Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Simply Sledding

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Soren takes his family on a classic winter adventure and Daniel battles asphalt and Man's inability to seek medical care while on vacation. 

I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright? I wanna hear your thoughts, wanna know what's on your mind I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright? The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favourite? Who did you get? What do I be? What's it up with? Where did all that go? Did we not? Oh, forget it.

Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien. Two best friends and comedy writers. If there's an answer, they're gonna find it. I think you'll have a great time here. I think you'll have a great time here. So, hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers ask each other questions and give each other answers. I'm on half of that podcast, senior writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, author of How to Fight Presidents, and recently hobbled boy,

Daniel O'Brien. Joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Bui. Soren, say hello. Hello, everybody. I'm Soren Bui. I'm a writer for American Dad, and I'm very curious. You said hobbled, not hoveled, right? What is hoveled? I think you recently have become the owner of a hovel. No. I don't think I've ever heard hovel conjugated in quite such a way. Yeah. Like a housed person or an unhoused person.

A hoveled person would be, I assume, someone who owns a hovel now. That is how I would tell you, though. I would tell you on the podcast, good news, I'm hoveled. Mother, father. News from the coast, i'm hoveled mother father news from the coast i'm hoveled uh no how did you get hobbled are you is this permanent no i was in uh your current stopping grounds last weekend i was in los angeles for uh a wedding of our mutual friend ben joseph shout out ben got me the job that i have. Simpsons writer, fantastic writer, great guy all around. Congratulations on your wedding. It was great. But I was running the morning of the wedding. And when I, I have like my main

running shoes that I, that I like a lot, but when I'm traveling and I don't want to have a big suitcase, I pack these thin, my trail runners, because they could sort of like roll into a ball and not take up a lot of space in a suitcase you can roll your shoe up you like fold them in half really they're like water shoes slash trail runners uh and and and they're they're great for uh travel and they're great for for my running purposes often they're also incredibly thin and don't have a lot of they don't offer a ton of protection uh and i was running through los angeles on the sidewalk and there was like a square of sidewalk that was elevated about an inch above the sidewalk in front of it and i full force ran my toe into that and this was like mile two of a planned five mile run and even if i just decided

like oh this run is over i am still two and a half miles away from where i need to be and i just like continued on my run and uh didn't get any of the benefits of like disassociating when i run like i normally do i couldn't like escape and meditate in my brain or anything because it's just like yeah this hurts this continues to hurt and every step i'm just like there's not there's not a version where this like where i get to my destination and and it turns out i'm wrong and i didn't break my toe uh i know that feeling though that like weight where you're like maybe it's nothing maybe i just stubbed it and it's maybe this is okay and like every step you're still in the magic of your body where you're like yeah and maybe maybe it hurts really bad right now but i'm different

like maybe this is okay yeah maybe maybe if i if i continue to run on it my foot will be like oh okay he's he's really serious. All right, never mind. We're fine. But no, it's just a totally fucked up toe. I can still walk on it. It just hurts all the time and looks terrible. Which toe is it? The big one.

The big right toe. I know. Oh, no. Yeah. And so what are they? Did you go in? Did you get an x-ray? You just know it's broken i just know it's broken and i took uh as as men do took pictures of it and sent it to my dad and my brother like look at this and they're like oh yeah i know us too all the time are you

buddy taping it no you should not doing a damn thing man you got to it's there's something very a little moral story about it if you want sure i think there's something very strange about getting any kind of injury while traveling and not in my my own space i'm just like oh i'm in los angeles this doesn't count right i'm on i'm on west time. This'll be fine when I get back to New Jersey. I can leave this here. And then when I come back, it will have been healed. Yeah.

So buddy taping is the process of taping your tone to the toe next to it. Just so the toe isn't like, it's like a cast essentially. It's keeping it from moving around to our splint. I mean, you're splinting it with the other toe. Now the benefit of doing that is that you don't end up like my father-in-law. moving around to our splint. I mean, you're splinting it with the other toe. Um, now the benefit of doing that is that you don't end up like my father-in-law. Now my father-in-law broke his toe at some point, didn't do anything about it. And over time it just started to shift. Like

it started to shift so much that it started to, it started to sit over the toe next to it. Like he was crossing his fingers really like crossing his toes really hard hoping for something and it got to the point where it was so painful that just recently he had to have surgery on it um and get it re basically just get his fucking foot sorted because it was in such bad shape and if you with toes i mean like a small toe i think you're fine i think it's eventually even if that one doesn't grow back exactly the way it was supposed to the bone doesn't fuse properly it's not the end of the world but your big toe is so important i feel

like yeah if and all the slacklining i have planned for us in the future it's just i want you to be on your game yeah for sure if i'm at slackline, it's because I didn't get this toe sorted out. That's. Yes. Yeah. Oh, I see. So this is a new, you use an artificial hurdle you've created for yourself. Yes.

So that anytime you're bad at sports from here on out, you can be like, ah, this darn toe. Yeah. It was. Keeping me from swinging my golf club right. You should have seen me at that wedding. Just explain to people. Normally I would be dancing.

I look very cool when I dance. Oh no. You don't see me doing lots of dancing, but, have to understand my toe i couldn't you missed the best part of the wedding oh i didn't even think about that yeah daniel i'm so sorry you didn't get to dance uh it's fine i danced in in in my heart you know anytime i see a celebration of love oh brother uh so in this wedding i gotta tell you was uh a tremendous amount of golden era i'll say it golden era internet comedy who's who because i knew ben from both of us being comedy writers at the same time and he has a lot of ties to college humor and now dropout and there's like everybody that we knew and and hung out with and saw as peers and then saw grow uh much more successful

than us uh they were at this wedding it was just like a like truly early 2000s internet comedy uh wedding which was and was so fun to see a lot of those those people all like we all started out doing this at the same time as kids essentially and like watching each other's stuff and liking each other and and working together and just like being excited for each other we're all now doing mostly different things uh and to to come back and just like really annoyingly relive the glory days of our bizarre fortune as existing in this content bubble. It was great for me. And I have to assume great for my date, Shay. I assume she also wants to hear about a bunch of 36 and 37 year olds talking about how big they were on the internet 15 years ago how they are they were the kings of the internet

royalty was Jeff Loveness there he was not this was this wedding took place on the opening weekend of the Ant-Man movie that he wrote. Oh, yeah. So I imagine he was busy. But you did get to see a bunch of people that I haven't seen in a very long time. I did, yeah. Dan Gerwich, I assume, was there. Yeah, Gerwich was there. Caldwell.

Chase Mitchell was there. Okay. And was Pat Castle there? Sure was. It was a great old time and there's there's uh something very so uh shay who i brought with me to this to this wedding she i've known her uh for like five years and she has known me as a new york-based television writer i It hadn't occurred to me that I had not filled her in on any of the internet comedy. This huge part of my life.

Yeah. Not that like I mean like certainly I will say like yeah I used to work for a comedy website. It was called Cracked and I had a lot of friends from that. I don't it never occurred to me at any time to be like oh by the way we were like recognizable on-camera talent

just by sheer force of budget where we all, all the writers and people who ran the site became on-camera talent because we couldn't afford actors for a long time. And as a result of that we became recognizable to a very large and very specific type of audience and watching her get all of this information in real time was very striking and weird and like it's always very humbling to have to explain to someone like no i used to i used to people used to like to see me i used to be a big deal people would like clap when i came out people people paid to wait in line and then see us talk about things you have

to believe me that's why gerwich and i are crying right now thinking about our former lives as internet heartthrobs it was it was certainly a time like we just we came up with the exact right time of the internet that's all yeah was like we got we got to enjoy it and yeah i will forever treasure that i don't want to go back no no um it was fun to talk with uh sam reich who is the head of college humor and now dropout and just like a brilliant person i've always respected in this in this field and still do uh and he was talking about what a weird period this was and he was like because he's a guy who's like one foot in the creative world and one foot in the business world and he was like yeah even 15 years ago when we were doing this it never made

sense there was never any money in this they just let us do it for eight or ten years or so and uh everyone seemed so convinced i mean like all the higher up muckety mucks seemed convinced like yeah yeah we're gonna pour money into this and then something something something profit and all those creatives i think were like i don't know about but uh but thanks for the money thanks for letting us do it for as long as you did yeah well i mean we weren't getting paid very much but we know yeah that's right we were we were mostly doing it because we were so in love with the fame of it that like there were, I mean, there were circumstances where you would be like hanging out with someone who outside of that world. And then you would get recognized at an airport or a hospital or like

wherever the fuck you were. And the person next to you be like, what just happened? Yeah. And you could be like, ah, well you see, I'm,

it's not real fame, but I'm internet famous. And then there's certain cache that goes along with that uh i have nieces and nephews who are going to be close enough or getting old enough that at some point they might just say like hey why does uncle daniel have a wikipedia page oh don't worry about that don't it doesn't it's not real it doesn't count it was an accident It never should have happened. It'll never happen again. My son found an action figure of me. He was like,

why are you keeping this toy from me, basically? And I was like, oh, that's Dad's toy. And he was like, well, can I play with it? And I was like, no. It's a limited edition collector's item. Why are you on the box? It's a it's it's a limited edition yeah why are you on the box i don't it's just it's a joke it's it's nothing it's collector's item oh so you're gonna save it and sell it no no no no it has no value no one will want this um yeah it was a it was a different time i'm glad that you got to relive some of it though that you got to like go through it again with some of those guys because i do miss them i miss

them too and it and uh i think just like a mix of nostalgia and wedding goggles just being around this crew of people and uh someone floated the idea of bringing back After Hours. And at that wedding, I'm like, you know what? That could be fun. I do remember. I am now remembering only the best parts of it, so that could be pretty chill. Let's think about it.

And then I get home like, what the fuck? No. I got to bring outfit options to a diner and and be up past 9 30 no thank you and outside of your job you gotta write a you gotta write a four pronged essay yeah about about some pop culture thing you gotta make it up you gotta like and not only like you come with the idea and then you gotta do all the research you gotta research oh and I and I think a modern after-hours if I like genuinely tried to write what I think about movies or TV now it'll be like what I've settled into which is movies are fine it's fun who cares don't think about it too hard I love this movie it was

loud and big shut up angry isn't it secretly terrifying no no we made all that up none of it's secretly terrifying disney's fine marvel's great they're just trying their best man batman's good shut up oh there was a time early on when i started it cracked and you and i had gone to i can't it may have been somebody's birthday, but we went to the Griffin and we were there with a lot of these guys that you're talking about. And girls too. I think Emily was there and some other people. We very horribly called it internet comedy super drinks. Yeah. It was. And I know that because someone at this wedding was like,

should we recreate that picture? Do we have everyone? Oh, no. No, we did not have everyone. But we, yeah, we were doing drinks there and just ball washing the whole time. Like really talking each other up. Because we thought we were, like this was the beginning. Like this was our trajectory. We are now going to be the not ready for primetime players.

Like when they didn't know what they had. When they were at SN snl early on they didn't know what the fuck they had right we're all trying to be present and and struggling in this industry making our stupid comedy videos but all of us to a person in the back of their head is like remember this because when we write the oral history, when people want the oral history of the golden era of internet comedy, they're going to want specific quotes. We're living it right now. Surely someone will interview us for the book later. And we even had joked on the day of like, man, if this restaurant blew up, that's the end of internet comedy no it's not did michael go to the wedding no okay i think i was the only correct person there

yeah well that makes sense the internet royalty was really a work called schumer uh well i'm glad that you had a good wedding i'm really i i genuinely i'm sorry royalty was really where it called Schumer. Well, I'm glad that you had a good wedding. I'm really I genuinely am sorry that you didn't get to dance. I know. It's okay. I mean, it's not. I like dancing at weddings, but I love it.

Love it. But I want to tell you about my weekend as well. As you know, we had COVID. That's right. You I want to tell you about my weekend as well. All right. As you know, we had COVID, my family. That's right. You were going to go skiing to quarantine in the mountains like a genius. Well, not even skiing because skiing requires being around other people.

We went up to the mountains and we stayed in a little cabin, an Airbnb, and we sledded. And we sledded the shit out of this mountain. How long can you sled? Great question, Dan. We sledded for seven hours. Holy shit. Yeah. Fortune shined on us this day that we decided to go sledding.

First of all, the house that we stayed in had sleds. We thought we were going to have to buy sleds. We're like, oh, we stayed in had sleds we thought we were gonna have to buy sleds we're like oh no there's sleds here we all gather into the car we're like okay the plan is we will go sled for a couple hours we'll come back gilly will take her nap and then after that we'll make a decision we'll see if it's too dark or or too cold on the way up there gilly falls asleep in the car like oh this is really this is really going to ruin her nap schedule. But it ended up being the best thing in the world because she slept on the way up. We got there and parked.

She was dead asleep. Ronan and I got to go out and do some sledding together while Colleen stayed in the car. Then we switched off. I stayed in the car with her for a little bit. Eventually, she woke up. Then we had the whole day. I mean, there was no this this intermission in the middle that we needed for her the day was ours like we and we had a lunch with us when we i've never i

grew up sledding i mean i i could just sled down my driveway when i was a little kid because the driveway was super long and like cars couldn't get up in the winter and uh and suddenly I was like, I could do all that again. And we sledded for so, so long and they were into it the entire time. I have not gone sledding. I couldn't guess how long ago it was since I've been sledding. The idea of it now seems not fun to me.

I know I loved it when I was a kid and we would go down the street from our house there was an elementary school and behind the school there was some hills leading into the woods so we would and that was very fun go down this this biggish hill directly into the woods and like try to avoid trees and pretend you're doing like star Wars, asteroid navigation stuff. And then inevitably sled directly into a Creek, ruin your shoes, go home,

cry to mom. Uh, and I, I definitely remember doing a lot of it, but the idea of it now seems like maybe I could do two runs down the hill. And then I would be like, all right, this is, I don't, I no longer want to carry a sled up this hill anymore. So I'm going to go home and do the soup part of a snow day. But let me sweeten the deal by saying, not only are you carrying the sled,

you're also carrying a child. Yeah. Okay. That is what it was, what was missing when I was younger was like an extra 70 pounds. How, how heavy are children? Not 70. My son is seven and he's about 48 pounds. Okay. The child I'm describing has a very serious problem. Just massive feet. We really have been meaning to take him in. It's don't know what it is we think it's glandular um yeah but my so uh i and i do want to talk to you about sledding because i would do want to ask when was the last time you went sledding i in my own mind i i clocked it at about two decades like two decades ago was maybe the last time i sledded i'm trying to think that like there's a chance that someone in college as a lark was like let's do it let's go sledding but even

that i i i i think i would have said no because at that point like all right does anyone still own sleds in college no i'm not going to buy a sled for this. So it had to have been high school or middle school. I feel like the snow activity for me, as soon as it became an option when it snowed, I was going down the street with my buddies, shoveling people's sidewalks and driveways for money. That was the thing that I did and looked forward to with snow. I was an earner, Soren.

Okay. Well, but- Remember remember that remember when we used to we used to build things in this country and a kid could earn a living build you're shoveling snow man um building an empire you're building snow banks. So I, we in college and actually in high school, we took sledding to like another level where we would take a big plastic sled, you know, a big rectangular plastic sled. We would bolt skis to the bottom of it. Jesus. And then take it up to the actual ski mountain at night. And so you got to look out for the snow cats, which are like grooming the trails.

But other than that, there's nobody nobody out there but it's also dark and if you have a moon then it's great because the moon actually reflects pretty well off the snow so you can see contours and stuff but you hike up the ski mountain to like not not like maybe a third of the way up and then they always have long runouts because people are not good skiers and they, you need that for legal reasons. And we would just get on these things. And it's basically like straight lining it on your skis, but even faster because you're tucked down on a sled and you're, uh, they, they do set up some ropes and stuff at night.

So you've got to stay like you lay down, like you're on a luge. So you don't get decapitated, but you are just flying. Like you fly on these sleds. If you could have the best gloves in the world, and if you put your hands out, like you will shred them on just the snow. And we would, it was terrifying and incredible because we were, we were like 16, 17. So we were like, this is the best,

best thing we can possibly be doing with our lives. Cause we're going to live forever. And it was the great. And so that was my last experience with sledding this was decidedly slower than that but man sledding i cannot believe is a sanctioned thing it is so dangerous uh especially with children i saw yeah i guess there's no 100 safe way to do it it's you're you're always just you a piece of plastic and gravity and that's it yeah see and the plastic is not there's no protection to it at all and you're putting your end of your spine right on it and then you're like i'm gonna go over those jumps it's like with inevitably in whatever little sled hill that they've

has been carved out some bumps start to develop and people get launched off these bumps and then just come down on their asses and like compact their spines. And if you're on an air tube, you're, it's even worse because you're going to get sucked underneath it. You get like a leg in it. You, you get, uh, bounced on it. And then you come down on the snow. Like I saw just in the time that we were there, in the time that we were there, like it was a short amount of time. Over the course of that entire day that I was there, I saw so many people walk away with injuries that I was like, what are we, should we be doing this, everybody? I certainly remember sledding as a kid and it just being an inherently dangerous and

painful thing that we would make more dangerous and painful where it was like, all right, well, we all went down a few times. We all got some cuts and bruises, but that doesn't thrill us anymore. So let's see how many people we can fit on one sled and let's see if that does anything for us. It changes from thrilling to terrifying so fast. We watched other people. It changes from thrilling to terrifying so fast. We watched other people. There's this one hill that Ronan just wanted to go watch on because everybody that did it ended up at the bottom

laying there for a second being like, I just need to collect myself because that was really painful. But we watched these people go down this, basically this 45-degree ice skating rink. It's just solid ice with bumps all over it. And you would watch people go down. They'd be having a great time. And then all of a sudden their sled would just take a little bit of a turn

and it would head towards the trees. And everyone at once is like, that person's going to die. And then when they didn't die miraculously, everyone would be like, Oh, I guess it's fine. Let's just keep going.

It's not like that was a good warning. Let's not do that again. It's everybody's just going to keep going. And we did like that was a good warning. Let's not do that again. It's everybody's just going to keep going. And we did see people hit trees and stuff. And it was even Ronan. Now I feel a little bad. The first, when I took him on, I took him pretty high up. We got on the sled together and we hit a bump that was so big that we lost the sled and

came down on our asses and it hurt. And he was like, my back hurts. And I was like, well, yeah, that's part of sledding. But today he was like, it was like my back hurts. And I was like, my back hurts. And I was like, well, yeah, that's part sledding. But today he was like, it was like my back hurts. And I was like, oh, okay. We might've done some damage in there. Yeah. We would surf on our sleds when the thrills started to dry up.

And I was like, what if I, let me see, what'll happen if I stood on this and tried to hit a rock? I think something interesting would happen. Like, oh, I'm right. It's weird. Only one way to know. Yeah. I do remember sledding through, just finding like a route through the woods and being like,

well, if I just steer around every single one of these trees, I'll be fine. Yeah. Well, good luck. uh we put gilly on a little saucer sled we found that those actually do better on the bumps and we could just let her go on those um we did kind of like gentle slopes first and then we put her on something a little steeper and steeper until and she was game the whole time and she was doing really great there was one section that was a pretty steep slope.

And then what it did is it kind of dog legged right, had a bank and a dog leg. And then it just kind of tucked off very steeply into these woods. And clearly other people had gone through there. So like it was compacted. All the snow was, it was very, very packed down.

So you could just like coast off to the right. And it was steep immediately. Yeah. So I sent her down thinking she'll just get to the bank at the other end. But part of me, as soon as I let her go, I was like, well, just in case, I'm going to run. I'm going to run down there.

And so the early part of it is a little gentler, and I can run faster than her. And I got down just a little bit ahead of her, and then she started to gain momentum. She came up next to me, and then she started to make the turn. And she was backwards and everything, and she started to make the turn towards death, basically, towards this steep section that would have just carried her off into the woods, and she would have been a wolf's baby at that point. off into the woods and she would have been a wolf's baby at that point and uh as she starts to do that i'm like running next to her and i'm like losing ground on her and so i just make this

dive and i catch the sled and i catch her leg as she starts to tip over the edge of this this drop and grab her and pull her back up and these people who are sitting there were like she was almost gone right yeah i know i feel like i could i could place yourself in your brain at that time as you're making this dramatic dive your brain is telling you you know we didn't have to do this right we didn't need to put her on a saucer and shove her down a hill this would be a really stupid way to lose your daughter to the woods this was a completely avoidable unforced error i would have that night been sleeping in bed being like why did you do that she was she was she only wanted to make a snowman you were the one who was insistent like no sledding is fun do this thing um she did end up enjoying it a lot she had a lot of fun i'm glad i say i saved her from dying

i think everything ended up okay yeah and i think maybe ronan spine we'll see i guess yeah and i do know it's important to you and it seems like an important and cool thing uh to get kids excited about being outside and doing outside things so it's it's it's good that you and it seems like an important and cool thing uh to get kids excited about being outside and doing outside things so it's it's it's good that this is a mostly positive experience them except for ronan and his 40 year old man back however however that happened that he's it still hurts two days later yeah i that was actually that when you say it's good to get them outdoors, that my fear with going skiing or snowboarding or sledding or anything in the snow with my children is they had never experienced snow. And I know what it was like for me as a kid

is I was annoying to my parents. They would take me to the ski mountain with grand plans. Like we're going to get him on skis when he's two. And I just sit there and cry the whole time because I was cold. And I was like, I don't want to be doing that. I'm overwhelmed. And I knew that they would probably be in the same boat, but they were so game. They were such great company the entire time we got they, their snow, like they were getting wet. They're getting a little bit wet, but they had on like good, some good snow gear. They were sticking with it. They were, Gilly's not used to wearing mittens or anything like that but she was she was doing her best and the entire time gilly you never get used to wearing mittens it's an it's an abnormal thing you're not you're not gonna age into it it's bad it's stupid i don't

know what happened her just like staring at her thumb in it and being like well all the other ones are together and this one's not. And I don't like that feeling. And we have glove technology. I'm sure of it. We've sorted this out. Why are we still doing it this way? Uh, and, and, but they were so game and so cool the entire time. I mean, they never, they never, any point we're like, I'm too cold. I'm wet. Like all the things I would have done as a child, they were, they did not give a shit. They were just having fun in the snow. And I was like, okay, yes, now we can probably go skiing or snowboarding. It would be okay. I think I, I, I might just not have the stomach for it anymore. I went skiing once in my life and that was, I did in college. Uh, so not,

no sledding, but did go skiing once and went down several times. I wasn't a good skier, obviously, but I also reached a certain point. And there's a lot of times where you fall down when you're skiing and that's okay. And that's part of it. And you're like, this is what I signed up for. And then a few hours into it, I remember being at the top of the hill and being like, well, if I ski, there's a chance I'll fall down. And I don't want to do that anymore today. So that's it. Three hours is my limit of being okay with falling down.

And then I reach a certain point where it's like, no, no, no, none of that. Now I will sit and be cozy somewhere. And I imagine sledding would be the same thing where, where I get a full belly of energy. And then a couple hours in, I'm like, no, no, I get it. And sometimes it hurts. And I'm, I'm, I'm too old to, to be in, uh, unforced pain. Yeah. I'll just stick with my, I'll stick with my normal everyday pain of being alive. Thank you very much. The uncontrollable pain. I was done.

I mean, I was done sooner than two hours in. I was like, I'm ready. Like, all right, whenever you guys want to go home, I'm good. But they were so into it. Gil, are you feeling another nap coming on or what? They were so into it that I just, we just kept going and I kept marching her up the hill. And I would, she'd do this thing where, you know, she's got limited vocabulary. So she'd get to the bottom and she would, she'd go so far. I'll send you a video of her. And like,

she's really just like cooking and she's going pretty far by the end. And she gets to the bottom, you could still hear her laughing. And then I'd get down to like grab her and bring her back up. And she'd be like, one more time. And I was like, yeah, listen, as many times as you want. You don't have to keep it. This isn't like one of those things where it was so thrilling. They're like, yeah, it's thrilling, but you only get to do it once. This isn't like bungee jumping. Like you get to keep doing this as many times as you want.

But every time she gets to the bottom, she'd be like one more time. And I was like, yes, a hundred more whatever you want i will i'm your sherpa today do you uh so when you get back to the cabin what do you guys do there because that's that's i'm curious about like that's not their their space are they very excited to be in a new space is there like does the house come with new games to play because i've been staying in this in a pre-furnished house for the last year and it's been exciting for the niece and nephew to come over uh to look at these like ancient board games that came with the house right that are just like it's all new it's all unfamiliar to them and it's very exciting to just like open up some board game called Payday.

That is a Monopoly ripoff from the fucking 20s or something. Yeah, they went nuts. As soon as we got there, they were bouncing off the walls because they were so excited. First of all, this place had a loft that was basically a kid's loft. It had a ping pong table in it, a small one. So Gilly could even see over it and then there were every type so like all these books that were seen perfectly catered to them my son loves this thing called dog man which is by the creators of captain underpants and uh they had a dog man book they had

a five minute stories for winnie the pooh up there for gilly like all the stuff that they there was this little bed that was just perfect the perfect size for her there was a little there's a keyboard like a adult keyboard but then also a tiny little piano all the things that they could have wanted were in this place and it was great it was really

fun playing with them and just letting them play on their own but then when we got back from the from sledding they're very exhausted and they weren't in the mood to chase ping pong balls down from the loft, come down the stairs, grab them, go back up. So instead, we sat in the cabin. Sorry, dad. I cannot play ping pong with you right now. Come on, I'm ready to go. Dad, please. Five minutes, dad, please. They were really excited by the prospect of building a fire.

So we built a fire. We sat there and watched the fire for a while. And we had hot chocolate with a marshmallow in it. And they were way into that. And just being in this cozy house in their long underwear, like they got it. They got it immediately. They knew this is fun.

This is like, we're not doing anything in particular right now but just relaxing in our long underwear with a fire going in hot chocolate is great that is awesome after a hard-earned day you know like yeah they went out and they did it and now they're inside they're like we yes this is okay i get it i get it this is get it. This is fun. Did Colleen enjoy sledding? I don't know. I think so. You guys aren't really talking anymore. That's right. She's always game. Like, and she, when she's doing the sledding, I think she's really into it, but there were definitely times, you know, it's just as a parent, there's so much else that you have on your mind at the time where you're like, all right, are they warm enough? Do they get enough food?

Is there going to be a meltdown any second? Like you're trying to just, it's all preventative measures at that point. And so you're working on a bunch of different things. And there was a point where I was building snowmen with Ronan. And she was just like, I was building snowmen with Ronan and she was just like, we, the, listen,

the face is fine. We need to eat something. These kids, children need to eat. But I'm always amazed and impressed by the amount of things parents bring with them everywhere with really young kids. And not even just like safety things but just like going to brunch with my entire family a couple weeks ago the sheer amount of

entertainment options my brother has for his kids which like here's this coloring book here's this other thing here is this story here are some snacks that you're going to like. Here's like some bonus treats. It was like, man, that's just a lot of preparation for brunch, as opposed to me who was just like, all right, am I combing my hair today or not? All right, I'm ready. Let's go. You're like, oh, you're cold? Okay, I have another layer for you.

Put that on. Oh, you've got some marinara on it? Okay it okay well i have the exact same type of layer right here and that i'll now put on you oh gilly peter pants okay well we got we've got new socks we've got new underwear we've got new tights like yeah you're you are just even going up there in the car, the car is packed. We're going there for three days and it's fucking packed. Everything you do has a suitcase at that point. It's true. It's very difficult to travel. I don't actually understand how people with even three kids,

three let alone like more than that. I don't know how they do it because logistically, it doesn't make sense to me. You have too many suitcases to carry from even for even 10 feet yeah you're just you're in a situation where you're like dependent on other people for help strangers the kindness of strangers when i flew to this wedding i had uh my carry-on bag my laptop case and my uh like suit bag i, oh boy, this is so much. Look at all this stuff.

And that's just me being one tiny person. I was blown away when we packed the car. Because I was like, we're not even bringing... The issue is usually a cooler. That we're putting a cooler in the car. And like, oh no, we're not going to have as much space. No, with children, they take up so much space in your life there's there's just so much that there needs to be accounted for with them yeah um but yeah it was fun it was really

really cool they had such a good time and that made us have a very good time um and we also it was such a good idea from colleen we were planning to go to san diego that weekend and it was we're gonna see people and we had to cancel that and everybody was bummed. And then Colleen was like, what if we just disappeared into the mountains? And like, what if we just went up, we got a cabin by ourselves, we sledded by ourselves and it ended up being so much fun. I'm so glad for you. That's awesome. There's, there's, uh, there's no better end result of the entire family having COVID. I don't think, you know,

like, like this is, this is a really nice silver lining to a bummer of a situation. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it was her.

I mean, she like, she found the place. Yeah. She was like, I think that there's good. I looked it up. There's really good sledding around here.

She knew the places to hit up. The, the second day was actually even better than the first we sledded again by the way we sledded again the very next day and we went to this place where nobody was where basically we had fresh tracks whatever that can be for sledding but we found it was a campground and it was a very very steep kind of hilly campground. And we found all these great pockets where no one had ever been, where you're just, it was way easier on your butt the entire time. And it felt very much like Calvin and Hobbes, where it was just you in the woods. And it was like, oh, no one else lives here.

It's fine. It's just you. And it was so great. Like I dare say, Daniel, magical. Wow, dare he. Yeah. Great weather, no wind, beautiful sun. It was warm.

It was like 52 degrees, and we're out there just sledding and making snowmen. Yeah. What's this podcast about? It's about my children, I think. Good, good. Is that right? It's about us catching up, Dan.

That's what we're doing. That's right. That's right. I found out about your wedding where you were maybe a mile away from my house. And you found out about me touching snow, like feeling that little slice of americana that i miss so much i'm curious if this becomes a thing for ronan and gilly where it is like added to their

mental rolodex of activities to do where if they'll wake up one day and say i would like to go sledding now because at that age you might not understand what a production it is to make that happen i think it's possible we also we're now trying to because it was so easy for us to get not understand what a production it is to make that happen. I think it's possible. We also, we're now trying to, because it was so easy for us to get up there and back down, we're like really trying to figure out how we squeeze this into another weekend. It's a lot of work. It's very stressful, but the, the end result is like, Oh, that was so much fun. But we're like, and also my biggest fear is that I, and I did get them secondhand,

but I got them snow gear. So I got them snow pants, jackets and stuff, boots. They are going to grow out of that stuff in about three months. Yeah. There's no way they're staying small enough. And so we're like, how do we utilize, how do we maximize these things that we got? We got to go up again. We have to go back.

Yeah. That's a, that's a season pass to six flags as it gets close to the end of the season and you only went once you're like i gotta i gotta make this work uh this is this is too much money i have to justify it i don't even want to ride the riddler again but i have to go it would be financially stupid of me not to go hurt my neck on these stupid rides um but yeah i it was really nice to touch snow again good good for you it was uh nope i have nothing else to say okay let's let's have anything else from this wedding yeah we can add the podcast yeah we're fine i'll do it one second well that's our podcast you can follow us on twitter you can follow daniel at dob underscore

inc you can follow me soren at soren underscore ltd you can follow quick question at qq underscore soren and dan you can also interact with any of those three. I mean, presumably. I don't think Dan will probably interact with you. I do occasionally. I realize that I way more interact with negative comments than positive ones, which is not good reinforcement for the people in my life. I'll try and be better about that. And you can email the show at QQ with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com.

We have a sound engineer producer,, editor in Gabe Harder. You won't find him anywhere. We also have a Patreon. It's patreon.com. And if you found yourself listening to the beginning of this podcast, and you're like, oh, that theme song is really, really good. Well, that's by Merex. And you can find their music at merex.bandcamp.com.

That's all. Goodbye. Daniel.iel oh fuck what did you have something you want to say to me soren i really enjoyed this chat with you i love all of our conversations it's so great catching up uh i i miss you you're a brother to me and a father to me and one one day, hopefully a son to me. I was going to carve out a little time to say something just as confusing, but also heartwarming, which I just want to say, I really enjoy it. I really enjoyed just talking to you, man. I'm sorry that I didn't get to see you this weekend. That's okay. We'll have plenty of time. I'm going to beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, breaking news i'm gonna be in los angeles for uh the entire month of june so we can hang out a lot and plan some fun podcast stuff i'm so excited to have you here

that's so exciting do you want to babysit my children 100 yes okay i thought you might great that's great that's great pounding your chest right now? No, no. It's fixing my mic. All right. All right. Bye. I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright? The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favourite? Who did you get? When will I be remembered? Was it awkward? Worded over? Oh, forget it

I saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here