Summer Camps and Water Tastings

In this conversation, George and Alicia discuss various themes related to parenting, youth sports, and societal trends. They explore the dangers of burnout in youth sports, the rising trend of water tastings, changing drinking habits among women, and the impact of economic factors on alcohol consumption. The discussion also touches on the balance between structured summer camps and unstructured play for children, the challenges of navigating youth sports and travel teams, and the complexities of immigration and the path to citizenship.


Chapters

00:00 The Dangers of Burnout in Youth Sports
02:45 The Rise of Water Tastings
05:40 Sober Curiosity and Changing Drinking Habits
08:38 The Impact of Economic Factors on Alcohol Consumption
11:18 Summer Camps vs. Unstructured Play
14:22 Navigating Youth Sports and Travel Teams
25:53 The Challenges of Balancing Sports and Academics
28:39 Immigration and the Path to Citizenship

Keywords

burnout, youth sports, water tastings, sober curiosity, summer camps, travel teams, immigration, citizenship, parenting, wellness

Transcript

Alicia McKenzie(00:00.11)

I actually just saw something the other day from a female coach who was basically warning parents that kids are burning out at 13.

can see why. Especially special island.

I don't want my kids to burn out on anything because I burned out, right? Like by the time I got to high school, I was so done with ballet. I don't want my kids to get to that point. Welcome to Married to the Startup. I'm Alicia McKenzie, a wellness entrepreneur and digital creator. Alongside me is my amazing husband, George, the CEO who's always ready for a new challenge. We've been navigating marriage and running startups for over a decade. And we're here to share the real unfiltered journey with you.

Join us for insights and candid conversations about integrating love, family, and entrepreneurship. This is Married to the Startup, where every day is a new adventure. Welcome back to episode 37. I'm the host, the most. It's episode 37. Good job, dear. If you hear some children in the background, it's summertime. We actually have a lot more kids in this house than...

Are you it's only 37?

George McKenzie (00:58.83)

37.

George McKenzie (01:05.197)

Summertime.

Alicia McKenzie(01:09.46)

belong to us. Like our three year old is having a play date. Correct. Our nine year old has a friend over. Correct. But we're minus one. We've got one on the way home from beach week. She's bringing two others. We're just the house where all the kids want to.

And she's bringing two others.

George McKenzie (01:26.282)

And then we're leaving tonight to go to the Nats game. yeah. Gonna leave all these children behind.

No, because we're taking three of them with us.

We're adding an extra one. are we are one that is currently not in the house. So an addition.

I feel like maybe it's just us. Kids love us.

Summer. Kids love us. Summer.

Alicia McKenzie(01:44.888)

right, we had a birthday party at the Inn at Little Washington for George's birthday.

Yay. That was a long time ago. It was.

long ago anyways during this whole dinner event there was cocktails there was a pre-event there was a lunch and then there was a i'm sorry no lunch there was a tea there was a tea there was all it was obnoxious but it was great and they brought out a water menu now i want to start this by saying i have

I'd like to start it by saying the menu was not made of water.

They brought us a menu that listed several waters for purchase. And I just want to say that I have a freakish taste. I have a really, really strong sense of taste. No, I could just, I can taste any... And he always makes fun of me when I say that water tastes different. Well, now I feel like I've been vindicated because there was a menu...

George McKenzie (02:32.918)

A very refined palate. You can differentiate taste on the palate.

Alicia McKenzie(02:46.968)

that had 10 different waters on them ranging from, I want to say like $24 for a bottle of water all the way up to like 190. What was the most expensive bottle? Yeah, it was nuts. was a bottle. bottle.

Yeah, I think it was a couple hundred dollars for the water. bottle of water or was it just... Okay, so wasn't per the glass.

No, it wasn't pear glass. it was pear glass, I would have gotten and walked up because that would have been too much even for me. But then I recently saw an article that was talking about how wine or I'm sorry, water tastings are now becoming a thing. And there was a summit in Atlanta and it had 1,100 bottles of water. I keep wanting to say wine. Bottles of water. 1,100 bottles of water imported from 35 different countries.

Okay, got it.

George McKenzie (03:27.918)

of water.

George McKenzie (03:32.782)

If you took one down and you passed it around, how many would you have? Sorry. 1100 bottles of water. Okay.

You know, Can you not

Yes. Yes. And it was the biggest event of its kind. Right? It was called the Fine Water Summit held in Buckhead, Atlanta. And the people went there to go taste water.

Yeah, it reminds me, wasn't there a Zac Efron Netflix where they went to a water tasting? I don't remember where it was. Was it LA or was it somewhere where they had a water tasting? Maybe. They the water tasting and was really ranges in price for how much, what's the term? It's the minerals that are in the water. There's a term for it.

I feel like it was in a different country.

Alicia McKenzie(04:14.166)

my gosh, I know what you're talking about.

And then there's also, there's like a rating system, right?

Yeah. gosh. But it like makes, I don't even know how to describe it. Like it makes the water taste fat. Yeah, like it makes...

What a... Mmm, damn, what are you looking at?

It makes the water taste thicker, right? Like it feels more heavy in the mouth, if that makes any sense, right? Like there's some water that tastes really thin and just flows down easily. And there's other water that has like almost like a creamier texture to it. I don't know how to describe it. I could taste the difference, but I can't tell you what the difference is. And I can't tell you why it tastes different. But I do know that there were some waters there that like came off of a glacier.

George McKenzie (04:56.992)

Minerality, the TDS, total dissolved.

Yes, TDS and the difference in minerality.

Yes. So in the TDS is the higher the number for the TDS, that's the more minerals that are in the water and that makes it taste fatter, I guess, in your terms. I don't think I've ever had a super TDS water, but we went on a kick and tried to find the most ones we could find in our local grocery stores. And there are some that have a higher TDS level.

And there's just water that I won't drink because it tastes disgusting. Like, I'm sorry, Evian, but your water's really gross. It's not good water. And then Fiji, right? Like, I don't like Fiji water. I like Fiji. I'm not a fan.

No, I hate it. It tastes soapy to me.

George McKenzie (05:38.67)

I like Fiji, San Pellegrino.

I remember when we were in Europe for six weeks, finding water that the kids would drink because of the taste was really, really difficult. Yeah, you. But the only water that they really, truly loved came out of the aqueduct in Rome.

Kid you mean me.

George McKenzie (05:58.168)

That one was great. And then I think what we said on the aqua Juana is kind of once we got to Italy and then we just aqua Pana is all we would drink.

yeah.

Yeah, water tastings are becoming a thing. But I also, I'm finding it interesting because I think a lot of women are reconsidering their alcohol use in the sense that it just doesn't serve us to drink as much as we used to, right? Like nobody wants to feel like crap in the morning. Nobody wants to have a hangover. Nobody wants to get up with kids when you're feeling cranky. So it's...

rather than drink like you're just abstaining. And I know several women that are going through this right now, they're like, just, I'm not feeling it. I'm not going to drink. And it's not like they ever had an issue with it. So they're not necessarily sober, but I guess the term is sober curious. Good Lord.

But I wonder if it's, I wonder if that is true on a macro scale or is it just a micro of what you see because you're around a recovering addict. You're around people that are trying to move to the next chapter of their lives and they're making changes and they're overall focused on health and wellbeing. So I think that microcosm, that group of women probably are more skewed to.

George McKenzie (07:13.634)

Hey, I don't think drinking is serving me versus a macro view of the entire US or the world is that common.

I want to see numbers because I want to say that the wine consumption for the country has gone down.

I think for the US probably, yeah.

Yeah, right, like we know that to be true.

But it's, think if you look back through history, alcoholism and consumption of alcohol and even baked goods, it goes with the economy. when the economic factors are in a downturn, then more people drink. Your outlook on life becomes less rosy. So you need that.

Alicia McKenzie(07:43.778)

because

Alicia McKenzie(07:50.028)

Are we downturning? the economic factors downturning?

No, we're still in a, I mean we are at the tail end or could be beginning of a boom, who knows.

Are we? Yeah. Are we booming?

I mean, the market is near all time highs, even though the tariff impacts still haven't been felt. I think everyone's in this wait and see. No one really knows where we are.

Yeah, but back to the water tasting. If that's true, so if we're booming, people are drinking less, right? Is that what you're trying to say? Yes. Versus if we're busting, people are drinking more because they're trying to... Yeah. Okay.

George McKenzie (08:24.084)

But I think the water tasting is definitely noticeable. I think as you, I would imagine that water tastings are not a thing in lower socioeconomic status and lower median incomes.

I can recognize how absolutely ridiculous this whole fucking thing sounds, right? Like, we're talking about tasting different waters and paying $200 for a fucking bomb.

And some people are just trying to get access to clean water.

am fully aware of the ridiculousness of this, but I still think it's interesting. And I think the fact that people are offering water menus.

Yeah, and then if you think like you had brought up that Michelin star restaurants are now serving higher quality water. Yeah. So you could, as opposed to having cocktails before you have your tasting menu with your wine pairing, maybe you get a higher end, higher TDS water and you, you know, taste the difference. And they're definitely better for you, right? The more that's the common misconception is that, you know,

George McKenzie (09:26.882)

Heavy water, water with all the minerals would not be good for you. And we filter all that shit out and we filter out all the stuff that you actually need. Like just regular water, your body, takes away, it pulls those minerals out of your body versus give it to you.

Tell the fish story. What fish story? Dave's fish story.

What, when Dave had his fish and he put in RO water instead of regular water? And then he woke up and I get... Was he changing out the water? Yeah, so he replaced the water with reverse osmosis water, which is water where all of the minerals have been removed and it's just pure water, right? So naturally you're like, this should be good for the fish. It fucking killed all the fish. It killed all of the fish. He woke up the next morning, they were all dead. And it's because...

Yeah, I think he changed it out.

Alicia McKenzie(10:14.604)

water that has been demineralized has to pull the mineral from somewhere. So I think it came from the fish body.

Yeah. And it's the same thing that happens to you. Like we noticed it in Vegas, like, cause a lot of the water they give you the free water and the hotels and stuff. It's all RO water. if they don't add minerals back into it, then, you know, when you're hung over, that does not help you at all. It makes it worse.

Yeah, for sure. But I do think that it is a sign of the times, right? People are drinking less. So let's offer them a water menu and figure out how to pull their funs out way.

Yeah, I mean, think it's the same with like higher, there's, you know, I've read articles about higher end bars doing more elaborate mocktail menus to kind of compete with the cocktail menu. So basically having very, very similar pomp and circumstance for the mocktail as they do for the cocktail and then making it a menu item that people who are sober or people who just choose not to drink, but it's an opportunity for the bar to still make that high margin revenue. On juice. Right?

Well, it's the presentation and it's the mixing of the whatever they're mixing. Yeah, mean, they got to, if your clientele, which the margins on cocktails are fantastic, right? Alcohol margins are great. So if you lose that revenue source in a business, restaurant, what have you, you have to replace it with something else that's equally high margin, which food is not. I mean, I think it's high margin, but not nearly as high as the alcohol and wine.

George McKenzie (11:42.766)

So you're not selling that, then if you could replace it with water or mocktails and get the same kind of profit margin. That sounds fantastic.

Well, and I'm annoyed because I went to an event or we went to an event and I just want to say that I drink maybe four to six times a month. Like I'm not a huge drinker. I don't drink scotch. don't if I do drink it's like an Aperol spritz. Love me a good Aperol spritz. But we went to an event last year and if the event is before noon, like I'm not going to touch alcohol. I don't drink in the morning. They served mimosas. They had champagne. Like they had all of this. And I'm like, can I just get a sparkling water?

and they didn't have anything. What they had was like a jug, like a red jug that had water and little plastic cups. I'm not going to say where it was. I know you were with me and I was super annoyed. I'm like, can a bitch get a sparkling water? apparently not. I know you can get champagne, but you can get a champagne tower and a champagne waterfall, but no water for you. Yes. I was very sad.

Where was this? don't remember. What event was this?

Alicia McKenzie(12:46.527)

It didn't happen this year. I voiced my complaint.

I I remember what this was. I know this event. We up getting some sparkling water that was a mixer. It wasn't sparkling, it was a mixer for some cocktail that they had. We said, hey, can I have that? Just not the alcohol.

Yeah, it was better.

Alicia McKenzie(12:58.838)

It was.

Yeah. And then she handed me the can and I'm like, can you put some ice in?

I don't remember now.

Mm-hmm. But it's like, I love the presentation and I love, a good cocktail. I just don't want the alcohol. So if you can give me all of that without the booze, I'm good. I'm here for it. Booze. Is your life so hard that you have to drink it away? I can't drink you.

I'm here for the

George McKenzie (13:25.166)

I enjoy a good drink or two. Like I don't want to go out and get blitzed. I just want one or two. And like Scotch, don't even, I don't think I get drunk on Scotch. I just love the taste.

Okay, last thing before we move on. Last thing. We went to a kegger like two weeks ago and there were five kegs there and we floated all five of them.

yeah, we did.

George McKenzie (13:47.894)

We weren't the only two people there, mind you. There was a lot, a lot.

There was a lot of people and it was was a fundraiser for our children's school So everybody bought a ticket to this event and it was a keg party

Yeah, it was a bunch of forty-somethings at a keg party. I know, I'm speaking for myself and like one or two other guys that were there. There was one person older than me. He was, he's in his 50s. He was there.

I am not 40.

Alicia McKenzie(14:13.614)

Stop aging me. saying. There was a bunch of 30 somethings reliving their college days and playing beer pong and I got so drunk. You did not. Nope. Because I don't drink beer. And I drink a lot of beer. You did.

I did not.

George McKenzie (14:29.794)

But it was fun. You were drinking from the pouring pitcher for the beer pong toward the end of the night. it was great.

I ran into one of the guys at baseball the next day and he's like, you know, I'm surprised nobody caught COVID or anything because we were all drinking from the same cups.

the ones we were playing beer pong with? Yeah. I tried to stay on the same table, so I had the same cups in front of me.

Nope. We were spreading it out. There were four different tables.

It was a super spreader event. Maybe the alcohol kills it though. Sick. Yeah, because maybe the alcohol kills, mean alcohol probably kills most viruses and germs. So if it's on the rim. Rubbing alcohol or alcohol that you rub on your hands, it's still alcohol. It's like most of the content on those hand sanitizers is

Alicia McKenzie(14:57.762)

Maybe because nobody got

Alicia McKenzie(15:11.286)

I believe you. All right, moving on. We're officially in summer. We're two weeks into summer break. we have this debate all the time. No, we haven't missed any. Because we backfilled.

Yeah

missing pod sessions. Great. All the weeks fall together for me.

Yeah. But if you hear a bunch of kids right I do hear a bunch I hear them. I hear them loud and clear, but I don't think our mics are picking them up, which, cool, cool, cool. But we have this debate because a lot of our friends utilize summer camps, which some of them have to because they work full-time in an office, which I totally get not talking about this. We have the ability to work from home. Our work schedules are very fluid. We can decide when we're taking meetings, when we're not. And we struggle with...

how much we want to lean on summer camp versus letting our children have unscheduled time to just do their own thing. And I think we've done a pretty good job for the first couple of weeks. It's going to get old. But like there was one day where the kids were going crazy. And I'm like, you know what? Put on your rain boots and walk to the creek and go catch a fish. And they took their plastic bags and they put on their rain boots.

Alicia McKenzie(16:23.244)

And they walked down to the creek, and I would say it's probably like a half a mile from our house. So they walked there, didn't get lost. They walked back. Like, we felt very comfortable with the fact that nobody's going to steal our little heathen children. And they didn't catch any fish, but they had fun, right? They were in there, they were splashing in the creek, they came back dirty, and then they jumped in the pool. So it's like, how much unstructured versus structured camp do we need, right? I feel like Camp Mommy and Camp Daddy, we do a pretty good job, but...

are our kids missing out?

Yeah, I think the missing out one maybe and then two, it's, you know, maybe they need to be put in uncomfortable positions. And I know you were for this and the big thing was last year we had signed them up for sleepaway camp in the summer and it was two weeks and ten days. It's two business weeks. Anyway, anywho, our children did not want to go. I sided with the children and did not make them go.

That's two weeks. That's not two weeks.

Alicia McKenzie(17:23.342)

So the camp that I set up and paid for fully, he did not send our kids to. And I was very annoyed.

Yeah. Well, the bigger part for me was, you know, we were spending, what do we have, five weeks maybe at our beach house. Yeah. And two of those weeks would have been eaten up with this camp. And it's just, to me, I didn't think that was right.

That's not true. just sided with your big baby son who was crying that he wanted to stay home. You're the softy in that situation.

Maybe.

Yeah. And I think signing them up for baseball camps, I think is good. I like the baseball camps.

Alicia McKenzie(17:57.998)

I'll just complain though. Why? Because I tried to spontaneously sign the boys up for a camp and they're like, registration's closed. It was two weeks in advance.

Yeah, in this area, the Northern Virginia area, it is so...

annoying. Like there is, I don't want to have to plan my summer camp in fucking December.

Yeah, but it's like when we've got IOP, we'll go down there and we'll get them in a basketball camp or another camp like the week before. Yeah. It's so great.

And the camp wasn't full. That's what annoyed me. It wasn't waitlisted. It wasn't full. They just closed down registration. It makes zero sense to me. So that is one thing that really grinds my gears about living in this area.

George McKenzie (18:25.57)

They just closed down registration?

George McKenzie (18:38.668)

My gears, look at you, the family guy reference. Yeah. And the baseball camps I like, cause I think it's fun, it's exercise, they run around, maybe they learn something, maybe they don't. Cause I think the camps are so wide open in terms of skill level, it's probably hard to teach maybe more than one thing that, you know, they would pick up on or keep. And then I know there's like people that send their kids to math camp, to computer camp, to English camp, to all these, these kind of continual educational.

Peter Griffin, anybody?

George McKenzie (19:07.97)

camps. And then the camp that we were going to send them to is more of a sleepaway camp, which taught you more like back to nature type stuff. then, you know, the kids used to watch that show with their stupid cell and Nickelodeon camp kikiwaka. Right. So I personally, I never did a sleepaway camp in my life. So that I never did. So I never had that experience. And maybe that is an experience that our kids need to have where they can be away from us and kind of learn who they are in groups of other kids and, you know, have the...

Yeah, Camp Kikiwaka.

George McKenzie (19:37.422)

All the stuff that you see on TV that happens in these camps, right? Like the, what was the one that the other show that had a camp with the two with Lindsay Lohan and she... so you have those kinds of camp experiences. So maybe they would like it. Maybe, I think Maddox at eight, maybe it might've been a little too young. I think maybe 10 double digits might be right. Yeah. And maybe just a 10 days just seemed long. Can we just do like a week, five days?

kids love those movies.

Alicia McKenzie(20:01.102)

I feel like Maverick would go tomorrow.

Alicia McKenzie(20:06.966)

No, you can't, there's no five day camp, dear. There's no five day camp because by the time you get there and you stop crying, it's like day three.

All right, so maybe we'll think about it next year. Maybe.

Well, now I've got PTSD because I don't want to pay six grand for camp and then you not send our kids.

Okay. Well, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see. But yeah, I think that during the summer though, you need, I'm just, guess, I don't know. Part of me is like, I think they need the unstructured time to just be kids. And just, because the whole, once you get into your teens, right, the whole life experience changes. That's why I'm so happy for Ava. Like she's going to have the college volleyball experience and she'll be a college student and get to...

And we're kind of advocating for her that I think she's taking too many credit hours as a freshman and she needs to drop class. But she wants to challenge herself, which I think is the wrong move for your first semester as a freshman. Well, you don't want her to figure it out and kill her GPA in the first semester. anyway, so I think that you have to have that like real summer where you're just hanging out with your friends. Yeah, I mean, I've never done that.

Alicia McKenzie(20:59.182)

She'll figure it out.

Alicia McKenzie(21:12.43)

Swim Team.

I just don't like getting up early.

But the converse that is, I feel like all their friends are in camps all the time. So you can't have the neighborhood summer experience where kids are just out playing, fun, which what I thought today is like skip day thing was awesome. Like all the base boys got out and just played a pickup game of baseball, which is more like how every day of my summer experience was as I was a kid. We always just got pickup games of everything. The whole neighborhood would go out and you'd play. And that just doesn't happen in this neighborhood.

now.

you all their friends are in camps and then you're like, you get to kind of FOMO. I don't think our kids have, I think they have zero FOMO about not in the camp, but I feel like maybe we should have been, maybe we should have scheduled some camps for them.

Alicia McKenzie(21:59.488)

So I think the first issue is that we normally leave the day after school for our South Carolina house. Yes. Somebody, not naming names, signed our children up for travel baseball, which does not end until July. It ends in the middle of July. Yeah. So now we are missing out of six weeks for our beach house because you want to do travel baseball, not naming.

somebody.

George McKenzie (22:26.734)

don't want to. I'm just, this day and age, it's interesting how the dynamics of youth sports have changed. And we don't want to go down that rabbit hole, but it's very interesting. I'm just saying it like youth sports has changed so much. And mostly because I think parents, right? We've, and business and economics, like there's so much money in youth sports. every, there's, you know, throw a rock and hit 10 travel teams in an area because there's kids willing to pay.

Maybe we should.

George McKenzie (22:55.182)

you know, multiple thousands of dollars to be on this team. And the Little League experience has been somewhat compromised because of it, because you have some, some kids that play just travel exclusively and do not play rec Little League baseball. I'm just using baseball as one. Basketball has their own hockey has their own flag football has their own. They all have these travel teams. it's insane how much travel is involved. And when you, we've, we've experienced this at the volleyball level, but to get recruited.

to go play in college, or if you have aspirations of playing at a higher level, you have to play trap. Very rarely you get recruited out of high school these days in anything. It's all college recruiting is done at these travel tournaments. let's say in baseball, I'll just walk it for Maddox, you get on a baseball travel team, some have eight you, some have nine you. I'm sure in some parts of the country there's seven you. So you start at...

9U and then that team stays together pretty much through 13U until either 13U sometimes they do cuts and then, sometimes you have an A B team. But if you weren't on the 9U team, like this year, let's say our 9U team becomes the 10U team and maybe two kids are dropping out or leaving, know, parents are moving, something's happening. So there's two roster slots that get open. the further, longer you wait to get in and get on a travel team.

The harder it is because let's say you're 13U or 14U. The 14U team was last year's 13U team. Maybe there's a roster slot or two and then now you as a brand new person into the mix, you have to compete for that one or two slots with everybody else. People want to leave a team because they didn't get enough playing time on the last team they were on or a team got defunct and shut down or someone moved into the area. It becomes way more competitive.

Where at nine you, you're competing for 12 spots versus one or two. So you kind of got to get on the train early, which is unfortunate.

Alicia McKenzie(24:59.294)

Do you think that if a kid hits 12U and is not performing, will they kick that kid off the table?

A lot of travel teams do. A lot of travel teams cut every year. It's a retry out every year. Just like volleyball was. So volleyball, was a try out every year.

So if you're good, if you're a good 12 year old, like really, really high performing 12 or 13 year old, you're going to get on the team. Most likely, Right? I think that's the bottom line.

But you got, yeah, you got to be superior. Yeah. Right. So I mean,

Do we want a team full of mediocre kids continuing? do you want to go out, prove that you're the best, and kick one of those kids off?

George McKenzie (25:43.406)

Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably where it's at. But at the same time, it's, we know from being around multiple volleyball teams, it becomes a parent group too, So the kids want, and the team, you can't have on a volleyball team, can't have 12 girls that are all outside and all want the ball and want 20 kills a match, right? And baseball is in a way, can't have all number four hitters.

Right. You got to have people that make contact. You got to have people that can play the field, people that are fast, people that are good pitchers, people that are good catchers. Cause in baseball tournaments, like half the roster has to pitch. Or you blow out your kid's arms. It's crazy how, you know, there's pitch count limits and yet you'll play four or five games in a weekend. That's a lot of pitching. So yeah, it's very interesting how these dynamics and my opinion has changed. originally I was more of.

Seriously, lot of it.

George McKenzie (26:40.29)

what you just said, where I was thinking, hey, you know, it doesn't matter if he's good at 12, he's good and he'll make a team no matter what. But now I think that, you know, unless you're ridiculously better and that it depends on the team you're on, like there's certain teams that focus on community and teaching the game of baseball and teaching young men to be good men. And I think that's where we leaned when we chose ours. And then there's other teams that are about winning, right? It's, we're going to put the best quality product on the field to win.

And that team is probably going to defer to, I'm going to pick, I'll cut a 10 year old if he's not good enough.

So what do you, I hate that we're going into this topic, but I actually just saw something the other day from a female coach who was basically warning parents that kids are burning out at 13.

Yeah, I can see why. Especially specializing.

Yeah. How do we, I don't want my kids to burn out on anything because I burned out, right? Like by the time I got to high school, I was so done with ballet, done, done. I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore. It got political, we'll glaze over the eating disorder, but like it was just, I was over it. I don't want my kids to get to that point. And I will say that Ava, the oldest, she actually wrote her college admissions article or her college admissions essay.

Alicia McKenzie(28:02.186)

about this and the fact that she had a coach who was so mean and nasty to her that she almost quit the sport. And the title of her essay was, it was really good. was like, I'm not done yet. That was the title of her essay. So she took that situation and turned it into a positive. But in that time, it took a lot to keep this girl from quitting volleyball. So I want to learn from that experience and how do we

I think Michaela's okay. Our 13 year old is good.

Yeah, but I think it was the converse too. Like she was the opposite of what we just talked about. Yeah. Like she didn't get in travel volleyball early. Yeah. She got in it around 12, right? And she wasn't great at it. She wasn't like, she didn't make the team because she was the best 13 year old they've ever seen. She made it because she was somewhat tall and she hustled her ass off. they that, you know, maybe she could be something because she's athletic. She hustles.

No, she made a curse of his tongue.

George McKenzie (29:04.244)

And she's right. And she kept getting better year over year where she was, you know, most of the time she was not, I'd say even into her senior, she wasn't the best player on the court. Right. And yeah. So she is the example of you need a team that's willing to, you know, not just choose the 12 best, right? That some people are going to grow into it. Some people are going to get better. And, you know, my view is your job as a coach is to

from athletic parents.

George McKenzie (29:33.004)

bring that out in the player and help them develop. And if you just simply cut those that aren't good, you're going to miss out on some of those kids or those kids will miss out on those opportunities and never know what could have been.

Yeah, there's this constant battle on what should we do? What shouldn't we do? Are we doing the right thing? Are we pushing them too hard? Are we not pushing them hard enough? I feel like it's the same struggle that every freaking parent has. And it's annoying.

And then, do you push them hard enough in school? Are we pushing them hard enough academically or push them hard enough athletically? Like what's the balance? Yeah. Maybe we should just make a pack now. the last three, so Maddox, Maverick and-

Thank

Alicia McKenzie(30:09.581)

because we already made a pact that we weren't going to do travel sports.

No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm saying, they have different scenario. So we have three that are under 10. Yes. So how about we just alternate? Well, we super strict, hard push the hell out of one of them and we'll be laissez faire with one of them and we'll see how it works out. We can do a real world controlled experiment.

Which one ends up in jail?

Alicia McKenzie(30:33.08)

We're going to turn our children into guinea pigs? you're not. right. Moving on. Last subject, which this one is so touching.

Yeah, I'm just.

George McKenzie (30:41.198)

Which one? Which one? There was two, I put four. So I had two alternat-

I know, but I feel like we need to talk about this one and the fact that we're getting ready to do a renovation and I'm kind of concerned with how quickly or how slowly it's going to go based on the people that are available to do the jobs.

interesting.

Right? mean, if we're raiding Home Depot now.

Well, yeah, I guess that's a controversial.

Alicia McKenzie(31:05.614)

for sure it is. 100%.

You listen to one side and it's rating Home Depot and rating like 7-Eleven and you know the other side says, we're only targeting people who have active criminal records.

Okay, so the restaurant that I actually really, really love, Millie's, ICE went in there. Really? Yes. Right? And then they said they were going to come back and to make sure everybody had their papers. Like, why are you targeting Millie's? Everybody loves that place.

man

George McKenzie (31:36.91)

Well, that's not just, mean, I don't know, asking people to prove they're a US citizen or prove, it's like, I guess, I don't know. I don't know. It's a super hard one. So it's like, hey, prove you're here illegally. It seems like the opposite of our kind of the rights that US citizens have. And I get it because they're not US citizens where it's, you you're proven innocent until proven guilty. It feels like we're going, hey, you're guilty until proven innocent. I think you're here illegally. Everyone is here illegally until you prove to me you're not here illegally.

It feels like that's a, it's one way to do it.

It is one way to do it. Whether or not it's correct, who knows?

Not sure. Yeah, it feels like it's just, we're going to randomly pull in people. Like, how would you even, what if you're a US citizen, like Maddox, let's say, who's a US citizen, who looks Hispanic. Let's say he was a dishwasher at Middle East. How would he prove in that instance when he's there that he's a US citizen?

and he looks mad.

Alicia McKenzie(32:32.782)

He there would be no way for him to do so Maybe which let's give a 16 year old boy a passport and see how quickly he loses it No, because they're even saying that real ID doesn't prove citizenship Right, I don't know

carry his passport with him everywhere.

George McKenzie (32:41.74)

Yeah, or real, maybe real IDs, real ID.

George McKenzie (32:48.424)

No, it doesn't? It's a point.

Sir, don't they have passport cards?

They do. We have a passport card for all of the kids. But still, that was an actual concern. We're getting ready to go to LA. And I'm like, well, hell, maybe I need to bring their passports with us just to prove that I didn't steal two little boys from across the border because they don't look like me and they don't look like you. I'm not sure. I mean, between AI, immigration, there's going to be job impacts.

Interesting.

George McKenzie (33:20.364)

Yeah, I think there's no way around it. Like AI is going to take out a lot of white collar, middle management jobs initially. when you look at what industries are most immigrants fulfilling a larger portion of the labor market, and it's probably the farming, it's adult care, it's the services industries, the restaurants, what have you. Hotel.

like all.

Yeah, all those are kind of dominated by the immigrants. And like, who's going to fill those roles if you start deporting all of everybody? And it's millions, like it's not a small number. No. Yeah. So if you lose those jobs, then I guess if you, independent theorists would say, or I'm sure some people would say, that the displaced white collar jobs,

titled.

George McKenzie (34:18.68)

people that are being displaced could take those other jobs.

Yeah. Let me hold my breath on that one.

Right? Let's not just hold your breath. Let me go from, I'm supporting my family, which is really difficult to do for most people in middle income, right? It's really hard from paycheck to paycheck. And, you know, let me say I take that job where I'm making $100,000 a year in a white collar career. I get displaced by AI as I was a middle manager or a statistician or something where I can be easily replaced. I'm being replaced quickly with AI today.

Now I have to, and I'm supposed to take a job that's been vacated by an immigrant. So now I'm going from a hundred thousand dollars supporting my family to 40, $50,000. Yeah. And one of those jobs, like, how do you make that work? Like, how do you take care of people, citizens? Like, what do you do? Yeah, I don't know. It's so weird. I just don't, I guess we're everything we have from, know, the

Thank

Alicia McKenzie(35:12.46)

UBI.

George McKenzie (35:21.656)

consumer price index and inflation, they're all lag indicators. So it's really hard to know in the moment what the impacts are until you see the lag indicators and you're already in it.

Correcting it is not a quick fix.

Right, because the same thing. When you're doing the corrections, you're always looking at lag indicators, not lead indicators.

That's why they're so hesitant to do anything to the interest rates right now. It's like, maybe we could take them down, but we don't want to because we don't know what it's going to do.

And then, you know, in the future, like with robotics and AI, you could see being able to replace some of that lower income workforce with robotics and AI. But it's not here today.

Alicia McKenzie(36:01.752)

But also thinking that we are not producing the amount of humans we need to sustain the current population. Maybe that's not a bad thing because there's going to be no jobs for them.

And then we're to have to create robotics and AI to take care of the.

Exactly. That's what it's going to be. It's going to be a humanoid taking care of our aging population.

Yeah, that's where we're going to have to get to at some point.

and a huggy, hug a robot. Okay, so then one thing I did want to touch on, the pathway to citizenship, right? So you have all of these immigrants, none of them are legal, but how do you make that process easier? Not even easier, just it's a long, long process to citizenship, which okay, maybe it should be, but is there a path? Is there a quicker path? Maybe military service?

George McKenzie (36:50.862)

Yeah, I think there's got to be ways in which we, you know, maybe not tier, but there's got to be ways. So what's the point of immigration, right? One, they add value to a country, right? Immigrants add value to a country. So being able to find ways to, so people who are coming here, achieving a higher education degree and want to be a U.S. citizen and they can contribute, they have a job already or they've got a job offer, they're going to work here, they're going to produce for this country.

pay taxes, like there should be a fast track for those because they're assets to our country. bring value. Correct. And then there's, know, a next set is still bring value, but maybe they're not in the higher education, but they want to be here. They're good citizens. They add value to, and you know, what's the pathway for them? Yeah. And then the hardest nut to crack is what do you do with all the people that have been here for 20 years? Like, how do you solve that problem? Yeah.

And then do you tell the people that are trying to go through the process the right way, hey, you got to wait and you may be deported because you're waiting because I got to take care of these other people whose first act to come into country was illegal. Like your first act you did trying to get into this country was commit a crime. So now should they go ahead of the line of people that tried the right way and are in the process and getting delayed because we're dealing with people that have been here illegally?

I don't know. It's very challenging.

very large problem with a lot of layers and it is not easy to fix, which is why I think nobody's ever tried to.

George McKenzie (38:22.552)

think people try all the time, but I think we get bogged down in solving everything. It's supposed to, you know, let's just chip away at it. Let's solve one thing. So let's solve the people that have been here 20 years. Yeah, that may, it may impact people that are trying to apply today. They're doing it the right way. It may impact them. Let's just solve the problem here. That's not the problem that we're trying to solve. It's a side, it's a different problem. So let's solve this one and then let's solve that one and then let's solve the next one. And maybe that's where...

we invest as a government is dealing with immigration and not just border agents. It's processing. It's, you know, how do we vet immigrants to figure out, who gets in, who doesn't? It does. Very much so.

Yeah.

Alicia McKenzie(39:05.634)

Sounds exhausting. Okay. Have we yapped enough today? Did you have your yapachino? I did.

Bye.