S3E7-'Ain't Nobody Got Time For That" Pt.2-Special Guest Ken Craig

Don P-Pafifer Podcast Productions: Switch gears a little bit as Gary had said. And maybe we could jump a little bit into something Gary's very familiar with as she's getting older. So Art Me ⁓ Uh-huh. No, Don, I think that time is up. At least your time is up. Your time is up, Don. Well yes, I mean it is called Don and Gary doing sixty. And how many sixties have you done? So ⁓ well I've done sixty three and I'll be sixty four in Fall, ass will die. No, that math is wrong. It's a typo. My birth certificate is completely it's I think we're breaking up here. Sorry, the signal's down. Sorry, we lost the the Wi-Fi's So that makes us all the same age actually, because I'm sixty three. I'm younger. Okay. Well enough. But ⁓ Yeah. project favorite project of Ken is the Federation of Gay Games. ⁓ and there's a big event coming up, so we wanted to and this ties in his martial arts. How d how did you get involved with the Federation gay of gay games? And how long have they been around? ⁓ gosh, I would need to check the date now, but the gay games are No, you need to know the answer right now. Otherwise we're we're cutting it off. I can't even remember the date that I first came to the US. I've got to really think back on it. And the only reason I can remember that just say the Federation of Gay Games has been around a long time. it started with ⁓ person called Tom Waddell, who was actually ⁓ gold medalist in Triathletes. He was a US athlete. He lived in San Francisco, gay man. he recognized that the Olympic experience for him was very empowering, very uplifting, was something that he thought everybody should be able to experience, but recognized that most LGBT people when they're going through school and ⁓ when they're after school don't feel very welcomed or encouraged to participate in sports because of homophobia and many other things. ⁓ so he wanted to create an environment that would replicate what he experienced at the Olympics for the LGBT community. So he thought of creating this thing that he initially called the Gay Olympics. And it was going to be centered in San Francisco. ⁓ the first games happened in San Francisco. I think it was nineteen eighty six were the first games. ⁓ I was in the military at that time in the UK. I knew I was gay, but I was kinda closeted and hidden. ⁓ and I saw articles about the Gay Olympics in San Francisco and I thought, Fuck, that's amazing. I would love to do that. But obviously being in the military and then they I remember San Francisco. So the interesting thing, I had no idea about San Francisco. I had no idea that it was an LGBT hub. I'd never really heard of it in the UK. I didn't know about the Castro. I had no idea that there was a movement going on over there. ⁓ so I didn't know anything about that. But the Gay Olympic idea was like, that that would be something I would really support. But in my environment and then the the work that I was doing at that point, there was no way I could possibly get away and there was no way I could go and do that without it having serious repercussions. So I put it in the back burner and I thought, ⁓ if I ever get a chance, ⁓ left the military, was doing other things. The second games came up also in San Francisco four years later. So just like the Olympics, the Federation of Gay Games hosts ⁓ an event every four years. ⁓ happens in host countries. So they put out a bid and they ask people to to bid to host the games in their own country. ⁓ initially there were maybe two or three countries that would bid for it. So it was a very small thing. ⁓ but over the years, ⁓ the gay games have become bigger and bigger. I think they are now the largest international sporting event ⁓ right after the Summer Olympics. ⁓ they generally get about eight to ten thousand athletes. ⁓ and then you have all of the the friends and family and supporters that come along as well. So it's quite a huge event. ⁓ They've also modified the rules significantly so you don't have to pre qualify to attend. So you don't have to go to local events and qualify in order to be sent to the Olympics. ⁓ the g the sorry, the gay games. ⁓ you just choose to sign up and go. And the idea is just participation, inclusion, and doing the best that you can personally do when you're there. So it's not a bad Right. So wait, I could join the badminton team and just go to the Badminton Olympics. next time if I want it to, if I could grab a in June of this year. ⁓ the games are in Valencia, Spain. Okay. And literally that's all that you do. You choose to sign up. Okay. You head over to Spain, ⁓ you give them your experience level and they will put you into a division and you will play your first match. And if you win your first match, you move on to the second match. ⁓ but the very unique thing that I find I've been involved in martial arts for many, many years. ⁓ I'm a grandmaster, so I went up through the ranks. As you go up through the ranks, you go to tournament ⁓ you go to tournaments, they call martial arts tournaments, where normally it's in a city or it might be a a statewide one, or it might be an international one. And people are coming from other places to compete. But in those events, it tends to be people are so focused on winning a medal, getting a place, doing well for themselves or doing well for their club, that it's a very high stress, high anxiety environment to be in. ⁓ so it's not the most comfortable thing for most people to go to and it's not the most enjoyable thing, ⁓ for many people. I find the gay games to be the exact opposite to that. ⁓ especially for many LGBT people that come from smaller countries. You make the decision to sign up, you head off, you get to the opening ceremonies and you walk into a field with eight or ten thousand other athletes from all over the world who are the same as you. ⁓ they're LGBTQ, they're in sports, they've maybe had a tough time getting through those sports, finding a community that they felt comfortable with. they maybe felt ostracized, felt a little uncomfortable at going to those tournaments to participate. And then you come to gay games and everybody wants you to be there. Everybody's excited that you're there. You suddenly meet ⁓ people from your sport, from other places in the world, and they have very similar experiences to what you had. You form new friendships. ⁓ and at least within the martial arts. I don't know about the other sports 'cause I haven't been involved in those, but within martial arts, ⁓ the first games that I was able to get to were Chicago in two thousand and six. I was running a club in San Francisco that I formed after the murder of Matthew Shepherd. ⁓ I was teaching a for profit club out in the East Bay. Matthew Shepherd was murdered. I was a third man in ⁓ the East Bay. I was teaching these rich people how to do taekwondo. ⁓ and when Matthew Shepherd occurred it was like I should be doing something for my community. ⁓ so I decided to try and set up a club in the Castro. I I went down, I found Utica Valley Rec, which is a parks and rec place. They allowed me to take a space for free. I set up the club for free and I encouraged people to come and learn martial arts so that if anybody else was in that environment or situation, they might at least have some tools to protect themselves. ⁓ by the time two thousand and four came around and I was talking to my students about it, we had about hundred students going through the martial arts club. So I spoke to them. I told them what Git Games was, told them I'd never been to it, but said it was in Chicago, so it wasn't very far away. ⁓ wouldn't cost too much to go. We could stay in the dormitory at the local university. So accommodation would be relatively inexpensive. And they could experience a martial arts environment with LGBT people. I thought maybe three or four people from the club would decide to go. I actually took fifteen people to Chicago so it was quite it was Wow. Wow. We walked on the the ⁓ it was the baseball field and I think it was Wrigley field was it Wrigley? I can't remember the Chicago field right now, but it was whatever the baseball field was. ⁓ Team San Francisco always goes in first because the gig game started in San Francisco. So the parade of athletes, it's always San Francisco first. So they got to walk into the field first, go up to the the start of it first. ⁓ the stands were filled with people all applauding and, you know, excited to see them there. About twelve thousand athletes all paraded onto that field. ⁓ He had a fantastic time at the opening ceremonies. We go to the martial arts event and everybody is just very happy, very happy to be there. Everybody's clapping everybody as they're participating. You know, you go to a normal tournament, if you've got somebody from your club that's per participating, you encourage them, but when the opponent is up, you don't want them to do very well. So it can be a kind of negative experience. Right. ⁓ gay games martial arts is entirely the opposite. Every single person that participates, everybody's empowering them, they're clapping for them, they're encouraging them. anyone that's a little uncertain or unsure, there's always something that I give them a a little chat to encourage them, to to promote them going out there. And people just come away with a very positive, empowering experience. So to me it is a an extremely powerful, cathartic, positive experience for almost everybody that goes to it. ⁓ and for a lot of people around the world. And another experience in Chicago, there was one person that came from an African country. ⁓ had he been known in that African country that it was the gay games that he was going to or that he was LGBT and he was competing, he could well have been arrested and executed for it. But he made the decision to come to Chicago. ⁓ the gay games have this thing where we have ⁓ human rights ⁓ what do you call them? Meetings basically. So it's kind of like a human rights event where you can come to meetings and talk about human rights. So that allows people that are coming from those countries where being LGBT is illegal. To not say they're going to gay games to participate, they are going to a human rights conference. So they sign up for the human rights conference, but they can participate in gay games. ⁓ as he walked into the the stadium, he was one of the last people walking in. ⁓ they explained the situation when he's walking in. And the whole the whole environment just like exploded in applause and so on. So it was I think it was a unique and third experience for him. ⁓ and for almost everybody else that was there, you know, that was a powerful moment. And it it really kind of clicked like this is this is an important thing to do, an important thing to support, and an important thing to happen. And now, like, what is this? Fifteen, twenty years? No. No, maybe about twenty years beyond, yeah. You say it started in eighty six? It started in eighty six with the first games in San Francisco. It's been going on every four years since then. ⁓ two thousand and six, ⁓ was in Chicago. And twenty years later, well a lot of things have changed within ⁓ western culture. ⁓ a lot of things have not changed in other parts of the world. ⁓ so while it would seem like you you would think maybe gay games is not as important, not as necessary, not as ⁓ not as groundbreaking and useful, ⁓ I think it is. I think it is still as essential. ⁓ because even the gay games right now, we are handling things like ⁓ non binary and ⁓ people that don't want to identify gendered ⁓ coming to the games and we're trying to work through the process of how do we make it comfortable for them, how do we encourage them to come. How do they feel comfortable when they're at the games? ⁓ there's always something new that crops up that we're dealing with that society in general is handling. ⁓ and we tend to be a little ahead of the curve, but it's also very challenging to deal with those ⁓ sort of issues and figure out a comfortable way through it that makes everyone feel comfortable. ⁓ so it's just a very unique and interesting experience. Yeah, but also the binary discussion becomes something because I'm assuming there are men's and women's categories and Are they participating in that class or whatever they whatever however you categorize that? So the non binary would be something that maybe I would assume the gay games would be way ahead of because it's been around a lot longer for them to us to be dealing with. So interesting how that's very interesting. And and we have been handling it for longer. I'm not saying that we're doing the best job because it's constantly a learning experience. And every new generation that seems to come along has a new perception of gender and sexuality and where they fit in and where they don't fit in. And it is true that most sports are very well th they're very developed from history and they tend to hold on to tradition a long time, maybe longer than they should. ⁓ and that colors perception. And especially if you have sports that are very male centered, then it's very difficult to get them to change perceptions and change thought processes. It's happening slowly within professional sport, ⁓ but it's happening much more slowly within amateur sport and so on. ⁓ and the gay games has faced us since the beginning. ⁓ from the very beginning we had people that were HIV positive and were having to take lots of drug regimens to be able to just live and survive. ⁓ but when the gay games were first beginning and we were looking for insurance coverage for events that were happening in other countries, sometimes those insurance companies would require drug testing ⁓ to meet what was the professional standard. And that did not allow many ⁓ attendees that were on HIV and trip. intro yeah, anti retroviral ⁓ medications to participate and attend. ⁓ we couldn't get around that in the beginning because it was a requirement for the insurance. So we had to set up separate divisions that said, this is the drug testing division and this is a division where there will be no drug testing. ⁓ so we had to be creative in thinking how can we get around this? How can we encourage people to come and participate and just be there in that environment and yet still do the fiscal things and the legal things that we had to do to have the event in the countries. So it it's a kind of interesting experience to be on the and connected to the FGG and see all of these things come up and see how they kind of try and figure out how do we resolve this, how do we work around this, how do we make this work? Huh. Well I'm encouraged because what I hear is that Gary and I can grab our shuttle talks and go to I hear you do that a lot actually. The lighting is all and grab my shuttle. All you need is your bad mitten racket and shuttle box and done. Barry, pack your bags. We're going to Spain. I'd to dust mine off. The gay games are also unique in that they have things like ⁓ dance. So they have dance competitions. ⁓ you can do they've they've had things in the past like ⁓ chess and ⁓ my gosh, I can't remember. The little round things that you have on a board that you move around. ⁓ it's not chess, but it's the next one that drafts, is it? Checkers, yes, you guys call it checkers. I couldn't remember the American name. I think we call it drafts in the UK, but it's checkers here. So they they have a number of unique ⁓ d ⁓ sports or ⁓ activities that you can engage in that are not traditional ⁓ Olympic events. So so it's a wide range. I can do that. Drag bingo. They don't have bingo, but ⁓ they do have actually one of the fun events to go to in swimming, they call it Pink Flamingo. and all of the ⁓ swimmers put on a show. And it's a very theatrical, very campy, very tongue in cheek, ⁓ risque isn't and I mean swimmers. Who doesn't want to go and see the swimmers being risque? So it's a very fun show. Well hey question. Have has San Francisco hosted again. We have not I tried to do that in twenty twelve. So I is it twenty twelve? No, twenty twenty I think it was I tried to do it. ⁓ so I got together a bid committee, met Quite a number of times we went to the the Federation of Gay Games has something called the ⁓ assembly, the ⁓ gay games assembly. They meet ⁓ every year and every year when they meet, ⁓ they are basically voting or deciding on what the next country will be to host. They choose the country eight years ahead. So eight years ahead we know who the next one will be. So for example, we already know that Perth, Australia will host in twenty thirty. So the gay games will be in Perth next that next time. so I got together the group. We got together athletes from all over San Francisco. We put together a bid, which is a huge amount of effort. We went to Sydney to present it. ⁓ there were a number of other countries that were presenting there. ⁓ but ⁓ at that time ⁓ Hong Kong actually won the bid. So San Francisco did not ⁓ wasn't successful. So we tried it one other time. It's it's a huge amount of effort. It literally putting on a gay games is like putting on Olympic games. You need the same amount of planning, you need the same amount of support. It's a huge fiscal responsibility. ⁓ there's a lot of planning involved, a lot of people involved. So it's a it's a tremendous effort for any ⁓ country to actually bid. Sure. And the amazing thing about gay games is the last the cycle for the Perth one for twenty thirty, I think there were eight fifteen countries that were bidding initially. So it has become definitely something that people want to bid for, countries want to bid for. And it does bring in a lot of money and the gay games tends to bring in fifteen to twenty million to the local economy. So it's a huge boost to any local economy. So it's it's a pretty positive thing all all around. Crazy. So am I gonna see you in Valencia with your shuttlecocks in Bedminton records? You've still got time to sign up. The registration is still open. ⁓ I've already signed Gary up, he doesn't realise it yet. I went online. It's on my to-do list. So I thought maybe since we talked let's switch gears a little bit, as Gary had said. Yeah. And maybe we could jump a little bit into something Gary's very familiar with, which is getting older. So Aren't we old? Uh-huh. No, Don, I think that's time is up. Thank you very much. Nice to see you. At least your time is up. Your time is up, Don. ⁓ Well yes. I mean it is called Don and Gary Doin Sixty. And how many sixties have you done? So ⁓ well I've done sixty-three. I'm I'll be sixty four in the fall, as will Dawn. No, that math is wrong. It's a typo. My birth certificate is completely is I think we're breaking up here. Sorry, the signal's down. Sorry, we lost the the Wi Fi's out. So that makes us all the same age, actually, because I'm sixty three. Yeah. Does it? ⁓ sixty three, right? Born in sixty three. And six Not born in sixty two. You might be one year older than me then. I was born in sixty-three. I'm younger. Well, but the important thing is that you've you've passed sixty. So one of the questions we ask our guests, because you have to be in the sixty club to be a guest, is ⁓ how are you with ⁓ age and turning certain ages? Was sixty any different than thirty five or forty or fifty? I mean, for some people, a certain age is like That was really a tough pill to swallow. So what what's your experience? To be honest, I've never been concerned about my age. I've never thought about it. Sometimes when people ask me how old I am, I've gotta actually think about it before I can tell them. So age was never something for me at all. ⁓ I think that's partly because of my background. ⁓ growing up as an LGBT person and starting to look at movies and so on, HIV coming around, joining the British Army and doing Ireland and so on, my perception of my life was that I probably would not last longer than forty. I thought I would be dead by forty, either because I would die in the military or HIV would get me or something. There was something that wasn't gonna give me longevity. So I really had decided that I probably wouldn't last that long. So I thought I'd better enjoy myself in the younger part and not like wait until older. So the the whole age thing and the longevity thing really was never an issue for me. And that may just have been my mentality from the very beginning, ⁓ and that might just have played into that. But literally sixty other than the fact that there was a martial arts small martial arts tournament that was happening in Sydney, ⁓ on the year that I turned sixty, and I wanted to kinda support that. And sixty was like a milestone for a lot of people. So I decided to make it a destination birthday. So I talked to my partner Paul. We had been to Sydney once already and loved Sydney and as we were chatting, I was like, you know, my sixties coming up so and there's this little tournament down there. It also coincides with Mardi Gras down there. I don't know if you know what Mardi Gras in Sydney is. Fantastic LGBT pride event. So I was like, I would really like to, you know, have my birthday down there. It would be earlier 'cause my birthday's in April, but Mardi Gras was in February. Okay. So it would be a couple of months early, but I decided I'd like to go down and celebrate my birthday down there. I go to Mardi Gras, get to this little tournament. And then we had been to New Zealand before and we love New Zealand. So we wanted to do a trip to both Sydney and ⁓ New Zealand. So we started chatting about it, talked to some friends, and we ended up going down there with a group of that was about twenty people. So we went to Curns first and we did really ⁓ the Great Barrier Reef. ⁓ Paul doesn't swim very well, so we we did a little bit of swimming practice with him. We got to the Great Barrier Reef and he still wasn't a great swimmer. But we got him in a life fest, we got him a snorkelone mask and I held his hand and we went out and we swam the Great Barrier Reef and he had a fantastic time. Really enjoyed it. We got back to Sydney, we had a wonderful nice meal and a nice restaurant. ⁓ we did a speedboat thing on the Sydney harbour. ⁓ spent a couple of days in Sydney, did Mardi Gras and then we went to New Zealand to Queenstown, spent a few days in Queenstown, did the whole ⁓ Lord of the Rings thing, did the tour ⁓ so we had a fantastic time. So sixty was a great actually celebration for me. I really enjoyed it. ⁓ but the fact of getting older doesn't bother me in the least. And if you look back at your now we're gonna turn the mirror around. If you look back at your younger years, is there some advice that you would give to yourself at a certain age? Be that eighteen or thirty or twenty, whatever, whatever it is. Maybe now I would look back and I would tell my my much younger self, twelve to sixteen, just be more open, you know, meet more people, talk to people. I was very reserved and very shy. So I had one or two close friends, but I wasn't into going to parties. I wasn't in a big group so I didn't really enjoy that too much. ⁓ got into school and started doing rugby and playing a few more team sports. But being LGBT I definitely felt on the outside of that and I didn't want to get too involved. So I I deliberately did not build a lot of friendships because I didn't want the exposure and I didn't want the risk of that. And I think as an older person I would probably have gone back and said, do it, you know, doesn't matter what people think. Just have the experience of it. Mm-hmm. And that age too is always I mean, for anyone, regardless of who you are, that's you know, that those teenage years are are sensitive and awkward and you know, you're you're changing, your body's growing and changing and And then you now maybe going from middle school to high school and it's a complete different environment. And maybe you were the big man on campus in middle school, but now you're the low man on the totem pole in high school. And you know, to your point, if you get in sports, that's a great way to connect. But if you're not and you don't connect, well, that's that is. And most of my sports were very individualistic. I liked running and jogging, so that was very individual. I liked swimming, that was pretty individual because you weren't working on a team. I didn't do relays. ⁓ so rugby was about the only thing that I did that was a team sport. And that was only because there was one boy in the team that I really liked, so I joined the team. I say what about wrestling? Wrestling interestingly, we don't we didn't have Greco ⁓ wrestling in the UK. I didn't know about that until I came to the States. ⁓ I mean it it probably is there. My high school did not have it, so it wasn't an option for me. They didn't have to know that. You can just say, We're gonna we'll have practice at my house. Wanna come over, we'll wrestle? You know. ⁓ Come on. But yeah, there was not that official Greco wrestling thing. I didn't know about that. And I know I probably would have done that. No, though Lycra, you know, come on. So Ken. I'm over here. I'm over here. ⁓ can, you know, sixty-three, it's not the end of the world, it's just the beginning in a lot of ways too. Has has retirement come up on your on your horizons yet? Is that something you're thinking about or considering? Because that would also a shift and alter I believe you said that your your business is run with your husband, correct? So right. Okay. So have you talked about that yet or is that I'm actually semi retired. ⁓ I was when I came out of the military I got into computer work and I started doing programming. So I became a a developer and a systems engineer. That's what brought me to the States. I was a systems engineer. ⁓ did that for a number of Fortune five hundred companies, came out to California, was only meant to be here a couple of years, but kept extending the contract and honestly I loved California, the weather, the environment. I discovered the Castro and got connected to that. So decided to stick around for a while. I was an independent contractor that whole time, so I wasn't employed. I was ⁓ just a contractor working out here. ⁓ but that was pretty high intensity work. ⁓ and about ⁓ what was it? Twenty no maybe twenty years ago, ⁓ things kinda changed a little bit in that environment. Po My husband was setting up his dental office. He was looking for somebody to help him with the front desk and the computer work. Because his was one of the first digital offices in in California. ⁓ I know computing. So I decided to quit the programming stuff and work with him for a couple of years, I thought, and just get the office set up and then I would go off and do something else. ⁓ so I kind of semi retired from the high intensity ⁓ programming and systems engineer stuff and I went to work with Paul and something that was much less stressful ⁓ and lower key. And he also the work there gave me time to have free time to do all of this volunteer work. So literally working for Paul gave me more time to spend on connecting to other organizations and doing volunteer work. So I've probably been semi retired for the last twenty years. ⁓ which means I work about Okay. It's a good run and I work about four days a week the rest of the time. And I sometimes leave the office early. ⁓ 'cause I can. So I I cannot complain about that. Paul is kind of the same as me. He's very focused. He's very dedicated. He spends a lot of time at the office, ⁓ on charts and chatting with patients and so on. ⁓ but COVID actually changed his life look as well. So the time that we were down for COVID, the office obviously had to close for a couple of months. ⁓ he was at home, couldn't do much. I was out with SFD, we were doing the around going around the parks and so on during COVID period. So he was at home. I was out doing stuff. ⁓ so his experience was a little bit different. But it did make ⁓ reassess priorities and reassess life and so on. Started to realise that he was getting older. I'm eight years older than he is, so you know, I'm Methuselah while he's still young and spray and sprite. So ⁓ he might not be around for long either. So and we do love to travel. So I mean the thought process was we should do longer trips where we're sitting on a plane for longer while we can still do it, 'cause there might be a period where we will be less able or less willing to sit in a plane and travel all the way to Patagonia or travel all the way to New Zealand. ⁓ so it did make him start to think about prioritizing travel. ⁓ and at the same time he started to think about ⁓ I should think about an exit plan for the office and what we're gonna do as far as ⁓ moving away from work and And what are we going to do? Many of our friends in San Francisco who are at retirement or are considering it, their plans are to leave San Francisco and to move somewhere less expensive and ⁓ perhaps warmer more of the time. ⁓ so a number of the friends that we were chatting with were planning leaving. ⁓ so that made Paul start to think about, ⁓ do we want to stay in San Francisco if most of our friends have already left and they're somewhere else? And that's a bit of a six and half a dozen. ⁓ we both love San Francisco. We love the environment here. It's hard to live in. It's very tough, especially San Francisco. I mean, there's few places in the world that I have lived or been for a while that I would happily live in. Sydney, I think, I would love ⁓ to live in regularly. San Francisco I love. Berlin I could easily live in. And I mean I love Scotland and I love Glasgow, but honestly the weather there for many parts of the year is not the funnest thing. So I would love to be there in good weather, but I don't want to be there in bad weather. ⁓ especially as you get older and you get less mobile or those, you know, more challenges as far as that. So being in a place where the the environment is nicer, the weather is nicer, ⁓ and it's just comfortable living is something that we started looking at. Paul being Taiwanese, he feels very comfortable retiring to Taiwan. And that would be a very comfortable spot for me. I would not mind that at all. ⁓ except in the summer when the humidity is at ninety degrees and the temperature is at ⁓ ninety degrees. Which is unbearable for most people. Well, that's when you go visit those friends that live in those columns for in the summer in Scotland. It is nowhere near I think a lot and I think a lot of the molds that our parents or generations before us have grown up with are kind of shattered right now. You do not have to work till you're sixty five. You can live in multiple locations. You could literally keep your home in San Francisco and do a VRBO in Taiwan for three months if you wanted to. You c I think that a lot of the The norms that people had thought about retirement or retiring are changing a great deal. My husband is younger than me and he retired two weeks ago. Retirement takes a lot of that's not the way I planned, and I did not sign up for that, by the way. But it's just the way it worked. But what we did was a lot of planning. You have to do a lot of thinking about what you're going to do because who are you if you're not working? Not that your job is everything, but a lot of us identify mostly with our careers. And if they ask you what you're doing, like, That would be the next question. Like if you're not working, who are you and what is and that takes a lot of thought. I I think it's something that definitely all of us need to think about in some respect before we dive in and just say, I'm quitting my job, I'm leaving. I'm gone, I'm I'm not working tomorrow. So but it sounds like you've had started. I think that's much more challenging for Paul, 'cause Paul very much is invested in being a dentist, being a doctor in the practice, that that's a big part of his life. ⁓ I I've encouraged them to find things outside of it and he does a little bit. He was doing taiko for a while. He he's he's interested in a couple of other things, but it's not it's not a huge part of his life at the moment. ⁓ me on the other hand, I've got all of these volunteer activities, I've got interest out sites, ⁓ and as I say, I've been semi retired. I'm basically living the retired life already. So once we decide to retire, it will just be And you've been able to tip your to you've been able to dip your toe into all of this organ organizations that truly interest you, which is a wonderful gift to have. Yeah. Yeah. Can I go off topic for a moment? I wanna I wanna I wanna gush about his husband Paul. He's my been my dentist for ten years, amazing. I heard about him as a dentist from other neighbors, like yeah, you have to go to him. So at the point at which my insurance changed and I was able to go to them, in a heartbeat I went to them and have never turned back. ⁓ because in my younger years I was not willing to went to the dentist often. And my very first visit, you know, did the whole exam thing, I was like, ⁓ great, no cavities. I'm thinking, really? But look again. Yeah. I want a second opinion. But I want to guess you about Paul because the the story it is I believe it's on the website. It's so heartwarming is that what motivated him to become a dentist. And when he was growing up, I guess he didn't have great teeth. So when he got to a point where he was able to go to dentists and they corrected whatever they needed to correct, it made such a positive impact on himself, like self esteem, whatever, that that From there grew the idea that I want to do that for someone else. So that inspired him to I mean am I telling the story right, Ken? Is that Yeah, he he had braces for the many years. And I think that's what connects him and me. So anyway. I mean, that's what got me into volunteering, that's what got me into law enforcement, that's what got me into teaching martial arts. It was you know, ⁓ it had a huge impact on my life and I thought this can help other people. So make it a make it available to other people. Always want to help other people. So yeah. One of the questions we ask our club members, it's not about Don. But it was all about Don. ⁓ you get to a certain point. Well, it is, but not now. We get to a certain point where, you know what? I just don't want to put up in the put up with that anymore. And we call that ain't nobody got time for that. You know, it's like so Ken Craig asking you. What do you what do you not got any time for? What do you w what is it that like I can't put up with anymore? I won't I won't accept that. I won't deal with that. It could be a trait in someone else or whatever. And I know I just threw that at you, but you know. Because if not, Don and I can run off a whole laundry list. We got all kinds of questions. Go ahead. I think for the most part, I'm pretty easygoing with most people. ⁓ I think some of my hard red lines probably would be. And I mean it's probably the same for you two guys, ⁓ politics right now. And the whole thing that's going on with the Naga movement and and people that are just they espouse one thing publicly or ⁓ in writing, but they do not practice that ⁓ themselves, ⁓ or just hypocritical. That really that burns my boat. That's one thing that I just cannot stand. So yeah. So that really is something that I I don't tolerate very much. ⁓ an energy that acts like that I don't have them in my life very much. And the older that I get, the easier it is for me to say, Nah, I'm not interested in you anymore. You're I don't trust you. I don't respect you. You're not doing what you say. You're not ⁓ following through with what you claim to be your values. So yeah, you're just not interested in trying to change you or trying to keep you in my sphere so that maybe you will change. It's like thought of time for you. Exactly. Yeah. I hear you. Don, did you have ⁓ a little list of questions? gotta go. I got I got one, then we gotta then I got my brand new lightning round for season three, which you're gonna be the first test before. So this is news for me too. So So wait, so the put there any have you experienced any ageism? Anything that has in your career, in people's perception, anyone I know San Francisco's a very progressive city, and I would never see anything overtly in the place. But for example, if I were to change careers and I moved as I did from San Francisco to the South Bay. I did experience quite a bit of of j ⁓ ageism because of my age trying to jump into another job. Have you ever seen anything like that when you're luckily no. I from the time that I came out of the army, all of my work has been either as an independent contractor, so I was ⁓ not employed per se. ⁓ and my my background and experience spoke for itself when I was most of the time people were kinda headhunting me. They wanted me to come. ⁓ so that was never a challenge. Once I stopped doing that, I was working with Paul. ⁓ sort of well he has many problems with my age. ⁓ there's never really a direct problem as far as like working with him. But probably the opposite was true for me. A lot of times I ⁓ people thought I was much younger than ⁓ my actual ⁓ chronological age. So it it might have worked the opposite way most times rather than ⁓ the other way around. So I've been very lucky in that sense. Good. Good. Okay. So are you ready for the season three lightning round of questions? I know I am. These are these are very fast, so don't worry and don't think too hard about them, okay? So early bird or early bedtime? Early bird. Late bedtime though. Okay. Reading glasses or pretending you can still be reading glasses. Okay. Reading glasses in your pocket, the car, or on your head right now? ⁓ on my head right now, if necessary. Naps or more naps. No naps. I don't nap. I don't sleep. Well then I can't say asleep by 9 30, you're lying about it. No, we don't go to bed until about ⁓ eleven, twelve on a work day and about three on a weekend. Okay. Steak or cholesterol medication? I'm not a big on steak, so it's not a big thing for me. Okay. I like my meat. ⁓ I like my meat too. Sorry. Sorry, Don what? Diner coffee or twelve dollar hipster coff pour over that you need to sell a kidney to afford. Vinyl recrify vinyl records or the Spotify app you can't. I'm a computer guy. Botox or good lighting. Botox are good lighting. Never doing Botox. Okay. Okay. Yoga or complaining about your okay. Jogging or watching people jog. Okay. Last question. What's the most old person thing you did this week? ⁓ that's a good question. I don't know. It could be. Okay. Do you make a noise when you get up? When you stay You know what? When I get up, when I get down, when I turn my head on. I that's a learned thing though. I I all my grandparents would do it, my parents would do it, my older brother would do it. I think I just learned to do that. I don't think it was anything specifically like ⁓ my back hurts. I think this is like ⁓ when you get up you breathe out. But I don't know, I'm not sure. Right. Well if your grandparents did it, that's called respect. Respecting your elders. By copying them. Well I'd say congratulations, Ken. You've actually become, you know, one of the first test test rabbits for our our questions. Was it successful? But you did quite well. Yeah. You did quite well. The editing room will tell us. ⁓ I I said I don't really like meat, but Paul and I did go to ⁓ Japan. We love Japan. And I have eaten the the steak dander or the wagyu. The wagyu dander is delicious, so I enjoy that. A lot of times steak is not my favorite thing 'cause sometimes it's just tough and chewy and not so great, but if it's a good piece of meat I I enjoy it. Okay, that's we're going all three of us are going there and you were thinking it could juicy piece of me. So are we ready to wrap this up? I think we are. Ken, thank you so much for well, one, for everything that you do. Yes. ⁓ as a volunteer, as as a husband, as a business owner is everything. Send back to you, Gary. You you volunteer just as much as I do. So we're both on the same boat. Well, I I don't have a list of eleven things. But I have a list of no things, so I think I've got to get going. That's probably smarter actually. I'm I'm riddling that list down. So I think you're in the right place. ⁓ Well, Ken, thank you so much for joining us. It's truly a pleasure speaking with you. one more question. Are you are you much of a reader? I do like reading, yeah. Could you rec what what's a book you would recommend somebody read? I'm one of these people that I will watch a an amazing film. I think it's fantastic, and I'll remember it for about ⁓ the name of it. I'll remember the name of it for about ten minutes. And I'm gonna have another conversation that's gone already. So there's a number of books that I've read and the number of movies. Yeah, it's just one of those things for me. I don't retain that information very well. That's quite all right. That's okay. We'll just edit one book. ⁓ It's written by Christian Craighead. ⁓ you probably will not who know who Christian Craighead is, but ⁓ he wrote a children's book. It's about the it's the lone the lonely wolf or the lone wolf. It's a children's book. and we've got some friends here in our building that just had a a baby. Baby's just coming up to just had his first ⁓ birthday. I don't normally focus on children and so on, but Christian Craighead is a member of the British military. He was part of the Special Earth Service Regiment. I don't know if you know what that is, but it's a special forces group. He was out in Nairobi doing training for the Nairobi people when there was a terrorist incident. at a mall in Nairobi. ⁓ there was a group of people that were going through murdering people and setting off explosions. And Christian Craig had was out there training, shouldn't have been at the mall, but was called by a friend, said, Could you come and help? There are news articles and there are things on YouTube that you can find, but he on his own went into the shopping center, ⁓ brought a whole bunch of ⁓ people out safely. killed three of the terrorists, three of the four terrorists himself. So he's known as the Obi-Wan of Nairobi. Amazing person, very down to earth, very blustery at all. But I've seen a number of interviews with him. really respectful him and what he's done. And he just in one moment when he was sitting around had this idea for a book pop into his head about his experience as a child, about being feeling like the outcast, about being bullied, about finally finding his place and Going to the military and and finding a something that was worthwhile to him and that he felt valuable. So he wrote this book with a friend. Christian Christian Craighead. C R E I G H E A D. So my thought was I should buy this book for this child. It's too old for him right now. But if it goes on the shelf and he reads it when he's like three years old or so, it's for three to five year olds, I think. ⁓ it would be a useful thing for for the kid. So a nice present. So that's only thing that pops into my mind just because a Christian Critic had wrote it and I'd seen this recently. I was like, you know, that's something worthwhile and worth promoting. It should be a good bit. ⁓ cool. Yeah. Anyway, sir, we'll figure it out. We'll put it on there. We'll we'll do as an AI version of this and put the say, ⁓ it was like this. And like we'll figure it out. Again, Ken, thank you very, very much. ⁓ I made that mistake last time, right? That's okay. It's all right. And Gary, anything from you? No, I'm good. I I said thank you and I'm I know I'll see Ken shortly. But ⁓ yeah, thank you. Right down the street. Right? Well thank you guys again.