space psychics
Brandon has a broken mirror. Collin took a trip. We talk about how hot it is.
It’s SO HOT!!!
New least favorite word!!
Incorrectly used dashboard
Broken mirrors
Paper towel testing continues
Collin took a trip to space in kansas
Mobile Suit Gundam - 1979
Haiku
Water droplets fall
Into the waiting basin
Ready to measure
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
PROVIDED BY OTTER.AI
Collin 0:05
Welcome to Oh Brother, a podcast where we try to figure it all out with your hosts Brandon and Collin on this week's show, Space Psychics. Ahoy! Ahoy! Hey, my audio is working. This is good. We're off to an auspicious start. Let's go. My goodness, how is how is your September? What is this?
Brandon 0:32
It's hot. Is what it is.
Collin 0:33
So hot.
Brandon 0:35
Hate everything. Right. So mad. It's so Brandon. Why is it so hot? I don't know. It's like we have like a heat advisory warning all week. Potentially part of next week. It's ridiculous. That means no outside, no outside recess for me with brand new sixth graders. That's fun. Love that for me, so you know what?
Collin 1:07
Yeah, so you're just what hiding in the shade, or you're staying inside, staying inside windows, staying
Brandon 1:11
inside. Yeah, yeah, because it's too hot to go outside because it's awful. So
Collin 1:18
it's real bad.
Brandon 1:19
Yeah, that's fine. Okay. That's yeah. So, hmm. Yeah. One week of school down. Boom.
Collin 1:26
How's it going? How's it feel? It's
Brandon 1:28
fine. I have a new least favorite word, Collin. Oh, that I want to talk to you about. Okay. A
Collin 1:34
new least favorite word. Yeah. Okay. Is this one that you had known about before,
Speaker 1 1:41
or well, yeah, but
Brandon 1:42
this is not a word that I've had to use in this context previously, and now the fact that it exists in my life is annoying me to no end, right? Like it's like real bad, like okay,
Collin 1:56
okay,
Brandon 1:57
Collin, that word is Dashboard,
Collin 2:02
dashboard.
Brandon 2:04
Yeah.
Collin 2:05
What? Okay.
Brandon 2:06
Yeah, we've decided. Not we. The school has decided that all important information that you may need now exists on what they are referring to as the dashboard. Oh yeah.
Collin 2:23
Oh, I. However,
Brandon 2:24
the problem is, it appears that somebody like is vaguely aware of what a dashboard is, and that's kind of as far as they checked into this matter, and then they just like made something that they're going to call that, right? This appears to be not how a normal individual or group would use such a device. Oh, oh! It just oh, I I one of the great ironies here is that one of the things on the dashboard is a link to the school intranet, the former basically dashboard?
Collin 3:11
Oh, it's a dashboard. Oh, we're doing some inception here. It's a dashboard and a dashboard. Yeah, we have some inception happening.
Brandon 3:16
We have some like there's just a whole bunch of stuff on there, right? It's just like oh, these are all like important things, but and really the even better part of this is, is this is not actually like some sort of like web app, or it's not affiliated with the website anyway. This is a Google sheet that has been populated with links to other documents.
Collin 3:39
No, no, that's
Brandon 3:43
and websites.
Collin 3:44
I'm not okay with. No,
Brandon 3:47
so bad.
Collin 3:49
Oh,
Brandon 3:50
it's so ridiculous. And and there's like one one of the reasons I'm very distressed by this whole situation, right? Is that there exists on this quote unquote like so in my mind a dashboard is a place for like static information, right? Reference material, okay? Like oh, I needed to look at the list of like standards or whatever. Okay, boom. I needed the list of like the schedule for testing for the year, that right? Am I am I wrong? Okay.
Collin 4:25
Yeah. Well. Yeah. Because you're you're basically saying like, okay. So I have her dashboard in referenced in two different ways. There's the way of like, this is a like central hub landing page go index on an index right. I I've also seen a dashboard as the uh, this is the one place you look for like the data of like the current status of things. Wow. So
Brandon 4:57
what about what about a a a. Place with a link to information that changes daily.
Speaker 2 5:03
Is
Brandon 5:04
that a good thing to put on the dashboard? No.
Collin 5:06
What's the? Yeah, no. I don't think
Brandon 5:08
so either. Right. I'm super mad about this one specific aspect of my life. Right. Because all of a sudden, the office, the elementary office, has decided we're not going to send bus notes and transportation change notes to your classroom and pin them on the thing outside your door. Now, for the little kids, they still do that because they have to show the bus driver and blah blah blah. Right? For the kids in middle school, they're like, "Nah, we're gonna update this spreadsheet, and you, teacher, must check the spreadsheet at the end of every single day.
Collin 5:48
No, because
Brandon 5:49
this information will not be communicated to you in any other fashion.
Collin 5:53
No, this is wrong.
Brandon 5:55
Ah, yes, I'm so. I know. I don't even care if they want to email me, right? Like I feel like you want to email me that they're doing this. Fine, email me. Okay, I'll deal with the 400,000 emails I get every day. Whatever. Don't put it in a spreadsheet that I have to look at every single. That is the most ridiculous thing. Because what if I've looked at it at like 3o'clock and then the parent calls like at 3o five? Uh huh, uh huh. Now, now this is my fault
Collin 6:31
because when this
Brandon 6:31
is an office job, right? Again, I'm not trying to be like, oh, I'm the teacher, I'm better, but no, no, no, no, no. That's not what. That's not what it is. That's not what this is. This is a this is a task that is the office task. That's what the office does. There they do this, right?
Collin 6:50
Yeah. They
Brandon 6:50
take phone calls from parents. They update transportation. They blow. That's the thing that they do. But now, if a kid does not go home in the in the right spot, it is now my fault, right? It is my fault.
Speaker 3 7:07
Yeah,
Brandon 7:07
that responsibility has been placed firmly upon my shoulders, and that is not where it belongs.
Collin 7:12
Absolutely, very salty
Brandon 7:14
about this. Yeah, like super. I'm not the only one, by the way. My whole entire floor is like super salty about this specific scenario. I
Collin 7:23
here's the problem for this is a this is more like a posting board that you would find back in the pre.com days of like this is just where information is is posted and you are responsible for checking it because the fact that you don't even get an alert when new things are posted, yeah, that means that you effectively have to keep this up full time.
Brandon 7:53
Yes, I just have to have it open right now. Like there exists also on here like the list of like a to give you an example of how I feel this is different, right? There is also a list of like our scheduled like safety drills throughout the year, right? But the superintendent, because we already did like one, like we did a fire drill already, just because you know that's a good thing to do at the beginning of the year, right? Of course, you should do some drills at the beginning of the year, just to you know, so that your brain's thinking about it. You got to make like before like when school started. You should be like, oh yeah, do I have an updated evacuation plan? That's a great idea, right? But he is sending out emails saying this drill will be scheduled for blah blah blah on this day, right? Like now it was slightly annoying when he was like, oh by the way, it's at 2o'clock today, and it was like noon, but that was kind of annoying. But it's a fire drill, so that takes like no minutes. But still, there was an email. There was an email update, right, to go along with the schedule.
Collin 8:54
Yeah,
Brandon 8:54
this is okay, right? I don't love that it was like, oh, by the way, it's tomorrow. But like, whatever. There was an email. It was communicated out in a fashion that everybody had access to it. Right? It doesn't just like hide away in a spreadsheet somewhere. That's annoying. That's really going to be the other thing about about this that is hilarious, right? And it's annoying for a completely different reason. This reason makes me mad. The other, this next reason makes me disappointed. Like it appears that they just found things that sounded kind of important and stuck them on there, right?
Collin 9:35
No.
Brandon 9:36
And so, like some of this information is like they're like. So I was just curious, right? I was going, I was going through the sixth grade tab because you know that's me, and I was like, oh, it was like sixth grade, like blah blah blah blah blah. So I click on it, and the only thing in there is information about the sixth graders that are now in eighth grade.
Collin 9:59
Wow. I have
Brandon 10:00
two-year-old information. That's super unrelevant to anything. Just in there, they're just like, "Oh, this says six. They're like, "We're digging through like somebody's files. I'm like, "Well, this says sixth grade. Yeah, like we'll just.
Collin 10:17
This is um
Brandon 10:19
what?
Collin 10:20
I was even trying to give them the benefit of the doubt of like, are they using this? Because, because I was like, okay, well, I've also heard of a status board, but a status board is is the real time like current state of systems and things. Is it up? Is it down? Is it broken? Is it fixed? So for
Brandon 10:35
like some of the yeah for like the reading test schedules and things like that.
Collin 10:40
Yeah,
Brandon 10:40
like this is a good place for that. Like, oh, when did that like the testing windows for the year? Like, that's just a set thing that you like. Normally, that's a thing that gets emailed out and then you lose it because it's like an email somewhere and you you don't know where it is, right? So, like, that's a thing that can be on a board that you can find, right? Like, there's a link to like the staff portal thing. Okay, so you don't have to bookmark that. That's cool. Like whatever. Like that's fine. Those things kind of make sense. But some of the other ones, you're like, what? What is this doing on here? I think they're trying to like, oh, what'd you say? It's too small. You pad it out, put some more things on there.
Collin 11:23
Yeah, because they couldn't. They couldn't not have it because what happens if if it because you you know you this is what this is what happened. Okay, someone said that they need to have this, and that person. So they're making this, and they want it to look like it's useful and important, and that it has to be impressive when you go. It's because you don't want to go to an empty dashboard.
Brandon 11:48
I feel like this is this is going to sound slightly bad, but like this is something that they're going to screenshot and like put in the presentation that they show the the board that they've been working on
Collin 12:01
oh
Brandon 12:02
right
Collin 12:03
oh you know you know yeah
Brandon 12:06
this is
Collin 12:07
1,000% going to be
Brandon 12:13
in the board report right like ah created this and it's just like it's not going to be like a they're not going to link it there's they're just going to put a screenshot of it in the in the presentation.
Collin 12:24
Yeah,
Brandon 12:25
and so then they'll be like, "Oh, it looks pretty good.
Collin 12:29
Yep. Then they'll be they'll be very impressed, and they'll be like, "Yeah, you look at you doing things to maybe make it productive and such. Yeah, blah blah.
Brandon 12:40
It's just like what, like what does this exist? Like what is this for? Like I don't understand. Again, also this this is one of those things where it's like a lot of it is like, oh, here's the like reading schedule and here's like the RSP update, blah blah blah. Like a lot of these things are not things that I would ever need to open in my life, ever so like,
Collin 13:02
you know, so I
Brandon 13:03
don't care about that.
Collin 13:05
Brandon, I think I figured it out. Somebody attended a webinar about how emails were killing productivity.
Brandon 13:12
Oh, are they? Okay. Yeah, you know what helps even more tabs open on my desktop that I already have,
Collin 13:19
and this is their way of getting rid of emails because that's what you need. You need fewer emails. That'll actually help you be better.
Brandon 13:31
It won't help me. I mean, also, like it's irrelevant because, like, while I'm teaching, I can't read my email anyway, so I'm like yards away from my computer, so I don't even know that I have an email. Like I don't even what's an email. I know. Like I only check it like between classes, and I'm just looking for like updated information. Like oh, but because every once in a while, you know, it's happened before. That's like oh, due to blah blah blah, the tornado drill for tomorrow will be canceled, right? Like, sure, I need to know that, but that's not. That doesn't take like a. It's just a a two line email. That's totally fine, right? I can deal with that. Like, I don't need other things. I just need. I understand why I have to have all this other stuff. It's very annoying, and I don't like it. It makes you grumpy. Okay, dashboard right over for now. I got it.
Collin 14:26
No, again, I, I. This is not. I agree. This is not what the proper term of a of a dashboard is. Yeah, trying to figure out what this actually is. It's a yeah.
Brandon 14:38
I I am. I've been two. Right. I've just been I've been kind of stuck with like somebody heard about a dashboard. Somebody was described a dashboard, and then they told somebody else to make this. Right? This feels like a game of telephone has occurred, right? Because I know the person that made the dashboard, and they. Only did it because they were told to make the thing right. So like,
Collin 15:06
yeah, I want to know what
Brandon 15:07
that interaction was like, right? Is very
Collin 15:09
this is very much more lines of like a forum or a discussion board, like of yeah, except for internet of old, except it's just one one. It does
Brandon 15:20
kind of feel like college discussion board, or like college, like the campus, like online class thing, where it's like these are resources you need, bang, right? And it's like, oh, here's the syllabus, here's guidelines for this, here's due dates, here's like
Collin 15:37
static. That's the other thing that I'm really not okay with yeah, and I
Brandon 15:42
think that a thing like this should be static information.
Speaker 4 15:45
Yes,
Brandon 15:46
right, or at least like again, I understand that like oh we've we've done this year's like you know this the beginning of the year like reading test, and then we're gonna update that information, but we're gonna update it once, and it just needs a home, right? Like that kind of information is fine, but like information is going to update like frequently, potentially daily. Yeah, does not
Collin 16:12
one that you have to constantly go back and like pull to refresh and see. I know,
Brandon 16:18
so annoying
Collin 16:19
because this is the other thing of okay, it's there today. Like you were saying, okay, is there a link in here that I need to save for something that's three months from now that I'm going to have access to? What do I do with that? I guess yeah, I don't. You know what? You'll just email it to yourself. Congratulations.
Brandon 16:34
Yeah, and some of the stuff too. It's like, oh, here's a here's the district calendar for the year. Well, that's on the website. Like, oh, here's the lunch menu. That's on the website. Here's like the handbooks. That's on the website. Like, what? So I I don't know what that information is doing here because it already exists in another place that's more easily accessible, right? Like,
Collin 17:09
yeah, I don't know what's going on. It's it's the point.
Collin 17:15
Well, and I understand sometimes when you transition systems, you're going to have some overlap, but this is bad. There's no
Brandon 17:22
system. There's no transition, right? We didn't get anything new.
Collin 17:25
Yeah, you're just. We got a
Brandon 17:27
new district communication app.
Collin 17:29
Nah, I think I told
Brandon 17:30
you about. Nah, right? Like we got that, but that has nothing to do with this, and I don't think there's any link for rooms on there. So like, I don't even know what I just I don't know. I just pulled that up. I pulled that communication app up on my laptop thing that they gave me, and then I bookmarked it and I just leave it there. Yeah, don't look at it any other time because if you do get a a message, it emails you surprise, so like surprise
Collin 18:03
people.
Brandon 18:06
But I'm not, you know. So
Collin 18:15
well, there you go. Ah, sorry.
Brandon 18:17
In other news, in other news, Collin, Collin, I have important update information for you.
Collin 18:21
Oh,
Brandon 18:21
yay! We have we have accomplished paper towel absorbency test number one. All right. Okay. Now this year, what I've decided. I was joking with somebody the other day, and I was like, really, the things that make the best middle school science experiments are things that you kind of want to know the answer to, so you make the kids do the test on it, right? That's really that's what you want to do. So, so paper towel absorbency test accomplished. So I I wanted to test right. We got new paper towel dispensers and different paper towels this year in all the bathrooms.
Collin 18:58
Okay,
Brandon 18:59
okay, right. Big bathroom update. It's cool, man. It's amazing. The bathroom works. It's crazy. Did I say about the mirror? No, the mirror does not work. Funny side anecdote before returning to paper towel test. The they they redid the middle school bathrooms. All right, so like the new thing in schools is like taking all the tile off the floor, and they do like the it's like a coated garage floor.
Collin 19:34
Oh, okay. The the sealed concrete, right? Yeah,
Brandon 19:37
they kind of like paint it. the The upstairs bathroom has been-they like painted it gray, and then they threw. You know how they throw down the like glittery stuff.
Collin 19:46
Yeah, in the
Brandon 19:47
bathroom or in the garages. So they they threw down some school colors thing on there, and then they seal it over. So this is the new thing. Like we're not. We're kind of doing away with floor tile. A lot of schools are doing this. It's a little bit more cost effective. You don't have to like seal and wax this all the time, right? So your maintenance budget can go down and things like this, right? So I wouldn't be surprised if this happens to more floors in my life. If they do it to my classroom floor, I'm really going to freak out because that means I have to move my giant cabinets full of stuff. That that does not sound like a pleasant ordeal. Anyway, so new bathrooms, new bathroom floors. Love it. Painted the walls, new bathroom stalls. Right. Ooh ah. They did not replace any of the fixtures, but you know, whatever they worked. So like, it wasn't like they were broken, and they put in a new bathroom mirror. All right, now why they put in a giant actual mirror in a middle school bathroom, I don't really know. Right, the bathroom has three sinks. They used to just have like three small mirrors, like one small mirror above each sink, right? And then the soap dispensers were in between the sinks. Okay. Now one big mirror on the whole wall, soap dispensers on the left and right side. So the middle sink is a little bit soapless. However, this is a an actual mirror they put in the bathroom, and it appears when they installed it, they tightened one of the screws too tight, and it's just broken. What?
Collin 21:34
No!
Brandon 21:35
They just put clear packing tape over it. No,
Collin 21:43
they didn't. No, they didn't. No, they did. No, no. People, it's so funny. It's terrible. Every day, I go
Brandon 21:57
in there. I just like, guys, what the heck, man? And it literally looks like they where they screwed in the screw. They just over tightened it, and it just boom. You know that.
Collin 22:08
You know they did, and it was the last thing that they had to do that day. And they were trying to hurry up and get out of there. They're just
Brandon 22:13
like, and then they gave a little
Collin 22:16
one more hunka hunka on the screwdriver, and yeah, and
Brandon 22:19
boom.
Speaker 3 22:21
Oh my. there
Brandon 22:23
is just like clear packing tape over the crack, and they're like, "It's fine. Anyway, anyway, anyway. So new paper towels. Okay, no more do we have the traditional brown paper towel roll.
Collin 22:40
Oh,
Brandon 22:41
we have the white paper towel roll.
Collin 22:45
Wow! I was curious-is
Brandon 22:47
like we all know the brown school paper towel quite bad at its job?
Collin 22:53
No bueno,
Brandon 22:54
right?
Collin 22:55
Yes.
Brandon 22:55
And so I wanted to know what it's called: natural white roll towel. I found the box, as opposed to one ply roll towel. That was the other one. That's good internal naming there for. That's how you know it's like a industrial consumer product, right? Like it just has a product code, and that's the only name.
Collin 23:26
Yep, it's just the code, and it's just the most like mundane description. Yeah, I'm surprised there weren't. Yeah,
Brandon 23:35
I wrote that on the board. I was like, I found the official name. It's this, and the kids were like, What seriously? I was like, yeah, somebody not very creative at their job here. So we tested these against hashtag not sponsored, just great value brand paper towels. Ooh, right.
Collin 23:54
That was all. Hey, hey.
Brandon 23:56
So we're just gonna see. We're gonna see. Are this these two school paper towels. How do they compare to great value brand paper towel?
Collin 24:08
Okay,
Brandon 24:09
so absorbency test update. I remembered my procedure and wrote. I wrote one down, so I remember it this time. So you're welcome. I made six centimeter square paper towels. I cut them into six centimeter squares, six by six squares, right? Which again, I find the process of like hand lining and drawing and cutting out things like this like very calming, right? Like yeah, like we're gonna use my ruler. I'm gonna make my marks. I'm gonna cross my line, use my square to put like it's over. I did not need to make it this complicated, but much more fun this way, right? Sure,
Collin 24:48
I think it's
Brandon 24:49
fine. Anyway, so we put the paper towel in just like a little thing, right? It's not like a little tub, little lab tub thing, right? And then I take I took 10 mil of water in a cylinder, and then we just dumped it in there, and then we let it sit for a few seconds. We picked it up, and kind of let it drip dry, like just kind of hold it for like five to 10 seconds and let it the water drip off back in, and then throw the towel away, pour the water back into the cylinder, measure the new level. We had to do some subtraction, shock horror, right? Crazy! It's very exciting, and we got our number: how much water was in the paper towel? Okay, and now Collin, here's a shock. All right, on on the class average graph. Okay, so I I took all of the data, I threw out one group's test because I have no idea where their numbers came from. But they were such outliers that I was like, something wrong happened. So we're not gonna. We're gonna. That can't be right. You had to spill something. Yes. You you got water on yourself somewhere like this didn't go well, and then I averaged all the numbers, okay, and I have graphed on the board for the kids to see tomorrow our results, okay. So average water retention of brown paper towel one milliliter,
Collin 26:23
okay.
Brandon 26:23
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not bad for a six by six centimeter square. No, not
Collin 26:29
at all.
Brandon 26:31
White roll towel. Point eight. Ooh, no. Yeah. So statistically, near as makes no difference. Exactly the same. Yeah. Right. Right. Oh wow. Yeah. So it's either the exact same or potentially worse than brown paper towel at absorbency and hashtag not sponsored, great value 1.5. Ooh, yeah, yeah, clear leader, clear leader in water retention. This is this
Collin 27:12
is the heartbreaking science you just don't get. Right, this is this is
Brandon 27:18
the consumer reports that we really need. Right, it was very funny. Right, a very, a very also potentially problematic because one of my students this year is the superintendent's son. So we're gonna see how that goes.
Collin 27:32
Oh, see if he
Brandon 27:33
releases information to his father. But I thought it was really. I was just like, I have to know, right? Like I have to know if these are better or worse than the other paper towels, and so we could do anecdotal tests, or we could just figure it out right now.
Collin 27:48
You know, boom.
Brandon 27:53
So part two next week, we're gonna do the strength tests where we get we wet the paper towel, stretch it over a bin and then put marbles on it until it breaks.
Collin 28:07
Okay. Yes, I like this.
Brandon 28:10
So we'll let you know about that one. But but I was like, it's. I was hoping that perhaps maybe with all the new, I was like, maybe these paper towels will be better. No, no, hope gone.
Collin 28:25
Dashed. Oh wow! So it's very
Brandon 28:31
funny. So you go.
Collin 28:32
Paper towel debate has paper
Brandon 28:34
towel paper towel testing continues. So what have you been up to, Collin? Tell me about
Collin 28:46
I exciting things you're doing. I drove to Kansas. Were
Brandon 28:53
you in Central Kansas by chance? I
Collin 28:58
may have been when you sent
Brandon 28:59
me this photograph. I
Collin 29:00
may have been in Central Kansas. Okay, that's kind of what I thought. We had some time. That
Brandon 29:06
looks familiar. I
Collin 29:06
know, and I was like, okay, guys, just bear with me. Bear with me on this. Everything's going to be okay. I have a try. I miss.
Brandon 29:16
Did you go for this? Yes. Okay. I can't imagine another reason you would be out there for it, like there's no other reason to be there. But I just didn't know if it was like coincidental, like you happened to be in the neighborhood, or like you went on a mission. Okay,
Collin 29:33
no, no, no. Yes, dear listeners, I took a trip to the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas, and which
Brandon 29:44
is so far away from everything else, it
Collin 29:47
is not close. It turns out that yes, when you are on your way to Colorado or Wyoming, it's the perfect place to stop because you have to drive through the. But when you are,
Brandon 30:01
yeah, just going there, just for your destination,
Collin 30:05
going there, that's that's not fun. Okay, and that is where I go. I was like, oh, yeah, it's four hours and 15 minutes away from my home, and holy moly! Yeah, like this is this is a lot. It's a big drive, and we didn't even get that early of a start. You know, so whatever. But I, I just we had some time, and I had talked to the kids about this for a while. Like this is a cool place to go. I would really like to go there, so we did, and it was a drive. I did, I did get pulled over by Collin.
Brandon 30:59
No, the corn police.
Collin 31:00
The corn police. Now here's here's the story. Okay. Okay. Okay. You were on
Brandon 31:06
a road that had been straight for 300 miles. 342
Collin 31:13
miles. Highway
Brandon 31:14
hypnosis had firmly set in. No, right. And
Collin 31:19
I went for the no. So here's what happened. I was we came up one of the only hills in all of Kansas, and on the descent, I went. I went, yeah, just little. I went. I will pass this trucker, and I went to pass the trucker, and because he's a trucker. He decided to speed up and go faster as I went down the hill, as
Brandon 31:47
they do, as they
Collin 31:48
do, right? But this was this was a bit more than the I'm going faster just because I'm going downhill kind of speed up. This was a I'm not happy you're passing me on this clear passing lane at all, right? Like I was, it was it was clearly I can pass. Well, that's when I'm passing and we're driving and I'm going, I'm like I'm going oh I'm going around you, and I look ahead, and here comes a car,
Brandon 32:21
a smoky perhaps.
Collin 32:24
No, no, and I sped way up to get cut in front of the truck before the car came. Now, did the car slow down and start to like pull over onto the side, onto the the the thing, the the shoulder. Yes, yes, he did. Did was that it? And then we just kept driving, and then I slowed down, and then the trucker like slowed way way down at that point. Yes, Brandon, an hour and a half later, I see lights in my rearview mirror, and I what in the world? Hour and a half later.
Brandon 33:19
All right, I feel like this fishy, right? Like, what is
Collin 33:27
happening? And I get the the swagger and the walk, and they come over, of
Brandon 33:32
course,
Collin 33:33
and are like, "You passed anybody recently?
Brandon 33:38
Like, no. I said,
Collin 33:39
No, and said you pass anybody and almost put somebody in a ditch, and I went no sir. He went well. We got a report of a blacked out Missouri SUV with a roof rack, and he took a step back and was like, "I ain't seen any other today. He did the like dramatic step back and like look over my vehicle, like I seen the other today, running people off the road and putting people into ditches, and I did. Now I was like, and of course, in my head, I'm like,
Brandon 34:26
your cousin happened to call. Perhaps I think
Brandon 34:30
Jim Bob felt like maybe that's what happened here.
Collin 34:33
And I said, I said, officer, I did pass a vehicle. Never
Brandon 34:39
admit anything, Collin. I said,
Collin 34:41
I said there was a pass over an hour ago going down a hill, and I did have to get in front of him because the trucker sped up alongside me, but nobody went into a ditch, and I just stared at him, and he was like, "Well." You know, I gotta just you know, just running the report and been out here and you know, blah blah blah blah. Drive safe, yes sir. And just like an hour and a half later, Brandon, an hour and a half. How how you pull somebody
Brandon 35:15
without witnessing a crime? What is that? What is this? This was I
Collin 35:19
was the suspect, and this was the this was the you know because they and I'm like that truck driver. It had to have been the truck driver, the guy who pulled over on the car. I they had no a they they could not have seen my license plate at all. Like this was 1,000% the truck driver who sped up alongside me, who was angry that I was doing that, and then called the cops to say I ran somebody off the road.
Brandon 35:44
Like,
Collin 35:46
are you blind or just a? I was so, and then I was just like probably a myth. Actually, that's why it's probably probably copious amounts of methamphetamine. So the rest of our way into Hutchinson, Kansas was not eventful. Not quite so. Okay, good, good, good. But we made it, made it to Cosmosphere, and this is where all of a sudden, because when we went there, it was like we just got entrance to the like the museum, and Excuse me, and you know we didn't like. We may have gone to like one show. I oh yeah,
Brandon 36:27
I don't think I don't remember any. Well, I think we went to like the planetarium, but we didn't stand like watch a movie, right? No, no, no, no. I think I mean I can't think of. I know I have been in a planetarium before, and I can't imagine where else that would have been.
Collin 36:44
I think this was it. I think this was. It must have been it. Probably. I don't know where else. You're right. And I. And they were like, "Well, what kind of pass do you want? And I was like, "Pass, what? I did not
Brandon 37:04
know there were kinds of passes. Didn't know. I didn't prepare for this at all.
Collin 37:08
And I went, "What do they get me? And he's like, "Are you going to go to at least two of the things? And I was just like, "Sure. And he was like, "Fine things. You want this one? So we got the like all access pass, and I was like, "We're going. But then, back we
Brandon 37:25
drove four hours later. We're going everywhere. Going everywhere.
Collin 37:27
But Brandon, there were three events to like plan around. They have the Doctor Goddard's lab experience, which was at certain time intervals. They had the planetarium, which was at certain time intervals, and then they had their theater, which was also at certain time intervals. So makes sense. And they showed different. They were like, and each one did like it was like, oh, planetarium. Do you want to see which one of these three things do you want to see? All at different times. So you couldn't just like say all of them because at 1o'clock, sneaky. If you if you wanted to see the Cosmos one at 1o'clock, well, that was the same time that the T Rex one at the movie theater. But God, so was like, oh my gosh! Like immediately, immediately. This is
Brandon 38:11
you were not prepared for this level of stress in your life. Overwhelmed
Collin 38:14
immediately, and so I was just like, turn, pivot, kids. We get to pick between this and this, this and this, this, this. Okay, but yes, good call. Yes, excellent. We are then. I just turned to him and I was like, make that work, and he was like, okay. Well, you've got to show it one, show it three, and show it five. And I was like, perfect. I'm good. Or fold it. I think it was like one, right? Yeah, three and four, something Like that, and then then we got to go, and and I got to be. They have it is so interesting because they have on one hand both changed nothing about this museum, but also have updated very specific components.
Brandon 39:02
Interesting. Let me. I don't really remember a lot about the interior of this place, so I probably wouldn't be able to say whether or not they did update it at all. I'd be like, "Oh, I remember there was a lunar lander.
Collin 39:15
Yes, lunar lander. Also, the Blackbird, obviously. Why, yeah, that's that. And the space shuttle is up against the wall, and oh yeah, yeah, that massive thing. And then there's the like they called it the I forget. There's another airplane suspended from the ceiling as you come in. Is there also
Brandon 39:35
just randomly Berlin Wall all of a sudden in there?
Collin 39:38
The oh, not Brandon. The Cold War is a central theme of of all of this, and then yes, I mean that makes sense to
Brandon 39:46
me, right? That would be why this existed in a lot of that aircraft. But but I just remember like going through the museum and being like, ah yes, planes, spacecraft, blah blah blah, Berlin Wall, like Berlin Wall in the comments
Collin 39:58
in the basement. You come. Down another flight, you come down a ramp and you go. You go straight into the Berlin Wall, and that's the ah okay yeah that's okay. This is the part David
Brandon 40:08
Hasselhoff. Yes, yeah, David was there.
Collin 40:10
There where they the the the level of political intrigue, right? That and espionage that is throughout all. of this, is like I got none of that whenever I was here for the first four times. Well,
Brandon 40:30
that makes sense, right? It was like we were quite young the first time we went there.
Collin 40:37
We were, and and so it's like okay, and probably close
Brandon 40:42
to Lily's age, I would imagine. Actually, now I think about it. Yeah, like
Collin 40:45
that 10 to like 13 around the range. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Brandon 40:48
yeah.
Collin 40:50
Of like okay, we're first off. Yeah, you come down and you can see the plane that the sound barrier was broken the first time. Cool, cool. That's great. The orange thing, whatever it is, but then it's like first we're gonna start off with Nazis because that's it's like you like that's. I
Brandon 41:10
mean, if you're gonna talk about the history of rockets, kind of that's the starting place, right? Like that's you know,
Collin 41:18
but man, that's a hard like slam down, you come down the. That is a hard intro to the to
Brandon 41:23
the genre, right? Like we're going to learn rockets
Collin 41:26
in space and Nazis. Oh, like oh boy,
Brandon 41:30
cool. Werner von Braun. We wanted to hear
Collin 41:33
so much about Swashtikas. Ah, so that was another like ooh like context and why is this and helping like it also helped me of like teasing these names out like Goddard and it was corresponding with Wernher von Braun when he was little and like all these teasing through and these were these were it was war that was driving the development of this and then space became the next step as we look to conquer and maintain supremacy, and that's why this is going on. And talking about the the U.S. and USSR and cosmonauts and astronauts, and and you know they put dogs into space, we put monkeys into space, we you know all this. And meanwhile, the whole background is like, and the rockets are getting bigger, and they're getting more complex. And see what we're doing, and they even have. I didn't realize that they had the the capsule or the the rockets that some of the very earliest, like what John Glenn went into space in. Yeah, you know they've got that one. That's an whatever it was, Mercury, Mercury. Yeah, Mercury. They've got one of those out in the back, like the rocket. Oh, that's crazy. I didn't realize that it's just it's the massive rocket that's back there, and it's like that was for the Mercury missions. Oh,
Brandon 42:48
I do I do remember. I think the cosmosphere is where I learned my one fun rocketry fact. It's not fun, but like I believe more people died building the v2 rocket than were hit by the v2 rocket. I think that I think
Collin 43:06
so. I think so absolutely. Yeah, I think that's true. But yeah, they have the. I think what's crazy, like you can go out the inside. It's like this is the. It was called the Redstone rocket, and that was one that was developed from the the bombers from the Nazis. Like we basically took that, made it our own, and that was what we were doing to space. And then we put a capsule on it. And when you say
Brandon 43:31
made it our own, what you actually mean is some Nazis came and got hired by NASA,
Collin 43:39
and they showed us How to do it, right? Yeah, yeah. We we slapped USA on it, and we're like, ta-da! Yeah, we're like, no,
Brandon 43:45
we totally did it. Totally us,
Collin 43:47
right? We we we brought it into our culture. Yeah, you know, like when you look at
Brandon 43:53
those photos of people that worked at early NASA, you're like, wait a minute, wait. Not to be like too Joe Rogany here, but like, it is pretty suspicious, you know. Were you like, man, what happened to that guy's face? Oh, is that a German military academy dueling scar on that man's sheep? Why it is?
Collin 44:15
Well, that's would
Brandon 44:17
you look at that,
Collin 44:18
huh? Anyway, surely that means nothing. Yeah, totally
Brandon 44:23
unrelated. Everything's fine.
Collin 44:25
So, so yeah, they have they have the Redstone rocket out there that was part of the Mercury missions, and you could go stand underneath it, and it doesn't have the little Mercury capsule on top. But also, I didn't realize this. They are the only private owner of a space capsule, ever in at all. Because one of the bells, Mercury bells, went into the ocean. Yes, like it was brought up and someone bought and donated it, and it's just out there. Yeah, was
Brandon 44:57
that Gus's?
Collin 44:58
Gus's. Yeah, they've got Gus's. That Gus. They also have the Apollo 13 reentry module. I didn't realize this. You
Speaker 5 45:07
really?
Collin 45:08
Yes. No way. It is the Apollo 13. Holy schmally,
Brandon 45:12
that's crazy. I didn't know that.
Collin 45:13
I didn't know either. But I was like, as I'm looking at it and I see the little sign thing, and saw Tom
Brandon 45:19
Hanks's picture. Tom Hanks is there,
Collin 45:21
and it is a little sad because I there was a little plaque because at the time their their record for the being the furthest manned spacecraft from the U from the from the Earth stood for like well up until this year up until yeah up until Artemis Artemis so so now it's this plaque, and it's it's this capsule, Apollo 13 was the record holder for 50 years, and then they just put some tape over it. Yeah, so that's really cool. And then like here I am, and like kids, we have a movie that we need to watch. Like yeah, okay, real blackout. So. you know that's where it's like we gotta we were like this a lot, and explaining that that's the other part of just like the monumental nature of a lot of these things is hard. Oh yeah, but but what's really cool is you can show like you can stand in one room and you can look to your left and you can say, "Here's how the cosmonauts re-entered. See that little like that bowling ball thing that they probably got slamming into the earth, and here are
Brandon 46:31
the they're gonna land in Siberia, yo!
Collin 46:34
And they were hoping for the snow and ice to like cushion up, right? And then here's here's here's our little bells, and we decide to land in water. And I was like, "Why did we want to go with water? And Lily was like, "Because it'd be safe, softer, you know. She was like, "Because you know, because the
Brandon 46:50
cos one of those cosmona things just crashed hardcore. And then NASA was like, "Hey guys, I got another idea.
Collin 46:57
Also, also more water to hit on the land. That is true. Yeah. So I mean, there is
Brandon 47:04
a lot of Russia to hit. To be fair.
Collin 47:06
To be fair, but also more water. Yeah. But you can sit there and you can look at like here's what they were doing. Here's what ours is. Like let's put ourselves in those situations, and then you go into this rocket room and they have a room with the redstone rocket. Like the not the whole thing, like that would sit on a launch pad. It's the actual jet engine itself. They have they have the rocket engine sitting there. It's like six and a half feet tall. That's just the little thing where the fire would come out. Then next to that, they have the Atlas rocket, and they have the so you can see,
Brandon 47:41
it's a lot bigger. The exam, the exact
Collin 47:44
that that you could see the advancement technology, and then you swivel your head, and over here you have the SpaceX Falcon rocket. They've got that that little nozzle thing over here. Not the full like multi-story again where all the liquid fuel sat in, but just just the I need to I'm not explaining this very well at all. What the difference of like the rocket, like the full thing where the yeah, but it's just like the
Brandon 48:17
engine, like the bottom, like the the nozzle bit
Collin 48:20
cone bit, yeah, the cone, yeah. But they, so they have that example. They have it. You can see the yeah, whatever. You can see the Redstone rocket engine. You can see the Atlas rocket engine, and then you can turn and you can see one of the versions of the Falcon rocket engines for SpaceX. And you, it's it's really cool to see how they are like generally the same shape, right? Like they're not changing a whole lot, but also changing everything about like what's on top and the little things and everywhere. That's cool. And then we went up and we ran out of time there because we had a show to start at one. Oh, we also ate in the cafe, and surprisingly, surprisingly, really good food in the cafe.
Brandon 49:00
Hey, all right, here we go.
Collin 49:02
Like very costly, but at least like Lily really got a salad. That's and it was a it was a trough of vegetables. Like it was this huge thing. She couldn't even finish it all. No had this Noah had this amazing hot ham and cheese sandwich. We had a little croque Monsieur coming up over here with grills, it was great. I had a burger. Megan had a wrap. None of us finished it because it was so much and really good. Nice. First thing we watched was like the Cosmos, like tour through the Cosmos, narrated by none other than your boy from Apollo 13. There, so nice tie-in. Nice, Tom. Saying hi. and I just love planetariums. They're just my favorite things in the world. Getting to go fly around through space, and you know, it was like, and we're you know 20 million light years, and this is what we can see, and here's the known you know extent of the known universe, and all that stuff. So. Back downstairs, finished it, came up, and then we what do we do? Oh, we watch. Okay, so on the movie poster, it was like the miracle of the body, and that it had this cool like body running with no skin, but you could see like the animated blood vessels and nerves and stuff and some bones. Okay, so what I failed, what we all failed to read was the underneath of like it was like it was like the miracle of the human body, and then like underneath was like and medical science or something like that, and I I thought this was going to be a lot of like how the body works, and like they were going to talk about the muscles, and they was going to do the like the animated dive through the heart and that kind of stuff. The body's a miracle, and how it works, and all these things. Instead, it was kind of like a quasi promotion for a new for a company that makes heart valves. Oh. Um, because it was I did
Brandon 51:05
take a turn. There was that
Collin 51:06
it was narrated by Matthew McConaughey. That's a red
Brandon 51:10
flag, I think. I just I can't I can't with Matthew McConaughey these days, right? He just takes himself so seriously. He's so blah.
Collin 51:19
Oh, he's
Brandon 51:20
always on the internet talking about stupid shaking sound. Nobody cares about your tuna salad, man. You're kind of quiet. And so
Collin 51:26
he's doing this, and there it's a very dramatic story about this guy in his heart valve, and then it's this the girl who had her child leukemia cured because it the the they used her white blood cells to manufacture their own attack mechanism against the leukemia, so her body became its own medicine, right, where it could keep replenishing. And they had another guy with like who lost a limb. It was all about like the people making these three things and their stories and life and like hoorah kind of thing was not what I expected at all. Yeah, it's pretty
Brandon 52:04
boring. I'm yeah, yeah, upsetting. I was like, ah, dang it, dang
Collin 52:09
it. I felt bad because Noah was like, he really wanted to see the dinosaur one, and I was like, yeah, like I think the body's gonna be cool because we can learn about it stuff. And then people sneak
Brandon 52:18
into the dinosaur one now. Like halfway through,
Collin 52:20
I was like, "I really want to see the dinosaur one. Yeah,
Brandon 52:24
dang it! I too wanted dinosaurs.
Collin 52:30
Yes,
Brandon 52:30
that's all right. No, okay.
Collin 52:34
Um, and then we went to Doctor Goddard's space lab, and then that's where we. This is the like. I'm going to light a cotton ball on fire, and then like what we could do. What could we do to make the cot the fire bigger? Oh, okay. And then what could we do to make it last longer? Yeah, yeah. And they actually had liquid oxygen up there, you know, and so like soaking the cotton ball in the liquid oxygen, and then lighting that on fire, like big boom. Well, yeah, right. What could we do to make it bigger and last longer? We need more fuel, right? Like you don't need to change the heat source because you have the same amount of heat. You can change these other two things. Talked about that. It ended with her launching a the Colligan water bottle water jug, having that shoot kind of shoot across the room. Yeah, yeah. Because it was like it it was a rocket engine. It had the collin, had the thing, it compressed, and so
Brandon 53:38
thrust and the the compression, right?
Collin 53:41
Yep, all that stuff to add some fuel inside, add the heat source, it goes off. So that was kind of that progression of here's putting all these pieces together in a very fun and lighthearted way, and you know, lots of things on fire and explosions. We did that, and then we were like, okay, well, it's time to go back. It's 5o'clock now. We're very tired. Yeah, and
Brandon 54:06
it's not close. Nothing is close.
Collin 54:09
Well, and then I was like, "Oh wait, because we're going there, and there was one of those. Oh gosh, where you sit in it, it's enclosed, and it's got the pistons underneath, and it kind of moves around, and it kind of makes you feel like oh yeah yeah yeah the
Brandon 54:24
like thing yeah I don't know the simulator ride simulator yeah the simulator,
Collin 54:28
and we're going out and Megan's like can we ride that and I was like I don't know I don't know and then Megan was like I thought you bought the all access pass can't we access everything and I was like, I was like, you know what? I did buy the all access pass, so I kind of like what
Brandon 54:46
she meant to say was, "Hey, we're writing this. That's what she meant to say.
Collin 54:49
That's what she actually meant to say. That's what she
Brandon 54:52
was meaning for you to pick up there, right?
Collin 54:55
And we sat in it, and. It was like the Blue Angels. It was a simulator about the Blue Angels thing. Oh yeah, so you kind of fly along with them and landed, and then and we left. And Megan was like, "Oh man, I'm so hungry. We really need to get headed headed home, though. And I knew we were gonna overnight in Kansas City because I wasn't gonna make it all the way back. Oh, that's fair. Yeah, I was like, "That's that's kind of long, and and the the kids were excited about a night away. So like, oh yeah, could do something cool. So we she started looking for places in Hutchinson, and she was like, I don't want to eat any at these places. And I'm like, true. I'm like, yeah, I know. And so I don't, Brit, I cannot tell you even where we did eat, but it was oh no, it was like it was no. We drove for like two, like an hour and a half to go someplace, and that was like the first town we saw it. I was like, fine, we're sitting. We're eating here. We get in, we're driving, and we're like, okay, we got to find a place to to stay in hotel, and and we stayed at a place and came in the rest, the rest of the and enjoyed our our time. But I also I also realized we pulled in. I'm so tired. We pull in. It's like 9o'clock at night, and I'm like, we just gotta get in and you know do this stuff because we've been up all day, like really early driving and stuff. And we get in, and I'm laying in bed, and I'm like, "Huh, this place kind of looks familiar. So I pull up my maps on my phone and I zoom in. I was within like spitting distance of Uncle Gary named his house. No way! We were on the we were on the south side of the highway. They are on the north side of the highway. There at 435. I just don't tell. We just don't tell them. Someone were
Brandon 56:51
in their backyard, and I didn't
Collin 56:54
literally was in their backyard. I didn't. We were just like whatever. Like there is the hotel. It's a big, tall hotel, and I was like, "Yeah, we'll just go there. I'm done. Pull in.
Brandon 57:05
This is how this is how I felt whenever we stayed at that like Hampton Inn in Albuquerque on the way back from our honeymoon. I was like, "I just need a place to sleep. I don't care. We're like, "If this is under this dollars, we're going in there. Yeah, and we went in and asked like, "How much is it? And they're like, "It's this much per night. We're like, "Done, give me room right now.
Collin 57:27
Yeah. Oh my goodness.
Brandon 57:34
Oh, that's hilarious.
Collin 57:35
So yeah, we made we made the way in and left and made it, and so I now. But of course, you know, I I texted Dad while we were leaving, and I was like, "Hey, we went out here. We saw this and some photos. He was like, "Oh, did you go to the salt mine? And I was like, "The what?
Brandon 57:55
Of course, he would have some like super obscure like, oh yeah, it's just right over there. You go down, blah blah.
Collin 58:02
The what in Britain? There is a. You can go tour a salt mine in Hutchinson. Let's go. Just go like ah, like 200 feet underground or something like this to go see where how they mine salt. Well, next time
Brandon 58:19
you go out there, and I was now you know
Collin 58:21
I was like no I had no idea he's like well why didn't you you know I was like I didn't think that I would need to let you know that I was oh yeah like oh man
Brandon 58:31
how come you didn't know about this super obscure random Francis fact Collin geez what are you I'm
Collin 58:38
really what do you even doing? Why am I even doing this thing? Even though
Brandon 58:45
they mined salt in Kansas, to be perfectly honest with you, but like I'm
Collin 58:49
learning so much. And the the frustrating thing about it, Brandon, I looked back from from the cosmosphere. It is a six and a half minute drive to the salt mine. Yo,
Brandon 59:05
you're right there.
Collin 59:06
I was could have mined salt. Thank you. Yes.
Brandon 59:10
Could have mined the salt column. Yes. Sadness in place.
Collin 59:14
Oh my gosh. So here I am, and I'm just like okay, we're ready. Oh, oh my gosh! So we made it. I obviously have to plan another trip out. However, I think if we planning, I think I will do the the the trick of planning it on our way through, not to. I mean, where else you
Brandon 59:38
gonna go though? Like that's really the only problem with that is like where else
Collin 59:43
the problem could you
Brandon 59:44
possibly be going in Central Kansas? Not not a lot of places. Here's
Collin 59:49
the problem that yes, indeed, I was trying to think about this because I have had some members of my family, younger ones, start asking. They want to go. They've been asking to probably go see mountains, and so I'm like, like, oh, I
Brandon 1:00:12
know where those are. I know where
Collin 1:00:13
those are. I know also what is in between us and them. Yeah, the rest of Kansas. The rest of Kansas. Just imagine, and to
Brandon 1:00:21
be fair, Eastern Colorado not great, right? No, kind of no. It gets
Collin 1:00:26
bad before it gets better at all. Like it does, it really does. When you're going through like Lamar and way out there in Eastern Colorado, no, no one's having any fun with their life. No. So, but I'm also trying to figure out because Interstate 70 is what we take to get all the way through. I mean,
Brandon 1:00:46
yeah, it just goes all the way.
Collin 1:00:47
Hutchinson is.
Brandon 1:00:49
You could stop in Hayes.
Collin 1:00:50
I could stop in Hayes. Could stop in Hayes
Brandon 1:00:53
for old times' sake. Just because. See if
Collin 1:00:55
I can find a church to sleep in. I don't know if
Brandon 1:00:58
there's any other sort of obscure things.
Collin 1:01:01
Maybe there's a salt mine base. I don't know. There's a
Brandon 1:01:03
there's a history museum.
Collin 1:01:05
There is. I just
Brandon 1:01:06
looked at it right now.
Collin 1:01:07
Okay.
Brandon 1:01:08
There is. That's a dinosaur. No. Oh. Redemption tour from for Noah. There you go.
Collin 1:01:13
Yeah. So anyway, I'm like, ah, I don't I don't want to plan to go through Hutchinson like because that is such a that is not
Brandon 1:01:22
that is yeah that's a destory
Collin 1:01:23
you got it like that is bad because then there's no good way to get back up to get out so that doesn't work but I'm thinking you know what I think we'll just we'll just drive back we'll just drive through Kansas on 70 and we'll have fun and that's what we're gonna do
Brandon 1:01:41
that's a weird side story. One of my friends that I used to work with, right, that I'm still friends with here at the school, right? We were talking one time, and she was like, "Oh yeah, I lived in Kansas for a while at blah blah blah, and I was like, "Where'd you live at? She was like, "Oh, so you probably never heard of it. It's way out there. It's called Hayes. And I was like, "Bro, hold on, wait a minute. Never heard of it? Boy, do I have a surprise for you!
Collin 1:02:04
Stories I have of his kids. I
Brandon 1:02:10
know about St. Augustino Pizza Company, right? I know what's up. Shout out. Probably not open still, but like, hey,
Collin 1:02:16
OGs now. OGs, absolutely. So this is this is this has become our new okay. I'm gonna drive out. I'm gonna drive to Colorado. I'm gonna do. Oh boy, doing it one day. One day. One day. I know. We're just gonna start heading out and make our way into Colorado. Life will come
Brandon 1:02:37
full circle. Your children will traumatize you on the ski lift by swinging their feet back and forth wildly. Oh yes,
Collin 1:02:45
I know. Hilarious. So excited for this. No, I'm not. Not at all. But yeah, and then I'm like, so then I'm like, I'm I'm I'm looking in Colorado because I'm like, well, because of my undiagnosed and equally unmedicated ADHD. I can't not deep dive into this and start planning a full like two week excursion trip. That's a little intense. I feel like like oh right like yeah you got to go to like Leadville and and you got to go you got to hit Fort Collins, and I want to go to Estes, and okay, those are places
Brandon 1:03:24
not near each other. No, no, no. Brandon, this is. I just have to go like around a mountain. All of this is this is why
Collin 1:03:31
all this is bad because I'm sitting here like, well, I'm gonna have to
Brandon 1:03:36
whittle down. I know, I know. You have to. I'm gonna
Collin 1:03:39
whittle whittle down some. I should just take. I just need to take I 70 through the mountains, get up to Grand Junction. But then it's like, oh. But then we're like near Moab, and I've never been to Moab, and I would love to go to Canyonlands National Park, like as everyone would. Mean fair,
Brandon 1:03:59
but
Collin 1:04:00
uh, and or the arches, you know, and just yeah. Then
Brandon 1:04:05
that's not Colorado anymore. It's not Colorado. It's too far.
Collin 1:04:07
Gone too far, so I got to turn around, come back. But while I'm coming back, I might as well go south, go through Durango. Oh dear! Oh dear! It's all gone wrong. It's
Brandon 1:04:16
gone wrong so bad, right? You know,
Collin 1:04:19
and then I'm sure that we can like will our way back through and get to Pueblo and go. I think you
Brandon 1:04:25
don't understand how big Colorado is. That's what I'm discovering right now. Like holy schmoly, what?
Collin 1:04:32
I mean, what? What is? Yeah, yeah. A couple hours. It's fine. Oh my
Brandon 1:04:36
gosh! What in the world?
Collin 1:04:37
So, and of course, you know, Megan's like, "I'm sorry, what? And I'm like, "No, it's fine. I no, Megan, it is
Brandon 1:04:46
not fine. I agree.
Collin 1:04:48
It's going to be okay. And she did, she did have one stipulation. She basically set a floor for the quality of hotel. That we could stay in on a trip like this, she was like, "You do understand, like I have. You do understand who I am, right? We're not cabining.
Brandon 1:05:10
I'm not cabin.
Collin 1:05:12
We're not motelling this, right? If I can see my door from the road, it's a no.
Brandon 1:05:20
I have some bad news for you and her about Western Colorado. This may become problematic.
Collin 1:05:31
I know. Yeah, it's so bad. It gets a bit remote, super remote. I know, but then right, you're you're
Brandon 1:05:42
just gonna have to trust Tom Bodett, okay? Like, well, that's gonna have to go.
Collin 1:05:48
I think if I get to that point in my life, things have gone real wrong.
Brandon 1:05:53
It's okay. They'll leave the line up for you, Collin. It's fine, right? It's okay.
Collin 1:05:57
It'll be fine. Just
Brandon 1:05:58
put the chair in front of the door. You can be okay.
Collin 1:06:00
I know, just yeah, and stack the everything, and yeah, yes, and then move the
Brandon 1:06:05
desk. It's great.
Collin 1:06:06
But then, of course, I start looking. I follow it north because oh man, oh, do you remember Casper, Wyoming? Who doesn't do? I also know how
Brandon 1:06:13
far away that is from anywhere in Colorado. I know,
Collin 1:06:17
I know. But then we also went to Blue Big Sky out there, and
Brandon 1:06:21
so far, you're going even further. I know, I
Collin 1:06:25
know, but it's just right there. It's not
Brandon 1:06:29
just right there. That's a whole separate excursion, right? That is not an all-in-one situation.
Collin 1:06:37
You know, I think I just we just I just may disappear for a couple months. It's fine. Okay,
Brandon 1:06:43
what in the Jeremiah Johnson is happening right now? Like
Collin 1:06:48
Missoula, Montana, and see that place, and you just you zoom in. You're like, oh, we want to see all this stuff, and then I have to remember that no. So I have to just start with some mountains.
Brandon 1:07:03
Yes, yes, yes. Start small. I think park peak time. Here we go. Yeah, yeah. I think
Collin 1:07:08
the fact that I like within 20 minutes made my way like from Colorado Springs all around the Glacier National Park. Yeah, we really. Yes, I made my way to Glacier, and I was like, maybe problem. I should probably stop. Yeah, stop this. Like gone way too far immediately. Yeah. So oh anyway. So I have to stop looking at the map. Yes.
Brandon 1:07:32
Close the maps app, Collin. Close the map.
Collin 1:07:36
There's just so many places to escape. Fine.
Brandon 1:07:38
Close the map. It's okay. You can do later. It's fine. Back to
Collin 1:07:41
my notes. Yes. Good job. There you go. So that was all because that was
Brandon 1:07:48
holy moly. All because I decided
Collin 1:07:50
to go to Kansas. Yes.
Brandon 1:07:53
See, see, nothing good happens when you decide to go to Kansas. This is true. I got pull
Collin 1:07:57
over. Yeah. And then of course, all the way back home, I'm just like you know, like I'm. I was like, I was just waiting
Brandon 1:08:04
for you to come back, right? Waiting for me
Collin 1:08:06
to go three miles away, looking around, just really working. Yeah, again, having the
Brandon 1:08:11
helicopter look for you like your Burrells, right? Like
Collin 1:08:15
pretty much, pretty much my life. We got
Brandon 1:08:18
a bear in the air.
Collin 1:08:21
Bear, but again, what really just sealed it was the fact that it was an hour and a half later. It's just oh,
Brandon 1:08:29
that's crazy.
Collin 1:08:30
You you do they have nothing to do or do they have nothing to do? They have nothing to do. That's fine. Glad I could make. I'm glad I could give him something to put on a report somewhere. What the
Brandon 1:08:39
heck? Oh my goodness!
Collin 1:08:42
Yes, it's my week.
Brandon 1:08:45
Nice. Well, can I have one more? I'll keep it short here. But I did. I went down. I fell. I fell in a rabbit hole, I have a problem.
Speaker 6 1:09:01
Oh, I did watch
Brandon 1:09:02
some more mecha anime.
Collin 1:09:04
Oh, you did not. You did not play a full Western excursion. I did not know. Okay, okay.
Brandon 1:09:08
Well, this was a quite big excursion, though. I decided that I was going to watch the original Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979.
Collin 1:09:19
Oh yes, that is something! Wow!
Brandon 1:09:29
Holy cow!
Collin 1:09:33
Wow! Okay,
Brandon 1:09:35
show us a lot, by the way. There's a whole lot that goes on here, so we'll keep it brief, right? There's too much. There's too much. There's too much. The lore is insanity, right? Like, because it just sort of starts in the middle of what is called the One Year War, right? Basically, I learned that there are like just within the Gundam universe. Right there's like not not all Gundam is connected, right? But Gundam has tropes, right? That we follow. Okay, one of them is Earth and outer space are fighting, right? This time, like in Gundam Wing, it's like the Earth Federation is being like bad, right? They're doing terrible things. In this one, we have the the Xeon space people that are the bads. Yeah, they've decided to break away, right? The colonies are rebelling against Earth. They declared their independence, which they already were independent, right? One group of colonies, right? They decide they're going to form the Xeon Federation. There's like a family, the Zabi family, like takes over. There's some weird backstory about like they betrayed the other guy, and and stuff, right? And it turns out like at first you're like, oh, you know, it's like a blah blah blah, and then you're like, oh oh, they're space Nazis. Oh, okay. Like it becomes revealed that like the way they started the war was they did drop a space colony on Earth to try to kill like a bazillion people, and they wiped out almost all of Australia. Right, the colony landed on Sydney, so there is no Australia anymore.
Collin 1:11:24
Oh no! Because they
Brandon 1:11:25
dropped a space colony on it, right? That's the other the other trope in Gundam is we're going to drop things from space on Earth. That's just a thing that happens, and so they're fighting. Right, blah blah. So it the show just sort of starts where the this new spaceship shows up at like this colony like seven right side seven and the enemy forces like just break into the colony and start shooting people right to attack this like new prototype fighter it's like a, it's kind of like a carrier class, like it's like a battleship space thing, right? It's called the White Base because it's white. Yes, very good. And the White Base is going to be carrying prototype weapons. I bet you'll never guess what one of them is, and this kid's dad like is a scientist that was working on Gundam, and like during the attack, White Base becomes just like an evacuation point. So all of these people from Side Seven Colony get like swept into White Base, and they just have to take off and start fighting, and a bunch of their actual soldiers are injured, and so like all these people just have to start fighting, right? And one of them is your main character, who is his name is Amaro, and like his dad was the scientist guy, and so he just like becomes the Gundam pilot. He like reads the manual and does all this stuff right, and then we have our other Gundam trope: children piloting fighting Max. Nice, right? He's like 15 or 16 or something like that, right? So he's like the same age as the kids in like Gundam Wing, like Hero and Duo and all of them, right? Similar age demographic. So like, there's all these people. So the first part is like they are, they're trying to escape the forces, right? And then one of the people chasing them is this guy named Shar, and he's like part of another Gundam trope, which is apparently like secret siblings on opposite sides of the war. Oh, so like in Gundam Wing, where it's like Relena and Zex, you know, the Talgies pilot guy. They're like siblings, you know. Here it's Char, and then this girl on the white base room is like Sela, but they're actually siblings, and they're actually the children of the guy that the Zabi dude killed to take over the Zeon space force and like declare himself emperor of space, and so like Shar is fighting with them, but also secretly also seeking revenge on the Zabi family and killing all of them through, oh my gosh, it's very intense, right? It ramps up quick.
Collin 1:14:27
Something else.
Brandon 1:14:28
So like, we don't find some of them. He kills like outright, and some of them he's like, "Yeah, I'll totally help you. Leaves, right? Like, oh no, they blew up, and I there was nothing I could do to stop them. Oh no! And so, like, he becomes obsessed with like the Gundam and trying to destroy it because it beat him in battle once, and now he's like really mad at it. So he like chases White Base forever. Like it, like the first half of this show is like basically the Odyssey, right? They like have all these space. Battles, and then they get to Earth, but then they have they're forced to land, so they're not where they were supposed to be. So they have to cross like all of Asia to meet up with the Earth Federation forces for like the battle at Odessa. So they like travel all the way to like Ukraine to like fight this thing, and there's all this stuff happening, and then they like finally have a little break, and then they go to South America, and they-it's like it's very, very, very long thing. Wow! But like the irony here is that like at first, a lot of the people like don't want to be soldiers because they were just like they just had to fight to defend themselves on white base, and so there's all these little character arcs about like how they actually like Obro like he doesn't want to. There's all this like trauma of like just being fighting and like all this stuff. And then like because they have to fight so much, they all become like really, really, really good at fighting, right? And so the enemy is like, how did they get so good? Like, well, that was you doing that, right? You did that because you just kept attacking them like nonstop, all day, every day, and they were trying to not die, and they fought you off, and you made them really good fighters. So that's on you, right? The Xeon Space Force people also are like the Nazis in another way, in that they just kept manufacturing new mobile suits, and there's always a new one, right? And so, like the arms race gets out of control, and I think they spend all their money on developing like the most ridiculous things of all time, and like they can't, like they never like centralize any of their military structure. They're just like, oh, we got this new one. Now again, part of this is like, what is a new toy we can sell?
Collin 1:16:58
Of course,
Brandon 1:16:59
right. But the other part is like, actually, like we have this mobile suit. No, no, we have this one now. Oh, but you beat that one. Now we have this one, and the Gundam just keeps like shredding all of them
Speaker 1 1:17:13
because it's
Brandon 1:17:14
a Gundam. There's not just Gundam though. There is also gun tank.
Collin 1:17:22
Okay,
Brandon 1:17:22
and gun cannon. Yes,
Collin 1:17:26
how are
Brandon 1:17:28
those? Those are different things. The gun tank actually has tracks.
Collin 1:17:31
Okay,
Brandon 1:17:32
gun tank is an upright mobile suit with giant cannons on its shoulders, and it can also fire beam rifles. The Xeon forces do not have beam weapon technology. This is very important, right? Okay. And the Gundam and these other things have beam cannons, and Gundam has the the beam saber. Yes, it's totally not a lightsaber. Different, 100% Totally not. Totally different. It's fine. Never mind. The Gundam is often called Japan Japan Star Wars, not related.
Collin 1:18:07
Absolutely.
Brandon 1:18:07
So, like, this is the other problem. Like, the technology is so advanced, right? And this Gundam has a party trick, Collin. It actually transforms.
Collin 1:18:19
Wait, right? What? What?
Brandon 1:18:20
Kind of. So, like the Gundam system is modular. Oh. So there is something called the core block, which is actually like a fighter jet thing that could launch by itself and be a fighter jet, but then in a totally not like Voltron kind of way, the core fighter like folds up and becomes part of the Gundam, right? And so he learns to do this in midair. So there's like 70,000 of the same combining sequence, like every like every episode, they just like use that animation again. They're like, "Hey, let's combine! And then like it pays a lot of money. Oh, they do. Oh my gosh, they really drive into the ground. It's insane. But theoretically, the other things have core blocks as well, and they can like combine in different ways. And they upgrade, and they get another plane that Saila starts piloting for some reason, and like you can combine these in different ways, and it that that doesn't happen too much, but like it's kind of weird. But anyway, lots of strange things going on.
Collin 1:19:36
Fair,
Brandon 1:19:37
and the other thing, the one thing about this show that annoys me a little bit is the amount of times that people say mobile suit. They say it all the time. As a person from the Midwest, also that pronounces it like suit, like a double O sound. Right. I'm aware that my Midwestern dialect makes it mobile suit. Right, like oh oh, right. Hearing every single character like 50 million times an episode say mobile suit kind of starts grating on my ears a little bit. Yeah, when they really pronounce the hard you in suit, you're like, and every time they're like, what's that new mobile suit? What's that? And then 80,000 times they're like, that Gundam can't be that tough. I'm sure I can take it on. Dies. That's like how the show goes.
Collin 1:20:34
He, in fact, could not take it on.
Brandon 1:20:37
Cannot take it on. Right. So we have this. There's all this battling. There's all this stuff. We're trying to prevent death and and whatever. And then close to the end of the show, we we've had hints this whole time percolating through. And there's all these interpersonal relationships and the character. Like all these characters have like developmental arcs, and the one that comes the farthest is this guy named Kai, who's like at the beginning is this like big slacker, and he's trying to like run away and hide and not fight, and he becomes the primary pilot of like gun cannon, and he like saves people all the time and stuff. So he's got a big like character arc. So gotta gotta shout out Kai here, but but Collin half like almost the end of this is like 40 some episodes of this show, somewhere around episode like 3035, Okay, we introduce the party piece of the Universal Century Gundam show. All right, that is. is space psychics, right? Like all of a sudden, all of a sudden, like every once in a while, like it's been hinted at the whole show. Like man, Omro, like sure has fast reaction times.
Collin 1:22:04
Oh, it's
Brandon 1:22:05
almost like he could predict what's happening, and then like sometimes somebody else like, how do you know? Like I just know, we have to do this right. Like
Brandon 1:22:14
that's not that's very sprinkled. It's not it's not at all like right. Sure, but then all of a sudden we meet this other side character who is like full blown space psychic, right? Boom, and we learn that new types are a thing.
Collin 1:22:29
Oh,
Brandon 1:22:30
right, and so a new type is a person that has been born in space, and they have like it's not like psychic really. I mean, except for they do talk to each other psychically sometimes, which is kind of weird, but like it's like a sixth sense, like a perception thing, right?
Collin 1:22:46
Also, Metachlorians, yeah,
Brandon 1:22:49
yeah, it's kind of space. It's kind of forcey, right? Again, no, I mean, it's totally not Star Wars. It's fine, but I just like space psychics better because they can. There's a couple characters that can like telepathically communicate together, right? So like Omro meets this girl, and she's like full blown psychic, and it kind of like triggers his new type awakening, right? And then some of the other characters on the ship, right? They kind of like also have the thing, and then the very end, it's like there's also kids with them the whole time, because like they never want to leave, right? Whatever. It's also pretty on the nose that they are like bang psychics. Like the last episode, it's like all of the kids have this power too, right? Oh, whatever. So, so that's the other thing, and and so like Char is like kind of one also, and like there's this big rivalry between him and and whatever, and like uh, but then then in a very on the nose Zeon are the space Nazis, they're like we want to obliterate the earth and make the space home for all of the new types, so that a more advanced and better civilization can arise. You're like, hold on, right? They even call somebody a actual Nazi in the show, like that's in a line of dialog. He's like said
Collin 1:24:22
the thing. No,
Brandon 1:24:23
he's like he compares one of the guys. He's like, have you heard of Adolf Hitler? And he's like, yeah. And he's like, like that's it's implied that like you're being him, right? Why you do? It's like one of the zombie guys' kids, and like the old guy is kind of like, oh, maybe we're taking this too far, and the kids are like, "We're not taking it far enough. And then there's some patricide that happens, and there's all this stuff. And then at the at the very end of the show, there's like a hilarious part where where they're the Amuro and the Shar guy are fighting at like the ultimate battle. It's like the ultimate. Battle to end the war on this big like space base thing, and they're fighting. And the Sailor girl comes in, and she's like, "Brother, you know, blah blah. He was like, "We shouldn't be fighting. He was like, "The zombies are your enemy. They killed our father. And then he's like, "Oh yeah, you're right, and like leaves. Okay, but like it's a little more dramatic than that. But it's like he's like, no, we have to fight because I can tell that you're the strongest fighter, and as a soldier, it's my duty to defeat you. Right? It's like this very yeah yeah, but then he's also like, "Oh yeah, they did kill our dad. Never mind.
Collin 1:25:51
Makes me kind of angry.
Brandon 1:25:54
It's so ridiculous, and it's kind of all over the place. But like overall, the show is pretty good. The transforming animation is-it's too much. It's too much transforming. It's kind of crazy. It's a lot, but overall, it's pretty good, right? Now, I don't know. There is also like 20 bazillion universals. This is like the mainline Gundam, like lore vein, right? There's lots of other spin-offs. Apparently, like Gundam Wing is like not really related. It's not related at all. It's like a alternate timeline situation. So there's like a billion like alternate timeline. So we're we're gonna we're gonna give a break if we watch more mechan anime. Won't be Gundam, okay? I promise. It won't be Gundam, okay? Because I have no idea how to parse all of the rest of this. It's very overwhelming. Sure, yeah. Especially to figure out like
Collin 1:26:49
what is like what fits in and what doesn't fit in with what you've seen.
Brandon 1:26:53
And there's some like there's like mainline stuff, and then there's like in between there's like side stories. So like there is some material that's like, oh, this was happening during the One Year War, but like over here, right? So like during the end of the main Gundam show, there's like little spinoff, like short things, like short little OVAs or movies or whatever that are like taking place simultaneously to the end of Gundam. But some of those are not available anywhere on the internet, right? Like, cannot find any of them. Some of them you like; they're not there, and some of I found one, but it's like it's the Japanese, but it's dubbed in Spanish only. So I'm like, that's tough. I don't think I don't think I'd be watching that. It's a little too outside of my lane there, so. But there's a there's a lot, so we'll see what happens here. But we'll see if I can navigate this insanity. But yeah, I watched that. So there we go. More mecha update. Original Mobile Gundam. Overall, very good, but also a bit overwhelming because there's so much more stuff that I don't even know how to begin to tackle. Well,
Collin 1:28:16
again, yeah, it's like you found it's this part of like okay, you found something, and it's like, do I try and start, or do I try and follow a theme, or follow a story? Yeah, so overwhelming.
Brandon 1:28:29
Yeah, it's a little overwhelming, especially because like after a certain point too, it's like I don't even know where to find this. Like, I don't even know who knows what's happening. So it may be like oh, because some of the like side stories are pretty available, so it might just be like oh maybe let's watch some of those later, right? So we'll see, we'll see. Yeah, I don't know. It's very overwhelming. I don't know what to do about this, but there you go. There's the Mobile Suit Gundam Zero Double Zero 79, the original Mobile suit gun, bang! It was crazy. It was insane.
Collin 1:29:07
Yeah, I don't know how you did that. And
Brandon 1:29:11
yes, listeners, I even watched the secret episode that is not available anywhere. It's like episode like 14 or 15 or 16. One of those, like it is not part of any other thing, like the Dolan's Island side quest story. I even watched that.
Collin 1:29:28
Wild.
Brandon 1:29:28
Yeah, I watched that one
Collin 1:29:30
right there.
Brandon 1:29:31
Yeah, that one was really hard to find. It was just like it's never been released in English because they were like, this episode kind of sucks and it doesn't make any sense because it's like it's like they're doing a thing. That episode is like way over here. Something else completely different happens, and they just go back to doing whatever they're doing before.
Collin 1:29:46
Oh,
Brandon 1:29:47
and so like all of the English versions are like, nah, we don't need.
Collin 1:29:52
Well, anyway,
Brandon 1:29:54
and they also some of the creators like thought they were like rushing, and the animation quality in that one is like nah. That great, and so they're also like,
Collin 1:30:03
interesting. They made it
Brandon 1:30:05
into like a short movie, like that stands alone by itself later. I think they were like, we should redo that. I didn't watch that, but it was
Collin 1:30:13
fair, fine, okay. We'll let it slide this time.
Brandon 1:30:16
Yeah. Okay. So there you go. That is the mecha anime for this time.
Collin 1:30:20
Okay. If you will give me one moment,
Brandon 1:30:22
yeah, you're good. Just way, way too much mobile suit Gundam. So, listeners, if you have recommendations on where to go from here in Gundam time, let me know, and we'll we'll see what's up with that. Right.
Collin 1:31:25
Sorry. Yes. Yes. I am glad that you have gone through that, and hopefully you are as well. Yes.
Brandon 1:31:34
Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty good, but like, I don't know what to do now because there's a lot of other things. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. Okay, but to end us off for today, I do have a haiku for you. Yes, I remembered. Here we go. Okay, here we go. Water droplets fall into the waiting basin, ready to measure.
Collin 1:32:06
Hey guys, that's
Brandon 1:32:09
super excited about this paper towel stuff. So like you know, I had to.
Collin 1:32:12
I love that so much.
Brandon 1:32:18
Yeah, I also wrote that while I was doing the averages for my data table, so like I felt.
Collin 1:32:24
Oh,
Brandon 1:32:27
truly an inspired moment this time.
Collin 1:32:30
Yes, yes, yes. I love that so much. Oh well, We will do this again soon. Absolutely. Sorry. Very good. It's
Brandon 1:32:50
late. Time to go back. It's late. One's up.
Collin 1:32:52
Okay. Okay. Love you.
Brandon 1:32:55
Love you too.
Collin 1:32:56
Bye. Bye.