July 23, 2025 • 37 mins
Today, Doug Pike interviews Erwin Castellanos of Champions Tree Service.
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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? Well, this show is
all about you. This is fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Helpful information on your finances, good health, and what to
do for fun. Fifty plus brought to you by the
UT Health Houston Institute on Aging, Informed Decisions for a healthier,
happier life, and now fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
All right, here we go.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Wednesday edition of the program starts right now. Thank you
all for listening. If you saw my Facebook post from earlier,
you will know that hold on, I.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Have to restart this phone. I think something's wrong with it.
I don't have to go with it, and I don't
want to. I'll do that afterward, though.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Welcome to fifty plus, the only show produced and delivered
by a senior for seniors that also happens to start
at noon weekdays on AM nine to fifty KPRC. I
don't know how many shows there might be similar to
this one around the country, but I think the short
answer is not enough. I think we all are deserving
of information that is of relevance to us, and that's
(01:25):
what I try to do here, hars It. It's really
hard for me to believe. I've been doing this show
now for more than ten years, and still on every
every one of them, I wind up learning something about
health or entertainment, or politics, or finances or travel. And
then just when I think we've covered everything, I get
(01:46):
a request from one of you for a segment on
a specific topic that's not been highlighted in all those episodes.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I don't know how many.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I think there's eight hundred and what about eight hundred
and fifty? Now, will that sound about right? About eight
hundred and fifty podcast episodes? And there's just always something else.
So keep the ideas coming from your perspective, whatever they
may be. Whatever interest you as a senior also almost
certainly will be of interest to many other folks in
(02:16):
this audience. So plowing forward, There's a giant yellow blob
on the National Hurricane Center map that stretches from the
Texas coast back east almost all the way to Florida.
It looks like somebody dropped an enormous ear of corn
onto the map, and by enormous I'm talking about from
Corpus Christy to just south Ammobile, Alabama. But before you
(02:41):
rush out to bring home half the grocery store, just
understand that it's expected to come ashore by the weekend.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It's moving at present west.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Southwest, so it's almost just cutting straight across the Gulf
of Mexico, Gulf of America, whichever you want. I'm just
going to start saying the Gulf because like old habits
are very hard to break. The bottom line is it's
moving in that direction, and before it does anything, it's
expected to come on shore and just bring some rain
with it. And I almost have to wonder whether they
(03:15):
have lowered the standard for putting the yellow marks on
the map, because it seems like we've gotten more of those,
and I think the more of those they put up
and then take down within twenty four or forty eight hours,
the less attention we're going to pay to them.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
And that's that's not what we want.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
What we want is to know when something really is
going to happen and then deal with it. Then shatter
shatter showers expected over the weekend, actually starting Friday afternoon,
I think, and then persisting through the weekend. But otherwise
not much to see, by the way, and I need
to let Frankie, my weekend producer, know this because we
(03:54):
had a bet.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
We had a bet on what day would be.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
The first of the first official high day by my
measure of standard, which is one hundred degrees the official
hot day, first day in Houston. And on Tuesday, yesterday,
the official temperature in Houston did reach one hundred degrees.
So Frankie wrote it all down and I heard from him.
(04:20):
I believe that his prediction was late June, early June.
My prediction was late June. I don't even remember the
exact dates right now, and I don't believe I wrote
him in here. But the bottom line is we missed
by a mile, and we're almost a month past our predictions.
And it was either Guitar Dave or faux pro Wilkinson,
(04:45):
one of the two of them, he couldn't remember, which
guessed July fourth, which seemed just way too late to
tag one hundred and here it is what the twenty
third of July, and we finally hit one hundred degrees,
So so much for global warming, I guess from a
national site. And speaking of heat, grownups, grown ups, should
(05:08):
know this.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And every grown up who lives south of.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
What I twenty, maybe in a little ways north of
I twenty, if you want to count all of Dallas,
they should know all of this. They're all these heat
rated or heat related alerts going up for eighteen states,
and in all of those eighteen states, they're telling people
to do this and do that to to bear through
(05:34):
this hot spell they've got. They're being told to avoid
alcohol consumption.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Heat is wide. Some people drink in the summertime. It's
just too hot.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I think I'll have another beer. I've heard that more
than once. They also have this sensation of not knowing
what to do, just this general that. Some of the
questions Google's top trending heat wave questions what temperature is
considered extreme heat? Well I already solve that mystery. Why
(06:06):
does extreme heat make you tired? Anybody down here knows that.
How do you prepare your body for heat? Yeah, we
know how.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
To do that too.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So basically it's just the same stuff. Oh, the recommendations
from some national site, I don't remember what it was. Also,
you need to limit your outdoor activities. Well I feel
like I'm this is so Captain obvious. Limit your outdoor activity,
stay hydrated, and wear light clothing. Who in this audience
(06:36):
does not know that. If you don't know that, welcome
to Texas. Okay, from Minnesota or Canada, that's about the
only places where that really wouldn't work.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
I think they don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
And if you're from that, I don't know how to
deal with ten, twelve, fifteen below zero, not a clue.
And I'm proud to say that I don't want to
learn how to do with temperatures below zero. The heat
in most cases is not going well. He won't kill you,
I don't think as fast as as cold. I'll have
(07:09):
to do some research on that. All right, let's go
ahead and tee up a break here. When we get back,
we'll just kind of dive into more of the stuff
that's going on hither and yon look at the markets
a little bit and then go maybe dive into this
and that.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Let me see if I see anything exciting. Late night
TV comes in.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Never mind, Optima iron Doors, we are fast approaching. Well,
this is kind of Next week I think will be
the final week of Optima Iron Doors summer sale, which
has gone on now for almost two months. It concludes,
as this month concludes, and afterward, you will not be
able to get what's probably going to be the lowest
(07:49):
price ever again.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
To go ahead and put a beautiful.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Forged iron door on your home, or maybe one of
those narrow profile steel doors, all of which look really
spectacular when you put them onto the right home. You
have an option to go over to Optima Iron Doors,
which shares residents with Primo Doors, both both companies owned
by the same company, or both companies owned by the
(08:14):
same man, Jason Fortenberry, and he and his staff over
there will help you select just the right iron door
from Optimum, or maybe a wood door from Primo, but
just the right door to express your family's personality, to
tell people who drive by your house or walk down
the sidewalk and see that beautiful new door that the
(08:36):
people who live behind it care about their home. Optimy
iron doors all made in North America, no worries about
something happened to be shipped all the way across the ocean,
competitively priced, and each one of them made exclusively to
fit your space where your door was. There's no one
(08:58):
size fits all iron door. There's no one size fits
all anything really that comes out of Optima or Primo Doors.
Jason's got more than a decade. I don't know how
many years he's been in business. It's a very long
time and this is what he does. If you are
looking to update that home of years. By the way,
iron doors less maintenance than would iron doors typically more
(09:21):
secure than wood doors. So if you're looking for something sturdy,
something strong, something to protect your family and look really
good to everybody who drives by, check out Optima iron
Doors dot com. You can get a free estimate by
going get a quote from going to the website, and
once you get that done, you're gonna want to go
over there and take advantage of this sale because after
(09:44):
the sale ends, the prices are probably gonna have to
come up a little bit. Optima iron Doors dot Com,
Optima iron doors dot Com.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
What's life without a nap? If I suggest you go
to bed, sleep it off.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Just wait until the show's over, sleepy. Back to Doug
Pike as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
All right, welcome back to fifty plus. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
I certainly do appreciate that A quick look at the markets,
because I didn't go there before. All four of the
numbers I watch are up with the Russell out front.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
They were anyway a little while ago.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Russell's up more than a full point and oiled down
a quarter quarter of a dollar, which isn't much, but
it's better than up anything. And gold was down about
twenty bucks but still strong. Overall it thirty four to
twenty an ounce. I need somebody who really understands this stuff.
I really do to anchor these reports, because I would
(10:39):
like for them to have more than just numbers.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Somebody who could give me a number and then back
it up with why it went up or down.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
If anybody out there is in that business and knows
a lot about the markets and about gold and about whatever,
email me and I'll see if we can't make it work.
Dougpike at iHeartMedia dot Com Waiting into the Muck. Video
has surfaced in which Democrats can side that they need
immigrants counted in order to gather votes through redistricting.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
This is something they've said wasn't true for a long time,
but we all knew better.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
I'd almost respect the left more if they'd just come
out and say these things out loud. From jump, It's like, yeah,
we open the border. To any warm body with the
pulse who could get here, and yeah, we gave them
stuff that Americans can't get free, everything in hopes that
eventually we'd get them signed up to vote and that
they'd be beholden to us for all that free stuff
(11:35):
and keep voting us back in. We don't really care
if it hurts us citizens. We just want to stay
in power. At least they'd have honesty on their side
if they'd say something like that. Meanwhile, the president, the
left just loves to hate lock down a trade deal
with Japan this week that's going to be worth about
five hundred and fifty billion dollars to the US economy.
(11:58):
This man, our president, is patiently making moves internationally that
are going to re establish America as an energy independent giant. Uh,
they're gonna We're gonna be a manufacturing giant again and
a leader throughout the world again. And he's pretty much
having to do all of this stuff from scratch, since
(12:18):
his predecessor more or less dismantled nearly everything that was
good about our country. There's a boy, there's a lot.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Going on there too. I don't want to dig too
deep into politics.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
I really don't but there's a whole lot, a whole
lot of cards being shuffled now from a lot of
different decks, and it's it'll all play.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Out from the late night TV.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Desk comes word that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr responded pretty
swiftly and strongly to the whining of left side celebrities
and politicians who didn't they didn't like the shuddering of
Stephen Colbert's late night every night rants against President Trump.
On X Carr wrote this, and I quote the partisan
(13:02):
left's ritualist wailing and gnashing of teeth over Colbert is
quite revealing. They're acting like they lost a loyal DNC
spokesperson that was entitled to an exemption from the laws
of economics end quote, to which Jamie Lee Curtis, who
(13:23):
once was relevant but not anymore. Really Curtis whined about
cuts to NPR and now this with Colbert. In typical
lefty extremist fashion, she told the Associated Press of why
they asked her. I don't know, maybe she called them
and I quote from Curtis, they're trying to silence people,
but that won't work.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
It won't work. We'll just get louder end quote. You know,
because if.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
You yell a lie in their world, it becomes the
truth or something like that. That's some yeah, something like that,
but not exactly like that. A couple of conversation starters
if you need them this coming weekend. The entire continent
of South America lies east of Michigan. That is something
(14:15):
that most of you didn't know and did not care about.
But now it's going to be kind of stuck in
your head and you'll probably tell at least one person
that today, did you know that South America is east
of Michigan.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Well, it would have been very difficult to stack the
two the Americas, the North and South America's on top
of each other. It would have been a very awkward
look for Central America. And if you, if you care,
look at how the continents are and then ask yourself
how it would be possible at all for them not
(14:53):
to have at one time, at one time be joined.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
It's just like pieces of a.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Puzzle that were rattled and broken and then just kind
of moved all over the all over the map. Only
in this case, the map is three dimensional and.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
It's a globe.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Despite what Flat Earth people will still there are still
people in this world who believe that the Earth is flat,
just like there are still people who believe with all
their heart, all their mind that chocolate milk comes from
brown cows. That I'll never understand. I don't know how
parents can't fix that up. Oh, by the way, one
(15:34):
more fun fact to know and tell and just drop
into a silent room and watch it go even more silent.
A group of pugs, Well, do you know what a
group of pugs is called? I'm gonna I'm gonna let
you know. Now, you don't have a pug. You have
two dogs at the house, but not a pug. Correct, Okay,
(15:55):
A group of pugs. In case you ever get asked
quish maybe on Jeopardy, if you become a contestant on Jeopardy, A.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Group of pugs is called a grumble.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
I did not know that, but I just felt somehow
compelled to let you all know that. By the way,
generation gaps continue to widen. A recruiter is going viral
for her observation that when gen zers answer the phone,
they don't say anything. They wait for you to say
(16:31):
hello first. Now I've kind of adopted a spin off
of that, not because I wanted to but because I
get so many jump spam bad phone calls from so
many different numbers, and now I will just very softly say.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
The word hello.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
And then wait for a response. And usually if I
do get one, it's the click of a line being
shifted into a boiler room and being answered by one
of either fifty AI people or fifty real people. I
don't know which, but I just don't fall for it.
(17:17):
I just click it, click it, hang it up, and
then go into the history, report the spam, and then
go back into the history and delete the history and
get that number out of my phone, off of my
out of my view. I don't want to hear about it.
I don't want to see it, and it so far
(17:37):
it works. It's just a time suck on me. I'm
honest to goodness. Eight to ten of these every single day,
eight to ten every day spam calls. At some point
they're going to run out of numbers to dial, I guess,
but they're not anywhere near that yet.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
I know that.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
In a new service or survey service survey to Beato Tomato,
fifty three percent of Americans admit that they have peed
in a pool as an adult and there's an even
grosser follow up that we're gonna have to wait a
while for because in this next segment we're gonna talk
about trees. We'll take a little break here on the
way out, I'll tell you about a late health This
(18:13):
is the vascular clinic for which I've spoken now for
a couple of years, and I'm so glad to do
so for doctor Andrew Do. He's such a smart guy,
such a nice guy, and does such a good job
helping people feel better anything that can be done vascularly,
and there are so many more things than just The
primary services they provide are the reduction of enlarged non
(18:37):
cancerous prostates, similar procedure for fibroids and women ugly veins,
knock those out in their sleep. I'm sure doctor Doe
could do that.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
And on and on.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
There're even head pains that can be alleviated with vascular
procedures that shut off the flow of blood to a
specific little part of your brain. Not something you need,
just something that's causing you the pain. It's far over
my pay grade to explain it. You can call them
or go to the website and learn more about how
this works. They also do regenerative medicine two, which is
(19:09):
fantastic for chronic pain, mostly covered by Medicare and Medicaid.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
You don't go to the hospital.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Everything that they do gets done in the clinic, in
the office, usually within a couple of hours. And if
you got somebody to drive you home, you can pop
on out of there and head back to that house
where you can recover quickly and get back on with
your fun fantastic, amazing, wonderful life seven one, three, five
eight eight thirty eight eighty eight. The website a latehealth
(19:36):
dot Com seven to one, three five eight eight thirty
eight eighty eight.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Now they sure don't make them like they used to.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
That's why every few months we wash them, check us fluids,
and spring on a fresh cod o wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, welcome back to
fifty plus. Thanks again for giving us a listen. We'll
talk in this segment. And I mentioned it at Facebook
a little while ago about.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
How to keep your trees upright and healthy through hurricane season.
And nobody I know knows more about trees. And man,
I'm going to introduce right now, and that would be Irvin.
Excuse me, sorry, Erwin, Erwin Costolano's from Champions Tree Preservation boy,
I blew that already.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Welcome to the treehouse, Erwin.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
Good after, Doug, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Oh that's my pleasure, it really is.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
So.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
First question, when you ride around town on your way
to do assessments, do sick trees jump out at you
the way typos jump off menus and emails to me?
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Oh? Yes, of course definitely. The tendency in our area
is when we have a beautiful oak and that it
doesn't matter what kind of oak to plant isaialias or
plants underneath it. And this will require extra water that
trees are not used to having, and so the tree
(20:55):
will jump because the upper parts of the canopy would
begin to die back.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Wow, that's not good.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
So yeah, So all these beautiful gardens essentially under big trees,
not so good for the tree. Great for the garden,
but not so good for the tree.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
It's very unfortunate that most landscapers they don't think about
the health of a tree. They think about beautifying the
yard with yeah, pints and things. But tree is in
our area, we get plenty of rain. As a matter
of fact, they only have had exceptions a couple of
years ago where we didn't have enough rain and maybe
back in twenty eleven. Right, But as trees are concerned,
(21:35):
rain is just enough for them. They don't need any
sprinkers at all.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Yeah, I've always been I've always heard that you have
to because you've got these giant trees out there.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
They need more water than they get.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
But that's the oak trees, not so much, huh.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
But just think about it in our area, like in
the hill country as well, there's not that much rain
and some of those oaks are one hundred and fifty
two hundred years and nobody.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
No, it seems like Irwin.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
It seems like every neighborhood these days has a tree
guy in a truck who who knows enough to do
a little trimming and prune it and maybe even take
a tree out. But that's probably not the person. You
won't really doing the evaluation on trees to determine their
actual health.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Right, And that's correct, dog, because you have to do it.
First of all, the soil analysis, what's in the soil,
whether it is the soil has been changed due to
over watering, will also affect it because the chlorine and
the chemicals in the water will alter the pH. So
that's what people don't know or they don't have it do,
(22:42):
is that pH analysis and soil analysis, which is probably
the most important thing that you could do for any plant,
especially trees.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
And I would guess that most most soils.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
If if given the chance, somebody with your expertise can
alter that pH and get it back to where it
needs to be for a healthy tree.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
Right, you can make you can add soil amendments, but
most of the time it's just reducing the amount of
water and the propper will definitely help the trees and
being recorporated.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
If a homeowner wants to do a little self diagnostics,
what are some of the more obvious signs that the
tree's got problems.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
The day. As I've said before, the wilking or the
folly die back on the tips of the limbs, either
upper canopy or the ends or the big limbs. You
will have some die back. If you start noticing, that's
a sign that the tree is not healthy. Another thing
that will also begin to happen is you'll start noticing
(23:46):
the green is no longer green. It'll start going somewhat yellowish. Okay,
that's a sign that the trees are becoming ill.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Well.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Irwin Constolano's here from Champions Tree Preservation on fifty plus.
When we met this past week, we talked about a
lot of stuff, and some of it also was that
you got to keep these trees kind of trimmed to
let the wind get through them. How often do let's
take oak trees, because most every house in Houston's got
at least one, I got four out in front. How
(24:18):
often do those things need to be prune to keep
the wind whistling through there and not tip a tree.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Over on an average dog. In our area, trees grow
very fast because of a growing season for so long.
The many of them that we recommend is between one
and a half and two years having checked out at
that time. They don't have to be down every year.
They don't have to be stripped every year, but every
one and a half or two years is a good
(24:44):
time to assess for the type of prune that they need.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Does our region have many bug issues in our trees?
Speaker 4 (24:54):
We do. We are almost in a somewhat tropical environment,
which means the insects will thrive, especially they have mild
winters and the insects don't die back in the winter.
During the season, the insects will be thriving and attacking
a lot of the plants that we have, specifically trees
(25:15):
as well. So it's very common to have insects. But
the main key for for any any plant, any tree
to survive is keep them healthy. Once you keep a plant,
for a tree healthy, they themselves will will take care
of fighting all the insects that may may attack them.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
What's your take on those giant pyramids of mulch at
the basis of trees.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
Definitely data access. It becomes somewhat like an oven in
the summertime because if you go more than three three
or four inches, the heat will be so high in
the summertime. Instead of benefiting those roots and taking the
heat from getting to the roots, it will increase the
(26:04):
temperature in the soil, which will mean that a higher
temperature will mean the roots of the tree will cooking
and dying back, and then again you will see the
canopy begin to that back.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah, there's all kinds of things that people do with
they mean so well, and yet it just doesn't work
out for their trees. Irwin Castellanos, So all they got
to do is just call you guys or go to
the website and you'll get out there and take a
look for them.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
We'll be happy to go out there and make an
assessment and make recommendations to get trees and plants back
in order, especially now during hurricane season we've had. You know,
we were susceptible to strong blows. Whether the hurricane blows
or not, we still have strong winds that could cause
damage to a lot of the big, beautiful trees we
(26:53):
have in the area.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
I don't want my big beautiful trees falling down. I
look forward to working with you more and more, or
when I really do. I appreciate your help today, to
appreciate your time. I know you could have been making
somebody's tree healthy, but I think we made a lot
of people way more aware than they were before about
their trees.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Thank you so much, Erwin, Thanks thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
That's my pleasure, all right. We got to take a
little break here. UT Institute on Aging. UT Health Institute
on Aging is a collaborative that's been in force and
been helping seniors for many, many years now more than
a decade, and what they do essentially is provide access,
not only to this incredible website with tons of resources there,
(27:37):
but also to men and women who have gotten additional
training to whatever they got to earn their their rank
in medical care, whatever that may be. They go back
and get additional training so that they could apply all
of that knowledge specifically to seniors. It's kind of a
fine tuning. It's a specialization beyond their specialization, which means
(27:59):
that you and I and everybody in our age group
can get really really good help, very focused help on
anything that's wrong with us. It's a fantastic thing and
we're lucky to have it right here in Houston, mostly
in the Medcenter as you might imagine, but a lot
of these providers who are involved in the Utch Institute
on Aging also visit clinics and hospitals and offices in
(28:23):
outlying communities all around Greater Houston. Uth dot edu slash aging.
Go look at the website and see all of what
they can do for you, and you'll see what I
mean about how valuable this resource really is. Ut dot
edu slash aging.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Aged to Perfection. This is fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Rounding third headed home. You know what, as long as
I'm thinking about baseball. Let me talk about that from
the baseball desk. After getting beat up a little bit
in Seattle, the Astros have now beating the Diamondbacks twice
in two days on this road trip six game road trip.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I believe it is.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
They didn't handle themselves well in Seattle, but that didn't
matter because they've made up for it after going two
for two with wins in Arizona. Newcomer Bryce Matthews, the
Astros are a team for which, in the last four
or five years, at least maybe six or eight years,
(29:31):
every name was very familiar. Every name in the lineup
every night very familiar. Now, unless you're really keeping up,
you won't recognize but maybe four or five of the
names of the starters because the rest of the team
is out. We've got half a dozen pitchers out, half
(29:52):
a dozen field position players out, and all these new
people who you've never heard of, who are have come
in here and to their credit, risen to the occasion.
Most of them play very good defense, most of them,
(30:13):
as it turns out, when they get a few at
bats under their belts.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Not so bad at the plate either.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Bryce Matthews played his high school baseball into task Caseda,
by the way, was zero for twelve in his first
four games here for the Astros, but in the past
two nights he has now hit a grand total of
three home runs, and he looks all the better now
as a pretty bright prospect at second base, that's where
(30:43):
he plays primarily, and he's doing a fine job of it.
And if he can keep swinging the bat like he is,
i'd it'd be hard to get him out of there.
I don't know how the Astros keep winning, honestly with
this ragtag no name bunch, but every one of those
no names is fast making a name for himself, and
(31:05):
I'm really impressed by the way they're doing this. They
twice last night bunts for hits when and that was
with I think Dubon had one and now two. They
had one very timely plays on which they both ended
up being safe at first base. Bunning in the major
leagues is almost a lost art. Everybody's about power, everybody's
(31:30):
about home runs. And home runs are cool, they're sexy,
but they're not the only way to win games, and
especially when you've got two really good pitchers out there,
it's critical that somebody get on base somehow. And if
you get somebody on first base, it's critical to move
them unless you have one out at least and maybe two,
(31:53):
it's critical to move them to second base and get
them in scoring position. The Astros are fine ways they
really are, and they're fun to watch. They're fun to watch.
I don't know how long this run can last. I
don't know if it is sustainable, But for right now,
they're the most entertaining probably team in baseball because everybody else,
(32:17):
everybody's got injuries on their teams. It's one hundred and
sixty two game season. People are going to get hurt.
But nobody at the beginning of this season could have
predicted how long some of this team's best players from
the opening day roster.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Would be out or who would be out. And I
don't know. I guess hurt's hurt. I believe that, I
strongly do.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
But then again, I grew up in a different era
of baseball, and pretty much if you didn't have a
bone protruding from one of your limbs, you were expected
to put on your uniform and tie your shoes and
grab your glove and get out there. By the way,
Ozzy Osbourne passed away yesterday, I read this morning, and
I found this interesting. His last concert with Black Sabbath
(33:05):
was part of a kind of a worldwide effort to
raise money for charity, and that last he was the anchor.
His Black Sabbath was the anchor band for that charity
event and it raised one.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Hundred and ninety million dollars. That's not bad at all.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Ah, we got that taken care of. Oh this Hunter Biden.
I don't like a whole lot of anything about Hunter Biden,
to be perfectly honest, I think he's a little shady
at best and has done some things that he I
doubt he regrets. But anyway, the reason I bring him
up he went on this profanity filled rant this week
(33:48):
over how his father was treated in his final years
as president, And like I said, I don't know much
about him. I don't really like what I do know
about him. But if you could wade through the language
he used used in that interview, you can hear a
man standing up for his father and what was clearly
some mistreatment of Joe Biden back then. And Hunter who
(34:12):
knows he also may be angry because he's lost his
influence in business. That's possibly part of it. His meal
ticket is no longer a meal ticket, but nonetheless, and
by his art, by the way, all that art that
he sold for so much money, so much more even
than a lot of famous masters of paint and brush
(34:37):
and canvas, we're fetching for some of their work. Suddenly
nobody's got interested in it anymore, his little scribbles.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
At least, though he stood up for his father.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
And I have to think that buried inside whatever bad
is in there, and there is some that's been that's
pretty evident for everything we've learned about him. But I
got to think there's just this piece of him that
that really cares about Joe, that really cares about his dad.
(35:08):
And I can't, I can't not admire that. Everything else
about him is a little creepy, a little strange, a
little weird some of the things he did and and
some of the women he ran around with. But for that,
I'll give him, I'll give him a cautionary thumbs up.
(35:30):
I will all right, that's taken care of. Oh, we
got only what about.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Two minutes left?
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Will thumbs up, good waste of money. But never underestimate
the P. T. Barnum effect. There's a new gadget called
a dream recorder. Okay, And here's how it works. You
have to build it first. I don't I don't understand
that in electronics. But the shopping list and instructions are
(35:58):
available online all over the place. Now it's getting a
lot of run. As they say, it's called a dream recorder.
And what it does when you wake up, you grab
the dream recorder, you turn it on, and then you
tell it as much as you can about the dream
you remember from last night. Be careful, be careful what
(36:23):
you tell it, because what it's then going to do
is turn your dreams into videos. And I, for one,
am not really certain that I would like to have
my dreams turned into videos, the good ones, the bad ones,
any of them, because first of all, it's not going
(36:44):
to be your dream on video. It's going to be
your recollection of your dream on video. And to make
it compelling and make it fun and interesting, it just
might throw in a few little extras. It might embellish
your dream, which might not work out either. I'm not
even gonna go back to that one about fifty well,
(37:06):
with fifty three percent of Americans, P and M pulls
because the other one's pretty gross and it's lunch hour.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Now, you know what, We've only got ten seconds left.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
I don't want to rush through anything, so what I'll
do now is just thank you all for listening. Remind
you that you're welcome to contact us at any time
during the show.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
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? Well, this show is
all about you. This is fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Helpful information on your finances, good health, and what to
do for fun. Fifty plus brought to you by the
UT Health Houston Institute on Aging, Informed Decisions for a healthier,
happier life, and now fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
All right, here we go.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Wednesday edition of the program starts right now. Thank you
all for listening. If you saw my Facebook post from earlier,
you will know that hold on, I.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Have to restart this phone. I think something's wrong with it.
I don't have to go with it, and I don't
want to. I'll do that afterward, though.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Welcome to fifty plus, the only show produced and delivered
by a senior for seniors that also happens to start
at noon weekdays on AM nine to fifty KPRC. I
don't know how many shows there might be similar to
this one around the country, but I think the short
answer is not enough. I think we all are deserving
of information that is of relevance to us, and that's
(01:25):
what I try to do here, hars It. It's really
hard for me to believe. I've been doing this show
now for more than ten years, and still on every
every one of them, I wind up learning something about
health or entertainment, or politics, or finances or travel. And
then just when I think we've covered everything, I get
(01:46):
a request from one of you for a segment on
a specific topic that's not been highlighted in all those episodes.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I don't know how many.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I think there's eight hundred and what about eight hundred
and fifty? Now, will that sound about right? About eight
hundred and fifty podcast episodes? And there's just always something else.
So keep the ideas coming from your perspective, whatever they
may be. Whatever interest you as a senior also almost
certainly will be of interest to many other folks in
(02:16):
this audience. So plowing forward, There's a giant yellow blob
on the National Hurricane Center map that stretches from the
Texas coast back east almost all the way to Florida.
It looks like somebody dropped an enormous ear of corn
onto the map, and by enormous I'm talking about from
Corpus Christy to just south Ammobile, Alabama. But before you
(02:41):
rush out to bring home half the grocery store, just
understand that it's expected to come ashore by the weekend.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It's moving at present west.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Southwest, so it's almost just cutting straight across the Gulf
of Mexico, Gulf of America, whichever you want. I'm just
going to start saying the Gulf because like old habits
are very hard to break. The bottom line is it's
moving in that direction, and before it does anything, it's
expected to come on shore and just bring some rain
with it. And I almost have to wonder whether they
(03:15):
have lowered the standard for putting the yellow marks on
the map, because it seems like we've gotten more of those,
and I think the more of those they put up
and then take down within twenty four or forty eight hours,
the less attention we're going to pay to them.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
And that's that's not what we want.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
What we want is to know when something really is
going to happen and then deal with it. Then shatter
shatter showers expected over the weekend, actually starting Friday afternoon,
I think, and then persisting through the weekend. But otherwise
not much to see, by the way, and I need
to let Frankie, my weekend producer, know this because we
(03:54):
had a bet.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
We had a bet on what day would be.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
The first of the first official high day by my
measure of standard, which is one hundred degrees the official
hot day, first day in Houston. And on Tuesday, yesterday,
the official temperature in Houston did reach one hundred degrees.
So Frankie wrote it all down and I heard from him.
(04:20):
I believe that his prediction was late June, early June.
My prediction was late June. I don't even remember the
exact dates right now, and I don't believe I wrote
him in here. But the bottom line is we missed
by a mile, and we're almost a month past our predictions.
And it was either Guitar Dave or faux pro Wilkinson,
(04:45):
one of the two of them, he couldn't remember, which
guessed July fourth, which seemed just way too late to
tag one hundred and here it is what the twenty
third of July, and we finally hit one hundred degrees,
So so much for global warming, I guess from a
national site. And speaking of heat, grownups, grown ups, should
(05:08):
know this.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
And every grown up who lives south of.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
What I twenty, maybe in a little ways north of
I twenty, if you want to count all of Dallas,
they should know all of this. They're all these heat
rated or heat related alerts going up for eighteen states,
and in all of those eighteen states, they're telling people
to do this and do that to to bear through
(05:34):
this hot spell they've got. They're being told to avoid
alcohol consumption.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Heat is wide. Some people drink in the summertime. It's
just too hot.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I think I'll have another beer. I've heard that more
than once. They also have this sensation of not knowing
what to do, just this general that. Some of the
questions Google's top trending heat wave questions what temperature is
considered extreme heat? Well I already solve that mystery. Why
(06:06):
does extreme heat make you tired? Anybody down here knows that.
How do you prepare your body for heat? Yeah, we
know how.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
To do that too.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So basically it's just the same stuff. Oh, the recommendations
from some national site, I don't remember what it was. Also,
you need to limit your outdoor activities. Well I feel
like I'm this is so Captain obvious. Limit your outdoor activity,
stay hydrated, and wear light clothing. Who in this audience
(06:36):
does not know that. If you don't know that, welcome
to Texas. Okay, from Minnesota or Canada, that's about the
only places where that really wouldn't work.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
I think they don't know.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
And if you're from that, I don't know how to
deal with ten, twelve, fifteen below zero, not a clue.
And I'm proud to say that I don't want to
learn how to do with temperatures below zero. The heat
in most cases is not going well. He won't kill you,
I don't think as fast as as cold. I'll have
(07:09):
to do some research on that. All right, let's go
ahead and tee up a break here. When we get back,
we'll just kind of dive into more of the stuff
that's going on hither and yon look at the markets
a little bit and then go maybe dive into this
and that.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Let me see if I see anything exciting. Late night
TV comes in.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Never mind, Optima iron Doors, we are fast approaching. Well,
this is kind of Next week I think will be
the final week of Optima Iron Doors summer sale, which
has gone on now for almost two months. It concludes,
as this month concludes, and afterward, you will not be
able to get what's probably going to be the lowest
(07:49):
price ever again.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
To go ahead and put a beautiful.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Forged iron door on your home, or maybe one of
those narrow profile steel doors, all of which look really
spectacular when you put them onto the right home. You
have an option to go over to Optima Iron Doors,
which shares residents with Primo Doors, both both companies owned
by the same company, or both companies owned by the
(08:14):
same man, Jason Fortenberry, and he and his staff over
there will help you select just the right iron door
from Optimum, or maybe a wood door from Primo, but
just the right door to express your family's personality, to
tell people who drive by your house or walk down
the sidewalk and see that beautiful new door that the
(08:36):
people who live behind it care about their home. Optimy
iron doors all made in North America, no worries about
something happened to be shipped all the way across the ocean,
competitively priced, and each one of them made exclusively to
fit your space where your door was. There's no one
(08:58):
size fits all iron door. There's no one size fits
all anything really that comes out of Optima or Primo Doors.
Jason's got more than a decade. I don't know how
many years he's been in business. It's a very long
time and this is what he does. If you are
looking to update that home of years. By the way,
iron doors less maintenance than would iron doors typically more
(09:21):
secure than wood doors. So if you're looking for something sturdy,
something strong, something to protect your family and look really
good to everybody who drives by, check out Optima iron
Doors dot com. You can get a free estimate by
going get a quote from going to the website, and
once you get that done, you're gonna want to go
over there and take advantage of this sale because after
(09:44):
the sale ends, the prices are probably gonna have to
come up a little bit. Optima iron Doors dot Com,
Optima iron doors dot Com.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
What's life without a nap? If I suggest you go
to bed, sleep it off.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Just wait until the show's over, sleepy. Back to Doug
Pike as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
All right, welcome back to fifty plus. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
I certainly do appreciate that A quick look at the markets,
because I didn't go there before. All four of the
numbers I watch are up with the Russell out front.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
They were anyway a little while ago.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Russell's up more than a full point and oiled down
a quarter quarter of a dollar, which isn't much, but
it's better than up anything. And gold was down about
twenty bucks but still strong. Overall it thirty four to
twenty an ounce. I need somebody who really understands this stuff.
I really do to anchor these reports, because I would
(10:39):
like for them to have more than just numbers.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Somebody who could give me a number and then back
it up with why it went up or down.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
If anybody out there is in that business and knows
a lot about the markets and about gold and about whatever,
email me and I'll see if we can't make it work.
Dougpike at iHeartMedia dot Com Waiting into the Muck. Video
has surfaced in which Democrats can side that they need
immigrants counted in order to gather votes through redistricting.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
This is something they've said wasn't true for a long time,
but we all knew better.
Speaker 3 (11:14):
I'd almost respect the left more if they'd just come
out and say these things out loud. From jump, It's like, yeah,
we open the border. To any warm body with the
pulse who could get here, and yeah, we gave them
stuff that Americans can't get free, everything in hopes that
eventually we'd get them signed up to vote and that
they'd be beholden to us for all that free stuff
(11:35):
and keep voting us back in. We don't really care
if it hurts us citizens. We just want to stay
in power. At least they'd have honesty on their side
if they'd say something like that. Meanwhile, the president, the
left just loves to hate lock down a trade deal
with Japan this week that's going to be worth about
five hundred and fifty billion dollars to the US economy.
(11:58):
This man, our president, is patiently making moves internationally that
are going to re establish America as an energy independent giant. Uh,
they're gonna We're gonna be a manufacturing giant again and
a leader throughout the world again. And he's pretty much
having to do all of this stuff from scratch, since
(12:18):
his predecessor more or less dismantled nearly everything that was
good about our country. There's a boy, there's a lot.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Going on there too. I don't want to dig too
deep into politics.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
I really don't but there's a whole lot, a whole
lot of cards being shuffled now from a lot of
different decks, and it's it'll all play.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Out from the late night TV.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Desk comes word that FCC Chairman Brendan Carr responded pretty
swiftly and strongly to the whining of left side celebrities
and politicians who didn't they didn't like the shuddering of
Stephen Colbert's late night every night rants against President Trump.
On X Carr wrote this, and I quote the partisan
(13:02):
left's ritualist wailing and gnashing of teeth over Colbert is
quite revealing. They're acting like they lost a loyal DNC
spokesperson that was entitled to an exemption from the laws
of economics end quote, to which Jamie Lee Curtis, who
(13:23):
once was relevant but not anymore. Really Curtis whined about
cuts to NPR and now this with Colbert. In typical
lefty extremist fashion, she told the Associated Press of why
they asked her. I don't know, maybe she called them
and I quote from Curtis, they're trying to silence people,
but that won't work.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
It won't work. We'll just get louder end quote. You know,
because if.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
You yell a lie in their world, it becomes the
truth or something like that. That's some yeah, something like that,
but not exactly like that. A couple of conversation starters
if you need them this coming weekend. The entire continent
of South America lies east of Michigan. That is something
(14:15):
that most of you didn't know and did not care about.
But now it's going to be kind of stuck in
your head and you'll probably tell at least one person
that today, did you know that South America is east
of Michigan.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Well, it would have been very difficult to stack the
two the Americas, the North and South America's on top
of each other. It would have been a very awkward
look for Central America. And if you, if you care,
look at how the continents are and then ask yourself
how it would be possible at all for them not
(14:53):
to have at one time, at one time be joined.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
It's just like pieces of a.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Puzzle that were rattled and broken and then just kind
of moved all over the all over the map. Only
in this case, the map is three dimensional and.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
It's a globe.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Despite what Flat Earth people will still there are still
people in this world who believe that the Earth is flat,
just like there are still people who believe with all
their heart, all their mind that chocolate milk comes from
brown cows. That I'll never understand. I don't know how
parents can't fix that up. Oh, by the way, one
(15:34):
more fun fact to know and tell and just drop
into a silent room and watch it go even more silent.
A group of pugs, Well, do you know what a
group of pugs is called? I'm gonna I'm gonna let
you know. Now, you don't have a pug. You have
two dogs at the house, but not a pug. Correct, Okay,
(15:55):
A group of pugs. In case you ever get asked
quish maybe on Jeopardy, if you become a contestant on Jeopardy, A.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Group of pugs is called a grumble.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
I did not know that, but I just felt somehow
compelled to let you all know that. By the way,
generation gaps continue to widen. A recruiter is going viral
for her observation that when gen zers answer the phone,
they don't say anything. They wait for you to say
(16:31):
hello first. Now I've kind of adopted a spin off
of that, not because I wanted to but because I
get so many jump spam bad phone calls from so
many different numbers, and now I will just very softly say.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
The word hello.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
And then wait for a response. And usually if I
do get one, it's the click of a line being
shifted into a boiler room and being answered by one
of either fifty AI people or fifty real people. I
don't know which, but I just don't fall for it.
(17:17):
I just click it, click it, hang it up, and
then go into the history, report the spam, and then
go back into the history and delete the history and
get that number out of my phone, off of my
out of my view. I don't want to hear about it.
I don't want to see it, and it so far
(17:37):
it works. It's just a time suck on me. I'm
honest to goodness. Eight to ten of these every single day,
eight to ten every day spam calls. At some point
they're going to run out of numbers to dial, I guess,
but they're not anywhere near that yet.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
I know that.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
In a new service or survey service survey to Beato Tomato,
fifty three percent of Americans admit that they have peed
in a pool as an adult and there's an even
grosser follow up that we're gonna have to wait a
while for because in this next segment we're gonna talk
about trees. We'll take a little break here on the
way out, I'll tell you about a late health This
(18:13):
is the vascular clinic for which I've spoken now for
a couple of years, and I'm so glad to do
so for doctor Andrew Do. He's such a smart guy,
such a nice guy, and does such a good job
helping people feel better anything that can be done vascularly,
and there are so many more things than just The
primary services they provide are the reduction of enlarged non
(18:37):
cancerous prostates, similar procedure for fibroids and women ugly veins,
knock those out in their sleep. I'm sure doctor Doe
could do that.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
And on and on.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
There're even head pains that can be alleviated with vascular
procedures that shut off the flow of blood to a
specific little part of your brain. Not something you need,
just something that's causing you the pain. It's far over
my pay grade to explain it. You can call them
or go to the website and learn more about how
this works. They also do regenerative medicine two, which is
(19:09):
fantastic for chronic pain, mostly covered by Medicare and Medicaid.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
You don't go to the hospital.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Everything that they do gets done in the clinic, in
the office, usually within a couple of hours. And if
you got somebody to drive you home, you can pop
on out of there and head back to that house
where you can recover quickly and get back on with
your fun fantastic, amazing, wonderful life seven one, three, five
eight eight thirty eight eighty eight. The website a latehealth
(19:36):
dot Com seven to one, three five eight eight thirty
eight eighty eight.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Now they sure don't make them like they used to.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
That's why every few months we wash them, check us fluids,
and spring on a fresh cod o wax. This is
fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, welcome back to
fifty plus. Thanks again for giving us a listen. We'll
talk in this segment. And I mentioned it at Facebook
a little while ago about.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
How to keep your trees upright and healthy through hurricane season.
And nobody I know knows more about trees. And man,
I'm going to introduce right now, and that would be Irvin.
Excuse me, sorry, Erwin, Erwin Costolano's from Champions Tree Preservation boy,
I blew that already.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Welcome to the treehouse, Erwin.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
Good after, Doug, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Oh that's my pleasure, it really is.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
So.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
First question, when you ride around town on your way
to do assessments, do sick trees jump out at you
the way typos jump off menus and emails to me?
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Oh? Yes, of course definitely. The tendency in our area
is when we have a beautiful oak and that it
doesn't matter what kind of oak to plant isaialias or
plants underneath it. And this will require extra water that
trees are not used to having, and so the tree
(20:55):
will jump because the upper parts of the canopy would
begin to die back.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Wow, that's not good.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
So yeah, So all these beautiful gardens essentially under big trees,
not so good for the tree. Great for the garden,
but not so good for the tree.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
It's very unfortunate that most landscapers they don't think about
the health of a tree. They think about beautifying the
yard with yeah, pints and things. But tree is in
our area, we get plenty of rain. As a matter
of fact, they only have had exceptions a couple of
years ago where we didn't have enough rain and maybe
back in twenty eleven. Right, But as trees are concerned,
(21:35):
rain is just enough for them. They don't need any
sprinkers at all.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Yeah, I've always been I've always heard that you have
to because you've got these giant trees out there.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
They need more water than they get.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
But that's the oak trees, not so much, huh.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
But just think about it in our area, like in
the hill country as well, there's not that much rain
and some of those oaks are one hundred and fifty
two hundred years and nobody.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
No, it seems like Irwin.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
It seems like every neighborhood these days has a tree
guy in a truck who who knows enough to do
a little trimming and prune it and maybe even take
a tree out. But that's probably not the person. You
won't really doing the evaluation on trees to determine their
actual health.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Right, And that's correct, dog, because you have to do it.
First of all, the soil analysis, what's in the soil,
whether it is the soil has been changed due to
over watering, will also affect it because the chlorine and
the chemicals in the water will alter the pH. So
that's what people don't know or they don't have it do,
(22:42):
is that pH analysis and soil analysis, which is probably
the most important thing that you could do for any plant,
especially trees.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
And I would guess that most most soils.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
If if given the chance, somebody with your expertise can
alter that pH and get it back to where it
needs to be for a healthy tree.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
Right, you can make you can add soil amendments, but
most of the time it's just reducing the amount of
water and the propper will definitely help the trees and
being recorporated.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
If a homeowner wants to do a little self diagnostics,
what are some of the more obvious signs that the
tree's got problems.
Speaker 4 (23:22):
The day. As I've said before, the wilking or the
folly die back on the tips of the limbs, either
upper canopy or the ends or the big limbs. You
will have some die back. If you start noticing, that's
a sign that the tree is not healthy. Another thing
that will also begin to happen is you'll start noticing
(23:46):
the green is no longer green. It'll start going somewhat yellowish. Okay,
that's a sign that the trees are becoming ill.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Well.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Irwin Constolano's here from Champions Tree Preservation on fifty plus.
When we met this past week, we talked about a
lot of stuff, and some of it also was that
you got to keep these trees kind of trimmed to
let the wind get through them. How often do let's
take oak trees, because most every house in Houston's got
at least one, I got four out in front. How
(24:18):
often do those things need to be prune to keep
the wind whistling through there and not tip a tree.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
Over on an average dog. In our area, trees grow
very fast because of a growing season for so long.
The many of them that we recommend is between one
and a half and two years having checked out at
that time. They don't have to be down every year.
They don't have to be stripped every year, but every
one and a half or two years is a good
(24:44):
time to assess for the type of prune that they need.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Does our region have many bug issues in our trees?
Speaker 4 (24:54):
We do. We are almost in a somewhat tropical environment,
which means the insects will thrive, especially they have mild
winters and the insects don't die back in the winter.
During the season, the insects will be thriving and attacking
a lot of the plants that we have, specifically trees
(25:15):
as well. So it's very common to have insects. But
the main key for for any any plant, any tree
to survive is keep them healthy. Once you keep a plant,
for a tree healthy, they themselves will will take care
of fighting all the insects that may may attack them.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
What's your take on those giant pyramids of mulch at
the basis of trees.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
Definitely data access. It becomes somewhat like an oven in
the summertime because if you go more than three three
or four inches, the heat will be so high in
the summertime. Instead of benefiting those roots and taking the
heat from getting to the roots, it will increase the
(26:04):
temperature in the soil, which will mean that a higher
temperature will mean the roots of the tree will cooking
and dying back, and then again you will see the
canopy begin to that back.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah, there's all kinds of things that people do with
they mean so well, and yet it just doesn't work
out for their trees. Irwin Castellanos, So all they got
to do is just call you guys or go to
the website and you'll get out there and take a
look for them.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
We'll be happy to go out there and make an
assessment and make recommendations to get trees and plants back
in order, especially now during hurricane season we've had. You know,
we were susceptible to strong blows. Whether the hurricane blows
or not, we still have strong winds that could cause
damage to a lot of the big, beautiful trees we
(26:53):
have in the area.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
I don't want my big beautiful trees falling down. I
look forward to working with you more and more, or
when I really do. I appreciate your help today, to
appreciate your time. I know you could have been making
somebody's tree healthy, but I think we made a lot
of people way more aware than they were before about
their trees.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Thank you so much, Erwin, Thanks thanks for having me on.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
That's my pleasure, all right. We got to take a
little break here. UT Institute on Aging. UT Health Institute
on Aging is a collaborative that's been in force and
been helping seniors for many, many years now more than
a decade, and what they do essentially is provide access,
not only to this incredible website with tons of resources there,
(27:37):
but also to men and women who have gotten additional
training to whatever they got to earn their their rank
in medical care, whatever that may be. They go back
and get additional training so that they could apply all
of that knowledge specifically to seniors. It's kind of a
fine tuning. It's a specialization beyond their specialization, which means
(27:59):
that you and I and everybody in our age group
can get really really good help, very focused help on
anything that's wrong with us. It's a fantastic thing and
we're lucky to have it right here in Houston, mostly
in the Medcenter as you might imagine, but a lot
of these providers who are involved in the Utch Institute
on Aging also visit clinics and hospitals and offices in
(28:23):
outlying communities all around Greater Houston. Uth dot edu slash aging.
Go look at the website and see all of what
they can do for you, and you'll see what I
mean about how valuable this resource really is. Ut dot
edu slash aging.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Aged to Perfection. This is fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Rounding third headed home. You know what, as long as
I'm thinking about baseball. Let me talk about that from
the baseball desk. After getting beat up a little bit
in Seattle, the Astros have now beating the Diamondbacks twice
in two days on this road trip six game road trip.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
I believe it is.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
They didn't handle themselves well in Seattle, but that didn't
matter because they've made up for it after going two
for two with wins in Arizona. Newcomer Bryce Matthews, the
Astros are a team for which, in the last four
or five years, at least maybe six or eight years,
(29:31):
every name was very familiar. Every name in the lineup
every night very familiar. Now, unless you're really keeping up,
you won't recognize but maybe four or five of the
names of the starters because the rest of the team
is out. We've got half a dozen pitchers out, half
(29:52):
a dozen field position players out, and all these new
people who you've never heard of, who are have come
in here and to their credit, risen to the occasion.
Most of them play very good defense, most of them,
(30:13):
as it turns out, when they get a few at
bats under their belts.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Not so bad at the plate either.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Bryce Matthews played his high school baseball into task Caseda,
by the way, was zero for twelve in his first
four games here for the Astros, but in the past
two nights he has now hit a grand total of
three home runs, and he looks all the better now
as a pretty bright prospect at second base, that's where
(30:43):
he plays primarily, and he's doing a fine job of it.
And if he can keep swinging the bat like he is,
i'd it'd be hard to get him out of there.
I don't know how the Astros keep winning, honestly with
this ragtag no name bunch, but every one of those
no names is fast making a name for himself, and
(31:05):
I'm really impressed by the way they're doing this. They
twice last night bunts for hits when and that was
with I think Dubon had one and now two. They
had one very timely plays on which they both ended
up being safe at first base. Bunning in the major
leagues is almost a lost art. Everybody's about power, everybody's
(31:30):
about home runs. And home runs are cool, they're sexy,
but they're not the only way to win games, and
especially when you've got two really good pitchers out there,
it's critical that somebody get on base somehow. And if
you get somebody on first base, it's critical to move
them unless you have one out at least and maybe two,
(31:53):
it's critical to move them to second base and get
them in scoring position. The Astros are fine ways they
really are, and they're fun to watch. They're fun to watch.
I don't know how long this run can last. I
don't know if it is sustainable, But for right now,
they're the most entertaining probably team in baseball because everybody else,
(32:17):
everybody's got injuries on their teams. It's one hundred and
sixty two game season. People are going to get hurt.
But nobody at the beginning of this season could have
predicted how long some of this team's best players from
the opening day roster.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Would be out or who would be out. And I
don't know. I guess hurt's hurt. I believe that, I
strongly do.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
But then again, I grew up in a different era
of baseball, and pretty much if you didn't have a
bone protruding from one of your limbs, you were expected
to put on your uniform and tie your shoes and
grab your glove and get out there. By the way,
Ozzy Osbourne passed away yesterday, I read this morning, and
I found this interesting. His last concert with Black Sabbath
(33:05):
was part of a kind of a worldwide effort to
raise money for charity, and that last he was the anchor.
His Black Sabbath was the anchor band for that charity
event and it raised one.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Hundred and ninety million dollars. That's not bad at all.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Ah, we got that taken care of. Oh this Hunter Biden.
I don't like a whole lot of anything about Hunter Biden,
to be perfectly honest, I think he's a little shady
at best and has done some things that he I
doubt he regrets. But anyway, the reason I bring him
up he went on this profanity filled rant this week
(33:48):
over how his father was treated in his final years
as president, And like I said, I don't know much
about him. I don't really like what I do know
about him. But if you could wade through the language
he used used in that interview, you can hear a
man standing up for his father and what was clearly
some mistreatment of Joe Biden back then. And Hunter who
(34:12):
knows he also may be angry because he's lost his
influence in business. That's possibly part of it. His meal
ticket is no longer a meal ticket, but nonetheless, and
by his art, by the way, all that art that
he sold for so much money, so much more even
than a lot of famous masters of paint and brush
(34:37):
and canvas, we're fetching for some of their work. Suddenly
nobody's got interested in it anymore, his little scribbles.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
At least, though he stood up for his father.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
And I have to think that buried inside whatever bad
is in there, and there is some that's been that's
pretty evident for everything we've learned about him. But I
got to think there's just this piece of him that
that really cares about Joe, that really cares about his dad.
(35:08):
And I can't, I can't not admire that. Everything else
about him is a little creepy, a little strange, a
little weird some of the things he did and and
some of the women he ran around with. But for that,
I'll give him, I'll give him a cautionary thumbs up.
(35:30):
I will all right, that's taken care of. Oh, we
got only what about.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Two minutes left?
Speaker 3 (35:36):
Will thumbs up, good waste of money. But never underestimate
the P. T. Barnum effect. There's a new gadget called
a dream recorder. Okay, And here's how it works. You
have to build it first. I don't I don't understand
that in electronics. But the shopping list and instructions are
(35:58):
available online all over the place. Now it's getting a
lot of run. As they say, it's called a dream recorder.
And what it does when you wake up, you grab
the dream recorder, you turn it on, and then you
tell it as much as you can about the dream
you remember from last night. Be careful, be careful what
(36:23):
you tell it, because what it's then going to do
is turn your dreams into videos. And I, for one,
am not really certain that I would like to have
my dreams turned into videos, the good ones, the bad ones,
any of them, because first of all, it's not going
(36:44):
to be your dream on video. It's going to be
your recollection of your dream on video. And to make
it compelling and make it fun and interesting, it just
might throw in a few little extras. It might embellish
your dream, which might not work out either. I'm not
even gonna go back to that one about fifty well,
(37:06):
with fifty three percent of Americans, P and M pulls
because the other one's pretty gross and it's lunch hour.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Now, you know what, We've only got ten seconds left.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
I don't want to rush through anything, so what I'll
do now is just thank you all for listening. Remind
you that you're welcome to contact us at any time
during the show.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
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