Episode 52

Some Stars Shoot, and Some Don't with Andrew Lapidus

Published on: 6th November, 2021

Internationally-acclaimed linguist Andrew Lapidus makes his second appearance on Ramble by the River and he does not disappoint. He gives us that trademark Lapidus wit as he explains the recent unemployment scare that almost became a deportation, along with some stories that he didn't plan to talk about, regarding the skeletons in his closet, and he mentions J.K. Rowling way, way less than last time.

On this epic two hour masterpiece Jeff and Andrew traverse a variety topics, exploring the human experience, across a range of emotion so broad, yet somehow still so deep. You'll hear Andrew's review of Apple's most popular accessories, and periodically Jeff will try to convince Andrew of the promise of NFTs and cryptocurrency. You'll hear Andrew question the morality of billionaires, and Jeff whine about the loss of once-abundant natural resources.

This was a fun episode to make and I really like the way it turned out. Andrew is a hilarious guy with a brilliantly sharp and witty mind. You are not going to want to miss this one.

Ramble by the River is for entertainment only.

[Time Stamps:]

[Start Crypto/NFT talk: 56:30]

[Stop Crypto/NFT talk: 1:18:30]

Topics/Keywords:

Kettlebell Simple and Sinister, by Pavel; Larry David; Seinfeld; expatriates; unemployment; employment; work visas; product design; Magic Mouse; Apple Computers; billionaires; Elon Musk; Don McClean; Starry, Starry Night; Twitter, homophobia; political correctness; learning from mistakes; Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow, Kahneman; social contagion; Facebook; Meta; Drunken Pandas NFT; Fancy Frenchies NFT; Degenerate apes NFT; the meta verse; NFTs; cryptocurrencies; Bored Apes Yacht Club; impulsivity; 2016 election; 2012 apocalypse; nature of reality; multiverse; family; weird beer names; metaphors; The Pacific; war movies; Band of Brothers; PTSD; Kiki’s Delivery Service; My Neighbor Totoro; Song of the Sea; Puffin Rock; face-blindness; fusiform gyrus; The Departed; hunting; hunting regulations in Europe; salmon stocks; American bison; logging; old-growth forests; redwood forest; Willapa National Wildlife Refuge; Don Bonker Trail; Long Island; shooting stars; dogs; German Shepard; Akita; awkward moments; Crypto/NFT talk.

Links:

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Website:

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Music Credit(s):

Still Fly, Revel Day.

En Tur; I Skargarden.

Transcript

Andrew Lapidus II

Introduction

[:

[00:00:29] Thank you for being here. Thank you for supporting ramble by the river. You have no idea how much it means to me. Couldn't do it without you. Thank you. Tell your friends. And if you enjoy the show today, please go to apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever it is that you're getting your podcasts and just leave me a little.

[:

[00:01:03] Or, you know, I was mowing the lawn and I had you in my headphones, whatever. Tell me how you listened to the show. Tell me what you thought. Tell me any suggestions or whatever I do read them and I really enjoy it. So. It's been a while since we had a new review, I'll be honest. We have fewer reviews than we do episodes, so that's probably not good.

[:

[00:01:40] Probably going to produce a high quality podcast. So we shouldn't have to worry about that.

[:

[00:02:05] Wenatchee, Washington is far, far away over the mountains through the woods, we pass countless grandmother's houses and , it's a long drives. But, yeah. Anyway, when ACCI is the location of the Washington Weed Conference, and I know what you're thinking, sounds like a fun conference and you'll be right. It is a fun conference. I've been coming here since geez, 2013 was my first year at this conference. So it's been a long time, coming up on a decade here pretty soon, actually.

[:

[00:02:58] You know, we don't need those [00:03:00] nuisance plants around and that's what I do for a living. I try to make sure. The world around me is in balance. I'm trying to make sure that government interests and environmental interest interests, and, you know, the interests of private land owners, all kind of coincide to create this situation where we have a healthy ecosystem that is able to produce economic yields and to support recreation and, land use goals.

[:

[00:03:46] Sometimes it can be really shitty. It can be really grueling or tedious or monotonous or whatever it is. It's a job. They pay you to be there because there are going to be times when you don't want it. And a [00:04:00] lot of times at my job, I work solo and I don't see a lot of other people who do the same thing as me, because I'm the only one who does it in my area.

[:

[00:04:32] And all of a sudden I'm challenged with, Hey buddy, maybe you haven't thought about this, maybe you haven't thought about all these scenarios or what have you. And it's great. It's really good to kind of be confronted with that new information and see like what's going to happen.

[:

[00:05:10] And I think, you know, the answer to that is obvious. I need to do the former. I need to implement these strategies and I need to improve.

[:

[00:05:33] I think overall, what I take home from these conferences though, is just to keep an open mind to realize that I'm not alone. There are resources I can look into if I need help. And there are people who want to help me. And I forget that. I constantly just have it in my head that everybody's out to get me.

[:

[00:06:14] That means I gotta be on guard. I got to watch out. I gotta make sure that somebody is not trying to take mine. There's just a lot of situations where people will fuck you over, not because of who you are or because they have any ill intent, , against you, but just because they are serving self-interest and they're selfish, and they're not thinking about other people.

[:

[00:06:39] So it gets in my head that I can't trust people or that I can't let my guard down because if I let anybody see my failures, they're going to use them against me. That's a bad feeling and it might be true. It might be true. People will use your failings against. But, you know, there's just nothing you can do about [00:07:00] that.

[:

[00:07:06] Anyway, I'm over in Wenatchee. I've been spending my free time in my room editing this podcast that you're about to hear. And I love it.

[:

[00:07:32] Huberman is a teaching professor at Stanford university and he. PhD, and I think ophthalmology and neuroscience, but he says it right at the beginning of the podcast. So if I got that wrong, I apologize, but you'll hear it soon enough if you decide to pursue it. And anyway, his podcast is fantastic, so this particular episode that I'm referring to is called ADHD and how anyone can improve their focus episode 37. So, if you go [00:08:00] into apple or Spotify and search for those terms, you should find the episode easily. It's free. And I highly recommend it.

[:

[00:08:26] I feel like the second you say that it drums up a bunch of these stereotypes for people, and then suddenly they disregard you or they make assumptions about you that may or may not be true, but either way I don't like that. And I don't want to be put in a can like that and just thought of as like, oh, it's that ADHD guy.

[:

[00:09:17] So it just feels like they're challenging me. Like I'm lying about it or something like, I don't know what motivation any person would have to lie about that

[:

[00:09:38] You'll probably sense that I have a little bit of resistance to diagnoses and that's because in college. We had to learn about. Statistical diagnoses using the diagnostic and statistical manual from the American psychological association, which back then was the DSM four.

[:

[00:10:18] And most of those boxes are checked based on self report from the patient. So it's just, it's tricky. It's tricky to know exactly what's real and what's just convenient because it is really convenient to have a list of criteria. You just ask questions to the patient.

[:

[00:10:49] Okay. It is a decent system and it works. It works especially well for insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers, because they have a really easy way to tell who to sell the [00:11:00] drugs to

[:

[00:11:01] the Huber min lab explained some of the underlying neurons. That goes along with ADHD and in particular, some of the pathological neural firing. And that is something that I could sink my teeth into

[:

[00:11:24] the way he describes a lot of the problems that come along with ADHD just completely hit it on the head. Nailed it. So, it made me feel really good, made me feel a lot less shameful and embarrassed about acknowledging my ADHD.

[:

[00:11:49] Because that's like a snapshot into my experience of being a human. My guest today is one of my best friends and you know, I, I'm going to [00:12:00] explain that statement a little bit before. If you're close to us, you might be like no best friends really. But yeah, I really think so, because I don't mean that he's my closest friend or that he's my oldest friend or whatever that we've seen each other often.

[:

[00:12:36] So, he's one of my best.

[:

[00:12:49] And he's humble enough to be able to be challenged and to reconsider things and just overall he's good. He's a good dude. One of the [00:13:00] best. So I consider him one of my best friends. Also. I don't have a lot of friends.

[:

[00:13:31] On the ship, get him the fuck out of here. Go out to Mars and make some Mars babies, weird ones that are really good at music and know a lot of facts about random shit. Cause that's Andrew. I've never seen somebody who's better at jeopardy in my life and I'm fucking good at jeopardy. Okay. Okay. This is not just, I'm not just saying this stuff.

[:

[00:14:06] So we talked about a lot of stuff in this podcast. I'm excited for you to hear it. So I won't get too much into it, but we talked about racism and like the fear of being perceived as racist, which is a really interesting topic that I think a lot of people can relate to and won't even talk about they don't want to be seen as racist or perceived in that way at all.

[:

[00:14:35] We did get into crypto and NFTs a little bit, so I'm giving you timestamps, right? So that you, if you don't care about that stuff, you don't have to skip this whole episode because I don't want you to lose out on all that other good stuff. Cause there is a lot. So we start talking about crypto at 56:30, 56 minutes, 30 seconds.

[:

[00:15:07] but I highly suggest that you listen to the crypto stuff too, because that's good stuff. And also Andrew is not a crypto person. So basically we spent the whole time, just him asking me questions that I think a lot of crypto skeptics ask and me trying to give him good answers. So. I hope I convinced him.

[:

[00:15:41] And I want to get to the show.

[:

[00:15:50] ramble by the river is supported by its listeners through a subscription model, which provides early access to free episodes and exclusive access to bonus [00:16:00] episodes that you cannot find anywhere else to become a member of the Ram fam. Go to Patreon.com/ramblebytheriver and select a subscription tier Royal Ramblers.

[:

[00:16:31] So yeah, I sprung for the good shirts and I hope you guys know. They better be soft fabric. I'll be so mad. If those aren't soft fabric, I hope it's a blend like a poly cotton blend. I, it is. I already know it is what am I saying? Hope anyway. If you decide to go that route become a Royal rambler support to show, you'll get those free bonus episodes.

[:

[00:17:08] Okay. Enough of me let's get to the show. My guest today is one of my best friends. He has all kinds of great stories. He lives in Austria and has done so forseven years. He recently changed jobs, left education to become a tech person. So now he's working in communications in the tech world. And he'll talk about that.

[:

[00:17:39] Don't forget to like subscribe, share all that good stuff. It's really helpful. And without further ado, please welcome my guest today. All the way from Austria, Andrew Lapidus.

MAIN

[:

[00:00:02] Jeff Nesbitt: it going? Pretty good. How you doing?

[:

[00:00:09] How's your morning going? It's

[:

[00:00:13] Andrew Lapidus: my morning came and went. Nice. Cool evening here.

[:

[00:00:17] Andrew Lapidus: I'm in the middle of an evening, actually

[:

[00:00:26] Jeff Nesbitt: I was going to say your house is huge.

[:

[00:00:32] Yeah, no. Um, I have a pretty good working thing where we can, you know, just choose the hours we work.

[:

[00:00:57] You woke up early among rowers. [00:01:00]

[:

[00:01:06] Andrew Lapidus: Everybody wants to be big, but nobody wants to lift no weights.

[:

[00:01:11] Andrew Lapidus: Oh man. We can't tell you. I haven't, I haven't avoided the Pavle trended.

[:

[00:01:16] Andrew Lapidus: kettlebells. Huh? I'm doing I'm okay. So yeah, I got an a Pavle somehow Pavle Satsu, Laney,

[:

[00:01:31] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah. Th that, that was the one that I remember you had and you kind of, you turned me on to the kettlebells pretty early. I was

[:

[00:01:40] Andrew Lapidus: Oh, I remember it. Sometimes. I think if that rock still up there.

[:

[00:01:45] Andrew Lapidus: would it go?

[:

[00:01:58] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. We were already wearing the goofy [00:02:00] shoes.

[:

[00:02:03] Jeff Nesbitt: like right away. Didn't

[:

[00:02:15] People be like, oh man, what are those shoes? And be like, oh, you know, like, you know, you can feel it with the toes and everything. And I remember it being cool for awhile and then it, it meant it really sunk to just the bottom. We, we swung deep in the other way.

[:

[00:02:33] Somewhere in the middle

[:

[00:02:41] Jeff Nesbitt: yeah.

[:

[00:02:46] Jeff Nesbitt: Right? That sounds good.

[:

[00:02:56] It's simple. It's the get-up and the kettlebell [00:03:00] swings one handed, right? It's basically every day or every other day. You just swing though. You do like 10 by 10 sets of the swings and then five get-ups with each arm. And then the last command to the book. The last sentence is repeat until strong.

[:

[00:03:17] So is it like a, it's a plan. Yeah, it's a

[:

[00:03:43] And then you just, the kettlebells keep getting heavier. And you have that like mental, uh, you have the satisfaction of seeing like, oh, I couldn't lift that. I couldn't lift that six months, six weeks ago or I couldn't swing it. Now I'm swinging that every day.

[:

[00:04:02] I

[:

[00:04:14] Jeff Nesbitt: All right. How could you not be over there? You, you really don't. They don't probably give you much of a choice. Yeah, that's good.

[:

[00:04:22] Andrew Lapidus: Should we, should we begin? Have we begun? Let's just, let's

[:

[00:04:27] Andrew Lapidus: Okay. Let's just roll into it. I

[:

[00:04:29] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah though. I'll tell you what Jeff, if you really want an update on me

[:

[00:04:33] Andrew Lapidus: Oh dude. Your setup is absolutely the gym.

[:

[00:04:41] Andrew Lapidus: place, dude. I wish I could see like your shed, you know?

[:

[00:04:49] It's not like college.

[:

[00:04:58] you think I was about to do. Okay. [00:05:00] Yeah. It's would with like a, got a respect. Would you respect what I respect would. Okay. Yeah. We'll just ask him. All right.

[:

[00:05:25] But Andrew was one of the people who will, he actually is the guy who turned me onto. And didn't really ever watch it much. I watched a little bit before Andrew, but he used to quote it all the time in college. And I would be curious. I don't know. He made me curious. So I checked it out and turns out It's a gold mine of comedy. . It's a great show. Alright,

[:

[00:05:53] Jeff Nesbitt: get a good, I'll do that in post.

[:

[00:06:32] You had that one really good podcast, you know, with, um, I can't remember the name Mario Rodriguez. Right, right. But that was a really, um, you know, that was quite a document you produced there. Visas are important. It's really rough. It's really rough. So, um, one of the things that, uh, during the pandemic that was, uh, I lost the job that I had, but based on the pandemic, which meant I lost the [00:07:00] visa and I had a real, real rough patch, there were, it looked like, you know, because my, my life here is I've been here so long that it feels like, you know, there's no, there's no easy way to get out, right?

[:

[00:07:37] You know, it's a tough thing, all the, all the visa stuff. So I thank God every day that I found this new job and that's that, that, uh, it's kept me here and this new job, well, I'm working for a software company. I'm in the tech world now doing communications.

[:

[00:07:57] Like, well,

[:

[00:08:22] And, um, yeah, I, I just kind of make content. I write articles for them. I, I I'm like the public facing English speaking content that they write is all going through me and making sure that that happens. So it's really cool because it's, it's a bit of a departure. It's a bit far away from teaching where I was in academia, where I thought I was going to be, but it's immensely more satisfying and immensely more, you know, immensely more just secure, you know, teaching is rough dude, as I'm sure, you know, you've had [00:09:00] teachers on, yeah.

[:

[00:09:11] Jeff Nesbitt: because of the job conditions. You didn't like it, or it wasn't something you were cut out for.

[:

[00:09:20] I mean, I felt like I was a good teacher, but you know who the really good teachers. The good teachers are. I went into teaching cause I was like, well, I'm really excited by the subject matter. Right. I don't want to be able to read grapes, harass with the kids and we'll talk about it. And, and, um, I'll be great at facilitating that kind of, you know, a lot of learning.

[:

[00:10:10] Maybe it wasn't even the subject matter. Right? Maybe you got a kid that's currently homeless, right? It's not gonna, I'm doing that kid a disservice. If I'm sitting there talking about, you know, German conjugations, right. If I'm conjugating verbs with the homeless kid, I've really failing the kid. You know, likewise kids that, you know, I had some kids that I was having a real struggle with and I asked like, colleagues, like, how can I deal with him?

[:

[00:10:52] And I think there's a little bit of me that was too arrogant to want to do that. A little bit of me that felt intimidated to do that a little bit of a little bit of me that felt [00:11:00] scared to do that. You know, it's quite terrifying out there. And so I know it

[:

[00:11:21] Andrew Lapidus: guess wasn't just

[:

[00:11:24] Yeah. Without, without fucking them though. Right. Because that happens. We don't want to, we don't want to

[:

[00:11:36] their heart you're right. You're totally right. And I think that's something that I, I probably missed, you know, when you think back on school, of course it seems obvious.

[:

[00:12:07] You didn't know? And I don't know if I could, I dunno if I could, I could handle that.

[:

[00:12:16] Jeff Nesbitt: All right. We're back. Sorry. I accidentally muted it. This mic has touched buttons, which attention? All technology people stop putting motherfucking touch buttons on everything. Stop touch buttons. Oh my God. If I can't feel the button put at least a little lump on it or something, I don't want to just fumble around my headphones.

[:

[00:12:58] And my mic has it too. So [00:13:00] we get it. You're fancy. You can do expensive things. Just make a regular ass button.

[:

[00:13:12] Jeff Nesbitt: It's like a touch screen, but it's always black

[:

[00:13:17] I got the mouse like you. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. Yes. That's it.

[:

[00:13:29] Andrew Lapidus: this is what I got this. Just thinking. Oh cool. Apple products right now. I know this will be a controversial statement, but if I could pick one company to take over the world, it might be apple. It might be apple. I'd at least pick them over Google, right?

[:

[00:13:59] Jeff Nesbitt: [00:14:00] I'm an apple guy.

[:

[00:14:03] Jeff Nesbitt: The fuck out right now. I got all surrounded. Yes,

[:

[00:14:08] Jeff Nesbitt: leave fancy up here.

[:

[00:14:29] Jeff Nesbitt: like one pixel.

[:

[00:14:38] Hold the charge forever. You can, you know, uh, what, uh, just the weight of it in your hand. That's what stress weighty feeling in your hand, a beautiful, beautiful. So I thought, oh, I'm safe getting this apple mouse. Right. I first of all, pull out the mouse. I'm all excited. I put it on. I put my hand on it.

[:

[00:15:15] They had never been big on the right click, but I didn't realize that it would just be so un-intuitive to be able to like, you know, to, to, to just click and drag stuff, there's two different pressures of, of clicking, you know, it's

[:

[00:15:31] Andrew Lapidus: And, and you know what, okay. Maybe you're I feel like you're going to tell me there's a YouTube clip that shows me how great it is.

[:

[00:15:50] Jeff Nesbitt: me, let me, okay. I got it. I got a break in here. I got it. Okay. This is what I think happened.

[:

[00:16:17] Just like we were just talking about what these touch magic touch buttons. So, um, like just to look at the thing, it doesn't appear to have any buttons, no clicks and no wheel. So it's like, oh, what does this thing even do? But then you put your hand on it and you scroll with your finger. Like this, it starts scrolling.

[:

[00:16:54] It's like your hand rest. Well, I'm doing it

[:

[00:17:01] Jeff Nesbitt: Exactly. It's dangerous, man. You got to look into this stuff ahead of time,

[:

[00:17:10] I'm like claw on that. And then I'm like putting my fingers over the top, you know, like, like I called the scorpion style.

[:

[00:17:35] And I'm like, oh, I moved my pointer finger on the side of the mouse a little bit. I don't know what that was about. So that, because of that, I assume some, some like unboxing tip videos out there for you too, where it's like either these are some features of this mouse that you might not know about. So they are that they exist, but it's it's okay.

[:

[00:17:57] Andrew Lapidus: yeah,

[:

[00:18:06] Andrew Lapidus: be mouses?

[:

[00:18:11] Andrew Lapidus: think? Is it Walkmans or is it Walkman?

[:

[00:18:52] Andrew Lapidus: that external apple touch

[:

[00:18:57] It's like twice the size of a normal laptop touch [00:19:00] pad. It's I don't know. It's like six inches across and like four inches tall. So it's, it's large. And, um, but because of that, you can like grab stuff and you can pull it across your entire screen instead of just having to like, you know, how you hit with a little one, you got to like move it and then pick up your finger and like all the drag and drop stuff that apple is so into, which I fucking hate by the way.

[:

[00:19:43] Just like, no, I don't want it.

[:

[00:20:03] But, you know, we can also just think like fucking learn math.

[:

[00:20:31] It's like absolute magic. There's no magic in this mouse.

[:

[00:20:56] It's a time when billionaires are really not, not, uh, the yellow of the [00:21:00] egg, as we would say, if

[:

[00:21:04] Andrew Lapidus: don't like people don't like it. The question is, you know, so I'm guessing you're going to come on down on the side of like these billionaires, especially Elon Musk. I like to touch on you with that.

[:

[00:21:31] Good ones and bad ones. Is that right? Is that a failure?

[:

[00:21:47] And then I realized as I grew, uh, that those people didn't have any control over that. They weren't, they didn't choose to be born rich, just like I didn't choose to be born poor. Like it's just how their life shook out and who is going to turn away [00:22:00] advantage when it, when it comes knocking nobody. So there's really no reason to hold any of that against those people.

[:

[00:22:24] And the ones that we think are villains like Donald Trump, he might not be any worse than any of the rest. I'm not going to say it's great because we know that that's not the fact guys definitely made some very, very public full pause. You know,

[:

[00:22:43] Plus he

[:

[00:22:46] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah. When you say Donald Trump full pause, it just, I was drawing a blank. I couldn't think of a

[:

[00:22:55] Andrew Lapidus: really are two. No, I thought that was a serious problem, you know, just like absolutely [00:23:00] overwhelming amount of, you know, it's like hitting a moving target.

[:

[00:23:13] Jeff Nesbitt: but not to them. You know what I think matters to them, fill money and that's it. And they don't give a fuck about what we think about them.

[:

[00:23:25] Jeff Nesbitt: Well, I that's, the thing is I think that some of them are some of them aren't, I don't think it's a category that you can use to understand people like that. I think it's a category that you can use to know how much money they have.

[:

[00:23:59] Andrew Lapidus: And who [00:24:00] used to be my argument when people will be like, oh, billion as a piece of shit. I used to know, I used to have an argument to be like, oh really all billionaires. What about blank? Who do you think it was?

[:

[00:24:11] Andrew Lapidus: gates. It was fucking JK Rowling, bro. Ah, J

[:

[00:24:15] Andrew Lapidus: It was all open star to bring it back there.

[:

[00:24:36] Yeah. Yeah. But tell me, okay. I think I'm with you on that. I think I'm with you on that with the billionaires and stuff. I think there's, there's probably good and bad ones.

[:

[00:24:47] You know, a lot more about Tesla. You're a testable and you got money in the Tesla bank, right? A little bit, or, you know, equities.

[:

[00:25:00] Andrew Lapidus: what's going on with Elon Musk. Should I hate him? Should I love him? Is he just the lucky son of a bitch or is he really like a doer?

[:

[00:25:17] Jeff Nesbitt: Oh, he's definitely. Well, I don't know. I like both of those guys

[:

[00:25:39] And he's the guy, because

[:

[00:25:59] They maybe had [00:26:00] like one big successful launch or something, but it was, , before space X was what it is today. And it just really talked about how, how many times Elon Musk has gone to the very height and then crashed back down. And he usually does that because he invests a lot of stuff into new projects and into other businesses and into, back into the business.

[:

[00:26:44] Andrew Lapidus: So let's try and get to the bottom of that. Let me ask you this, is that real, could that really be true that like his, do you think, really think his prime motivation is making, improving our species? Right.

[:

[00:26:55] Andrew Lapidus: really, really do. I mean, isn't it, I mean, because [00:27:00] from mine not knowing anything perspective, it seems like to me from the outside, these seem like very self-aggrandizing schemes, right?

[:

[00:27:34] Jeff Nesbitt: The way to look at it is, is that he's, he's looking at problems in a forward direction. So rather than looking backwards and thinking like, all right, well, what's been killing people. What's been giving people the deathly shits for the last a hundred years, malaria. So maybe I'll care malaria, he's looking forward.

[:

[00:28:21] And so that's what he's working on and, and that's kind of a noble pursuit. I also wanted to say that the thing about chasing money is it's money is, is not really anything special. It's just what it's power, it's energy, it's economic energy. And so it, and influence, it just creates fuel for you to make impact in the world and for you to change your own life and the lives of people around you.

[:

[00:29:06] What is it that they're actually, after you can peel it back and figure it out. And I really think that with Elon Musk, he's after these big moves that are going to propel our species into the next chapter, which is pretty cool.

[:

[00:29:30] I mean, it does, it does have a flavor, like from the app, isn't there just sort of still like, can't you admit, at least some of it is just like a desire for like, you know,

[:

[00:30:01] I'm not saying that's not a great thing. Right. And the more I talk about it, the more I'm realizing I'm maybe holding this guy who was standard, which is just kind of ridiculous, right. Because who doesn't want to be, have their name attached to something great. And noble, but, um, yeah. I think you're making a lot of good points.

[:

[00:30:33] Jeff Nesbitt: I think it's because people are unhappy and they're, and they're seeing these other people who have all, when you have no money, it's so easy to hate people with money.

[:

[00:31:05] So it's going to get worse because we were having a labor crisis. Jobs are available, but they're not jobs anybody wants to do. So we have a bunch of open jobs that nobody wants to fail because they don't pay enough. And the work sucks. And then we have a bunch of people who are qualified to work at better jobs and those jobs aren't available.

[:

[00:31:40] Andrew Lapidus: You don't feel that's justified.

[:

[00:31:46] But I personally, if I was having those feelings, I used to have those feelings all the time. I tried to correct it. I, I really try to be self-aware. And when I'm doing things that when I'm falling into like traps of the psyche traps of [00:32:00] the ego that make you feel like you're being wronged when you're really not, or make it feel like the world's out to get you somehow, I try to recognize that stuff and put an into it because it's not helpful.

[:

[00:32:26] And that's what I believe. And I want to keep believing it.

[:

[00:32:41] There's a lot of revenue made every year. They make software, right. They make apps which are done on a subscription they're sold on a subscription basis. Right. Which means that just the number of jobs, , in a company this size for, for the, for their revenue is just completely out of step with the way the world worked for the last, you know, a hundred [00:33:00] years or whatever.

[:

[00:33:17] Right. And the, the revenue coming in as many millions of dollars per year. Right. Like factors of 10. Right. Um, and it's just out of staff that there would be a business like that. Like, I guess if you imagine like take, a city, you know, like a auto plant, right. That's what I was gonna say.

[:

[00:33:37] Andrew Lapidus: This level of revenue, but in a factory, right?

[:

[00:33:56] Jeff Nesbitt: coat, make sure non nipples are slipping through.

[:

[00:34:07] Jeff Nesbitt: I think I know what you're talking about. The scale has changed. The scale is totally

[:

[00:34:29] Right. Do you think that people do don't you think it's, it's, um, legitimate to, for people to gripe about it in that sense? Not like I know people do be like, people do be like, oh fucking you got all this money. Just fuck off for being successful. Not in that way, but in the way that like. You guys are forward seeing forward thinking, you guys see how the world is changing.

[:

[00:35:05] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Okay. I get what you're asking and I, yeah, I'd have to say I do agree with that statement.

[:

[00:35:34] But I think it's probably really hard. And also there's probably a lot of distractions because they have the world is at their fingertips.

[:

[00:35:47] Jeff Nesbitt: Uh, I go back and forth, but universal basic income is something that I think is going to become a major part of, of the United States.

[:

[00:35:57] Andrew Lapidus: You weren't, uh, you, you saw you, you [00:36:00] like my comment where I was full yang gang, it was full yang gay dude. You know what, by the way, the side note, I don't really post to Twitter, but I just mostly retweet and stuff. I had my first like, experience of how Twitter is such a horrible thing.

[:

[00:36:37] Jeff Nesbitt: absolutely holding covered.

[:

[00:36:49] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah. Can, okay. Don McLean. It's another. I got, I got a lot of McLean. He coming, he's coming to Austria. Really? Yeah. Oh dog. He [00:37:00] looks so redundant. He looks like a parody of a baby boomer, like former rockstar.

[:

[00:37:06] Jeff Nesbitt: James Taylor's right there with him. Jackson brown. It's a long

[:

[00:37:29] People see it because they've people have a filter for a certain hashtag or whatever. So my gang gang hashtag, and my kind of tongue tongue-in-cheek cheek thing that I thought maybe my five, five friends who regularly check Twitter would see someone out there saw that and decided to comment someone I don't know.

[:

[00:38:13] What does he think he's doing? And just, he doesn't even know who I am. Right. Thinking about it. And then eventually getting into like these horrible fantasies about like, what should I write on his shit? Like, what does he love? What can I break that he has? You know, maybe he's either and get his comment.

[:

[00:38:30] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah. Maybe he thought it was a

[:

[00:38:38] Andrew Lapidus: like a dog.

[:

[00:38:42] Andrew Lapidus: No. So I mean that, that plays Twitter just got, I just saw it for the first time. It's destructive. It can just, it just really can take you

[:

[00:39:07] And it evolved you. Um, just recently, uh, I don't even want to talk about this cause it's embarrassing , but so we're chatting about this. Uh, just as some backstory for the, the audience Andrew and me are separated by oceans and hours of time difference. So we chat, it's not like back and forth, back and forth, like a normal person in the same time.

[:

[00:39:43] And, I was going to send you a gift. So I like go looking through the gift selection I find one, uh, it's a clip from training day of Denzel Washington. And he's like, he's saying that phrase, that is like my buddy, but not buddy.

[:

[00:40:33] And I started thinking like, oh shit, maybe he just like, we know each other good enough to, I know, you know that I'm not a racist, but I didn't know if maybe. I just didn't know how to respond to that. Um, th without being like, I don't know. And so

[:

[00:40:52] I was doing the whole,

[:

[00:41:09] Andrew Lapidus: I wasn't there for you, you canceled, I canceled.

[:

[00:41:27] You should, you should cancel. Um, and yeah, so then I was like, okay, that makes sense. And then I was like, well, maybe his girlfriend saw it. She doesn't know me. She now thinks I'm definitely a racist. And, was like, oh God, this is, and then I started realizing like, you know, what, five years from now, regardless of how this shakes out, are you going to care now?

[:

[00:42:02] Andrew Lapidus: we got through this, we got through this. Um, can I, can I, can I explain to you my thought process during this whole time, please let me explain my thought process right now.

[:

[00:42:29] And I, and I, and I, I had to just think really hard to like, remember that you said anything even now, you probably could've made it up. And I would just to think, okay. Yeah, I think I remember that.

[:

[00:42:48] I had to actively take measures to not think about you or the podcast or Germany, because it was going to give me a Pang of anxiety in my belly. And I was just like, oh my God, this and this is [00:43:00] happening to people every day, all over the world because of the influence of the internet forever.

[:

[00:43:09] That's another dude. I'm sure you've had the experience of seeing your previous. The text or something you've written, dude, I had to think I was showing my girlfriend who by the way is a little bit on the, um, you know, uh, like the, the, the, um, mad max level of social justice. Right. That's what I

[:

[00:43:28] That's fine.

[:

[00:43:46] So we were filming and it was my last day of. And we're filming it. And just going through that, I've since deleted the link, it's just a private video. Now you can't find, but you know, I'm going through and like we're saying stuff

[:

[00:44:24] Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. I get into the car. Right. And my friend calls me and they're filming me, talking to him. And the joke we were going to do was that he was asking to hang out and I was going to lie and pretend like I couldn't go, but I was there with all the friends. It was like a stupid joke. Right.

[:

[00:45:01] My mom's being a real faggot right now.

[:

[00:45:17] That was a moment of, of just real embarrassment. Right. I have another, uh, F Ford anecdote as well. If you, if you want

[:

[00:45:36] Andrew Lapidus: I wasn't even aware that what it meant. I didn't wasn't aware that it meant the homosexual. Okay. I had a different thing. I, well, when I, I didn't understand that people were actually gay for a while. I remember it being explained to me and I was just like, no, that's not a thing.

[:

[00:45:58] Jeff Nesbitt: somebody just trying to get you to [00:46:00] suck a little Dick and make a fool of yourself. Exactly.

[:

[00:46:17] Jeff Nesbitt: feeling.

[:

[00:46:20] Andrew Lapidus: that came from a dark place. Well, you know, which I was ashamed of. I mean, it was when we were rowing and I was like tying a boat down and I was climbing up onto the boat trailer. And, uh, I was thinking it was climbing up there on like our rowing booties or whatever.

[:

[00:47:01] Yeah, I felt it. And also the context of it really showed that I knew what it, what it meant. Right. Like I knew what I was calling him and that was, yeah, it was pretty, pretty messed up. So those

[:

[00:47:18] People really care a lot about what words you use and what you choose to use. I actually think it's kind of brave of you to tell that story because it could easily be used against you, but I think everybody has those moments where maybe you thought something was okay up to a certain point.

[:

[00:47:41] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was 2009 just for everybody out there who's finding this, but uh, yeah, not definitely not proud of it. And I mean, I was, I was as shocked by that statement as I, as I am now at the time it was, it was pretty horrifying.[00:48:00]

[:

[00:48:10] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah. I remember that. I remember that. I'm glad that you brought that up. That was great. My intro, my intro in the last podcast was just like, God damn.

[:

[00:48:21] Jeff Nesbitt: from? I got a lot of the feedback on that. One. People, people liked it. I had multiple people tell me they liked hearing you talk really that boy, he got a, he got a nice way of talking.

[:

[00:48:37] Um, but . We got into a vibe. I remember thinking like, , oh, I sound so energetic. Like I'm trying to be entertaining. I was really like that. So I started, I started this one by like being really like, you know, laid back. But I realized that that wasn't me. That's not me.

[:

[00:49:03] Jeff Nesbitt: It's true. You gotta give the people what they want to see.

[:

[00:49:15] Like you said, it like a biological reaction to, to Twitter, to the

[:

[00:49:21] Andrew Lapidus: activated to me. It feels like, and you're the psychologist here, but it does feel like a. It's like, you're, you're just not prepared for it. It's like your being it's like, you're, you're prepared for caveman stuff and all of a sudden it's like a nuclear arms that you have to face.

[:

[00:49:56] First of all, it could be potentially catastrophic in a way that it [00:50:00] wouldn't be in the modern world, but second of all, you would always see me. So w you would always have, like, things can be confirmed or, or denied, I guess what's the wrong

[:

[00:50:19] Andrew Lapidus: right?

[:

[00:50:42] If I like don't look at your eyes the next day, or blah, blah, blah. You have, you're just going on. Just like you're interpreting the shit out of my lack of statement in a way that is totally right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're

[:

[00:51:11] Like just the acknowledgement, like, oh fucking Jeff, he's an idiot, made a dumb joke, whereas we're not together. You don't get any of that kind of like proximity feedback. And it's a yeah. And then it just drags that moment out, which it is, it's just a moment that just gets dragged out for weeks

[:

[00:51:32] Yeah. You don't have, um, yeah, you, you, you have to invent it because there's nothing there. Right? I do

[:

[00:51:56] We didn't have to see everybody's danger from the whole fucking [00:52:00] world crushing the weight of that. Doesn't impress anybody. So now we're having to learn how to adapt to it.

[:

[00:52:16] That was so it's exactly what you're saying. They test the way that people judge probability and believe it or not make sense the way you judge, how likely something is to happen is you quickly scan, how many instances can I remember or have I heard of

[:

[00:52:34] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah. Yeah. There you go.

[:

[00:52:59] Right. [00:53:00] You know, in that sense, it makes sense that, well, I should probably be a little bit nervous walking by this area. . Makes total sense. But if it's just in today where it's like, you're facing, you've got this little math calculator in your head and you're facing super computers that are that are throwing information at you all the time.

[:

[00:53:37] Jeff Nesbitt: that's available information that you have.

[:

[00:53:59] It just [00:54:00] happens. It's quick. And it's, it's a reaction usually. But, um, that thinking slow is like more of that front brain, prefrontal cortex, executive control, planning, rationalization, all that stuff. It takes longer. It takes a lot more energy and, you know, it's, it makes better decisions usually. But I think that with the internet and with social media in particular, we're coming into this with our slow brain and with our slow brain thinking like, oh, obviously it can't hurt me.

[:

[00:54:47] That's going to kill you. Um, but then our, our reactive brain and our fast thinking brain sees this, this member of the tribe coming after you. Oh, imagine this. Imagine if there's like thousands of people coming after you, how [00:55:00] bad that must be. Like the girl who said something about aids when she got on a plane and then woke up, her life had been destroyed because everybody thought she was being racist.

[:

[00:55:12] Jeff Nesbitt: yeah, I think she said going to Africa, hope I don't do Hades. Don't worry. I'm white or JK. I'm white or something like that. Jk I'm white. LOL.

[:

[00:55:22] Andrew Lapidus: Truly, truly incredible. Where, where we are, where were we before we talked about

[:

[00:55:28] I don't know, money to talk about billionaires companies. Oh, you know what I was thinking about when you were talking about how your company has a relatively small number of employees given like the amount of money that's changing hands through that organization.

[:

[00:56:09] I've tried funds them too. And you just can't fund them. Yeah, so I pretty much, a couple months ago I realized that in order to be involved in make any money off of these NFTs, you have to get in at the mint minting of the NFTs.

[:

[00:56:39] So mid price is like the lowest you'll ever get in. So I'm like, all right, I gotta find me some

[:

[00:56:48] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. Yeah. And it's usually fairly small. It's, it's basically like, uh, the amount you pay for the privilege to join this community. And also so that the developers [00:57:00] are able to, you know, promote it and have facilities.

[:

[00:57:13] Robot Jeff: $400 ,

[:

[00:57:18] Andrew Lapidus: or salon has just gotten dropped as though I should know what that is, but, okay. Yeah.

[:

[00:57:28] No, I'm not going to get into crypto right now. This isn't the crypto podcasts. People are, people are not wanting to hear that. Um, but so just suffice to say Solano. Big network, big blockchain network, and they have a thriving NFT marketplace that is still fairly new. And so started looking into all these different product drops and to do that, I had to get involved in discord.

[:

[00:57:55] Andrew Lapidus: No, but I know it's a forum.

[:

[00:58:04] Andrew Lapidus: tell you about Brandon.

[:

[00:58:12] It's a server of server servers. It's got like, it's a chat mixed with file sharing mixed with the net. It's just like all in one place. So all these different NFTs have their own discord, so I get on to the fancy Frenchies discord, become a member and fancy Frenchies are little pictures of friends, bulldogs, and they're unique and they made 10,000 of them and, , they provide like rarity scores.

[:

[00:58:54] Okay. But so

[:

[00:59:09] Jeff Nesbitt: Not at all. Um, other than a few key differences. Okay. So those key differences are use cases, meaning like you can't use a beanie baby as a ticket to an exclusive event.

[:

[00:59:25] Andrew Lapidus: two babies aren't valuable

[:

[00:59:46] I mean, they're portable. You could pour a beanie baby, but yeah, you can find them there. They're not unique, but some of them are, I don't know much about beanie babies. I don't know. That's probably a bad [01:00:00] example. What I like to compare it to is like, um, Pokemon cards, magic, the gathering or trading cards, even sports trading cards better.

[:

[01:00:31] Yeah, the rarity is, I mean like individual NFTs are ranked because of what they are and not because of just w who likes them. I always, I really thought up until this point, it was just like, all right, we made 10,000 pictures of dogs. They're all pretty different. If you like them, you like them. If you don't, you don't.

[:

[01:01:07] But that's happening concurrently with people scrambling through all of the available options of purchase and, and comparing it with these rarity charts to see. Cause like, if you can find one that's in the top 1% of 10,000 things, you know, it's very rare your chances of being able to get a high price for it are way better.

[:

[01:01:30] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah. It makes sense. I mean, yeah, it makes sense. It's just, it's just sort of seems like. It's the same store ages with different, I mean, it's just sort like, yeah. Trading cards sounds good because it's like, it's created with a certain amount of rare, like certain things are more rare than others, right?

[:

[01:01:59] Jeff Nesbitt: [01:02:00] maybe when is that going to happen?

[:

[01:02:03] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah, we have, but it wasn't a good investment to like buy several Charles our cards. How do you know? I mean, how much has Charles OD worth now?

[:

[01:02:17] Andrew Lapidus: Well, let's put it this way. You should've picked the Amazon stock rather than Charles on.

[:

[01:02:24] But no, my point is that, I don't know if Pokemon cards are worth a lot right now or not. I know magic, the gathering cards are worth a lot of fucking money, like 30, 30 grand for a rare pack. Um, so it's, it's not crazy. And I'm realizing as I'm getting into this, that like, there's a lot more people who have money than I thought.

[:

[01:03:00] Andrew Lapidus: Give it, what is, what is going on? I, I feel like there's a fundamental difference in what we're talking about.

[:

[01:03:21] Jeff Nesbitt: it is.

[:

[01:03:37] And I want another one. And I just, and then before, you know, you got a bucket of rocks. It like this, my rock collection, what are you going to do with it? I don't know.

[:

[01:03:50] Jeff Nesbitt: they have wallets and it shows you, it does a rendering of each one of these NFTs that you own, and you can, you can interact with it and manipulate it and send it or [01:04:00] whatever.

[:

[01:04:27] like if you would have invested in fine art 10 years ago, it would have been day reference.

[:

[01:04:39] Jeff Nesbitt: I know I've heard that reference. Um, I think on always sunny, but I'm not sure. And I don't know who that is. I wasn't around in the early days of YouTube, I was, I've never been all that into, you know,

[:

[01:04:54] I'm literally sitting here like, well, I've got some expendable funds. Maybe I'll get a cameo from an old nineties, like [01:05:00] a, like a famous 2008 YouTuber. Right? Meanwhile, you're making investments in fine art. I'm thinking about getting Taiz on day to do a cameo for my girlfriend's birthday.

[:

[01:05:13] Andrew Lapidus: I wouldn't, I would just, I would just, it's like taking money and this led lighting

[:

[01:05:29] Andrew Lapidus: Okay. Yeah. I mean, anyway, you want to be responsible. You want to make more money. You want to be responsible, but in the end, you know, you'll be, you'll be the richest man in the gold graveyard, right?

[:

[01:05:56] And FTS. So they'll have like an artist, uh, a marketing [01:06:00] guy, or, you know, a tech person they'll have just like a person who does each of these things. They make a team and then they receive millions of dollars. And just from people over the internet, based on these little pictures, it's just like, I can't imagine that responsibility, like in here. I'm working right now. Like, um, this is a business technically, but the, uh, the responsibility is fairly low. Cause I, I have like a few subscribers and I'm not, not, not a lot of money's moving around, but if suddenly there, I was like selling something that was bringing in millions and millions of dollars.

[:

[01:06:57] Somehow in the Panda one, I was just [01:07:00] talking about, uh, there was like 500 different bots that had infiltrated the group and they put a whole bunch of links to fake sites that looked identical to the real site. So that went like a whole bunch of people went to go mint, their NFTs, they clicked and they sent her Ethereum to.

[:

[01:07:27] Andrew Lapidus: I think it's crazy confusing. And I got to say, I'm, I'm definitely a crypto and NFT skeptic because they don't get it because I feel like if you want to make the smart money moves, like the smart money moves are boring.

[:

[01:08:00] Like you're talking about the collecting thing I get that I could get on it, but somehow my button isn't getting pushed, you know, have you

[:

[01:08:20] That FOMO is so strong. I spent like 12 hours scrolling pictures of dogs and didn't buy any you're

[:

[01:08:30] Jeff Nesbitt: cause dude, it's like, you're, you're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and then you see when it catches your eye and you're like, oh shit, what is that? A gold background?

[:

[01:08:59] Andrew Lapidus: four [01:09:00] 20 is also worth something.

[:

[01:09:14] Andrew Lapidus: like 4 20,

[:

[01:09:20] So there's this whole set of these dogs that are not rare because they don't have traits. So they're, they're all ranked by their traits. And these dogs have like,

[:

[01:09:32] Jeff Nesbitt: Whoever's got the money.

[:

[01:09:39] Jeff Nesbitt: Um, so, okay. So there is other stuff That's the thing I was going at w that's where I was going with that. So the something that these have, that aren't available for physical collectibles, like Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh or beanie babies, is that they're giving you benefits down the [01:10:00] line. Every one of these projects on their website has a thing called a roadmap, and it tells you exactly what their plan is when they're going to drop new NFTs that go along with it and how they interact with the real world.

[:

[01:10:33] Andrew Lapidus: can you smell?

[:

[01:10:51] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah. But eyebrow thing he's lost that, that used to be, I forgot all

[:

[01:11:00] I can't do

[:

[01:11:05] Jeff Nesbitt: Lost my train of thought

[:

[01:11:10] Jeff Nesbitt: Oh yeah. Um, oh yeah. So they provide stuff to the community of members. Well, there's, they're going to be staking, I think where you earn money for just having it, just for holding it so that they can increase the volume on their, on their network and keep it, you know, I don't know.

[:

[01:11:51] Like it's, it's basically, they're creating the ability to have a fully digital world called the metaverse. [01:12:00] That's what we're calling. Okay.

[:

[01:12:05] Jeff Nesbitt: That's what we're calling it. Now we're in this room. I almost didn't say it. I didn't want to, you know, make myself seem. Nerdy it's called the metaverse.

[:

[01:12:31] Andrew Lapidus: So what is it about this specific topic that makes 50% of the population spin in circles and get boners and open their wallets. And it makes the other 50% of the population be like, okay,

[:

[01:12:54] And we're like, oh, cool. Late adopters more for me. I'm gonna go buy some. And then we're like, [01:13:00] oh, and guess what, 10 years from now, when it's too late for you to afford any, I'm going to be rich.

[:

[01:13:23] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah. That's that's, that's an NFT. What you're showing

[:

[01:13:33] Andrew Lapidus: those are not the ones that you own. Those are the ones that are,

[:

[01:13:39] No, these are, uh, the apes. So 60 Salana 60 salons. Let's see what the floor price is. The cheapest you could get a degenerate. Ape is 53 salon. And at,

[:

[01:14:03] $6,700.

[:

[01:14:22] This is, this is no, this is something that could, could be an actual currency later. This is like an investment that you're going to catch. It depends.

[:

[01:14:45] So if these are new and they're highly speculative, so there's like high risk, high, high, high risk, probably one of the riskier things you could do right now with your money. And also that just brings with [01:15:00] it high chance of reward. I mean, high potential for reward the reward potential could be great, even though the chances are slim, it's just, it's hard to know.

[:

[01:15:28] Andrew Lapidus: being pathologically impulsive.

[:

[01:15:36] Andrew Lapidus: I thought you were pretty like tunnel vision, hard worker.

[:

[01:15:44] And, um, I guess that's not really impulsivity, but I am, I'm a very impulsive person. Um, yeah. And, but not always, it comes in, in flares, it flares up sometimes, and I'm just like, well, shit, I didn't need to spend a thousand dollars on Amazon. Um, [01:16:00] yeah, I dunno. I don't know. But yeah, the NMT thing is interesting.

[:

[01:16:30] And that's just,

[:

[01:16:41] Jeff Nesbitt: Right. Pretty much everybody in the metaverse knows about the.

[:

[01:16:49] You're

[:

[01:16:50] Andrew Lapidus: I mean, not that I, not that I know of, I feel like it might be like a Pizarro, Andrew that's like in the metaverse I don't know. Is it a reflection of our, of our [01:17:00] reality here or is it no. Is it more of an overly?

[:

[01:17:21] There's a lot more ways to make money.

[:

[01:17:23] Andrew Lapidus: I feel like the change was like something around five years ago or so I honestly, I think it coincides with the 2016 election that's when I think things went off, you

[:

[01:17:44] I don't think that like,

[:

[01:17:49] Jeff Nesbitt: okay. I liked that. I actually have heard a, not a conspiracy theory, but like a kind of out there thought experiment where people are like, what if [01:18:00] 2012 was supposed to be the end of the world? And then somehow we just got like bumped onto a new.

[:

[01:18:18] Andrew Lapidus: comes down to the

[:

[01:18:30] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah. Yeah. Don't you think though? I mean, I would see it more as like a, as it back to it time. I mean, it's, it's, it's an unbelievable, I mean, you know, you've always been kind of a conspiracy guy. I've always been kind of a conspiracy guy, but what we're seeing now is such an extraordinary, everything's a conspiracy, right?

[:

[01:19:00] Jeff Nesbitt: some people are still living in the 1940s on a farm. Like everybody's different now.

[:

[01:19:08] Andrew Lapidus: those Japanese, you know, you hear about those Japanese soldiers now the

[:

[01:19:13] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah. I mean, I don't think anymore things, but like, in, in like the eighties, they got the last one out of the Cape who was like, still

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[01:19:27] Andrew Lapidus: really work them over and whatever propaganda machine they had.

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[01:19:31] Jeff is Tesla going to, you're going

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[01:19:35] I doubt it. I doubt it. I think, I mean, they're up

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[01:19:40] Jeff Nesbitt: From when I bought in

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[01:19:46] Jeff Nesbitt: Uh, we don't know him very much.

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[01:19:49] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. They're like And actually, I don't even own all those, my kids on some of them, we let the kids buy stocks with money they had, and I'm holding it for them.

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[01:20:00] Jeff Nesbitt: uh, they're pretty impressive kids. I don't take any of the credit there. They're really special. We just skipped Elsa had a grade and oh wow. She's still coming home. Really sounded like she's killing it. I think maybe we should have skipped her head to grades.

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[01:20:21] Andrew Lapidus: done? Can you skip three grades?

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[01:20:39] Andrew Lapidus: Dan was like a wunderkind,

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[01:20:44] Runners. Sawyer is 12 and he's he's. I forced him to do cross country. He didn't want to do it. And now he's glad I forced him. So I'm going to start forcing people to do more things.

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[01:20:57] Jeff Nesbitt: yourself? No, [01:21:00] no, I'm not. Um, I have been running minimally, um, really since hood to coast, I've been running two or three times a week and lifting short workouts, like also 1, 2, 3 times a week.

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[01:21:25] Andrew Lapidus: no, no.

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[01:21:33] Jeff Nesbitt: on. We were kids. I used to lift a lot more when we were in crew that first year I was lifting every day.

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[01:21:42] Jeff Nesbitt: I was lifting in addition to our crew workouts. I was basically working out three times a day.

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[01:21:51] Andrew Lapidus: remember when we took those Facebook photos and like a flexing dude, you were like, absolutely.

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[01:22:05] And I lost access to that computer. I still have the laptop, but I don't remember the password. And you know what, the interesting thing was the hint on my, like the hint to get the password was latest pandemic. So I was like, oh right. I think it was swine flu, maybe bird flu. I couldn't remember.

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[01:22:25] Andrew Lapidus: carried the level stuff though. I'm intrigued now to know what the password was. I

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[01:22:41] What are you drinking

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[01:22:48] Jeff Nesbitt: no, I don't.

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[01:23:09] Stare lit. Yeah. Small stare. You know,

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[01:23:17] Andrew Lapidus: I suppose it is, you know, you're really making a lot of

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[01:23:25] Andrew Lapidus: that's true. What other furniture would make a good beer?

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[01:23:35] And then the logo would be like, you'd say tiny door productions with a small door swung, half open, but with

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[01:23:46] Jeff Nesbitt: and light coming through.

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[01:23:55] Jeff Nesbitt: People love metaphors.

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[01:24:01] Jeff Nesbitt: with Ken burns?

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[01:24:08] Jeff Nesbitt: Oh no. I never saw either of those. Oh

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[01:24:12] Jeff Nesbitt: Tell me about it.

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[01:24:15] Jeff Nesbitt: No, I never have what is wrong with you? Um, it was, I was a little aggressive.

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[01:24:33] Andrew Lapidus: These aren't like sad war movies. These are more like bordering on, you know, glorifying combat as the purifying, uh, you know, yeah. Yes, exactly.

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[01:24:56] Jeff Nesbitt: true, but I don't know. It doesn't matter to me. I think that [01:25:00] glorifying violence is, is probably it's a good way to make money and sell movies. But I don't know it makes people think of war as an option more.

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[01:25:26] I got sick just because of how disturbing it was. But I was recently watching it recently. And there's this scene where there's like this old, like, you know, grizzled veteran of world war one who like, has like a meltdown. And he's like, he's like a super tough guy, but he like freaks out during a bombardment.

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[01:26:00] And then like hands him the lighter, just keep it, you know, and I was watching that with my brother and he leans over and he was like, do you think that was a metaphor? Do you think that was a metaphor? Did he just pass the torch and something about him saying that I just, I couldn't stop laughing because I suddenly realized how stupid the whole thing was.

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[01:26:30] Jeff Nesbitt: so stupid was the guy dying.

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[01:26:41] Cause he's the gunnery Sergeant. He like broke down in combat and then it's like, oh, but he's been through world war one and everything. You know how it is exactly a real shell shock type time situation. So you know how it is, you know, you, you should check out those [01:27:00] mini series. I know,

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[01:27:05] About 10 hours. Oh yeah. That's a good one. That's a good

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[01:27:21] Jeff Nesbitt: like the last wait, what was that? No, I don't like Kiki's delivery service.

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[01:27:32] Andrew Lapidus: Oh my God.

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[01:27:37] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah. I haven't. Yeah. Give

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[01:27:42] Andrew Lapidus: I haven't seen it, but I know of it. And I know that it's, it's part of the same group. It's the studio.

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[01:27:51] Andrew Lapidus: So spoiler alert, spoiler alert.

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[01:27:55] Andrew Lapidus: in the trailer. I watched my neighbor Totoro, [01:28:00] dude, that movie floored me. You got to watch that movie with your kids. I'm serious. My neighbor Totoro, my neighbor Totoro.

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[01:28:15] Yeah. So I'll have to see it. I'd say it's one of the best cartoons that made me cry in the last six months, top five.

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[01:28:26] Jeff Nesbitt: It's very good. There's a lot of symbolism in like old. I think it's like, what would it be? Um, some kind of mythology. I don't remember what it was, but maybe Norse or something.

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[01:28:49] Andrew Lapidus: Well, I don't

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[01:28:59] The art [01:29:00] makes a big difference to me. If it's not pleasurable to look at, I have a really hard time with it and this

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[01:29:10] Jeff Nesbitt: I have recorded you saying it now and I will definitely check it out. Okay. I put it on

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[01:29:21] It's, it's, it's a kid's movie, but you know, it's got so many layers and a lot of stuff going on that are, that are under the surface of the kid's movie. Right. And I think it's really right up your alley, basically. It's this, father has two little daughters, right? And they move into this, country house.

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[01:29:55] And the kid it's the only, it's never said as even as explicitly, as I just [01:30:00] said, it it's all like Subutex of the kids are like children to just watching it is like, you know, this like really amazing story of them, like going through these forest critters and. But as an adult, you're like seeing it, you know, for what it is like these kids, like just being resilient in this horrible thing.

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[01:30:22] Jeff Nesbitt: absolutely watch it.

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[01:30:29] Jeff Nesbitt: yeah. Very good. Right on. Do there's a show called Puffin rock and it's, I think it's, you know, the guy he plays, uh, he plays the cop, like the, the male love interest on the movie bridesmaids.

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[01:30:51] Jeff Nesbitt: Really. Okay. Yeah. And he's fantastic. He's, he's one of those self-aware narrators where he like, uh, questioning himself, but [01:31:00] yeah, it was, it's really good. And what's great about this show is the artwork and the, the plants that they use are very similar to the plants that we have in this climate.

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[01:31:23] Look at that hillside cover with scotch from behind them. That's terrible. Oh. Or, you know, all kinds of, I see a lot of knotweed, a lot of knotweed and film, a lot of not waiting film. But this one is like hand drawn, gorse, plants, and hand drawn thistles and all kinds of just stuff we have here. It's really cool. Then you are

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[01:31:53] Sometimes. Sometimes I've got trouble. Like really like just figuring out what's going on. You got a wonky fusiform gyrus? [01:32:00] Exactly. a few. It's the form drivers acting up, you know, just like in the middle of my day, I'm aware of my fusiform gyrus right now, which right. So it sounded the thing. I've got some, some facial recognition issues, you know, I watched the departed and I couldn't follow the movie cause I, I couldn't tell who was who

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[01:32:18] Yeah.

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[01:32:29] Jeff Nesbitt: What's the other, they don't look the same, but they are three the same, like they're the same guy in the world. Like, uh, they're all three leading men who like you should have hired just one of them and then to be, be actors for those other two roles.

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[01:32:45] can I give you, can I, can I, can I change topics here because I want to get your opinion on something?

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[01:33:07] Oh, cool. Exam, which is in, which would be, uh, about eight, nine months from now. And that's how long the preparation takes. Right? Wow. What's your vibe on that? Is that chill? Are you? I don't know how your,

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[01:33:26] Andrew Lapidus: stablish that those kids are beyond my capacity.

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[01:33:38] Andrew Lapidus: it's really like a kind of a fascinating thing. Okay. So the exam. Yeah. So the exam is extremely difficult. It takes many, many hours. There's many sections to it. And so they wreck there's like a long eight month course, which you take to prepare, which is every weekend, eight hours a day, Saturday and Sunday.

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[01:34:23] Right. There's a bunch of that. Then there's a section about just like, um, the traditions of hunting there. So there, it's not, it's not really a legal thing. Like, because people have been there so long, there's such like, there's like pagan traditions that still are practiced and all this stuff.

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[01:34:55] For example, you can have your hunting license revoked. If you step over a dead

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[01:35:05] Andrew Lapidus: can't. Right. It's just like a respectful, uh, a respectful thing.

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[01:35:26] There's also a piece about it, about hunting dogs and stuff. And so it really becomes like just this sort of nature school. That sounds great. It sounds absolutely. I don't even, maybe even if I don't even hunt, I think it's a cool thing. And it's like a very respected thing there, you know, like, um, to be able to have it on the countryside to have said that you've, uh, you've done the test.

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[01:36:07] Jeff Nesbitt: Okay. So that's, that's a great question. I'm glad we got into this. So that's something that I just started doing last year. I've I've grew up. I grew up here, everyone. A lot of people mind, I just started hunting last year. I've hunted one, one season in my life and, um, I got it. It was, it was really a cool experience.

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[01:36:54] So I, I did not know about this in Austria, how they do this for hunting, but I wish they did that here. [01:37:00] At least optionally, because a lot of people would hate that because so many people don't want to do those things that are hard. But I think for people who are interested in learning about the tradition, it would be great because I feel like I felt a culture vacuum.

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[01:37:32] Andrew Lapidus: I'm in solemn action.

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[01:37:36] Jeff Nesbitt: still. You're you're you're doing what, one of the fundamental things of existence , as a life form, you're taking a life to increase your own and to increase the life of those around you. It's it's a big deal and it's, it's, it's also very fun, but, um, yeah, no, I think that sounds cool.

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[01:37:58] Andrew Lapidus: What was your experience [01:38:00] of hunting? Like, was it okay? I've got so much, I want to ask you about that, what was your experience of hunting? What, what was like the, the thing, was it, was it more than just like the hunting part of it? Did it feel like a nature?

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[01:38:20] Jeff Nesbitt: yeah. So my experience in the woods up before hunting, , I grew up, I lived in the woods growing up, so like me and my brother, we would go play in the woods all the time.

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[01:38:51] It's really hard if you don't know where to step, because you can't really always see the ground, you got to be able to read the terrain. You got to know, like [01:39:00] even working on. Uh, wetlands and environments that have lots of, of wet muddy spots. You got to know how to travel across that stuff without getting stuck or sinking in.

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[01:39:26] And then I started picking mushrooms. And so that got me obsessed. And then I was in the woods all the time, like all the time for long, long periods of time, a lot of time by myself. And it's just really therapeutic for me. I go out there and I, I look for the mushrooms and it's great, but I'm loud because I want bears and stuff to go away.

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[01:40:06] So if I go out for a mushroom pick and I have as much time as I want and I, and it's peak season, like it is right now, I could spend eight hours out there and probably, you know, come out with 25, 30 pounds of mushrooms. What kind

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[01:40:27] Jeff Nesbitt: volume.

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[01:40:39] Andrew Lapidus: dude? Um, all chanterelles are a big deal in Australia.

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[01:40:44] Andrew Lapidus: That's the only one I feel comfortable picking. Cause they're so easy to pick.

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[01:40:54] They're, they're one of the only ones that actually tastes really genuinely delicious cook with them. [01:41:00] I like to make 'em deep fried, which like, yeah, you just bread them. Like you would a, an onion ring and deep fry them. And they are really, really good.

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[01:41:15] Jeff Nesbitt: That's also really good.

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[01:41:21] Andrew Lapidus: Loved him. Yeah. It's good. Bursting with country fresh flavor.

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[01:41:40] It's more fun. And it tastes better.

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[01:41:54] Jeff Nesbitt: No, no, it actually works. So tell me about, tell me about

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[01:42:06] My nightmare is not knowing how to gut the animal and I just like, I just like fucking ruin it. My, my, my, yeah, like that's like the ultimate disrespect is like the animals, like spiritual, you killed me and then like you, like, there's punctured a lung and left it. Yeah.

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[01:42:27] So people who don't give a fuck about that are our problem. So, yeah. So anyway, so I had been a lot, I'd spent a lot of time in the woods and I'd see animals out there all the time, because when I'm not crashing through the brush, going from patch to patch, I'm crouched down, barely moving at all. And I'm just like picking the mushrooms where in my immediate vicinity and, um, and so animals will just walk up behind me and it's, it's, it's really cool, but it made me overestimate how easy it would be for me to find an elk or a deer.[01:43:00]

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[01:43:22] And because it's noisy, you can't break a single stick or those animals will hear you. Like you can not make noise. That's. Can't do it. And if you do, you have to be far enough away to where they can't hear you. You also have to think about the wind. You can't be upwind from these animals because they will smell you and they'll leave.

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[01:44:09] And it was, I had to be so aware of my surroundings and of my own interaction with the surroundings.

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[01:44:21] Jeff Nesbitt: you know, I think so. And I think a lot of people only ever go in the woods when they're hunting. So the rest of the time, they're just like city folk or, you know, they're in a car or they're in their house, but I actually spend a lot of time in the woods already.

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[01:44:39] Andrew Lapidus: How did we, how did you learn how to get the

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[01:44:42] I called my brother-in-law and he came out and showed me, like, walk me through it, just so you've you dump all the guts out right where you shot it. Basically. You just cut up the middle and then you go in with your hands and you feel around all the, all the guts and you kind of pull them out [01:45:00] and you cut them out and leave them there.

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[01:45:27] Um, so. Start to, uh, get bacteria, mold and stuff. Got an ma yeah. Ma managing the moisture content, uh, in the room where you store the animal after you shoot. It is very important. There's so much to

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[01:45:45] Jeff Nesbitt: there is. That's why, that's why it takes years to learn and be good at it.

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[01:45:57] Andrew Lapidus: I mean, I guess whatever I can get, [01:46:00] um, you know, in Austria, well, one of the things you were just realizing is in Austria, it's sort of like nature, light, you know, there's no bears, you know, not for over 500 years, I haven't been baptized and I'm just one of the reasons that it's such a tremendous test and everything.

[:

[01:46:31] Like the schedule, like there's a certain amount that need to be shocked. No more, no Lotus, you know, that's been what's that quotas. Yeah. So those have been, those have been in existence for 300, 400 years. Right? So in a lot of different like hunt, like societies. Yeah, based on your age or experience you, you get there, you're like a sign that a certain animal that you're allowed to shoot for that year.

[:

[01:47:14] So hopefully I could, I could be there and then check out the, the whole scene. But it, I think it's just a very different vibe vibe. I mean, it's, it's in a lot of ways, I think it could be less satisfying in certain ways because, , you're never that far in the wilderness, you know, you're always like up in the mountains and it's always like, you know, there, there, isn't a section of land in Europe, you know, in the house that isn't at one point wasn't at one point part of, uh, you know, where, where cows graves, right.

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[01:47:46] Jeff Nesbitt: history,

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[01:47:56] Jeff Nesbitt: overlook the stand or something.

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[01:48:15] The other way to say it is that you, um, you know, you just sit there and drink a beer and wait for something to walk by. You know, I was

[:

[01:48:39] And I was just like, well, fuck. But, um, because a lot of the time there's so much hunting pressure that the animals will go up in the Hills and then the places where I've been seeing them for the last six months suddenly I don't see them anymore. And it's, it's a noticeable effect.

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[01:48:59] [01:49:00] Yeah. Horrible. This is

[:

[01:49:26] And the last one is the cutting down of all the old growth forests. Those three things really, I, I just can't wrap my head around it emotionally. Like how much I want those, those like. Abundant commons to still exist. How much, how cool it would be to be able to go out to any river, within a hundred miles and just grab a fish out with my hand, the way they could, a couple of hundred years ago at this time of year, the salmon runs used to be so intense here that you could walk across the fish.

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[01:50:10] Andrew Lapidus: Yeah. People who are more agile could walk across the fish.

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[01:50:24] And so the Buffalo are the same way. There was what, something like some millions and millions of Buffalo. And now there's just a couple of thousand and people were killing them for bad reasons. Like people were killing the Buffalo to starve out the Indians and that sucks, like people feeding

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[01:50:47] Jeff Nesbitt: Um, and it became a commodity

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[01:51:03] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah. And you can't even really hold it against them that much, because if you think.

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[01:51:28] But because they cut down so many trees, there were so many old growth trees, giant trees, like have you ever been to the Redwood forest?

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[01:51:37] Jeff Nesbitt: once it used to look like that like the whole west coast was basically like big ass trees. I don't know. I don't know exactly where the, it would have ended in stuff, but definitely this area where I am in Pacific county, Washington, we still have a couple small, old growth patches and the trees are enormous.

[:

[01:52:22] And it's got these old growth Cedars on it and it's, it's amazing. So I highly recommend that if anyone's listening, you want to check out some cool trees, go to long island on the willpower national wildlife refuge. Hiked the Don Bonker trail. And, um, but yeah, it's just sad. But think about those guys who were cutting down those trees, they had to build a house there.

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[01:52:51] Andrew Lapidus: I mean, it must've seemed like the land of plenty, you know, it must have seemed like that's what it was. Yeah. It would be like us going into, you know, whatever Rivendale or whatever.

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[01:53:10] Jeff Nesbitt: know, like, no man, you're right. It's exactly right. It's like Fern goalie out here.

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[01:53:23] I was like, okay. It looks just like the planetarium at Emsi. That's all I could think

[:

[01:53:42] I wanted to be there when it was getting light. Uh, Just be, I don't, I actually that's just when I like to do shit, but the, when I got there, it was, I was up in the Hills and there's no, there's no street lights or buildings around. So it's just completely pitch black, dark other than the stars and the [01:54:00] moon they're way brighter.

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[01:54:13] Andrew Lapidus: Starlight. You're saying like not, and this isn't even Moonlight. This

[:

[01:54:23] Andrew Lapidus: Then that sounds unbelievable. I've never experienced something like that. It's cool. I mean, I, when we were, when we would row, that was when it be a clear day, then that was about the, the, the, the extremely pretty cool. That was pretty beautiful. And those were also when you'd see, like, uh, oh dude. Were you there with him for Joe Gregerson?

[:

[01:54:56] And they're looking at these shooting stars. And, uh, Joe says [01:55:00] in the, in the back of the boat, the guys ever wonder why some stars shoot and other stars don't and Carl's like, uh, no dog, you know, those are stars, right? Those are like meteors, you know? And Joe's like, what? It's just a great moment. Why does someone shoot?

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[01:55:26] Andrew Lapidus: I do. I follow the Gregerson ranch to see the whole thing going

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[01:55:30] Andrew Lapidus: sweet. Yeah. It looks like quite the, got a couple of buckaroos running around there. He's got his horse. His daughter looks ridiculously adorable. Yeah.

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[01:55:43] I love Joe. I thought I didn't Joe, such a nice guy. I couldn't, couldn't be a better guy to have some success.

[:

[01:56:00] Jeff Nesbitt: know.

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[01:56:04] Jeff Nesbitt: been, I think it was the big German shepherd.

[:

[01:56:29] When I was a kid growing up, , Tawny was just like best friends with this dog, Joe, who was a big Akita. And they're like similar to the German shepherd look, but kind of like almost a little more Husky ish. I think they're like an Asian bear hunting dog. Um, but we had this dog and they were really super tight.

[:

[01:57:17] Andrew Lapidus: awkward situation.

[:

[01:57:34] Andrew Lapidus: There was no like savior.

[:

[01:57:49] Andrew Lapidus: can't believe the time went by so fast. It did go by very fast. Yeah, my friend. Hey, you should, well, I know it's difficult for you to come to Austria.

[:

[01:58:00] Andrew Lapidus: Do it. Next time we get a chance to get, to come to Austria. , also be in the, I'll be in the U S for the first time in a couple of years, this winter,

[:

[01:58:11] Andrew Lapidus: around Christmas time, it's either going to be like all of December, all of January, but one of those

[:

[01:58:18] Andrew Lapidus: beach.

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[01:58:28] Jeff Nesbitt: Yeah, dude, if you, uh, depending on the time of year, if it's, if the weather is okay, I'll take you guys on tour out here. There's lots of cool stuff to see and check out lighthouses and stuff.

[:

[01:58:51] Andrew Lapidus: the legendary 4th of July.

[:

[01:58:56] Andrew Lapidus: standing there. I laughed [01:59:00] so hard.

[:

[01:59:05] Jeff Nesbitt: We're all grabbing weapons to take this picture and he picks up two canisters of propane. Thank you so much, Andrew, for being a part of the podcast.

[:

[01:59:19] Jeff Nesbitt: right. We'll talk to you next time. Thanks for listening everybody.

[:

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About the Podcast

Ramble by the River
With Jeff Nesbitt
Ramble-(verb)
1. walk for pleasure, typically without a definite route.
2. talk or write at length in a confused or inconsequential way.

Ramble by the River (Ramblebytheriver.com) is about becoming the best human possible.

Join me and my guests, as we discuss the blessing that is the human experience. Ramble by the River is about finding an honest path to truth without losing our sense of humor along the way. It is about healing from the trauma of the past and moving into the next chapter of life with passion.

Common topics include: personal growth, entertainment, pop-culture, technology, education, psychology, drugs, health, history, politics, investing, conspiracies, and amazing personal stories from guests.

What does it mean to be a person? Is there a right or wrong way to do it? How has our species changed to accommodate the world that we have so drastically altered? What defines our generation? Where are we going? What is coincidence? Is time a mental construction? What happens after death? Which Jenifer is better looking (Lopez or Anniston)?

Tune in to any one of our exciting upcoming episodes to hear a comedian, a New York Times Best-Selling author, a fancy artist, a plumber, the Mayor of a large urban metropolis, a cancer survivor, a Presidential candidate, Jeff's dad, a female bull-riding champion, the founder of a large non-profit charity organization, Elon Musk, a guarded but eventually lovable country musician, a homeless guy, a homeless woman, a commercial fisherman, a world-renowned photo-journalist, or Kanye West.

When you go on a ramble, you never know where you are going to end up. All you can do is strap-in and enjoy the ride!
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About your host

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Jeff Nesbitt

Jeff Nesbitt is a man of many interests. He is infinitely curious, brutally honest, and genuinely loves people. Jeff grew up in a small coastal community in the Pacific Northwest and after college he moved back to his hometown to start a family. When the Covid-19 crisis hit in 2020, regular social engagement was not an option, and Jeff realized that the missing ingredient in his life was human connection. So, like the fabled Noah and his Ark, Jeff started building a podcast studio without knowing what his show would actually be. Before the paint was even dry, Jeff start recording interviews with interesting friends, and Ramble by the River was born.