Scooter Board Bungie Cord Sling Shots

(upbeat music) - Hi again, everybody, and welcome back to the Miles Pappcast, the flagship podcast of being in the right place at the right time. Because if you're hunting for deared women county, that's what it takes, and that's what happened. We were lucky. I mentioned last week that on the last podcast that was hunting season this weekend, I didn't end up getting a license. I just took my camera, which worked out perfect. And I always told, I said that if we saw a whole bunch, I was just gonna go on my phone and buy a license 'cause you can just buy it on your phone, super, super easy, and super fast. And we actually saw a ton. We saw, last year, I don't think we saw a single thing when we were walking around the fields, we didn't see a single living thing out there. And this year, holy smokes, we saw tons of fessence, we saw tons of toes, we saw several spikes, I saw six really big deer when I wasn't, I didn't have my gun, they were right there. But it was great that we saw a whole bunch. And like I said, I took my camera. It was really, I love taking pictures. And every time I do it, I learned something new and I was using my zoom lens and trying to take pictures of the guys and the landscapes. And there was a lot of messing with the aperture and the, it just various things because the lighting was always changing. The shutter speed and all that. And it was great. But we got lucked out. We lucked out, we were in the right place at the right time. One of the guys, Jake, he just so happened to like look over the hill and look in the right spot and lo and behold, there was a buck there and they must've been napping 'cause it probably saw him coming from forever away and he crawled several, you know, he said he crawled like 50 yards or something and took a really long shot and it worked out and we got one. Problem was, it was in the very back of a field and it was a grass field. And it was like several hills deep. Like it was a mile away over two giant hills and then like little valleys. And we tried pulling it and it was huge. Like it was everything like these really strong guys, not myself, it's not included in this 'cause I had my camera luckily to pull just like 50 yards. So we were lucky, talked to dad, got his pickup 'cause it's a diesel and it's not gonna start a fire like mine would have and we were able to go pick it up and everything worked out. But it was great 'cause we haven't got one in several years and it was super exciting to have that and it's funny because hunting is like, obviously each person wants to get their own. It'd been cool if Braden could have got one or Tyson could have got his second. But just like when one of your group gets one, it's so exciting. Like there's just so much joy and there's zero, zero selfishness. Like everyone is so happy for this guy who got one and it was, it was really cool. But I loved it, I had my camera. I got some really good pictures. Like there's pheasants all over the place and we just happened like drive by when there's a stain in there so I got my camera out and took a cool picture of some pheasants, which I texted Brandon a picture of it and he sent me several bird pictures and I'm like, we used to be cool and now we just send these pictures of birds that we take to each other. Like we're 80 years old or something. But it was a lot of fun. We did great. It was fun. We went back to, I got to see Luanne and we talked to her and she gave me flowers and pumpkins and we got apples there. It was great to see her and to talk to her for a bit. And we, like I said, it was a success. We got one, everyone was happy, which is great. After several years of just having nothing because the population was just so greater. Anyways, tell me something good. I, all you want, Sean's way to get into all the good usual stuff, capy sound bite at the end. But to kick it off, tell me something good. Tell me something good. I do, every now and then I do something smart. But there's also a lot of dumb things that come along with it. As Brandon and Carly at least reminded me, they were like looking into Pokemon cards and Carly was trying to get some for her nephews and I told the story before, but I had, we had obviously had a whole bunch going up. Like that was what we did when we were eight and nine years old, we saved up our money. We'd go buy Pokemon cards. We'd go buy Yukio cards and at the time, it was just, you know, you can find them anywhere. They weren't really worth a ton and it was just, it was a kids game over time because of COVID, the prices have gotten crazy high. It's still super popular. People are now just like using bots to buy them so they're hard to find cards. Anyways, it got me like looking at the cards that I had graded forever ago because if you get a high grade, that means they're really good condition and they're worth a lot of money. So anyways, something stupid that I did was, I got this card, probably it was like 10 years old, didn't know any better, got it. I had graded and I sold it. It was this shiny magic card, but I sold it for 400 bucks. And I thought it was great. Like that, if you told me 10-year-old me that I pulled a card that I paid $7 for a pack and it was all sudden worth 400 bucks, that'd be really, really cool. And this was in 2023, I think it was 'cause I used that money to buy a new TV. Well, that was stupid because after talking to these guys and like looking at the price of that card now, it's now worth, it was, it recently sold on eBay, one of them at the same grade, the PSA grade of an eight, near mint condition, shiny magic card, now worth $4,000, which I made a lot of mistakes. I don't know if I could quantify a mistake of costing me over $3,600. Like just a stupid, stupid mistake. I would love to have that money now. Anyways, all that to say, and the purpose of fact, that actually did something smart, this recently, I've talked about, we got the girls of play structure, we just didn't have any space for it. So it's kind of like in this little like valleyish, buried the bottom of our yard that always kind of turns into a swamp every winter, which worked out great because there's room for it and didn't have to like put it on any of our yard and didn't have to worry about that, but the problem is it's gonna flood this winter. So I had to elevate it somehow. And I came up with the idea of using like cinder blocks because they, you know, they're not gonna be damaged by any standing water, they're eight inches tall. It'll be great, we can elevate it just enough that it's not gonna be underwater and rot over the winter. And to elevate it, like this would have been so easy if I had other guys to help me. But it was initially out there, it was just me. I was trying to like use these boards to like slowly lift it up and then I'd have Emmy help me slide a board under, that was two inches high and I'd lift it up again and shoot slide another board under. So I'm like slowly like increasing the height of this thing so I can eventually set it onto an eight-foot cinder block. And this, this play structure is huge and it's heavy and it's everything I can do to lift it. And I thought it was pretty smart. Like using that strategy, kind of like you'd use if you were trying to like jack up a vehicle that's, you know, the jack's too small for and you're trying to get it higher and higher. Anyways, I was proud of that and it ended up working. Like I was able to get it ultimately up that high and at the end I had to have Kendall come help me because the whole thing just became really, really heavy. But it worked. It was really great that I was able to do that and Emmy has helped me out, which is great and that's telling me something good enough itself. But the really cool thing was, like Emmy had some ideas that I was just like blown away by. You know, she's four years old and I feel like ideas were the quality of someone much older. Like one of the things that she said was, what if we like use one of these, you know, these two by four is these boards and like put it on top of the center block and like use it as like a lever. Like a, like a wedge. Like she said, like put it on there. Maybe we can stand on it. Lord knows our weight's not gonna be nearly enough and maybe that would help elevate it. It's like, wow, that's a really science-y idea. That's like, you know, maybe third, fourth grade science. Like where you're learning about simple machines and using levers to like lift things. It was really impressed. And then on the other side, she's like, dad, why don't we go take a walk and we'll take a break and we'll come up with new ideas to let this thing up. As I'm in the middle of like struggling to get it on to the blocks and to lift it up high. I was having our time. She's like, let's just take a walk and maybe we'll come up with some new ideas. Which I'm like, wow, that's also a really mature idea. Later she told mom that she's like, I was frustrated with dad because I told him to take a walk to come up with new ideas and he wouldn't do it. But just because I was frustrated myself trying to lift the stupid thing up is it's getting darker and darker outside. But it's just, it's really cool. Like having her be out there and her helping me out, sliding the boards under and then come up with the ideas. I'm like, that's, yes, that's amazing. That's really, really cool. It's cool that you're having these ideas that make a lot of sense. Maybe our way is not going to be enough to, you know, use like a lever or a teeter totter to kind of lift this thing up. But hey, that's the foundation of an engineering mindset which I think was really cool. All right. But yeah, long story short, we got it all elevated and it's still in a state where it's like it's safe. They can still swing on it. But it's eight inches higher in the air and it's not going to flood the switch which is just what I wanted. I owe you one. You know who you are, yeah, who you want. In light of the season, I should have, I could have talked about this long time ago because this is now kind of old news. But I went to everybody who has put out all of the Halloween inflatables, all the Halloween decorations in the yard. The girls love it. Like we will go and walk specifically to go to certain houses that are literally a mile away. Like we'll go on a walk, they want to go and they see like this, this one house that hasn't inflatable where there's like this pumpkin and a skeleton like slowly rises out of the pumpkin and then slowly drops back into it. We'll walk all the way to see this guy. Or it's also right next to a family of blueie characters who are all dressed up in different things. And it's so fun. Like they love walking all these different houses to see these things. We go to a house that has like over the hill that has like one of those giant skeletons and then they have like another skeleton that looks really scary. Another one that's like, I mean, everyone's seen it. They're all over where it's like coming out of the ground and it's got it's like arm on the ground and it will like look at you and it'll blink if it's turned on. It's great. They love seeing that. Christmas is going to be just the same like walking to see all the lights. And the inflatables in their yards. We have two of them. We have a pumpkin, like a stack of pumpkins and they have like a mean side and a happy side. And then we have a ghost. And Gabby always says that this ghost turned around because she gets scared of it. But it's like this little ghost holding a Halloween thing and there's a Mickey and many at the top of the hill. They love walking up to see like a dress up Mickey and many. If you go over the hill, there's also another one that has like a Jack Skellington family with Sally and Zero and all that. There's so many different characters. It's really cool. And those don't come cheap. I looked it up, those giant skeletons, like 400 bucks at Home Depot. So cheers to all the people that are willing to spend that money to store a giant skeleton in their garage, which it's hard enough storing Christmas stuff all year. I can't imagine trying to just pack up a giant skeleton and store that. But 400 bucks and they usually have a giant dog which goes along with it and all that stuff. I get it, it adds up. And they're doing it just for the sake of other people like walking through and enjoying it. So to all those people, thank you, my girls. absolutely love them. and works out of a Christmas stuff. We're still enjoying the Halloween stuff. There's certain ones that we can't go to, 'cause it's a little too scary for gaps, but it's so much fun to see that. And this time of year seeing all those inflatables come up, and we've got some Christmas ones we're gonna put out, and they'll love that everybody's much, but we're thoroughly in, we're deep into the world of the Halloween inflatables right now, and they love it. All right, last but not least, and I gotta go see a patient. I'm running out of time. It's speaking of work actually. What I'm into this week, Sean's 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. Buckle up, it's time for Sean's, what are you into? So at work, we have this century gym, and there's all these different things you can do in it. There's ropes, like rope nets to climb, kind of like a pirate, there's rock walls, you can climb, there's slides, there's monkey bars, there's swings, there's like crash pits, and things you can crawl under and crawl over, and there's, I mentioned like every kind of swing, and hammock, there's, available, there's tons of stuff. And I'm always trying to come up with new ideas. And one of the new things that we just put in, and it's actually something that I had forever ago, and it didn't really work, and I finally brought it back and I fixed it, so it does work really well now. We have scooter boards that I just fixed the wheels on the work way better now. But I imagine like a scooter board that you would've had in like first, second grade and gym, where it's got wheels on the bottom, and you sit on the top, or you lay on the top, and you can paddle across the room. You sit on one of those, and then I have a bungee cord strung between two, like one side to wall and one side to post, and it's probably seven feet across. So you look at this bungee cord up with these hooks, and it's slowing across, so it's kind of like sitting at your chest level and you're sitting on a scooter board. You grab this bungee cord with two hands, and you can push it, and it pushes you away a little bit, and you can pull it, and over time, if you keep pushing and pulling it, kind of like you'd pump a swing, kind of like a rowing machine, really. You get the scooter board going back and forth, and like you get really going back and forth, and it's fun because you're accelerating, decelerating, switching directions, and you're going back and forth, harder than it looks. Takes a lot of core strength, it takes a lot of dynamic balance, takes a lot of motor coordination skills, and like a lot of kids have a hard time with it. We've had a couple of kids that go too hard, and they fall over backwards into their head, which isn't great. But we've kind of perfected that, and then what I'll do is I'll stand behind them, kind of off to the right or the left, and I'll hand them a beanbag, so they'll reach back, they'll grab a beanbag, they'll pull them so forward, kind of slingshot them so forward, and then throw this beanbag at these little towers we've built with little characters on the top, maybe Disney characters or Marvel characters, whatever it may be, and they've got to knock 'em all down. It makes a super fun game out of it. Every kid that comes through has loved it, as hard as it can be, as hard as it seemingly can be like to coordinate all these different things and to keep yourself on there and to not fall off and not go too fast, it's really cool. And the fact that this is what my job is is awesome, 'cause every hour when a new kid comes in, like we set it all up, and they climb on, and they go back and forth, and we throw beanbags at towers and crash 'em down as they're flying back and forth. It's really cool. And it's fun, now it's inspired me to try and think of other new things that we can add to this gym, because really, I mean, there's not a whole lot of limitations. I wanna add a zip line somehow in there, I wanna come up with something, maybe some other new ideas, where you maybe slide across things. I don't know, but that's what our job is. It's like trying to find cool, fun play-based ways of working on whether it be more to coordination skills or dynamic balance, or the self-regulation associated with it or the frustration tolerance. But there's a million things that you could frame and under as to what skills we're working on, but that's like our new thing right now that everyone's doing, and it's working out really, really good. I'm excited about it, it's been cool. And that's what I'm into. All right, that's all I've got, that's all I've got time for. Thank y'all for listening, I appreciate it so much, as always, I'm a Gabby sound bite on the way out. I think it's gonna be, I have a Gabby sound bite that I was gonna do before, and it was really, really quiet. And if I use that one, just, you might have to turn your radio up a little bit, you might gotta throw it back a little bit every night when she goes, or turn up your radio, whatever, I don't know what I just said. Every night when she goes to bed right now, like we're in a phase where she wants to hold either, Kendall's hand or my hand is like, we lay next to her and she falls quickly asleep, like she's still in a crib and like reach to the little slash and she's like, wanna hold your hand and we'll hold her hand until she falls asleep. I recorded her saying it one of the nights, so it's gonna be really quiet. She kinda whispers it, she might have to turn it up a little bit. But it's one of those things that, who knows, maybe it's not gonna matter to anybody else, but for me it's one of those ones but I'm so happy I captured because this is gonna be the sweetest thing 10 to 20 years from now because it is sweet and it's one of those memories that hopefully I'll never go away and then it's coming up. But anyways, thank you all for listening and we'll talk to y'all next week. Bye.