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Can a vacation change your life? Join us as Steve recounts his breathtaking trip to Bar Harbor, Maine, a journey filled with stunning landscapes, hearty local cuisine, and thrilling adventures. From the awe-inspiring views atop Cadillac Mountain to the invigorating hikes like the Precipice Trail, Steve’s tales capture the essence of this beautiful destination. He also shares mouth-watering details about local culinary delights such as fresh lobster and blueberry pancakes, while offering practical tips for future travelers. Whether you're planning your next getaway or just love hearing travel stories, this segment has something for every wanderlust-filled heart.
Shifting gears, we dive into the latest in sports, technology, and food industry news. We offer you an insider’s look at the playoff runs of the Knicks and Rangers, the emerging potential of the Timberwolves and Mavericks, and the challenges ahead for the Celtics. Our discussion then transitions to the fascinating world of AI chatbots and their growing influence on social media. In a surprising turn, we dissect the financial blunders leading to Red Lobster's bankruptcy. Finally, we explore the heated rivalry between PGA and LIV Golf, along with a deep dive into the history of the Masters and Augusta National Golf Club. Don’t miss our insights into Westchester County's restaurant scene, with promises of future reviews of the newest hotspots.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome back to our podcast.
This is Steve again.
George is still working on hisproject.
Hopefully next week or the weekafter we'll have him back and
I'm sure we're going to hear allabout it.
So it's been about a week or so.
I took a five or six dayvacation in Maine.
It was an amazing place.
(00:21):
Maine is an amazing place andif you've never been there, you
really need to go.
It's different than anywhereyou've ever been.
I'm lucky enough to have afamily member.
My sister and my brother-in-lawlive in Bar Harbor, so I was up
there visiting them for mybirthday.
I was about five days up there.
(00:42):
Bar Harbor is a great place,great town, great food.
I ate lobster until it wascoming out of my ears breakfast,
lunch and dinner.
They also live practicallyinside Arcadia National Park, so
it is a visually beautiful aswell as socially rewarding place
(01:03):
To walk along the ocean.
There is an amazing view therocks, the colors, the green
trees set on the backdrop of theAtlantic Ocean, which seems to
have such a different view orcolor than the ocean here in New
York.
(01:23):
It has this green tinge to itand it really is a beautiful
place.
You could just drive around inyour car.
If it's a beautiful day, drivearound your car.
You drive along the ocean, yougo into the park in Arcadia
National Park.
If you get tickets, you have togo up to Cadillac Mountain.
It gives you an amazing view.
Now there's not a lot to do atCadillac Mountain.
(01:46):
You have to get a reservation.
The daytime reservations arefairly easy.
The nighttime reservations likefor sundown or sunup, which is
a beautiful sight, and I've doneit many times it's a little
more harder to get.
You have to do it ahead of timeand on Memorial Day weekend
it's a little trickier.
We went up there in the daytime.
(02:07):
It's beautiful to sit there,you take some pictures, you hang
out for a few minutes and thenyou leave pretty much.
But if you're a hiker, there'ssome amazing trails with amazing
views.
If you're a real hiker and youdon't mind heights and you don't
mind hanging onto the side of acliff, the precipice trail is
(02:30):
an amazing thing to see.
But you're climbing hand overhand up rebar steps and the way
up can be challenging and so canthe way down, because you're
constantly looking for a placeto place your feet.
But if you're scared of heightsI wouldn't go anywhere near it,
but the harbor's an amazingplace Great lobster, great
(02:51):
breakfast.
You could just go downtown andsit on a bench and just admire
how everything looks, watch theships come in and out.
They have cruise ships there,so you'll see these huge cruise
ships and they have to toweverybody back in on a smaller
boat.
But you see these huge cruiseships just sitting in the middle
(03:15):
of the bay I think it's calledFrenchman's Bay in the center of
Bar Harbor and they're justsitting against the beauty of
the rocks and the water.
And they're just sittingagainst the beauty of the rocks
and the water.
It's quite a sight.
There's so many great breakfastplaces there.
We ate the Great Main Breakfast, which is a great place.
They have great jellies andhomemade bread.
(03:36):
Also, jordan's is a great placeto eat there in Bar Harbor.
They're known for theirblueberry pancakes and their
blueberry syrup.
Of course, if you want realblueberry syrup or real Maine
syrup, you have to pay extra forit.
They just give you the bottledstuff, probably the same stuff
we have in our refrigerators allover the place.
(03:58):
Also, if you've never beenbefore, it's also great to go to
Jordan Pond.
There's an inn there.
They're known for theirpopovers.
Frankly, I don't think theirpopovers are as good as mine,
but they're known for theirpopovers.
The food's just okay.
The popovers are great.
With a little homemadeblueberry jam on, they're
fantastic.
It's something you should atleast do once and take the trail
(04:20):
.
There's a beautiful trail thatgoes around Jordan Pond.
It's a great view the entiretime.
It's not that bad of a hike.
I don't remember how long it isanymore, but it is a great
place to go and there's alwaystrips to some of the local towns
.
Also great shopping walkingaround have lunch when I was
(04:43):
there.
It's just a great view.
If you go in I don't know ifit's Northwest Harbor, northeast
Harbor, north there, I cannever remember which one's which
.
If you go in there, you go onSargent's Ave or Sargent's Road.
It goes right along one of thelittle teeny coves that come in
(05:03):
from the ocean and it's just abeautiful sight.
I recommend to anyone who'slooking for a place to go for a
few days.
I would definitely recommendBar Harbor Me.
I live in New York so it's alittle bit of a truck.
It's seven and a half hourswithout stopping.
We had some wickedthunderstorms on the way up that
stretched for about an hour anda half.
(05:24):
I drove in pure you can't seeyour hand in front of your face
pouring rain on the main turpike.
It was a little bit of achallenge, but very enjoyable
time.
It's really, really a greatplace to go.
Please, please, back to it.
I also wanted to mention one ofthe new features we have at the
(05:44):
Better Life with George andSteve is you're able to text us
now.
So when you listen to ourpodcast, you will see when you
log on to our podcast or when itcomes up on your app, whether
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However you listen to it,you'll see, above the
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(06:05):
And what that is?
A fan it's.
They call it fan mail.
It's a certain kind of softwarethat you're able to click and
send us a message.
So we'd love to hear from you.
We'd love you to start using it.
We'd like to hear what you wantto hear from us.
What you don't want to hearfrom us is probably me talking
(06:25):
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Please let us know what youthink.
Give us comments, leave anyinfo you want If you want us to
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At the top of the descriptionit'll say click here, and that
(06:48):
is a way to message us directly.
Please, we'd like to hear morefrom you.
Just to get back to our regularlast program, I spoke a lot
about the Knicks and the Rangersand obviously we're a little
bit later in dates.
The Knicks have ended their runfor the playoffs.
It was a great time for me towatch the knicks with so much
(07:11):
heart and so much fight, andthat's exactly the way they went
down.
Unfortunately, they ran out ofplayers.
People would were so manypeople were injured coming into
this, where they really didn'thave anybody off the bench, and
then their major players gothurt even more.
It's easy to criticize themthat they weren't deep enough or
(07:31):
whatever you think, but I thinkthey're a team of the future.
I think there's a lot of teamsout there that are teams of the
future.
Certainly, both theTimberwolves and the Dallas
Mavericks are teams that are onthe up and coming.
So when the Celtics get to theplayoffs, they're going to have
(07:54):
their hands full, which eitherteam ends up winning that battle
.
Of course, as I talked a lotabout Hart and the New York
teams, you can't say the wordheart in New York teams and not
bring up the New York Rangers.
The New York Rangers have beenfighting and fighting in hockey
like I can't believe.
They will not give up, evenwhen they're down, which is the
(08:18):
other night they were down.
I want to say three goals theycame back, even when a team
scored another goal.
Three goals they came back.
Even when a team scored anothergoal, they came back.
And it was the first Ranger inhistory to score three goals for
a hat-trick in the final periodof a playoff game.
(08:39):
It was quite an amazing feat.
The other two players to do itwere Gretzky and Messier.
How's that for good company?
So the Rangers are playingagain tonight.
They're up two to one in theplayoffs.
They've had two overtimevictories back to back.
They're fighters, they're atough team and I have to say the
(09:03):
Florida Panthers are a prettytough team too.
If I was totally unbiased, Iwould say the Panthers are a
better team as far as skill andfight.
But I don't think the Rangersare going to give up.
I just don't think they'regoing to their will is going to
carry them through to the finals, and whatever happens in the
finals I know that's an ongoingprocess of course to see the
(09:26):
Edmonton prevail in that and theEdmonton fighting the Rangers
in the finals would be quite afeat too.
Another thing I spent a lot oftime looking at while I was on
vacation is these AI chat bots.
Have you seen them on socialmedia?
Ai chat bots?
They're these guys taking overour known world.
(09:47):
When we cannot tell any longerand if you're not aware of this,
you should be aware of it isthat AI has become so
sophisticated that we don't evenrealize that they're not humans
anymore.
I use it in the podcast when,obviously not for speaking, but
the descriptions are helped,crafted by AI.
(10:11):
It comes with the service ofposting it.
I would say I write almost50-50 as much as the AI bot puts
out in the description.
They do an amazing job.
That makes me scratch my head.
Sometimes they talk aboutthings in the description more
(10:31):
descriptive than I would beabout it.
Of course, I spoke it, so thatmay have something to do with it
, but these bots are out thereand sometimes you're having
communications with them, ifyou're chatting with something
you saw online, whether it'sFacebook, whether it's Instagram
and you don't even realize thatyou're chatting with a computer
(10:54):
program.
So I tell you all it's notsomething that I particularly
care for, but I did want tomention it because I wanted you
all to be aware that this isgoing on out there and for us
that are not from the AIgeneration, you should be aware
that sometimes you're not reallytalking to a real person.
(11:16):
We know that those chatbotsexist, with some of the
chatboxes online when you'relooking for help, whether it's a
computer program, whether it'sa service, whether it's your
cable service, whether it's yourcellular service there's all
kinds of chat bots to have outthere, but usually you can tell
(11:37):
they're not as sophisticated,but it's a new world and they're
becoming more sophisticatedEvery single.
So that was one of the thingsin the news I saw.
Another thing that brought myattention was I read that Red
Lobster filed for bankruptcy.
Red Lobster filed forbankruptcy, and the cause of
(12:00):
their bankruptcy, I find, justmakes me want to scratch my head
.
They're either the stupidestgroup in the world or the best
liars I've ever heard, and thatis.
We've all seen thosecommercials.
All you eat shrimp.
(12:20):
All you can eat shrimp at RedLobster.
All you can eat shrimp at RedLobster All you can eat shrimp
at Red Lobster.
You see that commercial overand over again.
So the reason for theirmalfeasance, as you may say, the
reason they haven't been ableto keep the money in their
company, is because they wentbankrupt.
(12:42):
From All you Can Eat, it costthem more to run the program
than it did they got in revenue.
How could that be?
Are they not in the fishbusiness?
Do they think we're fools tobelieve that?
That a company whose entirerestaurant served seafood?
(13:05):
They've served seafood as farback as I can remember.
I remember taking my girlfriendin high school there and you're
going to tell me that theyweren't aware that the shrimp
was going to cost more than theymake.
They weren't aware that peoplewould come in and eat plates and
(13:27):
plates of shrimp.
I don't know.
I don't even know what tobelieve anymore.
It's hard to know what thetruth is.
When you read the paper andthis is something I touched on
in the last episode it's hard toknow who's telling you the
(13:49):
truth.
I don't even know what to keepsaying about that.
Everywhere I look, I see it andthey say it with a straight
face.
Yes, we're in the seafoodbusiness for decades and we
didn't realize the shrimp costmore than we were collecting and
(14:10):
we continued to do it.
It's not like they did it forthree months and it put them out
of business.
They've been doing this all-youall you can eat shrimp for a
long time.
Now, all of a sudden, theyrealize that they're losing
money and it put them out ofbusiness.
I don't know.
Listen.
(14:31):
We all know the restaurantbusiness is challenged.
It's always been challenged.
You had to know how to do it.
It looks easy, it's not.
Food's expensive, and moreexpensive than ever, and ever
since COVID it has becomeincredibly difficult to run a
restaurant.
Food costs are through the roofand, frankly, people don't want
(14:53):
to pay it when they go to arestaurant.
They don't want to pay theincrease in food costs.
They just don't.
They'll spend it in thesupermarket, but they won't
spend it in your restaurantunless it's exceptional, and by
exceptional I don't mean fancy.
Exceptional means good.
Exceptional means you're doingsomething different than others
(15:14):
do or you're giving them aquality.
I mean, look at, barbecue hasgone through the roof.
And, as I don't know if Imentioned it in the last set, I
did a fundraiser barbecue.
I have a commercial smoker, ifyou listen to this program all
the time, and we did a barbecueboil a seafood boil, which I
(15:37):
didn't have any part of, and Idid ribs, pork belly and chicken
wings.
So I smoked, I want to say, 15full racks of ribs, baby back,
and about 30 pounds of porkbellies, along with 20 or so
(16:00):
pounds of chicken wings, whichliterally took me two and a half
days to do Preparation makingthe rub, making the homemade
sauce, prepping all the meatwith the rub because I dry brine
it overnight and then cookingthe ribs.
The ribs take I don't know,with so many ribs it takes a
little longer.
Wrapping them, cooking themTakes about six hours, maybe
(16:23):
seven from the beginning.
Starting the fire, the porkbellies took about four hours
and the wings took about one anda half to two, let's say two,
and the smoker's only so big.
But we fed 55 people.
I want to say I told them 40.
(16:43):
They said 60.
And that's the way it goes whenyou cook for people.
I have to say I was prettyphysically exhausted afterwards
but everything worked out well.
The club that I cooked for madesome money.
It was a beautiful day.
People enjoyed themselves.
The seafood boil, which wascrawfish, was fantastic.
(17:05):
I'm not really a crawfish guy.
I know I'm a lobster guy, butnot a crawfish guy.
I don't like all the work.
That's really why I don't eatcrab, because I really don't
like all the work to it.
But it was good.
I ate the corn and the potatoes.
I ate a couple of crawfish.
They were great, really a greattime had by all.
(17:26):
So for those of you that know mein the real world not in this
podcast world, I used to workretail.
I put myself through collegeworking retail and I used to
work for Nordstrom's.
I put myself through collegeworking retail and I used to
work for Nordstrom's.
I started there as a shoesalesman and manager and through
the ranks over there and almostchose to work towards being a
buyer instead of going to lawschool, which I ended up doing.
(17:49):
But I kept my focus, thankfully, and went for my law degree and
I read in the paper BruceNordstrom had passed away and
he's one of the elder statesmenof that company.
I want to say his father andhis uncle started the company
and it was an amazing company towork for, I have to say there
(18:12):
wasn't a day that I can recallthat the elder statesmen the
original in my column, myoriginal Nordstroms didn't have
their hand in everything thatwas going on there.
They were leaders in every senseof the word when they came to
the store and there were manystores I worked mostly in
(18:34):
Paramus, new Jersey, but also inShort Hills and also in
Westchester a little bit.
When they came to the storethey spoke to everybody.
They walked around alone.
They weren't led by the hand byeverybody and shown what the
people on the ground wanted tosee.
They went and walked aroundthemselves.
They would come into the stockroom and speak to the stock boys
(18:58):
, stock men, stock girls,whatever.
They would speak to thesalespeople.
They would find out from thepeople on the ground what they
needed, what was important tothem, what made their jobs
interesting, what would maketheir jobs better.
They were hands-on.
(19:22):
Hands-on is something lost intoday's world.
I think In the world of this AIchatbots.
They knew everybody's name.
They would come and speak to meall the time and they always
knew my name and they always putthe customer first.
I remember and I don't remember.
I want to say it was JohnNordstrom's one of the originals
(19:43):
, one of the customer servicepeople.
A person had brought in a $10gift certificate that expired
and they didn't want to give himcredit for the $10 because it
had expired many years ago.
It was really old and JohnNordstrom's got wind of it and
he called that person up.
(20:04):
He goes, listen, you give himcredit.
He came and had a store meetingand he says listen, somebody
put $10 in and there's this oldgift certificate.
He goes.
What's the difference?
He goes.
If I thought a $10 giftcertificate we're going to bring
new customers to our store, hegoes.
If I thought a $10 giftcertificate we're going to bring
new customers to our store, hegoes, I'd be having people fly
up and down the East Coastthrowing them out a helicopter.
(20:26):
The cost of acquiring newcustomers is expensive.
Advertisements discount.
If $10 brings a new customerinto your store and that makes
them a customer, it's well worththe acquisition.
But that's the way they lookedat everything.
No matter what you brought in,you got your money back If it
wasn't right.
(20:46):
The customer was always right.
And I'll be honest with you.
Historically I don't know whatto say about the Northeast.
Their customers respected that.
Their customers only broughtback things, in most cases, that
were bad, and the way they rantheir company was few and far
between things that were bad.
(21:07):
I want to know the passing of agiant, one of the giant
families of the retail industry,the Nordstroms and the passing
of Bruce Nordstrom.
His integrity and devotion tohis craft and his business will
certainly be missed by all of us.
And just to jump back to sportsfor a minute, if any of you
watched the PGA a couple weeksago, really, the winner gets
(21:29):
arrested two days before forrunning through a police
roadblock.
Shifley is his name.
He thought his start time wasmore important than the person
that had been killed on a streetcorner there in a car accident
and had the road closed.
For those of you who don't know, they had the roads closed.
He was on the way and it wasn'teven his tee time was yet.
(21:50):
He was going there to hit ballsbefore his tee time and he's
the number one player ranked inthe world and, yes, he's a great
player.
But there had been an accidentand a person was killed and they
had the whole street blockedoff on the way to the golf
course in Kentucky.
Okay, so he ends up in aconfrontation to the police
officer tries to go around theroadblock.
(22:10):
I don't know the whole story inevery detail, but he ends up
getting arrested and the dayhe's going to play there's
pictures everywhere in Americaof him in an orange jumpsuit.
He, of of course, ends upgetting released, everybody
intervenes and but certainly anot good look.
Certainly not a good look forthe pga which has been running
(22:35):
their problems of good looksbetween them and Liv, which is,
for those of you who don't know,a Saudi-based group, started
their own golf association andbasically bought up a lot of the
major players for ridiculousamounts of money Certainly
(22:56):
life-changing money even forgolfers, when someone pays you
$100 million just to come playgolf.
So a lot of the great golfers,the competitive golfers, have
gone over to live.
Then, when the PGA realizedtheir mistake with all this,
they tried to merge themtogether, but I don't think that
really ever happened.
(23:16):
Now the live golfers come overand play just in the majors.
They tried to not let them playin the majors but at the end
result they ended up playing inthe majors and they are
competitive.
So these live golf events, wedon't even see them.
They're on somewhere.
(23:36):
I don't have any idea.
I've never watched them and Ilove to watch golf.
I watch it every weekend,somewhat.
The majors I watch completely.
The masters I start watching onThursday.
I have it out of my officewhile I work, it's on where I go
somewhere and watch it later inthe day and out of the office
earlier than I would normally.
(23:57):
The masters, to me, is one ofthe pinnacle sporting events,
along with the Kentucky Derby.
Saratoga Racing is fantasticWorld Series.
But even more than that, evenmore than the World Series, it's
an amazing blast from the pastand, for those of you who don't
know, the Masters was started bya famous golfer, probably the
(24:20):
greatest golfer ever, as somepeople think.
Even though there's argumentstoday that tiger's better, jack
nicholas is better, bobby jonesis the father of them all.
He was the first person to winwhat's called the grand slam and
people do the lifetime grandslam, which they won every one
(24:43):
of the four events, which is thePGA, the US Open, the British
Open and the Masters.
Years ago there wasn't aMasters, it was an amateur
championship.
So those were the four and towin the British Open was
impossible for american for along time, but american started
(25:06):
to do it sporadically beforebobby jones won the grand slam
event when he was I want to sayit was the 1930s and he was
probably in his 30s at the time.
He was a great golfer, bobbyJones, and he bought the
property to build Augusta, whichused to be a nursery, a farm
(25:28):
for flowering plants and trees,and he carved this course out of
the middle of this land andbuilt one of the great courses
of America.
Of course nobody could playthere because it's a private
club.
It's ridiculously private, notlike the private clubs that we
see around in our neighborhoodsthat we can't get into either.
(25:51):
But this club's important.
The richest men in the countrycan't get into it.
It's all by, I believe,invitation and it's invitation
by committee.
For years they didn't have any,obviously, minorities.
They do now.
They didn't have any women,they do now.
And if you watch the Mastersthis time, you've seen that
(26:14):
Condoleezza Rice, who's theformer head of the NSA and other
things for the government under, I believe, bush Both Bushes, I
think, was in theiradministration is a prominent
member of the course.
Now it goes Eisenhower was afamous player, was a famous
golfer, general Eisenhower, andafter he retired from the
(26:38):
military in the 1950s, the storygoes that there's an Eisenhower
tree and there's an Eisenhowercabin.
I'm guessing he used to stay inthe cabin when he visited the
course back in the day, becausethere are some cabins around.
They're not really placespeople stay now but there was a
tree that he used to hit everytime he played and he begged.
(27:00):
He asked them to remove it.
They told him no, that's howdifficult they are.
Even when he was president ofthe United States.
He asked them to remove it andthey said no.
So apparently he was nevergoing to run for president.
All the bigwigs brought him inand convinced him on that course
of running for president andthat's how his presidential
(27:22):
campaign and ultimately hispresidency started out.
Usually at the end of thesession, I like to do a
restaurant review Because I'vebeen away.
All the restaurants I ate atwere in Maine or somewhere else.
I would like to mention andit's been prominently in the
local papers and things there'sso many restaurants in West
(27:45):
District County that have beenclosing.
The newest one on the list isTown Dock, which is in Rye, and
it's been there, I want to say,almost 30 years.
It's a very casual restaurant.
They have the normal thingsburgers but they also have had
fish.
It's been a very local place togo the Town Dock Tavern and I
(28:13):
have to say I'm a littlesurprised.
But that just underlines what Isaid before the difficulty it
is to run restaurants today thatit's really changed.
I don't think the profits arethere, I think it's difficult.
There's a lot of otherrestaurants have been closing
the Archie Grand and WhitePlains, epstein's and Yonkers.
There's so many restaurantsthat have been closed but
(28:35):
there's some new ones opening up.
I'm hoping to do reviews of somenew restaurants.
I definitely want to go toSaigon Table.
I love Vietnamese food and I'mlooking forward that's opened
recently in Rye.
I do love to go for Pho atSaigonese, which is in Hartsdale
on Central Avenue, and a newsteakhouse in Eastchester opened
(28:59):
up Peter's Steakhouse, which issupposedly opening up in the
same spot as the old meat marketwas there on East Post Road.
I don't know, but I'm lookingforward to try their steak.
It's supposedly being run byvery experienced steak people,
for lack of a better explanation.
(29:19):
So we'll have more reviews inthe future.
Hopefully George will be backnext week.
Please, I ask you, go on andsend messages to us.
Send us a message.
Click on that new link on everydescription of every podcast we
do and send us a message.
Hopefully next week we'll beback with the full crew, with a
(29:40):
full agenda, hearing abouttrials and tribulations of
George's new project.
Hopefully we'll have somerestaurant reviews.
Until then, thank you forlistening.
We both appreciate it immensely.
Any questions, please click usand let us know.
(30:00):
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Thank you all for listening.
Talk to you soon.
Hello everyone and welcome back to our podcast.
This is Steve again.
George is still working on hisproject.
Hopefully next week or the weekafter we'll have him back and
I'm sure we're going to hear allabout it.
So it's been about a week or so.
I took a five or six dayvacation in Maine.
It was an amazing place.
(00:21):
Maine is an amazing place andif you've never been there, you
really need to go.
It's different than anywhereyou've ever been.
I'm lucky enough to have afamily member.
My sister and my brother-in-lawlive in Bar Harbor, so I was up
there visiting them for mybirthday.
I was about five days up there.
(00:42):
Bar Harbor is a great place,great town, great food.
I ate lobster until it wascoming out of my ears breakfast,
lunch and dinner.
They also live practicallyinside Arcadia National Park, so
it is a visually beautiful aswell as socially rewarding place
(01:03):
To walk along the ocean.
There is an amazing view therocks, the colors, the green
trees set on the backdrop of theAtlantic Ocean, which seems to
have such a different view orcolor than the ocean here in New
York.
(01:23):
It has this green tinge to itand it really is a beautiful
place.
You could just drive around inyour car.
If it's a beautiful day, drivearound your car.
You drive along the ocean, yougo into the park in Arcadia
National Park.
If you get tickets, you have togo up to Cadillac Mountain.
It gives you an amazing view.
Now there's not a lot to do atCadillac Mountain.
(01:46):
You have to get a reservation.
The daytime reservations arefairly easy.
The nighttime reservations likefor sundown or sunup, which is
a beautiful sight, and I've doneit many times it's a little
more harder to get.
You have to do it ahead of timeand on Memorial Day weekend
it's a little trickier.
We went up there in the daytime.
(02:07):
It's beautiful to sit there,you take some pictures, you hang
out for a few minutes and thenyou leave pretty much.
But if you're a hiker, there'ssome amazing trails with amazing
views.
If you're a real hiker and youdon't mind heights and you don't
mind hanging onto the side of acliff, the precipice trail is
(02:30):
an amazing thing to see.
But you're climbing hand overhand up rebar steps and the way
up can be challenging and so canthe way down, because you're
constantly looking for a placeto place your feet.
But if you're scared of heightsI wouldn't go anywhere near it,
but the harbor's an amazingplace Great lobster, great
(02:51):
breakfast.
You could just go downtown andsit on a bench and just admire
how everything looks, watch theships come in and out.
They have cruise ships there,so you'll see these huge cruise
ships and they have to toweverybody back in on a smaller
boat.
But you see these huge cruiseships just sitting in the middle
(03:15):
of the bay I think it's calledFrenchman's Bay in the center of
Bar Harbor and they're justsitting against the beauty of
the rocks and the water.
And they're just sittingagainst the beauty of the rocks
and the water.
It's quite a sight.
There's so many great breakfastplaces there.
We ate the Great Main Breakfast, which is a great place.
They have great jellies andhomemade bread.
(03:36):
Also, jordan's is a great placeto eat there in Bar Harbor.
They're known for theirblueberry pancakes and their
blueberry syrup.
Of course, if you want realblueberry syrup or real Maine
syrup, you have to pay extra forit.
They just give you the bottledstuff, probably the same stuff
we have in our refrigerators allover the place.
(03:58):
Also, if you've never beenbefore, it's also great to go to
Jordan Pond.
There's an inn there.
They're known for theirpopovers.
Frankly, I don't think theirpopovers are as good as mine,
but they're known for theirpopovers.
The food's just okay.
The popovers are great.
With a little homemadeblueberry jam on, they're
fantastic.
It's something you should atleast do once and take the trail
(04:20):
.
There's a beautiful trail thatgoes around Jordan Pond.
It's a great view the entiretime.
It's not that bad of a hike.
I don't remember how long it isanymore, but it is a great
place to go and there's alwaystrips to some of the local towns
.
Also great shopping walkingaround have lunch when I was
(04:43):
there.
It's just a great view.
If you go in I don't know ifit's Northwest Harbor, northeast
Harbor, north there, I cannever remember which one's which
.
If you go in there, you go onSargent's Ave or Sargent's Road.
It goes right along one of thelittle teeny coves that come in
(05:03):
from the ocean and it's just abeautiful sight.
I recommend to anyone who'slooking for a place to go for a
few days.
I would definitely recommendBar Harbor Me.
I live in New York so it's alittle bit of a truck.
It's seven and a half hourswithout stopping.
We had some wickedthunderstorms on the way up that
stretched for about an hour anda half.
(05:24):
I drove in pure you can't seeyour hand in front of your face
pouring rain on the main turpike.
It was a little bit of achallenge, but very enjoyable
time.
It's really, really a greatplace to go.
Please, please, back to it.
I also wanted to mention one ofthe new features we have at the
(05:44):
Better Life with George andSteve is you're able to text us
now.
So when you listen to ourpodcast, you will see when you
log on to our podcast or when itcomes up on your app, whether
it's your phone or your computer.
However you listen to it,you'll see, above the
description of the episode, asign that says click here.
(06:05):
And what that is?
A fan it's.
They call it fan mail.
It's a certain kind of softwarethat you're able to click and
send us a message.
So we'd love to hear from you.
We'd love you to start using it.
We'd like to hear what you wantto hear from us.
What you don't want to hearfrom us is probably me talking
(06:25):
by myself, but it's a great wayto communicate to us.
Please let us know what youthink.
Give us comments, leave anyinfo you want If you want us to
reach out to you, please, we'dappreciate any feedback you give
us.
So look for it on everydescription of every episode you
look for.
So look for it on everydescription of every episode you
look for.
At the top of the descriptionit'll say click here, and that
(06:48):
is a way to message us directly.
Please, we'd like to hear morefrom you.
Just to get back to our regularlast program, I spoke a lot
about the Knicks and the Rangersand obviously we're a little
bit later in dates.
The Knicks have ended their runfor the playoffs.
It was a great time for me towatch the knicks with so much
(07:11):
heart and so much fight, andthat's exactly the way they went
down.
Unfortunately, they ran out ofplayers.
People would were so manypeople were injured coming into
this, where they really didn'thave anybody off the bench, and
then their major players gothurt even more.
It's easy to criticize themthat they weren't deep enough or
(07:31):
whatever you think, but I thinkthey're a team of the future.
I think there's a lot of teamsout there that are teams of the
future.
Certainly, both theTimberwolves and the Dallas
Mavericks are teams that are onthe up and coming.
So when the Celtics get to theplayoffs, they're going to have
(07:54):
their hands full, which eitherteam ends up winning that battle
.
Of course, as I talked a lotabout Hart and the New York
teams, you can't say the wordheart in New York teams and not
bring up the New York Rangers.
The New York Rangers have beenfighting and fighting in hockey
like I can't believe.
They will not give up, evenwhen they're down, which is the
(08:18):
other night they were down.
I want to say three goals theycame back, even when a team
scored another goal.
Three goals they came back.
Even when a team scored anothergoal, they came back.
And it was the first Ranger inhistory to score three goals for
a hat-trick in the final periodof a playoff game.
(08:39):
It was quite an amazing feat.
The other two players to do itwere Gretzky and Messier.
How's that for good company?
So the Rangers are playingagain tonight.
They're up two to one in theplayoffs.
They've had two overtimevictories back to back.
They're fighters, they're atough team and I have to say the
(09:03):
Florida Panthers are a prettytough team too.
If I was totally unbiased, Iwould say the Panthers are a
better team as far as skill andfight.
But I don't think the Rangersare going to give up.
I just don't think they'regoing to their will is going to
carry them through to the finals, and whatever happens in the
finals I know that's an ongoingprocess of course to see the
(09:26):
Edmonton prevail in that and theEdmonton fighting the Rangers
in the finals would be quite afeat too.
Another thing I spent a lot oftime looking at while I was on
vacation is these AI chat bots.
Have you seen them on socialmedia?
Ai chat bots?
They're these guys taking overour known world.
(09:47):
When we cannot tell any longerand if you're not aware of this,
you should be aware of it isthat AI has become so
sophisticated that we don't evenrealize that they're not humans
anymore.
I use it in the podcast when,obviously not for speaking, but
the descriptions are helped,crafted by AI.
(10:11):
It comes with the service ofposting it.
I would say I write almost50-50 as much as the AI bot puts
out in the description.
They do an amazing job.
That makes me scratch my head.
Sometimes they talk aboutthings in the description more
(10:31):
descriptive than I would beabout it.
Of course, I spoke it, so thatmay have something to do with it
, but these bots are out thereand sometimes you're having
communications with them, ifyou're chatting with something
you saw online, whether it'sFacebook, whether it's Instagram
and you don't even realize thatyou're chatting with a computer
(10:54):
program.
So I tell you all it's notsomething that I particularly
care for, but I did want tomention it because I wanted you
all to be aware that this isgoing on out there and for us
that are not from the AIgeneration, you should be aware
that sometimes you're not reallytalking to a real person.
(11:16):
We know that those chatbotsexist, with some of the
chatboxes online when you'relooking for help, whether it's a
computer program, whether it'sa service, whether it's your
cable service, whether it's yourcellular service there's all
kinds of chat bots to have outthere, but usually you can tell
(11:37):
they're not as sophisticated,but it's a new world and they're
becoming more sophisticatedEvery single.
So that was one of the thingsin the news I saw.
Another thing that brought myattention was I read that Red
Lobster filed for bankruptcy.
Red Lobster filed forbankruptcy, and the cause of
(12:00):
their bankruptcy, I find, justmakes me want to scratch my head
.
They're either the stupidestgroup in the world or the best
liars I've ever heard, and thatis.
We've all seen thosecommercials.
All you eat shrimp.
(12:20):
All you can eat shrimp at RedLobster.
All you can eat shrimp at RedLobster All you can eat shrimp
at Red Lobster.
You see that commercial overand over again.
So the reason for theirmalfeasance, as you may say, the
reason they haven't been ableto keep the money in their
company, is because they wentbankrupt.
(12:42):
From All you Can Eat, it costthem more to run the program
than it did they got in revenue.
How could that be?
Are they not in the fishbusiness?
Do they think we're fools tobelieve that?
That a company whose entirerestaurant served seafood?
(13:05):
They've served seafood as farback as I can remember.
I remember taking my girlfriendin high school there and you're
going to tell me that theyweren't aware that the shrimp
was going to cost more than theymake.
They weren't aware that peoplewould come in and eat plates and
(13:27):
plates of shrimp.
I don't know.
I don't even know what tobelieve anymore.
It's hard to know what thetruth is.
When you read the paper andthis is something I touched on
in the last episode it's hard toknow who's telling you the
(13:49):
truth.
I don't even know what to keepsaying about that.
Everywhere I look, I see it andthey say it with a straight
face.
Yes, we're in the seafoodbusiness for decades and we
didn't realize the shrimp costmore than we were collecting and
(14:10):
we continued to do it.
It's not like they did it forthree months and it put them out
of business.
They've been doing this all-youall you can eat shrimp for a
long time.
Now, all of a sudden, theyrealize that they're losing
money and it put them out ofbusiness.
I don't know.
Listen.
(14:31):
We all know the restaurantbusiness is challenged.
It's always been challenged.
You had to know how to do it.
It looks easy, it's not.
Food's expensive, and moreexpensive than ever, and ever
since COVID it has becomeincredibly difficult to run a
restaurant.
Food costs are through the roofand, frankly, people don't want
(14:53):
to pay it when they go to arestaurant.
They don't want to pay theincrease in food costs.
They just don't.
They'll spend it in thesupermarket, but they won't
spend it in your restaurantunless it's exceptional, and by
exceptional I don't mean fancy.
Exceptional means good.
Exceptional means you're doingsomething different than others
(15:14):
do or you're giving them aquality.
I mean, look at, barbecue hasgone through the roof.
And, as I don't know if Imentioned it in the last set, I
did a fundraiser barbecue.
I have a commercial smoker, ifyou listen to this program all
the time, and we did a barbecueboil a seafood boil, which I
(15:37):
didn't have any part of, and Idid ribs, pork belly and chicken
wings.
So I smoked, I want to say, 15full racks of ribs, baby back,
and about 30 pounds of porkbellies, along with 20 or so
(16:00):
pounds of chicken wings, whichliterally took me two and a half
days to do Preparation makingthe rub, making the homemade
sauce, prepping all the meatwith the rub because I dry brine
it overnight and then cookingthe ribs.
The ribs take I don't know,with so many ribs it takes a
little longer.
Wrapping them, cooking themTakes about six hours, maybe
(16:23):
seven from the beginning.
Starting the fire, the porkbellies took about four hours
and the wings took about one anda half to two, let's say two,
and the smoker's only so big.
But we fed 55 people.
I want to say I told them 40.
(16:43):
They said 60.
And that's the way it goes whenyou cook for people.
I have to say I was prettyphysically exhausted afterwards
but everything worked out well.
The club that I cooked for madesome money.
It was a beautiful day.
People enjoyed themselves.
The seafood boil, which wascrawfish, was fantastic.
(17:05):
I'm not really a crawfish guy.
I know I'm a lobster guy, butnot a crawfish guy.
I don't like all the work.
That's really why I don't eatcrab, because I really don't
like all the work to it.
But it was good.
I ate the corn and the potatoes.
I ate a couple of crawfish.
They were great, really a greattime had by all.
(17:26):
So for those of you that know mein the real world not in this
podcast world, I used to workretail.
I put myself through collegeworking retail and I used to
work for Nordstrom's.
I put myself through collegeworking retail and I used to
work for Nordstrom's.
I started there as a shoesalesman and manager and through
the ranks over there and almostchose to work towards being a
buyer instead of going to lawschool, which I ended up doing.
(17:49):
But I kept my focus, thankfully, and went for my law degree and
I read in the paper BruceNordstrom had passed away and
he's one of the elder statesmenof that company.
I want to say his father andhis uncle started the company
and it was an amazing company towork for, I have to say there
(18:12):
wasn't a day that I can recallthat the elder statesmen the
original in my column, myoriginal Nordstroms didn't have
their hand in everything thatwas going on there.
They were leaders in every senseof the word when they came to
the store and there were manystores I worked mostly in
(18:34):
Paramus, new Jersey, but also inShort Hills and also in
Westchester a little bit.
When they came to the storethey spoke to everybody.
They walked around alone.
They weren't led by the hand byeverybody and shown what the
people on the ground wanted tosee.
They went and walked aroundthemselves.
They would come into the stockroom and speak to the stock boys
(18:58):
, stock men, stock girls,whatever.
They would speak to thesalespeople.
They would find out from thepeople on the ground what they
needed, what was important tothem, what made their jobs
interesting, what would maketheir jobs better.
They were hands-on.
(19:22):
Hands-on is something lost intoday's world.
I think In the world of this AIchatbots.
They knew everybody's name.
They would come and speak to meall the time and they always
knew my name and they always putthe customer first.
I remember and I don't remember.
I want to say it was JohnNordstrom's one of the originals
(19:43):
, one of the customer servicepeople.
A person had brought in a $10gift certificate that expired
and they didn't want to give himcredit for the $10 because it
had expired many years ago.
It was really old and JohnNordstrom's got wind of it and
he called that person up.
(20:04):
He goes, listen, you give himcredit.
He came and had a store meetingand he says listen, somebody
put $10 in and there's this oldgift certificate.
He goes.
What's the difference?
He goes.
If I thought a $10 giftcertificate we're going to bring
new customers to our store, hegoes.
If I thought a $10 giftcertificate we're going to bring
new customers to our store, hegoes, I'd be having people fly
up and down the East Coastthrowing them out a helicopter.
(20:26):
The cost of acquiring newcustomers is expensive.
Advertisements discount.
If $10 brings a new customerinto your store and that makes
them a customer, it's well worththe acquisition.
But that's the way they lookedat everything.
No matter what you brought in,you got your money back If it
wasn't right.
(20:46):
The customer was always right.
And I'll be honest with you.
Historically I don't know whatto say about the Northeast.
Their customers respected that.
Their customers only broughtback things, in most cases, that
were bad, and the way they rantheir company was few and far
between things that were bad.
(21:07):
I want to know the passing of agiant, one of the giant
families of the retail industry,the Nordstroms and the passing
of Bruce Nordstrom.
His integrity and devotion tohis craft and his business will
certainly be missed by all of us.
And just to jump back to sportsfor a minute, if any of you
watched the PGA a couple weeksago, really, the winner gets
(21:29):
arrested two days before forrunning through a police
roadblock.
Shifley is his name.
He thought his start time wasmore important than the person
that had been killed on a streetcorner there in a car accident
and had the road closed.
For those of you who don't know, they had the roads closed.
He was on the way and it wasn'teven his tee time was yet.
(21:50):
He was going there to hit ballsbefore his tee time and he's
the number one player ranked inthe world and, yes, he's a great
player.
But there had been an accidentand a person was killed and they
had the whole street blockedoff on the way to the golf
course in Kentucky.
Okay, so he ends up in aconfrontation to the police
officer tries to go around theroadblock.
(22:10):
I don't know the whole story inevery detail, but he ends up
getting arrested and the dayhe's going to play there's
pictures everywhere in Americaof him in an orange jumpsuit.
He, of of course, ends upgetting released, everybody
intervenes and but certainly anot good look.
Certainly not a good look forthe pga which has been running
(22:35):
their problems of good looksbetween them and Liv, which is,
for those of you who don't know,a Saudi-based group, started
their own golf association andbasically bought up a lot of the
major players for ridiculousamounts of money Certainly
(22:56):
life-changing money even forgolfers, when someone pays you
$100 million just to come playgolf.
So a lot of the great golfers,the competitive golfers, have
gone over to live.
Then, when the PGA realizedtheir mistake with all this,
they tried to merge themtogether, but I don't think that
really ever happened.
(23:16):
Now the live golfers come overand play just in the majors.
They tried to not let them playin the majors but at the end
result they ended up playing inthe majors and they are
competitive.
So these live golf events, wedon't even see them.
They're on somewhere.
(23:36):
I don't have any idea.
I've never watched them and Ilove to watch golf.
I watch it every weekend,somewhat.
The majors I watch completely.
The masters I start watching onThursday.
I have it out of my officewhile I work, it's on where I go
somewhere and watch it later inthe day and out of the office
earlier than I would normally.
(23:57):
The masters, to me, is one ofthe pinnacle sporting events,
along with the Kentucky Derby.
Saratoga Racing is fantasticWorld Series.
But even more than that, evenmore than the World Series, it's
an amazing blast from the pastand, for those of you who don't
know, the Masters was started bya famous golfer, probably the
(24:20):
greatest golfer ever, as somepeople think.
Even though there's argumentstoday that tiger's better, jack
nicholas is better, bobby jonesis the father of them all.
He was the first person to winwhat's called the grand slam and
people do the lifetime grandslam, which they won every one
(24:43):
of the four events, which is thePGA, the US Open, the British
Open and the Masters.
Years ago there wasn't aMasters, it was an amateur
championship.
So those were the four and towin the British Open was
impossible for american for along time, but american started
(25:06):
to do it sporadically beforebobby jones won the grand slam
event when he was I want to sayit was the 1930s and he was
probably in his 30s at the time.
He was a great golfer, bobbyJones, and he bought the
property to build Augusta, whichused to be a nursery, a farm
(25:28):
for flowering plants and trees,and he carved this course out of
the middle of this land andbuilt one of the great courses
of America.
Of course nobody could playthere because it's a private
club.
It's ridiculously private, notlike the private clubs that we
see around in our neighborhoodsthat we can't get into either.
(25:51):
But this club's important.
The richest men in the countrycan't get into it.
It's all by, I believe,invitation and it's invitation
by committee.
For years they didn't have any,obviously, minorities.
They do now.
They didn't have any women,they do now.
And if you watch the Mastersthis time, you've seen that
(26:14):
Condoleezza Rice, who's theformer head of the NSA and other
things for the government under, I believe, bush Both Bushes, I
think, was in theiradministration is a prominent
member of the course.
Now it goes Eisenhower was afamous player, was a famous
golfer, general Eisenhower, andafter he retired from the
(26:38):
military in the 1950s, the storygoes that there's an Eisenhower
tree and there's an Eisenhowercabin.
I'm guessing he used to stay inthe cabin when he visited the
course back in the day, becausethere are some cabins around.
They're not really placespeople stay now but there was a
tree that he used to hit everytime he played and he begged.
(27:00):
He asked them to remove it.
They told him no, that's howdifficult they are.
Even when he was president ofthe United States.
He asked them to remove it andthey said no.
So apparently he was nevergoing to run for president.
All the bigwigs brought him inand convinced him on that course
of running for president andthat's how his presidential
(27:22):
campaign and ultimately hispresidency started out.
Usually at the end of thesession, I like to do a
restaurant review Because I'vebeen away.
All the restaurants I ate atwere in Maine or somewhere else.
I would like to mention andit's been prominently in the
local papers and things there'sso many restaurants in West
(27:45):
District County that have beenclosing.
The newest one on the list isTown Dock, which is in Rye, and
it's been there, I want to say,almost 30 years.
It's a very casual restaurant.
They have the normal thingsburgers but they also have had
fish.
It's been a very local place togo the Town Dock Tavern and I
(28:13):
have to say I'm a littlesurprised.
But that just underlines what Isaid before the difficulty it
is to run restaurants today thatit's really changed.
I don't think the profits arethere, I think it's difficult.
There's a lot of otherrestaurants have been closing
the Archie Grand and WhitePlains, epstein's and Yonkers.
There's so many restaurantsthat have been closed but
(28:35):
there's some new ones opening up.
I'm hoping to do reviews of somenew restaurants.
I definitely want to go toSaigon Table.
I love Vietnamese food and I'mlooking forward that's opened
recently in Rye.
I do love to go for Pho atSaigonese, which is in Hartsdale
on Central Avenue, and a newsteakhouse in Eastchester opened
(28:59):
up Peter's Steakhouse, which issupposedly opening up in the
same spot as the old meat marketwas there on East Post Road.
I don't know, but I'm lookingforward to try their steak.
It's supposedly being run byvery experienced steak people,
for lack of a better explanation.
(29:19):
So we'll have more reviews inthe future.
Hopefully George will be backnext week.
Please, I ask you, go on andsend messages to us.
Send us a message.
Click on that new link on everydescription of every podcast we
do and send us a message.
Hopefully next week we'll beback with the full crew, with a
(29:40):
full agenda, hearing abouttrials and tribulations of
George's new project.
Hopefully we'll have somerestaurant reviews.
Until then, thank you forlistening.
We both appreciate it immensely.
Any questions, please click usand let us know.
(30:00):
I also wanted to just take aminute and talk about our
sponsor, premium Botanicals.
We're running a specialpromotion at Premium Botanicals
especially for our listenershere at A Better Life.
Right now you can get an extra10% off on all products
purchased atmypremiumbotanicalscom by
(30:23):
putting in the code at checkouta better life one word, no
spaces.
Please check out our products.
We have great salves, greatresults and getting great
feedback from everyone.
The gummies are great forinflammation.
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Those have been a very popularproduct.
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We also have stronger liquidsIf you prefer a liquid rather
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Please check us out atmypremiumbotanicalscom.
(31:06):
Thank you all for listening.
Talk to you soon.
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An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.