January 2, 2025 • 41 mins
Today, Doug Pike discusses 2025, useless records, and fire ants.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. You Remember when music
sounded like this?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Go on? Remember when social media was truly social? Hey John,
how's it going today? Good?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well, this show is all about you, only the goode.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
This is fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
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 and Bronze roofing repair or replacement. Bronze roofing
has you covered? And now fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
All right, here we go. Welcome to episode one of
twenty twenty five. I'm back from vacation. I've had three
cups of coffee today. They were the first three since
since I left here. I don't drink coffee when I'm
not here. You know you do drink coffee, don't you? Will?
I do every single day? Do you really make it home? Yep?
(01:11):
Got that making at home? Or I'll go and pick
some up from a local shop. Look at you? Look
at you do the metro thing? Huh yeah? Swing by
the coffee shop on the way to work. I'm a looper. Yeah,
in the looper? Holy hell, Yeah, that's all you do. Well,
you know, do you have you have a bicycle in
(01:32):
spandex pants. I do not have a bicycle. Then you
can't call yourself a looper. Why, well, most of most
of the people inside the loop ride bicycles, and where
the appropriate gear? What are you talking about? I've lived
inside the loop, mind high. I'm mostly thinking about my
buddy Joe Cserado. So you're thinking about one guy, you
think everybody the other inside the looper? I know, No,
(01:55):
I think a couple of people around here live live
within the loop, so I guess that counts. I'll have
to poll them this afternoon. Well, there's actually there are
maybe four or five people here. Houston is almost impossible
to live in without a car. Well, yeah, I would.
I would guarantee you that we are one of the
most spread out cities on the planet from it. And
(02:19):
I've talked about this before. It's very interesting. If you
travel Okay and people ask you where you're from. You
say Houston. You say Houston. I say Houston. Although I
live in Sugarland. Nobody knows where the heck that is.
My mother in law would say Houston, although she's in
the Woodlands, and between where I live and where she lives,
(02:40):
with still many more miles north of her and south
west of me and south of me, all lumped into
the greater Houston metropolitan area. It's sixty seventy miles. Now,
you can get across a couple of states up in
the New Northeast in sixty or seventy miles. I know
in the corners. Anyway, Houston's bigger than Rhode Island. That's
(03:03):
the fact. Yeah, you could, you could drop Rhode Island
in here pretty easy and then but nobody want We
don't want that down here. My Rhode Island's beautiful, is it? Yes?
What does it have that we don't have besides Rhode Islanders?
Probably God? That's its greatest claim to fame. Will, it's
the smallest stand. We're totally off top. It's the smallest stay. Yeah,
(03:27):
we're little and we're proud of it. Yes, all right,
So anyway, I'm Doug, He's Will, and I can happily
report that both of our key cards work this morning.
A little sigh of relief when you walk in huh,
put that thing up against the doors. Sometimes. I hope
it doesn't fingers cross you really. Yeah, oh man, we
can go home. Just turn around and go to the
(03:48):
house and go ride your bike, or go buy the
coffee shop. I'll go to the coffee shop. I'll get
cut their sorrows. I'll get across. You can't round sorrows
with a krone and a croissant and a cup of coffee. Well,
you know what I did, drive my side. I've had
(04:09):
a chronds. You did, but I had. I had a
donut this morning. I had two donuts. Living on the edge. Huh.
I went to Shipley's this morning. Get out of here.
Good for you. I don't know if anybody's been to
ship Ley's recently, but they've had a major renovation and
a lot of the stores. It's it's really nice, up
(04:29):
upgraded everything. Yeah, well that's good. That's what happens when
you change ownership and that they want to they want
to put their fingerprints on everything. That's not bad. It's
good about at all. Oh So anyway, uh, the happy
New Year and cheers to all of us. I guess
think back to when you graduated from high school. For
a second, okay, not you will the audience, the average
(04:52):
audience member of this show, which is so far back
for folks my age that a lot of us couldn't
imagine living all the way to the twenty first century,
let alone making it what another quarter century longer than that.
But here we are. We made it, and we've watched
all sorts of good stuff evolve. Somewhat ironically, most of
(05:12):
us grew up with just an AM radio in the car,
and the music was adequate driving around. We knew no better.
We didn't have anything more. Sometimes it'd get kind of
scratchy and sketchy, especially in thunderstorm. But it was even
better when you got home and you could drop your
favorite song on that little forty five record onto the
little turntable in your room. And better yet, when you
(05:34):
could you could slip it onto the big stereo in
the living room. Maybe when your parents had gone off
somewhere and left you in charge of your little sister
little brother cranked it up, then, didn't you. Most hones
only had one phone back then, too. Will Can you imagine? Yes?
Can you really know? You cannot? I could imagine, you
could imagine it, but you didn't experience it did you?
(05:56):
Oh way, Yeah, when I was growing up, we had
we had a landline, but you had more than one
phone in the room well or I mean in the house. Yeah,
I yes, you probably had. Yeah, you probably had one
more when I when. The first recollection I have is
having one phone in the hall on a very long
(06:17):
cord that could be dragged into any bedroom in case
my parents needed to have a private conversation or whatever.
And then as time progressed, we got a second phone,
a princess on the wall phone in the kitchen like
everybody else in my neighborhood had, and that way and
it it had one of those little curly qing chords,
(06:40):
but that thing was probably twelve or fifteen feet long.
It was like a giant snake or a giant pig's tail,
I guess, hanging off the kitchen wall. Really long cords
on both of them. Black and white TV. That's all
we had until well, the first color show I remember
would have been Bonanza, I think, and then all the
sitcoms kind of went the color. What else? Four function
(07:03):
pocket calculators cost about forty bucks back then forty bucks.
They give them away now any place you could still
find a four function calculator, trying to think of what else.
I don't know, in another forty or fifty years. It's
kind of funny too. You could buy a used car
back then too, Will. I would see them on Saturday mornings,
(07:26):
the commercials for used cars. Four or five, six hundred
bucks for a decent used car, not even a thousand bucks.
That's all going by the wayside. Huh. Anyway, there was that,
and I guess young people will be talking about video
games and cell phones and all that as being the
antiquated stuff from their time growing up. All right, let's
(07:51):
take a little break here. Three. Oh, we're right on time.
Will How about that? Tell you about something coming up
that I would encourage. Any of you who happened to
like boats and happen to like cars will be pleased
to know that. The next edition of Houston's Auto Boative
Show is set for January twenty ninth through February second
(08:12):
in NRG Center. Everybody knows where that is cars and
boats under the same roof at the same time. I
think it was a really good idea to meld both shows,
and for a lot of different reasons, but for one
price of admission, you can spend the entire day in there.
(08:32):
Every time you turn a corner, you're going to see
something new, something cool, whether it's the cars and the
boats or the accessories for all of them. There's stuff
for the kids, there's stuff for the whole family. You
literally can't spend a day in there and just hang around,
have a meal and then keep walking. Houstonautoshow dot com
is a website. You can go there. There actually are
(08:54):
some good ticket deals. There's some discounts available. I was
looking online earlier, and you can go ahead and get
If you get your tickets in advance, you can save
some money that way, if you're going to go to
the show anyway. Houston autoshow dot com. Houston autoshow dot com.
What's life without a net? I suggest you go to bed,
sleep it off, just wait until the show's over. Sleepy.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Back to Doug Pike as fifty plus continues, Hi, welcome back.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Fifty plus, first edition of twenty twenty five. I'm back
in the studio anyway, and thank you all for rejoining
this year. Bring some friends, let's go. I wanted to
make sure you understand too that whereas I had this
little note written down here about this. Da da da
da da da da. Beginning today, Will, you're aware of this,
(10:01):
so don't act surprise. Beginning today, Will and I are
gonna gladly take your calls if there's something on your mind,
or if something I say during the show compels you
to respond. Now, if you've got a topic you want
me to cover, I'd prefer email that way so I
can respond properly. Get a little bit more detail on
exactly what you want to hear about and why if
you don't want to share, and if you don't want
(10:22):
to share, I don't care, it's none of my business anyway.
The number of the phone number, if we're going to
make this exercise work is seven one three two one
two five nine five zero seven one three two one
two five nine five zero. And Will, don't turn the
phones off. Don't do that. Okay, you look thrilled to death.
(10:47):
I'm ready. You look like you just stepped on a
rock barefooted. I'm ready for that. Okay. Yeah, it's not
going to be overwhelming. Will you know that it's not.
But when somebody thinks of a question, I would at
least like to give them the opportunity to pose it.
So long as it is relevant. And the one thing
(11:07):
that concerned me with the earlier way we were going
to try to do this would be to put a
caller on hold until we've got all the way to
the end of a segment, and then came back with
a new segment. And nothing derails a talk show like
going backward six minutes in time. This is not Marty
(11:28):
McFly stuff here. We can't go to the clock tower
and go back to the future. But what we can
do is is welcome calls from those of you who
want to participate, and if you want to sit and listen,
that's fine too. Will and I seldom are at a
loss for words. Would you say that's about right? Well, yep,
(11:50):
maybe sometimes maybe, I don't know. In any event, back
to the normalcy of what it was before, and I
will start with the weather forecast, and I'm not gonna
dwell on these. Uh. They brought to us by Texas
Indoor Air Quality Specialists as usual, because cleaner air is
healthier air. You can go to Texas IAQ dot net
(12:13):
to learn more about that and get your duckwork cleaned
up the right way and it'll last for years, so
not much chance of rain for the next week, but
we are going to see overnight temperatures fall into the thirties,
So drag out the extra blanket and fire up the heater.
Highs next Monday through most of the week in the forties.
(12:34):
Will the highs in the forties. That's gonna get finally, Finally, Yes,
you like that, hize in the forties Montana or something.
I love. Cold weather, just just day to day or
for a vacation, day to day really makes me feel good.
(12:55):
You know. It does kind of get your heart going,
as opposed to August or around here when you walk
outside and just feel like somebody drew a just threw
a blanket that's on fire on you. Yeah, it is hot.
I concede that that this past summer was the first
one where I really, I really felt the heat. I
didn't stop doing anything I wanted to do. I kept fishing,
(13:17):
I kept playing golf, kept doing all the things outside
that I like to do. And but I just had
to I just had to measure the time I was
out there really working on something in the yard. Now,
golf golf's not beating me up yet. I can still
function my way around the golf course. I can still
stand up and fish for as long as most anybody can.
(13:40):
But that that actual physical labor in the heat is
where I'm having to draw the line a little bit.
You don't know your own yard, do you? No? I
didn't think so. Oh you're renting, right, I'm a renter.
Oh okay, So he's in charge of that. The owner's
in charge of that. Yeah? Does he come by? Or
is he have somebody do it? I have somebody do? What?
(14:00):
Do they do? A good job?
Speaker 1 (14:01):
No?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Have you told the owner? So, hey, man, dress this
place up a little bit. Hey, that's their problem. Only
got to sharpen the care what it looks like? You
don't know? Ah, man, what takes some pride? Why it's
not my house? Okay? Fair enough? Yeah, and if you
ever decide to buy it, you just you don't want
it to be overvalued. Now, so let the weeds grow exactly.
(14:26):
The only got to come back once a month in
the summertime. See how that looks. Come back every six months?
How about that? Bail the yard and make a little
hay dollar here and there. All right, So not much
chance of rain. Like I said, it's gonna be in
the forties. Pucker hup, Buttercup. This is a legitimate and
it's a cool spell, but still not quite the fifty
plus definition of cold, which if you're new to the show,
(14:49):
is temper cert temperaturs below freezing ah, but chilling nonetheless,
for those of us who've called Houston home for most
of our lives and endured giant mosquitos and all of
fire ants, did you ever have any problems with fire
ants growing up, Well, no, we had a pretty good relationship.
(15:11):
Did you encounter many fire ants? Of course, man, I did.
There was one one particular incident stands out in my mind.
And believe me, as a little boy growing up in
Sharpstown before there were ant killers for your yards. Before
there was hovering parents over you to make sure you
(15:32):
didn't go anywhere near an ant bed or they would
dive on top of it like it was a grenade
in World War two or something. We, meaning the group
of six or seven boys about my age in the neighborhood,
were constantly dropping into us, stepping in ant beds, rolling
in ant beds. And there was a yard on the corner.
(15:55):
I was on Langdon Lane back then, and there was
a yard on the corner where the elevation of that
particular lot was a couple of feet higher than most
of the block. And I have no idea why that was.
I guess it was for drainage, the way the neighborhood
drained in case of a hurricane. And I remember Hurricane
Carla pretty vividly as well. But anyway, a buddy of
(16:15):
mine and I were just kind of wrestling in the
yard in that yard and rolled down that hill, and
both of us rolled down and stopped, and we're still
wallowing right on top of a giant ant bed. And
you know what the ants do is they start crawling
on to you. And then when about a thousand of
them are on you, one of those little ants going
(16:37):
and they all start biting you at the same time.
And we swatted and slapped at ourselves all the way.
Just both of us jumped up and ran straight home,
him going west, me going east. And holy mackarel, when
my mom saw me, she was she was not thrilled.
She wouldn't let me in the house at first because
I was still covered in ants. I couldn't get them
off of me, and they were all ch just chomping
(16:58):
all over me. I don't know how many aunt, but
I had see I always one hundred two. I was
always diplomatic with the fire ants. Did did you work
to talk with them? We'd create trade agreement. That's how
they feel, Yes, that's about the end. Tell them to
tell you their feelings. I always thought that making peace
was a better way of going about it. And how'd
that work out? Really well? We had a great system.
(17:19):
I'll call your bluff. Never bitten in my life, no way, evere. No,
that's not You can ask anybody that's not true. That
is it's so true. Onward to the stock market where
still by the way, still thanks to Houston Goldexchange dot com.
I've got a note from Brad Schweiss there by the
way that I'll share it in a second. All four
(17:41):
big indicators almost flat this morning. The Rustle two thousand
was up a little more than half a point, but
everything else was pretty quiet. Gold took a nice bump.
It was up twenty three bucks to about twenty six
sixty five. I think it was announced right around ten
thirty or so, but not the not near the twenty
seven hundred and changed we saw late last year. So
(18:03):
who knows which way that'll go? Eventually over time. It
certainly will go upward. It certainly will, and it's just
part of what Brad's note was. I'll tell you about
that in a second, oil up a buck and a
half earlier to more than seventy three dollars a barrel.
I don't know what happened while I was on vacation
for a while, but whatever it was, pushed oil up
(18:24):
about five bucks a barrel. And that's not good. It
was still climbing to it. At the same time I
looked at at gold. Brad's note, by the way, interesting
for those of us who were born before or around
nineteen sixty four in currency will pop quiz what is
significant about nineteen sixty four? Nineteen sixty four ding times up.
(18:52):
Here's what happened. That was the year that the US
Mint stopped minting dimes, and core is made of ninety
percent silver. All those quarters from nineteen sixty four and
earlier mostly silver. All the quarters afterward not even worth
a quarter. Well, I guess they technically are worth a quarter.
(19:15):
But here's the deal. Brad did a little research and
in nineteen sixty four, the federal minimum wage then was
a dollar twenty five an hour. A dollar and a
quarter in our five quarters, that's what you got for
every hour you worked. And today, each of those quarters,
(19:36):
if you can scramble some of them up around the house,
maybe look in the seat kish cushions, if you've lived
in the same house for sixty five years or whatever,
worth a lot more. Those same five quarters today would
be worse somewhere between about fifteen and twenty bucks. And
if there are any rare ones, if you can stumble
across one that's got more value, and they go up
(19:57):
pretty quick, especially some that have been better taken care
of of, not all beat up. Those silver quarters were
kind of soft, and they showed their wear and tear
very quickly. I do have a few around the house
and they're just tired and old looking. Most of the
imagery is off of them. I wish I had a
whole bushel basketful of those. That'd be worth something. We
(20:20):
got to take a little break. On the way out.
I'll tell you about Houston UT. Houston's Institute on Aging
or UT skill. Oh god, I said, the University of Houston.
They're gonna be so mad at me. It's UT. Winners
of the big football game over the weekend Institute on
Aging right here in our medical centers where most of
these providers are based. It's a collective of people who
(20:43):
are involved in every medical field you can imagine. And
what they have done to show their interest in taking
care of seniors is gone back and got an additional education,
additional training and how to how to apply their expertise
specifically to us. Because we are different than younger people.
(21:06):
It's pretty All you got to do is look in
the mirror and look at one of them, and you'll
see the differences. The exterior difference is the interior differences
are just as different. Education. They know how to take
care of us. They know how to address an issue
or a concern from our perspective, and that matters a lot.
Like I said, most of them in the medical center
(21:27):
most of the time, but a lot of them also
come out to outlying areas, outlying clinics and hospitals and
whatnot in offices to help those of us who aren't
really interested in driving to the mediciner or maybe can't
get there easily. They want to make sure we get help.
Start with the website. You'll find tons of resources that
will help you and any number of ways start there
(21:52):
and then dig in and find whatever provider you need
for whatever medical help you need, and somebody who is
involved with the Institute on Aging. We'll be there to
help you. Ut dot edu slash aging, ut H dot
edu slash aging. Yeah, they sure don't make them like
they used to.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
That's why every few months we wash him, check his forwards,
and spring on a fresh coat of wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, welcome back to
Pittsy Plus.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Thanks for listening. That's all we I do appreciate it.
I truly truly do, and I'm hell bent if you
will on improvement to the show this year. So if
you have ideas there are things that you think I
should cover on a more regular basis, by all means,
let me know things you like, things you don't like.
I'm not scared. I'm happy to I can take constructive criticism,
(22:53):
so don't worry about that. Just let me know what's
going on. I'd love to do whatever I can to
make this more and more interesting to all of us.
I got that taken care of, I got that taken
care of, got that taken care of. Gods, what a
horrible way by the way, and I can't ignore this
any longer. We've gotten through two segments already without talking
(23:15):
about what happened over in New Orleans and killed fifteen
people so far, a lot more seriously injured and otherwise
injured still in hospitals over there, where a man from Houston,
no less from Houston, drove his rented truck down a
crowded Bourbon street in the wee hours of the New year.
It's just horrifying that that happened. I'm not going to
(23:38):
dwell on this one, or the detonation of some sort
of explosive in that Tesla truck in Las Vegas. That
episode killed one person and injured another. It's far too
early to just say much of anything as complete fact
or in any way definitive about either of those incidents.
(24:02):
But I will ask all of you who would do
so to maybe just pray for the families of everybody
who was killed or injured in either of those horrific attacks.
That's just it's very frustrating to watch this stuff happen.
And my fear, my fear is that with the changing
of the guard in Washington, we might see more of this.
(24:26):
Even before that happened somewhat related. Really, the violent Venezuelan
gang that's established itself in a number of US cities
is said recently to be forcibly just mobbing border checkpoints,
mobbing our border crossings in Texas at some of these
guys pulling knives on border patrol officers and just trying
(24:49):
to to just bulldog their way into the country. Before
President elect Trump takes office later this month, I'm hoping
that at at some point very soon, we'll all join
forces up in Washington, d C. And just say enough's enough.
Otherwise it could be pretty bad. Let's get do some
(25:11):
good news, will Let's let's get away from stuff like
that for a minute, if you don't mind. In groundbreaking
medical news, I saw this this morning. Two year old
in Great Britain has been cured, not in remission, not
almost cure, but cured. The story said of a rare
liver cancer using what's called nano knife procedures that essentially
(25:36):
help clear the margins all the way around the affected area.
And it's now bear in mind this kid's only two
years old and has been in treatment for according to
the story, eighteen months, so more than well more than
most of his life. But after eighteen months of treatment
he is considered cancer free, which is huge and in
(26:01):
very good news for that family certainly also on the
medical front and men, I hope all of us live
long enough to reap the benefits of all this stuff,
or at least are long enough maybe to see our
children and grandchildren benefit from some of these procedures that
are just getting underway now. But anyway, approven cancer treatment
(26:22):
something that's already in use for that has been shown
also to enable people with Loopus to actually stop taking
their medications, which thus far have been required throughout the
patient's lifetimes. Some of these patients who have been in
this trial are able to quit their medication altogether just
(26:42):
three months into the program. Loopus meds no longer necessary.
And all of these new directions in medicine, they come
with the asterisk of time. They're still in early stages
of testing and development. But the fact that these things
are being discovered routinely now, they hold great hope for
(27:05):
longer lives and improve quality of life or well for
every generation to come. However, many that may be a
practice of will. Have you ever heard of something caught you?
I have plenty of time for this one seat squatting.
Do you know what that is? No. Seat squatting is
a dreadful new pastime, apparently of of pompous, entitled people
(27:34):
who care nothing about rules and will do anything to
get their way on airplanes. Their parents must be just
so proud of these people. They are you typically younger adults,
and what they do is they purchase a cheap seat
somewhere in the back of the plane and then just
go PLoP themselves down wherever they feel like sitting and
(27:54):
pitch a hissy fit when the person who actually bought
that seat comes up and says, hey, this isn't gonna
work out. And for the life of me, I can't
understand how these people think that's okay, why they think
it's okay, why there is even a name for this,
and why the airlines aren't more aggressively telling these people
(28:19):
to shut up, get up and go back to the
seat you bought. What would you do if somebody and
this is there was The example in the story is
of a couple who had bought an aisle seat and
a window or anile seat in a middle seat. Okay,
they're just married couple, young couple, when they get to
their seats in the airplane, there are two people already
(28:41):
sitting there. Excuse me, these are our seats. No, no,
they're not our seats. They're not your seats. There are
we were here first. Yeah, but see all my ticket
it says twenty four C and twenty four B. That
means that these two seats are mine and are ours. Well, no,
we're not moving. And there's no mention, incidentally, of how
(29:07):
the airline addressed this. And when the chatter was over
and done with the man of the trespassing, you'd have
to call it seats sat took the window seat in
that aisle, and the other couple, the man took the
aisle seat because he's trying to stretch his legs a
(29:29):
little bit, and the woman sat in the middle, and
the guy who was poaching their seat ends up putting
his arm on top of hers on the arm rest
and forcibly kind of pushing it down until she finally
got tired of telling him to stop what he wouldn't do,
and so they switched seats, the man and the woman,
and that guy still was putting his arm on top
(29:50):
of the rightful seat occupant's arm. Your response Will Melbourne.
I mean they caught you at ended, didn't they. I
don't know. I mean I make it like most most airlines, right,
you just you buy, you buy a seat prior, right, Yeah,
(30:12):
so it's just observe seats. So they're doing this to
reserve seats. So it's not like a Southwest cattle car.
Just yeah, you just run to the back or run
to the front wherever you want to sit, or find
the first aisle seat. And why don't they just get
a flight attendant. Well, I'm presuming they did before too long,
not before the whole flight was done. But yeah, I
(30:33):
can't imagine why three sentences into the story, there's not
a sentence another sentence that says when we called flight attendants,
they sorted it out and pushed those people back to
the seats they belonged in. Yeah, that was never mentioned
in the story, which is really even more Also, it
just doesn't make any like, why would that even be
(30:55):
a story? You know, it's a story because it's not isolated.
It's something that's occurring regularly now on airplanes, and the
airlines need to address that pretty quick, at least before
I fly somewhere else again. I'm not gonna be I'm
not gonna pitch a fit. I'm not gonna get thrown
off a plane for it, believe me. But I'm also
not gonna sit there and have somebody encroaching on my
(31:18):
space and putting their feet up around the sides of
my seat or kicking the seat back or any of that.
I'm not gonna just I'm not just gonna cower in
a corner and not address it. That's messed up. We
got to take a break, don't we. We gotta get
out of here now. Well, okay, Braun's Roofing gets this
minute of my time to tell you about how Skeeter
(31:41):
Braun has been in this business, the roofing business, for
thirty plus years. And the reason he's been in business
more than thirty years is because he is adhered to
a very simple practice which every business owner ought to
pick up, and that is quality work at a fair price.
You can't give away quality work because you have I
have to hire the best people, and the best people
(32:02):
deserve a little bit more money, so you pay them
that so that your customers don't start calling you every
day after they get the new roof to tell you
there's a problem with it. They don't call you every
day needing something else done that should have been done
by a company like Bronze Roofing. It will do it
right the first time, and you just you can not
(32:24):
worry about your roof for many, many years. All you
got to do is get it maintained every now and then.
And they do free inspections anytime you want them up there,
at least every at least every two years, maybe once
a year. You call Bronze Roofing, they come out, they
inspect the roof. If it's okay, they'll tell you it's okay,
and then if it's not, they will show you pictures.
(32:45):
They will explain to you how they would fix it.
Almost got my what and my how and my while
mixed up. They'll explain how they can fix it. They'll
explain how long it will take. They'll tell you if
they have the materials on the truck, and they will
tell which I probably will for a minor repair, and
they'll tell you how much it's going to cost. I
strongly recommend, as I always have, say okay, get started,
(33:09):
because you can spend all the time you want trying
to find better work at a cheaper price, but then
you'll end up coming back to Bronze. They've taken care
of me and my family for the better part of
twenty years now with all our roofing needs, and they
will do the same for you. Bronzeoofing dot Com is
the website b r a u NS bronzerooofing dot com.
(33:29):
Two eight one four eight zero ninety nine hundred. Put
the number in your phone so you don't have to
scramble trying to figure out who I was telling you
to call. Good people, honest people. They'll take care of
your roof two eight one four eight zero ninety nine hundred.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Aged to perfection. This is fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Four than final segment of this front End of the
Year twenty twenty five, Holy Cow, twenty twenty five. Will
when did you get out of high school? Like twenty one?
I graduated in twenty sixteen twenty said, oh my god,
well okay, so yeah, a little bit after me. When
(34:28):
you were growing up? How old how old a person?
Let's said, when you were when you graduated high school?
This is just a curiosity of mine, and there's no
right or wrong answer. When you were seventeen eighteen years old,
just ready to get out of high school and go
take on college and then join the real world. How
old a person would you have considered old in your mind?
(34:53):
What was the age of someone he was like, Eah,
that guy's old, I'd say old, as I would say seven.
Really yeah, not forty or fifty something like that. No,
that's middle aged. Okay, so you distinguish between the two.
What about when you were really little? Does your grandparents
seem super old? I mean I got I thought, yeah,
(35:15):
when I was seven, eight, nine, ten years old, my
parents seemed like that, Wow, that's the oldest people I
know closely. And then when we go visit my grandparents,
like holy cow, like dinosaurs walking around the house. Yeah,
you know my grandfather. This was I can remember going
down to visit them in South Florida, and when I
wasn't fishing, when I was actually interacting with them around
(35:37):
meal times and just hanging out times. Uh yeah, they
seem pretty old. And in hindsight, I guarantee you they
were younger than I am now. Uh yeah, oh yeah,
why are you? Why are you scrunching up your face?
I don't know. Yeah, they were my parents would have
been carry the fun and that. Yeah, they would have
(36:02):
been either at or maybe even a couple of years
younger than me, when some pretty good memories were being made.
Kind of. I loved hanging out with my grandfather, but
he wasn't into fishing as much as I was, and
I wasn't into the inner workings of boats and car
engines as he was. He was an engineer for AT
(36:24):
and T. I've talked about this before, but that's what
he did for a living, and he was he was
on the team, pretty high up on the team. From
what my parents told me, when the first when the
first phone lines were strong from New York down like
to Miami, something like that, the first big lines all
(36:47):
the way down the continent, And that was his baby
while he was working and his and I'm sure a
thousand other engineers and thousands more people on the ground
out there. But the bottom line was he was fascinated
by all that and very good with it, and he
would he raced hydroplanes in his retirement. He didn't drive,
(37:08):
he hired drivers, but he built the boats and he
built rebuilt the engines. He would go into the junkyard
and find a little Sunbeam. Have you ever heard of
that car? I've heard of the bread Yeah, but there
was also a car. Oh okay, I want to say
about a forty two inch forty two cubic inch engine.
A little bitty thing, but he would take those and
(37:30):
modify them and tweak them and fine tune them and
get them running. And these little bitty boats that he raced,
or well under his name anyway, would do like ninety
I don't know, ninety five miles an hour, just like
a little potato chip skipping across the water. These hydroplanes.
He actually held a world record. He was in the
(37:50):
Guinness Book of World Records. His boat was the boat
was named sky Hoot, and the driver, if I remember correctly,
was Red McConnell. You want to hear some useless world
record speaking of I mean, I guess we haven't had
one of those in a while, but we have one today.
A speed eating woman earned a new Guinness World record
(38:15):
by eating forty nine grams and don't say edibles, will
What do you think she ate forty nine grams of
in one minute? Forty nine grams of cinnamon? Well, you
know you're not entirely wrong, but it's cotton candy, and
(38:36):
think about trying to eat forty nine grams of cotton
candy would be a significant volume. It could be. It's
kind of wispy and light, very light. It's like a cloud.
It's like eating a cloud, a sugary cloud that sticks
to everything it touches. When you were a kid, did
you make a mess eating cotton candy? I know, especially
(38:57):
as a kid, all over the back seat, all over
your pan ants, your blue jeans, and your mouth is
just sick all day. Yeah, and every time you touch
yourself trying to get it off of your face, you
just you just sticky up another area. Anyway. There you
have it with her, congratulations, and I'm not even gonna
(39:19):
She also has two other eating records, nineteen chicken nuggets
in a minute and ten jelly donuts in three minutes,
all of which beg the questions who cares? Why would
we care? I'm not gonna even give you her name,
lest I perpetuate her delusionals. I could beat that chair,
(39:40):
I could, I could beat the donut donut one. You
got to eat more than what did I say? Eight? Ten?
Ten in three minutes? Yeah, ten in three minutes. They
have to be a specific jelly donut or kid. I
just go to Shipley's and get I'll go. If you
could think you can eat them in three minutes, I
will a dozen jelly donuts. Buy me eleven jelly donuts. Well,
(40:05):
I'm gonna eat one, Okay, go for eleven to set
the record. I'll tell you what flavors I want. Yeah,
you can, but you're not gonna do that. You might
get like six of them knocked back in a minute,
and then the other five they're gonna take you. I'm
telling you I can do it there, you cannot do that.
Will's six. If I get six down in a minute,
it's it's over. I've I've won two minutes to get
(40:29):
another five down, I don't know. Well, I have monkey news.
I don't want to miss it either. We only have
a minute left. And you got monkey businesses from over
in po Tit, Texas. Just you know where that is?
But what po Tit? The south of San Antonio, right, No,
I don't have time to go into Dji. The wildlife
(40:51):
officers got called to a neighborhood because there was a
spider monkey running loose in the hood, just running all
around poet and they Eventually, this thing's jumping from rooftop
to rooftop, and eventually they corralled at somewhell how wildlife
officers did, and they found out who owned it, and
(41:14):
since it's not legal to keep one there, the owner's
got citations. Do you recall Will when there were peacocks
running wild up north of West tim or off Guessner. Yes?
Do you recall when there were peacocks running wild? And
Katie No, there were Paul Lambert might know about that.
(41:35):
I'll ask you when I get out of here. No
more peacock news, no more monkey news. We'll be back tomorrow.
Thanks for getting the year off to a good start, Audios,
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. You Remember when music
sounded like this?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Go on? Remember when social media was truly social? Hey John,
how's it going today? Good?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well, this show is all about you, only the goode.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
This is fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
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 and Bronze roofing repair or replacement. Bronze roofing
has you covered? And now fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
All right, here we go. Welcome to episode one of
twenty twenty five. I'm back from vacation. I've had three
cups of coffee today. They were the first three since
since I left here. I don't drink coffee when I'm
not here. You know you do drink coffee, don't you? Will?
I do every single day? Do you really make it home? Yep?
(01:11):
Got that making at home? Or I'll go and pick
some up from a local shop. Look at you? Look
at you do the metro thing? Huh yeah? Swing by
the coffee shop on the way to work. I'm a looper. Yeah,
in the looper? Holy hell, Yeah, that's all you do. Well,
you know, do you have you have a bicycle in
(01:32):
spandex pants. I do not have a bicycle. Then you
can't call yourself a looper. Why, well, most of most
of the people inside the loop ride bicycles, and where
the appropriate gear? What are you talking about? I've lived
inside the loop, mind high. I'm mostly thinking about my
buddy Joe Cserado. So you're thinking about one guy, you
think everybody the other inside the looper? I know, No,
(01:55):
I think a couple of people around here live live
within the loop, so I guess that counts. I'll have
to poll them this afternoon. Well, there's actually there are
maybe four or five people here. Houston is almost impossible
to live in without a car. Well, yeah, I would.
I would guarantee you that we are one of the
most spread out cities on the planet from it. And
(02:19):
I've talked about this before. It's very interesting. If you
travel Okay and people ask you where you're from. You
say Houston. You say Houston. I say Houston. Although I
live in Sugarland. Nobody knows where the heck that is.
My mother in law would say Houston, although she's in
the Woodlands, and between where I live and where she lives,
(02:40):
with still many more miles north of her and south
west of me and south of me, all lumped into
the greater Houston metropolitan area. It's sixty seventy miles. Now,
you can get across a couple of states up in
the New Northeast in sixty or seventy miles. I know
in the corners. Anyway, Houston's bigger than Rhode Island. That's
(03:03):
the fact. Yeah, you could, you could drop Rhode Island
in here pretty easy and then but nobody want We
don't want that down here. My Rhode Island's beautiful, is it? Yes?
What does it have that we don't have besides Rhode Islanders?
Probably God? That's its greatest claim to fame. Will, it's
the smallest stand. We're totally off top. It's the smallest stay. Yeah,
(03:27):
we're little and we're proud of it. Yes, all right,
So anyway, I'm Doug, He's Will, and I can happily
report that both of our key cards work this morning.
A little sigh of relief when you walk in huh,
put that thing up against the doors. Sometimes. I hope
it doesn't fingers cross you really. Yeah, oh man, we
can go home. Just turn around and go to the
(03:48):
house and go ride your bike, or go buy the
coffee shop. I'll go to the coffee shop. I'll get
cut their sorrows. I'll get across. You can't round sorrows
with a krone and a croissant and a cup of coffee. Well,
you know what I did, drive my side. I've had
(04:09):
a chronds. You did, but I had. I had a
donut this morning. I had two donuts. Living on the edge. Huh.
I went to Shipley's this morning. Get out of here.
Good for you. I don't know if anybody's been to
ship Ley's recently, but they've had a major renovation and
a lot of the stores. It's it's really nice, up
(04:29):
upgraded everything. Yeah, well that's good. That's what happens when
you change ownership and that they want to they want
to put their fingerprints on everything. That's not bad. It's
good about at all. Oh So anyway, uh, the happy
New Year and cheers to all of us. I guess
think back to when you graduated from high school. For
a second, okay, not you will the audience, the average
(04:52):
audience member of this show, which is so far back
for folks my age that a lot of us couldn't
imagine living all the way to the twenty first century,
let alone making it what another quarter century longer than that.
But here we are. We made it, and we've watched
all sorts of good stuff evolve. Somewhat ironically, most of
(05:12):
us grew up with just an AM radio in the car,
and the music was adequate driving around. We knew no better.
We didn't have anything more. Sometimes it'd get kind of
scratchy and sketchy, especially in thunderstorm. But it was even
better when you got home and you could drop your
favorite song on that little forty five record onto the
little turntable in your room. And better yet, when you
(05:34):
could you could slip it onto the big stereo in
the living room. Maybe when your parents had gone off
somewhere and left you in charge of your little sister
little brother cranked it up, then, didn't you. Most hones
only had one phone back then, too. Will Can you imagine? Yes?
Can you really know? You cannot? I could imagine, you
could imagine it, but you didn't experience it did you?
(05:56):
Oh way, Yeah, when I was growing up, we had
we had a landline, but you had more than one
phone in the room well or I mean in the house. Yeah,
I yes, you probably had. Yeah, you probably had one
more when I when. The first recollection I have is
having one phone in the hall on a very long
(06:17):
cord that could be dragged into any bedroom in case
my parents needed to have a private conversation or whatever.
And then as time progressed, we got a second phone,
a princess on the wall phone in the kitchen like
everybody else in my neighborhood had, and that way and
it it had one of those little curly qing chords,
(06:40):
but that thing was probably twelve or fifteen feet long.
It was like a giant snake or a giant pig's tail,
I guess, hanging off the kitchen wall. Really long cords
on both of them. Black and white TV. That's all
we had until well, the first color show I remember
would have been Bonanza, I think, and then all the
sitcoms kind of went the color. What else? Four function
(07:03):
pocket calculators cost about forty bucks back then forty bucks.
They give them away now any place you could still
find a four function calculator, trying to think of what else.
I don't know, in another forty or fifty years. It's
kind of funny too. You could buy a used car
back then too, Will. I would see them on Saturday mornings,
(07:26):
the commercials for used cars. Four or five, six hundred
bucks for a decent used car, not even a thousand bucks.
That's all going by the wayside. Huh. Anyway, there was that,
and I guess young people will be talking about video
games and cell phones and all that as being the
antiquated stuff from their time growing up. All right, let's
(07:51):
take a little break here. Three. Oh, we're right on time.
Will How about that? Tell you about something coming up
that I would encourage. Any of you who happened to
like boats and happen to like cars will be pleased
to know that. The next edition of Houston's Auto Boative
Show is set for January twenty ninth through February second
(08:12):
in NRG Center. Everybody knows where that is cars and
boats under the same roof at the same time. I
think it was a really good idea to meld both shows,
and for a lot of different reasons, but for one
price of admission, you can spend the entire day in there.
(08:32):
Every time you turn a corner, you're going to see
something new, something cool, whether it's the cars and the
boats or the accessories for all of them. There's stuff
for the kids, there's stuff for the whole family. You
literally can't spend a day in there and just hang around,
have a meal and then keep walking. Houstonautoshow dot com
is a website. You can go there. There actually are
(08:54):
some good ticket deals. There's some discounts available. I was
looking online earlier, and you can go ahead and get
If you get your tickets in advance, you can save
some money that way, if you're going to go to
the show anyway. Houston autoshow dot com. Houston autoshow dot com.
What's life without a net? I suggest you go to bed,
sleep it off, just wait until the show's over. Sleepy.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Back to Doug Pike as fifty plus continues, Hi, welcome back.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Fifty plus, first edition of twenty twenty five. I'm back
in the studio anyway, and thank you all for rejoining
this year. Bring some friends, let's go. I wanted to
make sure you understand too that whereas I had this
little note written down here about this. Da da da
da da da da. Beginning today, Will, you're aware of this,
(10:01):
so don't act surprise. Beginning today, Will and I are
gonna gladly take your calls if there's something on your mind,
or if something I say during the show compels you
to respond. Now, if you've got a topic you want
me to cover, I'd prefer email that way so I
can respond properly. Get a little bit more detail on
exactly what you want to hear about and why if
you don't want to share, and if you don't want
(10:22):
to share, I don't care, it's none of my business anyway.
The number of the phone number, if we're going to
make this exercise work is seven one three two one
two five nine five zero seven one three two one
two five nine five zero. And Will, don't turn the
phones off. Don't do that. Okay, you look thrilled to death.
(10:47):
I'm ready. You look like you just stepped on a
rock barefooted. I'm ready for that. Okay. Yeah, it's not
going to be overwhelming. Will you know that it's not.
But when somebody thinks of a question, I would at
least like to give them the opportunity to pose it.
So long as it is relevant. And the one thing
(11:07):
that concerned me with the earlier way we were going
to try to do this would be to put a
caller on hold until we've got all the way to
the end of a segment, and then came back with
a new segment. And nothing derails a talk show like
going backward six minutes in time. This is not Marty
(11:28):
McFly stuff here. We can't go to the clock tower
and go back to the future. But what we can
do is is welcome calls from those of you who
want to participate, and if you want to sit and listen,
that's fine too. Will and I seldom are at a
loss for words. Would you say that's about right? Well, yep,
(11:50):
maybe sometimes maybe, I don't know. In any event, back
to the normalcy of what it was before, and I
will start with the weather forecast, and I'm not gonna
dwell on these. Uh. They brought to us by Texas
Indoor Air Quality Specialists as usual, because cleaner air is
healthier air. You can go to Texas IAQ dot net
(12:13):
to learn more about that and get your duckwork cleaned
up the right way and it'll last for years, so
not much chance of rain for the next week, but
we are going to see overnight temperatures fall into the thirties,
So drag out the extra blanket and fire up the heater.
Highs next Monday through most of the week in the forties.
(12:34):
Will the highs in the forties. That's gonna get finally, Finally, Yes,
you like that, hize in the forties Montana or something.
I love. Cold weather, just just day to day or
for a vacation, day to day really makes me feel good.
(12:55):
You know. It does kind of get your heart going,
as opposed to August or around here when you walk
outside and just feel like somebody drew a just threw
a blanket that's on fire on you. Yeah, it is hot.
I concede that that this past summer was the first
one where I really, I really felt the heat. I
didn't stop doing anything I wanted to do. I kept fishing,
(13:17):
I kept playing golf, kept doing all the things outside
that I like to do. And but I just had
to I just had to measure the time I was
out there really working on something in the yard. Now,
golf golf's not beating me up yet. I can still
function my way around the golf course. I can still
stand up and fish for as long as most anybody can.
(13:40):
But that that actual physical labor in the heat is
where I'm having to draw the line a little bit.
You don't know your own yard, do you? No? I
didn't think so. Oh you're renting, right, I'm a renter.
Oh okay, So he's in charge of that. The owner's
in charge of that. Yeah? Does he come by? Or
is he have somebody do it? I have somebody do? What?
(14:00):
Do they do? A good job?
Speaker 1 (14:01):
No?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Have you told the owner? So, hey, man, dress this
place up a little bit. Hey, that's their problem. Only
got to sharpen the care what it looks like? You
don't know? Ah, man, what takes some pride? Why it's
not my house? Okay? Fair enough? Yeah, and if you
ever decide to buy it, you just you don't want
it to be overvalued. Now, so let the weeds grow exactly.
(14:26):
The only got to come back once a month in
the summertime. See how that looks. Come back every six months?
How about that? Bail the yard and make a little
hay dollar here and there. All right, So not much
chance of rain. Like I said, it's gonna be in
the forties. Pucker hup, Buttercup. This is a legitimate and
it's a cool spell, but still not quite the fifty
plus definition of cold, which if you're new to the show,
(14:49):
is temper cert temperaturs below freezing ah, but chilling nonetheless,
for those of us who've called Houston home for most
of our lives and endured giant mosquitos and all of
fire ants, did you ever have any problems with fire
ants growing up, Well, no, we had a pretty good relationship.
(15:11):
Did you encounter many fire ants? Of course, man, I did.
There was one one particular incident stands out in my mind.
And believe me, as a little boy growing up in
Sharpstown before there were ant killers for your yards. Before
there was hovering parents over you to make sure you
(15:32):
didn't go anywhere near an ant bed or they would
dive on top of it like it was a grenade
in World War two or something. We, meaning the group
of six or seven boys about my age in the neighborhood,
were constantly dropping into us, stepping in ant beds, rolling
in ant beds. And there was a yard on the corner.
(15:55):
I was on Langdon Lane back then, and there was
a yard on the corner where the elevation of that
particular lot was a couple of feet higher than most
of the block. And I have no idea why that was.
I guess it was for drainage, the way the neighborhood
drained in case of a hurricane. And I remember Hurricane
Carla pretty vividly as well. But anyway, a buddy of
(16:15):
mine and I were just kind of wrestling in the
yard in that yard and rolled down that hill, and
both of us rolled down and stopped, and we're still
wallowing right on top of a giant ant bed. And
you know what the ants do is they start crawling
on to you. And then when about a thousand of
them are on you, one of those little ants going
(16:37):
and they all start biting you at the same time.
And we swatted and slapped at ourselves all the way.
Just both of us jumped up and ran straight home,
him going west, me going east. And holy mackarel, when
my mom saw me, she was she was not thrilled.
She wouldn't let me in the house at first because
I was still covered in ants. I couldn't get them
off of me, and they were all ch just chomping
(16:58):
all over me. I don't know how many aunt, but
I had see I always one hundred two. I was
always diplomatic with the fire ants. Did did you work
to talk with them? We'd create trade agreement. That's how
they feel, Yes, that's about the end. Tell them to
tell you their feelings. I always thought that making peace
was a better way of going about it. And how'd
that work out? Really well? We had a great system.
(17:19):
I'll call your bluff. Never bitten in my life, no way, evere. No,
that's not You can ask anybody that's not true. That
is it's so true. Onward to the stock market where
still by the way, still thanks to Houston Goldexchange dot com.
I've got a note from Brad Schweiss there by the
way that I'll share it in a second. All four
(17:41):
big indicators almost flat this morning. The Rustle two thousand
was up a little more than half a point, but
everything else was pretty quiet. Gold took a nice bump.
It was up twenty three bucks to about twenty six
sixty five. I think it was announced right around ten
thirty or so, but not the not near the twenty
seven hundred and changed we saw late last year. So
(18:03):
who knows which way that'll go? Eventually over time. It
certainly will go upward. It certainly will, and it's just
part of what Brad's note was. I'll tell you about
that in a second, oil up a buck and a
half earlier to more than seventy three dollars a barrel.
I don't know what happened while I was on vacation
for a while, but whatever it was, pushed oil up
(18:24):
about five bucks a barrel. And that's not good. It
was still climbing to it. At the same time I
looked at at gold. Brad's note, by the way, interesting
for those of us who were born before or around
nineteen sixty four in currency will pop quiz what is
significant about nineteen sixty four? Nineteen sixty four ding times up.
(18:52):
Here's what happened. That was the year that the US
Mint stopped minting dimes, and core is made of ninety
percent silver. All those quarters from nineteen sixty four and
earlier mostly silver. All the quarters afterward not even worth
a quarter. Well, I guess they technically are worth a quarter.
(19:15):
But here's the deal. Brad did a little research and
in nineteen sixty four, the federal minimum wage then was
a dollar twenty five an hour. A dollar and a
quarter in our five quarters, that's what you got for
every hour you worked. And today, each of those quarters,
(19:36):
if you can scramble some of them up around the house,
maybe look in the seat kish cushions, if you've lived
in the same house for sixty five years or whatever,
worth a lot more. Those same five quarters today would
be worse somewhere between about fifteen and twenty bucks. And
if there are any rare ones, if you can stumble
across one that's got more value, and they go up
(19:57):
pretty quick, especially some that have been better taken care
of of, not all beat up. Those silver quarters were
kind of soft, and they showed their wear and tear
very quickly. I do have a few around the house
and they're just tired and old looking. Most of the
imagery is off of them. I wish I had a
whole bushel basketful of those. That'd be worth something. We
(20:20):
got to take a little break. On the way out.
I'll tell you about Houston UT. Houston's Institute on Aging
or UT skill. Oh god, I said, the University of Houston.
They're gonna be so mad at me. It's UT. Winners
of the big football game over the weekend Institute on
Aging right here in our medical centers where most of
these providers are based. It's a collective of people who
(20:43):
are involved in every medical field you can imagine. And
what they have done to show their interest in taking
care of seniors is gone back and got an additional education,
additional training and how to how to apply their expertise
specifically to us. Because we are different than younger people.
(21:06):
It's pretty All you got to do is look in
the mirror and look at one of them, and you'll
see the differences. The exterior difference is the interior differences
are just as different. Education. They know how to take
care of us. They know how to address an issue
or a concern from our perspective, and that matters a lot.
Like I said, most of them in the medical center
(21:27):
most of the time, but a lot of them also
come out to outlying areas, outlying clinics and hospitals and
whatnot in offices to help those of us who aren't
really interested in driving to the mediciner or maybe can't
get there easily. They want to make sure we get help.
Start with the website. You'll find tons of resources that
will help you and any number of ways start there
(21:52):
and then dig in and find whatever provider you need
for whatever medical help you need, and somebody who is
involved with the Institute on Aging. We'll be there to
help you. Ut dot edu slash aging, ut H dot
edu slash aging. Yeah, they sure don't make them like
they used to.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
That's why every few months we wash him, check his forwards,
and spring on a fresh coat of wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, welcome back to
Pittsy Plus.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Thanks for listening. That's all we I do appreciate it.
I truly truly do, and I'm hell bent if you
will on improvement to the show this year. So if
you have ideas there are things that you think I
should cover on a more regular basis, by all means,
let me know things you like, things you don't like.
I'm not scared. I'm happy to I can take constructive criticism,
(22:53):
so don't worry about that. Just let me know what's
going on. I'd love to do whatever I can to
make this more and more interesting to all of us.
I got that taken care of, I got that taken
care of, got that taken care of. Gods, what a
horrible way by the way, and I can't ignore this
any longer. We've gotten through two segments already without talking
(23:15):
about what happened over in New Orleans and killed fifteen
people so far, a lot more seriously injured and otherwise
injured still in hospitals over there, where a man from Houston,
no less from Houston, drove his rented truck down a
crowded Bourbon street in the wee hours of the New year.
It's just horrifying that that happened. I'm not going to
(23:38):
dwell on this one, or the detonation of some sort
of explosive in that Tesla truck in Las Vegas. That
episode killed one person and injured another. It's far too
early to just say much of anything as complete fact
or in any way definitive about either of those incidents.
(24:02):
But I will ask all of you who would do
so to maybe just pray for the families of everybody
who was killed or injured in either of those horrific attacks.
That's just it's very frustrating to watch this stuff happen.
And my fear, my fear is that with the changing
of the guard in Washington, we might see more of this.
(24:26):
Even before that happened somewhat related. Really, the violent Venezuelan
gang that's established itself in a number of US cities
is said recently to be forcibly just mobbing border checkpoints,
mobbing our border crossings in Texas at some of these
guys pulling knives on border patrol officers and just trying
(24:49):
to to just bulldog their way into the country. Before
President elect Trump takes office later this month, I'm hoping
that at at some point very soon, we'll all join
forces up in Washington, d C. And just say enough's enough.
Otherwise it could be pretty bad. Let's get do some
(25:11):
good news, will Let's let's get away from stuff like
that for a minute, if you don't mind. In groundbreaking
medical news, I saw this this morning. Two year old
in Great Britain has been cured, not in remission, not
almost cure, but cured. The story said of a rare
liver cancer using what's called nano knife procedures that essentially
(25:36):
help clear the margins all the way around the affected area.
And it's now bear in mind this kid's only two
years old and has been in treatment for according to
the story, eighteen months, so more than well more than
most of his life. But after eighteen months of treatment
he is considered cancer free, which is huge and in
(26:01):
very good news for that family certainly also on the
medical front and men, I hope all of us live
long enough to reap the benefits of all this stuff,
or at least are long enough maybe to see our
children and grandchildren benefit from some of these procedures that
are just getting underway now. But anyway, approven cancer treatment
(26:22):
something that's already in use for that has been shown
also to enable people with Loopus to actually stop taking
their medications, which thus far have been required throughout the
patient's lifetimes. Some of these patients who have been in
this trial are able to quit their medication altogether just
(26:42):
three months into the program. Loopus meds no longer necessary.
And all of these new directions in medicine, they come
with the asterisk of time. They're still in early stages
of testing and development. But the fact that these things
are being discovered routinely now, they hold great hope for
(27:05):
longer lives and improve quality of life or well for
every generation to come. However, many that may be a
practice of will. Have you ever heard of something caught you?
I have plenty of time for this one seat squatting.
Do you know what that is? No. Seat squatting is
a dreadful new pastime, apparently of of pompous, entitled people
(27:34):
who care nothing about rules and will do anything to
get their way on airplanes. Their parents must be just
so proud of these people. They are you typically younger adults,
and what they do is they purchase a cheap seat
somewhere in the back of the plane and then just
go PLoP themselves down wherever they feel like sitting and
(27:54):
pitch a hissy fit when the person who actually bought
that seat comes up and says, hey, this isn't gonna
work out. And for the life of me, I can't
understand how these people think that's okay, why they think
it's okay, why there is even a name for this,
and why the airlines aren't more aggressively telling these people
(28:19):
to shut up, get up and go back to the
seat you bought. What would you do if somebody and
this is there was The example in the story is
of a couple who had bought an aisle seat and
a window or anile seat in a middle seat. Okay,
they're just married couple, young couple, when they get to
their seats in the airplane, there are two people already
(28:41):
sitting there. Excuse me, these are our seats. No, no,
they're not our seats. They're not your seats. There are
we were here first. Yeah, but see all my ticket
it says twenty four C and twenty four B. That
means that these two seats are mine and are ours. Well, no,
we're not moving. And there's no mention, incidentally, of how
(29:07):
the airline addressed this. And when the chatter was over
and done with the man of the trespassing, you'd have
to call it seats sat took the window seat in
that aisle, and the other couple, the man took the
aisle seat because he's trying to stretch his legs a
(29:29):
little bit, and the woman sat in the middle, and
the guy who was poaching their seat ends up putting
his arm on top of hers on the arm rest
and forcibly kind of pushing it down until she finally
got tired of telling him to stop what he wouldn't do,
and so they switched seats, the man and the woman,
and that guy still was putting his arm on top
(29:50):
of the rightful seat occupant's arm. Your response Will Melbourne.
I mean they caught you at ended, didn't they. I
don't know. I mean I make it like most most airlines, right,
you just you buy, you buy a seat prior, right, Yeah,
(30:12):
so it's just observe seats. So they're doing this to
reserve seats. So it's not like a Southwest cattle car.
Just yeah, you just run to the back or run
to the front wherever you want to sit, or find
the first aisle seat. And why don't they just get
a flight attendant. Well, I'm presuming they did before too long,
not before the whole flight was done. But yeah, I
(30:33):
can't imagine why three sentences into the story, there's not
a sentence another sentence that says when we called flight attendants,
they sorted it out and pushed those people back to
the seats they belonged in. Yeah, that was never mentioned
in the story, which is really even more Also, it
just doesn't make any like, why would that even be
(30:55):
a story? You know, it's a story because it's not isolated.
It's something that's occurring regularly now on airplanes, and the
airlines need to address that pretty quick, at least before
I fly somewhere else again. I'm not gonna be I'm
not gonna pitch a fit. I'm not gonna get thrown
off a plane for it, believe me. But I'm also
not gonna sit there and have somebody encroaching on my
(31:18):
space and putting their feet up around the sides of
my seat or kicking the seat back or any of that.
I'm not gonna just I'm not just gonna cower in
a corner and not address it. That's messed up. We
got to take a break, don't we. We gotta get
out of here now. Well, okay, Braun's Roofing gets this
minute of my time to tell you about how Skeeter
(31:41):
Braun has been in this business, the roofing business, for
thirty plus years. And the reason he's been in business
more than thirty years is because he is adhered to
a very simple practice which every business owner ought to
pick up, and that is quality work at a fair price.
You can't give away quality work because you have I
have to hire the best people, and the best people
(32:02):
deserve a little bit more money, so you pay them
that so that your customers don't start calling you every
day after they get the new roof to tell you
there's a problem with it. They don't call you every
day needing something else done that should have been done
by a company like Bronze Roofing. It will do it
right the first time, and you just you can not
(32:24):
worry about your roof for many, many years. All you
got to do is get it maintained every now and then.
And they do free inspections anytime you want them up there,
at least every at least every two years, maybe once
a year. You call Bronze Roofing, they come out, they
inspect the roof. If it's okay, they'll tell you it's okay,
and then if it's not, they will show you pictures.
(32:45):
They will explain to you how they would fix it.
Almost got my what and my how and my while
mixed up. They'll explain how they can fix it. They'll
explain how long it will take. They'll tell you if
they have the materials on the truck, and they will
tell which I probably will for a minor repair, and
they'll tell you how much it's going to cost. I
strongly recommend, as I always have, say okay, get started,
(33:09):
because you can spend all the time you want trying
to find better work at a cheaper price, but then
you'll end up coming back to Bronze. They've taken care
of me and my family for the better part of
twenty years now with all our roofing needs, and they
will do the same for you. Bronzeoofing dot Com is
the website b r a u NS bronzerooofing dot com.
(33:29):
Two eight one four eight zero ninety nine hundred. Put
the number in your phone so you don't have to
scramble trying to figure out who I was telling you
to call. Good people, honest people. They'll take care of
your roof two eight one four eight zero ninety nine hundred.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Aged to perfection. This is fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Four than final segment of this front End of the
Year twenty twenty five, Holy Cow, twenty twenty five. Will
when did you get out of high school? Like twenty one?
I graduated in twenty sixteen twenty said, oh my god,
well okay, so yeah, a little bit after me. When
(34:28):
you were growing up? How old how old a person?
Let's said, when you were when you graduated high school?
This is just a curiosity of mine, and there's no
right or wrong answer. When you were seventeen eighteen years old,
just ready to get out of high school and go
take on college and then join the real world. How
old a person would you have considered old in your mind?
(34:53):
What was the age of someone he was like, Eah,
that guy's old, I'd say old, as I would say seven.
Really yeah, not forty or fifty something like that. No,
that's middle aged. Okay, so you distinguish between the two.
What about when you were really little? Does your grandparents
seem super old? I mean I got I thought, yeah,
(35:15):
when I was seven, eight, nine, ten years old, my
parents seemed like that, Wow, that's the oldest people I
know closely. And then when we go visit my grandparents,
like holy cow, like dinosaurs walking around the house. Yeah,
you know my grandfather. This was I can remember going
down to visit them in South Florida, and when I
wasn't fishing, when I was actually interacting with them around
(35:37):
meal times and just hanging out times. Uh yeah, they
seem pretty old. And in hindsight, I guarantee you they
were younger than I am now. Uh yeah, oh yeah,
why are you? Why are you scrunching up your face?
I don't know. Yeah, they were my parents would have
been carry the fun and that. Yeah, they would have
(36:02):
been either at or maybe even a couple of years
younger than me, when some pretty good memories were being made.
Kind of. I loved hanging out with my grandfather, but
he wasn't into fishing as much as I was, and
I wasn't into the inner workings of boats and car
engines as he was. He was an engineer for AT
(36:24):
and T. I've talked about this before, but that's what
he did for a living, and he was he was
on the team, pretty high up on the team. From
what my parents told me, when the first when the
first phone lines were strong from New York down like
to Miami, something like that, the first big lines all
(36:47):
the way down the continent, And that was his baby
while he was working and his and I'm sure a
thousand other engineers and thousands more people on the ground
out there. But the bottom line was he was fascinated
by all that and very good with it, and he
would he raced hydroplanes in his retirement. He didn't drive,
(37:08):
he hired drivers, but he built the boats and he
built rebuilt the engines. He would go into the junkyard
and find a little Sunbeam. Have you ever heard of
that car? I've heard of the bread Yeah, but there
was also a car. Oh okay, I want to say
about a forty two inch forty two cubic inch engine.
A little bitty thing, but he would take those and
(37:30):
modify them and tweak them and fine tune them and
get them running. And these little bitty boats that he raced,
or well under his name anyway, would do like ninety
I don't know, ninety five miles an hour, just like
a little potato chip skipping across the water. These hydroplanes.
He actually held a world record. He was in the
(37:50):
Guinness Book of World Records. His boat was the boat
was named sky Hoot, and the driver, if I remember correctly,
was Red McConnell. You want to hear some useless world
record speaking of I mean, I guess we haven't had
one of those in a while, but we have one today.
A speed eating woman earned a new Guinness World record
(38:15):
by eating forty nine grams and don't say edibles, will
What do you think she ate forty nine grams of
in one minute? Forty nine grams of cinnamon? Well, you
know you're not entirely wrong, but it's cotton candy, and
(38:36):
think about trying to eat forty nine grams of cotton
candy would be a significant volume. It could be. It's
kind of wispy and light, very light. It's like a cloud.
It's like eating a cloud, a sugary cloud that sticks
to everything it touches. When you were a kid, did
you make a mess eating cotton candy? I know, especially
(38:57):
as a kid, all over the back seat, all over
your pan ants, your blue jeans, and your mouth is
just sick all day. Yeah, and every time you touch
yourself trying to get it off of your face, you
just you just sticky up another area. Anyway. There you
have it with her, congratulations, and I'm not even gonna
(39:19):
She also has two other eating records, nineteen chicken nuggets
in a minute and ten jelly donuts in three minutes,
all of which beg the questions who cares? Why would
we care? I'm not gonna even give you her name,
lest I perpetuate her delusionals. I could beat that chair,
(39:40):
I could, I could beat the donut donut one. You
got to eat more than what did I say? Eight? Ten?
Ten in three minutes? Yeah, ten in three minutes. They
have to be a specific jelly donut or kid. I
just go to Shipley's and get I'll go. If you
could think you can eat them in three minutes, I
will a dozen jelly donuts. Buy me eleven jelly donuts. Well,
(40:05):
I'm gonna eat one, Okay, go for eleven to set
the record. I'll tell you what flavors I want. Yeah,
you can, but you're not gonna do that. You might
get like six of them knocked back in a minute,
and then the other five they're gonna take you. I'm
telling you I can do it there, you cannot do that.
Will's six. If I get six down in a minute,
it's it's over. I've I've won two minutes to get
(40:29):
another five down, I don't know. Well, I have monkey news.
I don't want to miss it either. We only have
a minute left. And you got monkey businesses from over
in po Tit, Texas. Just you know where that is?
But what po Tit? The south of San Antonio, right, No,
I don't have time to go into Dji. The wildlife
(40:51):
officers got called to a neighborhood because there was a
spider monkey running loose in the hood, just running all
around poet and they Eventually, this thing's jumping from rooftop
to rooftop, and eventually they corralled at somewhell how wildlife
officers did, and they found out who owned it, and
(41:14):
since it's not legal to keep one there, the owner's
got citations. Do you recall Will when there were peacocks
running wild up north of West tim or off Guessner. Yes?
Do you recall when there were peacocks running wild? And
Katie No, there were Paul Lambert might know about that.
(41:35):
I'll ask you when I get out of here. No
more peacock news, no more monkey news. We'll be back tomorrow.
Thanks for getting the year off to a good start, Audios,
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