December 11, 2025 • 38 mins
Today, Doug Pike discusses the St. Jude's Radiothon!
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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. Remember when music sounded
like this, Remember when social media was truly social?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey, John, how's it going today?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
This show is all about you only. 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.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
And now fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, here
we go.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Third day edition of the program starts right now. I
almost almost got through a loaded baked potato including brisket.
Almost did that in the time it took from when
that news break started to now. It wasn't a giant potato,
I'll give it that. It was about a medium sized potato.
(01:11):
But I did load it up and I will finish
it in the next break because it was just so
dog one good and courtesy of by the way, courtesy
of Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital, which is here along
with all of us to.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Do what we do every year.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
The last many years on the heels of our golf
tournament which we had Monday out at Golf Club of Houston.
Fantastic beautiful day after it was a little chilly in
the morning.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
We got through that one.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
We raised a bunch of money there, and now we're
working on our radio thon, which only sweetens the pot
and makes it more possible for Saint Jude to do
what they do to take care of the sickest kids
on the planet. Basically, they are as a whole, as
a unit, everybody over there has only one goal, and
(02:03):
that's to eradicate childhood cancer. I don't know if they'll
ever get to that part, but I'm gonna certainly help
them try as much as I can.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Sickest children in the world.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
And by the way, our whole iHeart family today and
tomorrow asking you to help us heal some of these
sickest children in the world with a donation generous, regardless
of its amount, something to the radiothon and today and tomorrow.
Somebody asked me this morning, by the way, ask me
(02:37):
this morning if I thought my audience would respond to this,
And actually I was a little bit offended by the
inference that maybe you guys who I know through ten
years of emails and text messages and personal meetings and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Face to face.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I've met a lot of you people, and I'm so
happy that that's happened. You're some of the most kind
and compassionate and generous people in the world, some of
the most generous I've ever met, almost to a fault,
but that's the way we were raised. I told him
I had absolutely no doubt that any one of you
who is able to do so. If your circumstances preclude
(03:21):
you from participating, I won't ask why. I will trust
you enough to know that it's a valid reason and
that when you can, you will. That's fine by me.
I have no problem with that. But I know that
every one of you who's able is going to drop
a little something into the mix. Our entire generation was
raised on helping each other, helping our neighbors, helping our friends,
(03:44):
helping schoolmates, helping work people. And I don't know anybody
who's grown out of that upbringing and become just so
grumpy and disenchanted that they wouldn't help a child with cancer.
So more about that as we move through the hour,
looking at the markets where the dow ran up more
than four hundred points yesterday, and this morning was kind
(04:06):
of flat and kind of kind of wanting to turn
a little bit pinkish if red, maybe a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Kind of ugly.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
And then all of a sudden, an hour ago, I
look back and it's up another five hundred and seventy
eight points, maybe more. By now, I wasn't listening to
the Fox update on that. Russell was up, SNP and
NASDAC were in the red, but not by any startling amounts.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Oil.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
This is really worth noting if you have a road
trip planned, especially, you're gonna be happy to hear what I'm.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
About to say.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Oil dropped another dollar in change per barrel, and our
price is here. I don't care what Californians do. They're
long gone anyway and just totally whacked out. Their gas
price is still I want to say, still more than
four dollars and fifty cents a barrel or a gallon
something like that. Meanwhile, in Houston, and especially in Sugarland
(04:59):
out where I live now, there are some isolated Houston
stations where you still might pay three point fifty three
seventy five a gallon if you're not smart enough to
drive out of that neighborhood but if you are, and
if you go into outlying areas, what you're going to
find is gasoline that you can get even at the
name brand stations, not the discount ones, but the name
(05:20):
brand stations. For it's probably going to go down to
about two ten two point fifteen a gallon when this
next price drop for oil makes it through the transportation.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And refineries and all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Speaking of transportation of oil, the US Navy took control
of a tanker on the open ocean coming out of Venezuela,
believe to be carrying more than a million barrels of
oil that never should have left port and probably didn't
even come out of Venezuela. A report I saw this
morning said that the amount of oil that I think
(05:58):
is like one point one million barrels of oil on
this tanker is more than an entire day of production
for the oil fields of Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
So something's a little fishy there. Something's a little fishy there.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Learn a lot about how there are actually oil smugglers
who ignore sanctions, they ignore the rules, they ignore the
laws for buying and selling crude oil, and they do
so for the obvious reason.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
There's a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
When you've got a vessel that can carry more than
a million barrels of something that you could you could
get a squeeze an extra dollar a barrel out of it.
If you're selling it to somebody who's not supposed to
be buying it, you might be able to get an
extra two dollars a barrel. And if you can empty
that ship and deliver it to that person or that
(06:50):
entity wherever it is in the world, make a lot
of money pretty fast. They sometimes I heard this morning,
I think it was when Jimmy was talking about it
ktr Hure. It may have just been a reporter story.
They sometimes move entire cargoes of oil from ship to
ship off shore to avoid detection, which is highly dangerous.
(07:13):
By the way, one mishap out there and suddenly you've
got a million barrels of oil it is floating around
in the middle of the ocean that probably will never
get cleaned up. It'll just be absorbed. They use falsified
documents the Navy that the Navy noticed.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Whatever triggered it.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
And by the way, the surveillance we have on the
coastlines of the world is unparalleled, and that's why we're
able to find these things them and the drug boats
and all of these other bad things coming out of
these countries. Even when the bad guys they have to
know we're watching them. But the lure of potentially being
(07:53):
the one boat that gets through, and how much money
you make if it does, that's enough to make a
lot of these guys just throw caution to the wind
and say, you know what, I'm gonna take a swing,
and if I make it, I'm a millionaire. Cedar Cove
RV resort over there in Baytown, down Tri City Beach
Road near Thompson's Bait Camp right there on Galveston Bay
(08:13):
got all the amenities you could want in a place
to park your RV, your motor home, your pop up
camp or whatever for a night on a nice concrete
slab that you got to on a nice concrete road.
They have electric water and sewer at every site, plus WiFi.
Got a bathhouse with showers if you want to go
do that. Maybe you've been out there fishing all afternoon,
(08:34):
you worked up a sweat, or maybe you just forgot
and wiped your hands on your pants after you handled
a bunch of dead shrimp. All good reasons to take
advantage of the bathhouse with the showers and the fish
is not bad actually, when the wind and tied a right,
and this is a very good time of year to
be kind of watching the shorelines and putting a little
live bait out there, maybe under a court, and just
(08:57):
waiting for a red fish, maybe a flounder. Once we
get a couple of more days into December and the
season opens back up. Fantastic place. And if you don't
own an RV, you're thinking, I can't do that. I
don't own an RV. Well, al kibbi, the guy who
owns the place will rent you an RV that comfortably
sleeps for so that you and your family, or you
and your friends, or whoever you want to bring along
(09:18):
with you, two couples and whatever floats your boat right,
go down there and spend the night, spend a few days,
Enjoy that breeze coming off the gulf, enjoy the wind
kind of wafting through the pine fronds or the palm fronds.
It's a beautiful place. You're gonna love it, and you'll
(09:39):
probably end up going in buying a motor home at
some point. Cedar Cove Rvresort dot com that's the website
Cedarcovearvresort dot com.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
What's life without a net? I suggest you go to bed,
sleep it off.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Just wait until the show's over, Sleepy. Back to Doug
Pike as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
I'm gonna move Chris McGinley from kirk on to the
third segment instead of the second.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
He's up.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I know he's up in the hill country in some
sort of big meetings, and I suspect that the meetings
are pretty dog one important, So I'm not gonna I'm
not gonna argue with that.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And I've got plenty to talk about around here, not the.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Least important of which is what we're doing here for
Saint Jude, asking you guys to become a partner in
hope and help the doctors and researchers Jude find cures
for childhood cancer.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Saint Jude's not gonna stop.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
They've been around since nineteen sixty two, and they're not
gonna stop there until they find some way, somehow that
no child dies from cancer. And the only way to
get there is through your generosity and mind and everybody else's.
I've been to Saint Jude, I've gotten to know how
(10:49):
amazing that place is, how amazing those patients are, and
how hopeful everybody there looks when they're facing one of
the most horrid things that they could possibly have faced
when they first heard it, when they first heard your
child has cancer, and they went to doctor after doctor,
(11:10):
and they were told every time, you know, we just
can't do anything for your son or your daughter, whoever
it was, maybe try Saint Jude. Well, when these people
are turned away by so many, they become the more
they get turned away, the more likely it is that
(11:31):
they might be accepted into one of the programs at
Saint Jude, where they literally deal with things that other
doctors just can't understand or fix or do anything about.
And so that's the part that really amazes me most
is the people who work there. They've got an entire
building devoted to research that is shared with any and
(11:54):
every provider in the entire world who wants to get
that research, who needs that research to maybe help somebody
where they live halfway around the world. Maybe that child
can't get to Saint Jude. Now, that wouldn't be the
fault of Saint Jude, because Saint Jude covers travel, housing, food,
(12:18):
all of the care that is provided by all of
the doctors and nurses and trainers and therapists and everybody
else who's there to help that kid get better. All
of that's covered. There's no This fascinated me when I
was there. I learned that there is no patient billing
department in the entire hospital, not for any of those
hundreds of kids who are there deathly ill, frankly and
(12:44):
not far from the end had they not been accepted
into those programs. They've changed the survival rate for childhood cancers,
for pediatric cancers. When the hospital opened, the mortality rate
was about eighty percent, about eighty percent the mortality rate
(13:04):
from pediatric cancer. Now, thanks to Saint Jude, twenty percent.
Eighty percent of these kids are coming out of there.
We got to meet one at the golf tournament, young
man who quite frank He just told it like it
was when he got up on got the microphone in
his hands, said I would not be here but for
(13:27):
Saint Jude. I had no chance but for Saint Jude.
And he's probably I don't know, I don't know exactly
how old he was. I'd guess he's in his late twenties.
Early thirties now and just humming along. Got a real life,
got a real chance because people like you, people like
me and everybody else who's listening on every station we
(13:49):
got around here, they understand what we're doing and why
we're doing it, and they're helping where they can.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
All right back too. And by the way, you can
get really cool shirt. I have one on right now.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
It just simply says music gives to Saint Jude kids
and in our case KPRC and KTRH.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I guess it's talk gives fair enough, although.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Will does play little music from time to time get
us back in from a break. And what I'm hoping
is that, like I said earlier, hoping you guys can
throw in. If you can't, I understand, I'm not gonna
ask you questions, I'm not gonna judge you. But if
you can even I think it's nineteen dollars a month,
you get the shirt, and you get to help save
a kid.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
That's a pretty good deal. That's a really good deal. Actually,
moving on proceeding, let's get off of that page. I
don't like that page anyway.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
After reading this one story this morning, I may start
looking for somebody to ride around in the car with me.
By the way, a lot of what I'm gonna do
today is good news or interesting news, and not political,
not weird, not crazy, just some really odd ball stories
I tripped over as I was put and all this together.
And what I'm gonna do, I think, is look for
somebody to share the ride with me, especially on my
(15:07):
commutes to and from work, or maybe.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Just all the time.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Every time I get in the car, I'm gonna try
to have somebody with me because I like to sing
in the car. Okay, don't judge me. I don't roll
the windows down, I don't offend anybody. But I'm not
that bad, really, I think. And it turns out it
turns out that the health benefits of singing, which are
very real and been studied for eons, the health benefits
(15:33):
of singing overall, well being, disease, resistance, recovery from injury,
those are all legit things that we know we get
from singing, and as it turns out, they are amplified,
they are multiplied, electrified. That didn't sound like John travolt
at all, did it will probably not in any of
(15:56):
it if you're singing with a group rather than singing alone,
you just get double the pleasure. We're social animals, that's
what we are, and we're It's very well known that
social isolation no good for anybody. So if you're just
singing in the shower or just singing when everybody else
is out doing their own thing, you're not getting as
much benefit.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
As you could.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
If you find a few people who can tolerate, you're
singing as politely as you'll tolerate theirs. I think it's
a good idea, only logical, that singing in a group
would be better than embarking on a solo career. For
me on the stage of the Southwest Freeway, I don't
know who's gonna sing along with me. If anybody recognizes
(16:42):
me driving the vehicle I drive sometime and sees me
lit my lips, moving and maybe tapping my steering wheel,
roll down your windows. What song you singing? I'll sing
along with you. And even if it only happens for
ten seconds, I think that'd be pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I really do.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
I'm still not horrible when it comes to carrying a
tune or breaking. I can get breaking from the primary
key of a song of the vocal line to shift
into a little harmony up or down, not so far
up as I once could not. No, no, my voice
isn't that strong anymore. It's sort of like how a
lot of older professional singers. You go to the concert
(17:23):
and you're used to hearing a song, especially the heavy
metal stuff and the really hard punching music. A lot
of times it'll it'll raise up almost a full octave
at some point in the song. And now that these
guys have gray hair or no hair, a lot of
them just take it on down, Just take it on
(17:45):
down a notch when that part of the song comes along.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Mercy sakes, Mercy sakes. It's it's so tough getting old.
I got lots of stuff I want to cover.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
I'm hoping we can find Chris McGinley and talk to
him about interest rates and home buying right now. He
the president of kirk Holmes, because at kirk Homes is
all about you.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
It's k U r K.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
In case she hadn't ever heard me say that before.
All right, we'll take a little break here on the
way out. I will tell you all all all about
Brewster Law. Alisa Brewster brusche Law from down there in Sugarland.
She works all day, every day, it seems like, to
help clients dealing with compliance and transactions with healthcare stuff
(18:27):
and pay her disfus for reimbursement.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
She deals in business.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Law as well, and really she does a lot of
work with seniors who need advice on protecting their wealth,
protecting their assets, and drafting end of life documents. Office
is right there off fifty nine in Sugarland, and I
mean right off fifty nine. You'll pull off of the
freeway and into the parkt well onto the feeder road
and then not just right off the freeway, but then
(18:55):
right into the parking lot of the building where she is.
You need legal help, very simple. Brewster LAWFIRMTX dot com.
Brewster LAWFIRMTX dot com.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Now they sure don't make them like they used to.
That's why every few months we wash him, check his fluids,
and spring on a fresh coat of wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike. Hi, welcome back to fifty plus.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Thank you for listening. Certainly do appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
We have found out Will and I have the detectives
that we are. We have found out that Chris McGinley
got a late start leaving out of whatever airport he
was at and hasn't quite made it to his destination
in the hill country. And it would be cool if
we could just interview somebody on a plane, but in
(19:44):
this case, that somebody on the plane also would be
the pilot, and as capable as I'm sure Chris is,
I don't want him shooting the breeze with us while
he's flying an airplane. Maybe I've done interviews with people
who were driving their cars here and there, but I
(20:06):
think unless you got four tires on the ground, or
two feet on the ground, or at least something on
the ground, probably not a good idea to an interview.
So we're not going to do that yet. We'll do
it tomorrow. I think I'm pretty sure I can get
him to set aside ten minutes for us tomorrow, and
(20:26):
we're going to talk. When we do talk, we're going
to talk about interest rates and home building and whether
building material prices have gone down or stayed way up
out of outer space like we had during the pandemic.
I can remember during the pandemic, as kind of a
funny thing to put on the Internet, I found a
(20:48):
photograph of giant piles of home building studs and I
mean stacked up like thirty forty feet tall and just
a half acre of two by fours and uh the
I can't remember the exact verbiage of the line I
put in there, but whatever it was, it it referenced
(21:12):
that I had just opened a new two by four
oh one k and that was gonna be my that
was gonna be my ticket, that was gonna be my
my savings.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I was just investing in lumber two by four oh
one K. I thought that was fairly clear or fairly clever.
Well on a one to ten, what would you give
that in cleverity? A five? That's it.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
It's not even one notch above average. Okay, I challenge you,
now send me something that's better. If Center Point is
interested in a new hire, a young man who's going places,
I guarantee you this guy kid's going places like to
the bank. If he's if his idea is somehow protected
(21:59):
and he can he can do what he wants to
do with his discovery and get paid on it, he's
gonna be okay.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
So in any.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Event, they may want to take a look at a
guy named Chris Dole. Okay, Chris Dole is a British
engineer who believes it's absolutely absurd that people who use
disposable vaping pens, because they come with a rechargeable lithium
battery and are loaded with technology, he just can't imagine
(22:33):
why they throw them away. And so to prove his point,
to prove that there was still value in these batteries,
which by the way, are rechargeable. It's not like they
could just be used once and you throw them in
the garbage. No, this kid's twenty six years old, and
he was so determined to prove the potential in these
(22:54):
vape pen batteries that he actually stripped the batteries from
five hundred vape pens. Okay, some he got from friends,
some he got from vape shops, just all over wherever
we could find him. He peeled away five hundred batteries
out of vape pens and created a single battery bank,
not entirely unlike what's in an electric car, right, a
(23:17):
single battery bank that was large enough. These were dispre
these were in the trash, they were in the garbage,
nobody wanted them anymore.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
And when he.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Fired that thing up, he found out that it would
run his entire house, all of the lights, the microwave.
There was something else he was running, of fans, a
couple of fans and whatnot. I don't believe his house
had ac might need some more, might need about a
thousand of them to run that. But the bottom light
(23:47):
is bottom light, No pun intended. The bottom line is
that his five hundred tossed out batteries, once they had
been recharged, kept his entire house running for eight plus hours.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Eight plus hours, it's a long time. He noted.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Also, by the way, he also tested that same bank
for paring his workshop, and those same batteries charged up
kept that thing comfortable for days on end. So he's
onto something, and I hope somebody over here gets on
it as well, because there's no shortage of vape pins
in this country, that's for sure. Kids are using them,
(24:27):
young adults are using them, some older people are using them.
And what he noted that should be of concern to
environmentalists is that none of a vape's components, not a one,
is truly disposable, so why not recycle them power laptops, maybe.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Charge our phones.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
He even built a vape battery bank for his electric bicycle.
Pretty smart guy. Some people look at trash and just
see trash. This guy never saw trash and those carted
vaate pens. He's all power, and he's got the power now,
and I hope his idea repays him somehow for the
technology that's going to come along down the road from
(25:10):
that single vision.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
What if.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Think about how many people have said what if over
the course of history, and then been told by average people, Ah,
that'll never work.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
That and you got that doesn't that has no legs
at all.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
There have been so many people who, if they accepted
the opinions of people who didn't understand, would have just
given up and gone on to something else. Go work
in a coal mine, work in a factory. N this
whole vape pen thing. I don't know if it's really
going to work out. I'll just get a job at McDonald's.
(25:49):
I'm so glad this guy did what he did. This
is kind of funny here, and it falls under the
very broad and getting broader umbrella of dumb criminals doing
dumb things. I think this little town is in Italy
only based on its name and in reference to another
town name in the Little Tiny Story. But there was
(26:10):
this guy effusative and he had busted out of jail
and he was running around this very small town trying
to find a place to hide because the law was
looking for him. And so what he decided was a
great idea would be to and this was just very recently,
he was going to hide in plain sight by pretending
to be one of the three wise men in a
(26:33):
nativity display outside of local church.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, he was wrong, as.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
You might imagine, he got busted when the town's mayor
walked by there and noticed a figure in the nativity
scene that just really didn't look like it belonged, like
he belonged out of places, out of place, could be
right where he stood. It was more even well for starters.
(27:02):
He was dressed in twenty first century clothing, which wasn't
around when Jesus was born, and he also didn't look
anything like the other figures. In other words, he's going
to be spending some more time in jail, and they've
moved him to another town where the jail's bigger, because
(27:25):
I think he's going to be there a little longer.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
For trying to get away with that.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
He would have had a you know what, either had
a better chance will if he was going to hide
in a Nativity scene portraying himself as the jackass.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I think that would have worked better.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Ut Helth Institute on Aging is an amazing collaborative of
providers from every medical discipline.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
They're mostly in the med center, as I've talked about before,
but also.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Visiting outlying communities to serve their residence in hospitals and
clinics and offices where you or I or anybody else
that's really not keen on going all the way to
the med center can go to be seen by one
of these people. They have a fantastic website. By the way,
these people I reference have gone back and got an
(28:09):
additional education to what got them their office, their title, doctor,
whatever it is, and learn to use their knowledge specifically
for us, specifically to the benefit of seniors. That's a
pretty dog one good asset. That's a big deal around here.
We're one of only maybe a handful of cities in
(28:30):
the entire country to have anything like this, and ours
is the biggest and the best. Go to the website,
look at all the resources there, then start finding your
way to a provider who can help you with something
that other doctors may have missed. Other doctors have said, now,
I'm not sure I can really do that for you.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Get a hold of.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
One of these doctors, get a hold, get in touch
with that's so so Southern, Get in touch with one
of these providers, and learn what that extra conditioning, that
extra training can do to help you get better. Ut
dot edu slash aging uth dot edu slash aging.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Old guys rule, and of course women never get old.
If you want to avoid sleeping on the couch.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Okay, well, I think that sounds like a good plan.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Fifty plus continues. Here's more with Doug. All right, welcome
back to fifty plus. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Fourth and final segment kicks off right now, and we've
got a little time to kill we certainly do. Let
me go back to Saint Jude for a minute, if
you don't mind.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
I asked you early, I asked you a second time,
and I'll ask once again once again that you might
consider becoming.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Part of this.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
All of us here at KPRC are hoping that you'll
become a partner and hope and help the doctors and
researchers at Saint Jude find cures for childhood cancer.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Saint Jude's not gonna stop. I told you that early.
They're not going to stop until no child dies from cancer.
And that's a long way out. Still, it happens all
around the world, and.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
There's really there's really nothing that anyone can do except
just continue to go to work, just crawl out of bed.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Go to work, and look for cures for cancer.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
When I was over there years ago, it was eight
years ago now, And when I was there, this enormous building,
enormous building that is devoted exclusively to research. We got
pretty good access. There were some places we couldn't go
for risk of contamination, and there were places we couldn't
(30:38):
take pictures. There were all kinds of reasons and proprietary
reasons that until something was perfected, and until something was
ready for distribution, it didn't need to be talked about
or shown or in any way revealed. And I greatly
respect that. I had no problem with that. There's some
(30:59):
intellectual property I'm trying to deal with right now that
I don't want anybody to know about.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
It's something I've been thinking.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
About for the better part of twelve or fifteen years
and still haven't acted on it. And interestingly enough, nobody's
come up with the same idea yet, and the first
instinct that a lot of people have was, well, it
probably isn't any good if nobody's thought of it yet.
Well tell that to that guy who figured out that
old vape batteries could power his house.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
I'm onto something here.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
I need to find I need to find someone who
can build software. And if I can find somebody, I
might talk to him. I'm not going to share the
idea right off the bat, but I just would ask
them a couple of questions about something related to what
I need and then see.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
If we could go from there. Oh man, So anyway.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I want to thank all of you who have stepped
up so far to help these kids get that Music
Gives T shirt that we are offering for just bucks
a month. That's it, nineteen bucks a month. You can
be a supporter of this incredible journey that Saint Jude
has been on since nineteen and sixty two, a long
time ago, a very long time ago. And like I said,
(32:14):
they're not stopping this. Head over here, you can see us.
You know, I'm gonna I'll do a quick video once
I get out of the studio today.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
We'll go over there and maybe show that big lunch
that we had.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
If I can still stand up, I think I lowered
my center of gravity.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Probably by about two pounds.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
And well, I don't know wherever it's seated now, where
that big baked potato was or is, but it's gone.
I know that the plate had very little left that
was consumable and when I put it into the trash
can and it had started quite full.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
So back to the little funny stories.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
I don't want to get into anything really heavy today
and probably want tomorrow either, because we're going to continue
this radio fund with iHeart and Saint Jude and make
sure that we can get enough people to do it.
And by the way, I want to remind you also
before I tell you these stories that somebody around here
told me earlier this morning asked me if my audience
(33:14):
would respond to this, And I'm not kidding. That really
kind of ticked me off, because I know who you are,
I know most of you. I've met a lot of you,
and I feel so supported by you. I feel like
I don't take your trust for granted. I work every
day to make sure that I give you the most
(33:35):
accurate information I can on things that I think matter
to you, and this matters to me, this one time.
This matters to me. And I hope we'll respond it
and become part of this. I really do.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
We'll talk about it some more tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
It had to happen eventually, is what I put in
the front end of this one. And now it has
a woman writing in the in a Waimo driverless taxi
over in San Francisco. Just paused for a second and
think of what could have happened to a woman in
(34:11):
a taxi that would be very sudden and unexpected.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
You got it? Will you think you got it? She
gave birth. She gave birth in the taxi.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
She was headed to the hospital, she knew what was happening,
she was head of the hospital.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Didn't quite make it.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
And fortunately everything and anything that could have gone right
went right in the birth of this child in the
backseat of the Waimo car, apparently by the way, after
which Weaimo issued the most obvious and unnecessary statement of
(34:52):
all time. I don't think I've ever heard a statement,
an official position, statement from a company that was less
necessary than this.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Ready, well, I need a thumb. I can't see your thumb.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Man.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Okay, there this is what they said. They let everybody know.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
That the taxi in question quote was immediately removed from
service for cleaning.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
End quote. Thank you captain obvious. Yeah, good idea, good idea.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Now does that mean that sometimes when there are other
accidents in waymore cars, that they don't take them out
of service? That would be my follow up question. If
I was in the media center when they were having
that press conference and they said that, I would have
raised my hand, and if called upon, that's what I
(35:47):
would have asked. So are you telling me that sometimes
when there's other accidents in these cars, that you don't
clean them out?
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Probably not. Will wanted the dolphin story first.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
I had a dolphin story of babies and a bird story,
and he wanted the dolphins first. And will I apologize
to you for not doing that. Two dolphins up in Massachusetts,
found miles from open water, apparently quite lost, wound up
in a shallow marsh. The pair to fast forward was
(36:20):
rescued and relocated back to a more comfortable surrounding, a
little bit deeper water, more water, no marsh up in
a lot of places, in saltwater and in a lot
of marshes, and that far that deep into a marsh.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
I don't recall ever seeing a dolphin.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
You see him up and down our Texas coast, and
they have gotten very good by the way, so say
the stories of very good friends of mine of actually
following fishing boats. They'll follow you, and they're very fast.
So unless you get up and really get on plane
and get out of there, they may follow you to
your next stop. And when you toss fish, undersized fish
(37:07):
or oversized now with the limits the way they are,
if you toss them into the water, those dolphins smack.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
They'll eat those fish.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
They are opportunistic feeders, just like every other animal in nature,
and they will eat those fish anyway. The two in
Massachusetts get them back where they belong. And I got
a hunch that if it was a male and a
female pair, I'm guessing that nail dolphin. He heard a
lot afterward. They I told you, I told you to
take a right back in the bait, but no, you
(37:38):
never listen to me. You won't ask for directions, And
this is what happens. You know, had you know he
got that? Reported from New Zealand Jessica Tyson, recording a
segment in Aucklan's brintelmart Square when a sea gull flew
straight into her face.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Its peak actually caused.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
A small scar on a forehead, which is going to
give her one heck of a story to talk about,
one heck of a story to talk about for the
rest of her life. I have a scar on my
forehead from a dermatologic procedure that's boring as can be.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
I wish I'd been hit by a bird. Audios
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. Remember when music sounded
like this, Remember when social media was truly social?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey, John, how's it going today?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
This show is all about you only. 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.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
And now fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, here
we go.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Third day edition of the program starts right now. I
almost almost got through a loaded baked potato including brisket.
Almost did that in the time it took from when
that news break started to now. It wasn't a giant potato,
I'll give it that. It was about a medium sized potato.
(01:11):
But I did load it up and I will finish
it in the next break because it was just so
dog one good and courtesy of by the way, courtesy
of Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital, which is here along
with all of us to.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Do what we do every year.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
The last many years on the heels of our golf
tournament which we had Monday out at Golf Club of Houston.
Fantastic beautiful day after it was a little chilly in
the morning.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
We got through that one.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
We raised a bunch of money there, and now we're
working on our radio thon, which only sweetens the pot
and makes it more possible for Saint Jude to do
what they do to take care of the sickest kids
on the planet. Basically, they are as a whole, as
a unit, everybody over there has only one goal, and
(02:03):
that's to eradicate childhood cancer. I don't know if they'll
ever get to that part, but I'm gonna certainly help
them try as much as I can.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Sickest children in the world.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
And by the way, our whole iHeart family today and
tomorrow asking you to help us heal some of these
sickest children in the world with a donation generous, regardless
of its amount, something to the radiothon and today and tomorrow.
Somebody asked me this morning, by the way, ask me
(02:37):
this morning if I thought my audience would respond to this,
And actually I was a little bit offended by the
inference that maybe you guys who I know through ten
years of emails and text messages and personal meetings and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Face to face.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I've met a lot of you people, and I'm so
happy that that's happened. You're some of the most kind
and compassionate and generous people in the world, some of
the most generous I've ever met, almost to a fault,
but that's the way we were raised. I told him
I had absolutely no doubt that any one of you
who is able to do so. If your circumstances preclude
(03:21):
you from participating, I won't ask why. I will trust
you enough to know that it's a valid reason and
that when you can, you will. That's fine by me.
I have no problem with that. But I know that
every one of you who's able is going to drop
a little something into the mix. Our entire generation was
raised on helping each other, helping our neighbors, helping our friends,
(03:44):
helping schoolmates, helping work people. And I don't know anybody
who's grown out of that upbringing and become just so
grumpy and disenchanted that they wouldn't help a child with cancer.
So more about that as we move through the hour,
looking at the markets where the dow ran up more
than four hundred points yesterday, and this morning was kind
(04:06):
of flat and kind of kind of wanting to turn
a little bit pinkish if red, maybe a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
Kind of ugly.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
And then all of a sudden, an hour ago, I
look back and it's up another five hundred and seventy
eight points, maybe more. By now, I wasn't listening to
the Fox update on that. Russell was up, SNP and
NASDAC were in the red, but not by any startling amounts.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Oil.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
This is really worth noting if you have a road
trip planned, especially, you're gonna be happy to hear what I'm.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
About to say.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Oil dropped another dollar in change per barrel, and our
price is here. I don't care what Californians do. They're
long gone anyway and just totally whacked out. Their gas
price is still I want to say, still more than
four dollars and fifty cents a barrel or a gallon
something like that. Meanwhile, in Houston, and especially in Sugarland
(04:59):
out where I live now, there are some isolated Houston
stations where you still might pay three point fifty three
seventy five a gallon if you're not smart enough to
drive out of that neighborhood but if you are, and
if you go into outlying areas, what you're going to
find is gasoline that you can get even at the
name brand stations, not the discount ones, but the name
(05:20):
brand stations. For it's probably going to go down to
about two ten two point fifteen a gallon when this
next price drop for oil makes it through the transportation.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
And refineries and all that stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Speaking of transportation of oil, the US Navy took control
of a tanker on the open ocean coming out of Venezuela,
believe to be carrying more than a million barrels of
oil that never should have left port and probably didn't
even come out of Venezuela. A report I saw this
morning said that the amount of oil that I think
(05:58):
is like one point one million barrels of oil on
this tanker is more than an entire day of production
for the oil fields of Venezuela.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
So something's a little fishy there. Something's a little fishy there.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Learn a lot about how there are actually oil smugglers
who ignore sanctions, they ignore the rules, they ignore the
laws for buying and selling crude oil, and they do
so for the obvious reason.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
There's a lot of money.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
When you've got a vessel that can carry more than
a million barrels of something that you could you could
get a squeeze an extra dollar a barrel out of it.
If you're selling it to somebody who's not supposed to
be buying it, you might be able to get an
extra two dollars a barrel. And if you can empty
that ship and deliver it to that person or that
(06:50):
entity wherever it is in the world, make a lot
of money pretty fast. They sometimes I heard this morning,
I think it was when Jimmy was talking about it
ktr Hure. It may have just been a reporter story.
They sometimes move entire cargoes of oil from ship to
ship off shore to avoid detection, which is highly dangerous.
(07:13):
By the way, one mishap out there and suddenly you've
got a million barrels of oil it is floating around
in the middle of the ocean that probably will never
get cleaned up. It'll just be absorbed. They use falsified
documents the Navy that the Navy noticed.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Whatever triggered it.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
And by the way, the surveillance we have on the
coastlines of the world is unparalleled, and that's why we're
able to find these things them and the drug boats
and all of these other bad things coming out of
these countries. Even when the bad guys they have to
know we're watching them. But the lure of potentially being
(07:53):
the one boat that gets through, and how much money
you make if it does, that's enough to make a
lot of these guys just throw caution to the wind
and say, you know what, I'm gonna take a swing,
and if I make it, I'm a millionaire. Cedar Cove
RV resort over there in Baytown, down Tri City Beach
Road near Thompson's Bait Camp right there on Galveston Bay
(08:13):
got all the amenities you could want in a place
to park your RV, your motor home, your pop up
camp or whatever for a night on a nice concrete
slab that you got to on a nice concrete road.
They have electric water and sewer at every site, plus WiFi.
Got a bathhouse with showers if you want to go
do that. Maybe you've been out there fishing all afternoon,
(08:34):
you worked up a sweat, or maybe you just forgot
and wiped your hands on your pants after you handled
a bunch of dead shrimp. All good reasons to take
advantage of the bathhouse with the showers and the fish
is not bad actually, when the wind and tied a right,
and this is a very good time of year to
be kind of watching the shorelines and putting a little
live bait out there, maybe under a court, and just
(08:57):
waiting for a red fish, maybe a flounder. Once we
get a couple of more days into December and the
season opens back up. Fantastic place. And if you don't
own an RV, you're thinking, I can't do that. I
don't own an RV. Well, al kibbi, the guy who
owns the place will rent you an RV that comfortably
sleeps for so that you and your family, or you
and your friends, or whoever you want to bring along
(09:18):
with you, two couples and whatever floats your boat right,
go down there and spend the night, spend a few days,
Enjoy that breeze coming off the gulf, enjoy the wind
kind of wafting through the pine fronds or the palm fronds.
It's a beautiful place. You're gonna love it, and you'll
(09:39):
probably end up going in buying a motor home at
some point. Cedar Cove Rvresort dot com that's the website
Cedarcovearvresort dot com.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
What's life without a net? I suggest you go to bed,
sleep it off.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Just wait until the show's over, Sleepy. Back to Doug
Pike as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
I'm gonna move Chris McGinley from kirk on to the
third segment instead of the second.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
He's up.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
I know he's up in the hill country in some
sort of big meetings, and I suspect that the meetings
are pretty dog one important, So I'm not gonna I'm
not gonna argue with that.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
And I've got plenty to talk about around here, not the.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Least important of which is what we're doing here for
Saint Jude, asking you guys to become a partner in
hope and help the doctors and researchers Jude find cures
for childhood cancer.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Saint Jude's not gonna stop.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
They've been around since nineteen sixty two, and they're not
gonna stop there until they find some way, somehow that
no child dies from cancer. And the only way to
get there is through your generosity and mind and everybody else's.
I've been to Saint Jude, I've gotten to know how
(10:49):
amazing that place is, how amazing those patients are, and
how hopeful everybody there looks when they're facing one of
the most horrid things that they could possibly have faced
when they first heard it, when they first heard your
child has cancer, and they went to doctor after doctor,
(11:10):
and they were told every time, you know, we just
can't do anything for your son or your daughter, whoever
it was, maybe try Saint Jude. Well, when these people
are turned away by so many, they become the more
they get turned away, the more likely it is that
(11:31):
they might be accepted into one of the programs at
Saint Jude, where they literally deal with things that other
doctors just can't understand or fix or do anything about.
And so that's the part that really amazes me most
is the people who work there. They've got an entire
building devoted to research that is shared with any and
(11:54):
every provider in the entire world who wants to get
that research, who needs that research to maybe help somebody
where they live halfway around the world. Maybe that child
can't get to Saint Jude. Now, that wouldn't be the
fault of Saint Jude, because Saint Jude covers travel, housing, food,
(12:18):
all of the care that is provided by all of
the doctors and nurses and trainers and therapists and everybody
else who's there to help that kid get better. All
of that's covered. There's no This fascinated me when I
was there. I learned that there is no patient billing
department in the entire hospital, not for any of those
hundreds of kids who are there deathly ill, frankly and
(12:44):
not far from the end had they not been accepted
into those programs. They've changed the survival rate for childhood cancers,
for pediatric cancers. When the hospital opened, the mortality rate
was about eighty percent, about eighty percent the mortality rate
(13:04):
from pediatric cancer. Now, thanks to Saint Jude, twenty percent.
Eighty percent of these kids are coming out of there.
We got to meet one at the golf tournament, young
man who quite frank He just told it like it
was when he got up on got the microphone in
his hands, said I would not be here but for
(13:27):
Saint Jude. I had no chance but for Saint Jude.
And he's probably I don't know, I don't know exactly
how old he was. I'd guess he's in his late twenties.
Early thirties now and just humming along. Got a real life,
got a real chance because people like you, people like
me and everybody else who's listening on every station we
(13:49):
got around here, they understand what we're doing and why
we're doing it, and they're helping where they can.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
All right back too. And by the way, you can
get really cool shirt. I have one on right now.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
It just simply says music gives to Saint Jude kids
and in our case KPRC and KTRH.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
I guess it's talk gives fair enough, although.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Will does play little music from time to time get
us back in from a break. And what I'm hoping
is that, like I said earlier, hoping you guys can
throw in. If you can't, I understand, I'm not gonna
ask you questions, I'm not gonna judge you. But if
you can even I think it's nineteen dollars a month,
you get the shirt, and you get to help save
a kid.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
That's a pretty good deal. That's a really good deal. Actually,
moving on proceeding, let's get off of that page. I
don't like that page anyway.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
After reading this one story this morning, I may start
looking for somebody to ride around in the car with me.
By the way, a lot of what I'm gonna do
today is good news or interesting news, and not political,
not weird, not crazy, just some really odd ball stories
I tripped over as I was put and all this together.
And what I'm gonna do, I think, is look for
somebody to share the ride with me, especially on my
(15:07):
commutes to and from work, or maybe.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Just all the time.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Every time I get in the car, I'm gonna try
to have somebody with me because I like to sing
in the car. Okay, don't judge me. I don't roll
the windows down, I don't offend anybody. But I'm not
that bad, really, I think. And it turns out it
turns out that the health benefits of singing, which are
very real and been studied for eons, the health benefits
(15:33):
of singing overall, well being, disease, resistance, recovery from injury,
those are all legit things that we know we get
from singing, and as it turns out, they are amplified,
they are multiplied, electrified. That didn't sound like John travolt
at all, did it will probably not in any of
(15:56):
it if you're singing with a group rather than singing alone,
you just get double the pleasure. We're social animals, that's
what we are, and we're It's very well known that
social isolation no good for anybody. So if you're just
singing in the shower or just singing when everybody else
is out doing their own thing, you're not getting as
much benefit.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
As you could.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
If you find a few people who can tolerate, you're
singing as politely as you'll tolerate theirs. I think it's
a good idea, only logical, that singing in a group
would be better than embarking on a solo career. For
me on the stage of the Southwest Freeway, I don't
know who's gonna sing along with me. If anybody recognizes
(16:42):
me driving the vehicle I drive sometime and sees me
lit my lips, moving and maybe tapping my steering wheel,
roll down your windows. What song you singing? I'll sing
along with you. And even if it only happens for
ten seconds, I think that'd be pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I really do.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
I'm still not horrible when it comes to carrying a
tune or breaking. I can get breaking from the primary
key of a song of the vocal line to shift
into a little harmony up or down, not so far
up as I once could not. No, no, my voice
isn't that strong anymore. It's sort of like how a
lot of older professional singers. You go to the concert
(17:23):
and you're used to hearing a song, especially the heavy
metal stuff and the really hard punching music. A lot
of times it'll it'll raise up almost a full octave
at some point in the song. And now that these
guys have gray hair or no hair, a lot of
them just take it on down, Just take it on
(17:45):
down a notch when that part of the song comes along.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Mercy sakes, Mercy sakes. It's it's so tough getting old.
I got lots of stuff I want to cover.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
I'm hoping we can find Chris McGinley and talk to
him about interest rates and home buying right now. He
the president of kirk Holmes, because at kirk Homes is
all about you.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
It's k U r K.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
In case she hadn't ever heard me say that before.
All right, we'll take a little break here on the
way out. I will tell you all all all about
Brewster Law. Alisa Brewster brusche Law from down there in Sugarland.
She works all day, every day, it seems like, to
help clients dealing with compliance and transactions with healthcare stuff
(18:27):
and pay her disfus for reimbursement.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
She deals in business.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Law as well, and really she does a lot of
work with seniors who need advice on protecting their wealth,
protecting their assets, and drafting end of life documents. Office
is right there off fifty nine in Sugarland, and I
mean right off fifty nine. You'll pull off of the
freeway and into the parkt well onto the feeder road
and then not just right off the freeway, but then
(18:55):
right into the parking lot of the building where she is.
You need legal help, very simple. Brewster LAWFIRMTX dot com.
Brewster LAWFIRMTX dot com.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Now they sure don't make them like they used to.
That's why every few months we wash him, check his fluids,
and spring on a fresh coat of wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike. Hi, welcome back to fifty plus.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Thank you for listening. Certainly do appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
We have found out Will and I have the detectives
that we are. We have found out that Chris McGinley
got a late start leaving out of whatever airport he
was at and hasn't quite made it to his destination
in the hill country. And it would be cool if
we could just interview somebody on a plane, but in
(19:44):
this case, that somebody on the plane also would be
the pilot, and as capable as I'm sure Chris is,
I don't want him shooting the breeze with us while
he's flying an airplane. Maybe I've done interviews with people
who were driving their cars here and there, but I
(20:06):
think unless you got four tires on the ground, or
two feet on the ground, or at least something on
the ground, probably not a good idea to an interview.
So we're not going to do that yet. We'll do
it tomorrow. I think I'm pretty sure I can get
him to set aside ten minutes for us tomorrow, and
(20:26):
we're going to talk. When we do talk, we're going
to talk about interest rates and home building and whether
building material prices have gone down or stayed way up
out of outer space like we had during the pandemic.
I can remember during the pandemic, as kind of a
funny thing to put on the Internet, I found a
(20:48):
photograph of giant piles of home building studs and I
mean stacked up like thirty forty feet tall and just
a half acre of two by fours and uh the
I can't remember the exact verbiage of the line I
put in there, but whatever it was, it it referenced
(21:12):
that I had just opened a new two by four
oh one k and that was gonna be my that
was gonna be my ticket, that was gonna be my
my savings.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
I was just investing in lumber two by four oh
one K. I thought that was fairly clear or fairly clever.
Well on a one to ten, what would you give
that in cleverity? A five? That's it.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
It's not even one notch above average. Okay, I challenge you,
now send me something that's better. If Center Point is
interested in a new hire, a young man who's going places,
I guarantee you this guy kid's going places like to
the bank. If he's if his idea is somehow protected
(21:59):
and he can he can do what he wants to
do with his discovery and get paid on it, he's
gonna be okay.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
So in any.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Event, they may want to take a look at a
guy named Chris Dole. Okay, Chris Dole is a British
engineer who believes it's absolutely absurd that people who use
disposable vaping pens, because they come with a rechargeable lithium
battery and are loaded with technology, he just can't imagine
(22:33):
why they throw them away. And so to prove his point,
to prove that there was still value in these batteries,
which by the way, are rechargeable. It's not like they
could just be used once and you throw them in
the garbage. No, this kid's twenty six years old, and
he was so determined to prove the potential in these
(22:54):
vape pen batteries that he actually stripped the batteries from
five hundred vape pens. Okay, some he got from friends,
some he got from vape shops, just all over wherever
we could find him. He peeled away five hundred batteries
out of vape pens and created a single battery bank,
not entirely unlike what's in an electric car, right, a
(23:17):
single battery bank that was large enough. These were dispre
these were in the trash, they were in the garbage,
nobody wanted them anymore.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
And when he.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
Fired that thing up, he found out that it would
run his entire house, all of the lights, the microwave.
There was something else he was running, of fans, a
couple of fans and whatnot. I don't believe his house
had ac might need some more, might need about a
thousand of them to run that. But the bottom light
(23:47):
is bottom light, No pun intended. The bottom line is
that his five hundred tossed out batteries, once they had
been recharged, kept his entire house running for eight plus hours.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Eight plus hours, it's a long time. He noted.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Also, by the way, he also tested that same bank
for paring his workshop, and those same batteries charged up
kept that thing comfortable for days on end. So he's
onto something, and I hope somebody over here gets on
it as well, because there's no shortage of vape pins
in this country, that's for sure. Kids are using them,
(24:27):
young adults are using them, some older people are using them.
And what he noted that should be of concern to
environmentalists is that none of a vape's components, not a one,
is truly disposable, so why not recycle them power laptops, maybe.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Charge our phones.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
He even built a vape battery bank for his electric bicycle.
Pretty smart guy. Some people look at trash and just
see trash. This guy never saw trash and those carted
vaate pens. He's all power, and he's got the power now,
and I hope his idea repays him somehow for the
technology that's going to come along down the road from
(25:10):
that single vision.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
What if.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Think about how many people have said what if over
the course of history, and then been told by average people, Ah,
that'll never work.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
That and you got that doesn't that has no legs
at all.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
There have been so many people who, if they accepted
the opinions of people who didn't understand, would have just
given up and gone on to something else. Go work
in a coal mine, work in a factory. N this
whole vape pen thing. I don't know if it's really
going to work out. I'll just get a job at McDonald's.
(25:49):
I'm so glad this guy did what he did. This
is kind of funny here, and it falls under the
very broad and getting broader umbrella of dumb criminals doing
dumb things. I think this little town is in Italy
only based on its name and in reference to another
town name in the Little Tiny Story. But there was
(26:10):
this guy effusative and he had busted out of jail
and he was running around this very small town trying
to find a place to hide because the law was
looking for him. And so what he decided was a
great idea would be to and this was just very recently,
he was going to hide in plain sight by pretending
to be one of the three wise men in a
(26:33):
nativity display outside of local church.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Yeah, he was wrong, as.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
You might imagine, he got busted when the town's mayor
walked by there and noticed a figure in the nativity
scene that just really didn't look like it belonged, like
he belonged out of places, out of place, could be
right where he stood. It was more even well for starters.
(27:02):
He was dressed in twenty first century clothing, which wasn't
around when Jesus was born, and he also didn't look
anything like the other figures. In other words, he's going
to be spending some more time in jail, and they've
moved him to another town where the jail's bigger, because
(27:25):
I think he's going to be there a little longer.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
For trying to get away with that.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
He would have had a you know what, either had
a better chance will if he was going to hide
in a Nativity scene portraying himself as the jackass.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I think that would have worked better.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Ut Helth Institute on Aging is an amazing collaborative of
providers from every medical discipline.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
They're mostly in the med center, as I've talked about before,
but also.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Visiting outlying communities to serve their residence in hospitals and
clinics and offices where you or I or anybody else
that's really not keen on going all the way to
the med center can go to be seen by one
of these people. They have a fantastic website. By the way,
these people I reference have gone back and got an
(28:09):
additional education to what got them their office, their title, doctor,
whatever it is, and learn to use their knowledge specifically
for us, specifically to the benefit of seniors. That's a
pretty dog one good asset. That's a big deal around here.
We're one of only maybe a handful of cities in
(28:30):
the entire country to have anything like this, and ours
is the biggest and the best. Go to the website,
look at all the resources there, then start finding your
way to a provider who can help you with something
that other doctors may have missed. Other doctors have said, now,
I'm not sure I can really do that for you.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Get a hold of.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
One of these doctors, get a hold, get in touch
with that's so so Southern, Get in touch with one
of these providers, and learn what that extra conditioning, that
extra training can do to help you get better. Ut
dot edu slash aging uth dot edu slash aging.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Old guys rule, and of course women never get old.
If you want to avoid sleeping on the couch.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Okay, well, I think that sounds like a good plan.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Fifty plus continues. Here's more with Doug. All right, welcome
back to fifty plus. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Fourth and final segment kicks off right now, and we've
got a little time to kill we certainly do. Let
me go back to Saint Jude for a minute, if
you don't mind.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
I asked you early, I asked you a second time,
and I'll ask once again once again that you might
consider becoming.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Part of this.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
All of us here at KPRC are hoping that you'll
become a partner and hope and help the doctors and
researchers at Saint Jude find cures for childhood cancer.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Saint Jude's not gonna stop. I told you that early.
They're not going to stop until no child dies from cancer.
And that's a long way out. Still, it happens all
around the world, and.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
There's really there's really nothing that anyone can do except
just continue to go to work, just crawl out of bed.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Go to work, and look for cures for cancer.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
When I was over there years ago, it was eight
years ago now, And when I was there, this enormous building,
enormous building that is devoted exclusively to research. We got
pretty good access. There were some places we couldn't go
for risk of contamination, and there were places we couldn't
(30:38):
take pictures. There were all kinds of reasons and proprietary
reasons that until something was perfected, and until something was
ready for distribution, it didn't need to be talked about
or shown or in any way revealed. And I greatly
respect that. I had no problem with that. There's some
(30:59):
intellectual property I'm trying to deal with right now that
I don't want anybody to know about.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
It's something I've been thinking.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
About for the better part of twelve or fifteen years
and still haven't acted on it. And interestingly enough, nobody's
come up with the same idea yet, and the first
instinct that a lot of people have was, well, it
probably isn't any good if nobody's thought of it yet.
Well tell that to that guy who figured out that
old vape batteries could power his house.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
I'm onto something here.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
I need to find I need to find someone who
can build software. And if I can find somebody, I
might talk to him. I'm not going to share the
idea right off the bat, but I just would ask
them a couple of questions about something related to what
I need and then see.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
If we could go from there. Oh man, So anyway.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I want to thank all of you who have stepped
up so far to help these kids get that Music
Gives T shirt that we are offering for just bucks
a month. That's it, nineteen bucks a month. You can
be a supporter of this incredible journey that Saint Jude
has been on since nineteen and sixty two, a long
time ago, a very long time ago. And like I said,
(32:14):
they're not stopping this. Head over here, you can see us.
You know, I'm gonna I'll do a quick video once
I get out of the studio today.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
We'll go over there and maybe show that big lunch
that we had.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
If I can still stand up, I think I lowered
my center of gravity.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Probably by about two pounds.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
And well, I don't know wherever it's seated now, where
that big baked potato was or is, but it's gone.
I know that the plate had very little left that
was consumable and when I put it into the trash
can and it had started quite full.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
So back to the little funny stories.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
I don't want to get into anything really heavy today
and probably want tomorrow either, because we're going to continue
this radio fund with iHeart and Saint Jude and make
sure that we can get enough people to do it.
And by the way, I want to remind you also
before I tell you these stories that somebody around here
told me earlier this morning asked me if my audience
(33:14):
would respond to this, And I'm not kidding. That really
kind of ticked me off, because I know who you are,
I know most of you. I've met a lot of you,
and I feel so supported by you. I feel like
I don't take your trust for granted. I work every
day to make sure that I give you the most
(33:35):
accurate information I can on things that I think matter
to you, and this matters to me, this one time.
This matters to me. And I hope we'll respond it
and become part of this. I really do.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
We'll talk about it some more tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
It had to happen eventually, is what I put in
the front end of this one. And now it has
a woman writing in the in a Waimo driverless taxi
over in San Francisco. Just paused for a second and
think of what could have happened to a woman in
(34:11):
a taxi that would be very sudden and unexpected.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
You got it? Will you think you got it? She
gave birth. She gave birth in the taxi.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
She was headed to the hospital, she knew what was happening,
she was head of the hospital.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Didn't quite make it.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
And fortunately everything and anything that could have gone right
went right in the birth of this child in the
backseat of the Waimo car, apparently by the way, after
which Weaimo issued the most obvious and unnecessary statement of
(34:52):
all time. I don't think I've ever heard a statement,
an official position, statement from a company that was less
necessary than this.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Ready, well, I need a thumb. I can't see your thumb.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Man.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Okay, there this is what they said. They let everybody know.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
That the taxi in question quote was immediately removed from
service for cleaning.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
End quote. Thank you captain obvious. Yeah, good idea, good idea.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Now does that mean that sometimes when there are other
accidents in waymore cars, that they don't take them out
of service? That would be my follow up question. If
I was in the media center when they were having
that press conference and they said that, I would have
raised my hand, and if called upon, that's what I
(35:47):
would have asked. So are you telling me that sometimes
when there's other accidents in these cars, that you don't
clean them out?
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Probably not. Will wanted the dolphin story first.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
I had a dolphin story of babies and a bird story,
and he wanted the dolphins first. And will I apologize
to you for not doing that. Two dolphins up in Massachusetts,
found miles from open water, apparently quite lost, wound up
in a shallow marsh. The pair to fast forward was
(36:20):
rescued and relocated back to a more comfortable surrounding, a
little bit deeper water, more water, no marsh up in
a lot of places, in saltwater and in a lot
of marshes, and that far that deep into a marsh.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
I don't recall ever seeing a dolphin.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
You see him up and down our Texas coast, and
they have gotten very good by the way, so say
the stories of very good friends of mine of actually
following fishing boats. They'll follow you, and they're very fast.
So unless you get up and really get on plane
and get out of there, they may follow you to
your next stop. And when you toss fish, undersized fish
(37:07):
or oversized now with the limits the way they are,
if you toss them into the water, those dolphins smack.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
They'll eat those fish.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
They are opportunistic feeders, just like every other animal in nature,
and they will eat those fish anyway. The two in
Massachusetts get them back where they belong. And I got
a hunch that if it was a male and a
female pair, I'm guessing that nail dolphin. He heard a
lot afterward. They I told you, I told you to
take a right back in the bait, but no, you
(37:38):
never listen to me. You won't ask for directions, And
this is what happens. You know, had you know he
got that? Reported from New Zealand Jessica Tyson, recording a
segment in Aucklan's brintelmart Square when a sea gull flew
straight into her face.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Its peak actually caused.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
A small scar on a forehead, which is going to
give her one heck of a story to talk about,
one heck of a story to talk about for the
rest of her life. I have a scar on my
forehead from a dermatologic procedure that's boring as can be.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
I wish I'd been hit by a bird. Audios
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