September 4, 2024 • 36 mins
Today, Doug Pike discusses jumping beans, wine, and cucumbers.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Remember whether it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. Remember when music sounded
like this? Remember when social media was truly social?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey John, how's it going today?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well, this show is all about you, the good die.
This is fifty plus with Doug Pipe. Helpful information on
your finances, good health, and what to do for fun.
Fifty plus brought to you by the UT Health Houston
Institute on Aging, Informed Decisions for a healthier, happier life
(00:42):
and Bronze Roofing repair or replacement. Bronze roofing has you covered?
And now fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
All right, here we go. Welcome to Wednesday, which this
morning was blanketed in thick clouds and some rain roughly
from I ten south rain early down south, and a
chance for it all over this afternoon. But what's new
really in September, right after dove season opens, and right
before dove season opens, that's just that's a given around here.
(01:11):
If you've lived here long enough and are an outdoors
person at all, you've you've heard other outdoors people talk
about how it's gonna rain within three or four days
of the first of September over a good portion of
this state is.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
What it is.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
We'll make it lots of ground to cover today too,
So I will press right into today's weather courtesy of
Texas into air quality specialists. Because cleaner air is, after all,
healthier air. You can just doll pound two fifty and
say healthier and get the gunk out of your duct work.
His and lo's and haiku will are you ready? I
am here we go. I must be dreaming mild and
(01:49):
sunny all weekend. Please don't wake me up. Wow now,
oh now we're cooking home. That was good. How we're cooking?
That was good? I like that one a lot.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
You're getting a nine today. You're getting a nine to
day nine point? What will nine on the dot?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Okay, leave it a little room just in cases of corn.
How exceed your greater expectation? Okay, well I'll take a nine.
That's the first of those. That's good. And I didn't
really have to dive into the weather to get it.
That was even better. It was a It was a story.
I told a story about the weather, and it was
clear and it was concise, true, unlike what we're seeing
(02:36):
about these three yellow exes out there on the National
Hurricane Center's board, none of which, by the way, is
anything yet but a bunch of rain and maybe a
little bit of a breeze trying to be something but
isn't yet. And that one that's closest to us. Actually,
the chances of it forming have gone down, not up.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Now.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
It may bounce back after about a I don't know,
four or five, six more days once it gets across
into the northwestern Caribbean, But until it gets into the
Gulf of Mexico, if it even does, which it's not
really supposed to do, there's just nothing to see. And
I hate it when I see forecasters spend minutes of
(03:21):
their precious time talking about something that is a thousand
or more miles away and what it might do. Let's
just let's just talk about what it's going to be
around here, which is gonna be really really nice for
the net. Well, it's there are chances of rain for
the next three including today, for the next three days,
and then after that just an absolute gorgeous weekend and
(03:43):
early part of next week. So there you go. Off
to market we go. Thanks to Houston Goldexchange dot Com.
Three of the four lights were red again this morning,
but the loss is not nearly so bad as yesterday's
free fault. Gold dropped a few bucks and was trying
to correct and go green still hadn't. As of just
a few minutes ago, oil below seventy dollars a barrel
(04:08):
less than seventy dollars a barrel, which which puzzles me
somewhat under current Middle East tension, but I'll take it.
It may be I don't know, Maybe it's just that
Hail Mary we've been waiting for from the current administration
to show the gullibles they're doing something positive for us,
which they're not. I don't think even I don't think
(04:31):
this is a result of that so much as it
is just a legitimate market move, and we'll see if
it sticks. We'll see. I think, never mind, I don't
want to go to that. News lately has been kind
of like a rack of dumbbells in the gym, different
sizes one end of the other, right, but in the end,
they're all still dumbbells, not entirely unlike people who think
(04:56):
our vice president will do anything to fix our economy
or border anything else. And Joe have broken in the
past four years. She had walls by the way walts
Who's in love with China? In its ideology, would I
think ultimately only finished at least try to finish what
Joe Biden started. Maybe more on that later, maybe not.
(05:17):
We'll see which way the story's lead us. How about
New York. Let's go to New York. Will you want
to go to New York? I love New York. Have
you been? I guess you have? I have have not.
My wife's been twice, maybe three times, back when her
sister lived up there, but not since New York, the
big state where Governor Kathy Hokele found out this week's
surprise one of her longtime age right there in the
(05:41):
governor's office. First with Cuomo and then with Hochel. This
woman and her husband, both, by the way, have been
charged with working on behalf of the Chinese government and
making millions of dollars along the way for doing so.
It sounds vaguely familiar, only on broader scale. I think
(06:03):
there's at least a couple of people I can think
of saying, huh, a couple of million bucks, Hold my beer,
Hold my beer. Chel actually called it a betrayal of trust. Hello, governors,
that's what agents of foreign governments do when they have
infiltrated their way into your office to steal your secrets
(06:24):
and talk about things that they shouldn't even know about.
It's your job as governor to figure out who you
can trust and who you can't trust. And apparently she's
not all that good at it all. Will let's I
will go to Florence, Italy as long as we're not
(06:46):
hanging around locally, and I'll get to some of that
later and some fun stuff as well. In Italy comes
news at the airport there is going to have a
truly unique roof. Will for all the money in the
world and the camper think about how big a major
airport roof is, Think about how massive it is, and
how it usually does nothing but maybe serve as a
(07:07):
home for the air conditioning units, maybe some odd looking
pipes here and there running across the roof and then
down back into the building. But in Tuscany, the new
airports roof will be what will open.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Air so that way you can hear all the planes
go by, hear them.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Go by, you'll know before well everybody will know. At
the same time when there's a rain delay, you don't
have to wait for the announcement on the loud speaker.
No will, they're not doing that. What they've done actually
is turn this this airport roof, which by the way,
covers nineteen acres. Think about that. That's a big, big roof,
(07:50):
and that nineteen acres has been it's a new roof,
new airport. All of that stuff. It's a vineyard. They're
growing grapes up there, and there's actually the what do
they call it the distillery. It's not a refinery. What
do they call that will where they make the wine?
(08:11):
I think, I mean, I know distillery is used for whiskey. Yeah,
so we're just gonna go with wine making place. But anyway,
what I want to know is what they're gonna call
that wine because they're making it right there. The whole
process is gonna be done. The grapes are gonna grow
on the roof, and then all the squashing of the
grapes for this audience that will remember the I Love
(08:33):
Lucy Grape squashing skit from many many years ago. That
was hilarious. Between that one and the Candy Factory, those
were two of the best pieces of television ever presented.
I need to go to a break don't. I yes, Okay,
you look up the wine thing and we'll talk about
that when we get back, and then I will tell
everybody about ut Health Institute on Aging, that collaborative that
(08:57):
I've spoken about for eight nine years now. I'm not
sure actly how long it's been. I know I've enjoyed
doing it every step of the way, though, because the
Institute on Aging is a group of people who have
gone back and studied further than their diploma required, than
their expertise required to find out exactly how they can
(09:19):
apply their knowledge about a specific condition or a specific
therapy or whatever to seniors. They are totally schooled in
how we work, how our bodies work. And that's a
big deal, especially when you get to seniority. We don't
respond to medications like younger people do. We don't respond
(09:42):
respond to therapies like younger people do. It takes a
little more time to get us motivated than younger people.
Go to their website, Look at all the resources available
to you there. Go to that website also to find
access to all of these providers who are all over
this great Greater Greater Houston area and just happy as
(10:03):
larks to help us out. When we need them. Ut
H dot edu slash aging ut h dot ed u
slash aging.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
What's life without a net? I suggest you go to bed,
sleep it off. Just wait until the show's over. Sleepy.
Back to Doug Pike, as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Welcome back fifty plus, Thanks for listening. Will and I
will be here till one o'clock, they say, unless, Man, well,
let's just not even think about what would run us
out of here before one o'clock. I don't want that
to happen. Uh in KRT before the Horse News a
(10:55):
New Jersey company, and Rick just sent me a note
a minute ago saying, hey, man, quit talking about New York.
I don't want to go there, and I don't really
want to go there either, but we had to talk
about it. Now I'm going to talk about New Jersey
because that state is where a company that promised a
really big offshore wind farm. Oh man, we're gonna take
(11:18):
a lot of money and we're gonna put a bunch
of windmills off shore. So give us. It's kind of
like the guy coming to you do your fence or
your roof or your plumbing job or whatever it says.
You know, that's gonna cost, however much, one thousand dollars,
ten thousand dollars. So just give me the ten thousand,
(11:40):
and I'll come back and fix your house. I'll come
back in landscape. I'll come back and do your yard.
I'll come back. Whatever it is, just paint it. Give
me the money, and I'll go get the paint and
come back and paint your house. Well, apparently, I'm pretty
sure from what I read that New Jersey did that
they gave him at least a lot of the money.
(12:02):
And now that same company is we can't find a
supplier for the blades. Those are pretty important to windmills.
That'd be some like somebody promising a company a fleet
of cars and then not finding anybody who could supply
their engines. Oh man, One by one, more, more and
(12:25):
more of these multi billion trillion dollar green schemes are
just they're fumbling, fumbling the ball before it's even snapped.
The center's just falling on the ball. It's just remarkable
to me, how how this this is not an unusual occurrence.
(12:46):
A lot of these things are happening, and there's still
a lot of money being thrown around, a whole lot
of money being thrown around, we're just not getting much
for it. It reminds me of the money that was that
was set aside in one bill or another, I don't
know which one, that was gonna put up hundreds, if
not thousands, of electric vehicle charging stations around the country,
(13:11):
And after years of that money being there, the some
total of chargers that actually went in was fewer than
a dozen. Ridiculous. How badly we're being is how much
blowney we're being fed by the people who want all
(13:32):
this stuff because it's making somebody rich. I don't know
who it's making rich, because it's certainly not me, but
it's making somebody rich. All right, Well, let's tone it
down a little bit. And I didn't have time really
to analyze these. I'm just gonna kind of shoot from
the hip on some of these. I've titled two of them,
(13:53):
and so what I'll give you as choices are if
you have to have an addiction or or clumsy, clumb
or well there's there's always a third. So the third
is the mystery category clumsy it is a study and
this is just an awkwardly written piece that I found
(14:17):
it almost qualified as useless information. But it has some merit.
Study found that there are fewer people commuting around nine
and a few and fewer people commuting around five in
the afternoon now thanks to flexible work hours, but the
midday rush hour is worse than ever in some cities.
(14:40):
It says here, it created a situation where there's basically
a many rush hour all day long. I find that
story at awkward at best. Yeah. Do you agree? Yeah? Yeah,
it's like so it's another one of those so what stories.
I yeah, that's not even we're talking about. Now, here's
(15:01):
something I don't know. Who knows? Will you might find
this useful someday, hopefully not anytime soon. There's several companies
in Japan and I've never heard of one here, And
if you have, let me know. Will What they'll do
is quit your job for you. They will call your employer,
tell them you're leaving, and then even handle all the
(15:23):
details like when will be your last day, how to
return company owned equipment and so forth. Would you do
that to an employer? Hmmm? I don't know. Here, here's
the not unless not, unless you didn't care about getting
a good recommendation that you're at wherever you want to go.
(15:45):
Because they're certainly not going to do that. They're certainly
not going to do that.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Well, I wonder does using this company also require I mean,
i'd take it it requires a fee.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Of course, they're going to charge you for that. Do
it out of the goodness of their hearts. Nobody does
anything like that, and hemoreks up old people. We do
things just because they're the right thing to do. Hold
doors for people. I hold doors for people still. I
was born and raised to do that, and I don't
really care who's coming up behind me. I will never
drop a door on somebody, do you No, Not generally,
(16:21):
not generally, Yeah, I never drop a door on somebody coming.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Sometimes sometimes I'll think that it's time for me to go,
and then I'll see somebody coming out in the distance,
and then but I'm already gone.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
You're on a side. Whether they can get there in
enough time so that it's not a bother to you, well,
it's not even that.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
It's more I'll I'll let people out, and then I'll notice,
right as I'm about to leave that somebody seems to
be coming my way to the door. And then but
I'm I'm already pretty much, I'll.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yeah, yeah, I know what you do. I've seen people
do that. They do it to me. And if someone
is nice enough to hold a door for me, because
I'm so old and feeble looking, you know, if someone
holds a door for me, I walk faster. I walk
faster and nothing. Well, many things frustrate me more than this,
but a source of minor frustration at least is when
(17:23):
I look and see someone coming up behind me and think, oh, heck,
I'll hold that door for that person. That's not a problem.
And so I'm holding it and they just, oh, do
you do mosy? They mosey? Will they don't step it up,
They mosey, And that's when you drop it on them.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
I've been tempted a few times, but I'm not gonna
let I'm not gonna let them have the satisfaction of
being able to say I was a jerk and didn't
hold the door for him for five minutes while they
walked across the walk, across one space in a parking
lot or something that does bother me, though it really does.
Catfish and scams. We haven't talked about catfishing scams at
(18:02):
a long time, have we I don't think so, But
we have to get out of here. Oh do we?
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Sorry, Okay, Bron's roofing. This is Skeeter Brown. He's been
in business for thirty plus years. Does a great job.
He's helped my family, He's helped a lot of people,
a lot of neighbors, a lot of people I know
use Bronze roofing and seem to be quite satisfied. A
good roof can last you a whole lot of long time,
so long as you take care of it, and for nothing,
(18:28):
for no charge whatsoever, they will come out and inspect
your roof. They'll let you know if there's a problem.
If there is, they'll show you pictures. They'll tell you
how they can fix it. They'll tell you how long
it'll take and importantly what it'll cost you. And you
can you can get more estimates if you want to.
But quality work at a fair price is what's kept
Skeeter Braun in business for more than thirty years. More
(18:51):
than thirty years, residential, commercial, tile, asphalt, steel, shingle, whatever
it is on top of that building of yours. Bronze
has you cover free estimates within twenty eight four hours
in most cases. Brownzroofing Dot com to eight one four
eight zero ninety nine hundred to eighty one for eight
zero ninety nine one hundred.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Now they sure don't make them like they used to.
That's why every few months we wash them, check his
fluids and spring on a fresh coat of wax. This
is fifty plus with Doug Pike, Welcome back Plus.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
I gotta tell you, I got a pretty good kick
out of introducing something to Will earlier. A little before
we went on the air. I came in here and
I put a little handful of beans on the console.
I said, keep an eye on these for me, Will.
They have magic powers. And as it turned out, Will
Melbourne has never in his life been exposed to jumping beans.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
And he looked at them and said, like, what's this?
And then I said they have magic powers. Will watch this,
And I shoved my hand down toward those beans, and
I really just acted like I was straining, and the
beans began to move. What did you think in that moment?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Will?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
I thought you put a hex on them.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I thought you were using that voodoo manager a hex
a spell. The mm, yeah, just like right out of
the French quarter man. But it turns out they're just
some little moth larva inside you, and I and everybody
else knew that. But Will is young enough to have
never never seen those never even.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Wait, is that really what it is? It's moth larva,
that's all it is. Yes, it's it's a live larvae
inside old miners starting to cook over here. Now, a
couple of them, they're bouncing all over the place. Okay,
after I did that, I can't back in here. About
ten minutes later and they were there were four or
five of them on the ground. There were five or
six more of them just kind of spread out over
(21:07):
the console. And Will had made no effort whatsoever. You
never even touched one of them, did you?
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You know?
Speaker 3 (21:13):
I did.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
I picked them up the first time they fell off,
and then the second time I could just.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Got tired of them trying to run away. Yeah, just
was so tickled for those first couple of minutes when
those things started moving, like yeah, and I can understand
your your trepidation if you will it. That's a that's
(21:39):
something you would see on Tales of the Bizarre or
ghost stories or something like that. They're haunted beans, Will, Now,
what are you going to take some home to your
girlfriend let her see them, because you know, you know,
she's never seen them either.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
I sent her a video. Oh did you of I said,
Doug came into the studio and he just dropped these here,
and they're moving?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
What are they?
Speaker 4 (22:05):
And she did not know? And then I'm perfect. I
looked it up and I I'm pretty sure they're jumping beans.
I don't want moths in my house. No, no, no,
they'll never get out of the bean. I don't think
they can get out of the bean. Well I think
you're cool.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Well that's side. Well, life's tough. We're a helmet. Yeah.
I don't know how this works. I don't understand the
bean and the moth larva inside the bean. Maybe they
can't get out, Maybe they can get out. I don't know.
If I find out that, won't you look that up?
That'll be some good research for you. Will you do that?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
And what we need to know is whether or not
these moth larvae actually get out of the bean and
are freed up to become what they what they say
they are. Cordy I mentioned catfishing earlier, and according to
a recent study, California leads America. It is the most
(23:01):
often scammed state in the entire country. Online catfishing scams
have cost Californians two hundred million dollars. And that's just
among the people who aren't embarrassed about talking about being scammed,
and unfortunately for seniors, so many of them. I've talked
(23:25):
about this many times with Jason Gosh. I've got another
man's last name in my mind right now and I
can't call his but Jason from UTA Health has talked
about this a lot. Most seniors, or many seniors at least,
who get scammed, are embarrassed to admit they've been scammed.
(23:46):
And if that ever happens to you, don't be embarrassed
at all, because the people who are doing this are
really really slick. They could they could talk the bark
off a tree. So don't don't be ashamed that somebody
burns you out of some money. Just let the authorities
know so that they can try to find these people
and shut them down. Find them and shut them down.
(24:07):
By the way, the addiction story I had here is
about our twenty third president, Benjamin Harrison, and I suppose
if you have to have an addiction, it could be
a whole lot worse than what his related to, and
that was cucumbers. It's he wasn't addicted to drugs. He
(24:28):
wasn't addicted to alcohol, he wasn't addicted to tobacco. He
was addicted to cucumbers. How that panned out in his life,
I don't know. It doesn't say, I'm not going to ask,
but that's what his addiction involved. The canary in the
economy mind shaft, I would think would be Dollar General
(24:51):
because that's where first people started doing a little bit
of shopping at. If they were department store rich, they
were in the department stores. Then they went to Target,
Then they went to some of the grocery stores that
didn't charge as much. Then they went to Walmart and
Kmart wherever Kmart was and everybody was trying to save
(25:13):
some money over the last few years. Well, then they
went to five Below to get some stuff out of there,
and now they're at Dollar General trying to find stuff
there because prices are out of control. The economy is
inflated to the point of bursting, and here we go.
Dollar General is reeling from dropped revenues. Their revenue is falling.
(25:39):
Even Dollar General sees the decline in revenue. There are
no more ninety nine sets stores anywhere, not that I've
seen in a long time. So I guess what's left
will dumpster diving. Maybe. I don't know. How have you
ever been broken enough to really not be able to
(26:02):
afford food? I actually have, but I had. I was
fortunate enough that I could fall back on my parents
and and I didn't. I didn't bother them for very long.
It was a very brief time when I looked at
my checking account and realized that there wasn't enough in
there really to go get a big bag of groceries.
(26:23):
And I call my parents. I said, look, I'm in
a bind. I just need some groceries. And and I
had work. I had just I had to miss a
couple of shifts, I think because I was sick or
something like that. So it was a very temporary situation,
but it really it really got my attention, and I've
never forgotten that. I've never forgotten that, because it's a
(26:44):
hard feeling, and I can't imagine how hard it would
be to have that same feeling, to know how how
low you were on funds, no matter which way you looked,
and that maybe you had some kids to feed, certainly
as a parent. If that were the case, I would
absolutely forego whatever food I was gonna eat and give
it to those kids. And that's what goes on in
(27:08):
this country right now. And the problem is that we're
still being asked by the rest of the world, and
we're just dumb enough to do it, to keep sending
billions and billions of dollars all around the world for
all kinds of causes. Not the most favored of mine
is this idea that the way to keep from having
to build a wall is to improve the economies of
(27:30):
all these other Midwestern or not Midwestern, but Central American
and South American countries, Caribbean countries where a lot of
these people are coming from. We're not getting, though, We're
not getting the people who truly are trying to make
better lives for themselves. In many cases, we're getting criminals
being ushered out of prisons. We're getting people who have
(27:53):
mental illnesses that need attention and aren't going to get
it because they're not going to go looking forward over here.
And that was proposed by the outgoing president of Mexico
to us that if you don't want these people coming in,
you need to pay to boost their economies and get
them started. I may come back to that when we
(28:15):
get back from the break. No, that's the wrong one.
Kirk Holmbs I want to tell you about right now.
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when I win the lottery or sooner, if the opportunity
arises to build my dream home. I have a good
idea where I want to put it. I have a
good idea what it would look like with my wife's input,
(28:37):
of course, and all I would have to do at
that point is just go to kirk Hoolmes, sit down
with the architectural and design teams and turn them loose
to with my input, create that dream home for me,
first on paper, then in real three D space on
a beautiful lot overlooking a gorgeous side with a little
(29:01):
creek running to the lake at the bottom of it.
That's part of it, anyway. Kirkcomb's twenty twenty four Southern
Living Builder of the Year. That's kind of a big deal.
It's a really big deal, and just one of many
awards that company has earned over thirty plus years in business.
They're a third generation custom builder. Pretty much anywhere from
(29:22):
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dream come true. Go to Kirkholmes dot com. That's k
you are k because at kirkcolmbs it's all about you,
aged to perfection.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
This is fifty plus with Dougpike.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Welcome back fifty plus on this Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon already
Holy cow. Uh lose a day for the work or
for the holiday. Then Tuesday flies by and now it's Wednesday,
and in a couple of days it's going to be
bright and sunny with highs around eighty degrees. We have
breaking jumping bean news in the studio.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Here.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Will did some reading and explained exactly what was happening
inside that jumping bean. So I decided to get out
my little leatherman micro tool and dig around a little
bit and see if that was true. And I actually
was able to open the little trap door, which on
(30:41):
a jumping beam kind of looks like if that was
a piece of an apple, that's the core you would
you would see in the kind of the middle of
the inner part of that seed pod where that little
larvae is. And I actually got the door open with
my blade. It's about an inch and a half long.
The TSA conceit's at a deadly weapon. They've gotten three
(31:02):
or four of mine when I've forgotten to put them
in a check bag. In any event, though, I left that.
I opened it up and I took it and put
it over in front of Will on the console, and
I said, here you go, here you go, let's see
if that worm crawls out, And just jokingly, I didn't
expect to see anything, and then Will announces, I can
(31:23):
see it. Were you excited?
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Will?
Speaker 3 (31:26):
I was excited it was. It was thrilling. I ran
around there immediately, and indeed you can see that little
thing in there. That's what it's doing, according to Will's research,
is banging its head against the side of that pod,
trying to work its way out. I opened up the
trap door for this one, so keep an eye on it.
Will it make try to crawl out? We'll have to see.
(31:47):
Are you gonna take it home? You got to now
you saw it first. You gotta naw. It's a live being.
I'm not gonna take it. Humh. It won't require much food.
Just get it out of there, Just dig it out
of there maybe, and just put it in a little
jar and let it become a moth. It'll fly away.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
Now, maybe I'll take some of the other ones home,
but not the one that's already been open.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
You gotta let it do its work. That was interesting, though,
That was interesting to actually see that little creature in there.
You can envision something in there, but you don't know
what it's gonna look like. And as it turns out,
it looks like a larva magic you know. Boy, who
to thunk? Huh, that's pretty interesting. Uh, So they're in there.
End of the biology lesson for today. Free speech maybe, well,
(32:34):
free speech is always good down in Brazil, though, where
the NFL's hauled the Eagles and the Packers for a
Friday night game. Just another money grab trying to introduce
American football to the rest of the world and develop
fans and sell jerseys and all that good stuff. Anyway,
Also in Brazil, the social media platform x has been
(32:57):
banned from the whole country because that country, which has
constitutional protections for some speech but not all speech, and
if the government doesn't like your speech there, they can
find you or resture for it. So anyway, that's kind
of coming soon into a country near us. If we
vote the wrong way in November. By the way, I
(33:19):
just about guarantee it, because what they will declare is
that what we say is free speech. What you say,
no matter what it is, no matter how true it
may be, well that's hate speech and you can't do that.
That would be there and the gullibles at that point
would have no choice but to believe the lies. Genuine
hate speech is abhorrent, it really is, has no place
(33:41):
in civilized society. I agree with that. The tricky part, though,
is deciding who decides what's genuinely hateful and dangerous and
what's just hurting somebody's feelings. Because disagreeing on things, civil disagreement,
calm disagreement, is not hateful, it's just a different opinion.
(34:06):
And if it's a really if it becomes a dangerous opinion,
and somebody is advocating hurting people or kidnapping people, or
doing something else that would otherwise disrupt their lives in
any way, shape or form, really physically, then no, we
can talk about that. But just because somebody says something
(34:26):
that you don't like or that makes you feel uneasy,
that that means you're starting to think and you may
not like what they say, But in this country still
and hopefully moving forward, we do have a right to
say as we please, and I'm glad about that. Ah
(34:46):
Where else? Oh, in Lego News. You want Lego news
will or you want to go back to the fund page.
I love Legos. This is kind of interesting. The toy
block building company Legos says it's going to pay out
of pot out of its own pocket to make half
its little bricks from renewable materials by twenty twenty six.
(35:07):
Guess who's going to pay out a pocket to buy
the Legos they build from renewable materials that cost them
money up front. Yeah, that'd be us. The renewable pitch
is public relations Legos, a little way to make the
planet better, you know. But don't think for a minute
that they won't recoup that investment down the line. As
(35:28):
they say, hmmm, now, oh this is interesting, And this
just goes it goes to what we were talking about earlier,
about doing the right thing, maybe holding doors something like that.
Random people in Texas stopped to help animal control officers
catch a loose pig. Would you do that? Will? You're
(35:52):
hard to catch a loose pick? How big was the pit?
I don't know. You could be a blocker maybe, but
we need we need young fans. Ask people to actually
catch the pig, and then you and I could be blockers.
I'd do that and I'd grab it if it came
by me close enough. We'll see it tomorrow. No more pigs,
no more Larva. Then audios.
Remember whether it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. Remember when music sounded
like this? Remember when social media was truly social?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey John, how's it going today?
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Well, this show is all about you, the good die.
This is fifty plus with Doug Pipe. Helpful information on
your finances, good health, and what to do for fun.
Fifty plus brought to you by the UT Health Houston
Institute on Aging, Informed Decisions for a healthier, happier life
(00:42):
and Bronze Roofing repair or replacement. Bronze roofing has you covered?
And now fifty plus with Doug Pike.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
All right, here we go. Welcome to Wednesday, which this
morning was blanketed in thick clouds and some rain roughly
from I ten south rain early down south, and a
chance for it all over this afternoon. But what's new
really in September, right after dove season opens, and right
before dove season opens, that's just that's a given around here.
(01:11):
If you've lived here long enough and are an outdoors
person at all, you've you've heard other outdoors people talk
about how it's gonna rain within three or four days
of the first of September over a good portion of
this state is.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
What it is.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
We'll make it lots of ground to cover today too,
So I will press right into today's weather courtesy of
Texas into air quality specialists. Because cleaner air is, after all,
healthier air. You can just doll pound two fifty and
say healthier and get the gunk out of your duct work.
His and lo's and haiku will are you ready? I
am here we go. I must be dreaming mild and
(01:49):
sunny all weekend. Please don't wake me up. Wow now,
oh now we're cooking home. That was good. How we're cooking?
That was good? I like that one a lot.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
You're getting a nine today. You're getting a nine to
day nine point? What will nine on the dot?
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Okay, leave it a little room just in cases of corn.
How exceed your greater expectation? Okay, well I'll take a nine.
That's the first of those. That's good. And I didn't
really have to dive into the weather to get it.
That was even better. It was a It was a story.
I told a story about the weather, and it was
clear and it was concise, true, unlike what we're seeing
(02:36):
about these three yellow exes out there on the National
Hurricane Center's board, none of which, by the way, is
anything yet but a bunch of rain and maybe a
little bit of a breeze trying to be something but
isn't yet. And that one that's closest to us. Actually,
the chances of it forming have gone down, not up.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Now.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
It may bounce back after about a I don't know,
four or five, six more days once it gets across
into the northwestern Caribbean, But until it gets into the
Gulf of Mexico, if it even does, which it's not
really supposed to do, there's just nothing to see. And
I hate it when I see forecasters spend minutes of
(03:21):
their precious time talking about something that is a thousand
or more miles away and what it might do. Let's
just let's just talk about what it's going to be
around here, which is gonna be really really nice for
the net. Well, it's there are chances of rain for
the next three including today, for the next three days,
and then after that just an absolute gorgeous weekend and
(03:43):
early part of next week. So there you go. Off
to market we go. Thanks to Houston Goldexchange dot Com.
Three of the four lights were red again this morning,
but the loss is not nearly so bad as yesterday's
free fault. Gold dropped a few bucks and was trying
to correct and go green still hadn't. As of just
a few minutes ago, oil below seventy dollars a barrel
(04:08):
less than seventy dollars a barrel, which which puzzles me
somewhat under current Middle East tension, but I'll take it.
It may be I don't know, Maybe it's just that
Hail Mary we've been waiting for from the current administration
to show the gullibles they're doing something positive for us,
which they're not. I don't think even I don't think
(04:31):
this is a result of that so much as it
is just a legitimate market move, and we'll see if
it sticks. We'll see. I think, never mind, I don't
want to go to that. News lately has been kind
of like a rack of dumbbells in the gym, different
sizes one end of the other, right, but in the end,
they're all still dumbbells, not entirely unlike people who think
(04:56):
our vice president will do anything to fix our economy
or border anything else. And Joe have broken in the
past four years. She had walls by the way walts
Who's in love with China? In its ideology, would I
think ultimately only finished at least try to finish what
Joe Biden started. Maybe more on that later, maybe not.
(05:17):
We'll see which way the story's lead us. How about
New York. Let's go to New York. Will you want
to go to New York? I love New York. Have
you been? I guess you have? I have have not.
My wife's been twice, maybe three times, back when her
sister lived up there, but not since New York, the
big state where Governor Kathy Hokele found out this week's
surprise one of her longtime age right there in the
(05:41):
governor's office. First with Cuomo and then with Hochel. This
woman and her husband, both, by the way, have been
charged with working on behalf of the Chinese government and
making millions of dollars along the way for doing so.
It sounds vaguely familiar, only on broader scale. I think
(06:03):
there's at least a couple of people I can think
of saying, huh, a couple of million bucks, Hold my beer,
Hold my beer. Chel actually called it a betrayal of trust. Hello, governors,
that's what agents of foreign governments do when they have
infiltrated their way into your office to steal your secrets
(06:24):
and talk about things that they shouldn't even know about.
It's your job as governor to figure out who you
can trust and who you can't trust. And apparently she's
not all that good at it all. Will let's I
will go to Florence, Italy as long as we're not
(06:46):
hanging around locally, and I'll get to some of that
later and some fun stuff as well. In Italy comes
news at the airport there is going to have a
truly unique roof. Will for all the money in the
world and the camper think about how big a major
airport roof is, Think about how massive it is, and
how it usually does nothing but maybe serve as a
(07:07):
home for the air conditioning units, maybe some odd looking
pipes here and there running across the roof and then
down back into the building. But in Tuscany, the new
airports roof will be what will open.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Air so that way you can hear all the planes
go by, hear them.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Go by, you'll know before well everybody will know. At
the same time when there's a rain delay, you don't
have to wait for the announcement on the loud speaker.
No will, they're not doing that. What they've done actually
is turn this this airport roof, which by the way,
covers nineteen acres. Think about that. That's a big, big roof,
(07:50):
and that nineteen acres has been it's a new roof,
new airport. All of that stuff. It's a vineyard. They're
growing grapes up there, and there's actually the what do
they call it the distillery. It's not a refinery. What
do they call that will where they make the wine?
(08:11):
I think, I mean, I know distillery is used for whiskey. Yeah,
so we're just gonna go with wine making place. But anyway,
what I want to know is what they're gonna call
that wine because they're making it right there. The whole
process is gonna be done. The grapes are gonna grow
on the roof, and then all the squashing of the
grapes for this audience that will remember the I Love
(08:33):
Lucy Grape squashing skit from many many years ago. That
was hilarious. Between that one and the Candy Factory, those
were two of the best pieces of television ever presented.
I need to go to a break don't. I yes, Okay,
you look up the wine thing and we'll talk about
that when we get back, and then I will tell
everybody about ut Health Institute on Aging, that collaborative that
(08:57):
I've spoken about for eight nine years now. I'm not
sure actly how long it's been. I know I've enjoyed
doing it every step of the way, though, because the
Institute on Aging is a group of people who have
gone back and studied further than their diploma required, than
their expertise required to find out exactly how they can
(09:19):
apply their knowledge about a specific condition or a specific
therapy or whatever to seniors. They are totally schooled in
how we work, how our bodies work. And that's a
big deal, especially when you get to seniority. We don't
respond to medications like younger people do. We don't respond
(09:42):
respond to therapies like younger people do. It takes a
little more time to get us motivated than younger people.
Go to their website, Look at all the resources available
to you there. Go to that website also to find
access to all of these providers who are all over
this great Greater Greater Houston area and just happy as
(10:03):
larks to help us out. When we need them. Ut
H dot edu slash aging ut h dot ed u
slash aging.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
What's life without a net? I suggest you go to bed,
sleep it off. Just wait until the show's over. Sleepy.
Back to Doug Pike, as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Welcome back fifty plus, Thanks for listening. Will and I
will be here till one o'clock, they say, unless, Man, well,
let's just not even think about what would run us
out of here before one o'clock. I don't want that
to happen. Uh in KRT before the Horse News a
(10:55):
New Jersey company, and Rick just sent me a note
a minute ago saying, hey, man, quit talking about New York.
I don't want to go there, and I don't really
want to go there either, but we had to talk
about it. Now I'm going to talk about New Jersey
because that state is where a company that promised a
really big offshore wind farm. Oh man, we're gonna take
(11:18):
a lot of money and we're gonna put a bunch
of windmills off shore. So give us. It's kind of
like the guy coming to you do your fence or
your roof or your plumbing job or whatever it says.
You know, that's gonna cost, however much, one thousand dollars,
ten thousand dollars. So just give me the ten thousand,
(11:40):
and I'll come back and fix your house. I'll come
back in landscape. I'll come back and do your yard.
I'll come back. Whatever it is, just paint it. Give
me the money, and I'll go get the paint and
come back and paint your house. Well, apparently, I'm pretty
sure from what I read that New Jersey did that
they gave him at least a lot of the money.
(12:02):
And now that same company is we can't find a
supplier for the blades. Those are pretty important to windmills.
That'd be some like somebody promising a company a fleet
of cars and then not finding anybody who could supply
their engines. Oh man, One by one, more, more and
(12:25):
more of these multi billion trillion dollar green schemes are
just they're fumbling, fumbling the ball before it's even snapped.
The center's just falling on the ball. It's just remarkable
to me, how how this this is not an unusual occurrence.
(12:46):
A lot of these things are happening, and there's still
a lot of money being thrown around, a whole lot
of money being thrown around, we're just not getting much
for it. It reminds me of the money that was that
was set aside in one bill or another, I don't
know which one, that was gonna put up hundreds, if
not thousands, of electric vehicle charging stations around the country,
(13:11):
And after years of that money being there, the some
total of chargers that actually went in was fewer than
a dozen. Ridiculous. How badly we're being is how much
blowney we're being fed by the people who want all
(13:32):
this stuff because it's making somebody rich. I don't know
who it's making rich, because it's certainly not me, but
it's making somebody rich. All right, Well, let's tone it
down a little bit. And I didn't have time really
to analyze these. I'm just gonna kind of shoot from
the hip on some of these. I've titled two of them,
(13:53):
and so what I'll give you as choices are if
you have to have an addiction or or clumsy, clumb
or well there's there's always a third. So the third
is the mystery category clumsy it is a study and
this is just an awkwardly written piece that I found
(14:17):
it almost qualified as useless information. But it has some merit.
Study found that there are fewer people commuting around nine
and a few and fewer people commuting around five in
the afternoon now thanks to flexible work hours, but the
midday rush hour is worse than ever in some cities.
(14:40):
It says here, it created a situation where there's basically
a many rush hour all day long. I find that
story at awkward at best. Yeah. Do you agree? Yeah? Yeah,
it's like so it's another one of those so what stories.
I yeah, that's not even we're talking about. Now, here's
(15:01):
something I don't know. Who knows? Will you might find
this useful someday, hopefully not anytime soon. There's several companies
in Japan and I've never heard of one here, And
if you have, let me know. Will What they'll do
is quit your job for you. They will call your employer,
tell them you're leaving, and then even handle all the
(15:23):
details like when will be your last day, how to
return company owned equipment and so forth. Would you do
that to an employer? Hmmm? I don't know. Here, here's
the not unless not, unless you didn't care about getting
a good recommendation that you're at wherever you want to go.
(15:45):
Because they're certainly not going to do that. They're certainly
not going to do that.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Well, I wonder does using this company also require I mean,
i'd take it it requires a fee.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Of course, they're going to charge you for that. Do
it out of the goodness of their hearts. Nobody does
anything like that, and hemoreks up old people. We do
things just because they're the right thing to do. Hold
doors for people. I hold doors for people still. I
was born and raised to do that, and I don't
really care who's coming up behind me. I will never
drop a door on somebody, do you No, Not generally,
(16:21):
not generally, Yeah, I never drop a door on somebody coming.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
Sometimes sometimes I'll think that it's time for me to go,
and then I'll see somebody coming out in the distance,
and then but I'm already gone.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
You're on a side. Whether they can get there in
enough time so that it's not a bother to you, well,
it's not even that.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
It's more I'll I'll let people out, and then I'll notice,
right as I'm about to leave that somebody seems to
be coming my way to the door. And then but
I'm I'm already pretty much, I'll.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yeah, yeah, I know what you do. I've seen people
do that. They do it to me. And if someone
is nice enough to hold a door for me, because
I'm so old and feeble looking, you know, if someone
holds a door for me, I walk faster. I walk
faster and nothing. Well, many things frustrate me more than this,
but a source of minor frustration at least is when
(17:23):
I look and see someone coming up behind me and think, oh, heck,
I'll hold that door for that person. That's not a problem.
And so I'm holding it and they just, oh, do
you do mosy? They mosey? Will they don't step it up,
They mosey, And that's when you drop it on them.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
I've been tempted a few times, but I'm not gonna
let I'm not gonna let them have the satisfaction of
being able to say I was a jerk and didn't
hold the door for him for five minutes while they
walked across the walk, across one space in a parking
lot or something that does bother me, though it really does.
Catfish and scams. We haven't talked about catfishing scams at
(18:02):
a long time, have we I don't think so, But
we have to get out of here. Oh do we?
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Sorry, Okay, Bron's roofing. This is Skeeter Brown. He's been
in business for thirty plus years. Does a great job.
He's helped my family, He's helped a lot of people,
a lot of neighbors, a lot of people I know
use Bronze roofing and seem to be quite satisfied. A
good roof can last you a whole lot of long time,
so long as you take care of it, and for nothing,
(18:28):
for no charge whatsoever, they will come out and inspect
your roof. They'll let you know if there's a problem.
If there is, they'll show you pictures. They'll tell you
how they can fix it. They'll tell you how long
it'll take and importantly what it'll cost you. And you
can you can get more estimates if you want to.
But quality work at a fair price is what's kept
Skeeter Braun in business for more than thirty years. More
(18:51):
than thirty years, residential, commercial, tile, asphalt, steel, shingle, whatever
it is on top of that building of yours. Bronze
has you cover free estimates within twenty eight four hours
in most cases. Brownzroofing Dot com to eight one four
eight zero ninety nine hundred to eighty one for eight
zero ninety nine one hundred.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Now they sure don't make them like they used to.
That's why every few months we wash them, check his
fluids and spring on a fresh coat of wax. This
is fifty plus with Doug Pike, Welcome back Plus.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
I gotta tell you, I got a pretty good kick
out of introducing something to Will earlier. A little before
we went on the air. I came in here and
I put a little handful of beans on the console.
I said, keep an eye on these for me, Will.
They have magic powers. And as it turned out, Will
Melbourne has never in his life been exposed to jumping beans.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
And he looked at them and said, like, what's this?
And then I said they have magic powers. Will watch this,
And I shoved my hand down toward those beans, and
I really just acted like I was straining, and the
beans began to move. What did you think in that moment?
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Will?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
I thought you put a hex on them.
Speaker 4 (20:27):
I thought you were using that voodoo manager a hex
a spell. The mm, yeah, just like right out of
the French quarter man. But it turns out they're just
some little moth larva inside you, and I and everybody
else knew that. But Will is young enough to have
never never seen those never even.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Wait, is that really what it is? It's moth larva,
that's all it is. Yes, it's it's a live larvae
inside old miners starting to cook over here. Now, a
couple of them, they're bouncing all over the place. Okay,
after I did that, I can't back in here. About
ten minutes later and they were there were four or
five of them on the ground. There were five or
six more of them just kind of spread out over
(21:07):
the console. And Will had made no effort whatsoever. You
never even touched one of them, did you?
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You know?
Speaker 3 (21:13):
I did.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
I picked them up the first time they fell off,
and then the second time I could just.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Got tired of them trying to run away. Yeah, just
was so tickled for those first couple of minutes when
those things started moving, like yeah, and I can understand
your your trepidation if you will it. That's a that's
(21:39):
something you would see on Tales of the Bizarre or
ghost stories or something like that. They're haunted beans, Will, Now,
what are you going to take some home to your
girlfriend let her see them, because you know, you know,
she's never seen them either.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
I sent her a video. Oh did you of I said,
Doug came into the studio and he just dropped these here,
and they're moving?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
What are they?
Speaker 4 (22:05):
And she did not know? And then I'm perfect. I
looked it up and I I'm pretty sure they're jumping beans.
I don't want moths in my house. No, no, no,
they'll never get out of the bean. I don't think
they can get out of the bean. Well I think
you're cool.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Well that's side. Well, life's tough. We're a helmet. Yeah.
I don't know how this works. I don't understand the
bean and the moth larva inside the bean. Maybe they
can't get out, Maybe they can get out. I don't know.
If I find out that, won't you look that up?
That'll be some good research for you. Will you do that?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (22:40):
And what we need to know is whether or not
these moth larvae actually get out of the bean and
are freed up to become what they what they say
they are. Cordy I mentioned catfishing earlier, and according to
a recent study, California leads America. It is the most
(23:01):
often scammed state in the entire country. Online catfishing scams
have cost Californians two hundred million dollars. And that's just
among the people who aren't embarrassed about talking about being scammed,
and unfortunately for seniors, so many of them. I've talked
(23:25):
about this many times with Jason Gosh. I've got another
man's last name in my mind right now and I
can't call his but Jason from UTA Health has talked
about this a lot. Most seniors, or many seniors at least,
who get scammed, are embarrassed to admit they've been scammed.
(23:46):
And if that ever happens to you, don't be embarrassed
at all, because the people who are doing this are
really really slick. They could they could talk the bark
off a tree. So don't don't be ashamed that somebody
burns you out of some money. Just let the authorities
know so that they can try to find these people
and shut them down. Find them and shut them down.
(24:07):
By the way, the addiction story I had here is
about our twenty third president, Benjamin Harrison, and I suppose
if you have to have an addiction, it could be
a whole lot worse than what his related to, and
that was cucumbers. It's he wasn't addicted to drugs. He
(24:28):
wasn't addicted to alcohol, he wasn't addicted to tobacco. He
was addicted to cucumbers. How that panned out in his life,
I don't know. It doesn't say, I'm not going to ask,
but that's what his addiction involved. The canary in the
economy mind shaft, I would think would be Dollar General
(24:51):
because that's where first people started doing a little bit
of shopping at. If they were department store rich, they
were in the department stores. Then they went to Target,
Then they went to some of the grocery stores that
didn't charge as much. Then they went to Walmart and
Kmart wherever Kmart was and everybody was trying to save
(25:13):
some money over the last few years. Well, then they
went to five Below to get some stuff out of there,
and now they're at Dollar General trying to find stuff
there because prices are out of control. The economy is
inflated to the point of bursting, and here we go.
Dollar General is reeling from dropped revenues. Their revenue is falling.
(25:39):
Even Dollar General sees the decline in revenue. There are
no more ninety nine sets stores anywhere, not that I've
seen in a long time. So I guess what's left
will dumpster diving. Maybe. I don't know. How have you
ever been broken enough to really not be able to
(26:02):
afford food? I actually have, but I had. I was
fortunate enough that I could fall back on my parents
and and I didn't. I didn't bother them for very long.
It was a very brief time when I looked at
my checking account and realized that there wasn't enough in
there really to go get a big bag of groceries.
(26:23):
And I call my parents. I said, look, I'm in
a bind. I just need some groceries. And and I
had work. I had just I had to miss a
couple of shifts, I think because I was sick or
something like that. So it was a very temporary situation,
but it really it really got my attention, and I've
never forgotten that. I've never forgotten that, because it's a
(26:44):
hard feeling, and I can't imagine how hard it would
be to have that same feeling, to know how how
low you were on funds, no matter which way you looked,
and that maybe you had some kids to feed, certainly
as a parent. If that were the case, I would
absolutely forego whatever food I was gonna eat and give
it to those kids. And that's what goes on in
(27:08):
this country right now. And the problem is that we're
still being asked by the rest of the world, and
we're just dumb enough to do it, to keep sending
billions and billions of dollars all around the world for
all kinds of causes. Not the most favored of mine
is this idea that the way to keep from having
to build a wall is to improve the economies of
(27:30):
all these other Midwestern or not Midwestern, but Central American
and South American countries, Caribbean countries where a lot of
these people are coming from. We're not getting, though, We're
not getting the people who truly are trying to make
better lives for themselves. In many cases, we're getting criminals
being ushered out of prisons. We're getting people who have
(27:53):
mental illnesses that need attention and aren't going to get
it because they're not going to go looking forward over here.
And that was proposed by the outgoing president of Mexico
to us that if you don't want these people coming in,
you need to pay to boost their economies and get
them started. I may come back to that when we
(28:15):
get back from the break. No, that's the wrong one.
Kirk Holmbs I want to tell you about right now.
Kirk Hoolmmes is the custom builder that I will choose
when I win the lottery or sooner, if the opportunity
arises to build my dream home. I have a good
idea where I want to put it. I have a
good idea what it would look like with my wife's input,
(28:37):
of course, and all I would have to do at
that point is just go to kirk Hoolmes, sit down
with the architectural and design teams and turn them loose
to with my input, create that dream home for me,
first on paper, then in real three D space on
a beautiful lot overlooking a gorgeous side with a little
(29:01):
creek running to the lake at the bottom of it.
That's part of it, anyway. Kirkcomb's twenty twenty four Southern
Living Builder of the Year. That's kind of a big deal.
It's a really big deal, and just one of many
awards that company has earned over thirty plus years in business.
They're a third generation custom builder. Pretty much anywhere from
(29:22):
the northwest side of Houston all the way throughout the
Hill Country. Turn that dream years into reality. See that
dream come true. Go to Kirkholmes dot com. That's k
you are k because at kirkcolmbs it's all about you,
aged to perfection.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
This is fifty plus with Dougpike.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
Welcome back fifty plus on this Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon already
Holy cow. Uh lose a day for the work or
for the holiday. Then Tuesday flies by and now it's Wednesday,
and in a couple of days it's going to be
bright and sunny with highs around eighty degrees. We have
breaking jumping bean news in the studio.
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Here.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Will did some reading and explained exactly what was happening
inside that jumping bean. So I decided to get out
my little leatherman micro tool and dig around a little
bit and see if that was true. And I actually
was able to open the little trap door, which on
(30:41):
a jumping beam kind of looks like if that was
a piece of an apple, that's the core you would
you would see in the kind of the middle of
the inner part of that seed pod where that little
larvae is. And I actually got the door open with
my blade. It's about an inch and a half long.
The TSA conceit's at a deadly weapon. They've gotten three
(31:02):
or four of mine when I've forgotten to put them
in a check bag. In any event, though, I left that.
I opened it up and I took it and put
it over in front of Will on the console, and
I said, here you go, here you go, let's see
if that worm crawls out, And just jokingly, I didn't
expect to see anything, and then Will announces, I can
(31:23):
see it. Were you excited?
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Will?
Speaker 3 (31:26):
I was excited it was. It was thrilling. I ran
around there immediately, and indeed you can see that little
thing in there. That's what it's doing, according to Will's research,
is banging its head against the side of that pod,
trying to work its way out. I opened up the
trap door for this one, so keep an eye on it.
Will it make try to crawl out? We'll have to see.
(31:47):
Are you gonna take it home? You got to now
you saw it first. You gotta naw. It's a live being.
I'm not gonna take it. Humh. It won't require much food.
Just get it out of there, Just dig it out
of there maybe, and just put it in a little
jar and let it become a moth. It'll fly away.
Speaker 4 (32:02):
Now, maybe I'll take some of the other ones home,
but not the one that's already been open.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
You gotta let it do its work. That was interesting, though,
That was interesting to actually see that little creature in there.
You can envision something in there, but you don't know
what it's gonna look like. And as it turns out,
it looks like a larva magic you know. Boy, who
to thunk? Huh, that's pretty interesting. Uh, So they're in there.
End of the biology lesson for today. Free speech maybe, well,
(32:34):
free speech is always good down in Brazil, though, where
the NFL's hauled the Eagles and the Packers for a
Friday night game. Just another money grab trying to introduce
American football to the rest of the world and develop
fans and sell jerseys and all that good stuff. Anyway,
Also in Brazil, the social media platform x has been
(32:57):
banned from the whole country because that country, which has
constitutional protections for some speech but not all speech, and
if the government doesn't like your speech there, they can
find you or resture for it. So anyway, that's kind
of coming soon into a country near us. If we
vote the wrong way in November. By the way, I
(33:19):
just about guarantee it, because what they will declare is
that what we say is free speech. What you say,
no matter what it is, no matter how true it
may be, well that's hate speech and you can't do that.
That would be there and the gullibles at that point
would have no choice but to believe the lies. Genuine
hate speech is abhorrent, it really is, has no place
(33:41):
in civilized society. I agree with that. The tricky part, though,
is deciding who decides what's genuinely hateful and dangerous and
what's just hurting somebody's feelings. Because disagreeing on things, civil disagreement,
calm disagreement, is not hateful, it's just a different opinion.
(34:06):
And if it's a really if it becomes a dangerous opinion,
and somebody is advocating hurting people or kidnapping people, or
doing something else that would otherwise disrupt their lives in
any way, shape or form, really physically, then no, we
can talk about that. But just because somebody says something
(34:26):
that you don't like or that makes you feel uneasy,
that that means you're starting to think and you may
not like what they say, But in this country still
and hopefully moving forward, we do have a right to
say as we please, and I'm glad about that. Ah
(34:46):
Where else? Oh, in Lego News. You want Lego news
will or you want to go back to the fund page.
I love Legos. This is kind of interesting. The toy
block building company Legos says it's going to pay out
of pot out of its own pocket to make half
its little bricks from renewable materials by twenty twenty six.
(35:07):
Guess who's going to pay out a pocket to buy
the Legos they build from renewable materials that cost them
money up front. Yeah, that'd be us. The renewable pitch
is public relations Legos, a little way to make the
planet better, you know. But don't think for a minute
that they won't recoup that investment down the line. As
(35:28):
they say, hmmm, now, oh this is interesting, And this
just goes it goes to what we were talking about earlier,
about doing the right thing, maybe holding doors something like that.
Random people in Texas stopped to help animal control officers
catch a loose pig. Would you do that? Will? You're
(35:52):
hard to catch a loose pick? How big was the pit?
I don't know. You could be a blocker maybe, but
we need we need young fans. Ask people to actually
catch the pig, and then you and I could be blockers.
I'd do that and I'd grab it if it came
by me close enough. We'll see it tomorrow. No more pigs,
no more Larva. Then audios.
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