks from over exposure to blue light?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Blue light got a bad wrap several decades ago when
some research connected it to macular degeneration. I'm sure lots
of your listeners are familiar with that. The good thing
is that we can all relax about that because it's
been proven over and over and over again that wild
blue light does have an association with macular degeneration and
(12:22):
with what we call phototoxicity, so damage to the retina.
It has to be in quantities that are exponentially higher
than anything that we're going to be exposed to in
daily life, from our screens, from the sun, from really
from anything that we're going to just encounter in our
daily routine lives. So as far as the risks of
(12:43):
blue light are concerned, not really any permanent damage. But
what we're finding is that the longer we spend on
screens and the more blue light we're exposed to, the
more we're getting symptoms of what we call digital fatigue syndrome.
And so what we're getting is patients that are getting
this blurry vision that kind of goes in and out.
We're getting a lot of dry eyes, the burning eyes,
(13:07):
stinging eyes, the watery eyes, and some patients are even
complaining of headaches when they're spending hours and hours on
the computer.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, that's I've got I know people who spend more
time than they should staring at phones, staring at iPads
and whatnot, and complaining of difficulty sleeping, complaining of difficulty focusing,
the headaches, things like that, so that all could be
at least associated with exposure to blue light.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Could definitely be associated when it comes to the difficulty sleeping.
So one of the things that blue light does for
us is it tells our body that we have to
be awake and alert. We're getting the majority of it
from sunlight, so it helps the eye and the body
and the brain regulate hormones that tell our bodies that
(13:58):
it's not time for yet. So you can imagine when
we're getting bombarded with blue light too late into the night,
some patients might find it difficult to turn all of
that off, and their body might be finding it difficult
to kind of switch gears and get the sleep hormones
going and the way hormones put away for the night
at one.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Or two o'clock in the morning, and you're still looking
at that screen and your body's going nope, not yet, no, no.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
No, yeah, And we're all guilty of it.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
What about what about AMD? Is there still a link
to that in a problem as far.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
As the circadian rhythm is concerned.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
No, not necessarily. Well, yeah, I guess you explained that
where we would have to have exponential exposure before. Let
me just cross that off my list here, Doctor Stephanie
handle with us. Does the risk of blue light exposure
increase with age at all?
Speaker 1 (14:53):
It?
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Actually I have to qualify this because natural age related
changes mean that our old our eyes are going to
start developing cataracts. Another change that happens is that the
pupil actually gets just a little bit smaller as we age.
So our body kind of takes care of that for
us because with the cataract formation and with the pupil
(15:15):
kind of starting to close in just a little bit,
we actually get less exposure to blue light. And that's
another reason that maybe we go to dinner in a
low lit restaurant, we have to pull out the cell
phone to start shining a light on the menu because
our eyes are just getting less of that light.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Well, that explains a lot, Doc, Okay, that's good to
know there's a reason for all of that. It's amazing
how many good reasons there are for some of the
things that we all just take for granted as age related.
By the way, are there any you mentioned I think
early in the interview that this is all kind of
not permanent. If we quit looking at the blue light
(15:55):
so much, Will our eyes not be so dry? Will
our sleep pattern improve? Can we get over this hump? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Absolutely, So that's the very So we recommend that patients
take breaks from computer work. And it's hard to do
when we're really concentrated on what we're doing. But the
twenty twenty twenty rule has been out there for a
long time. So every twenty minutes, taking a break from
your work, taking a break from your computer, closing your eyes,
looking at something far away for about twenty thirty seconds.
(16:26):
Just doing that, we know is going to help. Something
kind of silly that we can all do is just
blink more. And I know that sounds silly, but when
we're concentrated on at computer work or on a cell phone,
we just know we don't blink enough. So just by blinking,
just by taking breaks, maybe we need to use some
artificial tears for moisture every now and then, but just
(16:49):
by doing those things, we can really reduce the symptoms
that we're getting from digital fatigue syndrome. So that can
take a lot of the strain off.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Before we run out of time. What about red light?
I saw thing about red light for evening and that that.
I've heard a lot of explanations what red light's made
in the evening. I'm hoping this is different than that.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
So our devices now come with a lot of our
devices now come with something called like night shift. I
know that's what and that's what some brands call it.
So what that is is a change in the transmission
spectrum of the light that's coming off of our device.
So when you turn night shift on, you'll notice that
your screen kind of goes a little bit yellow. It's
(17:32):
not quite that bright, bright white light. So that is
that shift toward the red light that you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
And you would want to do that, you would want
to do that for the evening, right, Yeah, some.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Patients really find it beneficial. Honestly, I think it's just
more comfortable in the evenings. The light's lower matches the
ambient light better, and it's and it's not going to
be bombarding us with that same blue light that may
or may not contribute to difficulty getting to sleep.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
And not coincidentally, you know what else happens when evening
comes along, The sun goes down, and that's so that's
it's replication actually of a sunset almost isn't.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
It exactly exactly. And the nice thing those devices, a
lot of them, you can set it automatically to go
from sundown to sun up. You don't even have to
think about it.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Okay, I'm gonna have to go look for that on
my iPad. That would that would greatly help me, Doctor
Stephanie handle that. This is all so such good information.
I truly do appreciate your time today.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Oh I'm so glad, my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
And we're gonna do this again sometime. You were an ace.
You aced your test today. Thank you, oh, thank you.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Yeah, this is a pleasure day.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
All right, thanks tof alright, see by bye. All right,
we gotta take you a little break here. On the
way out, I'll tell you about Theedar Cove r V
Resort over there on Tri City Beach Road, down darn
near to the end of Tri City Beach Road, kind
of by Thompson's Bake Camp, if you know where that is,
right there on Galveston Bay two and And what better
(19:01):
way to spend a weekend or a week or a
month if you've got the time watching sunsets and sunrises
over the bay, then maybe on a vacation over some
motel with a pancake place across a parking lot. That's
not fun to wake up to or go to bed too.
(19:21):
Kind of weird noises too, might get with that. Cedar
Cove's got a noise rule that keeps it quiet through
the night, so you don't have to worry about somebody
having a big hoot nanny while you're trying to get
to sleep in your motor home or in your pop
up camper or whatever else you want to put on
one of their slabs. Every one of their spots, every
(19:42):
one of their hookups has sewer, water and electric. They've
got Wi Fi, free WiFi by the way, bath house,
all of that stuff, and some pretty dog gone good
fishing too. Owned by Alan Nancy Kibbie Great People out
by the Way, shared on the program a week and
a half half ago or so. I think it is
now that he has worked with one of his one
(20:05):
of his good business partners and actually has a full
sized motor home that you can rent to stay over
there and kind of get an idea of what that
experience is going to be like without having to go
shell out six figures for a motor home. Bring the
family over there. He'll park it on whatever slabs open
for you that you like the view from, and you
(20:26):
can stay there and enjoy that bayfront, living temporarily in
a motorhome that's got all the comforts of home. Cedar
cove Rvresort dot com. Go to that website, take a
look at what he's offering over there and see if
it doesn't look good to you. It certainly does to me.
Cedar cove Rvresort dot com.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yell, they sure don't make them like they used to.
That's why every few months we wash him, check his fluids,
and spring on a fresh coat of wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, welcome back to
fifty plus. Thanks for listening. Rounding second and headed.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Up to third or over to third, I guess, depending
on where you are in the ball field seven one
three two one two five nine five zero. If you
want to be a part of the program and talk
about something that's of interest to you that you think
would be interest to the rest of the audience, I
would be happy to hear about that and maybe get
(21:25):
a whole get a whole segment about it. If you've
got something you want to talk about specifically that's in
the news. I'll listen and as long as it seems
interesting and you keep your language clean. I had somebody
I had to dump a couple of days ago. Well,
just so you know, now, it wasn't on this show, obviously,
(21:46):
or you would have handled it as quickly and efficiently
as I know you would if that ever happened. But yeah,
on on the weekend, somebody got overly enthusiastic again about
something that was going on in the out of doors
and let one and we had Frankie and I both
double dipped on the button and kept it from going
to air, which is good. That's all I ask really
(22:09):
of any caller. You don't have to agree with anything
I say. You can disagree with me, and I will
politely listen, and then I'll I'll either change my mind
because you've convinced me to do that, or we'll just
have to agree to disagree. And there's nothing wrong with
either of those two options for either of us. From
the National Scandal Desk, And this is part one. Which
(22:31):
one you think I'm gonna go to first, Obama or Clinton?
It's got to be Obama, although there is a Clinton
connection even to that Obama situation. But former President Barack
Obama's hitting in the one hole today to use an
Astro's reference, because the accusations against him are so serious.
(22:52):
Documents released by did the Director of National Intelligence Tulci
Gabbard layout in pretty good detail, who knew what when?
Who instructed people who knew better to create separate sets
of documents? All that were manufactured from thin air, really
and just released to some media outlets that couldn't wait
to share them. And those documents, if the allegations are true,
(23:15):
were intended with quite quite deliberately to just mislead our
entire country. There's just a mountain of information available on
this one, and if you're interested in reading the details,
feel free to go online and just type in a
couple of keywords and up it'll pop onto the Epstein thing,
(23:37):
which Bat's second today. This week, a US House panel
voted in favor of issuing subpoenas to to a lot
of people who have former links to Gislaane Maxwell. I
don't know Gislaane. Is that correct, will you think, sir? Yeah,
I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce her name. It's
(23:58):
it's a little tricky and I've heard it ten ways,
or I would have settled on. I'll settle on the
first one that I hear twice. Anyway, she the former
confidante of Jeffrey Epstein on that list for potential subpoena
subpoena request to come on in and sit down and
visit former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State and
(24:19):
failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and many many more big
names from politics back in the day. And that's just
the top of the list. If they do testify on
their oath, they're either going to have to spill beans
that were never intended for spilling, or face charges if
the evidence gathered by this committee is contrary to what
(24:40):
those folks say is true. Both of those issues, both
of those situations are not going to play out in
a week or two weeks or a month or six months.
It's going to take a long time, a lot of
court time to figure out what happened there. Heading third
(25:00):
playing catcher without a mask today is Gavin Newsom out
there in California, who's twenty dollars minimum wage ended up
costing people, Well, there's eighteen thousand fewer jobs in that
qs are that quick serve restaurant space and for the
burger and fries people who held onto their jobs, they
lost an average of two hundred and fifty hours of
(25:22):
work annually, which translates to about four grand less in
annual income that those people really couldn't afford. That law
took effect April one, twenty four wasn't a joke. By June,
more than ten thousand jobs were gone in April this year.
The fast food franchisees were turning to kiosks as fast
as they could to lower cost to keep the lights on.
(25:45):
Newsom still defends it. And meanwhile, California ranked number one
in the nation for unemployment. We'll take a little break here.
Optimum iron Doors wrapping up next week the summer sale
that's been going on since June won one. And this
is quite literally now, I think, based on conversations I've
had with the owner of the company, Jason Fortenberry, the
(26:09):
final hurrah, the final chance you'll get to get the
lowest price you may ever get on an iron door,
with talk of tariffs, with talk of this, talk of that,
Jason said from jump that he wasn't going to tinker
with his prices before the sale. He wasn't going to
add something on because of a potential issue with tariffs,
(26:32):
and then take it off and call this sale. These
are the lowest prices he's offered in quite some time,
and they're good for what another seven eight days. Optim
Iron Doors is it decorative forged iron, the big heavy
ones or those sleek, narrow profile steel doors, every one
of which is crafted just to suit your style, to
(26:54):
suit your family's personality. Make your house look better from
the street, give it that curb appeal you've all always wanted,
and it's going to be a perfect fit too. They've
got installers that are as good or better than any
I've ever used for anything in my house, and put
a door on my house a couple of years ago.
It's beautiful. It really is. See for yourself at the
showroom over there on North Post Oak, or you can
(27:16):
go to their gallery at the website, optimairndors dot com
at big summer sales going on right now, where you
can get a steel door which is less maintenance than wood.
Steel door, got some security options a little bit more
than wood. Beautiful beautiful doors for your house. Optima iron
Doors dot Com, optimairndoors dot.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Com, Old Guys Rule and of course women never get old.
If you want to avoid sleeping on the couch.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Hell, I think that sounds like a good plan.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Fifty plus continues.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Here's more with Doug all right, welcome back, Thanks for
listening to fifty plus. Rounding third and heading home. Astros.
I talked about it briefly yesterday. I'll be even more
brief today. I don't know how they keep doing it,
but they keep doing it. This is a mixed up,
(28:12):
mashed up list or a roster every day that seems
to have new names on it. People hopping out there
because somebody else got hurt and dog gone. If they're
not finding ways to win games, what we're seeing is
we probably had a lot better minor league system and
had better prospects down there than other people in baseball.
(28:35):
Realized it wasn't but about maybe two weeks ago that
I heard a lot of talk about how the Astro's
entire farm system was just depleted down to nothing. For
you stoners from the seventies down to stems and seeds.
You all know what that means. So more power to
you Astros. Keep it up, just keep going batting in
(28:59):
the cleanups. In today's lineup. By the way, joy Bear
from the View, Behar from the View, who kind of
squawked her way through a personally critical tirade against President
Trump this week. That show, despite what they'll tell you,
I looked at ranker dot com and that show is
ranked by Ranker among daytime TV talk shows twenty sixth.
(29:23):
They'll tell you they're number one with a very small group,
a very small demographic of women. But outside of that,
my gut tells me they're not doing so well. I
don't know, but I can't imagine. They're kind of the
daytime equivalent of the Stephen Colbert Show, which was canceled recently.
(29:44):
As most of you know, it won't rap until I
think May of twenty twenty six, which I find interesting. Says, Oh,
I guarant I know what that is. That's to get
past all the annual commitments of advertisers so that they
can at least collect that money and maybe re coop
some of the forty million they lost this past year.
(30:04):
All all the view people do just criticize and disagree
with anybody who disagrees with them, and they seem to
kind of have a personal vendetta against President Trump in
a country they say is broken by the way, but
affords them some pretty dog one lavish lifestyles. Let's go
to the simple, easy, little conversation starter kind of stuff.
(30:27):
That one's gross, but I'll get to it because it's
not that gross. This one's not people on social media
sharing these buzzwords that immediately set off there. And I'll
wrap this in quotes belooney alarm, such as calibrate. If
people are using the word calibrate around you, there, they're
(30:49):
just they're trying to use a fancy word and probably
not really using it correctly. Team player got votes work family.
That reminds me, how can I not say coldplay when
we talk about a work family. That's a yeah, that
was not fann that went beyond family actually and then
(31:09):
integrated with AI. There's a lot of stuff these days.
It's integrated with AI, like most of the spam calls
I get, like most of the emails I get, And
I as a writer and former magazine editor, I think
I can I have a pretty good handle on when
something is written by a computer and something is written
(31:32):
by a human, because there are human traits, human characteristics
that bleed over into people's writing, and the machines aren't
quite there. Yet. Out of a new poll comes the
answer to the question which country has the most overrated
food culture, and the winner with thirty percent of the vote,
(31:57):
was France. When I was a little kid, people talked
a lot about the food in France and how wonderful
it was. I guess we're just tired of all of
their crepes. I just made that up. Well, thumbs up
or thumbs down? Yeah, more just myselmanos. Okay, fair enough.
(32:18):
It was well for impromptu and for off the cuff.
I don't think it was that bad, but I wouldn't
give it a higher score than you gave it. I
think we're on the same wave link on that. Here's
something that I don't know how could possibly work out well.
A school district in Tennessee has made the decision controversial
(32:40):
as it may be, to stop excusing absences for sick
kids doctor's note get out of school free cart and
I maybe maybe in that district people were abusing the
doctor note thing and having doctor's write notes so that
they could leave early for vacations or come home late
(33:02):
from vacations. Doctors' notes to get kids out of anything really,
But the bottom line is henceforth throughout the land, at
least in that little piece of Tennessee, kids will be
marked either present or absent period and are going to
be facing punishment for absences, whether they're sick or not,
(33:22):
which makes absolutely zero zero sense up in the hill country.
By the way, on a somber note, we're down to
two now. One of the three remaining persons was found
this week, which brings the roster of victims as yet
unrecovered to a pair. I think that's still right. It
(33:44):
may be down to one, actually now I'm not one
hundred percent sure. Will do you? Have you heard any differently? No,
the efforts of Hi, there's thousands of people from all
over the country, all around the world, should be rewarded,
really for doing in twenty days what a lot of
people were saying might take months or even a whole
year or more. And whatever reward might be offered, though,
(34:07):
I get I bet you every one of those people,
every one of them, would trade whatever was offered to
find the last, the last of the last of the
last people who are still missing. So to all of them,
this is still a job not quite done. They're close,
but they're not done. And for the families of families
(34:30):
who still have no closure. My deepest sympathies, why them,
Why why those people? And when are they going to
be found? Very soon? I hope very very soon. I'm
not gonna talk about that guy. He's a scumbag. I
need one more, very quick one new product in Japan,
(34:53):
upright napping capsules for the office. Could you fall asleep
standing up in a capsule? Not me, not Will, and
I bet very few of you. That's it for today.
We'll be back tomorrow. Thanks you all for listening. Audios
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. Remember when music sounded
like this, Remember when social media was truly social?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey John, how's it going today?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well? This show is all about you, only theode. This
is fifty plus with Doug Pike. Helpful information on your finances,
good health, and what to do for fun. Fifty plus
brought to you by the UT Health Houston Institute on Aging,
Informed decisions for a healthier, happier life.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
And now fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, here
we go Thursday edition. The program starts right now. Welcome
one and all to fifty plus. Where I don't know
chronological age, just it doesn't mean a whole lot these days. Honestly,
fifty plus, sixty plus, seventy plus seems like every time
I turn around, I'm crossing another one of those milestones,
(01:04):
and glad to do it. By the way, let me
take this off this phone here. I don't want to
look at that right now. Glad to do it, because
the older we get, the more some of us wonder
how we lasted this long. I know a lot of
people who I think, if you'd have taken bets on
who was gonna make it to this age during high school.
(01:25):
It'd be kind of a fun interesting thing to see,
but it might be also somewhat macabre when you got
down to it. Just bet on who's gonna outlast everybody?
And some of us are wondering one way, and some
wondering how much deeper we can make it. It's up to us,
well I get not at all, not entirely, but it
(01:47):
is up to us to do the best we can
with the tools we've got. And some of us take
that to heart, some don't. I don't exercise as much
as I probably should. I still kind of force myself,
if you can call it that, to go out and
play golf in the heat, to go out and fish
(02:07):
in the heat, to go out in the winter time
when it's cold, because I don't want to get dependent
on air conditioning or heating for my overall comfort. Now
what I prefer to be in the air conditioning, Sure
of course I would, But if there's something fun to
(02:30):
do outside, it doesn't take long to talk me into it.
It really doesn't. I'm at the point where I don't
take anything for granted either, and I'm not jealous of
people who have more than me, but neither am I
angry with myself for not having more than I do.
Life's been pretty good to me in a lot of ways,
and for all of them, I'm genuinely grateful. I really
(02:51):
am grateful and gracious. I think that's two good ways
to be I would consider. And for all the talk
I hear about how divided we are as a nation,
mostly emanating from the other side, from the left, I'm
just not having that experience. I say hello to people
and they say hello back. I say good morning, and
(03:14):
they say good morning back. And I'm not talking about
the spam calls where you say where they say hello
and no, I just I'm talking about real people in
grocery stores, in malls, in every place I go. And
it doesn't matter who they are, doesn't matter how old
(03:35):
they are, doesn't matter what they look like. The overwhelming
majority of people with whom I have these exchanges are
cordial and well mannered and appear, through what seemed to
be very genuine smiles, to just be happy to be
(03:55):
there and happy that somebody said hello to them, and
in turn, they got a chance to say hello to me.
So it's working for me anyway. Most I think. I
think the overwhelming majority really of Americans are pretty optimistic
about our future, and they're willing to work with other
people toward common goals. That's how it's always been up
until fairly recently in history in this country. You just
(04:20):
got to work together toward a common goal. Nobody has
to agree one hundred percent with anybody, but in the
end there needs to be middle ground where can we
can both find an opportunity to grow the place. I'm
afraid that the people who say other than that, people
(04:40):
who say that their way is the only way that's right,
artists trying to generate chaos where it doesn't exist. Because
without chaos, without disparity, without bitterness, pretty much nothing they
say makes sense. It doesn't really, and so they just
say it louder and say it more emphatically, thinking that
(05:05):
that's going to change it, and it's not. It's not
going to change anything, all right. Moving to the weather
very quickly, we've got rain in the forecast for tomorrow
and Saturday. Thinks of that yellow blob on the National
Hurricane Center map. It is moved into the Gulf of Mexico,
which it was predicted to do two three days ago
and doing exactly what it was supposed to do when
(05:26):
it is also still predicted to fall apart basically after
it takes a rite and moves inland, and the result
over here in Southeast Texas will be scattered to maybe
some possibly heavy showers and thunderstorms tomorrow, probably not early,
(05:47):
but at least at some point in the day, and
then through Saturday and maybe even a little part of Sunday.
The good news is. The good news is the clouds
in the rain are going to cool us down a
little bit, but that's going to be short lived. Once
this passes, it's back the sunshine and heat and whatever
else is common. Well, the humidity. I almost forgot the humidity.
(06:10):
How could I? How could I forget the one of
the leading players in this theater production. Holy cow, you
can't leave out humidity. It would be there would be
an uproar, I'm sure from all the humidity fans. I
don't know any of those, but they must exist somewhere.
I got friends who think they'll get in eighteen holes
(06:31):
of golf tomorrow, but I'm not sure that's going to
happen for them. I'll cross my fingers, but it looks
like tomorrow. By the time at least that they'll finish,
we might get some rain through here. And who knows,
these guys are all pretty fortunate in life. Maybe the
weather will smile upon them and let them tee it
up on one and get all the way to a
(06:52):
final put on eighteen. Market's two up, two down among
my fab four, with the Russell taking a one percent hit.
That was the worst of it all. The best of
it all wasn't much in the green, but green nonetheless,
and gold lost twenty five bucks an ounce, but was
still closer to thirty four hundred than thirty three hundred
(07:14):
dollars per ounce. Oil up a little bit, but still
south of sixty six dollars a barrel, which means very
affordable to drive around and enjoy our own country and
go take a think of driving vacation, a long weekend somewhere,
maybe a little bit longer than that. Whatever you want
to do, it's your time and your money, and you
(07:36):
are certainly free to spend it as you see fit.
Let's take a little break here, try to stay on
time today. On the way out, I'll remind you that
of late health, the vascular clinics for which I've spoken
now for quite some time, are a good way to
make sure that everything you've got that can be remedied
with vascular procedure is taken care of by a team
(07:57):
led by doctor Andrew Doe of people who are excellent
and expert in doing just that. Prostate artery embolization, that's
their most common procedure over there. Takes an enlarged, non
cancerous prostate and shrivels it down to nothing so you
don't have to have those symptoms anymore. You've got fibroids
for women, you've got ugly veins, head pain in some cases,
(08:20):
even all of that, and so many other things that
are listed at the website, but too many to mention here.
They can do for you, always just in their office.
You don't have to go to the hospital anywhere. Always
within a couple of hours, well usually within a couple
of hours. Some procedures might take a little bit longer,
(08:41):
some might not, And always with the full support of
that entire staff to make sure you get in there
and get out of there in the best shape you can.
You're gonna come out of there feeling better, and you're
gonna heal up fast, not gonna take you along. Most
of what they do is covered by Medicare and Medicaid too.
A late health dot com A L A T E
(09:01):
A latehealth dot com seven one three five eight eight
thirty eight eighty eight. They also do regenerative medicine. By
the way, if you've got chronic pain, they can help
you with that. Seven one three five eight eight thirty
eight eighty eight. What's life without a nap? I suggest
to go to bed, sleep it off.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
Just wait until the show's over. Sleepy Back to Dougpike
as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
All right, welcome back to fifty plus, and thank you
for listening. I certainly do appreciate that. Uh, and I'll
offer you another thank you for sharing your lunch. You are.
We're going to talk in this segment about our eyes
and how they're impacted by this essentially kind of a
contemporary bombardment of those eyeballs of ours by blue light.
And to explain, I just happen to have doctor Stephanie
(09:48):
handle on the phone, therapeutic and glaucoma optometric specialist at
ut Heuse Robert Cyzick Center. Welcome to fifty plus, Doctor.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Handel Hi dig thank you so much for having me
my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Believe me so. By the way, I heard you spent
twenty five years as a musician before you shifted gears
to optometry. There's got to be a story, Beino.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
You've read my bio. Yeah I did, I did. I
had a really good run. But I got to tell
you I couldn't be happier doing what I'm doing now.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Okay, And for the record, I'm keenly aware of your
last names association with music, even if it's spelled differently
than that of George Frederick Handel, the German turned brit
who composed throughout the first half of the eighteenth century.
Just so you know that, I know.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yeah, I'm impressed.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
All right. So out of the music hall and into
the light, so to speak. Let's talk about blue light,
which emanates from exactly what in our everyday lives.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Okay, So it emanates from everywhere actually, and the highest
source of blue light, I believe it or not, is
the sun. The screens and the computer screens and the
tablets and the phones, they get a bad wrap, but
blue light, the majority of our blue light, is just
going to come from sunlight. In the what we call
the visible light spectrum. So when we're talking about blue light,
(11:05):
just so that all your listeners are on board, we're
talking about what we call the visible light spectrum. So
of the light that we can actually see when it
comes to colors, blue light is on the one end
of that spectrum. So it's got the shortest wavelength and
the highest energy by comparison, you can compare that to
(11:26):
red light, which has the longest wavelength and the lowest energy.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
In addition to sunlight, and phones and laptops and all
that are TVs also blue light rich. I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
So we're going to get a full spectrum of light
from any device. It just sort of depends on what
spectrum that particular device gives us. We know our electronic
device is the brighter they get, the more blue light
they're throwing at us.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Okay, so and let's just dive into it. What are
the risks from over exposure to blue light?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Blue light got a bad wrap several decades ago when
some research connected it to macular degeneration. I'm sure lots
of your listeners are familiar with that. The good thing
is that we can all relax about that because it's
been proven over and over and over again that wild
blue light does have an association with macular degeneration and
(12:22):
with what we call phototoxicity, so damage to the retina.
It has to be in quantities that are exponentially higher
than anything that we're going to be exposed to in
daily life, from our screens, from the sun, from really
from anything that we're going to just encounter in our
daily routine lives. So as far as the risks of
(12:43):
blue light are concerned, not really any permanent damage. But
what we're finding is that the longer we spend on
screens and the more blue light we're exposed to, the
more we're getting symptoms of what we call digital fatigue syndrome.
And so what we're getting is patients that are getting
this blurry vision that kind of goes in and out.
We're getting a lot of dry eyes, the burning eyes,
(13:07):
stinging eyes, the watery eyes, and some patients are even
complaining of headaches when they're spending hours and hours on
the computer.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, that's I've got I know people who spend more
time than they should staring at phones, staring at iPads
and whatnot, and complaining of difficulty sleeping, complaining of difficulty focusing,
the headaches, things like that, so that all could be
at least associated with exposure to blue light.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Could definitely be associated when it comes to the difficulty sleeping.
So one of the things that blue light does for
us is it tells our body that we have to
be awake and alert. We're getting the majority of it
from sunlight, so it helps the eye and the body
and the brain regulate hormones that tell our bodies that
(13:58):
it's not time for yet. So you can imagine when
we're getting bombarded with blue light too late into the night,
some patients might find it difficult to turn all of
that off, and their body might be finding it difficult
to kind of switch gears and get the sleep hormones
going and the way hormones put away for the night
at one.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Or two o'clock in the morning, and you're still looking
at that screen and your body's going nope, not yet, no, no.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
No, yeah, And we're all guilty of it.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
What about what about AMD? Is there still a link
to that in a problem as far.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
As the circadian rhythm is concerned.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
No, not necessarily. Well, yeah, I guess you explained that
where we would have to have exponential exposure before. Let
me just cross that off my list here, Doctor Stephanie
handle with us. Does the risk of blue light exposure
increase with age at all?
Speaker 1 (14:53):
It?
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Actually I have to qualify this because natural age related
changes mean that our old our eyes are going to
start developing cataracts. Another change that happens is that the
pupil actually gets just a little bit smaller as we age.
So our body kind of takes care of that for
us because with the cataract formation and with the pupil
(15:15):
kind of starting to close in just a little bit,
we actually get less exposure to blue light. And that's
another reason that maybe we go to dinner in a
low lit restaurant, we have to pull out the cell
phone to start shining a light on the menu because
our eyes are just getting less of that light.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Well, that explains a lot, Doc, Okay, that's good to
know there's a reason for all of that. It's amazing
how many good reasons there are for some of the
things that we all just take for granted as age related.
By the way, are there any you mentioned I think
early in the interview that this is all kind of
not permanent. If we quit looking at the blue light
(15:55):
so much, Will our eyes not be so dry? Will
our sleep pattern improve? Can we get over this hump? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Absolutely, So that's the very So we recommend that patients
take breaks from computer work. And it's hard to do
when we're really concentrated on what we're doing. But the
twenty twenty twenty rule has been out there for a
long time. So every twenty minutes, taking a break from
your work, taking a break from your computer, closing your eyes,
looking at something far away for about twenty thirty seconds.
(16:26):
Just doing that, we know is going to help. Something
kind of silly that we can all do is just
blink more. And I know that sounds silly, but when
we're concentrated on at computer work or on a cell phone,
we just know we don't blink enough. So just by blinking,
just by taking breaks, maybe we need to use some
artificial tears for moisture every now and then, but just
(16:49):
by doing those things, we can really reduce the symptoms
that we're getting from digital fatigue syndrome. So that can
take a lot of the strain off.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Before we run out of time. What about red light?
I saw thing about red light for evening and that that.
I've heard a lot of explanations what red light's made
in the evening. I'm hoping this is different than that.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
So our devices now come with a lot of our
devices now come with something called like night shift. I
know that's what and that's what some brands call it.
So what that is is a change in the transmission
spectrum of the light that's coming off of our device.
So when you turn night shift on, you'll notice that
your screen kind of goes a little bit yellow. It's
(17:32):
not quite that bright, bright white light. So that is
that shift toward the red light that you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
And you would want to do that, you would want
to do that for the evening, right, Yeah, some.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Patients really find it beneficial. Honestly, I think it's just
more comfortable in the evenings. The light's lower matches the
ambient light better, and it's and it's not going to
be bombarding us with that same blue light that may
or may not contribute to difficulty getting to sleep.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
And not coincidentally, you know what else happens when evening
comes along, The sun goes down, and that's so that's
it's replication actually of a sunset almost isn't.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
It exactly exactly. And the nice thing those devices, a
lot of them, you can set it automatically to go
from sundown to sun up. You don't even have to
think about it.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Okay, I'm gonna have to go look for that on
my iPad. That would that would greatly help me, Doctor
Stephanie handle that. This is all so such good information.
I truly do appreciate your time today.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Oh I'm so glad, my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
And we're gonna do this again sometime. You were an ace.
You aced your test today. Thank you, oh, thank you.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Yeah, this is a pleasure day.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
All right, thanks tof alright, see by bye. All right,
we gotta take you a little break here. On the
way out, I'll tell you about Theedar Cove r V
Resort over there on Tri City Beach Road, down darn
near to the end of Tri City Beach Road, kind
of by Thompson's Bake Camp, if you know where that is,
right there on Galveston Bay two and And what better
(19:01):
way to spend a weekend or a week or a
month if you've got the time watching sunsets and sunrises
over the bay, then maybe on a vacation over some
motel with a pancake place across a parking lot. That's
not fun to wake up to or go to bed too.
(19:21):
Kind of weird noises too, might get with that. Cedar
Cove's got a noise rule that keeps it quiet through
the night, so you don't have to worry about somebody
having a big hoot nanny while you're trying to get
to sleep in your motor home or in your pop
up camper or whatever else you want to put on
one of their slabs. Every one of their spots, every
(19:42):
one of their hookups has sewer, water and electric. They've
got Wi Fi, free WiFi by the way, bath house,
all of that stuff, and some pretty dog gone good
fishing too. Owned by Alan Nancy Kibbie Great People out
by the Way, shared on the program a week and
a half half ago or so. I think it is
now that he has worked with one of his one
(20:05):
of his good business partners and actually has a full
sized motor home that you can rent to stay over
there and kind of get an idea of what that
experience is going to be like without having to go
shell out six figures for a motor home. Bring the
family over there. He'll park it on whatever slabs open
for you that you like the view from, and you
(20:26):
can stay there and enjoy that bayfront, living temporarily in
a motorhome that's got all the comforts of home. Cedar
cove Rvresort dot com. Go to that website, take a
look at what he's offering over there and see if
it doesn't look good to you. It certainly does to me.
Cedar cove Rvresort dot com.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Yell, they sure don't make them like they used to.
That's why every few months we wash him, check his fluids,
and spring on a fresh coat of wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, welcome back to
fifty plus. Thanks for listening. Rounding second and headed.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Up to third or over to third, I guess, depending
on where you are in the ball field seven one
three two one two five nine five zero. If you
want to be a part of the program and talk
about something that's of interest to you that you think
would be interest to the rest of the audience, I
would be happy to hear about that and maybe get
(21:25):
a whole get a whole segment about it. If you've
got something you want to talk about specifically that's in
the news. I'll listen and as long as it seems
interesting and you keep your language clean. I had somebody
I had to dump a couple of days ago. Well,
just so you know, now, it wasn't on this show, obviously,
(21:46):
or you would have handled it as quickly and efficiently
as I know you would if that ever happened. But yeah,
on on the weekend, somebody got overly enthusiastic again about
something that was going on in the out of doors
and let one and we had Frankie and I both
double dipped on the button and kept it from going
to air, which is good. That's all I ask really
(22:09):
of any caller. You don't have to agree with anything
I say. You can disagree with me, and I will
politely listen, and then I'll I'll either change my mind
because you've convinced me to do that, or we'll just
have to agree to disagree. And there's nothing wrong with
either of those two options for either of us. From
the National Scandal Desk, And this is part one. Which
(22:31):
one you think I'm gonna go to first, Obama or Clinton?
It's got to be Obama, although there is a Clinton
connection even to that Obama situation. But former President Barack
Obama's hitting in the one hole today to use an
Astro's reference, because the accusations against him are so serious.
(22:52):
Documents released by did the Director of National Intelligence Tulci
Gabbard layout in pretty good detail, who knew what when?
Who instructed people who knew better to create separate sets
of documents? All that were manufactured from thin air, really
and just released to some media outlets that couldn't wait
to share them. And those documents, if the allegations are true,
(23:15):
were intended with quite quite deliberately to just mislead our
entire country. There's just a mountain of information available on
this one, and if you're interested in reading the details,
feel free to go online and just type in a
couple of keywords and up it'll pop onto the Epstein thing,
(23:37):
which Bat's second today. This week, a US House panel
voted in favor of issuing subpoenas to to a lot
of people who have former links to Gislaane Maxwell. I
don't know Gislaane. Is that correct, will you think, sir? Yeah,
I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce her name. It's
(23:58):
it's a little tricky and I've heard it ten ways,
or I would have settled on. I'll settle on the
first one that I hear twice. Anyway, she the former
confidante of Jeffrey Epstein on that list for potential subpoena
subpoena request to come on in and sit down and
visit former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State and
(24:19):
failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and many many more big
names from politics back in the day. And that's just
the top of the list. If they do testify on
their oath, they're either going to have to spill beans
that were never intended for spilling, or face charges if
the evidence gathered by this committee is contrary to what
(24:40):
those folks say is true. Both of those issues, both
of those situations are not going to play out in
a week or two weeks or a month or six months.
It's going to take a long time, a lot of
court time to figure out what happened there. Heading third
(25:00):
playing catcher without a mask today is Gavin Newsom out
there in California, who's twenty dollars minimum wage ended up
costing people, Well, there's eighteen thousand fewer jobs in that
qs are that quick serve restaurant space and for the
burger and fries people who held onto their jobs, they
lost an average of two hundred and fifty hours of
(25:22):
work annually, which translates to about four grand less in
annual income that those people really couldn't afford. That law
took effect April one, twenty four wasn't a joke. By June,
more than ten thousand jobs were gone in April this year.
The fast food franchisees were turning to kiosks as fast
as they could to lower cost to keep the lights on.
(25:45):
Newsom still defends it. And meanwhile, California ranked number one
in the nation for unemployment. We'll take a little break here.
Optimum iron Doors wrapping up next week the summer sale
that's been going on since June won one. And this
is quite literally now, I think, based on conversations I've
had with the owner of the company, Jason Fortenberry, the
(26:09):
final hurrah, the final chance you'll get to get the
lowest price you may ever get on an iron door,
with talk of tariffs, with talk of this, talk of that,
Jason said from jump that he wasn't going to tinker
with his prices before the sale. He wasn't going to
add something on because of a potential issue with tariffs,
(26:32):
and then take it off and call this sale. These
are the lowest prices he's offered in quite some time,
and they're good for what another seven eight days. Optim
Iron Doors is it decorative forged iron, the big heavy
ones or those sleek, narrow profile steel doors, every one
of which is crafted just to suit your style, to
(26:54):
suit your family's personality. Make your house look better from
the street, give it that curb appeal you've all always wanted,
and it's going to be a perfect fit too. They've
got installers that are as good or better than any
I've ever used for anything in my house, and put
a door on my house a couple of years ago.
It's beautiful. It really is. See for yourself at the
showroom over there on North Post Oak, or you can
(27:16):
go to their gallery at the website, optimairndors dot com
at big summer sales going on right now, where you
can get a steel door which is less maintenance than wood.
Steel door, got some security options a little bit more
than wood. Beautiful beautiful doors for your house. Optima iron
Doors dot Com, optimairndoors dot.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Com, Old Guys Rule and of course women never get old.
If you want to avoid sleeping on the couch.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Hell, I think that sounds like a good plan.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
Fifty plus continues.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Here's more with Doug all right, welcome back, Thanks for
listening to fifty plus. Rounding third and heading home. Astros.
I talked about it briefly yesterday. I'll be even more
brief today. I don't know how they keep doing it,
but they keep doing it. This is a mixed up,
(28:12):
mashed up list or a roster every day that seems
to have new names on it. People hopping out there
because somebody else got hurt and dog gone. If they're
not finding ways to win games, what we're seeing is
we probably had a lot better minor league system and
had better prospects down there than other people in baseball.
(28:35):
Realized it wasn't but about maybe two weeks ago that
I heard a lot of talk about how the Astro's
entire farm system was just depleted down to nothing. For
you stoners from the seventies down to stems and seeds.
You all know what that means. So more power to
you Astros. Keep it up, just keep going batting in
(28:59):
the cleanups. In today's lineup. By the way, joy Bear
from the View, Behar from the View, who kind of
squawked her way through a personally critical tirade against President
Trump this week. That show, despite what they'll tell you,
I looked at ranker dot com and that show is
ranked by Ranker among daytime TV talk shows twenty sixth.
(29:23):
They'll tell you they're number one with a very small group,
a very small demographic of women. But outside of that,
my gut tells me they're not doing so well. I
don't know, but I can't imagine. They're kind of the
daytime equivalent of the Stephen Colbert Show, which was canceled recently.
(29:44):
As most of you know, it won't rap until I
think May of twenty twenty six, which I find interesting. Says, Oh,
I guarant I know what that is. That's to get
past all the annual commitments of advertisers so that they
can at least collect that money and maybe re coop
some of the forty million they lost this past year.
(30:04):
All all the view people do just criticize and disagree
with anybody who disagrees with them, and they seem to
kind of have a personal vendetta against President Trump in
a country they say is broken by the way, but
affords them some pretty dog one lavish lifestyles. Let's go
to the simple, easy, little conversation starter kind of stuff.
(30:27):
That one's gross, but I'll get to it because it's
not that gross. This one's not people on social media
sharing these buzzwords that immediately set off there. And I'll
wrap this in quotes belooney alarm, such as calibrate. If
people are using the word calibrate around you, there, they're
(30:49):
just they're trying to use a fancy word and probably
not really using it correctly. Team player got votes work family.
That reminds me, how can I not say coldplay when
we talk about a work family. That's a yeah, that
was not fann that went beyond family actually and then
(31:09):
integrated with AI. There's a lot of stuff these days.
It's integrated with AI, like most of the spam calls
I get, like most of the emails I get, And
I as a writer and former magazine editor, I think
I can I have a pretty good handle on when
something is written by a computer and something is written
(31:32):
by a human, because there are human traits, human characteristics
that bleed over into people's writing, and the machines aren't
quite there. Yet. Out of a new poll comes the
answer to the question which country has the most overrated
food culture, and the winner with thirty percent of the vote,
(31:57):
was France. When I was a little kid, people talked
a lot about the food in France and how wonderful
it was. I guess we're just tired of all of
their crepes. I just made that up. Well, thumbs up
or thumbs down? Yeah, more just myselmanos. Okay, fair enough.
(32:18):
It was well for impromptu and for off the cuff.
I don't think it was that bad, but I wouldn't
give it a higher score than you gave it. I
think we're on the same wave link on that. Here's
something that I don't know how could possibly work out well.
A school district in Tennessee has made the decision controversial
(32:40):
as it may be, to stop excusing absences for sick
kids doctor's note get out of school free cart and
I maybe maybe in that district people were abusing the
doctor note thing and having doctor's write notes so that
they could leave early for vacations or come home late
(33:02):
from vacations. Doctors' notes to get kids out of anything really,
But the bottom line is henceforth throughout the land, at
least in that little piece of Tennessee, kids will be
marked either present or absent period and are going to
be facing punishment for absences, whether they're sick or not,
(33:22):
which makes absolutely zero zero sense up in the hill country.
By the way, on a somber note, we're down to
two now. One of the three remaining persons was found
this week, which brings the roster of victims as yet
unrecovered to a pair. I think that's still right. It
(33:44):
may be down to one, actually now I'm not one
hundred percent sure. Will do you? Have you heard any differently? No,
the efforts of Hi, there's thousands of people from all
over the country, all around the world, should be rewarded,
really for doing in twenty days what a lot of
people were saying might take months or even a whole
year or more. And whatever reward might be offered, though,
(34:07):
I get I bet you every one of those people,
every one of them, would trade whatever was offered to
find the last, the last of the last of the
last people who are still missing. So to all of them,
this is still a job not quite done. They're close,
but they're not done. And for the families of families
(34:30):
who still have no closure. My deepest sympathies, why them,
Why why those people? And when are they going to
be found? Very soon? I hope very very soon. I'm
not gonna talk about that guy. He's a scumbag. I
need one more, very quick one new product in Japan,
(34:53):
upright napping capsules for the office. Could you fall asleep
standing up in a capsule? Not me, not Will, and
I bet very few of you. That's it for today.
We'll be back tomorrow. Thanks you all for listening. Audios
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.