Gen-Xpertise
Gen-Xpertise podcast has been created with the goal of giving Generation X a voice, space and platform to share real stories, expertise, and nostalgia while navigating midlife.
Our hope is that we've launched a trusted platform that speaks to Gen-Xers’ needs – career, family, finances, health, legacy, etc. while also having some fun in the process.
Gen-Xpertise
Ep 30: "Survival Of The Fittest"
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In this episode, we reflect on the strange and unforgettable days of the COVID-19 pandemic. We talk about how many of us kept ourselves busy during lockdown by picking up new hobbies, binge-watching classic shows, learning new skills, reconnecting with family, and figuring out how to work from home. We also discuss the lasting impact the pandemic had on our lives. These include the challenges of isolation, loss, and uncertainty as well as some unexpected positives like greater appreciation for time, health, and community. It's a candid Gen-X look back at a moment in history that changed how we live, work and connect with each other.
Intro and Outro music by Erin Garris and Khari Garris
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Yo, yo, yo, what it is, what it was, what's it gonna be? Welcome. Welcome to the latest episode of the Gen Expertise Podcast, episode thirty. Entitled Survival of the Fittest. We are your host, Maine and Rantz. Welcome, welcome. Pod deep.
SPEAKER_01Pause. I don't know why that's a pause, but a pause. Pause.
SPEAKER_00What's up, bro?
SPEAKER_01What's going on, man? I'm good, man. How you feeling?
SPEAKER_00I'm good, man. We're 30% through our goal, man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, episode 30. It feels like another milestone.
SPEAKER_00Episode 30, man, of our goal.
SPEAKER_01Episode 30. That's what's up.
SPEAKER_00100 episodes. Yeah, we're at least gonna do 100. Yeah, we're at least gonna do a centuries worth of a podcast centuries worth of episodes. So that's that's what it is. We are 30% through. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, we got a little heat wave here in New York. First we get blizzards, and now we got a 70-degree day.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Finally, the snow is all gone.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it feels like it flipped for you guys pretty quickly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, pretty fast. It'll probably be back to 40 degrees in five days.
SPEAKER_01So we gotta get used to have fun. Enjoy the yeah, enjoy the spring weather you got for now.
SPEAKER_00A little 48 hours of spring. And it is daylight saving. So spring is officially on its way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I didn't even realize that till middle of the day today, like that we lost an hour. Um, it didn't occur to me till I looked at my watch, and my watch was was an hour behind my phone. So that that kind of messed me up today, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, anybody who has analog clocks around the house, y'all were freaking out. I never changed the time on my oven. But what a difference an hour makes, man. Yeah. So, survival of the fittest. This is around the time, this is kind of like uh one of those anniversaries, not in a great way anniversary, but March was when the world kind of shut down. And we're talking about the pandemic of 2020. I think officially was March, I want to say it was like the 17th or the 15th or something. When I just know when the gym shut down. Everything officially shut down with the gym shut down.
SPEAKER_01I think when it went like mainstream knowledge of it, yes. But I think officially um was actually beginning like in the beginning of January, I think, you started to hear the first cases in China.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and then it then, yeah, you're right, though. Like in by March, it had hit us. It was around my birthday, we had like a little celebration, and then maybe a week or so later, we started to hear about cases in the United States, and it started to get um, you know, started to ramp up quite a bit, right? And you know what's crazy about that? Like, I don't know if this is related or not. I I never really found out if if I had anything at the time. But like months, a couple of months before that, I was really sick. Like, and I hardly ever get really, really sick. But I'm talking about sick where I had a fever, but I had the chills, and I and I felt nauseous, and I, you know, the everything you you, you know, uh I was sweating. Um I had to throw up. And, you know, you name it. I had every symptom, right? So bad that I was sweating, but I was so cold with the chills that I was in the bed with a coat on. No exaggeration. Like I was I was in the bed, I had a winter coat on because I was I felt this chill, but at the same time I had a fever. And a couple of months later, you know, we started to hear more about COVID-19, and I swear I had it. Um I can't I can't really prove it. I don't have any evidence of that. And that was before people started really getting tested, obviously. But I feel like I had it before it started to become like a mainstream thing.
SPEAKER_00That was like October-November-ish, right? Wasn't that? Yeah. And that was that was the case with a lot of people. So I did some reading on it like years ago when this happened, and there were a lot of people that I know personally that they were complaining about being down, down with the flu.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00In October and November really bad. And I had read an article, I can't remember the name of the article, but they referenced that they believe that that was the first remnants of it like peaking its head. Right. Uh, but it was disguised as a really bad flu season. So they think that it actually got here that October, November. We started hearing about it in February because one of the cases who I guess he was known as Patient Zero here in New York, a gentleman, he got sick. His neighbor got sick, he ended up being a good Samaritan driving his neighbor to the hospital. His neighbor got COVID, COVID, he got COVID, and he came down in the city to work at his office. And that poor man is known as like AJ as uh um Patient Zero. So we heard about this was like in February, but no one was really, you know, we were we didn't think no one thought it was gonna become what it became. Yeah. Um, and then in March, that's when it just started getting serious, real serious, and then the world shut down. So this episode, we're gonna talk about some of the things that we did to cope some of how our pandemic experience was. And we'll also talk about how we will prepare for the future in case of such things happening again, like probably loading up on toilet paper.
SPEAKER_01That was the other crazy thing. Like yeah, when they when when kind of what I call the panic first started, right? Like the pandemic panic, people seem to go out and buy a bowl of toilet paper, right? Yeah, and honestly, to this day, I I don't know quite understand that part, right? Because I guess and maybe this is part of growing up in the hood where you know, you you run out of toilet paper, but this alternative means if when you run out of toilet paper, right? Like, I don't feel like in an emergency situation like that, that toilet paper was would be my first you know, my first thing that I that I would look for in in that scenario, right? Um, there's so many other things to worry about when you're facing possibility of of stores not having um, you know, not getting the getting goods that you need, right? Like, or if there's a supply chain issue, um toilet paper is just not you know, I don't I just don't get it. Like I would get toilet paper, but but but I feel like there's so many other things that you need in in an emergency where you feel like the supply chain is gonna be disrupted or and the stores are not gonna have things. If you feel like the shelves are gonna be empty, I would think that, you know, non-perishable foods and water, you know, yeah, like you know, bottled or canned water, all the non-perishables, canned food, the dry beans and rice, and just things that that you could hold on to for a while while you're waiting for this to kind of blow over, so to speak. But toilet paper is is like down on the list. It's not I'm not saying it's not up on the shopping list, but it's but it's just it's not it's not really number one on the list, you know? Um, so I I didn't get that. And that seemed to be the number one item that people were panicking about. People just all the toilet paper.
SPEAKER_00That was nuts. Toilet paper turned into like gold bouillon or something.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I just I just didn't get that. And I remember there was memes out there like where people were pretending to to sell toilet paper and make deals for toilet paper. Yeah, man. Yeah, I I it's it's funny how the how how like the human mind works because it's like you know, that became like mass hysteria, um, and everybody seemed to be focused on toilet paper at that time. Where I just thought that was a little that was kind of strange. I don't I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if that was our fire drill, we failed miserably. We failed miserably. If that if that was our pandemic fire drill for like an apocalypse or something, we failed miserably, yo. But at least you know if you have a if you have a basement or you have a stock, uh stock of toilet paper, yo, you're gonna pretty much be able to get whatever you want through trade and barter. So people people trade food for toilet paper. They trade everything. It was pandemonium, but it was crazy. So, you know, so besides that. We were inside for what was it? It it was at least a full year, right? Maybe a little more longer?
SPEAKER_01Like it was about a full year, I think. Um maybe like maybe a little longer. Honestly, I didn't I didn't double check like to see when this all ended. Maybe we could check that out real quick. I think the very, very start was 2019. Um and then I think by like 2021, it was done. The vaccine, the first vaccines were authorized in December of 2020. So by 2021, I think things were were getting back to normal. Yeah. Um, but yeah, it felt like longer, to be honest with you, with everything that had happened. Um, one of the things I remember as one of the the hardest things was um the school situation. Oh because at the time my daughter was in second grade, and um my son was still um daycare age. So we had to we pulled him out of the daycare. And honestly, that was kind of a little bit of a relief financially because daycare is super expensive. So, but we had to pull them out, obviously, because they they were just at the time they weren't they weren't prepared and they just shut down. Um and that saved us a ton of money on a monthly basis, to be honest with you. But it was kind of a burden on us because now we got we got a a you know, a daycare age child, and then we got a second grader. Um, so I remember the school tried to have classes, you know, um, and they would do remote schooling, but they were doing this kind of over the iPad at the time, and then eventually like over a Chromebook. But it was hard because the teachers would have school, but it wasn't like full school. They would try to give the kids assignments, they would kind of check in in the morning, um, check in and again in the afternoon, and and that was pretty much it. And then they would assign them work, like math and reading type of work.
SPEAKER_00It was almost like college.
SPEAKER_01Sort of, yeah, like like where the the kids were, you know, very young kids are kind of were kind of on their own, right? So they're trying to follow, and you could imagine like second grade, what was she? That means my daughter was like maybe seven, you know, maybe six or seven. Um, and trying to follow along um and trying to pay attention and all this stuff. It was just kind of impossible, man. And then I remember we had to hire some help because my wife and I were both working full-time. So we're working remotely, but you know, we're working for, you know, we're working for like a serious corporation, right? Like so, so everybody's working remotely, but the meetings are still going on, projects are still going on, um, everything's kind of moving along. Not exactly the same as it was, but pretty much like, you know, at a maybe at a little bit of a reduced pace, but the expectation is still that you're doing doing work, that you're getting your stuff done, right? So, with that said, it was just really difficult for us to be working full-time and helping my daughter through remote school at such a young age. Obviously, nobody was prepared for this, but the teachers weren't really equipped with what they needed. I don't think. I don't think the schools were really prepared for for what happened, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, my daughter was stressed out, she was like crying. Um, she was really worried that she was gonna fail. And and you know, we were worried that she wasn't really gonna get what she needed for that grade. Would she have to repeat the grade? Like, was she were were the kids even really learning anything? And I feel like even to this day, there's still some residual effect of that. Right. So we hear that from teachers and we've heard that from the councils, that those kids that went through that are still impacted by that in terms of not only the academics, but kind of the social emotional stuff, especially with the really, really younger kids that were were um were were small, like during while this was happening. Um they missed a lot of instruction in terms of like the social emotional, a lot of interactions that they described, but at that age, they didn't get.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that was that was crazy. I um my wife and I, we weren't living together. Um and I at work, everybody knows now, I'm a personal trainer. So I'm an independent, so I go to people's homes, I train outside, and people would come to me to my home and they would train. So when the city shut down, no no one was prepared for this. School wasn't prepared for this, the fitness field wasn't prepared for this. So we had to quickly learn how to adapt, and that went to going virtual. The good thing that came out of it was that we found a whole new stream to make money in a whole different way to train people um through new through necessities. But just not being able to just be out and about and just being stuck in the house was crazy. And I remember just the anxiety of going to work, and I was on the trains with like Clorox wipes, I'm wiping all the seats down before I sit down. Then I just stopped getting on uh the train totally, and I was riding my bike into the city, and I remember the last day when I that I decided like nah, I'm not this was even before the city like totally shut down. I was working in a building and I'm sitting in the lobby and the doorman is there and there's like 50 packages at the desk. So I'm sitting at I'm sitting at the on the couch in the lobby. Thankfully, it's a huge lobby in this building. It was like a hotel. So I'm sitting about at least a good 30 feet away from him, and he's just having like the worst coughing attack ever. Right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I'm sitting there.
SPEAKER_01Were were people wearing masks by this time? Or was that before? Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, people were like wearing masks, you know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So, but he didn't have his mask on, and he's coughing and coughing, and I'm like, yo, hey, Charlie, we'll call him Charlie. Like, you alright, buddy? He said, Yeah, Ranch, you know, I'm just I just got the flu or something. And I was like, that don't sound like the flu. I remember saying to him, that don't sound like the flu, champ. You know, nah, nah, I'll be alright. I'll be okay. Meanwhile, he's literally coughing on every Amazon package. As he's sorting in these Amazon packages, he's just having a cough attack. So I kind of like like wiggled my way around the desk. I took like the furthest route away from the desk to get on the elevators. And I remember telling my my client, like, yo, listen the last time I'm coming here, bro. Like, there's there's no way I'm coming back to this build-in. Matter of fact, there's no way I'm coming out of my house until this blows over. And sure enough, though, that building ended up catching it really bad.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I could imagine.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so it was weird. It was weird just being home, um, not having to get up to go to work, not having to get up to actually do anything. You know, we were just kind of trapped in our homes, watching the news, being scared, people were dying.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, a funny story and a not so funny story at the same time. Right before uh things got bad and before the city shut down, my brother had a 50th uh surprise birthday party down in North Carolina. So we traveled down to North Carolina for the surprise party. And uh it was me, my parents, and my wife, who was just my girlfriend at the time. We went down, we all got in the car and and and went down to see him, had a good time, a great time. We're sitting down there with a bunch of my family. We come back and my wife gets sick. She gets COVID. Like a couple of weeks later, or a week later, she started getting the symptoms. And usually she would come by the house.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00She would stay like a a weekend or so, and you know, so she was like, I I don't think that I'm coming. I'm gonna come by this week because I, you know, I I got like a little sore throat. So you you don't think that it's gonna hit that close to home. Right. You know, because it's something that you see on the news and it hasn't really spread spread yet. It's just something that you're hearing about. We don't know how serious it is. And I'm like, no, you'll be fine. You come on over, you'll be fine. It's probably nothing. She goes, No, I think I'm gonna play it safe and I'm gonna stay home. And and sure enough, she ended up getting COVID at the time where it was like the worst.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00You know, this was in March.
SPEAKER_01Because she went with you to your to your yo, we joke all the time.
SPEAKER_00I was like, yo, if you would have got that in like a week or two, you would have you would have you would have probably decimated a quarter of my family. We're sitting in my cousin's house. He has emphysema, so he has the oxygen in his nose. She sitting next to him, they laughing, they hugging, they're talking. Um, but she ended up getting it when she came back, traveling back and forth from work. She ended up getting it. And she got it bad. I didn't see her for almost a full month. It might have been a full month. All we could do was um was play Scrabble, like over the phone. That was like all contact. We would talk and you'd have to go. And we would play Scrabble at night over over the phone. And the one time I had to go over there and I had to drop off a package for her, and she, I like had to like sit it at the door, knock on the door, she opened the door. I'm standing all the way back against the wall. She's standing at the door. It was it was like a surreal feeling, man. It was a surreal feeling. So that was those were crazy times, man. Crazy times.
SPEAKER_01So let me ask you this. Did you um is that kind of when you started doing more of because you said like one of your clients, you told them I'm hey, I'm not coming over here anymore.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, those are.
SPEAKER_01Was that do you feel like that was um where you started kind of innovating more in terms of like how you dealt with your clients? Like did you did you start dealing more with um virtual sessions, video sessions, or more outdoor? Like, how did how did you handle just not wanting to go out to people's homes or to have people that obviously people couldn't come to your home?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So people didn't want me in their homes either. After a while, you know, paranoia was crazy. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, how did you how did you how do you feel like you adjusted to that?
SPEAKER_00Well, the one thing is that I did do, and I kind of I kind of got uh in front of it a little bit earlier. So I started planting that seed with my clients early. Like, you know, look, if this happens, like we can do virtuals, we can FaceTime, we can Google meets or whatever. We all at the same time were kind of like we never really thought about that. And most of my clients, the majority of my clients, I end up keeping through the whole pandemic because also what else was there to do? There was really nothing to do. So, you know, you're home all day, they will still wanted to work out, and then you want to see a face that's not in your home or your building, the people that you're stuck seeing all the time, someone new to talk to. So it all it all worked out. And then it also started that's how I started branching and getting clients in other states like Detroit, Texas, California. A lot of people were fleeing, fleeing New York. They were leaving and moving out of state to different places. So when they moved, they still they still were able to work with me, to train with me. And a lot of them ended up moving back, but that's what happened, man. I got in front of it early, man. You know, because even though the city was shut down and the world was shut down, the bill payers, the bill, the bills gotta be paid, bro. People, they don't care.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, so certain things didn't, I I, you know, like I I think about that. Certain things did not get shut down, certain things didn't stop. And like you said, like one of those things was the fact that you still get in bills on on a monthly basis. It seemed like there was no, I'm sure there was some relief um to for some people, but I I felt like there wasn't a lot of relief um offered during that time, right? And folks like myself, like I work, you know, I work in a corporate environment where um one of the things that struck me is that the the scale at which we had to immediately go to remote work, where people have been working remotely for years and and even years before that, right? Before the before the pandemic. But the fact that suddenly everybody had to had to work from home was was a big deal, right? And it kind of stretched the limits of of the technology that we were using, like um, you know, the video calling, all types of conferencing, like the Zooms and the Teams meetings and the WebEx and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like that was one of the things that really was actually kind of impressive to me um as a technology person. Like I was really like, wow, we're actually doing this. Like everybody's working from home and everybody's still productive. That was the other thing. It felt like um in some strange ways, like, you know, obviously it's tragic, you know, a lot of people died, and and and um it was it it definitely was impactful like psychologically, you know. But one of the the things that I also noted, like in the in the midst of all of that, was like, wow, you know, we're all able to be productive and it was almost like we we we're in this this situation and we're proving that um the way we've been working it's not it's not absolutely required to be in an office right and even to this day like people kind of debate whether or not um whether or not it's necessary for people going into an office um because so much time has passed it's like some corporations are asking people to come back um for five days a week but I feel like we proved as a as a kind of a society that that's not completely necessary and you know there's probably a number of reasons why the company wants people to come back and like productivity they're claiming but we proved that productivity remains either the same or can it even increase while people are out remotely because they can kind of get their stuff done and have to worry about certain things. They don't have the anxiety of having to commute um and then the time that they can save on you know uh you know attending a a kid's event you know or or attending to some errand that they need to it kind of reduces that level of anxiety where you can focus on work when you when it's time to focus on work you could just focus and you don't have to worry about leaving early or or how bad the committees gonna be or whatever the case may be right that was one of the things I feel like um the productivity that we were able to maintain or even raise and then the fact that we kind of changed the way we changed kind of the meaning of of of going to work you know because like you said it was strange at first it took some adjustment like not to have to wake up super early hit the shower get dressed you know I'm sure a lot of people were in in in their meetings in pajamas right in in a tie with pajama pants and tie that in the like business business on top party on the bottom Kermic the frog slippers on the bottom yeah that was that was one of the things though it took it took some adjustment not not only just just to adjust to like um the pacing of your life you know um you know I think there's not enough said about that like the pace of things right just slowed down a little bit because you were able to to um to think like you could get up in the morning and get some time to think before you signed in for work right and I think there there's a lot to be said for that but that that was one of the things man like there's a lot of things that came out of that um I still feel really horrible about the fact that so many people died during that time and um we know people that are actually in healthcare that can that can vouch that yeah it wasn't all just numbers being um being adjusted and or whatever the case may be there was real cases of people passing away so so that that's just that's definitely a like still kind of you know it still resonates basically yeah right shout out to those nurses and those doctors that was on the front line dogs imagine dealing with it yeah on the front line every day like you have to deal with it like they the the hospitals were so overrun they were telling you if you called you couldn't come into the hospital.
SPEAKER_00You liter they would literally tell you don't come in because they didn't want to risk contamination. You contaminating you leave and you contaminate a hundred people on your way basically they were telling you unless you feel like you're literally knock knock knocking on heaven's door stay home don't come out don't contaminate anybody else so it was it was it was kind of surreal and there was a lot of there was a lot of mornings too man where I just rolled out of bed and I had on pajama pants and a hoodie son I'm gonna not even gonna lie and I was and I was working and I was able to stack one of the positives that came out of it kind of like with work wise was that I got to sleep in a little sleep in get rest I think everybody was probably the most well rested that they've ever been for the most part you know what I'm saying in regards to just being home. So I would be able to like work a bunch of sessions no travel time I didn't have to travel back and forth. I usually give myself an hour in between for travel sometimes an hour and a half at most depending on the locations that I have to get through throughout the day but here it can just be back to back to back to back. I'm just sitting down click okay click click click like you said you found that we found that there is there is a way to be more productive not necessarily having to go into an office for six to seven or eight or nine even ten hours when you probably spend five of those hours surfing searching Amazon and buying stuff anyway.
SPEAKER_01Well not me but you know what I'm saying and yeah not you know what I mean so um but there's a way they try to get people back to work because they're paying rent on these buildings these empty buildings yeah definitely that was what I know other thing like like so so with with that like I don't want to like kind of demonize corporations for for having people come back because a couple of things that a couple of points that were made to me about that and and I I'm I'll keep this quick but aside from the fact that the corporations are paying for the spaces right like there is something to be said for like um the responsibility of a company that's in a certain area to kind of um be a good neighbor so to speak so yeah and and and if I want to just be clear about this because because sometimes I say that and people don't understand exactly what I mean right so let's say you have a big company like you have Rance Incorporated and it's a big building for Rance Incorporated that sits in the middle of the city right now everybody goes home they don't come back for a few months. Now what happens is that Rance Incorporated with the big building sitting in the middle of the city is not it's not the only building in the city right it uh what surrounds that is a bunch of small businesses like so you have a coffee shop right that might maybe everybody from Rance Incorporated goes to that coffee shop in the morning or they go for their their their midday break they're gonna go to the coffee shop and get a pastry or something coffee. Now there might be a you know it might be a tailor or something that people drop off their clothes or cleaners people drop off their clothes before they go into Ranson Corporated to start their day for work. It might be a restaurant that people go to after they leave work sometimes for for dinner and they'll leave Ranson Corporate and go across the street to a restaurant right so I think you know you kind of get the point of what I'm saying. Like like like when when you have a large corporation sometimes that you know there's a responsibility of that large corporation not only to do business in that in that that uh that area at that um that neighborhood but also to kind of um be a good neighbor in terms of you're kind of feeding the the surrounding businesses right yeah so you're kind of helping each other in in a in a way so that's one of the things that was brought to my attention that if everybody were to stay home it would it would literally shut down all of the surrounding businesses especially in the in the big companies where you have thousands of employees that should be in those buildings or or typically would be in those buildings suddenly not showing up to work. You know but you know that's just that's just one aspect I I don't know if everybody considers that aspect of things and I'm definitely a proponent of worker from home don't get me wrong. Yes I just want to give that that kind of alternative perspective that there is a reason why yeah um it's a symbiotic relationship yeah yeah with the area like everybody within let's say even a 10 block radius.
SPEAKER_00You know and especially when you're at a smaller town if you're in a state that doesn't have a high a high occupancy rate and you have a big corporation that's in their downtown so to speak. Yeah you know people are starting their businesses around them. Literally they go up and then everybody is strategically placing themselves around there so that they can funnel off business off of off of the people that are there every day. Right. It's two sides of every coin.
SPEAKER_01Yeah and I I just want to offer that alternative cheese at home and you know what I mean virtually and sell it virtually watch me make a bacon egg and cheese like what you want at it whip it up you know what I'm saying but that's it but it's it's funny you mentioned that too because the other aspect of of what I I saw or what I observed in the pandemic is that kind of like the proliferation of gig work right like where um the delivery services started to explode obviously like yes when you think about like DoorDash and Uber Eats Grubhub um Postmates stuff like that Sticart um all of those services because people became really leery about going out to stores and being in in any sort of crowd the supply chain kind of stabilized you know so to speak and things were back on the shelves it felt like people still didn't want to be out you know obviously putting themselves in danger by going out shopping all the time. So so gig work became extremely important. They became pretty much like part of that um you know the essential workers they say I feel like the gig workers were also part of that essential workforce right like where you really needed people to come and deliver stuff the contactless delivery became like like the big thing like where just leave it at my door and ring the bell and go away was was kind of like the MO right where that became a big deal um during the pandemic too. So thank goodness for them because um you know that really blew up and I feel like that's something that that that as a result it didn't really go away so and it might have you know it might have lessened to a certain extent but I feel like people got used to certain things like people got used to working from home and people got used to somebody delivering ordering everything. Yeah pretty much ordering everything like you know Amazon all the way to to a salary king right yeah from yeah exactly from an Amazon package to a burger people kind of got used to things coming to them right rather than having to go go out and get it right you can even send those on the things yeah you can even send now because it before the pandemic it was basically just Uber but they really took advantage they have Uber Eats and now you can literally send anything through an Uber.
SPEAKER_00If you want to send an envelope to somebody you can use Uber as a mail carrier you can send food through Uber you can send like they come pick up you can put a plate of food in the back seat they'll take it to anywhere that you need to be so it also create it did create a a lot of jobs for for people um that may not have even thought about getting a side hustle or a second job or even just a regular job and doing these things. So and it also brought to light that you know everybody that some people look down on these what they deem a menial job until you need food. And then you become you become they become more important than you realize. So you know you kind of have a a newfound appreciation for your delivery person.
SPEAKER_01It it definitely gave perspective to like you know to jobs that that we don't think of as as super important when times are normal. But in that time like I said like all of a sudden certain folks became essential workers quote unquote right like and and that was really important. It kind of put things in perspective as to like what is really important in a society right like is it is it people working in an office on projects that kind of um you know kind of bolster the corporation so to speak or is it the people that are collecting your your garbage is it the people that are going to deliver your food um you know is it people that are that are just kind of running those errands that you need run that it that it require like kind of a little bit of face to face so to speak. So um I think it put things in perspective in a lot of ways right like not just that but I feel like a lot of things got put into perspective during the pandemic like um and we and I I you know we'll get into that a little more too but just like what's important you know like your idea of what is actually important. What is essential not just essential workers but what's essential to life like you know um you had a chance to kind of sit down like you were saying before you had a chance to rest and when you have a chance to rest you have a chance to think and it and when you have time to think you have that that moment to reflect of like hey um a lot of moments to reflect in this case of like what's actually important and that became like your family your health obviously um your loved ones and and at the there was a certain period where you didn't know when this was going to end. So you start really thinking like wow you know what's how long are we gonna be how one yeah one how long are we going to be doing this like because I'm sure people got cabin fever and people started getting getting kind of desperate and all sorts of like things went through your mind and and it leads to like you know like I'm sure people had like symptoms of depression and anxiety and all that stuff too. But it but I think what also was happening is that people were kind of getting a sense of what really mattered to them your family not so much the job but in your career but um really your family your loved ones your health um became something that was foremost on on your mind you know because you had nothing else to do for a while.
SPEAKER_00Yeah yeah so what are some of the things that you did during the pandemic you and your family to cope?
SPEAKER_01Um obviously we spent a lot of time together we would do things like you know we would cook together. One really kind of strange thing I did, I ordered cacao pods from and this is really random I know this is really left field people are going to be like what is Maine talking about now but actually probably not because I think our audience knows you kind of well anybody new to the show thinking like yeah anybody get used to this yeah so I'm gonna say something random almost every episode but like this so so one of the things that we did um or I you know I initiated this was I I ordered cacao ponds right it was some sort of fruit company that was selling it might have been you ever you ever seen chaka bars on on um yeah on Instagram I think at some point he had like a fruit business oh he had the uh the the the he'd send you like a box of exotic fruits and things like that yeah that was a big thing dude I'm pretty sure I ordered this from from his company but I know I ordered some black sote you ever had black sote yeah like the the um I ordered that from someone else so I tried it yeah like it's the fruit where it gets ripe they call it like um it's like a chocolate pudding fruit uh but anyway that this this this was different like so I ordered shout out to chocolate bars but I um I ordered cacao pods right and the cacao pods if if people don't know cacao pods are where you get how you make chocolate right like basically uh a the the cocoa bean or co or cacao bean is is what chocolate is actually made of right so I went online by the way too you have to roll it taste it's getting because I don't know what is it's terrible. Kind of but I'm I'm gonna get into that I'm gonna explain right so so so the cacao pot is like a long gourd right like picture like if you know what a gourd is it's like a um almost like a a rough looking melon like a very bumpy rugged melon and it's kind of orange looking squashes and pumpkin looking things that you see on Halloween but it's a sort of but this but this one is oblong right and it's kind of an orangish brown right and when you cut it open there's these beans inside and the beans are surrounded by a jelly. So when you said that it tastes bad um the jelly that's kind of like a membrane around the beans. So it's a white membrane that that kind of protects the I don't know if it protects the bean but it surrounds each bean right so on that membrane it it's almost like a gel or like a melony like a soft melony type of consistency right and when you when you taste it it's really sweet. It almost had it almost has like a melon flavor so that's actually really good right so that's how it starts. But the bean that you want is actually inside of that right like so you want to like you rip that open and the the bean inside is something that you actually have to you have to roast it first right so I would I roasted these beans I put it I put them well in the pan I spread them out roasted them so they would dry it out I ground them down into like a powdery paste type thing. I have bought I ordered some um some butter like a cocoa butter with it like so I so you mix up the cocoa butter with it you mix in some sugar oh I forgot the but before that you got to ferment the beans in their gel before before before you strip them out. You gotta ferment them in under on low heat right so at the time I had like a heat lamp that I put these things under I put them under the heat lamp for like three days. You're supposed to do it for um like about five days but I was patient so I I just fermented them quote unquote for three days right and I left them on a low heat in a container where the where we maintain the same temperature I thought right so once I did that I stripped them down I roasted them ground them up right put in the cocoa butter um put in the a little you know powdered sugar right and I bought um molds for this too like I bought molds to make them into actual chocolate bars right and um I did all this process with my kids um I don't know if my wife got involved much I think I think when I started doing really weird stuff I'm I'm going through the process kind of quickly but this process took a long time it took a little time but the kids were excited to help me with this right so once everything was ground up I put it in a pot um with the cocoa butter and I kind of heated it up um to the point where it became a a liquid right so you let that liquid kind of cool off just a bit like not so you know so it doesn't harden you let it cool off enough so so you can put it in the molds. I poured that into the molds and it came out like chocolate like like it came out looking like a chocolate bar like you would get in the store. Like it had the little sections because I bought the perfect you know the the rectangular molds with the little sections almost like a Hershey bar. Some of them I put like little rice crispy like crispy rice in it so it would be like a you know like a Nestle scrunch bar? Sort of I made like a sort of a Nestle crunch out of one of them. And the kids so so the kids were excited. Like they they helped me with all this stuff. I you know we we we finished and you know I let it cool put it in the refrigerator cooled it down I gave them pieces and they were like hmm tastes okay after all that process I thought they were gonna look oh it's the most delicious chocolate I ever had but but honestly it it was more like dark chocolate you know even with the sugar and the cocoa butter whatever like it was more it tasted it had that more kind of sweetness that because I I added everything I should add to it right um but but it it wasn't it wasn't like that sweet chocolate that that they that kids yeah it wasn't that milk chocolate that kids are looking for right so that was one of the things we did and I I know that story got kind of long I trying to make it short but that was one of the things that was one of the things that we did during the pandemic because there was nothing else to do we made chocolate from scratch from cacao parts.
SPEAKER_00I've not been doing that process ever again that's a process stripping for when you're stuck at home I uh since I was living by myself for the most part yeah I I worked out a lot I have I'm lucky to have a a a gym in my basement so that's I spent a lot of time during the pandemic working out like literally every day in the basement and since I am in a quiet part of the Bronx I'm in an area in the Bronx that isn't as congested and as crowded as the inner city I I would get to take long walks and just enjoy the quiet I honestly at sometimes now I still miss that part. That's the part that I miss I can just go out and take a nice long walk. There weren't there weren't people in the street like that. Maybe you'll encounter somebody on the other side of the street and you'd wave and but you would I would just go on these long walks and uh I mentioned one of our early early episodes how we had a a high school friend of ours Jason who he called me and we would walk like 10 12 miles sometimes and I would I got a lot of reading done um I start I took a I took a virtual uh soap making class I was probably in the best shape of my life and I and I I was just I probably read the most that I've ever read um I probably walked the most that I've ever walked and then when my lady when she got better she just came over and we probably kind of just rolled the rest of the pandemic out together. So then I had company and we would go out and we would take long walks together. We would cook together try out different recipes. So I I kind of missed the tranquility of of it I really miss like just getting a good night's sleep like eight nine ten hours of of rest going outside enjoying just sitting outside I also have a backyard I'm also blessed to have a backyard. So just going out and sitting in the black the backyard on a nice sunny day and just relaxing. You know what I mean and and just definitely being able to talk to your friends because they don't have anything else to do either so they're just you know just having conversations with friends and family um so I I do miss sometimes when like through the hustle and the bustle of just life in general um we didn't have we didn't have three kids it was only our oldest so it was like we just had a lot of time. We just had so much time just to enjoy each other's company and like I said take long walks and cook and and just bug out and get to know each other. So we didn't have any pandemic babies. You know pandemic babies are in like the first and second grade right now I believe you know so ours our little one didn't come along till like three years later. The I'm not gonna lie the pandemic Uh made and broke a lot of relationships, dogs.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, I don't have the data for that, but I would I would imagine, yeah, I would imagine so, cause because you're stuck because it's it's one thing to be stuck in the house um by yourself, but it's another thing to be stuck in the house with with um your girlfriend or your boyfriend, you know, your spouse or your, you know, and kind of really for the first time having to spend that much time together. I could imagine that's either gonna bring you closer or it's gonna drive you drive you crazy. Right. Um, but I you know, obviously I I don't know the numbers, but yeah, I could just imagine that that some people probably found it kind of challenging to be in in the same place for that long period of time. Like because people are usually getting a break, right? Like you're what what they would consider, maybe even what they didn't even think of as a break, right? But if you're not used to spending that that type of time with your family or, you know, your spouse or your significant other, when you get to go to work, that's kind of a break, right? Like you get to go to work for a few hours, you come back, you get a chance to miss each other, you get a chance to kind of like interact with other people and kind of you know change the way you're thinking for a little while. And when you come back, you've you've you've had a chance to miss this person for the whole day, and now you're coming back together, you have something to talk about. But if day after day nothing's nothing's really happening either, yeah, man. Where you all you have to to do is kind of like kind of feed on each other, so to speak, in terms of like your mental stimulation, and it there's nothing to even talk about because nothing new happened today. Oh, it's like groundhog day. Yeah, neither one of you went out, you just been here, um, you just been sitting looking at each other all day. Um, I could imagine that that would take its toll. Like, I mean, with us, we were fortunate we're fortunate enough, we got a backyard. We could kind of we kind of got space enough to kind of get out of each other's way. Um that helps a lot. Like, because I I remember telling somebody like, because I, you know, I grew up in an apartment, right? Um and this is another aspect that I thought about during the pandemic, and I was like, what if I was living here with my wife and kids in a small apartment? How would this affect us, you know, in terms of our relationship, in terms of like our ability to kind of tolerate each other over a long period of time, but we can't really go anywhere? Um, how would this impact us if we're in an apartment rather than our house? Because, like you said, like I could go in the basement, I could go outside backyard, and we could kind of give each other a little space when we need to. We could come back together when we're ready, but yeah, but if if we do start to get on each other's nerves, we could always go outside in the backyard and and you kind of um I always used to say, like, hey, when you when you're in an apartment, right? Say you have an argument with your spouse, right? And I guess this is going a little bit on a tangent, but let's say you're like, let's say you get into an argument with your spouse, your significant other, right? You're in a small apartment. Now, the only way for you to to to kind of relieve that tension sometimes is maybe to leave, you think, right? But then once you leave, you left. You know, like that's a that's a big deal, like walking out, yeah, and and say say you're the person, like and you and your girlfriend or your wife leaves because you got into an argument, you know, she left. And and and it's like even that that hurts, that's a big deal to just walk out, right? But if you're not in an apartment and you and you're in a house and you have a basement or you have a backyard and you or you have like a couple of rooms, you know, where you can move around, yeah, you could leave without leaving. And I and I always thought to myself, that's kind of a blessing, and it's kind of a um a lesson in how economics plays a part in people's relationships too, right? Because even something like that, I don't think everybody considers that. That if I can go into the garage and work on something, I left, but I didn't leave. If that makes sense, right? Like I left this, I left the situation and I left the argument, but I didn't leave. Right.
SPEAKER_00If you look outside, they'll see you sitting in sitting pacing pacing the yard or something.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Like I can go in the backyard, I can go in the garage, I can go in the basement, and I can leave without leaving. So I thought that was something that that that occurred to me definitely during the pandemic, is that we could kind of get space from each other without walking out, you know. And that becomes like a really significant difference, you know. Uh and I'm sorry if that went off on a note. I know that went off on a moment.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was a it was a you know, it was a very, it was a very strange, very strange time. Do you know what I mean? Hopefully, and like I said, like if that was our fire drill, we we probably failed miserably.
SPEAKER_01So hopefully we But I but Vance, like I I think not only was it a fire drill, but I think like you you brought up a lot of good points, man, like where it was a chance to kind of like reset in in for some people. So if if if if you were fortunate enough not to really go through the the tragedy of it, like in terms of like losing loved ones or you yourself getting really, really sick, you know, you were kind of blessed in a sense that one, you didn't go through that, and then two, you did get a chance to kind of reflect and think about, like I said before, like what is really important to you. Like it gave you a chance to sit your mind down, yeah, and not be so busy. You had no excuse not not to focus on what it is that makes you you, in a sense, right, if that makes sense, right? Like you were saying, like you got a chance to work out, you're in the best shape of your life. You connected with one of our brothers and went on walks all the time. You connected probably with your girlfriend in a way that you wouldn't have otherwise because y'all got to ride out the the rest of the pandemic together, you said, right? You probably you learned how to make soap. A lot of people, I mean, I mean it's not it sounds funny enough, right? But remember, I don't know if you remember, but the big thing I think was was for some people, they were learning how to make sourdough bread, right? People were going online. This started a whole little a whole nother like um economic opportunity for people. Like like teaching people how to do stuff online became a big deal too. Not only the gig work, um, there was DJs that that got got really popular during during pandemic. Remember D Nice was the uh what was it called?
SPEAKER_00Um what was it? Every night. I know he would go on. What do you go on? Every night I think he called it something. I can't remember.
SPEAKER_01I feel ashamed that I can't remember what D Nice called called this DJ session.
SPEAKER_00D nice saved the culture with that a little bit.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if it was like club club covet or or what I think it was club club um uh uh not pandemic, not covet.
SPEAKER_00It was club uh when you get when you hunker in, when you're um uh the word, I lo I'm losing the word, Joe. Uh it'll come to me. I can't remember, I can't remember, but he did a good thing for the cultures. Versus came out. Versus came out.
SPEAKER_01Versus came out during that time where we're um I think it was club quarantine, I think.
SPEAKER_00Club quarantine.
SPEAKER_01It was called a quarantine. I think I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure. Like if we're wrong, I'm 99% sure still Club Quarantine. Yeah, so but but like you said, the versus came out as a result of that where artists weren't going on tour, obviously, because they couldn't. They started battling each other virtually or coming together in the in any way that they could to start to play their records and see, you know, just a celebration of their careers and and how many records they had, and they would they would kind of friendly, have a friendly competition, going battling each other or going record for record, right? And that was a source of entertainment for people that were were otherwise kind of just stuck at home. Um so the comedians, stuff like but yeah, stuff like that. The skits, and then yeah, that's the other thing, like the what social media turned into as a result of COVID as well, like people doing the dances and people doing skits and memes and and all types of things, like where we kind of had a chance to relate to each other in a different way, right? Um, which which which also sprung out like a uh like a different epic economic opportunity for people because people started going viral for that. Um people started showing their talents in a way that I'm not sure they would have otherwise. So that's an interesting thing, man. As you you mentioned that the comedians and the and the and like the memes and all that stuff, the TikToks and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_00Like and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01I feel like that took off really because people were a captive audience sitting at home. Um yeah, bottom line is that you had a captive audience, brought it it kind of brought out the um the creativity.
SPEAKER_00You know what's the funniest thing? Like, we just did an episode of on the dangers and the pitfalls of like social media and the internet. And we did a prior episode, even before one of our earliest episodes, on the dangers of social media and the internet. But I'm not gonna front, social media and the internet did not let us down during the pandemic, bro. Yeah, if you think about it, like it held us down. We held each other down during the pandemic. That was humans became humans virtually during the pandemic with the the fact like yo, let's just like entertain each other. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01Like, we communicated in a in a whole different way, man. It speaks to a lot of different things, man. Like it speaks to our nature, it speaks to our our um our innovations, the way technology impacted us, the way technology had a positive effect. It speaks to like kind of our potential, man. Like when you when you when you think about it, like I don't I don't want to overstate it, but it feels like that was a big deal in terms of our human potential, right? Like our ability to kind of be compassionate with each other, our ability to relate to each other, yeah, um, our ability to entertain each other and make each other happy at a time where really what could have been like more of a of a sad and and depressing thing than it than it actually was, right? Like I'm sure, and like I say, I don't want to diminish for anybody that went through a tragedy, you know, but if you were blessed enough to not be touched at, you know, as severely by this, there was opportunity there um to kind of see the best in people, right? Um it's it yeah, it's it's it's just an interesting thing. And I and I know that this this is like multifaceted and it is it's more complicated than even we're saying because somebody could argue that it brought out the worst in us because there was there was also like this split that happened between like you know, people wearing masks and people that didn't want to wear masks.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01People had to stand like if you did have to go out and stand on the line, you were forced to kind of like stand six feet away from each other. Um, children had to wear masks once they did start to to go in back into the schools and back into places where they had to be. But but yeah, like you said, like social media definitely helped out front. It definitely lifted my spirits in times where I felt like, damn man, like this, when is this gonna end? Um it came at the right time. Like you started to connect, you know.
SPEAKER_00It's what it should have been. And and one of the things that also came out of me being quarantined, so to speak, I watched a lot of YouTube, bro. And a whole lot just like the most YouTube I've ever watched in my life, to the to the point like even now, I still watch more YouTube than I would like. You know what I'm saying? But people talk to me and they always say, Why are you working out so hard? Why you and I always joke with them. I say, I'm training for the zombie apocalypse. But I got something for you. Do you know what contingency plan, aka con plan 8888 is?
SPEAKER_01I do not.
SPEAKER_00Oh bro, it's actually a plan for the zombie apocalypse, huh? And this is real deal, Holyfield said you can look this up and you can find it. So, con plan eighty-eight eighty eight, the zombie apocalypse. It's a military, these are military files. So they're unclassified now. Military files, where it started out as like a teaching tool for for military planners and the think tanks, and it started out kind of like what's the worst-case scenario type thing, but it actually became something that they were really planning for, bro. The zombie apocalypse. Yes. So I I felt you'd get a kick out of this because we literally think of anything.
SPEAKER_01This is a this is I wouldn't have guessed this, but so check this out, check this out, yeah, man.
SPEAKER_00So there's uh there are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight different zombies that the military has prepared for in this Conplay 8880. So we have the PZ, right? Which is the pathogenic the pathogenic zombies, which are the zombies like I am legend, and people become zombies by way of a virus. I think in I Am Legend, they they found a cure for cancer and end up turning the world like into like these vampire zombie-looking things. You have the RZ, the radiation zombies, the extreme radiation exposure, the people that are infected and they turn into zombies. This is the funny one. They have the EMZ, the evil magical zombies. Now, mind you, this is true. This is all true. If you go on the internet and Google, you will find this all to be factual. So you have the EMZ, the evil magical zombies, the zombies created by an evil occult force. Now, think of a bunch of military people, a bunch of lab cults and stuff sitting in a think tank thinking of all this, these worst-case scenarios. You have the space zombies, the zombies that originate from outer space or created by a toxic earth environment from an alien source. You have the weaponized zombies, which are lab developed, zombies used as military le weapons from a foreign adversary. You have the symbiotic induced zombies, which is like venom. If anybody's seen the movie Venom, and you have the vegetarian zombies, and these are the zombies that don't feed on people, but they eat vegetation. So the problem with them is like they're like locusts. So you gotta worry about them eating all your crops and all your vegetables and things like that. And the chicken zombie, which is actually a real thing. The chicken zombie is actually a real thing, and it's it's um when chickens get improperly euthanized with carbon monoxide, and then they get like left in a pile of bodies, and then a couple of them usually like crawl out and just wander about aimlessly until their organs fail and they die. So that's con plan eighty-eight eighty-eight. And they also have they also have phases too. Yeah, they also have phases. There's a phase zero, which is where they shape the environment, and that's like they give the military a heads up. This is what's going on, and they put boots on the ground so they can monitor the spread. And they have a phase one, which is the deterrence to stop any anyone from adding from aiding. So if you get like these militarized groups, like these, these little pocket groups, these cults that they want to go in and they want to try to like infect the world, they they they stop them. And you have the seize the initiative where all hands are a deck and they're called in all phases. So everybody, retirees, um, ex-military, if you have any type of military service, if you're if you're not um reserves, anything, you get called back into active duty. And then they have the planned attacks, which is the phase three, phase four is a stabilization, where they look for survivors, they look for survivors and they look for pockets of zombies uh to eradicate, and then finally phase five is normalization, where you get back to normal and you start rebuilding the world and rebuilding your country. This is crazy, man. This is a real thing that I looked up that I found that I remembered when I was thinking about this episode that I found on YouTube does con plan 8888 about the zombie apocalypse.
SPEAKER_01This is this is uh pretty crazy.
SPEAKER_00It is insane, yo.
SPEAKER_01And I know that there's books about this, but I I didn't know the government had a plan for this, but I know that there's books about how to survive the zombie apocalypse, or there's actually books about that.
SPEAKER_00And and and uh funny you should say that. So one of the things in the plan is that since there's like nowhere this is if something like this actually happened, it would be the first, the first of the first, right? So there's no like real record or research on it, like how we handle it preceding it. No precedents, no precedence. So you know what what the plan is to gain knowledge of it from movies and books. This is true. This is all facts, yo. But movies and books.
SPEAKER_01But even that, but but even that's kind of ridiculous, right? Because of the fact that that those books and movies are are fiction, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01The only zombie that I you know, they there is like a real zombie though, right? Like there's one that I know of where there's a fungus. The voodoo? It's it's there's a there's actually a a a fungus, right, that that takes over um, I think it takes over like a snail, right?
SPEAKER_00Oh, like the cordycep mushroom. Yeah, the cordycep mushroom. Yes, the cordycep mushroom with ants and snails and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01Right. They can take over a snail and they cause a a snail to they basically take over the ant or the snail and cause them to keep moving even though they're they're they're they're dead, right?
SPEAKER_00Like, aimlessly, yeah. They just wander around aimlessly.
SPEAKER_01But they also do that so they can attract birds, they attract, they attract predators, right? So this mushroom or this um cordycep will will take over, let's say, a snail, right? Or some sort of other bug. And in the snail, it starts to pulsate and it it it's kind of a colorful pulp pulsating in the um in the antenna of the the snail. And I'm using the word antenna loosely because uh I'm not sure what you call those little things that stick out of the snail's out of the sna out of the snail's head. I'm I'm saying antenna, but I'm not sure, you know, anybody could correct us if this is the wrong word, two wrong terms to use. But it basically pulsates, right? And is colorful and it attracts birds. The birds come, snatch up the um the snail, and they poop all over the place, right? And they actually spread this this uh this cordycept, but it's fungus, right? And this is how the fungus proliferates, right? Like this it's actually like kind of a just a natural um genetic mandate, you know, for this thing to take over these these these animals or like a snail or a bug, cause itself to be eaten and then cause itself to be poofed back out, yeah so it can spread even more, right? Um that's crazy.
SPEAKER_00And that's based on like that the the the video game and the the TV series that came out on HBO, the um Last of Us is based on that. It's based on like Yeah, the last of us is like the is like the world, it's basically you get infected through I think it's the cordycep mushroom, I think. I haven't um or some type of fungus and it turns us into these zombie-like creatures through this fungus that attacks the mind in its different stages, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So so maybe so so I was saying before, kind of I'm you know, I was making a joke out of it, but I'm I was thinking, okay, like any theories we have about b zombification, so to speak, are all thick. But if they're based on the cordyceps and the cordyceps' ability to take over the the host body and keep it keep it moving and keep it sort of, you know, quasi-alive, um, even after it's actually dead, then that is a form of kind of zombification. Um and there's no there's no telling, because I I have read where some people suspect that those mushrooms can also have an it have an impact on the human brain. So um and it could do stuff like change the personality of the person and stuff like that, right? Um if if it gets if it gets its way in into the brain, um it actually changes the person's personality. So it is sort of in control in a way. And um, yeah, I mean you guys can look this up. Like I don't I don't have all the details offhand, but it's just that you brought this up. But um, but if you want to look this up, and you guys can look up like zombie snail or zombie bug.
SPEAKER_00Cordycep mushrooms.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you're gonna find, yeah, if if you Google um zombie bugs or zombie snails, you're gonna definitely find a lot of information on what we're talking about on as far as like cordycept mushrooms sticking over the and other functions. The motor function. Yeah, they take over the mo the motor functions of of these bugs and snails, and um, they spread themselves by allowing themselves to be eaten by by predators and kind of um pooped out later.
SPEAKER_00Um it's possible. Yeah, you never know what you're gonna hear on the Gen Expertise Podcast.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't know what we'll be I don't know what you're gonna hear on the Gen Expertise podcast. I don't know what to say. I don't know what I'm gonna say on the Gen Expert's podcast anymore.
SPEAKER_00But I did get if you wanna if you wanna do well, you could just go to YouTube. And if you type in con plan888, but what I saw is I like I like to watch this one channel called Infographics. You probably why have you ever watched infographics? You bring the bell belly. Apocalypse, and it's called contingency plan eighty eight eighty eight. I think it's like con plan eight eight eight eight eleven is it's official. And they talk about how the best ways is Like by fire. But they say also the toughest zombie would be the evil monster zombie because it would be like magical, evil, magical zombie. They wouldn't quite know how to deal with it with normal weapons, so they would recruit the chaplains. If they have a chaplain, uh, the chaplain, military chaplains on deck. So there you go.
SPEAKER_01And and just a quick correction on the zombie, there is a zombie snail, right? But it's not, but in this particular case, it's not a cordycept. It's a it's a parasite that takes control of the snail and then um allows itself to be eaten by a bird. So I was right about all this stuff, but there are funguses and cordyceps that do infect bugs.
SPEAKER_00I think cordyceps is mostly in the ants. I think cordycept usually attacks ants because then the ants they climb up to trees and then the cordycep just like bursts out of them. And then we pick them, grind them up, and turn them into powder, and we drink them. I myself drink cordycep uh powder. It's it's good for energy and stuff.
SPEAKER_01So it but it's definitely there's definitely a parasite though that can that will turn a snail into a what what they call a zombie snail. Yeah, and it does what I said, like um it'll it'll attract a bird to eat it and allow itself to be pooped out, and and that's how it will kind of move and spread, right? Yeah, so so I guess the bottom line is that zombification is possible either through parasites or through mushrooms, through mushrooms, and and there's more to think about during these type of uh emergencies than toilet paper.
SPEAKER_00If you don't get anything, toilet paper is the least of your problems.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're giving you something to think about.
SPEAKER_00So, anything else you would like to add, my friend?
SPEAKER_01Um just one other thing. Like uh so another thing that came to mind um as we were talking about um the pandemic is just like kind of what to do in case the supply chain does get dis gets disrupted, right? Because something like going out to buy toilet papers is as a direct result of people thinking that the shelves will be empty, right? And I want I wanted people to like we could talk about this in a whole nother episode, right? But I just wanted to touch on it quickly that um, you know, I just wanted to encourage people to prepare um just in case something like that would have happened, right? Like you should you should be prepared to a certain extent in case the shelves would be empty. And think about what do I do if just like maybe a few days, right? But what if what if the supermarket didn't have anything in it for a few days? Let's say two to five days, the supermarkets are empty, Costco's empty, BJ's, Sam's Club, you go there, you go there and the shelves are empty. What are you doing to prepare for for what if scenarios like that? What if that happens? Do you have a few days of food? Do you have a few days of water? What if your water shut off? What if the power goes out in in addition to the supply chain being disrupted? What are you doing to prepare? Is is another question I had because that comes up when I think about the pandemic as well, just because it, you know, supply chain disruptions and with everything going on in the world, I feel like I should encourage people to think a little bit about what you can do to be prepared for like power outage, high chain problems. Just what are you gonna do? Like what do you have a little community that you're gonna work with? Do you have enough food store? Do you have non-perishable food? Like what are your skills? What are your skills you're gonna use? What do you do when the lights are out? Do you have you know are you gonna use candles? Are you gonna use lights that are battery powered? Do you have a radio?
SPEAKER_00Do you have a mylar blanket?
SPEAKER_01Do you have mylar blankets? Do you have do you have sleeping bags in case it gets cold? Do you have a tent? Do you have flashlights? Do you have, you know, all types of do-you have, right? There's a lot of do-you haves, and it's probably a list of that you can get on um if you looked up another thing you could just Google preppers and what preppers think you should you should get, right? Like there's a a lot of influencers that are preppers online. There's a lot of um answers that you can get from a simple Google search, like I said, for um how to prep for supply chain disruption or something like that. But that's another thing that comes to mind, right? Um, and I just want to encourage people to think about that a little bit, especially in times like this when it's very possible that we could have some sort of supply chain disruption. Um, so you want to think about how you're gonna fortify your own home, fortify your own family situation um in case something like that was to happen. But I won't get too deep into it because I know we're wrapping up, but this could be a whole nother episode on what you need in case of in case you gotta go five days without a supermarket having anything in it, you know?
SPEAKER_00Preparation discourages chaos.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's what someone once told me. Preparation discourages chaos. So think about that. Even if you just buy like one can of beans a day for a week or so, just stop high. You know what I mean? It doesn't take if you think about it, it doesn't even really take much.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it just takes a little bit of of of um thought and and like you said, like just buy a little something here and there. Like um, you know, just cut the budget on something else and start thinking about how you would make sure that your your own household is kind of fortified against an emergency, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. How would you make a fire? Just the small, the small is the small things. How will you cook if you have no electricity? You know, little propane burner.
SPEAKER_01Do you have propane burners? Do you have sternocans?
SPEAKER_00And do you know how to use a propane burner?
SPEAKER_01Do you know how to use a propane burner?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, do you have do you guys have matches? You know, do you have like there's so many things before I started really thinking about this, like like, yeah, so many things I didn't think of until I started kind of looking into hey, um am I really prepared in case there's an emergency? Um, just simple things, man, like matches and lighters. I bought glow sticks in case the flashlights don't work for some reason. In case there's a malfunction, a glow stick will last for 12 hours. So you could get a cheap package of glow sticks on Amazon and you got to get yourself a little light for in case of emergency, right? Um, you might be stuck on the road and some something like that will come in come in handy, right? Like you said, Mylar blankets. Um you know, do you have water, you know?
SPEAKER_00Do you know how to filter water?
SPEAKER_01Do you know how to filter water? Do you know how to treat water in case you have to, right? In case something happens and the water's not getting properly treated and filtrated, if you had to store some water, would you be able to to to filter it or treat it and make it drinkable again, right? Um I know we're going into like a little bit of extreme here, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think so. This is what this is what you would call podcast foreshadowing, so to speak.
SPEAKER_01Right. We'll come back to this episode. We'll tell you, we told you so, and we'll we tried to tell you a little something in episode 30. You know. Somewhere in the future, we'll we'll we'll we'll call back to this one. But yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So before we leave, I want to give some shout-outs, a few shout-outs. Um, we always shout out, we said Singapore uh last week. We have Lithuania, we have Finland, we have Germany, we have Spain, we have um, but let's shout out some locals. So I want to give a shout out to Ashburn, Virginia, whoever's listening to us in Ashburn, Virginia. You know, Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee. I think I know who those. I think I know who though. I think that's the Flowers gang. These these people I know that I think that's them. But if that's not them, if that's uh if that is them, shout out to you. If it's not, shout out to you anyway. Um Council Bluffs, Iowa. I know we don't know anybody in Council Bluffs, Iowa, bro. Um South Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So shout out to you guys for listening to us and supporting us. Oh, and shout out to um a friend of mine, Miss Morgan. She's always uh supporting us. So shout out to you guys. We're keeping it local this week. This concludes episode 30 of the Jet X VTs podcast. Shout out to our now day 30s, our day ones, and everyone in between. And as usual, and as always, shout out to our day one, day one, you know who you are. This been real, you know. This was a subject that um I didn't even think to touch on. You know what I mean? Like we talk about so much, but we're always trying to think of things that we that people don't expect to hear from us. So there you go. You know?
SPEAKER_01And shout out to our YouTube subscribers out there.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01I think we're up to I don't know how many views exactly we're I think we're up to like 15 subscribers.
SPEAKER_00Oh, we are 15 subscribers.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so shout out to our subscribers on YouTube. Uh YouTube day ones. I encourage everybody if you're listening to us, if you follow us on any social media, um, if you're following us on your podcast service of choice, please go out there and subscribe on the YouTube as well. It helps a lot. Um, because now we're putting out the video versions of of these podcasts. So please go out there and subscribe. Um, you'll be helping us quite a bit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And make sure you especially watch this, because I'm actually shaved in this episode.
SPEAKER_01I'm not usually shaved, but I'm either Yeah, and I wore my jazzy Wu-Tang t-shirt. So watch us on YouTube. I'm dressing up for this.
SPEAKER_00And for those 15 subscribers, and uh for those people that are watching us on YouTube, thank you. Salute. We appreciate it. Yeah, salute. Absolutely. We always appreciate everybody. We're never gonna stop saying how much we appreciate everybody who supports us and listens to us um because you don't have to.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00To be honest.
SPEAKER_01And you know, thank you.
SPEAKER_00As we always say, you know what, right, man?
SPEAKER_01Since we are prolific.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Since we are prolific, we will be back on your dial, same Gen X time, same Gen X place, next Wednesday on audio and on video. All your all your uh most popular podcasting streams and on YouTube. As we say also, because we say a lot of things every week, power to the podcast.
SPEAKER_02Peace.