Beantown Podcast - US States Power Rankings Part 5/5 (08132022 Beantown Podcast)
Episode Date: August 13, 2022Nothing else to say - It's the Top 10!...
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Hey, what's going on? It's Quinn David furnace. Welcome to my show Quinn David furnace presents People's Podcast. We are one of the top 500 podcasts on the north side of Chicago.
We are the 112th ranked comedy podcast in the country of Pakistan, the Islamic Republic.
I looked it up last week.
I mentioned that we were or a Pakistan was an Islamic state.
And I said, the whole Republic thing never took off there.
But low and behold, Pakistan continues to surprise us
They are officially designated themselves as an Islamic Republic
Whatever that means. I don't know Caliphate. Now, there's a horse name
CA
LIPH
ATE is that how you spell Caliphate?
I don't know what it means.
I think that means you're ruled by a Caliph.
It's like the bailiffs Middle Eastern cousin, Caliph.
I don't know, man.
But I hold all my friends in Hyderabad, Islamabad,
Kiberpast.
I looked it up because we were talking elevation
and actually I'll mention this winner of last week's
bean town polls last trivia question of the week
is Jane Dennis and Furnace, whether the podcast we ask.
What's the elevation of Santa Fe in Mexico?
And she was officially 100 feet closer to the correct answer
than our second prize winner,
brother of the Podcast,
Walt Furnace. I think Jane guessed maybe 68, Walt guess 67, and the answer is like 7199 or something
like that. It's up there, man. It's high up. It's got to be one of the more populated high,
like very high elevation cities in the United States. I don't know if they're, you know, I told it and the What's in I think we already know the answer because we've been talking about it. What's that what's the highest elevated?
State cap U.S. State Capitol. I think the answer is Santa Fe right it's nothing else. It could be
Denver is a there's a spider on the wall be right back
duty calls
All right, we're back and getting a sip of coffee first sip of the day, it's 10.30 in the morning here.
Not a normal time for us to do a podcast,
but I woke up to go for my run this morning.
I was actually up by 6.45, I was priding myself.
We're coming back to the state capitals in the second here.
I got out of my phone.
I took the opportunity to look it up.
Cause I think this will be some interesting, some interesting data points in here that will share with you briefly.
But I guess I'll just get this out of the way. So I went for a run this morning and ever since
I played kickball this summer, I had groin issues. The problem is sprinting. Basically, I
was in a cycle this entire summer. It's like Thursday night,
strain it a little bit from sprinting and then kind of recover and not really make it
any worse or anything doing my kind of daily runs, but it was still bad. And they do get, you know, bad again on Thursdays.
And then, so that's over now.
But last night, the end point of this story here today
is that I tried to run this morning, it just didn't work.
I like limped slash ran for the first mile
and then it just wasn't happening.
Too much pain.
So I just walked in other two and a half, three miles and called it a day.
So if you own a little defeated, but that's okay, need my rest.
The reason it's so bad this morning is because a good friend of the podcast, Abby Witzack,
who is our haven't gotten there yet, but our subway expert. She and I ran a 5k, an organized 5k on a track
here in Chicago last night, and it was fun. It was a good time. A lot of people came out. There are
multiple heats, there are like eight heats, so we were in one of the slow heats, because we're both
you know marathon runners, but we are not sprinters at all.
But it was fun.
We ran together for the first two miles,
and then I went for it in the last mile,
just because it wasn't quite sure
what I did or didn't have in the tank.
Because I've never run a 5K on a track before.
And there's not only the physical aspect of it,
it's trying to not mess up my knee
or my groin, but also the mental aspect of going around in a circle, 12 and a half times,
is a little bit different than what I'm used to. You know, it's a great race, but I really
push myself what happened was on the last, the last 200 meters, the last, a lap. I had been gaining ground. I kind of broke away from Abbey my running mate
with like four and a half laps left and so I was picking people up knocking them down just
because I, you know, I'm not an experienced 5K runner so I don't really know what I'm doing.
So, start to pass people and then on the very last turn,
going into the final home stretch, I passed a lady.
And thought I had cleared her.
And I think I was still pretty much going the same pace,
but I was huffing and puffing,
but then she passed me with maybe, I don't know,
70 or 80 meters left.
And so when that happened, I was just like turbo man
turbo man
Great Christmas movie jingle all the way and
Turn on the jets and then ended up you know being her by two or three seconds, but that was I was a mistake You know was fun to be like oh no, I'm you know, I'm passing you again. You pass me now
Let me finish by passing you and it was just like, I
didn't need to push myself that much because it, you know, I'm not racing that
person, you're just racing the clock. This wasn't for first and second prize.
This was like for fifth and sixth in the heat or something like that. So I mean,
hey, I got an extra two or three seconds out of it, but it was at worth it to not
be able to run eight or nine miles this morning.
I don't know.
You be the judge.
Maybe it's what I needed to push myself to the point of making myself take a break
because we're coming into a hot three-week stretch here, man. Law orientation week one, starting Monday, Hawaii week two,
and literally a week from the time of recording, we'll be on our flight from Chicago to Honolulu,
which is crazy. It still hasn't really sunk in. I honestly don't think it's going to
like hit me until I'm like literally off the plane and step out of the airport. It's
like, oh, I mean, oh, why?
We've done some planning, we've got everything figured out,
but still this doesn't feel real, I don't know.
And then week three, come back and it's my big teaching week,
which is just a chaotic week.
But yeah, I mean, it's,
so I don't think I'm really gonna be running much
next three weeks,
which normally would be like,
oh, that's kind of a bummer, feel bad about myself.
But now it's like,
you know, I've kind of had the growing issue
for the last two months or so.
And now it's two and a half months,
and now it's like legitimately,
I can't actually go out there for a run today.
You know, the morning after a race and so that's just got to listen to the body, you know,
good news is now we got our little home gym set up here across the way in the courtyard, got bikes down there.
It was down there Thursday night after work.
So it's all it's all good.
down there, was down there Thursday night after work. So it's all good. It's all good. But let's come back to this elevation stuff and then we're going to get dig into our final
10 states here. Haven't even mentioned that yet. This is our part five of five.
Capping off today, the longest running consistent consecutive series in Beentown podcast history.
It's never done like a five week kind of thing.
I think the fall road trip 2020 was a four week ordeal.
This is five weeks.
So we're gonna get to that very shortly.
But I mentioned before I had to pause
to go kill the spider and I'm gonna pause
in a second here actually to trim my toenails.
Cause it's one of those things where it's like,
I keep noticing it, but it very inconvenient times
when I'm not like near my toenail trimmers
or near the bathroom.
And I keep saying like, oh, I gotta trim these.
And next thing you know, it's like a week later
and it's like shoot, I still gotta trim these.
So I'm gonna do that and then we're gonna
into our power rankings.
Also take this opportunity to let you know that,
listen to your discretion as advised when you're listening to the bean-town podcast.
Number one, we'll occasionally use some language.
Number two, is podcast subjectively terrible.
Sit my coffee here, then we're going to,
let's talk about these capital elevations here.
Okay, so I mentioned before I paused that I thought Santa Fe was probably the thought that
it certainly at almost 7200 feet had to be the highest elevated U.S. state capital.
And I did a little, a quick Google search.
Now this is a Reddit post from the subreddit data is beautiful from two years ago.
So I don't know if there's been some tectonic shifting
that may have changed some of this.
I am not personally verifying this data,
but it looks pretty right to me.
So here we go.
Here's, you already know one.
If a bean town trivia slash pull question of the week,
we'll keep it going on theme here.
Give me the top five US state capitals by elevation.
I'll give you a hint Santa Fe is number one.
So gotta tell me the other four.
I'm gonna go beyond, I was gonna say something
about something else in the top five here
that was surprising, but I'm gonna move
past that and I'm gonna just let you know how cool is this, how badass is this? Illinois Springfield,
that's like middle of the pack. You think Springfield, you think cornfields, you think Midwest, you think
flat. I'm telling you what man, this is like, it's legitimately maybe even top 25, it's like 2324 maybe.
Here's something you might find surprising.
Illinois, higher elevation than state capital
is like Montpilier Vermont.
No one's saying that Vermont is a elevated paradise,
but green mountains, it's not like
the whole state is mountainous,
but it's a pretty small state known for mountains.
Frankfurt, Kentucky, bluegrass rolling hills.
No one's sitting there thinking, oh yeah, Frankfurt, that's way up there, but I would, I would,
if you asked me straight up, you know, 10 minutes ago, what's higher?
Springfield or Frankfurt, I would have been like, obviously Frankfurt.
That's probably not that close.
Other things that are below Illinois that you might find surprising, Austin, Frankfurt. That's probably not that close. Other things that are below Illinois
that you might find surprising, Austin, Texas.
Look, it's not in the mountains or anything,
but it just feels like,
everything's bigger in Texas, I guess.
Anything else here that's super surprising?
Charlotte, North Carolina kind of surprised me
because it's definitely not in the mountains,
but it's not too far from sort of the edge of them.
New Hampshire is down here as well, conquered New Hampshire, and then everything else is things that would not surprise you.
Things along the ocean, Boston, Tallahassee.
Charleston, West Virginia is pretty low on the list. It's a little surprising to me. I would have pegged it as being higher.
And the lowest elevation is Honolulu Hawaii,
although it seems like Dover Delaware,
Sacramento, California,
Annapolis, Maryland, Trenton, New Jersey.
Basically anything that's on the water,
I don't know how the Rhode Island, capital of
Rhode Island, whatever that is, Providence.
That's like basically on a bay that leads into the ocean, I think.
It's kind of surprising that that's not like number two, it's like seven or eight.
Okay, quick, quick tonal break and then we're coming back for the state power rankings. The magic of
Stop and record and modern technology. Five minutes I'm in there
Clip in toenails
And you're just sitting here like nothing happened
I'm like a recording wizard. I
Love it drinking from our rockford icehogs coffee mug here. Although it's starting
to get a little cold and you need to go top myself off. We're going to have to pause after
like state eight or something like that. Okay. No more flippin' and floppin' around here.
It's the moment that you have all waited for. I feel like pretty much every single one
of these episodes,
the plan was to get into it after about five or six minutes,
and it's like 14 minutes in, and it's like,
oh, no, he's finally going to talk about
what he told us he was going to talk about.
You could listen to this at two-time speed.
Rachel does that with some for podcasts.
I don't know if it's two time or one and a half
or what it is.
Two-timing touch and broken bones. Pause our show and go listen to
is that the Hives who sings that? Two-timing touch and broken bones. I don't really know what
that song is about. I learned about it from a Madden video game soundtrack to timing touch and broken bones.
There it is.
By the hives.
Look whose memory is still sharp.
I don't know anything about the hives, but I'm not going to make you listen to me read
their Wikipedia article, which is something I would frequently do, especially if I didn't
have something else to talk about.
Because it's educational. Wikipedia article, which is something I would frequently do, especially if I didn't have something else to talk about.
Because it's educational, hey, maybe there's one person out there
who's never heard of the Hives, and well,
none of you have heard of the Hives,
but one person out there who's never heard of the Hives,
and all of a sudden they're like,
well, let me check it out.
I need some new music.
And next thing, you know, big Hives fan,
so you're welcome.
Jack P. Hives, lead singer of the Hives.
I'm guessing.
Speaking of new music, Deathcap Recudey dropped their third single
off of their new record Asphalt Meadows,
which comes out in just about a month here.
I think it's September 12th.
Song is called, it's a very death cab sounding
song title, Fox Glove through the clear cut,
whatever that means.
That's basically, it's very stereotypical, like if you pulled up like a random song title
generator and you're like, give me something that death cab for QD would write, I think
Fox Gloves through the clear cut would be a good answer.
It's a very unique song.
It's Ben Gibber doesn't sing, he speaks.
And it works, I mean, it's unique,
but it's interesting, it's new, it's fresh.
And I like it, I wish they'd given me a little bit more,
it's one of those songs where you do your stuff
and then there's kind of a big kind of instrumental playout.
And I wish that hit, they had given us a little bit more of that kind of blue blood
blue blood style just craziness at the climax or like a big-speak Canyon bridge
because it feels a little short the song itself is still like five five minutes
of change but I just wish it had a little bit more going on. At the end, which is kind of how I feel about
some of their other new tracks as well.
Okay, coming in at number 10,
we're labeling this top of the heap.
And these are the last 10 states.
And I took a long hard look at this.
I reordered one or two things
right before we started recording,
but these are the 10 that I've had in the top group of 10.
Pretty much since I came up with this idea to power rank
and we're just gonna go for it, no regrets.
Coming up in number 10, something that has,
maybe some of you have forgotten about it,
but still out there, Alaska, the last frontier.
A fact I learned about Alaska this week that's not verified, but I found it on Reddit.
The coat and I would believe it, just by looking at a map, frankly.
The coastline of Alaska is longer than the coastline of the contiguous United States,
Pacific and Atlantic combined.
Which, I mean, you could see it both ways, right?
You could see it like, oh yeah, definitely that's true.
Alaska is gigantic.
It's surrounded in a water by three sides.
I get that.
But you also consider, you know, West Coast is long,
but you go all the way from basically Galveston
or Brownsville, whatever it is, Corpus Christi basically, all the way up to basically Acadia National Park, all the way
around Florida, all the, you know, I don't know how coastline exactly is measured, but I
assume like Chesapeake Bay is that count as like ocean coastline? You know, there's just, you get up in that northeast there,
there's just a lot of, even the mid-Atlantic,
a lot of crooks, crannies, all that stuff,
deceivingly long coastlines.
With the exception of New Hampshire,
I think New Hampshire coastlines like 18 miles
or something like that.
You imagine if you had a property on the New Hampshire coast and maybe you had a quarter
mile of coastline, you would have more than 1% of all the New Hampshire coast.
That would be pretty cool.
But Alaska is great.
We've done a podcast from there before from the airport, the
Daniel J. Something, Seward Airport, whatever it is. Loved my time there. I mean, I've
been there a total of what three, four days in my life, but I loved Anchorage.
It's a town where there's, you know, plenty going on, but it's still quiet.
There were like not any buildings higher than like three or four stories there, where there's plenty going on, but it's still quiet.
There were not any buildings higher
than three or four stories there,
which is just not something I was really expecting.
But it's a town where there's stuff going on in town,
but people are kind, it's a walkable kind of city.
If you're in the general vicinity of the center of the city, it's a big city by area. Everything out there is big by area because there's just land for hundreds of miles, thousands of miles maybe.
And then Denali, I mean, what else can you say? The coolest national park in my opinion, because when you think in national parks, you think
of, like, and this is true of Denali too, but like, protect the wildlife.
Like, don't, don't veer off the trail, you know, like stick to the hiking paths.
And you get to Denali, and it's like, this is a state park that's size of Massachusetts. You can go do what you want to Denali and it's like this is a state park the size of Massachusetts
You can go do what you want to do
There aren't really paths
Pass the first 12 miles if you see a grizzly bear good luck
Use your use your instincts. We saw a moose in Alaska moose and a baby moose
Whatever that's called a bowl maybe
Didn't see any bears. I don't think in Alaska, which is a good thing
Still shulled out like 70 bucks for a bear spray at Walmart
Which is necessary. I'll pay 70 bucks to not die, potentially not die. But yeah, I
loved every second of it. It was a great trip with two brothers, we learned about
Baked Alaska. We went to that bar to have PBR and chips. We had omelettes at midnight at that diner, 24-7 diner in Anchorage.
So, great place.
Yeah, it's a lot of weirdos up there.
It's very red, very Republican, but I don't really blame them.
I think if I was born and raised in Alaska,
then I would probably be Republican too.
It's just they have different priorities up there.
Different needs.
It's a different world.
And that's okay, but I loved it.
Natural beauty unlike anything else.
You get great Vistas, VIS, TAS, and landscapes and stuff.
In the West, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, California.
Arizona, New Mexico.
But Alaska is just that, but times five.
It's just huge.
And there's so much of it up there that no one has ever really seen. Not
no one, but like a handful of people have explored, seen, charted. There's just
all that land, not to mention, you know, Canada. That's just, we don't really
know what's going on out there. It some mammals and shrubs and trees basically.
And I think that's pretty badass. So that's Alaska number 10. Can we get number
nine, a very interesting state. Stay with a lot going on. It gets very different
as you go across the state, different regions. And it has a soft spot in my
heart because I've spent a lot of time there as an adult.
Pennsylvania coming in at number nine.
So the thing that really pumped Pennsylvania up in my mind is it's a state that is very
different in the West part, versus the East part, even if you go to the Northern part.
But the thing I like about Pennsylvania is I don't really hate the western part, you know, sort of the more traditionally red
Republican part. Now granted, there are plenty of things as you get further and further
away from Pittsburgh where it's just basically the Midwest and pretty red and nothing special.
But I love Pittsburgh, man, great city.
Ohio River Valley, kind of the start of it.
Of course, the Allegheny and Mananga Hila
don't ask me to spell it, but I'll try.
Okay, rivers, Mananga Hila, M-O-N-M-N-O-N-G-E.
Rivers, Menongahila, M-O-N-M-N-O-N-G-E, Menongah-E-L-A. That's close. It's either like G-E or G-A, maybe.
But Menongahila and Allegheny, I can spell Allegheny, A-L-L-E-G-H-, GH, ENY. Rivers formed together right around PNC Park
and what is formerly known as Heinz Field.
It's something different now.
But Pittsburgh, beautiful town,
you know, a nice like downtown.
Plenty of things to do.
A couple of colleges, Carnegie Mellon, of course.
And Duquesne, right? That Carnegie Mellon, of course. And, uh, Ducane.
All right, that's in downtown Pittsburgh, I believe.
D-U-O-God.
Q-U-E-S-N-E, maybe Ducane.
It was damn French.
Uh, surrounded by the Allegheny Mountains, driving through Central Pennsylvania on, uh,
I-80 or whatever that is,
the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
You got to go, is it 80?
Is it 76?
76, that's what it is.
The toll road, there's like two exits in the entire state.
You got to go through the mountain tunnels, there's three of them I think, but it's cool. I remember doing that once or twice driving from Illinois to Delaware growing
up. I always thought that was really neat. And I still think it's neat as an adult. I
haven't driven through there in a while. Classic Pennsylvania story. One time I was living
in Baltimore, the only time I was living in Baltimore. But one time as I was living in Baltimore, the only time I was living in Baltimore. But
one time as I was living in Baltimore, brother of the podcast, Jack Fernis was doing a little
like East Coast trip, I think looking at law schools. So he stayed with me for, you know,
like a day or something. I think he like got in on, you know, like a night, stayed the
whole next day left the next morning, something, something along those lines. But I had to work the full day that he was here.
So I think basically what he did was I drove two Pittsburgh from Baltimore, four hour drive.
I probably left it like eight in the morning, maybe a little bit later, but then worked. I like three or four hour fair,
and then got out at like eight p.m.,
it was snowing, it was a snow storm,
and stopped at a denny's,
on the east side of Pittsburgh,
had myself a little diner breakfast,
which was a lot more common back when I was 21, 22,
I guess like 22, 23, 24 working that job, just eating alone,
free meal, and then drove back to Baltimore, got in about, I don't know,
1231 said to drop the car at the BWI first, taking Uber back home.
And, well, you know how the rest of the story goes.
Jack was a sleep
and I ended up hanging out and on a park bench for like I don't know half an hour
hour. One of those things where there's a lot it felt like it was a lot longer
than it actually was but that's because it was like pretty cold outside and I wasn't
sure if I was just gonna like have to
sleep on a park bench in my suit nonetheless anyways
That's not to throw shade at anyone. It's just one of them by
It was a crazy day because you drive four hours you work for like four hours and you drive four hours back
And then you get home and it's like oh, I locked out
but the other you know hours and you drive four hours back and then you get home and it's like, oh, I've locked out.
But the other, you know, memory I have of Pennsylvania, well, lots of memories, but
marathon training in 2017. I spent, you know, like two, three weeks
in the Philadelphia area. And so I would try to do as much of, not as much, but I had a couple of runs, for sure.
I would at Valley Forge, National Historic Park.
And one of them, I was trying to do like 18 miles.
It was tough, right?
Because you would work every day from like eight to three,
eight to four, something like that.
So by the time you finish working, not only you're tired,
but you've mostly just been like driving from school
to school every day.
So I get back to my hotel,
I change in my running stuff, drive another 20 minutes
to get to Valley Forge.
So by that time, it's probably five, five, 30.
And then granted, it's a little bit later in the year,
this is early September.
Or I guess more like late September, probably by that point.
Marathon was in late October.
And so, you know, sun's going down, like,
6, 6, 45, 6, 30.
So I don't have enough time to run 18 miles in the lightness.
But the run runs going good,
that was one of those runs,
I don't usually run with my phone.
That was one of the runs where I should have run with my phone.
Cause I knew Valley Forge,
but I didn't know every single in and out detail.
I didn't know it intimately, if you will.
And so the thing with Valley Forge,
it's kind of surrounds the,
it's at the Skullkill River, I think.
Yeah, Skullkill.
SCHUILKIL Skullkill.
And so it kind of do the south part
around, you know, like George Washington's quarters and stuff.
You transition, you go over the river on the road to the north part around, you know, like George Washington's quarters and stuff, you transition, you go over the river
on the road to the north part, and on the north part is
where I got turned around.
It's really simple.
You know, it wasn't like it got very lost.
It still generally knew where I was, but somehow I ended up
in the middle of a cornfield, I don't know.
And by the time I got out, my legs were just all cut up.
So I think there was a lot of like,
fissile and stuff.
And then by the time I get back
on the other side of the river, of course,
my car is on the far southwestern end of the park.
That's three miles as the crow flies
from the river crossing.
So I'm like, I pretty much know where I need to go,
but I'm trying to determine
because the sun's going down like,
mentally, I'm in a bad place,
because I just got my legs all cut up.
And I'm like, do I wanna try to finish the run
as I intended or do I just wanna try to get to the car?
And so I try to just do a shortcut, get to the car,
I got turned around.
Cause the roads in there, the paths in there,
it's not, you run into Chicago, it's a grid, boom.
Get the lake, I know where I'm at.
But this is like just wide open green spaces
with some trees here and there.
And so it's kind of like, you try to use the sun,
but then the sun goes down and you're like, wait, which way is west?
So it was a rough night.
The thing I was most worried about is they say,
like, okay, the signs are like, we closed the parking lot at sundown. Of course,
my car is still there. It worked out. The marathon itself a month later was absolute
just disaster, but it made it. And there's a lot more that you could say about PA.
But I like Philly.
It's a town kind of like Chicago,
a lot of fun things, a lot of rich culture,
but some funky areas too.
You know what, Philly has that Chicago
doesn't have a South Philly?
That place is a nightmare.
For pretty much everyone, South Philly. That place is a nightmare.
For pretty much everyone. South Philly is kind of hard to describe until you've actually like been there and experienced it for yourself.
I've never been like heck old or anything. I've never like had a bad encounter in South Philly, but I don't know.
It just kind of gives you a vibe.
It's always sunny Philadelphia located in South Philly, the bar, the fictional bar, Paddy's
pub.
But you know, for all that, Philadelphia has so much going for it, Amish country, the
Poconos, Scranton, Bethlehem, Allentown.
It's got a soft spot in my heart.
Definitely could've been ranked lower, but I don't mind it.
I could live in Pennsylvania.
Down to 42% on the laptop.
You know what I'm going to do?
I'm going to give it a quick pause, a quick charge, and refresh my coffee.
Coming in at number eight is going gonna be a heavy hitter.
I mean, everything's a heavy hitter
from here and out for the most part,
but we're gonna get pretty close to Pennsylvania
in a second here.
But I'll take this opportunity as I'm shifting
to mention that listeners, or not listener.
I wanna thank our sponsors.
I'm all over the place this morning.
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It's crazy that it's ending tomorrow, or Monday.
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Of course, our good friends, cuts by Q.
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Speaking of Q, we're gonna get back into Rade on Q.
We gotta get through this stretch here.
The second half of August is just a barn burner, man.
I mentioned what the next three weeks look like.
In the Labor Day weekend, in Wisconsin,
for a wedding, come back,
got work, or two fantasy drafts,
backed back days, Tuesday and Wednesday after Labor Day,
then the season starts on Thursday, it's a lot.
And then the next thing you know, I'm going to Kansas City
the week after that, the week after that,
I'm going to Canada, so there's just, it's a hell of a stretch.
Good and bad.
Lots of interesting things, lots of fun things, Hawaii can't complain.
Canada should be cool, but just exhausting at the same time.
Okay, I'm going to refresh my coffee here
and then we're going to return for our final eight states.
We'll be right back.
And once again, the magic of recording.
Got a fresh second cup of coffee, although I got it,
tell you, I am really, really feeling it with this cup of coffee.
I'm using the generic Trader Joe's medium roast.
Fresh bag just opened it up this morning,
but I think I need to do some intentional
like coffee research, honestly, at the grocery stores
and find the coffee that I really like
because I have just been wandering aimlessly through coffees for years.
It's not like, oh, I'm going to get this one because I really like this one.
It's just kind of, oh, this catches my eye.
This is on sale.
It's a good price.
Let's buy this.
Look, there's things I won't buy.
I mean, not going to find me getting folders or a Maxwell house. But beyond that, it's kind I won't buy. I mean, not gonna find me getting folders or Maxwell House, but beyond that,
it's kind of like open season.
And I really, I would really like to enjoy my cup of coffee,
and not just drink it because it's like a social,
oh yeah, it's morning, so drink your coffee kind of thing.
Major first world problem.
Okay, coming in at number eight,
it's a state that many would have higher,
and I don't know, very dichotomous New York, New York,
baby. What is there to say? I mean, I think most people
know New York City fairly well.
I'll never run out of things to explore.
It's a great town.
It's a little overwhelming, particularly Manhattan,
but I don't mind it.
I don't want to live there ever.
New York City, specifically, just because it is
like so big.
There's just so much.
But hey, that's just one part of the state long islands still have never been outside of you know
Long you don't you don't say you're on you're in Long Island when you're in like Brooklyn or Queens
Obviously, it's on Long Island, but you're not in Long Island if that makes sense
but like you know, I just don't I don't know when you went out on Long Island and
there's nothing really that I want to do specifically. So it's like, however far east you
go, you got to come right back. That's the thing about Long Island. It's crazy. It's like,
there's so much there. It's so long. A lot of people, but anytime you want to get out, you got to come back through the city in some
some way
You don't have to drive through Midtown Manhattan, but it's just
There's always always a curious thing for me always felt like I would feel
Choked off living in Long Island and then you got the rest of New York. I mean, the Hudson River Valley is beautiful from a
Sheerly aesthetic perspective, especially in the fall.
Albany
Other towns that are on
Saratoga Springs is kind of in that area. And then you get to uptown New York uptown New York upstate New York
uptown New York, uptown New York, upstate New York. Basically, just the Midwest, right?
I was just there two years ago.
I never really spent any time in a finger lakes area or Cooper's town, baseball hall of
fame.
I stayed in Utica one night, which is just very much like, feels like a very like, you know,
like, like, Alenton, Pennsylvania or, you know, Quad Cities or something, just that kind
of vibe, old manufacturing town, kind of stuck in the past.
But there's a lot there, the Catskill Mountains, beautiful.
What are the other, so cat skills are further south or north
because there's two kind of parallel ranges, right?
And then the other one starts with,
the thing A is that right?
This is embarrassing.
I was just there two years ago.
You got, I think the cat skills are further south and then the other ones, I'm pretty sure they
start with an A, are further north, and I did a little bit of hiking in the ones that were
further north, I think. But then, you know, what's really crazy, you get all the way up to like the kind of big northern fat part of New York and that's
kind of like Maine. There's just like open wilderness, not a lot happening, which is just crazy
because when people think of New York they just think of Adderondacks, right? They think of
just crazy because when people think of New York, they just think of Adderondacks, right? They think of New York City, which is fair, but not even just, you know, you got the finger
lakes and you got, you get to the like eastern edge of Lake Ontario, but then you go further
northeast towards Vermont and Lake Champlain, that what it's called, Burlington is.
And there's just a whole lot of nothing,
a lot of wilderness up there,
kind of feels and looks like, you know, northern Maine.
But I love that dichotomy.
I love how you get a little bit of,
a little bit of everything.
New York, just a huge place,
a lot to explore, a very unique state. New York City
go once a year. Be back there in just about two months here. Yeah, 13th of October I think is when I'm
going to fly out there. So, Greattown, BravoCon happening same weekend. We're there Maybe we'll go I think tickets are pretty taxed, but we'll see
Let's move it along here
Gosh I could we could do a whole podcast on number seven here, but I won't I know not even gonna say that much about it
Because I think most people listening
Based off of where I'm from and where the show is based know it number seven Illinois
Non-illenozians, non-wood westerners,
will give me plenty of shit for ranking this high.
I get it outside of Chicago and it gets really red.
It's basically just corn and the whole St. Louis Metro area thing.
Yeah, kind of sucks.
But hey, man, you get a little bit of redemption.
Southern Illinois is crazy,
but you get down to the national forest down there,
whatever it's called, it has a Native American name.
The Cherokee National Forest, is that what's,
I mean, that's not really Cherokee land.
What is it that's down there?
Shawnee, I was gonna say, that's not Cherokee land. What is it that's down there? Shawnee, I was gonna say that's not Cherokee.
The Shawnee National Forest, beautiful, where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers
converge
Southern edge of Illinois, baby almost Memphis.
Oh, man, our Mac is freaking out. Let's give it a quick pause and try this over again.
Just running like our 99 Honda Accord,
just transmission totally shot.
I don't know what the official term for that is on a laptop,
but I think my MacBook's transmission is pretty much shot. We're coming up on the 10 year anniversary.
We're months away from having this MacBook for 10 years.
And eventually, before too long, you
need to start researching just podcasting options for a MacBook,
not Apple.
Because it's babies not not gonna last forever.
And I'm certainly not getting another Mac.
So gonna have to, you know, we're not gonna be using garage band.
I don't think they make garage band for PC.
Lot to lot to learn, lot to figure out.
It's not gonna be that hard.
I've just been very comfortable for, you know, since January 2018 doing the same thing every single week. We'll figure
it out. But Illinois, you've got Chicago, my favorite city in the world. And, you know,
the rest of the kind of bigger cities outside of the Chicago line area, nothing special, but you know what, you can live there, they're homey.
It's, you know, it's Illinois, it's home.
Child of the corn, that's me.
Seven years of corn detastling.
Six, six kind of fan favorite Colorado.
And I don't have any specific ties to it but
I know plenty of people will just go nuts over it.
But here's the thing guys, it's getting crowded, it's getting expensive, they don't have
much in the way of public transportation infrastructure.
But look, obviously great hiking, great natural beauty, fresh air, legal pot, if you're into that sort of thing.
One place that never been for the most part,
never like had the chance to explore
as the western slope, which, you know,
it's not really on the way to anything,
but I think that's, you know,
that's a part of Colorado, certainly,
that I've never really been to.
I've done Denver, I've done Colorado Springs, Estes Park, Rocky Mountain, National Park,
all that stuff.
Almost went to Fort Collins for a wedding, but it was like days after I moved back to
Chicago and I just couldn't figure out how to make it work.
But yeah, it's Colorado. I put it at number six and I
really have much more to say about it. There's plenty of people who go Gaga.
Speaking of Gaga, Lady Gaga, I regularly field here in two days. I have my three
tickets that sold on stub hub and I don't think I have not gotten paid. I get paid
after the concert, but that's like $600
or something coming my way.
Looking forward to it.
And that'll pay for one of our dinners in Hawaii.
So that should be good.
And I don't feel bad about selling the tickets
because even if I was a Gaga fan, which I'm not, we have a highly public-sized, public
feud, I want to be able to go because I work till like seven on Monday night orientation,
hoping that I get out of there a little bit quicker so I can catch better calls all
live and not have to wait till Tuesday to watch it, so it can be part of the conversation.
But yeah, dog guys coming to Wrigley.
Number five, we are into our top five here.
And I promise the top five are going to be faster than the last five we just did, because
I'm running out of gas here.
And we're already 46 minutes in.
Number five, California.
People who live in like Los Angeles and the beasts in California are just not my crowd.
But at the end of the day, I don't really hate them.
I think just let them kind of do their thing
and know that it's not really real.
It's just kind of their like image that they've cultivated and promote out to the world
on social media and they can just like live in that bubble and live that life and I'm
okay with that.
But there's so much else in California to explore.
People are, have caught on to San Diego now, great place out there,
but really lacking a cultural identity, one knock against San Diego.
San Francisco, the Bay Area, you get much more of that cultural identity.
But good luck living there.
Maybe if you're a millionaire, not if you work in education.
But you know, some other places,
like a Bakers field I was in.
I didn't mind Bakers fields, I'm good natural beauty.
Obviously great mountains, great hiking,
Sierra Nevada's, Nevada's there,
I go again, Sierra Nevada's.
You go up north, you get the Redwoods,
a little bit further south,
around Mount Whitney you get the Sequoias, and then lots of Eastern California, just kind of
like Nevada, basically just like dust and salt. But a lot of opportunity, love
the diversity you get in everything, really, people, nature, all that stuff.
No interest in ever living in Los Angeles
or anywhere close to it.
I don't even like visiting that much
because it's such a long flight.
But I can appreciate it for what it is.
And there's plenty of other place in California
I like to visit.
I still never been in the Napa Valley,
but it's pretty high in both Rachel and mine's lists.
I never know how you're supposed to do that. So it's like Rachel in my Rachel's and my list. Is that it Rachel's and mine, list, Rachel's and mine's list.
I don't know.
We need a grammar expert on here.
And that's California number five.
Number four, probably one that people aren't gonna see coming.
Number four, Michigan.
I'm a big Michigan fan, big Michigan defender.
I think it's got, you know, the charm of the Midwest,
it goes my laptop freaking out again.
Let's try to pause one more time.
We just gotta get to the end.
We're almost done, I promise.
It's a struggle they get across this finish line.
I think I said Michigan at number four in my Mac,
just had a cardiac arrest.
Great nature, and there even been to the UP, but I know what it's about. It's
kind of like Alaska, just a whole lot of nothing. But in that, nothing I thrive. You give me a car,
you give me some drinks, not at the same time, but just for the holistic experience.
And some wide open nature. I'm happy man.
Detroit gets its fair share of shit and my experience most of it is warranted, but like Baltimore,
it's not a city that you just totally write off because of
certain bad aspects. There's plenty of cool stuff there too.
The island in the Detroit River between Detroit and Windsor was that bell Isle is that what it's called that's a that's a fun area that's a
classic like Midwest like picnic shelter except it's huge there's a
lighthouse there there's a turf from the Pontiac Silvernome is there there's
an old casino not a gambling casino, but one of those
Native American meeting places, that type of casino. And if you're smart, you park in the
Wendy's parking lot, you destroy it and you walk across the bridge to you know, if to pay the toll.
I got, probably got lucky that I didn't get towed. Like, that was, I'm a pretty like safe, conservative guy
in that regard, but man, at one time,
I had the afternoon in my self-indetroite
and I literally just like, there was probably
a million other places in a neighborhood
with like completely safe legal street parking
that I should have just done instead,
but I didn't have any issues.
So kudos so that windies for not being dicks.
But you know, Ann Arbor, nice college town,
it is expensive as hell.
Like Ann Arbor is sneaky expensive.
But look, we like to shit on both Michigan and Michigan state
just because of big 10 rivalries,
but they're not bad places to be and
The Lake Michigan coast
We've talked all about Saga Tuck. We had a great time there last year eager to go back new Buffalo's a fun town
Holland you can go all the way up to Trevor City.
So, a lot to like in Michigan.
I think it's got a great blend of affordability,
great nature, some fun towns,
a lot of different things, Mack and I Island, UP.
You know, there's just something for everyone I think
and that's really what I like in a state.
And so that's Michigan.
I think Rachel's coming back. Maybe she'll want to be featured on our top three.
Coming in at number three, we had across the country
to the state of Washington. Let's pause, see what Rachel wants to come on.
All right, Rachel said she doesn't want to come on the podcast.
Last chance, podcast? Yes, no.
No, head shake. Okay.
Not drunk enough.
That makes two of us.
Coming in at number three, Washington.
It's like Oregon, but better. Let's be real.
That's going to ruffle some feathers,
but everything's bigger in Washington.
Mountains are taller.
There's more deathcap for cutie.
Lot of rain in Seattle,
but I think the most underrated national park,
not underrated, but maybe a little underrated.
Olympic National Park in Northwestern Washington.
That's a cool thing about Washington.
You get to Seattle and you kind of feel like you've
reached the end of the world, but you can still go west
and there's a lot more happening over there.
Or Northern Cascades, is that what it's called, Northern Cascades National Park.
It's kind of got like a mini glacier feel to it.
They're not that far from each other.
And then you got your gateway to Vancouver.
That Pacific coast just gets better and better.
But no, I'm a big Washington fan.
It's definitely a place I would live if I wasn't,
you know, didn't have ties to the Midwest,
but again, you get a little bit of everything.
You get the rainy west coast.
You go to the beach if you want when it's hot out.
You get great hiking, you got
legal everything basically. And I don't know, there's just something about it that I like.
All right, coming in at number two, we are down to the nitty gritty here. And I'm making
We are down to the nitty gritty here.
And I'm making the last second switch that I thought I had already made,
but I was just pouring over my list
and realized that I hadn't actually made it.
Okay, number two, the one state on this list that I haven't been to.
So it's kind of hard to rank.
Hawaii.
I switched it. I thought I had switched it previously but I
not switched. Rachel says we're not moving Minnesota. That's okay. I don't want to
move there. I just like it there. Well that's our number one. In case you couldn't
deduce it at this point. Hawaii number two will be there in a week
multiple different islands
Here's the thing I
Remember doing quiz bull as a kid and you know geography was my jam right you're not supposed to lose the geography
Bull there was three bulls. There's Bible. There was math and science, there's history and geography.
Bible was always a wash, no one reads the Bible.
But history and geography, math and science, I was down for that.
There was one question, well, I have a couple distinct memories.
First, they asked what the tallest mountain in North America was, I said Denali, they said,
you're wrong, it's Mount Whitney or Mount McKinley.
And I said, that's the same thing.
And Jenny Kiddell said, nope, you're wrong.
So Mount McKinley.
Great, great president.
Good job dying in office.
That's insensitive. But then there was another question. Good job dying in office.
That's insensitive.
But then there was another question.
How many islands are there in Hawaii?
And I'm like, how are you suppose?
There's like a million islands in Hawaii.
You want to ask how many like inhabited islands are there?
Still, who knows?
But the general consensus is that there's like five or seven.
I think the answer that was supposedly correct
was like 12 and I was like, I don't know, man.
It doesn't seem right.
I filed an official protest with my mom
who was on the board and I don't think I ever got
retribution or
reparation is the word I'm looking for not retribution. But yeah, we're going in a week
and exploring a wa'ahu Maui is great from what I've heard and there's a big brush fire on
the big island right now but I would love to go to the big island someday.
Not only is it big, but you can go see Manakia.
Are they both Manakia and Manaloa on the island?
Or I think one of the Manaloa is in the ocean, right?
And from the ocean floor up, it's the tallest mountain in the world,
which is cool. But yeah, we're going to go experience it. Look, it's super expensive,
but it's just, there's nothing else quite like it in the United States.
Do we? Hot and muggy, but always close to the beach pineapple plantation.
It's got a lot going for it surfing.
Looking forward to checking it out.
It's just like when I went to Alaska,
it's a completely different thing than I've ever experienced before.
Similarly, Hawaii is going to be a different thing than I've ever experienced before.
One week from now, I'm wearing my lay, I'm going to be smooch in the
ground, I'm going to get a good picture, and that will be my 50th state. Coming in at
number one, as we approach the hour mark, Minnesota, I'm ready for the shit that our inbox
will receive for ranking Minnesota as a number one state in the United States.
And you can, you can, you can let me hear it.
Let me have it, be in town podcast at Yahoo.com.
And it's be in town podcast at Yahoo.com.
Tweet at us at white buns.
That's me personally, buns with a Z.
The show is at Be in town cast.
I'm a big Minnesota
defender. Not only for like the childhood nostalgia of the family there, but I
just think that Twin Cities are fantastic. Great nature, people are very kind,
amazing food, great beer. You know, most people go to Minneapolis and hang out there and that's great,
but St. Paul is kind of its own thing, but it's right close by, and that's a beautiful place too.
Just the like quintessential Midwestern charm, I think. You got the Mississippi,
You got the Mississippi, big and mighty, you got the St. Croix, underrated. And then you leave the Twin Cities and you go across the country and the state.
And yeah, it's going to look like you're kind of at your average Midwestern state.
But you even get a decent amount of racial diversity in Minnesota compared to most other Midwestern states.
And you got the biggest ball of twine.
You got blue earth Minnesota.
You got the spam museum.
You got the Mayo Clinic.
You go north.
You got land of 10,000 lakes.
You got Lake Superior Duluth, Canada, International, what do they call it?
International Waters, International Falls, Lake of the lakes or something up there.
I don't know, I don't know where exactly it's called, but I've heard it's beautiful.
Good fishing.
You know, West, you got the Red River of the North, North Fargo, might see Francis McDormand up there.
Most of Fargo takes place in Minnesota. I think she's like a cop and
Willing-Machemacy, I think it's like in St. Paul, right? Or Minneapolis maybe.
And the Fargo aspect of it is like two seconds of the movie.
It's just called Fargo.
They could have called it Minneapolis.
I don't know if that's as catchy.
But yeah, I just a big fan.
Again, a lot of these states appear on this,
top 10 lists are states that have great,
like big cultural centers, big cities, and then just
some great nature outside of it. Excuse me, kind of people. Hot dish. Oh, how would we not
talk about hot dish? So simple. You get two cans of cream of chicken, you get some ground
beef, ground turkey, a bag of frozen veggies, anything you want, but I prefer
something that has both green beans, lime beans and corn, if you can, a variety pack,
and then you top it with, you throw some salt in there, but not too much.
You top it with tater tots, you bake that baby for 30 minutes. Dude, I could like, you sit me down on a Sunday afternoon
in October, turn on the Vikings game,
you get me a craft brew and a nine by 13 of hot dish.
That is just, you know, it's 55 degrees outside, sun is shining,
leaves are changing. That's Minnesota in my mind.
And I understand that that's a very specific kind of image,
but that's what I'm all about.
Good people, not that fake California stuff,
we just live life to the fullest.
It's getting full from hot dish, just thinking about that.
I haven't had breakfast yet speaking of full, and it's 11.30.
I'm going to make some eggs.
I'm going to try on this bear's preseason game for a hot second.
Let's just see how it goes.
They're in town, actually.
But hell of a trip to get from Lake View to Soldier Field on a weekend.
And then enjoy the rest of our day.
We got dinner tonight with family dinner tomorrow, birthday celebration, happy birthday, my loving GF
Rache turning 27 and about 36 hours here. And yeah, that's what I got for you.
That was our top 50 United States power rankings.
Oh, I suppose we didn't even do this at the beginning,
which is fine, so it would take a long time.
So let's just close the book on this and go from honorable
mentions slash not ranked to number one.
So not ranked, Washington DC Puerto Rico in Guam.
Okay, here you go, this is the final list
from top down or from bottom up,
starting with 50 Alabama, 49 Mississippi,
48 Louisiana, 47 Arkansas, 46 South Carolina,
45 Florida, 44 Texas, 43 Missouri, New category, 42 North Dakota, 41 South Dakota, 40 Indiana, 39 Kentucky, 38 Idaho, 37 Montana, 36
Wyoming, 35 Nebraska, 34 Kansas, 33 Oklahoma, 32 Delaware, New category.
31 New Jersey, 30 Iowa, 29 Connecticut, 28 Rhode Island, 27 Ohio, 26 Arizona, 25
North Carolina, 24 Virginia, 23 Tennessee, 22 Maryland, 21 Georgia.
New category, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34
Indiana, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 North Dakota, 34 29 Connecticut 28 Rhode Island 27 Ohio 26 Arizona 25 North Carolina 24 Virginia 23 Tennessee 22 Maryland 21 Georgia
New category 20 New Mexico 19 Nevada 18 Wisconsin 17 New Hampshire 16 Vermont
15 Utah 14 Massachusetts 13 West Virginia 12 main 11 Oregon
Final category 10 Alaska 9 Pennsylvania 8 New York, 7 Illinois, 6 Colorado,
5 California, 4 Michigan, 3 Washington, 2 Hawaii, number 1, Minnesota.
Thank you all for listening.
There's been a lot of content.
I think pretty much every episode we've had last five weeks has been just about an hour.
But I've had fun doing it.
I've been talking about doing it for two plus years, literally.
And it finally happened.
So in case you're wondering, well, what are you
going to do now, Quinn?
I have no idea.
I don't know what the future holds for the show.
We're going to have to get in a recording, maybe like Friday
morning or Wednesday.
It'll only be a couple days before we're back at it,
because I'm not bringing the recording stuff to Hawaii. Although I do plan to, if I can think of it, bring my handheld recorder and
maybe probably not next week's episodes, but week after that, the tail end of our Hawaii
trip. I would record a podcast from like, why can't you beat or something, I think
would be good. That would be fun. You got gotta do it since you're out there, right? You can't not podcast in Hawaii.
So, the last state.
But for the time being, we gotta figure that out
in the future, that's okay.
Future Quinn problem.
Thank you all for sticking around.
Let us know what you think of our rankings.
You know our email, you know our website,
beantompodcast.com.
Check it out.
I'm done. Time to go cook. Everyone, I hope you are having a greatcast.com. Check it out. I'm done.
Time to go cook.
Everyone, I hope you are having a great day.
Hope you're staying safe.
Hope you're staying sane.
And I'll check in on you next time.
Bye. I'm just going to sit here. nd
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