Brandon was not a fan of recess. Collin is thinking about coffee. We want to set up an extension office.

It’s HOT! Where is fall?
TOPIC TIME!
What makes a good coffee shop?

Color palette - earth tones
Easily accessible wifi passwords
Overly loud
Multiple seating options
Good food selection!
Local partnerships and vendors
Chalk board
Good coffee and good smoothies!!

What’s the deal Casey’s Pizza
Who does Dominos think they are?
Bigger pizza should have more slices!
No one wants to work anymore! (UGH)
Wear comfortable clothes…
Oh brother extension office
What kind of books do you read in the winter?
Collin’s Haiku

Rolling through gold fields
Steel giant hums under sun
Bounty fills the bins

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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

PROVIDED BY OTTER.AI

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

hot weather, coffee shops, Wi-Fi passwords, flexible seating, food options, local partners, communal spot, smoothie options, pizza cost comparison, Casey's pizza, parent-teacher conferences, in-service day, book club, winter reading, Halloween costume

SPEAKERS

Collin

Collin 00:05

Oh. Welcome to Oh brother, a podcast where we try to figure it all out with your hosts, Brandon and Collin on this week's show, wear comfortable clothes. Ahoy, no hoy. How is your Wednesday? Oh, it's too hot. I know, right. Why was it 82 degrees today? I don't know. Oh, who's really like? What a beautiful fall, summer. Yeah, just kidding, yeah, it was pretty gross. I didn't like it at all. I had to be out of recess duty today. Not a fan of how hot it was out there. So that was pretty terrible. Yeah, I didn't like that at all. So yeah, to my Wednesday went hot and grumpy, mostly just because it was hot outside. Yeah, I don't, I don't know if we're on, like, second summer or third summer or just, like, Psych, no, fall. What? What we're doing right now, but it's not my favorite, that's for sure. Yeah, it's pretty not great. So, yeah, I don't know. But still, the rain, that's also fun, still, and like none in the forecast either. We had like, a teeny tiny tiny bit the other morning, like my sidewalk was slightly down, but it felt like it was just like, Yeah, okay. Like there was a, oh my gosh, yeah. The only thing that I see right now is it's like, maybe, maybe in like another week for us, least where we are and, like, I don't this is, that's bad. It's bad people like that. Great, good. So, so yeah, that was my, yeah, how was your Wednesday? My Wednesday, you know, this is, actually, I wanted to bring this topic to you. And I feel like you, you sprung on me the idea of what, what makes a great mini golf course. I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw out one for various reasons, nothing very important, but coffee shops. What when you think coffee like? What do you think? Okay, makes a good coffee shop. This is a good point right now that reminds me of something else that I was going to ask. Going to ask you. Oh, so we'll have to, we'll put that, we'll bring that back here so you can ask me now, if you Okay, Vincent still exists. You mean, as in the the octopus Vincent. Well, your alternate coffee, not coffee, coffee shop. Oh, okay, sorry. So that's like you caught me off guard, because unfortunately, I do use that throughout a lot of my life. Yes, that's what I want to know. Okay, I want to this is true. No, this is good. I i Vincent only comes out whenever I think, when I'm when I'm mostly traveling. I don't get more incognito there. Okay? Because I not to out you on international internet. There are lots of other people who are named Vincent. So that's true. Knows who knows who it is or isn't. But because I spend so much time in very local coffee shops, like a lot, I have, I have started using my name a lot more frequently, but, but that is that is actually within the past, like five year change for me, even whenever we were in Texas, I it was just Vincent all the time. So yes, well, one of my students on Monday was hat day for Red Ribbon Week. Got to say that slowly, so I don't talk like Elmer Fudd here. Okay, but she walked in and she had her hat, she like, flipped her hair forward, right, so it just looked like surfer dude hair instead. Oh yeah, right. And then put her hat on, and her name starts with the letter V. And she was like, Yo, I'm Vincent. And I just started laughing hysterically. And I was like, Oh my gosh. So I I did mean to ask you, does is that? Does that still happen sometimes? Does that still occur when? I'm traveling is whenever I will use that for sure that actually, I know we're getting a slight change into a side change in here, in our great list of, literally, our great list of things that just come into your brain and you cannot stop them. Yes, yes. The ongoing list, ongoing. I have a new one. It happened to me. It happened to me. But 20 minutes ago, I was talking with Megan, and she said, My goodness, we just have so much on our plates. I'm just a very busy person. And when I heard a very busy. My brain went, I'm a very busy woman, and I haven't got all that just your voice. I thought about that song the other day because I I was talking about the Caspian Sea. Ah, yeah. And then references that in that song for some reason, even though it's kind of a like and it's not anyway, it's fine, but, but, yeah, I'm a very miserable, but I haven't caught all day. Oh, anyway, cost much. Nice. Yes, that was that. And I realized I was like, oh, so I'm gonna, I'm very interested to see how frequently that one pops up, because I was just, I had this podcast on the brain as we were transitioning, and then she said that my brain just went, Oh, it's the thing. It's the thing that we have that happens all the time. I had one earlier this week too, but I forgot to, like, make a note of it, and now I'm gonna, like, forever not remember until like, two days from now. But yeah, so sounds right, right. Anyway, good to know that the alternate coffee shop persona is still there. Listeners let us know if you have an alternate coffee shop persona. I want to know if you also use fake names. And also, to just put a quick comment in here, my statement about the octopus is, I do have a preserved octopus that I got while saying in the Gulf of Mexico, and he is in my office. And his name, yes, he's also Vincent. So I didn't, I didn't think about that when I posed my question initially, no, he did forget that there is a preserved octopus. But that is true. I figured he still existed because, you know, he's preserved, preserved. He's kind of around, yes, but I meant the coffee shop persona, good that makes sense, yeah, all right, all right. So anyway, coffee shops now, I don't know. I don't frequent them as much as you do, right? Because I am a very basic coffee boy, right? I don't like, I don't like I don't It's not that I don't like other different I don't generally want them, right? I don't like crazy. When I show up and I do get I will get like weird things sometimes, but I am a black coffee man through and through, and I go to coffee shops, right? I've learned that their actual coffee is not good, and so what you need to do is get the old americano right, or the or the long black right, depending on what part of the world you're in. You need that. I need that because the coffee at coffee shops oftentimes not good, right? Because they're, like, they do espresso based drinks, yeah. And so you need to go, you need to be like, oh, I need, I need the long black is what I mean, or, or the americano in America, right? Anyway, so, um, I would say color palette is kind of important here. Don't really want like bright. I don't think when I think about like coffee shop, I don't think about like vibrant. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, like a more like earth tone type situation is what I think about for that situation. So I think, like, color palette wise, pretty Earth Tony, kind of like, chill, right? Is what I think about first. Okay, it's your turn now, which passes back, like last time, just kind of back bounce, yeah. So I, I have had to think about this, because I recognize that people use coffee shops for very different reasons, and where some people go to coffee shops to sit and have coffee and converse, while other people go sit there and work and host job interviews, hypothetically speaking. Hypothetically, there's a coffee shop in town where, every time I walk through, they go hiring today. Anyway, take my usual Here's my card. No, but one thing changes a coffee shop for me personally, I should not have to ask what the Wi Fi password is. It should be labeled in about 1000 different places on not just like sometimes I'll put it on the receipt in like the very, very bottom. Other times they'll just be one placard by the register, which is awkward to stand up and go look at if you're not in line, because you sat down and you didn't look at it while you were there. So why Wi Fi passwords everywhere people so easily accessible Wi Fi passwords. That's fair. That's fair. I That's for me, them. That's true. Let's see, what else, what else I don't like. Some of them are like, overly loud, right? And it's like, sometimes it's like the music, or like, whatever they're doing. It's like, too much, like, you need a little bit, right? Because you don't want to be like, dead quiet in there. That's a little bit weird, right? Here's like, chatter, and people, people are, like, doing lots of other stuff. And so, like, I don't like it when they're like, overly like, when they have like, a lot of, like, music or something, or it's like, overly loud music, somebody like, didn't turn it down far enough. Yeah, where it's, yeah. The the loudness in public spaces is, I think, an increasingly like common problem, where you sit down and go, there's no reason for the background noise to be this elevated at this point, like there's this is yeah, needed. It's like three people in here. Why is it so? And coffee shops are especially bad about this, where they think, Oh, we want people to be comfortable here. We don't want silence, yeah, but like, when it go whenever, so I don't know, maybe this should be, like, whenever it is too loud, like, it starts giving off, like, bar vibes, and it's weird, right? Like, yeah, yeah. It's strange, yeah. Like, yeah. So I don't like it when it's, like, overly loud in there, kind of like that. I agree. I I like coffee shops with, with, I don't know if it's safe, like flexible seating options, or just multiple seating options, yeah? Like, it's not just tables, yeah, not just tables. I think this is really important to because then you can use this. The space can be used by however you need it. Of, oh, I want to sit in some recline, that reclining chairs. But, you know, some, some chairs or verse or around a little fireplace, or a sofa or or have a table to sit down and do work, or a standing place, like I really appreciate coffee shops, who have various places that you can sit in different ways to use that same space. That's true. I believe the first time I encountered this ever in my life was a like mud house situation, I feel like that is in in Springfield. This is, like the one of the, like, original, like, coffee spots, right? That was a thing that occurred that I remember happening. And so, like, I think that's where I encountered this for the first time. We just, that's just come to my head mind right now, but like, I feel like that that is important, right? Having, like, not just a table, you know, is nice, because, like you said, if you because some people, like, go and, like, do, like, make a bead in there, across, yeah, whatever, like, in public, weird, I know. So, yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one. Um, let's see. I mean, I think it is important, uh, to accompany said coffee. And do you have to have an appropriate, like, food selection in a good coffee shop, right? Specifically, but not limited to pastries, right? That is a thing that needs to be there. You know what I mean? Because, like, if you are gonna just be, like, sitting there having a coffee, do you? Do you need a croissant? Yes, probably do you need, like, something else, like, you know, like, so that, I think that's important, like having, because some coffee shops, again, this is like, because of where I am, right? We're in sort of like, rural land, so sometimes I. The, quote, coffee shop, they have like a muffin. I mean, that's fine, you know, but they have like a muffin and a cookie, which, you know, I understand. Maybe you don't, you don't have a lot of customers, right? You don't, like, overdo it and go crazy. But, like, Okay, I need more than, like a muffin, right? Like, two different muffin choices, is not it all right? Can that's not, that's not the vibe. So you do need a relatively, not, like a giant, like, I'm not talking like full bakery, right? I don't expect that, but I do expect, or prefer, like, some sort of, like, bakery options. That's more than a muffin, right? Yeah, and I will add a sandwiches, you know. Let's get to, like, sweet and savory options, yeah, few things make me more frustrated whenever I come into a coffee shop and they just have, like, cinnamon rolls, yeah, you're like, Oh no. I was okay. Like, oh, not even like, a Yeah. We used to have a place here that was, like, they it was really good for lunch, right? It was very good. It was very good for lunch, like, because they had a lot of really good they did, like, same they had, like, the pastry thing, and they had like, several really good, like, solid sandwiches in there, like, a little menu, right? It was, like, a huge it was like a little cafe menu, right? Little, little cafe menu thing going on. They had some really good, solid sandwiches in there. And that's good too, because sometimes it is, like, you need to go for lunch, right? So you want your coffee and something else. Like, it's not just a morning thing, you know, so you want some more stuff. So I think that's good. Like, they're like, the food options are important, right? Yes, and I agree, yeah, definitely sweet. But also, you do need the savory because I am more of a savory person, right? I do like savory things on the whole better. So I don't like really overly sweet things, you know? I like like mildly sweet is good, right? But, like, not overly sweet. So I do, I do love a sandwich. So that's, yeah, there's a, there's a coffee shop in our town, um, where they do a salmon bagel sandwich. Let me tell you, this thing is amazing. I love this so much. It's got cucumbers, it does have cream cheese. And the salmon isn't like steamed salmon. It's the like, a sashimi. Salmon. Sashimi. Yeah, sashimi. Salmon almost where it's so good. I'm like this. This needs to be everywhere. Why is this not everywhere right now? So, yeah, I like that a lot. Yeah, good. Okay, I just have one more. I mean, I think a few more, but my one that I like is when the coffee shop has, like, local partners or various things in the coffee shop where, oh, yeah, but so like, I think this can be overarching from a few things that we've already talked about. But like, oh, the food, the these cake pops are made by this local person over here, and on the walls are some art by a local artist who does this stuff and it's for sale. Like I do like, I think at the end of the day, I like the how coffee shops, like, I think at their core are supposed to be a communal spot, and I think that that's really what makes I like most about them. It brings together a lot of people for whatever reason they want to use it for. Oh, yeah, no, that's, that's a good point. That's nice, yeah? Because, like, yeah, we there was one in the town that I work in for a while, it's closed now, but they did that, right? They had a lot of like, stuff on the wall that was for local people. They hosted a lot of like local events. You know what? I mean? It was really like, yeah, they're very community. They can be not always. They can be very, like community centric places where, like, lots of different people come for various different reasons. So yeah, that is, that is good one. That's okay. Let's see. Is there anything else that I need on there on this list? Obviously, you need a chalkboard somewhere. Just esthetically. You do need a chalkboard with writing on it. That's important. I don't know how official that makes it cost. Workshop, but like, it feels correct, you know what? I mean, yeah. And obviously, like, you can eat good coffee. I mean, that would be, yeah. I mean, that's kind of this, it's true, but like, the coffee has to be, no, I wouldn't even say, like, serviceable because, but I think having a breadth of coffee options, I know most coffee shops these days basically serve like coffee flavored milk and sugar, so it hasn't but, but with that, I having non coffee options are really important. I am married to a non have a good smoothie. Option, smoothie, yes, right? Susan does love because Susan is not like a caffeine addict like me, and so he does, does like a good smoothie, right? So I think that is important, yeah, right. When we go to the bakery, a lot, she gets, she likes the smoothies that they make there. So, yeah, cool, yeah. So, yeah, yeah, that's true. Other, there does need to be other drink options, especially if you're going, if you are going to, like, meet people, right? It is nice to have that. Or if you do, like, you know, sometimes maybe you need less coffee in your life, because you can still go there and like, in the afternoon. And not everybody is like me and is drinking coffee until 630 tonight, just hypothetically, like, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, just to talk to that guy allegedly, could have happened. I don't know. That does remind me that we, there was a new one that opened up downtown here somewhere, and I we need to go to do that at some point. Panther C bin is actually open, and need to go check it out, because, allegedly, they're caught. So this is like a this, these people like a reverse, uh, uno reverse card. In the current climate, they've had a like, coffee food truck thing for like, a very long time, and then I guess they opened a cafe downtown somewhere. Oh, cool. So, like, so I think they still have the truck for, like, mobile stuff. But like, I think I heard it was opened when I knew it was going to open. I don't know if it actually is yet or not, so that would be something I need to go investigate at some point. So I did. Yeah, and, and it is interesting. I look at our little town, I say little town again, it's 21,000 people. So it's not, like, super tiny, but I am constantly shocked that it has like seven coffee shops in it. But that's also because people go places on coffee based off of, like, where it's convenient that day, right? Like, it's, it's, oh, well, this is I'm going east today, so I need to go to this one. And I'm going south. I'm going to go to this one, and I'm like, it's also very situational. But coffee shops in general tend to have as far as, like, supplies wise, again, I know there's costs and everything, but their costs are tend to be much lower per item, as opposed to, like, a more full restaurant, right? Like, so they're, they don't need to sustain themselves. They don't need to be selling, like, you know, $40 per per patron coming through in order to make their make their sales for that day, but, yeah, it is shocking to me. I'm like, There's seven, seven in our town. Okay, okay. Yeah, they're a lot of them aren't very big even, you know, so it's kind of, there's room for them, I suppose. Uh huh, it's better than having like seven, it makes more sense than having like seven pizza places. Oh, right, because that, that's the thing that happens in the Midwest. Ladies jump if you didn't know, right? There's like, little tiny town, you know, 10,000 people, seven pizza restaurants like that. Seems like a lot. I don't know. Seems like a lot of the same thing. But like, I don't know, just because I don't know coffee is so sporadic and it is a lower volume thing, and I don't know, it just feels like it's it feels like it is more sustainable and supportable to do that, rather than seven at the same like restaurant. I don't know if that is true. I don't know if that makes sense, like it makes sense to. In my it does, but, like I don't, it does make sense. But we also have seven pizza restaurants. I don't know how they're all still open, ridiculous. So maybe this theory is, is, is bunk, actually, as we've turned found, yeah, I don't know. I don't know how they're in business, and I don't know how people count Casey's as a pizza place. These people, I don't know this. I the thing that confuses me, this, this is such a thing, and I do not understand this mindset. I have been grabbing, you know, like a Gatorade or some gum, and I'm sitting there, and people stream in to get their Casey's orders they've got, and Colin in, it's like, call it in, yeah, it called and I'm like, I'm just, I'm staring at people. I'm like, when, when did this become a thing? Because I this is, this is a culture that I am not involved in. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying no, but in Missouri, at least, this is like a firmly established fact that people love Casey's pizza. Yes, I don't get it either, like I don't understand, I know, and they get Casey's, makes pizza at all hours of the day. You can walk in, yeah, at 5am and they're making breakfast pieces pizzas, and at noon they're making lunch, and they continue to make them all throughout the night. It's like, I just yeah, it's very It's very strange. And I have people that tell me, like, that's their actual favorite pizza, like, what now some Okay, a disproportionate number of people that I converse with on a daily basis are, in fact, 12, so we need to, in fact, SharePoint. But there are also a non zero number of adults that have said to me that Casey is their favorite piece, and I'm flabbergasted, absolutely flabbergasted. And nothing inherently wrong with this. It's just no, this is not a shot at Casey's, right? Casey's, about taking shots at you, and it's not a shot at the people who like the pizza. Or maybe it is, I don't know all I'm saying no, it's just really, it's really confusing, because I've had much better pizza in my life. I Yes, right? Like, I could see how, like, I don't know, I don't eat it. I haven't eaten any Casey's pizza in I'm pretty sure I've had some at some point in my life, but I can't remember when that point was, and it probably was a very long time ago. So again, I don't have current, up to date information about this, right? Like, is it better than some other chain pizza places? I mean, maybe, probably, I guess I don't know. Like, oh no. It boggles my mind. I don't know. We can do the pizza ranking list later, if you want. But like, I don't know. Oh, okay, but, like, I don't know, like, some of it is probably better, yeah, especially if you do, like, cost analysis here, right? Like, I imagine that is that probably makes it taste a little better, right? Sure, I can't imagine that it's I'm gonna go on the Casey's website right now, and we're just gonna investigate this. Just briefly. I don't want to, like, actually order it. I just want to, this is the problem with online things right now. Like, you have to, like, you have to, like, actually, like, start ordering things. Like, no, I just want you to tell me how much it cost. Big guy, that's all I really need in my life. Isn't it annoying a week is we get people, I have so many hoops for people to jump through to become a client of ours. The they do, it's frustrating when they go through all five hoops and then they go, hey, thanks. How much does it cost? And I'm like, Oh, that's not a good I'm sorry. Yeah, is way back at the beginning where you missed it. Yeah, that, yeah. So, whoops, okay, just tell me, okay. So does seem a bit high, but again. These are 2024, prices, so I have to do some cost analysis here. But a large look, okay, if we go large pepperoni pizza, yeah, it's $14 okay, so that is probably cheaper than, like dominoes. For some reason, Domino's Pizza is, like, insanely expensive. I don't know who Domino's thinks they are, but their restaurant is currently also, like, Collin McDonald's, like everything McDonald's just costs, like, a ton of money for some reason right now. And you're like, we've talked about this before, like McDonald's, you are, you, you, you are. You've lost your identity. You are not a gourmet burger restaurant stop. See, this is the same thing with with Domino, right? Dominoes, dominoes. I don't know what you're doing, and honestly I I actually just, I don't like their new pizzas. I don't like dominoes at all. Not my favorite, really, not my favorite. Not great. I don't like him either, but. But this does say that currently in McDonald's or in Domino's, see Freudian slip there we have all pizza, one, topping, 799, I'm not going to actually go in and start and order a dominoes also, but that, you know, there could be some sneaky hidden costs there. Oh, so, like, I just Okay, so I actually did. I actually did, just add a large hand tossed pepperoni pizza to Domino's cart. It is 1524, ah, see, what the heck? What is this? No special so, oh, that's weird. Up, see, that's too much for a pizza, right? Like, it's just a pizza. Guys. Like, I don't know what you're doing. Like, no, it's not, yeah, it's like, the cheapest food to make ever. Like, it doesn't cost anything. You know, as a person that used to work at a pizza restaurant, is not things like, it's not. Again, I understand things have have happened here, but, like, it's not that big a deal. Like, come on, what are you doing? Yeah, they're pretty, uh, look this. Uh, create your own through Pizza Hut. Man, I'm just, I'm going, that's what I was going right now, I'm on crispy cupped Oh, this is so weird. Why do they call theirs crispy cupped pepperoni? That must be it's like a marketing thing. That's marketing. I guarantee you, they have that patented, that name is patented, of the crispy cup pepperoni. Yeah, it is 1658, that's a large and tossed Yeah, and now that, no, I'm not using any specials the I travel, I don't know, and they, they didn't have that, they weren't available. Yeah, right, coupon or something, right, like, yeah, that's no, that's still too much. Yeah, right. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Man, 1658, that is not seems high, her pizza. Man, like, I don't know, it does. It does seem high. But again, I don't know. I don't know, because I don't, we don't order pizza. I don't, either we don't either. Ever since I started making it at home, we haven't actually ordered pizza in a long time, right? Yeah, so that's Yeah, we haven't ordered it forever, so I don't actually know. Okay, turns out, oh, go ahead. Oh, I was going to say an old world fancieroni Pepperoni pizza from Little Caesars is 1099, that's why I was like, I was looking the classic pepperoni is 749, so cost, value, pizza. Pizza takes it here, yeah, miles by literal miles by literal miles, if miles were measured in dollars or amount of pepperoni on pizza? Yeah, oh, that's true. Now here is a question for you, right, as a former employee of CC's pizza, right? You know, 20 plus years ago, it's in my high school days. Yeah, it wasn't yesterday, people, yeah, yeah, when I say former, I mean extremely former, long time ago, right? Yeah. Literally over, over 20 years ago. Now, right? Let's be honest with ourselves here. Let's, let's think about this. I, i, p, c, C's used to, don't know if still do it right? We did a thing where every different, different sizes of pizza got different numbers of slices, right? And I I think that this is the only way to do this right. You like, whenever, like a normal pizza, you do the eight, the large pizza, we would do 10, and then I think the big one was either 12 or more, right? We had like a giant pizza, like it was called, it was just like the extra large. It was actually giant. But you know what? I mean? Like, they like, the bigger the pizza, the more slices of pizza there were, right? I don't like it because sometimes you get, like, a large pizza, and they still just cut it into eight pieces. And you're like, What, uh huh, is this? Like, it's like, a really big pizza. It's very big, right? But they just do eight cuts. And you're like, Guys, what are you doing? Like, what? What's happening here? It's not like the New York slices, right? That are the size. Like, I don't like those when they're just, they keep them huge and massive, yeah? Well, I mean, on that type that's like, a vibe and a stylist or whatever. But, like, but, yeah, whenever you have like, like, there's no reason for just, like, a normal pizza to have like, just like, a huge thing. Like, it feels wrong to me to do that like it feels like there should be more slices, the bigger the pizza, the more slices of pizza you should have. I know that it's ostensibly the same, right? And it doesn't necessarily matter, because you are still getting a whole pizza. You know what I mean, like you're not i that is, I mean, I agree. It is a petition that I would sign. That's all I'm saying. Like you're not, you're not getting less pizza. When they do that, you're getting less pizza per slice. But when you're ordering, if you order like, the way I think about this is, if you're ordering pizzas multiple plural for like, an event, not an event, but, like, that's a little too grand of a word for whatever gathering. So you order, like, four or five pizzas, right? Why? You know you don't want to have these things. You don't want to have by, like, having, like, giant slices of pizza if they want to eat more than one thing type, right? Seems weird to me. As all I'm saying, like, I feel like this license shouldn't be as big because, like, I think there's probably a mathematical way to describe what this is happening here. But like, you as the circumference of your pizza increases, right? If you're like, the volume of pizza per slice will needs to stay like, relatively similar as the circumference of the pizza increases, right? I don't think that a bigger pizza means a bigger volume per slice. Because, you know, I think that it should, the volume per slice should be proportional to the pizza, right? So, if it's a bigger pizza, you need 10 slices instead of eight, right? This is what I think. This is my personal opinion about pizza cutting, right? You could say, I know our listeners that are older are gonna be like, Well, kids today can't cut pizza into 10 slices. Like, I mean, I did it when I was 17, so I'm pretty sure it's just not a thing like, like, you just have to cut it differently. It's okay, and we can make we have the, I'm pretty sure we do have the technology to continue to do this, yeah, right. The the secret is, as you cut the pizza, you turn it slightly to the side, you rotate it on the thing, yeah, I know rough, right? You rotate it about a central point, and because it's a circle, see, you keep seeing those things they can handle. This makes sense. Oh. Oh, that's a problem. No Child Left Behind, no good to go. Think about cutting pizza. Here we go. Right. Solved it. We've solved it. People. I. I saw this. I saw this thing the other day. It's like a YouTube short or something, and it was like, the history of people don't want to work anymore. And it was like, it was a series of articles that contain the phrase, people don't want to work anymore. But like, every time, like, every article was, like, progressively older. Oh, that's brilliant, right? And so, like, yes, one of them was, like, 1922 it was just basically the exact same, just kidding, so crazy that he's it's just don't want to work. Don't want to work, right? Yeah, I think the oldest one was like 8090, or something. It was hilarious. Gosh, it's brilliant. It was great. I so it is side side tangent. There's that that was a good you know? It is. It is frustrating to see the same things that get tossed around there, and to know that, yeah, nobody thinks that the next generation is as good as they are, and that there's all these changes and things and they don't understand and well, we do have to understand that they have their own challenges that they are facing, that we've never faced before, and that if we, if we can't take that into account, it's like, well, That kind of that, that's awful, like we anyway it is. It is frustrating to see the just broad swaths of generalizations of, oh, this group, this entire group of people like oof, I don't like that language. Yeah, I don't love that. Yeah, that's never turned out good. I will opt out of that right now? No, thank you. Those people, oh, collar sweating leaves like, oh no, oh, I'm sorry. What? Don't say that. That's not no good sentence. No good rest of the anecdote starts out with, well, those people, oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You stop that right there. Yes, the rest of what you're about to say has been invalidated by your opening line. I'm going to step over here. Thank you. Yeah, well, and the other, the other half of that sentence, right? Though, really, like, as from an educators point of view, right? When you talk about, like, oh, well, the they don't want to do the thing like, Did you by any chance tell them, slash, show them how to do a thing. Because if the answer is no, it may not be function of like, don't want to like. It could be a function of don't know how to, don't understand what's happening, like, because you didn't bother to show them, right? Yep, like, if I again, okay, let's just hypothetically, imagine that there was a science test today about volcanoes, right? Hypothetically, just purely hypothetical. Sounds like, sounds fake, if nobody took the time to talk about and diagram and draw on the board and show and discuss, like the state, like, how does a volcano erupt, right? Like, what is that process like? And then, if you were asked a question on the quiz and then, like, I was mad that you got it wrong. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense at all. Like, what, you know what I mean? Like, I didn't really explain to you this really overly complicated process, and you don't know how it works. How dare you? Like, what? Yeah, what. Like, I totally, I mean, when I'm training somebody of, hey, here's, here's how we enter a home, or here's how we hold a leash, right, I don't just go, Well, I'm, you're fired because you didn't hold the leash right. And if I never showed you, how can I expect you? Or if I it just depends on the person, too. Some people, they really do, need to get connected to the why of why am I doing this? Why is this important? Why is this helpful? And that that to me, that is that's second nature to me of I have to really dig deep into this to really figure this out. Megan, if you tell her to do something, she's like, Oh, I'm required to do that. Okay, absolutely, I will do that. But here we go. Like, how she just, there's no question there. Versus, I have to question entirely as far as the validity and Like. Is this really and you have people who you're either hiring or teaching or working with who are like that, it could be really frustrating, if you're the other kind of mentality about things of, oh my gosh, this person just they don't get it. They don't understand they don't want to do this. Why could? Why can't? They just, and that's where it gets really gets frustrating. Yeah, well, it's also hard when one person like or group doesn't like know how to communicate, like their thoughts to the other group, right? Like the, like, the, why am I doing this group? Like, if you just say, like, again, we talked about this with sixth graders all the time. Like, if you just come to somebody's like, Well, why am I doing that? They're not going to answer you. Because do you have that tone in your voice? Do you hear that sass? Like, did you have your hand on your hip when you were asking that question? Because, you will be ignored by all adults in your life, right? But, but, yeah, you do need to know how to communicate that thing, and it is important to listen, right? We talked about that before on YouTube, Like listening is important that came up today, also because, uh, the we were talking about, we're doing our quiz right, so we're getting ready, so we're getting our binders right, because I let all the kids use the binders on the quiz, right? I didn't used to do that. I didn't you said, you know? I figured, like, it was like, oh yeah. Well, you do anything, so then just do the quiz, right? But then one year, I had this group of students, and one of them, a couple of them were like, Why are we even taking notes if we're not even going to use it for anything? And I went, you're right, that's a good point. So now we use our notes for a lot of stuff, and we use one quiz. And so that person, one of those people, were in my classroom today as one of my, like, high school observer people, yeah, and I just straight up told her, I was like, This is your fault, by the way. That's why you know that, since you're here, supposed to be learning about education, right? The reason that we do this now is because of what you said to me, yeah. And I took your comment and I thought, You know what, she's right. And so now we do it. And she was like, Oh, really. He's like, Yeah, you were right. So, ta da, yeah. So there you go. And so half the class is, like, joking, like, oh my gosh, thank you. We appreciate you so much, right? Yeah, it's the one. It was her like, and there that thenceforth rumors and rumors of rumors spread. Yeah, there you go. But yeah, that's, you know, the thing where it is important to listen to the other people when they express those concerns. Because, you know, that was a valid point. Like, why are we doing this? It feels like we're just wasting our time because we're not doing anything. Yeah, you're absolutely correct. Let's put it to use. Let's make it so we would do this, right? So then we started, then I started, like, focusing more on that. That's when we start talking more about, like, why it's important to stay organized. Why it's important to know where these things are. You will need it again later. So how do we organize this into a way that is usable in the future? Because you're going to come back for it. So yeah, that's makes sense. Yeah, I thought dude eventually took me a little time, but, yeah, figured it out. We call that growth. Yeah, it was, like, my second year of teaching science. So, like, I really was, like, still figuring out too, like, I don't know what I'm doing happening. I think I just invented science quizzes at that point. Like, okay, well, maybe now we're gonna, I guess we should do something here now. Oh, no, so, yeah. Anyway, it's important to listen to the people, and you can't just blank a statement. Blam, that's my Well, yeah, so, yeah, moving on. Nothing. Uh, super exciting. The rest of the week. Have parent teacher conferences tomorrow. Oh, so that's not exciting, but that does mean I don't have to go to the work on Friday. So, Oh, that's good. So I don't have that's very nice, traditional day off after parent teacher conference week, since we have stay till seven o'clock tomorrow. So then we have in service Monday. A and I'm very afraid for in service on Monday. Oh, because there's a note in the principal's, like, weekly newsletter thing on the calendar section, it just says, teacher in service this day wear comfortable clothes. Oh no, I don't like the way that sounds. Oh no. Why that? At first, at first, I had hypothesized that perhaps this was more like intruder training. Oh, oh, your favorite, yeah, but I heard that is not the case. Oh, oh, and so all I know is that they won't tell us what it is. So that makes me nervous. Oh, that's even because we even asked the Secretary, like, Do you know what this is? She goes, Yes, but I'm not allowed to tell you, oh, oh. I mean, basically that was not a direct quote, but it was basically along lines of, I think she will get mad at me if I tell her you what's happening. And I was like, Oh, I don't. No, no, I don't. No, no, no, no, no. Help. Help me. Help me. Yeah, this doesn't sound good at all. Like, no, like, how what am I doing? I need to know this. I can't deal with this right now. Like, I mean, I like to not tell the kids what we're doing for assignments, you know what I mean. But this is a little different, right? I just like, today. I was just like, Oh, you're, you know, tomorrow, I'm gonna, you know, as today we did an assignment. And I was like, Okay, we need to do this and this. We're gonna treat this like a research for the project that we're gonna start tomorrow, and then, like, what's the project? Like? I'll tell you tomorrow, tomorrow. But that's because I wanted them to focus on this thing. On this thing. Well, sure, right? Not the other thing, this mystery, like, wear comfortable clothes on Monday. Like, No, first of all, no, like, I won't, because my very special neuroses is I don't consider like athleisure or athletic wear clothing, and I will only leave my house if I am dressed. So I, I You were asking me to go against my very core and foundations? Yeah, this is not a thing that I can do, right? It this summer, when we were going to the park a lot and, like, running and stuff like, it was very difficult for me to leave the house in like, my running shorts and, like a T shirt. That was hard, because that's not clothing really, that's not being dressed, right? But it helped that I was dressing for, like, a specific purpose, right, sure, but then I'm not gonna go anywhere else, you know? I mean, like, yeah, what are you gonna do? So I'm not gonna wear, like, I cannot leave the house wearing sweatpants. This is not allowed in my brain, right? Like, Susan's made fun of me before, because, like, I have been sitting at home in like, sweat pants and T shirt, and I have changed clothes to go to the drive through Well, well, you never know what happens. Car breaks down, right? Or that's true. It's true, right? It's true. So, like, I don't, I don't like this. Just quote here in this newsletter, yeah, it's like, I starts twitching, going, Oh no, yeah, because I'm just gonna wear jeans and a T shirt. Probably, it's probably still gonna be hot as heck more. So I may wear shorts and a T shirt, the same thing that I wear to every in service ever. So, like, I don't really, really know who's dressing up for in services. I don't know who these people are. Yeah, like, I'm not gonna wear my, you know, I'm not gonna wear my tie to in service day. They get their audience in the front row too. Piano, um, what? Our tables in the back. So don't worry, it's fine. We have a spot. It's okay. Where the nice already? I mean, yeah, we do. We have a traditional spots every in service. So far this year we've sat at the same table. So this. Fifth grade table. We have a table, so it's fine, nice. I think everybody else wants us away from like, Oh, don't sit by those people. No, no, they're weird. They are the unclean. Keep moving. Yeah, keep moving the other ones. We don't talk about them. Speaking of those people, yeah, it's me now. So yeah, that's pretty much it. That's, that's all I got. Oh, I did. I forgot to tell you. I did. We did officially start the, the unofficial oh brother book club, extension office in my RTI group, right? Okay, oh no, because I did we well, I did so we were, where's they were like, my the teacher, English teacher, right? She was like, well, we need, you know, I really think that we should, you know, do like a book set, like we should do like a reading thing with them. And I was like, okay, because it's smaller this year, because we have this that our kids are getting to go to the reading interventionists this year. So, like, they take them there. So that means that our actual reading small groups are small, because before, like last year and every other year before that, it was just the whole sixth grade just split up between the three of us in a different way. So my small group was 15 people, which is not a small group, no, yeah, it's the large group. So this year I have, like, seven or so right now, maybe I don't remember, it's always better. So we were reading a book like together, and so I did it may have played part of the first, oh brother, The Hobbit book uh, addition to the class to talk about. I was like, because, like, I was like, really talking about books, right? I don't know if anybody's ever done that with you before, so we have a small excerpt, if I didn't play them, the whole 35 minutes of that because, you know, but fair enough, I was like, here's what people can talk like when sound like when they are talking about book. So we are currently reading hatchet, classic sixth grade novel, hatchet. There we go. Hey, Paul's in building. So, yeah, that's what we're doing currently. So we're, I have, like, a official, like, English teacher guide thing that was, am I actually following that? Like, no, not a rule book. Yeah. So we've been talking about the story. So that's what we're doing. Here. We have the we have the oh brother Junior book club happening. That's good. It is. Talking about books is actually shockingly hard to have, like to put, to put thoughts together and to have some basically, it's, it's critical analysis is what that is. And yeah, to to bring in. I think it's always neat to hear book reviews or book discussions where people bring in the outside sources or personal relations or histories or backstories to really flush out, because then you really start to see, like, Oh man, this person is really connecting with this book at like, this level and like, and it's really seeing this because of where they are, yeah, it makes it that's a lot, that's a lot of fun. That's really cool. Yeah, so it was good. We talked about my hatred of exposition, and why that makes hatchet a good book, in my opinion, because that book also, just like he's in the plane, let's go. So that was exactly and we did. We've been doing like, just like they read, and then, like, the next day we'll, like, talk and review and go over things right, make sure that we're on same page. But yesterday we got to the part where, I don't know if it's been since sixth grade, since you also read hegic, because that's when I read it last guess. But hot he's cracked. He's, like, he's just landed right, crashed, right. And so we stopped, and yesterday we wrote, like, right? We're gonna put you're gonna be Brian, and now I need you to write down, like, how you would be, like, right now, like, instead of before, we read the chapter about what Brian decided to do next. You're going to write the chapter, but it's you. There's some of them really good, right? So we did that. I think then we read the next chapter yesterday, and I think tomorrow or Friday, I think we're gonna do some like survival. List. Like reason, not that's the wrong word. We're gonna like research, wilderness survival, survivalist bunker in Montana. Not that like others or anything. Yeah, yeah, oh, gosh, oh no, wow, yeah, we're gonna, no, we're gonna be bulldozed at it. Holy cow, existed. No, no, 30 some, like, like, wilderness survival research tomorrow to be like. So what are some things that he could do? Yeah, right. And then, like, a little bit later, I'm gonna have him write some more stuff. But then I am also going to do, I do want to talk later about, like, how would this book be different in 2024 this book is written in like, the 80s, right? So, yeah, yeah. So, like, ostensibly, for the most of the book, that doesn't matter. But like, what's different about this book, and this is in 2024 Yeah, you know, like, what does that look like? What those those are great questions. I love those of, if you were in this situation, what would you do? Or even just something as simple as given, what we know now, what do we think is going to happen next? Or, like, yeah, next move. Those are great to start really thinking about the material and also pulling what ends up happening is, the more you do that with the more you read, the more you pay attention, the more you can start picking up on, like, oh, like tropes. Like, there are tropes for a reason, right? Oh, here's the Oh, guess what's gonna happen. That's fun. Cool, yeah, oh, man, I did have one person, guess what? One person, like, predicted, because they were like, I would try to see if I could swim down into the plane and see if I could get any more stuff. I was like, Oh, buddy, hold that thought. Hold on, yeah, hold on to that for a couple chapters, because that's traumatic here in a minute. So that'll add to Brian's trauma. Real quick. Real real quick. Remember how enthusiastic you were about that idea while we reach Yeah, in a couple let me Yeah. Let me tell you. Just remember how cool you thought that would be in your story. Now, let's contrast that with what happened old Brian. What actually happened? Man? Well, I know, I know we just wrapped up our our summer reading one, but I think we may need to do a winter reading one. Now I'm the winter reading one. Winter reading, huh? Brian's winter I think cold, no man that would put a different spin on kind of books to read in the winter. Oh, that is a good Ooh, that is a good question. That is a different vibe, right? Yeah, this summer, I really read a lot of like I was, I did read a lot of, like, murder mystery ebooks, but like, I did really want to read like, like, I read one that's like in Thailand, right? It felt very summery to me. That felt Correct. Like winter books are not that's not the same, right? You want to read books about Thailand in the summer or in the winter. That is true. I'm down for this. If this is something you want to do, we could be like, something small, something like, so we can workshop this. I'm okay with this plan. Yeah, okay, all right. Oh, wow. So we, by the way, so our, our school, is also doing some sort of like our Halloween is like book character celebration day, so, like, you can't dress up, but it has to be about a character in a book, right? Okay, so I'm thinking of continuing. I have this plan, right? So last year I went his pony. Okay, right? Yes, I wore a leather jackets and jeans this year. I'm thinking I can probably just wear, like, a button up shirt and a sweater, and I'm gonna, we're gonna go inspired by Bilbo. Bilbo, I think that's what we're gonna do. Okay, inspired by, I think, yeah, because I'm gonna keep my shoes on, I'm not gonna go, but I do have, like, brown pants and a green spider, yeah, and like a button up shirt. So I feel like I thought you were gonna go all like, Hank or whatever. And I tell you, make sure to leave your Dragoon revolver, yeah. So I thought about Hank. I may do a hank next year, but I don't really know how I would do that, right? I could just wear, like, a pants and a tie and some, like, costume chain mail. That would be really funny, like, Yo, just talking, call me Sir, Boss, yes, yeah, and you Oh, and you need to drag some. A telephone wire behind you as you walk along. Oh, yeah, and just like, talk really smoothly to everyone and tell them how I know about I should give them all milliners. Like, here go. Just give that, I think, talk about exchange rates and real wages. Real wages. Yeah, and real earning potential. For a long time, she was like, What the heck is going on exactly? I think this is good. So if I do a Hank, you know, that's context of playing. But I was thinking maybe inspired by Bilbo, yes, with just some brown pants a sweater, you know, I'm gonna bring my handkerchief, though, because I have, yes, you should definitely bring. I don't want to forget it. I didn't forget this. Just bumbled about that look, look every now and then, which, yeah, and you'll have to look, you know, in your pockets every now and then, make sure you have what you That's true. Yeah, yeah. Okay, carry my ring in my pocket, like, don't wear it, just like, hold it. This will work. Yes, I could probably order, like a fake, like a toy, like costume, like the one ring who's carried out of my pocket. Yes, I that's what we do. So we're gonna continue that for this year also, oh, here's a $6 one on Amazon. Oh, man, there's you have a lot of research to do. It sounds like, okay, so we can workshop this winter reading list, yeah, as well, yeah. I have some. I have an idea too, that we okay short I think that's the other key here, of like, yeah, don't want to do any like, well, we like short books. I full confession, I didn't realize how long I can connect this Court was going to be. My bad. I realized it was that long of a book. Okay. Well, that's pushing the limit of where we should be going here. So I'll take the first one for that. Whoopsie daisy, well, and there were some, there were some chapters where, yeah, and we were kind of treading along, like, two to three, you know, I think we would have budgeted. We could have done four, but yeah, it was, it was a lot to that book, for sure, though. Well, some of those chapters were very dense, yes, right? Well, because the Hobbit was a little bit longer, but, like, it's longer than the outsiders anyway, yeah, but it's not like he doesn't talk about global geo political situation. It was just wild. It was it was not necessarily just non stick. They weren't quite non sequiturs, but man, they were real close. They were kind of non sequitur like I am starting a chapter, and then you're like, did I end the same chat? What is what? Huh, yeah, where did you go? What is wait? We took a turn here somewhere. Like, real hard, like, I don't know, wacky, so, yeah, we gotta, yeah. Well, you got some ideas. Well, yeah, yeah, I'm open to this play, hey. Well, I do have a haiku. Oh, two round us out here, if we're there, and it goes thusly, rolling through gold field, steel giant hums under sun. Bounty fills the bed. Oh, nice, combine. It's combine and combine. Nice. That nice. That was good. Thanks. That was really good. So here we go. We'll be do that. We'll chat Alpha line about books and yeah to your down, inspired by Bilbo costume. Come together. We'll, uh, do this again next time, right? Uh, until then, we'll, until then, bye, bye, Love you. Love you too. Bye,