Ep. 28 | Tylar from OK, Dry Cauliflower, a Perfect Day for us Both | Mar 17, 2026

We're back with updates on Jake's cross-country move, hotel hacks, and hilarious roadside mishaps. Dive into local adventures, food tips, and unexpected encounters that make life interesting.

Highlights:

• Jake's chaotic road trip from California to Pennsylvania 
• Pet-friendly hotel tips and breakfast strategies
• Networking events and local business visits 
• Tornado scares and roadside hero Tylar
• Exploring Lambertville's artsy scene and coffee shop dynamics
• Spicy food adventures in Nashville
• A hilarious bathroom encounter and Disney adult debates

Timestamps:

• (00:00) – Welcome back and life updates
• (02:00) – Cross-country trip highlights
• (10:00) – Hotel hacks and breakfast tips
• (20:00) – Long drive strategies
• (30:00) – Tornado scares and roadside tales
• (45:00) – Local adventures and art galleries
• (60:00)- Coffee shops and community connections

https://www.youtube.com/@goingyardley

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

There it is. How are you? I'm doing well. Brother. Brother, you made it.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Little hiatus. Little hiatus. Sorry. Little hiatus. Without the high. You know what I mean? Or I don't know. Without the low. I don't know. I don't know. We're back. Um, we made the move. We did the move. It was, you know, a week off of work. A week of drive in. We did the thing. We got here. We lived without our things for a little bit of time. If some people, you might have seen the announcement. I put the announcement out there. I still am trying to figure out because sometimes it hits people on Instagram. Sometimes they just listen and they just kind of tune in. So I never, I never know where to post it. So anyway, I should probably just do it all over the place. But uh anyway, the latest was we had our stuff on the moving truck. It finally got here. As you can see, if you can see the video, the thumbnail, we've got the mic set up. It's sounding good, it's sounding silky, it sounded smooth. So um, yeah, we're we're back in action. Alex, how's it going? I know we've chatted offline, but what are you doing? What are you up to? I am up to all sorts of things. I mean, the seasons are changing, you know, life seasons are changing. For any listener that's listening to this and you didn't know what the update was, Jake moved, Jake and Lisa, his wife, and Pippin, his son, in cat form. Made a cross country trek. Yep. Uh made the cross country trip from California all the way to Pennsylvania. And so um, and so now Jake's back on the East Coast here. Crazy. So, yeah. So if you didn't know that, that was sort of the update. That's what took us a bit to get back on here. For me, I've been good. Went on a date. Uh, that's an update. We'll talk about yo, Liggy. First date, second date, third date. What are we looking at? A standard and a second. A first and a second. Oh we we'll chat about it. Three different women. What? How did I do that? Whoa. No, simple mouse. Tag team action, I guess. Just a single gopher, that's all. Um, but we uh we did that, did some hard labor with some Gale Force wins, did that. Love that fun. Love that later. We should chat about as well. I know I've got on the rundown here. You and I were back in the same area. We hit up the Chamber of Commerce. Look at us. I thought to myself, Alex, I'm I'm back. It's been a week. What's the first thing I want to do back? I want to see what local business is up to in the area.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Yes, that's what you do.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Networking events, can we go to at a local Red Robin? And we did. And we did. And guys, here's a pro tip. If you're trying to push your young career forward, go with your identical twin to a networking event. Divide and conquer the room because half the room will already know you. The other half if they go, I met your twin. Perfect. I don't need your card. I don't need your card. I'll figure it out on the cart. I'll get it in the car.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

I'll get it in the car. I'll get it in the car. It's was that Step Brothers. Uh we interviewed as a team. We interviewed as a team.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

We did. Great icebreaker, though. Really great icebreaker. Fantastic. And they'll never forget us, Alex. They'll never forget us. Uh a lot of connections made. A lot of connections. A lot of business cards, a lot of a lot of people. A lot of people that you meet. Um, so that was fun. We'll talk about that a little bit. But the chat Eagles made some moves and they had some losses. They made some moves, but they had some losses. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So briefly. But it boom. We'll yeah. We'll briefly talk about that at the end too. You know? Yeah. But um I guess I'll kick off. I mean, the Travels really hung up the pod. And what a doozy, Alex. I'll tell you what. It has been, we are about half unpacked at the moment, maybe like three quarters. We're getting, we're making good time. But it has felt like I have been living out of boxes, and in it feels like I'm camping for the past month because I've had, you know, on the front end, lived out of boxes, packing things up. And then you're on the road living that life. And then you're in the new place without your stuff. And now I'm in a new place with my stuff half boxed. It it's been uh it's been quite the slow progression, but I'll tell you, it is, it's finally beginning to feel like a semblance of my my old patterns and routines. I've got a new standing desk. Alex, look at this. I mean, I mean, mid. Look at me. Whoa. Oh, oh, oh, look at it.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Oh, here it comes.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Look at this.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Oh, it's slowly going up. It's going up. It's going up automatically.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

I gotta uh I gotta stand up after that meal. Look at that, huh?

SPEAKER_03 5:52

What are we doing?

SPEAKER_01 5:53

What are we doing, dude? Pretty red. That's gotta be good so good for your workflow and your blood flow. Your workflow is blood flow. You should that's a pretty good that's workflow, blood flow, Alex. That feels like a shamwow guy would kind of have that in his arsenal back to back. Uh, how about the oxycoton? How about Billy Mays? It'll make your whites wider. It'll make your brights brighter. There we go. Your workflow, your blood flow. You are gonna be flowing. That could be, Alex. I think you could, I think you could get that going. Heavy flow, get a work desk. Get a work desk. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that's been fun getting uh some stuff around. I still gotta decorate, you know, you're kind of getting the bones in, still gonna decorate. But um, man, the drive itself was Jake. You gotta really open up here. You gotta open up, you gotta give me the let's open the can of worms because I think we all I'm I'm gonna speak for the listener here. Okay. What was the road trip like? What kind of gas stations are we stopping at? What kind of food are we getting? What kind of trials, tribulations? Did you see any shady characters? What was the weather like? Was it crazy? Or or what highway did you get lost on? You know? What happened? Happy to answer any of all these. So we ended up breaking it up LA to Philly. We did five days. So we broke up into five days. You could probably do it in three, Alex. We talked about your your trip last. So you really hammered it. Yeah, we did it quickly. But uh we didn't have you didn't have Uncle Bruce on the trip. Didn't have Bruce, and we had a cat. So, you know, trade-offs trade-offs. Yeah, we ended up, we were aiming for the front load. That was the game plan. We went LA all the way through California, through Arizona, to New Mexico, Albuquerque. We took a left at Albuquerque, huh? Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny? Yeah, we made some meth, huh? Breaking bad. The only two references I have to New Mexico are Albuquerque? Was it El Polo Loco? Or no, Los Pollos. Los Polos. Yeah, yeah. Los one of them's a real thing. I think the I think the the first one, El Polio Loco is a real thing. Hermanos. What is it? Chicken Brothers or something? For uh Better Call Saul? Was it Polo Hermanos in Albuquerque? I think so. Do you remember that? We did that all in New Mexico. Oh, bright. Anyway. Oh, we'll get it. We had Luca? Anyway, anyway. Yeah. But um, yeah, we the first day we were so we had so much energy. We woke up at so fun little fact, we did this beginning of March. It was we woke up at 3 in the morning, 3:30, and at 3:30, there was a a blood moon, a red moon. It was an eclipse. Um, and unfortunately, it was a little too cloudy in LA, so we didn't catch it. Um the next day we saw a little bit of a uh kind of kind of like uh kind of like a version of it. It just wasn't as pronounced as the first day. But so there was like a cloud in front of it with like a string sticking out of it, kind of, of this this bud moon? Is that kind of is this a uh Tears of the Kingdom reference? Is that a Zelda? It was a tampon joke that missed, so I'm gonna just keep it juggling. I'm gonna keep it charged. Shoot, I yeah, that went right over my head. I apologize. Right under a lot of people's heads. So I thought for sure you're going Zelda there with the blood boon, but um second.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

It's close. That was good.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

That's not bad. But uh, so yeah, we we break up, we end up hitting the road, and then I think we've talked about this before, but I have a water bottle that's it's a lot like the 50 states coins, collector coins, where this water bottle has each national park on it, and it's a sticker? Like a sticker. Well, it is a an outline of each national park, and then you have stickers to put on once you've been there to track all the national parks you've been to.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

So Lisa and I started this, and I was I told her like the week before we were leaving, like, oh, I never did Joshua Tree, and we were so close, I could have just popped over. I would have I wish we could have. So we end up penciling in a small detour to get into the park. We've got Pippin, we've got a full, low, fully loaded Jeep compass that is packed, seats down, packed to the ceiling. And and Pippin's got a little cave and a little lookout. Those are his two command centers. And uh he's just hanging out. We go to national parks, we got to feature him in the national park. That was very fun. Took some fun photos of uh our cat in the middle of the wilderness, so that was great. Um went through, and then we just hauled it all the way to Albuquerque. We hit Flagstaff, made a little pit stop. A little pit stop there. That was fun. Did Albuquerque, and then that was like a 14-hour day. And I the biggest thing, you know me, the listeners, they know me. Big Survivor guy, the push for season 50. Yeah, I had probably the best idea I've had, um maybe, maybe ever, which was the idea to download survivor seasons onto the iPad so that way Shotgun could then watch just I think it was 25 episodes at a time. Uh wow. And so we ended up through the course of the trip, we end up ripping through about three and a half seasons of Survivor over five days. So basically, what ended up happening, the the it turned into we wake up really early, we get a hotel breakfast. We get a hotel breakfast, we then wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let's not breeze over this here. I like this. Hotel breakfast. Hotel breakfast. What are your hotel breakfast essentials? What's breakfast? I know it's a continental, but not every hotel is the same. They're not the same. What did it look like? Do you have essentials? Do you have any strategies going in? Well, let me set the stage because we've got we've got the cat, we're looking at pet-friendly hotels. Now, we look across your classic, your go-to, cross country, run-of-the-mill. You're looking at La Quinta. You're looking at La Quinta as a prominent pet-friendly hotel all over the place. They're going to be readily available, cookie cutter, you're in, you're out. Now, you do have to tell them that you've got the pet, right? Right. And you guys certainly, certainly did this, right? Oh, sometimes. Well, they don't they didn't, if they didn't, there was a couple of times where maybe we could have we had Pippin in a carrier, we put a blanket over him, we've got the bellhop. We've got the car. Did you smuggle that cat? Did you smuggle that cat into those Laquintas? I'm not gonna confirm nor deny that, Alex, but okay there could have been a couple of times where, you know, we were going with our cat and you know, they didn't they didn't bring it up, we didn't bring it up, and we had a cat in the hotel. What? It's just a cat. Everybody's cool. Pippin's routine ended up being at first, he didn't know what to do. He he sh he does what he always does when he's in a new place. He does the perimeter. You gotta you gotta find out. Yeah, he's like a design. He's exactly like a cop. He goes, he does the perimeter, he's interested in the AC unit because it's buzzing. So he wants to know what the hell is going on with that thing. Then he wants to smell some shit. Then he goes around. So that's going on. That's what he's doing. Now, Lisa and I, we at first made sure he was acclimated. He kind of settled in. And we go, we get dinner, we do a couple of different things here or there. It depends on the stop. And then Pippin will usually burrow underneath. They have the sheets very tight. Yeah. Very tight. Any hotel, any hotel does this. Pippin would burrow so he was under those sheets and just wedged in between the sheets.

SPEAKER_03 15:18

Look at that one.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Weasel, huh? Yeah, he loved that. That became his routine. As soon as he'd get there, he'd do the perimeter and then he'd burrow. Well, we have that in common, Pippin and I. Pippen and I have that in common. Yeah. Very relatable guy. So all that to say we you've got that guy going on now, the mornings, the breakfast. Laquinta, they've always got their coffee. They got a lot of fix-ins. We had our to-go mugs. So we would just load up our mugs, our thermoses. Now that's a move. Yeah. That's a good move. You get a little bit more coffee. You're on the road. You can kind of, you know, you know how much to judge. Gas and go for lightning the queen. I see. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And then we ended up actually getting a gift card. Lisa got a gift card from her old boss for Starbucks. Now we go La Quinta coffee, we go to Starbucks and get the breakfast sandwiches. Oh, so you're not getting the coffee. You're not getting the coffee. So at Starbucks, we just So wait, is there is there any what food are they giving you at the La Quinta breakfast? It depended on the location. Some of them, you look in Albuquerque, not a ton. But even that like uh kind of the gelatin egg, the scramble eggs that's been sitting off. Didn't get any of that. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't want to risk it. No, I didn't because it was just sitting in the the hot pan, you know what I mean? Yeah. You know, you're you're catering and you got that hot pan that's just sitting there in the boiling water underneath. It's kind of rubbery. It's a little rubbery. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just kind of jiggles in a way that you're like, that's not those eggs. I don't know if this is this is for me. But I did do yogurt because that's pretty it's packaged. It's it's safe. Um so I did that a couple times with like a granola type deal. So you kind of get that going. Maybe a banana, a banana sometimes here and there. Also pre-packaged. The banana. Right. I can't you can't go wrong. Nature's pre-packaged snack and roo. So that was pretty good. So those were usually like the grab and go type of things. If a banana there, a yogurt there, and then also we actually, I will say, we actually ended up having a couple bagels and a couple muffins here and there. So those those are usually the spread. It kind of depended on the each location. But that was a pretty cookie cutter across the board or some of those items. But have the Starbucks thing, we would usually hit gas, hit the Starbucks, and do the like sauces, egg, and cheese on an English muffin type deal, whatever they got going on there. Nail that, and then we're just on the road. But this is I'd love your opinion on this. So I know you and Bruce, you guys, you guys did a little gas station rotation. Now Lisa and I, different heights, got to adjust the mirrors, the seats every time. We ended up doing a day-to-day transfer. So wow, it's a full day for the driver. Yes, yeah. Each driver would do the entire day. Um Okay. Now I kind of I kind of I'm curious your opinion. First off, right after jump. What it do you like that? Do you like do or did you like the gas and change? I like the idea. I think we briefly talked about this. So I like the idea that you wake up, you know what you know what your role is that day. You can mentally prepare in a full way. If you're not driving the next day, you can stay up a little later. You might even have a drink or two. You might even have a drink or three. You might even have a drink or four. You might even have a drink or five. And so maybe, maybe there's some leeway there for the old passenger that can take a little snoozer the next day and take a little more relaxy and throw on their survivor and kind of fall asleep. You know? To your point, to your point, you've been driving all day. You're the one that that needs that drink or two or ten. You know? Yeah, exactly. I don't it could be anybody, it could be any amount. Nobody knows. Um and then for the driver, for the driver, at least you get to lock in, right? You lock in. You get to that gas station. You're not for me, it was I get to the gas station, it's like every four or five hours. Okay, the sprint's done. This the sprint is done. I feel like for the driver on a full day, it's like, okay, marathon. We hit the I hit a checkpoint at the gas station. I know what fueling I obviously the car needs, but also the fuel I need. I need one of those, I don't know, like energy drinks, or I need like a check mix snack that I can eat while I drive, kind of thing. Like you kind of know, and you're locked into that more of a marathon. So it seems like marathon versus sprint to me in strategies. Yeah. Yeah. It really was. And I I'm happy you brought it up. This is gonna be my point here, my big takeaway. What I liked was when you were driving, you could just really zone out and get into like this flow state of like, I'm just doing this thing. And I will say, post Albuquerque, and even I believe into Albuquerque, yeah, you're on the four interstate 40. Interstate 40 goes horizontally across the entire country. It goes just straight through, it goes uh Albuquerque or Albert, it goes New Mexico, it was Oklahoma, Arkansas, I think Tennessee. I missed. Um but it goes right across, and like what's crazy is we had these big days, but like that second day, it was basically like directions, turn left out of La Quinta, get on to Interstate 40, stay on Interstate 40 for 400 miles, and then continue on and then yeah, and then continue on Interstate 40, then right into La Quinta. Like now basically like Jake those middle two to three days were post album. Albuquerque sounds like a good rapper's name.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

You know, post-Abuquerque.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, also, Interstate 40 sounds like a good album name, an album name. So it could be a rapper called post-Abuquerque, who with uh Interstate 40 across this beautiful nation as like kind of like his ballad track, you know. Um this is I mean post Malone is uh is definitely what you're uh Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

That's really that's who I'm spoofing right now is post-Abuquerque.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Yeah. Um yeah, it goes, I'm looking right now. Interstate 40 goes from California, Arizona, New Mexico, the very tip of Texas, you know, the rectangular bit, then through Oklahoma. We don't talk about the tip. Yeah. We don't talk about the tip. Then we go Little Rock, Arkansas, Tennessee. You guys get the Little Rock? We passed through. We didn't we didn't make a stop. Now, the crazy thing was the timing of this. We stop at Albuquerque, our next stop, Oklahoma City. So gotta see the thunder. Gotta see the thunder. And we did in the sky. It was terrible weather, Alex. Oh no. Oh no. That's not S-G A. No.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

That is L-I-G-H-T-I-N-G. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

There we go. On the spot. Lightning. Um, we ended up, we were really watching the weather because there ended up being, this was like Tornado Alley. And we were about two days, uh a day and a half in front of a tornado forming. It is kind of wild because they can they can predict it, or at least this one. They were like, hey, there's a bunch of stuff happening, different air pressures, different temperatures. This is looking like a tornado on Friday. We were like, oh no. But um, luckily we hit on like Wednesday into Thursday. We were in Tennessee by the time this uh tornado kind of ripped across. I think it ended up going um into some other states too. But we beat it. Presumably we were beating. Yeah, presumably you were in a La Quinta for like a Thursday night, and you were like, please don't let this tornado hit this La Quinta. Please don't let it. Wednesday night, Wednesday night, but yeah, pretty much. I I had the weather channel on. Lisa went to go pick pick up some dinner. I was hanging with Pip while he was under the blankets, and um, and I'm watching, I'm just watching the news, and it's just uh a bunch of people being like, yeah, it's coming. But they again, it was a Wednesday, it was on on pace for Friday. So we were like, well, we better hit the road uh pretty pretty early. Now the crazier were you driving? Did you feel like a tornado chaser like that show? Did you feel like that a little bit? The crazy part, I might have actually gone out of order. I'm trying to remember the order of it all. Before that, we're going through Oklahoma, Lisa and I, I end up blowing a tire. Oh now, it was a a retread tire. If you don't know, never buy one. Never buy a retread tire. Basically, when the tread wears down, they'll cut it off and put a ring on the rest of the tire so that you then have more tread, which is very silly. Um, because what ends up happening is when you you're driving a long period of time and it especially if it's hot, that second tread that was added, that ring separates and it it ended up breaking and then going, it was still attached, it was flipping around the wheel well. And it so it not only is it a flat tire, it's a piece of rubber hanging on the tire that is then destroying the back quarter panel. And so we're on the 40, we're in Oklahoma, and I have to pull off to the side of the road. Thank God it's a clear day, and there was a shoulder, but I I had to I had to remove all of our belongings from the back of the truck, back of the Jeep Well, I had to get to the spare tire. Oh right, right, right, right, right. I had to remove everything on top of it to then pull out the jack, pull out the equipment, get the tire, and so I'm just on the side of the road, and there's just 18 wheelers whizzing by going 70. Sounds awful.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

Yeah, and so when Lisa and the cat are just like Pippin was like, what the fuck is going on?

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Um just on the 40. I mean that's classic interstate 40 stuff right there. Classic interstate. We got very lucky, as lucky as we could, I suppose, but we then Lisa is calling a tire company, like local tire companies in the area to see, like, hey, you guys open? Do you have these tires? Calls one, they don't have it. But they recommended another tire company. She calls them. They have two tires of the ones we need. They're like 30 miles away. So I get us on a spare, I load our shit back into the car, put the busted tire at the in the wheel well for the where the spare goes, and drive us just the most nerve-wracking 30 miles you could imagine. Just you're on a and and you have to the speed limit's like 65 for most of it. So you gotta be going quick. So I was just in the right lane behind like big trucks going like 55 or 60. And then she's just like hoping that lug nuts on tighten up. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so we pull into a mechanic and tire guy. Can I pull you back for a second?

unknown 28:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

You're driving there. Are we in are we in tornado watch time right now? Like in the timeline of the the drive. That's why I'm trying to remember. I'm pretty sure we had not heard Tornado Watch yet. So pre pre-tornado watch.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

This is pre-tornado watch. It's a clear day. Gorgeous. And so I end up going through the the change was pretty quick. Once I got stuff out and Lisa found a place pretty quick, as soon as I got it up and going, we were on the road, we were back. We pull up there, we called ahead, so they were waiting for us. But we're in the middle of Oklahoma, just rural Oklahoma. And we've got our California license plates. And uh we pull in, and I'm just like, hey, yeah, our attire blue. Um, it was a retread, and they go, retread? Those things are illegal. Those things are illegal here. Did they spit tobacco in a in a small barrel in the corner and go, what are you doing? You aren't from here, are you? That was exactly the dirty. They had the the the uh mechanics, so they had the like oil in all over yeah, yeah, yeah. So they were they looked the park, they were ready to roll. Solted the earth. Um they were great. I they directed me onto the I don't know, the lift so that way I could they could kind of just prop the car up, get the take a look at it. I told them, I was like, hey, if you see any other tires, even I knew they had two of the tires that that fit. So I said, I want both of them. Just replace the shitty one, and then whatever one is like the the most worn down, replace that one too. Um, because I just do not want this to happen again. Um and so I was like, I'll take both of them. And um man, oh my gosh. So the timing of this, it is like 4 p.m. when the tire blows. Okay. We then get it on, we get to the shop. It's about 4:30, 4:45. Lisa has Pippin in a carrier, she's in the front. I have taken all of our shit out of our car again in the middle of a garage in Oklahoma. And there's like, so all of our shit and belongings are just like around. They take out the shitty tire. Um, they were a little frazzled because it's the end of the day. Like five o'clock is right around the corner. They're about to leave. And so they're kind of there's a couple other people, there's a couple other cars they're working on. So it's a busy shop. But the Bud Heavies had already been poured. Like go get ready. That's right. Go get ready. Yeah, that's right. And so um the one guy, his name was Tyler. Um T Y L A R is the way he's trying. Tyler. He he ended up um very helpful guy. He's trying to get the air gun to uh to get the lug nuts off quickly, the the gun for it, but he has to, you know, put the air compressor and set it up into it. As he's put like getting it apart, the air compressor, the tube with the metal bolts on it ends up flailing around like a fire hose and hits him in the eye. Hits him within the temple. And this guy, Alex, this guy, he he gets it. He just you could see him just seeing red, and he ends up pushing this thing back onto the gun, the lug nut gun, just pushes it back. He ends up just going gritting his teeth and clenching and just walks off. And the other guy and one other cashier woman go, it's been a long day. It's been a long day. And Tyler walks off. Um, this other guy kind of just fills in and starts going. Um we start chatting about like I I helped them get the the rim from the original tire that blew and just was like moving things around. Tyler comes back. Oh, he comes back? Okay. He comes back, doesn't miss a beat, doesn't even address it. This guy, he goes right to the doesn't even care, and then uh red welt on his head while he's doing this. No, well he had a hat on the mark. Well, he had long hair, he had long hair and a huge beard. So I could maybe he could have, but he goes, uh, what kind of cat you got? I go, oh, what a champion. I go, I go, uh champion. I go, well, he's a he's a black, he's you know, we rescued him, he's a stray, he's like black and white. He goes, tuxedo? I go, yeah, he's a tuxedo. He goes, oh, that's that's awesome. I go, you big cat guy? He goes, no.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

I go, oh, you a dog guy? He goes, no, I got kids. And he goes, he goes, I don't, he goes, they would love some animals, but I I uh I can't I can't do it. And I go, I'm not enough of these lug nuts hitting me in the eye.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Yeah, I go, I'm like, I'm like, I can't tell if he's trying to relate to me or if he's like looking down on me for having a cat instead of a kid. I'm like, I try to read this guy, and I go, how old are your kids? He he kind of opens up. He, you know, he's got um three kids, and um, I forget their ages right now, but yeah. So anyway, we go through and I end up going to the cashier with where Lisa's at with Pippin. Everything is packed back away. We've got the spare, we've got the new tires. Um, we go to pay, and as I'm paying at the cashier, Tyler goes to clock out. He lit, I literally watched him punch his card.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

He literally punched his card behind the cashier, and uh, he opened the door for me and shook my hand and goes, like, have a great day. And I was like, What a fucking Tyler.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Champ. What a champ. What a legend. I mean, I gotta, I'll look up, I gotta, I gotta leave a Google review, is what I have to do. Now that I'm thinking about this, specifically shout out Tyler with an A.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:00

Anything that that local community can do for him and his children is that absolute champion. Yeah. Excellent service. Crazy, crazy, because again, we got there five minutes before they closed. You know, like if we had it was so lucky, if we if we were, you know, 30 minutes later, 40 minutes later, we would have had to wait till the next day, maybe. Can I I'll use an analogy like this. If it was a restaurant and you got sat right before the kitchen closed, spit's going in that food. You know what I mean? Spit's going in that food. That's right. Not Tyler. Not Tyler. Yeah. He made the appetizers, he made the entree, he gave you the dessert with the handshake at the end. That man is salt of the earth. Yeah. That guy, absolute champ, uh, class act. And yeah. And we that that was when we then get back to the hotel in Oklahoma City. And then after that, now the crazy part, that entire ordeal, it was in hour 15 added. So it was it was quick. It was really quick. Uh all told. I mean, yeah. Like that's making good time considering you everything that you kind of had to jump through there. Yeah, like we still made it to our hotel by sundown, which was our goal every day, was to make sure we were there in the hotel before sunset. Right. So that was pretty great. But then it was funny. I mentioned all that because then after we're on Tornado Watch. Right after. So we went right into Tornado Watch, and then we ended up going from Oklahoma City through Arkansas into Tennessee. We stop at Nashville. That was that was the best stop for short. We got barbecue. Like we didn't do, we didn't do much, but like we just every day we were like just wiped and just hung at the hotel. So we it was just like that. It was incredible because we we saw a bunch of reviews, and that was it was one of those, it's on a chain, but they had like three or four locations in the city, that kind of deal. And it was one of the highest rated spots, and it was fantastic. We got takeout, I got brisket. Oh, that's what I was gonna ask. That's awesome. I I got this brisket, little mac and cheese, collard greens. Uh Lisa got some chicken wings, but then also this. And she got she got some like Nashville hot sauce as well. That that looked like it really had some, that had some kicked for sure. I tasted one. But um, yeah, we ended up going through that, and then we end up making it all the way to Virginia after that. We stop in Virginia, and then the last leg we go through Shenandoah National Park.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

Shenandoah River. There it is. Yeah, we did the control, take me home.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

And uh yeah, so that was awesome because you can drive right through it, and you're just like you're driving on like a mountain ridge, basically. Still gone. Um so that was cool. That's like of if you're gonna drive through national park, that was like a good experience because it's this cool winding road, and you're just looking over mountains with clouds nestled in the valleys, which was pretty cool. So we got some cool pictures and videos. Pippin hit his second national park WhatsApp. Wow, he's filling out his water bottle there, huh? That's right. He's getting his little his water bowl. His water bowl's really getting filled up.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

His little passport, his little pet passport, I think they call him sometimes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

Yeah. And then we then we made it to uh PA. And I think it was all smooth sailing from there, right? Once once he got to PA, no, no hiccups, right? Nothing. No movers or well, well, getting there was fine. You know, we get to the apartment. Now we did it in five days. Our stuff, which we used a moving company. We used what we found out later was a broker who coordinated two separate moving companies. So we have three people we're dealing with the broker and each company. Now that stuff ended up making it to us a week later. Um we got there Saturday. We were basically camping with our luggage for a week and also working during that time. So it was a wicked work week of just like same clothes I've been in for a week already, second week of it. And then movie company comes with an 18-wheeler in this small, like we're in the middle of town where there's small narrow roads. They have an 18-wheeler down State Street. Um, and they make the turn on Washington, they then try and pull into our place, and the top of the as they're backing in, the top of the truck gets caught on a cable, a cable wire overhead, yanks it off a building. And I'm like, oh my god, we've just waited for our shit. They're pulling this down. The cable then falls in the middle of the road. So this guy tosses up a couple of cones, thank god, traffic cones, and then he pulls the truck off to the side. Lisa calls the police to kind of help them, you know, get some traffic control. I am at the intersection. I turn into a traffic guard. I I'm now I'm I'm directing people. I'm now directing people. I'm in the middle of the road. I'm in the middle of the road, and I'm I'm telling people, there's a there's a there's a lineup, and I'm telling everyone in the lineup, I'm going, hey, down cable while gonna have to U-turn. People, I go down, people keep rolling down the windows, I'm walking to every car.

SPEAKER_02 41:33

Welcome to the neighborhood.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I finally make my way up to the the cars are all backed up. I make my way up to the intersection. Once I've told everyone that's backed up, they're U-turning, I can then prevent people so that way they can actually make turns. And then uh, I'm doing that for a little bit of time. Cop pulls up, just parks his car in the middle of the road just to shut it down. And then he goes, talk me through. What's going on in here? He was just the most calm dude ever. And he, I was like, Yeah, there's there's some other, there's some other, like some wires are down, and uh there was this truck, it was it pulled it down, it's right over there. Oh truck had left. They left the scenes, they fled the scene, they fled the freaking scene. And my god, and so we're just telling them like what what happened? Uh do you see that man right there? Did you see the 19 wheel driving away? That's my stuff. Yeah, I'd like to also uh without the also with the wire, I'd like to report um a robbery happening actively right now. It was nuts. And then and then after that, the uh so I'm telling the cop this, I'm like, yeah, it was a moving company, huge truck, they pulled it down. He goes, Oh, well, luckily it's just a cable wire. It's not power. This is just this is just like Verizon cable wire. So it's not like a live electrical um feed. So he starts grabbing the cables, the cop. Um he goes, yeah, these are fine. These are fine.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

He's getting his teeth.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Anyway, we're having fun. I had a couple too many donuts this morning. I'm wired on caffeine, on coffee. I mean coffee and donut. Um no, so he he ends up um he ends up being like, Well, I probably shouldn't mess with these. They're not they're Verizon. So they're gonna he goes, probably shouldn't pretend to bite these. He goes, he goes, so anyway, they're gonna have to come out and fix it.

SPEAKER_02 43:52

I'll just close off the road, which is they closed the road for like 24 hours. It was like it took four.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Surprising. It was like the local news. It was like people in the neighborhood were like, Did you see State Street's out? Why State Street out? Yeah, people and it's like, uh, well, Jake and Lisa are in town. So uh so yeah. So so okay, so that's going on. The cot, meanwhile, there's a couple of cars in the parking spots where he goes, someone walks up to their car and they go, How do I get out? These wires are down. He goes, You can just drive over them. It's not a big deal. So there were some people that were able to get over them in the parking area. That was fine. Then I mentioned to him, I was like, hey, for our this truck, this 18 wheeler, like, can it stay here? Like what? And he goes, Yeah, just have it park in those parking spots. Just do it sideways. It's a Sunday, it's not a big deal. And if they're just unloading, if they're gonna be there for a few hours, it's not a big deal. Um, and the road's now closed, so no one's gonna come in this way. So it's like, okay, great. Meanwhile, we call the trucking company and we're like, hey, like, where are you? Where's our shit?

SPEAKER_02 45:06

Where's our shit? You're a week late. And you fled the scene. Where are you? Fled the scene.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

Yeah, um, yeah, and so we call him, and the one guy, the driver, goes, Well, my boss told me to leave. We're like, okay, like, why? And he goes, Well, we're gonna go, we're gonna transfer your stuff to a U-Haul to shuttle it so that way it can actually fit. And we were like, Okay, he's like, it's gonna be an extra like$1,200. Oh my god. You have to pay for the U-Haul. And I was like, no, I was like, you, dude. He's like, the cop said you could bring the 18-wheeler here. You're fine. He goes, no, can't do it. My boss told me no. So I'm yelling at the like, then I call the boss and I'm like, hey, like, we didn't tell you to leave. You just left, and you didn't tell us you were gonna start putting our shit in a U-hole. He goes, fine, we'll put it, we'll put it in a storage unit. We'll put it in a storage unit, and then you can pick it up. I was like, then I'm gonna have to buy a U-hole anyway, and I have to pay for storage. I was like, no, I don't want no. Why can't you just do the thing we agreed upon, which was just have the 18 wheeler, but there's nothing I can do. They just have me by the balls and extortion. I literally told him, I was like, you're bullying and extorting us right now. He goes, No, I'm not. It's like, um, yeah, you have my shit and you're threatening to leave it somewhere and cause me more. He goes, it cost us both money. I was like, kid, that's not my fault. Like, like you, like, what do you mean your driver's reliable? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we took pictures of everything. We had to pay, they took off of the U-Haul. The driver took a cost out of the U-Haul, so it was less money than the$1200, but it was we still had to pay for a portion of the U-Haul. And we have a bunch of pictures, and we just have to. We were basically like, we just need our things. Um then the paperwork battle begins. Yeah. Then we can get internees or whatever involved. But um, oh my God, it was a saga. It was a it was a nightmare. Now, now, okay, so they get the U-Haul. How long did it take them to get everything in there? Like a Tiny Banner, or like why, why, why happened? Oh yeah, because I'm now remembering a great line of fantastic. So this whole thing goes on. Now, mind you, that whole that trucker, it takes down the cable at like 10:30, 11 a.m., right? Okay. They go off and do their shuttle business, whatever. They don't come back until 4 p.m. So the entire that long. Yeah. They said the guy said he did another job, is what he said. And he had to he I didn't realize this until later. He ended up hiring people from Philly off of like Craigslist to as movers. So like it's just this one dude. He's like a driver that basically just hired some dudes, and these people from Philly, they didn't realize what they were getting into. He didn't tell them that there was it was the second floor, it's a second story. He didn't tell them that. And so we've got three people that are going up uh two flights of stairs, and he he shows up with the U-Haul and he goes, Oh, this is perfect. I can park right in the middle of the road on the curb because the street's closed. It's like, yeah, because you fucking pulled down the wire, you fucking crazy person. Um I mean, he should have done that. That's the right thing to do. But for him to be like, oh, this is great, is like psychotic to me. Absolutely psychotic to be like, oh, what a stroke of luck. What a stroke Tyler would never, Tyler with an A would never got that done. He has integrity. He would have looked me in the eyes and said, We're gonna get this done by by noon. We'll be out of here. He's gonna shake your hands-cat in the back just so he doesn't get out, and we're gonna get this thing going. And I'm gonna tuck my kids in at night at their proper bedtime. I'm gonna drive back to Oklahoma and get this done. Yeah. Now, the moving crew, three movers, they're all they're all from Philly. He picked them up from John, they've got cheesesteaks. Yep. Thousand percent. Yep. Okay, and uh one of the guys, really tall, looks like an athlete. He is, I shit you not, Alex. At one point, they we have two dressers. Single-handedly, this guy had a dresser with his back bent, so it's on his chest, and he's just what he he's just snapping his back in half, just gritting his teeth up the stairs through it like a narrow hallway. He gets it, he goes, Where's this going? And I'm just like uh in here. This is the bedroom area. This is and then he puts it down. I was like, dude, is your back okay? He goes, guess how old I am. I was like, uh I don't know. He goes, 20. I was like, there it is. There it is. Okay, he'll all right. He can conquer the world, but um he this guy he carried a knee fridge by himself. He goes, 17, not legal, not legal to work. Um but dude, yeah, this guy was just like or heavy furniture, like couch. This guy was just a mon he was incredible. But the thing that was nuts was the guy, the driver, the moving company, he he just he just he opens up the U-Haul, leaves, is just gone. It comes back he leaves again? Where'd he go? He comes back with uh of like a a big container of coffee and like none of the workers want coffee. He has sparkling water, none of the workers want sparkling water, and he's just he's telling them like the way to do it, and this one guy, he's 20. He's like, he did know there's gonna be two flights of stairs. He's already like put up like half our our shit all in this place. He's so pissed, he goes, he just starts cursing this guy out, and Lisa and I were like, Lisa and I were like, oh my god. We were also there's a part of me where I was just kind of like, hell yeah, this guy, this guy deserves this. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I was on this worker side, I was like, get him. Yeah, exactly. Um so that happened. Um we eventually we eventually get our things. Coffee and sparkling water for these workers. And oh my I just yeah. And after he fled the scene and took hours to get back, just it was a sky. It was a nightmare. It was a piece of work. It was and the other thing too is we we had to pay them and before they could unload. So we pay them and then they start unloading, he goes, Wait, wait, wait, you have to pay for the U-Haul. Like the the second portion, which I was like, you didn't tell us about this until like an hour ago. Like and there was a part of me where I was kind of like, I'm not gonna pay this until everything's in there, and then I'm gonna dispute it. But he was like, No, you have to pay it or we won't load it. He tells them to stop unloading until the chart, like he gets it, he gets the so he literally was extorting. It was just like he was bribing. He was just like, if you want your ship back, you have to pay for this U-Haul thing. Dude, what is the name of this company? Just so nobody ever uses this. I'm gonna that's gonna be my second Google review. It's gonna be a really great one for Tyler and the gang. This is gonna be the worst one I've I might even I'm gonna send this to the Better Bureau. Uh yeah, Better Business Bureau. Yeah, yeah. And because then they'll then they'll illegally change their name to another shell company that they've been doing. A thousand percent. Yeah, that's exactly what this exactly I I wouldn't be surprised if they do this every time and they just change the name and they just keep moving forward. Oh my god, dude. This yeah, it's like dude, thank God this is over with. Because that sounds like just such a nightmare. I'll tell you what, my blood pressure though, slow like man, the second we had just our stuff, even though it was all boxed up, I was just like, finally, this ends. You know, like it was just such a saga from like the first time I boxed it up, which was like weeks before to now finally having it in the new place. It's just like a two and a half, three-week thing. So it was just like, oh my god. Um yeah, so now it's it's mostly unpacked. Got the podcast stuff, and here we are. Now we're podding, baby. Dude, that is just a wild story, unique and crazy and oh my god. So many ups and downs. And then you get here and it's it's like uh it is funny. The day you guys got in here, it it quickly. I mean, last podcast, I was telling everybody about my blizzard woes, like all my blizzard stories. Like the probably the last podcast you may have listened to here is like me talking about trudging through the snow. And then you guys get here and it turns into summer overnight. It was like mid-70s and clear sky. The the like first two days we were here, and we were like, this is like the same kind of thing. You just kind of now it quickly left. It quickly left. There was um it there was another day after where I think it then snowed like overnight. Um for like a month. It was like a a wintry mix, I believe they call it like a snow snowy rain kind of rainy rainy snow. But then it was but then it was nuts because then the next day it was like back to like mid-60s. So we were uh we we were joking, we've got all four seasons in the week that we were here. Pretty much, yeah, pretty much. We are in that transition kind of phase because it's like I mean, while you're doing that, there's gale force winds, and uh and so at some of some of the houses um Pop Pop had uh had me help out with some of the their trees had fallen down from all these winds and everything, from the changing weather systems of like very cold to very warm back to cold. And so the what the wind was crazy, like gale force winds, and uh and so trees went down to hit some power lines and stuff like that. But at one of the houses, um I had to help uh our our dad, he would do the chainsaw, and then I would carry the lumber. I would carry the whole all the cut cut up pieces of the tree. Um, I did this, you know, with with some help here, but a little backstory about Jake and I is our our main childhood chore was pick up sticks. Like that was like without a doubt, was like pick up sticks. That's what we have to do. Like once a week. Why are we always picking up sticks, Dad? It was like a real, real, like, you know, I don't know, it was it was a real pain, but also it was like, there's gotta be other chores we can do, you know, we could do better, we could do other other chores and just pick up sticks. So now I'm carrying all this lumber, and I just feel like I got Mr. Miyagi's, you know? I just feel like he miyagi us, where all this time he was training us to clear the lumber on the front yards of the fallen trees. We had started with sticks. And you're getting those steps in, too, I bet. You're getting unpunched. Steps in, which is a lot of steps. A lot of steps. Great workout. It is a good workout. But that's what you came home to. That's what you came home to after after that journey. We were getting the the wind was wild, it was whipping. We had the the one of the windows was like rattling. Um and then it came in just waves. It was like waves of wind, and the the the rain was hitting on like from the side. It almost felt like a cr a ship or something. Because it would just kind of like a a clump of or like a wave of water would hit, and then it would kind of die down, and then a wave of water, it was just like the the way the w wind was hitting and carrying it. But it's so funny because it happened, it felt like this massive storm. It was like, I don't know, nine, ten, it was like 10, 11 at night. And then in the morning, all those winds like cleared out the sky, and it was like a clear day. It was like a clear morning because of all the winds. Um, and it was like a gorgeous day. So it is wild. It is wild. You get like all these different things going on. I did like going to sleep in the rain, and there was like the windiness.

SPEAKER_00 58:51

Oh, yeah. It was kind of nice.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

Yeah, so that was kind of cool. That was fun. Well, it's nice. Yeah, it's nice, and Pippin's Pippin's getting settled in too. He's kind of getting on. Yeah, he's finding some spots. I want to set up uh he's got a little hammock thing that sits in the window. I want to put that just in the right at on Main Street, just like him looking over the the main intersection. Yeah, yeah. Just like him just taking a nap there. Oh, dude, it's gonna be like the other guys where he's like, That's Donnie's corner. I I made that corner sing. That's the corner sang when I was working that corner. It's gonna be pipping in the window, like that's Pippin's corner. That intersection was Pippin's. We have uh a runner rug down the hallway, and he is loving. He can really just dig his claws in and well, he just runs. He just sprints. It's just like the one big straight thing that he can really get some speed going. So the other day, I'm at the end of the hallway, he just sprints and jumps like eye level up just the wall. It's not even like he's aiming for anything, he's just trying to get as high as he can and then uh and then goes back, does another lap, and then he's like, All right, I'm tired. And he's like, lays down. Love it, nephew. Love it, nephew. Now, Alex, you were telling me you had a little uh little date action, is that right? Oh, yes, yeah. So you guys are going through it sounds like hell uh on earth uh with your experience of moving. A couple of characters, not top of yeah, couple of characters, and meanwhile, I had I had a lovely day. I had a lovely day. I think it was the same day that you're going through all of that. I that's right, it was Sunday, wasn't it? Yeah, I had a lovely day, meanwhile. Meanwhile, the other twin is having a delightful day. I I had a second date with a gal that she wanted to do like a New Hope Lambertville kind of day where we walk around. So kind of a small town. We go into antique shops and coffee shops and get drinks and stuff like that. So we set out to meet up at like 11 o'clock, 11 a.m. at a coffee shop right in Lambertville. We set up, we we we get coffee and she intercepts me and pays right away. Now I paid for the last dinner, so she did this very she she preemptively paid right away. Ready to roll. And she paid for So you got dinner the first. You got dinner first. So she comes in, look at her. Guns High. Yeah, guns ablaze, didn't talk about it. She was very, she had the crocard ready, and I was like picking out the banana bread, not looking. And she I know she got classic old banana bread distraction. Yeah, so I we got our coffees. We sit in the communal. I'm curious what you think about this. You go in the coffee shop, it was like everybody can sit their own thing, but there's there's a communal like runner table. Like it's a long, long table in the middle, and there's all sorts of different people. We're sat next to remember the movie The Internship, where uh I think it's Josh Gadd, the actor. Yes, yes, plays yeah, so he's the heavier set guy in the city. Coder. And he's the coder. He has the big headphones on, and he's just coding. And and so imagine that guy is next to us. There's a gig coder. Okay. He's like, all right, big hands on. This is his work area. Yeah, this is a good thing. He's just working, he's got the big, big uh, what are they called? Head earmuffs on or whatever. Um they call it that? It's called cans in podcasting, it is, Jake. We gotta know this verbiage when we get more professional here. Shoot. The cans, I think so. Okay. Anyways, he's got the cans next to us. There's another guy in like in front of us, kind of middle-aged, also seems to be doing work, but he's more business casual. Then to the right, Jake. I wanted to take a picture, but I didn't want to be a creep. There was two people next to us. So there were two girls next to us, young. They must have been six or seven years old. One girl has a dragon, dragon painted on her face, like around her eye. She's got a red dragon paint on her face. Very fun. Okay. She opens up a laptop like a little professional. It was adorable. Okay. She opens it up and she starts playing Minecraft immediately. She's okay, Minecraft, next to me. So this is directly next to me. I almost said hello to her, but then again, I didn't want to be a creep, but I want to be like, hello, how are you? But like, I don't know. I didn't want to do the thing, her parents are there. And so the across from her is her maybe her sister or her her friend, same age. Um, she opens up her laptop. She must have been playing Minecraft too, because I think they're playing together. I think they're playing against each other. So that's right next to me. Then on the other side of them on this table. This is a long table. One, this is a long table. On the other side, very old guy. Very, very old guy. Kind of friendly. He's talking to his friend across the way, but he's got an old book. Like it's like, it's like yellow with how old this book is. And he's oh my god. He's reading it next to the young girl that's on the laptop playing Minecraft. And so to me, it was like the generational and technological difference between these two people right next to each other. This sounds professionally casted. Like this sounds like you know, the Oscars just happened and they just introduced the award for casting. And it sounds like whoever who's opening shop should have won an award because what a what a group of people. So he had what? He had what in his uh what was he working on? He had an old book that he was sharing with his friends. It was just the old book that like looks so old, like the pages were like yellow. Do you know what I mean? Where they used to be white, but now they're yellow with age. Just like his skin. Dust.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:24

And he's just like his skin, did you say? He tried to split from you.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:31

Oh no. Trying to be a bigger anyway. He's got an old friend, but it was really nice because the two of them were kind of connecting, and he's like showing them paragraphs, I guess, in the book or whatever. And then the Bible by chance, but he was just showing him passages. And um and then it's me, and you know, she we're in our th early 30s, uh, me and my date, and we're drinking coffee and splitting banana. Plate of banana bread, and we're chatting, you know, about our childhoods and things like that. So it was like you just this again, I wanted to take a picture, but it felt weird doing it. But uh I feel like this is a bingo. We hit every demographic here. This is uh this is uh you hit the young professionals, you hit the the kids, you've got the guy single coder in the corner. Now I will say at one point the coder, I I want to bring this back so he's got the big cans on, right? I wouldn't just give you this detail for no reason, Jake. No, we get into a story. Yeah, we get into it. We get into a story where I'm not gonna say her name. She she brings up a story about we're talking about drinking in high school and like some party she went to and classic, fun mischief that we got into. She starts talking about hiding from the cops in the bushes, stuck in poison ivy. The coder, all of the sudden, one of the cans comes off.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:05

One of the headphones comes off. Clearly eavesdropping.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:11

Did you say poison ivy? What? There's no way but I could see him, but she couldn't see him. So do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:21

Like I'm looking at her, and I can see him behind, go like comically eavesdropping, pretty obviously. And I'm like making eye contact with them, getting distracted as he's listening to her story.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:36

Um, anyway, we finish our coffee, we we go on to our date. Um, and so that's just the beginning of the date. This went on, Jake. That was 11 a.m. This went on. The end of the date. About the same time we pulled down some cables. So so probably we had a similar timeline, but we did vastly different things. Because the next thing we did is we walked around Lambertville. We went into an art gallery. Now, this is high-end art gallery, but it's like art, Alex. Is this oil paintings? Is this sculptures? What kind of needle are we looking at? I'm talking oil impressionists. I'm talking, I looked at a painting of uh like it looked like uh a proper person on a horse with a bunch of hunting dogs in the woods. Do you know what I mean? Okay. Did you get that? So that's so that's like in oil. That's or it's like landscape of greater Pennsylvania. Do you know what I mean? Of the Shenandoah that you were describing? Imagine that. The Shenandoah. And and so we're walking around. There's no one in this place. These paintings are an exorbitant amount of money as we start looking at the prices. They're crazy. And yeah, and I'm keyed up. I've had I've had a little caffeine in there. I've had a latte and a banana bread. You know how I get it. What did you say? You're keyed, you're keyed up. Is that what you said? Caffeineed up, baby. Yeah. You keyed up? Do people say is that a thing? Am I am I out of energy? You know what I mean? Keyed up. I like it. I don't get it. Wait, what is it? Like like caffeine? Caffeine? I think it's usually people use it when they're talking about cocaine. But I just I used it in a sort of fun caffeine way. I don't know. I see. I'm catching up. I got it. So I wish I was keyed up because I'm not following quick enough. Come on. You got keyed up after La Quintas. You go. You sure did. Pippin's keyed up right now. Let's go. All right. Hey now. Uh now, nephew. Now we were walking around looking at these oil paintings, and there's nobody in the store. Tiny little place. What kind of oil? Is it olive, do we think? Or I'm thinking extraverge. Extraverge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Extraverge and olive oil. Uh that's a good one. That avocado. They don't do avocado with the there was one coconut, but we didn't even look at it because it was. They didn't glance. You shouldn't. Look, you don't pay it down for it. No. No. No, no, no. It was it wasn't even framed. So yeah. So anyway, sorry. I apologize. We're walking around. No, I appreciate the joke, and please start ripping those, keep keeping those coming. And so we there's nobody else in this place. We get to the back. There is a woman. She owns the store. She doesn't look up from the desk. Doesn't look up. She goes, You coming in from out of town?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:35

She just says that from the back of the room. Didn't see her at that time, but now we knew she was there.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:43

And so then we'd look around and see the desk and her. And she says, You coming in from out of town? And we go, she goes, my date, the date, she goes, um, yeah, we're doing like a day trip. We're walking around. She goes, mmm. That's it. Doesn't look up from the desk. Doesn't look up from the desk. Like my date, I think, thought there was gonna be more of a conversation there. And she like kind of was like, was like, so you know, have you been here? And she goes, mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:16

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:17

Mm-hmm. And then she might as well have just shooed us along. She might as well have just been like, you can't afford it. And she just was like, you can't afford it, honey. Um, so she that was pretty funny. Where we're like, all right. As soon as we left and the door closed, we were like, so she didn't like us at all. We're like, yeah, she didn't want us in there at all. She didn't want us. We were only liabilities to damage your artwork. Um, and then we walked around like, well, you know, I mean, it's not her fault. You know, the price of oil's gone up, you know, recently. Back there. You're just back there sniping. You're just back there sniping. I was waiting for it. I was waiting for it. I felt good. All right. Anyway, I'm back. You're back. So I was um before this, I felt good, Jake. I felt good because I went for a run. You might say I ran. Anyway, so we're going back on the run.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:17

That took me a second. Oh boy. I was like, I don't get why. This is why they say I ran.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:25

Anyway, we uh we went to some antique stores um and we saw more of the same type of stuff, but friendlier shopkeepers, you know, where they're like some where are you where are you coming from? And we're looking at like furniture. This is also an interesting thing, is like I've never worked with clean energy. Sorry.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:44

Yeah, clean energy. I'm stuck. That's all right.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:49

You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. You keep taking right. It was a delivery that really I I gotta work. I'll be better. I'll be better. I'll be better. I'll be better.

unknown 1:12:58

I'll be better.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:59

I'll give you more room. I gotta give you more room. I gotta give you more leeway. I'm rusty. I'm rusty. It's been a couple of weeks since we've potted. We're knocking off the rust. We're knocking off the rust. Uh it was just an interesting, interesting day to go through an antique store and like a furniture stores. That's like Lambertville, where like you're kind of like imagining what life is like with the person in a way. Hey, do you like this chair? Why don't you like this chair? Whoa, look at this. Oh, that's a cool runner of a rug, you know. Like, look at that, or like look at this piece. Would you ever put this piece in your your dining room? So there's a lot of those kind of conversations, conversations happening, and you're always on the move. There's a lot of different shops, a lot of different like, oh, this reminds me of a trip I went on. And then, like, you're like so. It was like really like good, good, good date. This is a good date idea. You're you're jogging a lot of memories. This is I like this a lot. This is uh was this intentional, Alex, or was this kind of happy, happy accident kind of thing? Little of both. I mean, little of both. It was great. I didn't know if we'd go in as many things and honestly have as much fun just kind of walking into all these, like just stumbling upon you in there? Oh, perfumes. This one guy, they do they do like perfumes, scents, scented candles, like high-end candles. The guy was like a Somalier of scents, and you'd have like a jar of like this really, really decorative jar that had like a kind of a painting around it almost. It's not painting, but it was like made up on the glass or blown on the glass. So it's like a nice jar that you'd reuse and there's a candle inside, but it's got the lid. He goes, You don't don't smell the candle, smell the lid, because it's been it's been collecting all of the scent to put the lid to your nose as soon as you take it off. And he goes, he goes, you'll get a bigger whiff of it. It's kind of aerated already. I'm like, oh this guy's clearly the Somalier of candles in this store. This guy's done this before. And so we're like, we're like picking up lids and shoving in each other's faces. Like, what do you think of this one? Like, whoa, whoa! Sniffing sniffing lids. Um, and it is kind of like a Somalier where you're like tasting wine, where you're like, you could you could say, like, oh, it tastes like burnt leather. And you're like, it's all power of suggestion, it's all kind of BS. So you're like, oh, is that a plum? Yeah, you smell plum. Like, oh, really? Because it's nectarine. Okay, fuck. He set it down. Um, didn't buy anything, didn't get anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:36

Um, but we walked around and sniffed some things, just pissed off a bunch of shop owners. Just like, yeah, kinda.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:47

Yeah, kinda. Yeah. Honestly, the woman that chewed us away, she knew. She knew. She knew. Yeah. Must be a second date. Um then we walk into Lambers where we go over um Saul Rett at the deck, did that. Nice. Hung out at the bar there. That was fun. Because it was busy, and he goes, come back. Come back in like an hour or two. Uh, the play just let out because it's connected to the playhouse. He goes, I just let out. Come back in like an hour. This this place will be dead. And I can I can really help you guys out. Great. Okay. You walk around, get like food, like appetizers at different places, then go back, hang out with Red. Sorry, sorry, sorry. You got appetizers in different places. You went to one spot, get an appetizer, go to the next spot, grant really?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:38

We went we went to we went to a place called Nectar and got uh some wine. We each got a wine and like a I got, what did I get? I got like a smoked duck salad. And okay. And uh and bacon wrapped dates. So we split those two kind of like small dishes. Oh, yeah. So that was like, and you know, that was pretty good. That was awesome, but not enough to fill you up. It was just like, you know. Then we went back to Rhett's place. No, he was right, nobody was there. He goes, he goes, intermission's coming up soon. I'm sure they'll come back soon. But right now it's just us. And we were chatting about his his fantasy championship, as we talked about on this podcast. He's a champion. Good for him. Good for him. Yeah, so he's does he bring it? Does he have it at the bar? Right. He's got his day job. Nice guy's day job. Um, and he just he just puts it in and he, I guess he works with Dave, so he just he just wafts it around in Dave's face, a big championship trophy. Oh my god. And also, Jake, he's got Katan. He's got the expansion pack. I'm excited. There's a there's a place called Puzzles that just opened up. It's a uh board game and well, I assume puzzles. Jake. Jake, you got your hand on the pulse. You haven't been in here more than I know. I get to a place out of the way. I'm getting it sorted. Like a bloodhound. I'm a bloodhound. I was I was mid box unpack when I go, is that board? Is that fresh board game? Is that a fresh board game? It opened today. It opened daily. Yeah, St. Patrick's Day. Yeah. Wow. We're recording. Oh, yeah, you cut the ribbon. I saw. Yeah, so you cut the ribbon. I saw that in the next one. Lisa and I. Yeah. We actually opened it. That's why we moved. That was That was on the front page. On the back page was uh delinquent movers cable toy power line fleasable cable taken out of local town and businesses. Oh boy. And so Rhett Rhett will play with you. Like yeah, I know you guys are looking for Catan players. I was on your behalf, I was recruiting. I was recruiting. Now it's funny. Lisa and I, we have we've talked to Sean, our our good friend Sean and his wife Devin. Uh sure. Lisa and I have very different styles of broaching the Catan subject where she goes in and she goes she goes in. I like to go, oh Catan. Yes, love that game. Great game. We'd love to get together. Downplay it. Lisa comes in. That's subtle, Jake. That's subtle. Lisa, Lisa comes in, she goes, We have played so many times. I would say 70, 80% of the time we play, one of us wins. I was like, oh no. Target on our back. Yeah. Showing all our cards. Showing all her cards, I feel like. She's a very honest human being. Weekly appreciation of my wife, very honest human being. I love her very dearly. Um really well done. But really well done there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um but yes, I'd love to play with Rhett. Rhett would be Rhett and Nicole. Nicole, uh, I think they both got the expansion together, I think. Um we got we got the cauliflower. And Rhett, if you're listening to this. You got in a fight? Oh, Alex. Oh my god. What? Need the sauce! Me the sauce. Three Google reviews to write. One absolutely excited and over the moon. Five out of five for Tyler in Oklahoma. Yeah. Another one for a moving company. Negative stars if possible. And now, what are you out of five putting these cauliflower at, Alex? Oh boy. Jake, don't do this to me. Because Rat, he he gave us a discount. He gave us the employee discount. So it's like you can't be mad at half-priced cauliflower off menu. You can't do that. Having said that, it was a little dry. It needed the sauce, but it did come with sauce. So we just drowned it in sauce. So you know what?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:01

Well, what are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:02

Yeah, you know, it's fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:04

So out of five, you know, two and a half. So nice. So then after that, we got dinner at the Logan Inn. This is the last part of the story. We got dinner at the Logan Inn. We split uh Steak Fried. Split the Steak Free. Oh my god, Alex. Jesus. I know. Tour de newho. This is uh Yeah. I mean I mean it was all pretty reasonably priced because we got the and you know, a couple drinks along the way here. Uh did you propose at the end? This is what do you mean? You you squeezed like six dates out of this.

unknown 1:21:45

No.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:46

You yeah, no, no, you learned that you learned about her upbringing in the coffee shop, you learned about her desires in the art gallery, and and you committed financially with the meals, Alex.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:01

I think, but we we just split one, you know. I think the waiter was very unhappy at the Logan Inn because he was like, use car salesman vibes, and he was trying to upsell you, and you guys were like, and we were gonna split one.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:20

We piss off everyone. We're in love.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:29

No, no, I'm teasing, I'm teasing so so I go to the bathroom at a certain point for this, right? I go to the bathroom. I've had I've had a couple drinks, and I can't find I'm puking. I'm puking. Um downstairs. Have you ever been to the Loganite? Like inside of it. Have you been inside? Honestly, not in probably two decades. So me either. I I hadn't been, didn't know where the bathroom was. Downstairs, there's a movie theater, I guess, that they do. Whoa. Me and this guy, this random stranger, are like wandering around this like private movie theater downstairs. And we're both looking for the bathroom, both really gotta be. And then we we find the bathroom, right? Oh, here it is, okay, here it is. Yeah, after you, after you. And then I kind of like, he's like, it was like the opposite of the shopkeep. She's like, he was like, I'm coming in from out of town. He's just like, we're just like talking at the urinal with the little provider. I'm like, nice, nice. Second date over here. It's going well, it's going well. And he's like, Good, nice, nice, man, nice. Second date. He's like, Me, me and my wife are coming in out of town. I don't know, it's not as busy as I thought. I go, I know, I know. And I gave him a couple recommendations of where to go. He goes, Thank you. That's great, man. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:52

Try the deck here. Try it, don't try the cauliflower there.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:57

You're not gonna only get a piece of artwork there. You go with sniff some shit, but not buy here. Yeah. Um check the playbill for timing on this spot.

unknown 1:24:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:08

Yeah. And uh, and so he goes up. I s we like are like, all right, see you, brother. Good good luck out there. See ya. Um, I go back to the table, we eat, um, and you know, finished the meal, and then she goes, I'm gonna go to the bathroom. Okay, she goes to the bathroom, and then I'm waiting at the table. Um, and then she comes back and she goes, uh, she goes, How do you feel about Disney adults? And I'm like, Oh, uh, I don't know. Uh, you know, if you're into that, she goes, Yeah, I like Disney, but I don't know if I would fully be a Disney adult. She goes, anyway, I met this woman in the bathroom, and she said her and her husband are like big Disney people. She goes, We really got into it. We talked about a lot of stuff. They're coming in from out of town, and I go, No way. I met a guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:00

I met a guy in the bathroom. Same thing. We're leaving, we're leaving the place.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:07

I paid the used car salesman server, is not happy. I tipped him well, but he's not happy that we just ended on the steak free. Yeah, and we're leaving, and at the bar is my guy, and he goes, Hey man, it's going well.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:22

And he punted, he gives me a pound, and then the woman goes, Hey, goodbye, see ya. It was the couple, they were together.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:31

So we ended up seeing the same couple in the bathroom on just different occasions, and we saw them both at the bar as we left. Alex, I think you did like six or seven dates, including a double date, which is incredible. Yeah, this is this is like you, my God, this is uh wow. Yeah. We wrapped it up, and then um, and that was kind of the end of it. We walked back, walked to her car, did all that. The bridge was nice, it was all blue. Um, and that was pretty. But um, yeah, man, that was it. And then we we did it. We did the thing. So it was good. It was a good day. And then and then your day sounded like it was good too. I was gonna say, I'm gonna say I'm trying to picture. I'm trying to try to train. I wrapped up at like 7 30. So it was like 11 to like 7.30, basically, is when I got home. So wow, you know what's funny is that's probably when we were like unpacking and stuff. And so similar time frame. Oh god. So you must have been getting the steak fruits right around well, maybe it was the duck right around the time the the workers were cussing out the the moving company.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:40

So I guess it was extorted when I met a friend in the bathroom.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:44

Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, right. It was being extorted for money. That's right. I guess that was I guess that was the same timing, huh? So we kind of had the same day. We kind of had a coincidence.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:04

That would be so funny to see a uh like a picture in picture of the two days like side by side in real time. Yeah, like the same time. That's like, where the fuck are my things? Hard to me whiffing a candle lid, like oh, pushing it in the nose playfully. And meanwhile, I'm on I'm on the line of like, I will cancel this Zell, so help me God if my lawyer's not here. I think we will do another glass of wine. Man, broke you! I don't even like coffee. I'm twenty. And we'll do the fire side Manhattan, please.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:56

Oh god, that's hysterical. Yeah, you know the kicker of this whole thing was AJ. Sent that video and goes, What is going on in Newtown? The road's closed. And I didn't even I wanted to tell him in person. I hope this is how he hears it. The podcast is going to be how he finds. AJ, AJ, we love you. This is how we wanted to tell you. We thought collectively this was the best way. Jeff. Now you know the full this is why I didn't text you back. This is why there's a reason for it. Oh God. For the listener not named AJ, he sent a video driving by like he was gonna say hello, but he goes, Why is the road closed in Newtown? What's going on? Not knowing his friend was the uh tearing down cable wires in in a local I will say the cop, the police chief, he closes the road. If we can rewind to that part of the story, he's he's he's closing the road. We've gone through the whole debrief, and uh he's finally put up the barricades and he's about to walk away. He goes, anyway, welcome to town. He was probably jazzed. He's like, that's like the most excitement he's had in a while. Yeah, no, he had to use the cones. My wife got me. Yeah, no, he he was actually kind of liking it. He was like, he's like, oh yeah, I'll make a he made a meal of it. He like it was way too many cones. Like he didn't need he did he did some cones and like a couple barricades, like a couple, you're like, do we need it all? Small orange the other drivers to drive over that same cable.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:38

Do we need the barricade? Yeah. I love too that he just puts it on Verizon.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:44

But he he also didn't he he talked very poorly about Verizon, but that's neither here nor there. Neither here nor there. Anyway, wow. That was a good catch-up. Good catch up here. I think we hit everything I wanted. There's a couple things, but we might be able to hold off on that.

unknown 1:29:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:00

We mentioned the Eagle stuff, but we can we can save the Eagle stuff for when they make a more Yeah, we can do a big, we can make more of a meal of it. We once uh because it's a slow burn with that kind of stuff, free agency. Yeah, we got a whole thing trades. Yeah, we can do like a bigger. Are you listening right now? Are you are you dying for the Eagle stuff? You gotta let us know. All right, yeah, you gotta reach out, you gotta go on the socials, comment on Spotify, or the bullets. Comment on the YouTube channel. Let us know.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:32

Do you want more Eagle stuff? We'll give it to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:34

Or Sixers, little Sixer action, little uh world baseball classic. Is that what it's called, Alex? I think you were Yeah, it's actually happening right now. We gotta wrap up right now so we can catch that game, Jake. Because Raneshuela might have us by the I don't know. I don't know. I haven't seen that by the balls, much like the moving company had me. My goodness.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:55

Hello, how right, brother.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:59

Well, this was lovely. I feel like we hit the elephant in the room. We we hit it well. We're not gonna be able to do that. We're still rough. We'll be we'll we'll be we'll be better. We'll be better next time. I'll tell you what though, Alex. I think our suspenseful storytelling is really elevated. I think it's elevated. You know, the time in the on the on the road, on the open road, just meditating on things really, really brings some stories together. So anyway. I'm loving this. Maybe if if if Lisa could use that one as our uh intro, thumbnail. Yeah, there we go. I don't know. We'll see. Maybe he's doing a big scream face. It looks great. You gotta watch. You gotta watch her on YouTube, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:48

Yeah, to watch it. All right, brother. Love you. Talk to yourself. See ya. That's going yard. See ya.