Juggling Pursuits 101

(upbeat music) - Hi again, everybody, and welcome back to the flagship podcast of Obscure Hobbies. For Obscure skill sets? Things that I wanna get better at? Obviously, one of the biggest ones that I initially wanna do and get better at was be able to do Rubik's Cube. It took like a week of studying, 'cause all it is, it's just a bunch of algorithms, just a bunch of different patterns out. When you're out of a certain spot, this is what you do next. At the first step, you get a white cross, and then you have to match all of the blocks that are adjacent to the white cross pieces and make them all, like, their colors all match, it's one thing after another. And I love doing that kind of thing. Another one that I've tried is I wanted to be able to memorize like a randomly shuffled deck of cards, basically using something called people, something people call like a memory palace technique, where you associate each card with a different person or character, and then each suit, obviously has a representative color. It's like when you do it and then you also have a space in somewhere that you're familiar with, that these then kind of populate and they fill up. So like, I would imagine myself walking through our house and like, right when I walked in, that would be the first space. So like, for example, if I drew an ace, if the ace is the first card and the ace was represented by Kendall, it'd be Kendall standing there maybe, if it's a ace of diamonds, that's white, maybe she's standing in wedding dress. And then I walk into Gabby's room and like, I see something there, and it's all these different things you'd fill up. I never got to a full deck of cards. My best was 30 in a row. I couldn't quite get past that. 30 randomly selected cards I could memorize and have down, but that was, that was the extent of it. The newest thing I'm trying to do is learn how to juggle. This is a weird one because I think a lot of people like learned an elementary school and growing up and some of them that was just never, never something to learn how to do. And it seems like it should be so easy. Like if you couldn't play baseball, if you can throw a ball up and down, you can juggle and that could not be further from the truth. So Kendall's mom, Lori got me these little hacky sack bean bags to learn how to juggle. And now that I have them and somebody else got them from me, I don't have a choice. Now I have to learn, which is great 'cause that's what I need. And I looked up how to do it. And the thing they say is like it seems obvious like you'd throw all the balls up with one hand, you'd catch them with the other. But no, juggling as probably most people know is you have to use both hands to throw them up and you're kind of doing like a scooping motion. Like you're scooping ice cream and you throw the ball up and then you catch with your other hand, you scoop it and you throw that back up again. And the other thing the guy said on the little video that I watched is you imagine like there's a box in front of you and you're trying to throw one of the balls or the sacks, whatever maybe up to the opposite top corner of the square. And that way it creates this pattern where the balls aren't hitting each other and they're being consistent. It also seems like you have to keep your arms at a 45 degree angle and you're always kind of getting the same height each time, which I think my problem was I was going too high and you want to like basically go to the height of your chin or your nose, maybe your forehead. Anyways, I've practiced several times. I feel like I've kind of got the hang of it a little bit. Like I can do two balls, it's shocker. And again, it's harder than just like throwing the balls up. Like you're trying to get this pattern down. It's one thing just to throw balls up if you're in catching with both hands. It's another thing to kind of do it in a pattern-based way to ultimately be able to get that third ball in there and maybe a fourth. We haven't got there yet. I can hold like a third and kind of like basically still juggle while holding it, but I haven't got it integrated into the system yet. But I'll get there. I'm learning again and I took a week for doing a Rubik's Cube, it took even longer than that to kind of get down the memorizing cards thing. But like this is my next thing. At some point I want to learn magic tricks. Like cool, like simple little magic tricks you can do or like little card tricks even seem awesome. I saw that stuff. So you can just pull them out wherever you're at and it's like, oh, I can do this. And it's cool to certain people. I was gonna say it's cool, but it's probably only cool to certain people. Anyways, that's my newest thing I'm working on. Try and learn how to juggle using YouTube obviously to learn how and lots and lots of practice. This is kind of what it comes down to. All right, stay the show. Tell me something good. We gotta talk about the girls. My girls a little bit. The IOU1. We gotta talk about something that was finally revealed that I can finally talk about. And then last but not least, Sean's what are you into as always? But first off, tell me something good. (upbeat music) Tell me something good. This, this is like simple things. The tell me something good kind of came from this morning. And it's a culmination of a lot of things that have been happening lately. This morning, Kendall's out of town. So I've got both girls and I have to get up early to like make sure I get showered and get breakfast before they get up. So I can then help them kind of do the whole process of getting ready for school. And Emmy, who she's been blessed with the gift of being able to wake up early and have it not an impact at all. Just naturally wakes up early. Happy to do it. And this morning, she woke up and she's got a little Yoda box. So she knows that when the light's red, she stays in bed and she stays in her room. And when it turns green, she can get up. And it's set for like 615 to turn green. And this morning, she woke up, actually stepped in a little bit, shocker, to like 605. 6 o'clock, 605. And I'm in the bathroom getting ready. And I have them on and right there. I'm kind of watching it. And I see her eyes are open. And she gets out of bed and she goes over and her light turns on. And then she walks over out of the camera a little bit. And she grabs this little like notebook that I gave her, which I love that she loves it. Because it was one of the things that I got from, it was like a swag bag per se that I got like from having students from Eastern Washington University. It's like this little bag that has EWOT on it. And like there's this little notebook that comes with and a little pen. And like this little like fidget ball thing. I admittedly almost through the whole thing away, but I'm like, oh, Emil will have it. And luckily she does because she treasures it. But anyways, she went and got like this little notebook and she climbed back in her bed, covers her legs back up again. And she just sits there like riding in this book. And then afterwards, like when she eventually gets up, she comes and shows me like, hey dad, look, I wrote the alphabet. And it's so cute because really the letters look quite good. I work with kids on the alphabet all the time and what she's doing, I mean, it's obviously not perfect, by any means she's four. But I was very pleased. She seemed like she's in a really good job with it. She didn't get quite all the letters. She got a lot of them down and she knows her alphabet, but it's just cool that the fact that she woke up and the first thing she wanted to do is to go get her little cute little red notebook and get the little pen and write the alphabet in. Like out of all the things she could have done, that's what she wanted to do. And so often like she'll go get books and she'll sit in her room and she'll look at the pictures and she'll read her books and like tell what's happening, the story based on the pictures. Or in some cases she's like memorized several books that we read all the time and she'll just recite those while sitting in her bed. First thing in the morning, just happy as can be. And it's so cute. It's so fun to see that because I said it before, like these things, you feel like they last forever and then all of a sudden you look back and you're like, oh, that hasn't happened in five weeks now. They just disappear and it's so fun to see that. Yesterday I picked up the girls from school and they're all kind of sitting in the little front room and they're playing and I pick up, I go over and get gabs and she stands up and she goes and hugs all of her friends one at a time. And she's like, hey, want hug? Want hug and she gives them all hugs and says goodbye, it's just the sweetest thing. Like the absolute social butterfly, she's so good about doing all that stuff and doesn't even have to be asked. Like that's just who she is and it's so sweet to be able to see that. Or I mean, both girls, like they love imaginary play, like them sitting at their little kitchen, like making food or with their little stuffed animals, they'll get little beds out and blankets and they'll tuck their little babies in and feed them. And you know, it's all that stuff that you expect to see at that age but it doesn't take away from the fact that it's awesome to see. It's just awesome that their happiest can be just like doing their own thing in those moments. And you can also see that they're clearly learning from what they see. Like they'll also try and like, grab the blankets and try and fold them. Like they'll try and fold them like mom does when she's folding laundry on the middle of the living room and it's shockingly Emmy does a pretty good job of it. Gabby does her best, like she'll straighten all the blankets out and then she'll match the corners and it's just fun to see. It's just, it's normal kid stuff. It's kids, it's not the kids a lot of kids do. But again, it doesn't take away from the fact that it's, it's awesome, especially like when they're entertaining themselves and they're just happiest can be without needing to be entertained, without needing anything other than a little notebook and a pen. It's right there off the bat while they're sitting in bed waiting for their Yoda box to turn green. It was really, really cool. Next, I owe you one. (upbeat music) ♪ You know who you are, yeah who you are ♪ This has been a long time common. We were finally able to talk about it. But this year is dad's 70th birthday and what we're doing it for that is they've gone down to Belize a couple times and the plan and now it's an action is that we're all going down as a family. The whole family, Garrett's family, Chandler's family, my family, all the grandkids, all the girls, all the, well, I can't say all the girls. So there's watching and griff now. Everyone's going down to Belize in November and this has been a secret from dad. We finally were able to reveal it last weekend. Mom caught all of these like Hawaiian shirts with this picture. It's a perfect picture that Alexa took of him wearing like this Sailor's captain's hat and him like saluting it. And it's all over these Hawaiian shirts. So we were able to surprise him and finally find out the cat on the bag in that regard. But it rewinded it back. The IOU1 is for mom because this road was not straight and it was, it was all over the place. But we initially, so the initial plan was and there's a great plan and I'd recommend to anybody is that we were all going to fly on American, which they'd done in the past and you can get like a city bank credit card. And if you spend $4,000 in the first couple months or something, a suitable number regardless, you get like 80,000 flight points. And if you bought the tickets the right time, like this would pay for at least like two of the three or four tickets that each family would need. So it would work out perfect. Like you just, you know, spend money as usual. You just do it on this other different credit card. You can be done with it at the end. But anyways, you get all the points and it payments pays for the tickets and it makes the trip really, or the trip really affordable for everybody. Great plan, everybody did it. And we all bought our tickets on American. We all had our flights, it was going to be great. And then all of a sudden, we woke up one day and you got the email saying, "Hey, your flights have changed, check it out." And it turned out, it's crazy to me how like airport logistics work. But like one flight was, I think it was like, just changed by 10 minutes. But in that 10 minutes, it inhibited our ability to like make the layover. I think this is like in Dallas or Fort Worth. And because of that, like this flight was-- no longer gonna work. We couldn't make the layover. So we tried to switch it, mom was on the phone for forever, and eventually, like again, we have a lot of people, a lot of us have like non-cancellable tickets. We couldn't just cancel them. Like there was, there's problems there. She gets to the point where like the only way it could work on this airline is just a nightmare situation. Like it looked like a nightmare. It was like leaving at 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. And again, remember this is, there's a lot of grandkids going on this trip. And we were leaving as like an overnight red eye flight to one airport. And then we moved to another airport. There was like three or four different layovers. It was just an obscene flight plan with like an overnight flight and all these different layovers. And you like arrive 26 hours later. It's just, again, maybe one thing if you're flying, I could just adults, but the fact that we had six kids to infants going, just it seemed like a nightmare. But anyways, you spent a ton of time on the phone. Got this worked out. This didn't work. Thank god. And then eventually, it's like canceled the tickets. And again, cancel them in the name of a whole bunch of like non-cancellable tickets, which doesn't always happen. And it was grateful that it did. Anyways, long story short, after a bunch of different things, we're able to finally get flights on different airlines. We went on Alaska instead. We're able to use like buddy seats. Thank you, Chandler for that. And we're all going. We're arriving within the day. And there's only one layover. Like it is just so much better. More expensive. Yeah. But if you'd, I always think about this. Like in the moment, like let's say we had done this red eye five layover flight there in one of those moments. If you'd ask me, hey, do you want to spend this much extra money just to be there and to like have this different flight plan? I inevitably would see yes every single time. So anyways, it worked out. We're flying down there. It's going to be awesome. We're flying like mid, like it's like the third week of November. We leave on a Saturday, come back to Falling Sunday. Again, the whole thing is going to be there down in Blee, celebrating dad's 70th birthday. And it's going to be awesome. Everything's going to be wearing their shirts. It's going to be fun that all the all the grandkids going to be together and like Emmy and Gabby, you're super excited for the beach. Evelyn's excited for the beach. I mean, everybody, it's it's it's going to be so much fun. But again, yeah, you want us from hump for going through all that she did. Like trying to navigate those flights, figuring out also like the hotels and the state situation. Like there's just so many logistics there. Again, going back to the flights because calling an airline through a one eight hundred hundred, a one eight hundred number, never fun. But to did it, spent hours on the phone, grateful for it. It all worked out in the end. We're flying there on a normal flight plan. And it's great. And on top of that, now we've got a ton of extra points for other vacations, which is great as well. I mean, it all worked out in the end. But I'm excited for that. That'll be really fun. That's one of the things I'm into. But I actually have a different. What are you into? All right, listeners. It's time for hidden passions, wild hobbies, and that one thing that you didn't know miles was obsessed with. Like a lot of it's time for shawns. What are you into? The shawns. What are you into officially is it kind of connects the last week or two weeks ago when I was talking about all the things I love about fall. Like I feel like we truly hit it yesterday. I'm recording this on a Wednesday or I'm recording this on a Thursday. But yesterday Wednesday was like perfect fall because it's all the things that I love about it. It was the announcements of tons of different things like in the fall. In the summer, a lot of companies just don't announce things like everyone's kind of on break. That's just the way that it is. But going into fall, you're going into the hot Christmas shopping season. So you're getting all these different like company presentations. And one of them is Nintendo. They had back-to-back ones actually on Tuesday. They had one on a Wednesday. They had one. But anyways, on Tuesday, they finally announced it. It's something I kind of mentioned before, but they're remaking the Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time game. And it looks awesome. I'm super excited about it. It's a game that I've played I think is like four or five times now because it's just it's universally regarded as one of the best games ever made like the scores reflect that. And even though I've played it so many times that they've really truly remade it in so many different ways that it looks awesome. And I'm super excited about it. That comes out in early November. I think it does. But anyways, Nintendo had their presentation where they announced a whole bunch of different video games that are coming out. That's really cool. The highlighted by like the Legend of Zelda Game, which wasn't even on that day, but it's still super exciting about that. And then at 10AM, Apple had their big presentation of like their new iPhones and the iPhone Duo, which looks cool and is wildly expensive. And something I would love to have, but just not in this day and age. And like their new watches and new AirPods, even if I'm not participating, like buying new ones, it's still fun to like see that because it's just it's part of like this time of year. And I love like listening to like the breakdowns of it, all the nerdy podcasts that talk about it. I love that. Again, the iPhone Duo, which is like their new full phone, looks so cool. Like the way that you can, it's like a smaller, even smaller than like a normal phone. Kind of kind of the iPhone mini's used to be and you can like open it and the design behind it is really, really well done. The software looks fantastic and it opens up in like this bigger, like matte screen, kind of like a iPad mini, which again, I see it. I'm like, I also don't know what I'd ever use it or if I'd ever get like the true value out of that thing. And I'm trying to use my phone less in the first place. So just isn't for me, especially that it's like $2,000, which is just insane for a phone, especially like a probably more breakable phone. But anyways, look cool. I'm excited to live I curiously through their Sean or Brandon on that one. But that was cool. And then at 1pm, so we've got the Nintendo 7am and then we had Apple at 10am. And then at 1pm, the Mariners played, they won. Kate Anderson got his first win. And then at 5 o'clock, 520, the Seahawks finally started the NFL season. That was awesome. And you know, for pretty much everyone who probably listened to this, who cares about the Seahawks, you know, they won on a last second play, last thing interception, where it just, it looked like either they were going to lose or we were bound for over time. And they locked in the interception. They won the game. They're 1-0. Awesome to see that. Start a fantasy football season. Again, it's just, I love fall for so many different reasons. And then we're so much encapsulated into Wednesday. And then to cap it all off. Another thing that I was into is a new show that I've been wanting to see has come out. It's called Last Scene. And it came out yesterday. And the Seahawks game got over early enough that it's able to watch one of the two episodes of it. Last scene, it's on Apple TV. But it's about this, this dad. And he like lost his daughter. And she's been missing for 10 or 11 years. And it's presumed dead. And like the skeleton shows up. And it's, it's spoiler. They show this really quick, like in all the previews. It's not her. But it's like this dad and this daughter kind of show, where he's like trying to get his daughter back kind of like taken. Which now all of those shows hit so much more different now that I've got two daughters myself. And just watching. It's like, oh, I can, I can relate to this. This is awesome. It's like a thriller, you know, kind of crime show that, you know, our diamond doesn't. But this one looks awesome. And it's something I can relate to. It looks really well done. And I'm excited to watch it. It came out too. And I don't know, kind of capped off a day full of different like releases and games and Mariners wins and Seahawks wins. And it's a great day. So much stuff that I was into that all happened between the Nintendo stuff and the Apple stuff and all the sports wins. Anyways, that's all I've got. Thank you all for listening. I got an Emmy sound bite on the way out. And we're at a point where the Mariners pretty much have to win out. We only got like two and a half weeks of the season, which means there's only two and a half weeks left of Rik Riz calling games. That's a big deal for me. I've already talked to Candles, like, please take the girls on September 29th on that Sunday, because given the Mariners, if they don't make the playoffs, it's the last game. I'm going to have to listen to that game and like just be by myself and just probably cry. But anyways, more on that in the future. I appreciate y'all taking the time. And again, Emmy Gabby sound about in the way out. Talk to y'all next week. Bye. Okay, good night. Go to sleep. Go to sleep. Yeah.