Episode 12 Brothers and Sisters May 17, 2026

Deconstructing leaving Mormonism while Paula travels the world. Paula and Larry are about to fly out of Danang Vietnam and begin their Japan visit.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Okay, here we go.

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Good morning to you. Good evening to me.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

That's right. What is it? It it is it is now uh Sunday, May 17th.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

And it's 8 30 at night for me and it is in Denang, Vietnam. And it's 9 30 for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

AM.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

I gotta go to that bridge in Denang at that amusement park sometime.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

I cannot tell you how beautiful this city is. And there's so much to do. It's not just that amusement park. We went on a motorcycle ride and up and over this pass that was just absolutely just gorgeous. And I survived.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Up north in the mountains?

SPEAKER_02 0:49

No, just here in Dene. Ride in Dana, um, there's mountains and there's a big mountain pass. So that amusement park where that bridge is.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Amusement park is probably not the right word because there aren't rides like at Disneyland that I saw. We didn't get to see the whole thing, but it's huge and it puts Disneyland to just absolute shame. It's so charming. And it's almost the world's largest, longest uh uh skytrain, whatever, uh ski lift that you have to take up to it, and it motors so fast and it goes over these beautiful waterfalls, and it's just amazing. And the whole time we were in in a little cabin with this Korean family, and they had a little girl, she just kept staring at me and staring at me.

SPEAKER_03 1:40

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

The kids don't know what to make of me here, you know. And and the women, they are not at all shy about asking, how old are you? Oh, like, are you married? Like they they really want to kind of figure me out, you know, because I'm that that that's not culturally inappropriate.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

That's that's that's culturally appropriate.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Yeah, I guess. And I don't mind telling them, you know, I tell them exactly what it is. So if you hear background noise, I'm gonna move my camera and see if you can see this, okay? Hang on one second. I want to show you what's going on outside my window.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

I think I think the noise approach and dunk because I don't hear anything.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Can you see all that? Yeah, that's the ocean where you where the black is, and the lights in the background are all fishing boats. And then that is just this little stand that's outside of our hotel where people come and just hang out, come out and have fun with their families, and it's just the coolest place.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Yeah, understand that um it's really important for them to understand how old you are so they know how to address you appropriately because your your address depends upon your age in relation to them.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

I see. That's interesting. So been watching um in the In Search of Jade, or I always get the name wrong. Pursuit of Jade. Pursuit of Jade. And it wasn't until today that I realized it was China and not Japan. Oh here I am in Southeast Asia, can't figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Yeah, the little pretend that's in you I really have a major crush on.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Oh, I have a major crush on everyone in that show. I'm like, these are such beautiful people, and it's such a sweet story.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

You're not gonna have a crush on everyone by the time it's done, though.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

By the time it's over, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Some people deserve a good killing.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Well, uh uh the Game of Thrones taught me that.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Yeah, let's let's just say that uh there's some fatal karma being served up. A fatal dose of karma. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Okay, I I don't mind a little karma. I really I had someone, I had someone one time wish me bad karma, and I thought to myself, isn't that bad karma? Bad karma on someone else.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not so much the individuals getting the revenge as it's karma getting its revenge.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

Oh wow, I kind of like that, and I love her, and she's just great, but I also have to just say so that really softens my heart. It's like, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Like, yeah, that's my kind of woman.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

For sure, for sure. I also have to report that all that, and she's not cruel, and she's soft and beautiful, and you just don't expect it, you know, and you have no idea. I mean, I'm getting a clue about her training and stuff, but it's just does it stay pretty clean? Because I want to recommend it to my granddaughters who all are learning Chinese, they're pretty fluent, they're in Chinese immersion in school.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

It takes over a year for them to consummate their marriage.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

You but it's their skin, is what I'm asking. No, okay, so I can recommend it.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

They do talk about rural concubines.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Well, it's kind of it's kind of the way the world works.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

It is. Yeah, they do it's integral to the plot.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Okay, well, I'm I'm only like on episode six or so, but now Larry's in on it because I've been playing it while he was working, you know. He and he looks up and we just finished a little bit of it.

unknown 5:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

So now he's hocked too.

unknown 5:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Well, which is great. There's another series that's Chinese, that's exactly 40 episodes. So I'm wondering if this isn't some formula that they did a rinse and repeat on.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

It's the Hallmark Chinese channel.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

It totally is like, let's leave the cruel city and and hang out in this idyllic small town because the people are much nicer there. Hallmark all through it. Mom would love it.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

Well, it's so hilarious because one time I was at the house and mom was watching a Hallmark movie, and Dallas was in the kitchen, and I heard him go, gee, you think they're gonna fall in love?

SPEAKER_03 6:04

It's like this clean.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

It's pretty conclusive when you meet the main characters. That somehow the Christmas tree farm will survive. And karma will will find its its happy end. Yeah, it was pretty glaring. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So this week we went to Hoyan, which is the most beautiful little city. I mean, it is gorgeous, and they closed the sidewalk. Um, well, this is our second trip there.

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Yeah, yeah, but this time was Hawaiian your favorite city the first time.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

No.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

No, but so this this is actually our third trip there, but our second time in this visit in Denang, it's only like 45 minutes away. And it it's a city that they close down the center, the old town, so you can't um ride your motorcycle or car, but you can ride a bicycle. So, you know, you're less at risk of losing your life watching on the streets there slightly. But it's if you've ever seen Chinese lanterns and they light them and they put them out on the river, and all the boats are lit up, and there's a huge show, there's an amusement park there, and they put on this enormous, it was a cast of 500, and there's fire and you know, water, and you know, sword fights, and it was just amazing. Um, but it's also the start of rainy season, so it was raining that night. Luckily, uh, they pass out raincoats, but we got under an awning. We were lucky because we got there early. It was great, but we um drove past this um shop that sells custom-made bikinis. I was like, because I, you know, I'm an old lady. I don't want to, I want to wear something that's cute, but I don't want to look like I'm trying to be 12 either. So we went and I um got fitted. I mean, I got measured that night, picked out the fabric, picked up the pattern. The next morning they were done. I went in, they refitted me. We they tailored them perfectly to my body, and they were $40. Oh, wow. How many? I know it's for two.

unknown 8:22

Great.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

I know it's amazing. Hoyan is one tailoring shop after another. If you're ever poor and an actress and you need a great red carpet look, go to Hoyan because one store after another and great leather goods there. It is I'm not a big shopper, but it's interesting to me when it is authentic and it comes from that area. And these are all this is not stuff made in China and shipped over here. This is stuff that these guys make, and it's it's it's a beautiful city, absolutely gorgeous. That's where we rode um the last time we rode the coconut boats, which are the round boats that they take out on the sea.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Yeah, they'll spin you around. They take them out on the sea.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Yeah, but they take them out on the sea, they take them out during storms and big waves, and they're just kind of the unsinkable Molly Brown of the boat world. I know, uh yeah, maybe. I it was it I've just had a great time here. Of all the places we've been, I can see myself living here because it's a city of a million people, which is big. It's not too big, it's not too many motorcycles, it's not too crowded, it's right on the ocean. You've got rivers, you've got mountains, you've got, you know, you can escape the heat and go up the mountains. It's just it's an amazing place.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

They don't have a retirement visa, but they do have employment visas and digital nomad visas.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Well, how much money would I have to make to like qualify to be a digital nomad?

SPEAKER_01 9:58

But I have two points. You can teach English too.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Okay, we could do that. Both of us could do that. Yeah, both of us could do that. We're working on the next phase of the trip. I know. And and he could teach math or you know, electrical engineering pretty much anywhere to go. Yeah, yeah. We're we see them, they're putting up a big firework show. I'm not sure what the holiday is, and I'm probably really bad for not knowing that. But let me tell you, it is a production and a half because this thing doesn't happen until May 30th, and I'm already just amazed at the staging. It's just it's just beautiful here, and they really they do it upright.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Yeah, well, well, my Thai teacher told us about the lantern festival, you know, the lanterns that that that float up from the candle in in Shen. That's Huian. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

That's Hoyan.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

You bought quite expensive tickets to the festival.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Did you? Oh, you'll love it. They did one um at our lake in daybreak, and it was the stupidest thing I have ever seen in my life because they had some stupid heavy metal rock and roll band. Okay, first of all, yeah, completely like it. There was no spirit to it at all. There was no and then they let off the dumbest little boats, and there it was a lot of wind, and so they all just went to one corner of the lake.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

It was yeah, yeah, they they float these. Well, they in Thailand they call them katoys, which are these offerings you make to the ancestors that float that candle on, and and then in the land float up to the heavens.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

And when you go into a business and it's owned by a Buddhist person, they always have an altar and they always have offerings. No matter how poor they are, they have offerings, and then they take those offerings up to the temple. And every time we go into the dentist's office, I'm done now. But every time we go in, there he's like, I want to steal one of those chocolate pies.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Did you get a new implant or what'd you get done?

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Um, I had um some I had to have an implant and I had a bone grab done in Mexico. And then I came, then I came here because I had to have time to heal. And they were kind of leery about doing the work after someone, another dentist had started it, but he looked at it and he operated on me and put the post in. He said, Whoever your dentist was in Mexico did a really good job. So this dentist um is the number one dentist in all of Vietnam. I thought maybe it was a marketing ploy, but I actually saw the video and it actually like a real thing, and I'm telling you, it was it was $300 for the crown and um $500 for them to operate and cut the post in. So it was $800 for uh for an implant.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

So quite a bit more expensive than the US.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Quite by in a by a matter of by a factor of, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Tiny fractions.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Tiny fractions. It's hilarious. Oh, I'm drinking Schwepp's tonic water for my foot cramps.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Oh, how's that work? It has quinine in it.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

I know, and and that's what the reading I did said, and so I tried it. My uh doctor here thinks I'm kind of crazy, but I think it helps, so I'm gonna keep doing it.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

See what doctor are you seeing there that thinks you're crazy? What doctor are you seeing there that thinks you're crazy?

SPEAKER_02 13:29

Oh no, I'm just seeing a I just went uh last week to that family doctor because I felt like I was getting a bladder infection. That's when they did the blood work, the urinalysis, they did a uh total abdominal um ultrasound, they did a gynecological exam, all for $50 to work up a bladder infection thing.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

That's a little overkill for a common bladder infection, but you know, but for $50, talking say anything about it. They ain't gonna miss it.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

And then and then I got the report about my liver that it was good. You know, like it was it was a really beneficial fifty dollars, I'll tell you.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Well, good, good. So you got the working over, good.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

Yeah, I did. Good health care here.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

You told him about the quinine and you said that's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

He said, I don't know. What he was worried about is the amount of sugar in it. Uh I didn't that's what he was worried about. And he's like, I don't know about the quinine. I mean, I don't know what a Chinese herbalist would say, you know, like somebody who had studied, you know, qu quinine medicine.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Quinine's an old accepted remedy for for cramps.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

It is like how are you that smart? How do you know things that this guy doesn't?

SPEAKER_01 14:43

I went to medical school, Paula. And residency and medical school residency.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Yeah. Is that where you learned a lot of stuff? Where did you learn the most? Internship.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

No. What? What's losing your medical license? That's tough.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Oh. Well, that was completely stupid and unfortunate, I think.

unknown 15:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

Anymore these days, you know, people are Well, we'll get into it.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

It's just so narrow-minded and punitive.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

And I just it was very that's the problem, is it was punitive.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

I could handle getting clean. I just couldn't handle their monitoring program and the and the amount of uh hatred that they that they have. And then what and once you've had a probationary license, because you're being monitored for that problem, then nobody wants to touch you.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

That's a shame. What about other countries?

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Yeah, you know, I've thought about Belize. I've you know, but you know, I'm really happy doing it. I'm not gonna make as much money practicing medicine in another country as I make doing statistics here. You know, I do I make a third of what I do.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Yeah, and you're enjoying it.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. Okay, can I tell you what's happening at work? You got a minute? Uh yes, please. Okay. So we're a large home health care company. Okay. And mainly our biggest, biggest business is pediatrics.

SPEAKER_03 16:24

Okay. So you go see sick kids at home.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yeah, the thing about nurses going into the home, taking care of kids on vents in the hood.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

That's really that's really sick.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And complicated kids, kids with complex chronic conditions. There's not a lot of um if we don't build the infrastructure, it's hardly out there. And our electronic medical record is really terrible. And we've developed a new sophisticated uh instrument to help document you know, assessments every couple months. But we can't put in any of the skip logic or branching patterns or other things that that would really help do it right. And to switch EMR vendors is a very expensive undertaking. But what we've discovered, what our our guys in IT who was looking into the problem discovered, you could sit down with Claude and in two days write 60% of a new EMR himself.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

Wow. So so but yeah, now we had to get all the clinical people on board. And and because you don't just when we first wrote all the EMR and and uh developers talked to the administrators, and that was it, and they left the clinicians out. It was a disaster. I hope we never make that mistake again. So we have to get make sure that it's clinically appropriate. And then we we can we can include the administratively important stuff too, but it needs to be driven clinically. And I think we're gonna do that. I think we're we're gonna complete our own EMR in-house. Now, the provider is you never you don't want proprietary software you make yourself because that's an expensive way to do it, and you have to keep it up, and you just get it off the shelf someplace else. But Claude, Anthropic, is changing that paradigm. That's amazing. This is as big as software as a service cloud that you marketed for the first time. Yeah. This this well, they call it vibecoding. I don't really like that term, but it's like you give it plain text prompts and it will write you hard code.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

That's amazing. And you don't have to have somebody that you're paying for or overpaying.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

But if you understand the principles behind it, it's the way to go. So that tool in the hands of somebody who understands what they want to happen and what to watch out for is a really good situation. And a lot of bigger companies have those kind of computer science guys, you know, behind the scenes just going back making patches all the time. Well, now they can be creative.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Right, right. And they can really fix a problem versus just patching it.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

They can create whole new solutions out of thin air, almost, it seems like.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

So the problem with your current solution, is it because it wasn't meant for pediatrics? It wasn't meant for as sick kids, is it overkill?

SPEAKER_01 19:25

It it is clunky, old, decrepit technology that doesn't have they just they're incapable of coding any features.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Yeah, that's a that's interesting thing. It has to feel really good to be doing something good for those kids, too.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Yeah, yeah, that's what I like. Yeah, yeah. I now I'm the analyst, I'm the statistician, data manager behind the scenes, and you know, I try to make clinical sense of the data, you know, describe the kids. The payers say, Well, why should we pay for this home how this much home health care? What's what's different about your kids? Well, let me tell you.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

My favorite TikToks right now are of a guy who calls insurance companies and says things like, Well, you're charging this woman $93,000 for her C-section delivery, and $9,800 of that was for her skin to skin time with her infant. Now, explain to me like things like that that are just ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Hospital.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Yeah, yeah, trying to get that money. Yeah, and that's his job is to call and kind of shame them and and to show people that you can fight those bills. You can fight those bills, and a lot of times there's overcharge.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Indiana has some of the most uh anti-competitive uh medical um organizations in the US.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Utah has two hospital systems. Has what? So it's Utah has only two hospital systems.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yeah, and so what kind of what kind of competition is that gonna be?

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Yeah, it's not. There's not. And I think AI will help people with that.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Yeah. Well, the regulatory burden has been so high that you have to have a big organization to get the economy to scale to meet the regulation, which is kind of like against what you're really aiming for. Uh maybe maybe all that'll get a lot more simple.

unknown 21:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

I'm worried about AOC and Bernie Sanders messaging on AI. They're like calling for a moratorium on all data centers instead of something more nuanced. Because people are gonna look at AI and go, it's helping me in my daily life already. You know, I'm using that instead of Google. Yeah. They're they're not gonna want to vote against I mean, use Google, you're using it. They're not gonna want to vote against the invention of the wheel. So that's right. Message. I agree we need planning and infrastructure support before we dump these big data centers on communities and take all their water and electricity and run up bills for everybody. But that's a different message than put a moratorium on them all. Yeah, they need to get the messaging nuanced and correct.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

They're trying to put a giant run-in in Utah, and there's two women that have taken um, they they're like mom. They went to the county assessor's office and got the the map, and they're looking at who owns the parcels of land around it, and it's all the state legislatures, state legislators. It's so bad, the grift that's out there.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

What I hope inside inside dealing.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

All the oil bills went down, the drone deals, but it's just it's a crazy amount of grip that you and I are gonna have to pay for, and all of our other fellow Americans.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That that um degree of corruption is is is a long-term business killer. People don't like to do business in in corrupt places, they they just don't. Yeah. Why should I why should I put my unique effort into a system that's rigged against me?

SPEAKER_03 23:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

The corruption it's set up to benefit just a few. Why why I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get involved in that. And it kills business, kills innovation.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Yeah, it's well, I think that's one of the big problems in America right now is that the the grift is just so high. And people have a really hard time now distinguishing that. And when AI is fully on board, it's gonna be even worse unless they put some legislation in, you know, unless they it needs guardrails.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Anthropic is has a has the best conscience right now about guardrails, and they're also the most dominant form. Uh, it's it's privately held right now. What they keep doing is they keep leaking their source code because they forget to take off the files before they publish things. So they're making it open source accidentally. That being said, there's huge demand for their models. Um Musk, what is it? XAI, whatever his AI crap is. There's no demand for his. He has all these processors, all these NVIDIA chips lined up in data centers, and no demand to use them. So he was calling XAI, Elon Musk was calling Anthropic a threat against Western civilization and you know, and all this stuff. But now that Anthropic is saying, hey, we'll pay you for your for your unused chips, you know.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

Oh, guess who's all on board?

unknown 24:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Well, they're a great company.

SPEAKER_03 24:43

It's so ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

So well, okay. I'm calling it now the the winners, and they're they're ahead, and I don't see anybody closing the gap. It's anthropic.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Oh, that's good then. It's especially if you think that they're the ones that are on board the most. What do you think about it in military use?

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Their CEO is a PhD physicist.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

You know, um what do you think about it with in military use?

SPEAKER_01 25:14

You definitely want guardrails. I had a very stern lecture from an electrical engineering professor from Yale uh who did controls, and he's like saying, if you if you look at the trajectory that the military puts AI on, and then you see where that could end up, that's the danger. It's the trajectory you put it on, and you have to look down the road. You need guardrails. Fully autonomous is dangerous. Where I was absolutely right to say we don't we don't want to go along with you having unfettered access to this code and turn on a killing machine. Yeah. Yeah. Let's just start the terminator nightmare early.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

Yeah, yeah. Where I see a problem is uh on the social side is the the lack of human connection that we have today is already really this vast gap. And if everyone gets their best friend is their Claude or you know, whoever their AI buddy is, you know, and we haven't even begun to answer questions about what this means really in the sex world. And it's gonna have a major impact, and we're not even talking about it. We're we're not even looking at what the very worst case scenarios are and how to protect ourselves from them.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Well, you don't you don't want to stop breeding.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Stop what?

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Breeding.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

Right, right. It's really fun here because there's lots of babies.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

You're not gonna have kids from it.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

Right, right. And you're not gonna have long-term connection, and I don't know long term what that's gonna do for people, you know? It worries me.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

There's there's something about our carbon that makes us different than the silicon and and metal-based stuff. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

I agree. I like being human. I like being fully human now. I feel like I for the first time in my life at 63, I feel like I have the freedom to be fully human. That doesn't mean I don't have morals, and that doesn't mean I don't have my own guardrails, but they're my own. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

And that's really the most depressing down down the interstate with the brakes on.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Right. And I'm not depressed, you know, it's fantastic. You see people who especially leave the church. I was watching a TikTok from Natasha Halford, and she's man, they you get a glow-up. I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do for next week, well, not next week, because we're in Japan and I'm gonna be eating my way through Japan and not doing anything on the computer. But I'm gonna do some side-by-side glow-up. Um, and and along with some uh side-by-side uh fake, you know, this is uh how we portray somebody and this is how they really are.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

I think it's uh tell you who I'm really liking on TikTok is this guy who's a therapist, he's a psychologist, and he's a boba witness his whole life, you know, prior to and and he's like saying, You need help when you get out, and I know how to help because I've been on both sides. Yeah, you do need help, all the things you're going through when you deconstruct, and and they have the their shaming is much worse than the Mormon shaming. Your family will not talk to you. That's that's awful. Well, they won't acknowledge that you live, they'll say that you died.

SPEAKER_03 29:01

That's terrible.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Yeah, yeah. So you so so support you need, yeah. You can realize it's not true and then fake it, but then you have to fake it your whole life. And if you want to hold my truth, then you get ostracized.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

What I found is a lot of the people that I'm closest to left before I did, and they'd already gone through the deconstruction and reconstruction. And sometimes once you're through that reconstruction, you want to leave it behind, you know, you don't really want to dwell in it all the time, so it's hard to find somebody.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

I've gone to well, I can't read uh Mormon think and Rx Mormon enough to, you know, I got better things to do with my time now.

SPEAKER_02 29:46

Yeah, we enjoy and you work through it and then you find things that you have a passion for that are that are real in your life and you want to move on. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

But so the the things that work who undid all this mind nodding that you put up with okay, that's that's all right. Yes, yes, that is the is a mind fuck. It is a that is the technically correct term.

SPEAKER_03 30:12

Is that the medically correct term?

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Yes, that is and every other way that gets to it much more cleaner and with with with the meaning more apparent, much more rapid than what I was saying.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

What is it that Katie's mom says? Sometimes a swear word says everything succinctly.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Well, yeah, she she was an English teacher, and she says, words are neither good nor bad, words are just words. What's good or bad is how you use them, what you mean by them, what you do with them. Um, and if a word very efficiently and effectively communicates what I want, why can't I use it?

SPEAKER_02 30:50

A lot of things. What I've found after deconstruction and reconstruction, you know, I still feel like I'm reconstructing some, um, is the a lot of people get to a certain point and they stop. Like they get to a certain point and but they don't deconstruct their politics, or they don't deconstruct their culture, or they don't deconstruct other systems that have played into what has happened to them. And I think that squaring is one of them, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:22

It can get to a point where you know I I've deconstructed it enough that I'm comfortable and I'm just gonna leave it there.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

Yeah, and then and then at that point you you go to Thailand and sit at the beach for six weeks.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

And well, and Thailand's got some amazing beaches. It's not either Thailand or the beach, it's Thailand and the beach. And the beaches, and the food, and the people the mountains and the the north people, you know, uh for two weeks, and then we're going to southern Thailand uh for 10 days. And we're doing a live aboard uh four nights, scuba diving. We're gonna see the the cow lakh, the big um uh cow sulk, I mean the big uh national forest, jungle, wild elephants, you know. Wild elephants, what yeah, wild?

SPEAKER_02 32:14

There's not very many left.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

No, but they're they're in calc.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

That's so lucky thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

That's lucky. You rarely see them, but there's a chance you'll see them. You can take these these river trips, and sometimes you see them from the boat. You don't that's awesome. Too close to them. No, because they're wild elephants, and they can't can you remember the cows chasing us in in Hitchcock in Texas?

SPEAKER_03 32:38

Oh, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

Okay, well, imagine it's not just a bull. It's not just a cow, it's not just a long horn cow. Yeah, it's an elephant. Yeah, whole different level of peril.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. You're gonna have to watch out for snakes, too.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

What's the worst a cobra can do to you?

SPEAKER_02 33:02

Or a boa.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

No, I'm not the constrictors.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

Uh last year when we were in Indonesia, a woman on her way to the market, they found her basket and a great big huge boa constrictor laying next to her basket.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Yeah, but she was all three foot tall.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

Yeah, maybe, but still, these are gigantic boas.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Just be careful.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

And who am I to talk? I've been trotting around the world like I don't have a care in the world, riding on the back of motorcycles, being a crazy woman, you know?

SPEAKER_01 33:38

You gotta take some chances.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

You do, because you have to live. And I don't think it's in my timeline. And if it is, I just hope it's over fast.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

I I have friends who have developed agoraphobia.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

It's not good. And Fox News agoraphobia is the worst agor agoraphobia.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Just be scared of everything and stay in your house and and be a little more scared.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Yeah, yeah, terrible. Not live a life at all.

SPEAKER_01 34:05

Don't get out because there's it's a scary, risky world out there, and you're just better off staying home and being angry.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

That's one thing you'd say about our mother. She's not afraid at least to get in the car and go anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

I dread the day she loses her license.

SPEAKER_02 34:21

I know your life is going to be wait, we're scaring, right? Your life is going to be hell.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Yeah, I've been telling people at my NA meetings that that I have five sisters and that my mom could therefore considers me an only child. And it's like, and it and it was very risky for me growing up, but she showed me that much favoritism, but she really did. And in her older age, it hasn't gotten any better. And no, my sister has a PhD in nursing and she knows shit. So if she needs to hear something, it's got to come from the man who is a doctor.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

So she's got to get your opinion, she's got to deliver your junk mail to your face.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

All my sisters have come to me and they've explained this very painfully obvious dynamic that when it comes to trying to lower the camera and take away mom's license, tag you're it. I talked to her about talk about a fatal dose of karma.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

That that's gonna that's gonna be your comeuppance for everything.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

For all that favoritism, I was unfairly shown. Now you have to take away your license.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

Oh, it's not gonna be good. It's not gonna be good at all. And I don't I think it will, it's her social outlet because she knows everyone at every one of the places that she drives to. Every every person that sells a caffeine-free diet coke in the state of Indiana knows who our mother is through the drive-thru window.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Oh, she gets to know them, it's not just a visit.

SPEAKER_02 36:00

No, I know they know her, they're friends.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Yeah. Well, they're there uh little old ladies really do add something very valuable to society.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

And I I wish she felt more valued.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Well, she she's quite valuable, she doesn't realize her value, and that's some of this why she's wants to chase being related to royalty, because she wants to be important. She just doesn't realize her importance, yeah. A little less obvious, and I really have to make this case, and and and it's more personal to me. There's a very valuable social aspect to grumpy old men, too.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

I I think so too, because you know what? There's nothing like a grumpy old man, I'll just say it, say it like it is, they treat you like a man, they and and if you like it or not, we'll only hear certain things from grumpy old men.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Yeah, it's like that's it's an important role they play. And I I blame the incels on poor game from the grumpy old men getting the younger men to play the game with women right. Well, that's why they you have to have they they didn't tell them how to approach and talk to women, they didn't explain to them plainly if you don't like somebody, they're not gonna like you. This being this incel, I'm being persecuted, I hate them, martyrdom complex isn't gonna get you laid.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

Right. They need a bull elephant in their life.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

This is how you talk to women. This is how you get laid. You you you you you listen, you talk, you get to know each other, you don't come on too strong, you know. You go to coffee first, you take it at this pace, you know, you get them warmed up, you know. They they need to hear that stuff, and they don't they no one ever told them plainly, or or I that's what I think is going on.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

In my case, um, by the time I finally found my mate, you know, the man that I married, yeah, I liked him so much that I chased him because I was like, I'm done farting around, you know. I'm done. I'm 27.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Yeah, there's not there's not there's not a damn thing wrong with that. Yeah. And I chased him. We're more honest about really how people hook up in our weird American culture. That happens a lot more than we want to admit. We give a lot of lip service to you know, don't chase any guy, don't don't women, you know, ladies don't chase men, whatever. That's nonsense. That's not that's not the reality of it. It's like an AA and NA, they say, well, no relationships for your first year. And you look at all these people who got 20, 30, 40 years. So you tell me about your first year. What it's yeah. Well, well, don't do what I did.

SPEAKER_02 38:57

And we're all human, Zane, except the AI robots that are coming for us. We're all human and we want connections.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Okay, Paula. We might I might come to the conclusion that there will be life forms that are not carbon-based.

SPEAKER_02 39:13

Well, you want to hear my really out there theory?

SPEAKER_01 39:16

It's possible they can hit true sentience and they truly become another. We need to recognize life form.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

You want to hear my really out there conspiracy theory if I'm putting on my Timpoil hat?

SPEAKER_01 39:29

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

We may already be AI.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Well, now there's some physicists who will not disagree with that.

SPEAKER_02 39:38

And I think our DNA is just code, just information. And I think if you drill down to the very essence of what an atom is or what an electron or a proton, it's information. We're information.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

Yeah, there that that goes deep, and and there's a lot of deep thought about that. And yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:01

That's come to me during my deconstruction, it was really fun because I got to explore the universe, you know, and I I gave that little assistance chemically. Oh, I was um, you mean the gummies that I was on, or oh, the ketamine. Yeah, the ketamine, the shrooms, the I I did mushrooms twice, so I've only done them twice. And then I was part of that study in California um with the great mushroom doctor, and I don't remember his name, Jim something. He's a famous guy. Um, so I was part of the first um double blind study, yeah, and then I did ketamine treatments. What I loved about ketamine is it really showed me what it was like to be part of the universe. Yeah, I wasn't holla, I was part of this thing, and it was beautiful. Ketamine was a beautiful some people have scary experiences. I never knew that I did. Um, you know, I was never aware that I was uh in any kind of distress at all. I just enjoyed the ride, you know. But at one time the egg came in and said, Who are you mad at? And I'm like, why? And he said, Because you've been yelling, fuck you, at the top of your voice for about two minutes. And I go, Well, you know, that that that tracks. That tracks.

unknown 41:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:28

So ketamine was very helpful for me. I would say just be sure that you don't do it like Elon Musk and that you're under doctor's supervision and that you do it smart.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

A therapeutic dose is good, two pounds is better. Like two pounds.

SPEAKER_02 41:45

Oh my gosh, you die. Yeah, yeah. And um I I am a medical marijuana uh user when I'm in Utah, but I don't use it anywhere where it's not legal.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

I don't blame you.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

That it helps me.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

You know, the last place close to you that you want to use it.

SPEAKER_02 42:04

Is Singapore.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Yeah, you know that.

SPEAKER_02 42:07

Yeah, I know that. Yeah, I'm I don't have anything with me.

SPEAKER_00 42:11

Yeah, they there is like no no no no. No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:23

I thought I would need it before. Could you imagine being in prison there?

SPEAKER_01 42:27

Or you know you just double search your luggage before you go through Singapore.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

Yeah, no, I did. I threw everything away. I threw, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

Check and re get you. That's when you need a little OCD and check again.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

Yeah, they uh that's the only place I've seen um them use drug dogs inside the airport. This is after you're through security. You're in the airport and they're sniffing everybody. And let me tell you, those drug dogs can smell anything. You get a vape pen, uh, you know, so if you're thinking about it, people, folks. If anybody ever watches this, do not no, no, I'm gonna save a life here.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

Don't even even think about it.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

Yeah, and now Thailand has um is now illegal to use it recreationally, so you have to have a medical clearance to use it, which I think that's a smart way of doing it.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

I am not for you know the the problem with recreational is the foreign tourists.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

Oh, they come and it it's like the tourists ruin everything, and it's like not not the average tourist, but those five percent that are just they come to party hard and they're and just use just use this culture, use the people, use the use the experience to just be out of their heads.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the Israelis show up and want to treat the Thai like the Palestinians.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

That's not good. No, that's not good at all. You know who's here in in Vietnam, a lot of Russians. A lot of Russian-speaking people.

SPEAKER_01 44:02

Well, there's a lot of Russians in Tuket in Southern Thailand. In southern Thailand. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

And I'm not saying that they're bad.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

Yeah. Indians have a reputation. I think that's mostly poverty. And there's been some um group violence sexually. Um, and what's the other by reputation? There's there were like Russians might have been up there, but they'd be three, they wouldn't be one or two.

SPEAKER_02 44:30

I made friends with a girl here who owns a cafe, and she and I went to dinner, and I told her, take me to dinner, I'll pay. I want to go out and she used to own an Indian restaurant, so we went to an Indian restaurant there, and she's so cute because she's Vietnamese, but she speaks English, so it was really fun to hang out with her, but she speaks English with an Indian accent.

SPEAKER_03 44:52

Oh and I told her, Sylvia, you sound kind of like you're from India with your accent.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

She's adorable. I love the Indian comedians.

SPEAKER_02 45:07

Oh, I know, especially the ones that talk about their mothers.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

Yeah, and and I like the Chinese comedians too. They're some really funny women.

SPEAKER_02 45:16

I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

I uh who I've um discovered. I'll show you who I'm thinking about. She's great. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:25

Oh, well, she's got short black hair and she's tiny. What species are you?

SPEAKER_01 45:36

Are you gonna let her talk? She's hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

That's hilarious. Yeah, that's hilarious. The one thing that happens to me here that I don't like is when you're walking by someone's shop and they grab you off the street. Come in, come in, and they try and like manhandle you. And I'm like, don't touch me. I don't, I don't, and that's more for my own like, I don't want to trip and fall, you know. Like I have this huge fear of falling since you know, I broke my femur falling, and I just don't want to be manhandled. I don't like people helping me out of a car, I don't like, you know, I don't like any of that. So that's the that's the one thing that I I my only cultural complaint.

SPEAKER_01 46:15

Yeah, like in Thailand, you say my ow, my ow, and they'll back off, which means I don't want to take, I don't want to have it. Okay, there's got to be a phrase like that in Vietnam.

SPEAKER_02 46:25

Yeah, there has to be. Well, I always try to learn two phrases and I get them mixed up. I try to learn hello and thank you. Yeah, and it gets you by.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

But but but but if that's happening to you, you should learn to say no, thank you, which is you know, or you don't want it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 46:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:41

They understand that, you know, yeah. You've learned to say that in their language, they know that you don't want that I'm serious, that I'm not just kinda, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

Yeah, and I'm not much of a a shopper anyway, because we're we have three pieces of luggage that we have to. I I calculated the weight. I think we're at a hundred and eighty pounds of cargo when we travel. That's a lot to cart around, and I don't have room to buy people souvenirs or you know, and in a way it's kind of nice because it saves me money.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Yeah, I want to buy some silk and maybe a couple statues, some art.

SPEAKER_02 47:18

Oh, buy some statues and go to an antique store to do it, and and and ship them home.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

I'll just pay the ship.

SPEAKER_02 47:24

Yeah, and ship them home. That'd be beautiful. That'd be beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

I I I want a visual reminder. The Buddhist stuff is wonderful. I think Buddhist philosophy, I was gonna I was gonna say this earlier, is gonna be Western philosophy because Western philosophy makes up these fairy tales about the afterlife, and Buddhist has they believe in an impermanence of the self anyway. So, you know, like you you find that these truth claims in Western religion and the the zombie Jesus stories, resurrection, whatever isn't true, and then you slip into atheism or nihilism. But in Buddhism, it's like it's impermanent, we don't know, you know, it's like and it's okay.

SPEAKER_02 48:09

You know what?

SPEAKER_01 48:10

That was the biggest how do you how do you deal with the now?

SPEAKER_02 48:14

You know, you were the biggest help to me with on that because when I was deconstructing right when dad was dying, yeah, and at his funeral, I asked you, you know, what do you think happens? Do you think we live on? And you said, you know what, I don't know. But the universe has been really good to me, and I have faith in that. You know, I have faith in what I know, and I know it's been good to me. And I have held on to that. And I think people are afraid to look at religion and the the systems that aren't working for them because they're afraid of what if it's like falling off a cliff and you never, you know, you can never be grounded again.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Well, well, they they they set up that mindset on purpose to keep you dependent. That's a that's a cynical ploy, you know, life, death, resurrection, you know, you're sinful, you're bad from the beginning, you need us. Um, you know, and and uh by the way, I'm gonna sleep with your wife and take all your money. But and her sister, and the maid, all right, Joseph.

SPEAKER_02 49:23

I didn't realize they stole a Scottish song for that. The the melody is an old Scottish song.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

Oh, they believe in plagiarism now. Yeah. That that was common. That you just did that.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

You need to set the Gordons on them.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

Here you go. A Gordon, a Gordon.

SPEAKER_02 49:42

Okay, are we gonna read?

SPEAKER_01 49:44

No, we're gonna end. You gotta get to the airport.

SPEAKER_02 49:47

I know. Okay, so um I'm super excited about Japan. Can I say this though before we go? Yeah. What?

SPEAKER_01 49:57

The uh fuel blockade to Cuba.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

What's going on? I really truly try and blackout.

SPEAKER_01 50:06

They're already super poor. And and um, over to Maduro. We and and Venezuela was the main source of oil anyway. We've threatened anyone who takes takes any oil to Cuba with huge tariffs, and they're not getting what they need, and they can't run their hospitals, they can't they it's because we want to take over Cuba, yeah, like Puerto Rico, and then treat them like shit.

SPEAKER_02 50:31

Yeah, it I guess it's just a swearing episode. Sorry, everyone.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

That's the thing that's heaviest on my heart. That's a that's the most obvious gross injustice today that I see.

SPEAKER_02 50:42

It's it's heavy, heavy out there thing, and it's one of the reasons that we are traveling is because I can only take so much of it, and it will literally paralyze me. It makes me so sad.

SPEAKER_01 50:57

Yeah, I mean, it it doesn't make you great to be an asshole.

SPEAKER_02 51:02

No, no, and to make and to hurt people and to end up killing people that are completely innocent.

SPEAKER_01 51:09

China his nickname was Nation Builder. But his nickname that is that Trump is building the nation of China. China has rapidly may closing the gap with the US and surpassing the US, not despite, but because of Trump. And and him having contempt for the rest of the world just leaves a big open space for China. Yeah, and and he and he's building China by alienating the rest of the world.

SPEAKER_02 51:39

And China's already kicking our ass in so many ways.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

Take a STEM class and see who your professors are.

SPEAKER_02 51:46

Yeah, Chinese.

SPEAKER_01 51:49

Yeah. Yeah. There's there's that's an early indicator. It's like you want to know where the real estate prices are gonna go up, look where the artists and the gays move to. Because they're gonna fix it up real nice, and and it's gonna go from the low rent they can afford to the accountants and lawyers moving in next.

SPEAKER_02 52:08

Because it's the cool place to be. Because guess what? Without that group of people, there's no comedy, there's no drama, there's no musicals, there's no, you know, it's the creative part of humanity, and we villainize it.

SPEAKER_01 52:23

Yeah, and and you look, yeah, and you want to find early indicators for technology. Look who's teaching technology in your country, and it's the Chinese, the Chinese, India. There's a good bit, but not as not as dominant as the Chinese. There's there's plenty of of good Indian scientists and mathematicians.

SPEAKER_02 52:45

Why does it why does it seem like um Americans have gotten dumber? Is it because our institutions are playing along?

SPEAKER_01 52:53

Everything goes in cycles, it gets really nice, you get kind of soft. Okay, the one theme in the Book of Mormon that may have had a little ring of truth to it, things go in cycles, you know.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

Well, and I think that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Because I don't, I you know, it can be changed, but I you know, there's some there were some truths, but there was a lot of bullshit too.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was like you can trust me with your wife. That was bullshit. And then you marry your daughter, that was bullshit, and we're doing it because all our men had been killed off because we're the true church. That was bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 53:31

And we need to we need to um help these women across the plains. That's the my humor excuse.

SPEAKER_01 53:37

Yeah, yeah. How would you like to invent a young man who was seen as nothing but competition?

SPEAKER_02 53:43

I know, and those poor kids, what happened to them, you know? Because in in the in the FLDS, you know, in the sex that still practice openly instead of you know in the secret, like Mormons do. They're the lost boys.

SPEAKER_01 54:01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:03

Sad. All right. Well, I'm gonna have a big report about Japan. I'm super excited. I'm watching all these TikToks and I cannot wait to eat everything.

SPEAKER_01 54:12

We'll get to our anti-Mormon vitriol more in depth next time. Or in other words, where will we go?

SPEAKER_03 54:22

Oh no, what will we do?

SPEAKER_01 54:24

Where will we go? Well, let's tell you out there, and you know what? It's not near as scary as they told you it was.

SPEAKER_02 54:32

Yeah, and you'll get a glow up, I promise.

SPEAKER_01 54:35

There you go. All right, love you.

SPEAKER_02 54:36

I love you. Bye.