Peter
00:00
Well, welcome back to Generations. I am one of your hosts, Peter.

Aubrey
00:04
And I am your other host, Aubrey.

Peter
00:06
Aubrey, how have you been?

Aubrey
00:09
I've been pretty good. Um it has been pretty smoky here in Wisconsin because of the wildfires.

Peter
00:17
Yeah, you guys are you guys are right in the the area where that's been coming down from Canada, huh?

Aubrey
00:18
So

00:25
Yeah, so it's been pretty bad. I don't usually I'm not usually super sensitive to the air quality, but even I was like getting nauseous.

Peter
00:34
Really?

Aubrey
00:34
from breathing it in. Yeah, it was really bad.

Peter
00:36
Well it's been I was you say you've had some really bad days up there.

Aubrey
00:41
Yeah, like Thursday, of course summer camp wasn't cancelled, which is fantastic for my lungs and the children's lungs. But Um I think the air filters in the school must just be garbage because still in like the program space, which is like the cafeteria big entry area. Smoke was so bad that I was getting a headache, getting lightheaded, like it was so bad. So we moved everyone into the gym, which was better, but that did mean we spent eight and a half hours in the gym just the whole day with the kids.

Peter
01:21
That's that's a lot of that's a lot of kids in a con confined single space.

Aubrey
01:26
Mm-hmm. It was pretty bad. And then the next day, same thing. And that was the next day was when I was starting to get nauseous, even still being in the gym. And I was like, I this is really bad.

Peter
01:38
Yeah. Yeah

Aubrey
01:42
Uh, it did clear up a little bit, like halfway through Friday. Saturday was kind of clear, and then we got a second wave. of smoke today. So it's like in the purple, very unhealthy AQI or whatever. Um, so that's not great.

Peter
01:56
No fun no, that is not great. It's not great.

Aubrey
01:58
No. So I really hope it clears up in the next few days.

Peter
02:01
Yeah. Yeah, for your sake I hope so. We've managed to so far dodge most of the bad smoke this summer. But it is also still just mid-July. Usually August, September is when it will just get really bad. smoke in and around here.

Aubrey
02:20
Yeah.

Peter
02:21
So I fully anticipate that's coming and I'm so excited for it.

Aubrey
02:21
Yeah.

02:26
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it also freaks the kids out a lot, even if they know the fire isn't close, just like the concept of things being on fire that aren't supposed to be freaks them out so bad.

Peter
02:37
Sure. Yeah

Aubrey
02:40
So it was like making everyone just on edge and anxious and everyone's like some of them of course are like a little dramatic where if they're walking out of the gym to the bathroom, they're coughing the whole way there, even if that's you don't need to coughed the whole way there, but they're like, oh they like what step out and they're like, oh I can't breathe. I'm like, okay, it's gonna be okay. Promise. Promise it's gonna be okay.

Peter
03:03
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Aubrey
03:06
But they're funny, so yeah.

Peter
03:07
Sometimes sometimes that's how it is, but

Aubrey
03:10
Other than that though, it's been it's been pretty good. Um the paycheck from working f going from twenty hours to forty hours a week was very nice.

Peter
03:19
Nice little nice little bump.

Aubrey
03:19
Um yep, nice little bump. Um And yeah, it's been it's been pretty good. It's been fun just trying to do like outside things and get in all the outside time we can while the weather is warm because I know all too well how long the winters are here.

Peter
03:35
You have experienced it now

Aubrey
03:35
So I'm trying to really enjoy it. Yeah, I'm trying to really enjoy it.

Peter
03:39
Yeah. Good.

Aubrey
03:40
Um, but yeah.

Peter
03:41
That makes sense. That makes sense.

Aubrey
03:42
Yeah.

Peter
03:42
That's probably a good decision.

Aubrey
03:43
How are you? How have you been

Peter
03:45
Doing all right. You know, we had our London trip and uh it was really good.

Aubrey
03:48
Yeah.

Peter
03:49
Did a lot of fun things there, saw a lot of neat stuff. uh went to the musical, went to the opera, went to Stonehenge, um you know, checked out Windsor Castle, Oxford, and then just a whole bunch of things around central London.

04:04
Uh also went out, enjoyed the rest is history festival. It was very interesting.

Aubrey
04:08
Cool, cool.

Peter
04:08
It was good. And then, you know, been back for a little over, uh, it'll be almost, I guess, two weeks come this Tuesday. We had some misadventures with our travel, both there and back.

Aubrey
04:21
Yeah.

Peter
04:21
Um, you know, flight out got cancelled and delayed a day because of a sick pilot. Flight back got canceled by KLM and so had to scramble to find another flight to get us back, but it worked out. It worked out. We made it home And uh yeah, just been getting back into the groove of it, back into work, uh celebrating my my half-century birthday and and your mom and I being married for 28 years now.

Aubrey
04:43
Mm-hmm

04:48
Yep.

Peter
04:48
Which is kind of a long time. It's kind of crazy when we think about it. So

Aubrey
04:52
Yeah, that is pretty crazy. Yeah, I remember seeing mom's location still being in like Minneapolis. overnight when you guys had supposed to be already left and I was like, Did you guys stay in Minneapolis, St. Paul for the night? And she was like, flight got delayed twenty-four hours.

Peter
05:07
Yep.

Aubrey
05:09
So I was like, oh no

Peter
05:09
It's Yeah, so we got to bum around the Mall of America toting our suitcases behind us as we wandered around.

Aubrey
05:17
Yep. There you go

Peter
05:19
Um, but you know, it all worked out. It was fine. We had a great trip. It was very cool.

Aubrey
05:26
Good, I'm glad.

Peter
05:26
So And then uh been having fun the last couple days, something I'll share briefly.

Aubrey
05:28
Very good.

Peter
05:31
I have made a new app. And by I, I mean I told Claude.

Aubrey
05:34
Oh

Peter
05:39
code uh using the Fable model, which I think maybe goes away from people today. So I was like, oh, I want to hurry and get this in with Fable while I can.

Aubrey
05:45
Yes. Yep

Peter
05:49
Uh but so there is an app for Apple TV and iPads and stuff and everything called Coax. And it's kind of a cool idea, basically. You point it at your Plex or Jellyfin or MB Media Library. You sign in, it it connects there. And then what it will do is it'll look at your library and create like a a pseudo live TV channels from your library. So it has like a whole guide and everything where it's like

Aubrey
06:16
Okay. Yeah.

Peter
06:19
Here's the animation channel, here's the this channel, or and it'll do the same thing with your movies and stuff and create channels.

Aubrey
06:24
Yeah.

Peter
06:25
And so the idea that you can just go and set out on there and it's like you're just watching TV, it's just You'll start it maybe in the middle of a show, and then when that show's done, it'll just play a different show or a different movie or whatever.

Aubrey
06:33
Yeah

06:37
Yeah, that's cool.

Peter
06:38
And I was like, that's kind of fun. And then I was like, I wonder.

Aubrey
06:41
Yeah

Peter
06:43
I could I bet you I could do the same thing with music. So Claude Fable and I created Plex FM.

Aubrey
06:48
Yeah

Peter
06:52
where it goes and it looks at my media library, looks at the genre like the style or what style is the term that Plex uses for basically genre tags. uses the style tags and then we can apply mood tags to it. And so I have both AM and FM radio. On the FM bands, it's all different specific stations.

07:18
So it starts with decade stations. So the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s.

Aubrey
07:20
Uh huh.

Peter
07:25
And then it goes to genre stations. So it's like progressive metal, sludge metal, stoner metal, doom metal, death metal, all that kind of stuff.

Aubrey
07:28
Okay, mm-hmm, mm-hmm

Peter
07:35
And then at on the FM band, it's actually mood stations. So it's much more nebulous.

Aubrey
07:40
Okay

Peter
07:41
There's one at the very bottom that's called the Blender, which is literally all 30,000 tracks any one of them could play. At the very top, there's one called um oh gosh, what is the top one called now? I'm blanking on it. Anyway, the one at the top actually programmatically picks music based on mood, depending on the time of day.

Aubrey
08:02
Oh, fine, that's fun.

Peter
08:03
So it's like so it's like these three hours it'll pick this songs tagged with this mood and then this and then this and this.

Aubrey
08:08
Mm-hmm

Peter
08:10
And then throughout it's a whole bunch of just different mood uh stations, so stuff like um oh and we get little hiss in between as we're adjusting the the dial so

Aubrey
08:23
Nice.

Peter
08:27
Uh, but yeah, we've got we've got stuff like, let's see, I'll tell ya so

Aubrey
08:28
Oh, that's cool

Peter
08:34
We've got The Blender, The Abyss, Warpath, Night Signal, Grand Theater, Slowburn, Catharsis, Iron Temple. That's the workout one. uh flow state ignition summit dive bar gray skies the veil and the signal so

Aubrey
08:50
Very good.

Peter
08:52
I've been working on that, gone through a lot of different iterate iterations, don't even know how many different versions I've pushed through But uh now I've got it finally built.

Aubrey
09:00
Yeah.

Peter
09:03
Like I had Fable look at it, look for bugs, then I had Cloud, I had uh ChatGPT Codex set it on Sol.

Aubrey
09:09
Mm-hmm.

Peter
09:09
their highest level, had it look at it and make some suggestions and everything. Then actually fed those suggestions back into Fable and I said, hey, here's what Codec suggested. And Fable's like, okay, yeah, there's some good ideas.

09:21
Let's implement these ones and then these ones. And so we went ahead and we implemented all of those. Um, and I think I got a pretty solid app now that is like live radio. So you go to a ch station and it's gonna be somewhere in the middle of that song, like it was already playing.

Aubrey
09:31
That's so cool.

09:36
That's so cool.

Peter
09:38
And then it will just go and then play from there.

Aubrey
09:39
That is so cool.

Peter
09:41
Um, and just like play non-stop.

Aubrey
09:41
Yeah, yeah.

Peter
09:43
There is no like you can pause the station, but there is no skip, there is no back, there is no forward, there's a history So if I want to go in and see what I s what was playing and like be like, oh, what was that song? Like I can see that, but yeah, there's no skip, there's no nothing.

09:57
It's

Aubrey
09:57
That's so cool

Peter
09:57
It's just like kinda like live radio. You put it on and it'll be whatever's playing and then it's just gonna just gonna keep playing.

Aubrey
10:03
Yeah, that's awesome. I love that.

Peter
10:06
So I built it and then and then deployed like got it on iPad and on the ma on the iPhone and have a Mac version running and stuff.

Aubrey
10:06
That's so cool. Fun little project.

Peter
10:15
And then the last thing I did this morning is I went and I said, okay, we've built this for me, but now what if I want to share it with other people who have pleques?

Aubrey
10:15
Nice.

Peter
10:25
And it was like, okay, we'll just let's make these changes and then it will start. It won't look it just it'll look for them and all this kind of stuff. So I think I basically now have it to a point where I can totally share it with other people who use Plex and they can check it out.

Aubrey
10:40
That's so cool.

Peter
10:40
So yeah, I'm gonna see if Eden wants to use it because I know Eden has Plex set up.

Aubrey
10:41
I love that. Very fun. Yeah.

Peter
10:46
So, but yeah, that's kind of what I've been up to lately, just having uh having fun playing around with it. But you had an idea for a topic for us, so why don't you introduce it, Aubrey?

Aubrey
10:56
Yeah, I just thought we could do kind of a fun a fun one um where we can talk about some career paths or the what we wanted to be when we grew up, um, ideas we had as kids or teenagers, anything we thought we wanted to do with our lives as a career path. Um and what ended up not working out. Obviously I'm not necessarily locked into any career at the moment, so it's not like I'm really have one locked in either, but I just thought it could be fun.

Peter
11:24
And I, on the other hand, am super locked in.

Aubrey
11:27
Extremely locked in, super duper locked in.

Peter
11:29
To the point that it would be kind of catastrophic if I decided to do so to make major changes.

Aubrey
11:30
No choice

11:35
Yes, exactly, exactly.

Peter
11:38
So would you want to start with something?

Aubrey
11:38
Um Yeah. Yeah, I'll start with some I'll start with a fun one. This one was Kind of I didn't know I was young enough I didn't know how this would actually come to pass, I guess. But I really actually wanted to be like a spy. Like the closest thing to a g to a government spy that you could be like a CIA agent or something like that.

Peter
11:58
Okay. Okay

Aubrey
12:06
Um, I would go to like the scholastic book fairs that we'd have at school and they would have all those fun little How to be a spy handbook and it's like has fake and like invisible ink you can write messages with and like all these little pages you draw, the gadgets you'd wanna have, and I was obsessed with spy gadgets and everything.

12:33
So when I started watching Mission Impossible That kind of was half of why I'm obsessed with Mission Impossible is because it has all of those things I wanted so badly as a kid.

Peter
12:37
There you go. There you go.

12:45
Very good. That's awesome. I love that.

Aubrey
12:48
Yeah, I genuinely would pretend in the backyard I remember in the New Hampshire house that I was a spy and I would like jump try and pretend to jump from like the trees to like pretend like I was sneaking into some building and It yeah, I it was full full immersion and the Backyard again's episode, International Super Spy

Peter
13:10
Oh yeah, International Super Spy.

Aubrey
13:13
My favorite one. My favorite one. All the little gadgets he has, the hot dog phone, the little laser cut out the side of the wall so you can get in. Yeah. I loved it all, so that was definitely one.

Peter
13:24
Very nice. So so then the question is, what dissuaded you from from that path?

Aubrey
13:27
But what's one you

13:33
Um, then I realized I didn't want to be a spy for the US government, really.

Peter
13:37
Yeah. Yeah.

Aubrey
13:40
So yeah.

Peter
13:41
Yeah, we'll just leave it at that.

Aubrey
13:43
We'll just leave it at that.

Peter
13:44
We'll just leave it at that.

Aubrey
13:45
Yep.

Peter
13:46
Very good.

Aubrey
13:47
What about you?

Peter
13:47
Well, the the the earliest one I remember is like many little boys, especially

Aubrey
13:52
Mm-hmm.

Peter
13:56
I in my age range, kind of my my bracket, uh space shuttle launches were a fairly common occurrence, and we would watch them live during school.

Aubrey
14:09
Yeah, yeah.

Peter
14:12
Which also included the horror of the Challenger disaster, which was live on TV in school when we were all watching it and it was so exciting because here's a teacher going to space and and then that was no longer the case.

Aubrey
14:23
Yeah.

Peter
14:28
Uh so it was very traumatizing.

Aubrey
14:29
Mm-hmm.

Peter
14:31
But because of that I of course wanted to be an astronaut.

Aubrey
14:35
Mm-hmm.

Peter
14:35
I wanted to be an astronaut and I had we had a great

Aubrey
14:36
Yep.

Peter
14:42
Super awesome principal. I still remember his name. I'm gonna call him out because he was a piece of crap, Mr. Lewis. He um

14:55
I I had to go to the nurse's office one recess because I had gotten on the uh the big wheel the big toy, right? And it had the the hanging wheel swing that you could spin and everything.

Aubrey
15:04
Yeah

Peter
15:08
And I'd gotten on there and one of my friends thought it'd be funny to spin me really, really fast a lot, and I was nauseated. And I went to the nurse's office and Mr. Lewis sees me there and comes in, it's like, Oh, why are you in the nurse's office? And I'm like, Oh, I'm gonna sick on the big toy and he's like, I thought you wanted to be an astronaut. You'll never cut it as an astronaut if you get sick on the big toy. And turns around and walks out.

Aubrey
15:31
And how old are you?

Peter
15:32
Oh, this is like second or third grade, probably. So like seven.

Aubrey
15:37
Like eight, yeah, seven or eight years old.

Peter
15:38
Seven, eight years old. Yeah. Yeah.

Aubrey
15:41
Wow, way to crush a kid's dreams.

Peter
15:44
Yeah, so I mean it did crush my dreams, gave me second thoughts, so I decided, well, I guess I'm not an astronaut.

Aubrey
15:50
Yikes. That's so sad

Peter
15:54
You know, there's worse things, I suppose.

Aubrey
15:57
Yeah, that's true.

Peter
15:57
What else? What about you? What's something else?

Aubrey
15:59
Um another one I had was this one is like Super, super young, didn't understand the concept of a career, but like uh what I wanted to be when I grew up. Um, I wanted to be Ariel, the little mermaid, when I grew up.

Peter
16:14
Yep, yes you did. Yes, yes you did.

Aubrey
16:16
Um I still a little bit wish I could be a mermaid. Um and I tell my kids at work sometimes that when I get in the pool I t like my legs turn into a mermaid tail, but li they're just never they're just never paying attention so they never see it when we're in the pool.

Peter
16:31
Okay.

Aubrey
16:31
Um, but I conveniently tell them after the fact and I'm like, Well didn't did you not just see like I had a mermaid tail in the pool? And they're like Miss Aubrey, no you didn't. And I'm like, well you didn't even see, like you weren't paying attention.

Peter
16:41
That's funny.

Aubrey
16:44
Like, it's okay. You were having fun. You just didn't see my mermaid tail. You'll have to pay attention next time. And then the day of the swim trip they'll be like, Okay, I'm gonna watch, like, Fur Your Mermaid Tale today and I'm like, Okay, you can watch. It's pink. Like you can't miss it if you look for it. You really can't And then we get in the pool and they completely forget and then that just goes around every week and I think it's really funny.

Peter
17:03
That's funny. That's funny. I like that. I like that.

Aubrey
17:07
Um so yeah, I really wanted to be Ariel the Little Mermaid. Of course, there's a bunch of things wrong with the story in of itself because she's like what 13 or something like that.

Peter
17:15
I mean, if you go back to the original story, like so many of them, it is problematic.

Aubrey
17:16
Um

17:22
It's extremely problematic, but and even the Disney animated version, she's still sixteen

Peter
17:29
Yeah, very problematic as well.

Aubrey
17:31
So still extremely problematic, but I just wanted to be the little mermaid. And I would always call her like like seashell, like bra, her seashells, not her bra.

Peter
17:36
Yeah, mm-hmm.

Aubrey
17:42
Um, I was like, well I would want to have purple seashells, but I would want my seashells to actually cover my whole stomach, is what I would say as a kid.

Peter
17:50
Ah, there you go.

Aubrey
17:51
So I would always say I'd want the full seashell. Coverage, which is so funny. Um, so yeah, that's that's another one. What about you?

Peter
18:00
Very good. Well, after I was then dissuaded summarily from being an astronaut because I got sick on the big toy, I still was fascinated with space. So I decided I wanted to then instead of being an astronaut, I wanted to be an astronomer or an astronomer.

Aubrey
18:10
Mm-hmm

18:15
Uh huh.

Peter
18:17
So I started um I I started the Young Astronomers Club.

Aubrey
18:17
Yep, yep. Very cool.

Peter
18:24
in in elementary school and the young astronomer's newsletter. The young astronomer's newsletter was me finding space related um

18:35
Finding space-related entries in Warren Petty's Encyclopædia Britannica, and then copying them down by hand on a piece of paper so we could hand them out to ts to people.

Aubrey
18:49
Oh my gosh, that's adorable.

Peter
18:51
Uh yeah, I wanted to be I was always fascinated with space, so I wanted to be an astronomer for Uh pretty much probably almost all of elementary school. I honestly thought that maybe that I wanted to be an astronomer because it was sciencey and I liked science and it was space and I liked space. I don't know what really dissuaded me other than just sort of kind of reaching a point going, eh, I don't know how realistic of a career that is. Um

19:22
So yeah, eventually that one just kind of faded uh by the time I was getting into junior high or middle school.

Aubrey
19:27
Yeah.

Peter
19:30
But uh but yeah, it was very much space focused for a while

Aubrey
19:31
Yeah

19:34
Yeah, which is funny 'cause then there's me and I've popped out and lived it out.

Peter
19:37
You you lived out my childhood dream.

Aubrey
19:40
Yeah

Peter
19:41
It's true, you did.

Aubrey
19:42
Yeah.

Peter
19:42
You did.

Aubrey
19:43
Um yeah, my my next one, I guess chronologically, after I wanted to be a spy, and I realized that I didn't really want to actually do that as a career. Um In eighth grade, we did uh I think it was the first kind of government class that we had.

Peter
20:05
Okay.

Aubrey
20:06
So we did like a mock Congress and stuff like that. And I really wanted to be a lawyer or a politician.

Peter
20:13
Okay.

Aubrey
20:15
Um, because I was really good at arguing.

Peter
20:18
Sure.

Aubrey
20:19
during the mock congress.

Peter
20:21
Yeah, I can see that.

Aubrey
20:22
Um and figuring out like we of course came up with a bill And would try and get the bill passed. And of course our eighth grade teacher was the president, so he could veto it if he wanted. Um and it was very fun to like come up with little intricacies of the bill and how we can tweak things here and there to get the Senate to pass it and stuff like that. Um And I thought I would be really good at it. And it was super interesting. And there's still a little part of me that thinks law school could be really cool. Um, but I like space too much to

Peter
20:59
Yeah.

Aubrey
21:00
leave.

Peter
21:01
Yeah. I don't blame ya.

Aubrey
21:02
Um yeah.

Peter
21:03
I don't blame ya.

Aubrey
21:04
And I didn't I I realized being a politician was definitely not something I wanted to Become Yeah, and that one's a little self-explanatory as well.

Peter
21:14
I can also understand that one. So

Aubrey
21:20
What's funny though is that in the mock congress We would like be able to come up with bills to try and pass and they let us do some crazy stuff back then.

Peter
21:31
Like like what? I'm curious.

Aubrey
21:34
Like a physician assisted suicide, legal or not, in eighth grade

Peter
21:38
Sure, sure. Yeah, that's it's an intense topic for eighth graders.

Aubrey
21:43
Intense topic. And I think abortion was there somewhere.

Peter
21:47
Okay

Aubrey
21:47
Um funding for Plant Parenthood was there somewhere. Um I was like, wow, I didn't really I mean no one was getting in like crazy arguments because we're like in eighth grade, none of us really know anything anyways. But eighth grade was the year of Doom, uh twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen.

Peter
22:11
Yeah, that's true.

Aubrey
22:12
Um

Peter
22:13
So Yeah.

Aubrey
22:14
So Orange Man's first election. So things started to get s heated up around that time.

Peter
22:22
Yeah, that makes sense.

Aubrey
22:22
So I'm sure that now in their mock congresses, they probably don't do those any like super controversial topics these days.

Peter
22:32
Can't say I blame him.

Aubrey
22:33
But

Peter
22:34
Can't say I blame him.

Aubrey
22:35
Yeah. Anyway, what's another one for ya?

Peter
22:36
So a very short-lived one In eighth grade for honors English, we had to do a career research report and presentation. And at this point, I'd kind of gotten over the astronomer thing, uh, and somebody made the suggestion, well, you like science, you're good at science, you're good at math, what about engineering? And I thought, okay. So I did a research paper on electrical engineering. And I went into it.

Aubrey
23:09
Electrical

Peter
23:10
Yep. I went into it thinking, oh, this'll be really cool.

23:15
This will be fascinating. And by the time it was ready for me to turn in that report, I was like, Abso frickin' Lutly not. That sounds boring as crap.

Aubrey
23:24
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Peter
23:29
So, so very short-lived. Again, from the time of the research project being assigned to the time of me going absolutely not was the length of the research project itself.

Aubrey
23:41
Yeah, and there you go. That's super fair.

Peter
23:43
Yeah. Yeah, didn't take much, didn't take much.

Aubrey
23:45
Um

23:47
Yeah, definitely. Electrical engineering is definitely the worst one for you to have picked as a research paper.

Peter
23:54
Yeah.

Aubrey
23:54
Electrical specifically. Or no, civil, maybe.

Peter
23:59
Yeah, I don't think any of them really would be my jam, but I don't know remember why I picked electrical engineering because it was

Aubrey
24:02
Yeah, fair enough.

Peter
24:05
a long time ago. But um yeah, it was very much not for me.

Aubrey
24:08
Fair enough.

24:12
Yeah, super fair. Um my next ones, kind of again, a little bit chronologically, getting into high school was where I started to do want to get into healthcare. things and I did kind of bounce from types of healthcare things. Um I went first to really wanting to be a pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon.

Peter
24:43
I remember that. I do remember that

Aubrey
24:46
And Hayden's Hayden's laughing because it's like the meme I feel like I feel like you follow the same meme page on Instagram, but like when you think of a really pretentious doctor, you always make fun of them and say they're a pedia pediatric cardiothoracic neurosurgeon.

Peter
25:04
Yep.

Aubrey
25:04
Like, you know, you just keep collecting fellowships.

Peter
25:04
I was gonna say y well, that's the thing is is you hit neurosurgery and cardiac c of any kind and you have peak pretension covered. Now you can fill in some little gaps, but but that covers about 98% of your just like absolutely disgusting, obnoxious, pretentious doctor stereotype right there.

Aubrey
25:26
Yeah. Just got the worst.

Peter
25:29
Yeah, really.

Aubrey
25:29
Yeah. And then I just had to throw pediatric on front in front because there wasn't enough words.

Peter
25:35
Yeah, totally.

Aubrey
25:35
um to to name it. Um I also just think this and this is probably bad of me, but I just think adults are really whiny. Um so I knew that I didn't want to deal with adults in healthcare. I wanted to be with kids

Peter
25:48
And see, I knew I didn't want to deal with kids because parents are pains in the ass

Aubrey
25:49
So, I think that's a good idea.

26:02
a children's hospital. It was never the kids that were the problem.

Peter
26:06
No, it's the parents

Aubrey
26:07
It's never the kids. Like of course there's a few like you know tough kids here and there but their kids are having a hard time. It's really hard for them to be developing and learning emotional regulation while also feeling extremely sick and horribly miserable. But those are not the problems. It is the parents that are the problem.

Peter
26:30
Yep.

Aubrey
26:32
So yeah.

Peter
26:33
Yep.

Aubrey
26:34
Yep.

26:35
But then I'll do my quick bounce. I bounced from that pediath pediatric cardiothoracic surgery to just wanting to be an NP, probably still in like pediatrics somewhere.

Peter
26:49
Okay.

Aubrey
26:50
Um 'cause that was gonna be more or a less schooling, of course, but kind of as close as you

Peter
26:56
Mm-hmm.

Aubrey
27:00
wanna get 'cause you can still, you know, do surgery stuff, um, being an NP. And that was what I really wanted to do was surgery stuff, not just

Peter
27:10
Yeah.

Aubrey
27:12
the cl other clinical stuff. So yeah, so then I pivoted to that. But what's another one for you?

Peter
27:18
Um, I mean, somewhere between finishing that research project in eighth grade and in ninth grade, I Y my cousin, who was a year older than me, who we spent a lot of time together, he had decided that he wanted to be a doctor. And I thought to myself,

Aubrey
27:38
Mm-hmm.

Peter
27:40
Well, if he can do it, I can do it. So I'm gonna do it too. And so then by the time ninth grade rolled around, I decided I was gonna be a doctor.

Aubrey
27:45
All right.

27:49
Yeah.

Peter
27:50
And there we go

Aubrey
27:53
Is he a doctor?

Peter
27:53
So ninth grade. Oh he no, he part-time teaches philosophy classes and then has like a decorative curbing business.

Aubrey
28:03
Oh right. Is this Oh, I know yeah, it's Jeff.

Peter
28:05
This is Jeff.

Aubrey
28:07
It's Jeff, I know.

Peter
28:08
Yeah.

Aubrey
28:08
Yeah. Okay. Yep.

Peter
28:09
Yeah, so so i uh our paths diverged.

Aubrey
28:10
Cool

Peter
28:14
He thought he wanted to do that for a while and then changed his mind, and I just Wasn't very creative and stuck with it.

Aubrey
28:22
There you go. Um yeah, after I decided I wanted to be an NP, then I got to like senior year of high school. and decided, no, I actually want to go full throttle back to pediatric cardiothoracic surgery. Um, which is funny. But then then when I started working on the neurotrauma unit, and obviously brains are very scary in a different way. uh then hearts hearts are also very scary but in a different way than the brain is in my opinion um and then I started to know like learn more about

Peter
28:57
Yeah, totally.

Aubrey
29:03
the brain and the disorders and diseases and things that happen with the brain And I almost started leaning to maybe I want to go neurosurgery, but then I got to know the neurosurgeons. on the unit, and I decided I don't want to be you at all.

Peter
29:27
Plus, y you did want to at some point actually finish residency and graduate before you were, you know.

Aubrey
29:32
Right, exactly.

Peter
29:34
Ready to retire.

Aubrey
29:34
Forty five?

Peter
29:35
I mean that's always the joke, is that's like neurosurgeons graduate and then immediately start like planning retirement.

Aubrey
29:36
Yeah, exactly.

29:43
Yep, yep, and they there were a few of the neurosurgeons There were I think there was three or f four, I want to say just three, um, at the hospital. Um one of them was so socially Awkward. I mean they were all socially awkward of different levels, of course. I'm not saying any of them were like normal in social situations. I would never say that. But um one of them was so awkward. I heard this one interaction where he goes to this little adorable cancer patient we had.

30:26
Um and He doesn't say hi hello how are you to the parents. He says, Would you mind if I had a couple vials of her blood? I really want to research it. That was just the first thing he said. And I was like, hi, Dr. So-and-so. Um how can I help you?

Peter
30:47
Yeah.

Aubrey
30:49
Um, and I think I think he might have met those parents at least one time before, but I think this was the first time he had seen them this hospital stay.

Peter
30:49
Yeah, I I

Aubrey
31:00
So there still needs to be like a hi, how are you before the before go into the can I have some of your daughter's bodily fluids? I would like to research them.

Peter
31:10
Sure, yeah. I I mean, I will say I have Known numerous neurosurgeons over my career. Not a single one of them is normal.

Aubrey
31:26
Yeah.

Peter
31:27
Great, you know, great doctors, very smart, incredibly intelligent, skilled people.

Aubrey
31:31
Yep. Mm hmm.

Peter
31:33
All of them. A little weird. And I mean we're all weird, but they're more weird than the rest of us.

Aubrey
31:36
Yeah. Yeah. But they're they're quite weird. You have to have the certain flavor of weird to go through all of all of that schooling and that particular that just particular flavor of healthcare just requires an extreme weirdo.

Peter
31:46
Yeah.

31:51
Yeah, it's a it is it is a unique sort of something, so um

Aubrey
31:52
Um I think

31:57
Yeah. Um, but I did want to ask, did you have other specialties that you wanted to do before urology?

Peter
32:04
Yeah. Yeah, so in college and undergrad, I started volunteering first and then started working full time. in the operating room at Logan Regional Hospital and thought that I I was convinced going into medical school that I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon. When I tell that to people who work in healthcare, they laugh loudly in my face. Because I am not an orthopedic surgeon personality.

Aubrey
32:37
No. You do, I will say this, and this is a compliment. You do look like you could be an orthopedic surgeon.

Peter
32:43
Yeah, yeah, I totally do.

Aubrey
32:44
You look like you could be. Like you look like you could walk in and be like, Alright, bro, hey, hell, how you feeling?

Peter
32:49
Bro,

Aubrey
32:52
I know you hence spinal surgery yesterday, but oh it's five thirty. Oh and we woke up everyone on the unit? Alright, I'm gonna leave.

Peter
33:01
Yeah.

Aubrey
33:01
But then but then you do speak and immediately it's no you're not our speed surgery.

Peter
33:06
Yeah. So I thought for sure I wanted to do that. Um and then what happened is I did a two-week elective rotation on orthopedic surgery while I was doing my surgery rotation during my first clinical year of medical school. And I came home the first day and I remember your mom just like looking at me. And say n she said to me, she said, What's wrong? And I said to her, I hate it I hate everything about it. I hate them. It's horrible.

33:43
They're the most awful people I've worked with in my my years as medic as a like a medical student.

Aubrey
33:51
Mm-hmm.

Peter
33:51
Like and and and uh I remember saying to your mom, I don't want to be like them. And I don't think it's realistic for me to say I'm gonna spend five years in a residency surrounded by this toxic environment.

Aubrey
34:06
And not end up like that a little

Peter
34:06
of of and not have that change me in ways I don't want to be changed. And so then I we had our lecture in that on that same rotation from the from one of the urologists and he was talking about the robot that they use and at the time urology was pretty much the only specialty that was a that was really regularly using the Da Vinci surgical robot.

Aubrey
34:33
Oh, okay, interesting.

Peter
34:34
Um others, you know, a lot of others have now jumped on it obviously, but before Many years it was predominantly urology who had embraced it and was using it. And part of that is just because we so it really comes down to the prostate.

Aubrey
34:45
And why is that, yeah?

Peter
34:50
The prostate is fairly small and it is completely buried. It's down in the pelvis and you've got to move stuff to get to it and you have very little working room. So when you were doing when we were doing open prostate surgery, you could either look at what you wanted to do or put your hand down there and do something, but you couldn't do them both at the same time. You couldn't see what you were doing.

Aubrey
35:14
You could not see and feel, yeah.

Peter
35:16
You would look and go, okay, I think I'm gonna do this. Then you'd reach down and you'd do something. Then you'd look and go, did I do that? And and so it's just anatomically in a difficult place.

Aubrey
35:23
Yikes

Peter
35:26
And so it started with that and then it expanded to a lot of our other kind of intra-abdominal reconstructive things like pyloplastes.

Aubrey
35:32
Yeah.

Peter
35:33
or partial nephrectomies where we're taking a tumor out of a kidney but leaving the rest of the kidney and you've got to be able to have fine control to do that.

35:41
And so it very, very nicely adapted to the the procedures that we were doing laparoscopically or made it so we could do these open procedures much more minimally invasive. And other people eventually again other specialties have caught on and they use it for a lot of things now. Uh but for many, many years, and I'm sure that there's more data and it's changed, but but really for at least a decade or two almost. All of the data said, hey, the only place where robotic surgery actually improves outcomes and cuts down operative times and stuff like that. is robotic prostatectomy, robotic partial nephrectomy, and robotic pyloplasty. The rest of them, hysterectomies, colon resections, stuff like that, they were just like, eh, it doesn't really.

Aubrey
36:24
Okay.

Peter
36:28
There's a lot of neat hernia stuff that the general surgeons are doing and a lot of other things that they've expanded now where I'm sure it fits in.

Aubrey
36:34
Yeah

Peter
36:35
But yeah, so I was really interested in that.

36:37
Again, I like technology and so Urology, and the more I started looking into it, urology often is one of the leaders. In terms of adopting new technologies and adapting them to our workflows.

Aubrey
36:52
Yeah.

Peter
36:54
And so that was interesting. And then the more I started looking into it, I thought, actually, I think this will be a really good fit for me. um much less toxic environment. Yes, there are toxic urologists, but on the whole, the the stereotype of neurosurgery, or orthopaedic surgery, or general surgery Those are all stereotypes for a reason, because like 80% plus of the time, in my experience, they're fairly accurate. And the stereotype of most urologists is that we don't take ourselves nearly as seriously and that it's I don't know, we just l we have more of a sense of humor, we laugh more.

Aubrey
37:22
Mm-hmm.

Peter
37:32
Part of it probably has to do with the fact that our call is not nearly as brutal as theirs because so many of the things that happen on call can be uh tucked in by the medicine team and we can address the acute issue the next day or something like that.

Aubrey
37:44
Mm-hmm.

Peter
37:47
So um so there's a lot of reasons why I think it was a good fit for me just from a personality standpoint, as well as I think it's fascinating. I I love the balance of medicine and surgery. So, you know, I have two clinic days or three clinic days a week, two surgery days. I like the surgeries, everything from really quick, small little five-minute things up to, you know, hours-long reconstructive or complex cancer surgeries. Uh but in I also like the fact that I follow my patients long term. Uh for example, if someone has bladder cancer, kidney cancer, prostate cancer. Whatever. I am their cancer doctor going forward as well. We get medical oncology involved in rare circumstances, but most of the time long long term.

Aubrey
38:32
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Peter
38:39
The urologist is the one who's doing their their observation, their uh surveillance, making sure that everything looks good Uh a lot of the diseases that we deal with are chronic diseases. So kidney stones, people are gonna keep making them. So we're following that up trying to prevent them. BPH is something that progresses over time. So generally just becomes more of an issue. Um And so I I have patients who I've seen for over a decade. And in some cases, especially some of my kidney stone patients, unfortunately. Despite our best efforts, I've done a half dozen surgeries for kidney stones on them over the years.

39:18
But uh it was It was looking at orthopaedic surgery, the personalities, the, at least where I was in medical school, the aggressive anti-intellectualism. uh where it was like we don't we don't think about learn or anything other than just bone make bone straight And I'm like, I'm spending way too much time and energy to learn some of these principles of physiology and medicine to just be like, oh, make straight, take picture, give hammer, you know? But that was kind of what it was, and of course I'm exaggerating, but it wasn't a good fit for me.

Aubrey
39:52
Yeah.

Peter
39:58
And urology has been a really good fit for me, so

Aubrey
39:58
Yeah.

40:01
Yeah, there you go. Um I do remember you saying you really enjoyed some of the like vast Vascular like the vascular rotation you did besides the fact of the patients being so sick and just gonna die

Peter
40:14
Yeah. I mean, in terms of the sickness, I remember telling the uh some medical students when I was an intern on vascular surgery, I handed them our long list of patients and I just said now just understand Every person on this list has one goal today, and that is to die, and our goal is to stop that. Um, I no, I had a great experience with vascular and part of it was because the other medical students who were on surgery at the same time as me were too chicken. to do the vascular part. So they were like, can we do the trauma part and you'll do the vascular part? And I said, sure. And I think I'm I I'm a

Aubrey
40:52
So what's the what is that what do you mean? Like you're just doing the vascular part and they're handling the trauma? Like what they handle the trauma when it comes in and then you do the long term?

Peter
41:01
Well, so so there was like three of us well there were like three of us who were put on They clustered them together. It was like vascular and trauma. And theoretically we were supposed to do two weeks of each. Uh, but they were like, Hey, can we just stay on trauma and you'll stay on vascular? And I was having a great time and I was doing a lot of stuff. And so I was like, Yeah, absolutely, sure. I got along really well with the vascular attendings because I worked hard. I tried to make sure I knew what was going on.

Aubrey
41:26
Yeah

Peter
41:28
I got involved.

41:29
Like I'd ask, hey, can I do this? And I would show up to the cases early and I would be involved and And so I got to do a lot more than most of my medical school colleagues did. In fact, there was a whole kerfuffle at some point with bad behavior by one of my medical school colleagues. Not shocking for the type of people I went to school with. But the result was the mandate came down from the operating room leadership that medical students were only allowed to observe and hold retractors. And Dr. McCann, the vascular surgeon who I would mostly worked with, uh, was like, I mean, he he made a line on this leg and was like, told me to cut. And the nurse is like, oh, excuse me, Dr. McCann, he's not allowed to And he didn't say anything.

42:12
He just looked back at me and he's like, Do it. So I did it. We did the whole case and I did a lot of cutting and a lot of sewing and all this stuff. And in between cases, we were at the scrub sink scrubbing in for the next one. And he just Doesn't even turn to me, he's just scrubbing his hands and he says, I've talked to the powers that be. You can do anything in the operating room that I say you can do. And so for like the next couple months, I'd been the only medical student who got to do anything other than just retract, but it was cause he trusted me and like I I mean, I'm like closing these, you know, two foot long incisions and a leg on my own, where he and the fellow were going off to start another case in another room.

Aubrey
42:51
Oh, geez.

Peter
42:51
And the rest of the medical students are just like watching and they could hold retractors.

42:56
And I'm in there alone closing this huge incision.

Aubrey
42:57
Yeah.

Peter
43:00
And the nurse is like, what suture would you like? And I was like, um What suture would I like? And she was like, I think you would like a two-o Vicarl. And I said, I think you are correct. That's exactly what I would like. Then she'd give me a 2-o Vicarl and I'd use that. And then she'd be like, I think you would like this. And I was like, I would like that.

43:19
And then the next time now I knew what to ask for.

Aubrey
43:22
Right.

Peter
43:22
So, you know?

Aubrey
43:22
You're like, yep, you took those right out of my mouth. I was definitely gonna say that one.

Peter
43:26
Yeah. So I I really did. I enjoyed it, but uh way more sick patients than I wanted to be dealing with and uh just it's cool but it's not for me.

Aubrey
43:40
Yeah.

Peter
43:41
So

Aubrey
43:41
Yeah. That's super fair. Um I had one that um I forgot to mention earlier, which is funny because we talked a lot about how you uh enjoyed space, but I also had a little thing there where I wanted to be an astronaut specifically.

Peter
43:58
Yeah

Aubrey
43:58
Um where I I think it was in maybe middle school where I would go outside in the backyard and just like lay on the trampoline and look at the stars before bed. Um and I'd look at like random stars not even knowing what they were and I'd be like, I'm gonna go there someday. Not knowing that it's like millions to billions of light years away

Peter
44:22
I'm gonna go there someday.

Aubrey
44:22
I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna g I'm gonna go there. But you know, we can all we can all dream.

44:29
Um, but I have always loved space, which is why when I was trying to decide what to do other than healthcare because I was like, I don't I cannot do this.

Peter
44:41
So you're like, F this crap.

Aubrey
44:43
I was like, I can't I can't do this. I don't want to be these people. I I can't do this. Um and I I did think about mechanical engineering for a second there, but the programs were all like five years at the U and I was already a year in and was like, I would like to still finish in four years.

Peter
45:00
Sure.

Aubrey
45:07
I don't want to be doing this for longer.

Peter
45:08
Right.

Aubrey
45:10
Um and then I had had the thought of astrophysics, but I was like, there's no way I'm good enough at math for that.

45:18
Like, there's no way I'm smart enough for that, basically. Um And then I thought about it a little more and I was like, well, if I am smart enough to be a surgeon, I think I could be smart enough to be an astrophysicist.

Peter
45:33
Yeah.

Aubrey
45:34
Um so here I am.

Peter
45:36
So here you are

Aubrey
45:38
So here I am, and I am, you know, first author, I don't know why, published of my an astrophysics paper. It's very cool.

Peter
45:48
Which is super awesome.

Aubrey
45:48
And yeah, now we're gonna go there. And it's funny because I was like, I don't want to ha have school be, you know, longer than the four years. I still want to be done. And now I'm like, I'll take five more years of grad school, please.

46:02
Um, as soon as possible.

Peter
46:03
Yeah. Yeah, it is

Aubrey
46:06
But it's just how it is.

Peter
46:08
It is how it is.

Aubrey
46:09
And in my In my year of not being in school I have realized how much I do miss school. So it's it's okay to like

Peter
46:16
Yeah.

Aubrey
46:19
Obviously I was sick of it and wanted to be done when I had been going to school nonstop since I was, I don't know, four, I guess, um, four years old.

Peter
46:22
Sure, sure. Right.

Aubrey
46:30
And I was like, yes, I would like to have a break. Now, having that break, I'm like, yeah, I think I am I am a student. I am student-minded. I would like to go back to school.

46:41
I enjoy it. I miss homework.

Peter
46:43
Yeah.

Aubrey
46:45
Which is funny to say.

Peter
46:46
There you go.

Aubrey
46:46
And a little cringe of me, but it's okay.

Peter
46:49
Nah, I totally get it.

Aubrey
46:50
It's okay.

Peter
46:50
When we were up touring Oxford and going around looking at the different colleges and stuff, I thought I I had this over overwhelming feeling there. I'm like, man, I wish I could just like learn full time.

Aubrey
47:04
Yeah. Full time.

Peter
47:05
Like, yeah, just let me learn stuff.

Aubrey
47:06
It's just so cool. It's just so fun. Yeah.

Peter
47:10
So I get up

Aubrey
47:11
You're just absorbing new information all day. It's just so cool.

Peter
47:14
Yeah.

Aubrey
47:16
Oh.

Peter
47:16
Uh uh, I totally get it.

Aubrey
47:17
Anyways. So that was fun.

Peter
47:19
Cool.

Aubrey
47:20
I liked hearing about all your little links.

Peter
47:20
That was that was fun I liked hearing about yours too. So we will go ahead and wrap it up here, but we'll be back in another couple of weeks with a different topic. And uh if you haven't uh subscribed and you're listening to this, please subscribe, share it with other people, leave us a star rating and a review. It really does make a difference, helping people, uh other people discover this And uh if you're checking it out uh because you've come from one of the social media posts or something, please sign up and listen. We think you'll enjoy it.

47:51
And until next time, bye

Aubrey
47:54
My