Navigating the digital age, we explore the thorny issues of social media responsibility and parental oversight, discussing recent Florida state legislative efforts to ban social media to anyone under 16 and the personal milestones that defined our online experiences growing up. It's a candid conversation that dives into the complexities of forming a digital identity and the challenges faced by today's youth in an ever-connected world. We then transition to the lighter side of our recent festivities, sharing laughter and nostalgia from celebrations of this year's Super Bowl and Rob's birthday. These moments are the lifeblood of our journey, where every shared story is an open invitation to join our growing family of listeners.
Our main topic for today's episode is discussing the trials and tribulations of our decisions to move to (or back again if you Ashley) Orlando. We discuss the reasons behind why we made the move(s) and what it took for us to just pick up our lives and move away from our families, friends, and everything we held so dear. We discuss the financials of plane tickets and moving costs, and what it was like to walk away from a comfortable salary to pursue our happiness.
We wrap up with a literary twist and introduce the Orlando Unplugged Book Club, where we dissect the first two chapters of "What Mother Won't Tell Me." Here, we navigate the Taught, nordic thriller, delving into characters' lives bound by mysterious commandments on a secluded island. From the gripping family dynamics to the chilling concept of 'comfort pills,' each page turn promises a deeper plunge into this captivating read. As we close, we leave you with a sense of kinship, a testament to the power of storytelling, and a reminder that your support—through subscriptions, reviews, and shares—allows us to keep bringing these vibrant discussions to your ears.
Navigating the digital age, we explore the thorny issues of social media responsibility and parental oversight, discussing recent Florida state legislative efforts to ban social media to anyone under 16 and the personal milestones that defined our online experiences growing up. It's a candid conversation that dives into the complexities of forming a digital identity and the challenges faced by today's youth in an ever-connected world. We then transition to the lighter side of our recent festivities, sharing laughter and nostalgia from celebrations of this year's Super Bowl and Rob's birthday. These moments are the lifeblood of our journey, where every shared story is an open invitation to join our growing family of listeners.
Our main topic for today's episode is discussing the trials and tribulations of our decisions to move to (or back again if you Ashley) Orlando. We discuss the reasons behind why we made the move(s) and what it took for us to just pick up our lives and move away from our families, friends, and everything we held so dear. We discuss the financials of plane tickets and moving costs, and what it was like to walk away from a comfortable salary to pursue our happiness.
We wrap up with a literary twist and introduce the Orlando Unplugged Book Club, where we dissect the first two chapters of "What Mother Won't Tell Me." Here, we navigate the Taught, nordic thriller, delving into characters' lives bound by mysterious commandments on a secluded island. From the gripping family dynamics to the chilling concept of 'comfort pills,' each page turn promises a deeper plunge into this captivating read. As we close, we leave you with a sense of kinship, a testament to the power of storytelling, and a reminder that your support—through subscriptions, reviews, and shares—allows us to keep bringing these vibrant discussions to your ears.
You're listening to Orlando, unplugged, celebrating life in living color with Dustin and Ashley. Grab a cocktail or a mocktail and let's get unplugged, orlando. Isn't that a great intro?
Ashley:I'm obsessed with it. I'm so obsessed.
Dustin:I absolutely love our new intro and it sounds amazing.
Ashley:It's so good. Thank you, jennifer, you're the best. We love you so much.
Dustin:Big shout out to our friend Jennifer. For those of you who do not know who Jennifer is if you're not from the Knoxville area. Jennifer is a very good friend of mine that I have known for many, many, many moons now probably going on 10 years. I've known of who she is and I've had the pleasure of working with her on several adventures in Knoxville in East Tennessee. She used to be the midday radio DJ for WI-VK and for a couple other radio stations. So it was really fun and I reached out to her recently after our most recent trip to Knoxville where we helped out with Chocolate Fest and the Ronald McDonald House, and asked her if she would be willing to do the intro for us. Here she does the intro for me on.
Ashley:Tennessee Roads podcast.
Dustin:Those of you I know I've talked a little bit about Tennessee Roads. I just want to throw this in here real quick. That podcast is currently archived, so it's still available everywhere, but with me potentially working seven days a week moving forward and us doing podcasts weekly here, I decided I wanted to archive it.
Dustin:It's getting a lot of downloads per week, though, so there's still an audience space out there listening to it and I definitely plan on going back to it and, who knows, maybe even Ashley may join me on that dive through history in the future. There's no telling what may happen in season three.
Ashley:I'm so here for it. I love our podcast, so I would love to do another one. That would be fun. I think we need to do one like an ASMR podcast or all about food.
Dustin:And you know what? I think that what people should do in order to find out about that stuff would be to follow all of our social media. Have you seen our?
Ashley:social media. Lately, by the way, they have been kicking off, like taking off. We have been liked by Nespresso. Today we have been liked by Cura, the entire company.
Dustin:Cura Sushi USA.
Ashley:Yes, liked and commented on our recent post that we went to Cura, which is one of becoming very much one of our top favorite places to go to, and they liked it. They commented they put little sushi rolls on our Instagram page.
Dustin:I know, but you know what, you know what I find really funny and I don't want to say it's disheartening. But it is disheartening that we have all of these major brands that are responding and interacting with us, but we have like 30 followers.
Ashley:Yeah, it kind of makes me sad we recently.
Dustin:You know, we're still in this portion of our podcast where brand awareness is a big thing.
Ashley:Oh, absolutely.
Dustin:You know we we're constantly checking daily what our downloads are and looking at that and everything. And it does get a little disheartening when you're like, oh man, this is so good, but we've only been doing this for a month, a month, literally a month.
Ashley:And we just take what was it?
Dustin:250 downloads 250 downloads total so that includes all six episodes so far into this one.
Ashley:Today's will be the seventh.
Dustin:But you know, like we paid for paid advertisement on Facebook and Instagram and we saw there were over 7000 impressions, so that meant that that ad was served to over 7000 people. Out of it, only 54 people engaged with the post and out of that, only two people actually followed the link to the website.
Ashley:Guys, we're going to need you to tap that link and then go to the link for us, please Well these guys don't need to because they're already aware of us.
Dustin:So what we, what we want to ask for you guys something for me and Ashley is if you guys are enjoying our podcast or if you're just Ashley's mom, shout out to Shan. Whatever platform you guys are listening on, do us a favor, go ahead and hit the subscribe button, even if you listen to us weekly, because if you subscribe to our podcast, that's going to get us out to a broader audience. And please, whatever platform you guys listen on, we have a paid subscription with Buzzsprout to host us, so they push us out automatically to Spotify, google Podcasts.
Ashley:Apple.
Dustin:Podcasts, deezer and all sorts of other places. If you guys, please review our podcast and be honest if you guys think that some of the stuff that we've done isn't so great, let us know, because we're filling out things like with our history episodes that we've done recently, because we're juggling what we think should be a mixture of educational slash our lives. Do you people want to just listen to us talk for an hour?
Ashley:I mean, because I totally can do that.
Dustin:I know yeah.
Ashley:I mean, my life is so interesting that it's so full of like an hour worth of rambling.
Dustin:Yeah, and if you guys will, please do us a big favor, head on over to Facebook and Instagram. On Facebook, you can look us up as just Orlando Unplugged Podcast, and that's not to be confused with just Orlando Unplugged, which is a blog from someone that's also in Orlando that when we were doing our research we didn't see it, we never found it no.
Dustin:And then the moment literally the moment we paid for our domain and our licensing and our copyright. This popped up, which is why you'll see the life and living color as our tagline to set us apart from them. But please follow us there. Follow us on Instagram. At Orlando, Unplugged Pod.
Ashley:Underscore Orlando.
Dustin:Underscore Unplugged oh, yes, Orlando Underscore Unplugged Pod.
Ashley:Yes.
Dustin:Please follow us on these social medias and share these to your friends. It doesn't cost you a penny to help support us Absolutely. And this is by definition. This is a small business. What?
Dustin:we are doing and the plans that we have for this, the big ones. We're hoping to do community outreach and all sorts of other things, but we can't do that until we grow our audience base and our community. So we want to ask your help as our listeners, those of you that have stuck with us and watched every episode or listened to every episode so far.
Ashley:Thank you so much. We appreciate your support.
Dustin:And in doing so, we're going to focus on just the podcast and social medias for a while. I don't think that we're going to jump into the YouTube and the video vlogging just yet. I think we're going to build our base and our social media content and things and then we will focus on jumping that new hurdle of the video podcast.
Ashley:That was me. So that was definitely me. I'm so sorry.
Dustin:Do you want to take a second Ashley to plug our other social medias?
Ashley:Absolutely so. We are also our email if you want to. You know, give us a, a hey recommendation for an episode that we should do, or you want us to review something, or if there's something that you're genuinely curious that you would like us to talk about or give us our opinion on, that's going to be Orlando unplug 13 at gmailcom. I know Dustin said our Instagram and our Facebook handle were also on tiktok, so Orlando period unplugged. And then we are also on Twitter from now, known as ex, formerly known as Twitter I think I will always call it Twitter is Orlando unplug. So both of those I mean. I always like to say that, you know, for for us it's share with your friends, share with your family and your favorite bartender. You know it isn't hard to go. Hey, guess what I'm talking to, guess what I'm listening to, guess what's happening.
Dustin:Yeah, I think it's great, and then you guys can follow us on our personal Instagram pages. My personal Instagram page is Dustin underscore. Paul Ashley's is goofy daughter.
Ashley:I feel like I need to change that. You know, when I made my Instagram I was 13. So I think I like it. It has so much history to it so I don't know if I want to change it, but like a part of me wants to change it.
Dustin:You know what? Speaking of history, you guys can also check out my other podcast.
Ashley:Yes, I love that podcast.
Dustin:It's what got me into podcast again Jennifer, the woman who did our intro. She was my leading supporter and the person who read it, the person who really gave me the idea and the support to start my own podcast, I feel like that's what you need when you're starting one of these.
Ashley:It's. It's a scary world. Stepping into this Like this is terrifying. I've always wanted to kind of dabble in something like this. So you know, when we came up with this idea or I said, say, when you came up with this and then ran to me and went, hi, this is what I want to do, I was like hi new best friends.
Ashley:Oh my God, yes, let's do this. So yeah, but you know what I think is really exciting? We're changing up our cocktails and moktos. Today we are Jennifer said it no, no, no, no, because we're caffeinating today. Oh yeah, we're not drinking, we're coughing it.
Dustin:I could pour some something in this and make it a cocktail.
Ashley:You probably could.
Dustin:I'm not going to, but I could. It'll make me sleepy, and I'm already tired today. Guys, let me tell you the weather in.
Ashley:Orlando Not great today.
Dustin:It sucks, and of course today is the whole weekend, though. I know and I'm off the whole weekend.
Ashley:So every time I'm off.
Dustin:the weather is bad, but I like it because it's been, it's kind of it's not hot but it's not cold like it has been recently, which is really good, because, actually, when I came to your house last night, what was the first thing I said when I walked in the door?
Ashley:You're like it's so hot in my house and okay to preference, my house is always cold. We keep our house at 70 degrees, 69 to 70, 71 degrees, consistently, so like I don't think it's ever been higher than 71.
Dustin:And what was your thermostat set to last night?
Ashley:68.
Dustin:And what was the temperature?
Ashley:76. So, my AC is broken.
Dustin:I actually put in work orders and then today called the emergency maintenance line and they were like Turn your air conditioner off and open your windows, because that's not considered an emergency. So if it's not above 80 degrees outside yes, it's not technically hot enough inside the house for it to consist as an emergency and unfortunately it's President's Day weekend, which means that the office is closed Monday.
Ashley:They're really not coming into the Tuesday.
Dustin:But it's been great because we've had the windows and doors open all day. I'm just grateful.
Ashley:it's been rainy and gross and cold. Because of the words I'd be dying, but I love it because it smells so good and refreshing.
Dustin:That's really nice and we had some turkey burgers today and we've vegged out and we watched. Dolly on. We watched the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
Ashley:It was exactly what we needed a chill day, A couple episodes of Heartstrings and we chilled. And now it's time to talk and hang out with all of our favorite people. So grab your coffees or your mocktails or cocktails and come hang out with us.
Dustin:Yeah, so let's jump into our pre-show topics. Boo, okay, so hopefully I fixed my voice. We recorded that segment and listened to it and it sounded. My voice sounded like garbage. So hopefully this sounds better. But we're not going to re-record it because we're lazy.
Ashley:So our pre-show topic.
Dustin:So in the news. Recently here in the state of Florida, the Florida House has passed a bill that would ban children under the age of 16 from social media. Now it's going to move over to the state senate to be voted on. This is a Republican-backed bill which hones in on social media's addictive features. It would be one of the strictest social media restrictions in the country and, if passed by the senate, it will be signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis, who I heard does not actually support this bill. He thinks that it is not the correct way to handle this. So what's your opinion on that?
Ashley:actually, I think it's bullshit, like to be blunt. That's exactly what I think. I think that we are trying to create some sort of idea that kids, or that children can't figure out how to handle this. I think we live in a world where people believe that they want to blame everything on everything else, rather than just go hey, no, and I think this is crap. I really don't think you're going to be able to control a whole bunch of 14, 15, 16-year-olds in how they're going to post on social media. I mean, these kids are literally running social media platforms right now.
Dustin:Well, it's not. I don't think the issue is the kids. Using the platforms is their issue. It's. You've got people that have committed suicide, people that have died by drug overdose, and they're wanting, like just recently, metta and Snapchat and a couple of other places. They went up above some court, I don't remember. I read all this earlier in the week, but I forgot to write it down.
Ashley:We'll post the link so you guys can read the article Girl don't say that I'm responsible for posting these things.
Dustin:We'll find it, don't worry, I got you guys they were like say you're sorry, are you going to pay for these people and their dead children? And there's a part of me that I'm like. I do believe that Metta and Snapchat and everything should have policies set in place and they should be doing things to protect their users, but at the same time, where are these children's parents? That's my question. It is Mark Zuckerberg's job to make sure that you do not talk to a grown man if you're a child. Where is the parent watching what their children is doing on social media?
Ashley:I mean, I think nowadays parents are giving their kids phones just to literally babysit them, so we're just ignoring the fact that. What?
Dustin:our kids are watching the iPad generation.
Ashley:Correct. So I think I don't want to be like oh my God, it's solely the parents fault that their child committed suicide. I don't think that's what we're saying here.
Ashley:I think it's more so of cyber bullying is a thing it's going to happen, regardless if Mark decides that he's going to try to figure out a way to enhance and fix it, or if it's going to be how it is. I can't remember who owns Twitter right now, but that's going to be the Tesla dude. I think that none of these people are going to find a way to solely control what people say on the internet. It's there, it's going to happen. People have opinions. People are going to be perverse and gross and disgusting. We live in that world. But I think that creating this concept that, okay, this is what we're going to do, this is the end all goal is is. I think we're overreaching before we're trying to actually come to the conclusion that parents need to watch what their kids are doing on social media.
Dustin:Yeah, I know Utah recently passed out of, I guess, a law so anyone under the age of I think it's 16 or maybe 18, cannot use social media after 10pm. Between 10pm and 6am.
Dustin:How are you controlling that, though I think, if I remember correctly because this is not something I researched recently, but I saw it a while back they're essentially making it to where these social media platforms will be outlawed in those states unless those platforms come up with a way to regulate that to be used in its state. Now I think that's a bit far fetching. We're supposed to be a free country.
Ashley:However, free public of speech, free all of these things here we go Free public of speech.
Dustin:What is it called Free speech? That thing so annoyed with this whole concept. I don't necessarily disagree with that one, because I'm like I mean, you're a kid, you're going to school, you should be in bed at that hour, whatever.
Ashley:But I think that's the parents choice.
Dustin:Yeah, yeah.
Ashley:I mean when it comes down to it at the end of the day.
Dustin:Yes, but I'm saying in the grand scheme of things. I don't think that's the worst way to handle social media. I also don't live in that state, so I'm. Is it Colorado or Utah?
Ashley:Utah, I don't live in that state. I don't have children, so I don't really have an opinion on that how old were you when you got your first social media platform? And what was it. What was your first one?
Dustin:Trying to think. So I got a phone in sixth or seventh grade. It was a flip phone.
Ashley:So how old were you in sixth or seventh grade? 12, 13.
Dustin:Okay, this was before iPhones iPhones at high speed internet. This was in 2006. And the reason I got my phone was because I started doing after school activities.
Dustin:That's why I got mine now my parents were divorced, my home life on my mom's side was starting to go bad and my father's side of the family wanted me to have the ability to contact them at all times. Correct. So I got a flip phone and I had a, and that's what I had. In eighth grade I was able to move over to a smartphone, but that's because at that time I was staying with my grandmother. I had moved in. I had moved in with my father, but I stayed with my grandmother who lived next door, because my dad used to work nights.
Ashley:Okay.
Dustin:And he still paid for my child support. Sorry if you guys hear noise in the background.
Ashley:We have the windows open still because you know, not air conditioning and it's actively raining right now.
Dustin:Hopefully we'll have. We pay for a program to edit out background noise, but it may not, but you never know.
Dustin:My dad still paid the child support that he was supposed to in, like the court decision, yeah. So I had a surplus of money because my money was not being abused any longer. I had fun set back. So I had talked to my dad and my grandmother and I had said I'd wanted a smartphone and at that point I had, you know, money set aside to cover my costs, my school and all of those things and anything that was left over I was allowed to do with what I wanted. So they said you know, if that's your prerogative, if that's what you want, that that is fine. Again, this was still before Internet. The well, no, we had internet because we had smartphones, but it was before Facebook was an app.
Ashley:Yeah.
Dustin:So my first social media platform that I was using was MySpace, and when I was in seventh grade, so 13, 14?. Seventh grade was still 12, 13.
Ashley:Really yeah.
Dustin:So I was always the way that I was, the way my birthday fell, I would end seventh grade in 2007. And I would end eighth grade in 2008. So when I ended, when I was in seventh grade.
Ashley:I was talking to people I should not have been talking to on MySpace?
Dustin:Yeah, but my family knew that. Well, no, they didn't know that, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. They watched what I was doing because I was a child on a social media platform and they intervened and it was a conversation that we had and I was, I was, I had, I fully understood from that moment forward how to responsibly use the internet. Because if I wasn't, if they caught me not responsible using the internet after that, I would never have stepped foot on it again.
Ashley:That makes sense.
Dustin:Because I think I was. I mean, it was innocent conversation, I wasn't doing anything like super bad, but I was talking to people that were like 17, 18 years old Older than much older than you and they were at that point. They were people, of people, of people that I knew Because you know, when you're in middle school, you know people who were eighth graders. Those eighth graders know people who were ninth graders and you're in that weird time of your life where they're like ring circle around.
Ashley:Oh yeah.
Dustin:So it's not completely uncommon. I'm not hanging out with 17 year olds, I'm not in their car, but they're. They're in these circles of people that I know and people that I trust and but it was someone who my family saw was like that's an adult and you don't know that person. You don't need to be speaking to that person on social media, correct. And my parents did exactly what. A girl. An adult should do what parents should be doing in this generation, instead of allowing social media platforms to parent their children for them.
Ashley:Yeah, for me I had my. I got my first phone when I was probably around the same age 13, because I had after school activities. So that that was the way that and my mom. I took a bus to get to my after school activities, so my mom wanted to make sure that I got to where I was going. Well, my parents wanted to make sure I got where I was going. You know that kind of thing. So I used to sing just my mom lately.
Ashley:So, forgive me for that, but like I had a, we had a house computer so like everybody had access to this, I didn't have my own laptop. My phone was a brick phone.
Ashley:I mean I literally called it a brick. It was a flip phone, did not have internet access to it. I was. I had, like I think, six numbers on it and that was about it, and I didn't even have texting, I only had phone calls. So I don't think I got texting until I was 15 and I thought it was so cool you used to have to pay for text when I was a kid.
Dustin:Stop it. You could call and text me on week nights after six and weekends for free.
Ashley:Love that, um, but my first social media platform was Facebook and my mom created it. And my mom the only reason I got it was because I was on a swim team in high school and in a minute school, and that's how they would communicate, like if there was any practices that were canceled, anything like that. We had a Facebook group chat because it was a lot easier, because there wasn't like group text messages weren't really a thing back then. So that was the way that everybody communicated to us that hey, practice got canceled or this was earlier, anything like that. I had to have one, but my mom was the only one that knew the password.
Ashley:I didn't know it. I was able to go on it to, like, talk to friends, if I needed help with homework, um, or if I was talking to people from the swim group, but, like my mom would watch who I was talking to, she would be like, okay, who are you having a conversation with, bring up the conversation, I want to see it. And that was, I mean, consistently it was that way. So I never I don't know. I think at that moment that's when I learned how to use the internet properly.
Dustin:It wasn't like, okay, let me, let me get on, you know, facebook and talk to a 50 year old man, and you know granted, I mean social media and the internet has completely revolutionized 100%. Even in the last 10 years, I mean, everything's just.
Ashley:Everything continues to get different and yeah, I mean even in the last year. The internet is different, like I think, from how we did things when we were in high school and even in college is completely different of how we do things now.
Dustin:Oh God, I was not. We were not allowed to have cell phones, nope, we were not allowed to have computers, ipads, and now these kids use them all the time.
Ashley:They're using Chromebooks every day. Yeah, they're using. I'm sorry, that's my washing machine, that's our. That's our 10 minute timer. Yes, it is, I'm just kidding.
Dustin:But so let me ask you this before I round up on these last couple of topics yeah, go for it. What age do you think people should be allowed to use social media?
Ashley:I think if you have a parent like ours that is well observant of what your kids are doing, I think that 15, 16 is an appropriate age group.
Dustin:Be quiet computers. So for me.
Ashley:I think that's one, but I think I'm a firm believer that a parental aspect I'm not saying you know, just mom and dad, if that's not who you've got, if you've got grandma, if you've got whomever, whomever is your guardian? As long as they're observant of what's being said and what's being done and they are aware that you have this. I think 15 and 16 is perfectly acceptable of an age.
Dustin:I definitely feel like growing up. I grew up with it. I grew up with social media coming out. I grew up with the revolution of social media and looking back on it. If, when I was a kid and high speed internet became a thing and social media started to become a thing, if they, if it would have been made to where you have to be 18 or older to be on social media, I think A we would live in a very different world.
Ashley:Oh 100%. But because we didn't start with that, I don't think there's an evolution to social media that we can retract back to it like they're trying to do, and I think that's why so many people, including myself, have such an aversion to this, because you didn't start off telling these kids, telling us, that we couldn't have it until we were 18. There was no, there was no age group, it was age limit. It was go for it, have at it, enjoy, like. So I think going backwards is not the is not the right choice.
Ashley:I think we need to evolve with the times, as everybody says, and figure out a better way to to control and be observant as to what these kids are doing.
Dustin:And I think that, mark Zuckerberg, if you're listening, I'm not gonna I don't think that our government and our legislature is going at it in the direction they should right now they're trying to pan pan pound down on these social media brands and blame them for these deaths, these overdoses and these things that they were key factors in.
Ashley:But but they weren't a direct link.
Dustin:Well, here's my question Does that parent hold AT&T and Verizon wireless responsible for their child texting a drug dealer versus snapping a drug dealer?
Ashley:No, they don't so why are you holding social media? The other thing we need to look at. This is okay, when we were in high school and when we were middle school, I'm sure you got it just as much as I did. I got pretty bullied in high school. I I don't want to be like, oh, it was a right of passage, did you?
Dustin:ever hear of form spring.
Ashley:No form.
Dustin:Spring was a man, not an anonymous message board that came out in 2009, 2010 and this was when mean girls came out, stop it and form screen Became the burn book of every high school in the state of this country. I don't think it hit Michigan, because I definitely never heard of this.
Ashley:Well, you were, you were too young.
Dustin:Yeah, I don't remember. I mean I remember everyone went on it. The school tried to do stuff with it but they couldn't. It was it was a website. And I remember I don't know who wrote it about me, but someone wrote on there that they just said Dustin Payne is an AIDS infested faggot and I fucking laughed Because I was like at that point I was what a phrase I was not out.
Dustin:No, but I was well, I never. I never came out right and I never did that. I didn't have this big and that's next week's episode. Yeah, let's talk about it I.
Dustin:So I was never. I never came out right, I was just Present, correct people, my classmates, my teachers, my print, even my principal knew and you know he was a wonderful Rob Clark Blunt County schools, wayne Blunt high school. He was a super hard ally for me and I had one issue in eighth grade and one issue in ninth grade and I never had any other issues again and I think that the LGBTQ community was very, very lucky in my high school because we didn't have a lot of issues. There were some assholes there. We didn't have issues. I laughed at what was said at me on form spring because I'm like, I'm a first off, I'm a virgin. Secondly, it's just like don't you have anything better to?
Dustin:say does people don't know who I am and I'm like. I laughed because my classmates who knew me, like we all, everyone was laughing about what was being said on form spring because Some of it had truths to certain people. I'm sure for the most part it was just people trying to get a rise out of people because mean girls was a popular thing and all of that, but it's stupid. So, to round up this, do you have anything else more to say on that?
Ashley:I mean, I just think that if we're going to blame the people that created social media platforms, then we shall also blame the people that are bullying.
Dustin:Oh, in person, because we never did that that reminds me of my shout out to Mark Zuckerberg. I do think that snapchat, youtube already has it YouTube kids but I think that Facebook should come out with a Facebook kids platform, a platform.
Ashley:Yeah, there you go only an adult.
Dustin:Can register verified, a verified user. That has to be photo verified. With like a foot you cuz you know how you photo verify with your idea. Yeah, or you verify with like Bumble or those dating things. Parents or guardian would have to verify their account before they can make an account for a child.
Ashley:Yeah, I agree.
Dustin:But then it sends them. So essentially the child would log in through the parents account but it would send the parent a notification.
Dustin:Hey, your child logged into this and the child can then freely use that app. They cannot integrate with people that are over the age of 18, because, yes, it's a I mean, there's a lot of things it's it's just like how this goes on. It's unclear how this, it's unclear how this legislation is gonna be enforced. Yeah, so that goes from begs to my thing of Facebook kids. It it's gonna be an extremely hard thing to do, but is it something that I think these social media platforms should work toward? Yes, I do.
Dustin:I think that once that child becomes 18, because the parent is gonna be the one that sets up this profile, puts their birthday in, so when they become 18 years old, they're legally allowed to be marketed to their Profile transition become able to get credit cards, so why not? You transition out of Facebook kids or whatever it is and you're on the normal adult social media platform.
Ashley:Yeah.
Dustin:Because then parents have a way to stay on top of their children and if they are bullying a child or if their child is getting bullied, and if someone is saying or doing inappropriate things, it can be handled by the parents, because that's how it should be. Now this bill would require social media companies to prohibit minors under the age of 16 years old from joining the platform and delete accounts that already exist for users.
Ashley:I think, that's bold my question is so bold. How does this?
Dustin:work for a. How does this work for places like tiktok, right and be Instagram? So I worked for a major marketing company and the generation, or the generation that's under me and it's more your generation and below you they are Instagram users. They're not Facebook.
Ashley:No, I'm not. I didn't do. I'm really not. They're just why, most of the time that any, any, any post that I make through our social media platform, I go to Instagram first and then it's automatically shared to our Facebook page. I I rarely touch my Facebook. The only time I ever do it is to Get in touch with family outside of the state or anything like that and I'm upset, I'm Facebook and it goes over to that's why that's your generation, my generation grew up with Instagram.
Ashley:My generation you know, my brother's generation grew up with is now growing up a tiktok. So like we're all growing up with something different and then somehow some way you, me and my sister's generation, I'll have Twitter. Like we all got into that and we all stuck with that and agree that that's pretty cool, but like and look at it now. I know it's it's killing me that it changed its name to X. Mr Tesla, sir, can you put it back Most?
Dustin:people only use Twitter for porn at this point anyways. It's so sad except for, except for, and Janelle and us, because we do not they, they do use, and I find it, I find it interesting. They use Twitter mm-hmm or X, and they do not like Elon Musk. I know but they built their brand around it.
Ashley:I think, yeah, I think it's. It's because I think they post more on ticked are on Twitter than they do on any other social media platforms.
Dustin:I only follow them on.
Dustin:No, I've started following them on Instagram since we've been more, doing more with the podcast, but yeah and then. So this last bullet point that I have towards this and I think this goes back to what I was just saying with the Facebook kids thing is it would require reasonable age verification methods and I think, first off, people are losing their minds that they, when they go to Universal, now they get, if they get their face scanned. Do these people not realize they've been biometric scanning their fingers? Do these people not realize that they, they allow their face to be recorded into Apple?
Ashley:to unlock their phone. I think we, we don't really. I think we live in a world where people will just pick something and that has become the new thing. All right, let's throw all of our emotion that we have at this to see if it sticks and they, they refuse to educate themselves.
Dustin:Which is why we are seeing more Facebook profiles hacked around than ever.
Ashley:My mom, you know, my mom's just got hacked. I'm not kidding. Okay, I'm not saying this about you. No, we're not. I'm gonna finish my statement and this is not directed towards you.
Dustin:We love you, man, but people are clicking and things on these things.
Ashley:It almost happened to me today. Yeah with.
Dustin:yeah, we got our email, yeah we got a gene and an email sent to our Gmail account that was faking from meta Yep. I'm saying that our ad was being our ad was taking down and is being permanently removed and they're permanently revoking our rights. And then they're gonna delete our account and I told Ashley was don't touch anything. Because I knew immediately that was fake and I jumped onto the meta business platform. Our ad was still running.
Dustin:There was no formal notification from meta in the notifications bar and I, and that's the thing. So, first off, people, if anything ever sends you a message claiming to be Facebook, it's gonna show up in your notification bar. If you go to Facebook jail, it comes up in your notification bar. If it's not in your notification bar, do not believe it.
Ashley:But we love you, shan, because we know you didn't do that. Yeah, I generally somebody just like hacked my mom's face.
Dustin:Oh well, you know yesterday I got a Facebook Request from a family member of mine who is dead.
Ashley:Stop it, mm-hmm, that would kill me it's a distant rel.
Dustin:Well it's, it is a distant relative of mine, it's my, it's an enter uncle's.
Ashley:Sister's cousin's nephew?
Dustin:No, it's an answer uncle's married partnered parent okay so they're not like Blood kin to me.
Ashley:Yeah, they are my.
Dustin:they're like enter uncle's, yeah, yeah and oh, what bothers me is I can notify facebook and nothing happens correct cuz they're gonna say contact that person and I'm like you can't you can't.
Ashley:They don't exist, they're not real, they alright. So show guys, are we not? We're gonna.
Dustin:We're gonna have this up on our Twitter and our Facebook and maybe the Instagram but we want to know you're all's opinions Someone just walked by the apartment and looked in at us.
Ashley:Hi, let's do our podcast.
Dustin:We want to know, guys, what is your opinion on banning the use of social media for people under the age of 16? We're going to put those posts out there and we want you guys to let us know Now. Keep in mind we are up for healthy debate. We think that it is every. American's right to free speech. That being said, hate speech is not tolerated, absolutely not. Fighting bigotry, no. And once you start screaming Republican and Democrat and slurs, you're going to be blocked.
Ashley:So we want you guys reported. I won't go that far.
Dustin:I will say there is a difference in a healthy debate and being on the wrong side of history and pushing your theory Correct. If it's hate speech, we won't allow it. But that being said, we are going to move on to another recap of some fun that we had last week.
Ashley:Yeah, let's talk about it.
Dustin:We had two really fun things that happened in the same day. What were they? Ashley.
Ashley:It was the Super Bowl and. Rob's 19th birthday yeah.
Dustin:Oh my God, he's 19.
Ashley:I'm really sad because, like to me, he will always be five, like consistently, and I think that's why I have such a hard time. When he has a birthday that rolls around Because one, I start to feel really old, because I was 10 when he was born. So then every time it rolls around I just feel older and older and older and older and I get sadder and sadder that he is not five anymore.
Dustin:Oh, shut up.
Ashley:I know, but it just makes me really sad. But it was really, really fun to see all of his new friends, which are my friends. Well, and now your friends all come together and celebrate him and they all say happy birthday to him, and it was so cute.
Dustin:I like to, it was I agree.
Ashley:It was such a moment. It was such a moment. Mine is getting the candles all lit. That was a pain in the ass. Don't buy public scandals kids.
Dustin:I think it was well Jordan didn't have public scandals. The public candles look just fine.
Ashley:What was the other ones? Where did Jordan? Where'd you get your candles, buddy?
Dustin:I don't know, but it was fun because we joined in with our closest friends. Yes, we did and what. I think that I'm pretty sure several of us can say that almost everyone at that party is our Orlando family.
Ashley:Yeah, no, I love them.
Dustin:We don't other than you and you and you have your brother here but, other than that we don't have actual family here in Orlando.
Ashley:No, no, so this is the first time I've. I mean, I've lived in Orlando three times now and this is the first time I've moved down with family.
Dustin:So yeah, so you know we had our friend Jordan was here and Zach's family was here Zach and his sister Cynthia, and Matt and their kids, and let me tell you we talked about this briefly in the last episode I don't like children. I call them crotch goblins.
Ashley:For a reason.
Dustin:I don't like them.
Ashley:But I love their little girls and I love their kids.
Dustin:I told Cynthia straight to her face, I was like I just simply adore your children.
Ashley:They're so great.
Dustin:Their son is absolutely wonderful. He just, he just vibes, he, just vibes, he's a whole mood dude he is, and I love it. And then those girls just crack me up. They are the life and energy of any social interaction. Mine is the minus the gaping wound on the foot that we almost had to call an ambulance to amputate.
Ashley:But our magic trick, that was fantastic. Oh yeah, that was so great. That made her whole day and I love it.
Dustin:It was very, very loud and at times you looked over and I was just like so over. You were like, are you okay? I'm like, I'm just overstimulated, like it was so loud towards the end of the party. Yes, it was, but it was fun and it's really nice because it kind of gives me those vibes of being back home.
Ashley:Yeah, it was really nice you got to meet my family. I did. I had a real family. I love them. And then you got to meet my Knoxville family, Brad and Deanna and Gavin and everyone Hi, my entire Tennessee family. I love them and we get to go back in August. I'm so excited. And we're going to see some of them for Renaissance Fest too.
Dustin:Oh yeah, rint Fest will be here in April, so that'll be fun.
Ashley:But no, it was really nice to get everybody together. Plus, we had amazing food. Amazing food we had everybody brought an appetizer. That was how we did our Super Bowl. So we combined Rosberthie and the Super Bowl all into one.
Dustin:And we have a wonderful reminder of that party because someone I won't name, Cynthia, poured bacon grease in the oven and we still smell it every time we use the oven.
Ashley:Yes, we do, because we have yet to clean our oven out. Nobody judges okay, but we got to watch, oh.
Dustin:Cynthia, we hope you're feeling better. Yeah, we hope everything went well.
Ashley:I know she's listening to our podcast now, so shout out to her.
Dustin:I won't share your personal stuff going on but you had a little procedure recently, nothing that anyone should be concerned about. No, I know you've got a long road to relaxing. Recovery is what we're going to call it, and you're listening to the podcast during that time, so we hope that you're having fun. Welcome to the.
Ashley:Orlando Unpugged family.
Dustin:Yeah.
Ashley:Yeah, I love that so. But we combined everything. So everybody who was coming to our party had to bring an appetizer, so and we kind of did it like, hey, if you were having a Super Bowl party, what would be the appetizer you would bring? Like your family would make? That's kind of what we did. So Zach's family brought this fantastic corn chowder soup, the croissants, the bacon, the cheese. It was a whole mood.
Dustin:That was so good. What was the their friend that came with them, james, james, and he brought the like pizza muffin cupcakes yeah, those were so good. So I didn't get to eat one, because gluten, yeah, but they looked so good.
Ashley:Delicious, they looked so good.
Dustin:I debated hardcore. I almost went for it.
Ashley:They were so good and I got to pull off the pepperonis on top because I'm not eating meat right now or I'm not eating like red meat, so I pulled that off and I was like this is so good, like it was so good, it was like a cupcake but pizza and it was fantastic.
Dustin:And then I love that. Me and me and you, we did the exact same dish, yes, but with different protein.
Ashley:Yes.
Dustin:So I did cocktail weenies and I did vegan meatballs and we put them in the barbecue sauce and jelly mixture, which I know barbecue sauce has gluten in it. It didn't come for me internet, but it was in a whole lot. It was fine, it was great and it was. Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
Ashley:You know that is the dish my dad would make us during the Super Bowl and for Christmas and for Thanksgiving, literally any holiday. My father was making those meatballs except obviously his were actual, like ground beef meatballs were, mine were, you know, vegan meatballs, but they were a crowd hit. Everybody loved the weenies and the meatballs, so that was a big success. And we had too many chips, but yeah, no, it was great. And then you know, my favorite part about the entire thing was was our Taylor Swift moments.
Dustin:So Taylor Swift shots.
Ashley:I'll get onto it for you. So I'm as those that know me know that I'm a massive Taylor Swift fan and I root for her quite often because she has helped me through numerous emotional trials and tribulations. So it was pretty not you with the high noon. Hold on, you went from caffeinating it with me to high nooning it. Hold on.
Dustin:Hold on.
Ashley:That's for you, Cynthia.
Dustin:Oh, crack and open a high noon for you, girl.
Ashley:Woo. Um, that's so funny. That's so funny. Um, I lost my whole train of thought, buddy. No, but as everybody knows, if you do not know this, Taylor Swift is actively dating Travis Kelsey. Um, who is the? I don't know what position he plays, I think he's football. Yes, he plays football. That's his position.
Dustin:Um and for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Ashley:Correct, she's been. She's been taking some heat lately, guys and these men complaining.
Dustin:I hate that. Taylor Swift is on the TV the whole time and we're here to watch football, guess what I'm going to say it.
Ashley:I'm going to say it for the Chads and the brads Get the fuck over it. Just get over it. I'm sorry, but like be done, find something else and get out. You know why? Because you have complained and cried and whined that your wives, your girlfriends do not understand this game, are not there to support it. They sit on the couch, they look all boring or they go out and they do something else. And guess what? Guess where they are now they're sitting next to you watching the game, because that girl is on TV.
Dustin:Actually, I want to point something out.
Ashley:Get over it. So we decided we were going to play. Sorry, that was really aggressive, my apologies.
Dustin:We decided that we were going to play a game that every time Taylor Swift was shown on TV, we would all take shots and I think we we took like six shots.
Ashley:I think seven. I think that was the seven or seven, something like that.
Dustin:And then, after the game ended, we we didn't excuse me.
Ashley:It's that high noon coming for you.
Dustin:Yeah, had to burp. That's a real lady like of me. Um. So, in total, including after the game ended, taylor Swift was shown 12 times in the game. The game lasted four hours and eight minutes Her entire airtime. This super long time that men complain about, can I say it Hold on, was 54 seconds, which was only point 36% of the damn game.
Ashley:Like the whole broadcast, including the halftime show, including all the commercials, including the pre, the pre show and the after show with the awards, she was only shown for point 36% of it. Get over it, move on.
Dustin:Find something else to complain about. She was in. She's on the game so long she's ruining it so long.
Ashley:Oh my God, Well you know what.
Dustin:Now we have a better understanding on what men think is a long time when it comes to lasting in bed but it and this right here is why you are my favorite person on the planet.
Ashley:That was so great.
Dustin:Sound effects.
Ashley:I know I think this is ridiculous, but you know, what was insane to me, though, right now, is that the entire Swift nation Swifties whatever we're being called right now is kind of like trying to create this new narrative that Travis Kelsey is now a red flag because he got upset. Some stuff happened in the game. I don't, I can't explain it to you. I have no idea. I barely am learning how football and it's been forever since I've watched it but he pushed and yelled at his coach on the sidelines and we don't.
Dustin:Nobody knows what happened, and he was interviewed after the game and he said he's going to keep it between his coach and I think that's okay, here's the thing but they want to. Welcome to sports. Correct and intense game. This is nothing new, no.
Ashley:And this isn't. This isn't a regular Sunday game or a Monday night football game. This is the championship game. Tensions are high, stress levels are even higher. It's going to happen, guys.
Dustin:And I remember seeing a clip of it and I can't, I don't remember if he like shoved, shoved or if it was more like he ran up on him. He got in his face and got into his face too quickly.
Ashley:Correct.
Dustin:You know what I'm really loving, though I'm not, I'm not sitting here defending him because I truly don't remember.
Ashley:I only saw the clip one time after the game and now it's everywhere, but, like you know, what I'm loving is the fact that the internet is turning it into little memes. So be prepared, I'll share my favorite ones this week I also okay.
Dustin:Let's talk commercials, commercials didn't do it this year.
Ashley:No, they sucked.
Dustin:They, they did suck. However, can we talk about how the Deadpool Wolverine movie completely Rick rolled the entire country because everyone was waiting to see this movie ad and you saw a 30 second promo and then it said go online to view the whole preview trailer. I was pissed, I thought it was hilarious and I'm. Part of me is wondering did they do that on purpose? To pull a dead pull stunt and wreckroll their audience? Because that seems like something that they would do. 110%, However. However, the wicked movie trailer.
Ashley:Oh, my God. So 10 out of 10, 13 out of 1000. Like oh my God, I have no words other than I am ready, let's go.
Dustin:I was concerned when they casted Ariana Grande.
Ashley:Correct. I think we all were.
Dustin:But that is because I grew up when Kristen Chenoweth and Adina Menzel Correct Originated the role on Broadway. Yes, I've seen it on. I've seen it on Broadway once and I've seen it traveling twice. Anybody?
Ashley:would like to have fun tickets for me to go see Wiccan. I'll drop my Venmo.
Dustin:I had a. I had a season pass to see Wiccan. It finally came to the Tennessee theater after I've waited over 10 years for it to, and I moved. You moved, yeah, which it was there the week before we went up for chocolate fest.
Ashley:It's on my list but I'm really excited to see it. But it was so good.
Dustin:I was completely blown away with Ariana Grande's representation of Glenda. She looks so good the sets, it just it looks amazing.
Ashley:Everything looks so good, I cannot wait for it.
Dustin:And it comes out Thanksgiving 2024.
Ashley:Do you know what also comes out that same exact day? What Moana 2.
Dustin:That's a. Thing.
Ashley:Yeah, they just released it. Moana 2 is coming out, are we?
Dustin:should like I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead. Serious, real, that's a thing or it's an internet meme. No, 100%.
Ashley:Disney has announced it, it's coming out. Here we go Moana 2 on the same day that Wiccan.
Dustin:So we're going to have a.
Ashley:Barbie and Oppenheimer again, but Moana and Wiccan. That's what everybody's saying right now.
Dustin:What are we going to call it?
Ashley:I don't know, Guys guys, comment below what you think we should call it. But no, can we also talk about a?
Dustin:share please. Oh, hold on. I have one more commercial I want to talk to you about, because I think it's really cool. All right, go ahead. I still haven't seen the commercial. I missed it during the game and I cannot find it on the internet the Sam Elliott commercial, but the USAA which is an insurance company. They have been known to do commercials with Sam Elliott, so they did one. Now. The commercial was actually filmed here in Orlando on the back lot at Universal Studios.
Ashley:I saw that. I haven't seen the commercial. Nobody can find it, but I heard that story.
Dustin:I know that's so cool to know that they still use the sound stages and they're still filming. I know it's right there, it's just right down the road from us and it's like boom, that's. I think that's really cool.
Ashley:It's so neat.
Dustin:Now you can talk about the halftime show and the stupid idiots.
Ashley:I hated it.
Dustin:I'm not a fan of usher. I never have been in my entire life.
Ashley:Okay, before we start this, though, I was a fan of usher. I like his new album he just put out. It's pretty good. You're going through what I'm going through. It's great. Yeah, I liked Usher when I was in 2014. When Usher did yeah, confessions, all of that good stuff, I thought this was just kind of ridiculous, to be honest with you and he, the bodysuit situation that one was a astronomical. I think that the comment he made that to me was just crap.
Dustin:I disagree with you on that.
Ashley:I don't like it so what was the comment? So he during the middle of a show stops and he goes look, ma, I made it finally. No, you made it years ago. Like this isn't a comeback, for you might you I disagree. I don't know. I just think that he was pushing you on To preface when he was on the halftime show in the past was he the headliner? No, he was a guest.
Dustin:He was a guest, Correct? He is saying to his mother that he'd made it. He was the headliner. I feel like my mic just moved.
Ashley:It did because my leg moved. I'm sorry, my knee had a spasm.
Dustin:He's the headliner this year.
Ashley:That's what he was celebrating, and I'm you know they go good for you, whatever Go good for you, get a comfy move on.
Dustin:It didn't affect me either way.
Ashley:I just think that is that really the what you want to talk about right then and there.
Dustin:No, but you know what I wanna talk about. His body's in issues Is how the internet here is where I'm going in Europe set with people on social media when you, as an adult, are saying that this white-headed man, which I don't understand what that is I guess it may be a white-headed or something. I think it has something to do with they're part of the Illuminati, they're reptilian people and they're here to eat us.
Dustin:They said. He took a shirt off and he turned around and his body suit split open. No, you freaking idiots, it's called nude mic tape.
Ashley:No, Usher's an alien. So yeah, I will kill you.
Dustin:I'm looking for a new podcast host now. We have been, and the thing that I find most funny is I'm on an AV rigging disaster Facebook group page where people show bad things and AV rigging and everyone on that page is like have these people not heard of nude mic tape?
Ashley:No, it's not. No, usher's an alien, just accept it.
Dustin:Okay, Usher is an alien and he did it. But we watched the game, we had fun. I'm not a sports person. I will say I enjoy watching football if I am at the stadium and I'm watching it live. If I'm watching something on TV I could care less for it.
Ashley:Yeah, to be honest with you, I think the only reason I really truly had fun was because we were surrounded by all of our friends.
Dustin:I was drunk.
Ashley:I was sober, I was taking shots of lemonade.
Dustin:I mean, hey, because I don't drink anymore. I love that, god bless, but that guy's God bless my motivation to continuously not drink.
Ashley:Love that.
Dustin:Yep, that was our opinion on the Super Bowl and social media. We've got a pretty fun topic for you guys to do.
Ashley:Yeah, I'm really excited.
Dustin:We're gonna discuss what it's like to move. I know we talked about that in one of our first episodes. We talked a little bit on it, but we're actually gonna break down what it's like to move in a post-pandemic world and all that mess and craziness.
Ashley:Well, and I think this all started- because we get a lot of people that well, a lot of our listeners are outside of the state of Florida. We have quite a few in Tennessee, quite a few up in Michigan. So a lot of the times it's how did you do this, how did this work, how this is such a big move. From Michigan to Florida is a huge move. From Tennessee to Florida, that's a huge move. So I think it's time that we dive deep and talk about it All right.
Dustin:well, let's do it, let's do it. And, ashley, is it time I'm gonna play your song? Are you ready?
Ashley:I'm so ready. Let the clapping begin.
Dustin:Okay, so we're having some audio technical difficulties today Are you doing?
Ashley:okay, let's do a quick mental check-in.
Dustin:After my 20 minute anger session with GarageBand because I don't know, something weird happened and then suddenly it kept muting the channel every time we would go to try to record, so we couldn't hear anything. And then, yeah, so we're recording on a new channel.
Ashley:So we'll see what happens. Yeah, bear with us guys.
Dustin:I don't know what's going on this episode, but we're struggling.
Ashley:Hey, I forgot to say something in our intro, so I'm gonna say it real quick. What this episode of Orlando Unplugged was filmed in front of a live studio cat.
Dustin:I haven't seen Bruce since we started.
Ashley:Well, she's here.
Dustin:Okay, hi Bruce, I can hear your brother yelling in the background in his room Letting the kid be a kid.
Ashley:Today he's playing Xbox.
Dustin:He's not a kid, he's 19. Shut up, he's a grown boy.
Ashley:Hey, can we talk about your move? You wanna go first?
Dustin:Oh yeah, let's unpack that.
Ashley:No.
Dustin:Get it.
Ashley:Unplug it.
Dustin:I was making a packing and moving joke, but yeah, let's unplug it. So, a lot of people know I am still considering myself new to Orlando.
Ashley:I don't think you should consider yourself. You are new to Orlando.
Dustin:I mean I've been here Very new to Orlando, but it's February.
Ashley:Okay, wait, let's find out if you're new Ready. Do you still need your GPS to get from your place of residence to the nearest grocery store?
Dustin:No, but yes.
Ashley:Do you still need your-?
Dustin:Hold on, I gotta give preface. Wait, no, you have to ask me why. Why do I need?
Ashley:my GPS.
Dustin:Why Not? Because I don't know where I'm going. But traffic is so ungodly awful here that I use my GPS to find the shortest route.
Ashley:Yeah, that's pretty true. But see, you have yet to accept that traffic is horrible. So you're still new. Sorry, kid.
Dustin:No, I have friends that have been here since 2015 and they do that?
Ashley:Yes, but you haven't been here since 2015. Shut up, say you're new.
Dustin:Okay, so any who you haven't even done your first Orlando summer. No, I haven't Gotta feel bad for you.
Ashley:It's coming Gross.
Dustin:Let's talk about me moving down here.
Ashley:Yeah, I really wanna talk about it.
Dustin:Okay, so I moved down here in November. I came down, ironically, in November of 2014.
Ashley:Okay, and my very that's your graduated high school.
Dustin:Wow, that was two years after I graduated high school. I came once in 2012,. So right after I graduated high school, I came down here with a business partner of mine. At the time I was doing a, I had founded a community theater, okay and we came down here so I could do an audition for Disney. We were here for like 20-.
Ashley:Stop. I didn't know that I did.
Dustin:We were here for like 24 hours.
Ashley:Were you trying to be friends with somebody?
Dustin:No, we stayed. Well, hold on.
Ashley:Oh, okay, I'm sorry. I'm getting excited at the story. Please continue.
Dustin:I came down to do character-lookalike auditions.
Ashley:Okay.
Dustin:To be friends with Peter Pan.
Ashley:Stop it and two days-.
Dustin:This just makes my heart so happy for you. Two days before I came, the lookalike auditions were changed for parade performers. For hip and parade performers have to be a minimum of five-seven. Technically I consider myself five-five. I think that's the closest to what I am. Apparently, my doctor says I'm five-six, but any who?
Ashley:I got here.
Dustin:I got into the audition and one of the very first things they do is see how tall you are, Yep and you failed. I did not fail.
Ashley:No, you got it I was able to pass on. No way.
Dustin:I joke that it's because I voiced out loud that I was here for the character-lookalike auditions and I spent over $1,000 on this trip because we did. It was a very expensive trip.
Ashley:It's not cheap to come down.
Dustin:It is not, especially when you're trying to ball on a very quick budget and you're staying. Yeah, it was crazy. So I made it to round one of auditions and they didn't call my number. And then I started to leave and then my number was called and then I was asked if I could return the following week. For guess what, the rescheduled character-lookalike auditions Get fucked To which I was like I will not, so I was gonna go to the Nashville one. I never did so anyway, sorry for you. That was a very quick trip. I went to EBCOT for like 20 minutes, went to Universal for like 20 minutes. It was miserable. It was hot, I was. Yeah, it was not a fun time. I was stressed. So in 2014, I came down here with my friends from Dollywood the week that Dollywood closed to get ready for Christmas. We came to Universal Studios and we stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel and I immediately fell in love with Universal.
Dustin:I fell in love with everything that it was, everything that Dollywood wasn't, but in the best way, like I'm not saying Dollywood's bad, but Universal no but one is clearly a theme park, and one is an amusement park. No, they're both theme parks my love.
Ashley:No, yes they are both. Yep, they are both Really, how about Dollywood was considered an amusement park no?
Dustin:Dollywood is a themed park.
Ashley:Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah, okay, never mind, I take it back. Yep, please continue with your story, but Dollywood is a regional theme park where. Universal is an national. Yeah, oh, it's an international.
Dustin:Yeah, and I knew immediately that this is what I wanted to do. I wanted to come down here, I wanted to be a part of Orlando. At that point I still really wanted to do the Disney thing, but I really enjoyed vacationing in Orlando and I didn't come back for a few years. And then I started coming back again, started coming to Universal at least once a year, started doing Halloween Horror Nights and I just continued to fall in love with this more and more because, for those of you that don't know, I was the general one of the general managers of a haunted attraction in East Tennessee. It was the only fully indoor haunted attraction. Shout out to Freightworks yeah, freightworks.
Dustin:Freightworks haunted house located in Powell, which is North Knoxville, and all their wonderful employees.
Ashley:And I love you and I oversaw the guest services portion of it.
Dustin:But I started off as an actor and doing all of those things. So Halloween Horror Nights just really stuck out to me as something that I wanted to do. I wanted to come down here. I wanted to be a scare actor. Now, I hate scare acting and I wouldn't want to do it, but I would at least do it one time at Halloween Horror Nights if the opportunity arose. So we had to pause because our roommates came in and it threw me off, but I just, I really I live here. I just really loved Orlando, I liked it.
Dustin:It's great and so fast forward a couple more years To the more present day. I was in a relationship with someone who also thoroughly enjoyed Florida, but it would have never happened with him. It was a very toxic relationship. We've both since moved on. He's married. Happy for him. Congratulations on your marriage. We were toxic for each other but I'm really glad he's found who he has and they're very happy. So go then. Happy for them. And then I got into another relationship that just drained me and I was like that just drained me and I hate him.
Dustin:And I will say that I absolutely hate this man. I wish I would never would have met him, but you re-put yourself. This person also really wanted to move to Florida, like they really wanted to, but I-.
Ashley:Did they live here now? No, oh good.
Dustin:Because I couldn't save money, I couldn't do anything because this person literally was draining every part of me financially. This was the one that I was telling you about the camera earlier. Yep, so left him, and then I was essentially free and I was like I can do this, I can actually do this, and I just couldn't seem to do it.
Dustin:It never wound up like my lease wouldn't line up with Jordan's lease or anyone else's lease that I knew. I just it never would line up because moving here would have costed me thousands of dollars if I would have tried it on my own.
Ashley:It's my understanding that the only person you knew down here was Jordan, right In our inner circle, at least In your inner circle, but I know-.
Dustin:Obviously your roommates I know well, I'll actually get into that in a minute. I know Jordan, I know Curtis, Okay, and I know a couple of other people that Like a handful, yeah. And then another really good friend of mine, stephanie, who moved down here at the exact same time, but I told her that I was moving and then she was like surprised, so am I?
Dustin:But don't tell anyone because she hadn't told her current employer yet. So she had to hold onto that secret for a couple of weeks. So I talked to my current roommate, bradley, and I was like I just I really wanted to come down here and if you heard that in the background, it's because the oven is preheated. Ashley, go put her food in the oven In a minute keep going, okay.
Dustin:I really wanted to be here. I wanted out of East Tennessee, I wanted out of the cold. I have really bad seasonal depression. I mean really bad. I was going to work and on days I wasn't working I wasn't leaving my bed. Oof, I stayed in my bed 24 seven. My house was an absolute wreck. I didn't clean anything. I was eating horrible amounts of food. I was gaining weight because I wasn't doing anything during the winter months. I hated the cold. I just hated everything about it. I hated where I lived in Sevierville, because in Florida it's a tourist destination, but there are things that you can go do. You can have a life down here.
Ashley:Yeah.
Dustin:Where I lived, in Sevierville, you couldn't have a life because the entire city revolved solely around Dollywood and tourism. Yep, and that was it. There was no restaurants that you could go to, that were out of the way, that the tourists didn't go to, because there weren't enough restaurants to do that.
Ashley:Hey buddy, what Do you know? You live in the largest tourist capital in the world. Yes, but that's the thing. Okay, I just want to make sure.
Dustin:There's enough restaurants to tour. There's enough restaurants to people that we can go to a restaurant and not see anybody.
Ashley:That's been to Disney or Universal. We can go to grocery stores. We go to.
Dustin:Kura and we walk in. We've never waited for a table.
Ashley:We always were immediately sat Trader Joe's is filled with Florida residents.
Dustin:The only issue with our Trader Joe's is it's really small, so it's really packed.
Ashley:Trader Joe's may build a bigger one, please. Thank you.
Dustin:But it's great and that's what I love it about down here, is.
Dustin:I want to get out of the house. I want to go do things. You've got multiple theme parks down here. You don't just have Dollywood shove down your face, which is a small theme park that refuses to build attractions that can hold up to the amount of people going to their parks, so their waits are three and four hours. It's ridiculous. So I finally I bit the bullet, kind of in the pandemic-ish time at Frightworks, this guy came in from another haunted attraction and worked for us and he was only there for a few weeks. He came in and he worked for a little bit and then he had a really amazing job opportunity down here in Florida and that was my current roommate Tristan and his wife Krista.
Dustin:So, they picked up and they moved to Florida. They didn't immediately move to Orlando, but they moved to Florida and we joked in Bantard back and forth that I was gonna move down to Florida and move in with them and they rent a house over in kind of the Metro West area and we had talked about it a few times and then back in June of this year of 2020 or last year of 2023, he reached out to me and was like hey, we rent a four bedroom and they've had some roommates here and they've had some roommates there. And they were like we've got room available for you. And I said, well, I've got a lot of stuff and I don't want to. I've got furniture for my grandmother that I inherited. I have computer desks and stuff because I have my podcast studio and everything. And they were like bring it, we'll fit it in, don't worry about it.
Dustin:So I technically am renting two bedrooms from them for the price of one. Then just they have given me that extra space to have his mine, and I pretty much live on that end of the house, yeah, but in here. So I took a leap of faith and I thought I need to do it.
Dustin:I've got to do this and I realized one of the reasons I hadn't was because of my grandmother which I will get into and my family and just money and all these things and that's what had been keeping me. And I thought I turned 30 this year I'm 30 now, I'm talking about back in June.
Ashley:I was like I'm going to turn 30 this year.
Dustin:And I told myself that if I wasn't in Orlando by the time I was 30, I wasn't going to do it. And then that year I was like, if I'm not in Orlando by 35, I'm not going to do it because it's hard to pick up and move because yeah, and I'm.
Dustin:You know. I had finally made it to a point in my life that I was considered upper middle class in the state of Tennessee. With the amount of income that I was making, I had a really nice job. But whispers started that we were losing the client that I worked on. And this client was so large it was my only client. I didn't have any other clients Stop Because they were that large of a client. And there was in my position. There was a girl who's opposite of me, so there's two of us on my level and then there's, you know, a couple levels ahead of us where there's a few people on this team. But we were going to lose that and I knew that that meant we were going to lose people Because earlier that year they laid off, they took creative away from us and we did our clients creative in house.
Dustin:Well, the client said we are taking our creative away from you and we lost 13 people that worked on that account and a few other accounts, so I knew that if, when we lost this account, it was coming, people were going to lose their jobs. Now, looking back on it, do I feel that I would have kept my job? I do Because my boss had set me up. I was already working with other teams. I was struggling working with those other teams because they didn't function the way that my current team worked and they weren't very good at onboarding me. Yeah, but everyone that I worked around they went to school specifically for marketing.
Dustin:And you did not, I did not. I went for hospitality and recreational management and I took this job on a whim. Yeah, and I kind of went to my boss and I was like if I leave, does this mean someone else gets to keep their job? And they were like what are you talking about? I was like don't play stupid with me. Like we know it's coming.
Ashley:Get on the same page, you know what's happening If I leave?
Dustin:does this mean that people potentially get to keep their jobs? So when they said yes, I said here's my two weeks notice. Here you go. It's more like a month notice, but so at that point, very big of you, by the way like.
Ashley:I don't think I ever told you that, but I think that's very big of you coming from an aspect that you know. I myself have a degree that I don't use. I think it in the day and age the layoffs happen, things like that. Companies fold all the time. So I think it's very big of you that you realize that this wasn't a career move that you wanted. You weren't happy. You were going to a different team that you thought you could not work well, not happy I'm not happy with it, so I think you made the right decision and you potentially it's it
Dustin:wasn't it wasn't what I thought it was going to be.
Ashley:No, which also potentially saved somebody's livelihood.
Dustin:Yeah, so I was expecting to be like marketing, like for a theme park, like I thought I was going to be doing marketing.
Ashley:No, I was doing, I was doing, I was doing billing and reporting and data analysis.
Dustin:I was a digital media analyst, but I made a decent amount of money. My bills were paid. I had a surplus of money at the I would. My paycheck or my bank account never hit zero.
Ashley:There, you go.
Dustin:So that was a scary thing to turn around and walk away from that with no guarantee that I would have gotten to keep it. I felt confident that I would have, but I had no guarantee that I was going to and I thought this is my time to shine. My grandmother, who many people know was a catalyst at raising me and bringing me up and turning me into who I was, what a queen, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in. October. No, I'm fine right now.
Dustin:Right now Was diagnosed with dementia, alzheimer's in 2022. And in the summer of 2023, we ended up having to admit her to the hospital she had. She had an attack I don't I'm an attack a session where she attacked her nurse and was biting her and calling her bad names.
Ashley:She didn't know what was going on, though.
Dustin:And this and this was a nurse, like it was a newer nurse and I could tell this this nurse comes from Haiti, so she had a very thick accent which was hard for my grandmother to understand, and I feel that, as you're progressing into dementia, where you don't understand anything to begin with having to hear someone with a thick accent that you've not been around at all your entire life it's scary Causes, yeah causes problems.
Dustin:So after she was taken to the hospital it was determined that she couldn't live alone anymore, and it was. Either we had to have 24 hour constant care for her or she needed to be admitted into a nursing facility. So we put her into an assisted living facility in Sevierville, where I was. So she was down the road for me and I don't think that when I see my grandmother her her Alzheimer's goes away, but she would be happy. She was smiling. I didn't experience the situations that my family were telling me they experienced with her. She struggled to tell me stories and she would tell me the same thing several times Was just to recognize who you were.
Dustin:She recognized who I was. She was coherent, she was active in a conversation and it became a much harder decision for me to leave because, I lived in her home because, you know, my dad worked overnight when I was a kid, so I stayed at her home a lot. And then when I moved in with my dad I technically moved in with her next door because my dad worked at night. So her and my dad are the two people that I credit to you.
Dustin:Know teaching me to be the good human and to base my life off of moral, human decisions versus political or religious. And, you know, don't push my views and opinions down other people's throats, even if it's something I don't agree with. As long as they're not doing something that's dangerous or harming another person, then let them live their life.
Ashley:But you credit that to Nana and Dad.
Dustin:Graham, it's Graham, and I finally made the decision. I said you know she is where she needs to be.
Dustin:She's taken care of here and if she didn't have this disease, she'd always worried about me Since 2014,. Since I started working at Dollywood and saying I wanted to move to Orlando, she was always worried that I was going to move to Orlando and one day after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, I called her and I was, and she she wasn't herself. That day she cried on the phone with me. It was the first time in her life she'd ever cried to me and she said that she just worried about her children, my aunt, uncle and my father and me and the other grandkids. And she said the thing that just broke me and that was I'm always afraid you're going to call me and tell me that you're moving to Florida, and this was like February of 2020, through two, and I was like nope, can't do it, I can't move now, not until you know she goes home to be with the Lord, as she says, me with the Lord, amen to the Lord.
Dustin:And it became. It was pretty much like I can't do this. So when it came down to it, I went to the nursing home and I told her what was happening with my work. And she's in the nursing home at this point. She has dementia. And I explained to her the situation and I said we're going to have, we're going to be facing layoffs at work soon. I don't know if I'm going to have a job or not. I have a support system in Orlando, I have housing and I think this is what I want to do. But dad has already told me that if I get down there and I can't do it, they'll help me come home, yep. And she said how long are you going to be down there for? And I said, I don't know, a couple months at least. And that's what I started with, to see how she would react.
Dustin:And that was only two weeks before I left, because I couldn't bring myself to tell her prior to that. So the day, the day that I, the day that I went to leave, I got up that morning, packed up the rest of my stuff, but I was packing in the smart card already packed the U-Haul and everything. So I just had the last of my stuff and I left my Roomba robot and I'm really sad about that. You're welcome, bradley. Hi, brad, and I different Brad. I drove down to the nursing home and I went in and she was sitting in the big group room because they were doing like a group game and I was a little bummed that she wasn't in her room, but I realized it was probably a better situation to say bye to her in that setting because she was with people.
Dustin:Yeah, and I walked in and I came in and she didn't remember that I was leaving.
Dustin:Oh, but she or she didn't remember I was leaving that day, but she knew that I was still going to Florida because she said when are you going? And I said well, I am here to say goodbye to you and then I'm going to go meet dad and we're going to put the car in the trailer and I'm heading out today. And she wasn't phased, she wasn't upset. She said you know. She said, oh, I wish you the best of luck. She said call me, but she doesn't have a phone. There's no way to call her. So I rely on my family, when they're there, to let me talk to her on the phone. And we said goodbye and I said bye. And she said bye like it was just any other day. And, oh God, here it comes. Hold my hand, I'm right here for you.
Ashley:We're going to get through this together. Let's go.
Dustin:And I said goodbye and I walked out and they were playing their little game and I left and I got out to the car and I sat down on the car and I closed the door and I turned the car on and I dry I mean, I was dry, heaving, crying, and it just it poured and I almost in that, in that moment, I almost made the decision not to leave because and like I said, and I'll say this a million times over I love my dad, I love my stepmom, my brother, my sister, everybody that has been so loving to me and accepting of me for being, you know, a person in the queer community and all of these things, when that's not what I grew up in, that's not the household that we were taught was okay and the moment that I came out it was fine.
Dustin:But I had a rough childhood, real rough, and I, for a really long time, was really good at hiding it to my dad's side of the family because I knew they didn't like my mom. But she saw right through that charade from day one and she knew.
Dustin:And I was never given special treatment from the other grandkids. I was treated the same as all of them. The only difference was I had to live in their house and they had to be hard on me at times and I was grounded one time in the entire time that I lived with them and I got off the hook for that the next day because I wasn't a trouble kid. But she raised me, she taught me right from wrong. She taught me that I grew up in a Christian household. I don't consider myself Christian. I consider myself agnostic.
Dustin:I'm not saying that God doesn't exist. I'm saying there's a lot of people out there, there's a lot of theories. This is a very big solar system. If it's supposedly never ending, I'll know when I die. So I grew up going to church with her. But she taught me church, taught me Jesus. She taught me it doesn't matter if that person's gay, it doesn't matter if that person's black, it doesn't matter if that person is a Democrat or Republican.
Dustin:What matters is the morals they choose to live their life by. What matters is how they treat their fellow neighbor. If and we had we had neighbors. We lived outside of a trailer park and we had some people that I knew my grandmother didn't like me being around because they were some rough households. Their parents were kind to me, they were kind to me, we were friends. I never knew those opinions.
Dustin:Growing up, I never knew that my grandparents didn't particularly like me hanging out with these people because they saw how their families lived and how they choose to their moral compass as a human being and that is how she raised me to live my life and that is how I try so very hard to do. When it comes to, I have some very strong opinions on the pronoun topic and I keep them to myself because I was raised to respect you. If you come to me and you say they, them, she, her, he, him, doesn't matter what you were assigned at birth, I'm going to call you that because what's between your legs is none of my goddamn business, because you are not trying to hurt me or someone around me or someone else. So live your life. Wear your stilettos, wear your wigs, do what you want to do, go for it, because my grandmother taught me that's how you treat a fellow human, correct.
Ashley:You treat others how you want to be treated.
Dustin:And this is what I was realizing. I felt like I was abandoning almost in that nursing home because it's going to be. It's a scary time for her. She's going to live, you know, the last days of her life. It's scientifically proven that most people only live two to three years once they go into a nursing facility. That's a scary thing. She recently was diagnosed with COVID. She went to the respite of COVID after Christmas we were in Tennessee.
Ashley:It was it had been a few weeks.
Dustin:But I knew she was okay because I wasn't getting like any constant updates on her, so I knew she was all right. But it was hard, it was really really hard. It was about as it was about as hard as it was for me to say goodbye to Gavin and Deanna and these people that were my rocks and my, my personal family. But I looked at myself and I said I have to do this. I have wanted this my whole life. It's what I've wanted to do. It's where.
Ashley:I've wanted to be and I packed up and go no job, no nothing.
Dustin:I had a credit card. I had two credit cards and $1,000 to my name and a dream and Tristan and Krista, who, when I explained you know, I told him I had been applying for jobs and they were like, don't worry about it, we got you, it's fine, we'll figure it out Like for the first two months, don't worry about it. So I got down here, I packed up, I rented a U-Haul. So I rented a U-Haul it was a 15 foot box truck with to go from Sevierville.
Dustin:Oh, technically, I rented the truck in Alcoa where we got where we picked up the truck for chocolate fest, drove to Sevierville, loaded the box truck, drove it back to my grandmother's house, parked it there, hooked the car trailer up to it and then took my smart car, did everything I needed to do, said goodbye to Gavin, said goodbye to Brad and Deanna, drove back to Sevierville, stayed the night, packed up my stuff, took the car back to my grandmother's house. My dad met me there, we loaded the car up, I said goodbye to him and then I was off. I put Clemmie in the passenger seat, my cat of 13 years, and we started our journey of 656 miles by ourselves. Gavin was going to do it, but he had never been on a plane before and he was terrified of heights. And I didn't want his first time being on a plane by himself back to Tennessee alone.
Ashley:So now he's done that, and so he can fly by himself down here, but again on the plane, come back and see me. So I got the 15. Not you, just me.
Dustin:I got the 15 foot box truck and I got the move safe insurance for $75, which came with like roadside assistance, and I don't typically always get that, but I was like, if I'm traveling almost 700 miles by myself, I've got to do this.
Dustin:So I the reservation was the truck for four days and it had a total of 772 miles before I started getting charged for mileage. So I was nervous because the trick was or the trip was 656 miles and I had to drive to and from Sevierville to load twice. And then the day of I looked at the map someone's like if I go back up through Sevierville and down to the Carolinas it's going to tack on extra mileage. And then there was construction, but anyway. So I got a trailer transport for the car as well and I got the tow safe insurance so my car was covered on. If I got in a wreck my car would have been covered if it was totaled or anything. And then I got a furniture dolly which costs $15.
Dustin:So after you added the environmental fees and all the taxes and the other fees that they have, it cost a total of $772.35 to rent the U-Haul and the trailer for four days. And it I mean it worked out pretty well. So we loaded up. Like I said, I was going to go through the Carolinas and then down, but that didn't quite work out because I also I got started much later. I plan to leave at eight o'clock in the morning, I left it almost one in the afternoon.
Ashley:Oh my gosh yeah.
Dustin:And it's like a 12 hour drive. So I started the drive and, sure enough, I hit Atlanta at 430. And my GPS did not take me around Atlanta. It took me dead center through it and it's hard, you can't. You know I couldn't be on my phone and be navigating and changing the route. I'm driving a 15 foot box truck, a 15 foot car trailer, in six rows of traffic. So I just had to go with what the GPS said and I was bumper to bumper traffic for over two hours in Atlanta. It was after 6pm by the time I'd actually gotten out of Atlanta. But I was in a big truck. It is hard to change lanes in a very big truck, in a very long trailer. But I took care of my semi, my semi trailers. I would slow down if they were trying to get over in downtown Atlanta. I slowed down, yeah, I gave them the space in front of me to get over and that in turn paid off because those three semis that I never spoke to them.
Dustin:I don't have a CB radio, but there was the head nods the handshakes, and then they created a safe space for me to merge back over. So, if you were on the road, take care of your semi trucks, because they will, in turn, take care of you back. And then it includes if you're in a normal sized car.
Ashley:They're also like carrying things that you could potentially need.
Dustin:Yeah, and another thing they don't stop on a dime. No, it takes a minute. Get over it. So more of that story. Atlanta's horrible, but I made it back onto the road. I got out of Atlanta. I stopped for gas. I never stopped for food. I had some snacks in the car. I had some energy drinks. Whitney, one of the girls that works at Frightworks, created this wonderful to go basket for me. It was the kindest thing ever and I love that so much because she's an actor that I didn't associate with on a regular basis and she took the time out to spend her own money to create a care package for me. It had air fresheners for the truck because she's like the truck's going to smell air fresheners.
Dustin:For my house it had the. She created a broom. It's like you know, the little witch brooms you see the kitchen witches and the corn hucks and she made that for me to hang in my house when I moved and it's hanging by my front door right now.
Ashley:Energy drinks she got my favorite Monster Energy drinks and that I constantly drink when you bring them to my house.
Dustin:Yes. So I only stopped for gas once and then made it into the state of Florida. I wanted to stop at the visitor center when I pulled in but the sun had already set. I was tired, I hadn't eaten, so I was like now we're just, we're going to keep pushing through. I stopped again for gas and then it was about 11 o'clock and I'm driving and suddenly I'm off the interstate. I had no clue where I was. There was trees everywhere. I was in the middle of nowhere and I was just like I hope I didn't get off. Actually, no, I got off when the toll road started.
Ashley:Okay.
Dustin:Because I was not about to take a U-Haul on a tow road, because I didn't know how tolls worked. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to pull in and pay for it, because I didn't have the little sensor in my car.
Ashley:Oh my God, you had to just drive there through, the ship it to you, the mail that you the best.
Dustin:Yes, but then U-Haul finds you.
Ashley:Yeah.
Dustin:Because U-Haul gets the fine, yeah, and then that fine is really big and I didn't want that. So I'm driving and I'm driving and suddenly I see this big structure, huge structure, it's massive, and it says the villages.
Ashley:Welcome to it.
Dustin:And if you know you know, and I realized it was the golf cart bridges for the residents to get over the highway. Yeah, and I passed under it and I just went. Oh my God.
Ashley:I did it. I'm here yeah.
Dustin:Like I did it and I was still like an hour away, but it really started to sink in at that point.
Ashley:And.
Dustin:I just remember this like euphoric feeling. I was so happy I felt I was, I wasn't tired anymore. I suddenly had all of this energy. I was excited because I'd made it. I made it to Florida. You did it. I did the lifelong dream, the dream that I've wanted to do other than moving to the United Kingdom, which I wanted to do since, because you know, five years old I was watching Harry Potter.
Ashley:We'll just go visit it, okay, or they know, unplug. Well, unplug the UK. Yeah, sounds great.
Dustin:Yeah, I gotta go soon. My Edward is moving to the US, because he's any of you. So I made it. I called Tristan and Krista and woke them up because they had fallen asleep. They were so tired. And I got here at like 12 30 in the morning and I walked in and we sat in the living room for like 10 minutes and we talked and they were like, okay, we're really glad you're here, but we have to be up at like six in the morning for work. So we're gonna, we're gonna go to bed. So I spent my first night on an air mattress and then the next day I woke up, they were gone to work and I unloaded the U-Haul all by myself. I got everything out of my U-Haul, minus like the big furniture, like everything.
Ashley:That's crazy.
Dustin:And then they came home and I loaded the rest in and I lived for a month and a half I don't know a month with no income. I was living off of my credit. So the only bad thing is I have maxed out the two credit cards that I have.
Ashley:So, from the time that you moved here and to the time that we met, how long were you living here when that happened? Because we met at Jordan's birthday event. When that was the bowling event.
Dustin:I moved here November 6th.
Ashley:Okay, so when?
Dustin:we met the. Was it the day before Thanksgiving or was it Thanksgiving?
Ashley:I don't, I don't. Hey, zach, do you know off the top of your head, when Jordan's birthday bowling event was?
Dustin:It was Thanksgiving weekend because Jordan and I we stayed at Cabana Bay that weekend for his birthday and for Thanksgiving because we didn't have family in this area. So it was it was the weekend of Thanksgiving. I know that.
Ashley:Yeah, I don't. I don't know the date.
Dustin:Hey, will you guys do you see that frozen dip sitting in that baking sheet on the stove?
Ashley:I was just about to get out Will you guys set it in.
Dustin:will you put it in the oven? Is this just going to be on the podcast? Yeah, it is, it's on the podcast.
Ashley:Yeah, you're in the podcast.
Dustin:I mean you're not going to be heard. You're way too far away from the mics, I think.
Ashley:Okay, I got it. I got the date, it was November 24th.
Dustin:So yeah, so I did like two weeks, Two weeks.
Ashley:Oh my God, we met two weeks and you'd be here for the rest of it.
Dustin:Yeah, and then I started work like right after that, but yeah, it's been, it's been hard because I started work and then I worked for like two weeks at just a few hours and training and everything.
Dustin:And then I got sick with the flu and I missed a week of work and it's just. It's been a financial. It's been a bit of a financial struggle. I'm making okay, I'm getting my bills paid. I'm a little behind on some things, but that's totally fine because everything's going to be okay in a few weeks and yeah, so that's. I mean, that's kind of where I am. I'm hoping to be able to give these credit cards paid off. So hashtag guys, if you want that Venmo, let me know If you want to support.
Ashley:If you want to support a cause, you can Apple.
Dustin:Cash App, apple Pay. I take it all.
Ashley:But you know what I think it's time for though?
Dustin:I think it's no, it's said to vent it but not remove it.
Ashley:Guys, we're trying. We tried this dip. We went to Trader Joe's today and it's a chili hatchback corn dip.
Dustin:It's good. Whatever it is, it was so good, so we bought it.
Ashley:So now we're trying to figure out how to bake it, but I think this is a good time before I start to take a break.
Dustin:Yeah let's take a commercial break.
Ashley:Cool. Bye guys.
Dustin:From the birthplace of Dolly Parton to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Tennessee Roads is a podcast where we will look to the rich history and culture and to the bright futures of all the towns and communities that make up the foothills of the great smokey mountains. So pull up a chair and sit with me as I tell you about my people.
Ashley:I love the music for that. It's so cute.
Dustin:I know I wish I still had that music. I have no clue where it is anymore.
Ashley:That's so great. I love that for you. Welcome back. Thank you so much for listening to that commercial and for letting us get a nice little snack break. I love that dip. I love Trader Joe's dip, though I'm a big fan, like a big, massive fan. I probably should pull this closer to me.
Dustin:Oh, yeah, hang on.
Ashley:Okay, bye, missed you. If you have a Trader Joe's near you, my top three that you should try is the chili crunchy, chili hummus, the French onion dip and our newest addition, which is the what is it? The chili hatchback.
Dustin:It is the roasted hatch chili and jalapeno cheese dip.
Ashley:It is so good, 10 out of 10. But yeah, the big fan, big big fan. So check out your Trader Joe's, go and get all the goods. So I guess it's my turn, right.
Ashley:My turn, let's, let's. Well, here we go. So this is my third time moving out of the state and then back to the Sunshine State and I, I fucking hate moving. Like I'll be the first to tell you I hate it. I had spiance trust for me. I truly believe that it's a miserable operation and I hate it. Do you guys remember that podcast episode that we did about Tennessee when we went to Knoxville? Do you remember how long of an elaborate process it was for me to pack for that trip and how much shit I got? Now just imagine having to do that with me for a move.
Ashley:I am a last minute kind of girl. I do everything last minute, like I will be the last person to file my taxes, I will be the last person to like do anything I I just don't like it. I don't. That's too much pressure for me, it freaks me out and I I'm just not a fan, never been a fan. So when it comes to packing for a move, it's something that becomes a very, very forceful operation for me because of my genuine lack of just not wanting to do it Like. I just don't like it.
Ashley:So the first time I moved to Florida was for the Disney College program back in 2018. Pre-pandemic life Pre-pandemic life yeah, very much pre-pandemic. And I moved with two very large oversize, got charged at the airport suitcases and I got in an airplane and that's it. These suitcases were filled with some of my clothes. It had like a couple of my mom threw in like some dish towels and stuff like Mickey themed dish towels because I was always looking for a Disney world. So she threw in some dish towels but, like it was very much spur of the moment, this is all my stuff. This is what's going on. The second time was during COVID and this last time all my stuff was driven down and I flew down after two weeks of my stuff being in another state. We'll get to that.
Ashley:That's coming up, but for me, moving costs were and are extremely expensive. But, lucky for me, I had a lot of help to cover a lot of my financial aspects of things. So I know there's a lot of ways that you can go about doing it and for me, I wanted to look at cheap ways to try to do this. However, that first time you're required per Disney to they do not help you move down. So if you're out of the state of Florida, you are required to get your booty to Florida. Okay, so they don't cover that. That's not a cost that they cover, totally. Get that. Well, they've got what?
Dustin:hundreds of people.
Ashley:The only ones I know that they cover is for the international kids.
Dustin:Yeah, that's because they're, they're with a program.
Ashley:They're not coming on their own yeah correct, but all of us coming to the States we all have to cover our own, like airfare or if we're driving any of that stuff. You have to all figure it out on your own. So the first time was definitely the cheapest, but it was probably the most stressful and ended up ultimately being the most expensive, because I literally moved down with just my clothes. So I had to literally buy everything once I got settled, which took me a long way. Because a long time, because of the fact that I didn't make anything with Disney.
Ashley:As a DCP, you are the lowest on the totem pole. You barely get any hours. You pay an astronomical amount of money for your rent and the money that I did get I would have to spend it on food because I was constantly packing my lunch. I was never eating out because I was working all the time, so it took me a long time. Like, and my first big girl purchase that I bought was a pot and pan set, because Disney didn't come with any of those, we had to supply them ourselves. We came. The only thing that Disney, that the college program, offered, was a match like a mattress pad and a bed frame, and it was a twin size bed frame and a mattress pad.
Ashley:So it was essentially moving into a college dorm and a couch and had a couch and a coffee table and a entertainment center and a dining room table and that was it.
Dustin:It literally was, literally was a college dorm.
Ashley:Yep. So you had to cover everything else. You wanted to decorate it, you wanted to put stuff in the. There wasn't even like no plates, no pots, no nothing. We all had to cover that all on our own.
Ashley:And I had like some pretty good roommates but like we were not close. Everybody had these great stories about how close they were with their roommates and I had a pretty nasty experience with my roommates. I became closer with the people that I worked with rather than the people that I lived with, so I was constantly hanging out with the people that I worked with rather than inside my own apartment. I was never home because I hated it. I hated my roommate situation. So when my program was over, I was like, okay, and I moved in with the ex fiance of mine and we did that for a little bit. And if you listen to our first episode, I go into pretty detail about all the moving back and forth and stuff that we did. But at this moment we decided that we were moving to back up to Ohio for a bit. So that's that brings me to my second time of moving back down to Florida was moving from Ohio to Florida, and that was probably the most expensive I have ever paid for. When it came to moving, and this one I did with some help from my mom, but pretty much all by myself. So, in terms of, like, the U-Haul van and the movers, okay, like the ex fiance's parents helped out a ton and I owe them so much my mom and dad, or my mom helped a ton because my at this point my dad was already gone, so my mom helped with with a ton of things. But, like, when it came to the movers and the U-Haul van that was on me and the ex, like that was our decision, that was like this is what we wanted. So we had to figure out how to get there, that entire thing.
Ashley:From moving to Ohio to Florida, I rented a van. I had movers that came to Ohio that moved all of our stuff out of the apartment that we were renting into the U-Haul van and then when we drove it down, they pulled it out of the U-Haul and moved it into the condo and it was well over $3,000 is how much I spent for that move and it was, oh my gosh, it was ridiculous, like it was. It was so expensive, it wasn't even funny. And then, when, obviously when the breakup happened and I ran back up to Michigan and I decided, you know, I was coming back to Florida. It is something that I wanted to do. I wanted to come back and that I think I saved money, in a sense of I didn't have movers because I had to still live in Michigan while we still had it, while we had an apartment here. So we signed our lease in September. I didn't move in until the second week of October because I had to work still at the job that I was currently at that I was supposed to transfer with when I moved down here. It didn't happen, it fell through. It is what it is, but I ended up staying for them because they were trying to hire my replacement.
Ashley:And so my mom helped you know, help us pack up all of our stuff, because my brother obviously moved with me. So we packed up, all my stuff packed up, which was kind of convenient because I never actually unpacked any of my stuff from that original move from Florida back up to Michigan. All of my stuff was still in storage, except for like the bare minimum, like my clothes and stuff like that. But everything else was already still in boxes. So like all my kitchen appliances, all my decor, everything like that was still packed up, ready to go, because I didn't have a clue what I was doing with my life, love that. So when it came time to pack up and do it, it was nice and simple and easy and Zach, my roommate. He flew up to Florida, helped us pack everything into the U-Haul van and then my brother and Zach drove the U-Haul van down to Florida just the two of them. My mom got in an airplane, met them the next day and the three of them, while I'm still in Michigan, unpacked our entire house without me.
Ashley:For two weeks I lived without clothes, like bare minimum clothes. I had my work clothes and like two sets of pajamas I was living out of, like basically a suitcase. I was sleeping on my mom's couch because my bed was here. All my stuff was here. I had Bruce. That was the only thing that was still up in Michigan. With me was Bruce, but all her toys, everything was here. The only thing that was up there, because my mom has a cat up there. So they were sharing the water dish, they were sharing the food dish, so that was fine, but like everything else was all up here.
Dustin:It just sounds not fun.
Ashley:It was horrible, Like my hair dryer was up here. It was down here Like everything I owned, all my books, all my like my entire life was here while I was up there. So, and then what I did is my brother stayed for an extra day down here and then my brother ended up flying back up to Michigan with me for a bit while we were waiting for this, and then my mom, my brother and myself, we all flew down back down to Florida with my cat and toe and got an airplane and we moved so and it was that. Was it so like it was? It was the most stressful I've ever had, but at the end of the day, it was so it was so nice. But you know, you know what I get asked the most what is why I keep moving back to Florida?
Dustin:Yeah. I mean that's a, that's a. That's a lot of moves.
Ashley:I've done it three times and I've thought about it for so long because I've had so many people that, especially after I went through what I went through, that you know people assume that I was just going to stay back up in Michigan, I was going to create my life up there. I still have some friends that are up in Michigan that were you know we were going to try to figure it out and it was kind of one of those okay, do I want to stay? Do I want to do this? What do I want to do? And for me, florida has always been my home. I was born here. I found I have the greatest friendships here. I found my love for restaurants here. I I'm now actively learning myself all over again here and I just wanted to be back when, like so when I was a kid, we lived here.
Ashley:So I was born in Tampa. We lived here for about seven years. So when we moved up to Michigan I was like I hate snow, I hate being cold, I don't do it. I I want to be back home, like I want to actively go back to where I feel comfort. Like all my sports teams were here. I felt connected to people here. That worked for the theme parks, because we would, you know, vacation to Disney, we would do all those things. So it was like I need to be back where I feel at home.
Ashley:And then, when my father died, I was like this was the closest I have ever felt, that we were still connected. You know, because, like my dad took me to Disney, my, like my parents obviously took me to Disney for the first time when I got into the college program. We flew down to Florida and my dad was like the proud dad, like telling every buddy that I was that I got in, that I was going to start working for them. Like it was my dad who had drove, who had flown me down the first time when it came to to my college program. It was. I think this is where I've always felt at peace and at home. So, and every time, like each time, I think, okay, I think I'll go to a different state, like I thought about living in Tennessee, I thought about living in Colorado, I thought about living in Maine, I thought about, like, what in the world was, even in those places, that made you want to go there.
Ashley:New adventures, restaurants. Nobody knew who I was, like it just started. It just was like, okay, let's do it. That sounds like a great adventure. Like I thought about living in Canada for a minute. I thought about packing up all my stuff, putting Bruce in a backpack and living in Paris and France for a minute. Like it was.
Ashley:Because I feel like that's what you do in your twenties you try to figure out what you want to do with your life. So I went through so many phases where I'm like, okay, maybe I want to do this, maybe I want to do that, maybe I'll do this. And now that like it's just me. It was me and Bruce, but like it's just us. I don't, there's nothing that like was tying me down to one central location. So when it came time to like picking my home or picking what I wanted to do, it was an operator for me, because my circle is here, my friends are here, my, you know, like my best friend is here, my, my comfort zone is here. So, but yeah, every time I'm like, okay, maybe I'll do something different, I, it just pulls me right back.
Dustin:Yeah.
Ashley:Like I will never. I I I'm a firm believer that I think I'll never move again.
Dustin:Like I might move apartments but like I don't think I'll ever potentially, maybe, probably. Yeah, at some point.
Ashley:At some point in my life that, yeah, probably. I do think that there's a small part of me, though that like low key kind of wants to live alone, because I've never done that. Like in my entire life I've never lived alone. I went from living with my parents to living at the college program, to living with a boy, to living with boy and parents, to having my mom and my brother and sister kind of live with me during a pandemic, and then back with the boy to back with my family to now living with roommates. So I have never been alone Like I have never. I have never done it. I have never lived by myself. I I'm learning how to do things by myself. So like there's moments where all my roommates are at work Rob will be at work, zach and Julia will be at work, and the house is all quiet and I'm just like I don't know what to do with my life.
Dustin:And that's when you call me and you go come over, I'm bored, I literally do.
Ashley:I literally do. I have a fantastic therapist who whom I love, and I have been working with him for I just hit a year with him and I love him. He. He knows me more at times than I know myself. It's very bad.
Dustin:Well.
Ashley:I mean that's their job. I know, but like I love him, he's great and he's up in Michigan, so it's nice that he like still helps me down here, which is great. But he, he has challenged me this year to do a lot of things by myself and I can't do it, dude, I suck at it. I am not an alone person, but I am learning how to be an alone person, but you know, I'll never be a person that packs on time.
Dustin:So one hurdle at a time. Kids, I I could agree. I can agree with that, because up until like two and a half three years ago, how long have I been single for?
Ashley:I don't know why that's funny to me, but you know what it is? Because I am a single person. Now that is so weird for me to say because it's been so long since I have. I mean, the last time I went on a date I was 22 and I will be 20, I will be 28 in July and I that's. That's a long time and I'm just like, oh my God, it's been a year and a half, like a year and a month.
Dustin:How long have you been single? Huh, huh.
Ashley:Yeah, how long have you been single?
Dustin:I don't remember, but it took me. It took me the last relationship that I got out of, the one that broke me for a while, before I started doing things by myself, and I enjoy it to an extent, as long as it's not going in a gas station. I don't know why I don't like going gas stations by myself. You know what?
Ashley:you know what I'm going through right now. I don't like going to doctor's offices by myself.
Dustin:Oh, I'm fine with that.
Ashley:No, I get like when I was in the emergency room I was. I was very much alone. Like my brother had to work, and so did Zach and Julia, and my mom was on a cruise with absolutely no way of contacting her. I will get one of these times I'll have to go into that story because I literally contacted no region. It was like hi, my mom's on a ship, get me in touch with this woman I think I'm dying. Like, and my sister was up in Michigan, so I had, I had no, nobody there, so there was like I would go days, obviously. Like I was in the hospital for almost four days and I wouldn't see a single person except for the nurses, like it was. I have never felt more alone in my entire life than I did during that period.
Dustin:Geez, thanks, we were talking yeah, but like I'm kidding, I'm kidding, but no, I understand the difference from like texting somebody and actually having a person be there, especially during that time period like it's a surgery, it's it's it's going under, it's.
Ashley:There's terrifying things, like you know and and for me, that was absolutely terrifying for me. Like that took me, it took me a minute to like fully be okay with the fact that. Like this is my life now.
Dustin:Yeah, I think that's been a big bone of contention with me moving down here and not having other than my roommates, and I'm thoroughly enjoying my roommates and that's what we have. We have a roommate relationship. We don't always like. My relationship with my roommates is not like your relationship with your roommates. You guys go grocery shopping together and you all do all these things. We live in a house together and we pay rent together. We hang out.
Ashley:You call have a date, that's it.
Dustin:Yeah, that's pretty much. It, that's pretty much, all we do, but so to get in, you know, to connect with you guys and to have cultivated the relationships that we have has been nice because. I know I'm not alone in Orlando.
Ashley:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think that's the scary. That was for me, especially moving the first time into the college program was that was the scariest time, because you don't know anybody and you're getting paired with people who are completely in utter strangers. So when I decided that I was coming back down this third time with with Zach and Julia and Rob, I went I can't be alone. I I'm at a point where in my life right now where I cannot do this by myself Like I am. I am honest to God. I am not there yet. I am terrified to do it. So do me a favor If you're going to go to work, that's fine, but just let me know that that's what's going on and if you're here, just pop in check in. Let's do things together, because I need that Like I. I mentally need that.
Dustin:I'm just here for the free coffee.
Ashley:That's so fair, because I have a great espresso machine. Oh, do I have to take you to work in the morning Probably.
Ashley:You'll be okay, love you, you're the best. But like. It's one of those situations where, like I, kind of you, I had to like if you I mean because when I, when I made the decision to come back down, I flew down to Florida in August and met with Zach and Julian was like, before I decide anything, before we sign a lease, before we do any of this, I need you to know where my mental state is at and Zach was like okay, buddy, I'm here for you. And I was like, okay, let's do it.
Dustin:You mean Bubba?
Ashley:Yeah, my Bubba.
Dustin:Bubba, that's my Bubba. I'm still still getting used to that phrase Bubba, bubba.
Ashley:Zach is Bubba, jule, julie, jules, as she has so many nicknames for me she's Blondie and Jules, and if we're like here, she's Julie.
Dustin:To me she is hey, I met you at the Chris guy. Hi, Chris, so that's a fun story We'll have to explain later. Absolutely.
Ashley:And then Rob is Rob or Kid or Champa, so yeah, and then you have like 12 different nicknames too. You have Obviously Dustin, and then I call you Dusty, and then you know what they call me at work?
Dustin:What do they call you at work? Dusty Buns.
Ashley:Dusty Buns, which is funny. I called you.
Dustin:Dusty Boo I used to have. I used to have the man bun. My hair was long enough for it.
Ashley:I know I've seen this pictures.
Dustin:And my co-workers at Starbucks. They all called me Dusty Buns, but they didn't call me Dusty Buns because of the bun. They called me Dusty Buns because of Dustin from Stranger Things.
Ashley:Yeah yeah, you get Dusty Boo sometimes, yep, or that hateful host that I want, that I need to get rid of. Yeah, sometimes I call you like fucker quite a bit. I'm like what the fuck is wrong with you?
Dustin:Yeah, that's fun. Remember that conversation we had today how we said like no more four letter cuss words on the podcast.
Ashley:Yeah, they definitely dropped down a couple of those today, so More than a couple. Yeah, you know what? I dropped one gd because it was deserved. At the time, I decided that we weren't gonna put this on youtube for a little bit.
Dustin:Well, we're still, I'm still gonna upload, but we're not gonna do the video podcast. That's so fair.
Ashley:Hey, you know what I really do want to talk to people about, though. What I would like to talk to people about a book.
Dustin:Well, I think we should move to that segment a moment, but beforehand, do you have, I mean, do we have anything else when it comes to moving, or anything that?
Ashley:I think, sir Okay, let's do this if you were An outside person looking at our lives, what would be something that you would take away from our experience that you would apply to your moving? You can totally say none of it, because I don't mean I don't know, because Um you've listened to us, you've heard us. We've we've shared quite a few stories of our stuff, our trials and tribulations.
Dustin:trials I mean I'm moving, everything went well. I just I didn't have employment lined up.
Ashley:But maybe that's what you would take away.
Dustin:I mean, well, I don't know, because Look here I'm the happiest I've ever been. I mean, I have a job now and took me a minute to find it. But if I, if that would have been the case, if that would have been the takeaway, I wouldn't be here right now.
Ashley:That's so true.
Dustin:That's so true because all the places I wanted to work they don't. They did not hire you if your address is not um in florida.
Ashley:Yeah.
Dustin:It's hard yeah.
Ashley:I don't know. I think for me it would be to make sure that that, whoever you're living with you communicate, because I think a roommate situation can make or break your stay. Anywhere you are, even if you're not moving to florida, even if you're moving to a different space, even if you're moving into college, wherever you're you're moving into that you're, you're coming out of your parents house and you're you're going for your first time. Here you go. I think an over communication to the roommate situation is a necessary aspect of of moving.
Dustin:Yeah, but all right. Well, guys, that's our main topic for today. So in just a moment let's let's talk about some books. All right guys. So welcome to the end of our episode. So we've decided that we are going to discuss the Orlando unplugged book plug unofficially, Um the Orlando unplugged book plug officially. How about the?
Ashley:Orlando unplugged book club.
Dustin:Okay, fine, whatever.
Ashley:We're okay.
Dustin:So me and ash See me and ashley are reading a book. If you guys want to join us, Join us. We've decided to put this at the end of our episodes. That way, people don't have to skip anything if they don't want to Listen to this or aren't interested in our book club, or if they're reading it and they don't want any spoilers. Um, so they know, but we are currently reading. We wound up at a bookstore barns and obel love them.
Dustin:I can spend hours there and we were looking for cookbooks and we stumbled across a book called what mother won't tell me. By what's the name?
Ashley:ashley, I'm gonna screw you, barley, on manger.
Dustin:Ivar, ivar, ivar, okay, um, and.
Ashley:I think please don't come for me if I mispronounce your name. I'm so sorry.
Dustin:It's translated by jayme bullock Um, so for my, uh, remind me ashley. Where is this author based? Um, because it's there. He's not an amer is he?
Ashley:right, yeah, yeah, yeah, he is not a he's not an american author.
Dustin:I think he's from, like norway or sweden.
Ashley:Hang on, hang on, hang on. I'm so sorry, I literally had this Um, oh, I'm so, that was so bad. Um germany, germany, germany. There it is, I'm sorry.
Dustin:Um so pretty much. Um, we picked this up and we're we're planning to read through a chapter two a week and discuss a little bit of it at the end of our episodes. Um so, pretty much, I'm just gonna give you the tagline of this book. I'm not gonna go through the synopsis that we'd read originally.
Ashley:Um but if you want to hear that, we talk about it. I think it's like three episodes ago.
Dustin:Before we went to.
Ashley:Tennessee.
Dustin:Yeah, so sometimes the most dangerous strangers are the ones in the bedroom across the hall. So keep that in mind as we start discussing um the first two chapters and we introduce you to juno, who is the main protagonist In this book.
Ashley:So actually she's the one that we, you kind of follow her story, so she's the one that narrates the entire thing. It's through her perspective, um, you, you, you follow along her, her journey here. So, um, in the first chapter, you're introduced to their Sunday night board game night.
Dustin:And you're introduced to her family and you're introduced to the family.
Ashley:So you have juno mother, father and brother.
Dustin:And juno, 16 brothers, 12 and we don't know the ages of the parents, so we're just gonna assume like 40s, 50s.
Ashley:Probably, no, I would say probably. They seem younger because of the, the, how Like fit they are when it comes to to in that chapter, two aspect which we'll get into. So I'm thinking more like 30s, 40s, I'm not saying 40s, 50s.
Dustin:I'm thinking 30 40s.
Ashley:I can agree with that, yeah based on the fact that juno 16, so I would go somewhere around there.
Dustin:Yeah, so um so, pretty much the first chapter. Actually, what's happening?
Ashley:So, um, they do a board game night and, um, they debate on what they should play and they go back and forth. And juno is very she. She seems to be kind of like headstrong pretty hard, like Very much stuck in her way, like she kind of and I don't want to say stuck in her way. She kind of seems like she wants to push buttons.
Dustin:I think. I think it's, I think she knows what she's doing. I think so she's yeah, um, you guys will find out. She's wanting information about something. Yeah, and you?
Ashley:kind of get a tad bit of it, because the first chapter is only four pages long. It's real short, so she goes from trying to push for they talk about wanting to play scrabble, they talk about wanting to play monopoly, and then they end up in the game of.
Dustin:Risk risk, which was juno's decision. Juno pushed for risk, correct. Which mother does not like this game?
Ashley:Correct, but she but you don't understand why mom doesn't like it. They don't go into detail about it. And then all of a sudden juno's looking at this map because they place it out and everybody gets their tokens.
Dustin:Well, it's just. Yeah. For those of you that don't know, risk is a game where it's. It's a war game when you play as individual countries to try to try to take over the world. So it gets to the point where they're picking out their countries.
Ashley:Yeah, but you have territories, so six continents and 42 territories. And she goes and lists all the, the, the names of everything. And Dad's like hey, is it a world domination or is it a mission? And they're like world domination, we're gonna take over the world. You're so great. And um, all of a sudden, juno starts looking at this board and she's like what are you looking for? Mom's like what, what the hell are you looking for? And she's like Where's northland and southland? I can't see them. And all of a sudden, like mom's face goes white, brother goes, or boy, it's not brother, it's boy, boy goes. Where are they? And then everybody gets up from the table and leaves. Yeah, mom is angry. Oh, she was pissed.
Dustin:No, remind me because I've forgotten, because I was like two weeks ago when I read chapter one. Um, do we know where they're living in chapter one, or is that?
Ashley:in chapter two. No, no, so that's literally it is.
Dustin:They've just talked about this board game.
Ashley:Mom got pissed and dessert was over, and so was board game. Yeah, so that is that is chapter one.
Dustin:You pretty much just figure out that Everything this is not a normal book. We're not living in a normal World, obviously. So when we move on to chapter two, this is when you learn are these? Are they titled?
Ashley:No, okay, that's what I thought no, and when you get into chapter two you learn. This is when you start to learn a little bit about the characters. So we get introduced to Juno and her background a little bit with with in terms of how long they've been living on, they've been living on this island. So they have to take a boat to get to their house on the island. It's very secluded.
Dustin:Well, they don't take a boat.
Ashley:Father is the only one allowed, correct, but that's how they got on to the island was they had to take a boat from the land, from the, from the south land, to get to their island. It's surrounded by water. They have no access off of it, only father does and that's only. One one sunday. One sunday a month.
Dustin:One sunday a month and he goes to the guards village to get the basic things.
Ashley:Sugar, butter, milk, eggs, that kind of thing, everything else. They forage, they kill animals. They do all of those things all on their own. So what killed me here is in the very first sentence she goes I've been living on this island for 144 months. Like you, you kept track of the months, girl. Like what about the years?
Dustin:No well, I mean, it's the same as like when people are in, like In prison, they count the days.
Ashley:But that, and that's exactly what I thought about. It All dramatically was oh my god, this girl is trapped, like clearly she is trapped because this is how she is associating with this. Oh my god, here we go.
Dustin:And then they go into like and, for the record, 144 months is 12 years.
Ashley:I'm so good, you do the math. So she's going through like all of this stuff about how they live, what their responsibilities are, how this works, and she there's like little sentences in here that just make me think that it's almost like. At first I got like Apocalypse kind of vibe from it.
Dustin:I mean, that's, that's definitely what it sounds like. To me it sounds Uh, and we're only in two chapters, but this sounds like something post apocalyptic when. I hear northland and southland.
Dustin:It made me think of the hunger games it makes me think of a, a post apocalyptic America, which it's not a post apocalyptic America because this is a, a german Story. So I have a feeling it's a european country that there may be in or something, I don't know yet but then we find out that boy, which is uh, june's brother, wants to leave the island.
Ashley:At six years old, 12, 12 years old, he wants to leave the island. He's like I'm done, I've had enough, I don't want to do this anymore. Father gets to go on a boat. I'm going on a boat, I'm going to this island, bye, bye. And she's like you're crazy, you're gonna get in trouble.
Dustin:And then we're going out, because that goes against leaving the island without permission, goes against one of the commandments, and we'll get into that. I can't wait for that.
Ashley:But you know what killed me, as I didn't realize it until we got to the part of the commandments. But in the beginning scene, which if foreshadows the commandments, she goes. You'll get us in trouble.
Ashley:Mm-hmm and I went. Why would you get us in trouble if boy goes on that boat? Boy, you're gonna get in trouble. Girl, you, you stand in your bed and then all of a sudden, they're fishing, they're getting ready for dinner and, uh, some big old arms go off, some zombie, apocalypse sounding, and they take off, running to their house. They leave the fish, they leave the poles, they leave everything and they run to mom and dad.
Dustin:Give me just a second Hold on. I'm trying to adjust this mic without making noise, but it's making noise.
Ashley:Yeah, let me just interrupt you, okay.
Dustin:All right, there we go.
Ashley:Okay. So then they get to the house and all of a sudden they get in the living room and dad pulls back. They bolt the door, they go into the kitchen I'm sorry, the kitchen out the living room. Yeah, they go into the kitchen. Dad moves the dining room table, rolls back at the carpet and there's a gaping ass hole in the floor.
Dustin:I don't think it's a gaping hole. I literally says it's a gaping hole but I'm pretty sure it's a Like a door, like the village door.
Ashley:Yeah, but a gaping hole on the floor is what she says and I take a step and she, and then we find out Juno has some claustrophobia fears and a drug problem. Not yet. We haven't got there yet. Slow down, don't give too much away just yet. I'm not here. This is this book's gonna give me a loop, so then we learn why they're in the hole.
Dustin:Why are they in the hole? They're in the hole because daddy decided to testify against the Tribunal the tribunal yeah, tribunal which we don't really know what the tribunal is. Yet no idea.
Ashley:We just know that father's testimony put some dangerous villains away of the south land and they were arrested and thrown into prisons for decades. So the those that did not go into prison are actively searching for them All over around the world to take revenge on father and his family.
Dustin:So part of me is starting to wonder if is, if this is some form of like. You know how Katniss fights against. The, the capital and the government if he has turned against, like the government of whatever this southland is, and they're coming to get him now.
Ashley:Yeah, and then he goes. So now then you find out that the north land, which is where they're actively living, they protect them, but they're they live too far out to Get to the island fast enough. So something were to happen if the south land people were to get onto their island the north people the guards would not be able to get to them in time to help save them. So that's why they've created this scenario.
Dustin:It sounds like they don't have Electricity, it sounds like, but they do, because they have the alarm. Um, but I don't think do they use electricity in the house or I don't think we've gotten to that point.
Ashley:I'm not sure because I know when the game happened they were. They laid some candles.
Dustin:Yeah, so I'm wondering like. I don't know if there's clearly no kind of electric boats and stuff out on this water.
Ashley:No, because I think dad's boat was hand paddled Like he got a row, that shit.
Dustin:Or it could be that they have electricity, but we are in a post apocalyptic world where Boats and stuff aren't a thing, so we've got you know, oil and Coal, electricity for lights and stuff, but we don't have like boats and cars and things like that.
Ashley:Here's the most disturbing part of this entire chapter. You want to talk about the pill problem the pill problem. So mother goes okay, here kids, what's the scenario? What are you going to do? Like trying to test these kids, and she's like what are you going to do? I'm sorry, excuse me.
Dustin:Have we determined that this was a drill?
Ashley:Yes, okay, kind of well yeah, yeah, we did emphasize the fact that this is a drill. This is not. Obviously they're not coming to get them right now. Father decided, hey, we're gonna test these kids, we're gonna run through a scenario. It takes a whole new meaning to fire drills. So mommy goes hey, what are you guys gonna do if, um, they don't survive the attack? And they try to get you in the safe room? Yeah, what are you gonna do to protect yourself? And the little boy at 12 goes Juno and I and I quote, I literally am reading this from the book goes Juno and I are gonna take the comfort pills. I was like the fuck.
Dustin:I know it, it immediately.
Ashley:I got, I but explain.
Dustin:Explain what this comfort pill is, and then I'll explain my process behind it.
Ashley:So this is a I don't. I hang on. It is a Fruit jelly mixture of ripe wild strawberries, elderflower cherries and sour cranberries that follow that. That before swallowing a fat, tasteless pill hidden in sugary coating.
Dustin:So it is literally what these parents and they go on to Juno and them pretty much. They beg when they really yes, this is a drill.
Ashley:They have the pill. It's a reward.
Dustin:They beg to take it and they're saying first we have to review the commitments and here in just a moment will go over all those commandments, but afterwards they get to take the pill. And Juno is so excited to take the comfort pill so was because it's candy.
Ashley:Oh my god, they're so happy about it.
Dustin:But what I realized is they are training the children For a quick and painless death, which again will make sense in a moment. So they're literally Convincing them that this pill is so oh, it's gonna taste so good, it's gonna be like candy, and it's probably gonna be in real life If this was, or if they were actually being attacked cyanide or something that is going to actively kill them.
Ashley:Yeah, I think when, if something were to happen like this, I think the pills will be replaced with with an active agent. That would go though it's not come, it's not a comfort pill, it will, it's a kale pill.
Dustin:Yeah, so let's take a second to go over the commandments that they had to to describe before they were allowed to take the chill pill seven.
Ashley:There's seven commandments and on, like she was, like boy and I could recite these commitments we could literally do in our sleep. So the commandment number one is we have to hide when uncle Oya comes. And the commandment number two say that again oil, oh Le.
Dustin:Hi, no, the whole.
Ashley:Thing we have to hide when uncle oil comes there we go, because I didn't understand.
Dustin:You know I'm sorry, my apologies.
Ashley:Number two we must never lie. Number three no one's allowed to enter father's library. I guess a Juno spilled some things and ripped off a dirty novel that our mommy was rooting. Gotten some big old trouble. Number three, or I'm sorry. Number four when we hear the siren, we have to go to the safe room straight away, no matter what we're doing. Number five we mustn't eat any berries we're not sure of. I guess during this Commandment was when. The fifth commandment was when boy got in. He got sick.
Ashley:Mm-hmm and there's no doctors. They couldn't call a doctor from the village and that prompted the next commandment that the next one? Yeah, no, no, that was the, which is we kill no, no, no.
Ashley:Um. The fifth commandment was prompted by the berry situation. The sixth commandment is we must always kill quickly and painlessly. And the seventh and most important role is we're not allowed to leave our Island without mother or father's permission. Otherwise, both of us will get will be punished. Which was that foreshadowing I just spoke of earlier in terms of why Juno was so panicked that boy, at 12, was going to get on this boat and go to the island, mm-hmm.
Ashley:So then we get to when she's like, I'm pretty sure Boy is getting up, it's bedtime and he's going, and she walks into his room. She realizes that the little brother is still asleep, that he did not leave, that she's okay. She stands at his bed, she says a prayer to God and then she leaves us With a ending of chapter 2 and goes. Very soon, my little brother, the two of us will embark on our adventure and discover the forbidden world out there. I promise you this. However, many strangers are lying and wait for us, which to me seems like it's foreshadowing the fact that they're gonna try to leave.
Dustin:Yeah, I think they're gonna try to do it together. That is as far as we've read.
Ashley:We've read together that far and it's killing me that I can't read my question now is Knowing what you know. Yes.
Dustin:What do you think Happens in the rest of this book?
Ashley:I think mommy and daddy are Not hiding because dad testified. I Think there's more to that story, like I think, either in terms of Dad's, the one that's like it was the bad guy, like he's supposed to be in jail I Think that could be the case. I think it may be like the eye, like he could be the head honcho and they're trying to hide him. I think that seems more pliable to me because, like you don't teach your children to take a pill, that will at some point potentially be replaced with a kill pill, unless you're actively hiding something.
Dustin:I Don't know if I necessarily agree with that last bit, because I don't know we've what. What happened in the Hunger Games?
Ashley:Yes, but I don't think, I don't want to keep.
Dustin:I don't mean to keep referencing that, but it's just kind of what my brain's gone to because we keep talking about dystopian. But they, they go to eat the berries at the end to kill themselves. Yeah, they do that together because if they don't, what they are going to endure is much, much worse. And we're talking like look at the movie the quiet place where the monsters are there they're, these monsters that hear by sound.
Dustin:Yeah and if you make a sound, they're gonna literally rip you to shreds and kill you. I mean so. I've seen things where it's like you know, if the bad people come, you take yourself, so they can't take you.
Ashley:But my thing is is why did mom, why did clearly somebody were moved islands off of a map? Like it innocent child's game? I I mean a risk. I don't think it's a child's game, but like why? Why remove two very key territories?
Dustin:I don't think they were ever on the map.
Ashley:No, she said, she goes. I when did they?
Dustin:go. They were there. Where did they go?
Ashley:She said where is no, no, no. She literally was like where did they go?
Dustin:They don't. They were never on there. I don't think they were ever.
Ashley:Yeah, they couldn't find it. Hang on.
Dustin:No, she goes.
Ashley:Where's Northland and Southland? I can't see them anywhere. I.
Dustin:Can't see them anywhere.
Ashley:Where did they go? Yes, but why is it? All of a sudden, mom got up and she was like no, because I. Think it wasn't it wasn't on risk risk.
Dustin:Northland and Southland was never a part of risk. That's why I'm saying I think this is a dystopian thing. I think that Northland and Southland is something that happened after his society has collapsed.
Ashley:I don't know. I think you might be thinking too much into that.
Dustin:No, I know I'm not because I think you are getting confused on the fact of.
Ashley:I think you want this to be hunker games.
Dustin:No, I don't. I don't want it to be hunger games. I just my brain said dystopian and in my my thing that I do, I locked on to something. But I'm not comparing this. This is not apples to oranges. This is a completely original story, but I think of this says.
Ashley:It's like, apparently, at some point she's gonna be spotted by a stranger and one moment Juno's world comes crumbling down around her and it's clear the island she calls home is not the safe haven she will lead it to be, and there's more than a few secrets that have been kept from her. I just think some shit.
Dustin:Can I say my theory now?
Ashley:Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, you're fine.
Dustin:I think. I think they aren't hiding. I think people are hiding them. I think whatever this guard village is is probably a guard village of their people. I don't necessarily think that, mmm, I don't know so far. I feel like Dad might have done the right thing. I don't know but Mother is the bad guy. That is gonna be my guess. My guess is that Dad is the good guy, mother is the bad guy. Dad doesn't realize that mother is the bad guy. I could be completely wrong.
Dustin:I think both the fairies are the bad guy and they could be, but I'm interested to see where this is. So tune in next week to see our opinions on chapter Three and four. I think we should do chapters a week. Do you realize how busy I'm just kidding. Yeah, we'll probably do chapters three and four.
Ashley:Because I'm one of those people when I typically read books, I read them all in one setting well, literally they're like you know how they put people's reviews and stuff on here.
Dustin:It's fine. You're on chapter three. This says Clements I cannot say this last name and I apologize, but they're the international best-selling author, for the quiet tenant said that this is an intoxicating novel, well worth the sleep you will lose as you read just one more chapter. So I think it's gonna be interesting. I think that there's a lot that we're gonna learn about Juno coming up, and I think that we're in for a really fun adventure.
Ashley:So are you one of those people that that when you read a book, you have to read it all the way through? Or can you like put it down?
Dustin:I can put it down and come back. I struggle reading. I always am.
Ashley:Well, I'm dyslexic, so is that why you let me read to you yes, for the record, I did read chapter one by myself. Thank, you yeah, but then I literally read it to you. That's cuz.
Dustin:I was really tired last night but any who thank you guys for joining us this week. We hope you guys have enjoyed it.
Ashley:Don't forget, we want you guys to jump on our social media and tell us your opinion on what you think about social media banning under the age of 16 and give us your, if you have moved, give us your advice that you would give to others advice or your horror stories. Yeah, we definitely would like to read other juicy details. So um Join us for next time. This has been a blast. I love this.
Dustin:Don't forget guys. Please help us out. If you are listening to this podcast still, it's all the way at the end. Yes, make sure you subscribe, rate us on whatever platform you're listening on. Please share our website or lando unplugged podcast calm, it's super easy. It takes two seconds. Copy and paste that into your Facebook. It'll be a neat thing. It'll help us out.
Ashley:We'll be truly appreciative and we'll give you a nice big shout out if you do so. Thank you so much. Yeah, and I will post our book and all the Trader Joe's goodies that we tried today.
Dustin:We're, yeah, we're gonna have, we're gonna dive into Trader Joe's here soon, because I think, I think it's worth it, but until next time.
Ashley:Share this podcast with your Friends, your family and, of course, your favorite bartender have a good one.
Dustin:Peace out, cub scouts.
Ashley:Whoo.