Cutting Room Floor

Today, Doug Pike discusses, making a cutting room floor, drinking and swimming, and stealing cattle.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Remember when it was impossible to misplacethe TV remote because you were the TV
remote. Remember when music sounded likethis, Remember when social media was truly
social? Hey John, how's itgoing today? Well, this show is
all about you. This is fiftyplus with Doug Pike, helpful information on

(00:28):
your finances, good health, andwhat to do for fun. Fifty plus
brought to you by the UT HealthHouston Institute on Aging Informed Decisions for a
healthier, happier life, and byTexas Indoor Air Quality Specialists because clean air
is healthier air. And now fiftyplus with Doug Pike. All Right,

(00:51):
Thursday edition of the program starts rightnow, pretty dog on nice day.
So far it could be I don'tknow, maybe afternoon shower. Who knows,
doesn't matter, It really doesn't matterat this point. Starting out much
like Wednesday morning did, except thatI've got fingers crossed for no rain.
This afternoon afternoon showers have I don'tknow. It's kind of become a pretty

(01:14):
regular occurrence lately, and they're nothelping the roofers around town who are trying
desperately to catch up from the haildamage in March. That's what That's what
led to me getting a new roofvery soon. It's on the calendar for
early next week. But so isthe chance of rain now that rain of

(01:34):
the chance of rain keeps changing everytime I turn around, So who knows,
Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Maybe I'll get a new roof
that day, Maybe it'll be aday after. That doesn't matter. We're
also, by the way, notto to just dwell on my own little
hail damage from from March or still, the roofers around town are pretty much

(01:57):
working overtime in the path of thathorrific storm we got what about a month
ago? Now? Was it abouta month ago? Will? That all
the windows got blown out downtown andone of our coworkers, big tree just
kind of took off the front ofher house. I think, so let's
call it about a month. Ithink that's about right, four weeks or
so. And as for our officialhigh coup highs and lows forecast courtesy of

(02:23):
Texas Indoor Air Quality Specialists. Becausecleaner air is healthier air. Seriously,
get in touch with them pound twofifty say healthier anyway. So here it
goes, Will, and I wantyou to grade it. Do you remember
yesterday's or what grade yesterday's was ona one to ten scale. I don't
remember. Okay, we're starting freshedin again. So here goes early weekend,

(02:47):
nice Sunday through Tuesday. If heat least not so hot on a
one to ten, will creativity andthere will always be adherence to the rules,
to the structure. Don't worry aboutthat. You don't have to count
syllables. I can do that.But what do you think it's an hour

(03:10):
long? It's just a one hourshow. Oh, I think it's uh.
I'll give it. I'll give itenough seven Oh, thank you,
Okay, I'll take sevens. I'lltake sevens. I'll be tragically disappointed if
you ever say anything lower than afive. And I'll tell you what.
Here's the deal. You can rateone of them a five someday, but
if you do, you have todo the next one and then we'll maybe

(03:36):
we'll go back and forth and letthe audience be the judge. All right,
yeah, all right, So tomorrowyou work up a weather high coup.
I'll work up a weather high coupand we'll just see where the chips
fall. Buster yeh for that,I think I could it be done for

(03:57):
that. If I remember, you'regonna forget, That's what I was gonna
say, You're gonna forget, It'llbe so busy. Mark's playing their usual
short string yo yo game again today. A couple of the indicators up,
a couple more down, especially theDow by the way, which was in
the red two hundred and forty threepoints about an hour ago. I don't
know where it is now. It'skind of irrelevant to me. Oil started
the day lower by half a buckor so, but was up a quarter

(04:20):
a quarter of a dollar seventy eightsixty eight around nine o'clock, then back
down a quarter at eleven, sowishy washy. And then gold courtesy of
Houston Gold Exchange as always down fortythree bucks at nine and sitting at a
still solid twenty three eleven an ouncea little later in the morning. And

(04:44):
now for the interesting stuff. I'mreading more and more about college students still
protesting and camping out on campus insteadof going to class and earning their educations,
which is what students should be andare well in other countries at least
expected to do. You don't getan education by attending the school. Attending

(05:09):
school that implies that you'll be educatedwhether you try or not, whether you
go to class or not. It'snot like buying a hammer at the hardware
store. You go pick out ahammer, you pay the money, and
you get the hammer. With education, you're not paying for the degree,
or well, let me rephrase that, you're not blowing off your student loan

(05:30):
because our president decided the tax pakersshould should pay your way. Either way,
you're not paying for the education.You are paying for the opportunity to
become educated. And there's a bigdifference in those two pasts. Not every
kid who goes to college understands that'sgoing on either, which is in part

(05:50):
why not every college student finishes andearns his or her degree. And I
have to have my I ask myselfthis morning. Is this a byproduct maybe
of what's being taught to younger childrennow? How they're seeing students given break
after break, concession after concession,just to move them up through the grades,

(06:11):
through the levels of education. Andat the same time, we see
kids screaming obscenities at their teachers andnobody doing anything about it, and in
many cases even punching teachers. Iwatch this one video and then I had
to watch it again because I almostcouldn't believe what my eyes had seen.

(06:35):
A kid is screaming at the topof his lungs at his teacher, who
is just sitting at her desk.He is screaming. This is a high
school kid. This isn't some thirdgrader. High school kids screaming at his
teacher. She's just sitting there.Today he walks over there and kind of
lunges at her once and fakes likehe's gonna do something and she shouldn't move,

(06:56):
and then bam, he just wopsa WAPs her right on the side
of the face and acts like that'sperfectly all right. Schools lack discipline,
they do. We've allowed these kidsto just take charge more or less,
and we've lowered our expectations of thestudents, and they have gladly accepted that
chance to take the reins and justdo whatever they want to do. In

(07:19):
a lot of cases, now,I know most students aren't that way.
I still firmly believe that most studentsshow up to get an education to earn
an education. But the ones whoare the bad apples, as we see
throughout our entire society, the badapples get the attention. Don't want to

(07:41):
upset these kids. No, no, no, And while a whole lot
of the world is still making suretheir kids learn math and science and all
that, we're teaching them in school, we're teaching them about gender ideology,
how being different can get your freepasses or not, depending on I guess
on exactly what that difference is.Hoping and praying we can get a new
rudder on this ship before it runsa ground. I really am, I

(08:05):
really am. All right, wegot to take a little break here.
On the way out. I'll tellyou about UT's Institute on Aging that is
the collaborative among hundreds of providers aroundhere. And I do mean hundreds,
all of whom have thought, youknow, I'm a pretty good cardiologist,
gi doctor, orthopedist, whatever.I am. I'm pretty good at that.

(08:30):
But I really care about seniors andhow they can be helped by someone
like me such as me. SoI'm going to go back and learn specifically
how what I've learned can be appliedto the senior body, to the senior
mind. We're different. We're differentthan those young people. They like it

(08:50):
that way, and so do wefor different reasons. UT Health Institute on
Aging is a play well, it'sa website you can start. You can
go there and learn about the servicesthey can provide for you, about the
providers who know how to treat seniorsand are available all around here, mostly

(09:11):
in the medcenter, which is asyou would expect, but a lot of
these these practitioners, these surgeons anddoctors and therapists and trainers and all of
that also go to outlying clinics andhospitals during the week. A few times
you can find somebody close by andthey will help you. Uth dot edu

(09:31):
slash Aging uth dot edu slash AgingAged to Perfection. This is fifty plus
with Dougpike, second segal of theprogram. Starts on this Thursday morning.

(09:58):
I presume it's still sunshiny outside withclouds, and maybe it'll cloud up just
enough that I won't burst into flamesif I try to go hit golf balls
this afternoon. We'll see, weshall see. Moving a little north and
just this is just random news thingsthat I like to see that I think
will interest you. And if there'ssomething I miss at some point, or

(10:20):
something you see that you think thatother people our ages would like to hear
about. By all means, usethat pound two fifty thing for fifty plus
pound two fifty. Wait for theprompt say fifty plus, and then you'll
have fifteen seconds to tell me whatto go look up and talk about.
I'll do some research, I'll checkit out and make sure that it gets

(10:41):
except well. Hopefully if we canget it in exactly the coverage, we
can do well. I think forFridays, by the way, tomorrow being
the first of those. In thisthought process, I'm thinking about using Friday
to go over unless something really majorbreaks, to go over things that didn't
make the show but seemed relevant enoughat the time that I wrote them down

(11:07):
and wanted to talk about them.Does that make sense? I'm called the
cutting room floor, all right,something like that, because there's still they
will be relevant stories. It won't. It won't be like if I read
that story, then there's already somethingelse that's broken behind it relevant to that.
It'll be they'll be standalones. AndI think a lot of that will

(11:30):
end up being medical news that Icouldn't get to for some reason, probably
because I was dragging along doing somethinglike this and not being not sticking to
my notes in front of me,So as back to the notes, just
up the road to Fort Worth atwhat on forty five an average speed these
days of about what ninety five?Maybe have you been on forty five lately

(11:52):
outside of Houston? Not like onceyou get out of Pitt Lane, Pitt
Road, No, oh, buddy, home zone zone. It just can't
go faster, by the way thereis. I saw a note this morning
that there is low rumble a littlebit of talk about possibly changing the gas

(12:15):
pedals in your cars so that whenyou press down on them, if you
want to go faster and faster andfaster, you have to press harder and
harder and harder. I don't likethat. I think it would be unsafe,
and I think it could cause problemsfor people who have especially older people
whose feet maybe in legs just aren'tthat strong anymore. So I think leave

(12:39):
it alone, and if you gotoo fast, you're just going too fast
and you should get a ticket.Period. End of story. One of
every four homes, one of everyfour homes, actually slightly more at twenty
six percent single family homes up inFort Worth are commercially owned. I think
about that for a minute. Willthey're being rented or just held. Good

(13:05):
thing. We have good squatters lawsaround here to keep those folks out of
them. Tells me a good amountabout how difficult it is for Americans to
afford homes now. If nothing else, there's that, and how much interest
there is in playing around the world, probably real life monopoly. What the
story danced around a percentage I wouldfind far more revealing than that twenty six

(13:30):
percent of those single family dwellings upthere are commercially owned. I want to
know what percentage of those homes areowned either by foreign nationals or four in
corporations, and I bet it's apretty high number. We've sold off already,
We've sold off huge chunks of ourfarmland to Chinese interests. If they
can control enough homes when the timeis right, they can price Americans right

(13:56):
out of home ownership. Think aboutthat. If there's got there's a tipping
point at which the people who ownthese homes other than Americans could just say,
you know what, they're all goingup and there would be so few
units left at whatever price the marketwas when the when the bell rang for

(14:18):
that to happen, Americans wouldn't beable to afford homes, and I know
that's a that's a long shot.It's a long term thing, even if
if it is indeed an actual thing, but it's certainly something to think about.
Fitness superstar. Have you heard ofher? Will Julian or Jillian Michaels.
You're okay. She's bailed out ofCalifornia, her home state, and

(14:43):
moved all the way to Florida.She her entire life, she's been a
card carrying liberal and proud to saythat not a problem. But she's got
common sense too, And what shesaid is that California is quote woke,
victimology poker end quote Finally, isjust too much for her to bear in

(15:07):
a nutshell. She said, thestate's decriminalizing everything but regulating nothing. It
makes sense. She talked about sexworkers, she talked about sex changes for
miners, all of these things thatare being being decriminalized, but there's no
regulation of it all. So allthese weird bad things are compounding upon each

(15:31):
other and just making the situation badenough that she felt like she had to
move across the entire country since shejust had enough, just had enough.
Okay, Well, speaking of Iam gonna insert here one of my little
fun Things, and it is titledI want you to try to guess what

(15:52):
it's about, bad move. I'mgonna go with it's about a cow,
not just one cow. Will Ohchecked that I thought this was kind of
funny. A couple in Oklahoma facingtwenty eight felonies and twenty seven potential life

(16:18):
sentences for cattle rustling for stealing cattle. You know how they got caught.
Will I wrote this part myself asteak out come on. That's not bad
to birth no still laughter subsides.It's time, okay, probably so Texas

(16:44):
home bars great people. If yourhouse got torn up in that storm a
month ago, if your house gotflooded about two months ago, if your
house has got horrible hail damage,whatever the reason you want out of there,
maybe just maybe there's a maybe adeath in the family, some reason
that you don't want to spend alot of time fixing the place up.

(17:07):
You just want out. That's whereTexas Home Buyers comes in, a plus
ready with a better business bureau,so you know you're dealing with somebody who
is legit and really actually can dowhat they say they're going to do.
Thirty five years around here, Ithink it is. And they pay top
dollar for homes, single family home, multifamily, dwelling, dirt, just

(17:30):
a vacant lot, they'll buy thattoo. What they'll do is come out,
look around. They won't spend alot of time there because they don't
need to. They know what they'redoing. They've been doing it thirty some
years, kind of good at whatthey do. They'll come out, look
at the place, go back tothe office, do some calculation, do
some some work, whatever they doto figure it out, and then usually

(17:52):
that same day they will make youa cash offer on that property as it
sits, where it sits right now, don't have to do a darn thing
to it. Usually can close withintwo weeks, sometimes within a week.
You get a check, they getthe title to the home, and off
you both go in different directions,both of you better off than the day
before you did the deal. Sevenone three, six four nine twenty two

(18:18):
twenty two. Seven one three,six four nine twenty two, twenty two.
And if you want to learn moreabout what they do, just listen
to Texas Home Buyers Radio Saturdays atthree pm right here on KPRC. Yeah,
they sure don't make them like theyused to. That's why every few
months we wash them, check hisfluids, and spring on a fresh coat.

(18:42):
O wax. This is fifty pluswith Doug Pike. All right,
second three goes off. Now,thanks very much for listening. Certainly do
appreciate you sharing your lunch hour withus. That us would be Will and

(19:06):
me greatly do appreciate it. Upin Washington, d C. Yesterday and
I'm kind of glad it went thisway. Really at the annual Congressional baseball
game, I don't know the finalscore, it doesn't matter. During the
game, though, a bunch ofclimate fanatics decided to rush onto the field.
So I'm up carrying signs and I'mpresuming a few of them had tambourines

(19:30):
and whistles and bullhorns and the usualgarbage they bring out to bother everybody else
who's trying to enjoy their afternoon.And I think it was six' eight
maybe more of them, I'm notexactly sure. Quite promptly arrested. The
group that calls itself Climate Defiance tookcredit for the minor delay. And what

(19:52):
is I guess you could really sayit's a rare opportunity for lawmakers on both
sides of the aisle to just kindof lighten up and gather a nice crowd
of people who'd also liked to cometogether and realize we're not all that different.
I wish that. I wish thatpeople who try to divide us and
make and force us to think likethem wouldn't interfere in an effort to kind

(20:18):
of come together when this country couldsurely use that. But they did,
and they got arrested, too bad, so said. The key is going
to be whether or not whether ornot they are actually I'm sure they had
well they were charged with something,or they wouldn't have been arrested. But
I'm kind of curious to see ifany of their charges stick while so many

(20:41):
people are just sitting in jail nowwho probably don't really need to be there.
In other sports news, the Astrostripping over their own shoelaces lately and
just dropping deeper and deeper into ahole from which they've got to dig themselves
out soon, thinking the abreo abray you sk I don't mean to say
the man's name incorrectly. This abrave reboot has been It's a bust.

(21:04):
It just is. He's a greatguy, a great teammate. That's what
they all say about him, Comma. But at least for now, Comma,
and now is when we need towin close games. Comma, he
can't hit. Still a very gooddefensive player, but he can't hit,
and that's important with baseball. Andwe don't have time to wait for his

(21:27):
slump to turn the other way.We don't have time to turn that frown
upside down. I don't know what, but whatever is in the in the
hopper, they need to pull adifferent card out next time. And for
my golfers, for my golfers,Oh my gosh, I took it off

(21:47):
of there. I had the leaderboardup. Let me see if I can
get here we go. Leaderboard atthe US Open out at Pinehurst. Patrick
can't Lay finished at five under ParlewittLudwig Oberg, although it's spelled a b
E RG with a little circle overthe over the teep of the tent in

(22:10):
the A four under par He's alsofinished, as is Pavone at three under
par. Tony feen Owl finished attwo uh Max at two Kim's at one
Max. Yeah, Max still gotthree holes to play. Kim's at won
a bunch of guys at one underpar, none of whom is the guy

(22:32):
who still gets his name in thenews every time he plays. But I'm
gonna try to I'm gonna deliberately tryto avoid it. I'm not taking anything
away from the man, but he'sjust not the man he was years ago.
And some of it's his fault,some of it's his body's fault,
some of it is just just theprocess of the changing of the guard.

(22:56):
But the bottom line is he notplaying so well. So I'm going to
try not to not to take awayfrom leaders in the tournament, and there
are a bunch of them now.There's still a lot of guys who aren't
even on the golf course yet,and they very well may play worse than
him. But the guy there chasingis can't lay, and can't lay is

(23:18):
no slouch. Can't lay's got achance to win any tournament in which he
plays, as do most of theseguys. Now. The talent pool is
really really deep in professional golf.So I'll be watching it closely today,
tomorrow and right through the weekend,and I'll be reporting more on it over
the weekend because that's what I dothere in w NBA news, players and

(23:42):
coaches and owners alike forever forever beenasking us to WATCHWNBA basketball, but we
didn't, and for a lot ofreasons, not until Caitlin Clark became the
first pick in the league's draft andgave us something to watch, something to
watch other than the product that wasout there before. And what's happened now

(24:04):
is that now that there's a reasonto watch the WNBA, the players,
many of them, have turned againstClark, mostly out of jealousy and then
and for a lot of personal reasons. There's all I don't know. They're
acting out like little children, andwhat they're doing is not helping the cause
of the WNBA at all. Ifthe players in that league ever want to

(24:29):
see attendance and interest and then kindof by default their salaries. But they
want all those things to go up, they need to just play basketball,
play hard against whoever's on the otherside of the ball, and leave their
personal baggage. I get, atleast in the locker room, if not
at home. By the way,I just saw a little headline story because

(24:51):
Ohio has a hog problem. TexasTexas said, oh my beer, come
check it out down here, andOregon said, hold my latte frappuccino.
What are some other double squirt ofwhat will vanilla or something like that,
and then paused and then said,what's a hog on the way out?

(25:17):
Kirk holmbs the twenty twenty four SouthernLiving Builder of the Year. Southern Living
Builder of the Year been building forthirty plus years now from northwest Houston all
the way out through the hill country. Beautiful homes. I've been in a
half a dozen of them myself,every one of them as unique as the

(25:37):
owner's fingerprints, which is really whatyou want. When you sit down and
decide, Okay, now's my time, I want this home, and you
envision it, you dream about it, you think about it during the day
and scribbled notes or maybe draw littlesketches if you're artistic. But you can't
build a home because you don't knowhow. That's where you go. You

(25:59):
go set up in a point andyou sit down with the people that the
design team, the architectural team atkirk Hoolmes and they help you step by
step by step as little or asmuch as you want to be helped in
the creation of your dream home.The only two commonalities, as I mentioned
so many times that two by sixexterior wall all the way around the house

(26:21):
for better installation from our god awfulelements around here sometimes and the twenty year
structural warranty, which is twice theindustry standard. When you're ready, when
you want to see that dream homeof yours become reality wherever it is throughout
this whole region of Texas, goto kirkholmbs dot com. That's k you

(26:41):
are k because at KIRKCOLMBS it's allabout you. What's life without a net?
I suggest to go to bed,sleep it off, just wait until
the show's over. Sleepy. Backto Doug Pike as fifty plus continues sifting

(27:07):
through the paperwork in front of me, multiple pages of things. At at
least at some point I decided we'repretty interesting and necessary, and I'll get
to most of them probably tomorrow whenwe go to Friday's cutting room floor.
That's pretty bland. Will can youcome up with something better for the cutting

(27:32):
room floor? No? Will foryour birthday? No? Yes, of
course? Are you not paying attentionagain? Let me think about it.
Moving on, Uh, participate.You're participating from now to the end of
the program, So just get ready. You can choose from I'm gonna do
with today, I'm gonna deal withtoday's because that's after all of this today.

(27:56):
Sick of it to each his ownor team mind twenty seconds, sick
of it. It's a list outnow, and I don't know who makes
these lists, but it's a listof things people are sick of being told
are great. Can you name oneof one of the four I have here?

(28:18):
I mean, there's just too manyto pick from. Doug running with
the runners in the audience or eventhe walkers would may be offended by that,
but that's just on the list.I'm not saying it's good or bad.
I'm not sick of other people running, but I feel I have not
been a runner since I was playingbaseball, and after two and three hour

(28:45):
practices in the hot sun of Mobile, Alabama, I was I and the
whole team were instructed, Okay,go run five miles and call it a
day. Then you can go gorun three miles. Go run depends on
how we'd practiced and how many mistakeswe'd made, but yeah, I got
tired of running a lot kind ofafter that. Stayed in shape with other

(29:07):
things also, And if you don'tthink that a lot of people are tired
of running. Just go to themall and look who's walking by you,
mostly not runners. You know whatelse is on the list? Will?
Those Stanley mugs. I think theshine has worn off finally from women fighting
in Target over Stanley muggs. Andhow that happened I'll never know. But

(29:33):
if I can ever figure that out, you and I are going to make
a fortune. We need a gimmick, something that we can buy that's available
anywhere else for half as much.But we're gonna get on social media and
claim that it's better than the restof them and just sell them like hotcakes.
I think the thing with Stanley muggswas that they fit in your cup
holder. They're large, Do willthat's not true? D a dozen of

(29:57):
those and not on one of themis a Stanley mug. They have the
little bitty part at the bottom andthen more room for Mama's special kool aid
up above, and they fit inthe cup holder. I can. I
could go to my house right nowwhen we could look over the oven or
over the microwave and show I couldshow you four or five of those.

(30:18):
I'm not going to your house samescoop of stuff, same thing. Take
a picture for him. You knowwhat else this is? I don't know
what this is. Will take apicture of those I might? Okay,
if you'll pay attention for two straightdays so I never will have to What
is kombucha or kombuka? It's likea fermented tea or something. Really,

(30:41):
I have no idea. You've neverhad it. I've had komba before.
Well, then you should know whatyou've ingested. Will you don't know,
put it in your body without it'sa fermented black tea, okay. And
then the other one, which isso these are things that are totally uncontrollable.

(31:02):
People are. It says here thatpeople are just sick of being told
that summer weather is great. Yeah, it's awful. Summer is my least
favorite. You know who says thatpeople in Wisconsin maybe or Canada? Canada,
they can go outside without gloves anda hat. Horrible? Okay,
we got to do at least onemore three minutes. Oh well, perfect,

(31:27):
that's gonna get us to it.So to each his own m T
minus twenty seconds and I'll replace theformer with future politician m teaches them each
his own Forbes has a list nowof the worst places to spend a summer

(31:48):
vacation, and they've taken into considerationstuff like crime, price, is traveling,
weather, and they are two worstdestinations these up. Any people at
Forbes who think we really care whatthey think is the worst place to go?
Who are they that is so unlessthey've actually been to these places.

(32:08):
They're trusting the reactions of people whomaybe had a bad experience somewhere. But
they say that the worst two areJacksonville, Florida and Colorado Springs, Colorado.
How uppity and snooty? And whodo they think they are? And
where are they from? When wasthe last time you've been to Jacksonville.

(32:30):
It's been a long time, real, But that's normal. I'm not saying
that I think it's better. I'mjust saying I think they're presuming facts not
in evidence, And I yeah,you have to interview people who had a
good experience there as well. Teamminus twenty seconds Captain obvious or don't drink
and swim. Don't drink and swim. According to the CDC, almost a

(32:53):
third of all drowning desks in theUS involved people with a blood alcohol level
of point one zero or higher,so that one kind of stands on its
own. There's no need to dwellon that one. Just don't drink and
swim your No, not in thebackyard pool, not at the beach,

(33:15):
not at the lake, none ofthat stuff. If you've been drinking,
put your little water wings on,put on your PFD, or stay out
of the water. Seeing double captainobvious or T minus twenty seconds T minus
twenty seconds. Tourist site in Chinahas installed timers above its bathroom stalls so

(33:40):
that other people can see how longyou've been in there. They claim it's
a safety thing, just in casesomebody's had a medical emergency, which,
okay, I could see that they'renot setting a time limit. They're sticking
to that story about the medical emergency. But I would bet that over there

(34:02):
you here three minutes, three minutes, that's enough. Get out. You've
been in there a minute and ahalf. What are you doing reading a
book? No? What are theydoing? Will? What are they doing
in there? Taking a nap?That's what I do when I go to
the bathroom, Just sit as aquiet place in the house. At uh.
All right, we'll be back tomorrowto wrap up the week. We'll
see what's been on the cutting floorall week. Cutting room floor. I'm

(34:27):
out of here, thank you,by bye.