# Episode 21 - The Millennials - Andrew

- Podcast: GenX Adulting Podcast
- Published: 2025-02-24T05:00:00.000Z
- Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/16680908-episode-21-the-millennials-andrew.mp3
- Page: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/transcripts/podcasts/genx-adulting-podcast/episodes/episode-21
- Source: https://genxadultingpodcast.com/episodes/genxadultingpodcastepisode21.html
- People: Andrew (guest), Brian Barker (host), Nicole Barker (host)
- Topics: The Millennials

## Summary

In Episode 21 of GenX Adulting, Andrew, a millennial from Maine, shares his experiences growing up in a small town and the challenges of navigating adulthood. He discusses his family background, the impact of his father's health issues, and the importance of maintaining strong family connections while raising his daughter.

## Key takeaways

- Andrew was born in 1986 and is the first millennial guest on the podcast.
- He grew up in Westbrook, Maine, which has a strong fishing and paper mill community.
- Andrew's father served in the Navy and worked as an accountant, while his mother ran a CPA firm.
- He played baseball in college and pursued a career in teaching and coaching after graduation.
- Andrew emphasizes the importance of open communication and support in parenting.
- He believes that social media has changed the dynamics of dating and relationships for millennials.
- Andrew's mother lives with him and helps care for his daughter, strengthening their family bond.

## FAQ

### What year was Andrew born?

Andrew was born in 1986.

### What sports did Andrew play in high school?

Andrew played baseball and hockey in high school.

### What is Andrew's perspective on social media and dating?

Andrew believes social media has made dating less organic and authentic, leading to challenges in building real relationships.

### How does Andrew view parenting?

Andrew values open communication with his daughter and aims to support her interests without pushing her into specific activities.

### What is Andrew's family background?

Andrew's father is a Canadian immigrant and his mother ran a CPA firm, providing a strong foundation for his upbringing.


## Referenced links

- [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqvTzgu8wfo)
- [Listen on Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-21-the-millennials-andrew/id1764838823?i=1000695436034)
- [Listen on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/3CUgUb3FyWM07SmZc0TobZ)
- [Listen on Buzzsprout](https://www.buzzsprout.com/2398379/episodes/16680908-episode-21-the-millennials-andrew)

## Transcript

[Music]
Welcome to GenX Adulting and today we
have Andrew with us. Welcome.
Thank you for having me.
We're happy to have you here. So our
first question for our guests is always
what year were you born?
1986.
Okay, so you're our first millennial.
Okay.
Yeah, I'm so excited to
have a millennial here.
Now I am so impressed with the
millennials and I've
been wanting to get one on.
So I'm just so excited
to have a millennial here.
Where were you born?
Maine.
And where in Maine?
Portland.
Oh, okay.
I'm from Portland, Oregon.
Okay, perfect.
So I know it's I think Portland, Maine is
smaller than Portland, Oregon, right?
Very small.
Oh, yeah.
But it's still a city.
It is a city.
It's a I guess made up
of a few different towns.
Westbrook being one of them and that's
kind of where I grew up.
So there's like a greater Portland area.
Okay.
And Portland's very diverse.
Like I said, the bigger city and then
everything kind of
branches off from Portland.
So suburbs are suburbs off of Portland.
We've been through there.
We did. We drove through there.
But we didn't spend any
time in there. We didn't stop.
But it has a downtown.
Yep.
Right.
Small little fishing town.
Okay.
Has a downtown area where like I said,
big lobster ring
fishing community itself.
I mean, tuna.
I mean, my friends used to go out, catch
big tuna and try to bring
it in and see how much money
they can make.
I had actually a family that we were very
close with had like a 1400 pound tuna.
It was like, wow, the biggest
thing when we were growing up.
Of course.
Everybody talked about it.
And then the father and the grandfather
made like a load of money.
Yeah.
For bringing in.
Does it still have
that fishing town vibe?
I'm assuming it's grown a lot.
It's become more of
like a craft beer hipster.
Yeah, cool.
The recreational marijuana.
Okay.
Everything like that has popped off.
Okay.
So cannabis craft beer.
Fishing.
I grew up in a small town with the main
thing is the paper mill.
So if you don't have a trade or if you
don't work in the
paper mill, a lot of times,
you know, your feast or famine.
So is that is that
paper mill still going?
Yep.
It's called sappy actually now.
Okay.
But we grew up actually, it was called SD
Warren and they were like this big
sponsor of everything
around town for the most part.
So is it?
The league.
Is that that sounds like it's a timbered?
Town to that.
A lot of cutting.
It's so it's just fine paper, but yeah, a
lot of definitely a lot
of trees and everything up
north.
Yeah.
Because they have another.
I want to say the second location was
further up north, but it
wasn't as big as the paper mill.
Yeah.
In our town.
So it's really it was the paper mill and
fishing was that the thing.
Yeah.
When you were growing
up or trade or a trade.
Is there a college there?
So you have a university in Maine, which
is Orno, which is like
three hours up north.
And then you have like the
smaller community college.
Okay.
And there are some like southern Maine
University is like a it's
like a Palm Beach state.
Okay.
Where they have branches everywhere and
it is, you know, they
have sports, athletic teams,
everything like that.
Just a lot of not so
much on campus students.
Right.
Commuters.
Like a commuter school.
So the town you grew up in, was it small?
Westbrook.
Yep.
Yeah.
I couldn't even probably tell you the
size of it, but there was
what 600 kids in our high school.
Total.
So what was your graduating class?
172, I think.
Okay.
So small.
So how did your parents end up there?
So my dad's from Canada.
Okay.
Just my his father left Canada and his
family and came to Portland.
My dad was like 17, went came with him.
His mom had passed away already and his
dad was like, we're going to states.
And he was like, all right.
What made him decide, do
you think, to come to America?
I don't know so much because it's funny.
His brother stayed in Canada and didn't
come to Portland at all
with the father, my and my
father and his father.
And he stayed in Canada back because he
was starting his family
and everything like that.
And so he went to Portland High.
They they did started a
car wash with his father.
And after high school went on to the Navy
and that was and then
after the Navy came back and
he started working for Hannaford
Brothers, which I think is on that same
food chain as Food Lion,
like that public.
But Hannaford Brothers
is like the grocery store.
Okay.
With a big grocery.
So he was an accountant there.
Did he become a citizen or?
Yep.
I actually sorry.
Technically, he's still on a green card.
He served did all his service on a green
card and everybody able to
vote or anything like that.
Wow.
Was that's already he's
still on a green card.
He's has it's what's
that 30 years or something.
And he's 77 now in assisted living
actually up just a little further north.
Yeah, he's in assisted living now.
OK, she's 77 in Portland.
No here.
Oh, so that's cool.
Yep.
OK.
I pretty much moved my my mom and dad
have been living out of
an RV travel up and down
East Coast for a while.
And then when my dad got dementia, it
took a toll on my my
parents during COVID.
My mom's like, we're
just going to kind of roll.
We're going to go over putting the RV on
the back of the truck.
I'm taking dad.
He's not.
We don't have too much longer.
We're going to enjoy ourselves.
Wow.
Really?
Now, I was like, really
sure you want to do this?
How old was he when he got diagnosed?
Seventy two, I think was about young.
Yeah, very.
But he's the oldest person
living on his side of the family.
Really?
Everybody else was gone by like 56, 58.
So he's kind of been on borrowed time.
I joke.
Is there a common is it cancer?
Is there a thing diabetes?
Just health.
There's a lot of
underlying health issues.
His brother died a heart attack.
Fifty four.
Dad died of a heart attack as well.
He was 48, I think.
Wow.
Yeah.
And then actually my grandma, who I never
got to meet, but she
would have in today's world,
obviously live with just fluid in the
lungs and everything like that.
And wow.
Complications.
I don't really know
the full story about it.
Right.
He was like eight years old.
So 70, like you said, 72, that's.
Yeah.
I mean, well, is he still.
Yep.
Still.
So how old is he now?
78.
Okay.
Yep.
And is he has this dementia progress
where he can't really
participate in things anymore?
It's made it harder.
Um, I it's like the loud noises, the
constant, um, you know, just reminders.
I think he's very
dependent on my mother as well.
And so sometimes he just wants it to
either just be them too, or
just wants to kind of separate
himself.
So he's kind of the sole focus, I guess.
And so he probably gets overstimulated.
Right.
And so it's hard for him to focus too
much on multiple things.
Loud noises.
Yeah.
He doesn't hear very well.
And some of just like the habits as he's
gotten older, you know, I
jokingly say it's like having
another kid in some ways.
It's like reteaching
and everything like that.
It it does weigh on you
a little bit for sure.
But, um, having him
around my daughter loves him.
My they my daughter wants to push the
wheelchair around and everything like
that and try to help
grant you out and
recognize you and your daughter.
Yeah.
Okay.
And he's very like good in the mornings.
Like that sundown thing, like I never
really understood it until
I saw it firsthand, I guess.
But that's a real thing.
I mean, good in the morning, afternoon,
and you just slowly see it
start to digress and kind of
almost show its signs a lot more.
Has it progressed to
Alzheimer's or still more?
It's dementia.
He remembers a decent amount.
So it's not okay.
But he does like a
lot of the same stories.
That stuff is still
pretty prevalent in that.
Where did your parents meet?
Actually, so my dad was a teacher
assistant in an accounting
class that my mom was taking.
And in Portland.
Yep.
Okay.
In a U.S. it was USM was is the school.
But my dad was a like graduate assistant.
And he was working for
Haniford at the time.
And still taking class.
And my mom, they met there in class.
My dad, my dad used to go out to the bars
where my mom actually was living with my
sit with my sips sister actually.
And then my sister would call
him and be like, are you out?
Do you want to come over?
My mom wants to see things like that.
Yeah, that's awesome.
He would go to the bar and then he would
go to her house to have a hot tuna.
Oh, my gosh.
And then go home.
So your mom was from Portland.
Yeah.
Originally born in Keene, New Hampshire.
Oh, okay.
And then my grandfather moved up to Bar
Harbor, was in the Jackson laboratory,
which was a big lab did genetics testing
on rabbits and rats.
Okay.
And then do you have siblings?
I have two half sisters.
Okay.
So one from my mom had a daughter from a
previous marriage and
my dad had a daughter
from a previous marriage.
So so you're the baby.
Yeah.
And I'm I'm joked
around as the golden boy.
Yes.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I get a hard time every once in a while.
That happens when there's all girls and
then the boys shows up that happens.
And and be the younger one.
And yeah, I mean, I've always just kind
of known that I was
going to be the caretaker.
My sister on my mom's
side is out in California.
Okay.
Now and two I have two nieces out there
who she's a stay at home mom.
My brother in law actually is in like the
movie industry, kind of
so producing and writing.
And then my other sister's up in Maine
and she's been there and they
they're not married.
But I always say she's had a significant
other for right forever.
A partner.
Right.
Right.
I'm like my brother anyway.
Right.
And then your parents after they did
their road tripping,
did they decide to settle
down here because you were down here?
I think it was easier.
It was a it was a struggle for a while
because I had to make the
call to put my dad kind of in
the assisted living.
So when that came down, I'm I don't say
I'm like I'm closer to both of them,
but I guess I was the last
one to live there at the house.
Right.
Grow up through everything.
They've always come down here in the
winter time, even
when they were in Maine.
And they were accountants.
Again, they own their
own firm for a while.
And when they sold it and I moved down
here, they were like, we'll
come down here in the winter.
I can do tax returns.
Yeah.
Everywhere.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Much warmer, better place.
Exactly.
As you get older.
And my dad loved it.
It was a way to get out.
My dad, my dad retired before my mom.
Roughly eight or nine
years before my mom.
Oh, OK.
Wow.
So it was time to kind of for my mom to
move on like they're 10 years apart.
But my dad had a hard time being retired
while my mom was still working.
Yeah, that makes sense.
That makes sense.
So all of your
formative years were in Maine.
Yeah.
Elementary, middle school, high school.
College.
And college.
Did you play sports in
high school or middle school?
Baseball and hockey for the most part.
OK.
Was and I swam for a while growing up all
the way up when I got to high school
after freshman year, it was pretty much
just hockey and baseball.
And then I played baseball in college.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
What position did you play in baseball?
Pitched in college.
OK.
I played first base kind
of all through high school.
And then I wanted to
kind of dual position it.
And then my freshman year of college,
I just I happened to pitch very well and
get into the rotation.
And I was like, I'm not going
to focus on first base anymore.
I'm going to just pitch.
So where did you go to school?
St. Joe's.
It's called St.
Joseph's College in Maine.
It's a standish means on the water, small
liberal arts college.
Yeah.
But was very homey feeling to me in the
sense that I needed a
small school with structure.
And I needed it to it couldn't be the
3000 kids in every room.
Right.
Yeah.
The big classes.
I don't know how I would have done with
major events like my
sister went to Clemson and I saw
like, you know, run the field.
And that was the first time I
really saw big time football.
Yeah.
I'm early college football like that.
It was always pro football up north.
And even then the
Patriots growing up were great.
But my dad was always
a diehard Giants fan.
Yeah.
And we got that stuff.
But college football and that atmosphere.
I don't know if I would
have been able to handle that.
Isn't that unusual to be from New England
and be a Giants fan?
Yes.
But the Giants were doing his first team
before the Patriots were there.
Oh, I didn't know that.
Yeah, I will say that.
Did you know that?
I didn't actually.
I thought the Giants were
the Giants from New York.
The Giants existed before the Patriots.
Correct.
So the Giants were the original team for
New England and then
the Patriots showed up.
Joe says my father.
But yeah, we'll see if
anyone comments on that.
Right.
Well, Belichick Belichick was the Giants
coach before he went to the playoffs.
Yeah.
That's really interesting.
So I want to go back to you played
baseball in middle
school and high school.
So at the time, was youth
sports as crazy then as it is now?
No, it was it was crazier in the sense
that I felt like
everybody in town played it like
every kid had a little 18 every like when
we went to school,
everybody talked about that.
It wasn't like, you know, whatever season
it was, basketball,
everybody had a rec team,
indoor rec league, and it was like
everybody gave each other a
hard time and bragging rights
throughout school or, you know,
elementary school and things like that.
Yeah.
And now I feel like it's a lot more like
crazy in the sense it's
like targeting now traveling.
Where are we going to go?
Tournament here, tournament there.
You know, I mean,
it's it's expensive, too.
I mean, I was I think about ice time and
like growing up, we were like,
no, we're not going to the ring because
it costs money to go play there,
but we can put on
skates and go on the pond.
Yeah. Right.
There's a you know, there's a it's like.
It was the cemetery, really, is what we
called it, but they used to flood it
and we used to go back
there and skate on purpose.
Yeah, they they would flood it always.
And it was a little skating rink, but it
was a mile, not even
a mile from our house.
And a lot of us would just walk down with
our skates, stick and and
go put out our shoes for
goals and go skate out
there just because it was.
I wonder if I think the millennials were
the last ones to have
youth sports old school.
If I had to guess, because now all of the
Gen Z's have been it's all travel.
It's hyper focus.
It's expensive.
It's situational, too, in that in the
Northeast, because I
grew up in New Jersey.
We played football in the fall,
basketball in the winter
and baseball in the spring.
And we played hockey on the ponds.
Right.
It was awesome.
But in Florida, it's everything's year
round and there's a lot of money now.
So kids have to choose early.
They're still playing
three sports, I think.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I know they're specializing earlier.
Yeah.
And there's others clubs and it's all
expensive, but they still get to play
more than one sport.
You don't have to
commit as early, I think.
So I don't know how it
is in high school here.
But when I went my freshman year in high
school, if you weren't
signed up for an activity
for a sport or activity in every
semester, it was like you
were blackballed almost.
You were like, really?
What are you doing?
Why aren't you doing anything?
You had to participate in something.
In something.
It didn't have to be the one thing.
It could be key club.
It could be, you know, drama.
Yeah.
You know, anything, but
it had to be something.
Right.
Whether it be, you know, even like Latin,
there was like Latin clubs.
There was like Spanish clubs.
There were, I mean, there
were all kinds of just something.
Yeah.
Sports are way easier than Latin club.
Right.
Yeah.
Sure.
Definitely.
Definitely.
I'll play golf.
My freshman year, I was like, they were
like, no, there's a golf team.
I was like, you mean, I
don't have to play football.
I was never really big in football.
Fall baseball wasn't a thing at high
school, so it wasn't
considered an activity.
It was like your hometown.
Yeah.
Put together two or three teams.
They played it on Saturday mornings,
something like that.
Yeah.
But for, you know, actual high school,
they were like, you play golf.
I was like, you go out, you play nine
holes, and you get to
go to the driver range.
And I was like, and they bus you.
And I was like, it's free.
Yeah.
I was like, I'm it.
Yeah.
Exactly.
It sounds great.
And you like to golf.
Yeah.
I love it.
Are you still, do you still golf today?
Yep.
Okay.
Cool.
Most Saturday mornings, like today we
played this morning at seven.
He golfed this morning.
Oh, that's awesome.
Yeah.
But I think now they just pressure
parents that if your kid
isn't doing these private
trainings, if they aren't doing these
travel, if they aren't doing
a travel team, then they're
going to be behind everyone else.
I don't, I think
that's across the country.
I really do.
What's happening to those, if
you're, say you play baseball.
And, and it's fine till you're about
nine, then 10 ish for all
sports, 10 ish down here.
Kids start to specialize.
So you play, you're playing rec baseball
and you get some travel
kids coming in and they
just roll everybody.
Same with lacrosse football.
I'm not sure.
I don't football starts young.
We're still a football state here.
Even soccer, soccer is
where a soccer state.
Yeah.
So, but that nine, 10 year,
you know, kids start to get,
I just don't think there's that carefree
vibe that I don't think they have the
freedom now.
They don't.
And I wonder what I think is even more
like the exposure to
weight training, lifting,
and it's not even so much lifting at such
a young age, but it's
like now do the arm,
like the band stuff, or go out there and
do the laser, this like
high cart, uh, uh, intense
heart rate style.
Yeah.
And it can be body weight, but you're
still getting stronger.
You may not be, you know, playing other
sports, but you are
being active to specialize in
that one sport and it's more driven, you
know, what are you, how
are you going to get stronger
to help baseball instead of playing
soccer to get cardio?
You're like, I'm in the
gym or I'm doing this.
So do you think playing multiple sports
and having multiple
experiences actually helped
your baseball college career?
Yes.
I mean, I, yes, to the, uh, extent that
it opened up my eyes and
adapted with other kids'
personalities coming together as a team,
that stuff, I could have
probably focused in on like
my actual strength training to like, you
know, that I was a left-handed pitcher.
So the big thing when you go to a
showcase or anything,
they're like, we want to see you
hit 90 miles an hour.
Yeah.
Oh, I can never hit 90 miles an hour.
I could hit maybe 84, 86, but to throw 90
that made that little
specialized training
maybe could have gotten me there.
Right.
You never know, obviously, but still
always think the body
works, how the body works.
Yeah.
And you didn't burn out.
No, I certainly did.
And you didn't burn out your body.
Nope.
So did you play all four years?
Yep.
And that's impressive too.
Were you on scholarship?
So technically in Division III, they
don't give you an
athletic scholarship, but I got
an academic scholarship that I probably
would have never gotten had enough.
Yeah, right, right, right.
And what did you major in?
Actually, so I taught, I was going to be
a teacher, a phys-ed
teacher, pretty much.
So I taught in, I got
a bachelor of science.
Okay.
With a minor, it's like a minor focus in
kinesiology and stuff
like that, because it was
like, I learned how the body works.
Yeah.
But I, yeah, and I spent the first seven
years teaching in,
actually at my alma mater and
coaching baseball there.
The high school?
Yep.
Yeah.
I went back and, so when I was finishing
up at college, one of
the ladies got pregnant
and I knew from my town, I knew the other
guy that was, I did my
observations with and
everything like that for phys-ed.
And he's like, I need a substitute, but I
need a long-term substitute.
He's like, you can do your internship
pretty much, or your
apprentice, like lesson plans
and all that, and you can get paid for.
And I was like, what?
Yeah.
He's like, yeah, he's
like, fill out this.
He's like, I'll just observe your and do
this as your observation.
And I was like, sweet.
Is that like your fifth year, almost?
Yeah, I did it my senior year.
Oh, okay.
I actually got kind of permission through
the school and set up
my classes around that,
was it like, I think it was
like 12 weeks that she was out.
And so I had a class at eight in the
morning, went there, did
class, and then I left and went
to the middle school, actually, in
Westbrook, which was
like a 25-minute drive.
Did my talk from there until about 2 p.m.
and then left back and went to practice.
So did you do that for about seven years?
I did it. No, I did it.
Well, that was just for 12 weeks.
Okay.
Okay.
Right.
Right.
Seniors semester, like I
said, last 12 weeks of college.
Okay.
Because classes were winding down.
I really didn't have
anything that I was pressing.
Everything was pretty much
buttoned up as far as graduation.
I had like, you know, two classes that I
met to make sure I like passed, I guess.
And then I was like, I'm getting paid.
I'm making a little bit of money.
It was nice.
And then once that 12 weeks was done, you
accepted a full-time position.
Yeah.
And I didn't get a PE job, actually.
They were like, we have an
opening in our special needs.
It was I was an ed tech.
So I went in a functional life skills
room, worked with
nonverbal autistic kids.
Wow.
And there was like six or
eight kids in the class.
And that was really how I
got my foot in the door.
And they had a coaching job.
The assistant baseball job was open.
So I got the assistant coach for baseball
and I got to work in the school.
So it was like a double whammy.
How were the kids?
High school.
So okay.
So high school.
Yes.
High school.
And they some of them aged out.
So some of them are older.
Like I had a couple of kids that were in
the classroom until they were 20.
And they just aged out.
And then they, the one kid, I actually
got very close with his family.
I did in home care after school.
I would actually, he had some, you know,
just behavioral issues and things like
that with riding on
the bus for a long time.
So the school district actually set up an
opportunity where I
would go to the bus yard.
I would pick up a school van, go to his
house, pick him up in the school van,
bring him to school.
Then after the school, I would drive him
home and bring the van back.
But it was, wow.
It worked out awesome for me because I
was getting paid like extra money.
They like gave me a stipend on top of it.
Yeah.
I'm like, yeah, I'll do this.
Plus this.
Yeah.
You're like a saint on earth.
Exactly.
You're...
Well, it didn't help him.
Yeah.
That's what I mean.
It actually, it helped everything.
It helped me with a lot of things as I
kind of got into a
professional career wise.
And just, you know, not taking so many
things for granted, I guess.
It really put a lot of
things in perspective for me.
Yeah.
Seeing that side of it.
Did you get any special training in
college for special needs
children or special education?
Nope.
I did do when they, I was
going to take the ed tech job.
They did a six week training of like
holds, like different
type of holds and stuff.
If they kind of like, I guess more or
less freak out or have it,
you know, have an episode.
Like how to safely
restrain them and stuff.
Training.
Yeah.
And that was, I was like, whoa, what am I
getting myself into?
Yeah.
Kind of.
Yeah.
But it was fun, like you said, and the
family that I did get to know of the kid
after I ended up doing in-home care,
bringing him to the facility
after he graduated the high
school. And when I would go to him at
night, as you know, we play
men's league, so pitch softball.
Yeah.
I played that up north as well. So I
would do in home. I would
go to school, go to practice.
Then I would go pick him up at like 6 37
PM at night, take him out,
whether it was go swimming
and just have like one on one time. Like
I was kind of just like a big brother.
Yeah.
A friend for the family. And I got to a
point where he would come
out to our softball games
and be our bat boy. Wow. And he was a
huge he loved to sift. So a
lot of times he would sift
sand just sitting like the batter's box,
sift sand, then run out and
grab the bat and come back in.
And it was really cool to give all the
guys a high five. Yeah.
And I just kind of made him
inter I kind of integrated integrated
with our whole like my
whole men's league. So I
talk about progress, though. Yeah. I
mean, for him and his
family had to have been thrilled.
Yeah. He's actually a triplet to. Oh,
wow. Yeah. And the brother
had his I would say disabilities in the
sense that completely
high functioning normal
college has a good career. I think he's
in insurance now, still in insurance, but
very smart kid. Right. Daughter was in
the nursing field. She's
gone and got her master's.
I mean, she's kind of killing it. They
they come from a very, very good family.
Are you still you must still be in touch
with them to some degree.
When I go home, I've I've seen them in
crossing and that always
comes up and gives me a hug.
We always kind of exchange pleasantries
and everything like
that. You know, it's always a
good thing. We I moving to Florida, I had
a little bit of a fall, you know,
in the sense that I tried to ease
everybody into it. Right. I kind of knew
I wanted to go to Florida,
but I wasn't sure how I was going to get
there when I was going to
do it. So one of my best
needed a job. So then I slowly I had a
pretty serious girlfriend at the time.
And I wanted a little bit more time with
her and not I was working
six, seven nights a week
going over there every night.
And I was like, that's a lot.
Huge commitment. Just
listening to your schedule. Yeah.
So I got my buddy to come in and help
out. And I started
passing off shifts to him.
And I was like, listen, this is a job.
And he ended up when I moved to Florida,
ended up taking full control over it. It
was pretty much Monday through Friday.
And then, you know, six hour shifts on
Saturdays and Sundays.
That's wonderful. You were able to find
someone for them that
vetted that they can trust.
What was the what was
the friction point, though?
Me wanting to take more and more time off
like that. So and
they listen, if I hadn't,
they wouldn't have probably become so
familiar in, you know,
trusting of the other of my friend.
To do as much care. But I was like,
listen, I just need something. And the
father actually wanted to
make like a home, do like a group home
thing where he would have I
mean, they were very well off.
You know, it was very, you know, blessing
in itself, right? But he had the money to
almost build a unit for these for any
child that aged out needed like that
assisted living type.
And he wanted me or somebody to live in
like a bottom apartment and
just kind of supervise the
house almost right. And it never
materialized. Had I stayed, maybe it
would have. But it was
it was definitely a cool opportunity. And
I always look back like
I'm very thankful for it. But
the hard time really came as me starting
to weed out and try to get
away from it and not do it so
much. Gets in balance. Yeah. And I think
that that makes perfect
sense. Yeah, it absolutely worked
out. I find that because our kid, you
know, Nathan, and then our daughter,
Kaya, and now Dylan,
they also you worked, but they volunteer
off and on with special
needs kids. And they'll say they
always say this. And I told them this
would happen is you actually are getting
more out of this than
and what you get out of this, you're
going to carry with you the
rest of your life and it will
actually transform you as a person. And
you're blessed to have this
opportunity. And there's no
question. Not at all. I have the
patience. I have the just seeing like
little things. I mean,
I use it for an exam just the other day.
I'm in the gas station and
this guy is giving the cashier
just like a hard time for like no reason.
And I'm like two people back
and I can hear like just the
conversation. And I'm just like, what's
the point of giving him such the girl
such a hard time like
she's having a bad day and can't
communicate that. I mean, and it was over
something super. It was like
just like them setting up the wrong pump
and not scanning
something right. And I'm like,
you know, there's so many different
variables in life that mess
things up. It's not just their
fault. Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong.
It can be user error. Yes.
Very well. You don't need to be
a dick about it. Right. Exactly. Yeah.
You don't know what someone's going
through. And I think
especially when you go through a
situation like what you went
through, it just builds empathy
inside of you that it becomes a natural
go to. So when you
automatically start thinking about,
well, where's the other person coming
from? So it costs nothing to be kind.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
So how long did you work with in the
special education area for
five, five out of the seven
years, pretty much. Wow. Yeah. And then
after. So in like you said, more
rewarding to piggyback on
right. If it wasn't for, I guess,
financial stress or strain,
right. I would still teach
and work with coaching and all that. It
was much more rewarding. And
I got more out of it than say,
let's go in. For lack of a better term,
in nine to five, where I'm
selling things and I love what
I do. Don't get me wrong. I love talking
with people and I love. But
I guess growing up in that
going to that high school, then teaching
at the high school,
building those kind of
relationships and then being kind of
almost like a role model to
some of these people and watching
them grow and be successful is much more
rewarding than, you know, I
hate to say it than saying,
oh, yeah, I took your business from
making three million to five million.
Right. Because we helped
you collect some debt or, you know,
right. So did you leave your hometown
after the five years of
teaching? Yep. So I chased. I had a
pretty serious girlfriend. She was a
flight attendant down in.
She was based out of Fort Lauderdale. So
she was living in sunny
Isles. OK. And it was kind of like
shit or get off the pot in some ways. So
I was like, you know, screw
it. I was like, I'm from a
small mill town. I don't work the mill. I
don't have a trade. Teaching
is great. I love it. But do
I want to work seven a.m. to seven p.m.
every day of my life? No.
So I was like, let's take it.
My dad was like, you can always come
back. Yeah. If it doesn't
work out. Yeah. Maine's not going
anywhere. Right. Right. And I was like,
he makes a good point. And I
watched a couple of my other
friends who I went to college with one
move to Austin, Texas, you
know, and it kind of bounced
around. A couple of people went out west
and it's like. It's maybe
hard to get used to or hard to
restart, but no one was like mad. They
left. Right. And I was
like, I hated it. You know,
I was like, screw it. I have an
opportunity. I left. We lived in sunny
Ohio and I got a job with Comcast doing
door to door sales selling
cable TV. And how was that?
Hard. I would imagine so. I be a six foot
three bigger guy
knocking on some people's doors.
And listen, I was so we were based out of
Boca. They were actually
redoing the office and I did
all my training down in Fort Pierce, I
think it is. So it was like
about an hour and 40 minute
drive from Sunny Isles to Fort Pierce. So
that was like one of my that
was when it kind of was going
one of my down. Yeah. And then they put
me in Boca and I'm going door to door
knocking. And I'm a big
guy. So like you get some stay at home.
Things a day and I'm
knocking and they're like, no,
open it. That's us. What am I doing?
You're like, no one
down here opens their door.
Just so our listeners, we have a
worldwide audience at this
point. And in South Florida,
it's known as the scam capital of our
country. Right. Yeah. So
people are out scamming the
retirees down here. So no one answers
their door. Or you say not
interested through the door,
but you you don't open your door. It's so
it's so strange. So it was
that part was really hard
for me. And then I got a neighborhood and
crushed it like. I don't
know what it was just that day.
I went down like one street and like six
out of eight houses were
like, wow, we'll sign up.
We'll sign up. That's great. You're going
to I think I mean, I
think I was just in like an
AT&T area specifically. Comcast was
finally in there. I was able
to save some of these people
like 50 to 80 bucks a month, right? Just
on cable TV for signing up. Now they
always get you on the
year two, whatever. But anyway, yeah,
that first year. Yeah. But it was like,
boom, they want they
want they want it. And then all these
like started happening. And I was like,
wow. And that was like
the first time I really got like a I
think I got like an 18000 dollar
commission check. And I was
like, wow, it's good money. Like this is
sales. Yeah, this is what
I was like. And that got me
hungry. And then I started learning a
little bit. That was my first
real sales job. And so this is
now 10 years ago, I ended up buying a
condo in Boynton Beach, which was like
right off of Wulbright
in federal. And I loved it. That's a good
location. It is. It's a great
location. It was like a mile
from the beach. I was like a five dollar
Uber ride to Atlantic Ave. And I was 28
years old. And I was
like, this is us. And I had a flight
attendant so we we could fly kind of I
could use a buddy pass.
We could go wherever we wanted from here.
You're living the life.
Yeah, it was. And then we and we
lived together probably for about a year.
And then once we split, I
actually had taken the job with
IDI and I got one of the guys from IDI to
move in with me. And now I'm
like, this is great. Not only
do I have a roommate, I getting a stipend
on top from a rental. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. I was like, this
is the best. So we would go out to the
air. Yeah. And it was just fun. It was.
Are you near that golf
course over there? There's a public golf
course there, I think,
right? So there's Lakeview, which
is right off of Linton. It was a small
part three. I'm thinking of Lake Worth, I
think. Okay, so Lake
Worth now, now that I'm west after I sold
the condo, I moved to Lake
Worth up in Winston Trails.
And I'm in Winston Trails now. And they
have a public golf course
and the community you don't
have to buy in or buy a membership or
anything to the equity. But it
is a it's a good track. And I
the neighborhood's great. It's gated. The
school district's great. I'm
a six year old. That's that
was really the underlying issue was find
a place, a house where it
has a good school district and
she can go to a public school. Well, that
leads us to. I want to go
back. Just I've got a couple
things that one is the baseball, playing
baseball in college. I'm
curious, did you have to get a
Tommy John surgery at all? I did not. I
do have a torn a little bit
of a partial tear in my labrum.
But I pitched through it, was able to do
rehab and everything like
that. That happened like my
junior year. And I was like, they were
like, you want to do surgery?
And I was like, no, I want to
rehab because I just I was my junior year
was at that point where it's
like, I'm not going to play
professional. I'm not. That was gonna be
my next question. I'm not
gonna go make a million dollars.
What's next? And I was like, Do you
really want to go and do nine months of
rehab and maybe pitch
again or not pitch again? I was like,
I'll just finish it out. And
if it tears and tears. So you
had no you got into college and it was
like, this is it. I'm not
trying out for the pros going to
minors and all that my freshman year. I
think when I got to pitch a
lot, I had aspirations. I was
like, What could happen? Yeah. And I did
very well. And we went to
regionals, we won a couple
games or regionals. And then we had a kid
who was there a year before
us who pitched with us his
name was Charlie for Bush. He pitched at
St. Joe's then he got a
contractor 10 day contract at the
Cape Cod league. pitched unbelievable LSU
made him offer like
immediate I think he faced like six
hitters and struck out five or something
in his first day like edition. And he
went to LSU and then
got drafted by the Mariners. Okay. And I
was like, Man, this could happen. I'm
like, yeah. And I was
like, D3. This ain't never gonna happen.
Yeah. And I saw that I was like, Man,
maybe it will. Yeah.
And so like my freshman sophomore year, I
did, like I said, I did
very well. My sophomore year,
I ended up getting like MVP of the
tournament. For playoffs, we won our
tournament, we went on
to the finals, and we were like, two
games from going to the World
Series. Oh, wow. And that was
that was really cool. But when you got to
that level, you realize how
much of a difference it is
to that next step, I guess, in the sense
of really going professional.
Yeah. What about Oh, go ahead.
Well, yeah. Well, what about your
teammates? Did any of them go
professional or try to pursue that?
Um, not really. There was a couple kids
that played like
independent baseball, which is like,
minor leagues. I hate to downplay it, but
you're getting like a bag
lunch and you're getting to
ride around on a bus. And, and listen, if
you're chasing a dream,
that's what you have your heart
set on. It's good. I did it a little bit,
not to that extent, but I
just wasn't, I wasn't the bag
driver around on a bus and hope to get
15, 20 bucks. Right. You
know, I was, I was a general
question. Um, if somebody's going to play
sports in college, do you
feel that they need to be pretty
much obsessed with that sport? I mean, is
that your entire life?
Yeah. And that's what you do.
You, you practice every day. You live
with your teammates
basically. And you live and breathe
whatever sport that is. Yeah. You can't
do it. You can't do it half
ass. Right. And so you can't
really have, you can't be in the frat.
You can't do all those things
and play. You can, if you can
prioritize it, okay. There I mean,
listen, I had some of my friends that
were nursing majors,
guys, and you know, they would literally
go to baseball and then
they would study for literally
10 hours and they just, that was what
they wanted to do. They knew
they had a goal. So I mean,
I'm very easily distracted. Um, I can get
swayed pretty easily in a
lot of ways. Um, but I knew I
wanted to play baseball and I knew that
playing baseball meant me
going to class. It had that
kind of responsibility that I had to stay
on my shit, you know, in a little ways.
Did it affect your social life? Meaning,
um, were you, did you not
have as much of a social life
because you were playing baseball in
college? I probably had more
of it. Okay. Listen, I mean,
during the week, it might have, you know,
curbed it in the sense,
but I still had a lot of the
guys we would play. We were in a suite.
So we had eight, uh, seven other
roommates. So we played
what we did. Um, two of them, uh, we had the same kind of, um, uh,
So we would just go to the gym together.
Do like, just everything,
like you said, bought in and we
were all together. So my social life may
be outside of baseball, maybe lacked in
some ways, but I was
Anyway, so I was going to get along with
whoever, wherever, whenever, right?
No matter what.
Was it practice every day?
Oh, yeah. In the morning before classes.
We would we would get up at five and go.
They had this stuff called
like black dirt pretty much.
And we in this it would snow on the field
and we would have to get up at five
and shovel the field and throw this black
ice or black salt and stuff
over the field so it
would like try to melt faster.
So there was no excuse. No excuse.
You you were practicing every morning and
you might be hungover.
Yeah, it happens.
But like you, it's you
have to be obsessed with it.
You have to love that sport.
It can't be and you can't be doing it
because your parents want you to do it.
It has to 100 percent come from that.
That's the separation to you.
You can't be pushed by your
parents like at high school.
Easy when you come home
to, you know, mom and dad.
And you can be like, go out in the garage
and I'm going to watch you do this.
I mean, there's nobody really watching
you there at college.
They can call you and
tell you to get on it.
But if you don't want to do
it, you don't have to. I mean,
we used to get out of things if we didn't
really want to be there.
But there was a time I mean, we had
pretty much like three or four hours
blocked off almost daily of that.
You had to be with the baseball team.
Three to four hours a day.
Yeah. So that's yeah. That's your world.
Yeah. Yeah, it was.
And I and I I did. I ate it up.
I loved it.
But like I said, it was
because I knew I needed that
to stay on top of my
schoolwork and my academics.
How hard was it when you
graduated to transition?
You'd been playing since middle school
and then now you're an adult,
quote unquote, and
living a more adult life.
Was it a hard transition to not have
baseball being your life?
I don't I still do it.
So that's what a softball came in.
OK, I play men's league softball Mondays,
Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Are you in multiple leagues
besides? Oh, you are. OK. Yeah.
I put so you kept it in your life. Yeah.
I mean, like and even
after I graduated college,
I went right into coaching.
So like that summer summer baseball.
Um, you know, we coached American Legion
or Babe Ruth, right?
The All-Star teams.
Um, then I got into it like I coach golf
as well at the high school level.
And I chose always around something
competitive to keep me going.
It stayed in your life. Yeah.
So who is your team? Red Sox.
We're going to end right now.
Yeah. Yeah.
I was a result.
The wrong.
We'll just move on from that.
But you may go back and forth.
We are a Yankee family.
For those who, you know, listeners,
Andrew's a baller, we've
seen him play softball.
The rocks, the ball, he catches crazy,
shitty throws, thrown to him at first.
So how come you're not pitching there?
So I would.
But I just tend not to
because I always played first.
Well, they need you on first base.
100 percent. Yeah.
So my thing, too, is I saw up north, you
don't get a net when you pitch.
So like pitching was fun because you can
actually kind of play defense
a little bit at the bottom of the bag.
The net for me is like,
I want to feel the ball.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
It's a vacuum.
You want to make the play.
It's like batting
practice net. Right. Yeah.
That makes sense.
I interrupted you. You
had another question.
It's in line with what you just asked.
And I'm curious when so you
went back to your hometown.
Yeah. And you mentioned
you were kind of a role model.
How much did you embrace that?
Like you probably were being that you
went to college to play baseball.
You were an athlete.
You're in a small town, probably a big
fish in the small town.
Right. Everybody probably do you right.
So going back, you kind of took on a
noble cause and profession.
How did what were the dynamics?
It's no. I loved it.
And I embraced it in the sense that I
wanted to really give
back to the community.
That was like when I came back and taught
at my alma mater, like
I then envisioned like
I'm going to be the head coach of the
baseball team like this.
I'm going to try to take
this to the next level.
Like I had a lot of good
coaches growing up that gave me
a lot of support that I needed.
And I wanted I knew kids at that high
school level needed
somebody that they can,
whether it be just to count on and trust.
I'm a pretty open book for I don't
hide much at where my
emotions are my sleeve.
So what you get is what you get.
And I always felt
like the kids, you know,
you know, took that they
respond to that pretty.
Trust. Yeah, exactly.
They trusted you.
You know, and I and I built a pretty good
rapport with a lot of
families, too, that knew me as when I was
growing up there, they
they either had me and then they had kids
and I got to coach some of them
or they had brothers and sisters, right.
They came through and
it was just really cool.
And my senior year of high
school, actually, we lost.
We had like 14 seniors.
There was like a tight knit group.
Wow. All the way up.
And we were a baseball team or just a
town and we lost in state championship.
And it was like just kind of cool
to go through the whole row with these 14
seniors from Little League.
Go to a state championship.
It sucked. It hurt for a long time.
It still does to a lot of us, even when
we get back, you know, losing state.
But going back as a coach, I
got to win a state title for
the high school and my
alma mater shows like.
That was nice. Yeah, that was closer.
Yeah, it was good to get over.
And then I ended up actually not getting
the head coaching job
of the alma mater. And I.
We after we won state championship, I
ended up jumping ship
to another town and coaching them there.
Did you beat them?
OK, we did. Yeah, good.
So it was yeah, it was fun. Yeah. Yeah.
But it was it was tough for
a little while going back.
You know, it always made it a little bit
more competitive when
you when I went back.
Yeah. So when you were in high school, I
assumed that you were in the paper
and all that type of stuff and people
knew you where you went.
And when you're playing, I
assume there was more pressure
put on you. The more the
more notoriety received,
the more pressure you might have felt.
Would you say that's an accurate
statement? Yeah. Yes. I know. I.
So I come from a small town, so like,
yeah, you go to like
some of the local spots
and a lot of us were very
tight knit in the community.
So like it was like bragging rights, I
guess, in the sense that,
you know, we would poke
fun of each other for it.
Um, pressure, I never
really looked at it as pressure.
I just looked at it as like, this is
like, I know what we were supposed to do.
Like we were kids growing up. It's like
the couple grades right below us
ended up going to like the
Little League World Series
the same year that we went
to the state championship.
Oh, wow. And so it was just always like
just kind of following suit.
It is a baseball. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So it was very.
Just fall. Like I say, yes,
it's like, that's what you do.
It didn't take the fun out
of it for you. No, I know.
You thrived on it. Yeah.
I mean, we would all ride bikes, like
come from across town
and all meet at the Lily fields and play
like pick up baseball
with like a tennis ball and a bat if we
have, you know, baseball.
Yeah. And like even in the
wintertime or summertime, it was.
How do we get to the rink where the
cemetery and play hockey?
Yeah. And they built
a roller hockey arena
where we could all rollerblade or
skateboard, whatever it was
and go meet there. Yeah.
And it was so it was like there was
always six or eight of us
like just rolling around town together.
That's cool. That's very organic. Right.
We at all. So like now.
And now I always say like my daughter,
like my six year old daughter,
I'm like, actually, can you call or text
like so and so's parents?
Yeah. If Sophia can
come out, I'm like, no.
Like you can go down there and ride your
scooter down there, knock on her door.
And yeah, like I want her
to have that interaction.
Yeah, it's it's
different now. It's so different.
It's very different.
I don't even let her out.
Like some of the other parents in the
neighborhood too are like,
oh, they can go out and I'm
like, I'll be outside with them.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, it's very it's very, very different.
And I look back, I'm
like, I was riding around.
Oh, yes. Call 1 800 collect
like on the pay for totally.
You have a call from Andrew.
Do you accept my mouth?
You're like, no, get home.
Like I'm not taking your phone.
You're supposed to be home.
We used to do that.
That's funny. You say you came to the
collect call system.
Yeah, it'd be like collect call from I'll
be home in 10 minutes.
No, but I think millennials had some of
the Genex childhood.
Like I think I think you
guys got the last of it.
Yeah. You know, the 90s for
you were your childhood, right?
Where for us, we were in our 20s.
But that's their childhood.
The night I can relate to a
lot of what you're saying.
I grew up in a small
town, played three sports,
was pretty well
known, pretty good sports.
But I took a different route in that I
don't I didn't like it as much.
I kind of prefer to be lower key.
Yeah. And not.
Yes, he didn't he
didn't necessarily thrive.
He he quit basketball his senior year
because of the pressure.
He just took the pressure.
Just the. Just wasn't fun.
It's the fun that hit me after when it
was my professional career,
when I got into teaching and I realized
how political it was.
I think I was just so naive growing up
and I embraced
everything that was going on.
I have all my friends.
I'm playing sports.
It's like we're going to high school,
we're going to college, like what's next?
And then when I got to like my career, I
was like, wait a minute,
everybody's like watching me, telling me
and talking about what I'm doing now
at like the local
water and corn. I'm like.
Yeah, I got that at a
young age and I didn't like it.
Yeah. And to this day, I won't be
critical of other kids.
I don't even pick on college kids too
much to be honest with you.
You know, someone's
like, oh, so and so sucks.
You should have made that three.
I'm pretty sympathetic in the pros.
I'm way the rules are slightly different.
But yeah, college down their kids.
I don't really pick on them a whole lot.
No, you know. Yeah.
That's from your I think
that comes from 100 percent.
Yeah. Yeah.
It is a real thing.
I mean, to be sympathetic
and not listen, kids make mistakes.
It's it's all about having
second chances. I mean, I.
Well, for lack of a better term, right,
I'm out of in my teaching career.
I go out for a basketball game.
We were all having
drinks, a bunch of teachers.
I drive home. I get pulled over.
I'm a I'm next thing you know, I'm on the
local American Journal.
Like coach teacher got a DUI.
And I mean, listen, I got dropped down to
driving to endanger and whatnot.
But it was still like a shit.
Show up at the, you
know, superintendents office.
And I was like, listen,
this is what happened.
Is it was what it was?
Yeah. I was like,
where do we go from here?
And I ended up doing some like
volunteer stuff and whatever.
But it was. Very.
I was like, wow, this
is small town living now,
because everybody wants to
talk about how you do this.
How do you want to
take you down? Yeah. Yeah.
And listen, it didn't tear me down.
No, I got pretty tough skin.
It changed the way I viewed things, I
think in the in the big picture.
I was like, wow, like I'm still a human.
Like, yeah, I mean.
So it sounds like when you were growing
up, like you said, not naive,
but you weren't aware maybe
of a lot of the stuff going on.
And then when you became an adult in your
town, you started the veil was.
Yeah. Yeah. So it was the the the
oh, it's not Andrew Keirstead like the
Little League. Right.
Playing with all his friends. Yeah.
Call it a mistake.
This is like you got to own it.
Yeah. So did that actually kind of help
with the decision to go to Florida to?
Yes, for sure.
Kind of like a fresh start.
Yeah. It was a get away
from everything. Yeah.
Right. They still go to like we have this
small place called Profenance.
It's a local watering hole.
A lot of my friends that are still there.
So going there, getting it.
And listen, I'm.
Teach is. Oh, yeah.
That's a the pizza is great.
Yeah. The food's good. Yeah.
But it's just I was getting I wanted,
you know, something
different and I and I needed it.
And it's changed. Yeah. Change is good.
So now you're in Boynton.
You have your roommate.
No, so now I'm well, no, no, I mean,
that's where we left off.
You're in Boynton.
You have your roommate.
Yeah. You're still living your 20s life.
20s life going to the.
Go on to the. Yeah.
Working for how did you
why did you pursue IDI?
So where you are now?
Yep. So I went to Comcast.
I was doing sales at Comcast and then I
actually showed cable TV
to a guy right over here
who had a data company.
He kept saying, giving me the ring around
and he's like, listen, yeah.
The wife was like, you
got to talk to my husband.
You got to talk to my husband.
You're good. You convinced us to do this.
You got to talk.
Yeah, you got to get final
approval from the husband.
So, OK, so I kept coming back.
He's not here. He was a fisherman.
He was very busy.
Had his own company,
everything like that.
Two sons.
And I'm like, well, when can I.
Get a hold of him.
And she's like, come over for dinner.
Oh, wow. And I'm like, wait a minute.
Come on for dinner.
So I might call my boss.
I'm like, listen, I'm going home now.
I'm in a shower. I'm going back.
I mean, I have a sale. It's done.
But I have to go back for dinner.
Yeah, he was it. Yeah.
And he's like, wait a minute.
He's like this stay at home.
Mom is inviting you over
for dinner with her husband.
I'm like, yeah, it's like he's
like, you don't see anything.
I'm like, no, I'm like, I've gone to this
house like five, six times
over the last like three weeks.
It's a sale. I'm going to it's done.
I just have he's like, all right.
He's like, well, call me if you need to.
Yeah. My phone.
Like they track you.
I don't know.
I'm like, wait a minute.
And even then, like now to this day, now
looking back, I'm like, man,
I probably was out of line.
Like maybe I should have
just been like, what time can I.
Right. Right. Right.
But yes, I can't get there.
I have a seat at the dinner table and I'm
like, man, this is awkward.
He's like, no, what are
you selling me pretty much?
And I'm like, oh, shit.
Here we go.
And I'm like, here the numbers are the
say ends up signing up.
And he's like, listen, he's
like, you're a good salesman.
He's like, you you came
back, you keep coming back.
He's like, my wife said you were very
respectful, blah blah blah.
He's like, I need sales people at my job.
You know, first question,
how much money you might get?
You know, like I'm open to it.
But how much money can I make?
So he's like, we have this new product.
It's going to be in like
law enforcement and all this.
And I was like, all right, law
enforcement, I can also, you know,
hopefully I'll be making
it, helping people out.
You know, I'm fairly can
follow suit pretty well.
Yeah. And I saw I was like, talk to him
more, talk to him more.
And it was selling like personal
information and
verified services or, you know,
a lot of.
It were like trying to track for theft,
like online theft and all this, a lot of
Rolexes, scam stuff,
because it was getting so
big down here in South Florida.
And so I took the job.
And.
Probably six, eight weeks into it, he's
like, it's not going to take off.
Wait a minute.
Yeah.
Yeah, it just made me quit this job.
Yeah. I mean, weeks in and now we're just
thrown in the towel.
He's like, yeah, but here's the deal.
I'm going to give you 12 weeks severance.
He's like, because I'm and I'm like,
well, wow, 12 weeks severance.
I'm like, that's not that long.
He's like, no, but I was like, but I'll
be able to pay my bills.
And I was like, 12 weeks, I
should be able to find a job.
And so like, I really contemplated.
Do I go back to Maine?
I was single at the time.
You know, I was living by myself then
because this is prior to IDI.
So before I even have
a roommate or anything.
And I'm like, oh, shit, like I'm going to
sell my condo and move back.
And I was like, I got 12 weeks.
I'm just going to play some golf.
I'm going to rip up the
app and see what happened.
And then the secretary,
actually, I went in, I updated.
I used their computers to update my
resume and everything like that,
because I wanted to.
He was paying me severance
and I wanted to go in there
and at least make it look like I was
trying to find something else
and put the right foot forward.
So the secretary comes over and she goes,
listen, I know some people over at this
startup that are selling data like us,
but it's not exactly.
It's she's like, you'll love it.
These people are great.
I'm like, all right, I'll go interview.
So I took the
interview and, you know, I met.
Uh, buddy, Mike shed, who, uh, who's
still there at IDI and
everything like that.
And the interview went really well.
It was very home like,
and I was like, screw it.
I'm going to stay.
I call my mom.
I left the interview and, uh, I was like,
I'm going to stay, but I'm giving her the
background and I don't know if you guys
have looked, but there was a stockholder,
a major stockholder in our company who
had some, you know, bad run ins and some
negative publicity with,
uh, the sec and all this.
So I get out of the interview and I call
my parents who are accounts and I'm like,
yeah, this publicly
traded company, blah, blah.
I'm like, went great.
My mom calls me back like four hours
later and she's like, yeah, you know,
there's like, this is like
a pump and dump or anything.
I'm like, no, I didn't, I
didn't get that feeling.
She's like, Andrew, she's
like, how did it really go?
Oh, they said they were going to give me
X amount of dollars.
It's the comp plan's good.
If the numbers look good, I'm like, I can
stay down here in South Florida.
I'm, I'm like, and
she's like, just be careful.
And I was like, okay.
And like I said, here I am 10 years, 10
years later, eight years later,
been there nine years now.
So it was, it was all, it was kind of
wiped under the rug.
I think he is still a major shareholder
or one of our bigger shareholders, but
he's not on our board or
anything like that anymore.
I think he's out, but.
So you do sales.
Yeah.
What you do there.
Okay.
And so you accepted that job.
You got the roommate.
You're living in
Boynton and working at IDI.
Yep.
And was there any other big life changes
that happened shortly after that?
Yes.
I had had a roommate that was like, said
I had moved him in and he had been
in there roughly two years or so.
Okay.
Um, and, and once, uh, you know, I had
everything kind of changed in that sense.
Um, and you can't explain that to someone
until they become a parent.
The best feeling she's my, uh, she's
definitely a little princess.
Yeah.
It's, it's a club that no one understands
until you're part of it.
And I always tell people it's an emotion
that you don't have until you become a
parent, like you think you know, love,
but you don't know
until you become a parent.
It's like, it's a whole new ball game.
So it's life changing.
So it certainly is.
And growing up from a sports background,
playing sports, all that, my, my other,
one of my best friends,
he's got four boys now.
Um, but they were always like, when I
told them that like,
you're, you hope it's a
boy, don't you know, honestly, at that
point I'm like, I just
wanted to be healthy.
Yeah.
Along with your special education
background, you
understand the importance of that.
And everybody into I coming from that
world, remember having the conversation
with him, like, you know, if we're going
forward, but I'm just going to let you
know, I'm all in like whatever happens,
good, bad, and
different, like I'm all in.
Like I already know, like I kind of
explained, like I've already seen it from
the other side, so I just want you to
know, there's reassurance.
Like you don't have
anything to worry about.
I'm going to get, regardless of what it
is, we're going to get through it.
Right.
I guess having that other part of my life
earlier in my, or earlier in my life,
knowing that green,
orange, yellow, doesn't matter.
10 toes, four toes.
You can still have a happy life.
Yeah.
I that's life is still precious.
Precious.
Right.
And we take a lot of things in everyday
life for granted,
like being with somebody
who is nonverbal, autistic, you know,
needed help with the shower, changing
everything like that, like, you know,
just as easy as, you know, say, say,
wiping your own ass, right?
You know, like you don't understand just
being able to get up and walk to the
fridge or to say, I'm hurt or I know I'm
tired is it's a blessing itself.
Yes.
100%, 100%.
So your perspective on becoming a father
was already, um, just heightened.
Yeah.
Then maybe a normal guy your age, you
know, and you understood what you were
getting into no matter what happened.
Yeah.
So now, so she's born
and they hand her to you.
Yep.
And, uh, like still remember it, like
clear as day when she opened the little
gooey blue eyes and I was
like, here, like, this is real.
Like that was you like you said, you
realize what love is.
Did you cry?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
So did Brian.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And like I said, healthy and
happy was all I cared about.
And then I remember show.
So then, um, but then you have this
beautiful little girl.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
It's amazing.
The absolute best thing ever.
How big was she?
Do you remember her?
I think she was eight pounds.
She's big girl, 37 weeks.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a big girl.
And then, uh, she dipped down.
Like they say, like the first week, she
got down to like seven or like just
under seven.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, I mean, everything was
perfect for a while.
We were doing, she was, she
was at home and I was working.
I would come home.
She would pretty much have dinner ready.
Um, and I would come home to feeding like
the tub in the, in the, uh, sink
or whatever, and she would go lay down.
And so from like, you know, seven or 8 PM
to like one, I would just do night shift
and let her get a few hours of sleep.
And I became very good at video games.
Uh, that was, I would
put in the bassinet.
Two hour feedings and play video games.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's great that you did that though.
Yeah.
It was that you gave her that, that break
that was, you know, not all guys do that.
I was props to you.
Honestly, I appreciate that.
I was, I was definitely a all in, uh,
that was like, that was
a big thing for me for
sure.
Yeah.
But to recognize that she, that the
mother of your child
needed that break and to
come through.
Uh, and I've heard that a lot of
millennial guys are more
aware of that stuff than
the older generations.
So I don't know if that's true, but
you're an example of that.
Yeah.
No, I know.
I like said, I loved it.
I embraced it.
And I like, even to this day, like, you
know, she wants to paint my toenails.
I'll sit there and prop up.
I mean, we've, we've gone to get our, you
know, Manny petties for a while.
So that's, that's cool.
That's awesome.
You're a good girl.
Yeah, that's, that is my girl.
That's for sure.
Now we split, um, we go into bed reading,
uh, being there in the morning was me
pretty much a lot of the times.
Now, when she moved out, she moved into a
condo and there were certain nights that
she'd be like, I want you
to, I want you to read to me.
And we were always in a very good
relationship in the
sense that I would drive
over there, I would read to her.
She would go to bed and I would leave.
Wow.
That's amazing.
And we were like, you said, we were
always close enough for like a five,
10 minute drive.
So very easy to do, even though I
probably would have
done it had it been a 30
minute drive.
Yeah.
Yeah, of course.
You know, that's just the agreement that
we have in place ultimately just says
whoever lives in the better school
district would be the house kind of.
Interesting.
It tends.
And that's just always been my thing.
I mean, listen, school first, obviously
in the sense that even as a former
athlete, right, it was always told by all
my coaches, it's your student athlete,
student first athlete second.
Yeah.
It just, you know, you need that
foundation and like that.
And she's very, she's very confident.
Um, she's a, she's got a big personality
for young, for young girls.
So she first grade, uh,
kindergarten, kindergarten.
Okay.
So you have
kindergarten graduation this year.
Oh yeah.
That's your first graduation.
So we graduate from preschool.
She graduated from preschool, VPK.
Yes.
Um, the biggest blessing that I think for
school wise was after VPK, instead of
sending her to summer, uh, school there
and finishing out VPK, we did the early
graduation and we sent her to, uh, the
summer camp, which is where she goes to
school.
She prior to going to school in
kindergarten, she got to
have summer camp at the
middle school or elementary school.
So it was like, and she is like that.
She gets very comfortable and
then starts really opening up.
She, she needs to get
that comfortable ground.
So that part of her going to summer camp
at the elementary school before she had
to go to kindergarten and be in the
classroom setting, I think was very
huge.
Got to know some of the kids in the year.
Yeah.
Is she playing sports yet?
No, she does dance.
Oh, that's a whole world.
Oh yeah.
And expense.
Yeah.
And there's competition and travel.
So we just had our first competition.
Uh, oh my gosh, two weeks ago, actually.
Um, and, uh, now we get
one coming up this weekend.
Uh, so now it starts again.
So you're getting a taste.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
That, uh, competition cheer.
That's like travel baseball.
Yeah.
And listen, like you said, I'm I'll
support her wherever I never wanted to be
that dad that pushed her to sports.
Now, do I want to play sports?
Of course.
Um, I've always kind of
been that let's go to games.
Let's do that.
I probably take sports a
little bit too serious.
It becomes my life a little bit in the
sense that even when
I'm not at work, ESPN
is on the TV or there's a game on.
Um, but yeah.
Whatever activity it was that she decided
I was going to support her.
And I wasn't going to push her to say,
you have to do this.
You have to do that.
Now she wants to pick
up the ball and do it.
I'll play whatever you want.
Yeah.
But, um, as a, someone like, say with the
background that I had with the special
needs with teaching with all that, if you
don't have that drive to do it or self
you're, you're not going to be really
successful in it anyway.
So you have to want it and want to do it.
So I'll open the door, right?
For you.
But if you don't want to walk in and, and
like observe around or play it,
then that's your choice.
You know, it's interesting because
there's probably two
ways to go about it for
um, parents who played sports in college.
There's the parents that then went their
kids to play that sport and get really
hyper focused on that and serious and,
um, and almost go way overboard with the
trainings with, um, being on all the
teams, whatever it takes, like spending
the money and then there's the parents
like you who are like, look, I know
really what it takes to do this.
And I know what it takes to maintain it
in college and it has to come from inside
the child, so I will open the door for
you and you can have every opportunity
to explore whatever sport, whatever
activity you want, but I'm not going to
be psychotic about it.
And I feel like it's two, there's two
ways because I know, you know, there's
people that did it in college and aren't
taking the same route that you're taking.
There's actually a third route.
Those are the parents that barely dropped
their kids off and pick them up and don't
go to things.
Yeah.
But I don't know if those, I don't know
if those parents played in college.
They, I don't know.
I don't know if they played sports.
You know, that's my disclaimer is that
these are the two pass
as if you play, you can either be like, I
need you to, I want you there.
Vicariously living through them again or
Hey, whatever you decide.
And I watched that losing a state
championship and just seeing, listen, not
my friends directly, but the kids in
other communities, you know, the dad
screaming like, Oh, why isn't he playing
or, you know, Johnny struck out in the
biggest situation, he
shouldn't be in that spot.
It's like, did the, you know, what?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It happens.
Yeah.
And then this bill Buckner, right?
I see Yankee fan.
I'm actually 86.
I'm sympathetic to
Buckner as a Yankee fan.
Right.
Yeah.
It's a big deal.
And I always said to like, as a, like,
okay, growing up, right.
You have that parent that goes all a
crazy living vicariously through you.
It doesn't help the child really grow and
be his own person either.
Like you're now just
creating yourself again.
And I always wanted her to have her own
personality, her own things.
She likes to swim.
And I'm actually, when my mom used to
come down, um, just in the winter, that
was like their thing,
they would do swim lessons.
Um, and she would pick her up from
daycare and do swim lessons once a week.
Yeah.
That's cool.
I'm at the Y and
that's kind of like there.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
It's key for kids in
Florida to know how to swim.
It's just, you have to, it's so
important, but then to have a love of
swimming and that's such a great sport
for the overall condition of the body,
everything.
And it stays with you.
Right.
You know, I think there's a muscle memory
to it, but, but it's
hard in travel sports.
We've been involved very heavily in
Dylan's across and we've caught ourselves
being crazy because there's a vibe and
energy and it's almost like, okay, well,
we're supposed to all be like this and
you kind of, and then him and I one day
looked at each other
like, what are we doing?
You know, it's, this is stupid, you know,
and Dylan, thank God.
Um, cause he was on a
team that was very serious.
And after that season, he
said, this was two years ago.
He said, you know, I don't, I don't think
I want, I don't want to play D1.
I don't even know if I want to play D2 or
D3 if I play maybe club.
And we were like, I'm so grateful.
You felt comfortable telling the stuff.
And you weren't nervous about telling us.
And this is perfect.
Cause now we can reroute your lacrosse
experience and you don't have to keep
going for this one
team that's so serious.
And we were able to back off, help him
back off and he enjoys it again.
Doesn't have to, if he's
not obsessed with it, right.
And that's right.
He enjoys it.
Your daughter's very lucky that you have
that level of maturity to just
whatever she wants and
not necessarily drive her.
And I want to get her to do gymnastics.
Listen, and I joke around.
So, uh, her PE teachers, uh, certain, uh,
so Patrick, certain's like uncle and
Patrick, certain's the
cornerback for the Broncos.
And I'm always like,
just get her playing.
Like as long as AP former PE teacher,
like, I just don't
want her to be the girl.
That's like on the sideline, walking
where, you know, where, listen,
it is what it is.
You want to wear your
pants and along, so you sure.
And do your hair and makeup.
That's fine, but just participate.
I don't, I don't care
if you don't like it.
You don't maybe don't want to do it.
Just participate.
Play the sports.
She has a competitive drive.
So I don't worry
about that part too much.
Yeah.
But I, I just want her to be able to,
like I said,
participate in it, play with the
boys.
If she doesn't like it, she
doesn't have to do it later, but
have those experiences as
part of being in gym class.
Yeah.
You can be a gym.
You can be a gym class here a little bit.
Jim was awesome.
Right.
We were kids.
Yeah.
We had, did you have dodge balls still?
So they saw it.
Did you have like red Rover
where you closed line kids?
Yeah.
Were you held?
You said red Rover, red Rover, let Jimmy
come over and you would all hold hands
in my clothes, line them as
they ran like on their neck.
I don't remember that.
Really?
They didn't get them.
The group didn't get them.
They wouldn't join the squad.
Then once you got
them, they would walk in.
I don't remember that.
I didn't realize how many shared
childhood experiences millennials and
Gen X have, but they really, you guys, we
thought we were the last ones to have
that come home when the streetlights come
on, go hang out with your friends.
But I think you guys were probably, I
really, I remember my dad being like,
if the streetlights are
on, you better be home.
And if you're not
home, you don't have long.
And if I have to scream, cause we, I grew
up on like a neighborhood, a hill
where he could scream and I could
literally be, you know, three streets
down and hear him and be like, I better.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I think you guys had
that or that childhood.
Cause again, you guys talk about the
nineties and how great the nineties were.
And that's how we
talk about the eighties.
He's a kid of the nineties.
Really.
He is where we were in our twenties, but
I, I thought it ended with us,
but I think it ended with you guys.
I think you guys got that last bit before
technology took over
and changed everything.
So it was, it was my
senior year of high school.
There was like the start of social media
in the sense it was
people taking pictures,
but it was like with cameras and they
were like loading it up to like photo
bucket and like stuff like that.
And like little, like, I don't think they
were even apps really.
Then they were just like computer
programs or websites
where you could load pictures
in and I remember this because the
winner, I was playing hockey.
We all went to a party.
Um, it was right after our last hockey
game we'd lost in the playoffs and
playoffs were getting ready to go.
And we had a really good
high school basketball team.
Well, there was a huge party.
We all go and ended up being at one of
the cheerleaders houses who I think was
like the assistant basketball coach's
daughter and all these pictures get
posted online.
Well, the, uh, athletic director found
them or whatever somebody said,
some now these guys got suspended for the
first round of the playoffs.
We ended up losing.
Wow.
And it was a big deal in our town.
Like people were party pics.
Yeah.
Like just pictures from a party.
Yeah.
And we were, you, you signed an athletic
code of con code of conduct.
It got pushed the
right parents pushed it.
Just got these kids suspended.
That was like probably the
first time that social media.
What year did you graduate?
Oh five school in 2005.
Um, and so I remember being called in now
hockey season was over.
I had long hair, uh, during hockey kind
of grew out on my things.
And then I shaved it.
Um, as once the season ended, it was kind
of like playoffs were over and I was kind
of like, I gotta get rid of it.
We gotta, so I get called into the
athletic department and there's pictures
of me drinking and, and.
G and sitting around a table with like a
bunch of friends and, and for partying.
And I'm like, well, that's, that's me.
It's clearly my face.
Hey, I can't deny.
I was looking right at the
camera and say like, whatever.
Um, but I'm like, I had long hair then
like that's during hockey season.
I shaved my head.
Well, you know, they were like, well, you
sign an athletic code for the season.
I ended up getting suspended for the
opening day of my senior year, my
baseball season, wow, um,
for like first home game.
And it was against one of the biggest
teams in our region.
So it was really a big
deal buzzkill for me.
Um, but we ended up losing.
It was, it was sitting in the sidelines
and watching it, but you know, like it,
having that experience, though, too, was
kind of like you, you got to follow,
like say you're student athletes shooting
before you're an athlete.
And it probably also, um, helped you
realize what you put on the internet is
forever, think about what you put on the
internet, but you guys were really that
first group to even learn those lessons.
Cause I'm sure none
of you thought of that.
It didn't even think, no, cause you know,
did you have my space?
You're the my space was the first.
And, and I, when I tell you this, there
were people that lost
friends over people.
Oh, you're not my top eight or my top 10.
And people used to like
get mad at one another.
And I'm like, what did that mean?
Top eight or top 10?
My space had like this thing where it was
like the top, your top 10 friends,
like who you communicate or
who you liked the best, I guess.
Like, like who you
interacted with the most on my space.
Yeah.
Probably some favorites list, right?
Where you could say Nicole's my favorite.
And if I swapped you for
Susie, now you would eat.
Oh my gosh.
The drama.
Oh, it was bad.
And like some people I would like get
into it over and I'd be like, this,
this is crazy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But that was the first though that my
face was, you call, you said the one
thing was the photo, photo, photo, photo.
We had like a, uh, instant message.
Aim.
Yeah.
Well, and so, and I remember people
putting up like your, uh, you know,
away messages, like
BRB, you know, I see Q.
Yep.
And I remember too, like my sister, um,
being in high school and having the dial
up and so it would be AOL.
Yeah.
You have mail.
You got mail.
Yeah.
And like, I remember being the like
asshole wise ass downstairs being like
Amy's on the computer talking in these
chat rooms with like her friends and
I'd pick up the phone and hang it up and
she would lose internet connection
because it would all go
through the telephone line.
You know, that's when did you get
broadband in Portland?
Oh, it became, it was
known as roadrunner.
I think.
Okay.
A roadrunner.
Yeah.
Roadrunner.net.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, and that, I don't even know exactly.
It probably had to be late nineties.
Probably.
Oh, so you did that.
Okay.
Yeah, we, we did, but I, I just remember
going on the internet with AOL.
Me too.
And just picking up the phone.
Yeah, but you weren't
doing it as an adult.
He's doing as a kid.
Yeah.
Yeah. We don't have to, we
could walk over that.
So then Facebook would have been when you
were in your twenties.
Yeah.
It was a Facebook was like college.
Okay.
Um, yeah.
So that's probably a
big deal for you guys.
That's probably like what, um, Instagram
and Snapchat is right for the kids.
Yeah.
I mean, and we'll take talk.
So I don't do Tik TOK or that, but I have
Facebook, I have all that stuff.
Um, Facebook was definitely the first
real way to interact.
I mean, I can remember getting to college
and being like, Oh, I don't know her or
I don't know, it was a great way to start
getting chicks involved with your friends
and everything like that is
like, well, what's she doing?
And we can kind of look at her profile.
Hey, who's she hang out with?
Well, yeah.
Intel now it gave you guys a leg up.
You know, what dorm room is she in?
You know, what's funny is just to go back
to you getting busted.
That would be a
generational difference as Gen X.
If we was as athletes, when we'd get
busted, we'd get driven home.
Yep.
I remember once we came back from, uh,
from college, went to a party up in
Pennsylvania, driving home, got pulled
over at like two, three in the morning
by the cops, the cop brought
my buddy to the police station.
They waited like six
hours to do the breathalyzer.
Meanwhile, the cops drove us home and
they're like, you know, because they're
athletes, they were all athletes.
Everybody knew who we were.
And that's Gen X.
And there was no proof.
There was no proof.
There were no pictures like that.
Anyone could touch if there were, they
were, it needed to be developed.
So yeah.
But you are from that generation where
they started to crack down.
There's video photo proof.
And yeah, I mean, I, I look back and
think like my, we got to a point where
some, I mean, I hate to admit this now
for my mom and some of the other parents,
right?
It's like, they would be like, we'll buy
you alcohol, but where are you going to
be? Yeah.
Are you going to, you will supply, will
buy you a little bit of all the keys.
You can play poker downstairs and
everything like that.
And I just, I mean, I can remember
sitting outside in my buddy's shed,
playing poker with six dudes, drinking
beers, like Keystone lights.
Cause we could get, you know, a 30 pack
for 13 bucks or 14 bucks.
Yeah.
And then, but they probably would rather
have it controlled because you guys,
because with all teenagers,
they just want a place to be.
And that's the hardest part.
They need a place to be too.
So they're safe.
Right.
Right.
And so you don't want
people drinking and driving.
Like, yeah, if they're going to, I mean,
I always say this, right.
When my, even my mom and I was very open
with my parents for the most part,
because I was the one who we, we were, we
were out at a party running through
the streets, whatever.
And everybody's like, dude, the cops are
coming, the cops come and everybody
scatters and it's like, I'm calling my
mom and everybody's like, no, you're not.
Like, I'm like, yeah, I'm calling my mom.
Like my mom will come
pick me up right now.
And I don't care.
Like I'm going home.
I'll tell her the truth.
I might get a little bit of backhand in
some ways, but I'm going home
and I'm going to be safe.
That's a beautiful thing.
And I remember a couple of my friends
like, dude, you're not calling
me mom, but I'm like, I call my mom.
Yep.
That is amazing.
And that's a testament to the
relationship she created with you.
Right.
Is that your parents gave you space to
have open communication with them and
trust them and they really follow through
on, Hey, if you're in trouble, call us
and we'll be there for you.
They gave you that a hundred percent.
And that's, and a lot of parents don't
understand, like you've got to have
open communication because
this stuff is going to happen.
So you're, they're going to be part of
the narrative or not.
Right.
So you have to open your mind, you know,
for the safety of your child.
I'm a firm believer in, in being just
transparent and honest.
Like, and I even told my mom, listen, if
I want to do it, I'm going to do it.
Yeah.
I, I have a car, you know, I have a few
dollars in my pocket.
If I, if they really, if I need to find a
way to do something, most likely I can do
it. So if I'm at least telling you, yeah.
And, and it was what it was.
And, and she was always, you know,
listen, I'm not going to judge you.
No, I'll pick you up.
I mean, see this day, I mean, now I'm 38.
I'm going to be 40 here soon.
And my mom lives with me.
And like last night I go out and my mom's
like, yeah, you didn't, you know,
you didn't come home till late.
I do.
And she's like, I, I
still kind of, you know,
the way you feel about Katie
is how she feels about you.
And I'm sure when you had, then you
probably understood your parents more and
why they are, they were the way they were
because they love you as much as you love
your daughter.
Right.
And that's why parents are crazy
sometimes, you know,
because we're scared that we
don't know anything to have no children.
Right.
So, um, but it kind of then creates a
bridge between you and your parents.
You're like, Oh, okay.
Now I understand.
I get this.
Yeah.
Now I understand.
So I didn't know your mom lives with you.
So yet when, uh, for probably the last
six to eight months she has, um, just
with everything that's going on with my
father, um, and so forth, it's just
been a lot easier, um, right around
Christmas time, right before Christmas.
He, my dad has stroke.
Um, and that was in the, he was in like
the rehab center and things like that.
Which is my mom was like, gonna take the
RV and go back out to California
where I'm going to see
my sister and so forth.
And I was like, you know,
that's all I'll drive by yourself.
You shouldn't, you know, dad's not with
you anymore or all that stuff.
And it just, you know,
it was just made sense.
I mean, I'm five miles
from where my dad is now.
Um, she's there for extra
hands and you know, eyes on you.
Um, she helps out a lot with her.
I'm sure.
Um, especially like
dances early on Wednesday.
So a lot of times she
picks her up from school.
It's been, it was, so I always joke
around like, Oh, I live
with my mom now and all
that, but like, I always say this now is
like the relationship that I had with my
grandparents that I was
able to be close with them.
I never got to meet my dad's mom,
everything like that.
I never got to meet, uh, his father, any
of that relationship she now has with my
parents and with my mom now that she
lives with us is just, you can't see her
price.
It's priceless.
It's going to enrich her life so much and
it enriches their
life and it extends their
life.
Right.
You know, our, my mom lives with us.
Okay.
And, um, when you say
help, it's a huge help.
Right.
It's, it's, it's those little things that
they help, but also that relationship
building, she's incredibly
close to all three of the kids.
And, um, I know it has enriched her life
in that her, she's using her brain.
So a lot, she's going and doing things
she's having, she's needed.
Right.
And that just purpose and it helps them
because she's 77, but
you wouldn't know it.
Cause she's still humming along, you
know, cause we, she's
had to be active in this
family.
How, uh, how old is your mom?
Uh, my mom's 68.
So my, yeah.
And actually show last year, um, she just
did her first triathlon.
No way.
So it's a, uh, now it's
like a slim down version.
Yeah.
They call it a sprint.
Yeah.
Um, but it's a for breast cancer and what
was even, you know, her being, she's a
warrior, she, you know, swim bike run.
She was, she didn't really run a lot, um,
here because she's like, it's so hot, but
she would ride her bike.
So goes to the YMCA goes swimming.
Um, so she has a lot of drive.
We got to go fly up last July 4th.
Um, cause the fourth July is usually my
one week that I like to spend up North
lobster, growouts, all American.
Yeah, I can't beat it.
I pass the saddle lobsters,
whatever you want fried clams.
And we got to go and
watch my mom do the triathlon.
That's cool.
Um, and so for this straight away,
there's like, probably not even a half a
mile, he got to run right next to her and
like, run alongside her.
We're like, come on, Grammy.
And it was just, it was really, really
cool to see and be a portal.
You know, listening to you though, talk
about your mom and she's ready to get
in the RV and drive to California.
That's impressive.
What's she's got to have a
strong personality, right?
What's her kind of background or what's.
Yep.
So she, uh, been a kind of single mom at
first with my sister.
Um, and then, um, always had that kind of
like hardworking drive.
They, they had a CPA firm for 30 plus
years, um, right in our small town.
Um, and she's just been a
worker be, uh, pretty sharp.
Yeah.
Diagnosed.
She actually got colon cancer.
She's been cleaned out 10 plus years.
Wow.
Um, the cancer survivor.
Um, and you know, even when I was at
college and, and you know, I look back
and say, like, so thankful for the things
that, you know, they gave me and provided
for me is the business was doing fairly
well, but it was peaks and valleys of, of
everything with all businesses, right.
And she would go, uh, after she'd had
really trouble sleeping, bad things.
She just needed to stay busy.
So she would do packing
at LL bean at nighttime.
That's right.
They're a main company.
Yeah.
And so they would pick up, you know,
people in a peak time or peak time
of season, right, that would come in at
night and work like, you know, three or
four hours just doing packing and, um,
like labeling and all that stuff.
And she would go in and do that.
She's like, you know, and just to kind of
like, you know, provide help.
Um, it gave me, you know, uh, I guess.
A little bit extra freedom
sometimes at college, right.
Because I was playing sports and I was
doing, I was working at the pool.
Um, and what they call, uh, just like
kind of like almost like volunteer hours,
but I, because I was a student athlete, I
would, you know, lifeguard at the pool
or help out at the gym and supervised.
And then, you know, mom, listen, I'm
going out, you know, look, can I,
can I borrow some money?
You know, college, I mean, it's like,
where can you get
even scroung up 20 bucks?
I mean, I can remember counting.
We used to store bottles
from parties and stuff.
And in up north, you can
return them for five cents a bar.
We would get trash bags and fill up like
a truck and be like, all right,
we got like 160 bucks pool for this week.
Here's a bottle of like Stoli or five
o'clock vodka and two
30 bags of keystone.
That's amazing.
That's amazing.
So she, was she an athlete?
Um, so she did, she played sports, um,
early on, but
nothing, uh, she comes from,
uh, a small Island, um, right there.
They were, she was born on in ball Harbor
or not born in ball Harbor.
She born in Keene, but then moved to
Barbara, which is small.
We call them.
Yeah.
Mount desert Island
and everything like that.
So very small.
It's beautiful up there.
It is absolutely gorgeous.
Like, yeah, we got the fourth of July is
usually when we go up there, I spend a
couple of days with
my friends in Portland.
And then my sister usually takes my
nieces and they spend
a month in an Airbnb up
in barber and they just love it.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
What are winners like though?
Like our friend was on from Buffalo and
they have four or five feet of snow.
Is Maine the same deal?
Brutal.
It's, you know, I always say it's seven
months of miserable.
I mean, I hate to say it like that, but
like you leave work here, it's still 75
degrees out and maybe dark,
but you can still be active.
You leave work up north.
It's like four 30.
It's dark and it's, you know, 22 degrees.
And you've got a foot and a half of snow
and you're like, I want to be home.
And listen, I say this sarcastically in
some ways, but like, there's
nothing more to do than to drink.
Yeah.
There's a big opiate, uh, you know,
up north.
I mean, the heroin and the Suboxone, the,
the, all the oxies that, and then
don't get me wrong.
It took its course down here and you have
a lot of like the drug rehab, you
know, when I moved to Wayne, they called
the drug rehab capital of the world.
But like up there, it's almost like
intensified because there's so much
downtime and inside time that it, it
almost gets blown up.
Um, and people just, there's
no, there's no opportunity.
That's gonna, I hate to say it like that,
but I just felt like there was a lot more
opportunity once I left me.
It makes sense.
It was, there's more to life than Maine.
And I'll never forget when my father told
me that when I was like thinking
about moving down, he's
like, you can always come back.
Yeah.
It's not going anywhere.
I think when we were, we drove through
Maine in probably 1993.
And I remember it being cool, but it was,
it's a rust belt area.
And I remember like abandoned buildings
and stuff, but old
buildings, it was cool.
But it was probably
past its prime, I guess.
Right.
Yeah.
Um, I mean, I loved the nineties that I
thought once it got after, like when I
graduated in 2005, I always felt like
things became a little bit more or less
industrialized and like, yeah, booming.
Bring your family here.
Like a renovation, a
renaissance in a sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it just, it just changed it.
Oh, it didn't have that homie feeling
like I almost, I jokingly used to
say when COVID hit and all the prices of
properties skyrocketed, why don't we
just sell this, take all the equity and
go buy something in cash and cheap town.
Yeah.
Cause you got to find the
right place to do it too.
And all the things have to line up, but I
always said that would have been kind
of cool cause you don't,
you pay for your house.
Yeah.
And you know, when I look back, yeah.
But those are some long winters.
Oh yeah.
No, I don't know if I
could go back to Maine.
Like I could go to a small town, maybe
even Midwest, you know, Mississippi,
yeah, Mississippi,
Tennessee, you know, the Carolina.
A lot of people are, a lot
of people are moving to those.
Not as cheap anymore either.
No, no, the prices have gone up.
So I do have to ask you
because you are a millennial.
So what is, what is the
online dating scene like?
Is it as much of a
dumpster fire as everyone says?
I mean, listen, I think if you're really
looking, I just think that there's a
stigma, I guess to it, right?
Is like, you're really hesitant.
Even if you meet somebody or match up
with somebody, right?
It's like, are you really getting
somebody that's being real with you?
Is it, are you going to get catfished?
Are you going to, you
know, is this, you know,
like that small town feeling, right?
Of being loyal, right?
Do you, meeting somebody online, are you
really getting their loyalty?
I mean, yeah, it should may develop that
or get to that, but there's not that
authentic meet and greet face to face,
uh, bond, I guess that
you kind of make right
off it takes a lot more.
It's not organic.
It's almost somewhat forced in a sense
that you now usually,
what do we talk about?
You don't just come
across right into you.
You're from here.
You grew up doing this stuff.
You know, we're, we have a common ground,
whether it be work, uh, you know, school,
you know, what are you studying?
What, you know, when, when some of those
finer relationships, I guess start.
Um, so I, you know, I'm, I'm very
hesitant to online online dating.
I mean, like I said, we didn't have a
real strong foundation necessarily.
Like, right.
It was just like, all right, we're
dating, you know, there
are no real friendship
build up to it, you know, you're, you're
not in groups going out with eight or 10
people.
It's like, all right, you want
to go out tonight one on one.
It's not like, Oh, we're
going to get a group of guys.
We're going to go to a concert.
Now we're solely bonding or, you know,
you, your friends with her, your, your
sister's friend, you
know, something like that.
It's just no history.
Yeah.
It's just a, it's a real weird thing.
And I'm not, listen, and not against it
or anything like that.
You can definitely build that organic
partnership and that loyalty.
Cause I still think that that's the two
people that they decide that.
If they want that.
But I think it's just not as organic and
authentic as it maybe once was.
Do you think it's possible to have that
old school, um, dating at all again and
in society, it's going to be really hard.
Um, and I, and I even say from this
standpoint, it was like, even now at
38 is like, if I want to go
out and meet somebody, right.
I don't necessarily want to just go to
the bar and, and, or,
or, um, you know, I'm like, I'm not going
to go out here having drinks or something
like that, you know, now
maybe in an event, uh, right.
Or, um, like I said, work.
Um, you know, I was jot, joke around with
like my, my daughter now, right.
She's getting into dance.
You know, you start seeing a lot of these
people every week, you start, you
know, like, you can use it as like,
almost like a spider web.
How far can you extend your spider web
and then have that kind of real
authentic connection with somebody and
does it spark that way?
Yeah.
School, right.
Maybe now, um, I mean,
it's not get away from it.
It, the single or co-parenting set up now
is a lot more prevalent than it
once probably was in the sense that I
feel like, you know, watching my parents
like through thick and thin, like now I
watch my mom who's my dad's in assisted
living and she still goes and spends
almost every waking day or hour with him.
And I'm like, you know, you could be out
doing things, playing pickleball.
She goes to the gym, you
know, could be traveling.
They once, they always had that envision
of just driving all over the country in
the RV and it's like,
now you're kind of stuck.
And she's like, well, but I'm with dad,
you know, it's not, I'm not stuck.
And like, you know, she's living with me
and I always say it's like always, it's
kind of coming full circle now.
Like, I grew up with you and now like,
you know, and like, you know,
her person, right.
And I always say, like, she's always
like, I hope I'm not like, you know,
intruding or, you know, being burdensome,
you know, and I'm like, no, not.
Yeah.
I'm like, first of all, if I was to meet
somebody and if they can't accept that
I'm going to, you know, ultimately bring
you home and to my mother or whatever,
right, then I probably
shouldn't be out with you anyway.
I mean, if I'm not comfortable bringing
you home to my mom, like you're going to
have to meet my mom at some point.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, maybe not right off, but yeah.
No, it makes sense.
I hope for, I hope that some old school
organic dating somehow gets brought back
into society.
I think that it would help everyone.
But to your point, I'm not, I think we,
like you said here at these different
places, you know, maybe I know there's a
lot of running clubs and people.
So I think clubs, like adults or even
like the softball, like adults are doing
things and I think that's where it will
be more organic is in those situations
as opposed to online dating.
No, I totally, and, and
to, you know, go back, right.
In real relationships, right.
You guys, they may think back, you
probably met out or
through friends, right?
College.
College.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, you know, there's a foundation, uh,
you know, a bond that's, you know,
raised, not everybody's available via
social media, like, Oh, this girl's hot.
I'm going to send her a message.
Yeah.
And then, you know,
listen, we're human, right?
We all may wonder is the grass greener on
the other side and being so accessible.
Right.
In a relationship you might wonder, then
that's, I do think it leads to a lot of
splits, infidelity.
Yeah.
Infidelity.
Right.
You there's that loyalty isn't the same.
Okay.
I just like always use my mom as that
example is like to think that you're just
saying, yeah.
And I hate to say it like that because it
is my, like my father and everything,
but like, where's it depend?
He's at the facility, you know, he needs
constant care and she's 10 years
younger than him, able to go out, do
things, still have a life.
But yet she wants to sit there and spend
it with him and, and kudos, right.
And you know, there's just not a lot of
that I don't think anymore.
Like just because of, you know, they,
they ran a business together.
They had a foundation.
They built a life together.
Exactly.
I think with a lot of, um, younger
generations, they think they're supposed
to have everything before they even get
married, not understanding that the
marriage is building that together.
Like we started with nothing.
We literally lived in a house probably
the size of this room when we brought
Nathan home and maybe a teeny bit bigger.
And we, what we built together is the
marriage and that's the bond you're
talking about, but it's the journey, but
with social media and with all the
FOMO, with all the comparisons,
everyone's like, well,
once we buy, once I buy a
house and once I get here, once I get
there, once I have everything perfect,
then I'm going, but it's like, you've
just skipped over
everything without your,
you're supposed to be
doing that with your partner.
Right.
That's the bond and that's the life, you
know, so I, and I do think social media
has something to do with that.
Breaking that down.
Yeah, no, definitely.
I, uh, I think social media is, has its
pros and cons for sure.
I kind of watching everything unfold now.
I kind of think there's a lot more cons
than there are pros.
I mean, unfortunately,
um, I, I see social media.
It's like a way to interact with, uh,
some of my former teammates, keep up and
see how they're doing with
their families and whatnot.
I don't really use, see it as a, like,
you know, I'm going to promote my
business or this, that, and it's like,
you know, don't get me wrong.
I do think that is a pro in the grand
scheme of things, but then again, now the
market, the more accessible you are.
If you are in a relationship, you know,
there are tough times.
Everybody faces them
good, bad and different.
There's Epson flows, right?
Yeah.
When it's bad and you're accessible.
Yeah.
No, it's a good point.
Someone can slide right in.
Yeah.
You know, knowing that that's a
relationship and they
have, you have ups and
downs, you don't need that extra
challenge coming in to make
things even more difficult.
It can be toxic for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For sure.
Okay.
So what, where do you
see yourself in five years?
Uh, had probably some dance competition.
You'll be up at the
Disney's wide world of sports.
Yeah.
That's right.
Cause she'll be 11.
Yeah.
Um, five years.
I mean, listen, I've always said my, when
I had her, my like 15, 20 year
goal for her, like by the time she got in
high school, I always said, I wanted
to have a, some kind of
a passive income, right.
Of, you know, that like
$5,000 threshold, right.
Where you could maybe pay
your generic bills, right.
Um, with a passive income just to have,
be able to open doors for her, right.
Once you get into that middle school,
early high school days, it's like,
now, where do you want to go?
And, you know, I always say the going on
experiences,
traveling a little bit, seeing
outside, like coming from that small town
and knowing that there is more outside of
than just where you grow up, um, was
always important to me to show to her.
So, I mean, you know, having some kind
of, uh, passive income
or creates something to,
to be able to give to her, right.
Um, I always thought about maybe even
buying like property, um, somewhere, um,
in her name, just, you know, my, I had a
buddy, um, who, his
uncle, when he passed,
he left them some money and when they
went to college, he ended up buying a
condo or like a townhome and just in the
small college town where they went.
That's smart.
Right.
He has to get three buddies.
They all now paid him rent
while they were at college.
And now they use it as a rental.
It's so smart.
And it's a man.
What a team, you know, if you, if you can
do that, do that, because we had Nathan
and Kaya went, we had eight years of FSU.
Of course we didn't know.
And it was like, she was going to go
there too, but if we could go back,
cause the rent you pay, yeah, we could
have easily bought a place.
So that's one piece of advice I would say
once you know where she's going
and you can go for it.
Right.
And then, and then at
the end of the day, right.
You can have all the money you want, but
when you start talking about, you know,
getting being financial savvy and
getting, you know, loans, you know, being
able to leverage your
financial status or anything, right.
You have to have an asset.
So like, if you can have an asset and
borrow against it, right.
Or, you know, show some
kind of stability, right.
Like they're more apt to,
you know, loan you more money.
Yeah.
That's true.
That's true.
There's no shortage.
No, I think those are all
great goals and I love that they're
centered around your daughter.
Yeah.
I mean, that's amazing.
Your daughter's very lucky.
Just hearing you speak about your five
year plan, it's really all about her.
That's very lucky.
It's kudos to you, man.
Like I said, you're an amazing girl, dad.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I embrace it.
That's for sure.
I'm not going to say I'm perfect by any
means, but the, uh, that is my, my
pride and joy for sure.
Well, we look forward to having you on
again, maybe in like five years
and seeing where she is and seeing where,
or three years somewhere where
we can hear about
like where you guys are.
Perfect.
We'll still be playing some men's league.
So
he got everybody out there this week.
We had to fill some spots this week.
You have Kaya now for, she loves it.
She, she was, um, little behind the
scenes on her as she played every single
sport, every single sport from the time
softball started at five, but, um, you
know, made varsity everything.
She just was that natural talent, um,
went to states for cross country
soccer, all that.
So, and then, um, what's interesting is
when she hit senior year, she said, I
don't want to do any of it anymore.
I'm done.
And we even had to take down all her
trophies in her room and she changed.
She's like, I'm done.
Then she became a gym rat.
Okay.
Um, and then she kind of took a break for
a couple of years and then got back
into, you know, uh, the gym and
everything, but what's funny about when
she played the other night, she's like,
it's my competitive.
I felt it again.
It's like, once you're out there again,
she's like, all of a sudden it's like,
it all came back.
Like she's so competitive.
I can't, I can't give it up if it, I
mean, it's, I look at
it as an outlet now.
Like it's a way just to get out.
It's an hour.
It's a way away from everything.
It separates work, kind of like time to
myself and even likes coming to the
games to now and running around.
I don't think we've seen, well, we
haven't, we've only been to two or three.
So we haven't seen her yet.
Came to, uh, she came two weeks ago, the
seven 30 game, I think.
Okay.
We weren't there.
Yeah. That's that one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we'll see her one of these nights.
She'll you'll see her show.
She's a crazy nonstop.
I can't wait.
I'm around on the
bleachers and everything.
I look forward, I look forward to it.
So thank you for
sharing your story with us.
That's awesome.
Thank you for having me.
No, it was, it was so interesting and
getting your perspective, especially
on as an athlete that went to school and
your perspective on that, I think a lot
of listeners will find that very
interesting because a lot of them are in
the thick of it, whether they're parents
or they're student athletes and hearing
your perspective can offer a lot of
clarity that in particular.
And being a girl dad,
you know, yeah, for sure.
So thank you so much.
Thank you.
The best advice I can
say is this too shall pass.
That's always, yeah.
Yeah.
That's wonderful advice.
Good things, bad things.
They all come and go.
Yeah.
So true.
So true.
And thank you to our listeners.
If you have any comments or
questions, we welcome them.
We love to hear from you
and we'll see you next time.
Bye.
Bye.