Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - A Canadian Family Abroad During a Pandemic: Toronto Mike'd #598

Episode Date: March 17, 2020

Mike chats with a Canadian who embarked with his family of five on a year-long backpacking adventure around the world. They didn't see COVID-19 coming.

Welcome to episode 598 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. The Keitner Group. They love helping buyers find their dream home. Text TORONTOMI Mike to 59559

and Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack, one of the most celebrated roots country bluegrass bands in Canadian music history. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me this week is my very first

best friend Joe Cheney. Joe decided this was the year he and his family of five were going to backpack around the world. Yo, Joe, how does it go? Ah, it's going good. How are you? Well, the answer we're supposed to give is fine, so I'll just say everything is fine. Everything's fine.

Okay, we need to give the people a little background, but first tell us, where are you speaking to me from? We're in Vientiane, Laos. So that's the capital city here in Laos. Laos. Yeah, near Thailand, Cambodia, all those wonderful places. I think Laos needs a better PR rep. That's the one you never hear about, Laos. I know.

They do need a better PR rep because it's been beautiful here. Okay, so we're going to... Very underrated. Underrated, okay. So you're in Laos. Tell us, because I hear voices in the background, I hear noise. Who is with you right now in Laos?

Right now, my wife, Charo, is here and my three children, Marco, Mateo, and Daniela. Okay, give us the ages of those three sweethearts. We've got an 11-year-old who is Marco, and my twins are nine. Okay, here's the question, and then you'll go back and give us a little bit of the origin story before we talk about what's happening with you

and the COVID-19 pandemic here. But what are you doing in Laos? Like, I thought all Canadians were supposed to stay put or come back. So tell us how you end up on this date, which happens to be St. Patrick's Day 2020. So March 17, 2020. How do you, Joe, and your wife and your three children end up in Laos? Okay, so the whole story of the trip, or just like why are we here in this city at this moment?

Okay, no, start with basically the whole story. Obviously, when you get back to Toronto, I'm going to have you over to talk in detail about the whole story. So now give us the Reader's Digest version of like how you end up, when you left Canada, why, and how you ended up where you are right now and then we'll pick it up. All right. So about five years ago, my wife and I made a decision to go traveling for a year.

I'm a teacher back home, and they allow me to take something called a deferred salary leave. So for the last four years, I was getting 80% of my salary, giving me a year to do whatever I wanted, and still receiving the final 80%. So in theory, I lost a year of pay, but I gained a year of freedom. So from there, he started planning and what do we want to do? And the one thing we didn't want to do is stay home and do nothing. So we decided to take the family traveling. to take the family traveling. When my wife and I got married, we backpacked for a month through China and Thailand.

And we said, you know, one day we want to go back there. And then when she was pregnant with our oldest, we went through backpacking through Nicaragua and Costa Rica. And we said, hey, we want to go back there. And that's kind of the origins of all this is that we wanted to take our kids backpacking like we enjoyed it so why not take them and we thought um you know most people look at us at our age and with three kids and say holy these guys are crazy going around the world with these guys but it it's, it's, it's been fun, you know? And honestly, it's, it's, I don't think we could have done it any other way. It's so much more

fun doing it with the kids. You meet more people and things like that. Okay. When did you, sorry, uh, when did you leave, when did you leave Canada? Uh, we left July 2nd of last year so 2019 and when are you scheduled like when do you plan to come back to canada uh july 2020 so we wanted to come back we wanted to do the full year of canada and uh try to see as much of the world as possible. Do you think you could quickly run through the countries you've been through so far? Since you left Canada and get us to Laos? Okay, so we started in Mexico, then went to Guatemala, Honduras,

El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica. Then we flew to Colombia. Peru. We went to Chile for a few days, not too long. Then we took a flight over to New Zealand, Australia. Then a flight over to

Singapore. Bus to Indonesia, flight to Malaysia. And then we're here. Oh, sorry. No. Sorry, my wife's popping in here. You should put her on. Indonesia. Indonesia first.

And then we went to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand. Now we're here. Okay, where... I think that's right. Where in your journey were you when you started to start to pick up news pieces about this virus coming out of Wuhan, China?

Australia. So we were staying with my brother-in-law in Sydney, and that's when we started hearing about that. So it's around New Year's that we started hearing about it. My question is, when do you start to consider, or when do you actually start to alter your plans? Because I'm guessing you had a blueprint, like where you wanted to go. And then at some point you had to take into consideration that there was a global pandemic. So talk to us about how, like maybe how you and your wife would make

these decisions. And did you make changes based on what the virus was doing? Like how did the virus influence this plan? Okay. So you know what? It's a loaded question because when you're backpacking, there's a lot of different things that just come up out of the blue, right? So you are always changing and it's the beauty of it. You don't have anything really booked in for long periods of time. Although we kind of messed up on this one.

So our big problem was like we're in our plan right now. This is where we were supposed to be on the day and everything. Right. However, it's the next move that's changed. We are supposed to go to Vietnam. They're not giving any visas on arrival for anybody anymore. So we're not going there. And today was the big, what are we going to do

so today was the big how can I say this the cataclysmic day of where do we go what do we do how do we do it do we go home do we not go home

so we're still looking into it but today's the day like yesterday and today So we're still looking into it, but today's the day. Like yesterday, and your today is later than my today, so my today just started, and your today is coming to an end. Yes, my today is getting ready to go to bed on St. Patrick's Day because we're old and we have kids, and there's no more to do other than that on St. Patrick's Day. Okay, so for the record, just so we know,

what time of day is it right now? What's the time? For the record, I have to look at the clock. It is 8.11. Okay, so you're 8.11 p.m. and I'm talking to you at 9.11 a.m. on St. Patrick's Day. Oh, 9.11,'s a foreboding okay so let's talk about this decision day so yes yesterday um justin trudeau addressed the nation

and basically made a plea telling canadians it was time to come home like he had on his empathy eyes i called them and he was looking at us and saying it's time to come home. Like he had on his empathy eyes, I call them. And he was looking at us and saying, it's time to come home. Did you see this footage and did this have any influence over your plans? Uh, no, I did not see the footage. However,

uh, I did read about it and has it put, uh, anything into our plans? It all made us think it didn't make like uh we're not okay so i'll take you through the process of our day okay and then i'll and then you'll figure it out like we're still not 100 sure because something just came up uh that might change everything again. Okay, talk me through all this.

This is fascinating because what a unique scenario that you and your family find yourself there at this time. Borders are shutting down across the planet suddenly. Backpacking families are sort of stuck wherever they are. It almost feels like wherever you are right now, you're there for a while. they are it almost feels like wherever you are right now you're there you're there for a while so you talk us through all the uh factors and the the the decision making process and where you're at as we speak okay so i've actually been in contact with a couple of backpacking families from different parts of the world and most of them are going home. So it's scary times, right? You don't know when you're going to get home.

You don't know when, how, whatever. So we look at it as it's a lot of decision making because obviously we do want to come home at some point. We're not ready to come back from visiting the world. We don't have a home to go to right now. Explain that. Your house is rented. Our house is rented.

Our house is rented until July. We don't have anywhere to go to. If we came home, we'd have to find a place to rent. We'd possibly have to live with family members if they take us in, have if we came home we'd have to find a place to rent we possibly have to live with family members if they take us in but if we take we went with family then they'd have to be quarantined if we're quarantined they'd have to be quarantined or self-isolation or whatever right that would be um so it'd be a lot to ask people uh so we do have elderly people that we see, uh, back home, like my wife's mom, some of

our neighbors. Uh, and you know what? We don't want to put them at risk because we've come, we've come all this way. We're, you know, we're going to be in airports for 30 plus hours. And if you've read the news, most carriers end up coming from the airports. And if you've read the news, most carriers end up coming from the airport. So we most likely, we're fine now, but if we have a better chance of contracting, contracting the virus from being in the airport and flying all over the world, literally. So we have to take that into account.

We're also taking into account, you know, it might be, it's what, what's better for our family, you know, taking a chance and flying for that 30 hours or going somewhere really close and putting ourselves in self-isolation somewhere really close, close by, instead of traveling 30 hours, we could travel an hour, two hours to get there. instead of traveling 30 hours, we could travel an hour, two hours to get there. Right. But I have a question. Okay, maybe we should tell the listeners what your wife does for a living.

What does Charles do for a living? Okay, so I told you guys I'm a teacher and my wife's a nurse. So we've got two eyes covered, but it does help because she does cool the situation down for us. Now, I have a question about health care. So, like, your coverage for global health care needs or whatever, is that at all being affected by COVID-19? So that's the big question right now is,

and that's what we have to research. I was just doing some, I was looking at our policy. Well, actually, I was looking at the website for our, for our coverage. And it's a, I'm going to name drop here, Mike. Uh, it's, uh, called world nomads and it's a big backpacking, uh, coverage. So you could do all kinds of crazy things and they cover you for it. Um, so I started preliminarily looking at it because somebody sent me a message saying, you know, you should look at it and it's worded very funny on the

website. So I have to take a deeper dive into it tonight after we get off. a message saying you know you should look at it and it's worded very funny on the website so i have to take a deeper dive into it tonight after we get off and figure out uh if we're actually covered or not because they the wording is your policy may cover it i don't know what may mean so i have to look at the policy after we uh after we talk so that's that's another that's another thing that would bring us home like if we're not covered we'd have to come home that's so you're a teacher and you know my mom was a teacher so my mom was telling me that her coverage they got a letter saying basically to come home by a certain date because you're not covered for COVID-19 after this date.

And a whole bunch of snowbirds or whatever, you know what the teachers do. When they're retired, they go to Florida or whatever. And then they come back when it starts to warm up in Toronto. But they're all coming back now for that reason. That is the big trigger is that they won't be covered in the hospitals if they get covid 19 yeah see that's what that's why we're looking into it i heard a bunch of people are coming back um on mass and we're we're gonna try i think for us our safest bet is actually staying out here but if we're not covered it might be the reason we come home

I'm getting I'm also going to give a little background to the listeners about how long we've known each other okay I was going to save this for the end but I'll throw it in now this is a fact as my memory serves correctly you are my very first

best friend which is to say in junior kindergarten we we were best friends. That's right. It's been a while. There's no human on the planet, other than maybe my brother and my mom or whatever, but there's no one I see on a regular basis, no one I know

that I knew longer than I've known you. You're like victim one. What's it called the uh patient zero or whatever your patient zero so so i've known you a very long time so i you know and it's always and the reason i wanted to have this conversation now is because i can go both ways on this i can be convinced you need to come home right now. I can be fully convinced in my mind that just for the healthcare coverage and to get our excellent healthcare here. And I'm not suggesting Laos has worse healthcare than us.

But would you like to speak about that before I finish my thought? What are the hospital facilities? Are you comfortable? Is Charo comfortable with what would be available to you if someone got sick where you are now? That's one of the reasons we're trying to get somewhere. So we've been in Laos since for almost two weeks now. Um, and it's been very nice to,

you know, we took a river boat down the Mekong river for two days and, um, did lots of great things, but the facilities where we were, weren't that, I wouldn't trust them. Right. As a Westerner, I wouldn't trust them as a westerner

I wouldn't say that's the place I want to be so we just came to the capital city today we didn't look at the facilities we just got here at about 3pm so all we've really done is eat and go check

some check out the road basically and So all we've really done is eat and go check out the road, basically. And do I feel like this is the place? Probably not. But at the same time, we're right next to where the outbreak started. So the World Health Organization is looking at this place with a microscope right now. So, you know, you've got both ends of it. But I feel better if there's somewhere better we can be.

And I think we want to go to Thailand and I think we'll have better medical coverage there. Like, we don't want to go into a big city, but we don't want to be without access to medical care. What a curveball, eh? Like, it was all going pretty swimmingly, right? What an amazing adventure. I've been following along on, well, you post on Instagram, and you got Joe from TO.

Remind us, what is the blog where you were documenting all this stuff? Oh, so, Joe from TO.com. I was blogging all the way into Columbia and then I got, it's really hard to keep up the blog. We were moving every three days or three to four days. So it was really hard to keep up with the blog. I am taking notes. So I do intend to go back to it when we're done

and update everybody on where we've been, what we did, places to go see and all that. But I'm posting daily to Facebook, Instagram, doing some Twitter stuff, although I haven't figured that out yet. Well, Joe from TO is your Twitter handle, right? Joe from TO? Yes. So at the very least, follow Joe on Twitter, Joe from TO, and at least then he can link you to the other places where he puts things.

So like that's at least a way to get communication from Joe as he continues this journey. I'm fascinated that this unpredictable, like you could never have, I'm sure when you were talking about risks like i'm sure before you did this you're like okay here are the risks was one of the cards you put down oh there might be a global pandemic did that even get like tossed around well you know not not pandemic no but it's funny because i was talking to a couple of people and it's the same thing. I never in my lifetime imagined the prime minister of Canada saying, nope, we're closed.

Nobody come in. And it's ridiculous. And what's ridiculous is everybody's doing it. We've been looking around and thinking okay we could go here no they're closed we could go here no they're closed too right um so like can you even get into cambodia like uh are like is cambodia open yes uh well that's what you have to follow along one day it's open one day it's closed it's only open to these people no one like they're they're changing everything on a daily thing like uh one thing cambodia is doing though is they're

offering discounted rates at like anchor walk and uh some of the big sites uh to encourage people to come right so i i don't know what to make of it, but Cambodia was one of the places we talked about going to, but at the same time, all the medical facilities, we don't know what they're like there. Yeah. So maybe not. You're in a tough spot, Joe.

Like, as I start, oh, no, sorry, you continue, and then I'll get back to my original thought there. Continue. Yeah, well, you're saying we're in a tough spot. It's, you know, as a dad, I always look at what's the best for my family. If it was me, I'd stay here and not think about it. I got my wife, I got my kids.

Like, if it was just me, my whole family's here. I don't really, home is with these people. It's not in a house. You know what I mean? Right. So I'm more worried about things going sideways. If it goes sideways, I want to make sure that I know what to do in that time and that we, in this case, get the proper medical attention.

Wow. Wow. Wow. So I started by saying I could, part of me, I could be fully convinced you need to come home right now. Like where we have, you have your good old OHIP here and you got, we have a world-class medical facilities and doctors and you're, you know, but at the same time you could, I could be convinced that the greatest risk of you actually and your family contracting this virus is you coming home. Because you'd have to go through the airports and come through Pearson.

And then the part that I don't think, to me, should be a deal breaker is the fact you don't actually have a home. I feel like that you can figure out. Like, you need 14 days isolation when you get here. That's a fact. But you could theoretically, I mean, I don't know. Like can you go into a hotel for 14 days and not leave? Like, I don't know. Like can get food delivered or whatever?

I could deliver food to your door and then you could just open it and grab it or something. Like that you could work around. But when you're talking to Charo about this, is it literally a seesaw where you guys go on one side and then you come back to the other? Is it like a pendulum swinging back and forth? First off, I already figured out our plan and we were going to stay in your basement

but we were going to tell you later. That's fine. basement but we were going to tell you later that's fine um okay but um it's it was a sea spot today uh because of all the news coming out but it's so everybody's so afraid and we can't the one thing we can't look at it and make our decisions through fear, right? We have to take all the, the, everything into account. One of the big things we have to do is not do as many things as we were doing. So wherever we end up, we have to kind of sit down and say, okay, we're hunkering down here for two weeks. We're not going to see anybody. If well, we're in a foreign country,

we got to go get food and stuff like that but we're not going to be doing what we were doing before so we could we could do that here you know without doing a 30 hour trip back home and then when the 14 days are up or whatever the time is up, you know, I know the big issue is getting home, but we're not scheduled to get home till July. You know, all we need is one flight to run a month and we'll try to get on one of them.

But Joe, you said 14 days twice now. Uh, I think we're being naive. Like, uh, that's the, right oh the isolation yeah i i'm do i think this is going to last longer of course it's going to last longer i

was talking to charlotte this morning and saying we'd be idiotic thinking it's not going to last like look at china right now they've been dealing with this for two and a half months right right and still and it's still going so we're just getting into the two and a half month stretch right now to get to where they are so yeah no i don't like i don't think it's a 14 day thing it's going to be a long haul. But realistically, what are we going to do at home in Toronto? You'd be self-isolating here anyways. There's nothing. I'm telling you, Joe, just to give you a taste of what you're missing,

there's obviously no school daycare, no restaurants, no bars, basically no gatherings, no no concerts no sporting events so really you're pretty much at home with your internet connection streaming stuff and i literally we play soccer in the backyard and uh it's almost like being in prison you get your one hour to go outside into the into the back and exercise or whatever i I'm still biking. Like I go on a bike ride every day because they haven't taken that away from me yet and it's very safe. But I think the deal breaker and all this as we talk it out is going to be

whether you're covered for healthcare. Like that's going to be everything. If you still have full coverage wherever you are right now, then you probably bunker down and stay put for a while where you are right now. If you don't have full coverage because of COVID-19, you got to get home. So that's, I think that's what we just talked about tonight.

That's, that's pretty much the deal breaker for us. If, if we have to pay for medical care because something goes wrong, like, okay, we're doing okay in life, but we're not worth whatever thousands of dollars for five people. It can add up really fast. It could set my family back for years and years and years to come. And I'm not willing to do that. But am I willing to stay here if we're covered? Yeah.

Honestly, I don't think, I think honestly, in our position, it would be more, uh, what's the word I'm looking for? It would be more selfish for us to come home right now because of, because of the risk that we that we pose to other people. Now, in saying that, though, we do have the luxury of time. Like, we're not expected back at work in two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, five weeks. Right. Right?

We still have another 12 weeks, well, sorry, 14 weeks that we can be out here. Now, is the world going to change in that time? Probably not. It's probably going to get a lot worse than it is right now. But at the same time, we're not fighting to get back for a certain deadline that we have to be there. Right, right. Okay.

So in conclusion, as you go to bed in a little bit here, you guys are, you're practicing social distancing, even in Laos, like you're, are you, you've stopped shaking hands with tour guides and stuff. Like, have you changed your behavior that way? Well, first off, we're not big tour guide kind of people. We figure it out by ourselves and you save a lot of money that way right so you figure it out and you go um for the most part yeah like the problem well right now you we were in a hotel last night we were the only people in the hotel in a 30 room hotel only people in the hotel in a 30 room hotel wow that's social distancing right like you go to places it's it's dead you know there might be we went to when we were uh in malaysia we went to

lego land there were like 20 other families there in lego land we couldn't run into people if we tried. So, you know, right now, and when you're here, you usually tend, you try to talk to local people and stuff, but there's no high fives, there's no handshakes, there's no hugging. It's more of a business transaction than anything. Right. You know, you do occasionally talk to some locals and stuff like that, but there's not much more than that. And there's no, there's no toilet paper shortage there.

Oh, okay. Toronto, what's wrong with you? Like, honestly, it's embarrassing. I, there's no toilet paper shortage here there's no food shortage here there's not people climbing over each other to get things i i read of a story about somebody waving a gun in loblaws oh here oh my, I didn't even know that. Yeah, it's ridiculous.

Honestly, Mike, that's one of the factors we've talked about. Why wouldn't we come home to that? Because if your health... I feel like we've already solved your case. I think we're all in agreement. If you're covered for health care expenses you will stay where you are oh yeah yeah i i'm we i i think that's that's the case for us although our family doesn't like that but i think that's what we're saying well i've known you as long as almost as

long as they've known you and i feel like that's that if you are covered and i'm not i can't speak to the quality of health care you receive and i don't mean to be uh ethnocentric or what do you call it uh have some kind of a feel i just i just know toronto's world class world class and uh i hope none of you need medical services on that note though is there must be a little relief that uh it seems like uh kids are more carriers than they are like uh needing to be hospitalized for this like it does seem like the younger you are the less this affects you in terms of symptoms and uh needing to be hospitalized now for what that's where i'm no i'm no doctor but that must be a bit relieving. You know what?

I keep thinking about SARS. Was it 10, 12 years ago now? 2003. It was the same thing. My mom had a knee operation at that time and we couldn't go into recovery to go see her. It took, I think it was a week before we could even go and recovery to go see her. It took a couple, I think it was a week before we could even go and see her in there. And,

you know, we got over it. I think the big difference is social media. I really do think that, you know, there's too many people who are not experts, you know, telling everybody what to do.

Yeah. But Joe, in defense, in defense of everything, you're right, except that the experts always had, like they were always in our living rooms talking to us, the experts through SARS and through this.

And they're singing a different tune. This is not SARS. Like this is far, far bigger and far scarier than SARS, right? Well, you know what, though? I'm going to disagree with you. I think it's still SARS. I think what's different is the amount of people traveling. I don't think the world was as small as it is now.

In 03? Pardon? Well, you're talking like it was 1903. Like, it's 2003. No, I understand that, but let's look back at statistics. Like, you're probably looking at a whole, a lot fewer people actually traveling than who travel today. Do you think so? I think so.

Okay. I think think like it worldwide like there's still people going to florida there's still people going to you know california maybe mexico and stuff like that but going through the world like going places that 20 years ago like i i remember when we my wife and I went to China for our honeymoon, everybody looks at us like, well, what, where are you going? And now you say, you tell people, oh, we're going to China. It's like, oh, I've been there. You know, it's, it's, it's a different world. A lot of people have more traveled and there's a lot more people traveling and it's more accessible to more people around the world not just not just the western world right right now uh before we uh let you get to bed here uh everybody's everybody's been healthy through this trip like like has

anybody had like a good old-fashioned case of influenza or any, any broken bones? Like, has everybody been pretty unscathed the whole family of five? That's a funny question. Charles fell a lot. Luckily, knock on wood, she hasn't broken any bones. Oh good. But that's about it. Like, you know, okay. We've had our bouts with diarrhea um here and there but it's been like a day and you're fine and usually when we travel to a different country or something like that but that's to be expected different food different everything is it though is our stomach

like the water is uh the water is is it uh you trust it, like you trust your Toronto water or do you take each country and dig into it and make sure that the water is, like any concerns? I'm just curious when you backpack across the planet. Okay, so the saddest part about backpacking is you realize how few places actually have clean water to drink and how many places rely on bottled water wow it's unbelievable we take it for granted i think oh by far by far and it is it is really sad to see like i there's been nowhere since austral Australia that you felt safe to drink the top water here. Most of Central America, South America, same thing. There's very few places that you actually feel safe drinking the water. It's sad, right?

I imagine that we're in 2020, we should be able to get clean water to more people readily available. But in Canada, we don't do it to everybody either, right? So it's the saddest thing, you know, like, out of everything that I take away from this trip is how lucky I am as a citizen of Canada, a citizen of Toronto, and I could go to my tap, get a glass of water and feel perfectly fine drinking it. We should not take that for granted. Oh, no, no. I'm so glad you got to share this story right now with FOTMs on that note have you been

keeping up with Toronto Mike podcasts like have you listened to any to maybe even have a little taste of home while you're out and about trying my best we don't get the best live fire the best cell coverage everywhere but I'm trying my

best I have to cherry pick some episodes here and there, but trying our best to keep it. I'll show you and listen to you and Hedsy. Yeah, I'm trying my best. Can't guarantee it, but try it. No, just try it. I think I'll recommend if you want to cherry pick one,

I think knowing your sensibilities and stuff, that you would really enjoy the Jamie Campbell episode. I think that's one you should cherry pick next time you have some time for podcasts. All right. I'll listen to it. All right.

Give my love to everybody. Charo, the kids, tell them all though that we miss them and that when you do finally come home, if it's after your 14 days isolation or whatever, or if it's in July and everything's back to normal, hopefully we need to have a big barbecue

and celebrate your return. Oh, yeah. We'll definitely be having a barbecue as soon as I get home. Well, two weeks after I get home anyway. Right. Oh, big question. TMLX, is it going to be running or what?

Well, it's too early to call that. I was actually thinking about that. I was going to have one in early April, which I would have had to cancel. It's interesting how things work out. Right now, the next TMLX is June, but as you know, everything is fluid. I can't, I don't even, I'm planning it as if I'm planning it to cancel it.

So June might be too optimistic, but as soon as it's safe to have a TMLX at Great Lakes Brewery, we're having it. And it might be after your 14 day, maybe two weeks after you return. So maybe you can join us at on the patio for a good times, a pint and some good music. Sounds good. I hope to be there. All right.

But don't do it too early. So I can't be there. I'll do my best. Well, maybe we'll see how things go. I'm in survival mode, so I can't think that far ahead. Oh,

that is kind of interesting that you went away for a whole year and you did not miss any NHL or NBA playoffs. That's one of the things I kept saying when I left. I was like, ah, this is the year the Leafs are going to win the cup because I'm not there. Right, right. So your last sporting memory is probably the Toronto Raptors winning the

NBA championship. And listen, if they don't continue this year, they're still champs. That's the most important part. Keep us posted, Joe. We'll check in. I'll check in with you regularly and if maybe we need to do a sequel to this episode

as things progress. This worked out good. You sound good with whatever wi-fi you found there it worked out so keep safe keep healthy uh let us know as things progress but uh thanks for doing this buddy all right thank you we'll talk to you soon it's good to hear your voice you too okay hi to everyone for me. And that brings us to the end of our 598th show. You can follow me on Twitter.

I'm at Toronto Mike. Joe is at Joe from underscore T-O. So Joe from underscore T-O. Our friends from underscore T-O. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer.

Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U, Y-O-U. The Keitner Group are at The Keitner Group. Keitner is K-E-I-T-N-E-R. And Banjo Dunk is at BanjoDunkWithAC. See you all next week. This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Rome Phone. Rome Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls.

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