Cigarette Butts and Leaded Gas With John Pirnat

SPEAKER_00 0:15

My business is my business. Okay, so uh today for our hundredth episode, we've got a very special treat. Not only is he the first man to grace the hallowed hallways of All Up in My Lady Business, but it's also my husband, John Piernat. Welcome to All Up in My Lady Business.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Thanks for inviting me, finally.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Oh, yeah. Finally. Finally. Oh. You've been waiting for this.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Uh I actually didn't think this was coming.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

So Yeah. So here you are. Yeah. Um, all right, babe. So today, um well, Wednesday was our 15th year anniversary. Congratulations, us.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Yeah, we did it.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

We did it. We made it to 15. Um, and uh it was fun. Our actual anniversary. We didn't very little. We did very little now that I think about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:23

And not for pizza.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

I we went out for pizza. That's right. We did. We went out for pizza because today, when we get off this call, we are going to have a staycation. We're going downtown and staying at a hotel, and we're going to uh be together.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yeah, enjoy the big city like kids.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

So gosh, where do we start with this? So, John, tell me what it's like to be married to me. Just an easy, easy little guy, just right out of the right out of the gate.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Nice and simple. Uh there's uh I would say there's a lot of balls in the air, you know, most of the times. You have your fingers in a lot of pies, and um, there's quite a bit to keep track of what you might be doing on any one day. But uh I would say most of it's been dominated by toast and jam running that. That's true. Yeah, so now it's just a little bit different. And your schedule's changed a lot, and we are married, so your life has changed quite a bit in the last twelve months, and mine has continued on its as uh yeah, on its same trajectory. You know, it's a very scary thing probably trying to reinvent yourself. So I know you've had to do that, and uh I know that's diff uh or I imagine it's difficult. I haven't had to do it in quite a long time. I've been at the same job for eight years and been doing the same thing for longer. And so I haven't had to make that kind of adjustment.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

I met you like a month after you started that job, your first job in municipal bonds here in Chicago.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Uh I remember when you first started, you had told them, let me see, what did you tell them you could do? It was it was uh a my it was a Microsoft product that made databases.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

I told them I could use Microsoft Access. Um I mean in the sense that I knew what it was and I knew how to click on the icon on the screen and open it. Uh that was that was my expertise in there. And in fact, I remember I bought a book on how to use it. Um and I had I even contacted my my dad and had him try to help me with it. And I remember there was a it was somewhat of a database there. I I'm not even I can't even remember who made it, but it was my job to sort of manage it and update it and all that. And you know, I freaking put it on a thumb drive and took it home. It was all the accounts and all the customers and you know, things like that, working at it on a home.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Yeah, it wasn't individual customers. It was uh it was Invesco, Nuveen, these sort of well-known companies and who covered them at the firm. So it wasn't really um proprietary information. Privileged information. I want to make that clear. I wasn't saying but yeah, at the time, um probably shouldn't have been doing it anyways, but I needed to work on it outside of work. I had no idea what I was doing. And it it it's access sucks. It's just it tried to do it. Does it even still exist? I highly doubt it. I mean, I'm sure it does just because some people probably have uh uh you know Microsoft access files they've had for their company for years and years and years and just need to still run it. But um it's archaic. I mean, I can't even I don't even think people would use Excel to keep track of things like that anymore. So Yeah, anyways, yeah, I just probably sort of got the job.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

I just remember that when you when you uh you said you I had just made a shitty database for the record fair. Uh and I remember thinking to myself you probably don't even remember this, but I'm like, I I think I remember telling you I could like help you, and I couldn't. I mean, I had just I had literally fucked my way through making like a shitty database which that we never used because it never really worked. But yeah, uh I haven't thought about the fact that Microsoft Access was almost the thing that brought us together.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Yeah. So you pr uh that gave me a leg up because you thought I could help you with your uh spreadsheet or whatever, even though I was a bold-faced lie that I could use it. Funny, uh after the fact when my first boss left, maybe several years later, I went cleaning through his drawer and I saw a copy of my first resume that I'd sent, and he'd had just written a big fat no on it. Um, I don't know, I ran it through spell checker, said it again, and boom, got the job. So um is that really what you did?

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Is you just but ran it through a spell checker before you read it?

SPEAKER_01 5:37

I may have had someone take a look at it. I can't remember. Um, I may have had someone take a look at it.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Yeah. So we're gonna get out of the financial industry and talk about how we met. So um I met John at the hideout legendary bar here in Chicago. Uh, he was there with three friends. I don't even know how you wound up there because you really weren't the hideout type of people. Do you remember why you were there?

SPEAKER_01 6:01

I was hanging out with hideout type of people. Sure. Good point. Yeah, I can't remember.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

You moved here like two minutes.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah, I can't remember uh the roommate we had. Uh I moved in with my best friend, Nick, and we had a third person there, Adam Ridley. Adam Ridley. He was like cool hipster guy.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

So that's why we were Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I forgot about Adam. Um so Adam brought you to the hideout, and then my friend Emily, who I've had on this podcast, the medical ethicist Emily, uh, she pointed at you and she said, That guy's hot. He looks like no, I said there's nobody, there's no cute guys here. And then she pointed at you and said, That guy's hot, he looks like Ted Leo. And so then uh I went up to him and said, My friend thinks you're hot. She thinks you look like Ted Leo. And I believe you said, I don't know who Ted Leo is, but I like you or something. And then you proceeded to follow me around for the rest of the night. That's how I remember it. How do you remember it?

SPEAKER_01 6:55

I do remember you saying Ted Leo and having no clue who that person was. So I just, you know, took it as a little bit of a tidbit of information, but it didn't mean anything to me at the time. And uh yeah, I mean, I was obviously attracted to you and uh we hit it off pretty well, I think. And I'm glad we met kind of in an old school fashion at a bar. Um not that not that there's anything wrong with that or anything. No, no, no, no. Not that anything is bad. But the fact of the matter is we're fucking dinosaurs and we're from a pre pre-time. Like we we grew we our foundation, our foundations were set where it precluded you to meet someone in a bar rather than online. Um so I'm glad we did it that way.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

I mean, I had dabbled in the online dating around that time, but uh but it was stupid.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

You locked you locked me down right before I got an app like that. My life could have been maybe a lot disgusting. A lot more disgusting, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Um but uh but yeah, I mean we met at a we met at the hideout, and then I said I lived off of Irving, and you said you also lived off of Irving, although it was like miles apart. And then we took a cab home and the rest is history. And then we went on our first date like two weeks later. And we went to go see Pan's Labyrinth, and then we went to have dinner across the street, and our meal was $60, and John was so floored at how expensive the meal was, he just talked about it for the rest of the date.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

I had never been to a I had never been to a proper restaurant in my life, I don't think. So and it wasn't even a proper restaurant, it was a creperie or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

No, no, it was the creperie. It was a it's a proper restaurant. It doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

We weren't getting like you know, 16 ounce sirloins or anything, um or lobster. We were getting yeah, crepe crepes. Um I just wasn't used to the you know, the high life that he would be uh uh pricing.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Lakeview.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Uh or lakeview, whatever. It's funny that Pan's Labyrinth I see is a t there's a 20th anniversary coming out right now.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Oh my god. Is that how we date our life? Is to is to Pan's Labyrinth release date? That's it's a good movie.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

I'll see the new one or the remake.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

We should actually we should take Sebastian to it just for like origin story.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

No, it's in it's they're they're updating it to be 3D. It'll freak them out.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Really?

SPEAKER_01 9:18

I feel like it's a pretty scary movie. The kids trapped down there, a creature with no eyeballs, uh, and only on his hand. I mean, no. He walks out of the room during X-files and it's you know It's true. All they do on X-Files is do a strobe light.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

I love that's the best part about the scary stuff. Well, it's always like it's like ominous music, shadows, light, shadows, light, and then you'll hear uh oh my god, and then you'll see like feet get pulled off the side of the screen, and that's as bad and scary as it gets.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Yeah. So where are we gonna go from here? We met, we dated, we got married, we had a kid.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah, actually, here's I mean, let's just talk about this for a little bit and see if how it goes. Is um because I met you a month before my mom died, and then you had you stuck around. You were like a rock during that time. And I I should also point out that you are five years younger than me. Like I'm a cougar, cougar material over here. So I believe you were 26 when I met you. Does that sound right?

SPEAKER_02 10:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

And you turned 27. Um, and then my mom died and you were right there. Do you have any memories of that?

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Yeah, I I know you had to go visit several times, and uh I never met her. So No. I don't know. But yeah, I remember it being pretty rough skid for you.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

But you were like so good, or I think a lot of guys would have pieced out and been like, call me when your mom's not done. When your mom's death isn't making you a bummer. And uh because I when I met you, I actually the the next day I was going to take care of my mom. We were like going and taking care of her in shifts, me and my five siblings. Um and then when I got back, you texted me and said, How could you possibly resist texting me? And which I thought was just such an incredible line. And I remember looking at my BlackBerry as I was driving down the highway, and I saw that text come in from you, and I was really excited to see it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Well, I think if I had met you on Tinder and your bio was saying mom currently dying, I may have swiped left. Um so thank thank God for the high-out. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Yeah. Things we never have to know. High five. Um, yeah, so we we meet. We were we lived, we our dating life was pretty hot. We had a pretty fun time. We traveled a lot and had lots of fun. I feel like I'm yeah. Um and then you work in bonds. You've been doing that the whole time. And um I don't really understand how bonds work, but it is what you do. Yeah. Is it crazy that I don't know, or is it or bonds just crazy?

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Now that I I didn't think I'd been working in municipal bonds for 20 years. That's uh that's a whole career.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah, it's really weird that you just like sit at a desk for nine hours a day.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Yeah. There were there were periods of time where I had a lot of fun with it. It was I really liked my job at times. Um, and it's you know, it's not that bad. I thankfully I'm not doing producing stacks and all that stuff or whatever people do in white-collar jobs and have meetings like this. First time I've been on a Zoom call in a year, you know, unless it's with Sebastian's doctor or something.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Yeah. Um You're literally the only person that doesn't use Zoom for their job.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Yeah. So um yeah, I've had this computer for a year and I haven't even set up a camera on it until now.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

The camera we had some technical difficulties setting this up because we couldn't find the computer the the camera. That's such a that's such a flex that you didn't even know how to turn your computer, your camera on on your computer. Yeah. It's that's how not much you don't use it. But so would you say that part of the reason why your job is less fun has to do with our present president?

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Uh that's been part of it recently. I a lot of the a lot of the more painful market periods in the last 10 years have been directly related to Donald Trump, and that's a bit hard to chew on. Some of them almost on just solely on him, whether it be this Iran war or things like that. Um and so that's hard to tell. You know, you you you're losing money at work, you'll your clients are losing money, and you're like, and you're thinking to yourself, my God, it's just because of this one person's decision. That's insane. Um whether it's the tariffs, all this stuff, and it's just he he enjoys having the world on a string and likes to fuck around with it.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

And so it's crazy that he can do that. It's crazy that one person got to the point, like one very stupid, smelly person was able to get to that point. It's like bananas. Like, how flawed is the system that allowed something like that to happen.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Well, you know, up until very recently, the president of the United States was the most powerful person in the world, and so he uh and it was usually occupied by gentlemen and honorable people relative to him. And so a lot of the things that he's doing. Nobody did it before because it wasn't the right thing to do, and he doesn't care. So um it just finding out a lot of the bad things that the president could do um through him.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

And then did. Yeah, and he could just do it. I don't think it's all stuff that anybody thought they could do and like didn't do. I think it's a lot of stuff that no one in their right mind would ever consider. And it's it, I mean, it really I think it says a lot about our system that it allowed something like that to like pop up and happen, like that that Trump could happen in that system. Like how come it doesn't I mean, is it is it the same systems like how far off is our system from a country that keeps like re like producing dictators like Iraq? You know, you would think that like you know, like places like that were like where dictators can can take hold. Like what happened to our like our our fail-safes that made it so that that could happen?

SPEAKER_01 15:08

I don't know. Our country looks like a lot of those places you just named. You know, so we kind of look we're behaving like a second-tier country. Uh and uh I I we we've talked about politics so many times in our own personal lives, but it's unfortunately we've got a good third to half of the population that um isn't really isn't really that well educated, first of all. Um, and it's interesting with the internet coming along. I I initially, when I was watching it be developed and all this stuff, I thought to myself, well, this is great because now information will flow so freely that people won't be able to use disinformation, you know, as soon as a dictator I might in my mind I was thinking, okay, well, the next dictator of so-and-so country is gonna have a hard time convincing everyone that these lies they're peddling are true because the internet exists and you can just get the information from somebody else. But it didn't turn out that way. The way it turned out is the internet, especially now, it finds out what you like and shows you that stuff because it's trying to get your eyeballs. And so ever it's a it's a self-fulfilling prophecy as you watch. I know that I'm catered to on the Democratic side. Like a lot of the points that might resonate with me, I don't even hear them because they're you know a Republican idea and I'm watching CNBC or what or I mean not CNBC, but uh whatever. And it's now yeah, so you know, trying to go to AP or whatever and try to get you know non non-paywalled material is almost impossible now. So people are stuck with what they watch. And if you watch Fox News, Trump's a great guy, or his negative things aren't talked about. And so it's it's just it's kind of depressing. I thought it was gonna go the other way with uh flip free flowing information, but it's more of just now we can separate everyone out so I can separate instead of talking to everybody, I can just talk to my crowd.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Yeah, I mean it's just it's like you know, the echo chamber of the of it all. Yeah. I mean, it's you know, I mean, it's it is really, I mean, it feels like I feel like I've been a little less obsessed with it than I was, but I mean it really, I don't know how you can't be kind of all consumed with like what's happening in the country right now. And I think that, you know, it's like I I don't understand how there's anybody who doesn't understand what's happening right now. Like, and I think that but I do understand it because information is so siloed. Like, you know, if you you know, you're looking at AP and you know, your coworkers are only looking at, you know, Drudge Report. I don't even know like what even consists is considered right wing, whatever. People are getting their news from specific podcasts or whatever, where they're not like no one, there's no centralized thing that everybody sees anymore. You know, like we're not even watching the same TV shows, and so I like I don't even know how Sebastian knows anything because he's not watching a TV, he's like looking at YouTube, and I don't know, I I don't understand how it works, and I feel like it's like is it passing me by or um I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

I it's it's hard to say, but you would think that one centralized state run television would be a bad thing. Uh and so having it separated, but it hasn't fixed anything. So I I I don't know. People don't people don't want to listen to the truth. I I I'm I'm very uh I'm trying to keep my foot out of AI and I try my best to not use it. I have to now when I Google things. Um I have found it pretty useful though when you're talking to someone that is uh not telling the truth because it's quite easy to just punch a question in there and you know I get into an argument with a friend of mine uh about global warming, him not thinking it's real, and it's it's easy to punch it into grok or whatever and just say, hey, uh based on the current evidence, does it seem like there's global warming or not? It comes back with a 99.99% chance that it's human cause. Things like that are kind of nice or fact-checking uh fact-checking certain things very quickly because the results you can put into someone else's mouth and you can say, Well, this isn't me saying this, this is AI. Um, and a lot of people really, really believe what comes back from AI. It's a very uh um validating source, whether you know you search for something and when it comes back, uh people just tend to have faith in what it's saying. Um, so you can use it to your advantage in some ways by saying, well, this is what AI is telling me. Um this isn't my opinion, this is what AI is telling me. So it's helped me maybe not win arguments. Yeah, not maybe not win arguments, but end them because the person is a very important thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

At least you I mean, yeah, we probably should say that like you are one of a very few Democrats at your office. So you're surrounded by Republicans in a way that I think that most people aren't. And so you do have to kind of hear a lot of um the uh information from the other side that may or may not be correct. And I actually I I saw a thing where it was like instead of saying like, do you believe in climate change, it's do you understand climate change? Because whether you believe it's real or not, it's that doesn't matter. Like, do you understand it? Because if you don't understand it, then you can try to you can not believe it. But if you yeah, framing it from that element instead of believing, like because it you clearly if you don't understand it, that's how you can come to the conclusion that it doesn't exist or that it's not real. But like I don't understand how anybody who is just opens up a fucking window and looks outside can't see that things are completely different than they used to be.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Yeah. Uh yeah, I just evidenced by when people plant crops or what your zone is when you go to the garden store and like everybody knows things have changed. But some people don't want to admit the wrong or stop doing what they're doing because what they're doing is making them a lot of money. Uh so it sucks. Um yeah, that that right there is kind of a those are one that's one of the things that if we can't agree on climate change like that, then it devalues a lot of your other opinions, in my opinion. So if I'm discussing something with someone, that would be one of my, I don't even know what they call it, like a qualifier or something like that. Yeah. Uh that's one of my litmus tests.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah, like, hey, hey, how do you feel about climate change? It doesn't exist, okay. Then I'm done. Yeah, well teasing out.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah. I mean, maybe I'm not done talking to you, but I'm not gonna take anything you say at very uh, you know, uh, what do they say at face value or something?

SPEAKER_00 21:43

At face value.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Um but yeah, it's interesting. I'm like I've had this conversation with another person many times, and like there's a there is uh I'm very interested in space and astronomy.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

You don't say.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah. And they can they can look million you know, thousands of light year on actually not thousands, but they can look at hundreds of light years away and see a star and know that there's a planet orbiting it. And if you tell them it's this far away from the sun, there's this much carbon dioxide, this is what's in the atmosphere, you tell like us, tell an astronomer what's the telescope is looking for the because the telescope can tell you those things.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Yeah, I mean it'll say like this place has carbon on it.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

They can tell through the spectrum like what what gases are in the atmosphere. And with that information they can tell you how hot the planet is. Okay. You know, if there's more carbon dioxide, it's going to be hotter. And so when we increase the carbon dioxide on our planet, if it's working for all these other planets that are, you know, that we can see, we can test, we look at hundreds examples um, and yeah, run simulations and things like that. We know it's going to increase the temperature.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Uh and so I get really I don't I get a really weird feeling of scared, like feared foreboding like in my chest when I think about like the telescopes that are just like hurtling and flying through space. Like it makes me feel I don't know like like is it like it's is it possible that some of those those telescopes have actually found life and they just aren't telling us because it would freak us out.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Uh no I think the closest thing they found is that they can see that in the atmosphere some of these other planets there are markers for biological life. So carbon chains, certain things like that, where we they assume that that's what was required to start life here. Or at least let it continue from wherever it was seeded from, could have been from space. But it it requires a certain number of different kind of complex carbon chemicals and we've seen them in other atmospheres where they have and so people are like well could be so are we so can we just see the atmosphere and not be able to see what's actually on the surface? Yeah, it's like imaging the actual planet they're not able to actually image the planet they're just able to look at the spectra of light that comes from it and tell that okay there must be a lot of hydrogen in the atmosphere or a lot of um oxygen, whatever, uh water vapor, all of those things have a signature that you can read with a telescope.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

But so I mean so is the I guess the nine is the assumption that you can make is that like everything that we have on this planet probably exists in other I mean like there's probably elements and things out on other planets that aren't here, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:25

I mean we wouldn't there's no elements that are on other planets that aren't here.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Really?

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Yeah all the naturally occurring I mean there's like naturally occurring elements all the way up to uranium. There's a bunch past that that get created momentarily but they're not stable and they come back to uranium. And um that's all there is there isn't like you know unobtanium or something like that. There isn't um and really no like there but I mean how would we know?

SPEAKER_00 24:57

It could be there and we couldn't see it, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:58

I mean or well much people much people that study this stuff and and do these things uh they have um like with quantum mechanics and we're getting into world there are literally equations that they can plug things into and get a helium atom you know so they know what would happen if you added another proton or took away a neutron or added a proton added two protons whatever they can tell what the material would look like or be like and there's no gaps they have they know what the elements are one proton by one proton all the way up to uranium 92 and then a bunch of other magical ones past that. But there isn't anything that's you know this levitates on its own or this you know things that we are aware of. But I think the reason why people are becoming more assured that there is life other places isn't so much that they're finding these markers for life but that the closer we look at our planet the further back in time there is evidence of life and the weirder places we look we're finding it. So it's almost as though once it begins it's almost impossible to snuff out. I mean the the earth has been hit by asteroids, been covered by ice all this stuff. If they look deep down in the earth like seven miles down into the earth they find microbes living in the in the rocks. And so as it becomes more prolific here, more prolific than we even thought so it started when the earth was still almost just like a magma pile um life started finding a way and so it just makes it more likely that it would be happening elsewhere.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

It's the You know you said something to me really recently and I it was like we keep trying to find aliens or we keep thinking about aliens that like will show us the secrets of the universe but like we already figured out the secrets of the universe here.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

This was an analogy I was making with my friend Nick who's really into not conspiracies, just aliens, things like that, other you know the other news right the the things that could be going on she's deeply deeply into into aliens. Yeah. And what I was saying to him is that in a movie or something like that, we always imagine skinny weird looking alien with a big head comes out big eyeballs skinny fingers and the implication is that okay inside this alien's head must be some massive brain and they can do telekinesis and they can calculate things that we could never calculate and they can uh keep you know they know all of the world's secret or all of the universe's knowledge you know and so they can do amazing things like levitate water or travel interstellar distances in their lifetime um or live forever. You know things like that these magical things. Now humans are basically that now except the big head the big brain is in a suitcase that we're carrying it could be you know a server rack with AI running. It can solve math problems that have never been solved it can do these things. And you know how to fold proteins all these magical things that humans would have taken centuries to calculate on their own. But it hasn't come back with anything that says well you know if you just move this proton here or you put silicone and and uh some of these noble gases together you're gonna have a warp drive you know you're only you're just a little bit away you just missed it by one electron or anything like that. AI hasn't come back with anything like that. Or you know if you just trained your brain you could you can actually send messages with telekinesis you know so we almost have that super that that crazy level of intelligence with us and it hasn't really it has changed a lot of things but it hasn't resulted in sort of um magic alien technology.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

Yeah uh and well but I mean but also it's like you know we are the ones who are already we're we're trying to explore space you know we are the ones who are sending out all these telescopes and satellites and all this other stuff to try to study space you know and that that would require you know an alien to look up and be like what uh what's what else is out there and then create the you know the vehicle or whatever that gets you away from that planet to go search around for stuff. I mean it's like you know it doesn't seem like anybody else has done that yet that we have seen you know what I mean like other aliens coming here and yeah I mean as we know it yeah even though J Nick is very consent convinced that there are aliens.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Yeah it could very well be that uh uh it when they were trying to figure out how big the universe was they were wondering they would look out with these old telescopes and see these smears and they were like well it's a cloud of gas or whatever and some people were saying well maybe it's an island universe you know sort of like um a big group of stars i.e. a galaxy so we didn't know that there was galaxies outside of our galaxy now there are a bunch of island they call them island universes initially and it very well could be that every planet is an island universe it may be impossible to go anywhere else um I mean the nearest star would require um technology we're not even dreaming about you know like like starship the you know uh SpaceX is starship right it's this big rocket and they could put servers up in space but it's essentially the same technology we used to go to the moon a little bit bigger and a little bit more economical a lot more economical because they're reusing the rocket and that kind of a thing and it's been 60 years we should be better at it. Um but uh you know we went from riding horses to flying at 3000 feet over the course of 80 years rocket technology's had 60 70 years and it still has some limitations there's something called the specific impulse on a rocket like how efficient it can be it's using hydrogen and oxygen which are the two best elements you can possibly put together to create you know thrust and yet still we're just on the surface of the onion like the International Space Station is touching the earth effectively um so to get to to get four light years away um is it's it would require a miracle it would require a miracle of technology so the closest star is four light years away yeah yeah is that Alpha Centauri yeah uh yes and you could see Alpha Centauri I think but it's actually a group of three or four stars and the closest one you can't see but the one of the group is big enough to see from here. Uh but again it's so in it's basically infinitely far away. I mean the farthest thing we've ever sent into space has been going since before I was born and it's still it's not even really out of the solar system or out of uh it's not out of the it may have just left the sphere of influence of the sun so that maybe like it might be far enough away now where there's other forces acting on it greater than the sun but I don't even know if that's the Voyager.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

The Voyager space probe the Voyager that's isn't that still going?

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Yeah I mean it's running out of it's running out of energy it's running out of power. It's too far away to get you know use solar panels and plus the solar panels that are on there if there are any I don't even think there are but they would have been made in the 70s so they're not very efficient and it's you know but anyways it's not even butts and let it guess yeah it's hardly if you were to look at the two stars and put Voyager you wouldn't be able to tell that it had moved at all.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

But are we getting information from Voyager?

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Yeah and I think it's like I've been get I'm I'm gonna guess as high as I possibly would guess. Let's say it's two hours away um by light. So like when we send a message it takes two hours to get there and vice versa. And Alpha Centauri is four light years away. So not not two hours but four years um and we can't move the speed of light anyway. So I it's just I don't even know how we got on this topic. But um I don't either we are we we may as well be we might be an island universe is kind of what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

I think that Earth is probably the best we're gonna get um in terms of planets within our solar system or within our galaxy then anywhere anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Anywhere that we can get to anywhere we can get to but there could be other I'm I'm like I'm a mil I would bet I bet most scientists would say there's a million per you know there's a perfect 100% chance that there's life elsewhere in the gal in the universe. There has to be oh absolutely yeah but I mean you know uh and it goes I was gonna bring up a I was gonna try to tack um a little bit from the astronomy thing but um when I was talking about earlier where everywhere they look on earth it seems as though life started earlier than they thought earlier than they thought earlier than they thought and it's in weirder and weirder and weirder places that they wouldn't expect.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Like where?

SPEAKER_01 34:13

What's a weird place they wouldn't accept deep in the earth and rocks um yeah like are they taking core samples or something? And they're just finding these bacteria that don't exist on earth on the surface? Yeah they don't exist on the surface. But they're are they alive or is it just they're technically alive they're replicating they're consuming they're creating waste so all the markers of life but uh I was gonna say when they try to calculate okay how many advanced life forms are there they have there's I can't remember who does this is some sort of equation. It's just kind of a a fun thought experiment and you say like how many planets are there how many stars are there how many galaxies are there how many da da da and you multiply these numbers together and you try to it it tries to spit out a number saying this is how many advanced life forms there are in the universe um it's just a kind of a a game for smart people to play nerds yeah it's for nerds to play with in their spare time but there's in every equation there's a significant figure and this is one of the my tenets in or one of the things I find very interesting in life is a significant figure. So if the probability of there being life in any given place is higher say inside the rock or in a in a planet that hasn't even cooled it's still settling it's molten there's asteroids coming down killing everything over and over again and yet there's still life that's the most significant figure in the equation. So you when you multiply all those other numbers by a bigger number this one it increases the likelihood a huge amount like more than more way more than if we find a couple other planets. Like that doesn't really affect anything. We already know there's trillions of them.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

So when you point so is the point that if there's life inside of a rock that is seven miles down in the Earth's surface and is it it's bacteria that is on the surface or isn't on the surface? Like is this stuff that only like it it only exists down there?

SPEAKER_01 36:13

No I mean just if you were if you were wondering is there life on Titan which is a moon of Saturn and you guessed earlier that it's only oh there's probably only a 1% chance well if you dig down seven miles into the rock and you find out that there was bacteria a hundred million years after the earth formed in hellish environments and it's still living down there, then your estimate on Titan goes up a lot way more. And so if your estimate goes from one percent to ten percent well that's that's going to have a bigger effect than how many galaxies are there or how many planets are in the habitable zone, all of those things. It's it's it sends the numbers significantly higher um more than probably any of the others can adjust for so anyways that yeah significant figures.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

We have a cute kid. We have the best kid what do you think about him?

SPEAKER_01 37:13

He's unique and uh he's he's a little dude. Yeah he's uh he's a unique kid and then and one when you have a kid and you start watching people grow up you realize that you know there's always that nature nurture debate going on and when you see it firsthand I mean I lived it once but I wasn't paying attention uh when you see it from an adult's perspective you you realize it's a mix of everything you know uh nature and nurture there are some things like that I don't think you can uh nurture in or out of somebody and so we got lucky there you know Sebastian's a happy kid he's always kind of looking at the half the glass being half full glass is always half full of that kid um he's really doesn't and and and his best quality is that he doesn't uh he doesn't adjust his own his own preferences based on other people's he doesn't care really what other people think he has no FOMO like zero FOMO he doesn't have FOMO and he really doesn't care what anybody else thinks he knows his he has his fe his opinion on it and he doesn't it's it's kind of incredible I don't know where he got it from he didn't get it from me and I don't think he got it from you. No I mean it's it's a it's a fool's errand and I don't know not even healthy really to go thinking about what would I have changed in my past but if I could give myself one piece of advice you know when I was younger either than maybe buying Bitcoin or something when it comes out like I would say you gotta stop worrying about what other people think because they're not even thinking about you. And that would have changed my life more than anything. I definitely wouldn't I don't think you're allowed I wouldn't I wouldn't I I my life would be vastly different other you know I mean If oh you need to work out more or study harder or go to this school or go to that school. That thing those kind of things would change who I am a little bit but nothing as much as that would.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

So that would be my number one piece of advice for it's everybody I don't think you I don't think you can learn that though until you're 40 or you're our son.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Yeah right you're born with it the nature nurture thing I mean we have friends with siblings who are polar opposite that way you know one cares and one doesn't and you know the one that does has more friends and goes to more parties and that kind of thing. But they're constantly tortured mentally they're always thinking about oh what did this person say what did that and the other ones Sebastian walking around humming a song thinking about something funny he saw on the internet telling his you know talking to his dad about video games. So I don't know whichever whichever one of those two options you like best I guess you but you're born with one of them or you figure it out later in life. Like I now don't care what other people think but I'm old and no one and no one yeah no one cares what I'm thinking anyway.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

But sure yeah we're over 40 we're irrelevant no one cares what we think about things.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

It's hard it's hard to come to grips with that but it's true.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

Yeah I mean it's it's weird as just like I think I've personally spend so much time like so concerned like I think because I had such a you know kind of hellish time growing up in many ways that I'm always trying to think of like you know how is how is this going to get interpreted in therapy in 25 years. You know like I'm I keep trying to like stay ahead of like fucking him up but I don't think that's gonna be an option. I mean I think the fact that I take him to places he shouldn't be going at his age is probably the thing that's gonna fuck him up more than anything. Yeah the world's gonna fuck him up more than we will um thank you thanks for saying that babe even though I don't believe it. But it's true. The world has fucked me up more than my parents did I if I really think about it.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

The world's a tough place.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

The world is a vampire it's been real tough lately. I really wish the last 10 I wish I I really wish that we had lived through the or we were reading about the last 10 years instead of living through it. Like I want it to be like just the hardest AP test I've ever taken.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Like I'll get everything right just don't make me live through this it's a strange part of our history and I I've because I'm in the bond market, I'm worried about bond prices and they've been going down now for a couple of months straight. Uh and of course I talked to other people about it you know everyone wants to throw their opinion out. Um I've I've been humbled in my career the one thing that has changed the most about my career is that I used to be naive to think naive enough to think that I could outsmart the market or think like okay there's some way I can rationalize what it's doing. And your brother put it a very good way so you're just betting which way chickens walk um or turn and it is that is the case I don't know why when Mark I don't get what wait which brother Chris? Yeah so he did he say I explained what I did for a living and he said so you're just trying to guess which way the chicken's gonna turn and that he's right yeah I've no fucking idea um so anyways I try to wise try to keep that especially on a short term basis on a monthly month to month basis but um I would say that right now I you know talking to other people about it they say oh it's inflation or gross or whatever but the bond market is the more faith you have in someone else the more you're willing to let to to lend to them right the the safer the person like you're gonna lend Elon Musk money at 1% because you know he can pay you back. You're gonna lend the person on food stamps at 30% because there's a 20% chance they're not going to pay you back.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

But the irony the irony is though is that it's harder for them to pay it back because it's more expensive to buy the money.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

Oh yeah to get the money. That's the comment on that I'm just I know I just parallel to countries. No but you're not right you know the interest rate in Iran is higher because they've got they're being attacked by the largest military on earth and uh they've got weird religious leadership and that kind of a thing. But when you look at our country it appears as though we have a weird religious real leadership and we are starting to behave like some of these quote unquote backwater countries and people are looking are trying to divest from the United States. My whole life we were you know the leaders in the world we dictated most of policy and uh that's I it's been it's been on the downcline and Trump has hastened it to the point where it's already happened. Um it's not that we it's not that we are going to be passed it's we have been passed. We're done other countries are looking to either just start new relationships essentially um and so that's another reason why the bond market's down I mean there's no way to say that our standing in the world has not been diminished.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

And but I mean I that's the thing is I think that like you keep talking about how the bond market is down and I'm like that means we're heading Into a recession. Like I don't I don't know how I don't know how we could be any way not in heading into a recession. We're already in it.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Uh maybe. Yeah, there was a jobs number today that was very bad. It's interesting because most of the metrics that we look at suggest that the mar that the economy is strong, yet no one feels it. It could be that they're all listening to negative news about it, but I have a feeling it has more to do with the fact that like surviving day to day is just difficult. We, you know, we have one kid, two white-collar jobs, and our school district is bankrupt and we're doing bake sales and like we can't go skiing anymore. You know?

SPEAKER_00 44:38

I mean, not not not that there's worth that not that that's like the worst thing, but I mean to have happen to you.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

When we when you and I are at the grocery store, we are consciously looking for the better deal. And I won't buy ten years ago when Sebastian was around. I never even thought about money, never thought about it.

SPEAKER_00 44:58

Well, I mean, it's not like we were rolling around in it, but we definitely but we lived a life where we could not where we didn't have to pay we didn't pay that attention to like the cost of a bottle of ketchup, which when I bought it a couple weeks ago was seven dollars for a bottle of ketchup, which I don't think I've crossed the three dollar threshold on ketchup in my whole life.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

So yeah, you just gotta grab some packs from McDonald's or whatever, but it's uh I I think that you know it's stressful because you kind of have to think about money more in the back of your head, but we're in a good position. Some people have multiple kids, uh, they have I don't know. I I I I think a lot of that anxiety where people are saying the economy is bad is because they know that boy, I could only survive four weeks without a job, two weeks without a job, a week, not any time. You know, those kind of that kind of thing makes you think the economy is worse. Uh you know, if the if you knew you could just tell your boss to fuck themselves and then go get another job, or you know, I don't like the fact that you support Trump, fuck you, I'm out of here, or I want to protest and I want to put my face out there, but I you know, and you could just go get another job, they'd be more likely to do it, or you just say, Okay, the economy's not too bad. I I have flexibility here. Um, but then when if you're working and you feel trapped there, uh and I'm not saying that if anyone from my job is listening, that is not the case with my situation, but I'm trying to hypotheticalize for uh a John Q public.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

You love your job. You love where you work, and I love where you work.

SPEAKER_01 46:31

Oh yeah, I again I don't have any TPS reports. Uh I just go in and try to, you know, find a different way to extract value. Yeah, extract value. Talk talk about the chicken. But uh so that's fun. But yeah, I think that's probably why some people think the economy's not doing so well.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

How do we start talking about that?

SPEAKER_00 46:49

I don't know. But we actually have gotten to an hour, so we've really Oh really? Uh I don't really feel like we've gotten even scratched the surface of what we could have pot possibly talked about. But um you asked me, you you said, what are we gonna talk about? I'm like, I don't know. And whoa, where'd you go?

SPEAKER_01 47:04

I don't know. I try to can you hear me?

SPEAKER_00 47:07

I can hear you. We can't see you though. You've gone out of the blue and into the black.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

I I turned the light off and then it just died on me with the camera.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

Yeah. Anyway, um thank you so much for being my husband of 15 years.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:23

And schooling my listeners about space and the bond market. Didn't you guys didn't now you guys can see why that why the love is.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

I feel like uh I feel like we don't really scratch too many surfaces here. We didn't get very deep.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

No, we just we just we just basically talked about what we like to talk about when we like walk down the street.

SPEAKER_01 47:39

Maybe we should do another 20 minutes on a on an on a topic where we actually have guy, you know, we have a goal.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

But yeah. All right. I gotta finish packing.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

All right, bye.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

Love you, baby. Uh thanks so much for retuned in. I hope you guys enjoyed this uh episode. And John, don't don't uh don't do don't touch anything but until I tell you to. Um, because otherwise it won't it won't go right.

SPEAKER_01 48:01

But uh Sounds like the hotel room.

SPEAKER_00 48:04

I mean prom night. Bye. Thanks for listening to All of the My Lady Business with me, Mary Nasty. Uh, we'd love for you to like, review, subscribe, follow us at all of the my lady business on the gram. And if you're a female identifying person and you want to dance, you can follow. I mean, everybody can follow it, but if you want to be a part of the magic at hot flat dance party, sign up for the mail to find out where our next party's gonna be. And if you are looking for a detailed hot one in the area or anywhere else, you know, money's the same color everywhere. Fly us out. TokyamDJs.com has the best and listen to my radio show. I have a radio show on Chirp Radio at tripradio.org. That's Mondays, every Monday, we call it Tokyo. Today's episode is produced by Shiraz Data and Song, composed, and performed by Shiraz Data. Alright, guys, peace out.