Ivan: Oh!
Sam: Hello!
Ivan: Volume, volume, volume.
Sam: Here we go. Here we go. It's starting up. Almost there.
Ivan: Almost there.
Sam: Almost there. That song. That is a song.
Sam: From the thing. There we go. Almost there. From the Princess and the Frog.
Sam: good song Disney movie 2009 Disney movie thumbs up.
Ivan: I don't remember this movie I must have missed.
Sam: It's a good Disney movie there's the girl in New Orleans and there's a prince
Sam: they both get turned into frogs and then they go through an adventure to get
Sam: back and she gets her spoilers there's a happy ending.
Sam: Although there are sad things along the way. There you go. Okay.
Ivan: Disney movies have a tendency to include some sad thing in them.
Ivan: Somebody dies, you know.
Sam: Well, it's a whole, like, trope that in almost all Disney movies,
Sam: the main character's parents die near the beginning.
Ivan: Die. Right, right.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know, it's really awful. if you think about it.
Sam: Yeah okay shall shall we go here comes,
Sam: Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, March 28th, 2026.
Sam: It's just after 1630 UTC as we're starting to record. I am Sam Minter.
Sam: Yvonne Bowe is back with us again this week. And yeah, so hello, Yvonne. How was Texas?
Ivan: Very Texany.
Sam: Very Texany?
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: Did you have a good time with all your flights and TSA and all that kind of nonsense?
Ivan: Absolutely. None of that was an issue. Okay.
Ivan: You know, we, Miami, there was no lines.
Ivan: There's no ICE agents either.
Sam: Mm-hmm.
Ivan: And so that was uneventful. Manu, you know, was discussed a long time ago.
Ivan: The main thing that I was trying to, we didn't have a lot of time for a vacation this year.
Ivan: my work my wife is taking
Ivan: a class at the university the spring break for the university doesn't coincide
Ivan: with the spring break for manu's school it left very little time for any vacation
Ivan: okay right and so we wound up only going i was like,
Ivan: i was trying to i was trying to make sure that manu could fly somewhere Right Anywhere Okay,
Ivan: I had been When I had been in Texas Back for my surgery Months back I had had
Ivan: some blood work With a With my With a doctor,
Ivan: With my sister-in-law Who's a doctor She actually wanted to check How it was
Ivan: doing And so I was like Well what the hell Let's just all go to Texas Let's
Ivan: visit my brother I mean what the hell It's not like,
Ivan: You know, so let's just go. I mean, what the heck? I mean, it wasn't my brother.
Ivan: I mean, we have a good time. So we did. We went over there. We had a good time. Manu had a great time.
Ivan: Manu, you know, in between the fact that I took him on that flight simulator,
Ivan: I don't know if I discussed that. I can't remember.
Sam: I know you talked about it on the curmudgeon's course Slack.
Sam: I'm not sure you mentioned it on the show.
Ivan: No. So I, you know, one of the things that I was doing in order to acclimate
Ivan: Manu to get back the flying was that I was able to get them,
Ivan: get some, book some time at a flight simulator.
Ivan: It looked like a real A320 cockpit.
Sam: Just to be clear, we're talking about not like you're running it on your little
Sam: computer, but a full-fledged, big.
Ivan: Like... A full-fledged cockpit experience, you know, this really felt like,
Ivan: it's not completely like the one that pilots use, but it's a very good one, okay? Okay.
Ivan: And, you know, it was a full cockpit. Actually, I believe that pilots do use
Ivan: this for ground school because it's, but this is not the ones that they use
Ivan: for certification. Okay.
Sam: Okay. So it wasn't the one on a big, like, hydraulic platform that moves and stuff. Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah. I mean, those are the ones that they use for certification flights and
Ivan: other stuff. But this one, for ground school to train, this is good enough to
Ivan: train a pilot on an A320 for grounds. That's for sure. Okay?
Ivan: Make sure that they know how to operate the controls. Make sure they know how to set destinations.
Ivan: Make sure that they can, everything replicates truly an A320.
Ivan: I got it. Manu had a blast with it. I had a blast with it.
Ivan: And the pilot was a little bit like, well, he did ask me, do you have any flight experience?
Ivan: And I'm like, yes, I do. It's not been a long time.
Ivan: But the thing is, I sat behind the controls and I've watched enough videos and
Ivan: things and used different flight simulator software that I know what I'm looking
Ivan: at when I'm looking at an A320, you know, display.
Ivan: So when he set it up, I know that I've, listen, I've got the controls.
Ivan: He had set the auto throttles. I didn't have to mess with those. He set the speed.
Ivan: He lined us up for landing.
Ivan: And I know that on the artificial horizon, what I got to do is when he set it
Ivan: up in the ILS, the thing that Airbus aircraft have is this really cool flight director thing.
Ivan: And the flight director, basically, it's like these couple of things on the
Ivan: artificial horizon where, listen, you just need to keep it lined up with that
Ivan: and you will land the plane. Now, it's not as easy as it sounds, okay? All right?
Sam: Okay, yeah.
Ivan: Okay, it does take some skill and you using the controls to do it.
Ivan: But if you've had some skill at using the controls to do it, okay, you could do...
Ivan: okay. All right. And so I actually did pretty decent with it.
Ivan: And he was like, what the hell you're, you know, I had some issues with like
Ivan: the actual touchdown itself.
Ivan: And he told me that what he noticed is, well, look, you learn to fly on small planes. Okay.
Ivan: So what happens is that when we're about to land on a small plane,
Ivan: we, we pulled a nose up a lot. Okay.
Ivan: For the land. all right okay on you don't
Ivan: need to do as much on an a320 i kept instinctively as
Ivan: it counted down 50 40 30 i
Ivan: kept instinctively pulling back on the
Ivan: nose and so i i i kind of like i
Ivan: i lofted it a little bit instead of letting it touch
Ivan: down okay so i did that a couple of times when
Ivan: he told me about it the second time around that i did it i got it
Ivan: right on and he was like why don't
Ivan: you get your license again he's a
Ivan: flight instructor so he gave me his card i may
Ivan: take him up on it right now i'm just there's so
Ivan: much going on right i don't want to add anything more yeah i don't want to add
Ivan: anything more right now but but i definitely left me thinking about it because
Ivan: i really quite enjoyed doing that manu had a great time manu's main thing that
Ivan: he liked was first fucking with me with the controls or he was pushing the,
Ivan: he kept pushing the, the, the runner and kept getting me offline.
Ivan: And I'm like, why the hell am I getting offline?
Ivan: Then the pilot told me, your son's pushing the runner.
Ivan: And I'm like, and also setting off the alerts.
Ivan: Okay. Oh yeah. He loved like, you know, pull up, pull up. Yeah.
Ivan: Making it like, you know, pointing the nose down and getting it to,
Ivan: to yell at me to pull up, pull up.
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah, he liked that. He definitely liked that.
Sam: See, this is the thing with flight simulators and kids in general. The fun part...
Sam: is not straight and level flight or takeoffs or landing.
Ivan: No, no, no.
Sam: The fun part is, like, can we crash in creative ways?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Or can we do flips in a plane that clearly should not be doing flips, you know?
Ivan: Should not be doing flips, yeah.
Sam: Things like that. Aerobatics in a large airliner, you know?
Ivan: Yes. Those are not fun for any of the passengers. I know that,
Ivan: I don't know if you, in which one, the one for X-Plane, If you're using it,
Ivan: they actually add a sound where you hear the passengers scream.
Sam: Yeah, I use X-Plane all the time, and so does Alex. I've never heard the passengers scream.
Ivan: Oh, well, maybe you don't have
Ivan: all the sounds up. You will hear the passengers all of a sudden go, ah!
Sam: Okay, I'll have to get a large... I mean, because Alex has crashed large planes
Sam: in X-Plane quite a few times. I'll have to get that spun up again and see.
Ivan: If you go and like I keep flying usually like a triple seven,
Ivan: simulator a lot if you go like say push the nose down like really hard where
Ivan: you create like a big G input you will hear the passengers like scream.
Sam: Okay. Okay. Gotta work on that. Gotta work on that. Somehow I've missed that.
Ivan: I gotta get the passengers just screaming so yeah so.
Sam: Uh one of the very early videos on his channel is him playing x plane and as
Sam: the plane is doing various things me in the background saying you know this
Sam: is why they don't let six-year-olds pilot planes yes yeah i.
Ivan: Mean you know in real life you had that that guy that russian pilot that let the his kid end up.
Sam: I know right.
Ivan: And literally did crash it.
Sam: I know. Yes. Yes.
Ivan: So, yes, it's been demonstrated in real life. That doesn't work well.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Sam: Yes.
Sam: I mean, not to say that there might not be some very responsible six year olds
Sam: who could handle it properly.
Ivan: However, however, it's not a good idea.
Sam: I don't want to be in that plane.
Ivan: No, I don't want to be on that plane. Okay. So we flew over there.
Ivan: Look, we gave him a tranquilizer as well.
Ivan: I, you know, I had that gas for some tranquilizers. And the first flight,
Ivan: he was a little bit like, he was a little bit. He actually.
Ivan: And the last time I tried, he wouldn't even get on the plane. Okay.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: We had, and he was actually anxious all the way to the airport.
Sam: Uh-huh.
Ivan: He was fine. He may have been a little bit, oh, let's go to the lounge.
Ivan: I'm like, no, we're not going to the lounge. We don't have time.
Ivan: Okay. We're going straight to, straight to the, and when we got to the gate,
Ivan: we were boarding already.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: Uh, so we went straight on and boarded and he didn't, he didn't make a fuss. We sat down.
Ivan: He's a little bit like a little bit anxious on takeoff, but that was it. He was fine.
Ivan: Everything went fine. It was uneventful.
Ivan: Okay. So, and he likes Dallas Airport. Dallas Airport's quite good.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: It is the biggest airport in the world. Okay.
Sam: Like square foot wise or?
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Sam: It is the biggest airport. It's not the busiest.
Ivan: But, but in terms of like size, geographical. Yeah. It is the biggest airport in the world.
Sam: Which is appropriate for Houston, which also is known for sprawl.
Ivan: Yeah. But, but sit Dallas, not Houston.
Sam: Oh, sorry. I got confused. Well, Dallas is known for sprawl too.
Ivan: Dallas is very, it's a Texas, all of those Texas cities are known for sprawl.
Ivan: brawl and so you know he had uh the thing is that they have like uh now i'm hearing the.
Sam: Damn theme music from the show the.
Ivan: Dallas theme music in my head oh yeah interesting so
Ivan: we we were going around look that the airport has uh the the skylink train which
Ivan: is very you know that listen you very difficult to get around that airport without
Ivan: the train i mean i i know that i've i've had to,
Ivan: one time a long time ago walked from like say terminal C to terminal A,
Ivan: that's a lot of walking okay,
Ivan: I mean, that's a lot of walking. So having the, so he likes the Skylink train.
Ivan: And the cool thing about the Skylink, unlike like in Atlanta, they have subway.
Ivan: You don't get to see anything. You're down underground. You go, you go back and forth.
Ivan: But Skylink, I mean, you get to see the whole airport, you know,
Ivan: you're riding around and you, you see all the airplanes, all the movements, all the gates.
Ivan: It's, it's, it's, it's very cool to get a full view of all of the operations
Ivan: at the airport just to basically just ride around in Skylink and you can see
Ivan: what the heck is going on.
Ivan: So he likes riding to Skylink. He also was very adamant because we couldn't
Ivan: get on the lounge before departure. We had a long layover to return that he
Ivan: wanted to make sure that we did go to the lounge.
Sam: Okay. Very cool.
Ivan: To sit down and eat and, you know, things. Okay.
Sam: So I didn't say at the beginning. As usual we're doing lighter stuff at the
Sam: beginning and And then we will move on to newsy stuff later.
Ivan: Frothy.
Sam: Frothy stuff.
Ivan: Frothy.
Sam: Last time I didn't do any newsy stuff at all. When you were gone last week,
Sam: I just talked, you know, random other crap the whole time. And I was like,
Sam: I don't, I don't feel like news.
Sam: I don't feel like news. I'm not doing news. You know, but.
Ivan: The news. I mean, the news suck.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Ivan: I mean, all the news suck. You know, it sucks. Everything sucks.
Sam: So do you have any.
Ivan: I don't want to get into any details at work. Things at work have been rough.
Sam: Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah.
Ivan: I mean, to the point that I wound up at one point even tearing up how bad how bad it was this week.
Sam: Yeah. So anything lighter before I do my stuff?
Sam: I'm going to replace one of my two movies with a story that I have from a couple
Sam: of weeks ago that I saved for you.
Ivan: Anything lighter, lighter, lighter, lighter, lighter. Oh, well, OK, I will mention this.
Ivan: I wound up, you know, look, this week I wound up traveling.
Ivan: I went to Texas on Friday. I came back on Monday I went to Santo Domingo on
Ivan: Tuesday morning And I flew back from Santo Domingo On Wednesday night Okay,
Ivan: Then I had a friend of mine,
Ivan: This very good friend of mine from Brazil that, you know, we've known him from
Ivan: when I started working at HB almost 30 years ago, for God's sakes. Fucking ridiculous.
Ivan: Well, last minute he said, hey, I'm coming to town. I'm going to go see tennis.
Ivan: I'm getting there Friday and I'm getting there on Friday. I'm going to be all
Ivan: week. I'm like, fuck, he's getting here on Friday.
Ivan: I'm like, dude, I'm leaving right now. I'm literally leaving.
Ivan: I'm not coming back until like next Wednesday.
Ivan: Okay, we'll see you when you get back Wednesday. So then I texted him,
Ivan: hey, when are you leaving?
Ivan: And he says, Friday morning. It's like, fuck, Friday morning.
Ivan: Shit. So the only night is Thursday. So he was in Miami, which is,
Ivan: you know, it's like downtown.
Ivan: Like, you know, like to you to go to downtown Seattle, you know,
Ivan: it's, I mean, it's a, it's a, you know, it's a pain.
Ivan: And I've already been to Miami already three times the damn week.
Ivan: And I'm like, fuck, fine, fine.
Ivan: We'll go meet you for dinner. Problem is, of course, you know,
Ivan: having to meet him for dinner, not on the, I was hoping the weekend,
Ivan: not on the weekend. It was like, hey, let me meet him after work on Thursday. Okay.
Ivan: Fuck. I leave here. Rush out. It's just nuts.
Ivan: Okay. So it took like an hour and a half to get to Miami.
Ivan: To give you an example, at four in the morning one day that I drove to the airport,
Ivan: it takes me 40 minutes. Okay.
Ivan: It took an hour and a half. Okay. to get there.
Ivan: And then to come back, it took two hours because Florida Department of Transportation,
Ivan: the geniuses that they are,
Ivan: decided that the construction they were going to do on Thursday night,
Ivan: hey, I go and I get to this place, you're going on I-95 North,
Ivan: which has four lanes, okay, four or five lanes, you know, northbound.
Ivan: Express lanes closed. So that leaves three or four. It has six.
Ivan: So that took cut it down to four.
Ivan: Then at some point, it splits into
Ivan: the turnpike where you can go take the turnpike or continue a 95 north.
Ivan: Oh, well, the exit to the turnpike is closed. I'm like, fuck.
Ivan: Exit to the turnpike. And by the way, here's the crazy thing.
Ivan: I think they closed it just as I was driving north because the GPS showed it
Ivan: was open when I was going.
Ivan: And then all of a sudden, traffic built up and it's closed.
Ivan: So they must have just closed it, okay? as I'm driving up. And I'm like,
Ivan: fuck. They closed. Okay.
Ivan: All right. But then it says, hey, lanes closed on I-95. More lanes closed.
Ivan: Like, more lanes closed. How many fucking lanes could they decide to close if
Ivan: they already closed the turnpike?
Ivan: Look, they had narrowed it down to only one fucking lane.
Ivan: One lane northbound.
Ivan: When normally you've got six fucking lanes plus the turnpike where people get
Ivan: off, which is an extra three more lanes, nine lanes, and they narrowed this down to one fucking...
Ivan: Listen, you can't close the turnpike and close all the lanes on 95 at the same
Ivan: time. You got to do one or the other, you cheap fucks.
Ivan: The hell? It was like midnight, and it's the biggest traffic jam ever at fucking
Ivan: 11 o'clock at night. It was just crazy.
Ivan: Okay but when
Ivan: i got to downtown yes oh my
Ivan: god sam this whole influencer live
Ivan: stream crowd is just so fucked up man so i get to this place look we'll go to
Ivan: this restaurant that i've normally gone to but the area around it has grown
Ivan: a lot and i haven't been there last time i was there was like two years ago
Ivan: and and this has been like a change post-pandemic by the way this is this This
Ivan: wasn't like that pre-pandemic.
Ivan: And I get there, and it's just so crowded, but it's all these young influencers
Ivan: with their media sticks and the things that they're all live streaming to show
Ivan: how they are downtown and we're so cool.
Ivan: And I'm like thinking, could you fucking guys go and like have a good time instead
Ivan: of like trying to stream to everybody to tell them that you're having a good time?
Ivan: And all of them are all in these hyper, they're all like in their 20s,
Ivan: and I guess their parents have
Ivan: a lot of money, And they're all in these ridiculously expensive carts.
Ivan: Like, all of them are over $400,000.
Ivan: And they're all parked, like, in this spot, like, up there. And they're all,
Ivan: like, showing themselves live on video.
Ivan: And I'm trying to avoid all these. Look, I'm just trying to get to this fucking restaurant.
Ivan: I need you all to get the fuck out of my way. Okay.
Ivan: But it was just a bizarre, bizarre look at the modern influencer lifestyle for
Ivan: more minutes than I really wanted to.
Sam: So what you're telling me is after we finish recording the show,
Sam: I should just switch from live streaming on my computer to live stream on my
Sam: phone and live stream the rest of the day, no matter what's going on,
Sam: no matter what I'm doing.
Ivan: But you need to go and trade in your car for a $450,000 Rolls-Royce SUV.
Sam: Oh, I'll get right on that.
Ivan: Yeah. Because that's the thing that gets... Yes. Because that's the thing that
Ivan: apparently gets attention.
Sam: Oh, okay. Okay.
Sam: Can I get one of those, like, sort of kits where I just change the logo of my existing car?
Ivan: You know what? Actually, that would be even better. I got to be honest with you.
Sam: Let's just get it.
Ivan: Yes. Let's just do a kit. There's got to be some kind of kit.
Ivan: Hey, turn Ionic 5 into Rolls kit.
Ivan: Listen, people have done that throughout time.
Ivan: There's got to be a kit. And that would be fantastic. And then we live stream that. Perfect.
Sam: There you go.
Ivan: We are the anti-influencer group. We go in there, and we arrive in the Kitted
Ivan: Out Ionic 5. Perfect. I love it.
Sam: There you go. Okay. My turn. Do you want a movie first or my story first?
Ivan: Let's go to the story first. Okay.
Sam: So I had intended to do this last week, but you were out, and I decided to save
Sam: it for when you were here. So this is almost two weeks ago now.
Sam: But I figured you would appreciate this story more than me just saying it to myself last week.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: Okay. So here's the fundamental deal.
Sam: Two weeks ago, Brandy had finished up her session at the legislature in Olympia
Sam: and, you know, was moving all her stuff out. Okay.
Sam: Okay. Because she rents a house with another legislature, legislator,
Sam: for the months that they're in session. And so she's got all kinds of stuff.
Ivan: How long is the session, by the way?
Sam: From early January. Well, it changes by year.
Sam: Like, they have short sessions and long sessions. election years are like are
Sam: shorter so this wasn't this is an election year so it's shorter so it went from
Sam: like the second week of january to the second week of march okay so basically two week of.
Ivan: January to okay so it's only two weeks okay.
Sam: Two months months not two months.
Ivan: Two months no two months okay.
Sam: Yes and then in the long session it's like it's like three months instead okay
Sam: so okay And I'm rounding here.
Sam: It's like, it's not quite. And it's like, whatever.
Sam: It's close enough. Two months and three months.
Sam: And so she's got stuff in her office to move.
Sam: She's got stuff in the place she rented to move. Because she,
Sam: of course, brings like all kinds of supplies.
Sam: She's got stuff because she's going to be there for, you know, a couple months.
Sam: So it's basically like moving in for a couple months. It's not like the stuff
Sam: you bring to a hotel for a week, you know.
Ivan: Right, right, right.
Sam: You know, so, anyway.
Ivan: Is it like an Airbnb? I mean, what do you get? Do you get like an Airbnb?
Sam: It's an Airbnb. It's a whole house. But it's, yes, they get it through.
Sam: I don't know if they used Airbnb or some other service, but they rented an entire
Sam: house. Okay. Her and one roommate. Right.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: So, anyway, or housemate, I should say. They didn't actually share a room.
Sam: At least I don't think they did.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: Maybe they did and they're just not telling me, you know, but, you know. Anyway.
Ivan: I keep forgetting that. I call room, you know, I've made that mistake,
Ivan: and you're absolutely right.
Ivan: Like, when I had, like, you know, when somebody, you know, shared a,
Ivan: One of the rooms in my apartment, their housemates, they're not a roommate. We didn't share a room.
Sam: Right. Right. Exactly. So anyway.
Ivan: Okay.
Sam: So I am at home with Alex.
Sam: We are, the initial expectation is just she's going to pack up the rest of her
Sam: stuff and then come home.
Sam: And it's in the evening.
Sam: But around like, I don't know, 8 p.m.
Sam: or something, she starts telling me that two things, two important notes.
Sam: One, she's not feeling that good.
Sam: And two, she's not sure all the stuff will fit in her car. Okay?
Sam: So she's calling me, and she has to be out of the house that night.
Sam: So like, you know, she, so there's no, like, oh, we'll just do it tomorrow.
Sam: Okay. So she has to be out of the house that night. So she's working on the stuff.
Sam: And I, I, I ask a few times, like, okay, do I need to, you need me to come down?
Sam: Do you need a second car? You need, do you need help?
Sam: And for longest time, she's like, no, no, I got it. I'll, I'll figure it out. I got it.
Sam: Eventually she's like, yes, I do need you. Okay.
Sam: by this time it's like 10 30 p.m or
Sam: something you know olympia is like at least it's the middle of the night like
Sam: if it if it was during the day it's like two hours plus to go because of traffic
Sam: but like in the middle of the night you can do it in under two hours i mean
Sam: you could probably do it in 30 minutes because you know you're a maniac on roads but you know how.
Ivan: Many miles is it.
Sam: I'll tell you hold on,
Sam: It's 67 miles.
Ivan: Oh, fuck. Wait, how long did you say it was going to take you a night?
Sam: Right now, if I drove it, at this very second while we're recording,
Sam: Waze says an hour and 35 minutes.
Ivan: Oh, fuck that.
Sam: Fuck that.
Ivan: I'd be there. Jesus Christ. Like, 50 minutes tops.
Sam: See, the problem is you have to go through downtown Seattle to get there.
Ivan: Ah. No, but even still, you go through the highway through downtown.
Sam: Yeah, but there's traffic, you know.
Ivan: Yeah, but not at 11 o'clock at night.
Sam: No, no, not at 11 o'clock at night. No, no, no.
Sam: So like I said, you could probably make it in like 30 minutes or some crap,
Sam: you know, but we're not going to make it in 30 minutes.
Ivan: No.
Sam: Anyway, the point is, I'm not leaving home until like 1030 or something.
Sam: I forget exactly what time it is.
Sam: and you know and i'm meeting her and here's the thing here's where the story part you have a.
Ivan: Full charge on your car.
Sam: I did not so here's where
Sam: the story starts coming in because i
Sam: had not planned on a long trip so i was just you
Sam: know trickle charging like i usually do and i was going to catch up on the weekend
Sam: so it was a little low and i actually had not plugged in that particular time
Sam: yet that day even because this was before my last procedure and I was in a lot of pain still.
Sam: And, like, the last time I had come home, I had brought Alex home from school
Sam: or whatever, and I had just gone straight in because I had to carry,
Sam: like, stuff or whatever.
Sam: And I was like, I just went in and collapsed. I didn't go back out and plug the thing in.
Ivan: Okay, well, fuck it. You got to supercharge somewhere. Okay.
Sam: Right. So I'm like, no problem. There's going to be—we're going up and down I-5.
Sam: There are going to be superchargers all over the place. Not a problem at all.
Sam: Anyway, so—and I checked. There was enough to get there. just not enough coming back okay right.
Ivan: Right right right.
Sam: So because i and i was like i'll charge
Sam: i'll charge on the way back i'm not going to bother charging now and then going
Sam: because that was an option i could have charged a supercharger near me topped
Sam: up and then had enough for round trip right but i didn't do that i went down
Sam: there i met her at the state capitol because she'd already finished everything
Sam: at her house but she needed to get a few more things from her office,
Sam: And so I met her at the state capitol at after midnight, took a picture of the
Sam: state capitol, posted it to Blue Sky or whatever.
Sam: And we got the rest of the stuff we needed. Also, I'll mention,
Sam: this is still me. Like I said, before surgery, I'm in pain.
Sam: Whenever I move, it hurts. Whenever I move, like if I move even a little bit,
Sam: then the side effect of me moving is I desperately have to pee.
Sam: Oh, nice. At least I feel like I have to.
Sam: And there's a disconnect between how much is actually ready to come out of me versus how I feel.
Sam: Like, I feel like I'm about to explode. And then I actually get to a bathroom
Sam: and there's like a few drops.
Ivan: It's just a squirt.
Sam: Yes. Right. But in any way, it becomes incredibly desperate.
Sam: Like, if I walk like 30 feet, then it's like, ah, I gotta go. Okay.
Sam: So anyway, I'm there. I help her with the last couple things.
Sam: And honestly, I was basically providing just room in my car for these last couple
Sam: things because she managed to fit everything from her B&B or whatever into her
Sam: car, but not the extra stuff from her office.
Sam: So I was providing the backseat of my car and, you know, the trunk of my car for a few extra items.
Sam: You know, that's basically what I was there for.
Sam: And so we do that. And then it's like one in the morning or something.
Sam: And I'm ready to go. I'm like, OK, great.
Sam: I find the closest supercharger. it's only like two miles away no problem i
Sam: go to the supercharger and i go to charge and she's going off she decided she
Sam: was booking a hotel for the night because she wasn't feeling good she was she
Sam: booked a hotel for the night she was gonna sleep and then come home in the morning okay.
Ivan: Probably yeah okay.
Sam: Sensible so so i go to the supercharger oh boy and i plug in and it says it's
Sam: charging for 10 seconds and then it stops.
Sam: And I'm like, well, crap. Okay, well, I've done this before.
Sam: At the supercharger near me, this has sometimes happened, where one of the chargers doesn't work.
Sam: I just change to a different parking spot and it works just fine.
Sam: So I do that. Same thing. Doesn't work.
Sam: I try a third spot. Same thing. Doesn't work.
Sam: I'm like, well, shit. And by the way, the process of doing this,
Sam: I already need to pee again.
Sam: Like, because I've been moving to do it.
Sam: And I'm in the middle of, like, some parking lot at, like, a mall.
Sam: Everything's closed because it's
Sam: 1 in the morning. It's not like there's someplace I can run in to pee.
Ivan: Just pee somewhere around there in the bushes.
Sam: I wasn't going to do that.
Ivan: What do you mean? Fucking Jesus Christ, it's midnight. There's nobody,
Ivan: 2 in the morning, there's nobody around.
Sam: Well, there were actually there were two other cars at the supercharger and
Sam: it was working just fine for them.
Sam: OK, it was working just fine for them, apparently.
Ivan: All right. So it's a you problem.
Sam: OK, so it's probably a you problem. But I'm like, well, where's the next closest supercharger?
Sam: And, you know, I there was there were a couple like ones and twosies superchargers
Sam: that were low speed and I ignored them.
Sam: there was a and i i also
Sam: like i never got the adapter thing to work properly so
Sam: i'm only going to tesla you know ones with tesla plugs
Sam: but then and and actually that's
Sam: a thing like i was like maybe whatever was
Sam: wrong with getting the adapter to work which i've never gone back
Sam: to ask a dealership about because maybe there's a
Sam: chance it was related to when amy hit my car if
Sam: you remember okay yeah like the normal
Sam: charger worked fine but the the adapter never did and i don't think i ever tried
Sam: it before then but anyway for those of you who can't see yvonne is holding his
Sam: head in his hands he is appalled so yeah because.
Ivan: Here's the thing right like with my wife's car and this is not even my car i
Ivan: went and i fucking went and myself double checked to make sure that the stupid fucking,
Ivan: charging was working like it's a super charge even though we never needed it
Ivan: just to make sure I tried the adapt I'm like I need to make sure this shit works I'm like,
Ivan: I can't be on a business trip, and all of a sudden, my wife is somehow low on
Ivan: charge, and it doesn't fucking work.
Sam: Yeah, and so we had tried the adapter. We just, it never worked. It never worked.
Ivan: So the regular Tesla charger worked for it. I made sure, like,
Ivan: I had the issue where I had with
Ivan: the charging over here where it wasn't working. I made sure I fucking.
Sam: Like, almost didn't sleep. It's not just that you checked, because we checked.
Sam: You just, when you found out it didn't work, you did something about it.
Ivan: Yes!
Sam: Correct! Okay, that's the part I didn't do.
Ivan: I fixed the problem. I went and I fucking spent like a whole day figuring out
Ivan: what the fuck the problem was.
Ivan: Which, by the way, I found out in my case, it was the form of payment.
Ivan: And the stupid ChargePoint app should have... I wanted the people at ChargePoint
Ivan: should be shot because, dude, really?
Ivan: You couldn't explain to me there was an issue with the form of payment?
Sam: Right.
Ivan: You're going to tell me that that was your problem.
Sam: Not quite, but you're getting warm. Okay.
Ivan: Oh, fuck.
Sam: So I find the next supercharger and it's like another like 20,
Sam: 30 miles up the road or something. And I have enough to get there.
Sam: But I'm like, OK, here's the deal. If I get like right now where I am,
Sam: I'm like three miles from my wife's hotel.
Sam: I could go to her hotel and figure it out in the morning.
Sam: If, on the other hand, I go to this Charger, there's a chance I won't be able
Sam: to get home and I won't be able to get back to her hotel either. Okay?
Ivan: Oh, my gosh. Oh, God.
Sam: I decide to go to the next Charger anyway.
Ivan: Oh, no.
Sam: So I drive the extra 20 or 30 miles down the road to the next Charger.
Sam: And same damn thing. I try three or four different chargers at the spot.
Sam: I try, I'm like, maybe there's a loose connection. I try sort of just like holding
Sam: the charger and in weird positions and seeing, you know, does it help if I shove
Sam: it in harder? Maybe something's loose.
Sam: And I call Brandy and I'm like, nothing's working. Nothing's working.
Sam: What, you know, what should we do? And I check the distance.
Sam: I do have enough to get back to her hotel.
Sam: Barely. With like maybe two or three miles to spare.
Ivan: Was there a trickle charger there perhaps at that hotel or something?
Sam: No.
Ivan: Fuck.
Sam: No. But I could get back to her hotel with maybe two or three miles to spare. I'm like, okay, fine.
Sam: I will come to your hotel. We will call and get this like towed to a Hyundai
Sam: dealership in the morning for them to check it out.
Sam: There's obviously something wrong with the car. Okay.
Sam: There's something wrong with the charger.
Sam: I'm like, okay, Alex may have to miss school tomorrow if neither of us can get
Sam: home in time to take him to school, whatever, whatever, but I'll do this because
Sam: I'd left Alex at home. He was asleep when I left.
Sam: Like, so, you know, I texted him a message of where I went in case he woke up.
Ivan: I mean, yeah, he's an adult.
Sam: An adult. Close, close. He's 16. He's 16. He can handle it.
Ivan: In some places, he would be considered a legal adult.
Sam: We have no concerns about leaving. We could leave him alone for a week. He'd be fine. Okay?
Ivan: Starving, but fine.
Sam: No, he would feed himself. He feeds himself all the time.
Ivan: Oh, he would feed? Okay.
Sam: Yeah, he feeds himself. He's made Instacart orders for more groceries.
Sam: You know, he can take care of himself.
Ivan: Okay, okay, so he won't starve. Okay, okay.
Sam: He won't starve. He can take care of himself.
Sam: now would what he eats be
Sam: great probably not but honestly it would probably be better than when i'm feeding
Sam: him you know like he'll make me dinner he'll make me like hamburgers and stuff
Sam: and other he's made thanksgiving dinner for us like so he'd be fine he'd be better than us.
Sam: Anyway i on the way back to hotel i'm like i'll try that first supercharger
Sam: one last time It's only like a little bit off the highway. I'll try that one last time.
Sam: I go there and I'm like, maybe I'll just try a different one.
Sam: I will try one of the slots where I saw someone successfully charging a couple hours ago.
Sam: And of course, nothing. And of course, this entire time, this entire time driving
Sam: back and forth, I'm like desperate to pee. That's what, you know.
Sam: So I finally get to her hotel I meet her there I park the car in the hotel parking lot I go in I'm like,
Sam: The whole plan is We'll call and we'll deal with it in the morning I can sleep
Sam: And by this time it's like 2.30 in the morning or something,
Sam: I get in there And of course as I said I desperately needed to pee I go to the
Sam: bathroom And as you do when you go to the bathroom You pick up your phone,
Sam: I look at my phone. I pop into my email. I see email from Hyundai.
Sam: I see 15 emails from Hyundai.
Sam: And what do you think those say, Yvonne?
Ivan: Your credit card has been declined.
Sam: No. No. No? Okay.
Sam: There are 15 emails saying that charging service is blocked because I have not
Sam: accepted the revised terms of service.
Ivan: Oh, get the fuck out of here.
Ivan: Sam, you live looking at your phone.
Ivan: How the fuck had you not looked at this?
Sam: There were no alerts. I had to go into my email and not even my priority.
Ivan: You live looking at your fucking phone.
Sam: I don't look at my email very often. And when I look at my email.
Ivan: Oh, well, not your email. You have said that, yes.
Sam: And in my email, I have accounts that are set to VIP, and I almost always only
Sam: look at the VIP mailbox. I only look at the other mailbox, like,
Sam: every couple weeks, like, that has my non-VIP mail.
Sam: I just happened to poke in while I was, you know, in the bathroom, and I saw this.
Sam: And so there were 15 fucking emails. And by the way, no alerts on the damn phone.
Sam: like Hyundai sends me alerts Hyundai's app sends me alerts if I leave the door
Sam: unlocked for 20 seconds it doesn't send me an alert for this yes.
Ivan: That is a big massive fail.
Sam: And so like yeah I had to go into the app and then within the app go into a
Sam: sub menu and then within that sub menu accept the terms of service,
Sam: And then everything was okay. So I did, I did at this point,
Sam: like sleep for several hours at the hotel. I was like, it's already three in the morning.
Sam: I slept. My intention was to sleep for like an hour and then get back on the road.
Sam: In fact, I slept until like 8 a.m. or something. And then I got back on the road.
Sam: But eight or nine. But yeah, as soon as I accepted the damn terms of service,
Sam: everything worked perfectly.
Sam: But it didn't tell me. It didn't tell me. Like if it had popped up.
Ivan: I mean, but that's it's a similar fail to mine, except a different one,
Ivan: because I mean, I went and I had I had gone and like made sure,
Ivan: right, that I wasn't in a situation where I was in a.
Ivan: almost out of charge to figure out that i i
Ivan: had a situation where you know i i
Ivan: came home the car had 30 i plugged
Ivan: tried to charge it wouldn't charge i didn't understand
Ivan: what the fuck was going on and i i went
Ivan: and i the thing is that i could plug it into my
Ivan: garage on the trickle charger just you know on the
Ivan: 110 and so i just went like look i'm gonna
Ivan: plug it into the i'm gonna put it in the garage and put
Ivan: it on the slow charger and let me see what happens
Ivan: and then and and the thing is that i also tried to plug to charge
Ivan: my volvo and it wouldn't charge either and
Ivan: i'm like what the fuck you can't charge either car what the hell is going on
Ivan: and then and i took it to a supercharger nearby and it worked perfectly so i'm
Ivan: like what the fuck you know but but our chargers here are charge point the the
Ivan: supercharger's fpl is a different account and so um properly.
Sam: Or it had different.
Ivan: Apparently apparently the card had expired okay but it didn't tell me that way
Ivan: i'm like you know like you said about all these dumb ass notifications hey tell
Ivan: me the fucking card expired right it didn't say anything it actually no.
Sam: Not a single.
Ivan: Message warning nothing Now.
Sam: If I had gone into the app and looked in the right submenu of the app,
Sam: I would have seen something.
Sam: But I never use the app when I plug into the chargers because I have it all
Sam: set up to be automatic. I just plug in and it charges me and I don't have to look at a damn thing.
Sam: And so, no, I had not opened my Hyundai app. And so...
Sam: Yes. It's like, again, I get all these stupid notifications for all kinds of
Sam: other things. And I shouldn't say stupid.
Sam: I actually appreciate it when
Sam: it tells me my car is unlocked that I forgot and I lock the car, you know?
Sam: But at the same time, I would appreciate this one even more.
Sam: And when I finally rolled into that charger in the morning, after I figured
Sam: this out, I had less than five miles on the thing.
Sam: Like, if it had not. Well, you made it.
Ivan: You made it.
Sam: I made it. I did make it.
Ivan: You made it. You made it. You made it. You made it. You made it.
Ivan: You didn't get stranded.
Ivan: I had expected. I fully expected. Sam finally got stranded with no charge story.
Ivan: And no, I did not get that. You wound up, you wound up, you know, barely eking it out.
Sam: Yeah. Barely eking it out. Because if I had run out, then I would have been stuck.
Sam: I would have had to call somebody. would have had to do something,
Sam: you know, get it, get it like whatever it would, it would have been,
Sam: or if I had not looked at my email, this part of my email that I don't usually check, then.
Sam: Then we still would have called and had the thing towed in the morning and they
Sam: would have been like, you dumbass, everything's fine.
Ivan: This shit is a reason why I even still to this day, even though I've got like,
Ivan: you know, I'm using like with with Apple Mail, I'm using the I don't I don't
Ivan: use the VIP part that much. But I do, you know, my primary bail box,
Ivan: I have the with Apple Mail.
Ivan: I have it set that I am getting my primary notifications there where it's filtered
Ivan: out enough that I'm not I'm not like before where I would get like 50 emails in my primary inbox.
Ivan: It's like like yesterday, for example, my primary inbox, I got one,
Ivan: two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, ten messages.
Ivan: OK, you scroll through those or whatever.
Sam: My stuff is still a mess. I tried the categorization that Apple Mail does now,
Sam: and I hated it. So I went back to not having that.
Ivan: I'm sorry, but once you get it sorted, it is really easy.
Ivan: I got my transactions in one side. I got my primary receipt.
Ivan: I got the people that send newsletters and updates on one side.
Sam: And I got promotions on another one. It didn't work for me, not because it wasn't
Sam: doing what it was supposed to be. It didn't work with how my brain works.
Ivan: Your brain. They work with your brain. But I still, even with that,
Ivan: I still occasionally will scroll through to junk just in case something is going there.
Sam: Oh, I still have to check my junk on a regular basis because there are routinely
Sam: non-junk things in there. But anyway, that's a whole different topic.
Ivan: I have to say that at least it's... I have been...
Ivan: I've got it set up right now that I'm not getting stuff.
Ivan: It's been a long time that something's gone to junk that shouldn't be there. Thank God.
Sam: I would bet you that if I open my junk mail right now, I would find something
Sam: within a few minutes if I looked.
Sam: Of course, I'm doing that. Let's see. Did I find anything?
Sam: Not in the first screen of stuff.
Sam: well there's an email from next door which technically speaking is not spam
Sam: but honestly i don't really want it so you know what.
Ivan: Do you mean it's not spam next door is i'm like i'm.
Sam: Well i actually have the next door account and i apparently did not set my preference
Sam: to not have that particular email so it's legit it's not you know it's not someone
Sam: i have no relationship with But that's the only one.
Sam: Oh, oh, oh, here's one from my son's school district.
Sam: Okay. So that's real. So two in the first screen full, I, in the first screen
Sam: of about 50 messages, I found two that weren't spam.
Sam: So anyway, so that was my story. That was my exciting story.
Sam: I made it, but I was, you know, when, when I was in the bathroom,
Sam: Brandy heard loud swearing suddenly coming out of the bathroom.
Sam: And of course she's thinking...
Ivan: She's thinking that you're feeling bad from the peak or something or whatever. It's like, you know...
Sam: Exactly.
Sam: It's like, is he passing a stone? Is there an issue? Do we have to go to the hospital? No.
Ivan: No. No, it's you saying, fuck, fuck, this stupid thing. Fuck.
Ivan: Stupid fucking app, you stupid hot day idiots.
Sam: Exactly. So, anyway. That took a while. Let's just, we'll forget the movies.
Sam: Yeah, we'll skip the movies for this week. I will give the preview next week
Sam: will be Lawrence of Arabia from 1962.
Sam: That's number five on the 1998 AFI list and The Martian from 2015.
Sam: So those will be the movies for next time.
Sam: But in the meantime, we will take a break and we will come back and we will
Sam: talk actual news of the day back after this.
Sam: Okay, we are back. So on serious newsy stuff, where do you want to start, Yvonne?
Sam: We sort of, you know, you said TSA wasn't an issue for you.
Sam: It was for other folks. We had the ICE folks there. We had the LaGuardia plane
Sam: versus fire truck thing. We have Iran, of course.
Ivan: Well, let's talk about aviation. That way I can mix into TSA and the accident.
Sam: Okay, then we'll go from there.
Ivan: Well, hey, Sam, what did the president do on Friday related to paying the TSA employees?
Sam: Oh, I was going to say he slept through some meetings like he usually does.
Ivan: Well, he did that, too.
Sam: No, he signed an executive order.
Ivan: Yeah, but Sam, what did we find out when he signed the executive order?
Ivan: Did you read through the fine print of this?
Sam: Because. Yes.
Ivan: Because the thing is that we found out that they had not run out of money to
Ivan: pay the TSA employees, that they had chosen not to fucking pay the TSA employees.
Sam: I was going to say, I've heard semi-conflicting things on this.
Sam: One is that, in fact, they have not run out of money yet, and they could have
Sam: been paying these people all along, and it was just an administration choice
Sam: not to, specifically to sort of increase the pain or whatever.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: But also, I've heard, nevertheless, Trump's executive order to pay them is probably
Sam: illegal, because that's not the right mechanism to do this, etc.
Ivan: But the reality is that they had not run out of money to pay the guys.
Sam: Every other part of the Department of Homeland Security was being paid, except TSA.
Sam: And maybe a couple other stragglers. But, like, you know, the funding bill that
Sam: was holding up was for all of you.
Ivan: By the way, Global Entry was reopened, by the way, when I came back from Dominican Republic.
Sam: But it was all of Department of Homeland Security that the bill is for.
Sam: And various other parts were being paid properly.
Sam: And, you know, there are all kinds of rules about in-government shutdowns,
Sam: who gets paid, who doesn't get paid. There's a lot of discretion.
Sam: There's a lot of determination of sort of what's critical, what's not, et cetera.
Sam: So bottom line is it seems to be consensus that they could have paid these folks
Sam: all along if they'd wanted to.
Ivan: Right. But they chose not to.
Sam: They chose not to.
Ivan: I mean, it's just...
Sam: And of course, the problem that was happening in many airports,
Sam: but not all, as you said, in your
Sam: airport, there was no significant delays whatsoever in the trips you had.
Sam: In other airports, there were delays of multi hours to get through security lines.
Ivan: But I don't know if you saw, I shared a chart that, listen, it's really- Basically.
Sam: Houston was the only bad one, right?
Ivan: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know, you didn't comment on this, but I actually said
Ivan: specifically, was this on purpose?
Sam: Right.
Ivan: You know, given the name of the airport, that was why I said,
Ivan: yes, George Bush Airport.
Ivan: These fuckers did that on purpose. Sam, every other airport was at 22 minutes.
Ivan: Houston was at three hours and 20 minutes.
Sam: So the thing is about it.
Ivan: This had to be intentional.
Sam: The only thing about it being intentional that I would question is, from what I understand,
Sam: the airports, the reason there were trouble was, I mean, is that TSA employees,
Sam: despite not being paid, were theoretically supposed to show up.
Sam: But of course, some were calling out sick because they're like,
Sam: fuck this, I'm not working for free.
Sam: And so the places where there were delays were where more people were not showing up.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: So, but that would be sort of under the control of the individual TSA employees,
Sam: not like a choice from above, unless somebody was like, hey,
Sam: you Houston folks, why don't you all hang back?
Sam: I don't know.
Ivan: That's what I'm saying. Because, I mean, it's crazy.
Ivan: But understand, here's the problem of, well, unless you use sick pay.
Ivan: Listen, if you don't show up to work, you're not going to get paid.
Sam: Well, they were calling out sick specifically.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: Okay. Which presumably for these agents, there is sick pay. I don't know. I guess.
Sam: Normally after these shutdowns, Congress pays them retroactively.
Ivan: They get paid retroactively, right.
Sam: Yeah. I mean, Congress has to explicitly do that.
Ivan: But if you don't show up to work, you're not going to get paid.
Sam: Right. Unless it's a sick day and it's an approved sick day.
Sam: So they were calling out sick. Now, do you actually believe everyone was sick
Sam: at exactly the same time during the shutdown?
Sam: I don't know. But, you know, what are you going to do?
Sam: I guess they could ask them all for doctor's notes.
Ivan: I guess. But yeah, three hours and 20 minutes in Houston.
Ivan: I mean, like, if you looked at
Ivan: the chart, it was like three hours and 20 minutes of Houston, Phoenix 20.
Ivan: I mean, Miami, like I said, look, Checkpoint 3, which I don't use Checkpoint 3.
Ivan: I usually use, it's one nearby it, which has pre-checkpoint.
Ivan: It was, that Checkpoint 3 had 15 minutes.
Ivan: Actually, I just realized right now, no, we did go through Checkpoint 3,
Ivan: because Manu doesn't have pre-check.
Ivan: I keep forgetting about this. I'm going to have to sign him up for...
Ivan: Now he's old enough, I've got to sign him up for global entry.
Ivan: Otherwise, yeah, so I've got to do that.
Ivan: And, yeah, we did go to Checkpoint 3. As a matter of fact, they actually...
Ivan: Because they saw that we both had pre-check and he didn't, they actually let
Ivan: us cut in front of everybody. That was actually faster.
Sam: Okay?
Ivan: So, but...
Ivan: I, it's just, my whole thing is that they, they didn't have to not pay TSA employees,
Ivan: but they chose to do so anyway.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: Because it's just the standard bullshit, fucking bullshit that we deal with
Ivan: every day with this fucking bullshit administration.
Sam: Well, and despite the executive order, and theoretically they could be paid
Sam: as early as Monday, but despite this executive order, the actual funding of
Sam: Department of Homeland Security still has not resolved.
Ivan: Well, is that right? Because even though the Senate.
Sam: They didn't make a deal.
Ivan: Right?
Sam: They made a deal in the Senate, even though Donald Trump was yelling at them to not make a deal.
Sam: Right. But the Senate made a deal.
Sam: They passed something through unanimous consent a couple of days ago.
Sam: And then the house was like, no, fuck that. I'm not doing that because apparently
Sam: they pay more attention to Donald than, than the Senate does.
Sam: And they passed their own thing, which does not match at all,
Sam: in which the Senate says is a non-starter in the Senate.
Sam: And I think the difference is the Senate actually did make some nods towards
Sam: adjusting ICE and funding for ICE and rules for ICE and things like that.
Sam: And the House is not willing to do that at all. And so— Well, the House.
Ivan: Well, the House.
Sam: Well, Speaker Johnson. it and leadership thank you
Sam: yeah because this is a yet another thing where
Sam: you know you might end up with a discharge position petition
Sam: to override but that takes a long time you
Sam: know that's not going to happen anytime soon that you know right
Sam: and so we'll see we'll see but if now that we're paying tsa it's not going to
Sam: be painful anymore so there's no incentive to resolve it sooner rather later
Sam: so it'll it'll just hang out there for a long time probably yeah yeah now.
Ivan: There's really no incentive to make a deal quickly anytime
Ivan: soon well if they make the deal they still haven't yet so i i well i don't know
Ivan: but the whole thing is that this is just my whole point about this is it's a
Ivan: it's it's the standard substandard bullshit of these guys and it's always it's
Ivan: always a show It's always bullshit. It's all bullshit.
Ivan: Nothing is what it seems. They're never making anything in terms of trying to
Ivan: solve a problem, legislation, whatever.
Ivan: They create problems. They fake create problems.
Ivan: Everything is a straw man, and this is another one of them.
Ivan: Right. I don't know. Well, going back to the issue at sticking with aviation,
Ivan: that crash at LaGuardia.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: I shared some detailed information on this on the Slack. The thing is that at night at LaGuardia,
Ivan: they lower the number of people at control tower well below what is in the daytime,
Ivan: even though in many cases traffic is not lighter.
Ivan: OK, and one of the things that they do is that they've got two runways that
Ivan: they combine their responsibilities for ground.
Ivan: And OK, so you've got a ground controller that is the one that supervises movements
Ivan: on the ground of vehicles and aircraft.
Ivan: OK, authorizes when an aircraft is supposed to cross a runway or not, et cetera, whatever.
Ivan: And then you've got the tower controller, which is the one that controls takeoffs and landings.
Ivan: Anybody that is close to the airport, when you are about close,
Ivan: you know, because there's a departure controller and there's an arrivals controller
Ivan: that controls the airspace around the airport.
Ivan: Once you get very close to the airport, you switch to the tower,
Ivan: which is the one that gives you instructions for final land. Okay.
Ivan: So that's the tower controller. So they combine tower and ground at night.
Ivan: But look, at an airport like DeGuardia, that's too much work for one guy. It's just too much.
Ivan: But even still, here's the reality.
Ivan: The tower, you know, that controller that was doing both, did clear the fire
Ivan: trucks that were involved in the incident to go across that active running.
Sam: Explain the scenario that was happening.
Ivan: Okay. So here's what happened. A United aircraft on the other side of the airport,
Ivan: okay, on the east side of the airport, had reported that they had fumes,
Ivan: that there was an issue, and they needed emergency equipment right away.
Ivan: So for those fire vehicles to get there, they had to cross the active runway
Ivan: that was being used for takeoffs and landings, okay?
Ivan: So the vehicles called the ground controller to get clearance to go across.
Ivan: The controller cleared them to cross, but also he had cleared this Air Canada
Ivan: airplane to land at the same time. Okay.
Ivan: All of a sudden, after the controller did clear the ground and he's looking
Ivan: and they have radar that shows the vehicles on the ground, not just the aircraft,
Ivan: but that shows what vehicles are on the ground. Okay.
Ivan: The tower controller realizes that those vehicles have been cleared across,
Ivan: but there was an airplane landing.
Ivan: He calls out twice for, and he called out vehicle one, stop,
Ivan: stop, stop, stop. He tried to get them to stop.
Ivan: Here's another thing that should have been at play.
Ivan: That airport has this lighting system that will, if you are an airplane or a
Ivan: vehicle approaching to cross an active runway,
Ivan: red lights will flash to tell you
Ivan: hey forget about don't cross
Ivan: don't fucking cross now people
Ivan: need to verify they're working correctly i mean
Ivan: it's a system that's been installed in place at many airports for
Ivan: a long time i see them all the time when i'm plane spotting work
Ivan: you will see them like light up right there they will be lighting up right
Ivan: right right until all the sun you get cleared they go and they
Ivan: go white so you can you so you can go onto the onto the
Ivan: active runway uh but that that that
Ivan: fire truck should have seen that but here's the thing about it
Ivan: the lead truck didn't stop but when the stop got called out ground radar showed
Ivan: that all the vehicles following him did it was only that one that didn't stop
Ivan: right so i'm not understanding what the hell happened in the communication inside
Ivan: the lead vehicle that there were about,
Ivan: eight or ten trucks that were heading over there, all of the other trucks heard
Ivan: the stop but not the lead vehicle.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: When the Air Canada plane landed and that vehicle crossed, there was nothing they could do.
Ivan: There was nothing they could do. They had, they were going way too fast.
Ivan: It was too close to the point where they landed. They were doing over a hundred knots.
Ivan: They're fucked. There's nothing they could do.
Ivan: So now the investigation has to go is to understand why the heck that lead vehicle,
Ivan: despite the fact that it got told to stop twice,
Ivan: despite the fact that it had flashing red lights, why the heck all the other
Ivan: vehicles understood the command to stop and he didn't.
Ivan: The controller did make a mistake to clear them.
Ivan: However, the controller did call back to correct it to stop within enough time
Ivan: that they should have stopped. Yes, absolutely.
Sam: And to be clear, we should learn more about this. The people in the firetruck survived.
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: You know, they had to be hospitalized. I don't know their current condition, but they survived.
Ivan: Now, the question is, of course, if they're going to fess up.
Ivan: I make sure that they're going to fess up. Why the hell they fucked up?
Sam: Oh, well, I'm sure they are already lawyered up. If not, they should be.
Ivan: They should be. Yeah, that's my concern right now. Now, I mean,
Ivan: was it an equipment failure or did they fuck up?
Ivan: That's good because it could have been an equipment failure as well.
Ivan: Like radio equipment something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They just weren't working
Ivan: right something. Yeah. So that's a possibility.
Ivan: Hey, the ground, I mean, those systems work very well.
Ivan: Did the ground light system with the flashing red lights, did it not activate for some reason?
Ivan: And that's something that needs to be determined as well. It needs to be tested.
Ivan: Because that's the reason why that's been put around almost every airport around the U.S.
Ivan: And that's something that has reduced those kinds of runway incursions a lot.
Ivan: And it's a system that people depend on. So we got to check to see if that system was working properly.
Ivan: But yeah, it's very unfortunate, man, because, you know, the controller made
Ivan: a mistake, but the controller caught his mistake.
Ivan: But the reality is that the reason the controller made the mistake is because
Ivan: there was no reason he should be doing that job by himself with that much traffic in the air.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: But this was not the controller's fault.
Sam: Yeah. The other thing here, though, is it actually seems remarkable that we
Sam: only had the pilot and co-pilot die.
Ivan: Oh, yeah.
Sam: You know, given the nature of the accident.
Ivan: A lot of people did get hurt on the plane.
Sam: Yes. Yes.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: A lot of concussions. A lot of people like slamming their heads into the seat
Sam: in front of them. Things like that. But only two dead.
Sam: And I gather the, and some people weren't injured at all.
Ivan: The emergency vehicles, thankfully, were right there. There was an entire gaggle of them.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: It didn't take too long to get rescue on it.
Sam: Yeah. I guess it probably delayed the attention to that other plane that had the smell or whatever.
Ivan: Yes. The other plane, it was a fume incident. You know, I don't know how they
Ivan: dealt with, you know, they dealt with that. They were, yeah.
Ivan: So, they had been originally, the other plane had been trying to avoid evacuating
Ivan: the airplanes and they were trying to get the fire trucks over there for them
Ivan: to, I'm assuming they finally, they probably evacuated that plane because of the fumes.
Sam: So i mean in this case like you said there were
Sam: a bunch of people injured enough to go to the hospital there are a bunch of people who
Sam: walked off the damn plane without anything um the
Sam: the pilot and co-pilot died there was one stewardess who
Sam: was ejected from the plane found 300 feet away and needed medical attention
Sam: but will be fine in the end um you know so i i heard you know some some conflicting
Sam: reports on like, you know, we're,
Sam: Did the pilots do things that helped, even though, like, they ended up dying?
Sam: Like, you know, like, for instance, if they had tried to swerve to avoid the
Sam: truck, it probably would have made things worse, not better.
Sam: Because, like, given the speed they were going, given the amount of time they had.
Ivan: If they turned— It would have flipped the plane over.
Sam: It would have flipped the plane over or hit on the wings that still had fuel
Sam: in them and caused a fire.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: You know, and I've heard a little bit of conflict of whether they were able
Sam: to slow down more than they would have on a normal landing so that to just be
Sam: a little bit slower when they hit the truck, I don't know.
Sam: Maybe that helped a little bit, maybe not. But it clearly could have been a lot worse.
Ivan: Oh, it could have been. It could have been a lot worse, But I really feel bad
Ivan: for those pilots. They really just...
Ivan: And there's nothing they could do. They were just at the worst possible moment,
Ivan: something like that to happen.
Ivan: It's one of those where, you know, I still remember, it reminds me of this car
Ivan: accident that we had where we were driving down.
Ivan: I was a passenger where this guy just ran a stop sign right at the moment that we're coming through.
Ivan: true and it's just this helpless feeling you can't there it doesn't matter how
Ivan: good you're there's nothing to do nothing to do all i did was close my eyes
Ivan: put my hands over my head i said oh shit.
Sam: Because there.
Ivan: Was nothing else to do.
Sam: Yeah and there are
Sam: a lot of scenarios that end up being like that i
Sam: mean you know you you talk about first of
Sam: all if you're the driver driving carefully driving defensively all
Sam: that kind of stuff but there's some scenarios where there's
Sam: just absolutely nothing nothing you can do
Sam: there i mean i remember you remember a
Sam: few years ago where sort of across the
Sam: street from where i was working in seattle a crane fell on the damn road right
Sam: you know and you know there was dash cam video right you know there was somebody
Sam: that was at a stoplight right red light waiting for it to turn green and a crane fell on the car right,
Sam: nothing defensive.
Ivan: Driving technique are you using in order to avoid the crane falling on your car.
Sam: Right you know but yeah and and of course this is same thing for pilots in this
Sam: kind of situation obviously it's just like the the thing that happened happened
Sam: too late and at a time where there was nothing to do nothing to.
Ivan: Do nothing to do nothing to do unfortunately.
Sam: Okay anything else aviation wise before we move on to another topic,
Sam: Okay. Ah, let's see. What do we do then? What do we do then?
Sam: What do we do then? I guess I ran.
Ivan: I fucking ran. How's it going, Sam? Are we winning?
Sam: Oh, yes, clearly. Well, I mean, I keep hearing Donald Trump's...
Ivan: Hey, did you notice that the Iranians hacked Kash Patel's private email?
Ivan: Talk about the great... We have the dumbest fucking heads of anything ever.
Sam: Uh-huh.
Sam: I would say at least it wasn't his work email, but reality of these guys is
Sam: they don't use their work email.
Sam: They're using their personal email for government duties. They're using Signal.
Sam: Right. You know, from previous history, it's remarkable that they're not,
Sam: like, signaling journalists about what they're doing anyway.
Ivan: Right.
Sam: You know? So, no. If you remember just in the early days of this war,
Sam: there were pictures released of Trump and his advisors at Mar-a-Lago managing
Sam: the start of the war with a black curtain separating them from the diners that
Sam: are just at Mar-a-Lago as customers.
Ivan: Why are they so stupid? I mean, okay, fine.
Ivan: Take your stupid positions. That's fine. You know, but why are they just so
Ivan: stupid about even this shit?
Ivan: What is it? I don't get it. I mean, even Putin, with all his despicable positions,
Ivan: manages operational security of his shit a lot better than this.
Ivan: I mean, okay, so these guys are assholes. I mean, the problem is that they're,
Ivan: okay, Putin is an asshole, an evil one, but not stupid. these guys are evil stupid assholes.
Sam: Right fuck,
Sam: they are and but i keep hearing donald trump say over and over and over that
Sam: we come you know we've completely destroyed and obliterated and blah blah blah
Sam: and but we're still gonna go for a couple weeks but then we'll be done okay.
Ivan: Okay okay yeah the the economist gave the perfect quote about this where they
Ivan: said that what was it they said that,
Ivan: Yes, Donald, you said that you obliterated, you know, all their capability,
Ivan: 100% of their military capability, but it's amazing how much damage to the world
Ivan: economy that 0% of their capability is doing.
Sam: Yeah.
Sam: I've heard. Yes.
Ivan: So stupid.
Sam: The latest I've heard, by the way, is that in addition to the oil that is not
Sam: going through the Gulf of, the Gulf of Hormuz, the Strait of Hormuz.
Ivan: Gulf of Hormuz?
Sam: Yeah, the Gulf of Hormuz. Well, I also, I'm trying to be careful because it's really- I have.
Ivan: All these fucking names. I have the Strait of Hormuz. Now we're calling it the Gulf of Hormuz.
Sam: Well, also the thing that.
Ivan: That should be the name of the episode. The Gulf of Hormuz. Yes.
Sam: The mistake that I've made myself that I've heard others make as well,
Sam: including Donald Trump, by the way, is to make it plural straights.
Sam: It is not the straights of Hormuz. It is a single straight of Hormuz. Okay?
Ivan: Jesus Christ.
Sam: You know, it is one, not multiple.
Ivan: Not multiple. Not multiple.
Sam: Right. So anyway, in addition to the oil that's not getting through,
Sam: there are apparently some necessary raw materials for making fertilizer that
Sam: are also not going through.
Ivan: Yeah, that is correct.
Sam: And there is, there are apparently, it's starting to cascade because there are
Sam: fertilizer manufacturing plants in Bangladesh and elsewhere that are shutting
Sam: down because they don't have-
Ivan: Fertilizer prices have been going through the roof. Yes, that's correct. Yeah.
Sam: And this is...
Ivan: It's part of the winning, Sam. It's part of the fucking winning.
Sam: Well, this is one of those things that also cascades because,
Sam: you know, first the fertilizer prices go up, then fertilizer becomes harder
Sam: to get because the price is going up and just supply,
Sam: which then affects agriculture, which then affects food prices,
Sam: which then affects food availability.
Ivan: You don't understand the 6D chess that we're playing, Sam. This is the thing.
Ivan: We're winning, Sam. We are winning. We have eliminated 100% of their military capability, Sam.
Ivan: 100%. Now we need to get rid of the other 100%, I guess.
Sam: From what I understand, though, Iran is making deals on a one-off basis at a
Sam: time with different countries, different freighters, whatever,
Sam: to let specific things through.
Ivan: Listen, that is complete bullshit anyway. It doesn't matter.
Ivan: This whole thing about cutting one-off deals.
Ivan: Nobody is going to go and sail a ship through a fucking shooting war.
Ivan: OK. Most companies, most, most ships are not.
Sam: There have been a few going through.
Ivan: Very tiny amounts.
Sam: Very tiny amounts.
Ivan: Very tiny amounts.
Sam: But the point is, some of those are because of these one-off deals,
Sam: which are gaining, you know, Iran's making money off it.
Ivan: But Sam, it doesn't matter.
Sam: Oh, no, it won't affect the globe.
Ivan: It's not enough.
Sam: It's not enough to affect. No, here's the thing. It's not enough to affect the
Sam: global economic situation. It
Sam: is enough for Iran to claim some specific victories and to gain some cash.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. But we have eased sanctions on Iran.
Ivan: Cash, Iran's oil. We fucking eased sanctions on the fucking Iranian oil anyway.
Ivan: So what the hell? We gave the fucking money.
Sam: Yes.
Ivan: And the Russian oil.
Sam: And the Russian oil. Yeah, this is the point.
Sam: Like, if you start, and this harkens back to the conversation we had a couple weeks ago on this,
Sam: where the way that the Trump administration is calling this a success is,
Sam: look at all the shit we blew up.
Sam: Look at all the people we killed.
Ivan: Listen, apparently Donald Trump is getting a daily, like, clip.
Ivan: It's like a video clip. It's like a YouTube.
Ivan: Yeah, a two-minute clip. of like just shit being blown up.
Sam: Right.
Ivan: You know, and he obviously, it's
Ivan: one of those montages that I'm sure looks cool in the abstract, right?
Ivan: And for a dumbass like him, makes him feel like he's totally winning.
Sam: Yes, and this is the thing. If you are grading solely on shit blown up and people
Sam: killed, you can rattle off the list of the things you've blown up.
Sam: We've apparently dropped a shit ton of weaponry on it between us and Israel.
Sam: we have blown up lots of things we have killed lots of people now 200 of them
Sam: were innocent school girls but whatever we killed a bunch of people but whatever whatever well.
Ivan: Listen you're channeling what they would say 200 innocent.
Sam: School girls they weren't that innocent they weren't that.
Ivan: Innocent they're iranians.
Sam: You know anyway however Well.
Ivan: I'm sorry. Is that what they—I'm sure that that's what they were saying.
Sam: Yeah, I'm sure. Now, however, if you start looking at potential strategic goals
Sam: here— Okay, regime change.
Sam: We have succeeded in getting someone more hard-line than where we started.
Sam: Win, right? Yeah, clearly a win.
Ivan: Not just that, but listen, we have emboldened Iran.
Sam: We have emboldened them.
Ivan: Why would they make a deal right now? For deal what? For what?
Sam: Yes. And look, all sorts of, if you look at,
Sam: there's probably a half dozen different strategic goals that you could potentially
Sam: say were a goal of this endeavor or excursion, excursion, as Donald Trump says.
Sam: Oh, that's an excursion. yes every single one
Sam: of these
Sam: strategic measures as opposed to how much shit did we blow up is going the wrong
Sam: direction so like this is not this is completely backfired in terms of any of
Sam: these other things you know and and look,
Sam: Donald Trump is saying now that he has delayed the next phase of like blowing
Sam: up power plants and stuff multiple times now because we are in healthy,
Sam: fruitful negotiations with the Iranians on a way out. Okay.
Ivan: So do you believe this?
Sam: Here is. I am trying.
Ivan: Do you believe this? No, no, no. Yes or no question. Do you believe that statement?
Sam: I believe something is happening, but not what Donald—let me explain what I think, okay?
Sam: Because I have been trying to parse Donald Trump's completely addled statements
Sam: that clearly are not well tied
Sam: to reality to try to figure out what might actually be going on, okay?
Sam: Because he has said we are in fruitful negotiations. And when asked who we are
Sam: in negotiations with, has been like, no, we're not talking to the Ayatollah.
Sam: No, we're not talking to this group. No, we're not talking to that group.
Sam: What I think is happening is they are talking to some random Iranian that they
Sam: hope might be able to take over once they kill a few more of the current leadership.
Ivan: This sounds like the Ahmed Shalabi of Iran.
Sam: Who was an exiled Iraqi, for those who don't remember, who hoped to become president
Sam: of Iraq after the U.S. killed Saddam.
Ivan: They had a lot of work out, Sam.
Sam: That did not work out at all. But I think that's what's happening here.
Sam: I think when they are saying they're talking to Iranians and negotiating with Iranians,
Sam: they are talking to some random Iranian who's not actually in a position of power,
Sam: but they hope could be the head of a puppet government after they kill a few
Sam: more people. That's what I think is happening.
Ivan: Great.
Sam: Sounds great.
Ivan: Awesome. It's like, you know, I mean,
Ivan: listen, this, this, there was this guy who during the financial crisis,
Ivan: right as the 2008 financial crisis, right as Bernie Madoff went down,
Ivan: there was another guy that went down with a similar Ponzi scheme,
Ivan: but that does not get as much coverage for it.
Ivan: It was, if I remember his name is Fred Dreyer, right?
Sam: Okay, I don't remember this.
Ivan: Mark Dreyer. Yes, Mark Dreyer. Okay, well, let me tell you the thing that he
Ivan: was, one of the things that he was trying to do to further his scheme near the
Ivan: end, that is the one thing that almost brought him down.
Ivan: He was trying to sell these notes, okay?
Ivan: And he claimed that they were from an insurance company somewhere in Canada,
Ivan: if I remember correctly.
Ivan: And so he went and somehow he got access to the office of the insurance company,
Ivan: got access to a conference room, and sat down in there to negotiate the sale
Ivan: of these securities like he was part of the insurance company.
Ivan: But all he did was manage to hijack a conference room into place to act like
Ivan: he was the insurance company.
Ivan: And this is kind of like the people I feel that this administration is talking
Ivan: in Iran. It's some fucking guys that decided to go and say, hey, we'll talk to you.
Ivan: OK, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, we'll make a deal with something,
Ivan: whatever, blah, blah, blah.
Ivan: They got the Pakistanis in the middle, which I believe are trying to also curry
Ivan: favor with Trump in some way.
Ivan: And so they're saying that they're talking to them. But who the fuck knows who
Ivan: the hell they're talking to anyway?
Ivan: You know, might as well. They're probably just bullshitting him anyway.
Ivan: Because, by the way, he doesn't, you know, because if you were a real president,
Ivan: okay, you'll be using your intelligence services to figure out and figure it
Ivan: out who the fuck you're talking to and making sure that whatever you're talking to is a real source.
Ivan: Instead, you know, this is like, hey, bro, I trust you, baby.
Ivan: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. You tell me what the fuck it is, you know,
Ivan: and that's who they're talking to.
Sam: Like, meanwhile, the actual Iranian leadership, which, by the way,
Sam: apparently the new Ayatollah has not been seen in a while.
Sam: So there are rumors that maybe he was significantly injured and maybe he's not
Sam: dead, but he's not really functional.
Sam: But the folks who are talking in Iranian leadership are 100 percent.
Sam: Why would we ever negotiate with the Americans again?
Sam: The last two times that we were negotiating with them,
Sam: right in the middle of the negotiations, where we, by the way,
Sam: were offering real things and real concessions, right in the middle of that, they attack us.
Sam: So why would we bother? There's no trustworthy negotiation.
Sam: We had a deal that we made with Obama that was really strict and had a whole
Sam: bunch of stuff on it, and it was going well.
Sam: And Donald pulled out of that thing last time.
Sam: And then these last two times they've attacked us during negotiations.
Sam: Why would we ever do that again?
Sam: If you remember, in one situation, the Israelis even attacked the negotiating
Sam: team at their hotel in, I forget which Gulf state it was.
Sam: You know, why would we trust any of this? And that's completely legitimate.
Sam: Why would they? Why would they?
Sam: There's no incentive for it whatsoever.
Ivan: I mean, the deal was terrible, Sam.
Sam: And look, apparently, they were offering stuff close to the previous Obama deal
Sam: this time around, if not ahead of it in certain areas.
Sam: And, you know, but it certainly appears that, you know, the Trump administration didn't actually care.
Sam: It was all just a sideshow.
Sam: Like, they didn't really want a deal.
Sam: They wanted to do this. Although there's some question about that, too.
Sam: It may have been one of these things where Trump was going back and forth and
Sam: this and Yahoo was just the last person he talked to before he gave the yes,
Sam: you know, to to do the attack.
Sam: But I don't know, Yvonne, are
Sam: we going to we still have we still have all kinds of taco opportunities.
Sam: Donald Trump has not bombed the power facilities and such because Iran said,
Sam: you know, you do that, we're going to bomb similar facilities all throughout
Sam: the Middle East, you know.
Sam: And so Donald apparently backed out, apparently. And he's talking about these
Sam: negotiations that are going well.
Sam: Donald could stop our involvement at any moment.
Sam: There's a question whether Iran would back off. There's a question of whether Israel would back off.
Sam: But do you believe that in another two weeks, we'll all be done here?
Sam: Everything back to normal?
Ivan: No. No. There's no way. No.
Sam: And by the way, even if hostilities stopped tomorrow, all of the price implications
Sam: of this stuff, they don't reset in a week.
Sam: That's going to take a long time to rebalance and get things back.
Ivan: Like, listen, the inflationary effects that we have right now are going to last a very, very long time.
Ivan: This is a worst scenario that they have created related to inflation in the economy right now.
Sam: Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, I feel like we've already got baked in,
Sam: I mean, at least through the end of this year, right? Even if things get better right away?
Ivan: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, listen, the supply shock of oil isn't going to get rectified anytime soon.
Ivan: So this is going to create a serious issue in terms of prices, in terms of everything.
Ivan: It's like these shocks just don't go away that quickly.
Ivan: And so when you have depleted inventories, when you've got like fuel shortages,
Ivan: when you people are going to start one of the things that's going to happen
Ivan: is people are going to start hoarding supplies also which that drives up prices
Ivan: um no i mean like right now listen five dollar a gallon for regular gas right now is real it's here,
Ivan: And it's not going away anytime soon.
Sam: I shared a picture to the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack of one gas station near
Sam: my son's school that's at $6 for regular.
Sam: Now, to be fair, it's the most expensive I've seen around here.
Sam: Almost everywhere else is between $5 and $5.50.
Sam: But there's this one that's at $6.
Sam: I don't know how they can get away with it when all the ones around them are
Sam: $5.50, but whatever. Location, I guess.
Ivan: Listen, it probably, let me tell you something. Like, one of the things about
Ivan: now, but one of the things about gasoline prices is having, like,
Ivan: my uncle had a gas station. So I remember how they set prices a lot of the time.
Ivan: So it depends on when they get shipments, okay?
Ivan: All right? So they will set the price depending on when the last shipment of gas that came in.
Ivan: You pay, you know, your gas station, you will be paying for spot price for gasoline
Ivan: as it arrives at that moment.
Ivan: And then from that, you will set price. And so, you know, if it's a high volume
Ivan: gas station, they get pretty frequent shipments, your price,
Ivan: you're going to have to push the price up immediately.
Ivan: Because if you get a new tanker that you fill up and it's 25% more than the
Ivan: last one, you can't be selling it.
Ivan: You can't sell it at four bucks when you paid five, you know?
Sam: Yeah. Yeah, and that's why I said location as well, right?
Sam: Because if it's in a good location, like this one gas station that's at six,
Sam: there are cheaper gas stations nearby, but not within sight.
Sam: It's a little different than when it's the one like 30 feet down the road, right?
Sam: You know, you're going to, the people driving by are going to go to the cheaper
Sam: one if they can see both of them at the same time.
Ivan: Yeah, when they're like right across the street sometimes. Yeah,
Ivan: that does happen with gas stations across the street where they have.
Ivan: But eventually, what I'm saying is that when the other gas station gets their
Ivan: next shipment, their price is going to go back up. Yeah.
Ivan: Yeah, so we're fucked.
Sam: Nice. Well, I mean, the one good thing from my point of view on this is the
Sam: more this kind of stuff is fucked, the better the Democrats are going to do in November.
Ivan: So, listen, this is, this is the, this is, I mean, you want to talk about bad
Ivan: scenarios for a party, okay?
Ivan: this is almost as bad
Ivan: as 2008 like right now it's
Ivan: edge it's it's it's it's going towards 2008 1980 type but here's the thing even
Ivan: in 1980 the democrats didn't lose the house well of course the democrats held
Ivan: the house forever okay it was like 50 plus years until neil law until newt Inrish. Yeah.
Sam: And you say they didn't lose, but I think they lost ground. Like,
Sam: they lost, they just had enough of a buffer that they could...
Ivan: They lost ground, but they, yeah, but they never, but they never,
Ivan: they didn't lose it for fucking 50 years, okay? You know?
Ivan: So, I mean, this is, you know, this is a very different territory than 1980. We can't compare it.
Sam: Ah, yet.
Ivan: Yet.
Sam: Yes. We can, you know, like never
Sam: underestimate the potential for this administration to make things worse.
Ivan: Oh, God. Yeah. I mean, that is one thing that, I mean, they are being quite
Ivan: impressive at just fucking with everything.
Ivan: And the thing is that...
Ivan: Right now, everything they are doing is so unpopular. And they keep doubling and tripling down on it.
Ivan: And it's like... But of course, they go and they show Trump all these videos of the bombs, right?
Ivan: So he's like, yay, look, my bombs. They're so cool.
Ivan: Look at all those cute little bombs over there, killing all those people.
Ivan: it's like listen they were playing the DOD was putting out fucking videos combining
Ivan: video fucking game footage with fucking war footage like this is some kind of
Ivan: game not like we're killing people meanwhile.
Sam: And I shared this on the curmudgeon's corner slack Iran put out,
Sam: Honestly, a really good music video with like Lego versions of Donald Trump and everybody.
Ivan: Oh my God. They did a brilliant job. You know, this is one of these things where
Ivan: I'm just like, man, look, let me tell you something.
Ivan: On the one side, I have a repressive regime.
Sam: I mean, 100% propaganda, but come on, it was good.
Ivan: Yes, but it was good. But this is what I'm cheering on the Iranian side.
Ivan: A brutal, repressive regime that has murdered so many people,
Ivan: that oppresses them, that kills gays, that kills whatever, puts people in prison
Ivan: without any due process, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
Ivan: Okay, it's a horrible regime. On the right side, I got fucking Donald J.
Ivan: Trump, who is also an evil asshole on it.
Ivan: And I never thought that I would be on the cheering side for Iran on something.
Ivan: They put out that video, and I'm like, this is brilliant.
Ivan: They are right. What the fuck can I say? I can't argue about anything.
Ivan: They put out this fucking video. Not one fucking thing. Nothing.
Sam: It was things about Donald Trump making people's lives worse.
Sam: It was about him doing this to distract from the Epstein file.
Sam: It was about, yeah, search up the Iranian Lego propaganda video.
Sam: It's worth a watch. honestly it's funny it's
Sam: it's got uh yeah it's got a
Sam: song behind it that's actually catchy you know yeah and like and like yvonne
Sam: said most of what they say in there you you look at it and you're like you know
Sam: they're right about this part they're right about that part you know there are
Sam: parts where they're like calling for revenge and stuff almost.
Ivan: None of it.
Sam: You know So anyway, one other thing about Donald they'll say, and then let's wrap up.
Sam: And I know I'd said something about this to a curmudgeon's corner slack and
Sam: Yvonne's like, you know, Sam, nobody cares.
Sam: And I agree. Nobody cares. But Donald Trump's mental state is getting worse.
Sam: Mental and physical state is getting noticeably worse, like on a week to week basis.
Ivan: But the thing is that, listen, I know, but we've talked about it for so long.
Ivan: And the Republicans don't give a fuck.
Ivan: They are not going to do a goddamn thing about it.
Sam: No, they are not. And they're actively covering for it, if anything.
Sam: I mean, I mentioned earlier him falling asleep. I think Hegseth was talking or something.
Sam: And Donald Trump was sitting right next to him, two feet away, and was clearly asleep.
Sam: Hegseth sort of mentioned his name a couple of times to try to get him to wake up.
Sam: And you saw his eyes roll a little bit. And he's saying things that are,
Sam: I mean, and look, we're grading on a curve here.
Sam: We're talking against, like, Donald Trump was never particularly hinged to begin
Sam: with, but he's even more unhinged now.
Sam: Like, the things he's saying and how much they are or are not related to reality, it's getting worse.
Ivan: You know what, what,
Ivan: Listen, what really pisses me off to no end now is where the fuck are all these
Ivan: people that kept complaining about Biden's mental state?
Ivan: Fuck you all. Okay? Fuck you all in hell. Okay?
Sam: Yes. I mean, hell, even during the 2024 campaign, like, with everything you
Sam: could say about Biden, Trump was arguably worse even then.
Sam: He's definitely worse now.
Sam: You know, he, like, and, yeah.
Ivan: Way worse!
Sam: And there's something you could be.
Ivan: Hey, where is Jake Tapper's expose on Trump's mental fucking facilities,
Ivan: huh? Where the fuck is his expose?
Ivan: you know what that prick still to this day and I
Ivan: swear to God if I bump into that guy I'm gonna yell at him okay if I if I bump
Ivan: into that asshole that fucking part about well they were considering putting
Ivan: him in a fucking wheelchair hey Sam have you seen Rin right now even with cancer
Ivan: being rolled around through airports in a fucking wheelchair no.
Sam: No I've seen I've seen recent pictures of him getting ice cream again on planes
Sam: at the airport, like, you know, all walking by himself. Yeah.
Sam: And that's with cancer. And by the way, even if he had to be in a wheelchair,
Sam: that says absolutely nothing about his mental state and what matters.
Sam: You know, we had a president in a wheelchair before.
Ivan: Yes, you have seen him interacting with people, random interactions with so many people.
Ivan: Has he sounded like an incoherent, blubbering idiot that our president right now sounds like.
Sam: No, no, no, no.
Ivan: But if I fucking, I swear to God, that motherfucker, better Jay Tapper,
Ivan: never, ever I see that fucking guy in front of me.
Ivan: Because that guy will experience a screaming match that he will have never gotten in his life.
Sam: Well, and looking back at 2024, the problems with Trump's mental state and with
Sam: Biden's mental state were different.
Sam: You know, when you look at Biden, okay, he's tired sometimes. But he's still smart.
Ivan: Biden was tired.
Sam: Biden was tired.
Ivan: And went to that debate sick with a fucking cold.
Sam: With Donald Trump, the issue going back decades, not all of this is new,
Sam: is the stupid narcissistic personality disorder.
Sam: The fact that he doesn't distinguish truth from fiction at all.
Sam: he believes that's like irrelevant never the
Sam: fact that he's he has zero reading comprehension has like he's just not that
Sam: smart in general can't like really absorb the materials that you need to be
Sam: a competent president and and frankly just the the whole fact of like Like,
Sam: I guess this is encompassed in the narcissistic personality disorder, but it's all about him.
Sam: It's all about him all the time. You know, and these are all problems.
Ivan: But he did say that it, hey, Sam, have we confirmed who the former president
Ivan: is that he talked to about the war like recently?
Sam: It's probably George Washington. Okay. Okay.
Ivan: Is the ghost of George Washington in the White House? Oh, okay. All right. That's it.
Sam: Exactly. No, you know, George Washington never lived in the White House. It was built after him.
Sam: But, no, the, look, and just.
Ivan: Aren't there any pieces? Wait, wait, wait, wait. But no, but I,
Ivan: didn't when they did their remodeling, there's some things from George Washington.
Sam: Oh, I'm sure they're George Washington artifacts. But he did not live in it.
Ivan: Yeah.
Sam: He did not live in the White House. He did not die in the White House.
Ivan: No, no, no, he didn't.
Sam: So his ghost is somewhere else.
Ivan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam: His ghost is off in Mount Vernon or something.
Ivan: Well, okay, fair enough. Fair enough, fair enough.
Sam: Fair enough. That was George Washington's place.
Ivan: Right? Yeah, Mount Vernon.
Sam: Yeah, Mount Vernon.
Ivan: Yeah, Mount Vernon. Yeah, Mount Vernon. It was Mount Vernon.
Ivan: Yeah, so Mount Vernon, yeah.
Sam: Anyway, I just want to say,
Sam: Like, in terms of Trump's own mental state, I mean, the falling asleep is a physical thing.
Sam: But, and I'm not saying, some people are directly saying dementia. I'm not going there.
Sam: I'm just saying pre-existing problems he has had are getting worse over time. That's all I'm saying.
Sam: And so, like, you get him, when you listen to his speeches, he's confused.
Sam: He's rambling. he's saying things that are nonsensical he's getting facts wrong
Sam: and all of these things are happening at an increasing pace and he was never
Sam: good at any of this stuff to begin with never ever ever and.
Ivan: Now they are worse.
Sam: And now they are worse and they seemingly are
Sam: getting worse quickly so i
Sam: don't and and and like you said like nobody seems
Sam: to care the republicans certainly don't care the mainstream
Sam: media isn't talking about it a lot like you know
Sam: they're they're they're all they'll write
Sam: an article about like he'll get he'll he'll give a little
Sam: news conference and when they write about it they'll sanitize it all and try
Sam: to like like like i did when i was like oh he's probably talking to the you
Sam: know these people in iran who aren't the people in charge but he hopes they'll
Sam: be in charge i am trying to interpret like you're saying watching it.
Sam: Yeah, I'm saying, watch, I'm trying to find some aspect of reality out of what
Sam: really most likely are just incoherent ramblings, you know? So, I don't know.
Sam: Are we done, Mr. Bo?
Ivan: Yes.
Sam: Okay. So let me wrap this sucker up.
Sam: Go to curmudgeons-corner.com. You'll find all of the ways to contact us.
Sam: You'll find our archives.
Sam: You'll find transcripts. You'll find all that kind of stuff.
Sam: You will, of course, also find a Patreon where you can give us money.
Sam: Money is nice. Give us money. And at various levels on the Patreon,
Sam: we will mention you on the show.
Sam: We will ring a bell. We will send you a postcard. We will send you a mug.
Sam: All of that kind of stuff. at $2 a month or more.
Sam: Or if you just ask us, we will invite you to the Commissions Chorus Slack,
Sam: which we have mentioned quite a few times on this show of like,
Sam: oh, well, we discussed this on the Slack. We shared this on the Slack.
Sam: We share all kinds of stuff. We talk about things.
Sam: We, whatever, the news. Like while we have been talking, Yvonne has simultaneously
Sam: been having a conversation about his condo association on the Slack.
Sam: So all kinds of things are going on all the time.
Ivan: I shared my campaign. Okay, I did. And if you look at it, look.
Sam: I have not opened a link. Because I've been paying attention to you.
Ivan: Okay, my campaign site right now, you should take a page from mine,
Ivan: you should take a page from my campaign site for your wife's in terms of the issues part.
Ivan: Because if you look at my issues part, I am fucking detailed as,
Ivan: I will put anybody to shame on details about the issues, the facts,
Ivan: an action plan, what we're doing, whatever.
Ivan: However, it's nauseatingly thorough, okay? Let me just put it to you this way, okay?
Ivan: It is nauseatingly thorough, okay?
Ivan: And backed up with just a ridiculous amount of detail, okay? All right?
Ivan: I also, by the way, I took the opportunity to expose my nemesis.
Ivan: I downloaded all our text messages and I summarized them so they can see clearly
Ivan: how he lied while saying that I was never cooperative.
Ivan: And saying publicly, in private text messages, he repeatedly said the opposite.
Sam: Okay.
Ivan: So I downloaded our entire, there was a massive trove of text.
Ivan: I saved them all. I summarize them and have it there in detail to expose him
Ivan: as a fucking lying piece of shit he is.
Sam: There you go. That's very nice. So aside from that, Yvonne, what's a highlight
Sam: from the Curmudgeon's Corner Slack that we have not talked about on the show
Sam: that will make people want to join our Patreon?
Sam: Or our Slack.
Ivan: It's related to air travel, but really isn't. Okay.
Ivan: All right. And I will say, here's the thing. This happened the first time I, over the years,
Ivan: airlines have combined train or bus travel together with air travel as like a one ticket. Okay.
Ivan: So a flight segment made appear on an airline ticket as a flight segment,
Ivan: but may actually be on a train.
Ivan: This is something I had heard that is rare, has been rare, but has happened, okay?
Ivan: In the 80s, I remember specifically out of Newark specifically, there was a way,
Ivan: you know, it was out of New York area airport where you could combine a certain
Ivan: portion of the travel by air or bus to get to certain places in order to complete your trip, okay?
Ivan: And so the thing about it is that allowed all the, all you could to be able
Ivan: to pay it on your airline ticket.
Ivan: And so you're not buying a separate bus ticket and whatever.
Ivan: So you get your entire transportation all in one. But it's not common. OK, it's very uncommon.
Ivan: And so a few months ago on a podcast I listened to, somebody was going to South
Ivan: Bend, Indiana, and there are planes that travel from Chicago to South Bend, Indiana.
Ivan: But American Airlines went and substituted that with a bus. Okay.
Ivan: And so all of a sudden, and the thing is that you board the bus from a gate at the airport. Okay.
Ivan: So the thing is that he goes and he lands in Chicago. He's going to the gate for his connection.
Ivan: And then he gets taken down to a bus. And then he thinks that the bus is going
Ivan: to take him to the plane. But no.
Ivan: bus was taken up to South Bend. Okay.
Sam: Excellent.
Ivan: And it arrived at the airport and it left them not like at a bus depot,
Ivan: but it drove to like where the planes arrived and then offloaded them there and his bags.
Ivan: And this was very confusing. So a story came out about this,
Ivan: you know, on the Washington Post, you know, about this when your first class
Ivan: flight turns out to be a bus ride.
Ivan: Some airlines are operating bus routes as flights from small communities to larger.
Ivan: And the one thing that why some people are confused, as I realize,
Ivan: is that if you're buying this now, not from the airline website,
Ivan: okay, but you're buying it from a third party.
Sam: Like an Expedia or something.
Ivan: It's not obviously clear. Yeah. It's not obviously clear that it's a bus.
Ivan: and that's where people like if you because you go to
Ivan: American Airlines you know you buy it from there it's it's it's very very obvious
Ivan: that part of the trip is on a bus but these people went on Expedia or whatever
Ivan: bought this thing and then all of a sudden you know they're like wait a minute
Ivan: what the fuck a bus and it's a nice bus by the way some people have mentioned
Ivan: that and I've seen the bus.
Ivan: I'll tell you what, this is nicer than some planes.
Sam: Well, yeah. I mean, especially the economy class jammed in on some airlines, right?
Sam: Buses usually have a decent amount of legroom, for instance.
Ivan: It's a luxury coach bus.
Ivan: It's not, you know, it's a very nice, if you go into the article and you see
Ivan: the pictures, it's a very nice bus.
Sam: It's not a 1980s school bus.
Ivan: No, no, no. Oh, no, nothing of the sort. It's even got fold-down tables like
Ivan: on the airplane and everything, you know?
Ivan: It's got video screens, fold-down, Wi-Fi.
Sam: Very good. Okay.
Ivan: So, anyway.
Sam: Nice, nice, nice thing. I will do my obligatory Robin Letter promotion, too.
Sam: Trailing four-week active users is up to 80. So, that's good, you know.
Sam: And I suspect, since I've mentioned it on the show several times,
Sam: anybody who's interested here has already contacted me.
Sam: So, I've stopped, like, inviting my own people. So I have to figure out what
Sam: the next growth burst will be and how I will engineer that.
Sam: But I now have, there are three Robins that have been created that I am not
Sam: personally on at this point. And all three of them seem to be active over the
Sam: last few days. So that's going well.
Ivan: There you go.
Sam: So we'll see. We'll see. Yvonne's presumably still working on getting the millions
Sam: from this for this for me.
Sam: And I am working on getting the individual dollar bills at some point.
Ivan: I was traveling, but I have modified the documents and stuff.
Ivan: I have some action items that I had.
Ivan: I had been traveling this last week. I've been busy, but I had promised to catch
Ivan: up on it this week when I got back.
Sam: That's all cool. And I've been slogging through some...
Sam: Some behind-the-scenes stuff, like improving metrics collection and stuff like
Sam: that, that hasn't had a new user impact. I've got a list of things to get through.
Sam: I've got a couple bugs before I get to the next new major things that users would be able to tell.
Sam: So I have to decide when my next social media posts and stuff to try to get more people.
Sam: Anyway, we'll see. Anyway, robinletter.com. If you're not on it,
Sam: hit me up in email, and I'll get you on it, because it's still an invite-only
Sam: mode. So you can't just go to the website and sign up.
Sam: You have to still have to talk to me or be invited by somebody who's already on it.
Ivan: Invite. Invite.
Sam: Invite. Anyway, that's it. Thanks, everybody, for joining us.
Sam: Have a safe week, all that.
Sam: I'm about to go to—by the time you guys listen, it'll be long over,
Sam: but I'm about to go to the No Kings stuff.
Sam: This is the third No Kings event, and Brandy and I are going to try to hit probably
Sam: two or three of them in our area over the next little bit. So we'll see how
Sam: many people they get this time.
Sam: Honestly, the hype for this one seems to have been a bit less than last time.
Sam: So I know they hope that these are going to be even bigger than last time,
Sam: but I'm not sure if we'll end up there because I heard less about these in the run up.
Sam: Like only in the last few days, it was I really aware, oh, there's one coming
Sam: up this weekend. So we'll see, but I'm going to go.
Sam: So that's it. Have a safe week. Have a fun week, blah, blah, blah.
Sam: and we will talk to you next time goodbye goodbye hold on the outro is not playing,
Sam: okay oh wait is it going is it going yes,
Sam: Okay. Thanks, Yvonne. We'll talk to you later. Have a good rest of your whatever. Bye.
Ivan: Okay. Bye.