Lessons From Lucy

Over the last year, we've looked at the wisdom of so many great people, including Marcus Aurelius, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and even Walt Disney. This week's episode is going to the dogs. I'm Curtis. My pal here is Joe. And we are dudes in progress. Hey, Joe.

Hey, dude. What's going on?

Hey, I got a big birthday coming up tomorrow. I know. You do.

This is a big one.

I do. It's kind of exciting. I also got a big trip to Disney world coming up next week. I don't know if we've even talked about that.

Tell us how old you're going to be.

60.

You don't look a day over 61, brother.

All right. Am I one of those people? You can go, wow, he's older than I thought. He looks older than I thought he was. Yeah.

Well, I think we're all beyond that point right now. Right? It's always a funny thing, I think I've said this before, so I'll go ahead and say it again. It's always a funny thing when you get that friend request from Facebook or you run across a friend and you, hey, I know Bob Johnson from high school and you go look at his Facebook picture and you think, oh, my gosh, who is that fat old know if you happen to be, I know. I don't mean any insult. And then you realize I probably look that old.

I know.

What do you do? What do you do?

I was a little bit encouraged. My wife watches the Today show on the television, usually in the morning. I'm getting around, getting ready to file into work. Jamie Lee Curtis was on the program and I guess she recently turned 65 and boy, what a great attitude she had about it all. You'll hear her from my quote of the week this week. I just thought she really looked at things from a great perspective. And she just recently won an Oscar. The interviewer was saying to her, you must be so honored and excited. No, what was cool about her answer was that she was very humble about it, too. But she said that she was just so excited to get a really awesome creative part that she could play in Hollywood. 65 probably isn't the best age to be a star in the pictures, especially.

And I don't mean any disrespect, but especially for women, guys seem to be able to look at Liam Neesom and Morgan Freeman and all these guys who are still playing action roles. Right.

I know it.

They're in their seventy s and eighty.

S. Sylvester Stallone's even got the whole Sylvester Stallone yeah.

Who's the guy, who's the Indiana Jones guy?

Oh my gosh. I know.

My God, our age is showing, brother.

I can't think of his name. That's horrible. I guess he's a Disney guy, too. Yeah, my memory has always been bad, so I don't know, it's not really a sign of aging so much, especially with.

Can'T I don't have it. It's like I see it right there in front of me. I don't have it.

Chat GPT dude.

Nope, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. It's going to come up sometime in this episode.

Let the audience, it'll come up, yell at us.

They're screaming at us right now from the car. Well, this episode, it's Han Solo. Come on.

Who is it?

Oh my gosh.

Luke sky.

Go ahead. I interrupted your introduction, dude.

I read a book during Christmas break just for fun. I knew this author, Dave Barry. I definitely have read a book of his in the past, maybe two. And I like those Florida comedy. Some of them have detective stories that I like. But Dave Barry is just I think he was a columnist, but he does novels, too. But this was just a fun, it was to a kind of look, he's talking a lot about aging. I think he just turned 70 years old, but he has an aging dog and he's just sitting back reflecting and it's laugh out funny if you want to catch a book and just have fun reading something. But if you're like Joe and I, you do enjoy a little self improvement stuff. It's got a little bit of that. And I think you can learn a lot just by sitting back and observing things, don't you?

Definitely, definitely.

And just take it in. And I think that's going to be part of this book is called lessons from Lucy, and that's his elderly dog. But I think if you've had a dog before and Joe, I know you had a dog, you lost within the last year, too, wasn't it?

We've had a few dogs that we've lost in just this past year. We lost our, I think she was 17 or 18 year old. Little Shelty lived longer beyond her years that she should have lived and just loved that little dog, but she hung around longer than she should have. But we miss her.

What were some of her characteristics that you can think of that really stand out that made her personality unique to her?

She would eat anything that you put in front of her.

Okay. That's common.

She would eat anything. She was a puppy. She was just tiny. Just the tiniest runt of the litter. Just the tiniest thing. And she remained short, but she got wide. She became a fat little dog.

Okay. I didn't know shelties would get on the heavier side. I think of them as thin dogs.

Yeah. Well, she wasn't, but she would have this thing that would aggravate the snot out of me. And what would happen is she would lay right next to the door in the way that the door opens. So you would open the door, and she'd be laying right there, and she would not budge. And it was so aggravating. It was so aggravating. You push the push on the door, and you could hear her struggling to stay in place. Right. Fighting against it, and you'd get mad. Get out of the way, Annie. I'm trying to get in. But when she passed, and that first time, I opened up the door to the.

Yeah.

And I didn't have to push hard and tell her to get out of the way.

Yeah.

I missed it so much.

So true. Part of this book is going to talk to some of those things, and especially that you got aggravated. But I don't think she ever got aggravated.

She didn't care.

We had three dogs. Two of them were Labrador retrievers. My wife and I got into a big fight about the dogs when we had some cats that were born about 20 years ago now, because it was in February, 20 years ago, and I know because we have one cat left of all the animals that we've had of recent years. And they were born out on my deck from feral mother. And we kept all three of those, and they were about, I don't know, five or six years old when I said, because my wife and some of the kids had some allergies to pets, but they were dealing with their allergies quite well. And I was like, I really want to get a dog. And this went on for a good solid year of having these discussions. And there was even one particular time we were downtown at a parade, and I remember somebody had a litter of dogs that they were corralled up, and people were coming, looking at them and talking to them. And of course, they were available for adoption. We got into a big fight after that. I wanted to get one of those dogs. Long story short, one day I'm sitting at home, my daughter and my wife pull up in the car. I see them, and my daughter comes running in. You got to come out to the car. You got to come out to the car. All excited. And there was my yellow lab, Sadie, and I was shocked. She was the same thing with the. She was pretty mellow, yellow lab, beautiful dog. Just a great. A lot of people have Labrador retrievers, the characteristics and quite mellow. She would lay in the kitchen and you'd have to walk over her. And she was good, 90 pounds. She'd love to just lay there in the kitchen when you're trying to work and moving around. That was one of her. She would put her face. And where we got the dog, they said, this is the darndest thing. When she was a puppy, to lick water, she put her whole nose into the water, like to the bottom of the bowl, and splashed water everywhere all the time. It was just her thing. It's amazing. And the labs, especially my black lab, Luke came along a little later. Lots of stories with Luke. Luke would have put a weaker family. They wouldn't have put up with Luke. Luke was tough to. And I don't know that. I guess towards the end, he was pretty well trained. He was an eater. He would eat anything, too. He was the same way. Labs are well known for that.

So we had a black lab as well, 18 year old black lab. So the last two dogs that we had, 17 and 18 years old, is how long they lived, and she would as well eat anything. But what I love about Labradors is they are perpetual puppies.

Yeah.

They're playful and attentive, good natured.

I think the attributes we're going to go through. Seven lessons from Lucy. Hopefully, if you're a dog lover, you'll recognize these traits and maybe we can reflect on them and see some improvements that we can make like Dave Berry did.

So I'm really excited about this, Kurt. I've not read the book, but I am a fan of Dave Berry.

Oh, you do know him.

Loved his articles that originated from the Miami Herald. Yes. And he was, of course, nationally syndicated for the longest time. But, wow, what a funny, funny guy.

You might enjoy this book. Yeah, there were parts. I was laughing out loud. It was a fun read, and I got it at the library, and I just returned it. I just grabbed some notes. We're just going to cover these. I'm not going to read verbatim from the book. I do have one little story that was really hysterical that I'll bring up during this part. You'll have to oblige me in that. But, of course, first lesson we can learn from our dogs or from Lucy is make new friends. And, boy, I said to a lot of people, I have no social life. At least I didn't have any social life for a long, long time, and I missed it so bad. But most of that was because I spent time in all the activities with my kids. Joe, can you make new friends now?

I do. I make new friends pretty easily. I have a core group of friends that are my 03:00 friends. Right. 03:00 in the morning friends. Kurt, you're one of those guys. The kind of guys that you would. Friends that you would take a call at 03:00 in the morning.

Gotcha. That's good.

And whatever they ask you to do, you're probably going to do it.

Yeah. That's awesome. That's really important. We've talked about your mental health, and this has always been have a social life and have some solid friends. We've talked about that over the last year. Dogs, they make friends real easier. Go for a walk with your dog, and they're always interested in playing with another dog. Now, I don't encourage you to do what dogs do. They're very enthusiastic and friendly, but a little overly friendly in the private areas. Sure.

When they meet each other, no matter how many times we see each other, Kurt, I will never sniff your butt.

You got my point. So Dave says we could benefit from being more open to new relationships. Yeah, I think a lot of people really close themselves off. They're a little shy to meet new people. I actually find it very compelling. And most of my social life has come from my podcasting efforts. A lot of friends made through that. And it's interesting to me, the type of people that really reach out to me and try to make friends and with others, even though they're weird Internet friends, that can be a little awkward to do. But I will tell you from experience, it's always been a great experience when we do connect with each other. Absolutely.

In today's day, it's a lot easier to be friends with somebody at a long distance. Right. We have Zoom. We have these tools at our disposal where we can make friends and connect and see each other. It's different. Right. The truth is, not many people know this or probably realize this. You and I have only physically met one time.

That's right.

In Disney World.

Hard to believe. Actually say it out loud.

I know, right? Just hard to believe. But we are certainly close friends. And it just goes to show that whatever means you need to make friends, use them. His point is make friends.

He's looking back at his life going, you know what? I got into a rut. And there's been times when he said you got into some social groups that he were just tremendously rewarding. So when he looks at this, he's like, you know what? I'm getting back. He tells some stories about some groups that he got in. Some of them are, like, charity kind of groups and that kind of thing. And with other authors, for instance, they had a little group that they did, a band. They would get together, and they were horrible, but they were famous authors, and people enjoyed their comedy, if you want to call it that, is a rock kind of band. So he said he really missed that. And when he put it back together, it was so much fun. And speaking of fun, don't stop having fun. Lucy's joy for simple activities, like going for a walk, playing all the time. Just a reminder to find joy in everyday life. Boy, things can get really too real sometimes and encourages readers to embrace activities that bring happiness and not take themselves too seriously. You have any fun things you do, Joe, outside of work?

It's funny that you say outside of work, because I'm fairly irreverent at work. I'm professional, and I get stuff done. I also am not opposed to doing some goofy stuff. Right, okay. At work and not afraid to make a quirky comment or funny saying or something like that. And I didn't realize how much I did that until I came back to this job. And I don't know if I told you this or not, Kurt.

I don't think so.

When I came back to this job, of course, I was gone for three and a half years, and they asked me to come back and made it worth my while to come back, and I wanted to go back, and I couldn't be happier to be back, that's clear. But on my very first day back, they had a list, a two page list of joisms, things that I would say.

Awesome.

And I didn't realize that all of this, how much of the stuff that I really said, but the way they presented this list to me was for about three days, I was hearing my same sayings from other people over and over and over again.

That's so great. What a great welcome back.

It was a great welcome.

Can you think of some off topic?

Gosh, yeah, there's a couple of them. Stuff like, you know what? If you're going to ask for a bike, you might as well ask for a red one. If all else fails, just put cheese on it. Things like that.

I don't have a slightest idea what.

Those mean, but those don't mean anything now.

Is this from your training? Watching the office over and over again?

So I do have one thing that I do pretty consistently nearly every day. I will say some lovingly, some lovingly and affectionate but insulting thing to somebody.

Okay.

I'll say, did you mean to get that haircut?

What?

I'm sorry. That came out completely wrong. I meant to say, God bless you.

You're a jokester. You're class clown at work.

A little bit. Yeah, I am a little bit.

Okay. While you're in sales, I guess that.

Keeps things light hearted, and I feel really good about something, and I don't want to go off on this tangent, but one thing that was said to me a couple of times when I came back about a month, is I was doing something or saying something, and they said, man, this place really needs this right now.

Oh, cool.

That's cool.

Yeah. The culture needed a little happiness in there. My wife and I met when I first started working, and we were in customer service, and it can be a lot of stress when you're in a customer service department. There was about 20 of us, and we were really close, and we were loud. Yeah. We did crazy antics all the time. And I won't even say some of them, but, I mean, it was where people around us that weren't in our group would complain hr about us, but it was all about letting loose because it was a stressful job. It ate up some people. I saw people walk out like, I'm not coming back kind of stress.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. In a situation like that, listen, my job can be pretty stressful.

Right.

And there's a lot of expectations in our job.

Sure.

And you got to keep it light.

Yeah.

Right.

You got to keep a balance. Pay attention to the people you love. Barry notes Lucy's ability to express affection and be fully present with those she loves. The lesson here is to pay attention, to appreciate the people in our lives, and to express our love and affection more openly. And you'd think that would be a given. Sometimes we just lose track, don't we, Joe? And I know one of your things. You're paying attention this year. You mentioned in our first episode for the year with spending more time with your wife, or what is the exact alley? Pay more attention.

Yeah. It's really more about learning more about my wife.

Okay.

And who she is and what drives her. Now, we've been married over 30 years, right. So I know my wife, and she knows me, and we know each other at a deep, intimate level. As a husband and wife should, we've had a pretty good marriage and it's ups and downs, but since we're empty nesters, I really wanted to just get to know her better.

It's a good point. Yeah, you get really busy, especially with kids running around in all kinds of different directions. That's where he was coming from, too, with this. And in the same kind of part of his life. But, yeah, I think about this one more. And definitely you'd think this would be a given, but no, you really got to be available and take care of the.

And isn't it amazing how dogs are so excited to see you?

It's the best thing.

When you come into the house or come into the room, it's like they're seeing you for the very first time.

I know.

And what would happen if we even at 10% of that, acted that way to the people that we love? We're just happy to see them.

So funny you say that. I was going to say the same thing to you. I was thinking of this. Would she want to get the guys with a little white truck in the straitjacket ready? You don't want to act like your dog.

Right.

When they come in the door, it might be a little too much, but. Yeah, right.

I won't lick her face.

Exactly.

You know what I mean?

Probably that would not be. She wouldn't understand what's going on. I know. That's so fantastic. I love that part about dogs.

They're always, me, too.

You come home from a hard day and they are so excited that you're there. Let go of your anger. Boy, do I resonate with this one. Some of these, you definitely will resonate more than others. But dogs, they don't hold grudges. I've noticed this. Even a dog. So many dogs that have been abused and they get a little rehabilitation. They could be a little skittish and such, but, boy, they're really resilient. And his dog's ability to move from the negative experiences without harboring resentment serves as a lesson of letting go of anger and not dwelling on past grievances. Do you have a problem with this, Joe? I get angry at stupid things.

Yeah. It's hard to keep perspective, isn't it, Kurt?

Yeah.

It's hard to keep perspective when you're in a highly charged emotional state. Somebody cuts you off on the road or somebody says something insulting to you or that you interpret as disparaging or disrespectful.

Right.

And we can just let ourselves go off. I tell you, when I think about Edie which is our labrador that we had. There was a period of time that she was tough to deal with.

Right.

And there were a couple of times that I wasn't very nice to her. Probably spanked her when she was doing something wrong.

Golding.

Scolding. And that dog kept coming back.

Yeah.

Jumping up on my lap.

Yeah. Didn't.

Snuggling in my shoulder.

Just trying again. They want to please you.

Yeah, that's for sure.

And my luke, he was my black lab. Like I said, he was tough to train. But he would almost give you that look of I'm sorry, I'm guilty, I apologize look all the time. Yeah. He didn't like to get yelled at. He got older. I think it was even worse. But I'll tell you the simple things that really annoy me. And it really only beats up on me when I do this. I don't get angry, really physically or violently in front of people, but I just chew myself up inside. But here's this. I had to read this one part. You'll just have to bear with me and see if you can relate to this. So he tells a story of his cable company, or a guy came out to work in his yard, I think he lives in Florida. And this guy accidentally, I think he's working on the bushes with some shears. And he cut the cable to his cable tv. I think they saw it happen, something like that. Now, I'm going through this right now. The dreaded. I got to make the call to the cable company, right? So the representative, he's on hold and he goes through the whole. Where you got to go through the service menu. And he finally gets a real person. The person says, may I have your name so I can gratuitously repeat it? He says, dave Barry. Thank you, David. May I help you today, David, our cable tv is out. The yard guy accidentally cut the cable. Representative says, david, I understand you are saying that your cable television is not working. And he says, the yard guy cut the cable. David, I'm sorry that your cable television is not working. I will get this problem resolved for you, David. He says, thank you, David. Can you tell me how many cable boxes you have in your house? He says, four. Thank you, David. And can you tell me, David, if the cable is working in any of those tvs? He says, no, it's not working anywhere. There's no cable tv coming into the house. The cable was cut with hedge trimmers. I can see the wire dangling from the pole. Thank you, David. So I understand you were saying that none of your cable boxes are working at this time.

Oh, my gosh. He says, we're about to explode already.

This goes on. We don't have cable service, but it's nothing to do with the boxes. The problem is that our cable was physically cut. The cable wire is not physically connected to the house, so somebody needs to come out and fix the wire. Have you ever been through this? That's why it's so funny.

Yes.

Thank you, David. I will resolve this issue for you. Great, thanks. There's a lengthy pause here, which I start to worry that we have become disconnected. Finally, the representative gets back on the line. Can you please do me a favor, David? Sure. David, I want you to please go to your main cable box and unplug the power cord.

Oh, no.

Wait 30 seconds and plug it back in. Can you do that for me, David? He goes, why? This will reset your cable box, David. But the problem isn't the cable box. The problem is that the cable wire was cut. David. We can sometimes restore the cable service by resetting the cable box. He's like, David, please listen to me. The problem is not the cable box. The problem is the cable wire was cut. Do you understand? The cable wire is now in two separate pieces that are not connected to each other, so the television programs can't get to the house. You need to send somebody to fix the wire. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I was just, like, cracking up reading that, because I have been through this.

Absolutely. And that will try your patience. That will throw me into anger like there's no tomorrow. And I've had conversations like that, and I've said, in a very rude way, I've said, I remember distinctly. This is almost verbatim.

Yeah.

Please shut up.

Really.

Please stop repeating my name. Please stop repeating everything that I say. Here's the problem. And eventually, because they have a script they have to go through, and that's it. That's frustrating and humorous when you look back at it, and especially the way Dave puts it.

Oh, yeah. You know, that's not far from real.

No, it's spot on.

Like, comedians really get us going because we've been to some level through that. Number five is don't be afraid to nap. We've talked about this over the last year. Lucy's enjoyment of napping teaches Barry about the importance of rest and relaxation. Taking breaks, allowing oneself to rest, are crucial for overall well being. We've hit that many times. I like the way you put that, though. Don't be afraid to nap. I think I am afraid to nap. Sometimes I feel guilty and when I do it, boy, it sure feels great.

You know, a nap is one of those things that, as you read some self improvement books, a lot of them talk about this. I know, taking a nap in the middle of the day and allowing yourself to rest. Ever since I was probably 45 years old, Kurt, I've always said one of my great regrets of my growing up is how mean I was to nap time. Because I remember growing up, I never wanted to lay down for nap.

Okay.

In kindergarten and all those places that they want you to take a nap and my mom would want me to take, and I never wanted to take a nap.

We did that in kindergarten. Put your head down on your desk. Yeah.

Or lay on a mat or something like that.

Interesting. I wonder why. Yeah.

And I never wanted to. I wish now I had all those opportunities to nap again.

Right? I love sleeping. I worked hard on Saturday. I really made a lot of progress on my bathroom renovation. And then my brother in law had called me the day before and had these tickets at this. My hometown has a beautiful opera house and they had a Grateful Dead band come in and it was the Connecticut Grateful Dead all stars. But I said, I'm going to take a nap before because that was like an 08:00 show on a Saturday night and I'd been working pretty hard all day. And boy, that was perfect. It worked out so great. I had a great time, all because of my nap.

If you could choose a time of the day to take a nap, Kurt, what would that time be? The ideal time?

Yeah, it's probably like 01:00, something like that.

Okay.

I do that mostly on a weekend. I think I'll say, hey, I'm going to work pretty decent, do some things I want to get done, and then I'm going to take a nap.

Yeah, mine's about 02:00 between two and three, right around there. If I know I'm going to a friend's house, very similar, actually, if I'm going to a friend's house and I know it might be a late evening, I might take a nap at 05:00, lay down, take a nap about a half an hour to pull me through, at least past ten.

I know that's right. Especially if you didn't sleep good the night before. That wasn't the case. Also for this past Saturday, all right.

There'S all kinds of health benefits to taking a nap.

There really are all that good sleep stuff. Number six, stretch before rising. We've talked, Joe's talked about he likes doing his stretches. Barry humorously reflects on Lucy's routine of stretching before getting up, drawing a parallel to the importance of maintaining flexibility in both a physical sense as we age. And I noticed my cat, my older cat, every time he gets up from a nap, he stretches. I always tease my wife, like, why do they always stretch when they get up? I don't know why animals do that.

Cat stretches are really interesting, too, and they're similar to dog stretches because when a dog gets up from a nap or a cat, they do this thing where they lay with their paws with their legs straight out, and they have their back arched and butt up, and they're just stretching out. Right.

They do it all the time.

And I love it. I love it. But cats do this thing when they're done stretching, they'll stand up, and as they're walking away from their stretch, they twitch a leg. They twitch a leg, left leg and a right leg. Left leg and a right leg. I don't know what that's all about. I'm not a big fan of cats, but I love that part of watching a cat. But, yeah, I stretch every morning, man. Every morning when I get up, I reach up to the sky and I get on my tiptoes and wrap my arms around, and it helps me wake up and helps me focus.

That's a good idea.

There's a little tiny prayer I'll say when I'm doing it. Just tiny. Just a few words. That's excellent, but you got to stretch, man. I love that.

I've always been not very flexible, so this is one that I could definitely pay attention to. And the last one is enjoy the simple pleasures. Lucy's ability to find joy in simple things like walks, treats, playtime, inspires Dave to appreciate the simple pleasures in life. Just watching his dog enjoy the little things. He finds happiness in the small and ordinary moments. Boy, we can all learn from that, for sure. I've got a big trip to one of the most stimulating places in the world, Walt Disney world. But we always say the little things. I do like the treats there. I like my walks. And there's some quiet times that I really appreciate. I always talk about my morning coffee walk. I love my coffee in the morning on vacation, but, yeah, sometimes those, even though there's great big attractions and crazy fireworks and all kinds of things going on, it's interesting how some of the simple things are just the most enjoyable.

Boy, this is something that is hitting home for me right in this moment, is really finding joy in the simple pleasures. And I wouldn't even say the simple pleasures. I would say in the simple things. Find pleasure in the simple things. Because what that does, Kurt, is it requires us to slow down. It requires us to slow down and experience the simple things.

Be intentional about.

Yeah. Like you said, you're going to one of the most stimulating places, exciting places in the world. It's the number one destination place. And one of your biggest joys is that early morning walk with a cup of coffee.

Absolutely. Yeah. The warmth of this Florida sun will be nice in the winter.

And finding joy in a. How can you find joy when it's five degrees outside and you're getting to your cold car? Try to find joy in that. I'm not kidding. Try to find a pleasure in that. Maybe you appreciate the invigorating air. Right? The chance to shiver. Maybe you take some joy in. How often does it become. Get five degrees, at least in Cincinnati, it was five degrees this morning.

I know. Brutal.

And how often do you get to really experience five degree weather in your life and take a moment and appreciate it? Pleasure in it.

I appreciate getting in the car and the heater finally warming up. And I'm not kidding about that.

I've had cars, too, brother.

I've had cars where the heater didn't work so good.

Sure.

If my car.

I don't garage my car because I don't garage my car because I garage everything else.

Oh, no. Yeah.

So my car is outside. So I go out, especially these past mornings when it's been five degrees, six degrees, eight degrees past few mornings. And I go out about 20 minutes early before I leave and start my car. And it's good and toasty.

I'm trying to find pleasure in this bathroom renovation. I'm looking at it as a learning experience. I'm enjoying going to home depot and Lowe's, studying, learning, asking questions, solving problems and seeing and looking back and the accomplishment that I make. I'm almost starting to feel like it's getting towards the end and what am I going to do? I'm going to be bored. When this project is hate. I don't want to say it out loud. I'm enjoying this project, and you wouldn't think so because it's not easy.

Yeah, I wish you would have set up some kind of video camera, time lapse it to watch the progress, and then, I know, make a little YouTube video out of it. That would have been cool.

I didn't really take, I don't know how many pictures I took as the Kurt learned that's right. Good stuff. There it is. Seven lessons from Lucy. So I recommend you check out the book or even just sit back, watch your animals, watch the world around you. See if there's something you can take from it and learn from it and move forward. Yeah.

Roll through the list one more time. Just the headline.

Make new friends. Don't stop having fun. Pay attention to the people you love. Let go of your anger. Don't be afraid to nap. Stretch before rising and enjoy the simple pleasures.

Love it.

Yeah. Good list.

Love it. I love this discussion.

Thanks.

This was perfect. And good timing for me as well.

Just having some fun. Did you have a good win for the week, Joe?

I did. So we've been talking on Saturday mornings and we've made mention of it here. I set up my annual calendar and my kanban wall this week.

Excellent.

And got everything in. And I went up to Home Depot in fact. And for $8 I found a little wipe off board. It's not little, it's probably, I don't know, 3ft long by 2ft.

Oh really? I was looking for that. That's funny. I was doing the same thing this week, only $8.

And the reason is, the reason I picked it up is because my postit notes kept falling off the wall.

Okay.

And I thought, well, if I just need a little harder surface. So I put that up and I put my calendar up and I'm looking at my calendar right now and I had forgotten how much I really appreciate being able to see my year at a glance like this. What's coming up and the kids birthdays and the grandkids birthdays and when I'm going on vacation and the time I have off at way over at Christmas time in December, I have that written in and all these little things that I can see going on now what I'll do is I'll write some of my big rock goals like we talked about last week. I'll write some of those in there. And I'm glad I started this hanging this calendar again. And I'm really excited about working the kanban system. So that's my win for the week. I set up my annual calendar in the kanban wall.

Yeah, you're motivating me to do that. I was looking, matter of fact, I was in Staples yesterday looking for like a magnet whiteboard to do the same kind of thing and I'm trying to do it cheaply. Also I've been looking at Amazon. You have to send me a picture that you got at Home Depot. I want to know I'm really not picturing how you did this. So I want to see how you did this.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

And I'm trying to keep it simple. I'm trying to keep the system. Yeah, definitely send a picture.

I'm trying to figure out where in my office I can set one up. That's another problem I'm having at the moment. My win for the week while is the bathroom renovation. During this past three day weekend, we had Martin Luther King day off, and this old 70s house had a closet wall, I'm calling it, that was supposed to hide the laundry, the dryer, and the washer in this small bathroom. So it's like six by nine, but there were two by fours that were framed to create this closet wall. And I successfully ripped those all out and completed the floor and the plywood. Just the plywood. To get the floor all covered up.

Wow.

Yeah, wow. Including going around the toilet and all around the edges and, yeah, got it all down. Matter of fact, we were talking about this over Saturday. I was having trouble with the screws. Some of them weren't going in too good, but it got better, actually, Joe. And really the next thing to do is put some of that self limiting, like concrete. Sure, yeah. Fill in some of the gaps. But yeah. So I'm excited that it's coming along quite well. I had a good weekend working on it. Yeah, perfect. All right. Resource or tip or hack.

It's funny that you bring up the humor of Dave Berry for today's episode because my resource this week is anything by comedian Nate Bargetzi.

I don't know him.

He's really hit the scene hard. He is selling out arenas.

Awesome. Wow.

Multi date arenas. And he is really funny. He's family friendly, dry humor. Just a great comedian. Nate Bargetzi. He's got a handful of streaming specials. I think his latest one was on Amazon. I think he's got some on Netflix. Very popular right now. Go on YouTube, type in Nate Bargetzi. B-A-R-G-A-T-Z-E. Nate Bargetzi. And you will laugh.

I like that.

You'll laugh.

That's one of the things I like to do with tv. Catch a good comedian.

Well, he's funny.

There's some good ones. Like you said, Amazon, if you want.

A good laugh, if you need a good laugh, look up anything by Nate Bargetzi.

Probably on YouTube, I bet too like it. Thank you for that. I will definitely check him out. My resource. So I've got a bad knee. I fell a couple months ago. And did something to my kneecap that's still sore. And just being down on the ground has probably been the hardest part of this project. And I was just, again, popping around to Lowe's, Home Depot, even Walmart, and I was going to get these at Lowe's. They didn't have a price on them. So I was like, I don't know. I'll check. I was in Walmart. They had three different kinds of knee pads. They had this real cheap pair that was like six or $7 per knee, which I don't know why they were selling it. Like, that's weird. Yeah. Then they had this one that had a hard surface for the knee pad, and then they had this stuff that had, like a gel that was on that and it was less than $20. Joe. I got these home, put them on. I had a small piece I was finishing up to put in. It was like kneeling down on a cloud compared. I was moving a pillow around this bathroom every time I had to do.

Oh, my gosh.

So do yourself a favor. If you got to get on the ground and do work like this, get the knee pads, for God's sakes. Less than $20 at Walmart.

That'll preach right there, brother.

Yeah.

I've got a pair of knee pads. Because back at our old house, I laid some tile.

Okay.

And grout at the floor and all of that stuff. And, man, that's like dollars, dude.

Having the right tool for the job is so important.

Get yourself some knee pads. I can't agree more. What a great resource. It's one of those little things that you don't think about. You just grab a pillow or a blanket, or worse yet, you kneel through the pain for some reason.

Sweat it out.

No reason for it, man.

I was like, oh, $20. All right, I'm going to get these knee pads. I was raving about them all weekend. It's fantastic. All right, how about a quote for the week?

Well, I thought I'd stay thematic. Right?

Okay.

A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter is not a nice person.

I agree with that 100%. And this is something. Talk about getting angry. This is one of those things that gets me angry when I witness someone being abusive. And again, I'm going down to Disney World when they're abusive to cast members or wait staff that we see. Boy, that. Oh, man, I want to get into a fight, dude. It's like I get.

Really fires me to people.

Yeah.

Do you know who said that?

Oh, who said that?

None other than Dave Barry.

You always surprised me, like, you know so much. I can't believe you knew who Dave Barry was anyway.

Oh, he's great. He's great.

Yeah. Good stuff.

But I love that. I do. I'm the same way. A lot can be said. You can learn a lot from somebody by how they treat people, especially a waiter that are serving.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I think that is spot on. Good for you. Dave Barry, definitely check out his books. So my quote is, I mean what I say, I say what I mean, and I say it without being mean about it. And that was just something I heard on the Today show this past week. Jamie Lee Curtis, she was talking about turning 65. I think that is interesting. She means what she says. Says what she means, but you can say it without being mean about it.

I love that. I love that. There's so much meat in there. First of all, she's old enough to not care what she says. Right?

You got it.

But also mature enough to know she doesn't have to be mean about it because some people wear that as a badge of honor. I'm going to say what I mean, and I don't care what anybody thinks.

Right.

Those people are just jerks. Right. But you can say what you mean and mean what you say. You just don't have to be a jerk. You don't have to be mean about it.

Yeah.

Wow. I do like that. Good one, Kirk.

I respect people that are like that, too.

Absolutely.

Yeah. I like to hear what people think. They just don't have to be mean about it.

Good show, Kurt.

Thank you, sir.

Good show, man. I like this. I'm definitely going to pick up the book. I could use a good laugh. I'm going to pick up. I think you'll enjoy it from Lucy. Is that the name of it? Yeah.

It's an easy read. Yeah, lessons from Lucy.

I'll definitely check it out. Well, we had a post over the past couple days from a listener, Jody Porco, who has done some really interesting things in the physical fitness world. And I don't want to water drop too much, but it's pretty impressive. It's pretty impressive. I reached out to her and I asked her to be on the show, and she agreed to be on the show. I don't know when we're going to do that interview or that conversation, but I'm definitely excited about it. I'm excited to hear about Jodie and hear her story. And it's pretty cool. It's pretty dag on cool. If you want to engage our Facebook page. You can do that by going to dudesinprogress.com slash Facebook. Dudesinprogress.com slash Facebook. Or if you just want to email us, you can email [email protected]. That's [email protected]. And if you feel so motivated to support the show, you can do that simply by going to dudesandprogress.com slash support. Dudesandprogress.com slash support. And as we depart this week, Kurt, I love the laugh. Right. To me, laughter is progress. You can find a way to laugh in life. You're making progress because as we know, progress is better than perfection. So let's keep moving forward. Yeah.

We can even learn from our dogs. And I spent a lot of time laughing about my animals and having good times. I hope you do, too this week, guys. See you next week.

Take care, my friend.