279: The Discipline of Letting Kids Be Bored

Summer is officially here, but between the soaring costs of family activities, the constant pull of screen time, and a heatwave sweeping through, finding the right household rhythm is easier said than done.

In this episode, Kevin and Nole dive into the "Disneyland Dad" dilemma—the internal pressure to constantly provide extravagant, expensive entertainment versus the biological benefit of letting your kids just be bored. We contrast our own "free-range" BMX and forest-wandering childhoods with the high-tech, location-tracked reality of parenting today.

Plus, we talk about the discipline it takes to stay firm on device limits, a massive local bear causing trash-can chaos, an intense bison video that might actually be "AI slop," and a surprising throwback fidget toy keeping the kids occupied

Big thank you to My Epic and Facedown Records for the use of their song "Hail" in our podcast!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz2RZThURTU&ab_channel=FacedownRecords

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Transcript

Kevin (00:00.652)
No. Welcome back to the Fire You Carry podcast. summer is here and it's it seems stormy out.

Nole (00:10.286)
Yeah, it was cloudy all day at my house yesterday. Felt like it was gonna rain thunderstorms, but we didn't get anything. But there's clouds even here now in Altadena where I currently reside.

Kevin (00:21.072)
Let me ask you this. I'm with the kids are in normal public school and they're off on summer right now. And which is great. But I have this hard time of trying to figure out you know, like not being Disneyland dad, but keeping them occupied. You know what I mean? There's a weird balance there because we've done a lot of cool stuff. We've taken a trip to Arizona, went to the river, they've done a Christian camp for a week, which was great.

Nole (00:28.246)
Yeah, appropriate.

Nole (00:39.446)
Mm.

Kevin (00:50.66)
My wife and I got to date a little bit during that week. We had the house to ourselves, which was nice. You know, and there's there's some days that are just like today that's monotonous where it's like, hey, where hey, they feel I think sometimes stuck in the house. and you want to provide stuff, but at the same time, everything is so expensive they can't go to Disneyland every day or to go to the beach or to go to do something. So I wanted to ask you, as like I you probably have more days than

We do like that because you guys home school, but is there less structure, does it do you have an idea of what you know, it does this make any sense? I'm trying to figure out like, hey, I wanna may give an idea of what to do today, but it doesn't have to be some crazy extravagant thing.

Nole (01:20.654)
Mm.

Nole (01:35.33)
I read something recently, and I cannot remember where, but the person writing it, who I will quote but paraphrase, was essentially saying that as parents, it's not your job to entertain your kids. And I like that too. In theory, the problem becomes let's just do a little contrasting, right? When you and I were kids, way back in the day.

Kevin (01:52.782)
Mm, I like that.

Nole (02:05.335)
There was a lot more what did you you've called it what what what did you call it the other day? Yeah, free range. There was a lot more free range parenting going on where you would jump on your BMX bike and literally ride to the beach, which was like fifty miles away, and I would just wander off into the forest and we wouldn't come back until the end of the day. And there was no cell phones, and so our parents had really had no idea where we were. That was obviously a different time.

Kevin (02:11.321)
Free range, dude.

Kevin (02:23.012)
Right.

Nole (02:33.045)
You and I got into different various kinds of trouble during those phases of life. So did every other kid who was raised that way, right? Because that type of unsupervision and not being provided with entertainment by your parents will lead to kids, the youth, getting in trouble. But it also leads to figuring out life, learning lessons, right? Well, obviously we can't do that now. But while I heartily agree with the principle that

Kevin (02:40.953)
Fourth.

Nole (03:03.265)
We don't have to entertain our kids all the time. I still find myself constantly trying to entertain Indy and like trying to keep him busy because when he's not entertained, especially right now in the mode that he's in, the the phase of life he's in, he's kind of like moping around the house and then he's constantly asking to play video games. And yeah, finding that balance between doing something with him that isn't breaking the bank, because you're right, we can't be

Kevin (03:17.262)
Yeah.

Nole (03:33.109)
I feel like financially can't be Disneyland dad. We're going to Disneyland all the time. And then just time wise, it is a difficult balance. And

I think that's what it is. I think it's a balance. It

Kevin (03:46.926)
Yeah, but I it's hard, I mean, because I I think generationally we can't repeat what we had. There's no way you to repeat that because now there's phones, there's life three sixty, there's locations, you know what I mean? And and it's just a different type. I mean, I think parenting has changed dramatically since when we grew up. So I think it it's different. I try to give like I I guess there's fear there. There I I try to give them a lot of freedom because they do have bicycles.

Nole (04:12.877)
Mm.

Kevin (04:12.951)
And they can ride and they will sometimes ride to the park or something. But one of the last times we went, they were saying there's all these boys that showed up on e bikes and I'm like, Well that's it. We ain't riding to the park no more, you know what mean? And I guess with girls I I'm definitely more hesitant to just send them out into the wild because they're girls and I I know I know that they're capable and they they can make right decisions and there's not but I just I do think I don't know, maybe there's exposure to the world,

Nole (04:16.749)
Yeah, yeah.

Nole (04:21.483)
Hm. Yeah, no more of that. Yeah. Yeah. Dude

Nole (04:32.386)
Yeah.

Kevin (04:41.815)
Or evil or whatever, but I I just definitely I'm boys, I'm like, yes, go, get out there. I don't know. For the girls for some reason I feel much more protective of them.

Nole (04:50.795)
Yeah. Well, dude, even for us, you've been to my house. We live right next to that patch of forest. Indy will go into the patch of forest. We always require that he brings Charles the dog with him when he goes. But even that right now, there's been a man who is currently homeless living in his car who's been parking on the street above our house. So right above the patch of forest where Indy would go play. So even in my neighborhood, now I've gone and talked to this guy. I've checked him out. I

Kevin (04:53.432)
Yeah.

Kevin (05:16.43)
Right.

Nole (05:19.775)
I don't feel like he's a threat. He's just a guy, an older guy down in his luck. But still, even having talked to him, engaged with him, seen him, I still don't want Indy out there in the woods by himself while this guy's parked on the street right there. Like it's not gonna be a thing. So it it is difficult. And I think it does take a little bit of discipline, at least for me and my wife, on those days when yesterday's actually a perfect example.

Kevin (05:31.449)
Right.

Nole (05:49.376)
Yesterday I was home, but I was really engaged creating a slideshow for a gentleman who has been in the leadership of the Fife and Drum Corps and he's retiring this year and they're doing their big kind of graduation end of the year party. Actually, today I'm missing it because I'm at work, but I was engaged doing that. slideshows are like a a thing they do. It's like a tradition. So you do pictures and I did a little voiceover work on it.

Thanks, Joel Weldon. anyway, so I'm engaged in that. It's important. I have to finish it. And Heather is engaged with doing some other stuff for the Fife and Drub. So we're both busy. It takes discipline for me, especially. Heather doesn't struggle with this as much, but my gut instinct when I'm busy and she's busy and I can't entertain this boy, I just go, Yeah, go play Minecraft. Right. Because then he's he's

Kevin (06:42.861)
Right. That's the easy fix, right.

Nole (06:44.605)
on the device, he absolutely loves it and he's gonna be quiet and occupied for as long as I allow him to do it, right? But I know in my heart that's not the right answer. And in fact, I do that, I literally do that in the morning around like ten o'clock. And normally we only let him play on the weekends and in the evening for a set amount of time, but you know, whatever. I say yes. I guess yesterday was the weekend, but regardless, it's the morning time. My wife pokes her head out. Did you tell Indy you can play Minecraft right now?

Kevin (06:53.369)
Right.

Kevin (07:15.032)
Yes.

Nole (07:15.041)
Like, yeah, yes, I did. And we had a little chat, and then I had to pull Andy off the games because she was right. And so then now he's wandering around the house listlessly and aimlessly. And I'm like, he's like, What can I do? I'm like, Well, you got your e bike, 'cause he doesn't have an e bike. You can go ride that in the front yard. You can go read, or you can play quietly in your room. These are your options. Like, I can't I can't we're not taking you anywhere right now. You're you're no longer allowed to play video games. I'm sorry that I

Told you you were, but now you're not. And so it takes some discipline for me, especially when I'm engaged and like trying to work on something that I'm not good at, trying to create a slideshow. It takes discipline for me to let him be bored because it's kind of I don't want to say it's painful, but it feels bad as dad. Like, especially because I'm home so infrequently, you know, much like you, you want to be that Disneyland dad. And not that we were gonna go to Disneyland that day, but like, yeah, go play Minecraft or put on a movie or

Kevin (07:58.553)
Yeah.

Right, right, right.

Kevin (08:09.197)
I

Nole (08:15.671)
Anyway, anything.

Kevin (08:16.707)
Yeah, and I you're right. I've read child psychologists, therapist types, you know, and they said that boredom is good for kids. It creates creativity and they find things to do and it's great. But they are I do feel like we we had there was no options, right? There was no Minecraft for really. There wasn't really that thing. So you just had to get outside and meet your buddies at the park or go wherever. And yeah, and there's I do feel there's another interesting dynamic I feel too like, hey

Nole (08:23.276)
Yeah.

Nole (08:38.243)
Yeah.

Kevin (08:44.951)
I was just on for four days. I got off. By the time I get home, it's nine thirty. There's a couple of little things that we have to do at the house like today. And then I feel like the wife also wants a little entertainment or a little day off or like like hey, we've been stuck in the house for four days and we've been doing these things. So I'm like it's a weird balance because the kids have gotten into during they went on camp to Camp Pondo and they had a rock climbing thing, like a bouldering thing. And we've done

Nole (08:58.358)
For sure. Yeah.

Nole (09:11.992)
yeah, yeah.

Kevin (09:13.633)
We did a good amount of that when they were a few years ago. And then she can't you know, my daughters came back and said, Hey, we wanna do more rock climbing. So the rock climbing gym that's right by us. It's a cool little bouldering place. Vital Gym shout out. you know, it's either you buy a hundred and fifty dollar a month membership, so for two kids it's three hundred bucks a month, or you do the day pass, which is twenty bucks plus ten dollars for shoes. So you're talking about it's a mi it's a fifty dollar thing.

Nole (09:21.474)
That's cool.

Nole (09:35.104)
Oof.

Nole (09:40.508)
man.

Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah.

Kevin (09:43.661)
Right. And and I'm be honest with you, they're not spending all day there. It's a very tiring thing. So you're doing an hour, maybe an hour and a half, and then we're out. You know what I mean? So I'm like, Well, we can't do rock climbing all day. I'm not gonna sign up to memberships for this thing that we're gonna barely go to one day a week or something, you know? So yeah, I'm like I'm I'm struggling with that because I'm like, Hey, I wanna kinda do cool stuff, especially when they're home during the summer. But

Nole (09:48.782)
yeah, you can't climb all day. Yeah. Yeah yeah.

Nole (10:02.989)
Yeah.

Kevin (10:12.824)
Yeah, every day can't be Disneyland.

Nole (10:15.286)
No. Reading when I was a kid, now I have to preface this by saying I I didn't fully escape the video game phase. I can vividly remember the first time I played like a real video game and my dad at work had a computer, an old it must have been a Macintosh, I don't remember, but he had an old computer and sometimes I would go to work with him and when he would be busy he would put me in front of Wolfenstein, which is like one of the early first person shooter games where you run around killing Nazis.

Kevin (10:43.525)
Yeah.

Nole (10:45.534)
And I wasn't allowed to tell my mom that I was playing it because it was quite a bloody video game for the time. If you look at the graphics now, it's pretty hilarious. But that was kind of my first introduction. And then years later, I had a buddy who had a Nintendo 64 in his basement. And so we would go over there when that time frame was going on. That's where everyone would go. We would meet up and we would play, you know, James Bond 007 or Mario Kart for hours on end until our parents realized that's what we were doing. And then that kind of got shut down. But we did a lot.

Kevin (10:50.436)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (10:59.898)
Yeah.

Nole (11:15.426)
growing up of reading. And I have been fortunate that both of my older kids love to read and they spend still they spend time doing that. And even Indy, if you get him the right book, will read. And so for us, that's been kind of an adventure of finding the stuff that that he likes to read. Cause I I strongly believe that reading

Almost regardless of what it is. There are certain things obviously that are not valuable, but reading just in general is really good for the brain. So he's been really enjoying man, and I'm gonna screw it up. I should probably look it up. But he's been reading kind of a graphic novel, like a comic book series. And they're all about different wars. A lot of them are American history, so like the revolution and stuff. Let me look this up real quick. This is good podcasting material.

Kevin (12:00.524)
Okay.

Nole (12:12.961)
yeah.

Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales. The guy that writes them is named Nathan Hale, who is also a historical figure that he does write about. But Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales, there's a bunch of them. And like I said, they're graphic novels. So any will spend time in his room reading those, which is great. He obviously builds Legos and stuff, but there is plenty of time where he's just wandering around with nothing to do and

Kevin (12:42.894)
Yes.

Nole (12:44.674)
And all too often my default is to just throw at the electronics. And I just I know that's not the right answer, but sometimes I feel like I gotta get something done. And

Kevin (12:47.288)
Yeah.

Kevin (12:54.082)
Yeah, yeah. I think that's appropriate. I mean, as long as they're not burning you're not doing that every day. You're conscious of it, you know, it's not a daily thing. And and they have mm yeah. No, I mean I yeah, I think that I I struggle is like they have a lot of things. There's beating, there's art project, there's lanyard things they can make. And it seems like I mean, obviously that can't be every day either. They want to try to do something different. I mean, we try to play

Nole (13:03.544)
But it's interesting be go ahead. Go ahead.

Kevin (13:20.226)
family games sometimes at night after dinner and that kind of thing, but it's just like the majority of the day. And then the reality is is it's like it's a heat wave, right? So it's like I c we can't really do a whole thing at a hundred degrees with eighty percent humidity right now. So

Nole (13:29.356)
Hm. Yeah.

Nole (13:34.274)
Yeah. It's interesting too because the I mean, the world that we live in, and I'm just as guilty as this is anybody, but the the instant gratification, the the dopamine hit, if you will, of a video game. I love Battlefield Six. I play with my brother and other various people online. But I also love sitting down at night and watching Netflix with my wife, right? And there are could there be better things that I could be doing with my time? Yeah, absolutely. But those things are not as

Kevin (13:44.708)
Yeah, yeah.

Kevin (13:55.301)
Toroi.

Nole (14:03.774)
rewarding in that kind of dopamine like instant gratification sense. And there was definitely less of that when we were kids. I mean, yeah, there was T V and all that kind of stuff, but it was so different. Whereas now everything's streaming, everything's on demand and Yeah, so since we're talking about how bad digital entertainment is whether it's video games or I have a movie recommendation that I wrote down. And I don't know, even know if it's still in theaters 'cause it's a very small movie, but the movie Young Washington

Kevin (14:25.412)
Here we go. What do we got?

Nole (14:33.644)
came out this past weekend for the fourth of July. And it's excellent. It's outstanding. And I went to the movie theaters. Yeah. It's really good. It's really well done. It's a great story and it's fairly historically accurate. But it's great. They r did a really good job. It's definitely worth watching. Young Washington.

Kevin (14:39.888)
Did you go to the movie theaters? I actually went to the Wow.

Kevin (14:53.136)
I gotta check it out. They're watching right now is Little House on the Prairie remake. Yeah. Yeah, which is cool though, because it kind of sparked Harmony my wife grew up on the original. And it's it's just a great show, you know. So so they kind of go back and forth to see if like things match up or whatnot. Yeah, but that's cool. We'll have to check out Young Washington. Full disclosure, I haven't been to the movies in a long time.

Nole (14:59.298)
Dude. the remake, not the original.

Nole (15:07.329)
Of course.

Nole (15:13.654)
Yeah. That's cool. That's cool. That's fun.

Nole (15:21.622)
I think, yeah, we go to the movies not frequently, but a few time I would say probably a few times a year, three or four times a year. It's gotta be the right film. It's such a gamble these days going to the theater, as I'm sure you're aware. There are almost always people in there with apparently brand new babies that can't stop crying. There's always kids that are running up and down the aisle. there's always someone on a phone.

Kevin (15:42.89)
brittle.

Standard.

Nole (15:49.314)
There's usually people having some sort of deep theological or political conversation. It's just a it's really not the environment to watch movies most of the time.

Kevin (15:58.971)
I'll tell you my wife thinks that I have some sort of OCD or auditory issues because when I hear people eating popcorn or like in the back of your head or whatever type of obese food that they're eating behind me, it's disgusting. I don't like it. I don't like it. I don't like the slurping of the the 87 ounce soda. And she's like, calm down. I'm like, this is I just don't like it.

Nole (16:02.786)
Yeah.

Nole (16:06.708)
Yeah.

Nole (16:13.514)
Mm. Reese's pieces.

Nole (16:21.389)
Mm.

Nole (16:25.601)
Yeah, that's a

Kevin (16:25.784)
And then, you know, in today's economy I think it's a squeeze, right? So the squeeze is on, everything's so expensive that I'm like, No, you it's gotta be something good that that we're gonna make a road trip out the four of us for this.

Nole (16:31.677)
yeah.

Nole (16:37.74)
Yeah, that's totally fair. That's totally fair. I would say this movie is probably worth it, although I don't know how your girls would feel about it. It is obviously it's there's battles, it's violent. It's not bloody violent, but people do die in violent ways. So I'm not sure how they would feel about it. We did take Indy and he enjoyed it. He liked it a lot. Probably the most intense movie we've taken him to see yet. But yeah, it was good.

Kevin (16:56.442)
Nice.

Kevin (17:02.608)
That's great. Yeah, there's a weird thing. I I wanna take pressure off my wife. She deserves she's you know, handled them for four days and kept occupied and had fun. And then so I wanna kinda do something, but I also don't want to like have to I mean, we are going to the Forrest Frank concert on Friday. It's quite expensive. And it it'll be a it'll be we're all looking forward to w we've been looking forward to this to months at the Intuit in Englewood.

Nole (17:10.019)
Yeah.

Nole (17:20.45)
No way. yeah. He's huge. Where is it?

Kevin (17:29.808)
So the Intuit Dome was where we got to go to the Fire Rid concert. It was great. And that place is amazing. I think it's a probably a billion dollar facility down there. It's pretty amazing. There's it's a cashless cardless place. So you have to download this app and when you walk in, you just like scan a QR code and you've already had to put all your information in there prior to and then it's very bizarre.

Nole (17:35.516)
yeah.

Nole (17:39.959)
Wow.

Nole (17:54.262)
Kevin (17:56.197)
When you walk in it's like in a like an Amazon store, one of those things where you walk in, there's no lines like you'd see concession stands at old stadiums or whatever. You just grab a hot dog and a water and walk out and somehow science codes you and charges you. It's kind of cool though.

Nole (18:04.066)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nole (18:10.958)
charges you. Wow. That's cool. Yeah. Dude, that's gonna be fun.

Kevin (18:15.928)
But my thing is is like, hey, that that was quite expensive to get these tickets. We got a long time ago. You know, when you talk about parking and gas and the whole thing, it it adds up and I'm like, Hey, that's a big thing to look forward to. But then you still have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday to figure out like, hey, and I'm like I try to explain them like, Hey, this is our big thing. We're not gonna do anything else this week because we're doing this, you know?

Nole (18:20.088)
For sure. Yeah.

Mm.

Nole (18:29.39)
Right, right, right.

Nole (18:36.482)
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, there's an aspect of life where we often find ourselves waiting for the next thing and living through those kind of mundane days in between. And I was struck recently actually dealing with exactly this issue where it was kinda like, What are we gonna do with Indy? 'Cause he's the only kid we really have at home anymore.

And reflecting with Heather on the fact that for me, that type of day at home is great because I'm not at work where I have responsibilities and deadlines and and things to do in the unknown where when I'm home and there's not really anything to do or anything on the calendar, I like that. That feels that feels nice to me, but for sure, but from their perspective, dad's home and it's time to do something. So there is that rub.

Kevin (19:25.53)
Yeah, me too. Well you need a retreat, yeah.

Nole (19:35.714)
But recognizing that a lot of times I think in life that while things like a Forr Frank concert or even going to the movies are gonna be fun memories from the past, like so much of your life when you look at it are those kind of mundane in-between days. And so what we do with those, how we choose to look at those, is gonna dictate what we do with and how we look at a lot of our lives. Cause there's so many days on the calendar where

Kevin (19:51.312)
Toro.

Nole (20:05.966)
There's not really anything going on. So how are we spending that time? And I think there's a, there's a, there's a value in just spending that time being together as a family. And unfortunately, a lot of that time you might be bored, you know, as the kids or even as the mom and dad. But that that's not necessarily bad. But I think in order for it to not be bad, we do have to change our mindset and go, well.

What are we gonna do with this time? And maybe it is you just sit down and play a board game or plan a meal or go for a walk or whatever. Just hang out. We sat down in the front yard yesterday for we had a cloudy day, like I mentioned. And we just sat in the front yard talking for a few hours and it was really nice. And we didn't really do anything. We threw the ball for the dogs. That was the activity. And it was great. I I wouldn't have wanted to spend the morning really any other way. And

Kevin (20:33.957)
Right.

Kevin (20:42.288)
Yeah.

Kevin (20:51.568)
That's cool.

Nole (21:02.188)
I think there's value in that.

Kevin (21:03.96)
I think so too. Yeah, we we lot you know, we d we talked about this. We lost our dog recently. I I realized like the rhythm of the day is a little off 'cause it's not like, hey, wake up, take him outside. There's no walk for the day, you know, or a lot of times we wouldn't take him to the dog park, which he went ballistic for. There's all these little routines that I don't think you realize th having a dog that kind of go out the window when you don't have the dog, you know. So it felt like almost like an the rhythm was off. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Nole (21:09.272)
Yeah.

yeah. Right.

Nole (21:20.844)
Yes.

Yeah.

Nole (21:28.044)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nole (21:32.002)
Yeah, yeah. This isn't really fair 'cause you guys lost your family friend, but my rhythm with my dogs is off right now too. Charlie I in the morning when I get up and b nighttime before bed, and obviously throughout the day, we let the dogs out to do their business. And we have this bear in our neighborhood right now. He's coming around every night. We see him on the cameras. He is huge. He's the biggest bear I've ever seen.

Kevin (21:39.76)
Charlie Murphy.

Kevin (21:53.264)
Wow.

Nole (22:00.312)
And I haven't seen him in person, but on camera. He's massive. And he's been coming around often enough that in I can't just open the door and let the dogs out, especially in the morning and at night. Like I have to go out and clear the front yard to make sure that the bear isn't out there because I know that if I let Mr. Charles Murphy out and that bear is there, Charlie Murphy is gonna go after that bear. And it's gonna be the end of Charles. He's gonna die a glorious death defending his family from this bear in his mind.

Kevin (22:11.267)
No way.

Kevin (22:26.076)
man. Right. And he's he's outweighed by seven hundred pounds, yeah.

Nole (22:28.78)
And this bear is gonna kill him with one smack. Yeah, and I don't want to let that happen. So I have to go outside, I have to like hold the dogs back 'cause they know. They know he's been out there. Like every time they come out they're sniffing around and barking. It's an it's an adventure.

Kevin (22:37.54)
Yeah, yeah.

What's the radius that you have to clear here to make sure that he's saved it to his constitutional?

Nole (22:45.036)
I just make sure that 'cause I I just make sure that he's not at the trash cans. He's been knocking our trash cans over every night. And so if he's not in the front driveway, we have trash cans that are animal proof. So they have lids that have handles that kind of fold up and like lock into some grooves in the lid, and then there's like a bungee cord type thing that locks him down. Very effective against raccoons, ineffective against bears.

Kevin (22:50.614)
Okay. Do you have to lock down these trash cans?

Kevin (22:58.33)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (23:12.913)
Bear's gonna just blast that thing.

Nole (23:14.626)
Bear just knocks it over and then puts all of his weight on it, which just kind of like blows the lid off. All of our trash cans have puncture holes all around the lids from his teeth where he bites at it before he gets it off. So it's not really effective. But yeah, it just makes sure he's not immediately in the front yard and then after that if they find him in the woods, they're on their own.

Kevin (23:19.567)
Yeah.

Kevin (23:35.491)
Yeah, you're it reminds me of when Harmony and I were courting. We were we stayed at Zephyr Cove, which are like these in Lake Tahoe. It's I think it's a Christian wren like kind of like cabins that they have. Some of are two walls, some of them are four. And you can get it like through your church or whatever for a pretty good price at the time. And remember we cooked something, I don't think she was thinking about it too much and put

Like the trash bags out on the porch. And then in the middle of the night you hear this like just just horrific sounds all over the place. And sh you know, we got up and th there's a six hundred pound bear on this thing just snacking on this stuff. And you know, the we it's the it was the summertime in Lake Tahoe, so it's really nice and we did he had the the door cracked and there was just a screen door and

Nole (24:05.602)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nole (24:21.474)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kevin (24:33.208)
And so I ran back down. And of course, you you know, you got boxers on, no shirt, no shoes, no nothing. And I'm like, if this bear, this screen door is gonna do nothing. You know what I mean? This is nothing, right? And so I'm looking and I'm like, what do I do here? I had no idea. We don't have bear spray. We have nothing, right? And so I made the decision to run downstairs and try to slam the door, like the actual outside door, to give a little bit of protection.

Nole (24:38.04)
Course. Yeah.

Nole (24:43.712)
If he lean if he leans on it, yeah.

Nole (24:59.074)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Kevin (25:03.45)
But then all these other screens and all these other things, like if he wanted to come in here and he would just eat us alive. And I'm like, you know, and I'm looking down at the in the kitchen and there's red vines and there's food and there's all kinds of stuff. And I'm like, you know, you can smell this. If he wants this, it's his. And like we went to the like it was like a two-story cabin. We went to the upstairs and I'm I'm opening the window and I'm like, all right, if it goes down somehow, I'll I'll go down first and then she'll jump and I'll try to catch her or at least break her fall, you know.

Nole (25:08.962)
Yeah.

Nole (25:14.582)
Yeah.

Nole (25:18.892)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nole (25:26.925)
Yeah.

Kevin (25:32.92)
I'm trying to figure out a game plan here and luckily after he'd like destroyed all of the trash he like wandered off into the forest and we were all right. But it was a long night. And that's at your house.

Nole (25:34.838)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. To escape.

Nole (25:41.922)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thankfully the bears that we have to contend with around here are like that. They're very docile. They're pretty lazy. They're not aggressive. Unless you startle them or somehow corner them, they're they're usually pretty chill, but they're so big and they are incredibly fast. And they are just insanely dangerous. Speaking of which, dude, did you see that video of the guy who got flipped by the bison?

Kevin (26:04.356)
You got no chance.

Kevin (26:10.216)
I feel bad for that guy. Yes. He my man had the suspenders on. It looked to me, I don't know anything about Buffalo, but that he was walking at a safe distance and he just happened to see this bison. It looked maybe f four hundred, five hundred yards away from him, but I I'm blaming the truck driver. Because the guy that drove the truck by him, I think either startled this thing or pissed it off enough where that thing charged after this old man.

Nole (26:27.02)
That bison said I don't like your suspenders.

Nole (26:35.468)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin (26:39.736)
And that guy, you could see him dodging through the trees, running for his life. I don't know what happened to Martha. Martha or Barbara, whatever her name is, she she seemed to be okay. She hid somewhere. But this but but old Bob, Bob was running through them trees and somehow that thing tossed him.

Nole (26:44.023)
He did his best.

Nole (26:58.232)
yeah, I was walking through the station doing my morning chores and I saw it on the TV. I thought it was AI. I was like, that's not real. And then I watched it again. I was like, my God, that's real. The bison barely moves his head and the man flies eight feet in the air. Those animals are so powerful. This is really quality podcasting that we're doing right now.

Kevin (27:04.88)
Yeah.

Kevin (27:11.972)
Yeah. Yes.

Kevin (27:16.74)
The this is a problem. D I feel like within about a year or so, we're not gonna believe anything you see ever again.

Nole (27:25.6)
No, that's true.

Kevin (27:27.214)
And I don't know how what how that's gonna pan out because they could the Pentagon could come out with UFO releases and we're like, that's AI. You know what I mean? We've landed on Mars. AI. You know what I mean? Like it's like in any almost everything I see online seems like some sort of AI slop that and it's only getting better that I can assume

Nole (27:37.336)
Right. Yeah.

Totally.

Kevin (27:51.257)
Like if you are Joe Rogan's already talking about how they use his voice in hundreds and hundreds of advertisements and it's not him at all. I'm sure this is gonna happen or already happen with politicians and dignitaries and things like that. It's it's a kind of a bizarre time.

Nole (27:56.898)
Yeah. It's not him. Yeah.

Nole (28:07.138)
Yeah, it really is. I have no idea how we're gonna navigate it, but the Lord's in charge. I guess he knows what's going on. I don't guess. I know.

Kevin (28:15.824)
All right, well after all this, now I've committed to go try to find something for them to do or encourage them to be bored. Let's see what happens.

Nole (28:25.164)
They love it. I'm gonna just give you a pro tip, which you already know this is for all the other dads out there. Your kids love it when you tell well, 'cause they'll tell you they're bored and you'll when you tell it's okay to be bored. It's actually good to be bored. They love hearing that. It works every time. Every time I tell that to Indy, he just perks right up and he goes to his room and builds his Legos or reads it's course a miracle.

Kevin (28:36.888)
They love that. Yeah.

Kevin (28:45.326)
Yeah, never. I have one reader, she my oldest likes to read, the youngest is just a ball of energy. And yeah, it's almost like so much energy there's no way she's gonna sit down and read. So we read to her, we have always done that, you know what I mean? But it doesn't seem like it's a self starting thing. She wants activities, like

Nole (28:53.102)
Mm-hmm.

Nole (29:01.014)
Mm hmm. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what Indy took up? We we gotta close this out, but I will say this. This has been really funny. Funny's probably not the right word. North, at some point, probably six years ago, bought himself a butterfly knife, but it's not a real butterfly knife, it's a trainer. So it doesn't have a blade. Instead of a blade, it has what's shaped like a blade, but it's completely rounded off. It's not sharp. You can't buy butterfly knives in California, they're illegal.

Kevin (29:08.612)
Yeah.

Kevin (29:21.689)
All right.

Nole (29:31.118)
If you don't know what a butterfly knife is, look it up. So he learned all these tricks. So North will walk around the house with his butterfly knife, which his trainer butterfly knife, by the way, it's made out of like titanium and it's super high-end. He spent a couple like a couple hundred dollars on this thing. He's clacking it around and spinning it. It's really cool. Well, he gave Indy one of his older, cheaper models, and now Indy is walking around the house, and the stuff this kid can do.

Kevin (29:33.584)
Super fun.

Kevin (29:45.008)
Nice. Wow.

Nole (29:59.534)
Flipping this thing around his thumb and like it's really actually very interesting. So he has actually been spending a lot of his boredom time playing with a with a fake butterfly knife. And he asked if he could bring it to town the other day when we went to the movie and we were gonna go into like Target or something. He's like, Can I bring my butterfly knife? And I was like, Yeah, absolutely. It's not actually a knife. So he's walking around Target, spinning this thing around, and it's a fidget toy, is what it is. And

Kevin (30:08.688)
That's rad.

Kevin (30:24.602)
That's rad. I d I definitely remember illegally buying a butterfly knife in Chinatown and it was a prized possession, you know what I mean? I didn't know how to do all the tricks, but I had a butterfly. And then of course you had to make we made you know, like num chucks. We just put a piece of chain between two sticks and then you know Yeah, yeah.

Nole (30:33.101)
Yeah.

Yeah. There's

Nole (30:45.319)
of course. Yeah. Right. Yeah, they're very similar to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Kevin (30:53.282)
Yeah, let's go mix I'm gonna go make some num chucks, dude.

Nole (30:56.408)
So all you dads out there, as we close this out, I guess moms too. There are, I there's moms listening this podcast as well, but fill us in on what you're doing with your kids. Do you ever let be bored? Do you have secret ways to entertain them that we're missing? What's your what's your approach on this stuff? And and really what's your mindset behind it? Have you ever thought about it? Are we doing too much? Are we not doing enough? Hit us up in the comments, which you have to do on YouTube. This podcast is available on YouTube.

Links are in the show notes.

Kevin (31:28.41)
This has been the Fire You Carry Podcast.

Nole (31:32.406)
I forgot to do the music.