What the SNARF is an ADL?

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Okay, we're good to go. [00:00:02] Speaker B: Welcome. Happy Thanksgiving to all. And you're probably hearing this after Thanksgiving, so happy holidays. [00:00:08] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. Happy holidays in general. So welcome. And hey, first off, I wanted to say thanks for all the good reviews we're. You guys are doing for us and all the. The five star ratings we're seeing on Apple podcast. Would love it if you could do any more of those. That's fantastic too. Or tell your friends and share the show. We appreciate all of that. So. So what you got going on today, Mr. Clark? [00:00:47] Speaker B: So today I'm in beautiful Orangeburg, South Carolina, home where, where I grew up, in the actual room that I grew up for most of my life when we moved out here in 1980. That's a long time ago. And so this is kind of serendipitous that I'm in this room probably where I spent most of my life. And so doing this podcast, it's kind of cool. And it's Thanksgiving week for those of you don't. I know there's, there's a time warp kind of thing that goes on when you do podcasts. So we're not really. You're not listening to us. Probably in December sometime. But yeah, happy Thanksgiving to everybody. And as always, we've got a caretaker's holiday where it's complicated in multiple locations and you got things you got to worry about like people's oxygen and whether they get delivered from the assisted living at the right time. Or maybe you have an extended family and you're doing a video cast with everybody and you're sharing. So hey, we got tips galore. We can share. [00:01:49] Speaker A: It can be complicated. [00:01:50] Speaker B: It can be complicated, but it can be solved. That can be solved. [00:01:54] Speaker A: So don't doubt it. Don't doubt it at all. So how's your mom doing? [00:01:58] Speaker B: She's doing pretty well. She came in the room just a minute ago and said to me, you know, you gotta close that window because you can't get out. I'm like, okay, mom, that's not exactly what I need. That window provides light. I like it. But she's doing okay. She just had her breakfast and we were kind of reminiscing with each other. So it's kind of nice to be home for a while. [00:02:19] Speaker A: That's great. That's great. [00:02:21] Speaker B: How about you, loved one? [00:02:22] Speaker A: Oh, gosh, my dad's doing pretty good. He actually, I went and saw him yesterday for a little while, took him to a doctor's appointment, actually a dentist appointment. He's had some dental Work done and, but that's all working out pretty well and he seems to be recovering nicely. And my aunt, I've talked to her this week actually got to see her while I was in the same town my dad lives in. So it was nice to go by and see her and I've got some, some interesting stories about her, her assisted living place and some of the things that she's learning as she's, as she's going through that. So hopefully we'll get into that a little bit today. So I think that's where we're going. You know, this is a good, this is a good point to say this too. I learned some new terms this week about assisted living and all that and I'm going to do a shout out to another podcast called NX Caregiving, I believe it's called, or it's Caregiving Gen X style. I need to go back and find the exact, the exact thing, but I'll put a link in the show notes and I was listening to them and they gave me some info that I thought was kind of cool. So do you know what an Alf is? [00:03:27] Speaker B: An Alf? Well, okay. [00:03:29] Speaker A: No, beyond the little alien from the 1986. [00:03:33] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I couldn't get that out of my head. [00:03:36] Speaker A: Me too. Alpha is an assisted living facility. Alf. And how about a sniff? [00:03:41] Speaker B: That one? I don't know either. You stomping me? [00:03:44] Speaker A: There you go. Skilled nursing facility is a quick way to say, to say that sniff. And I got one more for you. A snarf. [00:03:51] Speaker B: Well, I don't know that one either. [00:03:53] Speaker A: It's close. So it's a skilled nursing and rehabilitation facility. So yeah. So we got Alpha 1 sniffs and snarfs and all kind of new information that I've learned about. [00:04:06] Speaker B: Cool. [00:04:07] Speaker A: So how's your dad's, I mean your, I guess your, your father in law, your. I know you call him dad. How's his snarf journey going? [00:04:17] Speaker B: His snarf journey is going okay. We got kind of got the sidetracked and we're back on track. Now again, not to reveal too many personal details, but one of the things I did notice about his journey is now that he's in a place where his mobility is limited and using technology, using the phone is a challenge. So we had a double challenge on it is that his phone apparently must have gotten wet and it's an Android phone and it died. Well, at least the screen died. So we're going through a kind of a journey to figure out how to get that working, probably going to end up putting him on another phone. But one of the things I think is really important, and we've talked about this before, and I guess this is just really important to emphasize again is making sure that you have access to accounts that they have so that you can make changes when they have trouble making those kind of changes. So obviously dad can't drive to the store and go to cell phone store to make things correct. And so getting access for his daughters to do that was a challenge. [00:05:29] Speaker A: I'll bet. [00:05:30] Speaker B: So we had to get somebody on the phone, customer service, we had to talk through that. Still running through some of the journey there, trying to fix his phone so we can get his pictures off, which is going to be another challenge for another podcast I'll tell you about. But it can be challenging. So one of the things you might want to do when you find, when you first jump on this journey, when is you begin to care, take for your parents, is think about how you're set up with your phone, your cable, stuff like that, and find ways to either put your names on the account or better yet, maybe you can save some money and just add a line to yours and manage that for them as part of what you're doing. They did it for you for a while, maybe it's your turn. And I think it makes it a lot simpler. It can make it a lot cheaper to think about too, as well. And because adding a line is opposed to adding a brand new account. And then you can also take advantage of all the carriers out there who want to get your business and they'll give you a phone or give you this. Be careful in that. So you, you certainly want to make a decision wide open about, hey, it's time, mom, why don't you jump on my line? Yeah, that way you can manage it. You don't have to worry about it. And we're not really talking about a bunch of money either. So you may be saving a bunch of money for them and a lot of hassle for sure. So we certainly are regretting that decision that we could have made two years ago and now we're digging our way out of it. [00:06:48] Speaker A: I hear you. That's. I think that's really good advice. And what you, what you save in money is great, but what you save in time is priceless. [00:06:59] Speaker B: Is priceless on top of that. It really is. And there's a reason why I mentioned this, Barry, is because there is a scam that you should know about and we're going to Talk about, I think Barry and I have talked about, let's do a whole session on some of these things. But one in particular, I want to get the word out. It's called a reshipping scam. And what that does is if your loved one gets calls a lot. And my parents, both my mom and my father in law get lots of calls from people unsolicited. Some of them claim to be people that they are not. Like your cell phone carrier or your cable guy, mostly your cell phone carrier for this particular scam. And what they do is they pretend to be the cell phone guy. They don't do anything mysticious. They just get enough information to place orders. And they order a phone or a tablet or something on your line, it gets delivered to that loved one's house, they pick it up and for some reason they may call back the same scammer. For some reason, maybe they've written down a number or they told them to call them if there was ever any issues. They call them back and say, hey, I got this strange thing, can you, I want to return it. And they say, sure, we can return it. And they give them an address to return it to, but it's not the return address. It's another place for them to take that equipment, sell it and use somewhere else. [00:08:20] Speaker A: I see. So they're, they, they, they're able to get the person to give them enough information to order a new phone or an app. An app? An app, excuse me, an iPad or a tablet or something. And then when that gets shipped, they're like, hey, I didn't order this. Where can I send it back? And then you remember that number for. [00:08:39] Speaker B: That person who called me? I'll call them back. [00:08:41] Speaker A: Yeah. And the scammer gives them this, gives them another address which is probably them, so that they get a brand new iPad or a new iPhone or new Android phone out of the deal. Huh? [00:08:51] Speaker B: Right. And so the scammer, the person scammed thinks they returned the phone. The only way they would know it is if they scrutinize their bill to see whether or not there's a charge for it. And this can happen over years. And apparently this happened with not only my love, but others too. And they were paying for multiple phones and multiple tablets and didn't know about it. So I see. That's one of the reasons why I say this is a good idea. Because if you get a place where someone like that may be having an issue determining what the bill is and something, it's harder to track those kind of things, you may want to consider moving them to something where you can monitor it so you can prevent that kind of scam or at least tell them, look, if you get a package, make sure you call the right number to return it or take it to the store and see what's going on there. Yeah, so there's, there's a lot of ways around it, but that's one of the things that we ran into and I just want to get the word out about it because it was, it certainly befell him and it's made it complicated now that things have gotten worse with him. [00:09:52] Speaker A: So yeah, that's a great public service to talk about that sort of thing. And like Bobby said, I think we're going to try to do an episode in the future where we talk about like maybe the top 10 scams that you might run into or your loved ones might run into. So I think that'd be, I think it'd a good thing to do. And I was lucky enough a few years back to get my parents convinced to let me put their phone lines onto my account, but mainly because it saved them a lot of money and you know, that was helpful, but it also gave me the benefit of being able to control access to that account, make sure that everything is above board and looking good and you know, whenever I would get a new deal, I could include them in the deal, which ultimately saved them money. But it really saved me a lot of time and you know, it was one less thing to have to go through later about having to get on their lines if there was a problem. So it's highly recommended, It's a good thing to do for sure. So you reminded me of something. As part of that, I was able to get my dad upgraded to iOS 18 yesterday. That was great. And I have upgraded myself. So the ability to be able to see his screen and, or take over his screen I think is going to become valuable. [00:11:06] Speaker B: Life altering. [00:11:07] Speaker A: Yes, yes, for sure. That's something we've been waiting on for quite a while and I think that's going to be really handy. One of my next steps with him too is to get him to try the AirPods Pro to as a hearing aid. We haven't quite gotten there yet, but we're very close on that one with him. [00:11:23] Speaker B: I know we talked about that before and I assume you still have a good things with that. [00:11:29] Speaker A: Oh yeah, yeah. I'm still digging it big time. My hearing loss is a little, it's, it's kind of minor in one ear, so I, it Mainly hits me in really loud situations, like in a loud restaurant or, you know, a venue with a whole bunch of people talking and that kind of stuff. It's been really nice to be able to pop those in, turn down the ambient noise, and then I can hear conversations so much better. So, yeah, if you, if you are. Your loved ones have, have trouble hearing, they're. It's well worth a shot to give those things a try if you're, you know, considering hearing aids. So that's. That's a good thing. So another thing too, when you talked about. I talked about Android phones and trying to help loved ones with their phones made me think is it's a good idea if you can, when you're with them, to take a couple of screenshots of their phone to be able to see where their apps are located, to see what they're called, what the icons look like. If you haven't done that, that's game changing too. If you don't have the ability to say, like, maybe cross platform, be able to take over the phone, you can at least have an idea of what they're looking at when they're trying to describe what they're doing. So, ye. Yeah, get a chance to do that. Feel free. [00:12:35] Speaker B: And just a reminder, don't just do that for phones. Do that for the remotes. Do that for other things too. [00:12:40] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. Do that for remotes and those kinds of things. [00:12:43] Speaker B: Take a picture of that cable box and know where the power button is. [00:12:48] Speaker A: Yeah. I remember when, I remember when cameras first started on cell phones. And I remember a good friend of mine was saying, I don't know what this is going to be good for yet, but I just got a feeling that, you know, it's. Right now it's a. It's a solution waiting for a problem. But I'm sure we'll be able to do something with these cameras eventually. [00:13:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Last famous words. I mean, really, I use it every day. I have so many pictures online now, and one of the things I hope to do on a future podcast is talk to you guys about how you can transfer pictures from one phone to another. Because we're gonna have that challenge. One father. And I'll make sure I come back and give you whatever tips I can pull out of that too. But you know, those things, pictures are important now. You know, it's like it's the one thing you leave to your family that you actually want them to have is all the pictures you had together and how you can grill it together. My mother has dozens and dozens of pit of photo albums stored in this house. There must be 30 of them, you know, with 200 pictures in them. None of them are on anything. This house burned to the ground. I'd lose all of that. And now we live in a world that. Most of my pictures are not printed in a book. They're on this phone. They're in my accounts. I think by last count, I had 40,000 pictures. I don't know how many you have, Barry. You take a lot of pictures, too. [00:14:06] Speaker A: Yeah, a lot, for sure. Well, I saw a device I think you would really dig this week. It was in the ubiquitous Christmas Sharper Image catalog. You get sent to everybody's house this time. [00:14:19] Speaker B: Does it start with an A? [00:14:21] Speaker A: I can't remember if it started with an A or not, but what the thing is, is a photo scanner that you can. It's handheld that has a. Has a little port where you can put a memory card in it, and you can just hold this thing over the photo albums and it will scan them without having to ever pull them out of the. [00:14:39] Speaker B: That's a cool thing, man. So, yeah, we're doing. We're doing the gadget recommendation in the middle of the show now, but. But that's a really cool thing. I really like that because I literally have, as I just told you, you know, dozens. The one I thought you were going to talk about was the Aurora. The Aurora frame set that you can buy. Now, I don't know what it costs, but it allows you to put a picture frame in, you put the account on, and you send pictures to your loved ones about your life. Video. [00:15:10] Speaker A: Yeah, that's very cool, all that stuff. And I think you can put captions on them, too, can't you? [00:15:14] Speaker B: Yes, you can. [00:15:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. [00:15:16] Speaker B: I think it's. They're selling it for Christmas now. We have to. We're gonna have to buy that device and check it out. [00:15:22] Speaker A: Well, yeah, I foresee a device review section of this podcast going forward at some point in time as we. As we. As we get new devices in and try out the things that we're gonna recommend, I think. [00:15:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we have four right now that are lined up that kind of. You and I are looking at right now. [00:15:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And it'd be just terrible if we were to have to buy those devices, to have them around just to be able to review, you know, that's awful. [00:15:44] Speaker B: You know, and if anybody wants to send us a device to review, you know, you can go ahead and do that. That's Fine. [00:15:49] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, if anybody wants to send us one, that's cool too, but, you know, but. But we'll have an unbiased review because we'll buy our own at this point. [00:15:55] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. That was a joke. [00:15:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. Oh, gosh. So I wanted to talk a little bit about going to see my aunt at her alf, her assisted living facility. And we got her. Got her in a few weeks ago. And so far it's been a great experience. She's been good. But something that I noticed even when we were getting her setup, is that it was very obvious early on that the personnel there were great folks, but they were overworked. You could really tell that they were a little bit understaffed, that there were people running around trying to get everything done and having some difficulty at managing it. You know, there would be things like my. My aunt would have a request. She'd see the person in the hall somewhere and say, hey, can I'm having trouble with this thing or can you help me out? And it would say, sure, absolutely. I'll be over there in just a little while, then we'll take care of that. And it might be hours, it might be the next day or maybe a day or two before they come around to look at it. And it got me wondering that I just noticed between that and some other things I've had, like with some of the administrators, I walked in and I'm not trying to. Well, we'll put it this way. We're not talking about a specific place, but I suspect you'll see this a lot. But we, you know, walked into their offices and their desks were just piled up with papers and forms and. And things falling off the desk. And it was a huge office, little bitty desk, looked like it was been there since 1985. And this was the case with more than one administrator there. And they look so harried like that. They. They just had so much going on. And I guarantee you that they had so much going on to the point that I think they were overworked. And they were overworked to the point that they were also disorganized. And it just. Just hit me that this must be a harrowing job to keep up a place like that and to keep things going. But the, The. The organizational part of it kind of freaked me out a little bit, you know, so being a person and it's worked with higher ed and being. Being a person who's into technology, I, you know, I try to stay organized And I try to, I try to leverage my technology to keep me organized. I put things on lists and eventually I get around to those lists, I can go back and see what I haven't done yet and who I promised what and you know, just those organizational systems that you're used to. And, and I didn't see any of that. And I don't know if that was just a reaction on my part because I'm just not used to, not to seeing things getting handled with no obvious organizational system around them or was or is it really just chaos? I don't know what's your observations from the skilled nursing facilities and that sort of thing? [00:18:42] Speaker B: Well, so as I remind you and those of you, two of us are IT professionals of long stature. And so we have messed with technology for a long time. And so there's some favorite words in some of the podcasts. I look and says, remember, you're in a bubble. And you and I know technology like we know the back of our hand kind of. And so we tend to move toward things that are tech related and want things that are not tech related. And that's not always a bad option. You know, to each his own. You have to do the thing that's. So I'm wondering if that most of those people are doing it out of necessity, not out of analysis. Right. They're not looking at this as the best thing that how do I manage this? They're just trying to survive. [00:19:30] Speaker A: They're just trying to survive. [00:19:31] Speaker B: So I have to remind myself when I do that, you know, not every solution is a tech solution. This is caretaker tips, but doesn't mean that everything that you do has to have technology in it. And sometimes the simple work, the simple item works. So, you know, I never, I never look at anybody. But now knowing the end of that is customer service for us, meaning that it shouldn't take two days for you to bring a box of napkins to somebody when you ask for it. There ought to be some ways that we can do that. And I have seen some care facilities as we did tours for some of the people I, my loved ones who are starting to use technology and what they do and even try to integrate what they do with the caregiving so they know you're the interesting caregiver, they will do things to help you know what your loved one is. I've seen cameras in care in ferry facilities. I've seen different options with cable and Internet being introduced in there when, you know, you know, 10 years ago maybe there wasn't Internet in the. In the owls. So that's true. So they're getting better. So I think that's. That's probably a journey that both as caregivers and as staff who are in these places did, you have to have a constructive conversation. So don't say, you know, barry and Bobby told me, y'all need to have a better care system out there, because that ain't gonna help you too much at the. At the point. But you do want to introduce things, to talk to them about what you have and what you need. So, you know, hey, they need to reach you, you can just text me, too. You let them know that that's possible if that's what. Something you can deal with. So make sure you have active conversations with them. And then the other thing is to make sure that you make allies and friends in the facility. Yes, they're there to help your loved one, but the more they understand that you care, that you're coming, you're showing, and that this is how you can be reached. Give them that opportunity. So I can think of that in particular with my dad, who loves football. You know, I had a conversation with the staff at that place that says, okay, he loves football. Here's how you make that tv go to the thing he wants to see. So, you know, have those conversations, because they're people, too. They got loved ones, and I'm sure they want to take care of your loved one just as much as they can anyway, make it easy for them. [00:21:55] Speaker A: So, yeah, I can. I can't imagine how. How stressful it would be to have that coming at you all the time. A hundred different directions, and, you know, and they probably. There probably are hidden organizational systems there that I just didn't see in the short time that I was there. But I was just thinking, gosh, even just a tiny notebook in a pit and a pencil would just. Just an assurance that it's on your list. You know? So. I don't know. It's just one of those things. But, yeah, I noticed, too, the tech person there, this lady who just. She seemed really on top of things. She was. She was doing everything from. From setting up people's Internet connections on their phones to setting up their DirecTV connections. And then the other day I walked in, and I just. She was leading an exercise class when I walked in, and I'm thinking, wow, Remember she told me she also Dr. Their. Their. Their van and bus to take folks around to different stores and to go on outings. And I'm thinking, wow, my goodness, you have A varied job and a very stressful job and whatever they're paying you, they're not paying you enough. I just straight up, that's, that's the way it is. [00:23:00] Speaker B: Maybe that could be our second gig. Man, I used to think it was a genius at bar at the Apple Store. But maybe we need to be the tech guy at the alf. I don't know. [00:23:07] Speaker A: I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if we could handle that. Or at least I don't know if I could handle that. You've got more patience than I do. So we'll see. Wow. [00:23:14] Speaker B: We all have our moments. So making sure you have that conversation with your loved one to if you have a space where you can, you know, vent and let some of that stuff out, I know you do that for me and we do it for each other. And you know, if you're a caregiver, second rule is find a place where you can have a conversation and talk to and then you can release because. [00:23:38] Speaker A: You'Re going to need that, this caregiving for yourself. In case you guys listening haven't figured this out, this is therapy for Bobby and I to talk about this and to talk about all the things around it. So thanks for listening to our therapy sessions and if you can figure out a way to get, get your own therapy sessions going. Whether it's just calling up a friend, whether it's writing in the morning in a journal if you need to, just to get some stuff out. But think about that. And journaling works. It works. And it's, and it's good for you all around for sure. So gosh, let's see here. One of the things that popped up when we were talking about working with the ALF was I had a conversation with an insurance company this week, actually a long term care insurance company for my aunt. And I learned a couple of things. One, on a, on a tech bent is that the new call recording feature in iOS 18 works like a charm. It is fantastic. There's one little button that you, that you press while you're on a phone call and it will tell everybody on the call that this call is being recorded. And it does a great job of recording and transcribing and dropping all that into an apple note for you. So that's a good thing. And it was kind of fun too to be on a call with an insurance company where one of the first things they tell you is this call may be recorded for quality assurance. And to be able to throw my own call recording Sound popping on there. It kind of, kind of threw the person I was talking to for a loop. So yeah, hey, yeah, we could do that too. So that was kind of nice. But the other thing that I learned is that you can be too healthy for your long term care insurance to kick in. So apparently there are a handful of gates that you kind of have to go through to determine whether or not you're eligible for your long term care to kick in. And let me see if I can remember those. Should probably have a list of these. But there are things like can you, can you dress yourself? Is one. Can you administer your own medications? Is another one. Let's see here. Can you bathe yourself? Is another one. Can you take yourself to the restroom on your own and take care of that sort of thing? And let's see here. So there's bathing, there's restrooms, there's medications. Can you dress yourself? I think that's most of them is. [00:26:06] Speaker B: A list, Barry, of I think it's life activities, something like that. I think there's a formal word for it. [00:26:17] Speaker A: And the thing really was is that you have to have two of those problems before you can. Before you, before your long term care insurance will kick in. And I was talking to the lady, my man only had one of those things that she needed help with and it just wasn't enough. And but they did tell me that you know, just because you put in a claim and it's denied because of that, that doesn't mean that it'll always be denied. So if you later on, if this person has, if your loved one has a problem where they can't do all of those things or you know, they have more than one of those things that they need help with, then you can resubmit a claim and then you got a lot more better. You have a lot better chance of the long term care kicking in. So just remember that if you're dealing with a long term care insurance company and gosh. Yeah, right. [00:27:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I've heard this before. This is life marker threat thresholds, something like that. Yeah, I'm trying to find it. We probably want to put that list into our show notes or something. [00:27:21] Speaker A: I agree. [00:27:23] Speaker B: It's activities of daily living adliving ADLs. [00:27:28] Speaker A: Gotcha. [00:27:29] Speaker B: And yes. And it's defined under the Americans Disabilities Act. That's where I've seen it before. And so they may be looking for two or more of those. Two more. So I've heard of ADL's. [00:27:42] Speaker A: ADL's another one to add to our list between ALFs and ADL's. [00:27:46] Speaker B: And sounds like we got a good glossary going that we might have. So, yeah, ADL's are important. So my dad, when he was sick and needed assisted living help, he couldn't dress himself, he couldn't bathe himself, he couldn't go to the bathroom and he couldn't feed himself. So he had four of them. And so that got us into a point where he could go into an assistant living area until he recovered. When he got back down to under two, then we could consider bringing him back home. [00:28:22] Speaker A: I see. [00:28:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, I think. I think ADL's is a good conversation to happen. It might be a good definition to throw in there because when you hear that, you go, what's that? And you know, it's. And I think insurance companies use it. I know alfs use it. And I think it's defined in the American Disabilities act, so you can be a part tactic class. So that's why I know about it a little bit because I do deal with that law. [00:28:49] Speaker A: Well, that's good to know. Fantastic. Gosh. All right, what else you got today? [00:28:54] Speaker B: Well, something. There was an idea in my head about, you know, since we're in the holidays and I think we had a conversation before about. About making memories. So one of the nice things about that voice memo feature that you talked about with phone calls is guess what, you can also use that for talking to your loved one as well. So not only just on a phone call, but you could actually, and I think we talked about this before, about recording some of the memories from your and precious moments from your loved ones while they still have the ability to tell you about it in detail. [00:29:28] Speaker A: Right. [00:29:29] Speaker B: So now you got a new tool that does that through a voicemail and also transcribes it and summarizes it and all those wonderful things. And you should probably jump into the experiment and try that for a little bit. That can hurt. They don't take up a lot of space and it's really easy to do, especially with the Voice Memos app. So, yeah, there's a lot of cool features coming out and not just Apple Intelligence, but a lot of the devices that are out there that will give you great options. So there are often ways for you to do that and to share those kind of moments and record them in some way and you never know when they will come in handy. [00:30:05] Speaker A: So, yeah, that's cool. Well, I think some other things that popped into my head too were wanted to ask our listeners if you've got any, you know, any comments or any questions to please write [email protected] we'd really appreciate hearing from you. And if you just want to tell us about your situation, we would, we'd love to hear what you've got going on. What's, what's happening with your loved ones and if you've got any questions about our, our situations and the things that are happening with ours. I'm sure we would. I mean, we would, we would obviously make a little generic and not talk about specific people and specific things, but we'd be glad to share what's going on. If you got any, any tips, any questions for tips and things that we've run into in our situations, we'd love to hear from you. [00:30:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's a really good idea for us to use the community to solve problems. I believe in that. Not just. But I think the community has lots of answers and all you have to do is find ways to connect to it. So this is hopefully one of the ways you do it here. And of course, if you love what we do, then you should subscribe, you should write a review, you should do all those wonderful things and tell the world about it. Because the more the community grows, the bigger the answers we have, the more answers we have. So we want to make sure we do that. [00:31:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, that reminds me too. I want to give a shout out to Chicago, Illinois, because Chicago, Illinois is where our biggest listener base is right now. Followed up closely by Seneca, S.C. we've got a few folks in New Jersey. We've got a few folks in New York. We've got a few folks in Missouri. It's just all over the board and we're. It just does my heart good to go and look at our analytics and see where folks are coming in from. It's, it's very cool. So thanks again, Chicago. Appreciate it. [00:31:59] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks to the Windy City. So, you know, I really appreciate the people growing the community because again, that's the way to make this thing better is to. For us to talk to each other and, and share notes about it. So Barry and I are going to talk to each other anyway because it's part of our routine. We just put it on tape and let it show out, you know, Put it on tape. That's an old way of saying it, but, you know, whatever digital MP3 thing we're doing right now, so. [00:32:24] Speaker A: Gosh, yeah, yeah, sure enough. So I think we're, you know, that's, I think that's all good stuff right there. I also think that, you know, we want to talk about maybe in the in some future episodes we're going to have few more things coming along. We're just going to throw this out as a teaser. One is we talked about an AI smart pen a couple of episodes ago and I ordered it and it's taken forever to come in and I'm going to put it up to the camera if you happen to be watching on YouTube. It's called the Plaud Notepen Bundle and it is an AI device that will do some recording and listening for you and use AI to summarize it and give you data around it. So I haven't even opened the thing yet, but I'm going to Bobby and I are going to work on that in a future episode about playing through that, giving you a review about how that might help you and might help you and your loved ones when dealing with the professionals in these ALFs and SNARFs and sniffs and all those kinds of things. A couple of other things. One was a friend told me this week about electronic pill minders, which I thought's kind of interesting. You know, a lot of folks have pill minders. [00:33:29] Speaker B: That's a good idea because I know a lot of things. Right. Well, even for me. And I'm doing this sort of watch your mom from a distance kind of thing. And I'm looking for things that will keep her privacy, but also let me know, hey, mom, you didn't take your pills today. [00:33:45] Speaker A: Right? Right. [00:33:45] Speaker B: And so that those kind of things are. And my mother also has to monitor blood pressure and blood sugar. And so we're also looking for that. And so I'm looking for devices that make that life easier. And as I find them, I'm bringing them to the podcast so we can talk about them and share them with the world. So including some things about phones that hopefully already introduced a little bit of the problem we're having. We have brought it to conclusion. Maybe part two is a next episode. I'll tell you how it ends, but certainly we want to do that. And then we mentioned the scam thing, which unfortunately we all have to deal with. And I guess the thing to keep in mind is this doesn't mean that you're not smart. This may have nothing to do with cognitive abilities. Some of these scams are very clever and you know, you can fall for them anyway. So just be aware and do the little things you can to protect, to protect yourself. So I'm looking forward to our conversations. You know, before you know it, it'll be 20, 25. Be miswriting checks and figuring out what the date is and all that wonderful stuff that comes up. I know somebody, some young person on this podcast said, what? What's a check? We will deal with that later. [00:34:52] Speaker A: Well, you'll be proud, too. I signed up for Zelle this week. [00:34:55] Speaker B: Did you really? Oh, cool. [00:34:56] Speaker A: Yes, sure did. That was a breeze. It was really easy through my banking app. Really, really cool. So we're taking our own advice. This is fantastic. [00:35:03] Speaker B: That's right. Eat our own dog food here. [00:35:05] Speaker A: Exactly. So I think that might be a good point to stop for today. And I just want everybody to know that we've got a lot of things in the works and we've got a lot of ideas, and we'll always welcome any feedback on where we could go with some of those ideas. If you've got devices that maybe we could review, let us know about that and we'd. Or questions about devices, we can help out always. So I think that's probably a good place to stop for today. Thanks again. Hope everybody has a great holiday and we'll see you back again here in a couple of weeks. [00:35:37] Speaker B: Happy holidays to everybody. [00:35:38] Speaker A: Take care. [00:35:39] Speaker B: All right.