Overtired 287

[00:00:00] Brett: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Brett and Jeff show. Uh, formerly known as overtired, technically still overtired, but we gave Christine the week off and we did not bring in a guest. So it’s me, Brett Terpstra here with Jeff Severns Guntzel how’s it going, Jeff?

[00:00:21] Jeff: Good gave Christina a week off,

[00:00:24] Brett: We did. We offered

[00:00:25] Jeff: up here in our corner. Offices are overtired corner offices. You know, I’ve been noticing maybe you need a little time off. It’s none of my business.

[00:00:36] Brett: just give me your gun and your badge and here letting you go for the week.

[00:00:43] Jeff: We missed you, Christina.

[00:00:46] Brett: Yeah. Christina has shit to do, you know, as happens on occasion more often to her than to us. she lives, she lives a more, she’s more of a jet setting lifestyle than, than either [00:01:00] of us currently have to be fair to

[00:01:03] Jeff: a jet city woman to quote the queen drag song.

[00:01:07] Mental Health Corner

[00:01:07] Brett: So, Hey, uh, that brings us to some, uh, uh, mental health corner. If you will, uh, Jeff, uh, how you doing

[00:01:15] Jeff: I’m doing. Good. I’m drinking black coffee because I’m on the whole 30,

[00:01:19] Brett: at the wall? I know

[00:01:20] Jeff: uh, and stare at the wall? Yes, I uh, I was, I was like retaining all kinds of water because of a medication and the, and the, the advice is like, Higher potassium, lower sodium, like whatever else I’m like, oh, I used to do the whole 30 diet, like every January just to sort of, um, helped me to pull back.

[00:01:43] Cause I’m, I, I don’t do moderation, um, with almost anything, but I can do like a really strict framework and, and it helps me to just sort of like reset and it also just reminds me that I can actually, I can actually make decisions that helped me. [00:02:00] Um, and that.

[00:02:01] is just like a really great thing. It’s anyway, this is, I’m doing the whole 30 right now.

[00:02:04] Um, and, and that means like I’m not having any dairy, so I’m drinking black coffee, which is fucking disgusting. What am I a cop? It’s not, I don’t like, I do not like black coffee,

[00:02:14] Brett: man, I drank black coffee every morning.

[00:02:17] Jeff: I, thought, I thought I could, I could get with it. Instead, I just nurse like the same two cups all day long, anyway, not that interesting, just to say that that’s, um, helping how I feel overall and helping my mental health.

[00:02:30] I also got a re up on a steroid shot in my lower back. So I’m feeling like a brand new man, um, want to emphasize, cannot emphasize enough that steroids are not just for baseball players. Everybody should try them. Um, you can really just like change your life and it has for me in my back. Um, and yeah, and otherwise, I don’t know, like the medication balance feels right right now.

[00:02:53] It’s been really nice weather out. We’ve been able to start gardening. Um, and that’s really exciting. [00:03:00] So I’m feeling pretty good, Brett, how about you?

[00:03:02] Brett: I, I would like to point out and, and our listeners don’t know this yet, but that mental health corner update took you three edits. Which I feel is indicative of a mental health state. Like we had to, we had to, we had to do that three times for you to, and you said basically the same thing every time, but you kept stopping yourself and saying, Nope, can we edit this?

[00:03:32] And, and our listeners are hearing the finished product. Our listeners are hearing your best. You’re they’re hearing what

[00:03:39] Jeff: move. There’s warm milk on a banana peel.

[00:03:44] Brett: but do you, do you feel like that’s a sign of you being okay.

[00:03:50] Jeff: I think, you know what it is, it’s, it’s actually just a sign of something that I’m still getting used to, which is like, how do I actually want to answer the question in the [00:04:00] context of a podcast? Um, and it’s something that I’m really learning, doing this podcast. It’s like, it’s not that I want to be dishonest.

[00:04:08] Um, but I don’t owe anybody my full honesty either. Um, you know what I mean? Like I, and so, but so what I’m trying to do is to be, is to pick things that are true and be as sort of descriptive as is useful about those things. Knowing, of course, just like in any social environment, there are things that I’m also not saying, or that I’m, I’m kind of, there are roads that I could kind of start to go down and think in a conversation, you kind of can’t do anything about it, but in a podcast you can be like, Hey, can I try that again?

[00:04:42] And, and for me, that’s actually what that’s about. It’s something I. I fret over sometimes, um, as I’m getting used to being a podcaster, um, just knowing, knowing that there is already just in the, whatever, [00:05:00] how many episodes we’ve done together, um, quite a bit of information that otherwise would not have been available to anybody, um, except maybe my family, um, and my closest friends.

[00:05:11] And now it’s available to really anybody who decides for some reason or another to click on that podcast. And so I think what was going on for me was there were a couple of little paths that I started going down. I’m like, you know, no, I don’t actually want to go down that path just yet talked about this a few episodes ago where it was like, you know, why did I not talk about being bipolar earlier? Um, and that I wanted to be Sure

[00:05:39] that I didn’t lock myself into a narrative. Um, and so those are the two things that I think about a lot, being a podcast that talks about mental health one, you know, am I, am I doing this in such a way that I’m rocking myself, just myself as my own audience into a narrative and, and to, um, [00:06:00] in my, in my sharing something that actually, I’d rather just kind of keep over here.

[00:06:04] Um, and, and then, uh, so anyway, that that’s me.

[00:06:09] Brett: Yeah. Okay. The, all this, all of this makes sense. I will tell you that I have learned from 20 years of being a fairly public figure that. Especially when it comes to podcasts, when it comes to recorded audio. Yes. When you say something and put it out on the internet, it is permanent, but it’s also not showing up in Google searches and only people who care enough to dig in.

[00:06:43] We’ll learn the things that you’ve share. And by in large, I have gotten more, I have made more friends from being. Just brutally open about my entire life. I have made [00:07:00] more friends that way than I’ve made enemies. And, and I just, I’m not, I, I’m not here to tell you how to present yourself on a podcast. I’m just saying that for me, like I can’t help, but I just tell people shit, you talk to me at a party.

[00:07:20] I will tell you all kinds of stuff that you didn’t ask for. And, uh, and, and, uh, as far as public internet availability goes, that’s only bitten me a couple times. You can get away with a lot of shit.

[00:07:35] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:07:36] I guess, but that’s different in a way, right? Cause like, for me, it’s not about, um, it’s not about like, oh, I said that thing, but thankfully no one will find it because of the format at all. Right. Um, it’s really, it’s really just more so like, um, when You say something into a microphone that goes out to an audience, you like send a little piece of yourself out into the world, right.

[00:07:59] And [00:08:00] that little piece of yourself that you sent out into the world, you like Justin up, you’re still like a paper doll. You dressed it? up, how You, wanted to dress it up. Right. you gave it eyes, you made it matters that or happy or whatever you sent it out. Like that is for me, the way I feel about that stuff is like, I feel that that piece is, is out there.

[00:08:16] I feel that that piece of me is out there roaming around like I’m generally conscious of the fact. Yeah,

[00:08:22] Brett: that you said it and put it out there.

[00:08:24] Jeff: exactly.

[00:08:25] Brett: I don’t, that’s different from.

[00:08:27] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:08:27] So I’m, I mean, I remember everything that I have shared so far on these podcasts. I also feel that way. I mean, it’s a, it’s a cousin of a thing that happens to me in social situations, which is like, not, not as bad anymore thanks to therapy, but like I used to leave like a dinner party and, and just start analyzing everything.

[00:08:48] I said, like, what did I say? I think I have too much space was, I was like too rough about this. And I really consider that maybe this person had an experience that the, you know, like I would just like obsessively, uh, review the tapes. [00:09:00] Um, and, and that’s like a cousin of this thing, but it’s not as neurotic.

[00:09:05] Right.

[00:09:06] Brett: So how was your memory? Like, do you consider yourself to have a good memory?

[00:09:13] Jeff: My memory is terrible weirdly, but

[00:09:15] Brett: Yeah, no, me too. Like, and I don’t remember half the shit I’ve said, even on this podcast, let alone elsewhere on the internet. If it weren’t for the searchability of my blog, I wouldn’t, the fact is I write about things. I learn on my blogs so that I can find them on Google later when I forgotten how to do them.

[00:09:37] Like, I don’t remember coming home from a party like my partner or whoever I’m traveling with can say, why did you say this to this person? And I will have already forgotten that the conversation happened. So what you’re describing right now sounds like a, uh, a memory that I could only aspire to.

[00:09:58] Jeff: Uh, Yeah.

[00:09:58] except you know [00:10:00] how people sometimes say like, uh, like for me, um, I remember the things that I like the way I can remember certain things I wish I could apply elsewhere. So like the extent to which I remember details and dates from, from the first, uh, the first full book I run on my own, uh, which was hammer the gods, the very falsified biography of led Zeppelin.

[00:10:24] Like the extent to which I can remember dates and details from that book, including of course the notorious ones, but like, can’t remember, uh, certain really important things about like a research paper I read last week is like super, super frustrating,

[00:10:38] Brett: Yeah. Yeah, I get that memory is for ADHD people, especially memory is a tough thing.

[00:10:48] Jeff: But, and I want to ask you about your mental health. I wanted to say, there’s something you brought up that my wife and I were talking about the other day, which is like the one thing about the podcast medium it’s, you know, we’re probably not too [00:11:00] far. I would imagine from like decent enough AI, that transcripts are just generated and searchable of all these podcasts.

[00:11:06] Right. And so all this stuff that you were like, Yeah.

[00:11:08] nobody see all of a sudden it’s like, Jesus Christ. Now when people search my name, all they see is like my bullshit. And about this or this, this, I, I feel like the whole kind of John Rodrick being dad phenomenon, not phenomenon, but like the incident, the, the, the like, very like, Um, well, it is what it is.

[00:11:28] Uh, I feel like if that had happened somehow on the podcast, on Roderick on the line and not on Twitter, it would be. Likely passed by without notice, but because it was on Twitter, um, it became quite a very serious thing with very serious ramifications. And like that is to me, a little bit of a chilling, uh, a chilling distinction to, to think of that fact.

[00:11:52] Right. I think like, well, I get why, well, I mean a situation one day where it’s like, wow, how’d I just said that on the [00:12:00] podcast, you know, anyway,

[00:12:02] Brett: Um, duck, duck go unfollowed me on Twitter. And I don’t know what I said or did,

[00:12:10] Jeff: that’s

[00:12:11] Brett: for a long time, duck, duck go has followed me. There’s a bang Terp. There’s a shortcut for searching my website on duct deco. You can type exclamation point T E R P and then anything you want. And it will search my website from duck, duck go, and they just unfollowed me.

[00:12:29] And I, maybe my bang Terp search is going to go away too. I dunno what I do.

[00:12:35] Jeff: Wow. I won. I’m sorry.

[00:12:37] Brett: post that MRX dot I S T was available as a domain for like $16. And I posted this would be a great way to set up a custom URL shortener that would trigger all of your conservative friends and, um, immediately some company from Estann bowl, parked it with [00:13:00] GoDaddy.

[00:13:00] Jeff: Wow,

[00:13:01] Brett: Marxist is no longer available,

[00:13:05] Jeff: man. Also, it’s always good to know the decision of the hosting company. They wouldn’t go. Daddy

[00:13:11] Brett: right? As soon as I saw it was parked with GoDaddy, I knew it

[00:13:15] Jeff: can pick up the phone. Give me GoDaddy quick. Daddy. It’s

[00:13:19] Brett: So anyway, my mental health.

[00:13:21] Jeff: Yes, please. Yes, please.

[00:13:24] Brett: Oh my God. I’m still stable. I’m still stable. I’ve had like a couple nights where, uh, I, I. I couldn’t sleep and I’m immediately my mind thought, oh shit, I’m having a manic episode. And I’m looking at, you know, five plus days without sleep, and this is how it begins.

[00:13:45] And then around three or 4:00 AM I fall asleep and everything goes back to normal. And, uh, overall, I, I continue to be stable as far as bipolar goes, which gives me plenty of time to think [00:14:00] about my ADHD and the fact that Vyvanse is not the ideal way for me to treat my ADHD, but it is the ideal companion to my bipolar disorder.

[00:14:13] And like, I have to continually, you know, how like married couples say, we continually make the decision to say I do. And like, you know, we’ve been married for 30 years and every day we’ve made the decision to say I do. And for me, it’s I have been stable for. For months now. And every day I have to make the decision to stay on, uh, an ADHD medication that is not terribly effective for me.

[00:14:44] Um, but, but make that trade off and it’s working out, it really is. It is. I have been going on hikes. Uh, we Wynnona in

[00:14:59] Jeff: have good [00:15:00] hikes over there.

[00:15:01] Brett: Yeah. W we have good hikes in Wynnona like we have 16 miles of trail systems just down the road for me and, uh, Garvin Heights. But we have been traveling over the river. We live right on the border and we have been traveling into Wisconsin and exploring the DNR managed land that Wisconsin has to offer.

[00:15:27] And, uh, we have found that. It’s kind of it’s right off the highway. There’s this little, you know, the brown sign that. Before any like a government agency park, um, there’s a little brown sign. You turn off the road and there’s like a road. It’s not a trail. It’s an actual, like you could drive a truck down it.

[00:15:50] And it’s a road that goes deep into these wetlands, about two miles in, into, uh, wetlands [00:16:00] and forest and, and lake. And it is. Just an amazing hike. And we have seen Trumpers swans, and we have seen, uh, goslings and geese and we’ve identified probably 40 different bird species. And, uh, there’s like little landings where you can step out and see like schools of catfish do catfish school.

[00:16:25] All I know is it’s a bunch of catfish. Um, and it’s, it’s a crazy fun nature walk and we see something new every time we do it. And, and it has been something we’ve, we’ve been doing it in the mornings when it’s very unpopulated because we take our dog with us and our dog does not get along with other dogs.

[00:16:46] So the lower, the likelihood that we’ll run into another person with a dog, the easier our hike will be. So we go, we go early mornings. We go at like seven, 7:30 [00:17:00] AM and we walk, uh, between one and three miles. Of this just wetland hike. And it has been so good for me. Like my brain is just, it’s happy all day after, after an outing like that, I get a day even maybe two days of just like endorphin high from these nature walks.

[00:17:23] They’re amazing.

[00:17:24] Jeff: Brett. This is an amazing update. This is an amazing.

[00:17:27] mental, mental health corner.

[00:17:29] Brett: Thanks. Thanks.

[00:17:32] Jeff: I’m so happy for you.

[00:17:34] Brett: Yeah. Do you, what, where do you hike? Do you hike?

[00:17:37] Jeff: Yeah. we, well, we do hike. Um, there are a few just sort of smaller parks, uh, that have good hiking trails around here. And then there’s also like an Arboretum. Hello, Chanhassen. Uh,

[00:17:51] Brett: Oh, we have, we have a listener in Chanhassen.

[00:17:54] Jeff: I know. That’s what I’m saying. Uh, there’s uh, an incredible, the university of Minnesota has this incredible Arboretum [00:18:00] and you can just kind of go there any month and you’re going to see something different.

[00:18:03] It’s blooming, whatever else. And so, uh, we’ll go there for hikes. Yeah. I like hikes, although for the last few months, because of my back, I couldn’t walk like two blocks. And so it’s been amazing to just go out and, and do that again. And again, he bought any bogs on this particular

[00:18:17] Brett: my God. Yeah. This like half this walk is Mo so, so my property, we own about three acres of land in when no-no, that goes from bluff. You’re familiar with. Like side of a very small mountain, right? We go from bluff down to forest land, down to wetland, including a marsh and a bog. And then if you make it through that, you get down to a Creek and it’s gorgeous all the way down.

[00:18:52] And our project for the summer is to build it over the years. This has gotten like trees have [00:19:00] fallen and brushes gotten overgrown. There’s even a little pond on our property. And with tons of like frogs and algae blooms and everything,

[00:19:11] Jeff: uh,

[00:19:12] Brett: it’s gotten hard to navigate even in winter when everything’s dead and frozen over, like it’s still hard to get down to the Creek.

[00:19:20] So our project for the summers to blaze a trail,

[00:19:24] Jeff: Ooh.

[00:19:24] Brett: And we are, we’re picking up a chainsaw next weekend or this coming weekend, and we’re going to be, we’re going to be machetes and chainsaws and, and laying down logs and gravel and just building a trail through all of this wetland and marsh and bog to get from our house to the Creek and see everything in between.

[00:19:48] Jeff: I know this is obvious, but it bears repeating careful with that chainsaw

[00:19:55] Brett: So I learned, I,

[00:19:56] Jeff: when you’re using it for brush clearing and

[00:19:59] Brett: we got, we got [00:20:00] some rough training. I learned about what’s it called the kickback region of the, of the chainsaw.

[00:20:05] Jeff: yeah.

[00:20:05] Brett: Like if you touch a hard surface with this part of the chainsaw, it will fly back into your forehead and embedded itself there. Um,

[00:20:15] Jeff: you don’t want that.

[00:20:16] Brett: no, that is a negative. That is that’s considered.

[00:20:20] By and large, a bad thing. Um, so yeah, so I’ve, I’ve done, I’ve gotten a little training. We’re going to do some safety courses. Uh, we’re getting on electric chains. Uh,

[00:20:31] Jeff: Wait, whoa. How far are you going? You got like a hundred foot, 200 foot, 300 foot extension cord.

[00:20:38] Brett: no it’s battery power, dude.

[00:20:41] Jeff: Oh, electric for me is like a, yeah, I get it. I’m very old, very old.

[00:20:50] Brett: Yeah.

[00:20:50] Jeff: That’s awesome. That’s exciting. And

[00:20:52] Brett: You know that they have cars that work without being plugged in now

[00:20:55] Jeff: Shut the fuck up. [00:21:00]

[00:21:02] Brett: so,

[00:21:02] Jeff: Um, yeah.

[00:21:04] Brett: how have your dreams been? We were talking before the show a little bit about, about dreams and we both said let’s save it for the show.

[00:21:12] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:21:13] Brett: So let’s, let’s talk about dreams.

[00:21:16] Jeff: Yeah, so my teams have been great, uh, thanks to a drug called Prazosin. Um, and I had, so I am known for my terrible dreams. Um, and that’s been true for about 20 plus years, um, since having some very specific experiences in war zones. Um, my dreams.

[00:21:40] have been just horrible and, and bloody and violent and, and, and, and gory and all the time, man, all the time.

[00:21:49] And, um, About a month ago after I spend more, it was after the thing in Ukraine started, but then also A friend of mine went over there as a journalist [00:22:00] and, and it was close enough to things that, you know, it kind of triggered my own memories and worry and, and vigilance and all that stuff. And I started having dreams that were, um, worse than they ever had been more violent than they ever had been more gory.

[00:22:14] And I did not think that was possible. I mean, I did not, I would wake up and it was just chilling. And, uh, and so I, I mentioned to my medication manager, uh, and big Joel and a psychiatric nurse practitioner, um, not big Juul. I just thought, you know, sounds like a good medication manager and suggested something that’s used for veterans a lot, uh, apparently around nightmares, um, this drug presents and, and, and man from the time I started taking.

[00:22:47] I have not had a single nightmare, which I mostly have nightmares. I have not had a single nightmare and my teams are so delightfully fucking stupid. Like I was going to go to [00:23:00] a, I was going to go to a baseball game with friend of the show, future guests, Danny glamour. Uh, and I had a dream that, um, before the game that I was picking out a baseball cap for him, and it was just a extra large baseball cap with a really huge bill that just said, grand slam, uh, no,

[00:23:17] Doesn’t have a big head.

[00:23:18] And so, uh, if you could take it, you could take it up with them, but it’s just like my dreams. Now. I remember them all. They said maybe I wouldn’t remember them, but they’re just so stupid and nothing happens. And it’s just like, I love this dream life. So I’m, I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming nothing. And I’m dreaming nothing real good.

[00:23:38] Yeah.

[00:23:39] Brett: Well, I, I generally, by and large, uh, I, I assume mostly because of my medication, I have pretty mundane dreams that I immediately forget when I wake up and rarely have I woken up, like occasionally, like I’ll wake up at say 3:00 AM and I’ll be in the middle of a good dream. [00:24:00] And I’ll remember wanting to fall asleep again to get back to the dream.

[00:24:05] But later on, I won’t remember what the dream was, but last weekend I, I went to, so I use one of those seven day pill boxes with the little like flip tops

[00:24:21] Jeff: Oh, I’m down with it.

[00:24:23] Brett: and usually.

[00:24:26] Jeff: Got one in the house.

[00:24:27] Brett: If I’m gonna, if I’m gonna run out of a pill within those seven days or immediately after I put the empty bottle somewhere where I, where else see it and remember to call in the refill because my insurance won’t let me call it in a week in advance.

[00:24:45] So I got to wait until it’s like a day or two before it

[00:24:49] Jeff: where this story’s gone.

[00:24:51] Brett: So somehow my empty bottle didn’t make it to the countertop where I would usually remember to [00:25:00] call in my meds. So I, I finish what’s in the pill box and I go to grab one night’s worth out of the pill bottle and it’s empty and it’s after the pharmacy is closed.

[00:25:14] And this is a pill that if you suddenly go off it, you can have seizures.

[00:25:21] Jeff: Oh, Jesus.

[00:25:23] Brett: And it takes, there’s a titration period, but missing a single dose can fuck up. This is it’s Lamictal and it’s not, it’s not a hardcore drug, but like suddenly stopping it can have dire consequences. So my brain freaks out a little and yeah, I can make it through a night.

[00:25:45] Um, but I also get these like full body. Um, I don’t know if you’ve ever been through withdrawal, uh, anything.

[00:25:56] Jeff: guess not from like street drugs.

[00:25:59] Brett: Yeah, well like [00:26:00] nicotine, alcohol, heroin, I don’t care. Like there’s this full body. It starts with this like full body skin crawling feeling. And you get that when you miss a dose of Lamictal. So I’ve got that.

[00:26:16] And I just have to, I just have to close my eyes and try to sleep through it because maybe it’s Saturday night. No, it’s Friday or Saturday night. And I don’t know if the, when I call in the med, it says I can’t get any till Tuesday because of the holiday weekend. Um, so I’m, I’m kinda, I’m freaking out. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get anymore, but I go to sleep anyway.

[00:26:44] And I managed to fall asleep and I have a really rough night of sleep, but I have really good dreams. I, so the dream I most remember is I own an [00:27:00] underground music store in Japan. I don’t know where this came from. I don’t know why this would be a desire of mine, but you know that no one and the on the podcast on the podcast can see this, but you you’re sitting in an orange room.

[00:27:15] Jeff: I sure am.

[00:27:16] Brett: in the dream, I was in an orange, like cubicle room with a swimming pool. And in the middle of the swimming pool, there was a ladder that went up into the ceiling. And when you got to put into the ceiling, there was me with, uh, maybe 50 rows of vinyl records of Japanese punk, hip hop and metal. And, and I’m just sitting there and I am deejaying and I am selling these records to all Japanese customers.

[00:27:49] And like, I don’t have like any strong attachment nor have I ever been to Japan. But this was all in Japan with Japanese customers. And I was [00:28:00] this white guy selling Japanese punk hip hop in metal to exclusively Japanese customers in this. Record shop. You could only get through, get to through an orange room with a swimming pool and a ladder.

[00:28:15] And it’s stuck with me. Like I can still see

[00:28:18] Jeff: you a towel you want to look around? That’s wonderful. I love it. I love it I love it. That’s great. Brett. Wait, hold on now.

[00:28:27] Brett: I did the next morning I called the pharmacy and the med that the computer had told me wouldn’t be available until Tuesday. They’re like, oh yeah, we got that filled. You can pick it up now. So the next day I was before noon, I was able to take the missed dose from the night before and then get back on schedule.

[00:28:47] So everything’s been fine since

[00:28:49] Jeff: That’s good. That’s that’s excellent. Um, and also I really, I, I really I’m imagining what you just described. You just described as like a um, [00:29:00] the backstory for a character that got cut from Tokyo drift.

[00:29:07] Brett: It honestly, if, if I had to put it into a movie, it would have been in a Cura,

[00:29:13] Jeff: Mm. Okay.

[00:29:14] Brett: the old anime classic. It was, it was definitely a record store from, it was like a Cura mixed with blade runner.

[00:29:23] Jeff: Nice. All right, listen, you need to do a sponsor read. Uh, and before you do, I just want to clear something up, you sit them in an orange room. It’s actually exotic blossom,

[00:29:34] Brett: I, I didn’t want to say that out loud. I didn’t know how you feel about

[00:29:39] Jeff: is also my street name. All right. All right. All right. Speaking of blossoms.

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[00:31:29] A Decent Proposal

[00:31:29] Jeff: I’m looking at the time and I want to, I have something in here. It says Jeff has a screencast idea to pitch to Brett. I’m gonna try it out. I’m gonna try it out on you. I’m going to pitch this to use a live pitch session

[00:31:41] Brett: okay. Screencast, screencast ideas. Jeff, go.

[00:31:48] Jeff: A couple of years ago, I, I hired Brett to come on and work on this project. I am working on called the lived experience project, and it’s a largely, um, researched [00:32:00] based project around, um, kids' experiences in the juvenile justice system, um, with a definite sort of abolitionist bent.

[00:32:08] Um, and there’s just all sorts of stuff that, uh, that I was doing all the time that I thought, man, having somebody like Brett interpreter could really help me with this. And so I was like, Hey, Brit Turkstra, could you really help me with this? And we started working together. We, it was a few things, right?

[00:32:26] You were, you were building the website, you built our website, discover Lex project.com or.org. Right. Um, we were doing some, we were, we were doing some initial sort of automation and workflow stuff. Um, and then we started, uh, we started working on sort of a sort of suite of tools that helped, uh, to process interviews and transcripts anyways, blah, blah, blah.

[00:32:51] So one of the things that I asked Brett to do early on asked you to do early on with, I was like, Hey, you know, we’re looking at code together. [00:33:00] Um, I have a ton of questions as we go. Can I just record, um, the screen and make up my own little private screencast with this so that I can go back, not just to what you were saying, but kind of see what we were looking.

[00:33:13] In the code. And I love to doing that in Brent. I recently found those recordings. They’re actually like little awesome podcasts, just like coding happening on the screen. Um, and little delightful moments would happen. Like, you’d be like, wow, let me just Google this. Cause I’m not sure what to do about this and you’d go, oh, that’s a post I wrote, uh, solving this problem.

[00:33:36] Brett: That’s what I’m talking about.

[00:33:37] Jeff: I found the whole thing really delightful. And I’ve, I’ve had this thing in my head. I think I may have mentioned it to you a long, long time ago, but I wanna, I want to see if I want to see if he’ll go for it. So you’re working on bunch bunches. Fantastic. Um, Bunche is pretty difficult to explain, which is funny because it’s actually quite simple, um, in its execution, right.

[00:33:57] You can make it as complicated as you want, but [00:34:00] it’s like, so like wonderfully elegant. Right? And so here’s, here’s what I want to, here’s what I want to propose. I want to propose that you and I get together. Throw, you know, your computer screen up on the, up on the recording. And we just, we work our way through some key parts of bunch.

[00:34:18] Right. And I ask you questions and it’s like, almost like an interview slash screencast. Right. That demonstrates what it can do, but also brings in some of the story of, of, you know, like a bunch has a great story. I just feel like you, you, you, you started to create it so long ago. Right. And then all of a sudden, like, what is it?

[00:34:35] You, two years ago you started putting tons of energy into it. Right. And ever since then, it’s been almost impossible to keep up like you and I would, would get, I have one of our kind of weekly meetings and you’d be like, so you’re not going to fucking believe what I just put in a bunch. And like, it’s true.

[00:34:50] I didn’t fucking believe why wouldn’t a bunch. It’s like, oh my God. And I just would love to create something that has some of that energy, because there’s so much. [00:35:00] With you and developing that app, I’ve had, I’ve been sort of blessed to be able to see the Bret end of things. And there’s so many times when you’re just kind of giddy about something you’ve added the bunch.

[00:35:11] And I don’t think there’s any other way to reflect that.

[00:35:14] Brett: there are features in bunch that were entirely because of you

[00:35:19] Jeff: Oh,

[00:35:20] Brett: where you would be like, you’d be in a meeting, it’d be like, well, so here’s what I want to do with bunch. And I would say, well, it can’t do that. And then the next week I would come back and say, so now it can do that.

[00:35:33] Jeff: and these 16 other things.

[00:35:34] Brett: That thing you needed to do?

[00:35:36] Yeah, that would be fun. Cause I’ve done a few, I’ve done a few talks where I’ve talked about bunch and I’ve done a few like, uh, presentations with screencasts, um, where I’ve broken down, like basically a bunch and explained how a bunch works. But the idea of doing it as an interview of having someone [00:36:00] actually present, like here’s a problem, what’s the solution and do it in real time.

[00:36:07] Yeah. That could be, that could be really compelling.

[00:36:10] Jeff: Okay. Then we’ll schedule that.

[00:36:12] Brett: Yeah. Let’s do it.

[00:36:14] Jeff: Awesome. Cause I love Bunche so much

[00:36:18] Brett: It will be thoroughly edited to

[00:36:20] Jeff: oh yeah. Thoroughly

[00:36:22] Brett: Google my own stuff.

[00:36:24] Jeff: Well not without stuff. Won’t get cut, but that’s, that’s just amazing.

[00:36:31] Brett: Yeah.

[00:36:32] GrAPPtitude

[00:36:32] Jeff: All right. All right. That’s my pitch. That’s my idea. Um, so I I’m realizing that I did not pick something for gratitude. Um,

[00:36:42] Brett: Me either.

[00:36:43] Jeff: but, but, but I want to actually, um, I want to have one more topic that might kind of lead us both to something we like. Okay.

[00:36:53] So. Uh, this topic in here called Hey computer. Tell me what to do next with my life.

[00:36:59] That’s a little [00:37:00] dramatic, but, um, recently I actually, by recently, I mean, for the last like three or four months, like I, I read, I look at hacker news at the end of each day. I think it’s just a wonderful curation of, of links that happen. I mean, just fully fabulous. Like it’s, it, it pretty much like, uh, scratches on my itches is that what I’m trying to see?

[00:37:21] It’s just all my scratches. Um, and what I end up doing is, uh, a lot of times it’s just like, I just like throw stuff straight into, um, Instapaper or straight into Pinboard, um, depending on what it is or if it’s a GitHub repo, I star it. Right. And I have been in this. Sort of place of recognizing that, like my main project is very likely going to end at the end of this year, the thing that I’ve been doing for like five, six years.

[00:37:49] And, uh, and that is most of my income. And most of my time, um, the other project I’m working on has a very short timeline and I’m thinking a lot [00:38:00] about like, what do I want to do next? But also what do I want to learn? Or like kind of, what do I want to do? Like a deep dive into, I like don’t exactly have an answer.

[00:38:08] And then I realized that the answer probably lies in, uh, a full review of the things that I go in hacker news, where I kind of go, Oh, I’m going to throw that into Instapaper. I’m gonna throw that into Pinboard and I’m going to star that and get hub. Right. And so I’ve started. Gathering all of that stuff together and realizing how grateful I am for those three services and also how consistent they’ve been in my life for so long Instapaper Pinboard and, uh, and get hub.

[00:38:39] And so I think, um, I’m going to, I’m personally going to choose Pinboard as something I’m just so incredible that we, we knew how much

[00:38:47] Brett: soon as you said that, I’m like, maybe I’ll pick Pinboard, but

[00:38:50] Jeff: we were well. And we knew how we do, we already knew he loved it. And then for a day it disappeared. Right. You remember that? And the entire world was just like, fuck, I did not. I, [00:39:00] honestly was shocked.

[00:39:01] Brett: I posted a tweet with the IP address of pin boards. So because the DNS went down Pinboard, didn’t go down the DNS four, it went down and you could still get to it. If you added a host. Uh, in your slash et cetera. So I suppose file, you could add a direct IP address for Pinboard and still get to it.

[00:39:26] I posted that on Twitter, got a ton of like retweets and even Pinboard Twitter account liked it. still have it in my host file to this day.

[00:39:40] Jeff: Well, I, I love it so much for anybody that doesn’t know. It’s just, it’s a bookmarking service and it’s very, no-frills, it’s got

[00:39:48] Brett: you remember delicious because it’s delicious plus.

[00:39:52] Jeff: it’s delicious without design. And I actually love that. Um, it’s that kind of Craigslist thing of like, wow, this is never going to change. And that’s great [00:40:00] because it’s really two in the job.

[00:40:01] And so, and also I pay for the, I pay the annual fee so that you can do a full text search of any of the bookmarks that are in there, which is just to me, like a kind of bananas feature. But, um, but right now, what I mean.

[00:40:14] Brett: let’s explain that further. Cause it’s 25 bucks a year, but you can do a search that hits any texts and any page you’ve bookmarked at any point, like you don’t have to create descriptions or tags or anything. You basically have a private Google that only searches the links that you have intentionally bookmarked it’s insanely good.

[00:40:42] Jeff: Which like as a feature, I couldn’t imagine getting really excited about a web app that that was the front, you know, the front facing feature. Right. But instead it’s just this kinda like little thing off to the side. If you want to pay a little money, you can do this. Um, and so the way I’m, I’m having it, tell me what to do next with my life.

[00:40:59] It’s like, [00:41:00] I just kind of created one, one, uh, tag that will kind of hold all the things that I’m, I’m bookmarking. I have bookmark that I want to like speak back to me. And then as I tag, uh, as I tag them all individually, it’s forming its own kind of logic. And then I’m looking at that logic and going like, oh, well, clearly I would love to go deeper here.

[00:41:21] You know? So anyway, Pinboard love, love you pin board. Thanks for not going away.

[00:41:27] Brett: Yeah. Um, man, I should. So are we, is this crap now?

[00:41:35] Jeff: Oh, Yeah, that was my gratitude mixed in with the topic C

[00:41:39] Brett: Yeah,

[00:41:40] Jeff: it into a topic

[00:41:42] Brett: I, uh, I was going to do fantastic. I kind of, so there was an app called Spilo

[00:41:52] Jeff: Spilo spelled.

[00:41:53] Brett: S P I L L O

[00:41:56] Jeff: Okay.

[00:41:56] Brett: that worked with Pinboard to give [00:42:00] you a kind of newsreader approach to your pins on Pinboard and it fell into disrepair. It still works. And I still use it, but there is a newer, more modern app called pins. Um, and I will, I will link both of these, but, um, pins, like any of these apps give you basically a three.

[00:42:31] Pane view with like your left pain, being your types of bookmarks, all on red, public, private on tag tagged, et cetera. And then the center column being the bookmarks that exists in any of those left column categories and your right column being a preview of the webpage. And Pinboard, as you mentioned in passing is very undesigned.

[00:42:59] Uh, it [00:43:00] is not an ideal way to it. Isn’t absolutely ideal way to bookmark. Uh, the idea of delicious was it was a Yahoo property. If I recall correctly and it was

[00:43:14] Jeff: But by the time of died, it was.

[00:43:16] Brett: by the T it was designed for social bookmarking. Like you bookmark things for other people to see, and when Yahoo was sunset or when Yahoo sunset delicious.

[00:43:29] Uh, Pinboard sprung up as antisocial bookmarking, where you had to opt in to sharing your bookmarks and everything by default was private. And, uh, it’s still like, I use it. I use it for discovery. I browse other people’s public bookmarks to see what they’re bookmarking, the, uh, web excursions posts that come out on Bret serpshaker.com are all driven, all driven [00:44:00] by Pinboard.

[00:44:00] I just, when I add a bookmark to Pinboard, I can add a dot. Blog it tag and the dot makes the tag private. So it’s not, uh, people don’t see that tag on the, on the pin, but when I tagged something with that blog, it, when I get five of those collected, it puts out a post on my blog that lists, you know, five things that I’ve determined need to be blogged about and tagging is critical to the Pinboard experience, uh, pins, the more modern version of spillover.

[00:44:42] Is a great way to browse and navigate, especially if you use Pinboard as a read later kind of service. If you use it as an Instapaper replacement, uh, an app like pins or Spilo is kind of necessary to [00:45:00] actually review the content you’ve bookmarked. So my, my pick for the week will be pins.

[00:45:09] Jeff: I’ve been, I’ve been using pins throughout this process,

[00:45:13] Brett: Yeah.

[00:45:14] Jeff: although I also discovered an amazing little feature in Pinboard. So part of the reason I use pins is. Uh, let’s just say, there’s a problem where you might want to. I bookmark something and then I want to edit that bookmark, but I need to reference the actual page to edit it.

[00:45:30] Like maybe I want to copies some texts that I put into the description, whatever. And, and with Pinboard I was always kind of going back and forth, but Pinboard, if you’re, if you’re has hasn’t has a little option called organize and it actually turns your, it turns the sort of Pinboard interface into a situation where there’s a browser on the, on the bottom, uh, like say three-fourths and the top quarter is actually just all open fields to edit your bookmarks.

[00:45:59] So you can just [00:46:00] be looking at the page and editing it. It’s awesome. It’s not intuitive that it would be organized, but it’s a super cool little feature. That is one of the things I go to pin pins for. Anyway.

[00:46:12] Brett: Um, yeah. Okay. I’m going to check this out later, cause I’m not sure what you’re talking about and that sounds really cool. But yeah, I mean, pin Pinboard is it’s ugly. Let’s be, let’s be honest. It’s it’s not a pretty website and it hasn’t been updated since its inception. I have written, I have written like, uh, like plugins that stylize Pinboard a little bit more and make it prettier, but it does what it needs to do and it does it.

[00:46:46] And there’s a like incorporated, basically the entire delicious API and it replicated everything that delicious API could do. And then add it a little more on top of it. But the, the fact [00:47:00] is it’s a bookmarking site and it saves your bookmarks and you have always have them available to export in multiple formats and you can access them through an API that does everything you needed to do.

[00:47:15] And honestly it pinball. Never changed, never updated and just continue to exist for the next, we’ll say 10 years, I would be extremely happy and happy to pay my monthly fee for a Pinboard.

[00:47:31] Jeff: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well said Brett Terp stra

[00:47:36] Brett: All right. So this is, it’s a Pinboard week. It’s a Pinboard

[00:47:40] Jeff: then Bordewick

[00:47:41] Brett: Uh, we got a couple minutes left here. Um, I’m going to check our topic list real quick, but I kind of do want to tell you about my TV setup.

[00:47:52] Jeff: Oh yeah. The immersive TV situation. Yeah,

[00:47:56] Brett: I think I’ve mentioned something about this before, but [00:48:00] I have this, I got this. Um, okay, so back background, I, we have a basement that it was purely. It was okay for people in the south. The, uh, basement is a floor underneath top floor. Like your first floor. It’s subterranean, right. You with me so far.

[00:48:27] All right. So. So our basement was purely storage. I cleared enough space out to put in a futon and a 65 inch television vision and some speakers and a subwoofer and built myself a little entertainment center down there. Um, one that is just isolated enough that I can listen to a TV show or a movie at a reasonable volume level and not serve the rest of the house.

[00:48:59] [00:49:00] And it was kind of a great place for me to hide. What I added to it was this, well, I first I tried a system that was in HTMI. Uh, you put like an led strip around the outside, back of the television, and then it intercepted the HTMI signal and then would light up the wall behind the television based on what was on the TV screen.

[00:49:25] And it didn’t work. Right. Uh, I was not impressed with where the colors matched and, uh, it also broke all of my, like the ability for the apple remote to turn on the TV, because there was, uh, uh, basically a breaker between the TV and the apple TV, where it was inter intercepting, the HTMI signal. It wasn’t a, it broke all kinds of functionality.

[00:49:52] So what I ended up getting was this go V. G O V E a lighting [00:50:00] system that uses a camera that sits about three inches out, out of the top of the television and, and watches the screen. And then it has an led strip around the outside, back of the television and two standing light bars that face the wall about 20 inches on either side of the television.

[00:50:23] And that has been amazing.

[00:50:27] Jeff: Really it’s not, it’s not distracting or anything. I always

[00:50:30] Brett: oh, it’s totally distracting. Um, I, my ADHD, when I want stimulus, I want sound and I want my vision, uh, saturated. And when I want that, the soundbar and the subwoofer and this entire wall of light. It’s perfect for me when there are times when I, I can’t [00:51:00] handle that. Like I, I have moods, um, and there are times where upstairs I, so the 65 inch TV was in our Paris, small living room and it was too big for that room.

[00:51:16] Uh, like our, our couch is like maybe 10 feet from the screen. And 65 inches is too much for a room that size, um, um, it’s eight feet at best. Um, so I moved that down to where I need the stimulation. And now we have like a reasonable, I think 35 inch screen in that small living room where Ella and I can both watch it a TV screen and not get headaches.

[00:51:45] Um,

[00:51:46] Jeff: But in the basement.

[00:51:48] Brett: When I’m in the mood that I need, the stimulus overload, that 65 inch TV or a wall full of light that matches the TV screen. [00:52:00] And immersive sound is amazing. It’s amazing. It’s exactly what I need. There’s a, a song by a band called kite called Johnny boy. And the video has a lot of flickering black and white, and this camera keeps up with the flickering to the extent where as the flickering happens on the TV screen, the entire wall flickers in perfect sync with it.

[00:52:29] And it is it’s like if you’ve ever watched, like it’s, if you slow down a film, roll enough that you start to see the flicker it’s, it’s that just full it’s full body. It’s kind of

[00:52:44] Jeff: That’s super cool. I love it.

[00:52:46] Brett: I’m going to link, I’m going to link the Gobi system because it’s actually cheaper than any of the HDMR intercept systems.

[00:52:53] Um, and, and yeah. What does it cost? Hold on [00:53:00] the entire system with the light bars as 150 bucks for the whole thing, the TV will cost you more than that, but for 150 bucks, anything from, I think maybe a 55 to 65 inch TV is what it works with and it it’ll it’ll blow your mind.

[00:53:19] Jeff: Sounds great.

[00:53:21] Brett: Yeah. All right. So we, we got our one sponsor and we got some mental health.

[00:53:27] We got some, we got some TV shit. We got some other stuff. Are we, are we done?

[00:53:33] Jeff: I feel like we’ve done a really good job.

[00:53:36] Brett: I just slammed the rest of my coffee. I got, I got energy for this.

[00:53:44] got energy to end this now

[00:53:47] Jeff: I got to go pick up my kids, man.

[00:53:49] Brett: it was a good show.

[00:53:50] Jeff: Yeah.

[00:53:51] Brett: It was a good Breton Geoff show.

[00:53:53] Jeff: Yeah. It was really enjoyed it. Should I tell you to get some sleep? And should you tell me the same?

[00:53:58] Brett: I feel like that’s about to [00:54:00] happen.

[00:54:01] Jeff: Get some sleep.

[00:54:02] Brett: Get some sleep, Jeff.