Aubrey
All right, welcome back to Generations. I am one of your hosts, Aubrey.

Peter
And I am your other host, Peter.

Aubrey
So, how's it going today, Dad? How are you?

Peter
Um, you know, it's okay. I, because of work, was awake for quite a few hours night before last. Which means as a deeply broken human being who needs to sleep more than I do, but my body Honestly, I will not let me sleep more than six to six and a half hours. So I didn't really catch up, and it takes me a couple of days to recover from that now.

Aubrey
Yikes. Yeah. That is super rough. Got our call in the middle of the night or something.

Peter
Yeah, we had an emergency surgery to go and do, and even though it was a quick surgery just because of how things move at one o'clock or two o'clock in the morning. It doesn't ever move as fast, and so it just took longer than I felt like it should have, but that's okay. Everyone was doing their best.

Aubrey
Good. Well, that's good.

Peter
But that's okay because as of seven o'clock tomorrow morning, I am off for almost 10 days, nine, ten days, not doing much, hanging around at home, working on a project.

Aubrey
That's good so far. Yes. Very good. Very good.

Peter
that we will discuss in a little bit today.

Aubrey
Uh-huh.

Peter
But one thing I did think actually was fun that I thought I'd let you know about and listeners, it is supposed to go live next Wednesday, the 16th. But the Incomparable, it's a podcast network that I listen to a number of their podcasts. It's a bunch of different things. Pop culture. There's what they call the incomparable mothership, which is sort of in a lot of ways was an inspiration for the middle of culture that Eden and I do. But one of their one of their recurring shows is just The Incomparable Game Show. And there's a lot of different games that people make up, and some that when they get together and they play some of these games, but one of the things they do is it's called Random Pursuit. And the host, Erika Ensign, she has twenty plus versions of Trivial Pursuit.

Aubrey
Oh, geez.

Peter
And including Check's trivia that came out back in the 80s with Czech Serial and all this stuff. And she just has stacks of cards. And she grabs a card, and you roll a six-sided dice, and you that determines which question on there. I was a guest on The Incomparable, The Incomparable Game Show.

Aubrey
Oh, wow, very nice.

Peter
So there is, yeah, there's a publication. It's called Uncanny Magazine. Unkenny Magazine is an independently operated online zine that is it is fantasy science fiction focused. There is an episode of The Middle of Culture where Eden and I read some of an issue and then talked about it. But in short, I support Uncanny Magazine. I'm a sucker. Intentionally so. And I support them via Patreon. So I pay them a little bit every month to be a supporter. But then every year they also do a Kickstarter campaign, and I kick in the Kickstarter campaign to support them as well. Because I think it's really cool what they do. I don't read it as much as I should. I aspirationally would read it more, but But I like what they do. They give a lot of up-and-coming authors, poets, creative people a place to get their work published. And there's a lot of focus on underrepresented voices. So again, as I think the parlance, and I hope I'm saying this right, I certainly do not mean to offend anyone, but as basically a cis white male, I am my voice is overrepresented in the world, dramatically so. And so anything that gives other voices a platform and a way to share their experience. Even if it's through fiction, but for me, again, as that cis white male, but for other people to look, here's the thing. And I don't mean to get, I don't know, deep this early into the podcast, but the truth of the matter is The longer I've been alive, the more I have come to appreciate that we become better people, more empathetic, when we are exposed to more world views.

Aubrey
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Peter
When we are insular, we get caught in that filter bubble. And we surround ourselves, if we surround ourselves by people whose religion and culture and beliefs and everything reinforce our own, then we never have to become become empathetic. We don't have to learn how to have empathy because All we're surrounded with is the exact same thing all the time. And I think that that's bad. I mean, again, one of the reasons that we paid a not inconsiderable amount of money for you guys to go to private school up through eighth grade was because while it was still far from truly diverse, there was more diversity in this private school than you were ever possibly going to see in a public school. And that was incredibly important to your mom and I.

Aubrey
Absolutely.

Peter
That while we were living in a very homogenous community. That we try and find, even if it was nothing more than it was a different religious teaching than what you were raised in.

Aubrey
Yeah.

Peter
And you were exposed to that because it was a religious school. You went to chapel, you sang their songs, you prayed with them, you did all those things.

Aubrey
Yep. Yep.

Peter
And we wanted you to be exposed to stuff that was different so that you could also hopefully learn that empathy.

Aubrey
Yeah.

Peter
And I think Uncanny Magazine serves as that.

Aubrey
Yeah.

Peter
You know, look, Brandon Sanderson.

Aubrey
That's awesome.

Peter
I like Brandon Sanderson a lot. Brandon Sanderson is a cis white Mormon dude from Utah. Like he's he's me, except just way, way richer. Um so So while I enjoy reading Brandon Sanderson's work, and I think that for the very white rice, white wonderbread person that he is.

Aubrey
Yeah.

Peter
I appreciate that he actively seems to try and get diversity. And, you know, his characters are diverse in terms of religion, and they aren't all. you know, heterosexual people. They aren't all binary gendered. They like hean gets that in there.

Aubrey
Yep.

Peter
But I also want exposure to that kind of stuff from people for whom that is their reality.

Aubrey
Right, right.

Peter
And I think Uncanny Magazine does that. So that's my sales pitch to say, people, the Uncanny Magazine Year 12 Kickstarter just started. You can go on Kickstarter. You can find it. You can support them. It's only been live for a few days, but they're over 50% funded. Uncanny Magazine isn one of those that every time it comes in, it's going to blow things away and get 4,000% in the first day.

Aubrey
Yeah. Right.

Peter
So, they need all the support they can get, and I love what they do. I respect it. And so, one of the options is you can support at a tier where you get to be a guest on the Incomparable Game Show.

Aubrey
Aww, that's awesome.

Peter
So that was what I did last year. This year, I made sure I got in. There were only two spots left when I kickstarted, but I kick-started that, so I'll be on it again next year.

Aubrey
Nice.

Peter
But I got to be on an episode of the incomparable game show playing Random Pursuit, which is a notoriously difficult game because it is so random. It's just all these different So it's not only the randomness of a single trivial pursuit card, but it's all the different. I mean, it's there's a the Marvel there's a Doctor Who version and a Star Trek version and Marvel and Lord of the Rings, Dungeons and Dragons.

Aubrey
Yeah.

Peter
All of the other, you know, the traditional ones, and then there's Disney and there's kids, and there's so I I won't spoil how I did.

Aubrey
Right. That's awesome. Uh-huh.

Peter
I was very terrified to look like a fool.

Aubrey
I bet, right.

Peter
But that was, that is supposed to be coming out. Erica said that the plan was it would get posted. in the Incomparables game show feed on the 16th, so hopefully next week, and then it will be live.

Aubrey
Nice. Yeah.

Peter
I have gone back and listened to the bootleg version of it because Since I'm a supporter of Incomparable, I get the bootleg feed. So, like, honestly, it was like 20 minutes after we'd finished, and it popped up in my podcast client. And I was like, well, okay, let's listen to this and see how dumb did I sound.

Aubrey
Wow, that's awesome.

Peter
Anyway, that was a long way for me to introduce what's going on in my life. But what is going on in your life, Aubrey?

Aubrey
Well, certainly less exciting at the moment. Um, with all the craziness that happened in, like, you know, May and just like my last semester of college. I it just has died down spectacularly where I just do a whole lot of nothing every day. Um, and most of the time it it is great. Like, I do feel like I'm getting a full break, so by the time I decide to go back to grad school, I will be, you know prepped. I'll get my I'll have my energy back, but I have just, you know, kind of had to pick up some some hobbies, to be honest. Um, which is a good thing. Um, I just have a lot of free time on my hands. I'm I've been s catching up on all the sleep that I have, you know, lost being in um, college and stuff.

Peter
I'm glad that you can.

Aubrey
Not that I really lost a ton, but yeah I really can.

Peter
I'm glad that your body will allow you to.

Aubrey
My body will allow me to. Um I yeah, I sleep like at least nine hours a night usually.

Peter
That's incredible.

Aubrey
Which is yeah, it's been fantastic.

Peter
I'm so happy for you.

Aubrey
Yeah, we've been exploring some of the fun things you can do out here because there's just So many lakes around, so there's lots of lake activities to do. We went kayaking for the 4th of July last week, which was fun.

Peter
Okay.

Aubrey
There was just this cute little place you could Just rent a kayak. It was like a self-serve thing. You just like pay on your phone, and then they give you the code to unlock the thing, and then you can Take a little, so we took a little tandem kayak and just went around one of the lakes and it was super fun. It was I'm really bad at kayaking, but Hayden had got his kayaking merit badge, so he knew what he was doing.

Peter
Oh, there you go. She knew.

Aubrey
He just he was a big scout. Scout kid, so he was like, Don't worry, I know what to do. I was like, Okay So yeah, it's been it's been pretty chill. Um We did funny you brought up trivia stuff 'cause um there's like this thing at Epic where you can If you're like, obviously, Hayden's working there, um, and they set you up with these, like, kind of pods of people to like who have similar interests, basically assigned friends that you can, like, plan to go do fun stuff with. So, you don't have to find the people that have similar interests with you. So, they all really like to do trivia. So, we went to trivia last night, and let me tell you how awful we were. It was ridiculous. It was also in a whole like bar full of People over the age of forty, and we were like the only young people there. And the host made fun of us so much for not knowing, like Like movies that came out in the nineties and stuff like that.

Peter
You're like, We weren't alive, suck it.

Aubrey
He was like, And we said that afterwards, he was like, There's no way you guys weren't born. Like later than like ninety eight, like, come on. And we all were like, No, we all were born past the two thousands and he was like, What is going on? He was losing his mind. It was it was Yeah, it was it was comical. The one question I got right was like what um plant can you make like that you make linen from And I immediately I was like, Flax. And I only know that because of the stupid Blockheads video game.

Peter
Yes That's right, that side-scrolling Minecraft that was on iOS that game was awesome And then you could use it to create Linen and then yeah.

Aubrey
That's like that 2D Minecraft dupe thing. Yes, the side scroll. Yes. It was awesome. I loved it. And yeah, you would plant flax and you could collect your flax and you would use it to create linen and use it to create clothes. And I said, I was like, flex. And Hayden looks at me. He was like, I thought it was cotton. Like, isn't cotton and like one other thing the only plants? And I was like. I was like, I mean, I just know it from a video game, so maybe that's not actually right. And because I'd never done trivia before, so I was like, I don't know, I'm super, I have no idea. And everyone at the table decided to go with cotton instead. And then when the answer came out and they were like they were like, the answer is flax. And I just dropped my head to the table and I was like, oh, I should have been more confident about my answer.

Peter
Ah, man.

Aubrey
Yeah, it was it was kind of brutal, but it was it was funny and the host apparently loves when Jen's ears come to trivia because he just likes to make fun of them the whole time. So You know, we did it, but that yeah, so we I haven't been completely antisocial because I have been tagging along with Hayden when he has this little you know, get togethers with with the little like they're called launch pods. Um so Yeah, I mean like when you work at Epic with that many employees, it kind of makes sense. It's like its own college campus, it feels like.

Peter
Georgia, I if I can do I mean, I think that's a lot of things.

Aubrey
If you're socializing, it's just gonna come from Epic and it's just gonna be fine. But yeah.

Peter
You look at my gaming/slash DD group, it's all exclusively, again, it's my partner.

Aubrey
Right. Yep.

Peter
A nurse anesthetist, an anesthesiologist, and an OR nurse.

Aubrey
Yep. Yep. Yeah, so and since I don't really socialize with anyone, like, I don't have anything I'm actively doing to go socialize, I Was just like, well, you have to find us friends now, babe. So we're working on that. But yeah, I've I've just kind of picked up doing random little arts and crafts to decorate the house and stuff.

Peter
Well, I came home today.

Aubrey
Um, like Uh-huh.

Peter
to find the table set up in the living room and your brother's watching the office, which is what he's currently going through. Which can I just say as an aside, I don't like that show.

Aubrey
I don't either.

Peter
Okay, I've never tried to watch it, but I catch him watching bits of it and I actually have to leave the room.

Aubrey
I don't either. Me neither. Yep. Yeah, yeah, I get I get yelled at every time I've said that out loud.

Peter
Well, this is a safe place.

Aubrey
This is a safe place.

Peter
We can we can share that.

Aubrey
Yeah, I d I don't find it funny and I don't find any of the characters like interesting enough to like like any of them And again, I haven't tried to watch it either though, but I've I've just like seen it either when I've like been at a friend's house and they're watching it or like at a gathering and it's just on or something like that. So just in passing And it's just, I just don't find it funny.

Peter
Mm-mm.

Aubrey
I just don't find it entertaining.

Peter
No.

Aubrey
It's not really my thing.

Peter
He's sitting there watching it, and he'd found one of the Lego floral sets that we have.

Aubrey
Oh, yes, those are so fun.

Peter
And he's just like sitting there. Putting together the Lego floral set. He's got one of the vases from the flowers I've bought your mom recently, and he's like putting it in there.

Aubrey
Oh, that's awesome. That's so cute. Yeah, we have the the sets that um you got both you got me a set and Hayden a set for Christmas. I think like a year and a half ago. And we have both of them set up in here because you got Hayden the dried flower centerpiece one, which is gorgeous, and it's right in front of our TV. Beautiful. So, yeah, little arts and crafts have been taking up my time. Again, we have a rooftop pool, so that's fun to go like sit and read by, but Um, yeah, I've just I've oh yeah, I've been um I s have started rewatching Friends, um, I just wanted a really low stress. Show to put on that has, you, sh I love the short episodes. It's just goofy.

Peter
Mm-hmm.

Aubrey
It's it's a classic. Um, but again, I am shocked at some of the jokes that they Put in there, I'm like, Oh oh, wow, that's oh Oh, it's yeah, but knowing knowing that nowadays that would not happen, I'm like, okay, well, whatever.

Peter
I know. You're like, this was on like 7 p. m. Thursday night on network TV. Well, I'll throw in another plug for Taskmaster.

Aubrey
Oh, yes, yes.

Peter
Taskmaster is wonderful. We finished the most recent series and now I'm back finished series two, watching series three now. And that was the thing last night is I said to your mom, I was like I just want to watch something where there's actually zero stakes.

Aubrey
Nice.

Peter
Because all these people are playing for.

Aubrey
Yes. Me and you are the s yeah, me and you are the same in that way.

Peter
Is this stupid gold bust of Greg Davies, the Taskmaster.

Aubrey
Right.

Peter
So it's utterly inconsequential.

Aubrey
Yes. Yep.

Peter
And you don't feel any stress as they're spectacularly failing their tasks because that's part of the point.

Aubrey
Yes. Yep.

Peter
And so, again, it's all free on YouTube here in the States, folks. Just 19 seasons of Taskmaster UK plus New Zealand, Australia, others.

Aubrey
I should, I should. Yeah.

Peter
So that's a suggestion. Also, while we're on, pop open your Gmail account.

Aubrey
Okay.

Peter
There's something else there for you to Take advantage of at the the rooftop pool.

Aubrey
Yes Yes.

Peter
So Well, Yep.

Aubrey
I knew I knew this just came out and I was like, oh, but I have to finish this and then I have to finish that Oh, but I'm so I ni I and I've been listening to most of the ones on Audible that Hayden already has 'cause I'm on his Audible. But I don't like to listen to Audible when I'm up at the pool, so this is perfect. This is perfect. Perfect.

Peter
There you go.

Aubrey
Let me save this to files right now.

Peter
There you go.

Aubrey
Perfect. I don't even think we said what it was. Did we say what it was?

Peter
No, we didn't. It is the new secret. It is Secret Project Number Five, Isles of the Emberdark from Brandon Sanderson. That I got the audiobook and the EPUB just directly from Dragonsteel because I kick-started the words of Radiance leatherbound at the high enough tier. And so the actual physical one is going to be on its way to me as well.

Aubrey
Oh, that's awesome. That is awesome.

Peter
So I have not read it yet, but that's because I'm plugging away on Wind and Truth still.

Aubrey
Sweet. Yeah, me neither. I was gonna ask how far are you?

Peter
700 pages, so like 51%.

Aubrey
So like I was gonna say, is that like ten percent you mean?

Peter
That's what it feels like. Never, never has reading 700 pages felt so inconsequential.

Aubrey
Halfway through feels like it is nothing. So inconsequential.

Peter
Like, I'm on chapter 68, people.

Aubrey
I don't even remember how many hours it is.

Peter
It is 63 hours.

Aubrey
It is 63 hours, yeah. Which, to be fair, I listen to it at like 1.

Peter
Yeah, that's what I listened to.

Aubrey
9 times speed, but still, still, that's kind of an insane amount of hours, but Yeah, yep.

Peter
I mean, this is me reading the did reading the e-book, listening back and forth, trying to get through it still. My problem is I have too many podcasts that I listen to. If I listened to fewer podcasts, I would have a lot more audiobook time, which I keep telling myself I should do. And then I look at my list of podcasts that I'm still subscribed to and I'm like But I wanna I don't wanna trim any of these. So anyway Okay, I just sent you something in the chat.

Aubrey
Yep. Gotta chug through, chug away. Anyway, so for the topic for today, I say you kick us off. Chat, let me take a look.

Peter
And if you would go and click on that, and then maybe you can read that to us all.

Aubrey
Oh, all right. Okay, let me make sure my tab is not literally covering the entire screens. Let me just. Let me scoot this over there. All right. Okay. Okay. Let me read. All right. About imperfect practice. The longer I've practiced medicine, the more I appreciate how intentional that word practice really is. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect. Personally, I think it's nonsense. In life, as in medicine, practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes better. For almost fifty years my life has been one of practice, and I've lost count of the stumbles. Yet those stumbles have taught me some of life's most profound lessons. This is where I share those lessons, the result of an ongoing imperfect practice, failures and all. It's not about being perfect, it never was. It's about small steps, small changes, and slowly becoming better. Oh What is this?

Peter
Yeah. So so this is I mean you can sure I'd love it.

Aubrey
Do I click subscribe?

Peter
There's nothing to subscribe yet. But so I am in the midst of getting a new project ready, something that I am going to be launching. Not yet. I mean, I've got I wanted to get the website locked away, and so I have stuff that I can be working on in the background. And here's a funny thing: so I was. I've been thinking about this. This is an idea that has been kicking around in my head for a while. I mean, I've blogged. Forever since it first became a big thing back with Blogger and then on a couple different platforms. And I do occasionally post an article on Medium that But the problem is that I feel like as I think about, well, what do I want to write about? What do I want to focus on? It's been kind of scattered. Because there's a part of me that's like, well, I like music and I like this and I like that. And this is the part that sounds the most embarrassing to say. And this is what I was. Your mother, of course, she's a much better person than me, much kinder. She didn't ever even think about it this way, but I have long. Okay, we're gonna go further back. Summers as a child, I would spend most of every other week. My mom worked half time in a pediatrician's office. She would work a week on and then be a week off. The week she worked, I would spend all day with my cousin Jeff and his younger sister Jenny, my cousin Jenny. And We would often hike up and hop a fence in their backyard to this little teeny copse of trees, and we would take a video camera and we'd make movies. And they were dumb, and they were, but I have always enjoyed that.

Aubrey
Yes.

Peter
Well, so I have long thought. With some of my blogging and with the podcast, I've thought, well, is there something I could do with video, both because I do find it interesting, but also because it's a skill I would like to learn, and this would give me a good reason to learn it. And so I but again, I had too many different things bouncing around where it was like, well, what is my focus? And I watch a lot on YouTube about whether it's productivity or it's, you know, the late obsession. I mean, not late, it's been for a few years, but like something that I've been really into is for example, e-ink devices. So I've played around with a bunch, like the Remarkables of the world and the books and the my current favorite, and the one that's actually the only one that's ever actually won out, is the SuperNote from Rada. And I started thinking about this process that I've been on and different tools I try. And okay, well, I'll watch somebody's video and they say, oh, here's the best way to do this. And, you know, I mean, we've talked about journaling, right? And I've seen videos that's like the five perfect journaling prompts that will change your life. And the more I started thinking about this stuff, the more I realized, in my opinion, That's a lot of these people who get hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of views on YouTube, and a lot of people who have podcasts about this kind of stuff, look, it's because there's a desire. People want to know about tools that can help them in different ways. But I think the way a lot of people go about it is. I think it's a lie. I think they're charlatans. I think, because here's the thing: there are no five journaling prompts that are great for everybody. There's five journaling prompts that are great for whoever made that video. But for them to go out there and say this is what everybody needs to do is stupid.

Aubrey
Absolutely. Yeah.

Peter
And I know because I've tried them and I've tried different things and I've come to places. Well, here's what's working for me. And I'll be honest, the journaling prompts that I set up seven months ago, I. I'm moving away from some of them because after seven months, I'm going, okay, some of these things, they're not quite what I need right now. And so then it coalesced to me a couple weeks ago, this idea of life is all about imperfect practice. And I started honestly playing around with Chat GPT and brainstorming stuff and Ended up with this idea that I want to, I'm going to launch an online presence that is me talking about how I've used these different tools and what didn't work and what does work and that process. And it's going to be part blog. So that ghost site will be a blog slash newsletter. So if people subscribe, they'll get the articles that get posted there sent directly to them. But honestly, and this is the part that I'm embarrassed to say as a 49-almost-year-old man, I'm going, like, I've created a YouTube channel for it as well, and I'm going to be making videos.

Aubrey
Okay Wow, there she is.

Peter
And so. So your mother very kindly let me get a Sony Z V E ten Mark II. And then, based on recommendations, I added in the Sigma 1850 millimeter lens that'll give it more soft focus and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff that I still need to try and figure out.

Aubrey
Nice. Right. Right.

Peter
But But yeah, this is something that I find myself really excited about because I look at it and I think, I think I have something to offer here. I have obviously a ton of life experience of doing difficult things, you know.

Aubrey
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Peter
I went to school. We were married young. We had kids young. So I've got a lot of experience. How do you juggle a full-time job, two part-time jobs, school full-time, and a new family? I've done it. And I have some ideas of what worked and some ideas, like it says in there, some ideas of what didn't work.

Aubrey
Right.

Peter
And the only way I found out what didn't work was that I tried it.

Aubrey
Right.

Peter
I went, nope, this isn't going to work.

Aubrey
Yep.

Peter
And since then, you know, I went to medical school at a very prestigious medical school that pushed us really, really hard. I did a surgical residency that again pushed us really, really hard. And now I've spent 13 years building a urology practice from nothing to being A for-provider practice, and really the premier practice in southeastern Idaho.

Aubrey
Yeah.

Peter
And I've done a lot of things that didn't work along the way, and I found some things that really work for me.

Aubrey
Right.

Peter
And so my thought is approach this in a way that is honest, that isn't, hey, this is what's going to work for you, but is more of a. Here's a tool that I tried, and here's what I liked, and here's what I didn't like.

Aubrey
Yeah.

Peter
And maybe it'll work for you if you're looking for X, Y, and Z. But here's why it didn't click for me.

Aubrey
Yeah. Yeah.

Peter
And that's the way I'm going to approach it. The other thing I thought that I thought was kind of interesting is it doesn't make it too narrow of a scope. So for example, if I wanted to create everything about, oh, I mean, you know, I like tech. Okay, I'm going to create a channel that's all about Apple products.

Aubrey
Yeah.

Peter
Well, number one, that's already been done to death. And number two, I don't just use that.

Aubrey
Right, absolutely. Mm-hmm.

Peter
And so I didn't want to narrow that focus too much. I mean, I'll be honest. As I was thinking about this and brainstorming, the way I've set this up, it allows me to do things like: hey, guess what I can talk about? I can talk about headphones. Because I care about headphones. And for me, having a good pair of headphones that are comfortable, that sound good, that help get me in a place. Where I can find that, as people refer to it, that zone and get in the zone, or I can get in that flow state. I think that that's important. I can talk about not necessarily the music specifically, that's, you know, that's that's for other things, but I can talk about my experience with different tools and different setups. And Heck, I can even talk about like, I can talk about gaming because recreation, resting, recovery, that kind of stuff is all part of getting better. I can talk about health, I can talk about lifting, I can talk about my home gym. All of these things fit into this idea of life is all about practice, and it's going to be an imperfect practice. And, like I said in that, practice doesn't make perfect, we're never perfect.

Aubrey
Yeah, I Fair.

Peter
But practice can make us better if we're willing to say, I'm going to try something and it may work and it may not. I'm going to learn from that. And then if it works, great. And if it doesn't, then I'll try something else. So I don't know. I've not talked to very many people about this. I talked to your mom just enough to say, can I buy myself a camera? And she said, happy birthday. But then honestly, you're the only other person that I have mentioned this to.

Aubrey
I'm honored. I'm very honored.

Peter
So I would say. I would like here live on the air, not really live on the air, but I would like you to go ahead. What do you think?

Aubrey
Honestly, I'm gonna give you my full my full actual honest opinion.

Peter
That's what I want.

Aubrey
Fully honest opinion. So there are these two, a little bit of a little bit of context here. There are these two And don't laugh. Minecraft YouTubers who they also have a podcast outside of their like gaming presence or whatever. They have a podcast they have together. They're both around your age have kids and they are just two dudes who have Gone through their life and feel like they have some things to say. And I literally, I and I listen to the podcast sometimes because sometimes they have I don't know. Sometimes they are a little more like, you should have to go get what you want, productive bit, you know, and I'm a little like, okay, that's not my mood for right now. But they're goofy and they're funny, and I love. Their Minecraft YouTube, and so I listen to their episodes sometimes. But I literally had the thought. I was like, hmm, I feel like dad should do one of these. 'Cause they do a video podcast. It's a video podcast. So they like they post it on YouTube and then they also have it like audio. And one of them is super into tech. And he reminds, I mean, he's like, he's very short, so he doesn't remind me of you in that way, but he does remind me of you in the way where He's always trying to like perfect his setup, and he's always like, but again, like not perfect necessary, you know, he's just he's trying to Just share the ups and downs with creating the setup that they have, because there's two of them, so they try, they mess around with like different mics and cameras and he loves he loves his tech and it reminded me of you so much that I was like, I feel like dad has so much to offer when it comes to knowledge about basically, I mean, a lot of things in your life.

Peter
Sure.

Aubrey
I was telling someone the other day that I feel like there's two people in my life that are kind of like my my personal Google search. And it's you and Hayden. Where it like, if I don't want to have to, like, Google it and then just look it up, I could just ask you, and you probably have a better answer than than Google does, anyways.

Peter
Sure.

Aubrey
And so I personally think that is a fantastic idea. And I'm very excited for you.

Peter
Well, thank you.

Aubrey
I'm very excited to subscribe and promote and be, you know, like and comment and whatever, boost the algorithm. Um, I am I'm excited to watch and gain information and stuff from you. I think there's a lot of things people can learn from just your knowledge. Because again, it's not just your knowledge and nerdiness about tech and Like the objects, but it's also just the fact that you have just been through so many things and Come out the other side and didn't, you know, crash and burn in places where people would have crashed and burned. Like When you were in residency, um, I didn't see you much.

Peter
Right, yeah.

Aubrey
But then, you know, we moved to Idaho and it was like Bam, dad has this job. Bam, dad's literally pulling up the urology practice by his bootstraps. Bam, dad is doing this, dad's doing that. You know, like, it you j just collected so many things that you do and are great at and lessons that you've learned and stuff, I'm sure. I so I'm just excited to see what you have to say about the things that you like and care about. Like you said, even anything like like lifting. I feel like me and you could talk about lifting for literally ages, but I I'm super excited to See you nerd out about the video camera setups, and you know, you can like see just how that will improve over time. Like, I just think you have a lot to offer in terms of just knowledge, even though, like. It may feel embarrassing because it's a YouTube channel, but like, I feel like that's everyone's dream a little bit to have like to be YouTube famous. That feels like something that everyone kind of wants. And even if it's not, you know, famous per se, like. It's just very valuable and fun and you get to dissect why you like certain things, anyways.

Peter
Yeah.

Aubrey
And yeah, I just I think that'll be awesome. I'm super excited for you.

Peter
Well, thank you.

Aubrey
I wanna s I do want to ask, though, was the video camera, um, cost vomit worthy or just dry heave worthy?

Peter
Like I say Oh no, just dry he worthy.

Aubrey
Okay, okay, cool.

Peter
No, no, and because that's the thing is And I started this all off. And look, I'll be the first to admit this. I totally used the AI tools to brainstorm some of this.

Aubrey
Yeah, right.

Peter
Because it wasn't something, number one, it wasn't something that I wanted to brainstorm out loud with other people at first until I felt like I had a better idea.

Aubrey
Yeah, totally.

Peter
But number two, because I don't know anyone in my life who would be able to offer. And so part of it was: hey, you know, I'm looking at gear, and I was very, I tried to give it rules. One of the rules is: don't be sycophantic.

Aubrey
Mhm. Yeah.

Peter
Like straight up said, provide criticism, be constructive when you do it, but don't just agree with if an idea is bad, say it's bad.

Aubrey
Yeah. Yeah. Say that's bad, yeah.

Peter
You know, so I tried to give it those rules so that it wasn't just an echo chamber, that there could be some pushback. But then I said, you know, well, this is my thought, this is what I want to do. And of course, it you know, it was encouraging, at least the response, because it's out there and it's looking at the web and it you know, it said stuff like, Well, you know, this seems like a fairly unique take, because, for example, I'm not going to be again What I don't want to be is this these five life hacks will give you 10x productivity because screw that because because that's not the way to think about it The way to think about it, I think, for me is what and this is going to be the focus of this channel and this site and the newsletter and everything.

Aubrey
Right, right, right. Yeah.

Peter
The focus is First of all, how do we craft our personal identities? And then second of all, what tools and techniques Help us live out and embody those identities we've crafted for ourselves.

Aubrey
Yeah, yeah.

Peter
So that's what I want to focus on. And productivity is part of that, but productivity is not all of it. So it's not here's the task manager you need to use, and here's how to set it up and stuff.

Aubrey
Right. Right. To maximize your optimize your little little Yeah.

Peter
Right. But instead, it's, hey, look, here's how I'm using my task manager, and here's how it ties into these identities, these roles I have for myself. And this is why I'm using this one because of its abilities to do X, Y, or Z, it, you know, that kind of stuff. So that's what I'm looking for.

Aubrey
Yeah.

Peter
And I said. You know, this is how I want to set it up. My thought is to have both written things because I like writing. I don't want to ignore that.

Aubrey
Yeah, right.

Peter
But I do think that there's, especially if I'm talking about tools and devices and stuff. That's going to be better if there's a visual component.

Aubrey
Yeah. Yeah.

Peter
And it suggested the Sony ZV E10, which honestly comes in at like $800.

Aubrey
Mhm. Oh, wow.

Peter
And the The Mark II was the newer version that's a little bit better and better battery life in the set and the other.

Aubrey
Yeah.

Peter
And it was like, eh, you don't need to go with a Mark II. And then I just straight up said, I, look, okay, the cost, not an issue. Which one should I go with? And I like well, then definitely go with the Mark II.

Aubrey
Yeah.

Peter
Because that was eleven hundred dollars.

Aubrey
Oh, right.

Peter
I mean, but that's not that and and you know, yes.

Aubrey
Right, no, but like the difference between the two is like like you might as well go with the better one Yeah.

Peter
And like I say, adding in the lens and stuff made it a not just the stock lens, a better lens made it a little bit more. But like I say, it yeah, it was not that. It was not that much.

Aubrey
Yeah.

Peter
It was not vomit-inducing.

Aubrey
Right. That's awesome.

Peter
It was just like, okay, I mean, look, I'm going to spend more this year on a new iPhone because it's iPhone upgrade year. So I'm going to spend more on the new iPhone than it costs for the lens, the camera, and the mounting system.

Aubrey
That's crazy.

Peter
So it was not that much.

Aubrey
That is crazy. Yeah, that yeah, that's awesome. Oh, I'm super happy for you and excited. That'll be that'll be great.

Peter
So, like I say, I'm in the process right now of number one, I got to learn how to use the camera.

Aubrey
Yeah, right.

Peter
Number two, I'm still learning. Like, I'm doing some online Final Cut Pro courses and stuff to learn how to use Final Cut Pro so that I can edit the video better. So, from that standpoint, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. In the meantime, what I am doing is I'm getting ideas and figuring out how, again, it'll be things like this. I'm using Obsidian, and I have an idea for something that I go, Yep, I can see how that could make a video and be an article. And so then I'm writing a draft of the article.

Aubrey
Yeah, yeah.

Peter
And then I'm moving on to the next thing. So my hope is to be able to get a bunch of stuff banked up so that when I launch, I've got Multiple things, like maybe five or six things, both videos and articles.

Aubrey
Mhm. You've got the ideas. Yeah.

Peter
And then, in addition to that. have a bunch in the bank so that what I'm working on, I want to get to a point where what I'm working on is something that's going to go up in a month.

Aubrey
Yeah, yep.

Peter
So that I've got enough stuff.

Aubrey
She got the time to curate that, yeah.

Peter
Exactly. So that's the plan.

Aubrey
Yeah, that's awesome.

Peter
I'm working on that kind of stuff, getting some of that. And yeah, again, I'm really excited about it. I don't know if it will be anything. The good news is, it doesn't have to be.

Aubrey
Right.

Peter
Like, I'd like it to do something. I'd like it to, I'd like people to find it useful, but I'm not in a situation where.

Aubrey
Yeah. Right.

Peter
The first thing I said to your mom was, I, Don't worry, I'm not quitting my job.

Aubrey
Yeah, this is a hobby.

Peter
You know, this is not a, I'm making a career change. This is something I want to explore on the side because it's important to me and is meaningful to me.

Aubrey
Right, right, right.

Peter
But I'm still going to be a surgeon, and so we don't have to worry about you know About Big Daddy Google paying us the YouTube bucks or whatever the crop.

Aubrey
Right. Oh, that's funny. Jeez, yeah, that's funny.

Peter
So like I say, there's a part of me that is an almost 49-year-old man thinks this is a ridiculous thing to try at this stage of my life. And then there's a part of me that goes, we should be willing to try ridiculous things whenever. Because if we get to a point where we're unwilling to try new things, then we've kind of died a little bit Yeah.

Aubrey
Yeah, absolutely, I agree. Yep, I agree. I I think there's not an age limit to doing doing whatever you want to do. If you care about it, you might as well.

Peter
So anyway, that's my announcement.

Aubrey
That's awesome.

Peter
That's my project. That I have started working on, and I was excited to tell you about it and get your feedback.

Aubrey
Sweet Yes. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I'm super excited. Were you excited to watch the journey?

Peter
Well, thank you.

Aubrey
I love it.

Peter
Well, thank you. But I think that's all I actually have. I do not have any medicine stuff. So back to you.

Aubrey
Yeah, my my only my only astro fact is that my paper is so close to being done.

Peter
You said you were working on it.

Aubrey
Yes, my research paper is so close and it will be up on the Astrophysics Data Server, open for any and all to read and and look at. shortly.

Peter
I love that.

Aubrey
I don't actually know what the real time line is, but it is very close. Like to the point where like I had to get a new email, like a professional email that's not tied to any specific Institution, so I can use it for my entire career. I have an ORCID account, which is for researchers. So you can, you know, they know it's me if I apply for grants and stuff like that. Um, so it's feeling I mean, it like felt kind of official the whole time, but now it's feeling like official where my mentor is just going through and making sure like the wording is proper for what's in the field right now basically. stuff like that. We're yeah, we're just finishing up final things. We're trying to get a little bit more references in there because the good um papers have like A lot of citations.

Peter
Oh, yeah.

Aubrey
So we're trying to get more of those, adding more info into the intro and stuff, you know. all the good stuff. So not that anyone will really know what I'm talking about at all in the article when it comes out. If you don't have an astrophysics background I'm still gonna plug it when it drops.

Peter
You should.

Aubrey
So so, yeah.

Peter
You absolutely should.

Aubrey
Anyways, that's my only fact for the day.

Peter
Well, I love that.

Aubrey
But Yes, absolutely.

Peter
I am very excited that that's making some progress. And yeah, that's fantastic.

Aubrey
Yeah, okay. Well, if you have anything have anything else to add, or I think we're pretty much good? Um if everyone else wants to like and subscribe and, you know, leave a review and all the fun non YouTuber podcaster things, whatever.

Peter
Right.

Aubrey
We will see everyone in a few weeks.

Peter
Sounds good. Bye.

Aubrey
Bye.