Latest / He's Hot but Something's Off... / HHBSO 16: Like, We Had, Like, a Hurriquake, Like...

Transcript

HHBSO 16: Like, We Had, Like, a Hurriquake, Like... · He's Hot but Something's Off...

0:01
Hello welcome to He's Hot Something's off with me.
0:03
Just Joey T we just had a Hurriquik I was typing into.
0:12
I've got a doc that has the outline for the topics I want to
0:16
talk about for each podcast before I start recording.
0:19
I will be on my laptop making bullets of the topics and I was
0:24
going to talk about the Hurriquik obviously.
0:26
And I typed it into Google Docs and Google Docs recognized what
0:32
I was trying to spell because it instantly popped up that I
0:36
spelled it wrong because I didn't even know it was an
0:39
actual word. I mean that's how good Google is
0:41
nowadays. It would correct made-up words
0:45
that is in like the current trending vocabulary out on the
0:50
Internet like instantly like Google Docs has gotten so good.
0:55
But anyways, for those of you that haven't heard about her
0:58
quick, here in Southern California, we just had a storm
1:02
that passed through. It was a hurricane to start
1:06
Hurricane Hillary, and it was going up along the coast of
1:11
Mexico, going north. And it's past us now recording
1:15
this on a Monday afternoon here in Los Angeles.
1:19
The storm, the hurricane has become a tropical storm and now
1:25
I think it's kind of sort of fizzling out.
1:27
But it's past Southern California now and it's nice and
1:31
sunny again. But yeah, it was weird.
1:33
I read that it was the first ever tropical storm warning that
1:39
Los Angeles has ever had that made landfall, and I didn't go
1:45
out or anything. I did have some blackouts.
1:49
So Sunday morning I was half asleep, 5:00 or 6:00 AM, and
1:55
when my house loses electricity for whatever reason, I've got a
1:59
couple of battery backup thingamajigs for like all my
2:02
computers and equipment, and they'll go BBBBBBB.
2:05
So yeah, it's when the power is out and I'm home, those things
2:09
start beeping to let me know, oh, your powers out, Shut down
2:11
your computers and stuff. So it's all the beeping,
2:13
basically. Will be up at 6:00 AM and lost
2:16
power for like a few hours. I was like, you know what?
2:18
It's Sunday morning. I've got nothing to do.
2:21
There's a storm outside. I don't have power.
2:24
I'm just gonna like, go back to bed.
2:25
And when I woke up at like 930 or something, the power was
2:29
still out. And then they came back on for a
2:32
bit. And then it went out for like
2:34
another two or three hours. And then they came back on.
2:37
So that was fun. I'm Okay.
2:40
The area that I'm in kind of in the middle of West Hollywood
2:43
didn't really get that much damage.
2:48
But I was reading on the news. I was locked in the news the
2:51
whole day on Sunday that there various areas all throughout Los
2:55
Angeles. And so Cal that was like flash
2:56
floods. There was this video that I saw
2:59
at Universal Studios where this car was like, pulling out of the
3:02
parking lot and a street was just, like, flooded with water.
3:06
But in my little corner of Los Angeles, actually, maybe my
3:11
street flooded and I just didn't know because I literally have no
3:14
view of the street out of the windows in my apartment.
3:18
I can see the building next door, I can see a bunch of
3:22
trees, and that's it, because I'm not on like the street side
3:25
of the building. So yeah, maybe my street flooded
3:27
and like, the roof caved in on some units upstairs.
3:30
But I'm like the first floor. So yeah, it was great.
3:33
I messaged some of my friends who are in LA and I was like, is
3:38
it do you guys have rolling blackouts?
3:40
Or is it just me? And they're like, no, we're
3:41
okay. So yeah, just me.
3:43
But today was fine. It was all sunny.
3:47
I went to the gym. Just now.
3:49
I went to the gym, did everything to go to the gym.
3:52
It's a procedure for me to go to the gym because in my mind I'll
3:57
be thinking okay. I need to eat like X hours
4:01
before the gym so that I've got carbs and I've got energy.
4:04
And then I'll have a coffee for some caffeine and then I have a
4:09
preworkout shake that I make and then I also have some cereal
4:15
while I'm drinking. All of that so that I don't get
4:17
hungry during the gym. It's it's a whole thing, but I
4:21
got to the gym and I just really wasn't feeling it.
4:24
A lot of the times when I go to the gym, I'll be feeling a
4:28
little tired, and when I get to the gym, 9095% of the time I can
4:35
just push through with the tiredness.
4:37
I don't know if you guys ever have that where you're, you
4:40
know, you're supposed to go to the gym.
4:42
There's no real excuse not to go except for kind of feeling a
4:45
little lazy and tired. But once you get to the gym, you
4:49
kind of get into your routine and it's kind of okay.
4:52
Today was not one of those days, and I've worked out long enough
4:56
to know that you can just cut yourself a bit of a break.
5:00
So I went there. I was going to do some shoulder
5:02
stuff, did like not even one full exercise.
5:06
Like, I warmed up on like a couple exercises and I was like,
5:11
I'm going to cut my losses. I'm just going to go home.
5:13
I literally at the gym, I was on the floor, the weight, the
5:18
weight room for like 10, maybe 15 minutes.
5:22
And then I just caught it quits and I was thinking, you know
5:26
what? Today, just not the day we just
5:30
we can just go. So I just walk back home.
5:33
I had more, I said more time walking to the gym.
5:35
I walking back, which is probably like 40 minutes of
5:38
walking. So that was something than
5:39
actually working at the gym. Here's something though, you
5:42
need to learn to listen to your body.
5:44
And if you're first starting to workout or like starting
5:47
exercise or whatever, it probably is more likely than not
5:51
just feeling lazy. But for me, I know that, yeah,
5:54
some days are just not meant for breaking records and just like
5:59
pushing through like the discomfort or the pain or
6:02
whatever. And as long as you're not doing
6:05
it all at the time, as long as it's only very occasionally that
6:10
you are quitting the gym early for a lack of a better term,
6:16
like that's okay. You're doing it like every other
6:18
week. Okay, There's something going on
6:21
there. But for me, it's very rare.
6:23
I in like a year of going to the gym every single week, like four
6:27
or five times every single week. In a full year, I'll probably do
6:31
this like less than maybe like 5 or 6 times.
6:37
You know, maybe every other month there might be a day where
6:39
I feel like, you know what? Like I just really need to not
6:42
be at the gym. The times where I don't listen
6:44
to my body, though, tend to be the times where I might injure
6:48
myself, where I'm just thinking, oh, we have to go.
6:52
We have to live heavier today, We have to live more today.
6:54
And then, like my form is off or something is off.
6:57
And then I injure myself. And then I always remind myself
7:00
it's better to have an easy day or take a day off than to kind
7:06
of not do an exercise properly and then hurt yourself because
7:10
your former offer, like you don't have the concentration.
7:12
But anyways, I was going through the comments on the YouTube
7:18
upload for this podcast for the last episode.
7:21
Again, the video version of this podcast is on my YouTube
7:24
channel, Just Joey T and it's also on Spotify.
7:27
And I mentioned before how I don't usually read comments on a
7:30
lot of things. That especially applies to the
7:32
more popular videos I have on my YouTube channel about like the
7:36
cruises and the parties and that kind of stuff.
7:38
But for the podcast is more of a personal type of a content that
7:42
I put out. So and there's only like 2
7:44
comments every video there's something like maybe 100 of you
7:48
that are watching this, so I don't mind.
7:49
And then one comment pointed out that I say like a lot.
7:54
And I think it would be easy to be defensive about that.
7:58
But honestly, sometimes when someone's right, they're right
8:01
and you can't get mad at it. And you know what?
8:04
I do say like a lot, and I don't notice it.
8:10
If I didn't do this podcast and I never ever did YouTube and I
8:14
never got a chance to basically listen to myself on a recording
8:20
in some way, shape or form, I would never know that I say like
8:24
too much unless someone pointed it out to me.
8:26
So when I'm editing this podcast, I do listen to, not the
8:31
whole thing. I don't play the whole thing
8:33
back and listen to every single second of the recording for the
8:36
podcast, but I listen to enough of it to know that I do say,
8:41
like a lot. One of the things I do want to
8:45
try to do, that I think I'm going to try harder to do now is
8:49
be more aware of it. And it's something where I
8:56
think, I personally think it's annoying to be really honest.
8:59
As much as this person that made the comment and no hate towards
9:02
this person, definitely like don't go look up this comment
9:05
and like be hating on that person.
9:07
I think I do say it a lot and when I hear myself in the
9:11
recording I say enough that it distracts away from what I'm
9:15
trying to talk about. I don't know where I picked up
9:18
this habit to be really honest. Maybe something with 90s
9:24
television where I it was in the late 90s, mid late 90s, That's
9:30
where I picked up. I feel like the bug on my
9:32
English. When I was growing up in Hong
9:37
Kong, I did go to an English elementary school, but I was
9:41
like first or second grade or something like that.
9:43
And I have no recollection of what those years were like.
9:46
And you know, when you only get like the one English Class A
9:51
week and the other classes you get, you know it's a Hong Kong.
9:55
So everything else was taught in Chinese, your English isn't very
9:59
good. But when my family moved to
10:01
Canada when I was a lot younger and obviously in the Canadian
10:06
school system, everything's in English, I picked up my English
10:10
like super fast. Like when you throw a kid into a
10:13
country and you know the language is different, they will
10:16
pick it up super fast. So my English got a lot better,
10:20
really, really fast. And when I first moved to
10:23
Canada, I could be in ESL where they basically suck you in extra
10:27
English class to catch you up. And I think 4 years, like within
10:33
four years of, you know, moving to Canada, I think I got out of
10:36
ESL and I was just when I like the regular English classes and
10:39
I was deemed like good enough to not need the extra help.
10:42
But yeah, I remember reading a lot of car magazines during
10:46
those years. But I've super into cars, very
10:49
fascinated by them, and still am today.
10:52
And I would go buy car magazines like every week when my family
10:57
and I, we went out to lunch and we went to like the grocery
10:59
store. The thing I would do is I would,
11:01
while my mom was buying vegetables or tomatoes or
11:03
whatever, I would go to the magazine section in the grocery
11:07
store and I would just check out what the new car magazines are.
11:11
And I remember when I first started trying to read these car
11:13
magazines, I was mostly looking at the pictures and I was trying
11:17
to read the articles because I wanted to read about these cars.
11:20
But obviously my English wasn't super great.
11:23
So I think partially that's where I learned my English.
11:26
But I mentioned last week in the podcast that my parents allow me
11:31
to have an actual TV in my room when I was 8 and also to have,
11:35
like basic cable TV. So I was watching a lot of TV,
11:39
and I think that's where I picked up a lot of my
11:41
conversational English, if you will.
11:43
So I if I had to trace back to why I used to work like so much
11:48
when I'm conversing in English, I'm going to trace it back to
11:51
whatever TV I was watching, which I can't even tell you what
11:54
shows I was watching. But I think it is something I do
11:57
want to work on. Because it's not.
12:01
I'm not doing it just because someone said stop doing it.
12:05
Because there's every kind of person out there on the Internet
12:09
that will leave any kind of comment, constructive or
12:12
destructive or otherwise, unlike everything.
12:16
But this is a problem. Well, this is a problem for lack
12:21
of word of word. I think this is not something
12:23
that's desirable. I think it does distract from
12:26
the point I'm getting across. So I'm going to set it as a
12:29
personal goal for myself that I'm going to work on that.
12:34
It just takes me a lot of mental energy to basically every time I
12:41
say something, there has to be something in my head that is
12:44
trying to filter these full awards out.
12:48
You know, I say like to fill space basically.
12:53
So yeah, I'm going to work on that.
12:54
We'll we'll see how it goes. I mean, I I kind of don't want
12:59
to say give me the feedback because as I record these
13:02
episodes and I put them onto my computer, after I record to
13:05
edit, I'll naturally hear whether I'm saying like as much
13:10
anymore. But I do notice another thing
13:14
that I notice is I sometimes pause quite a lot when I'm
13:20
talking to I gather my thoughts. I don't think that's a problem
13:23
per se, but the first time that I've noticed someone else do
13:28
that same thing was actually when I was working at Google in
13:33
like the early days. So I don't know if Google still
13:36
had this thing, but at least they used to have this thing
13:38
called TGIF, which is kind of like a company wide meeting they
13:43
had on Fridays and they move it to Thursdays.
13:46
And it was usually hosted by the cofounders of Google, which is
13:51
Larry and Sergey when they were so active.
13:53
I don't know what they're so active, the company or not.
13:55
But anyways, and then I would always remember, especially in
13:58
the Q&A part of TGIF, Larry usually would be answering the
14:04
questions with. He's usually the host of TGIF
14:08
and whenever Larry had to answer a question I about like he does
14:15
the same thing. Or he kind of behaves similar to
14:19
how I answer questions when someone would ask me a question
14:22
and I have to like think about it.
14:24
Especially in like a work context, which is pausing and
14:29
like looking off into the distance, like as if I was like
14:34
staring at the sun and then basically really taking time and
14:39
pausing to compose your thoughts.
14:42
And I kind of sort of knew I did that.
14:46
But whenever I would see and hear Larry answer questions
14:51
during these companywide meetings at Google, I would
14:55
actually think, oh, wow, I do that.
14:58
And to see that someone else that's, you know, so successful,
15:01
who's, you know, someone who's very intellectual, someone who's
15:05
very smart, who also does the same thing, what's kind of like
15:11
a comfort for me? It's kind of like when you can
15:13
identify and someone else some of the characteristics or the
15:17
trace that you have, and that kind of normalizes it a little
15:22
bit for you. You don't feel like such an
15:24
outcast or you don't feel like so weird, right?
15:27
I always thought that, oh, maybe I'm slow because I can't answer
15:32
questions as quickly as some other people and I have to like
15:36
take a couple of seconds and like think about it to like
15:38
gather my thoughts. So I should be able to verbalize
15:41
a coherent answer. So to hear someone like Larry
15:44
Page in front of the whole company every week during Q&A to
15:50
kind of sort of have that same like take a couple of seconds,
15:53
stare off into the sun to formulate a question or to
15:57
formulate an answer, Sorry. You know for questions that he
15:59
was answering, I felt like, oh, that makes it, that makes me
16:05
feel a bit better. That is not just me that does it
16:08
or that is not something that is wrong with me when I see someone
16:12
like a successful and so smart and whatever as like Larry Page
16:17
at Google doing it. So there you go.
16:20
Yeah, I will try to say like a little bit less again, not just
16:24
because some random person on the Internet made a single
16:27
comment to say to like make fun of it or whatever.
16:30
Because this something that I know I do and I personally do
16:35
really think it kind of sort of distracts from what I'm talking
16:39
about. This again, when I listen to
16:40
recordings, I hear it and like, I pay attention to that and not
16:43
the actual thing I'm talking about.
16:45
So yeah, Also let me know if you have some feedback, but I'll try
16:50
to work on that. It just takes more mental
16:52
energy, but it will try to work on it.
16:55
Because when I talk, I do want you guys to focus on the topic
16:58
I'm talking about, not the filler words that I
17:01
unconsciously insert into the recording.
17:04
Anyway, the thing that is the keeping me the most busy right
17:08
now is the citizenship test. I alluded to this in the last
17:13
podcast episode, and my plan was to cram.
17:18
So I've got today's Monday. I've got a few more days before
17:20
I have to drive down to the whatever office and do that
17:26
portion. So apparently there is a
17:28
knowledge test and they testing on a whole bunch of things is a
17:32
pool of 100 questions that the USCIS make available on the
17:37
website. There's a PDF and it has all 100
17:40
questions that they could ask from you or could ask of you and
17:46
you have to answer 10 of the questions.
17:50
So the officer will pick 10 out of that hundred questions and
17:53
you have to answer at least six of them to be able to pass the
17:58
knowledge test. So I've been basically reading
18:03
through that PDF. They also have flash cars and
18:05
stuff. And when I first started to
18:08
study this was on Sunday when the hurricane or the storm,
18:12
whatever really kicked in, I was like, well, the power is out
18:16
storming outside, there's nothing for me to do.
18:18
So I'm going to start studying, and at first I was thinking, my
18:23
memory is horrible. My memory shit, I don't know how
18:27
I cram for all the tests that I cram for back in high school and
18:32
college. Sometimes it surprises me that I
18:35
even have an engineering degree because I know that I'm not a
18:41
dumb individual. I know I have like a reasonable,
18:45
decent level of like smarts and intelligence, but I cannot.
18:51
If my life depended on it right now, I could not recall 90% of
18:55
what I learned in college because I don't.
18:59
I'm not a professional engineer and I don't actively practice
19:04
the type of skills or work that my college degree is for.
19:11
And because I don't practice irregularly, it has just
19:15
completely left my brain. So I was a little bit nervous
19:18
about having to do this test. And it's not a multiple choice
19:21
test. It's not a piece of paper that
19:24
like at the DMV, at the DMV to get your driver's license.
19:27
In the US for a lot of states, it's a piece of paper that you
19:31
get, you go into a booth and I don't know if they time you
19:34
these days. I think when I took it in
19:36
California, the written test for the driver's license, there
19:40
wasn't a timer. They just gave you a piece of
19:42
paper. You go into like the standing
19:45
booth area and you just do your best.
19:48
With the multiple choice, it was like 10 or 20 questions,
19:51
multiple choice. You have to get X number of them
19:53
correct and then you hand a piece of paper back and then
19:56
they grade it on the spot and then you figure out whether you
20:00
pass the written test or not. No, with the citizenship test
20:03
for the US. Is not a paper, It's not
20:06
multiple choice. There's an officer in person
20:09
that will ask you 10 questions that they randomly pick from the
20:13
pool of 100 and you have to verbally answer.
20:16
So that acts like the stress of it.
20:18
So what I'm planning to do is I'm going to try to go to a
20:22
friend's house tomorrow and then basically just have them quiz me
20:26
in person to kind of replicate what it's going to be like when
20:29
I have my appointment because I can use all the flash clouds
20:32
that I want. But that's not the same as
20:34
someone standing in front of you and shooting you questions kind
20:38
of point blank because that's more nerve wracking to have
20:42
someone standing in front of you and be like what's this and
20:46
what's the answer to that Global and ask all these questions not
20:48
the same as reading them on a screen and you can kind of
20:51
scroll through and do all that. So I was worried that I wouldn't
20:56
be able to memorize most of the questions.
20:59
But as I went through the PDF, the list of 100 questions
21:02
actually already know like a good 20% of the answers, which
21:07
is to me very surprising. I thought these are going to be
21:10
super hard answers. They're not going to make any
21:12
sense, I just have to like literally memorize them.
21:16
And I was so nervous and scared that once I got there, all the
21:22
answers who fall out of my head. But I've gone through all the
21:26
questions a few Times Now and I've been able to just come up
21:31
with the answers right away. For a good like 7080% of them,
21:38
where if you just show me the question right now I can just
21:42
give you the answer. So for the other like 2030%
21:48
though, but I don't know the answer.
21:51
I'm a complete blank either. I know the answer.
21:53
It's like, you know, what is one of the authors of the
21:58
Declaration of Independence or something?
22:00
And it's like, oh, I know there's like four of them.
22:04
And like, you're asked to name one.
22:06
And I would just like blank. That's that's one of the
22:08
questions I'm blacking out on. All you Americans right now are
22:11
like, oh, that the answer is so easy.
22:13
It's this. But there are a few questions
22:15
where about 20 or 30 of them where I need to really go
22:21
through and really memorize the answers.
22:23
One thing I've been doing because if I actually
22:26
understand, I understand the context behind the answer, like
22:31
basically not just memorizing the answer.
22:33
So there's a section about the Declaration of Independence, who
22:38
wrote it, how that came about and how that led to the oh,
22:43
let's to the Constitution, right.
22:46
I actually started watching some YouTube videos and actually
22:48
reading some articles that explains how those events came
22:54
to be. So if I actually understood and
22:57
knew, really knew about that part of American history, then
23:00
I'll be able to recall the answer so much better.
23:02
So for some parts of, for some parts of this, I'm actually kind
23:08
of not just trying to memorize the answers because just
23:11
memorizing it and it doesn't make sense to me.
23:13
It's not going to stick. I've actually been learning
23:15
American history so that I have the context for where these
23:19
answers came from, you know, so that I actually know the answers
23:24
and I know the events that just memorizing an answer that
23:27
otherwise would make no sense. The next part after the study is
23:31
the part about some of the wars and like the 1800s.
23:37
So I'm going to go do that tonight.
23:39
That's my assignment tonight, is to brush up on some of the wars.
23:42
There's a there's 15, there's a section about 15 of the 100
23:46
questions that's all about that. And that's the only section
23:49
where I know nothing. I'd literally know nothing.
23:52
There's some very easy questions, like name two of the
23:58
federal holidays and what's the name of the national anthem, and
24:04
who gets to veto bills and things like that.
24:07
Those are very easy questions. So my other strategy is to wear
24:15
a tight, very flattering tshirt to the appointment.
24:18
So if it's like I don't know a straight girl or like a gay guy,
24:21
that would be extra points. It's I was messaging my friends
24:25
and I told them this and then they're say, well that's what
24:28
you usually wear anyways. And I told them no, I'm usually
24:31
wearing a tank top like I'm wearing what I'm wearing right
24:34
now. For example, I'm wearing
24:35
something sleeveless usually, but I don't know if wearing this
24:39
like a sleeveless tshirt or like a tank top is kosher in in the
24:46
USCIS office or for this appointment I feel like I need
24:49
to wear. They don't say you need to wear
24:52
like a suit or anything like that.
24:53
It's not like a ceremony, but I feel like you need to dress up a
24:57
little less gay. But I do need to look
25:02
presentable for this appointment that's coming up.
25:06
But yeah, I'm going to study a little bit more.
25:10
I'm feeling pretty confident that I'll be able to pass.
25:13
There's not a part of the test as well where they test you on
25:16
your English skills, and I'm not as worried about that.
25:18
You're supposed to be able to write down some sentences that
25:24
the officer will read to you. That part I'm not as worried
25:29
about. The English part will be easy.
25:31
I assume the USCIS people are not going to be like the same
25:37
kind of officers that when you go across the US border, when
25:41
you're flying into the US for example, that's technically CBP
25:44
and is a different department. You know whenever you cross into
25:48
you cross borders and you go through customs regardless of
25:51
what country it is. For most countries in my
25:53
experience anyways, the officer that's doing the passport
25:57
control that's behind the booth and behind the plexiglass, I
26:00
feel like 80% of the time they have poker face or like it's
26:07
wrestling bitch face like it and you can't tell.
26:10
I don't know if they hire people that intensely look like that or
26:16
they're trained to like basically not show emotion.
26:21
And they are told, yeah, just have a poker face when you're
26:25
doing whatever you're doing in case maybe someone walks up with
26:28
a passport and you know, the officer pulls up their record on
26:32
the computer and it's like also the crazy shit.
26:35
I guess they're supposed to have that poker face so they don't
26:38
give away, you know, whatever they're seeing on the computer
26:40
about the person on the record or whatever it is they're
26:42
reading. But Speaking of that, I had came
26:47
back from Canada, Vancouver, not this past time, but the time
26:51
before in the spring and I was in Vancouver airport.
26:56
You pre clear into the US while you're still in Canada.
27:00
So it's going through US customs or like the password control,
27:04
the US password control and I've got my ID and everything.
27:08
It's really easy. I do it all the time.
27:10
I've got Global Entry. So like you go up to the Global
27:12
Entry machine and it scans your face or fingerprints or
27:16
biometrics gives you this little piece of paper and you bring it
27:18
over and it's very easy. So I go up with a piece of paper
27:22
and outside my passport and he's like doing his thing.
27:26
And then they usually ask you some questions like, oh, why
27:31
were you in Vancouver? How long were you here for?
27:33
Why you going back to US? Just very basic passport
27:36
questions, password control questions.
27:38
This guy, he, I give him all the stuff, he's looking it up and
27:43
then a second later he's like, where's your permit?
27:47
And at first I didn't compute because permit it's a very
27:52
specific word to use and I already have gave him my
27:58
passport and like my stuff and I'm like what permit.
28:04
And he's like your permit. And, like, I'm sorry because I'm
28:08
like, I don't know what you're asking about.
28:09
And, like, I've never been asked by CBP or Password Control 4,
28:14
quote, UN quote a permit. And he's like, for those guns.
28:18
And he was making a joke about my arms because I guess I was
28:20
wearing, like, a sleeveless or sleeveless tea or a tank top
28:25
like I usually do. I usually don't wear anything
28:27
with sleeves Nowadays. I don't have the day job where I
28:30
need to dress up for the 9:00 to 5:00.
28:32
I'm wearing tank tops and sleeveless teas everywhere.
28:35
So I was going through. And he like, he makes that joke.
28:38
And I don't know, it didn't freak me out that much because I
28:42
wasn't doing anything wrong. I was not trying to smuggle
28:44
anything. I had the right, you know, ID
28:47
and passport, all that stuff to give to him.
28:49
I knew none of myself was expired.
28:50
I wasn't doing anything wrong. So like, I wasn't nervous.
28:53
But I can tell. I can see how the average
28:55
person, when they're going through password control, if you
29:00
know the officers asking for something that they don't have,
29:03
that someone freak out. You always hear the stories
29:06
about people trying to cross the border or they're traveling
29:09
somewhere and they don't have the right visa or like it was
29:13
the wrong type of visa and all that kind of stuff.
29:14
And they, like, don't get to enter the country and death,
29:17
like, blah, blah, blah, blah. But once in a while you hear
29:18
stories like that. I just had like, a friend of my
29:20
friend that was in that situation, didn't have like the
29:23
right visa or like the visa. Aspire didn't know and all that
29:26
kind of stuff. And that's a very stressful
29:27
experience, right? But I knew all my stuff wasn't
29:31
expired. I knew my ID was valid.
29:33
I had the right ID. I travel across the border all
29:36
the time. So he was making a joke about my
29:38
arms and the guns and stuff. We've all heard that joke
29:39
before. And then he was like, yeah, me
29:43
and my buddy, they were just checked.
29:44
He didn't say I forgot what the word he was using, but he was
29:47
basically saying, Oh yeah, me and my buddy over there, he
29:50
motions to another officer and like the next booth over, we're
29:55
talking about your guns. So I don't know if it's
29:59
appropriate for US border control CBP to be making that
30:05
joke with people because it's like, I don't know, it's a very
30:11
like official formal, like down a business.
30:15
This is not usually the type of area to like be making those
30:18
types of jokes. The worst though is when you go
30:22
through border password control, whatever, and they pull you out
30:27
for secondary screening. If you ever get the quadruple S
30:32
at the top of your paper boarding pass for a plane, I've
30:38
gone that once maybe twice like ages many many years ago, and
30:45
it's either like there's something on your record that's
30:49
flagged the computer once in a while.
30:51
It might be random, but I remember one time though I got I
30:54
didn't have the quadruple S at the top of my boarding pass.
30:57
But it was in Vancouver airport and it was just one of my
31:01
regular trips that I do multiple times every year to visit family
31:05
and I was coming back into the US for whatever reason.
31:09
They went took me into secondary screening, which is where like
31:14
they say oh go go into that room and go through those doors or
31:16
whatever. And then I remember this person
31:19
was going through my backpack or my carryon luggage and I didn't
31:24
have anything. But the way that she was asking
31:28
me, is it in the training or something, She basically gave me
31:36
semi evil eyes the whole time as if she was on some sort of
31:40
detective show on TV and she was a detective and she was in going
31:45
to interrogate me and she she had to look, she had the look of
31:48
someone on TV playing a detective, very like suspicious
31:54
looking. That was not her normal
31:56
demeanor. If it was, Oh my God, I feel
31:59
sorry for her. But she was asking all these
32:01
questions like she would Whatever you're in secondary
32:05
screening, they're going to ask you questions about what is
32:06
this, what is that? Blah, blah.
32:08
But the way she like scrum stuff, her eyebrows and like,
32:12
looked at me and the way she was like, you don't have to have all
32:17
the charade. It's like there's nothing I can
32:20
say or do to really make you more or less suspicious is
32:26
you're going to ask me questions, I'm going to give you
32:28
answers, you squinting and throwing your eyebrows at me.
32:32
Is that supposed to make me feel more nervous or compel me to
32:37
break, quote, UN quote so that I don't lie and I drop whatever
32:43
facade that I'm trying to put up because I'm smuggling drugs or
32:47
something. So that was like a weird
32:48
experience. And she went through all my
32:50
stuff. I asked all the questions.
32:51
I had nothing to hide. All my idea was fine.
32:54
I I had barely anything in my carry on.
32:58
I'm was only in Vancouver for like 2 days.
33:00
I'm not trying to carry any money.
33:02
Everything's on credit cards. There's nothing.
33:04
So she went through my backpack. She found nothing.
33:07
And I was like, I didn't give her Oscar, just just effing give
33:13
her the Oscar Emmy or whatever it is, it's but to be pulling
33:17
that face every time she had to go, I don't know, interrogate or
33:21
inspect someone that that that takes a lot of effort.
33:24
And yeah, God, I hope that's not the usual face and demeanor that
33:29
she has because that'd be awfully hard on the real world
33:33
when you're not working for CBP. But anyways, that was that was
33:36
fun and haven't been in that situation in a while.
33:40
But I always remember that episode.
33:42
Like, why are you looking so suspicious?
33:43
I've done nothing to hide. So there you go.
33:47
All right, so next week's episode, I will give you all an
33:51
update on how my citizenship test appointment thing later
33:56
this week goes. I'm also preparing to go on the
33:59
Atlantis Mediterranean cruise that is next week.
34:04
It's actually less than a week from now.
34:07
Oh shit. So it's Monday night.
34:08
I'm recording this. I fly out Saturday night to go
34:13
to Europe. I have to go on three flights to
34:15
get to Europe, So that'll be fun.
34:18
But don't worry, I'm going to have episodes of the podcast
34:21
queued up for everyone before I fly out is it's just not really
34:26
possible for me to record. I can maybe record possibly an
34:30
episode of the podcast on the cruise if I have some downtime.
34:33
Just like when I went to New York for New York Pride.
34:35
I did record an episode there, but I won't be able to upload or
34:38
edit anything while on vacation basically.
34:43
So yeah, but I definitely will have stories from the cruise of
34:48
stories from Europe after I get back in September.
34:50
But we will definitely have episodes of this podcast still
34:53
every week. I will pre record a lot of good
34:56
content for you guys before I leave on those flights to Europe
35:00
to next time. Bye.