Caregivers and Returning to Work

Today, Doug Pike interviews Dr. Meagan Whisenant about caregivers. Pike also speaks with Fred Sievert about returning to the workplace.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Remember when it was impossible to misplacethe TV remote right because you were the
TV remote. Remember when music soundedlike this, Remember when social media was
truly social? Hey, John,how's it going today? Well, this
show is all about you on agood die. This is fifty plus with

(00:26):
Doug Pipe. Helpful information on yourfinances, good health, and what to
do for fun that die. Fiftyplus brought to you by the UT Health
Consortium on Aging Informed Decisions for ahealthier, happier life. And by Incredible.
If a staine seems indelible, youhaven't tried Incredible And now fifty plus

(00:48):
with Doug Pike. All right,Friday edition of the program starts right now.
Thank you for being here on GoodNews Friday. Got a great show
coming up today. And despite theseemingly in the stream of bad news pulling
across our southern border being revealed bywhat we now see as three whistleblowers from
the FBI, and these a newsstream of educators, so called educators anyway,

(01:15):
revealing themselves more as indoctrinators. Allthat on the table, and I'm
gonna leave it right there today sothat we can all breathe a little fresh
air and hear some better news.I'll start with the forecast, which looks
just buying through the weekend. Notmuch Fred over there until about next Thursday
or Friday. Actually no excitement throughlunchtime on Wall Street either, and that's

(01:37):
a pretty good news bit of informationon the whole. By the way,
I'll speak in the second segment todayabout caregiver stress and how to avoid it,
which will definitely be good news foranybody who is selflessly and for nothing
caring for a friend or family memberjust because it's the right thing to do.

(02:00):
Those of you who do that knowhow stressful it can be, and
there are ways that my guests andI are going to share with you on
how to avoid burning out your andwinding up needing care for yourself. We
just don't want that. After that, more good news, I've landed a
second interview for the third segment todaywith Fred Siebert, whom I interviewed a

(02:24):
week ago. Today, he theformer insurance company president turned author books that
will help you or anybody else inyour predicament get back into the workforce if
that's necessary. A lot of peopleretired early during COVID just said enough's enough,
and now with inflation find themselves notfinancially stable enough to stay that way.

(02:47):
So there's good news in that segmentfor anybody who needs to re enter
the rat race. All that laterthough, batting first in today's fifty plus
lineup, and here's a hint,also likely in the same spot in tonight's
line up for the Houston Astros,word came out maybe I don't know,

(03:08):
maybe thirty minutes ago. If not, I don't think the news is more
than an hour old, so I'mhappy to share it with you. Jose
Altuvee scheduled to return to the Bigsafter his rehab stints in sugar landing Corpus
Christie. That's actually probably the bestnews we've gotten around Houston in quite a
while, including basketball and football news. We need him back in there.

(03:32):
My question now is what are youdoing with Mauricio Dubon, the guy who
has been playing second base this wholetime, and who frankly is playing quite
well. He's no slouch. Heeasily replaced first al Tube, clearly clearly
the better player based on his historyhere in Dubon's but du Bon played really,

(03:59):
really well and covered our beehinds ina lot of cases for a long
time, so I hope they keephim up here as a utility guy.
He shouldn't have any problem playing eitherof the middle infield spaces any of the
three well the two medals in thatthird base corner, if he were called
upon to give Alex Bregman a nightoff. And as I was discussing with

(04:20):
a friend of mine here at work, middle infielders tend to also play a
pretty good outfield if they're called uponto do that, and he's quick enough
certainly that he could cover some groundout there. On a happy ending front,
good news from Columbia. Get this. There was a plane crash several
days ago, several days ago,and actually it's probably longer now that it's

(04:44):
almost two weeks ago now come tothink of it. Yeah, I thought
it was a little more recent,but the more I think about it now,
it's been out there for a while. Plane crash. The three adults
on board the plane perished, unfortunatelysadly, but there were also three children
and an infant on that plane,and there was evidence when they finally kind

(05:09):
of got up in there looking aroundthat showed that the children may have survived.
They were finding little thing here alittle baby bottle here, hair scrunchy.
There. There were the thirteen yearold and eleven year old and a
four year old, all of whomhappened to be and this really probably saved

(05:29):
their bacon. Were members of anindigenous indigenous group of people there and as
such intimately familiar with the jungle andwhat it could provide for them whilst they
tried to figure out where in theheck they were and how to get out
of there. The latest word,and it's still pretty sketchy. It's in
the middle of nowhere. Basically allthis is happening, But is that all
the children were found and were okay, and we're being transported back toward their

(05:56):
homes wherever that may be. That'sgreat news for those is not entirely unlike
the story we mentioned earlier in thisweek about the Australian woman who survived two
weeks in the outback after getting lostin the brush behind a rest stop.
She just decided they were taking abreak, and she decided she'd wander off
and have a good walk and woundup getting lost in the brush. One

(06:19):
in a never ending string of storiesthat should inspire all of us never to
give up one more before we haveto go to break this one from just
up I forty five and fort Worthpolice got into a brief chase with a
carjacker who'd stolen a car from amom whose six month old baby was in
the back seat of that car.Bad guy apparently took off, got out

(06:43):
of the car running, whipped thebaby still in his car seat, apparently,
and dropped it behind a pile oftrash as he kept running away.
I'm pretty sure they caught him,and there's video the police finding the baby
and relaying that information by radio.In a quick sidebar. If you're ever
lost, you're not a baby unlessyou're really really handy with unassisted navigation.
Don't stray far from thinking. Don'tleave where you are unless you really are

(07:10):
one hundred percent confident you can getout of there. You're probably not going
to find a roadway. You're probablynot going to find a farmhouse or any
of that stuff you read about inbook. Carry a whistle in a mirror
if you're going into the woods,two very good signaling devices in case your
phone goes down, and just stayput if you feel like you truly are
lost. If you left word onwhere you're going and where when you expect

(07:31):
to be back, like you shouldyour best best, just to stay close
to where somebody might be sent tofind you. Some trained person, some
trained rescuer goes looking for you.They're gonna look where you told people you
would be. All right, wegotta take a little break. You're on
the way out. I'll tell youabout ut Health Science Centers Consourceium on Aging,
the place where they treat nobody butus. Kind of a handy place

(07:55):
to be if you need some helpwith your health. All kinds of things
they can do there, and everybodywho works there from the ground up.
Everybody who works there is specially trainedin senior medicine. They know what makes
us tick. You go in there, you tell them how you feel,
what's bugging you, what's not buggingyou, and they will be listening with

(08:16):
ears that are specially trained to hearthings that only impact seniors. Ut dot
edu slash aging is the website utdot edu slash aging. Now they sure
don't make them like they used to. That's why every few months we wash
them, check his fluids and springon a fresh cutle wax. This is

(08:39):
fifty plus with Doug Pike. Allright, welcome back to fifty plus on
this Friday good News edition to theprogram. Frankly, no matter what the
subject, I consider it good newswhen an expert shares his her knowledge with

(09:00):
us. And in this segment,the topic is going to be caregivers,
especially the thirty four million plus unpaidfriends and family members who take care of
seniors or really anybody else who needsit just because it's the right thing to
do. If you are among them, you'll want to hear what doctor Megan
Wisnett says about avoiding the stress andpotential burnout that can come from this tremendous

(09:24):
gift you give. Welcome aboard,Meg, May I call you Megan,
Yes, of course, wonderful,Thank you so much. I really do
appreciate your time. So to maintainwhatever level of care someone's providing, I
feel like and correct me if I'mwrong. It's pretty much vital if they
keep themselves in good mental and physicalsafe sort of like being on a plane

(09:45):
and knowing that before you help somebodyelse, you got to put on your
own oxygen mask. Right, Yeah, absolutely so. While patients really carry
the brunt of the impact on qualityof life, I'm aging on chronic illness
affects the end higher family, andin fact, family caregivers, particularly spouses
and partners, shoulder huge responsibility forcoordinating aspects of chronic disease management, as

(10:09):
well as offering emotional support, managingsymptoms, assisting with bathing and feeding,
and paying bills, in managing medicalappointments. I mean, it's not surprising
that caregivers report difficulties with coping withthe complexity of chronic illness and aging and
the set in need for a highlevel of care and often unexpected or really

(10:31):
abrupt role changes. We're going frombeing a spouse partner to now a caregiver
impatient, or an adult child andparent to now a caregiver impatient, and
we see high rates of distress relatedto that. Yeah, what percentage of
these forty three million kind giving peoplewould you say are either at or approaching
burnout from what might be years ofthis type of self sacrifice? Really,

(10:56):
Oh, I would say upwards ofso know that our caregivers are not doing
well. We don't We don't providethe type of support that's needed, and
many caregivers really feel underprepared and underresource to manage what's being asked of them.
Yeah, we come into it andI say, we as this entire
group of people who might be doingthis totally unprepared, untrained. We have

(11:18):
no idea what we're getting into,no idea how it's going to work out.
If you suspected that a care provider, a family member was in your
office with that person who needed thecare and that they might be overburned,
what questions would you ask them tofigure out where they were on that burnout
scale? Yeah? So I thinkyou know, one of the first things

(11:39):
that we really want to want totalk to caregivers about is how they're doing
with their own physical and mental health. Yea. So when we see changes
in appetite, problems with sleeping orchanges in sleephoppets, new pains, new
aches, back pain, neck pain, difficulty concentrating, problems with being able

(12:01):
to work, inability to get toyour own healthcare appointments, your own screenings,
your own routine care needs, orreally inability to care for the patient.
And that's really where we start toworry that this is a caregiver who
is experiencing some level of stress that'sprobably unhealthy. The other thing that we

(12:24):
worry a lot about and this doeshappen occasionally, is caregivers can feel angry
or frustrated or even resentful for theposition that they're in, which can lead
to feelings of guilt. And whilethese are normal things to feel, these
are huge role changes and often notthings that we expected or are prepared for.
It can be really helpful to talkabout those feelings with a professional and

(12:46):
to acknowledge them and to recognize thatthey're normal things to feel, but also
sort of move past just feeling themand figure out how to manage those feelings
as well. So thank you,doctor Megan, wasn't it with us on
fifty plus two? So to stayon my good news Friday thing, let's
talk about ways that caregivers can kindof shed some of that stress they feel.
And I guess really the first andforemost is to find a way to

(13:09):
take a break, right, Andthat's a very general statement, but let's
dive deeper into that if you will. Yeah, so I would say,
you know a couple of things.So asking for help and accessing available resources
really important. So as healthcare professionalswere often really heavily focused on managing an
illness or the aging process, andfocused on the patient, and we often

(13:30):
forget to ask how the caregiver isdoing, and so we really need caregivers
to advocate for themselves. Bring upyour needs. Don't be shy to ask
about what you need, whether it'smore information, whether you need training on
how to manage something that you're doingfor the patient at home, some sort
of nursing take care that you're providing, or even just needing a list of
resources in the area for respite care. Most of the in home services I

(13:54):
guess would would jump in for afew days or a week. It's not
going to be free, but Iwould think that would be worth every time
to recharge a caregiver's batteries. Absolutely, so, we do have a lot
of different respect care options that areavailable where can get someone coming into the
home to provide some care for afew hours every day or even longer,
and in some cases we can havethe patient go into a facility where they

(14:16):
can get some care to give thecaregiver a break, and then really some
of this can be covered by insurance, some of it can't, so there
are some costs associated, but weknow that our caregivers actually report greater severity
of anxiety and depression than our patientsthemselves in a chronics of these settings.

(14:37):
So in cancer and stroke, caregiversare actually doing worse with their mental health
and the actual occasion. And whenthe caregiver is not functioning well, when
the caregiver is not feeling well,they're not able to provide care for their
loved one in the way that theywant to. And so it really is
worth taking the time to find theseresources and in making these things happen within

(14:58):
your own family setting so that thecaregiver can take care of themselves to be
able to take care of the patient. If the person who's getting this care
kind of balks at the idea ofthe caregiver taking a break, how should
that caregiver explain how critically necessary thatis without offending or starting to fight or

(15:18):
whatever. Yes, I think honestyis really important here, So just you
know, and this can be difficultin situations where the patient is experiencing some
dementia or some personality change, andbut just being very upfront and saying,
you know, I'm not feeling wellmyself, I'm not sleeping well, and
I don't feel like I'm able totake care of myself. And I just
need a little break or some ofthe things that I'm needing to do for

(15:41):
you, I don't know how todo them very well. And so I'm
going to get someone to come inand help me and support me, do
some training or take on some ofthese responsibilities because I want you to have
the best care as possible. SoI think just being honest communication is always
critical. Yeah, that's got tobe the biggest part of it. Would
be hard for a caregiver to tryto be that honest with somebody who isn't

(16:06):
necessarily receptive to that. It's beingsomebody who's being made to feel guilty about
it. They'd almost feel guilty toeven bring it up, wouldn't they.
They got but they have to doit right. Yeah. Yeah, so
it's very very difficult. But I'malso just really important for the caregiver to
remember that their health is really importanttoo, and their ability to take care

(16:26):
of their loved one is dependent ontheir own health. That's a very good
point. Yeah, advocating for whatthey need. Yeah, so you know,
advocating for a break, a recharge, or advocating for having someone come
in and take on some of theskills that maybe the caregiver isn't comfortable doing,
and it's really a good thing foreveryone. Do you have any set
of guidelines as to how often someonewould need that type of a break to

(16:48):
keep from getting to the point wherethey really can see it in themselves.
Yeah, so I think it's veryindividualized. Okay, so you know some
of us are depending on other responsibilitiesthat you have. If you have young
children at home, or you're caringfor other people, if you have work
responsibilities, it might look different.But again, I think as a caregiver,

(17:10):
just being really aware of your physicaland mental health and looking for science
that you're experiencing some stress. Soagain, problems with sleep, being or
changes in your appetite, new achesand pains, not being able to concentrate
at work, being more irritable thanusual, those are kind of signs that
maybe a break is needed. Well, that's good news for everybody. I

(17:32):
do believe what resources were less thana minute at this point. But can
you readdle off a couple of goodresources to start looking at. Yeah,
so I would start with disease specificresources, so for cancer, the American
Cancer Society, for strokes, theAmerican Stroke Apreciation I think that's a really
good place to start. But I'myour healthcare provider and is also a really
good person to involve in these conversations. So asking about being very upfront about

(17:56):
what your needs are. Healthcare providercan connect you to social work navigation,
we hub services, homehouse and rescieos options. So that's always a really
good place stick up. You haveto start somewhere, don't you. Yeah,
all right, Doctor Meghan wizn It, thank you so very much.
I really do appreciate your time today. It's wonderful news. Thanks so much,
my pleasure. All Right, We'vegot to take a break here.

(18:18):
Unfortunately I could have gone on fora little bit longer, but that's that's
a good starting point for all ofus, good news for the care providers
and good information for the care receiversin this audience. On the way,
I'll tell you about Kirkholmes, thecustom home builder with whom I've been associated
now for the better part of tenyears. I think it is almost and

(18:41):
I am thrilled to have them onboard. I have been through six I
think it is homes built by kirkHolmes over these years, just to get
a look and want to actually acouple of them parties I went to in
beautiful homes built by Kirkholmes. Thosewere up on the northwest side of town.
That's where they started really gaining momentum. They've built homes all the way

(19:03):
from the coast, all the wayup through San Antonio, Austin, the
Hill Country College Station. Now inMission Ranch, they have that Southern Living
showcase home that is for sale.Now. They're past the past the touring
phase and they've got that house upfor sale. If you want to just
move into an incredible home, oryou can make your own dream come true.

(19:29):
You can put your home where youwant it, make it look how
you want it to look. Youcan go in there with something as simple
as just an idea in your heador a drawing on a napkin. However,
in a tablet with a crayon,you've drawn your dream home, and
they can help you make that dreambecome a reality. They've been doing it

(19:51):
for three generations, thirty plus years. Twenty year structural warranty, which is
twice the industry standard two by sixexterior wall insulation time and a half the
amount of insulation most builders provide.Kirkholmes Dot com is a website. Start
your dream right there, k your K because at Kirkholmes it's all about

(20:12):
you once life without a Neck.I suggest you go to sleep it off,
just wait until this show's over.Is sleepy? Back to Doug Pike
as fifty plus continues. But butbut um, welcome back to fifty plus

(20:41):
on this good News Friday and moregood news. As I mentioned, we're
gonna talk in this segment again oneweek from the first time we did,
because I ran out of time,well before I ran out of questions to
ask of. Fred Siebert, theman who former was former president of New

(21:03):
York Life Insurance Company, authored severalbooks, including Fast Starting a Career of
Consequence. Mister Fred Siebert, Welcomeback, Fred, Thank you, Doug.
My pleasure to be back. Yeah, this is gonna be fun.
I honestly I commend you for writingall those books. And I want to
talk about that with that, withthe idea of people who have already worked

(21:26):
twenty thirty forty years having to goback into the workforce, start by sharing
some of the hurdles most of themare probably going to face in interviews with
employers maybe half their age. Yeah, definitely there's an issue there, and
I think it's it's more important thanever for someone in that age category to

(21:49):
be well prepared for that interview.In my book does talk about interview techniques,
and I'll just mention a couple ofthem, um that I think would
be very important. You know,don't don't make a big issue out of
age, uh, you know,go in and do your homework. That

(22:11):
is, you know, understand thecompany. If it's If it's a company,
it's one thing. If it's anif you're starting an entrepreneurial business,
that's different. If you want toask you about that, we'll get to
that later. But what I wouldsuggest is, you know, choose a
company, one that for which youdefinitely have a passion for what they do,

(22:32):
a passion for their mission, understandthat mission, understand their products and
markets and their in their competition,and um. Indicating the interview that you
know, you share the passion thatthe company has and you you appreciate their
mission um. And then in theinterview you want to demonstrate without you know,

(22:52):
without just sort of reciting everything you'velearned about the company, you want
to demonstrate knowledge of the products,their markets, the mission statement as I
said, And more importantly, howyou can contribute to that mission. You
know I do, Doug. I'veinterviewed dozens, I mean many dozens of

(23:14):
people over the course of my career, and rarely does someone come in with
a good understanding of the company,even at high levels, a good understanding
of what they do, what theirstrategies are with products and markets. And
so make the point about how yourown skill set of background can enable you
to contribute to the company, evenif you're age sixty. You know you

(23:38):
can. You can do a goodfive to ten year run in your age
sixty. Two other things I'll mentionthat are critically important. And again in
the many interviews I've done, peopledon't do this first. You always must
identify three or four questions you wantto ask. And many times I'd get

(24:02):
to the end of the interview andI'd say, I'm saving ten minutes of
time in case you have any questionsfor me, And you'd be surprised how
a few people even have a question. You know, it just indicates they're
not all that serious or motivated tocome work for you. So have three
or four questions, you know,it can be about products, market,
strategies can be about their plans forthe future, how they're going to grow,

(24:27):
maybe questions specific to your field ofexpertise. Then the other thing is
that that's what you always should do. What you let me tell you what
you always should not. You shouldnot in your first interview talk at all
about compensation benefits or vacation time.You don't even get into that. You

(24:49):
want to convince, you want toconvince the employer that you're someone who can
help. You're someone who can contributeright away, given your back round in
your experience. And don't you knowyou want to go there because of you
love what they're doing. You don'twant to go there because you're going to
offer you a good selling And Ithink that's that's a risky thing to start

(25:11):
jumping into in the first interview.I would imagine, so fred siebert on
fifty plus, a lot of usin this age group not so terribly smooth
with technology, how important or technicalskills in general in the current workplace.
They're they're important, And I thinkI think if you obviously, uh,

(25:33):
you know, someone in our agegroup isn't going to come in with the
strong ability to write computer code.I mean not many Mion's in here.
I forget that. But but youknow, if you have a kind of
a fundamental working knowledge of Microsoft Wordthat you could you could develop spreadsheets,

(25:56):
you know, and you you knowhow to research certain things, you can
do Google searches. I mean,I don't think it's all that critical to
have, you know, extensive skillsas much as it is to know where
to get them and how you know, how you can find people to help
you with it and so on.Yeah. I don't think that's a job

(26:19):
killer, you know, unless unlessthat's specifically what the job's about you,
that's specifically about your expertise. Yeah, speaking of the jobs themselves, are
there any positions or categories of workyou think that are better suited to older
applicants. That's that's who we're talkingto in this audience. Where should we

(26:41):
be looking so we avoid that needfor technology? Well, I think,
uh, there's a lot of alot of things I could mentioned, but
I think interpersonal skills are willingness tointeract with people, ability to ability to
listen and understand opposing points of view. Um, you know, you bring

(27:04):
to the table whatever your you know, whatever your your experiences are, your
particular, your particular skill sets are. And you know, if, like
I said earlier, if you canapply those skill sets and those experiences to
helping the company grow. I mean, growth is an important factor right now.

(27:26):
There's so many companies out there thatare stagnant and they don't they don't
know how to grow their business,or they're having difficulty growing their business.
You know, if you have ideasin that regard, if you've if you've
looked at the company's products and andyou can compliment them on their products and
even think about ask them, youknow, if they've thought about expanding in

(27:48):
some different into some different markets.Um, you know that kind of thing
I think is very helpful in theinterview. Absolutely it would be a communication
I think is one of the strongestskills that our generation could bring into any
environment, because the younger people todayare just so woefully lacking. I think
in that that's a that's a greatpoint. It is absolutely true. And

(28:15):
you know, if I sat acrossmy desk from somebody who had real difficulty
articulating what they're trying to tell me, and I don't really understand where they're
going, you know that that's almostI don't kick them out of my office
at the end of the interview.But they don't score well and they clearly
haven't given themselves a leg up.My goodness, friend. And I'll tell

(28:38):
you that that really is a bigproblem right now because it's so many people,
you know, using two and threeand four letter acronyms to try to
communicate when when other people don't evenknow what they're talking about, because it's
stuff you use on you know,social media. Yeah it's not Yeah,
it's not social media when you're sittingthere looking for a job. Fred siebert

(28:59):
On fifty plus, author of fastStarting a Career of Consequence. Good luck
to all of you who are reentering this race and hoping you can hit
a home run and get back outas quick as you can. Thank you,
Fred, I really do appreciate thisextra time. Thank you, yes,
sir, for my pleasure. Byway, all right, we gotta

(29:21):
take a little break here. Onthe way out, I'll tell you about
incredible. That would be the stainremover that I've had in my house for
two decades and has never never onwood. There's always a chance, but
so far, so good, neverfailed to remove a stain that I've found
around there or smell. There havebeen those occasions as well, and Incredible

(29:41):
will eliminate that problem. You've gotpets around the house, that thing don't
quite make it outside, you knowwhat I mean. Incredible has been around
for at least twenty twenty five years, because like I said, I've had
it for more than twenty years inmy house. It is available in h
GB and most hardware stores. Ifit's not in your HB, let me

(30:02):
know and I will make sure itis put in that store so that you
can go get yourself a bottle andkeep it on the shelf handy all the
time. All you do is pourit on the stain, blot it away
with a clean dry cloth. Readthe instructions, read what it'll do on
the bottle right then and there,and you'll have a better idea of what
you're gonna do. But it's justso simple. You just pour it on,

(30:26):
sing a song, go wash yourhands, go have a glass of
milk, whatever, but then goback and blot it away. The most
times I've had to apply and blotis four and that was on an incredibly
hence the name, I guess,stubborn stain on a chair stain's gone.
Ask for it by name at hiband most fine hardware stores. There's no

(30:48):
chemical smell. It's a water basedproduct that has something else in it that
does all the good stuff. Incredibleold guy's rule. And of course women
never get old. If you wantto avoid sleeping on the couch, you
think that sounds like a good plan. Fifty plus continues here's more with Doug

(31:17):
rounding third on fifty plus and headedfor home. I am so thrilled.
That's another baseball reference, obviously,and I am thrilled to report that,
according to at least two stories I'veseen in the last hour or so,
Josel Tube returns to the Astros tonightas they take on the Oakland A's,

(31:37):
the worst team in baseball. Yeah, it's kind of like Josel two.
I probably feel right at home sincehe's been playing double A and triple A
ball going up against the A's.They're just not any good. And I'm
not beating up on him. It'sit's just I'm looking at the records and
it's just not good in architectural good. It's news, I guess, kind

(32:00):
of semi nerd news history news.Anyway, if you like that sort of
thing. It is now believed thattwo large stones in Egypt have carvings on
them that are pretty much the oldestknown building plans ever. They date back
about nine thousand years and show ingreat detail structures that are called will Melbourne.

(32:27):
If you ever heard of a desertkite, I have not, you
have any, and you don't knowany, no idea what it is.
It's a very cool structure. Upto five kilometers in length. They were
and use. It's like a bigfence they put up to herd wild animals
into a high into a trap anenclosure where they could be then taken out

(32:50):
one at a time to feed thevillage or whatever. And those plans are
there, and once domestication finally camearound with animals, they pretty much erased
the need for these kites, butthey the structures remained very important parts of
the history of the region, andthose plans and such, more and more

(33:14):
being found kind of kind of telltheir story. It's pretty fascinating to me.
This is I'm easily fascinated. Iguess you want some. I'll give
you a chance to run the runthe bus for a minute. Here,
Will, let's go over to mysheet of fun things to know and tell
off to bed, Super scoop orLost and Found. Let's go with super

(33:37):
scooped, super scoop. It isin Japan. There's gonna be a pop
quiz with this one. In Japan, an ice cream company just broke the
record for the most expensive ice cream. Of course, like any most expensive
anything in the world, it includesgold leaf edible gold leaf, which is

(33:58):
redundant really because any gold leaf,if it's truly gold, is edible.
A fancy parmesan cheese, rare whitetruffles from Italy and costs will Melbourne how
much per scoop per scoop? I'mgonna go on scoop? Are we talking

(34:19):
usd H Yeah, I'm in I'min USD. I'm not talking. Let's
go with Let's go with a thirtydollars a scoop. It wouldn't even give
you one of those little taster spoonsfor that. Will this stuff And I'm
sure there's social influencers just lined uparound the block waiting to make stupid use
of the money they find and thinkit's gonna last them forever when it won't.

(34:45):
Six thousand, seven hundred dollars USDper Scoop. Per Scoop, I
that the depths to which people willwill dive to go buy something that's outrageously
priced, starting with some of theclothes they wear, is just phenomenal.

(35:09):
And I guarantee they're gonna sell abunch of that stuff to people who have
that much money and are too youngto have worked really hard for it.
They've come by it somehow, veryquickly, and think that train's gonna roll
forever, and they'll go buy sixtyseven hundred dollars worth of ice cream.
They'll melt in five minutes if youdon't eat it quickly. It reminds me

(35:31):
of It reminds me of that.I think it was pay less shoes that
put up just to show how gulliblepeople are put up. I saw another
story on this on TV just acouple of nights ago. They put up
a fake storey, fake storefront inHollywood on I think somewhere in Beverly Hills,

(35:52):
and it had a fancy name,and it had all these shoes,
fancy looking shoes in it, andall these influencers show up to brag on
TV and brag on their own sitesabout these incredible shoes they were finding that
were only six, seven, eight, nine hundred dollars a pair, only
fifteen hundred dollars a pair, orwhatever. And they talked about the incredible

(36:14):
craftsmanship and the incredible look and feeland just clearly the most high quality footwear
you could ever find anywhere. Andthen the people in the store let them
all know, hey, by theway, you're looking at shoes that are
available in payless down the street forabout thirty bucks. And they were rightfully

(36:35):
embarrassed, and a lot of themdidn't even want to be included in the
report for good reason. All right, well, let me see, I'll
go with my stuff brain news.You want some brain news, will how's
that sent? Always this is coolonly being offered today because it's absolutely fascinating.
Scientists now have created a detailed map, and I'll get to a reason

(37:00):
for telling this story in a secondof the brain of a larval fruit fly.
Why they did it, I'm notsure, but they did, and
in so doing, what they endedup mapping some three thousand neurons and about
five hundred and fifty synapses. Thoseare the connections between the neurons that start

(37:22):
firing up. What you can doand can't do the more honestly the good
news. The reason I'm telling youthis is because anything we do that studies
a brain, any brain, evenin a fruit fly, just opens doors
to the study of human brains.In a related story, signed, it's
also discovered what are called silent synapses, those connections for making memories and new

(37:45):
memories. Specifically and formally believe thesilent synapses formally believed to die off as
we've become adults. Well now inmouse brains, they're realizing that those things
are still there, which also opensnew areas of research into the human brain.
Just keep it coming, science,God, I love this stuff.

(38:07):
Lost and found good news. Aworker at a wastewater treatment plant a month
ago, if you recall, founda diamond ring in the sewage. It
had been accidentally flushed down the toilet, and they found the woman who accidentally
flushed that ring thirteen years ago andhave returned it. The couple are I

(38:28):
think they've been married something like thirtyyears, maybe a little bit more than
that, but anyway, they arenow able to celebrate. She's had the
ring cleaned obviously from where it wasfound, and now plants to just keep
on wearing it, Keep on wearingit. This is so ironic, it
says here America's best secret beaches havebeen revealed. Three of the top five

(38:50):
for in Hawaiian all of them arenow no longer secret. Yeah, do
tell there are no secrets on theplanet anymore. Anybody with a laptop and
time to hill can find any secretplace you think there is on Earth.
They may not be able to getthere, they may not have a reason
to go there, but there isno place on Earth that is any longer

(39:12):
secret, no secret here either.It's time to go. Will's got five
seconds for me. I'll be ontomorrow morning from seven to ten on KBME.
I'll be back here Tuesday. Audios