Right at Home

Today, Doug Pike interviews Collin Campbell of Right at Home about in-home care.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. Remember when music sounded
like this, Remember when social media was truly social?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey, John, how's it going today?

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Well, this show is all about you. This is fifty
plus with Doug.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Pike, helpful information on your finances, good health, and what
to do for fun. Fifty plus brought to you by
the UT Health Houston Institute on Aging, Informed Decisions for
a healthier, happier life.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
And now fifty plus with Doug Pike.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
All right, t it up, boys, here we go. Thursday
edition of the program starts right now. Quick, look at
the weather. I'm not gonna dwell on it because I
know most of you already. You already saw or heard
a weather report between you woke up and now. But nonetheless, well,
we've got significant chances of rain for the weekend, then

(01:08):
a couple of nice days, then maybe some more rain midweek.
But the common theme throughout the next ten days really
is cooler temperatures. Might be dry, might be wet, might
be a little of both, but cooler temperatures mid eighties today,
which is improvement. And then we drop into the low eighties,
high seventies, for four or five days, depending on how

(01:30):
things turn out, and hopefully, hopefully that'll be the real, true, legitimate,
honest end of summer and all the ugly stuff that
tends to accompany it. Speaking of, on the plus plus
plus plus side of this approaching coal front, the forecast
models for tropical Storm Melissa, which is predicted soon to

(01:53):
become a major hurricane over in the northern part of
the Caribbean next few days. It's that thing's gonna spin
up and get after it. I hate it for the islands,
I really do, But all the models show that one
it's it's gonna it's gonna just kind of sit there
and and intensify for a while and then roll northward

(02:18):
and then northeastward after it gets through with Jamaica and
Cuba and pretty much every other island anywhere near there.
It's gonna it's gonna be a major hurricane for a
little while and then just roll back to the east
and go out into the open Atlantic Ocean, and we

(02:38):
will have one more thing to be thankful for this year, right,
So keep those folks over in Cuba and Jamaica and uh,
I don't think the Bahamas are gonna get hit. Really.
I think it's gonna stay south enough that they'll get
some rain and they'll get some some wind. But I
don't know that if it takes the course it's supposed to,

(03:00):
I don't know if it'll be worse than that. So,
you know, one word or the other, they're all everybody
over in the Caribbean's gonna feel that thing, or at
least in the Eastern Caribbean and out into the Atlantic. Uh,
they're gonna feel it to some degree or another. So
just keep keep them me in your thoughts and prayers,
as they say. Turning to the markets, gold got tired

(03:22):
of falling and finally put some helium back in the balloon,
up almost one hundred bucks an ounce a little after
ten this morning. I haven't looked since then. It was
at forty one sixty two, back well above the four
thousand dollars mark. Nasdaq was up up a chunk, but
the other three well, they were also up. Every All

(03:43):
four of the indicators were green, but only by small percentages.
Except for the Nasdaq, it was up pretty good. Oil
up nearly three bucks, actually back north of sixty and
then pushed right past sixty one dollars. A barrel. That's
that's gonna jack up gasoline rices over the next ten
days by maybe, I don't know, maybe a dime. It's

(04:04):
not going to be that noticeable, but if you pay
really close attention, you will notice. Moving into breaking news
from professional sports, Fox News was reporting just a little
while ago that at least thirty one people have been
arrested after the FBI took a hard look at ties

(04:24):
to illegal gambling on quite a large scale. The allegations
and this thing swept up some players and coaches in
addition to just people making bets, but players and coaches
and there are alleged to be ties to organized crime. Hey,

(04:46):
this is big, no question about it. The allegations include
betting on NBA outcomes, not just necessarily the games, but
on very specific bet that's on players, specific achievements in
a particular game. I don't know what that's I guess

(05:07):
those maybe prop bets or something like that. I'm not
a big gambler. I like cards, I like poker, and
I'll sit at a slot machine just to forget about
everything else in the world for a while. But I
don't understand all the betting part. But anyway, this is
kind of a big deal. There was also speaking of poker,
some sort of poker scheme involved, not related to the

(05:28):
basketball stuff, but there are a lot of pretty high
profile people who kind of wish they hadn't done what
they did right now, what they're alleged to have done,
that's going to be. That's gonna be a scandalous thing
right here at the beginning of the NBA season. And
the investigation itself has been going on for quite some time,

(05:50):
and I would presume, well, it has to have gone
back to prior years, otherwise there wouldn't have been statistics
to talk about. I was telling right before we started
that we there's a term that a lot of us
use to describe something of which we have plenty or

(06:11):
somebody else has plenty. It could be money, it could
be boats, it could be fishing rods. But the term
is a butt load. And if you're unaware, a buttload
actually is a legitimate unit of measurement. It's a liquid measurement.
So outgo the fishing rods and the cars and the

(06:31):
girlfriends and whatever. It amounts to roughly one hundred and
eight imperial gallons, to which most of you are thinking, yeah,
tell us. In American gallons, it's about one hundred and
thirty gallons, So what you put in a new pickup
truck basically hundred thirty gallons a butt load. It came

(06:52):
from being used for wine and whiskey. When you'd fill
the barrel up, you'd have a buttload of wine. Although
you'd probably just call it according to the story, I'm
looking at a full butt. In these days, when the
snicker factor is involved, you would certainly call it a
butt load and not a full butt, although I guess

(07:15):
they both do mean about the same thing. You know,
I'm gonna pause and make sure we don't get late
on brakes and cause a stir afterward for poor will
trying to put these things together and make them fit
into puzzle pieces. UT Health Institute on Aging the collaborative
of providers I've spoken for over the past close to

(07:36):
ten years. I think it's right at ten years now.
As a matter of fact, these are people who have
gone back in gotten additional training and education on top
of what got them the diploma on the wall in
the office, so that they can apply that knowledge directly
to us. Seniors are different. We know it. They know
young people know it. Young people will be first to

(07:56):
tell you. Seniors will kind of keep it to themselves.
Usually we know we're different, and we don't want to
be different, we don't want to act different. But bye gosh,
when it comes to your health, you need to recognize
that you are different and you do deserve to be
seen by somebody who acknowledges that and is trained to
help you. Go to the website, look at all the
resources that are available there for you for absolutely nothing,

(08:19):
and then try to find your way to one of
these providers. There's more than a thousand of them around here,
and they work all over town, mostly in the med center,
as I've always said, but many of them go out
into outlying hospitals and clinics and whatnot, so that if
you don't want to go downtown, you don't have to
ut dot edu slash aging. Let them help you get
fixed whatever's wrong utch dot edu slash aging.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Now, they sure don't make them like they used to.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
That's why every few months we wash them, check us
fluids and spring on a fresh code O wax. This
is fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, welcome back.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Thanks for listening to fifty plus on this pretty good
looking Thursday out there the last time I look out
of the window, as if we didn't already know how soft.
Some not will, but some young adults have become and
I mean that sincerely. Well, I don't think you're soft
at all. I think you've got a good head on
your shoulders and you're okay some of your peers, though,

(09:17):
maybe not so much ever since their parents quit letting
them play on supervised or do chores or anything anything
that they didn't want to do. So here's the latest
version of the safe space. You remember safe spaces when
they were being put into colleges all over the country.
Some high schools had them so that if you were

(09:39):
just if your feelings were hurt, or you just you
just didn't didn't want to participate in something, you could
retreat to the safe space just I guess, go in
there and suck your thumb and wrap up in a
little blanket till you felt better. In any event, the
new version of this is something called scream clubs, where

(10:02):
a bunch of whiny people with an axe to grind
meet up in different parts of different towns in increasing
numbers of places around the country to just let it out.
They just start screaming into nowhere. There's one group I
think up northeast that meets on a bridge somewhere, and unfortunately,

(10:24):
there's a large like a ferry boat for tourists that
passes by that bridge, and so the tourists coming to
that city, I think it might be in New York
City actually have to listen to those people screaming whatever
they feel like screaming out in public where nobody really

(10:45):
wants to hear you whine or scream or otherwise be
bothered by your own sensitivities. We've all got stuff, We've
all got stuff that makes us want to scream sometimes.
That's why. That is exactly why most Ustonians A don't
mind long commutes to work, and B tend to drive
alone because we scream in the car. Speaking of the

(11:09):
latest overlooked addictions, and I don't recall where exactly this
story originated, but it was interesting overlooked addictions outrage. Everybody
seems to be outraged about something, although they don't their
actions and reactions to whatever that is don't really match

(11:29):
up with outrage tend to be even more a little
too much sometimes the others short form videos that's addictive
for sure. And every now and then I'll get caught
thinking to myself, Okay, I'll just watch some of this stuff.
It'll be fun for about five minutes, and then I'll

(11:51):
go to bed, or then I'll turn on the Astros
game or the Rockets game or something like that. And
then I look up and the games in the third
inning or it's almost time to wake up. I don't well,
it's not that bad smartphones. Addictive over consumption in general
is how it ended up. Just information overload. We cannot

(12:13):
get away from information. And now that there's ai to
be your best buddy if you want it to be,
even that becomes a problem. From the hypocrisy desk, I'll
go there. The left never seems to disappoint in today's
no exception. After years of calling President Trump a Nazi. Okay,

(12:35):
and we've all heard it, they've all been doing it, well,
not all of them, most of them. The Democrat Party's
chosen a candidate to upset Republican Senator Susan Collins from
Maine in the next election. This guy's name is Graham
Planter Platner. Excuse me, P L A T N E. R.
Graham Platner, and he has a Nazi symbol, a totent culp,

(12:59):
which is that's a deathhead. That's the literal translation in German.
From German, it's tattooed big and bold right on his chest.
He got it when he was young, so we'll give
him some credit for that. And he claimed he didn't
know what it was for a long time. It's been
there for more than twenty years. But he's also been

(13:21):
overheard to say by some sources that he knows exactly
what it is. He knew it, and he has known
it for a long long time. According to Bright, Party
describes himself as a vegetable, growing, psychedelics taking socialist. The
Washington Post reported a while back that Platner posted some

(13:41):
I read a little bit of it pretty racist comments
on Reddit, and then from another stores a quote in
which he says he's hanging on to his guns because
you know, fascists can't be trusted. I'm paraphrasing, but something
to that effect. In other words, he's a socialist racist
who condones violence, and he's the best candidate. The Democrats

(14:02):
have to challenge that Senate seat for Maine, so that
could be a problem for them. Up there if they
want to retake that seat. The US Department of War.
This I found very interesting. Well, this first sentence is
comes as no surprise. The US Department of War buys
more explosive devices than anyone else on the planet. You

(14:26):
know who's number two? You got any idea, will and
I'll tell you if you're right or wrong. Well, you'll
know if you're right or wrong in a second. What
would do you have a guess? Second biggest purchaser of
explosive devices, thinking you got one Disney. Disney because of
all the fireworks it fires at all its parks around

(14:49):
the world. They we don't get into wars terribly off,
and we tend to stockpile a lot of things that
we would need if we went into war, but we
don't burn it up the way Disney does every night
on what two or three continents. Who knows how many
parks they have all together. I found that very interesting, well,

(15:11):
moderately interesting, not very This scares me. I actually have
two How much time do I have?

Speaker 4 (15:17):
One?

Speaker 1 (15:19):
Thing?

Speaker 3 (15:19):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Wow, good, I can do this. I found a couple
actually three one two words, the third one I I
want to get to the third one before I start.
That's not it. Oh, yes, it's over here because it's
more real news than Okay, yes, okay. I have all
three stories about motor vehicles here. Story number one, the

(15:42):
shortest one. A study found that white cars retain their
resale value the best, Blue and black cars lose it
the fastest. That's of no interest to really anybody unless
you drive a car that's supposed to lose its retail
value fastest. The cars I see on the road these
days are white, and that's just a trend they've got.

(16:05):
The gray came in for a while, but I think
it's losing its luster, the same as it's done in paint.
My wife and I are trying to get the inside
of the house painted, and gray's almost out, Thank goodness.
It doesn't do a thing for me, but a lot
of people like it. Number two General Motors plans to
launch an automated driving system in twenty twenty eight that's

(16:25):
going to allow drivers to quite literally just read the paper,
read a book, do a crossword puzzle, whatever you want.
You just sit there in the car and it's going
to drive you around. And for GM, the first one
that's going to be actually able to do that is
going to be an escalade IQ, which means it's gonna
be a really big thing coming at you with nobody

(16:48):
only only a computer to actually drive the thing. And
speaking of scary on the road, and the time I
have left, that's perfect. This past Tuesday afternoon, twenty one
year old Indian born trucker in our country, illegally and
high on drugs, according to the toxicology reports, slammed into

(17:12):
a traffic jam without even hitting the brakes in Ontario, California.
That crash left three people dead injured at least four more.
And you know, President Trump insisted recently that all states
require all their truck drivers to be fluent in written
and spoke at English, and that law has actually been

(17:32):
in effect for quite some time for many years, but
a lot of states weren't enforcing it currently since the
President said, okay, enough's enough after that other wreck that
killed three people when a guy just decided to make
a turn in his eighteen wheeler across all the lanes
of an interstate. Guess which is the only state. There's

(17:53):
forty nine states are all signed up now in going
to enforce that law. There's only one California. As if
nobody had it already. We got to take a break
on the way out. I'll tell you about a late
health and the opportunity that you have as a grown
man within a large non CANCERUS prostate, to make that
thing go away. If you have it, you know the symptoms,

(18:15):
if you don't read up on them and make sure
you don't ever get them, maybe try to. I don't
know who knows fire preemptive strikes. See if there's any
indication whatsoever of that by maybe some symptoms you're kind
of starting to notice. Don't let it get away from you,
because you certainly don't want to experience that. That's the
procedure they do most often at a late health. They
also work on fibroids. For women, they do ugly veins,

(18:39):
make them go away. There are some headpains that can
be alleviated with vascular procedures, which is what they do there.
They have these tiny little tubes that they can send
down your little teeny tiny little ardie. They're finer even
than a human hair, and they can maneuver those things
into your blood system and go down to wherever something

(19:02):
that needs to be plugged up or opened up is
and either open it up or plug it up, whichever
is gonna make you feel better. I have no idea
how that works. I'm just glad that doctor Andrew Doe
and his staff do usually two two and a half
hours in the office to get taken care of. You
don't ever have to go to the hospital. You're gonna
be able to go home and just recuperate that same day,

(19:24):
very comfortably, with everybody in your family just waiting on
you hand over fist in my dream. Anyway, most of
what they do is covered by Medicare and Medicaid, and
they also do regenerative medicine over there at a late
Health as well a La te A Latehealth dot com.
That's the website. Go check that out, then make a
phone call, set up a consultation, see what they can

(19:45):
do for you. There's a ton at the website that
I didn't know they did, but they do. Seven one three, five, eight, eight,
thirty eight eighty eight seven one three, five eight, eight
thirty eight eighty eight.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
What's life without a nap? I suggest you go to bed.
That's sleep it off, wait until the show's over. Sleepy.
Back to Doug Pike as fifty plus continues.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Welcome back to fifty plus. Thanks for listening, certainly do
appreciate it. However, you listen wherever you listen, especially if
you're at home, since that's what we're about to talk
about in this segment. Facilities that cater to seniors are
great for folks who really need that much help, but
some of us, most of us really, I think, kind

(20:26):
of want to stay in our own comfy home for
as long as possible. And that's where my next guest,
Colin Campbell from Right at Home comes in. Welcome aboard, Colin, Hey,
how are you doing, Doug. I'm doing all right, man.
I took a good look at your website this morning
and found exactly what I hoped i'd find, which was
a really simple to understand outline of all the services

(20:47):
you provide in a really good way to figure out
what somebody might need if they didn't really know. So
thank you for that, a la carte menu of what
you guys do.

Speaker 4 (20:59):
Absolutely, we try and make it as easy as possible.
I know a lot of different people are looking at
from it, you know, whether it's seniors or their family members,
so we try and make it pretty digestible for everyone.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
Starting kind of at entry level. So can you provide
I'm presuming you can provide as little or as much
help as somebody needs, anything from lighthouse keeping in companionship
to somebody who really needs a lot of more, more
steady care, more constant care almost daily. Is all of
that's on the table, isn't it?

Speaker 4 (21:33):
Yes, sir, So, like you said, we can do anything
from companionship just coming in and running errands with people
or sitting down to new games or lighthousehold chores, to
more involved care for someone that you know may be
on hospice or coming back from having a surgery and
needs kind of a steady regiment, you know, maybe longer

(21:53):
hours in the day, just with help with things like
you know, maybe showering or you know, getting medications organized
in things like that.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
Yeah, I hadn't even thought about coming home from surgery
and having to rehab for someone who's alone. I've got
a very good friend who's well, he's ten years older
than me, so he's up there, pretty good guy he
used to work with, and if he had to have
a surgery, he probably wouldn't be able to take care
of himself much, if at all. And that's where you

(22:24):
guys could come in for a week, two weeks, six weeks,
whatever it takes, right, and then just say goodbye, Yes sir, yes, sir.

Speaker 4 (22:31):
That's pretty much it. It is pretty complicated for some people.
My grandmother went through his surgery about three years ago,
and even with my grandfather there, I mean, if your
partner is kind of around the same AGR, you're a
little bit up there in years, it can be difficult
for them as well. So just having the extra pair
of hands, I think really, you know, puts people at

(22:52):
ease and you know, can give them a piece of
mind during that two to three week period post surgery.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
Absolutely, you know what I was thirty forty yearsyears old,
I would have just said, yeah, if something happens to
my wife and she has to have a major surgery,
I can do whatever she needs done. But now exactly, Yeah,
all of a sudden, I look in the mirror and
I'm not that guy anymore. That's that's kind of scary
for a lot of ways. I guess. Uh. Colin Campbell
from Right at Home here on fifty plus question I

(23:20):
get from my listeners sometimes sometimes when I talk about
in home care is whether or not and you brought
up medication a little while ago. Are you able to
organize the medical meds? Can you administer meds? What can
you guys do?

Speaker 4 (23:35):
So we can assist people with organizing their medications, But
one of our limitations as an in home care agency
is we can't actually dispense the medication, so it would
have to be a person doing that themselves, or if
they have someone like a home health company come in
which we partner with all the time, those people can

(23:55):
administer medications regularly.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Let's talk a little bit before before anybody just start
screaming else talking about these screen clubs a minute ago,
and before anybody starts screaming at us, Yeah, we got
to talk about the money parts of this stuff. Talk
about be structure and work schedules. Are there minimum times?
Are there commitments that clients have to make to get
help or can they just say, hey, I need you

(24:19):
once a week for an hour? Is that enough to
get you? Yes?

Speaker 4 (24:24):
So our agency doesn't have minimums, other agencies might, and
so we try and do an hourly rate structure. So
we work with clients, you know, kind of all over
the metro Houston area to get them the best rate
as you know, meet their needs where they're at because,
like you said, some people may need an hour of care,

(24:46):
other people may need eight hours a day, some people
may need overnight. So we try and look at what
the client's needs are, and you know, best matter pricing
to them.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
Well, that's very fair. Everybody's got to make money. I'm
not asking you to do it for free. And I'm
sure it's not right, but it when you start comparing
it to having to move into some place where you
end up in a very small apartment and you have
to downsize almost everything but your bed in the night stand. Uh,
and then you get all your meals, you get all

(25:13):
that stuff, but you're not at home anymore. I want
to stay in my home as long as I can.
I really do. I don't want to go to that
type of a place because I'm mostly because I'm gonna
have to give up my fishing rods, a lot of them. Yes,
you know, yeah, I would guess that. Let me ask
you this before we have to go. Do Medicare and

(25:34):
Medicaid cover these types of options.

Speaker 4 (25:38):
They do not in the state of Texas at least,
so we do work off of private pay and there
are some forms of insurances sharing there like long term
care insurance that will pay for the services, but again
that may only be something like, you know, five hours
a day and so on the whole. Yeah, I would

(25:58):
say it's private.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
Pay about how we got just barely a minute. Talk
about how your team member members communicate with the client's
families if that's necessary.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
Yes, sir.

Speaker 4 (26:09):
So we try and stand pretty constant communication with the
clients and their families, you know, whether it's as simple
as a phone call or if the client wants to
call their loved ones and have you know, them talk
to the caregiver. We try and keep a pretty open
line because we get it. We're not strangers in the home,
but you know, we are employees there. They're working constantly

(26:29):
and they want to be sure that you know, their
loved one is being taken care of. So we try
and you know, have a few different options, whether it's email, text,
or phone calls.

Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yeah, I keep every one of the loop.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
It's an invaluable connection as far as I'm concerned, especially
for people who don't live close enough to make regular
checks on mom or dad. Colin Campbell right at home.
What's the website you wanted to go see?

Speaker 4 (26:51):
Yeah, if they want to learn more about our services
and what you can do for them, they can visit
www dot right at home dot net slash metro Houston.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
Right at home dot net slash metro Houston. My people
can remember that, and if they can't, they gonna ask
me and I'll tell them. Colin, thank you very much.
Meta has really been informative help. I appreciate your.

Speaker 4 (27:12):
Help absolutely anytime. Doug pleasures speaking with you.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Uh huh, all right, Sadly we got to take a break.
I'm wanna call him back and talk to him. That's
interesting stuff. I'm not near it, my wife's not near it,
but I know some people who are and who knows
may be able to help them. Cedar Cove RV Resort
in Baytown. If you want to help your your mental
well being, your own that kind of stuff, go spend

(27:39):
some time on the bayfront on the water down there
at the end of Tri City Beach Road in Baytown,
over by Thompson's Bay Camp, just right there on the water,
all the amenities you can imagine for a place you
can park your your motor home, your RV, your pop
up trailer, whatever it is you want to overnight in
they'll put you on a slab. You can connect to

(28:01):
the electricity, you connect connect to the water, to the
Wi Fi, free WiFi, sewer hookups at every site, all
of that, all of that's available at every site. They
even have a convenience store, because everybody who goes away
for a weekend or a week or a month forgets something,
and chances are good they'll have it in that little
convenience store. If you don't have an RV, which most

(28:24):
of us don't, I'm sure they'll rent you one. He
Al's got Al Kibbi, the guy who runs the place,
He's got an RV that he will rent and put
on one of those slabs for you and let you
and your family experience that lifestyle and see what it entails.
See how relaxing it is to wake up in the

(28:44):
morning to the sound of a breeze in palm fronds
rather than the sound of some guy would wearing a
paper hat throwing a giant bag of plastic garbage whatever,
half eaten Hamburgers and a dumpster behind his restaurant. Cedar
coovearvresort dot com. Let your mind relax, let your body relax.

(29:07):
Bait a line and throw it out there and see
if you can't catch yourself some lunch. There's some redfish
moving through there right now. Cedar cove Rvresort dot com
is a website Cedarcovearvresort dot com.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
Old guys rule, and of course women never get old.
If you want to avoid sleeping on the couch.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
Okay, well, I think that sounds like a good plan.

Speaker 1 (29:30):
Fifty plus continues. Here's more with Doug. Welcome back to
fifty plus. Thank you for listening. Segment four starts now.
I learned a lot about the in home care there.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
I thought that I read somewhere that Medicare and Medicaid
pay for it, but not in Texas, I guess, And
that's state law, state law. So I still feel it's
a very reasonable alternative to having to uproot and go
someplace and start paying rent. If you can stay in
your house and you like your house and you like

(30:01):
your neighborhood, more power to you. That's what I'm going
to try to do. And I was kind of half
joking and half being for real when I talked about
how complicated it's going to be at some point in
my life to remove all the sporting goods. Stuff that
I have, I don't have near what I had before.
Don't think that I've got some giant treasure trove of

(30:23):
fine gear. I'm not that way. I'm content to play
with the toys that I got several years ago. They
still work perfectly well. I have, yet it's been a
very long time since I even thought that something was
wrong enough with a reel or a rod, or a
shotgun or a rifle or any of that stuff that

(30:46):
I just absolutely had to replace it. Usually just a
couple of little, carefully placed droplets of oil and careful
wiping of most of the oil away usually will solve
problem that I've got with anything. I play with a
lot out there in the field where I like to be.
By the way I went by yesterday, I went by

(31:09):
the Houston Arboretum over here off the Loop. It took
me of even the time from the elevator to my car.
From my car to the west Loop access road from
the access road north about maybe maybe a half a

(31:30):
mile to the gate to the Arboretum two minutes if that.
It's very close. It's right over here on the west
Loop on the northbound side, and it's right before Memorial drive.
There's a gate or a driveway there, and then if
you miss that, you can take a ride on Memorial
and there's a driveway there. So I go over there,

(31:50):
and I meet up with Christine, who's in charge of marketing,
and we had a wonderful conversation about all the different
things they do over there, all the different events they have.
I wouldn't have thought about it, but they they host
several weddings a month, or maybe not a month. I
don't know how many they do in a year, but
they do quite a few weddings, she said. They do

(32:10):
a lot of children's programs, a lot of adult programs.
They're always looking for help, always looking for volunteers. By
the way, in case you want to do something outside,
get a lot of vitamin D, get to see a
lot of cool animals. They've got several hundred acres up
in there. I did not realize that was such a

(32:30):
big place. A couple of one hundred acres is enough
room for a golf course almost, and so they've got
trails winding through there, a substantial portion of which are
everything accessible up to an including wheelchairs. They have a
couple of small ponds up in there, where the kids

(32:54):
or anybody else who's never seen a lot of things
can see different birds, different there's little tree frogs in there,
there are fish in the lakes. And actually I'm I'm
going to try to talk her into letting me come
over there and host the kids fishing day or morning
or whatever. And she said, now, anytime anybody fishes over here,

(33:16):
it's always catching release. Now that I hadn't kept the
fishing years, I throw them back. I love throwing them back,
and I'll teach the kids to do that, and I'll
teach them a lot about being a safe, responsible fisherman.
So we're going to work on that. I might have
to work on her and some of the people over
there who who work above and below her, hopefully get
all that sorted out where we can do it. I

(33:38):
think it would be a lot of fun. And I
think sometime it may have to wait until spring to
get it all organized and get it on their calendar,
because there's always something going on. I talked to somebody
this morning, the editor or the publisher of Texas Fishing
Game magazine, Ardias Ardia Nieves, and she didn't even know
about it. And when I told her what was there

(33:59):
and what you can do over there why not? And
the thing that really impressed me most about it is
how amazingly you.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
Separate yourself.

Speaker 4 (34:12):
Here.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
I was maybe two hundred yards off the west Loop,
and when I got out of my car to walk
to the Visitors Center to meet Christine, I could just
barely hear the traffic. It's just kind of a just
sh that's all it is. It's almost soothing, not like
the Loop is that, Oh, we gotta go seeing Tomar.

(34:32):
Thank you for listening. Audios