The Bloomdaddy Experience with Otis & Sam March 24, 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
D number one Tuch show in the Ohio Valley. This
is the bloom Daddy Experience. Your host, bloom Daddy. His
goal inform, entertain, and tick people off. The bloom Daddy
Experience on News Radio eleven seventy WWVA starts now.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
The Bloomdaddy Experience. It's seven oh six on news Radio
eleven seventy. Good Monday morning, too, and I hope you
had a fantastic weekend. I'm going to try to make
your day by telling you by Saturday we could see
seventy degrees.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Now.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
To get to Saturday, it's gonna be somewhat brutal, and
after Saturday, I think we drop back down into the
high fifties. If you're like me, you're absolutely sick and
tired of being cold. But it is high school baseball season,
so you know what kind of weather you're gonna get.
I want to talk to you about the Ohigh Valley
Mall real quick. I told you a while ago that
I met somebody through my job in Cleveland who has

(00:54):
very tight connections to the High Valley Mall, and he
told me a lot of great.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Things are going to be coming.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
They're already working on some renovations, the old Macy site,
the old Seers site. I think you're going to see
some pretty cool things. But I had a conversation last
week with Anthony Cafaro, Junior of Kafaro Company. He's the
top dog. He oversees the Ohio Valley Mall and many
other properties owned by Kafaro Company. Talk to him on
the phone about twenty minutes on the future of malls,

(01:21):
and I think what you're going to see not only
at the Ohio Valley Mall, but any other malls anywhere
you go, in the next two to five years, you're
going to see these malls being transformed into destination spots,
not just shopping, not just eating. What I mean by
that is ski slopes, yeah inside the mall, rock climbing walls,

(01:47):
indoor hitting cages, putt putt courses, maybe maybe a turfed
section where flag football leagues can play. Because other mall
across the country are already doing this. There's a mall
in New Jersey that has an indoor ski slope. I
kid you, not a rock climbing wall. There's other malls

(02:10):
out there making plans to have, you know, maybe put
an indoor baseball facility. Where teams can go in practice,
because here's the thought. Malls are not going to survive.
I mean, malls have been cut down considerably since Amazon
has arrived on the scene, but people still want brick
and mortar. People still want in well areas like this.

(02:30):
I just got done talking about the weather here in
southeast Ohio. You want a place to go where you
could have one stop shopping, you could get out of
the house, you can walk around. But the retail part
of it has been dying for over a decade.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
So the question is how do you bring in.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
People, how do you increase foot traffic while still maintaining
that mall feeling. The answer is, or at least the
power is to be thinking is by making it a
destination spot.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
So think of the Ohio Allen Mall.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Now I'm not saying this is gonna happen, but I'm
saying this is in the thought process.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
Because again I just talked to Anthony Kufaro Junior. So
imagine if you went over to.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
The mall and you have over there what you have now,
but let's say at the old Macy's location, they transform
that into a high end putt putt course. I'm talking
eighteen holes, just spectacular putt putt. You're gonna take your kids,
You're gonna take your date, your wife, your spouse, whatever
it may be. And when you get done, what are
you gonna do? You know what, Honey, I need a

(03:31):
new pair of jeans. Boom, Hey, honey, you're hungry, Boom.
You're gonna stay and spend money. Let's say if the
Ohio Valley Mall the old Sears portion, they would turf that.
I mean, that was a big size. Let's say they
turf it and put in three football fields sixty yards

(03:52):
a piece, maybe thirty yards wide, and you have a
flag football league there.

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Guess what happens. Now?

Speaker 2 (03:58):
You've got kids flocking the place and their parents on
Saturdays and Sundays for a flag football league. Guess what
you're gonna do afterwards? You're gonna stay and eat. You're
probably gonna stay and shop. Pick a ball is huge
right now. Can you imagine if you went over to
the Ohio Valley Mall and maybe one of the old

(04:19):
sections was transformed into thirty pickleball courts with juice bars,
apparel shops. You see what I'm getting at. So in
talking to Anthony Kafaro Junior, which, by the way, I'm
gonna go to Youngstown. He's gonna give me a tour
if I believe they're East Lake Mall, because they've done
some things like this already.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
In talking to him.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Read a great article the other day Cleveland dot com
about what they're doing to some of the malls in
northeast Ohio. They're changing the way you're gonna view them.
So if you have a reason to go to the
Ohio Valley Mall other than retail or to eat, I
think it's a win win for everybody.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
I mean, Sam, what do you think.

Speaker 4 (05:03):
This is a conversation. It happens every so many months.
Listen the the the retail landscape that otis you and
I grew up with. It's changed. I mean, there's there's
no other way to say it. It has changed.

Speaker 5 (05:20):
Well, the highvel was already making changes like this, because
you do have that, there's a CrossFit place out there.
You have some other things that are that are I
think there is a Putt Putt course out there.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
I believe it's gone. It was like a glow in
the dark down one.

Speaker 5 (05:36):
I thought there was one. I thought there was one
in the game area where they have all the.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
Oh, where the arcade is. Yeah, maybe you're right. I'm
not sure about that.

Speaker 6 (05:43):
I could be wrong. I haven't been in you I was.

Speaker 5 (05:44):
I've been by the arcade, but haven't been in it.
But I understand what he's saying. I mean, I understand
if you do like a unique putt putt course kind
of like they have at the beach or whatever, that
would be neat. But just a regular putt putt course
isn't going to draw anybody there.

Speaker 4 (06:02):
Well, and here's the thing, this is not just an
issue affecting the A High.

Speaker 6 (06:06):
Valley mall, Oh absolutely not.

Speaker 4 (06:08):
This is an issue affecting malls all over the country.
I actually traveled this weekend and one of the things
I noticed coming home was drove right past what was
an abandoned mall outside of Columbus. I don't know the
name of it, but I could tell it had been
a mall once you know what it looks like the architecture,

(06:30):
and it was completely abandoned. And listen, as I said,
this is not something affecting only the A High Valley mall.
And of course that people ask all the time, what
would you what store should come to the mall. And
I think the way bloom Daddie was talking about this
is we have to think outside of the norm. I
know one of the biggest things when I see this

(06:51):
on social media here here chuck e cheese is one
of the biggest things thrown out there. Would it work, yes?
What it lose it's luster? Yes, that's my hindrance with that.
It has to be as said, it has to be
a destination. There has to be something that's going to

(07:12):
be sustaining. And one thing I thought of that that
side of the River doesn't have is take one of
those empty spaces and leave it as an event space
where people could have large meetings. Could you could have

(07:32):
wedding receptions, things of that nature, but leave it as
a multi purpose type of section that can be used
and rented by individuals in multiple ways. Another thing, and
this comes out of the COVID time when people weren't working,

(07:53):
they discovered a lot of things they were able to do.
And we talk about Amazon as the big retail tailer
that has changed the landscape. Take the thought of Etsy.
So Etsy is an online if you're not familiar shopping,
but it is creative individuals. It's many stores by creative

(08:16):
individuals where they can sell their goods. Do that inside
the mall. Take one of the areas, and then individuals
can have certain sections on a monthly basis where they
can display and sell what they have to offer. Because
we have many creative people here in the Ohio Valley,

(08:39):
but they can't necessarily afford a quote unquote storefront. But
if they would have the opportunity to have a small
amount of space amongst other creative people, then that creates
a unique shopping destination four people here in the valley.

(09:03):
It adds to what we have to offer as opposed
to just your traditional retailers. If you think about a
lot of the touristy areas around us, they all have
little shops and that's one of the best things about shopping.
Why not do that inside the mall. Create a main street,

(09:26):
a small town main street inside the mall, but fill
it with our local crafts people and vendors and artisans
and what we have here and make that a destination.
But there are so many things that can be done

(09:46):
with some of those spaces in the mall. I put
it up on Facebook. If you have an idea, go
to our Facebook page. Tell us what you think should
be there. Call us one eight hundred and sixty two
four eleven seventy. No idea is a bad idea, and
why not share it because we don't want to see
that faulter. We want to see it go for the

(10:07):
next generation. We also want to see it utilized for
our young people. So call us one hundred and sixty
two for eleven seventy. If you have an idea. It
is seven sixteen on this Monday. You're listening to The
bloom Daddy Experience, salmon Otis News Radio, eleven seventy WWVA

(10:32):
seven twenty one. The Bloomdaddy Experience, salmon Otis News Radio,
eleven seventy WWVA. I thought about this over the break.
We were talking about the High Valley Mom and just
mall's in general, about how because of the landscape of retail,
how it has changed drastically, you know what, what some

(10:52):
are coming up with to fill those locations. We talked
about the the the ski location in New Jersey put
an indoor skiing facility basically in the location of an
old mall. What about this otis an indoor uh skate

(11:12):
park or bike skateboarding? Yeah, I mean, I know we
have one, but when the weather's.

Speaker 5 (11:21):
Bad, yeah, I just didn't know if that's going to
attract the crowd you want.

Speaker 6 (11:27):
And the other thing is like, are you gonna are
you gonna try?

Speaker 5 (11:30):
You have to you have to maintain the cost of
the facility, so are you going to charge them to
use it? And then you know, the people that are
normally skaters are kids, and they don't always have.

Speaker 6 (11:38):
The the means.

Speaker 5 (11:40):
I mean, it's not a bad idea. I'm just saying,
I mean, you have to you have to know your
target audience.

Speaker 4 (11:45):
Well, I was thinking one of you know, one of
the big things that people say around here all the
time with with kids, parents of children is you know,
a lot of hunters, there's not something for them to
do that's that's safe. Where if you had something if
you had part of an area of the mall that
said had an indoor skateboarding park, and then the other

(12:06):
part of it, say, was a smaller sized ice rink.
Now I'm thinking that that's a lot of maintenance. But
I'm just you know, bouncing ideas.

Speaker 5 (12:17):
Did you put an ice rink in then you can
rent it out to local hockey teams for practice or.

Speaker 4 (12:22):
Birthday parties or any of that kind of stuff. But
what I was thinking was if parents of say ten, eleven, twelve,
thirteen year olds could drop them off for three or
four hours, they socialized with their peers. They're being active.
Parents know they're somewhere safe, kind of like our parents
dropped us off at the mall and you went to
see a movie or you went shopping.

Speaker 5 (12:44):
Why not just if you're gonna make it a destination,
put an indoor water park.

Speaker 4 (12:50):
Yeah, that's a lot of maintenance, though.

Speaker 5 (12:54):
I mean the bottom line is it's a destination people
are gonna come. I mean the closest one is Columbus.

Speaker 4 (12:58):
I think, no, it is abandoned.

Speaker 5 (13:00):
Okay, so then you've got to go up to Sandusky,
I believe. So you know you're going to attract people
from Pittsburgh, Western PA, Eastern Ohio, West Virginia. So I mean,
you know, I know it's a lot of maintenance, but
I mean they're advertising the heck out of some of
those on TV. I mean Woof's Lodge or whatever. So

(13:21):
I mean I'm sure they're all owned by like Kalahara
or something like that.

Speaker 4 (13:26):
Oh oh, the overall ownership yeah.

Speaker 5 (13:28):
So, you know, I mean in reality, that's one you
could do. I mean, you don't have to go all out.
You can just make it like you can have a
splash pad, you can have the water slide, you can
do this, you can do that, the wave pool, you
can do a small lazy It doesn't have to be
a huge one. You can scale it down.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
Yeah, yeah, I was. I guess I was thinking more
of local parents and having somewhere for teenagers to go, because,
like I said, that's one of the biggest things I
hear all the time is you know, where can there's
nowhere for teenagers to go. They don't go to the
mall anymore like we used to, and you'd hang out
and go see movies and just kind of bum around.

(14:08):
If there was something like like a skateboard park or
a small coffee shop, or like I said, an ice
rink where they're active, they're socializing, it's something to do.
You charge an amount so much a day, you know,
ten dollars a kid a day, and they get to
hang out and use the facilities. It makes it a

(14:29):
destination for locals also, So there's many things. It's just
striking on the right pairing that works to bring people
in to make it a destination, but also works for
the locals. And like I said, you know, we mentioned
our mall, of course, but this is something that is

(14:50):
that is affecting all facilities like this. Like I said,
I went this weekend was quite busy for myself. I
traveled down to Cincinnati. If you saw any of the pictures,
we were celebrating my uncle's eightieth birthday. He decided to
He threw himself a birthday party. He did, yes, absolutely
good for him. He did not sit down once there

(15:12):
were tons of people there. But I shared some pictures
of the facility we were at, and honest to god,
it was like walking into a time warp. It was
straight out of the sixties. It was a VFW in Covington, Kentucky,
and it was so cool because it was a bowling
alley and I think there were eight lanes, maybe six,

(15:35):
but I believe there were eight lanes. And the only
thing that was missing was Marcia, Greg Bobby, Cindy and
everybody else from the Brady Bunch was it was so cool,
absolutely so cool. But tying this into the retail conversation,
as I said, driving past Columbus on our way home,
I saw the abandoned mall. But this where we were
was right across the river from Cincinnati, and I could

(15:57):
not tell you how many day of delivery Amazon trucks
we saw in under a twenty four hour time period
we were there. And this was if you ordered it
that morning, you had it by lunchtime. Whatever it was
you ordered off at Amazon. So it goes back to

(16:18):
how our retail is changing drastically. Personally, I still like
to go and shop. I still like to go and
touch things and try things on. I love doing that.
I just that's how I like to shop. I'm not
saying I don't use Amazon. Of course I use Amazon,
but the shopping landscape has changed drastically. But finally, I said,

(16:44):
what is with all of these Amazon trucks? And like
I said, they're just these little trucks that you ordered
the day of and you have it within four hours roughly.
But it was crazy. But no, and then otis real
quick you this weekend made I had a huge accomplishment.

Speaker 5 (17:02):
I wouldn't go that far, what would I've never walked
to five K it's my second one. Oh okay, so
I walked one in July down in Birmingham, Alabama and
at the Transplanting Games, and my time was like one
oh one an hour and minute, one hour and one minute,
and so this one I did in fifty one minutes,
So I improved my time by ten minutes. So all

(17:24):
my walking in the morning's kind of.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
Helping ten minutes. That's a big improvement. So yeah, we
both had some busy weekends. Coming up, we're gonna be
talking Ah Collin one eight hundred numbers. It's such a pleasure.
And then also coming up a little bit later in
the show, we're gonna have your chance to win family
four packs to see the Toughest Monster Truck Tour coming

(17:49):
here to Oasbanko Arena in April, Sis. Stay tuned for that.
That's going to be coming up here a little bit
later in the show. Seven to twenty eight The bloom
Daddy Experience, samon otis.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Welcome back to the bloom Daddy Experience. On eleven seventy
wwva pet Peeve time. Remember back way back when they
told you you need to learn how to speak Spanish,
need a second language so you can talk to people
here in the United States. How English is not going
to be the way you're going to be able to
meet and greet a large amount of the population. Well,

(18:23):
guess what they were wrong, because I'm going to tell
you what language we need to learn, because it's driven
me crazy over the past two weeks.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
I think it was about two weeks ago.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
I told you about my battle with Expedia booking a
hotel room, getting some money back because the rooms were flooded,
but the hotel couldn't give me the money back. I
had to go through Expedia. Phone call after phone call
after phone call to Expedia. I was hung up on,
I was put on hold, and then when I got
to talk to somebody, it was some Indian.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
I can't understand them.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
I'd hang up, call back again, get another Indian, hang up,
call back again, hoping to finally land somebody who spoke English,
and I finally got somebody who spoke Indian that I
could somewhat comprehend.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
Well once again, Exfinity.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Nearly five hours on the phone the other day trying
to deal with an Exfinity issue. Indian after Indian after
Indian after Indian. Look got nothing against Indians, love your
food as a matter of fact, but I can't understand you.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
I'm sorry, it's just the way it is.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
And when I call for tech support, I need to
speak to somebody that I can understand because I'm already
stressed out.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
I'm already ticked off. I'm a ticking time bomb.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
If my phone isn't working, my computer isn't working in
this case, my internet, my TV, I'm already stressed out.
All I want to do is talk to your human being.
And you know this out there listening that when you
first make that call, speaking to a human being for
a solid probably fifteen twenty thirty minutes, it's hit the

(20:05):
touch tone, one for this, two for this, three for this,
four for this.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
Then you get.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Transferred, you're talking to AI or you're talking.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
To a recording.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
By the time you feel like you're finally breaking through,
like I've got this okay, twenty minutes in the bag.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
I'm gonna get this problem solved, bam.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
And it's an Indian And that sounds terrible, I know
it does, but it's the reality of the situation. I mean,
is every call center that we ever have to utilize
located in Bangladesh, Because if it is, we got serious problems.
I can't be the only one out there who feels

(20:48):
this way. I can't be the only one out there
who's had issues with this. I mean, it makes me
get to the point where if I've got an issue,
I don't even want to address it anymore. And maybe
that's what their goal is, make it so difficult on
you and me that we just give up. We say,
you know what, that two three hundred four hundred dollars
not worth it, not worth going through the mental anguish,

(21:12):
the time, the effort that it's gonna take to rectify
the situation.

Speaker 3 (21:18):
Five hours now, it wasn't five hours solid.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
It was over the course of the day because they
kept on saying, Okay, we're gonna take care of the problem.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
Should be good.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Hang up, got a call back, Hang up, got a
call back, one after another after another.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
I'm not gonna lie.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
If I have an issue my next issue, and I
make a call and I actually speak to somebody who
speaks English, I'm probably gonna pass out because I'm gonna
I'm gonna pass out from shock because it never happens anymore.
And you can tell here on a Monday morning, I
am still stressed out about this issue, and sam otis

(22:00):
I can't be alone on this one.

Speaker 4 (22:02):
You are one hundred percent not alone on this one.
I cannot believe that, bloom Daddy, you brought up this
particular topic because this happened to me just last week,
not over the weekend like you, but it happened to
me last week. First of all, customer service is dying,

(22:23):
and it's one hundred percent right in what you said
that they want you to just shut up and take
what they give you. They don't care about customer service.
They don't care about speaking with you who pay the bills.
My biggest pet peeve is first of all, when I

(22:43):
call and I want to get help, I don't want
to have to push one for English. I don't want
to have to push two for Spanish and all that
other waste of time because I'm calling from the United States,
so yes, I'm speaking Englis and if you haven't heard,
that is the official language of this country. So all

(23:05):
these companies need to update they're answering service to that.
Number two, the new direction is chatting. Now. It's not
just that you can no longer speak to somebody who
speaks English. Now you can't even speak to a human being.

(23:28):
This happened to me last week. Now I type all
the time nine times out of ten. Though when I
am reaching out to somebody for help, it's because I
can't fix the problem. So then I speak to somebody
who is a tech wizard, if you will, And if

(23:51):
you speak to somebody who does technology, computers, all of
that kind of stuff, they have their own language, they
really do, and they don't use words. They use letters.
They use anagrams for everything. God forbid you say the
actual words, because saving that two point two seconds using

(24:15):
SEO or sem or whatever other set of letters you
want to use instead of using the words, it makes
a huge difference in everybody's lives. But yes, now you
can't even speak to a human being, let alone a
human being that speaks English. You have to chat with them,
and you chat and you explain what's going on, and

(24:37):
it's this long, typed out thing and the person responds with, now,
please explain to me again, or send me a link
or send me a screenshot because they don't understand what
you're saying. Well, that's because you don't know how to
speak it in their technological verbiage. What So the issue

(25:01):
that could have taken five ten minutes to fix, then
turns into an hour because you sit there and you wait,
and you watch the three dots on the chat, and
then you hit question marks are you still there? Because
you don't know if they're still there, because they haven't
typed anything. It is so infuriating. I don't understand why

(25:24):
human conversation or human contact has become not desirable anymore,
why it has become an absolute faux pat Like companies
think they're saving time, they're saving money.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
They're not.

Speaker 4 (25:52):
They're irritating their customers. They're making everybody's lives harder. So God,
it's even worse when not only is it a chat
situation where you're asking for help, then you put in
the factor that the person is probably, like bloom Daddy said,
in India, where communication is even harder when you're speaking

(26:18):
to somebody in another country. Then throw in chat somebody
in a different country trying to ask for help. It
just compounds and it layers, and it layers, and it
layers the frustration. But I think bloom Daddy's exactly right,
where what they eventually want to get to is they
don't want to hear from you. They don't care that
you have problems, they don't care that you're unhappy with

(26:41):
their service. They don't care about helping you. And then
I remember, and I don't know if you've i've if
you've ever done this, but I have been on the
phone with somebody and I've tried, and I've tried, and
I've tried, and eventually I said to this gentleman, I
am so sorry, but I cannot understand you. And you

(27:07):
don't want to be offensive, and you feel like a
complete you know what, and they take it offensively and
you don't intend to be offensive, but you can't understand them,
and all you want is help. It is the most
frustration frustrating scenario, to the point where you just want

(27:30):
to throw the phone out the window. And nine times
out of ten it's somebody like Infinity or others where
they're in the business of communication. And the funny thing
is they don't communicate. It seems to be the one
subject that they're the worst in. That is what is

(27:55):
the funniest part about all of this. Seven forty six,
you're listening to the bloom Daddy Experience samon Otis News
Radio eleven seventy WWVA. Welcome back. It is seven fifty

(28:17):
here on the bloom Daddy Experience Salmon Otis News Radio
eleven seventy WWVA joining us now. So, if you've been
following Otis on social media and we've talked about this
a couple times, Otis has made a big change, and
he continues with his big accomplishment this weekend. But he
is a man in his corner who's pushing him along,

(28:39):
and we've got him on the phone. That's Grayson Loisy.
Good morning, Grayson, Hey, good morning.

Speaker 7 (28:44):
Thank you guys for having me.

Speaker 4 (28:45):
Absolutely so, I said, you're the man in the corner
pushing Otis through his his uh, his big change. Tell
us how much of a whiner is he?

Speaker 8 (29:00):
He doesn't say much now.

Speaker 7 (29:01):
He comes in, does his work, and he moves on
to the next thing. He's pretty quiet.

Speaker 6 (29:06):
Let's be honest. That's because I'm thinking how much. That's
because I'm thinking how much I hate what I'm doing
right Yeah.

Speaker 7 (29:13):
And he's probably thinking I'm thinking not nice things about
him right now making me do this.

Speaker 5 (29:21):
But there's certain things when like the other day when
he said, Okay, we're gonna do everything for two minutes,
and I just looked at him and I'm like, oh,
I like the one minute workouts better than the two minutes.
So but I mean, let's let's be honest, Grayson. You know,
you know I came in. I'm fifty eight years old.
I was a little overweight. I have a bad hip
that because I broke my hip ten years ago. And

(29:43):
you know, you've you've kind of tailored my workout around
some of my you know, to my strengths, and then
worked on some of my.

Speaker 6 (29:51):
Weaknesses as well.

Speaker 5 (29:54):
Yes, yeah, and just you know that that just goes
to show that anybody that that, you know, if you
don't if you have an issue with your knees or
maybe with your shoulders or something like that, you're able
to adapt a workout to that person.

Speaker 7 (30:09):
Correct, Yeah, sir, Yeah, we can always work around any issues.
And I believe you can still get strong no matter
what your fitness level, what physical limitations you have. You know,
you can find a way if you give me the
effort and you're willing to do that, I can. I
can find a way to work around it and still
help you to progress.

Speaker 5 (30:27):
And one of the things is with your with your
it's it's small, it's compact. There's not a lot of
people there, so it's not like you're going to this
huge gym where there's you know, fifty sixty people working
out at the same time. You you cater to a
smaller crowd, maybe at the most five or six people
at the same time.

Speaker 9 (30:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (30:49):
Group training, small group training, personal training, one on one.
I definitely like the more like individual approach that way,
like I can kind of not spread myself too thin
that way I have a bunch of people. If I
have a bunch of people, it's harder to navigate that.
But if it's smaller groups, then I'm able to work
with those people and individualize better for that hour.

Speaker 6 (31:12):
And go ahead, Sam, I was just gonna ask.

Speaker 4 (31:14):
Along with the physical part of the working out, you
work with people on meal plans also, right that that
has to go hand in hand.

Speaker 9 (31:24):
I do like general nutrition advice legally as a personal
trainer and nutrition if I can't, I can't prescribe anything
like that, but I definitely help people as far as
like telling them, you.

Speaker 7 (31:37):
Know, these are some proteins maybe that you could implement
and you could try, and stuff like that. Just just
different things as far as talking about nutrition and what
works differently for some people and others. What you know
what doesn't and.

Speaker 5 (31:50):
When you do these, Like so when I do this,
you give me about a one hour workout. Sometimes it's
a little longer, you know, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes.
So it's not you know, you don't have to commit
a whole day to it. Is that is that normally
the average for the person that comes to the gym.

Speaker 7 (32:07):
Yeah, when they first start. A lot of people, I
think it's good to like make the workouts like short
and effective and maybe just incorporate longer rest periods. I
find that that works better with a lot of people
that you know, haven't been super active, because if they
come in and try to do a whole hour and
they've literally not done anything for a long time, I

(32:29):
find that they're more sore. So that way, if we do,
you know, a thirty minute workout and it's followed up
like say we do two minutes of work and then
one to two minutes of rest, something along those lines,
like a one to one ratio, that tends to be
good for people and it doesn't tend to like make
them as sore for the next few days until their
next session.

Speaker 5 (32:50):
And how can people get a hold of you too
if they if they're interested in in joining your gym.
How do they get a hold of you?

Speaker 7 (32:57):
Yeah, they can go on my Facebook page at g
Low Strength and Fitness and you just message me and
then I will send you a link to a fitness
assessment and I'll have you fill out which you filled
out to otis on my website as well.

Speaker 6 (33:14):
Yes, I did.

Speaker 5 (33:15):
And and so you know, the nice thing about your
your location is there. It's the one on one, you know.
I mean you might be, you might be dealing with
two or three people at the same time, but you
are you are you know, you know exactly what each
person has and what their abilities are because there are
people that are doing exercises that I have yet to

(33:38):
do and probably may not ever do. But I understand,
I know, I know how you are. I know how
you are. So but there's also you also, you know,
you can come in for an individual session, or you
can come in for a group. I mean, I'm sorry,
you can pay in advance for like a month in advance.

Speaker 7 (33:57):
Correct, Yes, sir, you can up multiple options.

Speaker 5 (34:02):
Yeah, so, and it's and you're relatively reasonable, you know,
it's it's a lot I like the one on one
and you know, it's it's it's it's a good workout,
and Grayson does a wonderful job.

Speaker 6 (34:13):
So anything else.

Speaker 5 (34:14):
You want to push everybody or you want to you
want to make fun of me for something, not at all.

Speaker 7 (34:19):
You're working hard, putting in the work every single day,
and I respect that and appreciate that.

Speaker 5 (34:25):
Well, that was your opportunity to take a cheap shot,
just to let you know, so it's not public.

Speaker 6 (34:33):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 5 (34:35):
But I'm easy, So don't worry about it, all right, Grace,
Thanks man.

Speaker 7 (34:39):
Thank you guys for having me appreciate that.

Speaker 4 (34:41):
He'll use those cheap shots.

Speaker 6 (34:43):
Oh that's fine.

Speaker 4 (34:44):
Yah, chick your butt inspire you.

Speaker 5 (34:46):
You know, Grayson's a very good guy. His his workouts.
You know, he's very positive. That's the one good thing
that I see about it. And you know, I mean,
he likes to have fun, you know, I mean, but
he's he's serious, and he'll he'll throw a few jokes
out there every once in a while, and you know,
I always throw a few back at him. You know,

(35:07):
I'll throw a jab at him saying I might drop
a couple of words that we can't say here on
the radio. But you know, it's I will say this,
he's reasonable as far as cost and.

Speaker 6 (35:20):
He's gonna push you.

Speaker 5 (35:23):
But again, like I said, you know, I broke my hip.
And what he did was he adjusted my workout last
week because I told him my hip was bothering me.
He had me doing some exercises and it really made
the hip hurt. And we adjusted and we started to
do some exercises that are going to strengthen that hip.

Speaker 6 (35:40):
So well.

Speaker 4 (35:41):
And here's the thing, even if it doesn't feel like
it this morning, swimsuit season is, uh, it's around the
corner for all of us.

Speaker 6 (35:47):
So you know, I don't worry about swimsuit season.

Speaker 4 (35:51):
I don't even know if your legs ever see sunshine.

Speaker 6 (35:54):
I can't. They have to. It's very rare.

Speaker 4 (35:56):
Hey, it's seven fifty eight. You're listening to the bloom
Daddy Experience. Samon otis here on news radio eleven seventy WWVA.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
D number one tuck show in the Ohio Valley. This
is the bloom Daddy Experience. Your host, bloom Daddy. His
goal inform, entertain and tick people off. The bloom Daddy
Experience on news radio eleven seventy WWVA starts now.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
News Radio eleven seventy. It's the Blue Daddy Experience. Hey
it's eighth six. Let's get this hour rolling. Good Monday
morning too, And I hope you had a fantastic weekend.

Speaker 3 (36:35):
And I'm going to try to make your day by
telling you by Saturday, we could see seventy degrees. Now.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
To get to Saturday, it's gonna be somewhat brutal. And
after Saturday, I think we drop back down into the
high fifties. If you're like me, you're absolutely sick and
tired of being cold. But it is high school baseball season,
so you know what kind of weather you're gonna get.
I want to talk to you about the Ohio Valley
Mall real quick. I told you a while ago that
I met somebody through my jobbing Cleveland who has very

(37:01):
tight connections to the Ohio Valley Mall, and he told
me a lot of great things are going to be coming.
They're already working on some renovations, the old Macy site,
the old Seers site.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
I think you're going to see some pretty cool things.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
But I had a conversation last week with Anthony Cafaro,
Junior of Kafaro Company. He's the top dog he oversees
the Ohio Valley Mall and many other properties owned by
Kafaro Company. Talk to him on the phone about twenty
minutes on the future of malls, and I think what
you're going to see not only at the Ohio Valley Mall,
but any other malls anywhere you go, in the next

(37:36):
two to five years, You're going to see these malls
being transformed into destination spots, not just shopping, not just eating.
What I mean by that is ski slopes, yeah inside
the mall, rock climbing walls, indoor hitting cages, putt putt courses,

(37:58):
maybe maybe a turfed section where flag football leagues can play.
Because other malls across the country are already doing this.
There's a mall in New Jersey that has an indoor
ski slope.

Speaker 3 (38:12):
I kid you, not a rock climbing wall.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
There's other malls out there making plans to have maybe
put an indoor baseball facility where teams can go in practice.
Because here's the thought. Malls are not going to survive.
I mean, malls have been cut down considerably since Amazon
has arrived on the scene, but people still want brick
and mortar. People still want in well areas like this.

(38:37):
I just got done talking about the weather here in
southeast Ohio. You want a place to go where you
could have one stop shopping, you could get out of
the house, you can walk around. But the retail part
of it has been dying for over a decade.

Speaker 3 (38:51):
So the question is how do you bring in.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
People, how do you increase foot traffic while still maintaining
that mall feeling. The answer is, or at least the
power is to be thinking, is by making it a
destination spot.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
So think of the Ohio Allen Mall.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Now I'm not saying this is gonna happen, but I'm
saying this is in the thought process. Because again I
just talked to Anthony Kufaro Junior. So imagine if you
went over to the mall and you have over there
what you have now, But let's say at the old
Macy's location, they transform that into a high end putt
putt course, I'm talking eighteen holes, just spectacular putt putt.

(39:28):
You're gonna take your kids, You're gonna take your date,
your wife, your spouse, whatever it may be. And when
you get done, what are you gonna do? Hey, you
know what, honey, I need a new pair of jeens. Boom, Hey, honey,
you're hungry, Boom, You're gonna stay and spend money. Let's
say if the Ohio Valley Mall the old Seers portion,
they would turf that. I mean that was a big size.

(39:51):
Let's say they turf it and put in three football
fields sixty yards a piece, maybe three yards wide, and
you have a flag football league there.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
Guess what happens.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
Now, You've got kids flocking the place and their parents
on Saturdays and Sundays for a flag football league. Guess
what you're gonna do afterwards. You're gonna stay and eat.
You're probably gonna stay in shop. Pickle Ball is huge
right now. Can you imagine if you went over to
the Ohio Valley Mall and maybe one of the old

(40:25):
sections was transformed into thirty pickleball courts with juice bars,
apparel shops.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
You see what I'm getting at.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
So, in talking to Anthony Kafaro Junior, which by the way,
I'm gonna go to Youngstown and he's gonna give me
a tour if I believe they're East Lake Mall, because
they've done some things like this already. In talking to him,
read a great article the other day Cleveland dot Com
about what they're doing to some of the malls in
northeast Ohio.

Speaker 3 (40:55):
They're changing the way you're gonna view them.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
So if you have a reason to go to the
Ohio Valley Mall other than retail or to eat, I
think it's a win win for everybody.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
I mean, Sam, what do you think.

Speaker 4 (41:10):
Yeah, something needs to change. There needs a excitement. There's
not a lot of excitement surrounding malls nowadays. I posted
this on our Facebook page. Trader Joe's was mentioned by
Amanda and Lisa. Now. Bradley said urban Air. So I

(41:32):
looked Urban Air up. I was not familiar with it.
It's called Urban Air Adventure Park and it kind of
goes along what Bloomdatty was talking about about a destination
for this is for kids. I think it's for everybody, honestly,
but all the pictures have kids in it. And it's
got oh my god, tube slides, flash pads, a twist tower.

(41:54):
It looks like a tower that drops down like a
miniature thing you see at amusement parks, an indoor slide ar,
indoor basketball courts, let's see slides. I mean, there's just
there's a rock climbing wall, Laser Fury must be Laser Park,
trampoline's mini golf. It is basically an all encompassing many

(42:18):
adventures that are inside. This would be fantastic. This would
be huge in our area because you can also do
birthday parties. Otis you and I would have a blast
at this thing. I don't know if we'd fit down
the tube slides or get our tails up the climbing wall,
but I think we could have. We'd have some fun
with this.

Speaker 6 (42:39):
Yeah. Probably.

Speaker 4 (42:40):
Some of the other comments on our post, Costco was
one that was mentioned, Well.

Speaker 6 (42:47):
There's a Costco coming to Washington.

Speaker 7 (42:49):
So.

Speaker 4 (42:51):
Because of distance, Well, isn't it isn't it basically a
Sam's Club a Costco?

Speaker 6 (42:56):
Yeah, it's it's the same premise.

Speaker 5 (42:57):
Yeah, So I mean there are what they call the
club warehouses or whatever they call them.

Speaker 4 (43:02):
Well, and don't they tend to be respectful of one another,
Sam's and Costco and stay as certain.

Speaker 5 (43:09):
Oh, there's a Sam's in Washington, so they're gonna be
like they're gonna be about two miles apart at the most.

Speaker 4 (43:15):
Okay, Trader Joe's, I'll be I've been to one. I
don't get the big deal about a Trader Joe's. Maybe
I'm missing something, but as I said, I've only been
to a Trader Joe's once. So what do you think
we need? I mean, what do you think for eleven seventy?
I mean, notice what what pops into your mind? I

(43:36):
think we need another anchor store for shopping. We need
a variety, and we don't have that.

Speaker 5 (43:44):
Yeah, the retail sales thing is dying, so your anchor
stores are probably depending on what they are, probably not
gonna happen. The You have to come up with something
that is that's going to be attractive to you know,

(44:08):
similar to maybe what they did in Steubenville with the
like the adult game area. So you put a bar
in and then you have like the adult arcade, Dave
and Busters kind of yeah. Yeah, but you know it
doesn't have to be that brand, right, There's a lot
of things you could do, but you have to figure
out what is going to attract the people, and you

(44:34):
have to have something that's going to hold its value
because you can't put something in and then it's a
fad and it wears out right in a year or two.

Speaker 4 (44:41):
Well, if you took a space like Sears Worse formerly
where Sears was, and you took that space and you
made it so that it could be flipped so it
could be a pickleball court, a basketball court, and say
roller skating. I don't know, but it can be multifunctional
use for different things. I mean, if you think, like

(45:02):
like Bloo Daddy said, you talk about pickleball, people are
obsessed with pickleball.

Speaker 6 (45:06):
Well that's the fastest growing sport.

Speaker 4 (45:07):
Yeah, it's amazing. It's got the stupidest name as far
as I'm concerned. But anyways, if you made the mall
the central location for pickleball here in the High Valley
and had tournaments and youth camps and you know, starting
classes for those of I mean, that could be an attraction.

Speaker 6 (45:25):
So you could you could make it. You can make
it a little bit like the Highland Sports Complex.

Speaker 4 (45:30):
Yeah, yeah, where it's multifunctional. Yeah it's uh yeah.

Speaker 5 (45:35):
It may be limited because the the area, the ceilings
aren't necessarily as high, you know, so you're not going
to replace the whole roof, right you know, you see
what I'm saying. So you're not going to be able
to maybe put in a football field or anything like that,
but you could play the cross, you could play soccer
well and ill.

Speaker 4 (45:52):
I have heard rumblings that there is something coming to
the Old Seers location. Don't know yet what it is,
but I'm trying to find out. Hopefully we will have
that for you. But they are working and trying to
come up with ideas at the High Valley Mall. So
it is eight sixteen. Let's do it. Let's do our
first family four pack. Now, let's hold off on that.
Let's hold off on that. We're gonna that's gonna be

(46:12):
coming up here shortly. So just a reminder, we're gonna
have a family four pack to see the Toughest Toughest
Monster Trucks in April, so stay tuned for that. It
is eight sixteen The bloom Daddy Experience, salmon Otis News
Radio eleven seventy WWVA. Welcome back. It's eight twenty one

(46:35):
The bloom Daddy Experience, salmon Otis News Radio eleven seventy WWVA.
Coming up here shortly, We're gonna have your first chance
to win four tickets to the Toughest Monster Truck Tour
coming to West Banko Arena. But joining us on the
phone now we've got Kevin Cook, all right, Kevin with
tough trucks. That's what I was gonna ask him, Kevin,
if you were making your own toughest monster truck, Okay,

(47:00):
could you? Is there something at straw bottomode of a
brand that you would be like, that's gonna be my
absolute beast of a truck.

Speaker 8 (47:08):
I think I would have to go with the original
monster truck, and that would be forward, remember Bigfoot? Yep, yep.
I think that's the way I'd have to go go
old school nice nice.

Speaker 6 (47:21):
Oh, by the way, your bracket's basically dead.

Speaker 8 (47:24):
Yeah, yeah, I know it was. It was like when
I handed.

Speaker 6 (47:31):
The just just just thrown that out there.

Speaker 8 (47:34):
Yeah. I didn't even look at it this morning.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
How bad?

Speaker 8 (47:38):
How bad is it?

Speaker 6 (47:40):
Well?

Speaker 5 (47:40):
Your points right now are pretty good. But the thing
is you've got you've only got two chances of teams getting.

Speaker 6 (47:46):
In the final four.

Speaker 8 (47:48):
Is Auburn is still in it.

Speaker 6 (47:49):
Auburn is still in it?

Speaker 3 (47:51):
Okay, all right, you.

Speaker 5 (47:52):
Have Auburn taking on Duke, so both of those are alive.
You have you have Yukon and Gonzaga on the bottom,
and they're dead.

Speaker 8 (48:00):
So well, okay, all right, come on, Auburn.

Speaker 6 (48:04):
Just letting you know, I mean you can still pull
it out.

Speaker 8 (48:07):
What that's the plan?

Speaker 6 (48:10):
Anyway? Back to back to right hicicles.

Speaker 8 (48:13):
Back to trucks. Okay, okay, great selection of four trucks
down there. You can get behind the wheel of one
of them for as little as two ninety nine a month.
We've got them up to twelve thousand dollars worth of
savings and a great selection right now. We've even got
Raptors down there. Okay, everybody knows, you know that the
Raptor truck, you know, is just an absolutely awesome performance vehicle,

(48:36):
both on and off road. And we've got a great
selection of those down there right now. Great selection super
duties as well. Rangers. That's the truck that's often overlooked.
Do you know we even have ranger Raptors.

Speaker 6 (48:49):
I did not know that.

Speaker 8 (48:50):
Yeah, but can you talk about a cool mid sized
truck that has got some incredible performance. We've got those,
like I say, down there in stock right now. And
all you gotta do is you just log on to
a drivestrip dot com. You can click on over to
a strip forward. You can see, you know, clearly see
sale pricing on each and every one. You can go
into the express store where you can look at you know,

(49:13):
finance payments. You can look at least payments. You can
if you're a cash buyer, you can see what your
bottom line is going to be. If you've got to
trade in, you know, you can upload some information on
your trade. We can get your trade of praise for you. Uh.
And you can either arrange to pick your new vehicle
up at the dealership or we deliver it so you
can do all the paperwork online, all right, making it
easier and easier every day for you to save money.

Speaker 6 (49:35):
There you have it. Doesn't get any easier.

Speaker 8 (49:38):
It's not going to get any easier, okay. And we
got sunshine today and good warm weather.

Speaker 6 (49:44):
And little windy though it's going to be a little breezy.

Speaker 8 (49:47):
It's just always got to throw a jab.

Speaker 6 (49:49):
Well no, no, it's not a jab. And just just
be be prepared, that's all, okay?

Speaker 8 (49:53):
All right? Where I hat.

Speaker 5 (49:56):
With a strap, probably because I think the wind's gonna
get to forty miles an hour.

Speaker 6 (50:01):
A chin strap, all right?

Speaker 8 (50:03):
All right, all right, guys, I'll have fun.

Speaker 6 (50:05):
You too, So there you have it. Speaking of our brackets.

Speaker 4 (50:10):
Oh good, yeah, how about how about it?

Speaker 6 (50:12):
You're you're probably.

Speaker 4 (50:15):
Middle of the road. I'm hoping for a minimum that.

Speaker 5 (50:18):
Right now, where's my scores at here? So there's only
three of us in the celebrity category because Elgin and
none of our sponsors decided to fill out a form
except for the lovely Kevin Cook. So right now, Kevin
and I are tied with eighty six points and you
have seventy eight.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
Oh god.

Speaker 5 (50:35):
But the one thing about yours is you have all
four teams alive to get to the final four, which
is going to get you more points if they make
so and I have three of the four alive going
to the final four.

Speaker 4 (50:48):
Oh okay, So you and I are kind of neck
and neck.

Speaker 5 (50:51):
Yeah, yeah, I mean we're I Mean, here's the thing.
If Auburn wins it all, that's going to be our
buddy Kevin. That went because we each have somebody different.
He has Auburn, I have Duke. And you didn't pick
a winner out of the Florida Houston game. I didn't know,

(51:12):
So you'll have to do that. Oh, it's not going
to hurt anything, It doesn't change anything. You just have
to fill the final I think I met but Overall overall,
Wes is leading the listener's bracket with one hundred and
twelve points, followed by Jeff with one hundred and eight,
and then we have two people Ava and Robin with

(51:33):
one hundred and two and Brian with one hundred. So Brian, well,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I forgot one here. Mel has
one hundred and four. So yep, I'll tell you what
Wes good for you?

Speaker 6 (51:47):
Buddy?

Speaker 5 (51:47):
You picked fifteen out of the sixteen sweet sixteens. WHOA
he got fifteen out of sixteen.

Speaker 4 (51:53):
Correct, That's pretty impressive.

Speaker 6 (51:55):
It is very impressive.

Speaker 5 (51:58):
But he's got Clemson going to the final four, so
that's a that's he's not going to get any points
from there on out out of that side of the bracket.
So I mean he can get he can get the
tenant if he Kentucky wins. He gets that one and
then but he's still alive the rest of the way.
So our defending champion, no, no go. I'm just gonna

(52:18):
say bottom rung that. Eric, congratulations, you were in last
place with sixty six points. You will not be a
three time You will not three peat.

Speaker 4 (52:29):
It's always that third one that's tough. Yes, so is
that third one ask Kansas City. Speaking of sports, just
everybody saw, of course, boxing legend George Foreman passing away
over the weekend at seventy six years old. Of course,
I mean he's a legend, Joe Frasier, Muhammad Ali taking them.

Speaker 6 (52:52):
On when when heavyweight boxing.

Speaker 4 (52:54):
Was yes King, yes, yes, yeah.

Speaker 5 (52:57):
And and and parlayed his career into you know, being
a spokesperson, person, investment person, you know, just just all around.
Let mean, nobody said anything negative about him.

Speaker 4 (53:12):
Who didn't own a form and grill? Who you know
everybody had one of those?

Speaker 6 (53:17):
So I got one of my closet.

Speaker 4 (53:19):
Big loss, big loss over the weekend. All right, So
we're gonna do it now. One eight hundred sixty to
for eleven seventy. This is your first chance to win
today a family four pack to go see the Toughest
Monster Truck Tour coming in April to West Banco Arena.
One eight hundred sixty four eleven seventy is the phone number.

(53:41):
Let's do caller fourteen caller number fourteen one in hundred
six two four eleven seventy. You're listening to the bloom
Daddy Experience. Sam and Otis News Radio eleven seventy WWVA.

Speaker 2 (53:59):
Welcome back to the bloom Daddy Experience on eleven seventy
WWVA Pet Peeve time. Remember back way back when they
told you you need to learn how to speak Spanish,
need a second language so you can talk to people
here in the United States. How English is not going
to be the way you're going to be able to
meet and greet a large.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
Amount of the population.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
Well, guess what they were wrong, because I'm going to
tell you what language we need to learn, because it's
driven me crazy over the past two weeks.

Speaker 3 (54:29):
I think it was about two weeks ago.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
I told you about my battle with Expedia booking a
hotel room getting some money back because the rooms were flooded,
but the hotel couldn't give me the money back. I
had to go through Expedia. Phone call after phone call
after phone call to Expedia. I was hung up on
I was put on hold, and then when I got
to talk to somebody, it was some Indian.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
I can't understand them.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
I'd hang up, call back again, get another Indian, hang up,
call back again, hoping to finally land somebody who spoke English,
and I finally got somebody who spoke Indian that I
could somewhat comprehend well once again, Exfinity Nearly five hours
on the phone the other day trying to deal with

(55:13):
an Exfinity issue.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
Indian after Indian after Indian after Indian. Look got nothing
against Indians, love your food as a matter of fact,
But I can't understand you.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
I'm sorry, It's just the way it is. And when
I call for tech support, I need to speak to
somebody that I can understand, because I'm already stressed out.

Speaker 3 (55:37):
I'm already ticked off. I'm a ticking time bomb.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
If my phone isn't working, my computer isn't working in
this case, my Internet, my TV, I'm already stressed out.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
All I want to do is talk to a human being.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
And you know this out there listening that when you
first make that call, you're not speaking to a human
being for a solid probably fifteen twenty thirty minutes. It's
hit the touch tone, one for this, two for this,
three for this, four for this. Then you get transferred,
you're talking to AI or you're talking.

Speaker 3 (56:09):
To a recording.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
By the time you feel like you're finally breaking through,
like I've got this okay, twenty minutes in the bag.
I'm gonna get this problem solved, bam. And it's an
Indian And that sounds terrible. I know it does, but
it's the reality of the situation. I mean, is every

(56:32):
call center that we ever have to utilize located in Bangladesh?
Because if it is, we got serious problems. I can't
be the only one out there who feels this way.
I can't be the only one out there who's had
issues with this. I mean, it makes me get to
the point where if I've got an issue, I don't

(56:52):
even want to address it anymore. And maybe that's what
their goal is, make it so difficult on you and
me that we just give up.

Speaker 3 (57:01):
We say, you know what, that two three hundred four
hundred dollars not worth it, not worth going through the
mental anguish, the time, the effort that it's gonna take
to rectify the situation. Five hours now, It wasn't five
hours solid.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
It was over the course of the day because they
kept on saying, Okay, we're gonna take care of the problem.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
Should be good.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
Hang up, gotta call back, hang up, gotta call back,
one after another after another. I'm not gonna lie if
I have an issue, my next issue, and I make
a call and I actually speak to somebody who speaks English.
I'm probably gonna pass out because I'm gonna I'm gonna
pass out from shock because it never happens anymore. And

(57:48):
you can tell here on a Monday morning, I am
still stressed out about this issue, and sam Otis, I
can't be alone on this one.

Speaker 4 (57:59):
All right, You're not on a loan, Otis, I'm going
to let you take this first.

Speaker 6 (58:05):
Well.

Speaker 5 (58:05):
I got a text message from a friend of mine
who says that AEP American Electric Power has outsourced all
of their IT support to India, and not only do
the customers have to deal with it, but the employees
have to deal with them every day.

Speaker 6 (58:18):
As part of their job.

Speaker 4 (58:20):
Sounds familiar, and he.

Speaker 5 (58:22):
Says, if bloom Daddy thinks his experience as bad as
a consumer, imagine being an employee that has to deal
with it just to do your job. He says, in
the bigger picture, India has become the world leader in tech.
Not one hundred percent sure why, and he says, probably
driven by the lower costs.

Speaker 6 (58:37):
If I were to guess, that's what he says.

Speaker 5 (58:39):
So there you have I mean, not only do you
have them outsourcing the customer service, you have them outsourcing
the employee service. And I can't imagine the frustration. You know,
I'm lucky with both of my jobs, this one and
my other one that when I call, if I call somebody,
I'm getting somebody here.

Speaker 6 (59:01):
Because when if we have.

Speaker 5 (59:04):
An issue with iHeart, I either call the engineer, I
call the the eight hundred, and normally they're they're they're
able to get on the computer and see what we
have if there's an issue, if it's the tower, if
it's what, you know, whatever it is. But they're here
in the US. And of course my state job, you know,
you call Charleston.

Speaker 3 (59:23):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 5 (59:24):
It's I mean, the odds are we're not outsourcing anything.
So I can't imagine anymore. Like I try not to
even deal with people on the phone. I just go
online and do what I have to do. I don't,
I mean, I don't call customer service if if something,

(59:46):
if something goes wrong, I either just accept it or
you know, it's almost it's almost, you know, And I'll
be honestly, you said, oh, you know, you don't want
to be rude.

Speaker 4 (59:57):
I am rude, Well, that would I have gotten to
that point where I am route.

Speaker 5 (01:00:02):
I've said that the person, you know, I've said to him,
I said, where are you, and they'll tell me, you know, well,
I'm in India or I'm here, I'm here. And I said, well,
then how can you help me when I'm you know,
however many ten, twenty thousand miles forty thousand miles away, you.

Speaker 6 (01:00:18):
Have no idea?

Speaker 5 (01:00:19):
And I said, I don't even understand what you're saying.
So until you can give me somebody that speaks my language,
I'm not talking to him well.

Speaker 4 (01:00:27):
And usually their name is like Bobby Smith, and then
they get on the phone and you're like, yeah, your
name is not Bobby. Yeah, uh, but yeah. It's incredibly infuriating.
In the situation that I had last week made me
so mad and so frustrated. I was in tears because again,

(01:00:49):
something that should have taken me roughly ten minutes max
took me over and hour an hour. And I was
so mad and so frustrated that I was in tears.
And that's not the way your experience should be with
customer service. And unfortunately for this company, they sent me

(01:01:14):
a survey yesterday afternoon, and there were three questions and
you were it was agreed, disagree, or not applicable I
think was the third choice. And then they left a
comment section and and it was if you have additional
comments that you would like us to know, please fill
in the comment section below. And I started off, Boy,

(01:01:36):
do I have additional comments for you? And then I
went on, so basically, I got the survey at a
very bad point in time yesterday evening, and my name's
attached to it, so we'll see how that turns out.
But yeah, the entire the entire situation of calling for
assistance is frustrating. Isn't even the appropriate term. But again,

(01:02:06):
as I said earlier, there's calling a one hundred number,
and now there's the whole chat situation. And we've gotten
to a point in this country that not only are
jobs like this being filtered out to other countries, but
now it's being filtered out to machines and chats. And

(01:02:30):
that makes it even harder because you're sitting there on
your phone and you're filling out a chat and no
no no and no no no, no no, and then
you sit there in the dots flash and the dots
flash and the dods flash, and then you realize you're
not even chatting with a human at that point, you're
chatting with an AI. And then, because what you typed

(01:02:51):
out when they ask you what your issue is doesn't
fall into the four to five to maybe six categories
of options, the chat bought doesn't know how to help
you because you don't know how to explain what your
problem is. So then you end up in what I
like to call the black Abyss of circles. With the chat,

(01:03:16):
you go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth,
and I just type human human human, human, human, and
that doesn't work either, FYI. So yeah, it's the black
Abyss of foreign language, no answers, and god forbid you
speak to a human, let alone a human with English.

(01:03:38):
I don't know, I don't know. It's awful, it's awful.
It's eight forty five. Coming up, we're gonna have your
last chance of the day to win a family four
pack to see the Monster Trucks. So that's coming up.
And then also I want to tackle wrestling and not
WWE and not the Hulster. It's eight forty six. The
bloom Daddy Experience salmon otis News Radio eleven seventy WWVA

(01:04:10):
Welcome back. It's eight fifty The Blindaddy Experience Samon notis.
Oh my gosh, human cannonball stunt goes horribly wrong. I'm
what first time seeing that clip this morning? Holy cow,
that's not good. That's not good. Sorry about that. I
wanted to let you know we're gonna have your last
chance of the morning to win family four pack to

(01:04:31):
the Toughest Monster Truck Tour here coming up shortly. But
I wanted to mention now, I am not a traditional
wrestling person. I don't understand all of the calls and
how it all works. But if you did not see
this weekend, I understand. Uh it's been a big it's

(01:04:54):
a basketball season. I get it. It's March. But the
NCAA Championships in wrestling is going on now, otis did
you see this clip of the Oklahoma State man that won,
uh just completely. It was a David versus Goliath match.
He never did. He defeated a gentleman, a young man

(01:05:15):
who is the He was an Olympic gold medalist, two
time national champion. Nobody gave him a chance to win. No,
I guess you know, Okay, are.

Speaker 6 (01:05:27):
You sure that was the NCAA's Yeah, okay, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:05:30):
Nc Double A Championship again. He defeated Gable Stevenson, who,
as I said, Olympic gold medalist, two time national champion.
The young man that won is Wyatt Hendrickson. Now I'll
post the video out on social media. And it was
such a great video. Here is this this this I

(01:05:57):
don't know. I want to call him a young man,
I guess young man. He looks like a a grown adult.
He's got the whole mustache and the whole thing kicking.
But he was the underdog and the crowd was so
behind him and so excited when he won. Now basically
what happened, And I got this on a website FI

(01:06:18):
because as I said, I'm not real up on the
rules of wrestling. But with thirty seconds left in the match,
he took down the defending champion, and when he took
him down the way he did, it earned him three points,
which put him one point up above Gable, who was

(01:06:39):
the defending and he held him with the last fourteen
seconds to go, so he beat him by a point.
And as I said, it was basically a complete underdog story.
He won. He took him down. But the other part
of this is he's also a second lieutenant in the
US Air Force and he draped himself in the American
flag and President Trump was on site to watch the

(01:07:03):
championships and he ran over President Trump. He saluted him,
did the whole Armed Forces thing. President Trump gave him
a hug. I mean, it was just and the crowd
erupted when Trump showed up. There was just even before
he won this match. When President Trump walked in, there

(01:07:23):
was such a feeling of American pride and excitement. They
were happy to see their president and then to have
this young man take down a two time defending champion
who was also an Olympic gold medalist. And not that
this guy was a bad guy, That's not what I'm saying,

(01:07:44):
But it was just this it was such a sports moment.

Speaker 5 (01:07:48):
Well, if you're going to talk about college wrestling, West
Virginia University's Peton Hall, who graduated from Oaglenn finished third
in his weight class one sixty five and he also
has a video on Facebook of shaking hands with President
Trump that I just shared to you via Facebook.

Speaker 4 (01:08:08):
Oh he was wearing the Maga hat, right, So yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:08:12):
Yeah, so but he goes over and shakes President Trump's hand,
gets a picture with him, and so on. So you know,
the story that you have is great butt a local
guy finished third in the NCAA's great accomplishment, and the
fact that he's from WU is a good thing too. Oh.

Speaker 4 (01:08:27):
Absolutely, Listen, wrestling doesn't get coverage except for like the Olympics.
Really it really doesn't.

Speaker 6 (01:08:35):
The NCAA's get a good a little.

Speaker 4 (01:08:37):
Bit, but it's not going to be your top tier sports,
I guess, is what I'm getting at.

Speaker 6 (01:08:40):
Well, they get overshadowed by basketball because basketball makes.

Speaker 4 (01:08:43):
More money they but does guys work so hard, so
hard to hit weight and all that kind of stuff.
It's absolutely I love.

Speaker 5 (01:08:52):
I love high school and college wrestling. I mean I
love watching it. I mean I like watching basketball more.
But I mean I was watching on Thursday night, I
was watching Peyton Hall and then I was watching We
had the basketball on like two TVs and wrestling on one.
So yeah, I mean, I mean, it's a it's a
it's a fantastic I I wrestled for one year, like

(01:09:14):
when I was in the fifth or sixth grade, and
I was terrible.

Speaker 6 (01:09:16):
I sucked.

Speaker 5 (01:09:17):
I mean, I'm not gonna lie I sucked. I just
I just didn't get it, you know, you know what
I mean. I was a basketball guy and it just
wasn't my thing. But but I tried it and I
wasn't then. Like I said, I wasn't good. I didn't
get it. And it is what it is.

Speaker 4 (01:09:37):
Yeah, it's just every so often certain things happen in
sports where, for lack of a better turn than the
stars aligne and there's just a moment that happens. And
this was the moment for for this young man Hendrickson,
Like I said, second lieutenant in the US Air Force,
in front of the sitting president. He gets to take

(01:09:58):
down a two time defending champion, national champion. So it
was a great, great moment for him. Another great moment
over the weekend the Paul Skeens baseball card that was
bought in LA in a pack with the young man.
How old was he believe he's eleven eleven. He sells

(01:10:19):
it over the weekend for over a million dollars.

Speaker 6 (01:10:21):
There's your college point eleven million.

Speaker 4 (01:10:24):
There's your education, young man.

Speaker 5 (01:10:26):
Good for you at least if he invests it. Oh,
he his education could be his first house so you
figure that the auction company took a percentage of that,
probably twenty percent, so still get close to a million bucks.

Speaker 4 (01:10:40):
Oh yeah, that's still a pretty.

Speaker 6 (01:10:41):
And then you got to pay taxes on it.

Speaker 5 (01:10:44):
Okay, So I mean, yeah, it's it's good that it
went for one point you know, one point one one
mill Yeah, but you know you're not going to get
all of it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:53):
Yeah, that's right, slash here, slash there. And then Uncle
Sam wants his they're going.

Speaker 5 (01:10:57):
To take their thirty percent, the auction company's going to
take their twenty.

Speaker 6 (01:11:00):
So a.

Speaker 4 (01:11:03):
Man, all right, fine, fine, yeah, I.

Speaker 5 (01:11:05):
Mean but still, I mean, let's say you walk away
with seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars and you invest
that by the time that kid's eighteen, if you invest
it properly, I mean, that's gonna be it's gonna be
well over a million dollars.

Speaker 6 (01:11:18):
Again.

Speaker 4 (01:11:18):
Yeah, oh god, when you were eleven years old, what
would you have wanted everything if you came into something
like that. And then one of the worst cup secrets
in the NFL Free agent, of course, Aaron Rodgers met
with the Steelers on Friday. They say it was about
a six hour sit down we'll see what happens with that.

(01:11:39):
They say that that's where he's going, but we'll see.
Six hours is a pretty long conversation. Gosh, all right,
let's do it. We have another four pack of tickets
to see the Toughest Monster Trucks. But before we get
to that, and I give you a number. Wanted to
remind everybody we have a new weekly giveaway that we're doing,

(01:12:02):
chance to win thanks to our friends at kirks Now.
I post it over the weekend. The first picture and
this is basically, guests, you have to guess the gallon.
There's three different flavors. You have to get all three right.
If you get them all three right, you email Sam
at iHeartMedia your three choices of what you think those are.

(01:12:23):
Then we put you into a drawing with everybody else
that gets all three right, and then we'll pick the
winner from there. So I'll repost it here after the show.
All right, So one, eight hundred sixty two four eleven
seventy let's do caller number twenty. Let's go for a
big one. Caller number twenty one eight hundred six four
eleven seventy four pack to see the Toughest Monster trucks. Everybody,

(01:12:45):
have a wonderful Monday. We're done. We'll be back with
you till tomorrow. Talk to you then,