Matter of Facts: Teachers' Pets

Welcome back to the Matter of Facts podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network. We talk prepping, guns, politics every week on iTunes, Ditcher, and Spotify. Go check out our content at mwefpodcast dot com. On Facebook or Instagram. You can support us be a Patreon or by checking out our affiliate partners. I'm your host, Phil Raveley Andrew nickar on the other side of the mic, and here's your show. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Matter of Facts podcast, this time with four of us. Nick and I brought our what, our handlers, our supervisors, bosses. Neurodivergence, and the women who marry them. That's probably accurate. I mean this whole that's probably really accurate. This whole episode did start off by Nick and I both remarking that we both married women who have experienced dealing with special needs children, and that cannot be a points to. It's it's like we were saying in the other episode, it's it's in my trade. At least, it's extraordinarily common to marry a teacher. I do not know why, but I know two tool and die makers that are not married to teachers, and I know dozens of them. There's not a lot of us. I think that is that merit studying, because that's way too much correlation. So anyway, introductions are necessary because you two are the guests here. This is my wife Gillian for anybody that hasn't met her yet, although I think everybody in the chat pretty. Much has except for doctor Scary guy. Except for doctor scary guy, our news patron. And this is my wife Rachel. You guys have seen her harassing me in the comments. Yes, Rachel still knew enough that she watches y'all. I don't it entertains her and bothers the dog, so it's even better. I don't take a personal that my wife doesn't feel the need to listen to me for another hour every week. Well usually I get, I get the conversation before y'all even go on, so i've well, and we've also been together for twenty years, so there is that kind of get. I'm ahead of the game that we're going to say, got the notes and the cheat sheet already. Planned out, already bored to tears. In other words, I actively try not to rant to my wife about what is going to be on the podcast. Yeah, I have to. Ask, that's amazing self restrained. I usually don't. Manage that. Well. You know, before we get on every day, I usually am cooking dinner, getting dinner on the table for the two of us. We do get the dishes all cleaned up, and then I pop down here. Yeah, so how we are. Yeah, it's not a whole lot of time to go into it in depth. But and then y'all really don't plan ahead either. Y'all kind of just the day of, talk about a couple of days. Before actually on Tuesday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Sometimes if we like kind of have predesignated an episode for the next week, we'll actually be on the ball and do research and stuff. It's weird, Yeah, especially if with like the episode where we were talking about conspiracy theories that were actually true or government shenanigans. We both did disturbing amounts of research. Yeah. The disturbing part was that I don't feel like we really learned that much, Like we pretty much already knew everything else. I mean, I learned the dates. That was about it is that. Did Phil come with an instruction manual like Sheldon? You know, sometimes I wish that there was an instruction manual to Phil. I had to figure it out all on my own. I deserve a prize and several trips to the beach for figuring this guy out. Actually, he wasn't really that hard to figure out. I'm a very simple person. Yeah, he really. I'm going to tell on myself. I make it harder. I make it harder on myself with Phil because it just can't be that straightforward. There has to be underlying, like emotions. There has to be something there. It just can't be He can't really mean exactly what he said the way he said. It can't be that simple exactly comments. I can't be the only one, Rachel. I I don't know. What do you think? Was I difficult to figure out? No? No, that was a hard But do you complicated? No? I don't think I complicated, Rachel. He's so confident in what he like, what he talks about. I just tend to do things, and she just takes it, takes me at my word that if I've said something, it's probably gonna happen, because I don't tend to bluff. Sometimes I question it, but not all. Okay, I'm not talking like planning or anything like that. I'm talking about like like emotional kind of stuff. Like, she'll ask my opinion and I'll tell her and then she's like, but you can't really think that, and I'm like, no, I'm pretty sure I do. Because I said it. It took her a while to believe that I was being honest with my opinions. I think, Okay, thank you. Sometimes I still question it, though, and we are we are what two months a month and a half from eighteen years married? Oh yeah, twenty one? Hoops, we've been together for twenty one years? Yeah, twenty. I got asked the other day at work how long Gill and I have been married? And I did the math, and I was shocked because I was like, it just it didn't occur to me that we're coming up on eighteen years, Like I know what year we got married, I know who year it is now, But until I actually like subtracted one from there, I was like, oh my god, we've almost been married eighteen years. That's fantastic. Yeah, this year, let's say November will be twenty one years we've been together. No, yes, no, yes, it is twenty one years we've been together. So I have been with Phil just as much, just as many years as I haven't been with Phil, Does that make sense? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, because I was twenty one when we met. You spent half your life with me. I spent half my life with you. And he didn't come with the manual. No, did not come with a manual. I gotta loose back around to this, Befe, we're going further. Douc Scary Guy says he misses the Raisin Bagges podcast. I know, I know, I know, I'm not pressuring pressure. Yeah, raising values. There would be much to talk about when we finally do that again. I think I have a topic for at least a year's worth. I know that I have. I have notes in my phone for every chapter in my book that I'm going to write, so maybe every chapter would be a pod podcast topic that day. I don't know if I'm just I'm just not there yet. I think there's still so much that's going on in my life and our life and everything that's happening right now that focusing on doing a show is just I don't have the bandwidth to do it. So the emotional bandwidth, Yeah. The emotional band to really take care of any like, do that and then have to still take care of my parents and then actually I start in. I started in with my neurologist on Monday to start going over all the Huntington disease stuff. So that'll be fun. Hey, you know, you might as well get ahead of it though. Yeah, I mean, we didn't know that my grandfather had it. My dad didn't know that he had it. He was estranged from his dad. And like, now, once we've learned all the symptoms and everything of Huntington's disease, I can look back on my life and think, well, gosh, my dad was in his forties and fifties when I started to notice these symptoms that he's having that had progressively gotten worse, and that thirties and forties is about the time that the symptoms really start to hit. And so now I'm looking at myself going, well, crap, I am starting to see the same symptoms and I'm in my forties. So at least, if you know, however it progresses, if I truly have it or not, will be way ahead of the curve. Then my dad was, and then my grandfather was, And there's promising there's a new promising surgery that's out there, and it is brain surgery, but it's uh it's been working wonders for people in the UK and the US is now trying to fast forward the the surgery with the. I was gonna say, we're yeah, yeah, and we're yeah, and we're very fortunate that like the foremost center for studying Huntington's is right down in New Orleans. Yeah, So like we kind of lucked weld, you know, I told Gilly and Mike, we kind of lucked into that because a lot of people that have disease as rare as you might have, you hasn't been confirmed yet. They literally have to like hop on a plane and go cross country to go to the place where it's studied and treated. So I don't know, I mean, Gil and I have had discussions about what happened, What does our long term life look like if you do get diagnosed with Huntington's and what is how does that change our long term plans? But to me, it's always come down to, like, you know, going back to me, always telling her, like I told you what I thought, Just take me at my word. Like I've always said, I'm going to make the smart decision from a family I can. I'm not gonna make dumb decisions that are gonna bite me in the butt later. It's just not how IM wired. So if I know that earlier than we anticipated, you're going to start to have issues with mobility and everything else, We're going to plan a heck for that. Yeah. That was the last, the most recent conversation of me going, are you sure there's not any underlying emotions here, because I'm totally ripping up all of our future plans that we've had since we've been together there and saying, oh, we can't do any of that now, like I have to have wheelchair access, have to have a nurse on call, I won't be able to walk a kind of stuff like that. So yeah, and I mean, and to the point I made then, which I'm sure Nick would agree with. I'm sure any decent husband would and any decent wife would. You know, when you put when you put you, when you stand up in front of the preacher and you say till death do his part. I I signed a blank check. Yeah, yeah, I knew what I was signing. I just didn't know what, you know, I didn't know how many zeers were going to be at the end of that number yet. So if this is what our if this is where our life takes us, Like I agree to take the ride. I'm not saying, you know what we when we bought this ouse here, Phil, I know I've mentioned this too. I don't know if I mentioned it to Gillian. Uh, A lot of joint issues in my family, just because all blue collar people, we all beat the crap out of ourselves. It's just how it's going to be. We were very particular in finding a ranch house that would be accessible if one of us were to have a problem in the future, because frankly, we hate moving. That was rough, Yeah, especially because I was laid up at the time. Yeah, you were laid up, well, even like looking for. A house was for us, it was. Yeah. We bought this house twenty Yeah, so right during the middle of COVID, which was a little deceptive, which with how much traffic goes by the highway, but you don't really hear it in our house, so it's not a problem. Gillian was five six months pregnant when we moved in. Five months. You were, you were pregnant enough that you didn't have any business lifting heavy furniture. I was like four or five months pregnant, but she. Still packed up like probably three quarters of the apartment because at leading up to put his way, I was working out of town. I flew home the day before we had to go and close on the house, or was. It two days before. That's aggressive, well, you know, to be to be frank. At the time, I had spent quite a few years working my way into the career that I loved. Got a pretty decent position. I thought that had a lot of vertical movement in it, and unfortunately it came with living to have a suitcase six months out of the year. You know. It was a lot of travel and a lot of really aggressive work posture. I loved every minute of it, but it did mean that leading up to having to go close on a house and move my pregnant wife, I was at it. I don't even remember what station I was at. I was out of town and literally I was. I was in the airport waiting for my flight to come home. My boss called me and said, hey, can I send you for a couple of days, and I said, I'll be divorced. I will I will have to move in with you. My wife will kill me. The story of this house says, this is the house that I we originally saw I loved it online. I wanted it so bad, but it was outside of our price range. And then I don't know a few months later, like we had been looking and go into all these different places whenever he was home, and we that my realtor called me up and was like, hey, he dropped the price and it's in your range. Do you want to go see it? So we came and saw it, put an offer in that day, and they there was an offer that was placed right before us that same day. But I think it was because Phil he was a veteran, and Phil was a veteran and that's why he went with us. It didn't work and it didn't hurt that. Yeah, we I offered an asking price for the house instead of trying to low ball him and hagle him. But I told Gilly and Mike, here's the thing, you know, like let's say we try to save like ten grand principle and we wind up losing the house. If you're really, if this is really the house you want ten thousand dollars principal over you know, spread out over or a thirty year mortgage, You're never going to notice it. So just no your interest rate is so much more. Yeah, just just let's off from what they were asking, cut all the bs out, let's just get the house. And that's that worked out in our favor. We kind of have a similar story. So we looked at this house drove away. I told Nick, I love the house. We have to buy it, and he said. No, no, we have to look at more houses. We have to look at least the other ones the realtor set up today. Yeah, it was the first was the second house we looked at, I. Think the second house. And then by the time we tell the realtor, he's like, oh, it's under contract. We we texted him the next day that we wanted to set up an offer and he said, well, just so you know, it's under contract. So then I spent the rest of the summer looking online, waiting for the house to come back on the market. And then one morning I was drinking coffee looking and I was like, Nick, the house it's back in the market. Call them really, no, Like, we're not looking at anything else? Call no, no. There there were not a lot of houses that fit what we wanted to begin with. You know, you guys, you guys live in a pretty high price market being near near New Orleans. The county we're in, Illinois is one of the higher property value counties that are that's outside of like Chicago, so it's not uncommon for a house like ours to hit the four hundred thousand dollars range, and that is just well outside of what is reasonable for us. So we were looking for a house that needed a little bit of work, you know, had a large yard, wanted it to be a ranch if at all possible, and she wanted a natural fireplace. Yeah, which fortunately we found everything in this house. And it's all brick and it's actually a really nice house. It's just the house had never been updated since it was built in the sixties. So you know, the long, shag green carpet in the master which is still there. I need to tear that out. We need carpet in the bathroom. There was carpet in one of the bathrooms. I remember growing up in a house. Carpet in the bathroom. Yeah, oh that was terrible. But y'all just finished a bathroom, so you're getting there. One of them we finished. We finished the one with carpet in it first because one of the things we didn't realize when we put a bit in on the house, was the drain for the shower was not connected to the shower pan in the master bathroom. We figured that out when I was tearing the tearing the carpet out of that. Yeah, the PBC flange had broken and separated. Yeah, so uh, there was like the electrical in the house needs updated, you know, standard old stuff. We said, there's still copper drain lines that we're working on replacing. In fact, we have to do some emergency plumbing. I was actually doing plumbing last night until about eight thirty at night, and I'm gonna have to redo the all the plumbing to the kitchen as far as drain lines and one of the bathrooms tomorrow or Saturday. Yeah, Saturday sounds like. No, it's not bad. You're going to be working on plumbing in what temperature is it outside? Oh no, it's like seventy four in my basement. Okay, I'm thinking maybe you have to go outside and dig holes in your frozen tundra. Oh god, you need a jacket. So I know you guys, You guys don't have really basements down there. No, they'd be below ground swimming pools. So right now. The basement we're in it has like an eight foot ceiling, So this stays warm pretty much year round, or in the summer. It's really nice when it's exceptionally hot out and our air conditioner broke okay ago, Yeah, yeah, that was horrible. But fortunately for us, because of the way the frost situation is here, and the fact that most people have basements, all your plumbing is accessible to a lot of people. Okay, so it's not buried in concrete, it's not buried in dirt, it is buried in the walls. But yeah, sometimes you can access that stuff. Yeah. No, we don't have basements. We bury our dead above ground. I mean some places around here in the water. So I had done some looking into several years ago to see like how hard would it be to sink like a shallow water well into the backyard is an emergency water source, And I think what I came up with was right here, if I could drive a soft pipe sixteen feet into the ground, i'd have water. Oh, you can drive a pipe there. My point is that that's how high the water table is. So oddly enough, even though I'm like another nine hundred feet above sea level, from you we can drive. So our house is up on a hill, right and our backyard kind of drops off into a valley. It's what about thirty foot drop. I think it's like a little thirty foot hill that goes down there. Down to the bottom of that hill is an artesian water source. If you dig a foot deep, you have water coming up out of the ground. A thirty foot hill would basically be a mountain down here. M hmm, Well, that's that's the hill from our house to the bottom of our property to the like where the highway is or town is, is like four hundred feet down. It's crazy. Makes a decent sledding hill, wouldn't know. Yeah, if the weather would get warm, when the snow would stay. It's grows that you're saying if it only got warm enough to go ski or to go slid. Well, it does need to get warm enough to snow. Right now, the weather's so cold the air so dry that it can't. And we did get a lot of snow this week. We did, and it would be a great day tomorrow to go out and play in the snow if it was innate of forty. She has been bemoaning the lack of snowshoeing depths of snow this year. Okay, so what happens? It just like I should know this, But there's no precipitation. When it sacks cold or it does. Something, it just won't. So it basically the pressure system is such that the air is really dry because it's Arctic air that's coming down out of Canada that's bringing all this cold down, and the Arctic air is really dry, and so the humidity drops a lot. I think our humidity today was minus twenty two was the due point. Yeah, so you couldn't even you couldn't even get condensation until minus twenty two, in which case it's already solid. So there's no evaporation from the land, from the area around us to put moisture up into the air. That's gross, Yeah, Jeff, Jeff's got got a point here, a good point here. Uh So the air is too cold to hold the moisture. That's true. Your humidity level feels worse when it is warmer because the air has a greater volume for moisture at higher temperatures. We're familiar with that, but we're not familiar with the opposite. What do you mean air too cold? To do. You mean's moisture in your air? Yeah, it yeah, unfortunately that is that is the consequence of it getting that cold. But I guess you know, it beats mosquitos the size of cats. It is true. We have to run humidifiers. Yeah in the winter. Yeah, yep, yeah, Doctor scar guys right, Yeah, I'm also unfamiliar with this whole needing a humidifier. We just open our windows. Not even that you don't even have to do that. I mean that's the air runs during the day. Heater runs at night because it just warms up so much during the day. Now that's not I'm sure this weekend will be different when we drop into the teams, but that's going to be like a day or maybe two. I will say that, like I keep a humid over here in the house to keep my cigars, and with a humid or there, there's kind of a happy range for humidity, so they don't mold, but they don't dry out. In the summer, I can usually go the entire summer. Bear in mind, that's like eight months down here. I can almost go the entire summer without having to top off the reservoirs in my humidor because it stays so humid inside the outs even with the ac running. And then in the when it gets to the winter months, I remember to top it top off water like every two to three weeks, where those cigars will start to dry out. So when I was keeping a humidor here, it was in the winter, it was every other day it had to be topped off. Oh it's gross. Wow. Yeah. No, we won't be sleeping. Ohn Jeff Jack, So I won't be sleeping with the windows open. Rachel says, we will also not be sleeping. No, we don't sleep with the windows open here, not with It's just I don't know, because I feel like y'all aren't like you are far from us, but you're not. I mean you're you're not too far. I think we could probably drive to y'all in a day. But the difference in the weather to me is just so it's just crazy. So you don't want to move in. No, And I've been seeing a lot of stuff from Macanal Island on my feed lately. I don't know why I love it, but that that to me is crazy, like what they're dealing with up in the up and all that stuff is like and it's and just thinking like we were just there, like in June. Was it June we were there? I guess I didn't realize. I thought maybe like April was when the island opened up, and it's not. It's not. It doesn't open until June up until then you have to fly to the island from the main main island, the main land whatever. If if they're lucky, the ice will start breaking up in May. I saw this. I saw one picture where they had snowmobiles parked out on the side of the street. Immediately talking me. Yeah, but people, people actually, I thought the whole island shut down so that they could do like repairs and things like that, and that's not true. People actually go to Mackinac Island to vacation in the winter, intentionally, intentionally by ticket, it's on a plane or whatever. D This is what happens when we shut down all of our insane. And reserve hotel rooms. Didn't they have a Christmas thing up there that you wanted to potentially go do one? No, they had the Lilacs I think the festival. Yeah, okay, like the week before we were there. Yeah, so Ragle For those that don't know, the up is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It's beautiful. It's like it's just country, Like it's just woods and it's just so pretty. I mean, it's nothing like we have down here in Louisiana. I will say, though, like some of the stuff we saw at the up was just beautiful. Like what was it a kitchen kippie? Was that where they had that water? Oh? Yeah, they had a I mean we I'm pretty sure we posted all those pictures and everything on our Instagram, But like, just some of the sights up in the Upper Peninsula were beautiful. I know the Shipwreck Museum had had Gillian and you pretty a gas at the kind of weather they get up there. Yeah, ten ten out of ten convinced me. I never never want to be on a boat anywhere in the Great Lakes ever. Zero stars. Just like crossing the Macanal Bridge was scary enough for me and I used to drive the causeway to work every day. That but the causeway doesn't like sway back and forth underneath you. Like the cause the causeway, you know it's it's it's anchored all the way across the lake. But that suspension bridge, like you can feel it moving underneath. You had to close my eyes. I was like, I can't do this. I'm glad I looked down. Don't look forward, don't look, just don't look. I'm glad I was driving where you might have had a problem. Yeah, it was awful. When we were heading when we were heading back. Do you remember what the bridge looked like when we were coming up over it? No? I don't how you could. You could see that we were shifting off center almost a full lane. Yeah, it was really windy that day. They closed the bridge a couple hours after we left. Yep, did y'all get back before us or no? Maybe? Yeah, yeah we did. I think we did. We crossed that bridge and then they closed it. Thank you for not telling me? No when we went home, like when we all went. Trip and then came back to asking never mind, I'm sorry. I thought she meant when we all went up to the in the up. No, no, no, no, when we when we left for the trip. Yeah, when we went home. Instead of instead of driving south around Michigan and going through Chicago, we went north and then came back south through Wisconsin. That was. Yeah. I think I think the did the same thing. Josh's family did the same thing they. Did because there was it's well, there is one of our stops in the up where Josh was like, you know, we're only like a couple hours from home right here. M Yeah, that was a fun trip. I'm so glad we all got to do that. I'm looking forward to this summer too. I got a little Yeah, Kentucky will be nice, Kentucky be fun. I've never been to Kentucky. Through it. Yeah, but that's not being. Did we stop wet we Oh? No, we stopped in Tennessee. No, we didn't. No, we stopped further up in what's what's north. Of Kentucky, Michigan now Indiana. We didn't stop overnight in Indiana. I don't remember where we stopped. Ohio, Tennessee, Tennessee. Yeah, I would say, you look at the map. I'm going to answer doctor Scary Guy's question. Tennessee. There's only one direct way to spell that word, and it does not include a W. I'll let you argue that one to death with Gillian. Because I don't know what we're talking about. That was I think that was when we talked about mcinall Island. H oh, I said mcinall he's saying it does not include a w. Oh, the spelling doesn't, but the pronunciation does. Sometimes because because we learned this when we went to the fort. It was because of the Native American tribe. Right, No, yes, I thought it anyway, it's pronounced macinaal. Where we stopped. We stopped in Louisville, Kentucky, and spent the night. We stopped in Louisville, Kentucky on the way home. Nope, well, yes, both times we stopped in Louisville and spent the night. Hmm, I'm right, you're wrong. I found on the way home we stopped in Tennessee. Maybe on the way home, but we stopped in Louisville on the way up. Okay, I'll give you that on the way up on the I was taking on the way home. I don't know what. So Doc says, sometimes the wind can throw cars off the side rails of Macna. I've not heard that, but I would imagine that's probably why they closed the bridge. I'm never going to get around that bridge ever. No, we are going back to Macnall Island, but. Not on the bridge. Before we'll go, we'll go together for the Lilac Festival. When it's warmer. But they do the Lilac Festival a week before we were there. Okay, but it's still not frozen ice water and having to take a plane in from the mainland. Do we want to stay at the little fishing cabins again? Absolutely not. I wasn't a fan of those cabins. That was not fun it. I gotta put this down. I'm sure Stewart's going to kill me later because he's gonna be like, well, it's all the poppin' it's. You didn't even take your swipe at Stewart about the question he left us. I will in a minute. We were talking about the cabins, the cabins, and then at the last few days we were up there, the wind was so strong and that was that was crazy. And the. At least in our our bedroom the curtains were blowing on the inside of the cabin were blowing in the wind. Was like, this is crazy. Ragels said, you're afraid of bridges and you live in Louisiana Square. That for me, I know, see, And that's what I said. I drove the causeway every day for work for almost ten years, and well not that long, but because I would take the Twin Span, which is anyway another bridge. I don't know. But the causeway is not as high as the Mackinall Island Bridge. It's not. I mean it's twelve feet off the water. Yeah, yeah, I think the I think the deck on the bridge is like five or six hundred feet above the water up there or something like that. Yeah, yeah, it's quite high. It's it's a scary bridge, but I mean it's it's not the Chapelaya, it's not the Mississippi Bridge, Mississippi River Bridge in Baton Rouge. It's this thing does not compare to anything we have down here. Well, I don't think you guys have the bedrock needed for large suspension bridges up there. I think the water table's too too high. I mean, drive a pilon deep enough. I guess. I think of any suspension bridges that we do have, and suspension bridges alone, like bridges scare me. But suspension bridges, I don't know what it is. It's just I guess I don't know what it is. They just freaked me out. There's one in Alabama we used to have to cross when we would go see my parents when they live there, and I would have to close my eyes every time. And there's one in Arkansas. When we're heading up to go back to Hot Springs, we cross it sometimes. None of this concerns me, By the way, what what are you talking about? Any bridges? Just stay between the lines and you know, don't rearate the more on in front of you. M do our bridges have to be taller because of how high the water can. Get in some cases. Yeah, but that's not the problem up in Mackinaw. The problem up in Macinaw is they got to get all those big, the big ships through. Oh, that's right. That's that's why that bridge is as tall as it is, because they get the big orehoulers and the big cargo ships that run through there. Yeah, so it's it's it's almost like a sea lane under that bridge. That's why that it is as high as it is. And yes, the Rainbow Bridge in Texas, that one when you're going like to get on it is freaky, but it's an optical illusion. I don't y'all. Y'all probably don't know what that bridge is, but it is it is pretty high. Isn't that the one that comes down out of Bridge City heading towards Neederland or am I think of another bridge? A're you thinking of another one? It's the one from Louisiana to Texas. Okay, that goes over with Sabine. Yeah, Okay, I think I think that's the one we're talking he's talking about. Anyway, we started off with neurodivergence and then the women that marry them, and now we're talking about bridges. I feel like Sheldon, we're gonna we're gonna progress to trains here and just commit it. Hey, look, it is not my fault that Instagram has been feeding me a bunch of miniature steam engines stuff and the elderly men that ride on them. Dudes, you're not I'm not gonna lie. Oh, but by the time I get one made. I'm not gonna lie every time. The every time the algorithm locks on at me and starts showing me like all these old old single cylinder machines that all these old single cylinder engines that run like mills and stuff like that, I just sit there and just let it run on repaid three or four times. It is the coolest thing on earth to me. You guys, if you do ever want to come to Illinois. I know you probably won't. But in the summer there is the Sycamore Steam Show. It is hundreds of acres of antique tractors from original single cylinder steam tractors up through like the nineteen forties, nineteen fifties stuff. It is so cool. Nick was telling me. Nick is trying to coerce me and to go into a what was it the Sellond grid shoot up in Wisconsin? Oh? Yeah, the Stalingrad match up at So it would be you won't be able to sign up for it this year because the sign up's already closed. Playing sign up mid February. It's sign up for because I don't own clothing thick enough to go with. What is it? Well, there's that. Okay, So you're familiar with the Battle of Stalingrad, right, I'm the history nerve. Okay, so World War Two in the Russian theater wait, the city of. Nope. Okay. I thought for sure I would have gotten, first of all, correct your wife's cultural knowledge and make her watch. I mean, I gotta cut it. I gotta give you were going to watch that? Great Now you have plans for the weekend. She knows more about this. She does here's the thing he'll forget. Not this, Oh, somebody will text him and remind him in the patron chat. I'm sorry. I will remind him, and he'll remind me and we can smoke on the couch on Saturday and watch it. Oh yeah, so excited. It's a good movie. It's was a Jude Law and Cure nightly, I think. Yeah, jud Law and Early Cure Nightly. Actually when she was good. Yeah, it's a really good movie. But anyway, the point. Is, yeah, it is so. The Battle of Stalingrad largely took place in the winter, or at least the portion of it that everybody mythologizes took place in the winter. And that's why this match gets called the Alingrad Match. What it is is it is a It is a rifle pistol match. You must use a World War two era service rifle and a World War two era service pistol or a pistol or rifle available for civilian purchase that was used during the war. And if it has a bayonet lug, you must mount a bayonet. And I have an s ks mm hmm. The same that you're wrong. I'm not wrong about oh rockel Wise, I think he's right. I don't know who that is. It's another Rachel whatever facade. Yeah, that Jeff's got our back. He said it's a romance. It is a romance. It's a better romance story than Pars, a better romance story. It was a better romance story than Titanic. Still a better romance than Twilight too, Still not interesting. Look, I'm telling you, Twilight would have been so much more watchable if only Blade had showed up halfway through. I actually never seen Twilight either. Good, don't. My high school girlfriend made me watch it. It was terrible then, it's terrible. Now I would have made you watch it. That's why he married you. That's why your marriage materia. Yes, yes, absolutely, But the reason I want Phil to come up and shoot that match not only is to make Phil shoot rifles in the cold in February. It's in Wisconsin, Wisconsin. It's further north than actually halfway to Jeff's house. Oh lord, or no, Josh's halfway of the Rains's house. Geez. I think Jeffson Wisconsin too, for I recall correctly. I think he might be, but I'm not sure. I really hope, and he's not from somewhere else. But in the back of my head once he's from Wisconsin. What are we shooting the guns at targets? Yeah? No, twenty five twenty five yards to three hundred yards. Said Minnesota. Oh, miss, I was close. Part way to Jeff's house. Yeah, I uh, I know of a range that does this. This shoot, some of the guys will come dressed in authentic period uniforms, which is pretty cool. And everybody brings World War two surplus guns. One guy brought a storm gave one time. Yep, that was pretty sweet. My wife is not a gun nerd. She's a bug nerd. She's a biology nerd. She's a marine biology nerd. She's not a gun nerd or history nerds. I don't know what stone Gavera is either. I just shake my head. Not sure. She figured me out. If you just agree, I'll be quiet. Rachel figured this out a lot better than I did. I should just shut in my mouth and oh yeah that's yep. Can I get then writing? No, damn it? No, anyway, forty one minutes in, we still haven't talked about the very first thing we said we were going to talk about the tents. Oops. But I was going to skip. The ten goes straight to like how the two couples. Okay, we can do that. No, the tent. Do not spray deep on tents. We've covered this multiple times. Just don't do We've covered it a couple of times, more than a couple We covered it last week we did. Oh yeah, gear care, don't spray your gear with stuff you don't know what it does. Yeah, yeah, I said. I would address it. Yes, I don't. Don't put bug spray on your tent, even if the bugs are literally knocking on the door of the tent to come in and greet you with their blood sucking mouthparts. And by the way, you know, the one thing that didn't happen, the bugs did not get away from the tent. I know. That was the weird. It was crazy. That was crazy. Dissolve The DwC bugs were like, oh, this stuff's great. Can I get another hit? Yeah, freaking swamp mosquitoes. But anyway, or they just get sprayed so much down by you they don't notice anymore. That's true. I mean it might have gave him a buzzz no pun intended. That was a good one. Nice moving on, go for it. So talking about how do we meet? Well, everyone knows how we met? Well, then screw we won't talk. Nick, how did you? How did y'all meet? Go ahead, you start I want to I want to hear. She almost said you started this? Uh no, she started this. We actually met on the internet kind of like you guys did, but friends didn't introduce us. Plenty offishal was it? Yeah? Back in the day, plenty of fish was actually a pretty decent sight. There were actual people on there instead just bought scammers. So she reached out to me and we found out we were going to the same college. Just I was from a whole county over so was uh yeah, went on a date. I didn't think she was going to show up work close I did because I came straight from work. Horrible, You're lucky. My friend said, you're gonna judge him on one date? M I am, but hey, I admire his game because if you had judged him after one date, then he would have known you were not marriage material playing the long game. No, Actually, what it was was I was I was sick and tired of putting an effort and getting stood up four dates because Phil, you missed out on the online dating thing how it is, but really really common then and now from what I've heard from my friends that are still dating online. You'll set up a date, you'll show up, the girl will not tell you that she's not coming, and you will just be stuck. You know, you just show up there by yourself, which gets irritating after it happens three or four times in a row. So I was like, you know what, I got a chance for some overtime at work. I'm gonna take the overtime and then I'll go because I didn't feel like missing out on overtime when at the time I was trying to buy a house. So making adult decisions. True, And then she made an even sketchyer decision and went on a hiking date with me. Yeah, so what So what I'm hearing is is that you just decided to go like all eggs in the basket and see if he was gonna wear your skin like a coat. Well, he was much closer than the other guys that were coming up on my profile. A lot of them were in Chicago, which. Yeah, instant disqualification. Wasn't there one that wanted you to meet him to meet you at his apartment in downtown. Yeah, yep, that's always. Either guys from Chicago or guys that went to high school with. True So I have to ask the obvious layup question. Does guys who went to high school with immediate disquality immediately disqualify them? No, but it was the guys that tease me in high school that were coming up on my. Bro oh dirt bags. So that no. I had the problem of when I where I went to high school. My family is very large and they don't tend to leave, and then they tend to have even more kids and they don't leave either. So I had of my. Graduating class, which was, like I want to say, it was shy at three hundred people. I can't remember what the number was now. But. I think it was like twelve twelve of the ladies in my graduating class were not at least second cousins or closer. Oh jeez. And most of the teachers I was either related to by blood or marriage. That's like smalltown Mississippi dating opportunities. Oh yeah, yeah, it's so dating in high school I had to either I had to explicitly the attempt to date women that moved in from out of state or not dated at all, literally, dude, literally just my family. So that this brings up the story that I love to just drop on people that I always joke with people that it's not a joke, but I always joke with people that, like, you know, Gillian, I'm trying to think how I phrase it. Gillian met one of her cousins in my family reunion, which literally happened. Well, I think we were just in, we were engaged, we weren't married yet. No, I think we were just dating. It was your grandmother's one hundredth birth great grandmother's great grandmother's one hundredth birthday, and I don't remember who introduced us, and they were like, I needed, I needed to introduce you to this woman. And I said, oh, okay, great, and she goes, I was a house. Was a house? Yes? Yeah, it was because my dad was like. Her maiden name was How's and she married into the opposite side of my family tree four generations but were over. Huh. Yeah, I met my cousin at his family reunion birthday night. Yeah. Yeah, it's just fun to start that lay up that my wife met her cousin in my family reunion, and then you just see the look of abject horror on people's faces, and then you explain the situation to them. Yeah. Yeah, when when we started dating, when she would stay the night over, I'd take out. We'd go out to breakfast in the morning a fair amount of times, and I warned you a couple of times. I didn't believe you. She didn't believe me that just about everybody in town was family or knew us very well. How long did it take when we sat down to breakfast the first time? Like two minutes? Two minutes my uncle Bill walks up, be my great uncle on my mom's dad's side, walks up, starts having a conversation with me, and then what three more? Three more couples came up. And then there was the one time you sent me to Jewel and I was walking around Jewel and Everybody's like giving. Me a look like. I think I know who you are, but I don't know who you are. And I go home and I'm like, why was everybody looking at me? He was like, Oh, you probably saw my whole entire family. Jewel. Yeah, Jewel Oasco. Jewel. It's it was a grocery store and pharmacy and now it's pretty much just a grocery store sometimes with a pharmacy. So it's like. It's it's like a Walmart without all the like toys and home goods and stuff like that. It's just it's just food. Yeah, but it's a big one around here. But the. Let's see, there's like five big families in the county I live in, like really big farming families that have been here a long time, and my family is intermarried to all of them. So up until about COVID, we were doing a family Christmas party for my mom's great grandma's family. Every year they would do this and we would rent a Legion Hall because it was like three hundred and fifty four hundred peece that would show up. Yeah, I'm number three hundred and eighty five or something like that in that family line. I guess when you're snowed in, you don't have much to do. You don't, you don't, And when you're a farming family, you really don't have much to do other than farming and having more kids to do more farm. Like the meme of like the Gigantic family and like what did grandma and Grandpa do before there was TV? To pass the time right, turns out there's a reason there are fourteen. Ye see, because my family moved, you know, from Southeast Texas over here, and all the rest of my extended family pretty much until you go a couple of generations back, Like my great grandmother before she passed away, lived in Evergreen, Louisiana, which is Raggle knows where I'm talking about. It's outside of Bunkie, which is outside of Alexandria. It's the little town next to the little town next to the moderately sized town. But that and a couple of scattered cousins are really like the only family we had in Louisiana unless you went back for generations were all the rest of my more immediate family was still in the Houston area. So when we came over here, I didn't have that experience of like just bumping into cousins and uncles and aunts everywhere I went. You mean, when y'all came to slide L. Yeah, when we moved to slide L, it was just us, I mean. And then I made the mistake of getting a job in the district that he went to school, and so everybody there knows everybody. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean the nurse, while all the nurses at D two hundred are at least cousins of mine. The lady that ran food service for a long time was I think my mom's cousin, and I think half the school board are still related to me directly. I thought Nick was going to say all the nurses treated him when he was in school. Well that too, Yeah, I got you know each other know each other? Yeah, yeah, like if you bump into my first name, Basis. That's nice. Yeah, I mean maybe, well. It is until you're a senior trying to skip assemblies and you go to Burger Kinge. Your mom's best friend, who was also her cousin, works as the manager. Yeah, you don't get to go very far. I made it three blocks before I got a phone call. See, so we live in Mandeville, but my my dad's dad's family and well, I guess really both of my parents, my dad's parents, they settled in a little place over here, just southside of Ponchatula. So it's I mean, what twenty minutes twenty thirty minutes away. Anyway, I have tons of cousins over there. I don't know any of them. I know that they exist and there's even like Buffalo Street or Buffalo Road or How's Road. There's you know, all the last names are out there, but I don't know who they are. I don't think I could pick them out of a lineup or grocery store or anything. And there's a lot of them. So that's crazy that you know more than just your you know, first cousins or whatever. Well, you know, you gotta remember when when everybody's within six miles, people show up to the family reunions and you're like, well, you know everybody's going to be there, so we might as well go because people are gonna notice if we don't. Yeah, and what are these family reunions, like, Nick, are they like bookworthy? Like you're going to write a book? Do do therapists and psychologists salivate at the thought of you guys getting together? And I think that's only your family. Of think of card tables full of a lot of German and Swedish cooking, okay, and then baked goods his family mountains. But do you all get along? That's what I'm asking. Thank you for your honesty. Ras. Not everybody, not Rachel's. I mean they're Rachel's a or speaking loudly. Yeah, yeah, well, I'm trying to be a bit diplomatic because I do like most of them. There are some of them that, you know, how sometimes when a family member dies and people think there's money and there isn't money, and the will gets read and nobody gets anything, and everybody's wondering where all. The money Wasn't all familiar with that scenario. Fights like that have gone on some of my some of my grandparents' siblings don't get along with each other anymore. They're all in their seventies and eighties. I don't know why it's a problem now, right like they were fine for seventy years. I don't know why they've decided to pick fights in the last decade. But hey, you know what, maybe they got tires. Because they're probably just grumpy old fards. Could be, could be, and so we say they're usually pretty chill. Rachel. What about your family, big forming family or. I mean I have a big family, but I wouldn't say farming for you at all. I have an aunt with more children than you have. Cousins. Okay, well. Totally. So the comment comment actually, and it says, Gillian, I mean Nick has so much family that Gillian is the third cousin twice removed. It's if you had any family members that came through the Midwest in the last sixty years. Chances are good. Chances are good. Chances are really good. Because the Buffalos, my Sicilian family, came through Chicago. Like they all settled in Chicago and then sold everything and decided Louisiana is the place we want to go. And that would probably be the star Boss side of my family. Then they were in Chicago for a while before they ended up out here farms. And then they moved to New Orleans. Not New Orleans, they moved to beat the Coo just outside of punch Tula to an Amy became farmers down there. Do you never know, we might be your grandma Gillian's phone number. We and then TA can harass Gillian about genealogy. No, they might be cousins. I don't want to do that to No, that'd be mean, Oh, well you do it. Your your family's pretty close. Yeah, I would say have a close knit, tight family. I was about but they're all they're all you know, local too there, but they're county over from us. Yeah, they're now away from us. Oh, God, the comments has been blowing up the Chad matter of facts keeping it in the family edition. Mm hmm. And just today we were talking about Oedipus syndrome and electric complex with Piper. So that's a fun one. Yeah, Piper is developing an interest in psychology, and since I almost minored it in college, Like, I'm familiar enough with some of this stuff like Freud that I make fun of it while I explain it to her. And as I'm explaining to her, I can see like her screaming internally because everything with Freud is about sex, all of it. Yep, he was a bit obsessed. Yeah, I don't think he was a well adjusted human being. But explain this to a thirteen year old is always an exercise. And like, how do I get the point across without sending her to therapy? Well, you could always make it awkward for fun. Yeah, this is me, Nick, I don't have to try to make it awkward. It just becomes no. See, she's a teenager now, so we're trying to keep her in the conversation as long as we can, so if we don't make it awkward, she tends to stay longer. When it goes awkward. It's when we don't see her until the next morning. So yeah, when she just unceremoniously and suddenly says, I'm going to room tonight, it's. Too far. She's like, and we're done enough talking to the rentals today. But you know, some sometimes when we when things are a little awkward in his family, I actually like, don't shy away from it, because, like you know, I remember, for like years, you and I always said that, like we're going to be affectionate in front of her, even though that all kids get grossed out when their parents are kissing on each other. Because to me, it's like, I want my daughter to know that's what a healthy, well adjusted, married couple supposed to look like. You know, we're not. So that's that's your job as parents is to model a healthy, well adjusted, loving couple. Yep, what nothing. I was just waiting to see where you went. Oh has a long yet? Oh the things I could say not about us, No, no, no, it's not about us. The well modeled couple that I didn't get. I didn't get that well modeled couple. So it's crazy to me that I can actually be a well modeled. Well you just do the opposite of everything you were shown. Right there, you go, that's true, that's true. Yeah, Now she's she's she's Oh gosh, how do I put this without saying too much? She's very private, thirteen and. In high school and learning all sorts of things about herself and others? Does that makes sense? Am I saying? Enough? So? High school? I remember high school? Mine looked like a prison for a reason. Hearst doesn't look like a prison, doesn't. But mine was designed. Yours was designed as well by an architect that designed prisons, same architectural firm that designed the penitentiary over by your grandma designed your high. Schools with that because the dorm I lived in in college. Also, he was the architect for the Angola prison in just south of New Orleans. Why did they get all of those same architects? So it's construction materials are the same. It's the same government bodies that are taking all the kids, and you're housing large groups of people in small. Yeah, you know it. I think God that common has got the answer, got to the kids for the upcoming generations. Ragles swooping in with a good question, So how much are you and your spouse alike? And how different are y'all? Who wants to start, Well. Are you giving me that look? Rachel? Why are you giving me that look? Oh? How are we different? I don't you should answer that? No, No, you're giving me a look like you know you. Know, Rachel, I've only met I've only met you a handful of times, and I talk to Nick every week, and I can answer this question. All right, go for it, Phil, How do you think we're different? How do you think we're like? Based just from the outside looking in, at least from my perspective, I think y'all's personalities are very very opposite. But I get the impression that, like on when it comes to like questions of like trying to think of the word I'm looking for here, I think y'all agree on most things, but probably don't agree on how the thing gets done. If that makes it absolutely correct? Okay? So is that is that normal? Just because and I'm not joking at this point, like you are more neurodiversion than I am. Oh, I am a bucket of high function. Because that's very much our relationship too. So is that just because of the two that I would like to think that me and Rachel are more similar than and you and Nick are similar, Like, oh yeah, I would agree, yeah, But is that just because of the dynamic of our relationship of who we are. I mean, we started this off by saying that it must be more than a coincidence that we both married women that are used to deal with special needs children. Mm hm, that's not why we pick. If that's look, if that's just coincidence, it's a hell of a strong correlation. Well, I don't I don't know if it was purposeful or it's just that she knows how to communicate well with me, like the way she communicates and and she understands how I communicate. You Just. That's what hooked you. Early on when you brought me over to your parents' house to have a fire, And that was the first time I met your friends. They said, oh good, she's a teacher, they did. Well. See, I wasn't a teacher when we met. I mean I was in I was in school still, so and I was just ready to graduate, so I just declared a major. But then I got into biology and all that stuff, and I don't know, I mean, I've always worked with the public and education and all that, but never in a classroom until the last four years have I been in a classroom. But I mean, that's not why I picked you. No, I think I think it's the reason why I liked you. Well, okay, it was the. It was for the fourth time. I have to go back. I have to go, you know, back five years and then oh wait, no, back to another five years, and then okay, yeah, twenty one year old me was like, damn, yeah, he's pretty good. Yeah, I think it was yeah, like five eleven eighty pounds, clean shaven, Yeah, it's a dark, dark dark tan. Yeah, not my chilts's. And then I fell in love with you. Then you felt what about you? I would say the confidence, your confidence he did that. That was nice. The confidence was nice. But Phil was kind of nerdy. Well, I wasn't even gonna say nerdy. You're still nerdy. You've always been nerdy, but you you had a macho attitude that I couldn't stand you. You were very alotimes. You can still get into that where you're you're kind of like, I'm right, this is right. I don't want to hear any other opposing whatever, this is, this is how it is. And then I have to now I know I have to talk you have to talk you out of that, Like, Okay, come on, we're gonna, we're gonna explore this. Just a little bit more is gonna be uncomfortable for you, but we're gonna. You're talking out of this. Is that the macho or is that the neurodivergence? I don't know where, Like I've already gone through my whole oodle loop in my head. Made a decision and now I'm trying to act on it, and I'm not trying to hear alternative points of view like I am. I'm in motion to do something. The decision was made, the train is engaged. We are going now, and I'm still on the landing the landing platform or whatever, going wait time out. By a ticket for this. You bought a ticket. I punched it for you. Let's get on the train and go. Already shown them your ID. You're on. Let's go. No, the comments brought up a good a good question here conflicted if you want someone like him or opposite? Some more of our life are covered, so my my personal opinion, and like I can't say because like when Gill and I first met, like what was what I was? What I was most looking for when Gill and I met, and these were all the boxes she checked. Like, I was very upfront about you are interviewing from missus Ravelais. These are the things that I will not compromise on. They have to be this way, and it's not my way. It's just if this is not what you want, we're wasting your time's time to go. That was an actual conversation. It was very straightforward, like, this is the job you were interviewing. For well, and from my perspective, like even in my teens, I wasn't I didn't do casual dating. I didn't do dating for fun. It was always if if we're not compatible each other, then we're just wasting your time, and I'm not. I'm not into wasting my time or my effort. So I laid it out for and a lot of what Gilly and I agreed on up front was like, you know, the really basic stuff like monogamy, loyalty, honesty. We both you know, we both wanted children. We were both very much in the mode of like until death do a part means something. We're not going into this saying well, if it works out, it's like no, no, we're gonna make it work out because we're making a decision. Yeah, And a lot of the things that we I wouldn't say disagreed about, but a lot of things that we are so opposite on. It's things that I appreciate about her, Like she is a much more warm, caring person than I am. It's very difficult for me sometimes to like forgive and forget and men fences. I'm a very vengeful, angry like you you wrong me, and I will wait till my last breath to get even kind of person. And she's the one that talks me off the ledge. It's like everything that we are similar on, it's things that we had to be similar on to make a relationship work, and everything we're opposite in it's either something that compliments my strengths or it's something that accounts for my weaknesses. So I guess to a guy that comments point like, you want both, you want a person who if Gilly and I were exactly similar, then I feel like our weaknesses would compound each other. They definitely can. Core core value is the same. I think it's more important than personality similarities. Two hundred percent. Yeah, I think that's actually what's missing. And like this is this is something I kind of grouse younger couples and you know, young men about all the time. But I'm like, you know, before you get too concerned with how cute she looks in or out of her clothes, you probably ought to spend a little bit more time talking about are you too compatible? Like, do y'all want the same things out of life? Do you like it doesn't have to be we have the same goals, but are you both willing to compromise those goals to find a middle point you can both live with. It's I don't know. To me, like I look at I look at a marriage as a partnership, and partnerships in business don't work if both parties don't have somewhat similar goals. And I just feel like like there's way too much dating without that forethought, if that makes sense. Oh? Absolutely? Are you scrunching your face up what I'm saying or comments you're trying to read I'm. Trying to understand. Well, I'm trying to yes the comment. Sometimes he comments stuff just to get a rise out of us. I will warn you now, got the comments is comment section? He's like, I'm like, wow, maybe let's not date ever. Well, he's kind of fifty to fifty with really well thought out questions and just abject open face trolling. The minute I saw machiavellianism, I figured it goes in that ladder category. Okay, yeah, you know, Phil, you mentioned that the vengeful streak. I think where you and I get that same thing? Is that I and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, But I don't think you act in a malicious way towards others without intention and forethought. Is that correct? Like I would say, you're not accidentally malicious? No, No, that's not right. Next so nor well, but I'm no, like when he does it, it's done with intention. There are times when I am unintentionally thoughtless and say something sourful. That's just being human, that's human. But no, if I'm going to go the step of like being truly, I'm going out of my way to make your day. If I'm if I'm truly like being mean spirited and malicious, usually it's it's fully intentional. It is. And I tried to explain this to gillion years ago, and I still know if like my explanation makes sense to her, But like I tried to explain to her, I'm Mike. You have to understand that if I'm going to really go out of my way to try to get even with somebody, it's not a oh. This anger has just been boiling inside of me, and if I lost control of it's like no, no, no, I don't lose my temper. I let go of it. I reach a point where I'm like, today's the day to be the entire problem, and I'm like your grandfather's wake, where I screamed at your entire family, cursed every last one of them, shook my finger on their face, like completely From their perspective, probably looked like I was going completely off the rails, But from my perspective, it was all these years I've held my temper, I've played nice, I've been the bigger person. And tonight is the perfect night to throw salt in their wound, because because there's already a fight, there's already screaming and yelling, there's everybody's embarrassed, everybody's feelings are hurt. Tonight's the night to remind them that. Rabelays, we have that ability to pick the perfect moment to stick salt in the wound. He's never been more attractive to me than that night. By the way, I'm surprised I didn't get it on the way home. Hey, you know he defended. Yes, that's important. You should defend your spouse. But the reason I bring it up, phillis because I think that you and I can get caught up at times in that a lot of people are malicious unintentionally, or they're not thinking through the consequences of what they're saying or doing, and you and I see it as that was an intentional attack. I am now on the defensive. I do not like that, and so I'm going to respond that way. Be nice. He was nice words exactly, and I don't. That was the teacher voice. It was. I get that some days on my way before I leave the house for work. Be nice today yesterday when I was getting out of the truck, Yes, I got teacher voiced. Uh huh, what if you did well. Our neighbors next door are idios. We've got one of those early. Twenties, mid twenties still living home and they like to party, oh most every night, and so the we live in a cold de sac. It's almost like none of our neighbors know how to use their driveway. So everyone parks in the street of the Cold de Sac and usually there's like room for one or two cars and every one of their driveways. And so we came home the other night we had my sister was coming over because we're going through my parents' house and there was nowhere for them to park, and our driveway was blocked. And my husband I saw steam come out of his ears and his he saw red and I knew it. And he's cussing up and down in the truck, and I put my hand on his lap and I was like, calm down, we can handle this, Like it's okay, We're going like, just calm down, calm. Down, snatch cables for everyone. So he jumps out of the car. And so this is my thing with Phil. He acts like that when he's in front of me, Like there's been times where he's had to go across the street. So I'm the party happens this way next door, you know, behind us, and then across the street is just a bunch of idiots that don't know how to drive. And they're the ones that are always hitting our mailbox, backed in my mailbox. Three times, same family. It's not like the mailboxes are Migrator. Apparently the same since the night Apparently that one's made by the Romulins because has a cloaking device on it. So I was so scared Phil he stormed out of his house. I have nine one one dial on my phone because I just know, I know that these trashy people are going to pull a gun on him when he gets there. Well, he's already got his gun, and I just know that there's gonna be something he goes over there. It is the door at the front of their necks. The George Kathy, I've had this conversation with you before, and I'm like, who the hell is this guy? Like where did that guy come from? The guy who left this house was ready to rip next apart? Like and and if I had been greeted with attitude, ripping next Apart was still on the menu. But when I when I'm greeted with hey, mister raple Ay, I'm like, Okay, we can have a reasonable conversation now, and you can move your crap out of my way. But if I'm greeted with idiot teenagers or twenty somethings or thirty somethings or just idiots in general. Then you throat punching might be back on home. Oh and then the girl came out who was blocking our driveway with an attitude, and I I lost my shit. I was the one who was like, oh oh no, honey, no, no, no, no, this isn't how this works. You're blocking my driveway. Lose the attitude I was. I was very upset. Lose the attitude or lose your choice and. Snatch that hair right off the top of your head and you will never park on this cold sack again. I just have to keep reminding myself that I still do have a valves and removal tool sitting in my toolbox from my days at a tire shop. And I'm not above taking all four of somebody's valve course, I'm leaving them just sitting on the pavement. I keep one in my truck. I'm not saying I would ever do it on the internet in front of a thousand witnesses, you know, statch limitations and all that. I'm just saying that, hypothetically, it's not that hard to take your valve cores out and you ain't gonna be able to air that back up afterwards. Well see, and I'm always I'm always so afraid of like Phil's reaction, not towards me or anything like that, but like I'm afraid that he's really going to get pissed enough and. Snatch somebody and snatch somebody. But it's really me, it's really me who It doesn't take much to just dig down into the howl's genes that I have, where you know, everybody yelled at everybody and hands were thrown all the time. It doesn't take much for me to do that. So maybe Phil should talk to me and the teacher voice of calm down, babe. That doesn't work. No, that just makes it worse that that. That's like trying to put a campfire out with guess every time. This makes it worse. Yeah. Yeah. The worst words a man can utter to an angry wife is calm down. Ten out of ten. Done that. I've done that a bot. Okay, Well here's the story. Well it's because I don't I don't realize how mad you are. Usually I was eight eight months pregnant, mean you're nine months pregnant. Well, it moved into this house and we were still kind of setting up things. I was still working, and I remember we got up that morning, and I don't know what was said, but Phil looked at me and he goes, well, aren't you being a little bitch this morning? Y'all those oranges on the counter they flew so fast out of my hand towards his head, orange juice everywhere. And then he looks at me, he goes, now, you got to clean that up. And I turned around and walked out. I'm so mad. I don't remember what we were fighting about, but it feels like you probably started it. Probably I probably deserved it. He didn't call me a bit. He said, aren't you being bitchy? Or something like that. I said, aren't you being You're being a little hormonal? No, you said bitch. I remember bitch. I remember bitch? And I don't remember. Did you hear bitch? Don't I blacked out? Did I say or did you hear it? Because we've gone through this before where I've said something, you've heard something completely different, like when I said, Babe, we really can't afford Mexican food tonight, and you said, I know you don't love me anymore. That kind of thing you wanted doborce Just tell me you wanted to borrow it? No, Look, taco's a serious pass. Well, yeah, so it's poverty. We don't eat out of much anymore at all, though, So but yeah, we're still married. That was I remember that. That's though, so Phil, that kind of back to what you were talking about, Nick, he a lot of what he does there is no emotion tied to it, like he's just a matter of fact, I'm going to tell you what it is, and here it is, like the emotion is just not there. He has learned that he has to slide the emotion in at least with me, like he's he's he's got to at least show that he's thought about and considered considered emotion when he brings stuff up with me. But I don't remember where I was going with that. I mean, kind of my my problem and like y'all tell me this sounds even remotely familiar to y'all. But like my experience growing up was always that if I made a decision like in the heat of the moment emotionally, I felt like it always screwed me over later, or like even if I made the right decision, I made for the wrong reasons. So I worked really hard as a young man, as a teenager to like be able to divorce my emotions from my decision making and just try to make rational, coherent, thought out decisions. And then I met a very emotional woman and had to introduce emotions back in a little bit. But even to this day, I like, I'm still very much like if I make a decision, I'm not making it with regard to like, oh, I'm angry or I'm sad, or I'm nervous, or I'm worried or I'm anxious, just like, no, this is this is the right decision to make because it gives me the greatest chance of the outcomes I want. I've thought through the next like ten moves, you know in this chess game of life, and this is the right decision to make. And that's someone we're gonna make, and we just have to deal with the emotions that are preventing us from making the smart decision here. I was very fortunate in the role models that I had growing up that they saw that reactive impulse in me at a very young age and they had the same thing when they were that age, my grandfather's on both sides, and they were able to talk me through through showing me how to do it and telling me how to do it, how to not react like that, and how to intentionally go through life. But I don't know that it got to a point where I didn't consider emotion because I probably because I didn't sort of develop it myself. Maybe what do you mean by that? So way, it's kind of hard to explain. I don't know if I can actually like the emotion. Emotional consideration does still enter my thought process, but it's not it's not super important, but it is still there. Does it with regards to Rachel? Oh? Yeah, but everyone else. Is just. Most other people? Yeah? No, I can. I can just flatline with most of the even when I'm incredibly angry, because I know that anger will just be destructive, and because I've I've managed I learned how to compartmentalize that at a pretty young age. I think that really helped. I did. My dog is getting antsy yea, I saw, Yeah, she's upset because she didn't get couch cuddles. Yeah, the uh. I don't know about your guys' dog that you had, but our dogs have always been incredibly habit for me. If you do something three days in a row, this is now forever. No, Tricksy wasn't like that. Tricksy was also very emotional. She she didn't care if if we did something three days, you know, at the same you know, every time, at the whatever, for three days in a row. She just didn't She just wanted to be around mama. It didn't matter what happened, where I went, what I was doing. She was a mama's girl. Yeah, Jeff, their emotional reaction is unimportant, says Jeff. Their emotional reaction often gets in the way. I feel. I can see that emotional not necessarily yours. But like when when like that that lady I had a problem with him in Ards. I was in min Ards one day this lady was in the way. I asked her to move, She didn't move. I got her attention and then asked her to move, and I used the phrase, can you move? I need to get some pipe nipples, and she. No. I said, I need to get to the pipe nipples, okay, because that's what the short pieces of black threaded steel pipe are called pipe nipples. She took that as an attempt at sexual harassment somehow in a fucking hardware store, and she blew up at me and I'm like, this is wildly inappropriate of you. I'm now just going to move your mobility scooter out of my way because you're being unreasonable and I don't have the time for this. I get. I understand academically that those people get caught up in the emotions that they're getting caught up in, but I don't have as much patience for it because I can control my emotional reactions and stay in a mostly professional, polite fashion. So I don't have a lot of tolerance for people in public that can't. So have you ever done that before? I see you looking at me? Have you ever done that in front of Rachel? Foray? Not intentionally? And how do you feel, Rachel, I've been thank you, thank you. Well. It's it's a difference in how we were raised, though, and I don't think that's a problem. I think it's great that you that you are more comfortable with that than I am, are more capable with that stuff than I have emotions, yeah, and dealing with people that are in an emotional state because I don't. I can't. So the last time I remember that happening, we were at the grocery store and there was this woman who you know. Yes, she was in the way. Her buggy was in the way. She was checking out. She you know, we were trying to get past her. And Phil was already pissed off, like we already have like when we go grocery shopping together. I have to give Phil the pep talk, the pep talk. We're going to get in there. We're going to do this quickly. We're not going to run people over with the buggy, and we are going to be. Kind special needs children. You were not You were not going to snap at me because I wanted to. I want to look at something that's not on the list, or consider something that's not on the list like that. Every time we go shopping. That is that is the conversation. So we are going to check out. Obviously, the shopping trip didn't go as planned. He was he was pissed by the time we got to the register and he like tells this woman, excuse me, and she didn't answer, excuse me. We need to get through. Well, lord, if it wasn't one of my parents who did not who turned around with her one of my students, And I'm like, oh my god, I am I'm so sorry. And I looked at the little girls like, hey, how's your summer? Okay, mister traveling, hear me out. Missus you guys so much so hear me out. It's aldie, right, it's self checkouts. And there's self checkouts over here, self checkouts over here. But there is more than sufficient space for a buggy and a buggy and room down the middle for people to get through, right, But that doesn't work when there's a full buggy with between where your buggy is and where you're putting the groceries. And she's that's not even efficient. Why would you And she's standing in between the buggy and the place she has put the groceries, just like back and forth, I know, and no sense of I am screwing over all my. Fellow man who cannot get around me and holding everybody from getting to the other three of self checkouts that are unattended because no one else will ask this knucklehead to please move. That's like how I feel about people. I have conversations in the middle of the aisleand oh Jesus Christ, this is not a fucking social club. If you were a socialized step outside in the parking lot and get away from the rest of us and keep trying to get things done to get out of here. I do the whole parking lot, but you four people have to have a twenty minute conversation in the middle. Of directly in front of whatever I'm trying to get to. So I I know that, I know when I say that that it's not going to be pretty. So I usually walk off to go get something else. Oh, is that why you walk like a zigzag pattern through the store instead of going in the aisles in order. No, But it also depends on where we're at, in what store we're at, Because I have seen students or parents out at the store. Sometimes I'm zigzagging to. Avoid them because we don't want to talk to them. We don't want to don't see. That you or I didn't dress appropriately. We're working down the yard and Nick says we have to go to minards. Do you get something? Yeah, but you're going to be in minards like two and a half minutes. Tough. Yes, But the conversation where you see that, the conversation between parents and teachers in the wild are never just Hey, how's it going, and I hope you're having a great weekend. It always wants to talk about little Tommy's behavior and did why didn't you put the grades in yet? And I saw your comment on his remark card, and it's like, it's Saturday, Saturday. I don't want to look at you or talk to you. Oh look at the times off exactly. Do you want me to bail you have this conversation next time? No, No, no, because I could always smack in the button say get back to work. We got to get these groceries out of here. No no, because we could make it a real short conversation. But then the kids go back to school and then they're like, I saw missus so and so it Minards or wherever. Yeah, they and to all of the parents out there, we know more about your business than you know about your business. I don't, So don't approach us in public. I don't want to. I don't want to give them something to go back and talk out, because as far as they're concerned, I eat, live, sleep at school and that's it. I don't live outside of school. I think some of the teachers, I think some of the students definitely think that, like you're basically like a semi sentient mushroom and you just kind of sprout up out of the floor of your classroom and you go away at the end of the day. Once they get over the pure shock of seeing us in the wild, then they want to talk to me. Do you exist? You're a real person. I swear I left you at school on Friday, miss RAVELI what are you doing here? To be fair, you do. I do remember having that conversation as a kid though, with my parents, like, huh they go other places? Well, because what you think. About when you're a kid, where are your grandparents? Whenever you see them, they're at their house, or they're at your house. Your parents, they're at your house, or they're with you. It's I think it's a bit of a shock to the kids when they, you know, until they really get that idea through their head. I mean, like my middle schoolers, when I see them, it's not as much of a shock, especially like my seventh graders. They want to just hang out in the store, and it's like, no, no, I'll see you monday. I love you dearly. I got enough of you this week. I need a break. I've had five year olds come in and say, my mommy had diarrhea this form. Yeah, oh yeah, my mommy's wearing a diaper today. I know more about their divorces, I know more about their fights, I know more about their religious views, who they voted for, why they voted for that person. Oh man, with the story, we could tell you about parents and families. Parents. If you engage in recreational drug use, I promise you your kids talk about it. Yeah, they well like it. I can't tell you how many times I've opened the door in car line and got a contact high because mom smoked a joint on the way to school, and and little. Open up their backpack. Yes, yeah, and it's like, oh yeah, I think me and Nick both fought over this comment. The time. Hey, kids are honest, are painfully honest. They are, and they don't know what is supposed to be a family secret and what's not supposed to be a family secret. And that's mostly I think because they trust and you know, they feel comfortable with their teachers, so they just want to open up and tell you all the things that they know everything, and it's usually everything, and you know, yeah, it's. Usually too much. So it is nine o'clock. Let's round this out with one last question so that I don't keep them there until their dog needs therapy, or you out so late that you don't get into sleep for work tomorrow. Yes, because I have to go to work. Important. Sorry babe, I don't have to go to work. You could have minus forty billions. Oh, I'll go to work. I shouldn't complain. We don't have students tomorrow because its parent teacher conference day. So all four people, what's the secret to a successful marriage? Divine success your own way? What's the secret? Like if you had to give twenty something year old you advice, or if you had to give yourself advice when you very first stepped into into this marriage, what advice would you say? Like this, this is this is the secret, sauce, this is the this is the christ chalice, this is what makes it all work. Don't You can't start with married the cute guy in uniform? Go ahead, hunt, But I wonder if we have the same. One, go for it? No, you say it, No, you gotta go first. You said you had it. I would say communication, that's a good one. Yeah, I agree with that. Uh. The one that popped into my head was when you do have disagreements or you doing fight or arguments or whatever, you gotta not look at it as you verse your partner. It needs to be you and your partner verse the problem. Whatever the problem is. That could be health related, that could be shit going wrong and breaking on the house. That could be somebody you know, ran something through a door or something stupid, somebody made a bad choice. It's got to be you two verse. The problem. That goes with what I was thinking was you're on the same team. Remember you're on the same team. You're route for each other too. M h, I'm gonna be the contrarian here. The secret to a happy marriage, to a successful marriage is to choose your battles. The thing I always tell the thing I always tell people is is like this is this is my own personal oodle loop in my head. Whenever I see a sea storm clouds on the horizon between me and my spouse, I always ask myself if the thing we're about to fight over is worth her being mad at me for the rest of the day. And if the answer is no, then it's probably a small enough issue I should just shouldn't make an issue at it. Like, you know, she wants to go to them to go eat Mexican instead of going out. To eat steak. I don't care that much. We'll go do whatever you want, you know, like, don't make a fight where that doesn't. Need to be one. And if the at any point in time, the answer is yes, Like I am prepared to suffer through my wife being pissed at me for a couple of days because this is so important. I can't just let this slide. We have to. We have to compromise on it at that point. Like the potential consequence of her being upset with me, it's less, it's less of a factor than me made. Me allowing a decision that I can't live with. It makes sense, Yeah, because that's only going to make the problem worse in the long term. Yeah, But that that's that's the advice I give to I mean, that's the advice I came around to really or in this relationship, it's the advice I give it to other people. Is if if it is not worth fighting over, don't I think, Like I know, we're trying to get out of here. But the biggest thing I think in our relationship the whole twenty one years has been I am so overly emotional when it comes, like when I get when we get to the point where we're having a fight or whatever, my emotions are so raw and I'm looking for that emotion from you, but you're just like we said earlier, You're just not that And that's okay, but you it usually takes time for me to like get the emotion out, for me to get my emotion out, for you to be like, oh, I get it, I need to respond this way. Does that make sense? Like? Also worth pointing out that sometimes what makes the fights worse is that she says things, and my brain has this really interesting way of like cataloging things where like words have meanings. So she'll say something in a fight, and I will like pursue that like it's a rational train of thought, and then she'll say something that seems to contradict it, and then I'm like, I'm out, wait a second, you just said this, Now you're saying this, and these two things don't go together, which makes it the fight ten times worse because I'm trying. Thankfully, she does not. Do that, but sometimes with their emotions, we don't. I get that, And but that's what you say, though you you make it very clear that you cannot currently explain it. Yeah, And that makes it that makes it so much easier for me. Well, and what we learned too, like years and years ago, was I I learned that I sometimes have to preface things so like I have to tell Phil, I am not looking for you to fix this. This is me venting. I just need a sounding board, like this is not I'm not upset with you, but I've got to get this off my chest and just need you to listen. Just listen talking about communicating. And you've also gotten to the end of the face within the last couple of years, where like when you have like one of those wild off wall ideas you haven't fully thought three yet, you'll actually preface that as I haven't really thought this all three yet, but I just want to kind of like throw throw the spec spaghetti on the bridge, see if it sticks. Because my way of doing things is that when I come to going with an idea, like I have thought about the idea, I've considered how to do it, I've planned it out, like I am no longer coming to you to talk through how to do this. I'm coming to you for a final sign off because I've already figured out the whole plan. I have blueprinted the new bathroom exactly so when she comes. So when she throws that out to me, like, I'm immediately like looking for all those things I do and she doesn't have them. And that's frustrating for me because I'm like, how could you propose this thing? And you haven't even thought it all the way through. But that's the problem is you and I don't work the same way. We don't think the same way. Like that's that I agree whole hardly about how important communication is, but like learning your other spouse's communication style is so freaking important because like, and that can take a long time. All time, Yeah, it can. It can take a decade and a half for us probably. Well, I mean, I was I'm not a good test subject. You've also changed so much since we met. I'm still the same grumpy old man that I always was. True, that's true. Gilling to this date jokes that I was eight years old with a briefcase and a ten year plan because I just well, but I've always been a really serious person, and I think that that's been I think that's been the hardest thing for the two of us. To marry together, is like to marry together our completely opposite personalities because you were so type B and you were so just free wheeling decide on the spur of the moment Friday afternoon, you want to go to the beach, and you were and I am so structured, rational plan everything. I don't like doing things for the moment. I like to plan. We used to fight every time we go on vacation because I wanted to like plan the weekend out and that would drive her nuts because there was no Spontanaiti and I'm like, Spontaniti scares the ship out of me. I don't want Spontanati. I want to plan things. I cannot have backup routes to spontaneity. Yes, but that's that. That has been the evacuation plan for Spontanity. It does not that that's a problem. The evacuation up for Spontanity is going to be messy, and I don't like messy. Well, that's one thing that works really well for us is we're we're both planners. We both like to have at the very least a rough a rough outline of what's going to go on, and so that makes that kind of easy, I know. But we did have a hard time communicating it first disagreements. Of course we would. I mean I think I think any regardless of if you're in a romantic relationship or not, any two people trying to connect their lives together, whether that's living with your best friend or living with your significant other, there's gonna be disagreements. I think that's inevitable. It's how you manage them that's important. Yeah, I mean quite frankly. You know, my brother in law who we knowing your twenty five years were best friends, Like he and I fight like kids sometimes and we don't do anything the same way, and usually us working together on something devolves into like either I have to consciously take a step back to let him run it, or I just like push him out the way and say, just get the hell out of wage. Just let me take care of it. Because like rossh like think about the bathroom remodel where he love, I love my brother in law death truly do like a brother. But he wanted to very pedantically like plan how he was going to extricate the tub from where it was, the old tub that had to come out in pieces to get it out of his space. And after listening to him like wargaming to himself for about five minutes. I literally said, give me aws All, move and it was out in forty five seconds, in two pieces. Yeah, that that's demo though, Yes, but demo doesn't require a five minute But demo doesn't require a ten year plan. It requires us saws All and a large angry. Friend and at the very cursory knowledge of where the plumbing and electrial is ideal. The electrical was on the air side of the room. The plumbing was way over there. We were good, good, because that could that can get expensive at. A real hurry. Well, they'd already ripped out half a wall so we could see the plumbing it was. It was all good anyway. Nice. So yeah, I don't know what exactly we were planning on for this show and then to bring our spouses on and just bs, but no one gave us any Again, we only had a couple questions and I think we answered all those. I think so we did get one that you did not answer yet, Phil. It was about a tent. The answer is now, it's about the. Sequel to your book. Gillian's writing a book. Is she going to finish her first book before you finish? She hasn't even started that book has notes. I have chapters and notes for chapters and notes for notes. I'm just waiting on her. She's waiting on the statue of limitations to run out and send people to pass away. That is a fair reason the names have been changed to protect the innocent in my book. I don't know, like I have stutter started that Dagham sequel like three times. I wrote seventy five percent of it and then abandoned it. I don't know. Every time someone brings up the sequel to American Insurgent, I get frustrated with myself because like I pounded the first book out in like less than two months, which is a breakneck pace to write a book, and shortly after that my entire career changed track. And I'm just in a I'm in a place work wise where like I come home most days exhausted or frustrated or just so burnout that put this way, doctor scare guy. I went from a job where I spent like nine hours a day with headphones in my ears doing financial calculations, blasting heavy metal usually which is not is light work for me, and I would come home like awake and alert, ready to do something else, like because it wasn't a lot of like people and people exhaust me. My current job is probably eighty percent project meetings, working with working in teams. It's like, it's challenging and I like the work, but it's it is one hundred percent more exhausting than what I used to do for a living. That's so it's just one of those things where like by the time I come home from from work, I mean, Gillian has seen me more often than not hit the front door and literally size I'll walk through the door because I'm just Jesus Christ. I'm done every day. So finding finding the available bandwidth and energy to like to write is challenging. If I were in a different if I changed career tracks again, might might totally pick it up and you know, have that bandwidth. But it was literally like as as that book was being published was when my work life turn upside down, which is also why I didn't do as much like marketing and everything as I wanted because things were already going to eleven at that point. Anyway, it was good to see y'all. Yeah, yeah, looking forward to seeing you again in Kentucky. It'll be a lot of fun. Yeah, So if anybody that doesn't know where we're talking about the annual Patron trip. Next, No, not next, Now it's this year. This coming summer is going to be Kentucky. If you're on pagere on, I did leave a post with those with all that information that the Annual Patron that the matter of fact, summer camp it's runcha brung. You make your own arrangements, you come out, hang out. It's there's no classes, there's no weirdos. I mean there's weirdos, but there's no weird stuff. But it's lots of dogs. But it really is just a family camping trip. And I encourage people to bring their spouses and their kids and we just spend a week together, hanging out, getting to know each other, goofing off. It's a fun time. Our kids have all grown up together, our dogs have grown up together. There there's now one couple dating from two of the families. There is an MF couple. Now did y'all know about that? Mm hmmm, I heard. I heard one of them went to visit the other out of state. H homecoming fun. Yeah, that's cute. Good fun part is everybody knows everybody else's parents, so like everybody knew both the young man knew exactly what he was getting into. Yeah, yeah, that's good. All right, I guess we'll go and punt this one out the door. It's like nine to fifteen over here, which means I think it's ten to fifteen where y'are no time zone. We're doing north of you, Andrew Andrews the right of me. Geography was not my thing, obviously, but it is getting late. Even though only one of us has to go to school tomorrow, I'm. Out of here. Thanks for joining us. I'm back in the time. And if y'all want us to drag the spouses on again, it requires harassment. I don't mind. I don't mind coming back on. Does Rachel mind? Go way? Good? Excellent, I don't mind. Awesome, all right, talk to her in the week. By everybody to each other, take care yourselves, See you next time. Bye. H