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Episode 8 - Retirement
15 Plays3 years ago
Ross and Gregg discuss retirement and what they might consider doing!
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Transcript
Introduction & Podcast Updates
00:00:06
Speaker
You're listening to Unmotivated and Unprepared, a podcast where we take a break from the everyday hustle and bustle to muse about life, liberty, and the pursuit of randomness. Now here's Greg and Ross. What's up, party people? It's Ross. Hey, and it's Greg.
00:00:35
Speaker
And we are at unmotivated and unprepared episode numero eight. That's the ocho, Greg. So we're, we're a big deal now. And I do want to say, Greg, something I didn't tell you in the pre-show. So no need to be concerned, but for those avid listeners, the, you might've heard in the intro, the intro's got a little bit of a new sheen, a little luster to it. I rerecorded my vocals.
00:01:05
Speaker
Nice. Don't worry. Still the same level of dynamicism. I can't say the word that you would always expect from me, but I don't have a sinus infection this time like I had before. So I sound a little less nasally. It was bothering me, Greg. Admittedly, I finally listened to a full episode of the podcast, intro and everything.
00:01:29
Speaker
yesterday and I was like, man, I was really stopped up when I recorded that intro and the outro. So noted for the keen ear, a little more shine on there. So just for everyone's awareness, since we're episode eight, I figured it was time for me to rerecord. So a remix, if you will, remaster. A remix, got it. Yeah, same stuff.
Retirement Lifestyles: Budget vs. Baller
00:01:55
Speaker
So Greg, we're talking
00:01:59
Speaker
We had a little sidebar last week with Vegas. Before we were talking about retirement, we started getting into retirement. We realized that's a good full episode that we can chunk out here. I want to talk about retirement. This came to me when I was looking at my 401k, which I know. Don't look at your 401k right now with the way the market is, but it had this little
00:02:25
Speaker
The website had this little man in the truck and it's like, and it's supposed to make me feel better. It was like, here's what your target's going to be five X blah, blah, blah by this age. And I realized that truck was on a flat road and it should have been like a mountain climber, like prices, right? You know, going up the hill, uh, because I was way far off and I was like, man, am I, am I going to have to be a budget retiree or am I going to get to be a baller?
00:02:53
Speaker
retiree. And so that's why that's a topic at hand today. So budget versus baller retirement. So I think we're gonna just, you know, meander on through the different topics. And so I wanted to get your perspective. First, what is what's the ideal retirement age in your in your opinion? Well, I mean, we read full on retirement, Ross, where we don't do any work anymore. We become like docents at a museum or do volunteer activities at at
00:03:24
Speaker
at children's homes or something? Retirement in the sense that it's a Tuesday morning. I wake up, but I decide, you know what? I don't really want to do anything. I just don't do anything that day. So that level of retirement. And one note here, folks, maybe I need to put this at the beginning of the show. We're not financial advice experts.
00:03:50
Speaker
You're taking advice from Greg and Ross. Please, please see a financial advisor that's professionally certified. But anyway, so that's what I mean by like, I wake up, I decide, get a big stretch in, and I decide, you know what, I don't want to do anything today. So I don't do anything. So my goal, my goal is to be out of the corporate rat race by 50-55. That's my goal. 20-55 or 50? You said 50. No, age 50-55. Age 50 or 50-55, right.
00:04:20
Speaker
I have no interest in continuing in what essentially is the worst of humanity. Sure, sure. And that's fair. You've got moral fiber. Yeah. I mean, I don't think that corporate all the way around is horrible. I don't think that's not a fair expectation, but it seems like I want to be in the situation where if I am going to still work corporate, which I don't plan to do, I plan to go right and
00:04:46
Speaker
do whatever. I don't want to be competing with people who care about ego. I just want to walk into a room and they know right away. Well piss him off. He's going to just put up the deuces and walk the hell out. Yeah. Yeah. He's the dude that's going to be like he's going to speak his mind because he knows if.
00:05:03
Speaker
He feels like he'll never come back. Yeah, like I'll walk out like I mean, I don't want to but at the same time I don't want to be this guy we used to work with an old company was 78 years old still working and and I don't I don't want to do that I mean he did it because he didn't want to be at home I don't know if he had an issue with his wife or just whatever but I don't want to be doing that either but sure 5055 I want to be in that situation where I can just be like I don't want to play your games anymore so then
00:05:29
Speaker
With that, when you sunset out of the corporate world, are you, I mean, the first thing you mentioned, you're gonna work in a museum? Is this just like a...
00:05:37
Speaker
like a health insurance gig or you said
Greg's Retirement Plans: Teaching & Writing
00:05:39
Speaker
writing. No, I plan to be a professor and do the just to teach and write and publish and that kind of stuff at 55 and be done. The docent museum thing is what you do when you're 65 and you're like, cool, I'm going to go talk about natural history. Plus, I think it'd be fun to like put in fake facts in between real facts and like mess up kids for life.
00:06:03
Speaker
But the nice man at the museum said this, he was totally trolling you. This is the Nazis and this is Hitler. He's also the father of gummy bears. It's like ruined gummy bears for everyone forever. It's not true, by the way. It's not true at all. Even though the guy who did invent gummy bears was a German, it was not at all related to the Nazis.
00:06:31
Speaker
Is that where, oh man, we're going to go for tangents. Are Albany's gummy bears, are they? No, those are great for the United States, but the actual manufacturing of gummy bears, the creator of them, Haribo is the original manufacturer of gummy bears. It didn't exist before. And really, interestingly enough, and I didn't know this Ross, that it wasn't until the late 80s that they became stateside.
00:06:55
Speaker
Oh, snap. Really? Okay. When you think about the gummy bear cartoon, that was all a new idea for the American market. Gummy bears just didn't exist. Oh, wow. Okay, so boomers and some of Gen X, well, boomers more than anything, didn't really have the... No. Gummy bears weren't a thing as kids and everything else. It was really more Gen X and millennials that really got the gummy bear.
00:07:24
Speaker
Yeah, gelatinous candy thing. I think probably the first foray into it for the US is probably fruit snacks. I mean, probably. But yeah, I was reading about it the other day that gummy bears were definitely a German invention and did not make it to the US until the late 80s, early 90s. Today I learned. Okay. All right. Well, anyway, so a little bit of a tangent there, but good gummy bear fun fact. So 50-55 still gives you the ability as a retiree
00:07:54
Speaker
to have some level of job to keep you busy. Because I'm convinced, we've talked about this, that some of the reason, I mean, people still want something to do. They want to be active in something. There's very few people that literally just want to retire and sit there and just stare off into space. They want to have some sort of a sense of accomplishment. Yeah, I agree.
00:08:20
Speaker
You know, there's plenty of urban legends and stories about guys who are like generals in the army that became Walmart greeters. By the way, I don't buy it for a second. But the idea that you need something to do, I think is genuinely true. If you don't have purpose, it's hard to do. Now there are people, I mean, like they get obsessed with their model trains and actually do fully retire. And they get but they get really into their model train networks and then start going to model train conventions and they're just model trains. Yeah, it's a big deal. Yeah, it's a big deal. Model trains are huge.
00:08:49
Speaker
I would do puzzles. That's what I do, but more to come on that. I have a theory on the puzzle thing, but
Financial Planning for Retirement
00:08:54
Speaker
I'll come back to that. So you're doing your thing here and I'm thinking, okay, so from a budget perspective, because I think being a professor, living a, just kind of doing your thing as a professor, I wouldn't say that's necessarily a baller lifestyle. We're not talking, you're not cruising for a living when you retire. So do you...
00:09:21
Speaker
Would you have to downsize? Would you have to change anything about what you do right now? Or is your plan to try to get to a place where you can do the professorship and continue to keep things status quo for everything else?
00:09:37
Speaker
Well, I think I put a significant amount of what I make away in retirement. So I maintain a lower cost lifestyle. Even though I do have some bougie taste items, my lifestyle isn't exactly exorbitant. And my housing costs are small. I'm not really interested in investing a whole lot of money in real estate. I'm not necessarily in love with staying put. So
00:10:01
Speaker
the professor thing would just be a salary and then I wouldn't have to put any of that money away in retirement. All the money that I would have in retirement I've already put away before I got here. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's the thing with like, you know, you think like, we're in the United States, so health insurance, right? Like, depending on our global our global listenership,
00:10:25
Speaker
might have a different thought on when you retire and if you have a job just for health insurance, but we won't scratch at that topic today. So I'm looking at it going, because when I think of age, I'm right with you. I'm like 55. That's okay. Because for me, it's what I want to do. I'm more of a volunteer person when I want to do it. I mean, I do something with a steady source of income, I think. That's fine.
00:10:53
Speaker
I'd really prefer to do the whole volunteer at different places, right? Spend my, you know, right now a lot of my contributions to places are places that I would volunteer for in the future, you know, put my money towards donating. Now I put my time in the future when I have more time. So for me, it's really, you know, keep the same lifestyle and then
00:11:18
Speaker
you know, go volunteer at different places around, you know, and be that guy who just shows up and decides to volunteer for a few weeks or then, you know, decides to do more of that. So that's, that's me.
Expatriate Retirement: Exploring Options
00:11:29
Speaker
Now I, I'm very fascinated by, and I don't know if you know anything, the whole expat thing. So people who kind of not, not really a baller, but somebody who takes, takes their money and moves somewhere where maybe their money can
00:11:45
Speaker
go further or they just go away and get away. So do you know any expats? So people who have gone and lived overseas after they've retired? Yeah, for sure. I know people who do that and that's not a bad way to do it, right? I've known people that have done that in Thailand where your dollar goes a lot further in Thailand. It's a very popular destination for Australian expats, but lots of those.
00:12:10
Speaker
You don't want to pick somewhere like Japan. That wouldn't be a good place. You wouldn't be like, yeah, let's be an expat in Japan because it's just the dollar doesn't go anywhere there. Yeah, it's like the same thing. It's just like, okay, so you're now just going on a long vacation. Yeah, but I think the challenge you'll find with expats is that at some point, you're going to get to a certain position where your health will deteriorate.
00:12:36
Speaker
beyond what that local economy can support. And at that point, what do you do? Do you go home? Right, because the last year of life is the one that actually causes the most issue. Unless you do the San Antonio diet thing and then just get diabetes and get yourself on that track.
00:12:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. And I feel bad for all the shout out to all the people in San Antonio, but diet plays into it. If you want to have an aggressive after retirement lifestyle, you need to maintain your health now not try to fix it when you're 55.
00:13:11
Speaker
Yes, yes, you got to invest in it now. God, I feel like a motivational speaker. Invest in your health now. But that also makes a difference, right? If you choose to be an expat and you want to move someplace. Plus, there's always the issue of what happens if the local government changes or if there's new restrictions, what do you do? But it is a good opportunity if you do want the island lifestyle or you want to go to a poor economy and be that rich person. Like Costa Rica is a lot of places where people go to retire or Ecuador.
00:13:41
Speaker
I don't wanna do that. I have no interest in being an ex-pat in a foreign country. I think America is a fantastic place to retire. I think of all the places you could retire. Yeah, I mean, I wanna go visit a lot of places. I mean, seriously, if I get to a certain point where I wanna go do that, I'll just live on a cruise ship for 365 days a year.
00:14:10
Speaker
So, okay. So, so let's, I mentioned that let's unpack that because I, how does, how does that work? I mean, and like, what's the average age? Cause I know you've been on some cruises. No, I've been on one cruise Ross. I've been on one cruise and it was a bunch of old people. That was one cruise. But it was the crew. It was a cruise of a lifetime from what I, from what I remember. But how, so do you just,
00:14:37
Speaker
You just have enough money that your dividends, you just live on a cruise ship because all the amenities are there. Is that essentially, I mean, there's doctors on board and everything else. I mean, what's it around the world caught? What's around the world cruise costs? I don't even know. I've never done a cruise before. Like I forgot, I'd have to, I'd have to, I'd have to really, I mean, yeah, you've got doctors. So, you know, there's, there's doctors on board, but it goes back to your point of the, like,
00:15:06
Speaker
At some point, you get an illness, and the cruise doctor's like, uh... Sure. So you can go on Royal Caribbean, and it would cost you $60,000 a year to go around, to do a 365-day cruise. $60K a year. $60K a year, which actually, if you think about it with rent and everything else... It's not bad. It's really not. I mean, you have a tiny room that you live in, but it's not terrible.
00:15:34
Speaker
I mean, you could do it. I imagine you'd probably add on an extra hundred thousand dollars and you'd pick out a better, nicer cruise to be on. Sure. Sure. So you see Roland, Roland six figure cruise a year. Yeah. You got, you got all the, you got all the amenities. Your doctor's like, what am I like? What? You know,
00:15:53
Speaker
I mean, are they decent? I mean, they're not surgeons, you know, you know, I mean, you've got to be mindful that like, yeah, you've got to have travel insurance, and you've got to be mindful of what you're getting into. But again, odds are your health is probably pretty good. Up until a point. Yeah. And I mean, they've got I wonder if those 365 day cruises like once a month, they have like a
00:16:13
Speaker
a medical excursion. So it's like, everybody with the doctors like, all right, all of you who I couldn't handle, we got an excursion today to a medical facility, all get fixed up, we get back on, repair those hips, moving out, moving out, you know. And you could, I mean, you could see the world and but I mean, it's again, it's not cheaper than living, right? I mean, the average life in the United States, for one person, if you if you did it inexpensively is about 30 to $30,000 a year.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah, so doing a world around the world cruise is not exactly for 365 days isn't exactly like your
00:16:49
Speaker
you're living that life. But if you had a high end condo, and you had, you know, you take food into account and going out to restaurants and different things, you take that into account, you're probably looking at a $5,000 to $6,000 bill unless you're doing like Charlotte, I mean, if you buy a nice house here, it's $4,000 a month. So $4,000 plus, let's say $2,000 for food, you're talking about $6,000. I mean, you're, you're gonna get there pretty quickly.
00:17:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's your, that's your, that's your budget for cruise. So, and I think, I think the one thing with people like to me, I was fortunate. My, you know, my parents told me to save early, you know, save, save early because that's, that's where I read a stat somewhere. Forget what it was that, you know, you put a set amount of money in by the time you retire, half of the money you have in retirement was what you put in in your twenties.
00:17:45
Speaker
And the rest is 30 and beyond just because of time value of money. Like if you consider putting it in an investment, I'm just like, man, that's tough. A lot of people don't have the means to necessarily put in a ton into a retirement account when they're in their twenties. But that makes a huge difference. And retirement was always, like I said, I've said this so many times, people probably think I'm 70 years old already and wondering why I'm not retired. I've been thinking about retirement since I started work, not because
00:18:15
Speaker
necessarily hate my job, but just because I was told like, save for it. Yeah, I mean, it definitely is something that I've done since I went since I got job, since I got a job in employment, I started putting money away. And you get better at it as you get older. It's hard at 22 to put together more than 6% of your salary and put away, not to mention student debt and everything else. It's pretty hard to do. So you have to wait till you get salary raises to get you in a place where you can do that.
00:18:44
Speaker
But what I think happens is people get to a certain point where they want a different lifestyle because they're working harder. They're like, I deserve a better lifestyle. And the reality is, you should always be living like two paychecks before. Yes. Again, we're not financial advisors, don't take our advice. But those that
Living Below Means for Stability
00:19:03
Speaker
The reality about retirement is that if you want the lifestyle in later life, realize that you don't wanna be in a position you have to downsize. No one wants a life where they go, wait, I ate caviar forever and now I've gotta eat macaroni and cheese and SpaghettiOs. Like you don't wanna do that equation.
00:19:20
Speaker
So you have to get to a point where you can sustain what your life is and assume that you'll still be able to sustain it even if you don't. So for instance, a good example is I used to get a check from teaching at UTSA. I no longer teach at the University of Texas San Antonio. So this is my first kind of month not going to have that extra money coming in. And it's not going to affect my lifestyle at all because I didn't rely on it.
00:19:44
Speaker
But it is one of those things you got to take into account that you're not getting that anymore. Imagine now if somebody came in and cut your paycheck. What would you do? Yeah, then it becomes real because you have to plan for I guess it's the, let's say it's the financial taper, you know, of going into retirement or, you know, living
00:20:08
Speaker
under your means, that way you can be prepared for when things do drop if you want to go that way. Now, some people want to continue to go up and they live to work, not work to live type of situation. I'm definitely not a live to work person. I'm a work to live. I try to do my best every day at work, but at the end of the day, logging off of work, I get more satisfaction when I'm not at work doing stuff. But you still have to
00:20:38
Speaker
outside of work, even if you're one of those people that just loves the nine to five and just into that and we'll do that until the day you drop dead, you'll be working a job. You still have some level of you got to consider what you can do. Like is your mind going to still be sharp at 78 years old? Like when you're, when you're doing those things, like there's going to be somebody else who, you know, is
00:21:02
Speaker
kind of coming up behind like, I want to work, I want to do this job. So that's where... And I think to me, I was thinking about this, I was visiting my family yesterday and I was talking to my 95 year young grandmother and mine still super sharp. Like, man, she retired 30 years ago.
00:21:29
Speaker
like 30 years of retirement and still sharp as a tack. You know, didn't want to come over when we were having lunch because she was watching the U S open tennis. And so she's like, no, I'm, I'm watching tennis and I'm in my shorts. I'm not like, I don't look, I don't look nice. And I'm sitting here watching my sports, but I was thinking to myself, how do you,
00:21:54
Speaker
how do you keep your mind sharp in retirement? Sounds like you've got a pretty good plan. That professor thing will probably force you to continue to stay sharp. But I was looking at it, I was like, you know what? Jigsaw puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles. So my grandmother always has done jigsaw puzzles. And I don't think it's just putting the things together that have kept her mind sharp, but I think that she,
00:22:24
Speaker
I think it's just, it's just a routine that she had that always forced her to think through things, even if it's just looking for something visual recognition. So I'm like, I got to start coming up with my list of things to do. I do jigsaw puzzles by the way, which is why I'm, I feel super smart sometimes, but I'm like, okay, what are some things, what are some activities I do when I retire that I can stay, stay sharp from a mindset standpoint.
00:22:52
Speaker
So, I mean, definitely be interacting with other humans. I think if you don't interact with other humans, that's going to be a problem. The other part is, of course.
00:23:02
Speaker
keeping fluidity in your thought process. So I think what happens to a lot of people is they watch one news channel, they watch one story, they watch one focus point. And you need people to debate with and discuss it. You retain more information when you communicate it. You ever notice how right away you learn something, you tell someone something, you'll remember it. So like right away, you'll go fact check me on the gummy bears, because that's what you do. And you're gonna gummy bear fact check that, and then you're gonna tell Monica that fact check.
00:23:31
Speaker
Oh yeah, sure. Absolutely. In your next FaceTime talk, whatever, or whatever you do, right? Yep. Yep. I'm totally going to, I'm going to be talking all about the gummy bear history, but I'm going to remember it because of that.
00:23:43
Speaker
Yeah, so and that's how you retain information. I think as an older person, you have to retain, you have to retain that information. And I think people who are stuck in nursing homes have no one to talk to. And I would imagine that if you're just talking to someone who's eating the jello or poking their finger in the jello, and you can't actually talk to them about something, you probably turn into mush yourself.
00:24:03
Speaker
Yeah, you have none of that, you have none of that like stimuli. Right. And I think the same reason why like the podcast is important because it reframes my day, reframes my week and says, okay, what did I do this week? What were the thought process that I had this week? And what are some things that are interesting?
Activities for Mental Engagement in Retirement
00:24:17
Speaker
Granted, it wasn't looking up gunning bears. I think I looked that up like two weeks ago. But sure, but that's those are the things I think people can do to keep their mind sharp. What are you thinking? Yeah, I think
00:24:30
Speaker
It, so for me, when I, when I think about, I do agree with it, despite being an introvert, I do agree with the people interaction. I think there's a, I think one of my biggest fears from a retirement perspective is to me, it's the mind, not the physical thing. Like, and I'm, I'm a fitness guy. I like to work out. I like to do the fitness thing, but like forgetting things.
00:24:58
Speaker
like, just scares me. And I mean, I know it does a lot of people, you know, you got dementia, you got Alzheimer's, just those things happening. But I see those interactions. And to me, it's like, okay, you want to have the people interaction, you want to be around people that, and part of me is, like, when my grandmother on my mother's side passed away, she had dementia. And it was one of those things that
00:25:28
Speaker
all of a sudden she would start speaking in German because that was her first language. And she would like crisp, like lucid, remember like stories and everything else, but it would all be in German. And my mom was around and my mom could speak it. So like my mom could communicate with her and talk to her. So it was interesting how
00:25:50
Speaker
like all of a sudden she would remember something or she'd remember stories from like a long time ago or she'd start speaking German. So just fascinating to me that if you have people around, you have that people to talk to, you can still remember things and you can still have those interactions with people.
00:26:07
Speaker
And to your same point with the nursing home, just like, yeah. Well, that's what family, I mean, so I think people are obsessed with living forever, right? And there's this idea of I don't want to die, I want to live forever, but it'd be very lonely to live forever.
00:26:21
Speaker
And I get it, right? And so as an excuse for not living forever, they donate all this money to a university and put their name on the building because that's good for birds to shit on. But that's what people do for foreverness. But I think what we do with our friends,
00:26:39
Speaker
And this is what we've done throughout our friendship and what I've done with other friends and family is that you tend to find yourself talking about your history, about your past and reuniting on those moments and making new memories to have those stories to talk about the next time you see each other. And I think those are the things that we get
00:26:57
Speaker
that's why trips are important. That's why finding get togethers are important. That's why family reunions are important. That's why exclamation points in life are important because they are things that you can come back to as chapter markers in your life. And we we so often blow past them not realizing their impact on us as individuals and what's gonna have an impact on a long term. Right? Yep. Yep. And I think there's you mentioned that I was thinking about that. I started
00:27:25
Speaker
started writing a journal, like journaling on stuff just to kind of remember some of the interesting things. And you know, of course, from a data perspective, then I go down this really like dangerous path of like, ooh, I got to tag it. And I got to tag these entries when they talk about food or when they talk about vacation. Like, all right, well, now I'm just building a database of my life, you know, that's searchable. I'm like, who's going to go back and look at that? But then I look at it and like I mentioned, I don't know if I mentioned this before, but like we do this whole,
00:27:53
Speaker
My wife and I do this whole adventure coffee thing where every Saturday, yeah every Saturday we go to coffee. So now I'm tagging that with adventure coffee so I can go back and look at the end of the year and see like what the favorite ones were. So when we have a need for coffee, you could go get, you know, you go get coffee somewhere else.
00:28:13
Speaker
It's up to your, we all become historians. I guess is what you're getting at. We all become historians at some point, whether it's of other topics, family topics, or ourselves. And that's why it is, as much as I, it's funny, I went to a family reunion like a year ago or two years ago. And I said, it's a fairly sizable family reunion. And someone at work asked me, what is quote, fairly sizable mean to you? Like 250?
00:28:46
Speaker
I had no clue. They're like, wow, that's huge. That's a huge family. I had no clue what a large family means because I've just been used to all these generations, but I have some really big genealogy buffs in the family. We're talking tons of different documentation and you walk up and you've got your
00:29:08
Speaker
your genealogy from like the original family member is one, and then your dash two, because it was the second kid dash five, dash one, dash two, a, you know, all this like, it's like, I've got a basically barcode on me, but it's but it was fascinating to look at the history. And then they talk about like, where this person came from, and, you know, what both they sailed over on. And when they came as like, everybody becomes a historian.
00:29:35
Speaker
I get the moral of the story, folks. Everybody becomes a historian at some point, whether it's your own life or somebody else's life.
00:29:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's because humans have advanced. I mean, we have to put this in perspective. Humans have advanced because we write down essentially our knowledge, our history.
Preserving Personal & Historical Info
00:29:53
Speaker
We write it down and we kept track of it. If we never kept track of anything, like when the Library of Alexandria burned to the ground, human history lost thousands of years of records because they were burned, right? All the scrolls were burned.
00:30:07
Speaker
And you think about those issues. If the internet were to burn up tomorrow, and all the servers were being destroyed, and everything that was stored on the internet was wiped, we still have physical assets at libraries. But here's the thing. And people always say the same thing all the time. It was like, well, what about libraries? What's the future of libraries? If you lose libraries, that's your only backup source for all these digital records.
00:30:33
Speaker
If the world were to, if the internet were to burn and all the servers were to die, a lot of human knowledge would be lost because that's our advantage. That's what we have an advantage over dogs and other people because we care about time and past and present and future. Dogs don't care. Dogs are like, what time is it? Is it time to eat? Is it time to go for a walk? Is it time to, you know, go to sleep? Like sit on my human's lap. Yeah. Yeah. And you're right. Like, like they think there's
00:31:03
Speaker
and I love like libraries and books are fascinating to me. I'm a total like techno nerd digital guy, but like I love going to a bookstore to a library and just like going through the physical stuff. I don't know if it's just the tactile, the tactile nature of it. But I think, well, one, first off, back to the point, I think some would look at the news and argue that the internet is burning, but that's for many other reasons. One could argue that what
00:31:33
Speaker
what can you believe on the internet? But I think there's, this is where I'm always, I think it's a combination of combining like libraries. I think it's fascinating when libraries try to digitize and they try to get both in there to try to meet that medium so people can learn. Because ultimately, I guess my question is, is a library to archive things or is a library there to help people learn?
00:32:03
Speaker
Because used to, it was 100% help people learn. But now people use the internet. So is a library just an archive? I mean, there's a really more archive history. Libraries were essentially archives. I mean, look at the common library. Let's just talk about something called microfiche for a second. Yeah. I'm just fishing Greg.
00:32:24
Speaker
But like microfiche was where we stored newspapers and we stored image. This is before you had images on archive.org where you go out and you can find all sorts of weird old newspapers. Microfiche was what I did it for my masters. I had to use microfiche, microfiche documents of
00:32:44
Speaker
base closure and realignment for the military because I was writing a big paper on base closures. And so I had to actually go and look at all these microfiche documents and copy it by hand or print it. I actually had the printer hooked up to it to print the microfiche document.
00:33:02
Speaker
That's not available to the average consumer. It wasn't to learn. That was to store. That was to maintain. It was almost a privilege. It was almost a privilege to be able to access that stuff. And I guess hence the quote, scholars, right? When you think of scholars, it's a higher level, higher education, higher Institute of Learning has access to knowledge. And I guess that's the difference now is back to my internet is burning thing, but
00:33:31
Speaker
Knowledge everyone or not everyone lots of people have access to knowledge now. So there's information information Knowledge, you know, maybe maybe ify there and I mean even I mean even the library you could go get access to information and interpret it incorrectly I'm I'm gonna head over to the central library when we're done here and Ask them if they have any information on gummy bears. I
00:33:58
Speaker
I'm gonna fiddle through the Dewey Decimal System. But I mean, there's an archive there, but there's information out there. I agree with you. I think there is. Books, books as a format, just like we were talking earlier before the podcast started, television series offer you deeper information than you can deliver in a movie. Books offer you deeper information that you're not available to get out of an internet webpage, usually.
00:34:25
Speaker
right when are web pages condense things they stay streamline they give you just the nuggets of it and they like move on and even then it's hard you can be searching forever to find all the greatest information I read a book last year called flow which is on the history of female menstruation and all the different things that happen with it don't ask I don't need to go into why I read this book it was just an interesting book and I read it
00:34:47
Speaker
on the next episode of Unmotivated and Unprepared. Well, what happened was actually, I was watching, no, really, this is how it happened. I was watching a Pirates movie, and then I started thinking about it, and they said, well, there's these female Pirates. Then I thought about, huh?
00:35:03
Speaker
at sea, female sailors, wait, menstruation on a boat? How did that look? What did that look like as a pirate? Like what happened with that? And then I was like, I need to go look this up. So that I went to look about how menstruation was like how they did it on ships. And then there's a whole book on it. And so I bought the book and read the book. And that gives you a lot more detailed information you'll ever get on the internet. And I think, I think
00:35:28
Speaker
Libraries are the source of that archive. Books themselves independently can take that archival information and translate it and make it available. But it's a single book that does it. I still think libraries are essentially centers of archival information that are available to pull out. While I do think the consumer library, I do agree with you that consumer libraries or residential libraries are there for each
00:35:53
Speaker
easy consumption of novels and some non-fiction, but they don't have the girth and the depth and breadth of books that a university library or a city, a governmental or municipal library will have.
00:36:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's fair. So we're coming up on time. We went all over the place today, Ross. Dude. Well, that's, I mean, isn't that the point? You know, I mean, last week was last week was a fun episode. If you haven't checked it out on Vegas this week was, you know, I mean, it's sometimes it's hard to make retirement fun, but I will tell you like going from retirement to
00:36:32
Speaker
Moral of the story, everybody becomes a historian in retirement at some point in time. I think it's good. I think it's good. But I will add with one last note. So I happen to have an opportunity to see Ashley Gavin, which is a comedian last night here in Charlotte. And she is LGBTQ comedian, specifically a lesbian comedian, and has gotten famous on TikTok.
00:36:58
Speaker
That's where most people have found her. She has an unbelievable podcast. But last night she was talking about how the podcast, she didn't have an agent. And so she started a podcast and she really avoided doing a podcast because she thought, essentially, you don't have to have any talent to do a podcast.
Podcasting as a Platform for Talent Exposure
00:37:18
Speaker
And yet in the process of doing the podcast, everyone found her and saw how much talent she actually has. Now, I'm not claiming that neither you or I actually have talent.
00:37:27
Speaker
But I do believe that perseverance of this podcast and maintaining a format and being able to move around the way we do, allows the few listeners who find us something I think enjoyable. And I think it is something that is some mark of talent, at least on our part. So yeah, no, I agree. Interesting point. I agree. Yeah. The people, the people I've sent this link to, they'll find it and they'll be like, well, they really do randomly go around in different places.
00:37:55
Speaker
They went from expats to female pirate menstruation. That's a leap. We're definitely nerdy. We took a leap from one ship to the other, if you will. That's a big deal.
00:38:14
Speaker
All right, Greg. Well, hey, it was, as always, great talking to you. And for those still listening, cue in on that outro coming up here in a second, because slightly different vocal. You got it. I mean, just key in on it. You'll hear it. So until next time, Greg, always a pleasure, my friend. Always a pleasure. See you, Greg.
00:38:39
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Unmotivated and Unprepared. Join us again next time as we continue to meander through random topics at a pace defined by our mood, the weather, and what happened five minutes earlier.