March 14, 2025 • 37 mins
Today, Doug Pike interviews Gregory Shelley about what it means to be an ombudsmen.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. Remember when music sounded
like this, Remember when social media was truly social?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey John, how's it going today? Good Man?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Cool?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
This show is all about you, only the good die.
This is fifty plus.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
With Doug Pike, Helpful information on your finances, good health,
and what to do for fun. Fifty plus brought to
you by the UT Health Houston Institute on Aging Informed
Decisions for a healthier, happier life. And now fifty plus
with Doug Pike, and away.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
We go on this cloudy and warm Friday, final day
of most people's work weeks. Those of you who are
still working and those of you who are retired, congratulations
and carry on. I'll join you someday when I quit
enjoying what I do now, and that might be a while,
because I do truly enjoy being in here. I do
(01:06):
truly enjoy hearing from all of you, and I like
the emails. I like all of it. I really do emails.
You can use Facebook to reach me. I'm not hard
to find on Facebook, and once again, this is why
I do this, is to make new friends. And in fact,
I got referred to a kind of a friend of
(01:28):
a friend deal just this past week when I was
talking about adding members of the family, and I'm working
on that right now with someone who is His business
is situated bayside, and that's all i'll tell you for now.
I'm probably once I get this thing buttoned up, I'm
going to bring him on and talk to him. I'm
going to interview him next week. Probably also going to
(01:50):
be interviewing a woman out in Fort ben County. I
think I talked about her yesterday. I'll get to all
of them, I really will. I love having them on,
I love hearing their stories. We'll talk to one guy,
as a matter of fact, Cowboys Zemanski, the guy who
owns and operates Phoenix Knives and has been making knives
since nineteen and seventy nine out there in Belleville. Hopefully
(02:11):
I haven't heard back yet, but we confirmed a couple
of days ago that he would be in the twelve
thirty slot for this day's show, and then before that,
Gregory Shelley will be about I guess about twelve twenty.
We're gonna talk about the Harris County Ombudsman program. And
if you're unfamiliar, This is a group of people who
(02:33):
protect the rights of seniors. And I guess anybody really
who lives in a nursing home or maybe an assisted
living facility and doesn't have access to friends and family
close by who can drop in and check on them
and make sure they're being well taken care of. That's
(02:53):
a fantastic program and you're gonna hear more about it
in about about twenty minutes or so weather News thanks
to in Texas Indoor Air Quality Specialists, because cleaner air
is healthier air. As we all know, they clean duckwork,
is what they do, and so well in fact that
in a unique, unique way that it stays clean for
(03:15):
a couple of years. You can get it done once
and you won't have to worry about it until probably
twenty twenty seven at least. That's pretty good stuff. In
the weather. Go to texasiaq dot net by the way
to learn more in weather news mid eighties this afternoon.
Than a chance of rain tonight, mostly east of here
unless you're unless you're halfway to Beaumont, then probably about
(03:37):
where you are, it's not a big chance. I don't
think it's supposed to be terribly heavy rain this far
south in the continent. There's some other stuff brewing a
little farther north that might be scarier for the Midwest,
and whatnot, the tornado alley and all of that. Then
after that, for here, back to another outstanding stretch of
(04:00):
good weather for a straight week back to spring. It'll
be highs in the seventies, lows in the sixties, and
high fifties, really really comfortable weather in market new I
see we have no clock again. Will I think that's
Is that going to be permanent now or I hope not?
I do too. I need that clock. I want that clock.
(04:21):
We need we really need to send a trouble ticket,
you know whatever, nevermind, you know. So in market news
from Houston Gold Exchange dot Com, all that read from
yesterday leaned into an early Saint Patrick's Day celebration. I
guess heavy green across the board. Everything was up more
than a full point earlier. That be that everything being
(04:45):
the four indicators I watch most closely. And then even
gold gold danced north of three thousand dollars an ounce
briefly this morning. I haven't looked since then. Well, I
take that back. I did look about maybe an hour
ago and a half, and it had slumped, but only
back to twenty nine ninety six an ounce that was
(05:08):
at about ten o'clock. Oil also up, but less than
fifty cents of barrel, still in the kind of midish
to high sixties. That's that's a comfortable range for now.
It'll it'll get better even but for now, that's not
bad at all. We could move into the news. I
tell you what, I'm gonna get straight to a good
news story because all this other stuff I don't like.
(05:31):
I don't like having to talk about even at all,
all this stuff that's going on, all the money that's
being squandered by the federal government during the past administration.
So I'm gonna step over that for now and maybe
get to it later, and we'll I'll give you the
opportunity to talk either about No, we don't have time
(05:52):
for the long one. I'll do the short one. Over
the counter ibuprofen has been according to us, there are
scientists at the University of Washington in Seattle who studied this,
a pretty exhaustive study really involving more than sixteen hundred
patients who had suffered concussions, okay, half of them in
(06:14):
the study took ibuprofen during their recovery. The other half
took no pain relievers, and each level of recovery was
reached faster by about twenty percent faster by the people
who took the medication. For anybody who gets diagnosed with concussion,
(06:37):
that's really good news.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
Now.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I hope the NFL takes this very carefully and doesn't
just start loading up concussed players with ibuprofen and trying
to get them right back out there right away. And
the doctors are better than that. Actually, the teams might
want somebody back on the field quickly, but the doors
(07:00):
have the final say and should, especially in light of
all the information that's come out about how many many
NFL players and even college players just got concussed so
many times that their brains didn't really work right one minute.
Or are you just waving at somebody? Okay, that's not bad. Oh,
(07:22):
this is kind of interesting. This is a nice breaker
for the weekend. Uh, I don't know. We'll listen to this.
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a
tale of a faithful trip started from wherever it started
(07:42):
aboard this tiny spaceship. Remember those two people, Sony and Butch,
two people headed to space for eight days eight months ago,
been in or As orbit for two thirds of a
year now well, their most recent return date is schedule
from March nineteenth. But I'd bet you, I'd bet you
(08:04):
seven dollars and twelve cents will that neither Butcher nor
Sonni have packed their bags yet. They've heard this a
dozen times. Hey, we're bringing you back next week. Get ready,
you're coming home, and then just up, something happened. I
can't imagine going on vacation for eight days and then
(08:25):
not being able to come home for eight months. That's
like you you got caught with something in your luggage
in some foreign country. That would be terrible. It wouldn't
happen to The only thing foreign in my luggage is
going to be fishing lewres. Probably I've got stories about
that too, but they probably we'll never get to that. Today.
We're gonna take a little break here, and when we
(08:45):
get back, we're gonna talk to Greg Shelly, the man
who is he leads the Houston Ombudsman Harris County Ombudsman program.
We'll do that when we get back. On the way out,
I'll tell you about UTA health institutes or UTA Health's
Institute on Aging, that great collaborative effort among more than
a thousand people now to make sure that seniors get
(09:07):
seen by people who understand their specific Whatever they went
to school for, whatever they got the diploma for that
hangs on the wall in the office or in the
waiting room. They go back and get additional training so
that they can apply that knowledge specifically to seniors. That's
so beneficial to us, so beneficial to us. Go to
(09:30):
the website, look at all the resources that are available there,
and then get in touch with one of these providers.
They practice and work all over town, mostly in the
medical center, but a lot of them are out at
least some of their week, if not all of their week,
in outlying communities and hospitals. Utch dot edu slash Aging,
utch dot edu slash aging. What's life without a net?
(09:55):
If I suggest you go to bed, leave it off.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Just wait until the show's overs. Back that Doug Pike
as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Welcome back to fifty plus. I'm Doug. He's will and
we'll talk in this segment about a program that I
bet not terribly many of you know is available, and
that is Harris County's long term ombudsman program. And actually
we've talked about this on the show before, but it's
been quite some time, and I was really glad to
(10:33):
see Greg Shelley back on the roster. He is the
managing local ombudsman of that program at CYSIC School of
Nursing at UTA Health. Welcome back, Greg, Thanks slot, Mister
Pike is great to be here. Holy Cal. The formality
of it all, I'm just Doug, what exactly is the
(10:53):
role of an ombudsman.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Well, we're advocates for the folks who live in nursing
homes and licenses US to living facilities. We educate the residents,
family members, and caregivers on their rights and options, and
if they need our help, we help them to exercise
those rights. So Harris County right now has three hundred
and sixty six licensed facilities. We're a staff of eight,
so we do rely heavily on a terrific team of volunteers.
(11:19):
And I think in explaining the difference between US and
long term care regulation, they're the agency with the enforcement authority.
I'd like to tell people that if you're just trying
to fix a problem, then call the umbudsman. But if
you're trying to get somebody in trouble, if you want
to call regulatory and still often the combustment is the
best first step because we can explain rights and options first,
(11:42):
and if the regulatory is needed, we can help them
navigate that system. But I want to say that if
you're simply trying to report abuse, neglect, directploitation in a
facility for investigation long term care, regulation is the agency
you want to report it to.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
That makes perfect sense. Yeah, you guys are you will
go in and make maybe help look for a problem.
If somebody suspects one, Is that right? And then then
they would in turn, after you told them something was wrong,
they would in turn make that next level step. Right,
that's right, we would, Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
We would just make sure that they knew all the
rights and options, informed consent the most important part, and
give what I call good counsel like recommended best next
step and let them tell us what they want them to.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
And you cover pretty much anybody and everybody who lives
in one of these facilities if your services are requested.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Right, that's right. And here we're just the Harris County one.
That's a very sizable program, but the programs available in
every county and parish in a country and then includes Washington, DC,
Guam and Puerto Rico.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
And all conversations we have are treated confidentially, so we
get calls from residents, family friends, to silly staff and
even other folks outside of the facility. And we're the
only non mandatory reporters of a neglect and exploitation because
we need the informed consent and direction of the residents
or they're legally authorized reps to take action on anything
(13:08):
we discussed. We provide those consultations on anything and everything
related long term character anyone and everyone.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, I think it's important to kind of roll back
to the fact that you guys can come in and
you can learn about all kinds of stuff, but you
still have to get consent for you to do anything
about it. Right.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Absolutely makes kind of unique in the spectrum. So that
empower is residents when they know about it, that they
can confide in us, and we can't take control and
power away from them. We have to have their consent
to take tax.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Right, what's the everybody wants to know all of this
all the time. What's the cost for all.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
This, Well, there's no cost to the individuals that we serve.
Our funding actually comes from the Older Americans Act, the
generosity of the Texas State Legislature, our Harris County Area
Agency on Aging over the Houston Health Department, and of
course the good Folks Says School of Nursing and administer
the program and ultimately couldn't be done without our terrific
(14:05):
team of volunteers who donate noms and time and energy
to help make it happen. How many always need more volunteers?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah? How many do you have? How many volunteers you
got working with you?
Speaker 4 (14:15):
We have currently fifty certified volunteers and those folks have
the same certifications as I do, so they have the
same authority to investigate issues on behalf of residence. And
we have currently a group of twenty interns who are
going through the training process and hopefully soon we'll be certified.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah. I was going to ask you how long does
it take to become a certified ombudsman.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
It's a minimum of sixty days and thirty six hours
of training that we have folks do some folks take
a little longer for the training and it's really at
their own pace other than the fact that we have
two scheduled online classroom training and then the rest of
it is kind of self study from a manual that
(15:00):
we provide, and we do several in person visits at
the facility we want them to visit.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Let's go back to Greg Shelley on fifty plus here
in the notes I got I saw this question about
people's rights. Go back over that and how important it
is for either residents or family members who are listening
today to know that the resident maintains pretty much all
the rights.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Right correct, So really no chance of the loss and
rights and them talking to the ambustments. And that's the idea.
The most important thing for us is to keep everything
confidential and follow their consent and direction. So our ultimate
goal is empower residence with the knowledge of the rights
(15:45):
and give good advice on what might be the best
next step forward towards getting their issues resolved. And ideally
residents and truthfully family members come away with understanding that
they actually have more rights than the rest of us,
including the right to access and ambustment. But I do
have to acknowledge that exercising those rights and some of
the facilities can be considerably more challenging at times.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Boy, that's a very polite way to say what I'm thinking.
You mean, what percentage of facilities just welcome ombudsman walking
through the door with open arms. Oh, we're so glad
to see you. Is it most of them or not
many of them?
Speaker 4 (16:25):
I don't say most of them, especially when they truly
understand their role. We you know, we have some encounters
where it's really conflict driven, particularly with the number one
complaint in nursing homes being involuntary discharge attempts. Oh wow,
residents have a considerable amount of rights regarding that in
an appeal process that we can help them with. It
(16:46):
helps keep them in place.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Yeah, that's good because there are a lot of rods go.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Ahead, sorry god, Yeah, that can cause considerable conflict between
us and the facility at times if their goal is
to basically has charged a resident against the will. Our
own mission has helped keep them in place if that's
what they want.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Such a fantastic program for anybody who's who's done in
those facilities, who doesn't have friends and family close, like
I was talking about at the very beginning of this interview,
and the family can I guess the resident when you
go and talk to them, can allow you or not
allow you to talk to family and all just all
(17:26):
of that right exactly.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
We'll contients get calls from family about concerns, and just
like any other call, if it's not directly from the resident,
our first mission is going to go meet the resident,
talk to them and make sure they want our involvement.
And you'll, believe it or not, sometimes the family is
not on the same page with the resident. The resident
wants something different.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
I can imagine Greg Shelley with the Harris County Ombudsman program.
Thank you so very much, man, I'm out of time. Unfortunately,
I did a quick search for Harris County Ombudsman and
your site popped up, so I'll leave it right there.
I don't want to try to get into anything more
complicated than that.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
That sounds good. Thank you so much for the time.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Dog, Yes, sir, thank you Greg. By bye. All right,
we got to take a little break here. We will
be back and I'm gonna tell you when we get back.
Let me just let's just take a look here. We'll
go farming ranch. There's good news for Texas farmers and ranchers.
I'll get to that when we get actually, no, we
got to We're gonna interview Cowboy. Then I'll maybe get
(18:28):
to the farming ranch day in the last segment. We'll
take a little break here. We'll be right back fifty
plus on AM nine to fifty kp rcyh. They sure
don't make them like they used to.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
That's why every few months we wash them, check his fluids,
and spring on a fresh code of wax.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
This is fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, welcome back,
Thanks for listening to fifty plus, all that hype and
cowboys busy. I don't know what he's doing, but I
(19:05):
know he's a busy man, and he's trying to get
this show all prepped up for April five and six
up there at the Austin County Expo Center in Belleville.
And I know that for sure we're gonna talk tomorrow.
Well at least, well I thought we were sure today.
In any event, I will tell you about I'll tell
(19:28):
you more about the thing next week when we get back,
unless he calls right away and then I'll grab him
and we'll get something going on. Will let's go to
you for a second and I'm gonna go with today's
little tidbit page pie are squared? Going green? Or bucket
(19:49):
list travel pie are square? That's the longest one. That's good.
This is gonna be kind of fun. Pop quiz is
all the way through? Will Only four states have an
official state pie name Two of them Georgia, Eh, nope,
(20:13):
Texas Yes? What is it for? Bonus points? Pecan pie?
I'm sorry, pronounce the word correctly or you get points
off pi con pie. Okay, that's better. Now one of
the other three, and let's see. I feel like apple pie.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Is just the national pie.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
No, no, it's a state pie also it maybe it
may be I don't know. I don't know that we
have a national I feel like that's the.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Saying is you know there's nothing more American than appleple
pie and baseball.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Well, that's probably correct. Vermont actually the apple pie state. Wow?
Think about Florida. You know the Florida one. Think about
nectarine pipe? Stop it tell me the right one, the
right one? You don't know? Nicely key lime?
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Oh, key lime?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yeah, key lime pie for Florida and Illinois is the
fourth one. And what would Illinois state pie happen to be? Illinois.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Oh, it's it's deep dish.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, pumpkin, just pumpkin, just something simple. Will. Staying with desserts,
actually there are uh what Delaware says here? State dessert
is peach pie. This is kind of a they should
have included these if a pie is the state's dessert officially.
(21:45):
For example, mains dessert is blueberry pie Massachusetts. You guess
that one. Will think it through. Massachusetts starts with a bee.
It's not blueberry Oh bean pie? God, no, no, but
that's gonna bring us, that's gonna segue us into the
next one. It's actually Boston cream pieh Okay, that was easy.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Well it's bean town, is it not? Well, yeah, but
it's not bean pie. No, that's disgusting. Will have you
ever had a bean pie before?
Speaker 5 (22:17):
No?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And neither have you. There's no such thing. Well we
could start it, yeah, with a side of unicorn.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
I had a great idea one time when I was
in high school.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Just stopped at one time.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
That will it was spaghetti in meatballs.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
So that way you get the perfect amount of spaghetti
for everybody to meatball.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Caught on, didn't it?
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Kind so much? There there are there are spaghetti balls
like deep fried balls. Spaghetti balls. Let's just jump off
of that. So for all the money in the world
and the camper will without looking it up. What is
Luisiana's state dessert?
Speaker 5 (23:01):
Oh, it's gotta be a begne it should be no
Louisiana meat pie, meat.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Pietis I guess.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
So you can have a meat pie, but you you
won't even tolerate a bean.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Want to talk about a bean pie? That's just gross?
Will what kind of beans would you put in a pie?
Baked bean that's so disgusting. Chop up some little pieces
of hot dog and drop it in there too, A
little bit of bacon, bacon, Yeah, okay, we could probably
(23:40):
make a decent baked bean or barbecue beans. Yes, yeah,
you could do so fat You could have a layer
of refried bean, just a big layer of bacon. Yes,
it's a big layer bacon, a bacon crust.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Think of it like a like a lasagna almost.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I'll try. Let me get back to this. How much
time do you have? Three minutes? You have three and
a half. Yeah, okay. Scientists in Israel, this is medical
news again, this is pretty interesting. Scientists in Israel say,
they've discovered an entirely new component of our immune systems
(24:24):
that's being considered now that they understand what they've found
a potential and i'll quote here gold mine and quote
of antibiotics inside all of ourselves. The team explained in
its study. It says here, a tiny structure called a
(24:45):
proteasome recycles damaged and dead proteins to make new ones,
which is a vital and normal function that says you're
of cellular repair and maintenance. However, the proteosome has another
responsibility that immunologists had never identified up until now, fighting
(25:07):
off bacterial infections. That's what they do when infected by
a bacteria such as salmonella. It says here, for example,
the proteosomes start turning those damaged proteins into weapons, immune
compounds that rip into the external membrane of the bacterial
cells and kill them. This is cool stuff, man, this
(25:32):
is really cool stuff. And again it's something that maybe
I and a lot of this audience might not live
to see really come into practice, but for your generation
will that could mean another eight or ten years of
life for you. What do you think of that? You
want them? Heck? Yeah, did you hear me, Yeah, you
(25:54):
hear me. Now, okay, of course, Okay, I'm just checking,
ah where I want to Where Where am I going? Now?
I've stayed apolitical all the way to hear That's pretty good, actually,
isn't it. Oh? Now I have maybe thirty seconds here,
don't I?
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:11):
A minute really, that's all I took with two minutes
for that other one. Two and a half. Okay, so
let me go to now that one's gonna take longer.
That's gonna take a little bit longer. I am gonna
go to some doze news when we come back for
the final segment. So let's just stay where I am
right now, will going Green? And I'll bring in one
(26:32):
from yesterday to let's see going green look again? Or
raise the flag? Raise the flag? People are calling out
the red flag habits that show someone wasn't raised right,
(26:52):
And that's in quotes, and that's that's pretty subjective, I
would think, or objective. Yeah, it's yeah, it's that's somebody's
personal opinions all the way across. Uh, do you find
it off putting in a red flag habit? If somebody
doesn't ask questions.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Doesn't ask that questions are they talking about when you're
going on a date.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
I don't know. It just says people and they think
someone wasn't raised right if they don't ask questions. I
think that's in the context of a conversation. I guess,
I don't know. Skip over that when that one makes
no sense. Now here's one that I really this is
a red flag for me. Not treating animals right, not
(27:38):
taking care of animals. That one. And here's another one.
This is a real This is a real red flag
for me. People who mistreat customer service staff, start yelling
at a server in a restaurant or and I I
was at dinner with three other couples once my wife
and I were years ago, and one of the guys
(28:01):
just really kind of just one of those guys who
whistles to get the server to come over, your snaps
of fingers, one of those hey hey over here, like no, no,
Never went to dinner with that person again ever, and
wouldn't if they called me today and said, I'm buying
it wherever you want to go. We'll take a little
break here, we'll come back to wrap up this week's
(28:22):
edition of fifty plus the Friday edition at least see
in a minute.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Aged to perfection. This is fifty plus with Doug Pike.
All Right, welcome back, thanks for listening. We're having trouble
reaching Cowboy. We came close, but there's some issue with
(28:50):
the phone lines between here in Belleville, where his big place,
Phoenix Knives, has been for many, many years.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Well, actually they moved into new space. Been a bit
now and Cowboy's thrilled. Every time I've talked to him,
he has been absolutely thrilled to be in the bigger
space he's in now. He could just do so much more.
He has more people working with him out there learning
the craft, and this show that's coming up, I'm here
to tell you it's going to be fantastic. There are
more than one hundred and fifty knife makers, the best
(29:21):
in the country, coming into this show they do every
year for him. He hosts the event and started it
several years ago to shine a big spotlight on all
these men and women who do this for a living.
They're truly artists, is what they are. They're artists who
create really effective and valuable tools for us to happen
(29:42):
to use if we need them for whatever use you
might need for a knife. He does hunting knives, fishing knives,
kitchen knives. They build axes and swords and all kind
of hatchets, all of these things. Anything's got a nice
sharp edge on it. Pretty much count on them. Somebody
(30:03):
in that place is going to have some on display.
And it's not just it's not just like a place
to go this show. It's not just a place to
go walk through aisles and aisles of tables and people
just sitting behind their little table in a chair not
really paying attention to you. There is a lot of
opportunity to talk to these knife makers to learn what
(30:26):
they do. They welcome questions, every one of them. I
know they do. I know cowboys that he's that easy
to talk to. You can ask him anything about knife building,
he'll be happy to tell you. And they also have
some competitions between themselves between and among themselves that will
go on on the fifth and the sixth of April
in Austin County expos Center, where parking is free, by
(30:48):
the way, which I think is pretty nice. You get
raised up around Houston. Every place you go, somebody's got
their hand out for a couple of bucks to let
you park your car for a minute. I saw a
little fun fact the other day. I want to say,
there is something like six or seven billion parking spaces
in the United States. I don't know who counted them,
(31:08):
but there never seems to be one when I go
to the grocery store unless I want to park halfway
around the block. All right, well, I'm gonna go back
to you for a minute. How much time do we
have because I can't tell because the clock's not working.
It's not your fault. I know that. All right, we have.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
House No, we have six minutes. They have close to
six minutes.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Oh, this is good, This is really good. No, that's
from yesterday. I don't like that anymore. Latest news from
DOGE says that two hundred and thirty nine contracts were
canceled recently, over just two days. They're doing a lot
of work with AI too, looking for misuse, looking for
(31:54):
dollars that could be better spent elsewhere, which is pretty
much most where five out of what taxpayers have been
paying into in these outlandish, ridiculous, unbelievable programs, probably around
four hundred million dollars in savings out of those contracts
(32:16):
included in that pile pile of waste was eight and
a half million dollars headed to a consulting firm for
and I'll quote from the story fiscal stewardship to improve
management and program operations in order to drive innovation and
(32:37):
improve efficiency and effectiveness of business services, rethink, realign and
reskill the workforce, and enhance program delivery through a number
of transformational initiatives. End quote. What the hell is that?
(33:01):
I guarantee you AI wrote that little paragraph or that's
I take that back. That's one sentence and it doesn't
even start there. We just kind of pick up in
the middle of it somewhere the way the quote is structured,
and then end up with these a number of transformational initiatives.
What in the world also shut down? We're about six
(33:23):
hundred and twenty thousand dollars earmarked for an LGB plus
inclusive team pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys, three hundred
and seventy nine thousand for a San Francisco area program
to educate queer trends and BIPOC. I don't know what
that is. Well, do you know what b IPOC stands
(33:43):
for or what it is? I don't know, And I'm
asking can you look it up. Look it up for
me because I don't know and I like to be informed.
And whatever it is, it's it's a.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Fairance for black indigenous peoples of color.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Okay, thank you, uh, Urban farmers and consumers. This program
three hundred and seventy nine thousand dollars worth was going
to teach those people about food justice. I'm not sure
what food justice is, or you will.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Food justice I'm pretty sure is how certain areas are
I would say probably considered food deserts, so they just
don't have food deserts. Yeah, a food desert would be
like an area that doesn't have a grocery store nearby,
an a place where you can get okay, you know
instead of having to be surrounded by fast food establishment, all.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
You have to do is add an s and it
becomes food desserts. Now it doesn't it? That sounds a
lot more fun.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Sure, Yeah, yeah, desert does not sound No.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
And if people in those areas they need food like
everybody else does, I don't have any problem with that
at all. Bucket List travel is that good or bad?
And here, kitty kitty, let's go bucket less travel. Yeah,
this is Have you ever been to any of these places.
A report used Internet search data to find each state's
(35:09):
dream travel destination. Top picks included what destinations the top
picks and then I'm gonna flip down to some more unique,
two very uniquely different options. Pick one place you think
people want to go, and this is outside of the
United States, all but one? All but one? All but one?
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Okay, top picks.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
I'm gonna say, And is it just countries? Uh? Three?
Four our countries? One is not a country. That's all
I can tell you. I'm gonna say.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
I'm gonna say France people want to go to Nobody
wants to go to France. Uh, people want to go
to Thailand.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
That's then the White Lotuste. Well, yeah, I know that's
kind of no. Not everybody wants to go to Thailand.
Will I don't everybody wants good to go to your
run out the clock on me? People want to go
to Spain. Nope, not there either. Will I gotta I
gotta stop you, because we've got to get along here
(36:17):
the Caribbean, anywhere in anywhere in the Caribbean. I love it.
Period into story Greece I would like to see for
the history. I frankly would like to see Egypt, but
it didn't make this list at least, and then Japan.
If I had a choice between Japan, Egypt, or Greece
or the well Japan to Egypt or Greece, I would
(36:38):
pick Greece. Well, not pick Egypt. Then Greece, and then
the Caribbean. I'd go back there many times. Two of
the more unique but popular options for Internet search data
on dream travel El Salvador. Any idea, why, probably cool?
(37:00):
It probably fun. Yeah, it could be love Central America
and boy, pack your bags. Well we're going to North Dakota. No,
that's what it says here. No, No, it does.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
It does, it really does. Even people in North Dakota
don't want to go to North Dakota.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
They're already there and they can't get out. Yeah, no, no,
though I'm sure we got twenty seconds. Doug study found
that we really don't. We're not very great at reading
our dogs' emotions. Actually, I'm not sure the people who
said that are correct either reading dog's emotions. They just
(37:43):
they either want to they either want you to throw
the stick or they're bringing you back the stick, and
then they want some food. We're out. I'll talk to
you next week on Tuesday. I'll be here over the
weekend on kbm E Saturday and Sunday morning listening if
you can. Audios and thank you.
Remember when it was impossible to misplace the TV remote
because you were the TV remote. Remember when music sounded
like this, Remember when social media was truly social?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey John, how's it going today? Good Man?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Cool?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
This show is all about you, only the good die.
This is fifty plus.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
With Doug Pike, Helpful information on your finances, good health,
and what to do for fun. Fifty plus brought to
you by the UT Health Houston Institute on Aging Informed
Decisions for a healthier, happier life. And now fifty plus
with Doug Pike, and away.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
We go on this cloudy and warm Friday, final day
of most people's work weeks. Those of you who are
still working and those of you who are retired, congratulations
and carry on. I'll join you someday when I quit
enjoying what I do now, and that might be a while,
because I do truly enjoy being in here. I do
(01:06):
truly enjoy hearing from all of you, and I like
the emails. I like all of it. I really do emails.
You can use Facebook to reach me. I'm not hard
to find on Facebook, and once again, this is why
I do this, is to make new friends. And in fact,
I got referred to a kind of a friend of
(01:28):
a friend deal just this past week when I was
talking about adding members of the family, and I'm working
on that right now with someone who is His business
is situated bayside, and that's all i'll tell you for now.
I'm probably once I get this thing buttoned up, I'm
going to bring him on and talk to him. I'm
going to interview him next week. Probably also going to
(01:50):
be interviewing a woman out in Fort ben County. I
think I talked about her yesterday. I'll get to all
of them, I really will. I love having them on,
I love hearing their stories. We'll talk to one guy,
as a matter of fact, Cowboys Zemanski, the guy who
owns and operates Phoenix Knives and has been making knives
since nineteen and seventy nine out there in Belleville. Hopefully
(02:11):
I haven't heard back yet, but we confirmed a couple
of days ago that he would be in the twelve
thirty slot for this day's show, and then before that,
Gregory Shelley will be about I guess about twelve twenty.
We're gonna talk about the Harris County Ombudsman program. And
if you're unfamiliar, This is a group of people who
(02:33):
protect the rights of seniors. And I guess anybody really
who lives in a nursing home or maybe an assisted
living facility and doesn't have access to friends and family
close by who can drop in and check on them
and make sure they're being well taken care of. That's
(02:53):
a fantastic program and you're gonna hear more about it
in about about twenty minutes or so weather News thanks
to in Texas Indoor Air Quality Specialists, because cleaner air
is healthier air. As we all know, they clean duckwork,
is what they do, and so well in fact that
in a unique, unique way that it stays clean for
(03:15):
a couple of years. You can get it done once
and you won't have to worry about it until probably
twenty twenty seven at least. That's pretty good stuff. In
the weather. Go to texasiaq dot net by the way
to learn more in weather news mid eighties this afternoon.
Than a chance of rain tonight, mostly east of here
unless you're unless you're halfway to Beaumont, then probably about
(03:37):
where you are, it's not a big chance. I don't
think it's supposed to be terribly heavy rain this far
south in the continent. There's some other stuff brewing a
little farther north that might be scarier for the Midwest,
and whatnot, the tornado alley and all of that. Then
after that, for here, back to another outstanding stretch of
(04:00):
good weather for a straight week back to spring. It'll
be highs in the seventies, lows in the sixties, and
high fifties, really really comfortable weather in market new I
see we have no clock again. Will I think that's
Is that going to be permanent now or I hope not?
I do too. I need that clock. I want that clock.
(04:21):
We need we really need to send a trouble ticket,
you know whatever, nevermind, you know. So in market news
from Houston Gold Exchange dot Com, all that read from
yesterday leaned into an early Saint Patrick's Day celebration. I
guess heavy green across the board. Everything was up more
than a full point earlier. That be that everything being
(04:45):
the four indicators I watch most closely. And then even
gold gold danced north of three thousand dollars an ounce
briefly this morning. I haven't looked since then. Well, I
take that back. I did look about maybe an hour
ago and a half, and it had slumped, but only
back to twenty nine ninety six an ounce that was
(05:08):
at about ten o'clock. Oil also up, but less than
fifty cents of barrel, still in the kind of midish
to high sixties. That's that's a comfortable range for now.
It'll it'll get better even but for now, that's not
bad at all. We could move into the news. I
tell you what, I'm gonna get straight to a good
news story because all this other stuff I don't like.
(05:31):
I don't like having to talk about even at all,
all this stuff that's going on, all the money that's
being squandered by the federal government during the past administration.
So I'm gonna step over that for now and maybe
get to it later, and we'll I'll give you the
opportunity to talk either about No, we don't have time
(05:52):
for the long one. I'll do the short one. Over
the counter ibuprofen has been according to us, there are
scientists at the University of Washington in Seattle who studied this,
a pretty exhaustive study really involving more than sixteen hundred
patients who had suffered concussions, okay, half of them in
(06:14):
the study took ibuprofen during their recovery. The other half
took no pain relievers, and each level of recovery was
reached faster by about twenty percent faster by the people
who took the medication. For anybody who gets diagnosed with concussion,
(06:37):
that's really good news.
Speaker 4 (06:39):
Now.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I hope the NFL takes this very carefully and doesn't
just start loading up concussed players with ibuprofen and trying
to get them right back out there right away. And
the doctors are better than that. Actually, the teams might
want somebody back on the field quickly, but the doors
(07:00):
have the final say and should, especially in light of
all the information that's come out about how many many
NFL players and even college players just got concussed so
many times that their brains didn't really work right one minute.
Or are you just waving at somebody? Okay, that's not bad. Oh,
(07:22):
this is kind of interesting. This is a nice breaker
for the weekend. Uh, I don't know. We'll listen to this.
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a
tale of a faithful trip started from wherever it started
(07:42):
aboard this tiny spaceship. Remember those two people, Sony and Butch,
two people headed to space for eight days eight months ago,
been in or As orbit for two thirds of a
year now well, their most recent return date is schedule
from March nineteenth. But I'd bet you, I'd bet you
(08:04):
seven dollars and twelve cents will that neither Butcher nor
Sonni have packed their bags yet. They've heard this a
dozen times. Hey, we're bringing you back next week. Get ready,
you're coming home, and then just up, something happened. I
can't imagine going on vacation for eight days and then
(08:25):
not being able to come home for eight months. That's
like you you got caught with something in your luggage
in some foreign country. That would be terrible. It wouldn't
happen to The only thing foreign in my luggage is
going to be fishing lewres. Probably I've got stories about
that too, but they probably we'll never get to that. Today.
We're gonna take a little break here, and when we
(08:45):
get back, we're gonna talk to Greg Shelly, the man
who is he leads the Houston Ombudsman Harris County Ombudsman program.
We'll do that when we get back. On the way out,
I'll tell you about UTA health institutes or UTA Health's
Institute on Aging, that great collaborative effort among more than
a thousand people now to make sure that seniors get
(09:07):
seen by people who understand their specific Whatever they went
to school for, whatever they got the diploma for that
hangs on the wall in the office or in the
waiting room. They go back and get additional training so
that they can apply that knowledge specifically to seniors. That's
so beneficial to us, so beneficial to us. Go to
(09:30):
the website, look at all the resources that are available there,
and then get in touch with one of these providers.
They practice and work all over town, mostly in the
medical center, but a lot of them are out at
least some of their week, if not all of their week,
in outlying communities and hospitals. Utch dot edu slash Aging,
utch dot edu slash aging. What's life without a net?
(09:55):
If I suggest you go to bed, leave it off.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Just wait until the show's overs. Back that Doug Pike
as fifty plus continues.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Welcome back to fifty plus. I'm Doug. He's will and
we'll talk in this segment about a program that I
bet not terribly many of you know is available, and
that is Harris County's long term ombudsman program. And actually
we've talked about this on the show before, but it's
been quite some time, and I was really glad to
(10:33):
see Greg Shelley back on the roster. He is the
managing local ombudsman of that program at CYSIC School of
Nursing at UTA Health. Welcome back, Greg, Thanks slot, Mister
Pike is great to be here. Holy Cal. The formality
of it all, I'm just Doug, what exactly is the
(10:53):
role of an ombudsman.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Well, we're advocates for the folks who live in nursing
homes and licenses US to living facilities. We educate the residents,
family members, and caregivers on their rights and options, and
if they need our help, we help them to exercise
those rights. So Harris County right now has three hundred
and sixty six licensed facilities. We're a staff of eight,
so we do rely heavily on a terrific team of volunteers.
(11:19):
And I think in explaining the difference between US and
long term care regulation, they're the agency with the enforcement authority.
I'd like to tell people that if you're just trying
to fix a problem, then call the umbudsman. But if
you're trying to get somebody in trouble, if you want
to call regulatory and still often the combustment is the
best first step because we can explain rights and options first,
(11:42):
and if the regulatory is needed, we can help them
navigate that system. But I want to say that if
you're simply trying to report abuse, neglect, directploitation in a
facility for investigation long term care, regulation is the agency
you want to report it to.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
That makes perfect sense. Yeah, you guys are you will
go in and make maybe help look for a problem.
If somebody suspects one, Is that right? And then then
they would in turn, after you told them something was wrong,
they would in turn make that next level step. Right,
that's right, we would, Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
We would just make sure that they knew all the
rights and options, informed consent the most important part, and
give what I call good counsel like recommended best next
step and let them tell us what they want them to.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
And you cover pretty much anybody and everybody who lives
in one of these facilities if your services are requested.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Right, that's right. And here we're just the Harris County one.
That's a very sizable program, but the programs available in
every county and parish in a country and then includes Washington, DC,
Guam and Puerto Rico.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
And all conversations we have are treated confidentially, so we
get calls from residents, family friends, to silly staff and
even other folks outside of the facility. And we're the
only non mandatory reporters of a neglect and exploitation because
we need the informed consent and direction of the residents
or they're legally authorized reps to take action on anything
(13:08):
we discussed. We provide those consultations on anything and everything
related long term character anyone and everyone.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, I think it's important to kind of roll back
to the fact that you guys can come in and
you can learn about all kinds of stuff, but you
still have to get consent for you to do anything
about it. Right.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Absolutely makes kind of unique in the spectrum. So that
empower is residents when they know about it, that they
can confide in us, and we can't take control and
power away from them. We have to have their consent
to take tax.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Right, what's the everybody wants to know all of this
all the time. What's the cost for all.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
This, Well, there's no cost to the individuals that we serve.
Our funding actually comes from the Older Americans Act, the
generosity of the Texas State Legislature, our Harris County Area
Agency on Aging over the Houston Health Department, and of
course the good Folks Says School of Nursing and administer
the program and ultimately couldn't be done without our terrific
(14:05):
team of volunteers who donate noms and time and energy
to help make it happen. How many always need more volunteers?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah? How many do you have? How many volunteers you
got working with you?
Speaker 4 (14:15):
We have currently fifty certified volunteers and those folks have
the same certifications as I do, so they have the
same authority to investigate issues on behalf of residence. And
we have currently a group of twenty interns who are
going through the training process and hopefully soon we'll be certified.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah. I was going to ask you how long does
it take to become a certified ombudsman.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
It's a minimum of sixty days and thirty six hours
of training that we have folks do some folks take
a little longer for the training and it's really at
their own pace other than the fact that we have
two scheduled online classroom training and then the rest of
it is kind of self study from a manual that
(15:00):
we provide, and we do several in person visits at
the facility we want them to visit.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Let's go back to Greg Shelley on fifty plus here
in the notes I got I saw this question about
people's rights. Go back over that and how important it
is for either residents or family members who are listening
today to know that the resident maintains pretty much all
the rights.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
Right correct, So really no chance of the loss and
rights and them talking to the ambustments. And that's the idea.
The most important thing for us is to keep everything
confidential and follow their consent and direction. So our ultimate
goal is empower residence with the knowledge of the rights
(15:45):
and give good advice on what might be the best
next step forward towards getting their issues resolved. And ideally
residents and truthfully family members come away with understanding that
they actually have more rights than the rest of us,
including the right to access and ambustment. But I do
have to acknowledge that exercising those rights and some of
the facilities can be considerably more challenging at times.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Boy, that's a very polite way to say what I'm thinking.
You mean, what percentage of facilities just welcome ombudsman walking
through the door with open arms. Oh, we're so glad
to see you. Is it most of them or not
many of them?
Speaker 4 (16:25):
I don't say most of them, especially when they truly
understand their role. We you know, we have some encounters
where it's really conflict driven, particularly with the number one
complaint in nursing homes being involuntary discharge attempts. Oh wow,
residents have a considerable amount of rights regarding that in
an appeal process that we can help them with. It
(16:46):
helps keep them in place.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Yeah, that's good because there are a lot of rods go.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Ahead, sorry god, Yeah, that can cause considerable conflict between
us and the facility at times if their goal is
to basically has charged a resident against the will. Our
own mission has helped keep them in place if that's
what they want.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Such a fantastic program for anybody who's who's done in
those facilities, who doesn't have friends and family close, like
I was talking about at the very beginning of this interview,
and the family can I guess the resident when you
go and talk to them, can allow you or not
allow you to talk to family and all just all
(17:26):
of that right exactly.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
We'll contients get calls from family about concerns, and just
like any other call, if it's not directly from the resident,
our first mission is going to go meet the resident,
talk to them and make sure they want our involvement.
And you'll, believe it or not, sometimes the family is
not on the same page with the resident. The resident
wants something different.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
I can imagine Greg Shelley with the Harris County Ombudsman program.
Thank you so very much, man, I'm out of time. Unfortunately,
I did a quick search for Harris County Ombudsman and
your site popped up, so I'll leave it right there.
I don't want to try to get into anything more
complicated than that.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
That sounds good. Thank you so much for the time.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Dog, Yes, sir, thank you Greg. By bye. All right,
we got to take a little break here. We will
be back and I'm gonna tell you when we get back.
Let me just let's just take a look here. We'll
go farming ranch. There's good news for Texas farmers and ranchers.
I'll get to that when we get actually, no, we
got to We're gonna interview Cowboy. Then I'll maybe get
(18:28):
to the farming ranch day in the last segment. We'll
take a little break here. We'll be right back fifty
plus on AM nine to fifty kp rcyh. They sure
don't make them like they used to.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
That's why every few months we wash them, check his fluids,
and spring on a fresh code of wax.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
This is fifty plus with Doug Pike. All right, welcome back,
Thanks for listening to fifty plus, all that hype and
cowboys busy. I don't know what he's doing, but I
(19:05):
know he's a busy man, and he's trying to get
this show all prepped up for April five and six
up there at the Austin County Expo Center in Belleville.
And I know that for sure we're gonna talk tomorrow.
Well at least, well I thought we were sure today.
In any event, I will tell you about I'll tell
(19:28):
you more about the thing next week when we get back,
unless he calls right away and then I'll grab him
and we'll get something going on. Will let's go to
you for a second and I'm gonna go with today's
little tidbit page pie are squared? Going green? Or bucket
(19:49):
list travel pie are square? That's the longest one. That's good.
This is gonna be kind of fun. Pop quiz is
all the way through? Will Only four states have an
official state pie name Two of them Georgia, Eh, nope,
(20:13):
Texas Yes? What is it for? Bonus points? Pecan pie?
I'm sorry, pronounce the word correctly or you get points
off pi con pie. Okay, that's better. Now one of
the other three, and let's see. I feel like apple pie.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Is just the national pie.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
No, no, it's a state pie also it maybe it
may be I don't know. I don't know that we
have a national I feel like that's the.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Saying is you know there's nothing more American than appleple
pie and baseball.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Well, that's probably correct. Vermont actually the apple pie state. Wow?
Think about Florida. You know the Florida one. Think about
nectarine pipe? Stop it tell me the right one, the
right one? You don't know? Nicely key lime?
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Oh, key lime?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yeah, key lime pie for Florida and Illinois is the
fourth one. And what would Illinois state pie happen to be? Illinois.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Oh, it's it's deep dish.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, pumpkin, just pumpkin, just something simple. Will. Staying with desserts,
actually there are uh what Delaware says here? State dessert
is peach pie. This is kind of a they should
have included these if a pie is the state's dessert officially.
(21:45):
For example, mains dessert is blueberry pie Massachusetts. You guess
that one. Will think it through. Massachusetts starts with a bee.
It's not blueberry Oh bean pie? God, no, no, but
that's gonna bring us, that's gonna segue us into the
next one. It's actually Boston cream pieh Okay, that was easy.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Well it's bean town, is it not? Well, yeah, but
it's not bean pie. No, that's disgusting. Will have you
ever had a bean pie before?
Speaker 5 (22:17):
No?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And neither have you. There's no such thing. Well we
could start it, yeah, with a side of unicorn.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
I had a great idea one time when I was
in high school.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Just stopped at one time.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
That will it was spaghetti in meatballs.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
So that way you get the perfect amount of spaghetti
for everybody to meatball.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Caught on, didn't it?
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (22:41):
Kind so much? There there are there are spaghetti balls
like deep fried balls. Spaghetti balls. Let's just jump off
of that. So for all the money in the world
and the camper will without looking it up. What is
Luisiana's state dessert?
Speaker 5 (23:01):
Oh, it's gotta be a begne it should be no
Louisiana meat pie, meat.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Pietis I guess.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
So you can have a meat pie, but you you
won't even tolerate a bean.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Want to talk about a bean pie? That's just gross?
Will what kind of beans would you put in a pie?
Baked bean that's so disgusting. Chop up some little pieces
of hot dog and drop it in there too, A
little bit of bacon, bacon, Yeah, okay, we could probably
(23:40):
make a decent baked bean or barbecue beans. Yes, yeah,
you could do so fat You could have a layer
of refried bean, just a big layer of bacon. Yes,
it's a big layer bacon, a bacon crust.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Think of it like a like a lasagna almost.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
I'll try. Let me get back to this. How much
time do you have? Three minutes? You have three and
a half. Yeah, okay. Scientists in Israel, this is medical
news again, this is pretty interesting. Scientists in Israel say,
they've discovered an entirely new component of our immune systems
(24:24):
that's being considered now that they understand what they've found
a potential and i'll quote here gold mine and quote
of antibiotics inside all of ourselves. The team explained in
its study. It says here, a tiny structure called a
(24:45):
proteasome recycles damaged and dead proteins to make new ones,
which is a vital and normal function that says you're
of cellular repair and maintenance. However, the proteosome has another
responsibility that immunologists had never identified up until now, fighting
(25:07):
off bacterial infections. That's what they do when infected by
a bacteria such as salmonella. It says here, for example,
the proteosomes start turning those damaged proteins into weapons, immune
compounds that rip into the external membrane of the bacterial
cells and kill them. This is cool stuff, man, this
(25:32):
is really cool stuff. And again it's something that maybe
I and a lot of this audience might not live
to see really come into practice, but for your generation
will that could mean another eight or ten years of
life for you. What do you think of that? You
want them? Heck? Yeah, did you hear me, Yeah, you
(25:54):
hear me. Now, okay, of course, Okay, I'm just checking,
ah where I want to Where Where am I going? Now?
I've stayed apolitical all the way to hear That's pretty good, actually,
isn't it. Oh? Now I have maybe thirty seconds here,
don't I?
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (26:11):
A minute really, that's all I took with two minutes
for that other one. Two and a half. Okay, so
let me go to now that one's gonna take longer.
That's gonna take a little bit longer. I am gonna
go to some doze news when we come back for
the final segment. So let's just stay where I am
right now, will going Green? And I'll bring in one
(26:32):
from yesterday to let's see going green look again? Or
raise the flag? Raise the flag? People are calling out
the red flag habits that show someone wasn't raised right,
(26:52):
And that's in quotes, and that's that's pretty subjective, I
would think, or objective. Yeah, it's yeah, it's that's somebody's
personal opinions all the way across. Uh, do you find
it off putting in a red flag habit? If somebody
doesn't ask questions.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
Doesn't ask that questions are they talking about when you're
going on a date.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
I don't know. It just says people and they think
someone wasn't raised right if they don't ask questions. I
think that's in the context of a conversation. I guess,
I don't know. Skip over that when that one makes
no sense. Now here's one that I really this is
a red flag for me. Not treating animals right, not
(27:38):
taking care of animals. That one. And here's another one.
This is a real This is a real red flag
for me. People who mistreat customer service staff, start yelling
at a server in a restaurant or and I I
was at dinner with three other couples once my wife
and I were years ago, and one of the guys
(28:01):
just really kind of just one of those guys who
whistles to get the server to come over, your snaps
of fingers, one of those hey hey over here, like no, no,
Never went to dinner with that person again ever, and
wouldn't if they called me today and said, I'm buying
it wherever you want to go. We'll take a little
break here, we'll come back to wrap up this week's
(28:22):
edition of fifty plus the Friday edition at least see
in a minute.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Aged to perfection. This is fifty plus with Doug Pike.
All Right, welcome back, thanks for listening. We're having trouble
reaching Cowboy. We came close, but there's some issue with
(28:50):
the phone lines between here in Belleville, where his big place,
Phoenix Knives, has been for many, many years.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Well, actually they moved into new space. Been a bit
now and Cowboy's thrilled. Every time I've talked to him,
he has been absolutely thrilled to be in the bigger
space he's in now. He could just do so much more.
He has more people working with him out there learning
the craft, and this show that's coming up, I'm here
to tell you it's going to be fantastic. There are
more than one hundred and fifty knife makers, the best
(29:21):
in the country, coming into this show they do every
year for him. He hosts the event and started it
several years ago to shine a big spotlight on all
these men and women who do this for a living.
They're truly artists, is what they are. They're artists who
create really effective and valuable tools for us to happen
(29:42):
to use if we need them for whatever use you
might need for a knife. He does hunting knives, fishing knives,
kitchen knives. They build axes and swords and all kind
of hatchets, all of these things. Anything's got a nice
sharp edge on it. Pretty much count on them. Somebody
(30:03):
in that place is going to have some on display.
And it's not just it's not just like a place
to go this show. It's not just a place to
go walk through aisles and aisles of tables and people
just sitting behind their little table in a chair not
really paying attention to you. There is a lot of
opportunity to talk to these knife makers to learn what
(30:26):
they do. They welcome questions, every one of them. I
know they do. I know cowboys that he's that easy
to talk to. You can ask him anything about knife building,
he'll be happy to tell you. And they also have
some competitions between themselves between and among themselves that will
go on on the fifth and the sixth of April
in Austin County expos Center, where parking is free, by
(30:48):
the way, which I think is pretty nice. You get
raised up around Houston. Every place you go, somebody's got
their hand out for a couple of bucks to let
you park your car for a minute. I saw a
little fun fact the other day. I want to say,
there is something like six or seven billion parking spaces
in the United States. I don't know who counted them,
(31:08):
but there never seems to be one when I go
to the grocery store unless I want to park halfway
around the block. All right, well, I'm gonna go back
to you for a minute. How much time do we
have because I can't tell because the clock's not working.
It's not your fault. I know that. All right, we have.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
House No, we have six minutes. They have close to
six minutes.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Oh, this is good, This is really good. No, that's
from yesterday. I don't like that anymore. Latest news from
DOGE says that two hundred and thirty nine contracts were
canceled recently, over just two days. They're doing a lot
of work with AI too, looking for misuse, looking for
(31:54):
dollars that could be better spent elsewhere, which is pretty
much most where five out of what taxpayers have been
paying into in these outlandish, ridiculous, unbelievable programs, probably around
four hundred million dollars in savings out of those contracts
(32:16):
included in that pile pile of waste was eight and
a half million dollars headed to a consulting firm for
and I'll quote from the story fiscal stewardship to improve
management and program operations in order to drive innovation and
(32:37):
improve efficiency and effectiveness of business services, rethink, realign and
reskill the workforce, and enhance program delivery through a number
of transformational initiatives. End quote. What the hell is that?
(33:01):
I guarantee you AI wrote that little paragraph or that's
I take that back. That's one sentence and it doesn't
even start there. We just kind of pick up in
the middle of it somewhere the way the quote is structured,
and then end up with these a number of transformational initiatives.
What in the world also shut down? We're about six
(33:23):
hundred and twenty thousand dollars earmarked for an LGB plus
inclusive team pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys, three hundred
and seventy nine thousand for a San Francisco area program
to educate queer trends and BIPOC. I don't know what
that is. Well, do you know what b IPOC stands
(33:43):
for or what it is? I don't know, And I'm
asking can you look it up. Look it up for
me because I don't know and I like to be informed.
And whatever it is, it's it's a.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
Fairance for black indigenous peoples of color.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Okay, thank you, uh, Urban farmers and consumers. This program
three hundred and seventy nine thousand dollars worth was going
to teach those people about food justice. I'm not sure
what food justice is, or you will.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Food justice I'm pretty sure is how certain areas are
I would say probably considered food deserts, so they just
don't have food deserts. Yeah, a food desert would be
like an area that doesn't have a grocery store nearby,
an a place where you can get okay, you know
instead of having to be surrounded by fast food establishment, all.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
You have to do is add an s and it
becomes food desserts. Now it doesn't it? That sounds a
lot more fun.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Sure, Yeah, yeah, desert does not sound No.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
And if people in those areas they need food like
everybody else does, I don't have any problem with that
at all. Bucket List travel is that good or bad?
And here, kitty kitty, let's go bucket less travel. Yeah,
this is Have you ever been to any of these places.
A report used Internet search data to find each state's
(35:09):
dream travel destination. Top picks included what destinations the top
picks and then I'm gonna flip down to some more unique,
two very uniquely different options. Pick one place you think
people want to go, and this is outside of the
United States, all but one? All but one? All but one?
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Okay, top picks.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
I'm gonna say, And is it just countries? Uh? Three?
Four our countries? One is not a country. That's all
I can tell you. I'm gonna say.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
I'm gonna say France people want to go to Nobody
wants to go to France. Uh, people want to go
to Thailand.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
That's then the White Lotuste. Well, yeah, I know that's
kind of no. Not everybody wants to go to Thailand.
Will I don't everybody wants good to go to your
run out the clock on me? People want to go
to Spain. Nope, not there either. Will I gotta I
gotta stop you, because we've got to get along here
(36:17):
the Caribbean, anywhere in anywhere in the Caribbean. I love it.
Period into story Greece I would like to see for
the history. I frankly would like to see Egypt, but
it didn't make this list at least, and then Japan.
If I had a choice between Japan, Egypt, or Greece
or the well Japan to Egypt or Greece, I would
(36:38):
pick Greece. Well, not pick Egypt. Then Greece, and then
the Caribbean. I'd go back there many times. Two of
the more unique but popular options for Internet search data
on dream travel El Salvador. Any idea, why, probably cool?
(37:00):
It probably fun. Yeah, it could be love Central America
and boy, pack your bags. Well we're going to North Dakota. No,
that's what it says here. No, No, it does.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
It does, it really does. Even people in North Dakota
don't want to go to North Dakota.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
They're already there and they can't get out. Yeah, no, no,
though I'm sure we got twenty seconds. Doug study found
that we really don't. We're not very great at reading
our dogs' emotions. Actually, I'm not sure the people who
said that are correct either reading dog's emotions. They just
(37:43):
they either want to they either want you to throw
the stick or they're bringing you back the stick, and
then they want some food. We're out. I'll talk to
you next week on Tuesday. I'll be here over the
weekend on kbm E Saturday and Sunday morning listening if
you can. Audios and thank you.
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