Ear Biscuits with Rhett & Link - 188: What Happened on Our Spring Break? | Ear Biscuits Ep. 188

Episode Date: April 8, 2019

Link’s London freak out session and a McLaughlin almost in tears from excruciating pain are just a few of the highlights from Spring Break 2019 for these two middle-aged dads. Listen to more of thei...r family adventures on this episode of Ear Biscuits! We're nominated for the Webby Awards! Vote for us as Best Podcast Hosts, Best Comedy Podcast, and for GMM as Best Variety Series while you're at it! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 This, this, this, this is Mythical. Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I'm Link. And I'm sick. This week at the round table of dim lighting, you'll have to be listening to me speak like this and you know what, did I bring my tissues in? I didn't even bring my freaking tissues. Oh gosh.
Starting point is 00:00:24 Can somebody help please get the tissues? There's a tissue box in our office which I've been carrying around with myself all day. Be careful with the dogs, you'll let the dogs out. Don't let the dogs out. This week at the Round Table of Dim Lighting, we are going to get Rhett's tissues and hopefully minimize him talking.
Starting point is 00:00:42 Because the more- Minimize me talking? Yeah, because the more you talk, the more I can tell you're sick and the more you're spewing stuff into my radius. I have been purposely directing it away from you all day. I'm currently speaking out of the right side of my mouth so it all goes to one side of the room. Can you face that way?
Starting point is 00:00:58 Are you cool with that? No, I'm projecting everything to this side. But also face that way. Thank you, Kiko. Look at that, got my tissue box. I'm sitting everything to this side. But also face that way. Thank you, Kiko. Look at that, got my tissue box. I'm sitting right there. Today, we're gonna update you and each other on the spring break adventures we have.
Starting point is 00:01:13 We're two spring breakers. Yeah. We're not over 40. We're still going on spring break with our children. Right. So yeah, we had a full week off that we have not fully downloaded to each other. I mean, from calendar time, it's the distant past,
Starting point is 00:01:30 but in relational time, it's like yesterday. Yeah, it's been a- It's yesterday, brother. A week and a half or so. We do wanna let you know that your boys have been nominated for a couple of Webby's for your favorite, or at least the podcast you're listening to right now, Ear Biscuits.
Starting point is 00:01:48 Yes, we are a webbie nominee in podcasts, best host, which I think is me, but, you know. I think that's me. Oh really? Yeah, it actually said in parentheses, the shorter one. So you can go to. The funnier one. If you wanna vote for me or Link for best host.
Starting point is 00:02:10 So we're grouped together. They don't have a best host category. You shouldn't make us compete against each other. We're competing against other people. No, the whole idea is that people compete against, we compete against each other to generate more votes for us collectively, because what we're not telling everybody is that a vote other to generate more votes for us collectively because what we're not telling everybody
Starting point is 00:02:27 is that a vote for me is a vote for us and a vote for you is a vote for us. So vote twice. You can vote because there's an audience choice and we want you to choose us. Vote.webbiawards.com through April 18th, 2019. But that was just one of the nominations, Link. The other nomination was just best podcast
Starting point is 00:02:45 in the comedy category. Yeah, very honored. Thank you, Webbys, for the nomination. Listen, we don't have much control over the judges' choices but we can encourage you to vote. We are part of the academy. Vote.webbyawards.com. And we will be voting for ourselves.
Starting point is 00:03:02 Look only for Ear Biscuits. And GMM is also nominated. Can you vote for yourself? GMM is nominated for Variety Series, Comedy, and I think is that all we got? We got an honor. GMM hosts, we got an honorable mention. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:17 We're not good enough hosts of GMM to be a nominee, but we are good enough to be an honoree. And all we do is go on vacations and come back and talk about it. I mean, and then you call it comedy. That's right. It's the new comedy. Hold on, you know what, that's a great pause.
Starting point is 00:03:32 You think it's better than that? That's not what you call it, Feldman? Sorry to touch your sleeve. Don't touch my sleeve. We're gonna have to desanitize it. But you just actually, Well, sanitize it. You gave me and us
Starting point is 00:03:43 A quarter? An idea for what the future of this podcast could be. Let's just be travel buddies and just talk about our travels. Yeah, okay. Can we go separate? Because if we go together, there's nothing to talk about. You're right, yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:00 Yeah, I see where you're going with that. Can we be estranged travel buddies? We're not travel buddies, we're travel correspondents. You need to raise your mic a little bit. I think Smosh has been using your mic stand and you're hunching. You're not supposed to tell people that Smosh records their podcast in here.
Starting point is 00:04:16 And you're gonna make them sick. Yeah, that's my goal, make Smosh sick. That's not strategic for us, I'm just gonna be honest. So I went back to London for spring break and we took, I had this idea in January, maybe it was the end of last year. I had this idea because Lily, our oldest daughter, our oldest child is turning 16. Well, she just did, March oldest child, is turning 16.
Starting point is 00:04:45 Well, she just did, March 31st, she turned 16. And I was thinking, wouldn't it be cool to just take her on a vacation, just us, me, Christy, and her, so it's not a family vacation, this is like a dedicated time to just make it special for her at such a special point in life. I mean, they call it sweet 16. For a reason.
Starting point is 00:05:08 Well, question mark. So I would like to explore at some point how sweet it was. There were a couple of acute sour points, which I will get into. Exciting. And it's that, I don't know, I'm still processing. Allow me to process with you. So I will give some London recommendations
Starting point is 00:05:31 on my second trip there in just a number of weeks. And I will use those. And I, of course, went to a different part of the world, closer, I went to Colorado and skied and had some harrowing experiences there. Wouldn't say I almost died. At least not that I- You had heroin and veil. At least not as,
Starting point is 00:05:52 I didn't come as close to death as, you know, sometimes you never know how close you got to death. I mean, maybe I just missed death, but I embarrassed myself in a big way a couple of times. Again, we will know when we die and watch the footage back. Right back how close you came to death. I don't know if I'll be there though.
Starting point is 00:06:10 Travel, Estrange Travel Buddies, we're not gonna die at the same time. That's the name of the, Estrange Travel Buddies is the name of the other podcast. I do wanna tell you about another travel thing that happened to me just two days ago. So. Do it.
Starting point is 00:06:26 For those of you who read the book of mythicality or came to the tour of mythicality, you know the story that I tell about my wife's grandmother, Gaga, and her integral and sort of very funny role in our relationship of emailing back and forth. Well you should tell a truncated version. Basically, she had an email address back in the 90s when I was getting to know Jessie and Jessie did not
Starting point is 00:06:53 so I literally emailed her grandmother who would then print out the emails and then send them to Jessie. Because you were in Slovakia. Because I was in a different place. And I tell that story in the book of mythicality and on the tour. But anyway, Gaga at the age of 94 passed away last week.
Starting point is 00:07:11 Well, a little more than a week ago. I was sad to hear that. And we went home for a memorial service. And I already knew that she was an incredible woman. I knew that she was, and like I told you, that she was an incredible woman. I knew that she was, and like I told you, that she was strangely great, unusually unusual. She kinda fit the typical older Southern lady in a certain number of ways, but she also was just in,
Starting point is 00:07:40 the things that you would. She would say like Southern. She dropped her Rs. She would talk like that. Yeah, yeah, it was like that old Southern Belle kind of thing. But like something is up in the air. You know, that's literally talking like that. And she was not joking.
Starting point is 00:07:53 Yeah, this old Raleigh accent. But as we told stories about her, we just, all these things came back to Was that the ceremony like a storytelling? Yeah, it was literally, we just all got together at her daughter's house, my mother-in-law, and we just told stories about her. And we all wore white, she was like,
Starting point is 00:08:12 I don't want y'all to wear black, I want you to wear white, because it's a celebration, I lived 94 years. And so anyway, it was, there was lots of laughs, lots of funny stories about Gaga, lots of tears at the same time. But anyway, I had to make a very quick trip to North Carolina for the weekend.
Starting point is 00:08:30 Took the red eye on Friday night. There's actually an airport in New Bern. Yeah. Which is not too far from where your wife grew up. Down east. And that's a lot closer, because it was actually at my in-laws beach house is where we had the ceremony, so I was like,
Starting point is 00:08:48 well, this is a quick trip, I'm gonna fly directly to New Bern and then rent a car and go down to the beach house. And I was gonna fly on, I flew on Friday night. We filmed all day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, we were shooting GMM and some other things on Friday and so we went pretty late, so I took that were shooting GMM and some other things on Friday
Starting point is 00:09:05 and so we went pretty late, so I took that red eye, which incidentally was one of the red eyes where I was hoping that I was gonna have a little bit more room, but I basically just sat in an upright position and tried to sleep, which was not fun, it's not fun for a big man to have to do that. Tell that to a horse.
Starting point is 00:09:22 Believe it's one of the reasons that I got sick because I didn't get a lot of sleep and I was already getting sick. Anyway, beautiful ceremony on Saturday and then Sunday we're gonna go back and of course we have to go to the New Bern airport. Then you take the flight from New Bern to Charlotte, North Carolina.
Starting point is 00:09:40 Like a puddle jumper situation? I mean, it wasn't, yeah, it was a small plane. Bigger than I anticipated but still pretty small. You know, one row of seats and then two rows, well, one column of seats and then two columns of seats on each side of the plane. And so we get to the New Bern airport, which incidentally is like two gates and there are.
Starting point is 00:10:05 Like a strip mall type situation? It looks like you're pulling into a retirement home. Oh. is like two gates and there are. Like a strip mall type situation? It looks like you're pulling into a retirement home. Oh, even better. That's what the airport is like. Like literally the rental car drop off is just a parking lot and it's for all the companies. And then when you go inside, no matter what the rental car company is,
Starting point is 00:10:23 you deal with the Alamo person. So there's a sign on the Enterprise thing that says, we're out, please talk to Alamo. Oh wow. So they got one employee handling all the rental cars. There's rocking chairs in the airport, which incidentally, there's rocking chairs in the Charlotte airport.
Starting point is 00:10:40 But it's much more quaint in the New Bern airport, which I think is called the Coastal Carolina Regional Airport. Are you sure you weren't flying out of a Cracker Barrel? It was as much like a Cracker Barrel as an airport can be. Okay. I hope to be successful enough to park my private plane at Cracker Barrel.
Starting point is 00:10:57 It's so small that you don't just get there and then go through security. You get there and you sit outside and then right before your plane takes off, they're like, okay and then go through security. You get there and you sit outside and then right before your plane takes off, they're like okay, everybody go through security. Then you go through security and just basically get on the plane. Like that's how small it is.
Starting point is 00:11:13 So, Locke and I get there. I got there like an hour before the flight, which is very late for me typically. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm at like a 1.5 to two hours ahead of time but I knew that we didn't have a lot to deal with. And you're still an anxious wreck. And I get there an hour early
Starting point is 00:11:30 and then I realize that the flight has been delayed by 30 minutes which is gonna give us about 30 minutes to make our connection. Like from the time the doors, we touched down in Charlotte, we got about 30 minutes before they shut the door to the, so I'm a little anxious, anything could go wrong here. Sitting there waiting and then the flight gets delayed. No, we get onto the runway and the pilot says,
Starting point is 00:11:54 I, unfortunate news, we've been given a weather delay for we're gonna take off in approximately 30 minutes. That's not gonna work. So basically my entire buffer is gone. So first thing I do. Could've stayed in that rocking chair. First thing I do because I have become basically totally dependent on people helping me do things
Starting point is 00:12:14 at this point in my life is I text Jenna. Oh, see. My assistant, our assistant. Oh gosh. And I'm like, Jenna, here's the situation. Actually I called her, I was like, okay, we were supposed to have a buffer, we're not gonna have a buffer.
Starting point is 00:12:32 I just need a shoulder to cry on right now. I need you to get me on the next flight. I talked to the woman at the gate in New Bern preemptively and she was like, well the next flight's completely full, you could do standby or you can fly out in the morning. And I'm just thinking about the fact that I don't wanna be there, and I'm with Locke by the way, so Locke and I flew together
Starting point is 00:12:50 because Jessie and Shepherd were staying a couple days extra. Locke's gotta get back to school, I gotta get back to work, we got things happening, we got things scheduled, we got meetings, et cetera. You're important enough to have an assistant. And so she was like, okay, I'll get on the phone with the, actually the representative is supposed
Starting point is 00:13:08 to call me back in 50 minutes because that's what, when she called the number they were like, to get a call back 50 minutes from now, so she did that. And that's about how long the flight takes. So we touched down, mathematically speaking, and I had talked to the pilots, I'd gone up to the two pilots, because everybody's sitting with each other, and I start talking to them, I was like, you guys.
Starting point is 00:13:28 Hold on, you were sitting with the pilots? The pilots were sitting waiting to get on the plane. Oh. Waiting to get on the plane. Oh. And I was like, hey guys, how confident are you in this, in this getting to Charlotte? And they were like younger than me. And so, and they were like, well,
Starting point is 00:13:44 you know, it'll probably be one hour total from, you know, closing the doors to opening the doors, getting off the next plane. And they were like, where you gotta get? I was like, I got a really tight connection to LAX. And they were like, okay, we'll do whatever we can to get there as fast as we can. Like, I don't know what kind of control they have.
Starting point is 00:13:58 I thought it was all autopilot anyway. What do you think? They might say, you know what? We'll just take you to Los Angeles. Yeah, I was hoping for that. I've seen you on the internet. We'll reroute the plane. I think you're nominated for a Webby.
Starting point is 00:14:08 Hey, do you have an assistant? That was what I was hoping for. All right, we're going straight to Los Angeles. I was hoping they would secretly recognize me and make accommodations, but that didn't happen. So anyway, I was freaking out, as you might imagine, and then we, our flight out of Charlotte was at 545. The plane lands, now we've been told,
Starting point is 00:14:27 they close the doors 10 minutes before departure. At 5.35, the doors will close. We landed, we touched down on the runway at 5.25. It took seven minutes for them to. You got three minutes to get there. But not only that, because the plane is so small, we had to valet our bags, so we couldn't just get off the plane.
Starting point is 00:14:46 They had to put the bags with the tags underneath, the gate checked the bags. Okay. How much time did you have when you got your bags? One minute. Okay. We had one minute, we got our bags at 534. I'm texting Jenna, she's like,
Starting point is 00:15:02 the woman says that you're not gonna make it, she's talked to the gate, the woman says that you're not gonna make it, she's talked to the gate, they're not holding, they're not holding it for you. That's what Jenna's saying that the American Airlines woman is saying to her. So she's like, I've already got you booked on the next flight. I think they did know who you were.
Starting point is 00:15:18 They've already got you booked on the next flight. So first of all, I looked at a map of the Charlotte airport and I was all the way at the end of terminal D and I had to go, or E, I had to go all the way down E and back up D. You're trying to Jason Bourne this thing. All the way down E and back up D. And I'm like looking at the thing and I'm like, okay, maybe I can make this.
Starting point is 00:15:37 I was thinking maybe I can make this in five minutes. When I had one minute, I was already sick. Anyway, Locke and I pick up our carry-ons, we're literally carrying our carry-ons and we both have backpacks, we start running. Locke's a young man, he's 15, he's in shape. He kind of gets ahead of me pretty quickly. I am running as fast as I possibly can
Starting point is 00:15:59 without hurting myself through the Charlotte airport. Wow. Saying, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me, you know, excuse me, excuse me, you know, being as polite as possible, still a good southern boy. I would've just resorted to a beep. Boop, boop, boop. Then they just think you're backing up.
Starting point is 00:16:12 They think, excuse the cart, when you do that, and then they get out of the way slowly. They would've looked for a cart. Just flying through the airport. Eventually I had to stop and gather myself. Oh. I mean, it was that crazy. Had to take a breather, hands on the knees.
Starting point is 00:16:24 Multiple times, so in the end I stopped three times and we get all the way to the gate and I see a bunch of people lined up and I'm like, this is potentially really good news? And then the guy sees us run up, this dude, is like, they changed it to six o'clock, guys, no worries. Really? They moved it back 15 minutes.
Starting point is 00:16:45 So they had already boarded my group. But so I'm like sweating profusely. Like I've got a hoodie on that I've worn and ran in. Oh gosh. And anyway, I think that sent me even further into sickness because I just completely exerted myself. That's the most I've worked out in probably a decade and it was just to run across the Charlotte airport
Starting point is 00:17:07 and you know what, I could've strolled because I had 15 minutes instead of one. I would've said, you know what, I'd rather not worry about this and I wouldn't have done it. I mean, I'm not rubbing it in, I'm just telling you, I would've not done anything. I would've been like, well, I'll get there when I get there. Well. But ironically, I would've gotten there at the same time as you. And nine times out of 10, you would've missed the, well, I'll get there when I get there. Well, but ironically, I would've gotten there
Starting point is 00:17:26 at the same time as you. And nine times out of 10, you would've missed the flight. Oh, that's your opinion. And I would've missed the flight. If they hadn't moved the flight, I would've missed it. If I was there, we would've gotten in a huge fight. I would've just gotten, I probably wouldn't have ran. I would've gotten on the plane without you.
Starting point is 00:17:38 Yeah, I probably wouldn't have ran. I probably would've ran, but I would've been very angry about it, and then I would've been proven right when we got there. But if I got. What did Locke say? Was he mad? No, he was excited, it was an adventure. Well, he's not 41.
Starting point is 00:17:54 He didn't almost pull something or die. Kiko, could you grab that trash can so I don't have to throw my snot-laden tissues onto the floor? And then Jenna did all this work for nothing. Now Kiko's doing this, look at you man. Look at you man. Anyway.
Starting point is 00:18:10 Can't get your own Kleenex, can't get your own trash can. If you need the directions from gate E38 to gate D10 at Charlotte, just hit me up on Twitter, that's at RhettMC. I bet you smelled horrible. No I smell good, actually. my sweat tends to generate good, good odors. Oh gosh. Listen to you, man. Listen at you. Listen to you. I'm going to share my experience and then hear, hear about yours. Shop Best Buy's ultimate smartphone sale today.
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Starting point is 00:19:08 Enjoy your room upgrade. Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card. Terms apply. I think our spring break vacations were like polar opposite because I did something that I'm not used to doing
Starting point is 00:19:28 and then this will play out, me not being used to this over the course of the specifics of my story but we didn't go on what I call a vacation. We went on a sightseeing trip of London. Lily had the choice. She wanted to go to London. I think predominantly because she's a Harry Potter fan. And then I just think she's a fan of British programming.
Starting point is 00:19:55 I mean, she went through a Doctor Who phase and like the Sherlock Benedict Cumberbatch type situation. So I can't falter for liking that British comedic sensibility and storytelling panache. So I was like, I miss the whole Harry Potter boat, but maybe there isn't a boat, I don't know. That's probably a boat in one of those stories. They don't have many boats in Harry Potter,
Starting point is 00:20:23 I don't think, they got broomsticks. You gotta have a boat for something. Just broomsticks and a train. Trains and sticks, not boats. But I'm like, you know what, this is for you, this is what, okay, we knew she was gonna choose London, I basically booked the trip, I got to Airbnb in Lisson Grove, which is an area of London, it's pretty centrally located, close to got to Airbnb in Lisson Grove,
Starting point is 00:20:45 which is an area of London, it's pretty centrally located, close to the tube. Lisson Grove? L-I-S-S-O-N. And so a nice little Airbnb, a little bed for her and then another bedroom for me and Christy, and a full kitchen, all this type of vibe. So we got our own space.
Starting point is 00:21:03 But it was much more a sightseeing trip than a vacation. I think, because there's no relaxing. It's like, what are we gonna do next and what are we gonna see next? We had booked going to the Warner Brothers Studio Tour where they filmed all the Harry Potter movies and they have all the actual props and costuming and detailed set pieces
Starting point is 00:21:32 and all types of things from all of the movies. So we booked that ahead of time. On another day, we also booked tickets to the stage play from the world of Harry Potter called Cursed Child, which I remember a couple of years back she bought the, we bought it at a script. I was like okay, is this not the Harry Potter book? No, it's just the script.
Starting point is 00:21:57 So we got our hands on tickets for that. There's a two hour show and then there's a break when there's an intermission in the middle of that and then you come back later and there's two, basically two more hours. So it's two different plays. That's a lot of play. But it's one story.
Starting point is 00:22:12 So you gotta kinda go all in. It feels about like two hours too much play for me. I was nervous. Maybe 2.5 hours too much. I mean, I may come back to it, but I will say that having done everything that I can list out that we did, it was a highlight, like I really enjoyed it.
Starting point is 00:22:32 It's one of my favorite days was when we did that. We did, we saw the first play, first two hours, and then we took a break, walked around, and we went to Dishoom, the place that, our favorite place when we went to London. Very good. I went to a different one and it was just as amazing. I am actually calling it my favorite restaurant now.
Starting point is 00:22:54 You're calling it your favorite restaurant now? Yeah, I mean it's. Better than Slug and Lettuce? Okay, yeah. And then we went back for the other part of it and it was really well done, it wasn't a musical, which I think sidestep a bunch of potential potholes. So there's that much time,
Starting point is 00:23:15 intermission such that you can eat a dinner? No, there was an intermission in the middle of the two hour play and then they were like, you go out for two and a half, three hours and then you come back and watch another two hour play. Right, so it's a long break. Yeah, the intermission was just a 15 minute bathroom break in the middle of each play.
Starting point is 00:23:34 Got it. Two part story. Yeah, so that, I mean, day three was our studio tour. Day four was Cursed Child. So day one, just to kind of rattle off the things we did, we like took the tube to Westminster Abbey, but it was a Sunday so we couldn't get inside. I didn't realize that so I'm like, ooh, that's my bad.
Starting point is 00:23:54 It started hailing. It was cold. Like literally, it was the only day that I saw sun the whole time I was there. It's like that is a scarce commodity in London. The solar thing, solar ball in the sky? Solar ball in the sky. The only day I saw it, it was also hailing on me.
Starting point is 00:24:13 So I had to adjust my plan instead of like going to Piccadilly Circus and we missed the changing of the guard, got hailed on, I'm like man, this is not a good start on like our first full day. And then I was like, it's too cold. We went, I was like, we gotta go into the British Museum. Saw the Rosetta Stone, which that's pretty awesome. I didn't realize that, according to what I read there,
Starting point is 00:24:37 at least, maybe they're puffing themselves up too much, but if it wasn't for the Rosetta Stone, we would not know how to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics. Period. We also wouldn't have those great infomercials late at night about the software. Which is why they exist, right? There's three different languages on there
Starting point is 00:25:00 and then each language says that, hey, this is written in two other languages. It says this is the same thing written in three different languages. So whichever language you read, you know that. And that's how they deciphered hieroglyphics. I also saw like one of the Easter Island dudes, they just got sitting in there.
Starting point is 00:25:21 The British. That was pretty cool. The British had a tendency to just go places and steal things and then bring them back to their museums. There's nothing British in the British Museum. I mean there's like hunks of the Parthenon. It was awesome but yeah you do get this weird feeling and like I heard people joking about it like you know, about how nothing there is British.
Starting point is 00:25:46 I guess I mean, I stole that joke, which wasn't that great. I got this joke from the people at the museum. Nothing there in the British Museum is British. We were there for like an hour and then we ended up going, we went on the London Eye, the big Ferris wheel. Chrissy didn't do that, you know. You're developing a flavor profile in my wife.
Starting point is 00:26:06 She doesn't like to fly but she did it. She conquered her fear, it was a long flight. She conquered her fear every single time she flies so big ups to Christy but she did not elect to go on the London Eye and I wasn't gonna, you choose your battles, that wasn't it. Christy and I, Lily and I did that. Well when you talk about these things,
Starting point is 00:26:25 you need to tell me, you need to give me the, I recommend that or I don't recommend that because I'm gonna be in London in August and I, you know. I recommend the British Museum. I wouldn't do the top 10 audio tour because they kinda send you around at every part of the museum and that's what we did. It was very cool so we kinda got a whirlwind tour
Starting point is 00:26:48 but I would recommend that you look at the types of things that you're interested in and just choose one or two and go there instead of trying to do the top 10 because there were things that I weren't quite as interested in even though just for the sake of them wanting to take me around the whole museum. If you want a good place to eat in Shoreditch,
Starting point is 00:27:07 we ended up that first night at a place called Gloria, which had amazing pizza, like really good pizza, really good vibe. I think there's one in Paris and then they just opened this one in London. Do you meet Gloria? No, but they had records playing and like the ceiling was mirrored.
Starting point is 00:27:30 It was really cool, downstairs was awesome. Is the London Eye worth it or is it? Nah, I don't think so. It doesn't feel worth it to me. I went at night, it didn't feel worth it. I don't think it's worth it. I can imagine. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:27:44 I can imagine what it feels like, what it looks like. It's very slow, it's not, ah, you know. It's not the zipper. It's missable. It's not the ring of fire. And then on day two, we get up, I'm like, all right, you know, we got our oyster card from the tube. I'm like, we gotta get back on the tube.
Starting point is 00:28:02 I think what Christy didn't tell me was that part of the fear of flying is like the confined space type situation. So she wasn't really in love with the tube either. And you know, I'm definitely not criticizing her because it's, I mean, there's some actual anxiety going on in there. It's like something that like I don't experience
Starting point is 00:28:22 so it's hard for me to empathize but I'm definitely not gonna fall for the trap of making fun of it. Okay, then I will. But so I'm like all right, let's get back on the tube. We're gonna go to the Tower of London. You know, we got the Harry Potter stuff. Just hold out, we'll get there tomorrow.
Starting point is 00:28:42 Let's just get this tourist stuff out of the way that everybody does. And I'm kind of stressing out, because I'm like, it's taking me to different stops and like the Google Maps are really good at showing you which one to get on, but like, then the train, it says it's about to pull up and it says something a little bit different.
Starting point is 00:28:59 I'm like, I think this is it, let's get on. And then you get on and then you're like, I'm like starting to panic. And I'm like, this is not the right one. And I'm like, this is not the right one. And I'm like, it's not the right one. And it's stopping at the first stop. And I'm like, get off, we gotta get off. We gotta get off and we were still like above ground
Starting point is 00:29:14 at another platform. And I'm like, this is, I looked at the map where we were then, I was like, yeah, we went the wrong direction. And now it's saying, we gotta go and we can't just get on another train here. And I'm like in full panic mode. Like, I am, I was, I actually was like falling apart
Starting point is 00:29:36 and I didn't realize it, like I was panicking. And I'm like, we gotta get, you know, cause getting on a train and then like making a split decision to get off and make sure that like all members of your family are there. Boy, I'm glad I didn't have the boys with me. I guarantee you at least one of them would still be on that tube right now.
Starting point is 00:29:54 So we're on the platform. You had a good experience. And like, Christy's like, I think, I'm like, listen, we gotta, you gotta get on this, we gotta go down here, we gotta go on this platform, we gotta get on another train, and we're going a totally different direction now because we're gonna be late, and she's like,
Starting point is 00:30:12 why don't we just go up these stairs, and we could just Uber, and I'm like, no! We can't Uber! I've got this card! I've invested in an Oyster card! And I'm like, I'm not yelling at Christy, I'm yelling at London, okay? I'm yelling at myself, I think is what was happening.
Starting point is 00:30:33 I was just freaking out and I was like, no, we have to, we can do this. Like, I can do this, I can navigate. I can get us there. What was your daughter doing at this point? And she was like, she was trying to be helpful, she was looking on her phone and trying to figure out which train to get on because apparently
Starting point is 00:30:52 this is very important to me. And I said, we can't take an Uber, you know, I am just, and I'm looking at the phone and like I'm trying to figure it out and she's suggesting an alternate plan and I'm like, I'm gonna throw this phone onto the tracks. And I like, at that point I locked eyes with Christy and I could tell that like,
Starting point is 00:31:20 she could see that something was snapping inside of me. And it was just like quiet. I looked at Lily and she like looked in my eyes and she was like quiet and I was like, let's get an Uber. But it was interesting how, and then we get to the tower line and I'm thinking like, man, I was like, I'm trying how, and then we get to the tower line and I'm thinking like, man, I was like,
Starting point is 00:31:46 I'm trying to explain myself and like, listen, it said it was gonna be a 20 minute subway ride, or they don't use the word subway, and or like, Oh, that's your problem. 30 minute Uber. Calling it the wrong thing. And it was, you know, we'd already bought these and like the price and all this stuff and it's like all this stuff that doesn't matter.
Starting point is 00:32:02 I was just trying to make myself, I was trying to explain myself and try to restore what I felt like was the hope that was lost in my girl's eyes. That I could lead us to the Tower of London, the place where queens were beheaded or whatever. Did you, Dalton Abbott, did you? Oh they beheaded grandmas, I took the tour brother.
Starting point is 00:32:28 They beheaded. Queens though? Yeah a king and a king's mom. Did you, did you make it on time? Did you miss your tour? Well a tour leaves every 30 minutes. Okay. So again it's like, I was freaking out over nothing
Starting point is 00:32:44 but it was like, it was a bad Uber ride there, I will say that. Like, it was like. This is day two. Yeah, morning of day two. Can't have this kind of, you can't fall apart on day two. We get out of the Uber and Christy's like, we're just gonna go get a coffee.
Starting point is 00:32:58 I'm like, well, I'm gonna go get the tickets. And then like, I had some space and I like, you know, I just needed a couple of minutes to realize that I was being a jackass. Well, you know, falling apart on day two, actually, there is a different way to see that. Get it out of the way. As long as you don't fall out, you know,
Starting point is 00:33:16 you don't freak out again. It was, you know, we did the tour, the tour was fun. We saw the crown jewels and a rack. I always thought that those were testicles. Yeah. They're not. What do you think the rack is? I thought those was breasts. Crown jewels are, you know, for.
Starting point is 00:33:40 It's not the king's nuts. It's king's jewels, it's literally jewels, Rhett. It's not a euphemism for anything, you dirty bastard. No, I just. Yeah, oh, this is the family jewels. The family jewels. Yeah, the crown jewels go in the crown. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:33:56 And there's all these different crowns and scepters and I kinda, I wasn't that into it, but you get on a. You don't like gems? I don't like gems, I don't like gyms, I don't like crowns, I don't like scepters. Wow. And there's a bunch of them and you like get on a moving platform and walk past.
Starting point is 00:34:12 You gotta take your birthday present back. You stand and you're like escalated down past them but then you go to like where they would torture people and they had a rack in there and I'm like, this is down in like the castle barracks part and I'm like, this was down in the castle barracks part. I'm like, man, this is visceral. This is where it's at. There was one where they would,
Starting point is 00:34:32 picture if you get down on your knees so your shins are on the ground and then you put your belly on top of your thighs and you fold your whole self over like you're in the fetal position but on your shins. Sounds awesome. And then they put a rack over top of you that fits over the top of your back
Starting point is 00:34:49 and it comes together like this and then that part starts wrenching down and they just start wrenching you down, like scrunching you down on yourself. So it's the opposite of a rack which like, you know, pulls you apart, pulls all your joints apart. And they did this to people, both of these. I've been to the torture museum in Prague.
Starting point is 00:35:11 Oh gosh, I mean I saw two apparati. I saw many. I'm not into that, man. I mean I was into two but I couldn't be into three. I like seeing the, you know, the length that human depravity can get to. Not because I'm interested in it for myself, but because it's just to remind yourself
Starting point is 00:35:33 of how screwed up people are. Well, if you would've seen me on that platform saying, I'm gonna throw my phone onto the tracks! Like, when we got back into the car after the tour London, which we had a good time, like the beef eaters take you on the tour and they're like very boisterous and they're funny. And so I was like okay, this could be behind us.
Starting point is 00:35:54 The rest of our day could be, you know. We got into another Uber and it was like, it was hard to get into, we weren't going back on the tube. And then we were Ubering to Camden Market and it was like we couldn't meet up with the Uber and like I'm starting to wig out again. And I realized that like I had all these expectations that you know we were gonna see all these things
Starting point is 00:36:19 and everything was gonna go perfectly and everything was gonna go smoothly and it was up to me. Like Christy and Lily, they never put that on me. I put that on myself but you know I'm just, I have this perfectionistic way of thinking that like was very self-destructive in that moment and so when we were back in the Uber, I still couldn't, it was like I was back in that place again
Starting point is 00:36:43 after the tour and like it was quiet and then Christy was, she like broke the ice and I was like, I was trying to explain myself again and I was just like, I thought I was gonna have a second breakdown. It was just like, but this time because I realized that I was carrying all this unnecessary weight of a perfect successful trip being on my shoulders
Starting point is 00:37:06 that no one placed there except myself. So once I got over that, Camden Market was awesome because there was some really good food. Like you would love it there. You should go there. There's like a bunch of different food trucks and like all different combinations of foods. But that was my first moment of introspection.
Starting point is 00:37:24 I think it's good to have a couple which I did have a second one which I'll tell you about after hearing a little about Colorado but I made it through that. Well, I embarrass myself as well. Oh good. I'm gonna tell you a little story that will, you'll see the purpose in it, it's a little backstory.
Starting point is 00:37:46 Okay. So as I established weeks ago, I took the very douchebaggish step of getting custom ski boots made for myself. You told us all about those boots. And I have an unusually shaped foot. It's narrow, it's long, it's a high arch. There's ski boots that you just get at the rental place,
Starting point is 00:38:09 they just, you know, they can't handle my feet. Your arch is so high, it looks like it was put in one of those torture devices. Yeah, it might have been. Which I think women call a high heel. I don't remember my early childhood. It's like your foot bent over on itself. So I had these boots made and then when I went to Mammoth,
Starting point is 00:38:27 the trip that I talked about before, I actually ended up with quite a bit of pain in my heels. Like the sides of my heels and specifically the right foot was very painful, the outside of the right foot. Okay. So I go back to the place in Studio City, Ski Net Sports, I didn't know the name last time, but shout out to Claude, Ski Net Sports, he'll hook you up.
Starting point is 00:38:55 Will he? Yeah, well, yeah, because here's what he does. You can never guarantee if a boot's gonna have a perfect fit until you go out and play around in it, you know? Ski in it, as they say. And I go back and I tell him, I show him on my feet where it's hurting and then he takes this makeup, he takes my socks, he says, take your socks off, he doesn't do that for you,
Starting point is 00:39:15 and then he puts makeup on your feet and you put them back in the boots and then he has you push your foot back into the back of the boot and then it's basically, you've pointed to where it hurts, he's put makeup on there and then it shows inside the boot exactly where that spot is hurting.
Starting point is 00:39:32 Oh. And it turns out you've got like a little, he showed me like a diagram of a skeleton of the bones of the foot and there's this little bone on the outside of your heel that juts out and for a lot of people, that can be painful. And so he goes, takes the boot, I thought he was gonna melt the boot and move it around
Starting point is 00:39:54 but he actually just took a little sander thing and went in and ground down. Like a dremel? Yeah, he ground it down. I could've done that. And created a pocket for that bone on both feet. So. This is great. So I'm like so ready. You're set now.
Starting point is 00:40:10 So ready to ski. As I'm leaving, I'm like, it's supposed to rain and veil. He said, well, you know what that means? I was like, what? He said, it won't because he was like, the weather forecast always changes right before you get there. He said, but just in case, take a couple of these.
Starting point is 00:40:25 And he gives me this little, it's like a ring that looks like a little flipper, like a foot flipper, but he said it's a little windshield wiper for if it rains to wipe the rain off of your goggles. You got a finger windshield wiper? He's like, one for you and one for the lady. And I was like, well, I didn't tell him my wife wasn't gonna ski, but I was like,
Starting point is 00:40:47 I'll take both of them, whatever. So Jessie was not gonna ski. Jessie was like, she's like, I'm gonna read, I'm gonna go around and hang out in coffee shops, I'm gonna eat, whatever, I'm gonna have a great time. But me and Locke and Shepard were going to ski the whole time. Like, we were there for seven days,
Starting point is 00:41:02 we were gonna ski for six, we were like one day off. First day, it had snowed a bunch the week time, like we were there for seven days, we were gonna ski for six, we were like one day off. First day, it had snowed a bunch the week before, but it was perfectly sunny, Claude was right. The forecast changed, no rain in the forecast except for till the last day, basically a week of sun. Okay. You haven't skied in Colorado at all, right? No, never.
Starting point is 00:41:22 You've done Park City which is an incredible resort, so you've kind of experienced that, but it was also, there was like a blizzard when we skied in Colorado at all, right? Nope, never. You've done Park City, which is an incredible resort, so you've kind of experienced that, but it was also, there was like a blizzard when we skied. To ski in Colorado on a big, they have one of the best years they've ever had in Vail. There's like a 400 inch base and it's sunny. It was absolutely incredible. I mean, there were moments where I was just like,
Starting point is 00:41:44 I don't do like the crazy double black diamonds or anything. I'm like a blue man, the blue man group, and I just kinda take it easy. You like making things into a percussion. Yeah, and I just kinda keep it easy, I just carve and I like to get not too fast because I don't wanna hurt myself. Yeah. I'm just having a great time.
Starting point is 00:42:01 This is not an airport. And I'm, I mean, I'm having so much fun and it's so expansive. But about an hour and a half into skiing. My heel starts hurting. I'm like, man. Claude. I had a feeling that Claude had not quite gotten. Sean Claude Van Dammit.
Starting point is 00:42:18 He had not quite dremeled out enough of that. You know, I could have made a bigger hole for my big ol' bone. Okay. But he didn't, and so I'm hurting a little bit. But you know what, I'm like, you know what? You know, maybe you gotta break them in a little bit. Maybe that's what you gotta do.
Starting point is 00:42:35 Maybe you gotta break the boots in a little bit once they get adjusted. Well, lunch rolls around, and we decide to meet Jesse at a restaurant, because one of the, I mean, first of all, highly recommend Vail. I'll tell you the only reason I don't recommend Vail, and I'll get into a story later that illustrates this, it's too expensive.
Starting point is 00:42:50 It's just, they have you trapped there, they charge you too much for everything, but it's beautiful. And the village, basically, you ski right down to the village and you just like put your skis up and then you just walk to a restaurant, meet your wife who doesn't have skis on. You can walk in your ski boots?
Starting point is 00:43:07 Well I can't. Because they're custom. No, anybody can walk in their ski boots. I mean it's awkward but yeah, yeah. But Claude told me, he said, you keep these strapped down the whole day. You don't have to, you know with rental boots a lot of times you have to let them loose
Starting point is 00:43:20 while you walk around. He said these should fit so tight and so perfectly you just keep them down the whole day. So I'm trying to do that, you know, I wanna be a purist, I wanna do what the guy tells me to do. But as I'm walking to the restaurant, I'm like, my foot is hurting, my heel is hurting me. Maybe, maybe, dare I say worse than it did the first time
Starting point is 00:43:37 before he made the adjustments. Okay. And I sit down, we have lunch at this restaurant. I have to take my boot off, because it's hurting so bad. Take it off. Now is that admitting defeat? Did you feel like less of a man?
Starting point is 00:43:53 At that point I was like. This is your version of taking the Uber. At this point I was like, I'm gonna have to call Claude. I'm gonna have to tell him he didn't get it right. I'm gonna have to rent boots for the rest of the week, nullifying my whole purchase. You were gonna call him and say screw you? No, no, I was gonna call him and say dude, I gotta get these adjusted when I get back
Starting point is 00:44:11 because it didn't work. Okay. But I put it back on, I said I'm gonna ski the rest of the afternoon, I get back out there, I'll also. You took it off, you didn't see anything wrong with it. No. I thought you were gonna say he left a Dremel in there.
Starting point is 00:44:22 No, I take it off, nothing. I mean I take it off and my foot instantly feels better. I put it back in there, I'm like okay, this is good. I'll get it tight, maybe it just needs to be tighter. Because he told me it's gotta be tight, you gotta get that thing tight in there. Because I got it perfect, and so I get it super tight. Let me ski a little bit more.
Starting point is 00:44:43 I'm having the time of my life. Let me just tell you, I took a little pain reliever just to preemptively deal with the pain. Yeah, yeah. But we get down, we gotta ski across the mountain to get back to where we were staying. The slopes closed pretty early there, around four o'clock. And so we were gonna come about 3.30 and come into the,
Starting point is 00:45:03 you literally, I mean, talk about being a douche. I mean, you ski directly down the hill and you ski to the valet guy for your hotel and you just give him your skis and you walk and he has hot chocolate and then you walk into your hotel. Is that right? Yeah, I mean, it's all right there. It's unbelievable.
Starting point is 00:45:19 It's the douchiest thing you could possibly imagine. And there's douches everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere, everywhere you look a douche. It's like looking in a mirror. I mean people who ski in Vail, this is as douchy as it gets man, as far as I've ever been around.
Starting point is 00:45:35 Yeah, yeah, you're loving it. And so I couldn't do it. We're skiing back to, this is a big mountain, so we've got a lot of skiing to do, and I get to a place where I'm like, my foot is hurting me so bad, but I can't show, I can't reveal how much pain I'm in to my boys. I gotta be the dad.
Starting point is 00:45:56 I gotta hold this in. But there's a couple of times where we stopped, where I would have to stop and wait on Shepherd because he was still kind of getting his legs, and I would stop, and the pain would just shoot from my heel all the way up my leg and I would go, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, like crying out like that.
Starting point is 00:46:16 And then I started- Your eyes crossed? Then I started thinking, I may start crying. I'm in so much pain. Like I haven't cried from pain since I was a child. Really? But like my eyes were watering, I was like, oh God! And then Locke was like, dad, do we need to get help? And I'm like, no son, your dad's gonna make it
Starting point is 00:46:39 to the bottom of the mountain. Your dad is a super douche. His super tight fitted custom boots, which don't amount to a mount, amount of crap. Your dad will not be out douched by any of the other douches around here. Your dad is the douchiest dad. He's going to cry. He's going to get it. But he's going to keep skiing all the way to his valet and get that. He's going to grab that hot chocolate. With tears in his eyes. With his tears in his eyes. So.
Starting point is 00:47:05 And he's gonna retrieve his testicles kept down at the base of the mountain. I make it to the bottom of the mountain and I'm in intense pain. I get my hot chocolate, which makes me feel a little bit better. I walk back to my room. My wife is still out and about doing whatever she wants.
Starting point is 00:47:23 I take off my boot. My wife is still out and about doing whatever she wants. I take off my boot. And that, Link, is when, I don't know why, The end of your story. I did not know why I didn't realize it before. But the little windshield wiper that he had given me was in the bottom of my boot. No way! And I have, Even when I said like,
Starting point is 00:47:43 No. I thought that you were looking for something at the restaurant. This was in the bottom of my boot. Oh my gosh. And I have. Even when I said like, I thought that you were looking for something at the restaurant. This was in the bottom of my boot. Oh my gosh. And let me show you what my foot looked like. Oh! What?
Starting point is 00:47:55 It was, okay. You paid so much money for custom fitted boots and then you put a plastic windshield wiper directly under your heel. Now you may think to yourself, And then you put a plastic windshield wiper directly under your heel. Now you may think to yourself, how could you not feel that there was something under it? Yeah. And something about the shape of this,
Starting point is 00:48:15 the fact that it was perfectly situated in the bottom of my heel, the fact that it has absolutely no edge on one side, and then it is a perfect circle and the fact that I had experienced almost the exact same type of pain before, all these factors led me to never consider that maybe the frickin' skeegee, they call it,
Starting point is 00:48:35 that's funny, squeegee, skeegee, is the thing that was sending so much pain into my body. And it's weird how it was literally sending it directly up your heel. It was crazy. That's like an acupuncture type situation. And the fact that I made the decision early on to be like, you know what, it needs to be tighter.
Starting point is 00:48:59 Like that was when the pain. You ratcheted it down. Let me tell ya, the rest of the trip, when I didn't have that thing in my boot, Claude, shout out to you, brother, you made my feet feel incredible. I mean, you shouldn't have given me that skeegee because I put it in my boot, that was my fault,
Starting point is 00:49:14 but the repairs you made to my boots were on point, I don't need any adjustments, I'm so happy, this is the douchiest boots I've ever had. This is one happy douche. And so that was day one. That was day one, I'm glad I got it's the douchiest boots I've ever had. This is one happy douche. But. And so that was day one. That was day one, I'm glad I got that out of the way. Wow, what if you'd have realized it at the end of the trip?
Starting point is 00:49:32 That'd have been horrible. Well, it would have been difficult to do because I did look in my boot. I didn't look at it in the restaurant because I didn't even want to draw attention to the fact that I was taking my boot off. You were too concerned about your rep. I was like. You didn't want all the other douches to know that you my boot off. You were too concerned about your rep. I was like, I. You didn't want all
Starting point is 00:49:45 the other douches to know that you were a weaker. Well, nobody else in the restaurant had their boots on at all. Nobody was even skiing, I felt, you know. Oh, really? Anyway, the skiing ended up being an incredible part of the trip. I did yell at my children a little bit
Starting point is 00:50:00 just to kinda join the club. It's interesting that you're, I mean, you're the one who likes variety and doesn't like to go back and do the same thing. Like I thought you may be like, man, this skiing thing's getting old, I wanna experience something different. Well.
Starting point is 00:50:13 Like are you doubling down on the skiing now? No, at the end of the trip, my conclusion, and I like to have a feeling and to sort of distill a feeling at the end of the trip and then kind of like remember that because you'll forget about it. It's just like when you have a child. After you have a child, you're like, I'm never doing that again and then it wears off
Starting point is 00:50:33 and you have more kids. Yeah, you didn't distill it enough. You gotta distill it. Distilled at the end of the vacation, I was like, that was super fun but a couple of things. I feel like I narrowly avoided getting seriously hurt. Like just statistically speaking, there was so much skiing involved for me and my two sons
Starting point is 00:50:50 that the fact that none of us got hurt, I kind of feel like we got lucky because there was people getting on our plane in wheelchairs and they were like, had been recently injured. Wow. During their time in Vail. And also, yeah, you do kind of feel like, I've kind of been down this trail
Starting point is 00:51:05 and because I'm not some super risk taker and I don't like jump off of cliffs, my skiing experience sort of maxes out with a certain thing and so, and also Jessie didn't do it with us and so I kind of felt like I wasn't really spending that much time with her so I thought, you know what? So you're saying this phase is coming to an end?
Starting point is 00:51:24 No, no, no, no, I think that the weekend ski trip, the two day, the three day ski trip, but a full week of skiing in one place, we're not gonna do it next year, we're gonna do something else, and then we'll decide as a family if we wanna go back and do it again. Had an incredible time, and the kids,
Starting point is 00:51:41 one of the things about doing that much skiing back to back is like the learning curve, like the kids are so much better like we're like, Shepard like can keep up with us perfectly now because he just did so much skiing. Well you know I agree that you should distill down your trip, I think for me as it relates to the trip, you know, I had all the expectations of what the perfect trip would look like from an itinerary standpoint.
Starting point is 00:52:09 On the fifth day, we went to Stonehenge and Bath. And then just to give you a complete view of what my trip was, I do recommend going to Stonehenge. I know you're into, it's not wood, but you're also into rocks. And you're into like 5,000 year old rock configurations. Very cool. Bath was okay.
Starting point is 00:52:31 It was cool to walk around, but I really love Stonehenge. But as far as like distilling it down, I also think I had a lot of expectations. I got really excited the months back when I said, this is gonna be like sweet 16 Lily trip. You know, I don't know what I pictured specifically, but I will be honest, and this is not a criticism of Lily in any way.
Starting point is 00:53:01 I think it's more of just my internal dialogue. I don't know, I felt like there was gonna be some magical sweet 16 moment that I found myself questioning, should I have done something more ceremonial? Like when we went to Bath and Bath is the only naturally occurring hot springs in the UK, in that one town and they built a whole town around it. People would come for forever and just drink
Starting point is 00:53:31 from the springs and they started bathing in it. But I was like, maybe I should do some sort of sweet 16 ceremony here or something. I'm sure that was over well. Yeah, yeah, and it's like, you know, that was not my instinct at the time. But then when it was done, we were coming back, I was like,
Starting point is 00:53:49 was it, could it have been even more special? You know, I think I was thinking, I don't know that there would all of a sudden, the structure or like the tone of our entire relationship would shift. Like I ultimately chalked it up to me having these nebulous but huge and unrooted expectations of some magical event happening where, oh look, my daughter is a woman now.
Starting point is 00:54:21 And I guess that's not the right way to say it but like it was that we'd have this special moment. Like they were, remember that one moment when she turned to me and her mom and said, you know what, you're the greatest parents on earth and I am so, I just feel like I'm having the most special moment of my life right now and I'm glad that I'm sharing it with you
Starting point is 00:54:50 and not with some two-bit boyfriend who wants to take me to some knockoff prom situation. Knockoff prom? I don't know. What is that? There is no two-bit boyfriend and there's no knockoff prom. I'm just saying like, you know, as your kids get older,
Starting point is 00:55:07 at least for me, I want to know that like I have a vibrant and special relationship as it evolves because make no mistake, it is evolving. I mean, she's becoming an adult. So it's not a parent child relationship exclusively. Now it's like there's a friend component. They're starting to have conversations that you would have with any other adult
Starting point is 00:55:30 and seeing her rise to that occasion conversationally and say, oh yeah, I'm seeing my daughter differently as a more mature person who's becoming her own complete adult, you know? That's really starting to happen at this point in an emotional, relational level. But I apparently had some sort of expectation that there would be a magical moment.
Starting point is 00:55:57 That only happens in the movies, man. And that happens on television. And if you- That doesn't happen in real life. And to your point, if you tried to like ceremonialize it, it could go very sideways. It could be very awkward. So I kind of swung the pendulum upon further reflection
Starting point is 00:56:16 that if I would have tried to create some sort of ceremonial moment, like manufacture it or engineer it, that the chances of that backfiring into awkwardness and just seeming forced, there's a high likelihood of that. So I think my takeaway, it having been a while since the trip, is just an appreciation the trip is just an appreciation that we did the trip. I think as more time passes, it will actually grow to be even more special.
Starting point is 00:56:52 That's my theory at least, that you take the whole time as a whole and it's not, you know, the picture that we took in front of Westminster Abbey when it started hailing on us, maybe that'll be a great memory too. I think it will be. But it's coming back after going to the Harry Potter tour all day and riding in some huge freaking
Starting point is 00:57:12 torturous bus for like over an hour to get to this place and to come back and then just crashing at our room and saying, you know what, let's just watch something and she's like, let's watch the Umbrella, let's see, what's it called? Umbrella Academy. This is like series on Netflix that she's into. She's like, I've already watched it,
Starting point is 00:57:34 but I wanna watch it with you guys. So it's like all three of us piling into our bed and watching a Netflix series together. And I think those are the things that I'm gonna remember. It's like, we hung out like friends and it was, it was special. And even, yeah, they may remember me having the breakdown or they, you know, and I think we'll be able to laugh
Starting point is 00:58:01 about those type of things, but I think it's- It's an investment, man. It's an investment in setting an environment where we can have an experience together so that the weird, the frustrating, the tired, the end, the special all kind of meld together and create something that I believe is unforgettable, but doesn't translate into something you can just buy in a souvenir shop and remember.
Starting point is 00:58:28 It's not like something, it's like investing into your retirement fund and then going back the next day and looking at it and being like, oh, oh, when is this gonna grow? I think that's right. Because, I mean. And I also think from her perspective, it's not like I expected her to articulate things that,
Starting point is 00:58:48 as a 16 year old, she has no point of reference that's like, you know, I didn't want to go into this lecture mode, like not every 16 year old gets to go anywhere they want in the world and you get to go to London and like, don't forget what we've done for you. It's like, I actually, I was tempted to go into that a few times.
Starting point is 00:59:03 Well you should do that from time to time, just to be a good dad. Not that she wasn't grateful or appreciative because she was but. You just have to hope that when the kids write the tell all book, that the good outweighs the bad, man. And the best you can hope for is that you're gonna get like a card, like okay, realistically,
Starting point is 00:59:27 you're gonna get like a card when they're 33. Okay. And they've got some life experience and then they're like, they write you a really sweet card and they're like, I remember that trip and I've really thought about how you cared about us and the time that you put into our relationship but you're not gonna, unless you've got an exceptionally exceptional,
Starting point is 00:59:55 unusual, expressive child, they're not gonna be like, I wanna let you know that this vacation is going incredibly well and I recognize that you guys have actually thought about this in a way that, you know, this is just, I realize this is just for me. Like you guys made a decision to leave the other kids at home to just bring me here to do the things
Starting point is 01:00:19 that I wanted to do, to create a memory for me? You guys are the best parents in the world. Yeah, that's what I wanted, and that would be weird, wouldn't it? You don't want that, because then it's about you. Mm, isn't that true? It's not about you, it's about the investment that you're making in your daughter and your family,
Starting point is 01:00:38 and then you gotta hope that, not only is it, first of all, you don't do it just for the card, or for the tell-all book to be good versus bad. You're doing it because you actually think it's contributing to her as a person. And how can she know? How could she even process? Like I can, at my age, I can barely process
Starting point is 01:00:55 the way that my experiences are impacting who I am. Yeah, you take me for granted all the time. Well, no, I mean, I deal with the same things with my kids. It was like, I mean, I deal with the same things with my kids, it was like, I mean, now I do on a regular basis, and I also think that, generalization here, but dealing with two boys is a little bit different, and I, I mean, they're like constantly fighting
Starting point is 01:01:23 and like constantly annoying each other and we had to like, there were multiple times where I'm just like going to that kind of dad mode, you know? Yeah. And then have to pull myself back but you know, you talk about you guys getting together. One of the most special things that we experienced on our trip was okay, so every day, the three of us would go out and ski.
Starting point is 01:01:46 There would be multiple fights between Locke and Shepard because Locke's getting mad that Shepard's holding us up and he falls down and he needs help and other people have to help him if I'm below him on the mountain and stuff. And then Locke would be like, I'm gonna ski by myself! And so he goes off and does his teenage ski by himself thing and then Shepard and I ski and then we'll meet up again.
Starting point is 01:02:06 So that kind of thing is happening. I'm kinda trying to manage it and I'm not trying to force it because I want the same thing. I want there to be these moments of like a father and his two sons in perfect rhythm on the slopes of Colorado. Yeah. Postcard. Yeah. But really it's like.
Starting point is 01:02:21 And while they're skiing, they're looking at you talking about how great of a dad you are. Yeah, right. But really what's happening. And while they're skiing, they're looking at you, talking about how great of a dad you are. Yeah, right. But really what's happening is I'm getting separated from Shepard and I'm getting a phone call from Jesse who got a phone call from the guy at the lift who's like, your son is here and is lost. That happened, yeah, it's not even worth.
Starting point is 01:02:37 Shepard or Locke? Shepard. Locke had his own phone. But Shepard was fine, he didn't panic or anything. He knew that we would get in touch and we got hooked back up. And also, in the midst of looking for Shepherd, cutting off this little girl, then her dad
Starting point is 01:02:52 skiing got to me and he's like, what the hell are you thinking? And me not saying anything back to him because I didn't have an answer. There's something in my boot. No, that was after the boot had been cleared. There was something in my boot yesterday., that was after the boot had been cleared. There was something in my boot yesterday. But the cool, one of the best things
Starting point is 01:03:08 that happened as a family is we would go skiing and then we would come back and we would go out to eat. And then we would come back to the hotel and they had their room and we had our room. But we would all get into our bed, so four of us, which is even more difficult than three people in a bed, and we would watch the Goldbergs. Now I know I have told you,
Starting point is 01:03:29 I've already plugged the Goldbergs once. You're plugging some Goldbergs? That was your show. And again, let me just say that, I'm not saying that it's a perfect show. I'm saying it is the perfect show to watch as our family because we all fit these totally exaggerated tropes. The show is so exaggerated.
Starting point is 01:03:51 Well, not really, I mean it's. You don't have to go back through why the Goldbergs is great, but what did it do for you? No, but like we relate. There's something about all this stuff that we've done during the day of like Locke being the typical teenager and Sh Locke being the typical teenager and Shepherd being the typical annoying little brother
Starting point is 01:04:08 and Jessie being the overprotective mom and me being the dad with a short fuse, that when you sit down and you see it played out comedically in a show, we start realizing how we've just fallen into these roles in these predictable ways and it just makes us, we bonded as a family and then like Shepard, it would be like 10 o'clock at night
Starting point is 01:04:32 and Shepard figured out how to call room to room, of course, so he started doing that a lot. The phone would ring, I'd pick it up and be like, hello and Shepard would be like, you know what time it is? I was like, what, he said Goldberg time. And so he was like, he was so into us sitting down. And there's not a lot. It's kinda like our survivor time.
Starting point is 01:04:49 And there's, yeah, there's not, like you've said before, there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of entertainment out there that you can just sit down as a family and just completely bond. That used to be the way it was. Yeah. Ironically, back in the 80s,
Starting point is 01:05:01 which is when the Goldbergs was based. But that was the sweetest time that we had. Like lots of typical family stuff that we did of getting on each other's nerves. But there was that time we would all get together, all file into the bed and just, I think that that's the kind of thing that they're gonna remember.
Starting point is 01:05:17 They're gonna have a memory of like, I remember being, you don't remember being annoyed by your little brother or your big brother or your dad having a short fuse or your mom picking at something on you and upsetting you. I think you'll remember those, the sweet times. And if they don't, we can make them listen
Starting point is 01:05:38 to this podcast. Do you have anything else from London? No, that's it, man. We rode the double-decker bus. Christy liked that a lot better than the tube. Lot more visibility. Everybody was happy once we got up top of the double-decker bus.
Starting point is 01:05:56 I have a quick rec that I think you're gonna wholeheartedly agree with. Check baby, check baby, one, two, three, four. Check baby, check baby, one, two. Just as a small addendum because I can't not tell you this. In the little shop in Vail. Is this a rack? The little, I'm teasing the rack.
Starting point is 01:06:13 I'm teasing the rack. In the little shop in Vail, in Vail Village, well in Vail Village there's a bunch of shops and there's a bunch of really rich folk stuff, right? It called us boutiques. And we went into this one store called Gorsuch, which I just thought that he was the guy that Obama tried to get to be the Supreme Court nominee.
Starting point is 01:06:36 It didn't work out too well. But apparently it's a brand or it's a store. And you could kinda tell from the window that this was like douche central. You were like a moth to a flame. Well here's the thing, I'll get custom ski boots but I don't go in and buy unnecessarily expensive clothing. I don't do that.
Starting point is 01:06:59 Like a vest with like skiers on it? I don't do that. So we go into this place. You went in. For entertainment purposes, I'm not gonna buy anything. I'm going in there because I'm blown away at the culture and like the vibe and it's three stories. I think the collars won't un-pop there.
Starting point is 01:07:17 We go in there and you walk in, the first level is the women's level. Okay. And there was this coat that was like a, like a, like a cardigan of some kind, but a little bit longer. I think that's just a coat. Nothing special, looks like something
Starting point is 01:07:34 from the rack of Forever 21. Okay. Price tag. $2,000. $3,998. Good gosh. $4,000. And3,998. $4,000. And I was like, what? And I was like, I'm gonna be in here a while
Starting point is 01:07:50 because this is so entertaining to me. And there's people actually shopping and trying things on. I go upstairs to the men's section and that was when, and I'd already kind of picked up on this, there's a bunch of Italian people. Lots of people from Europe, lots of people speaking Spanish and Italian. Okay.
Starting point is 01:08:08 But lots of Italian people who apparently have lots of discretionary cash. Getting that Italian leather. And this dude is trying on this puffy jacket in front of his girlfriend. How do I look? But he said in Italian. And she was like.
Starting point is 01:08:27 You knew that's what he was saying. She was like, bonjour. Bonita, well I don't know. That's French. What is the, I don't know, she said it looked good. And then I went and I picked one up. Oh you kinda on the sly looked at. $2,000.
Starting point is 01:08:40 It was just a puffy jacket. This dude was about to buy it. God. I mean, this place. Welcome to your future. But here's the thing. Listen, man, all right, so you're on record saying you would never do this
Starting point is 01:08:50 because you're on a slippery slope with your hot chocolate. Well, hold on, no, first of all, ski boots cost what ski boots cost, right? Okay. In the long run, I'm actually gonna save money because you have to rent them every time you go. Okay. But the thing I told Jessie is I was like, I don't.
Starting point is 01:09:06 You know me, I'm a tightwad, man. I'm like, I bought the Oyster card. It's got $5 on it, I can't Uber. But no, but let's just say you had unlimited money. Like money was not an object, which is the saying, which I never understood what exactly that means literally, but money is no obstacle to you, right? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:09:24 You wouldn't buy that. If I but money is no obstacle to you, right? Yeah. You wouldn't buy that. If I had all the money in the world, I would not buy a $4,000 jacket. I would buy a $2,000. If it did something. It doesn't do anything else. If it did something very special,
Starting point is 01:09:35 like told the future, then you'd probably buy it. But I mean, you're not just gonna buy one that doesn't tell the future. But apparently this stuff is so expensive that Americans can't even buy it. You gotta be Italian. Oh. You gotta be Italian. Oh. You gotta be rich and from another country.
Starting point is 01:09:48 You know what I'm saying? Like, because I was the only American that ventured into this particular shop. Maybe the dollar conversion is confusing. And there's something about Italians doing it that makes it seem not douchey. They can do anything. You know what I'm saying?
Starting point is 01:10:04 It's like he's kind of making himself seem humble in that $2,000 jacket. Oh yeah. I can never get away with that. Every time they get in the car, they're magically driving on an undulating highway on the coast. Right.
Starting point is 01:10:17 Like that's how Italians roll. I don't understand where the money comes from. Like every road. It's like Italian royalty but that's not a thing because it's not a monarchy. I don't know where it comes from. Pasta money, that's what it is. They just churn it out like pasta.
Starting point is 01:10:32 Yeah. They just extrude money, like bow ties. Shout out to the non-douchey, very rich Italians of Vail. May your $4,000 jackets keep you warm at night. What's your recommendation, man? My recommendation is a song that actually you played for me. I do wanna say quickly that I made a recommendation, a musical recommendation that we had to cut out
Starting point is 01:10:55 because the person I recommended said something problematic so I'm not, and I already said that on Twitter. You talking about Cardi B? No, it wasn't Cardi B. It was a lesser, very lesser known person. You talking about Michael Jackson? No, it wasn't Cardi B. It was a very lesser known person. You talking about Michael Jackson? No, now you're just saying things.
Starting point is 01:11:08 It was somebody that you probably didn't know about. Some controversial artist. No, and I'm saying that me mentioning them to like 90% of you would be your first time you'd ever heard this person's name and then you'd look them up and you'd see the thing they're in the news for now is something problematic.
Starting point is 01:11:21 So that's why we took the wreck out. You're about to make the same mistake again? No, I'm giving you like a very non-problematic music. Don't wreck the same guy. This is not a guy, this is a group. And this is a group that my son and I bonded over because I played this particular song and I feel like I opened up a world to my son
Starting point is 01:11:40 and he actually ended up texting me today about this whole movement of music that we talked about. And that is Make It With You by Bread. Which I think is a, Oh I love this song. I think is on the post-concert playlist that you put together. Yeah, I've been big on this song for a while
Starting point is 01:11:57 because matter of fact it played, Spotify played it in the car the other day and Lily was like, you play this song a lot. So she didn't seem to love Bread. Okay well, my boy was in it. And so Make It With You by Bread. Bread is this soft rock band that, I think that song's from like 73 or 74,
Starting point is 01:12:17 but early 70s, almost as a rebellion against. Have you ever tried really reaching out for the other side? As a rebellion against the sort of the disco movement that was happening, these guys were doing something. They were just pouring out their music like syrup. Well they were climbing on rainbows. It was absolutely amazing and this song, dare I say,
Starting point is 01:12:40 there are no perfect songs, but if you had to put songs into closest to perfect as it can possibly be, Make It With You by Bread is as close to perfect song as there is. Oh man, those are strong words. I think it's- And listen to it with your earphones on. Ear biscuits.
Starting point is 01:12:59 It's like Summer Breeze, but a little less douchey. So it's not like, it's like the Italian Summer Breeze. It's like the Italian Summer Breeze, yeah. summer breeze but a little less douchey. It's not like, it's like the Italian summer breeze. It's like the Italian summer breeze. Yeah, I agree with that. It's like putting on a $4,000 jacket and realizing that oh, I didn't even pay for this. All right guys, we're gonna wrap this up.
Starting point is 01:13:19 Thanks for going with us on a journey back through our experiences over spring break. Vote for us for the Webby if you want to. Or leave a, if it's past that and you're listening to this in the distant future, you can still leave a review on iTunes if that still happens, that still exists in the future. How far in the future are you listening to this? I don't know. I'm glad that still exists in the future. How far in the future are you listening to this? I don't know.
Starting point is 01:13:45 I'm glad it's still in the ether. Somebody's listening to this in 2031. Our great-grandchildren. 2031's not, hopefully we won't have great-grandchildren by then. Well. I mean, it might be biologically possible, but it would be controversial to say the least.
Starting point is 01:14:03 That's only 12 years from now. That's a good point.

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