toilet paper Paul Revere

We reminisce about Y2K (fun times) and Brandon shares about the sisyphean task of teaching Greek mythology.

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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

PROVIDED BY OTTER.AI

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, record, talking, year, fine, good, thought, story, important, minutes, bad, staff member, class, cold war, gave, shuts, video, king midas, points, tinfoil

SPEAKERS

Collin, Brandon

Collin  00:04

Welcome to Oh, brother, a podcast of three brothers trying to figure it all. It's your host, Brandon, Colin, and Aaron. On this week's show, toilet paper, Paul Revere. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. It is a day.

Brandon  00:25

Oh, no. That's never good. No, it never is gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, if you haven't caught on by now in the Midwest as part of our ongoing criteria of how to define the Midwest, right? You say to somebody, how's your day? And they say, well, it was a day. I mean, it was horrible. Code for terrible. Right. That's a little decoding for you here. Yeah. Oh, nice. Thank you. abysmally bad.

Collin  01:00

abysmal and a half. I tried this whole week. So as far

Brandon  01:03

as our friendly neighborhood international audience Hello, hello. Hello,

Collin  01:07

Welcome. Welcome. The source and dictionary will be attached as an addendum to the showdown.

Brandon  01:12

It is ongoing, we're building it.

Collin  01:15

So if you get it's fine, it's fine. It's never finished. It's a constant refinement process. Now, in in, so peek behind the curtain here, I'm having to prepare to go cover some visits for a staff member who's leaving, it's going to be kind of tricky. Basically, I'm going to be gone all of the next month to get this accomplished. That means a lot of stuff has to get done. And there's a pivotal weekend is the weekend that we're going to be errands. So my transition into this is not as like a home and then like wedding and then like not home. And so and it just it also just so happened

Brandon  01:59

that this weekend, people were like, oh, like it's fine. There's

Collin  02:04

not gonna book nobody's gonna book any visit that we're all booking right now. We're out. We're all traveling, we're all doing the same time clock. So what this seriously on Monday, we woke up and we were like, Ah, nice, easy weekend. And then by Tuesday, we were like, we have room for no more. And then yesterday, we got, we got we got two more people booking and then today somebody was like, I gotta get out of jail because I got a family emergency. So I was just like,

Brandon  02:36

I'm just gonna take your dog with you. Right? It was

Collin  02:40

just, it was just an onslaught. And we went from like, nothing we hit me from our standard like two visits in the morning, two in the afternoon two in the evening, which kind of our dailies to my staff members are now working for like eight and a half hours straight. Nonstop, which is not fun. And like and I you know, I can't what I would normally happen is I would take over some of the overflow right and go down there but like Yeah, can't you're not going to be there. sans me right that's not not not what I can be there for. So just had to like that's been chaotic just trying to structure that and communicate that clients and blah blah blah and in with staff as well being like Hey, it's okay. Plus stress with like, we still have a pretty new staff member down there and their weekend went from to visit to what like nine and oh no all seven of them. The seven new ones are all brand new. Oh my goodness hands and normally I would be there to shadow and teach and show them I am having to put together some videos from my office to walk through what to expect and additional notes and help alright

Brandon  04:04

we'll video call them from the car I'll be extremely helpful the whole time don't worry about

Collin  04:09

well I'm if anything is like this past weekend like we had a staff member who showed up and like the lockbox wasn't working but they were entering the code for the alarm not the lockbox and that's 15 minutes and then we opened it up and the client had not put a key in the lockbox so then staff member had to drive to office to get key to come back to find it was like so I'm really hoping that like like even though it's busy it's one of those like every I hope everything goes well so trying to prepare for everybody getting them the notes getting them information. Meanwhile, it Megan and I two and a half months ago committed to we had somebody who reached out to us and like, Hey, I'm putting together this thing about talking about the pet care or industry. I'd love for you all to be guest speakers, you can do it live or record it. And we're like, well, we're going to record this. And they're like, great. Well,

Brandon  05:09

we kind of forgot about that. Say you haven't recorded it, however, you

Collin  05:13

haven't recorded it. And we really wanted to be together to do that. We didn't want to record it over zoom. Well, I'm disappearing for a month where we record and when I am home on the weekends, I don't want to be recording any of this one, though. So we sat down, and today, we were like, today is our recording day, the kids are at school. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to a record, our podcast episode for next week. We're to we're going to record this video about what people this person asked us to. And then we had also agreed more recently, like, before the person went of doing a training module about mistakes and things we've learned about onboarding clients or onboarding staff. So that also had to be a video. So today, we're gonna record all we had to record was a 30 minute episode, a 30 minute video for the VA about the pet care industry and then a 30 minute video about our onboarding process. And

Brandon  06:21

you guessed it did not take an hour and a half.

Collin  06:24

No. It was a recording day fail, like fail in the half our episodes like typically when we record like, like kind of scripted out and put bullet points and I have things to talk about. Just it. There may be a tiny bit more preparation than other podcasts in the world. I don't know a

Brandon  06:47

listen. extemporaneous podcasts are exciting. Okay. They are very, the tagline is literally, who knows what will happen? Okay. So I feel like it's on brand. It's okati.

Collin  06:58

That's mostly talking about us. And so I sat down, and we recorded for like, 45 minutes. And both Meg and I are like really stressed about getting all this done, and me leaving. And so we record for I think it was like 15 minutes. And I think we're gonna get about 35 minutes of audio out of that, I think, okay, great. That's done. And then we take a break, and we go and record this video. And both her and I are like, we've got notes, but it's a video. It's a video, right? So I'm recording my video, I have a boom mic that we got. And we're in the corner and I've got video settings and I've got a tripod and everything set up and lighting in the office. And we record it and we're like, Okay, that was that was kind of manic make it relate to her said she would that video is a vibe. That's a that's definitely it's one way to do it. Okay. And then we, we go to lunch, we come back, and we go. Well, let's record the module for for onboarding. And we record that or like, oh, well, we got a little bit more time because that that, that ended up taking us about 45 minutes to get done for our 30 minute video. And we got a little bit more time before we can run and get the kids picked up from school. Let's record this video really quick. The firt the second one about the pet care industry. Oh, we sat we record it. I was like, that was amazing. We hit 40 minutes of recording time with like a minute off whatever, like it was good. I jump up, I come around something bad. And the camera goes, failed to save now and it says failed to save to camera roll. But don't worry, it's saved in the files. You can export it by plugging into your computer. And I was like it didn't it save the first seven minutes. And so we go okay, do we splice this on to the old one? And or do we record a brand new one.

Brandon  09:10

And she and I were like,

Collin  09:13

we don't feel like that first recording is our best. Like it is not a good representation of us. We've

Brandon  09:18

gone or fortunately, the best is now gone. So then we went. We're going to record again, and record again.

Collin  09:26

So I get the whole studio set back up. We slam it together. I grabbed my phone it is at because I have been using it for recording these videos and like we've been going nonstop all day. It's at like 30% and that's after I had charged it back up to 70. And the second time I had recorded my phone went from 73% to 5% over the course of recording that video because I can't because I'm using an external mic with it. I can't charge it. Yeah, so it's sucking extra power, extra battery and all that stuff. And I'm like okay, that's fine. I've got So I've got this little splitter and I'm going to split it and I'm going to plug it into an external battery and the microphone and blah, blah, turn on. And it shows it's charging. I run around, we set we play, we record the nail 40 minutes for like, dang, that was sweet, perfect to come around, and my phone is dead. And it's because I want to use the back camera for the phone, not the selfie camera because the selfie camera is garbage. Right? And this is going out. And this is going to be part of somebody's like package, thing, package and curriculum and thing and I want it to look good for them. I don't want to send them junk. So tomorrow we're going to rerecord

Brandon  10:46

why you shouldn't matter. So here's a little another like anytime that we have people do that for like school for like, professional development days and stuff. Anytime they do that and send us things. They, they send it. Like they recorded it on their laptop camera from 1997. Right. It's just horrible. And they're all like, can everybody see like, No, I can't I can't it doesn't matter though. Just keep talking and whatever. But like it did one at the beginning of the year was like, What is this? What is going on? So don't feel bad. That's okay.

Collin  11:27

I know. And I just mean, I'm trying not to be a perfectionist about this. But at the same time, I want

Brandon  11:34

to make sure that you are well. Yeah, so I can't help it. Right. It's you have to embrace it. Right. You just have to. You can't deny it. You can't want it yourself. Colin. I like

Collin  11:45

you know, and we have all of the stuff to do it. I just like oh my gosh, like it was like my phone was just like no, doing this getting it to

Brandon  11:52

work properly is like so annoying. Exactly.

Collin  11:55

Exactly. And so And because it's video, I personally like I'm awful at video. I don't like doing video because I can't stop chop things up. Rerecord go back over as easily as you can with

Brandon  12:10

the audio, it's hard to do that to make it consistent. Right? Right.

Collin  12:14

It really takes a purse somebody to do it really, really well. And then like you who are being shot by the video, have to put your hands in the same place and reset and like remember where you messed up and keep like it just so anyway, it's a whole thing. And we're gonna get this recorded. But like, my goodness, it's just exhausting. And when I sat down and was like, What did I actually do today? I did hardly anything.

Brandon  12:44

Now that's not for lack of trying, because you tried to record it three times and various exciting circumstances. It didn't work. But that doesn't mean you didn't

Collin  12:56

do well. And then and then I was reminded of like, well, basically, we did three extemporaneous speeches. One of them we've done three times. Right. So we spoke for what's that? 123 You know, like, one to two and a half hours, three hours today?

Brandon  13:15

Like, that's a lot of speaking. And trying about it,

Collin  13:20

man trying to be in right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You being in front of children. Like, you have to be engaging because it's video you have to, you know, be like, be on. So, that's, that was today, right? And then we're just we're continuing to stare down at this. Like, there's so my tomorrow list just went of all this other stuff. And it's like, well, well, Hillary, here we go.

Brandon  13:51

But, you know, it's,

Collin  13:53

it's gonna, it's gonna be gonna be part of it.

Brandon  13:57

i Yeah,

Collin  13:59

it's gonna be okay. But I was just Yeah, it'd be fine. It was so tired. I was so tired, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like, especially when you like look at my calendar for today. And I just, I even allocated an hour for each of those three recordings. And I'm just like, No. It didn't work. It didn't work. Didn't work. But it's okay. So now I've got videos to edit. Because even though I said,

Brandon  14:30

we're not going to edit these videos, I'm going to edit so with a little bit

Collin  14:43

of editing, it's going to be fine.

14:46

So that's

Collin  14:48

that's what that's what today was. wasn't all about. Recording day fail, but not failure. It was just didn't pan out the way we're going to we were not quite

Brandon  14:59

as triumphant as you'd hoped for will not be building any arches in Paris for years.

Collin  15:07

No no or just maybe maybe half maybe like one just one little baby

Brandon  15:11

inside America Lego arch guys. S will be fine with me. Okay your story triggered side thought right very random site and we'll come back to whatever you want to do next but oh you're fine with I found one of those other words that triggers things in my brain when you were speaking oh that word is of course. lockbox for the eye it is for some strange reason that is very strongly burned into my brain in association with like the 2000 elections gets from Saturday Night Live that's like talking about like It's like allegory w in the debate lockbox Edward W like teacherI yeah

Collin  16:05

oh my gosh.

Brandon  16:06

Since memory ads it's just like etched into my brain.

Collin  16:10

Oh my gosh, that was terrible what that was a time wasn't it? That was

Brandon  16:17

such a it was a it was like the last time I actually watched it live so there's that but like oh yes.

16:26

I'm going to be throwing in a clip there from that there was a man do you remember that? Those were so funny like that was that was great I remember seeing the lockbox

Brandon  16:42

like presidential debate thing

Collin  16:43

Yeah. Strategic every day oh my gosh

Brandon  16:54

got sorry. To share my random brain my brain just like triggered I think it was like ah, what

Collin  17:02

do you remember? It was about that same time there was a oh what was it it was it was a mad I need to find this video is out there. Where it was about it was this exact same time? I was like mad gab or mad lab or something like that. So it was like bad vibe. And I was a song I don't know. Between George W Bush and Al Gore singing this land was made for you and me but like Al Gore says line of like you can't say nuclear that really scares me sometimes. And then Israeli and yes I want three Purple Hearts. Let's land was i

Brandon  17:46

i do remember this.

Collin  17:47

Oh my Wow. Right like I probably watched that about 1000 Dots Oh my goodness. So

Brandon  18:02

I don't know what that was but I do remember that funny enough to do

Collin  18:08

some internet sleuthing for that for sure. Yeah, I had oh man I wish I need to write these down. I haven't pocket notebook for this exact reasons. But just this week, I'm gonna have to think about that. It's not going to come to me right now but I had one of those things of like, what the where I said a word or Megan said a word and I just kept saying in my brain something just kept popping up right behind it now. Like I can't turn that off like

Brandon  18:36

it's it's Yeah, I had another one of those earlier this week as well. But it just this one just showed up right now whenever he said that the thing about the the weirdness that was decided I live between Al Gore and George.

Collin  18:52

Oh, yeah, yeah. Speaking of that, that's such a weird time capsule. They're like, really the

Brandon  18:59

is right. I feel like they owe it like, I don't know. Again. That's like the time I stopped watching signing that live. But like the Presidential things are always like really funny up until at least that point. I really can't I have no idea about afterwards. Because they didn't watch them. So I have no opinion whatsoever after circa 2000. Really, but

Collin  19:21

not surprisingly, our our last cultural touch point with something was the late

Brandon  19:28

y2k. That's a little problematic, right? I'm so culturally out of touch that. Oh, y2k is my last milestone. Oh, my dad's

Collin  19:38

the the meme that you said, I remember turn your computer off before midnight.

Brandon  19:47

I thought, I don't know. Hi, Jai. I literally died as always guys. I don't

Collin  19:55

know how to appropriately or if there is a way of appropriate It'll be capturing just the intense the intensity of that as a cultural phenomenon of of a time. But that the, where it really really was like, technology is about to implode, and our civilization as we know it will cease to exist. And there's nothing we can do about this. And just like run for the hills kind of thing. Yeah. It was, it was so. So. And I remember at the time, like not being really freaked out, I wasn't freaked out about it. But it was very aware of it. And I don't I don't know. Yeah, go ahead.

Brandon  20:46

Yeah, I was thinking, like, for looking like, so I was the same way. Right? I would have been like a freshman. So like, you know, my brain was like, barely functioning at that point anyway. But I, I remember feeling the same way. Like, oh, yeah, you know, whatever. Like, I don't really believe this. This is like, whatever thing, but looking back now, like with the ability to look back, and kind of like, look at a lot of that time period as a whole. Right? What it feels like to me. Is that, like, it's like a last vestige of Cold War thought, but like, eight years, right? It really feels very cold war to me, when I think about this, and it makes sense, because all of that like adulty people that were handling all this stuff that they would have been, they would have lived through all of that. You know what I mean? They would have had to deal with all that. So those, those thoughts are not new to them. Really, right. These are sort of ingrained thoughts from growing up of like, oh my gosh, the world is literally ending at any moment. Because for like, 60 years, the world could have literally ended at any moment. So you know, there's that feels really like cold were asking me like this whole, like, panic. And it was, it was insane. Right? Like, it was actually crazy, right? People like nothing in grocery stores. Right? People buying like the most random stuff ever. Right? Like, just the weeks and months leading up to this, like, oh, my gosh, this is it. Right? This is Prince was right, you better party. Like it's 9099 Because there's literally nothing else after this. Right? It's just gonna be post apocalyptic. wasteland, is everything that you own will just shut down. Because we don't have enough zeros in our power grid system. Right? Like, Oh, no. And maybe the funniest thing about all of this, right? It was just like, the thing that like, encapsulates it for me like this panic, like this huge, like months long panic. Right? Where everybody had an opinion, and everything was going to happen. And then, like, weirdly differently from nowadays, right, because we have month long panics all the time now, and everyone's just sort of like, emotionally dead to it. And it doesn't really matter. Like, there was a day. This one had a timeline. Oh, there was a time, right, like 1159. That is the deadline. Like nowadays, a panic is just like, some obscure number, like it's over when people get bored of talking about it, right. But there was a timeline. And the most like, ironically, funny part to me is that the payoff, the only payoff that I saw for any of this, was that the math blasters date said 1900 When we logged onto it the next time I was like, It's 1900 I was like, this is hysterical. Like, I'm gonna look math last year's cope just fine. They didn't go oh my gosh, I was they didn't have a existential crisis saying but I was not invented it 100 Oh my gosh, how can I cope with my life now?

Collin  24:40

That was really, that was really the unknown right. So this this it goes back to what them the not encoding a large enough storage segment for the date code. Incomplete. Yeah. And I can't remember what date it was. Well, I think it was just they just stored it was like a two digit code of like, because it was in The 50s, or whatever they started this in memory was really bad. This is minus and what I remember this, they were just storing it as 5253 5455. Because it was always assumed to be 1900. And nobody, nobody thought that they were going to have to add more to those. And although that's how long these computer programs stick around, and it just becomes part of, Oh, when I code this, I can save space and just make it two digits. But then people started to see you and realize going, but what happens when it goes back to zero? And well, and I think

Brandon  25:28

part of it, too, is like, so there if we think about like, when you encode things with like bits, right? And because this is this is early times, listeners from 2023. We're talking about, like bits, not like gigabytes, terabytes megabyte, like bytes, like, right, listen, tiny, these numbers are like, laughably tiny. Nowadays, we have a huge processing power, like, so. So the reason that like, oh, like, if we think about like, original arcade video games, right? The reason that there's an end to these, like, procedurally generated levels, is just because they run out a bit storage. Buy, like, some of these are like Donkey Kong, like, famously like, there's not an in like, there's like, you can play it until like, it just stops working.

26:23

Right? Because the number of legs only like four ones and zeros to like, take up space. And when you get to the all full, it can't flip over. Right? I

Brandon  26:39

can't flip over because there's not five place values. Like this is very simplified how it works, right. But let's say there's just four place value places. And when you do these ones and zeros when you're only talking binary, right? When you counted binary, it works strangely, but you just keep adding a space, right, and your place value keeps growing. But when you design your program to have a certain amount of place values, when it gets to the end, it just shuts down. Because it can't do anything like it can't function because it's designed to just go to the next one. And there is no next one. So it just stops, it just turns off. And that is kind of what they were facing with this. Like it was coated on such load grade technology that there was actually not enough, like place values for it to flip to the that 2000 Because in binary that's like a whole other set. Right? That's a whole other like power of two place value that you need. That didn't exist. It was not there. Yeah, it was like the hard limit was reached, like the physical memory storage was it and so like sometimes, when that happens, the program just like you know, it just keeps repeating the last thing and it's whatever, but sometimes like a Donkey Kong, the game just turns off, because it shuts down. It doesn't have enough memory to Yeah, continue processing that they can't figure out what to do next. So it just shuts down. And they were worried about that

Collin  28:13

it's gonna happen to banks. And yeah,

Brandon  28:16

nucular silos and like just crazy stuff, like everything will turn out power stations, right, like it'll. Yeah.

Collin  28:24

And then we do, and then we do what and you're right, like just, and I remember the news of that time of the talking about how corporations were scrambling to add patches and whole industries popped up around of consultants coming in and guiding people on how to do those upgrades. And, I mean, it was a big business to get all that done. I even though I wasn't freaked out about this, because it wasn't that well, but like watching this was just like, Ha, like, well, that's a lot going on. I just remember it like it was just hysterical, about what's going on in all of the talking heads of going, this is the end, the end is nigh. And then there were the ones going no, this isn't that bad. And it was just back and forth. And it was really just this extreme, anticipatory nature to this of you likening it to the last vestiges of the Cold War is is really apropos because it's it is this with it, there is a countdown to this. And at any moment, it could go off, but we knew what it was going to go off. So we all were just kind of waiting and holding our breath going.

Brandon  29:34

Is it is it is it and you know, listeners can assume

Collin  29:39

that it wasn't.

Brandon  29:42

Yes, right. Like I do remember that, like whatever you're watching declerck up there, right. There was a sense there was just a little bit of like, trepidation like in the because you know, the balls drop in. Here's Dick Clark, you know, and you're just like What is gonna happen in five seconds in that ball? Yeah ground like why? Like, and I think there was kind of this weird like, collective exhale when like everybody's televisions were still on. Right? Like, you appear to be still alive, right? I go. I go I didn't. Yeah, because even though even though you're just like, man, everything's fine. They're overreacting. You're still kind of like baby outcase School scoot over. Yeah. I do remember that being like, even though the whole time I was like guys, you're overreacting like majorly still on New Year's I was kind of like all right, it's fine. It's good. Glad I have that

Collin  31:00

Faraday cage back when everything starts going off.

Brandon  31:06

Right? Oh, no. I know. I just remember that. Like the news reports about like, the grocery stores and like the crazy stuff people are buying like 8 billion bags of like charcoal and like, propane forever, right? It's like the Midwest when ice storm was coming. But like, magnified by like, 100. Right? It was kind of like that?

Collin  31:28

Well, because all of a sudden, everybody was going well, I guess I need a little bit extra and then going well, but how long do is this going to happen? So maybe I should have a little bit of extra and then just it kept perpetuating off. Right. And then just as the hysteria that we saw during COVID in the toilet paper,

Brandon  31:44

I was just thinking like that we've seen this relatively recently, right? Like with just like random stuff being gone. During the pandemic, right? Like the, like, randomly, like, all grocery stores everywhere. Were just like, out of like, green beans. Yeah, what, what, why? Why? And it's just because, you know, people that were like, normally buy two cans were like, maybe I'll buy for, you know, just in case, right? Like, well, you know, and if everybody's doing that, like just weird stuff starts like just going away. And it's always stuff that you like, because that was the weird thing about going to store right? That's like, the most random stuff would be gone. Forever. Like toilet paper. I understand Kleenex is I understand medicine. I understand. lima beans. What? Like, I don't know.

Collin  32:30

What kind of obviously what do people do they go, oh, there's not as many on the shelves? Well, I should probably I don't know if there's gonna be more tomorrow. I should go ahead and grab a few extra and then the next person that comes along goes wow, the shelves are really bad. And it just it has this cascading effect this positive Yeah, feedback loop of there's a basic it was like, if everyone would just stop buying something real quick. We'll actually put the the extra cans that are just sitting in the back and then you won't you would never have known

Brandon  32:59

because they're back there. Yeah, but we just don't have time to get them out there. Because our you know, staff is working and doing other things right. And so like,

Collin  33:05

or like the toilet paper, it was like coming like it's on a truck. Like it'll be there in a minute. Just like, stop. Hold on. But instead and my goodness, could you imagine y2k in the day with today like with all the social media?

Brandon  33:23

Gosh, y2k with Twitter be the absolute worst thing ever. We're lucky that y2k was like bad internet blogs and like AOL Instant Messenger, right? That's it, your yahoo email, and random internet message boards. Name, right? With Twitter, oh, my gosh, be the absolute worst thing of all time. Like it would have just like, X explore pretty well, and

Collin  33:57

I'm just thinking of the I saw him on our community Facebook pages of, hey, he was just at the grocery store. And this is a photo of what the shelves look like better get out and shop before bla bla bla bla bla, like, people were actually posting that kind of stuff. And people and then people would comment, and they'd be like, I'm leaving work now or here. I'm going to like, whoa, whoa, like, just, it just drove the hysteria even more.

Brandon  34:22

And that's really, that's one of those terrible examples of like, because that, like, this is an example like those people. They genuinely thought they were helping other people. Right? They like actually believed that they're being helpful. And what you're doing is making everything worse for everybody. But they didn't realize that. And I imagine if you told them that today, if they're listening this right now, they won't believe me. They'll say that I'm wrong. Right? Because their belief is so strong in themselves that they were doing the right thing to help people But actually, they were just making everything worse.

Collin  35:04

Yep, they thought they were being the bearer the Herald of the oncoming Doom, because everyone wants to be known as the person who let everybody know first and who rang? Who was the Paul Revere of the British are coming, right? Yes. You're not.

Brandon  35:19

You're not the toilet paper Paul Revere. Okay, calm down. Oh, my guess Yeah,

Collin  35:23

yeah, you're not. But everyone feels like thanks. My next short story, by the way. I'm currently asking chat TBT to write me a story

Brandon  35:35

maezumi better bet it'll be.

Collin  35:41

But yes, it was. It feeds that very much into this that psyche and, and they do want to, to have that. That ability. And I think this little bit of power, so to speak, but I can't imagine because it was stressful enough through the COVID. And me, I mean, even when, like, you could logically sit there and go, that nothing's wrong. Nothing's wrong. But when you get ping after paying, or you see post after post, or you see these things coming up, you still start to have that same thing that happened in y2k as the balls dropping, 543 going, Well, I think it's gonna be fine. But also, like, maybe I should run to the store just real quick, just.

Brandon  36:25

Yeah. Right. Like, there's just enough uncertainty for you to be like, you can't quite convince yourself that like, 100% that it's fine, right? Like, the percentage is pretty high. It's like 97 But like, still, like move Oh my goodness. Yeah. And that's,

Collin  36:57

and like you said, Now when we've got the, the end of the world and every other week is this level of catastrophe and, and global doomsday. You do? It. I don't know, like, people do become numb to it. But also, like, what, what other kinds of implications or impacts does that have on a person's psyche? To be at that level? Like, that? Can't be good, right? Like, that's not

Brandon  37:26

Oh, and it feels like we've been that way basically since y2k, right maybe that's me being like self aware at that time. And like when I was younger, I didn't really notice things but like, I just sort of feels like that all the time. Because we had y2k and then the Gulf War Part 75. Right. And you know, did 911 I love it, like all this like just sanity like it just like didn't stop and

Collin  37:56

and that to have like, with the with the y2k of like, great, we survived that. Here's a great mix of wonderful decade ahead. Because, you know, we were finding that was a pretty, you know, really was the last vestiges of Cold War influence. And so, I mean, I say that now, knowing full well that many people are still in spots of power who like really love the Cold War? That was like their favorite that's true.

Brandon  38:20

I wonder what their name rhymes with does it rhyme with scootin? Maybe right, we see that don't know a certain someone whose name rhymes with scootin definitely likes that cold war mentality as we have seen for what a year and a bit now about power grabs in Ukraine, right? This is a very cold war attitude, like, you know this. This is a cold word behavior from that person. Whose name that I can't remember but I'm pretty sure it rhymes with scootin

Collin  39:04

with anything at all

Brandon  39:06

it's Yeah, nothing I'm trying to blank here so weird right

Collin  39:08

anyway anyway, but like 2000s they were off to a great start. How did we name them? Were they the double lots? Were they just 2000s like who is like who knew? And then

Brandon  39:18

that was the next controversy. What year is it even

Collin  39:20

how to remember that? Oh my gosh, I remember there's the most fractured garbage of all time show like how

Brandon  39:26

do we refer to this new decade? Like who now by not caring about it? Like what are you talking about?

Collin  39:32

Exactly. I'm don't care. And then one year later, and half and some change, a global terrorist attack like worst thing and then that really just set it off like to the since then, like you're right. Like it was like boom, boom, and then it's just been ever since with all sorts of stuff that was not. I mean, it really does start to I feel like not Okay, put on your tinfoil hats, everybody, here we go, we're going to know but that being plugged in at that level really does impact how you interact with news in the world. How you view what your what your thoughts are about the future, and, and really hate how you just take it and process that information.

Brandon  40:22

Yeah, I mean, it's when you hear all these things like people talking about, like, all these, you know, kind of goes with that Newt like there's news headlines every day as well. Like, why are millennials so burned out? Like, Gee, I wonder who could know? Like, come on, like, really that difficult for you to understand? Like, it's nothing but global global catastrophes for 23 years? I don't really know what you want from me. Yeah. Non stop. The sky is falling literally every day. So I don't really know. Like, why you're so cool about it. But like I'm a bit frazzled. Okay? Yeah, it is very, very odd. Right? There is some tinfoil to be had there, right of like, you know, some weirdness about that, right? We could see that from like, those, like really mysterious reports of like, oh, my gosh, there's a global oil shortage in a fuel crisis. And what's that? British Petroleum made its highest profits ever last year? Like, wait a minute. Those two sentences don't go together? What are you talking? Like? Hold on a minute here. I think I'm being had, like there is, you know, the tinfoil is not super far off in a couple of those places. But like, again, it's hard to know which ones actually are tinfoil worthy. Which ones is like, whatever. That's not a big deal. But some of them are actually like, ah, that's weird. Well, then I heard you make that much of a profit when the whole world was shut down. That doesn't make any sense to me. What's going on here?

Collin  42:20

Well, then I sit there and I think, okay, what are you trying to desensitize me to? Like? What? What? What? wanting me to get to the point where I just don't care anymore?

Brandon  42:32

You know, pretty much. Yeah. I'll just go over here and

Collin  42:41

do this thing anyway, to show you how it's from one millennium to the next. How did the debates go?

Brandon  42:57

They went great. Testing really good. i We finished them on Monday. Right. And so today, I told them the final scores of the what they did, right, and I didn't tell them what the tallies finally were. Right. So the breakdown was I gave them points for did you have visual aids? You got points for that. Right. And when I say points, I literally mean tally marks, right? Just keep valleys. Right. Where are you? Like, if you just in general, were like, speaking, like, well, like if you were kind of like just being loud enough for like appropriate speaking voices, like points for that. Right? points for, like, just like big, impactful statements. Like, you know, like when they say something that makes you go Oh, yeah. And like, points for having facts in your argument. So anytime you said a fact. Damn. Right. So you want to say the true things have mic drop moments and lots of cool things? Yes. Okay. Now, because the problem came when some of them had like funny mic drop moments, but there was no facts anywhere. It was like no facts to be no facts. Facts to be found, right there. Like, Oh, that's funny thing to say. Like, yeah, but um, is it true? Like, we're gonna make sure. So I gave him today I gave him the breakdown of like, because I split every class in half, and half was team Athens and the other half was team Sparta. Yeah. Right. So I gave them the breakdown of her class, right? I did. Like, within that half, they broke into subsections. Where one team one like subgroup, subcommittee, right. Had to talk about the government of each one. So I had to like tell how and they did a really good job of talking about like the different ways that Athens as part of like, make laws and who was allowed to vote and Alas, So that was they did a really good job. One was about citizenship. Right? So they could talk about the rights of the citizens who got to be a citizen. Right? And this is where they threw a lot of shade. Like, what you don't even let women do stuff like, right? Like, oh, we'll take that sucker, right? Like, yeah, but you have a dry population of slaves. What is that about? Like? Don't look

Collin  45:24

over there, it's fine, right? Anyway, back to you.

Brandon  45:28

And then the other one was just values, which was just kind of like miscellaneous stuff that was important, right? So those are the subcategories. So I gave him the breakdown of like, every class was like, the government scored this, the citizenship scored this and that for that. So each class had a winner, right? And then I gave them the breakdown for the whole sixth grade. Right. So I gave them, I gave them the breakdowns of all the other classes and set like, here is who, like out of all the government for Athens in the whole sixth grade. Here's what they scored. And here's the whole government for all of Sparta in the whole subgrade. Right. So that was there like that, too, I think the breakdown. And it was super close. There was a couple rounds where like, the score was literally tied. Right? Oh, wow. They had such good, like, arguments are good. And like I scored the same for both teams. Because they had good facts. It's that like, so when I looked at it, I was like, oh, that's, that's the same. And there was a couple categories were like, one team, like, quote, one, but it was like a one point margin. Right. So there was a couple there were really close. So it was really good. So I was good by Team Athens one overall. Right? But again, not by a lot, like by just like a little bit. So if you're good team assets, okay, how do they take the the when are they have gracefully, you know, as a 12 year old does with victory, just except with grace and decorum? Uh huh. And dancing and chatting. Yeah, you know, basically the

Collin  47:08

perfect, you know, as I was expecting, yeah, on brand.

Brandon  47:16

Go. Today, we introduce the next one, which is the Greek myth storytime. Hi, yes, signing. So, like, I think I mentioned this before, but like, throughout the year, we talked about certain things like I just spend, there'll be like the whole class, but I get my class periods in the afternoon or like 25 minutes. So it's not like, when I say class period, I'm not talking like a whole hour here. Yeah. Where I just like, or rate the story to them. Right. Like, as a, you know, this is a very Greek thing to do, like storytelling, verbally, oral sharing, right? This is like a Greek thing. So I tell them the story of like, Decius in the Minotaur? You know, like, we talked about that one. That's a good one. We talk about the, we talked about the Minoans, right, because Crete Minoans, that's what that story is based on, so I do that. I tell them the story of the Trojan War. So like, the very, very cliffnotes version of the Iliad, right, like, we should get that. Get that in there. Wow. Okay. It's very good. I like that one. I think it was hilarious because I have a big no, I have I had to make no cards for that one, like, and then this guy's name is right. And then he fights. Let me check notes. Hector, right. Okay. And then we go but they liked that because they had read about it a little bit in like, English class, or like one of their reading or writing assignments. Sure. They read like a little bit about the Trojan War. So good to hear they like gains here, like more detail about it. So this one I gave up, there's a list of myths, like mythological stories, and now it's their turn to tell them to the class, so they're gonna have a partner and they can tell the class so they can either like, how they do it is kind of vague on purpose, right? Like, they can just like, do like a normal presentation and just like, have some pictures and just like tell it, right? They can be more theatrical and like, tell the story, right? Or they can act it out and Okay, always, always a bonus when they do the act. It gets always so good, right? Obviously, but they have some choices like Perseus and Medusa. Right, like the story of like somebody's doing like Persephone and Hades, right? It's a good one. The one that's like, like Daedalus and Icarus, right, the classic King Midas, you know, these like very classic important and I told him like, some of these are really simple According to because when I said King Midas, some of you knew what that meant. Right? And even if it was only because they had an event in fortnight about King Midas right, the reason that they did that is because of this story. And so like right? That's right. Believe me, that's a very distressing sentence to have to say out loud. Okay, I understand, but like this.

Collin  50:26

So I'm sorry, do that.

Brandon  50:30

But the reason that you know, this is probably this myth. So like learning about the myth is just kind of important because a lot of Western writing is still very, like the allusions, right? If we talk about allusions in, like, figurative language, right, that is a lot of that is very Greek still. So Daedalus, and Icarus is an important story to know about. Medusa is an important story to know about. Like narcissist, it's an important story to know about, because we have whole words in the language based on this, right, like the story of Iraqi, that is important, because we have the word arachnid, because of that story, right? Like, those are connected to this like, vernacular, and like, words that we use are connected to these things. From that way, right like Pandora's box, right? This is, people just know what that is. Right? When you talk about things, like they'll be like, oh, yeah, like opening Pandora's box and steal your is still a thing that you know, about 1000s of years later, this is, yeah, it's in your flexography that you are saying and alluding to something in conversation. So we just talked about that. So that's the next one. It's always really funny. Right? I did it last year for the first time. And so it was it was hilarious. They did really good last year. So I'm hoping these guys do, too. Because it'd be good. Yeah, I think having that connection to the past is

Collin  52:00

extremely beneficial, right? It really helps you see yourself in the long line of tradition and the inhumanity as well to be able to read back No, this isn't just a word, right? Like, there, this isn't just a phrase, or this isn't just a person. But there is something very deep here that is connecting us across this. And I know that's probably a little bit more romantic in that in that capacity. But I mean, that's that's what that process is doing.

Brandon  52:30

Well, I mean, that's okay. Because like that, that like idea that you're like, is actually very physically connected to someone 2000 years ago, like that, that thought process is like that, like romantic way to think about like, that makes sense to a 12 year old, right? Because they do they can grasp that like, oh, wow, that's like a direct. That's a good very direct thing. Sure, right, like all this other stuff, or like building roads and blah, blah, whatever. But like this word origin, or this idea that I actually know about, I didn't know why I knew about it. I didn't know where it came from. Right. Like, you know, some people like they didn't know the name of Sisyphus, but when I said the boulder pushing guy, they were like, oh, yeah, I know. Right. Like, you know, like, I know people don't really use Sisyphean in like modern lexicon but that is a word that is used to describe like a very daunting, seemingly impossible thing, right? And that is directly from this story. Right? Of against Zeus just being actual worse and just punishing people randomly. Right like Prometheus, right? Like, I'm just how about up giant buzzard eat your liver every day? Yay. Like, what? What's What did you come up with this stuff? Man? What's going on?

54:01

So we started that. So what?

Collin  54:06

What are you and what what? Which one? Are you starting on again?

54:10

I mean, oh,

Collin  54:12

do you have a certain story or tale that you that you start with that you like, isn't as an introduction?

Brandon  54:17

No, no, no, they they get to pick from the list. And that's Oh, they choose from right. So you can choose? They are choosing one from the menu and telling whichever one they like. Right,

Collin  54:29

I'm tracking with you know, okay. Yeah.

Brandon  54:31

So the these images that are on the menu, so today, I kind of gave him like a brief rundown of what some of these things were so they could know which one they were interested in and wanted to read more about. So I gotcha. Yeah. So I have it's like a menu and they basically say, Okay, I wouldn't do that one. Okay, cool. So, tell me how and all that stuff. So. Yeah, so instead of Storytime with Mr. Funkhouser? It's Storytime with the class? Oh, yes. Yep. See what happens.

55:07

You mentioned Oh, my goodness, my throat is starting to close up. This is weird. But you mentioned your rubric. And I did want to ask, that's always something that's hard for me to decide not just like, well, how to put a good rubric together? I know, it's

Collin  55:25

kind of probably a weird question. But I'm curious how you go about deciding like, what, what did you What did you know you want it to tally for for that rubric? Because that, you know, it's what you did when you said, Okay, this is what, here's the task of doing before us? How do you go about deciding? What What am I going to focus on? For each of these in I want to see what the students actually do.

Brandon  55:49

So, like, I always think about, like, what is the end result? Need to be? Right? I sort of think about it backwards. I think about what should the end result be? Like, what do I want? And then I have to think about, okay, what then then I back up a step and say, okay, so what do they have to do to get there? Right, like, what information do I want at the end? And then we sort of backtrack from there and say, okay, in order to get to that information, what do they have to do along the way to get there? So like, when I was talking about effort, as far as the debate, one goes, like, a good, like, just how does the debate work? Right? So well, a debate works, you have to have facts, right? You have to have strong statements, because it's an oral argument, right? You have to do this. And you have to, you know, visuals are nice for things like that. So I just sort of worked backwards and said, Okay, well, what does it What does I want the end product to be? And then I kind of think about what I need to get there. Right? So another example is on suicide, I think we did a severe weather presentation in science right? A while ago. And so I thought, like, Okay, what, what, what's the most important things to do? Right? And so then we say, Okay, I want the end to be this, or that the air pollution wouldn't be better, right? It's a little shorter, so that we didn't want about pollution. And so I said, Okay, we're talking about all this pollution in the atmosphere. I, am I, here's what I want you to know, I want this presentation to say these things. I want you to tell me like, What is the pollution that you're talking about? Okay, because there's lots different kinds. So focus on one, because I want you to focus on one singular thing, because if we are trying to talk about pollution, but you're talking about multiple different kinds at the same time, it will get confusing and not make sense. Right? Right. So focus on one. And so from that, I then moved backwards and said, okay, here are the choices, you can have to do that. Right? Because they need some direction to start. So I know that I can't really normally just say, like, do this go. Because they are 12. And they need direction. Right? They need a starting place. So I have to say choose from this list. And then go from there. Right? And then once they do that, I need to know like, okay, if I'm talking about pollution, I need to know where it comes from. Right? So if we're talking about carbon dioxide pollution, tell me a source of carbon dioxide pollution. There's like a million, right. Tell me one. Does it come from forest decay and stuff like that? Does it come from car exhaust? Are you talking specifically about, like factory exhaust like coal production like what we're talking about? And then what effect does that specific thing have on the environment? Right? What happens if there's too much carbon? What happens if there's too much sulfur oxides, right? What happens if there's too much methane? This the answer to these questions are different sometimes. Right? So tell me that. And then the last one, because we want to be critical and think about this thing? Like, what is a solution? Right? What is a fix? What's something people are doing to help that problem? Right, tell us about that. Because again, we want solutions. We want to think about ways to do that. So what fix it. And then so that thought process that's my four things I want that's my rubric is based on those four things, type of pollution, where it comes from What happens when it's in the atmosphere? How do you fix it? That's what I do. And those are my four big points, I tell them that these are what you need in your presentation. Here's your examples. Go from there. Right? So I think I always start and I start with the end goal. And then I work backwards. Because that just makes sense to me. Right? Like, I know what I want the end product to look like. So how do we get there? Because otherwise you miss some steps, like, you know, giving them the menu choice. It's very helpful. I find, right like, in every presentation, I don't know. I'm not going to say in every presentation, I do that, because I can't remember off the top of my head, but in a lot of them, I'll do that in some capacity, right? I'll give them like, a resource, or some place to start, or some list of choose from this list or something like that, so that they don't just feel overwhelmed, right? Because like another example, when we did the like, Gods one, like the Greek gods presentation, there's only like, a billion Greek gods, right? Yeah. So like, I'm not gonna tell you like, tell me about some Greek gods, because they don't know how to find they like they don't know who they are or what they are, where they come. So I make sure that they have a for that one, I made sure to link the website, or to the hat here is a website that has information about the most important ones, the biggest ones that ones you're most likely to hear about.

1:01:41

And so start there, from those lists. Take your two. Gotcha. And then go from there. Right. That's very helpful to give them like a, some kind of starting point. already. Right.

Brandon  1:01:55

Here's a starting point. Even if it's just a list, it was like the severe weather one, like pick one of these types of weather. Go, right. Well, I think and then it's like, okay, well go ahead Oh, no, I didn't do that Yes. He's totally Pinnacle time. Okay. Ah, I That

Collin  1:02:54

was so weird. Okay. Well, I was gonna say, I obviously, that, starting with the end in mind, I love how you, you started with that really? Going like that, that really helps guide all of that. Like, basically, like we said, like, what's the big takeaway for this? Like, what is the key aspect that they need to walk away from this with? And then importantly, you have to tell them about that. And I've been thinking through this as we've been going through our,

1:03:28

our training process with staff going like, why what not just like I can word vomit all day long. And boy, howdy, there's plenty of video of me out there word vomit.

Brandon  1:03:39

There's lots of hours of audio recording as well. There's what?

Collin  1:03:46

i Yes, there is. So I need to figure out like, I It's fine if I word vomit, but I do need to let them know of the vomited words, what do they need to do?

Brandon  1:03:56

Right? They need to this also kind of helps like when I make my like, for just science, like science class in general, because I'm like the way that I've been trying to do it the last few years, you know, trying to do with varying degrees of success, because sometimes I mess up right, obviously, like, I try to make sure like that's how I made my tests for my class, like my quizzes, right? Because they say you know, you always hear like, well don't teach the test. Like I made the test though. So it's fine. Because like I these are the things like these are the things I want the kids to know for sure. And then we sort of backup until like during the talking during notes time and all that stuff. You know, that will make sure to like really talk about this like a lot because it's going to be really important later, right? And I'll even say things like, this is probably gonna share we're gonna see this again. Wink. So wink wink, right like it's gone. I've tried to do that with like, with my assessments to like my little, because they're not usually very big or like super long and involved, but like, I want to make sure that the important stuff is there, like the big things that are important for this whole lesson in this whole like section or whatever, like, that's on there. So I've been I've been really trying to think about, like, when I made them, like, Alright, these are the most important things. And now I gotta make sure I have everything else in there to back it up to like, re reinforce the importance of these things. Like we're gonna really hit these areas because that's what I want them to know by the end. Yeah, so even in like bigger designs, right, like it goes that way. So that helps me do that. It doesn't always work that way. Because there's some things that I've done where I'm like, Oh, I'm just gonna do this. Like something I'm just like, we're gonna do this project right now because I want to and it goes along with this thought and like so there is room for like, randomness but Sure, sure.

Collin  1:06:16

But as long as you're updating everybody with that process, right that that's not it's not a bad

Brandon  1:06:20

day. But that's yeah, so yeah, that is it's hard thing to do though. I like your situations I could be a friend because like you know, it's I mean similar because you want them to like

Collin  1:06:46

are you there oh my gosh well.

Brandon  1:07:11

Back, back back. I mean, no one ever left

Collin  1:07:17

after having never left. Ah, yes, well, my situation is a bit different. Because of not having to progress them from like one stage to another that there's no grades whatever. I do feel like I do need to I need to be better at at sitting down next to capturing truly what's the important stuff because that way then I can put together a little bit of a of a progress for them. Okay, by three months, you should have this by six months, they should have a good grasp of this and that will also help with like, performance reviews and things like that. So yeah, one

Brandon  1:07:55

time right. I mean, like focus Yeah, right. Tell them about the other thing. We're gonna really focus on this you know, and then once you've got that okay, now ready for example, this right? That might be a better than it might make it less like overwhelming for them as well. For sure.

Collin  1:08:14

Yeah. Yeah. So I think without pushing our luck any further and the Internet gods to keep them happy. See if that's in your Greek mythology think

Brandon  1:08:24

that's I think that's a it's not a Greek mythology, but it's a what's his name? The author guy. The American Gods got Neil Gaiman, it's a Neil Gaiman Yeah. Neil Gaiman.

Collin  1:08:39

It isn't Neil Gaiman thing. Yes. Yeah. So we'll we'll try to keep him appeased. And we'll just go ahead very quickly and quietly. So notice that was