Episode 96 – The Honey and the Sugar Dried Up
Scott: Friends with Brews.
Scott: Hello?
Peter: Hi, you can’t see me anymore because I’m recording from my 2020 M1 Mac Mini.
Scott: Oh.
Peter: And I turned off my camera because it’s struggling and your audio is getting choppy.
Scott: Okay, well, I’m turning off my, are you sure it’s not your internet connection?
Scott: I don’t know why, but everywhere you go now, you have a third world internet connection.
Peter: It’s not my internet connection.
Peter: It’s definitely, it’s definitely Riverside and it’s definitely the M1 because it does this here and it has done that in Vermont, which is not to say that I don’t have a third world internet connection in Vermont.
Peter: But I will say, I just got back from Turks and Caicos where the internet was awesome everywhere.
Scott: Who’s Turk and who’s Caico?
Scott: And why are they together and why did you go to their house?
Peter: Because they’re islands and they’re together because they’re a country.
Scott: Okay, that’s a dumb reason.
Scott: As we’ve proven, it doesn’t matter what country you think you are.
Scott: All you have to do is be American.
Scott: You can take it over.
Scott: Canada doesn’t have a chance.
Peter: I don’t know.
Peter: I take that back.
Peter: I did say it’s a country.
Peter: It’s not.
Peter: It’s more like a protectorate or what’s the term?
Peter: Overseas territory of Britain.
Peter: So it’s not a protectorate like Puerto Rico.
Peter: It’s more like the Virgin Islands.
Peter: It’s like that.
Scott: Is it a protectorate like Venezuela?
Peter: Oh, God.
Scott: Oh, I’m sorry.
Scott: I meant unprotectorate.
Peter: Yeah.
Peter: Scott, who are you?
Scott: I am Scott Wilsey.
Scott: Who are you, Peter Nicolaides?
Peter: I am Peter Nicolaides.
Scott: Okay.
Scott: And what are we doing here today, Peter?
Scott: Are we drinking things?
Scott: Why do we drink things?
Scott: I don’t remember, but I do remember that the rules of the podcast, before I could get into the Riverside Studio, it checked to make sure that I had a beverage on hand, and it had to be a brewed beverage.
Peter: Check your beverage at the door.
Peter: I’m drinking La Colombe Coffee Workshops Monte Carlo, and it is their decaf version.
Peter: It is a darker roast, and on the box on the front, it says La Colombe Coffee Workshops Monte Carlo, darker roast with notes of hazelnut and sweet grain, whole bean coffee, net weight 12 ounces, 340 grams.
Peter: Open, close parentheses.
Peter: Tasting notes, hazelnut and sweet grain.
Peter: Monte Carlo is famous for its casino, but we think that decaffeinated coffee should never be a gamble.
Peter: We made this one as bold, balanced, and deep bodied as any of our regular dark roasts.
Peter: Its rich roast hazelnut notes would be right at home in the French Riviera.
Peter: That’s a pretty good description.
Peter: It is bold, it is balanced, it’s pleasantly bitter, it’s not at all sour.
Peter: This is a drinkable decaf that I have gone back to several times.
Peter: Story of the beans, origins, a unique blend of thoughtfully sourced specialty Arabica beans showcasing Latin American coffees.
Peter: Okay, that’s not an answer.
Peter: That’s their way of saying we don’t want to tell you where we get our beans from.
Peter: Roast level, dark roasted.
Peter: How we like it.
Peter: It’s extraordinary every way.
Peter: French press, filter or espresso.
Peter: I made mine with an AeroPress Premium today, Scott.
Peter: How did you brew yours?
Scott: Well, since mine is tea.
Peter: Oh, never mind.
Scott: Mine is Numi Hojicha.
Scott: Yeah, because as I told you today, I’m off coffee for the moment.
Scott: So I am drinking Numi tea, which you might think, oh my God, that’s so pedestrian.
Scott: But this is Hojicha, which is roasted over charcoal, Japanese green tea.
Scott: And it’s very good.
Scott: You wouldn’t know that it’s green tea by looking at it because they call it golden, but it’s brown.
Scott: It’s brown tea, but it comes from green tea leaves and they roast it over charcoal.
Scott: It’s a really good variety.
Scott: I’m really digging it.
Scott: Cool.
Scott: And I recommend, I love green teas of all kinds.
Scott: There’s my primary teas, but I do like ones with a little bit of different ingredients.
Scott: I do like ones with barley mix now a lot.
Scott: For example, some barley teas in general, I kind of like now, which I didn’t use to, but this is not any of those, but it is just a green tea, but the roasted flavor of it, it does make it taste different than your standard green tea.
Scott: And I think it’s a little bit stronger, which is nice, because some green teas can be a little light.
Scott: And this is not too light.
Scott: This is nice and flavorful.
Peter: Cool.
Peter: So, are you curious as to why I’m coming to you from the Mac Mini today instead of the MacBook Pro M4?
Scott: I’m not curious.
Scott: Well, I’m curious about the details.
Scott: I have the overriding principle in my mind because I saw your reminders list of things that you wanted to talk about.
Peter: Yes.
Peter: Well, you do, but Mr.
Peter: or Mrs.
Peter: Listener doesn’t.
Scott: Yeah, but I don’t…
Scott: Look, Peter, I can only try to deal with my own ignorance, which is already so abundant.
Scott: I can’t help everyone else in the world keep up with what’s going on.
Scott: But why don’t you help them keep up with what’s going on?
Scott: Because apparently you can.
Peter: Well, a couple of weeks ago, I came down with a bit of a sniffle and a sore throat, and I made myself a nice hot cup of tea.
Peter: And since I was feeling a little under the weather, I treated myself to a little bit of lemon and honey with it.
Peter: And since I am a generous, caring, and sharing individual, I shared some with my MacBook Pro keyboard.
Peter: Yeah, for the first time in decades, I spilled a drink on a keyboard, and I hit it against my microphone and boom, splashed on the lower right hand section of the MacBook Pro.
Peter: It was fine for a while, but a day later, when all the honey and the sugar dried up, it was a little crunchy.
Peter: After pressing all the keys and stuff, I did the standard tip the thing 75 degrees, sprayed compressed air out of it.
Peter: Got the keys pretty much back to normal, but the track pad was a little spongy.
Peter: And this, that feeling is just not working for me.
Peter: So even with AppleCare, liquid damage, $299 repair.
Scott: Oh, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter.
Peter: At least I can write it off as a business expense, but still, it was.
Scott: I wasn’t saying that because I’m exasperated with you.
Scott: I’m saying that because I’m old and I’m trying to remember who you are.
Scott: I’m just trying to not forget.
Scott: That’s all.
Peter: Good.
Peter: Good job.
Peter: Thank you.
Scott: Thank you.
Scott: No problem.
Scott: No problem, Biff.
Scott: Let’s keep podcasting.
Scott: So that sucks.
Scott: And how long do you think you’ll be without it?
Peter: They estimate it’ll be back on Wednesday, which is not terrible.
Scott: It’s not great either because today is Friday.
Scott: Right.
Peter: Well, I mean, Friday, it’s going over the weekend, so you lose two days.
Peter: But I’m not going to be doing a lot with my laptop.
Peter: The biggest thing is Sunday night, I run my Savage Worlds game, so I have to do that on the slower mini, which might be a little bit painful.
Scott: By the way, speaking of the mini and speaking of painful, there was an affiliate link from Mac Stories to another Mac mini that’s on sale on Amazon right now.
Scott: And it’s an M4 Mac mini, and it has 16 gigabytes of RAM instead of the 8 gigs that you and I have.
Scott: It is still only a 256 gigabyte SSD, but it’s something like $452 something.
Scott: It’s quite a bit more than what we paid for ours, but it’s also quite a bit more computer.
Peter: Yeah.
Peter: I mean, at this point, I’m not going to buy one of those because this is my in a pinch machine, which I’m glad I have.
Peter: Right?
Peter: I mean, of course, I also have a dedicated work laptop.
Peter: I could use that.
Peter: But I really like to keep separation of church and state.
Peter: I could see myself, like, you know, work laptop hitting my Foundry server, you know, nothing else.
Scott: Right.
Scott: If I hadn’t bought the M1 Mini for sure, I would think I would go for the M4 at this point.
Peter: Yep.
Peter: But I’ll be fine.
Peter: I’ll just I’ll bring my iPad, you know, my iPad Air up and use that as a secondary display.
Peter: And then, you know, I’ll be fine.
Peter: It should be fine.
Scott: I think that you definitely do need a powerful Foundry server because it sounds like you’re always choking to death.
Scott: Not you.
Peter: It’s not the server.
Peter: It’s the client side.
Peter: But even that said, I did upgrade the Foundry server.
Peter: I moved it from one of those little old Datto, you know, Intel Nooks that I had.
Peter: I moved that to an old Pentium Core i7 laptop that I had from like 2017, I think.
Peter: Night and day.
Peter: It’s way more powerful.
Scott: Peter, why do you got to bring Intel into this conversation?
Scott: Here we were having fun, being friends.
Peter: We were and we still are, so.
Scott: Okay, good.
Scott: Good, good, good.
Scott: So when you say Foundry is bugging out on the client side, what do you mean?
Scott: Explain what’s happening.
Peter: So Foundry is, it’s a web app.
Peter: Everyone, if you have an underpowered machine like I do, it’s a web app, but it’s still, there’s a lot going on on the client side, right?
Peter: So yes, the server does stuff, but the whole graphics rendering stuff all happens local.
Peter: And that, as we just saw, literally was enough to, you know, bring Riverside to its knees.
Peter: Oh, it just, like, it stopped blurring my background.
Peter: It can’t handle that anymore as a result, right?
Peter: So I was like, yeah, great, thanks.
Scott: Peter, as we’ve seen browsers over the years have gone from the lightest application that does almost nothing to the application where you load one web page and suddenly your computer crawls to a halt.
Scott: No surprise there.
Scott: We have.
Peter: Not at all.
Peter: So, yeah, wonderful.
Scott: I need to get some advice from you, but I don’t know if I should do it on this podcast or not.
Peter: I don’t either, given that I don’t know the nature of the advice.
Scott: Well, as you know, I am trying to put a Sophos XGS 88 on my network as my primary router slash gateway.
Scott: That’s cool.
Scott: I can get it connected to the Internet and I can start the configuration process.
Scott: Unfortunately, the initial configuration, the initial setup, it acts like it finishes, but it never really, first of all, it failed a million times.
Scott: Then it acted like it finished and I was like, great.
Scott: Then I go to login and it wouldn’t accept my new password that I had set.
Scott: So I used the default password and it let me in and I thought, oh, it didn’t save any of my changes.
Scott: Sure enough, it did not save any of the setup options that I had chosen during the quote initial setup.
Scott: So then I got to the point where it was connected to the Internet, it was configured to be a DHCP server, and as far as I could tell, it was doling out IPs to various things on my network, including my Mac, but none of those things could get to the Internet.
Peter: What do you have for firewall rules?
Scott: Well, I just have what was set up with the base.
Scott: So, there is a default LAN firewall rule, but I haven’t looked to see yet what it’s doing.
Scott: It may not actually be letting any traffic through.
Peter: So, here’s the thing.
Peter: I don’t know how…
Peter: I don’t recall I should, but I don’t recall how the XG does things, but the UTM by default used to not allow any traffic, unless you would set it up during the setup wizard.
Scott: Yeah.
Scott: I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going on.
Scott: It’s just that I have other humans in my house and I got to the point where I needed to restore the networked functionality before I got murdered because it was evening and people wanted the internet.
Scott: So that’s what I did.
Scott: So I’m going to look at it with the assumption that because my initial configuration never actually finished, I currently have a firewall that’s just blocking all traffic.
Peter: Got it.
Peter: Got it.
Peter: Got it.
Scott: And the thing I’m trying to figure out though, so as I have the EROs, and so my ERO is no longer going to be my gateway or my DHCP server.
Scott: I just want to use it for the wireless access.
Scott: What I’m not sure, so I am not using the WAN port on it at all.
Scott: I only have the LAN port plugged into the switch, and the LAN port of the Sophos is also plugged into the switch.
Scott: But what I’m not sure is, is the ERO actually ever going to get Internet if I don’t use its WAN port?
Scott: That’s what I’m not sure about.
Scott: I don’t know if I’m actually supposed to cascade the Sophos to the ERO and then to my switch, or if I’m supposed to plug both of them into the switch and the ERO should work that way.
Peter: The way I do it is, I just go behind my Verizon Fios router, obviously, right?
Peter: I’m not behind a Sophos firewall.
Peter: The way I’ve done it here is I just have my ERO’s WAN port going into one of the LAN ports on the Verizon.
Peter: That should work.
Peter: But what it’ll do is you lose visibility and granularity that you would get because the Sophos can’t see past the ERO’s WAN port.
Peter: So everything coming from behind the ERO looks like the ERO, and that’s it.
Peter: Now, you can still do traffic inspection, right?
Peter: But you won’t be able to, for instance, say give Scott’s laptop priority and give your wife and daughter third great citizenship and stuff.
Peter: And, you know, like they get five megabits per second max or something like that.
Scott: Yeah, see, that’s why, yeah, I see what you’re saying.
Scott: I was hoping I could just connect both of their LAN ports to the switch.
Peter: I think you can, though.
Peter: I think you can put the LAN port on an ERO and have it act as just an access point, but I’m not 100% sure.
Scott: Yeah, and so if that’s the case, I’m hoping that’s the case.
Scott: If that is the case, then it’s probably just a matter of the Internet traffic is being blocked by the firewall, which would make sense because my Mac was on the same network as the Sophos.
Scott: It wasn’t going through the ERO at all, and so it also was blocked.
Scott: So I think that’s probably the issue.
Scott: That’s probably why the EROs are going, dude, I don’t see the Internet, dude, I don’t see the Internet, dude, I don’t see the Internet.
Peter: When you’re setting up the Sophos, the best thing to do is plug your laptop directly into its LAN port.
Scott: Well, yeah, I basically had the same thing.
Peter: But when you’re setting it up, this is not up to debate.
Scott: No, I understand.
Peter: Just plug in the Ethernet, that is the best way to do it.
Scott: Yeah.
Scott: That is how I will do it next time.
Peter: Yeah, so definitely.
Scott: Now I just need my family to leave.
Scott: I’ve been swearing at them, I’ve been insulting them and they just don’t leave.
Scott: Anyway, Peter, I’ve been trying to get them out of the house.
Scott: They’re not going anywhere.
Peter: Trying to get them out of the house.
Peter: I mean, there are ways to do that.
Peter: Probably easier for you to just leave, though.
Scott: But that won’t help me set up my Sophos.
Scott: And that’s the goal.
Scott: That’s why I’m trying to get them to leave.
Scott: I don’t want them to actually leave.
Scott: It’s not that I want them out of here.
Scott: It’s that I want to set up the Sophos.
Scott: So they do kind of have to be out of here.
Scott: Oh my goodness.
Peter: Got it.
Peter: Got it.
Scott: You’re just trying to isolate me.
Scott: I’ll just go wander around the woods for a few hours.
Scott: That ought to fix everything.
Scott: Oh my God.
Scott: What did you want to talk about today, Peter?
Scott: Besides the fact that you’re a sweet honey of a man who dumps things into your keyboard.
Peter: My laptop was thirsty.
Peter: That was one thing.
Peter: I’m calling up my reminders because I put down lists of things that I wanted to discuss today.
Scott: Yeah, I think some of them…
Peter: So one of them is that.
Scott: And some of them were related to your trip, I think.
Peter: Yes.
Peter: So the other thing I wanted to talk about was these AirPods Pros 3s that I have in my ears.
Peter: You may recall, I purchased them right before my trip to Mexico because I desperately wanted their better noise cancellation for the flight because it’s so much drastically better than the AirPods 2.
Scott: It is.
Peter: So I bought them knowing that Black Friday was only a couple weeks away.
Peter: And if I had to, you know, I could just replace them.
Peter: And sure enough, they’re $50 cheaper.
Peter: They’re still $50 cheaper today.
Peter: They’re on sale right now.
Peter: Best Buy has them for 200 bucks and Amazon has them for $199.
Scott: Wow.
Scott: Are you serious?
Peter: I am serious.
Peter: So I went to Amazon and I said, I’d like to return these.
Peter: And they’re like, why?
Peter: I was like, found a better price.
Peter: And they’re like, what if we just give you $50 back?
Peter: And I said, OK.
Peter: So I just went to Amazon.
Peter: I was like, yeah, I’ll keep them.
Peter: Now, you may recall, originally, I was going to return these again because they made a little weird noise three times.
Peter: That has stopped.
Scott: No more e-parrot.
Peter: Maybe it was a software update.
Peter: I’m not sure.
Peter: The other thing is, I have upgraded to the Comply Foam Tips for these.
Peter: Definitely more comfortable.
Peter: Definitely a better fit for me.
Scott: That’s probably what it was, honestly.
Scott: You’re probably not getting some weird microphone feedback that it was getting.
Scott: Yeah.
Peter: So right now, it’s good.
Peter: I’m very happy with the AirPods Pro 3 with the Comply Foam Tips.
Peter: And then, of course, as soon as I bought them, Comply came out with another line, which is for industrial areas and things like that, like construction sites.
Scott: Industrial areas, like ear canals, maybe?
Peter: No, like construction zones and stuff.
Scott: Oh, okay.
Peter: Which I did not buy because I’ve got these.
Scott: Got it.
Scott: Peter, your industrial ear canals are baffling to headphones of all kinds.
Peter: So yeah, I told Amazon, you know, hey, like I found a better price.
Peter: And they’re like, great, we’ll give you 50 bucks back.
Peter: And they did.
Scott: Nice.
Peter: So hey, I win.
Peter: Excellent.
Scott: You know, Amazon is a terrible company and we should all feel bad for using them as much as we do.
Scott: But I will say when it comes to customer service, they can be pretty damn good or whatever.
Peter: I had a problem.
Peter: So I purchased for my trip to Berlin, I purchased an inflatable foam roller.
Peter: So it’s not technically a foam roller.
Peter: It’s an inflatable roller.
Peter: And every now and then, for some time, I don’t know exactly why, it’s got a valve and you plug the pump into it and you press the little valve to deflate it.
Peter: Every now and then, when I go to inflate it and I remove, you know, unscrew the pump from it, that little deflation valve stays stuck in.
Peter: So it immediately undoes all my hard work pumping the stupid thing up.
Peter: I’m outside of the warranty.
Peter: I called in or opened a chat with Amazon on that.
Peter: I’m like, look, I can’t fix this, right?
Peter: I’ve tried several times and it was happening to me when I was in Mexico.
Peter: So I’m like, oh, this is annoying.
Peter: And I couldn’t, you know, like I tried jiggling it.
Peter: I couldn’t find it sticking.
Peter: It’ll happen on my boat.
Peter: My inflatable kayak, sometimes the same thing happens.
Peter: But if I find if I turn the knobs, it’s like when I go to remove the adapter, it spins it and that locks it in the place.
Peter: So I have to jiggle it in the right direction.
Peter: And then I can make it not happen.
Peter: Couldn’t find anything like that on this one.
Peter: And they’re like, yeah, unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do.
Peter: But if it’s okay, I’ll give you a $20 credit.
Peter: And I was like, that’s okay.
Peter: I’ll take it.
Peter: And then as soon as I got it, it started working again just fine.
Peter: But last night, the problem came back.
Peter: So every now and then I have to re-inflate it.
Peter: So I guess the $20 credit makes it a little better than that.
Peter: Yeah, so because of our busy work schedule, we have not had time lately to record as many episodes.
Peter: So we have a backlog of my single cup episodes.
Peter: And we even have a backlog of the single glass of beer review that I have done as well.
Scott: So let me tell you what I have.
Scott: I have three audio files and two videos from you.
Scott: So I have five total.
Scott: I have Neto Captain’s Tea.
Scott: I have the original Fog Buster.
Scott: I have Traveling a Coffee.
Scott: What’s a coffee?
Peter: Traveling a Coffee Carry.
Peter: Which you also have to review.
Scott: Yep.
Peter: Because I sent you some.
Scott: Oh, that’s right.
Scott: Oh, my God.
Scott: Can I remember it?
Scott: I think I can.
Scott: So Traveling a Coffee Carry.
Peter: Yep.
Scott: Okay.
Scott: So you have those three and then you’ve got the two beers that you drank while you were in.
Scott: What’s their name?
Peter: Turks and Caicos.
Scott: Turns, turns and Caicos.
Peter: Turks.
Scott: Turns and Caicos.
Scott: Apparently, I’m incapable.
Peter: Turns.
Peter: Yes.
Peter: Turns.
Peter: Turns and Cocos.
Peter: Yep.
Scott: So, okay.
Scott: So yeah, I should find a way to put those in at some point.
Scott: Honestly, I wanted to put the video on Instagram.
Scott: I wanted to make a Friends with Brews Instagram channel.
Scott: However, given the fact that I haven’t even finished editing the last episode that we did yet, what do you think the chances are of me actually doing even more work related to Friends with Brews?
Scott: Probably low.
Peter: Slim to none.
Scott: Right.
Scott: So anyway, yeah, I don’t know how to fit those in because usually when we talk, you do have a beverage already prepared.
Scott: I guess it could just be an extra.
Scott: So if I was going to throw one of those in as an extra this time, do you think I should put both beers in?
Scott: Or put one beer in and put the other beer in a different time?
Scott: Because they’re both on the same trip.
Scott: How would you like me to handle this, Peter?
Peter: I would say, that’s tricky.
Peter: You know what you could do?
Peter: I would say you could do both of the Turks and Caicos beers.
Scott: Yep.
Peter: And the Chez Cafe review.
Scott: I don’t…
Peter: Because that was all one…
Scott: What’s Chez Cafe?
Peter: Did that not come through?
Peter: Did that not come through?
Scott: I don’t have that one.
Scott: I have Net House, I have Fog Buster, I have Acaufecary.
Peter: So I didn’t send it to you.
Peter: So I will find it and send it to you.
Peter: But that was a review I recorded sitting in Chez Cafe in Turks and Caicos.
Peter: Great little coffee shop down there.
Scott: You probably sent it to me, and I probably failed to download it.
Peter: I may not have.
Peter: I may have just recorded it.
Peter: I may have just recorded it and not sent it to you.
Peter: I will find it and I would say put all of those into a single episode because that will be the Peter Vacates to Turks and Caicos episode.
Scott: Peter, let’s talk about reducing but not eliminating plastic from your coffee diet.
Peter: So as you are very well aware, I recently purchased an AeroPress premium made of glass.
Scott: I would posit that you purchased two of them and I thank you again very much.
Peter: You’re welcome.
Peter: I gave one of them to you.
Scott: Yes.
Scott: It’s a work of art.
Scott: It’s a thing.
Peter: It’s a thing.
Peter: That said, it has rubber in it.
Scott: So if the idea of the AeroPress Imperial or whatever it’s called, AeroPress Industrial?
Scott: AeroPress Ear Canal.
Scott: Professional, yes.
Scott: Premium, professional ear canal, yes.
Scott: Which I also have and I agree that it’s a work of art and I love it.
Scott: It is so much more satisfying to use than the plastic thing.
Scott: I do believe that it sheds fewer microplastics into the coffee just by the dint of the fact that you’re not pushing the stopper down the, you’re not pushing the plunger down a column of plastic over and over and over a billion times.
Scott: And you can see that plastic wearing over time.
Scott: Now, whether that’s from heating or what, I don’t know, but it doesn’t bode well.
Scott: It does make you nervous.
Scott: But what do you think about the fact, you know, what’s your overall assessment?
Scott: Like, do you say, oh, I’ve made an improvement here and this is good, or do you just mainly enjoy it for the comparative work of art that it is?
Peter: It is an improvement because we’re not having hot boiling water sitting in plastic.
Scott: Yeah.
Peter: Melting into our coffee, right?
Peter: Can I taste the difference?
Peter: I’m not really sure about that, right?
Scott: Probably not.
Scott: No, I don’t think so.
Peter: And that rubber or plastic or whatever plunger it is, that’s being pressed down, it’s making much less contact, right?
Peter: It only, even if you press all the way down to the grains in the water, it’s only at the very end that that happens.
Peter: So I think that is, I think that’s good progress.
Scott: Yeah.
Scott: However, it’s not so much the contact with that thing that makes me nervous.
Scott: It’s more of, as it’s going down, surely it must be shedding some minute amount of particles as it goes.
Peter: On that note, however, I will say, have you noticed the plunger that I have?
Peter: The seal is much less tight than it was on the classic plastic versions.
Scott: It’s easier to push down in general, yeah.
Peter: Yeah.
Peter: So I would suppose that we’re also rubbing off less on the glass, right?
Scott: Probably.
Peter: If you’re worried about that, I would think the solution is aggressively clean the inside with a brush every single time.
Peter: Probably a plastic brush though, so have fun with that.
Scott: Yeah, I wouldn’t want to scratch the grass.
Scott: I wouldn’t want to…
Scott: Peter, feed off the grass, please.
Scott: Get off my lawn.
Peter: Plastic really shouldn’t scratch the glass though.
Scott: No, but I wouldn’t take a…
Scott: what are those things called?
Scott: I wouldn’t take a…
Scott: what are those stupid sponges called?
Scott: They have the scrubber on the other side.
Scott: I wouldn’t take one of those to it.
Peter: Like a Brillo pad or something?
Scott: Yeah.
Peter: I wouldn’t either.
Scott: Well, people do wash dishes with those things.
Peter: That’s fair enough.
Scott: But the glass is impressive.
Scott: And I have been like, is this glass…
Scott: Hannah looked at that and she said, is this glass really going to withstand the heat?
Scott: I’m like, well, I mean, all coffee implements ever used in any coffee shop are glass, and then hot water suddenly goes into them.
Scott: So yeah, I think you can handle it.
Scott: And it’s thick.
Scott: It’s amazing.
Peter: It’s heavy.
Peter: And it’s also, it’s thinner and taller than the regular one.
Peter: So I have a little less clearance because I have a hanger in my cabinet where I keep my coffee.
Peter: And so normally I can fit like a small glass jar of coffee or a box of coffee underneath the AeroPress when I hang it.
Peter: I can’t do that anymore.
Peter: It doesn’t fit.
Peter: So, you know, it’s like, okay, fine.
Scott: It’s so much nicer to use, though.
Scott: Like in general, it’s just nicer to use.
Scott: And honestly, it’s easier, maybe it’s mental, but it seems easier to clean because the coffee and everything else just washes right off those surfaces really well.
Scott: It’s metal and glass.
Scott: It’s beautiful.
Scott: I really like it.
Peter: Yep.
Peter: I agree.
Scott: One of the most delightful presents I’ve received in a long, long time.
Peter: Well, you’re welcome.
Peter: I hope it continues to serve you well for many episodes to come.
Scott: Yeah, I need to start.
Scott: I mean, I’m gonna start working coffee back into my diet, but very slowly because what I want to see is, is coffee actually causing me problems or was it just exacerbating problems?
Scott: And I believe that it’s just exacerbating problems.
Scott: So my guess is if I’m not actually having any stomach problems at the time, which I’m currently not, I’m currently just coming out of that.
Scott: After I’m taking gluten out of my diet, Peter, that’s what I’m doing right now.
Scott: I’ve just removed gluten.
Scott: I said, I’m going off gluten.
Scott: But anyway, if I maintain this to where I don’t have problems for a little while, which is hard to say so far, small sample size and it’s been very cyclic already anyway.
Scott: So, but anyway, the point is I, it’s not that I plan to quit coffee forever.
Scott: It’s just I wanted to have it quit being part of the problem until I felt better and then I could slowly see, how much coffee do I need per day?
Scott: So I’m literally thinking one cup at the most per day instead of three or something like that.
Peter: Yeah.
Peter: When I was talking at length with the owner of Shea Cafe down in Turks and Caicos, the guy says he’s drinking like nine cups a day.
Scott: I believe it.
Scott: That was me not that long ago.
Peter: Yeah.
Peter: But he also said, yeah, but I alternate with water.
Peter: I was like, yeah, but dude, just because you’re washing it down and diluting it in your stomach with water, doesn’t mean you’re not still consuming nine cups of coffee a day.
Scott: Right.
Scott: So if he’s drinking caffeinated, he’s getting all that caffeine, regardless of how much water.
Scott: And it does help to drink water though, because isn’t it true that coffee will dehydrate you to some degree?
Scott: Because anyway, I find drinking a lot of coffee quite dehydrating.
Peter: Yeah.
Scott: Yeah.
Scott: So for sure with the water, it’s not a bad idea.
Scott: But yeah, you’re right.
Scott: Drinking nine cups of coffee, you can drink as much water as you want.
Scott: It’s not going to change the fact that you’re drinking nine cups of coffee.
Scott: It’s like, but I only ate three big hamburgers today, but I had these carrots with it.
Scott: Okay, good for you.
Peter: Exactly.
Scott: You still ate 40 billion calories today.
Peter: Unfortunately, it’s not like the late great Mitch Hedberg said, wouldn’t it be great if you eat a bunch of junk food, but then you ate a carrot and when it got to your stomach, the carrot said, it’s okay.
Peter: He’s with me.
Peter: It’s like you eat a French fry and a carrot or something like that.
Scott: Are you, okay, which Garmin did you originally buy?
Scott: Are you going to talk about the Garmin today?
Peter: I will talk a little bit about it.
Peter: I did talk about this on the Blurring the Lines Podcast, but I’m saving the actual review for here.
Scott: I couldn’t remember the name of the podcast.
Scott: I was going, Speeding on the Highway.
Scott: No, that’s not right.
Peter: So I originally back in July, I think, bought the, or June or July.
Peter: It was right after I signed up with coachparry.com.
Peter: I purchased the Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar.
Peter: The idea being that that would get me through a 100-mile race, right?
Peter: But more importantly, my 50-mile race, which was just a month and a half ago or so.
Peter: So I did buy it.
Peter: And again, as we’ve discussed, Garmin’s tend to have eight-year lifespan.
Peter: So even though the technology lags a little bit, they’re still selling the model that I bought, the 955, even though it’s like four years old.
Peter: And when I bought it, it was about half price.
Peter: So I got it for 400 bucks and it worked great.
Peter: I love my Garmin.
Peter: And I miss my Garmin right now.
Peter: But I did notice that on Black Friday, the Garmin Forerunner 965 was on sale for only $449.
Peter: So $50 more than I paid for my 955.
Peter: And I attempted to sell it on, well, I was gonna list it on eBay, and I actually did end up listing it on eBay, but then I canceled the sale.
Peter: I also listed it on a couple of Reddit forums.
Peter: And for the full story about that, go over to the Friends with, to the Blurring the Lines Podcast, the latest episode.
Peter: In the end, I ended up selling it to another member of the Somerville Roadrunners group that I’m a part of.
Peter: And I got it, I sold it for $25 less than what I paid for it.
Peter: So essentially, I had a Garmin watch for what, five months or so, for 25 bucks.
Peter: And so for a net $75 increase, I’m upgrading to a bigger, brighter AMOLED display, possibly some upgraded sensors.
Peter: There are definitely some new features that the 965 has that the Solar didn’t have.
Peter: And admittedly, I am trading a little bit of battery life.
Peter: But this watch will still most likely get me through all of my races for at least a few years to come.
Peter: So, stand by for an updated review once I actually get it.
Peter: I’ll be picking it up.
Peter: I think it will be…
Peter: It’s going to arrive at the Best Buy in New Hampshire or Vermont or somewhere.
Peter: My next Vermont trip north, I’ll be picking it up on my way up there.
Scott: And you said something about blogging about this.
Scott: What are you going to write about it?
Peter: Well, similar to my 955 review.
Scott: Which was pretty good.
Scott: Pretty extensive, by the way, I thought.
Peter: Yeah, and this is going to likely just be an update, right?
Peter: I don’t think it’s going to be, you know, a full on review because I’m not, I am not DC Rainmaker.
Peter: And the other thing was that I, when I did put my review up, I added a bunch of affiliate links to Amazon, hoping that, you know, hey, maybe someone will buy one of these things inspired by this review that you thought was so awesome, right?
Peter: They rejected my application because none of my links, like, they’re like, no, we don’t have anything.
Peter: Even though I know some people bought some things from links that I gave them.
Peter: And the reason was because when I set up my affiliate links, I forgot I was setting it up for yogawithpeter.com, but I posted everything on nikolaidis.com.
Scott: Yeah.
Peter: So I didn’t get any credit for those, which kind of sucked.
Peter: Yeah.
Peter: So you may ask, though, but Peter, the 500 series of The Forerunner is now up to the 570.
Peter: Why didn’t you get that?
Peter: Because that was another $100 more expensive and negligible benefit.
Peter: So I didn’t bother.
Scott: What was the negligible benefit?
Peter: They either added, again, either added some new feature that I don’t really need, you know?
Peter: So it’s kind of like, really, it’s not all that different from upgrading from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, you know, to what?
Peter: Something what came after 7, I guess.
Peter: You know, 7 was a little bit of a bigger change, but, you know, it’s not really that big, you know, or, you know, more like a little iPhone update and so, you know, they’re not huge differences.
Peter: But but going from the 955 to the 965, there’s a huge change on the screen.
Peter: Going from the 965 to the 970, there’s not as big of a difference.
Scott: Okay, so what part does the Apple Watch play in your life currently?
Peter: Because in well, right now, the Apple Watch is on my wrist because I don’t have another watch.
Scott: Yeah, right.
Scott: But also, I did see you wearing it in one of those videos, but I believe it was for the same reason.
Peter: Yeah, because I had sold my forerunner.
Scott: Once you once you get your Garmin back, what do you think your Apple Watch is going to do?
Scott: Is it going to gather dust in a shelf?
Peter: I still wear it from time to time.
Peter: But as time goes on, I find myself happier with the forerunner, with the Garmin.
Peter: Over time, I miss the cool whizbang features of the Apple less and less.
Peter: Particularly, like two nights ago, I had dinner with a friend and I got a haircut.
Peter: You didn’t comment on my new haircut.
Peter: I also had the barber do the beard for the first time in my life.
Peter: And I’m like, that was good.
Peter: I gave him a nice hefty tip.
Peter: I think he did a really good job.
Peter: Anyway, thing is, he took a long time to do it.
Peter: And so I texted my friend using my watch, telling him, hey, I’m running about 10 minutes late.
Peter: And I saw the message on the watch.
Peter: And it apparently never went any further than that.
Peter: Because that message didn’t actually exist.
Peter: It never was sent.
Peter: And so again, back to my review, the more times these stupid watches, the more times the Apple Watch fails, the less I miss it.
Peter: And it’s like, I like being able to answer a call on it when I don’t have the phone.
Peter: I like two-factor authentication pushes.
Scott: That is very nice.
Peter: But a lot of the stuff I do is set reminders, or I use Siri, or try to send a message, or something like that.
Peter: And it just doesn’t work.
Peter: So yeah, the Garmin, it does less, but it tries to do less.
Peter: And yeah, that’s where I’m at right now.
Scott: I’ll tell you the things about the Apple Watch that…
Scott: So I have fewer problems like that with stuff not sending, but I do have them.
Scott: And it is infuriating because it’s always right when you…
Scott: It’s like you rely on this stuff for a reason.
Scott: Your hands are busy, you’re doing something, but you need to reply to somebody or you need to send a message to them.
Scott: Other times, like I think I told you before on this podcast, I go outside for a run, I come back, I can’t get in because my stupid watch just says updating, updating.
Scott: It’s updating the home network.
Scott: It doesn’t let me open my garage door.
Scott: It’s like, what are you updating?
Scott: I’m standing in front of the house.
Scott: I can stand against the garage door if you want.
Scott: I can’t get any closer to the house.
Scott: It doesn’t have that problem when I leave the house.
Scott: Well, actually, sometimes it does.
Scott: But usually, when I go out and get in my car, typically, because my carplay takes a minute or two to kick on, I’ll close the garage door by saying it to my watch and it’ll do it.
Scott: So how come when I come home, and by the way, it has cellular, it’s like when it’s joining the network, it gets confused for a long, long, long time.
Scott: It doesn’t know which network should I use?
Scott: I don’t know what to do.
Scott: There’s so much talking going on.
Scott: One’s cellular, one’s Wi-Fi.
Scott: I don’t get it.
Scott: Yeah, I think the main things about the watch for me right now that are quality of life are notifications I do like on it, although sometimes they drive me a bit insane.
Scott: I hate getting tapped on my wrist when I’m deep in something and I’m trying to focus.
Scott: Yeah.
Scott: But I do like using it as alarm clock for that reason so much better.
Scott: I hate audio.
Scott: I hate being woken up by noise.
Scott: That infuriates me.
Peter: Can I add on to that?
Peter: Focus settings.
Peter: Sometimes it just completely ignores them.
Peter: Sometimes I’ll go to sleep and the watch face is still blasting bright light at me.
Peter: Sometimes I will be in bed and it’s set to sleep and you text me and it goes, bing, and I’m like, what part of Do Not Disturb did you know?
Peter: That’s the other two.
Peter: I’ll sit down and set it to do not disturb and do like a 15-minute meditation in the afternoon.
Peter: And it goes off and I get alerts.
Peter: So again, the more that Apple software continues to suck ass, the less I miss it.
Scott: Yeah, I find that customizing focus modes is a bad idea.
Scott: What I tend to do is use no focus mode or I use sleep.
Scott: And then the other focus modes are driving, which happens automatically when it connects to CarPlay.
Scott: And then I do have one called no home, which stops all home related notifications.
Scott: Because normally I want all home related notifications, but there are times where it drives me insane.
Scott: Like when one of us is working in the yard, I do not want those notifications.
Scott: Please quit pinging me every time somebody walks past a camera.
Scott: And so I have that, but I haven’t figured out a good way to combine that with sleep.
Scott: Because normally when I’m asleep, I still want home notifications, because A, everyone’s in bed so they shouldn’t happen.
Scott: And if they do happen, it could be somebody approaching the house or trying to get in the house or a door open that I don’t expect to have open.
Scott: So I want that.
Scott: But there are times when I am in sleep mode and I don’t want that.
Scott: So it would be nice to be able to find a way to combine those.
Scott: And so, yeah, Apple software, yeah, focus modes, everything.
Scott: It’s just a nightmare.
Scott: The Apple introduces so many things that they start off with on a promising note.
Scott: I’m trying to think of what it’s called where you can kind of control your, where you can track your kid’s usage and you can kind of control their usage and stuff.
Scott: There’s that feature, I don’t remember what it’s called.
Scott: But it started off so promising and then I realized it’s just inaccurate.
Scott: It’s just giving me stats that don’t make sense.
Scott: And it never got any better.
Scott: It was like Apple’s like, yeah, yeah, I guess it kind of works.
Scott: And then they never go back and revisit it and fix it.
Scott: They’re so good.
Peter: They do stuff like that all the freaking time though, yeah.
Peter: So I just messaged you if you want to include it in the show notes, a quick comparison page which shows the 955, the 965 and the 970 side by side.
Peter: Curiously, even though the 955 is discontinued and so is the 955 solar, I can no longer compare the 955 solar.
Peter: It doesn’t show up anymore in the search results when I try to compare it.
Peter: So what are the features that the 970 has that the 965 and the 955 lack?
Peter: They have an ECG app.
Peter: It has a built-in LED flashlight.
Peter: So instead of just turning the watch face bright, you know, for flashlight mode, it actually has a flashlight on the front of it.
Peter: So you can use it for a real flashlight.
Peter: The 970 also allows you to make calls and send texts when paired to a phone.
Peter: So that great feature that I use a lot on my iPhone or my Apple Watch that often fails to work, theoretically would work.
Peter: Frankly, I trust the Garmin devs a little more to make that reliable at this point.
Scott: The Garmin devs have a much smaller stack that they’re building upon.
Scott: They don’t have years of cruft.
Scott: They’re not trying to get three operating systems to talk to each other.
Scott: And each of these operating systems is 10 times bigger than it used to be.
Peter: But I mean, Garmin has their OS and they’re trying to talk to iOS.
Scott: Yeah, but it’s still relatively simple compared to what Apple is doing.
Scott: I think that they have an easier task in terms of a codebase that makes sense and is reliable.
Scott: Now, over time, that might change, but yes, I guess what I’m saying is I also trust them, not necessarily because they care more, but because their task is a little more focused.
Peter: Interestingly, the biggest difference, though, is the display, right?
Peter: The old version that I had, the 955, has 260 by 260 pixels.
Peter: The two newer models are 454 by 454.
Peter: So not quite, you know, twice the resolution, but, you know, like 80% more resolution, which is nice.
Peter: The funny thing now, of course, again, I can’t compare the 955 solar, because that had like 30 day battery life or something up to, you know, whatever.
Peter: The 965 has up to 23 days in just smart watch mode.
Peter: The 970 has only 15 days.
Peter: So it has, they backslid a little bit because they’ve added more capabilities and more sensors.
Scott: Only 15 days.
Scott: How do you stand it?
Scott: But Peter, the problem with the solar one is you have to go running with this big square panel on your head.
Peter: Right.
Peter: That was actually really clever because the way it works is, the Garmin has this round face and there’s a ring, a strip, a ring around it.
Peter: And it’s just that ring around it is the solar panel.
Scott: And that little tiny surface can help that much?
Peter: It’s a little tiny battery.
Peter: Just think, you’re not using a ton of power to begin with, so a little input makes a big difference.
Scott: You’re not powering a house is what you’re saying.
Peter: Yeah, essentially, voice assistant support and Bluetooth phone calling and stuff, that has been added to the 970.
Peter: So if I really missed the Apple Watch features, the 970 would add those back in.
Peter: As I’ve been saying, I’m not really missing it.
Peter: They added multi-sport workouts and a triathlon coach does not apply to me, even though when I was in Turks and Caicos, I ran, biked and swam on the same day.
Scott: I noticed that, I was impressed.
Peter: But wait, no, I take that back.
Peter: They do the 950, 965 does have a swimming, running triathlon activity profile.
Peter: So there you go.
Peter: They’ve added a lot more in the 970 though.
Peter: It has like duathlon, brick, pool triathlon.
Peter: What’s brick?
Peter: Brick?
Peter: Brick is a workout?
Peter: I have no idea.
Peter: So yeah, anyway, it’s got a lot of stuff.
Peter: Oh, they’ve added move alerts after periods of inactivity.
Peter: So, hey, you haven’t stood up like the stupid Apple does.
Scott: Oh, I thought it was alerting you that you moved in case you had noticed.
Peter: So yeah, so there’s a few things.
Peter: But again, the biggest reason I was doing it was for the, you know, for the updated display.
Peter: So, better screen.
Scott: Makes sense.
Peter: Yep.
Peter: So yeah, there you go.
Peter: And again, the $409.70 is still selling at full retail price at $750 right now.
Peter: So I’m paying $300 less than that.
Scott: Yep.
Scott: That’s my heart quitting.
Peter: That’s it.
Peter: So I think, have we covered everything?
Peter: I mean, we’ve got lots of topics backed up.
Scott: But yeah, we got a topic backlog.
Peter: I think I think we’re good at the moment.
Scott: Okay, Peter, if people, if people were, if people were inclined, if people were inclined to find us and to get in contact with us or to just listen to us or just to search things on our website, how would they, how would they know?
Scott: How would they do it?
Scott: What should they know?
Peter: Because they already have, because they’re listening to us now.
Peter: So they would-
Scott: Are they really?
Scott: You are making some mighty big assumptions.
Peter: They might need a reminder that they found us at friendswithbrews.com, not as Siri dictated earlier for me, friendswithbrews.com, which I thought it was also-
Scott: That’s pretty good.
Peter: That’s a pretty funny name for a podcast.
Peter: I mean, that was back to my Krav Maga days.
Peter: Friends with Brews.
Peter: Friends with brews.com.
Peter: That’s where you can find us, you can find our podcast and you can find links to me and Scott.
Peter: So go there.
Peter: You can also find links to all of the brews, the coffees, the beers, the teas, the things that we drink.
Peter: So what are you waiting for?
Peter: Go.
Peter: Go on.
Peter: Go.
Peter: Go on.
Scott: Yep.
Scott: By the way, when it comes to our website, and it just works.
Peter: You know, I know that it was pretty funny.
Peter: When I first heard Theo, that video that you sent me to him, I was somewhat turned off because everything he’s fking talking about is just fking this, and how fking ChatGPT just fking does it, no matter what you f**king tell it.
Peter: And I even chatted, I’ve said this on the f**king podcast already.
Peter: I wrote a fking review, and I said when you fking use the word fking, every other fking word to fking describe things, it fking loses its f**king meaning.
Peter: But now he’s one of my regular podcasters that I look forward to seeing pretty much on a daily basis.
Peter: Oh, he’s good.
Scott: He makes good points, and his analysis is good.
Scott: And then when he does do that, for some reason, it’s just funny now.
Peter: Yep.
Peter: And now it’s just f**king is funny.
Peter: There we go.
Scott: All right, Peter, is there a button?
Scott: Is there a friend?
Scott: Should we tell a friend?
Scott: Should we tell a button?
Peter: There is a big red button.
Scott: Tell your friends.