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The Apex Podcast
A team of professional storytellers dedicated to highlighting how ordinary people can be capable of such extraordinary things. We are always on the lookout for unsung heroes and emerging leaders that are transforming the world around them each and every day. Our guests range from the world of sports and medicine to business and entrepreneurship. Each episode offers you insights into how these amazing humans have managed to conquer fear and persevere through seemingly insurmountable challenges. We dive into psychology, philosophy, marketing, entrepreneurship, and a bunch of other random topics with our guests, so each interview is truly unique. We don't care if you're organizing people to pick up trash in your neighborhood, or if you're running a global nonprofit...Your story matters and we want to tell it!In order to start chasing your Apex, you have to take the leap. Start listening today to change your tomorrow.
The Apex Podcast
Exploring the Wellness Traditions of Eastern Europe and Retail Spaces Turned Pickleball Courts in the US
What if we told you that the secret to robust health and vigor at 85 years old could be found in the rural landscapes of Slovakia? Join Jan and RJ on a journey as Jan discusses the lifestyle and wellness differences between America and his family deep within the heart of his home country - Slovakia. He shares his personal experiences, from witnessing the prevalence of household gardens and homemade food traditions to understanding the mixed sentiments around an upcoming highway that promises infrastructural development but also disrupts village life.
Have you ever considered hot mineral springs as a first line of defense against illnesses? We delve into the Slovakian culture of health and wellness, discussing their unique belief in the healing properties of mineral-rich water. Jan's 85-year-old grandpa, who is still able to hand mow two acres of land, swears by this natural remedy from his village.
Lastly, RJ brings up an intriguing concept - transforming closing retail spaces, like Bed Bath and Beyond, into pickleball courts. We discuss how this could potentially foster community-building, as well as the possible benefits for local businesses.
As we wrap up, we express our gratitude to our listeners and reflect on how being less formal on the podcast allows us to enjoy it more and truly be ourselves. Tag along for this enlightening episode and have a sneak peek into the unique blend of tradition and modernity in rural Slovakia.
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Jan Almasy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-almasy-57063b34
RJ Holliday: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-j-holliday-jr-b470a6204/
James Warnken: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameswarnken
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for this one. So I'm just gonna hit the record button. We can that works.
Speaker 2:Start rolling there.
Speaker 1:Just go for it. What's going on everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Apex podcast. We have no structure for today. We're just gonna be hanging out talking about my shenanigans, and apparently RJ has a story about a listener which will be cool to kind of dive into, and that's about it. So just kind of catching up. But dude, so I've been in Slovakia now. Well, I guess, for those of you that don't know, have we talked about that, my trip on the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, last week you said we, because the for the 53, theses or whatever we said we may or may not be doing them depends on internet connection and timing and oh yeah, that's right. You be in overseas.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right. Well, so turns out that I got lucky because my sister came to my grandparents house first and she works remote upgraded the whole household.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she refused through a tech revolution.
Speaker 1:She refused to have terrible internet, so she actually paid for a new router and upgraded internet speed for the next three months. So I got lucky and I'm actually coming in, I think, clearer than I normally come in.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say it looks good. If I'm being honest, you're once in a while your mouth kind of gets out of sync with the audio, but it looks clearer than it does, coming from downtown can, which is absolutely nuts to me.
Speaker 1:Even though my IP address is apparently not trustworthy and sent the podcast invitation to RJ's spam folder.
Speaker 1:It's been good. So I'm I, you know, I've been talking to some people and there's been a lot of people commenting on my Instagram and it's been kind of blowing up a little bit, which is cool Because I know that y'all watch all my stuff. But now you're starting to like it because I'm traveling. So don't stop doing that when I get home just because I'm doing boring work stuff. But a lot of the messages that I've gotten have been about the difference in lifestyle, and so I think that there's there's a couple of things that I can kind of point out there.
Speaker 1:One of the first things that I noticed when I got here and I've known this ever since I was a kid, but it kind of really hit home, I think, on this trip is that literally every house in my grandparents village has a personal garden in it and everything is set up like structure wise for the village, so that everything that you need is within walking distance. Right, there's a church at the end of the street. There's a grocery store within walking distance. There's like a pub, restaurant, bar type place within walking distance. There's a mechanic shop within walking distance, like I mean anything that you can think of. That would typically take us a 15 or 20 minute drive. You know, for those of you that are from Canton, something that we would have to go to like Belden for is all within walking distance, and part of the culture here is you make your own food.
Speaker 1:A lot of people make their own booze. It's called Shlubovica. It's basically like Slovak moonshine is like the best way to describe it. They make it with plums and pears and apricots, but that's just kind of the thing, right. Like you have a garden. Every, almost everybody has chickens, so like in the morning you don't just hear one rooster. I mean it's like deafening the entire village. They're going to town, they're all crowing, they're all all at the same time, right, so it's impossible to sleep past like seven Because that's all going down. But something that's shifting right now is that there's going to be a highway built. I'm actually looking at it out the the window right now.
Speaker 2:That was that close to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a highway that's going to be. It's probably I would say it's probably a quarter mile away, half a mile away from the house, but you can kind of see it through the field because it's just kind of flat, flat farmers field. And my, my grandpa, we said Zed. He said that it's going to be a you know, a gift and a curse, that there's probably going to be a lot more businesses, that this, these villages will feel a lot more connected because this highway is running straight from Koshica, which is where we're from, to the capital, Bratislava, on the other side of this country. And right now it takes about five hours to get from Koshica the Bratislava. But this should cut it down to where you know infrastructure, trucking, transportation, logistics it only takes two, two hours.
Speaker 2:Gotcha.
Speaker 1:To go back and forth. So he's like they'll probably be more businesses, there'll be more people, but they're going to lose. He thinks they're going to lose a little bit of the what they call the village life. Right yeah, same idea with us in like rural areas in the States, when you get a highway that comes through and now it's not just all farmers, it's other businesses get built up and other stuff like that. So how?
Speaker 2:close is the closest village to now. Like right now like, is it within walking distance? So no, not.
Speaker 1:No, well, actually I lied, there is one. So this little group of cities or villages there's two of them right here. It's called so the region that they live in is called Sadi Natorisu, which means in English it's sitting on the Torisu River, so there's two villages that fall under that. I don't know what you would even call it, maybe like a Like a county, county or a province. Yeah, so there's Zdoba and Bister, so those two villages make up Sadi Natorisu.
Speaker 1:And then you go one size bigger and it's called Koshitsa Naokoli, which basically means around the city of Koshitsa. Koshitsa is like the main city, it'd be like downtown Canton, yeah. So Koshitsa Naokoli is like Koshitsa Polianca, koshitsa Novives they all start with Koshits, insert something here. Those are all within walking distance or within like a three to five minute driving distance of the main city, which is about 200,000 people, so it's like twice the size of Canton-ish the big city. Yeah, but then there's a lot more. I mean it's a mountainous region, right, so there's not a whole lot of like super great roads that connect everything and a lot of stuff gets flooded all the time and things like that. So, yeah, that's kind of the layout of the land here Gotcha, gotcha gotcha. One other thing that I noticed that I thought was super interesting I thought you would appreciate this from like the, that's a lot of water. Well, yeah, so everything is sold in like liter bottles, right?
Speaker 2:They don't have like 120 ounces.
Speaker 1:No, no, 20 ounces, no 12 ounces. It's like actually this is a liter and a half. So you buy these and like this is your 12 pack of water right here, and they don't have spring water or distilled water. Everything that you buy either is calcium or magnesium water.
Speaker 2:It's got vitamins and minerals Like specifics.
Speaker 1:So, like my grandpa swears by the magnesium water. He says that like you drink it and it helps with your digestion, it helps with your muscles, it helps with your sleep. So this is like the only water he buys, other than the stuff that we get out of the well. But it's like everywhere. So just culturally it's accepted that, like magnesium is something that you should have in your system. So like cures, your magnesium water, your calcium water. And then there's one other type. There's this like hot spring, but there's also like special wells near here. It's called oh shit, I just lost it Bardaeov is the name of the place, the region, it's where my grandpa grew up, and so there's this place called Bardaeov Kupelniy and that is basically like the springs of. Bardaeov is what it stands for, and doctors here will actually prescribe, if you have like ulcerative colitis or Crohn's or issues with celiac or digestive stuff, ibs.
Speaker 1:They'll actually prescribe you to go to this spring and you can get like a doctor's note that will admit you to these hot springs for a week and really, like day one, you're sitting in a specific type of pool that has specific types of minerals and drinking a specific type of water that has specific mineral mixtures, and then the next day you're in a different pool and it alternates between hot and cold and whether the water has like more magnesium and iron or more calcium and something else. You know there's like specific mixtures, and then by the end of that week you come back and get reevaluated and they have you do that before they ever think about giving you a drug, which I think is like super, super cool Actually yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:You know, their first line of defense is not like oh well, let's mask the symptoms with some anacids antibiotics or whatever.
Speaker 1:Right, like let's actually go into your gut and recalibrate the the mineral contents of your, of your intestinal tract and then have you sit in these pools where I guess you know the minerals absorb through your body and other stuff like that. And my Zeddo said that he's been. You know, he's 85 years old and this man still hand mose using a push mower like two acres of land. Yeah, the only thing he really has going on is some aphid. He takes a couple, like some medication for his heart.
Speaker 1:For those of you that don't know what aphid is, it's like a heart condition that makes your heart beat a little bit faster than normal as you age and he just takes meds for that and that's it. But he swears by this like every two years he goes to the barbejo and goes through, hangs out in the pools and drinks the water and everything else like that, and it's he says it's very much, which means it's like this is how you have a good life, right? You, you take care of your body, you listen to your body and you give it the minerals and the vitamins and everything else that it needs. And he's hasn't been on, he's not on any Medicaid. 85 years old, this man is on no medications other than some heart medication.
Speaker 2:Sounds like they got it figured out over there. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think this is. I think it's part of why I am the way I am. You know that I've got my nursing background, so I do believe in Western medicine. Like obviously you can't if you need fucking surgery like you're not going to go drink some mineral water? Yeah. Nothing there, but if you you know, if that's a part of your lifestyle. I'm curious, like what is the rate of bowel disorders in Slovakia versus just lower.
Speaker 2:Yeah you know, like so, yeah, that's. Those are a couple of things that I've noticed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everybody has their own personal gardens. Everything's within walking distance here in the village and you know a lot of the water seems to have vitamins and minerals and stuff in it. Do they have a little ride over there. No no pretty much. Pretty much everybody has their own well water. They don't have atrazine in the water either. Whatever that chemical is that Alex Jones is always yelling about putting chemicals in the water. That's making the frogs gay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, none of that Damn.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:I'm supposed to drink it.
Speaker 1:I need those yeah it's supposed to strengthen your teeth and everything right.
Speaker 1:But then on the downside right, like they don't have septic, so they all have tanks that need to be pumped, the electricity is like Like we had a thunderstorm the other day and like half the village lost power, which I mean it happens in the US too like that's not, you know, unheard of. Just takes a little bit longer to kind of get things back up and then luckily they live Like. This is remote by my standards, but it is not remote by slow box standards.
Speaker 1:Oh really right, like there are. There are villages that are in the um, like they call it, the, the Tatry or the Carpathia, which is just the Carpathian Mountains, if they run from Hungary all the way through, I think Poland I want to say but there's villages at like, the base of the mountains, where people literally just survive off of, like hunting and searching for mushrooms, and make it in afraid farmers markets and yeah, stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So. So I will be here. What? What is today, the seventh? Yeah, I'll be here. I'll be here for eight more days and then I'll be flying down to Pisa, italy, to visit my uncle, because he's a.
Speaker 2:Really that's cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's a priest in Pisa. He has his own parish and I'll get to see my sister and my brother for the first time in six months has he ever been to the Vatican.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's where he went to school For the priesthood. That's cool, yeah, so we've gotten, like you know, behind the scenes tours. My Grandma has pictures and stuff of her beating different popes, that's, and things like that. So, yeah, yeah. Needless to say that if I were to, like, try to marry anyone other than a Catholic girl, I'd probably get banned, burn Well. So I'm excited for that. I haven't seen Zuki or Sam since March, so yeah, they've been.
Speaker 2:They've been in my a.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, apparently I was texting Sam yesterday so my uncle's been having him do like construction and stuff I Guess since he's been over there and he's been sending me videos like Like this is like hard labor, like busting up concrete patios, building a balcony, you know, moving dirt, and Sam. I was talking to Sam yesterday and he was like, yeah, dude, he's like I left the states at 190 something. He's like I'm up to 216.
Speaker 2:They've been putting them through it.
Speaker 1:I'm like, oh shit, I was like, and that's you know, not once going to the gym, just straight up wheelbarrow and pickaxe.
Speaker 2:Type work, so I'm like you got that you got that farm boy strength now, son.
Speaker 1:I was like I gotta, I gotta make sure I keep up on my shit, otherwise my younger brother is gonna catch up to me quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, didn't. Did he know that he was getting put to work on his vacation?
Speaker 1:Kind of so my uncle said that like I mean, obviously they're living with him, he's paying for their food, like yeah. So that's kind of our deal with our family when we come stays, that we earn our keep, like I'm helping my grandpa right now, do some fence repair and mowing the lawn and you know all sorts of stuff while I'm here as well. I don't think he was expecting to have to do like hard manual labor.
Speaker 2:Today prison. Like you see these hunks of stone. We just need you to break, pulverize them.
Speaker 1:Here's a sludge hammer and some gloves so you don't get blisters like just break up these rocks, put them in a wheelbarrow and take them over there.
Speaker 2:That's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but he was telling me that my uncle, I guess, had this like table thing and he was like, well, let's, you know, move this over to the other side of you know some building or something. So Sam was like my uncle went to go cut through the house and Sam was like, oh I just, I picked it up, I put it on my shoulder, I walked it around to the other side and then took it off and he's lifted CrossFit stuff with me, so he knows how to, like you know, take something off, sit it down onto his knee and then sit it down onto the ground. And he said that he went to go walk away and my uncle was like it needed to go a few feet to the left.
Speaker 2:And more there, buddy.
Speaker 1:He said my uncle went to go pick it up and was like how the fuck did you have this on your shoulder? Because he couldn't even he couldn't even get it off the ground. And I was, like you know, proud older brother moment. I'm like let's go. Well, at least you're Because he was nervous after he had that wrist injury that he wasn't gonna be able to get his strength.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. Has that he'll? Is it healed the way it was supposed to heal after the re-breaking, all that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, he said that he still has some flexibility issues with it, but there's not as much pain with picking stuff up. I think he's Well. He got the surgery literally right before he left. So I think he's seven months Into recovery and they said that it would probably take about a full year To get to baseline and then he could start like really going at it hard. So I mean, but I I was just about to say I think that he has already surpassed that year mark, making it easy.
Speaker 2:Right, right, that's funny yeah so what?
Speaker 1:what's going on on your side of the house? You said that we had some.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was pretty busy week last week. James was Out of town enjoying his vacation, had a lot, of, a lot of moving parts, a lot of good things that went through last week, one of which is James and I's criteria, or or Course outline, or curriculum, or whatever you want to call it. It was officially accepted by the board at Mount Union, so we're we'll go in developing our Seven-week four-four credit hour class. Oh, hold on one second, logan, just tried to call me or just but dialed me. Yeah, logan.
Speaker 1:Logan just tried to call me too. I just texted her and said that we're on the podcast with RJ, so Neither one.
Speaker 2:That's probably why you hung up immediately, oops. So yeah, we'll spend. I think we'll spend the rest of this year because there's like a Laundry list of things that we have to do. Like we me and James have to go through a class on how to teach, I guess, which we have most everything done, but it'll be super interesting to see, like, what mount puts us through and One end up developing the course and then, hopefully, at the soonest, maybe be able to offer it in spring of next year. So that's super exciting.
Speaker 1:Dude, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a client that I've been working on for, you know I, almost a year now finally came through last week and, logan, you pulled through in the clutch and helped get everything together and and and running in like two days flat, even with James outside the office. So I'm super proud of him. And come and coming through when, when we needed him to to get this, you know, push through and things are moving. And then on top of that, the gear five reveal for Luffy in one piece that hit, finally hit the anime. We've seen it in the manga forever.
Speaker 2:J James isn't even caught up to that point and he only usually watches the dubbed version because it's hard for him to try to read subtitles and watch the show at the same time. But he wanted to see what the hype was about. So he skipped forward probably 50, some odd episodes and had Rachel read the subtitles to him so that he could concentrate and watch. Watch the show English in the sub. Yeah, so that was super exciting. I'm trying to think what, oh, yeah, my, my story. So shout out to friend and longtime listener, adam Voorhees he he's from, from Canton, I believe that he he went to school in Maslin graduate this around the same time that I did, but he's been friends of mine and mutual friends with my buddy noodles for for as long as I can remember at this point.
Speaker 1:But we went out to look did. Is he the one that joined the military that noodles want to go live with, or no?
Speaker 2:That's, that's Dan. He still lives in Alaska.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Dan still lives up there in Alaska. I'm sure he's heartbroken that noodles moved home.
Speaker 1:Also noodles. His noodles noodles has a real name.
Speaker 2:He can start a thousand jobs through his lifetime and I will show up there and make sure everyone calls him. You'll be on his yeah, how did you?
Speaker 1:how did that even start? I don't want to derail your story, but I don't know if I even know how that started.
Speaker 2:Honestly, the best way to tell it is he has to be present, so I'd love to have him on one time, but I do promise you there are two converging stories that come together to make one nickname, and I'm currently in the process of setting it up. If my untimely demise happens before his, that it will be on his tombstone. I'm weak, but I mean, I haven't really known him as anything other than noodles.
Speaker 2:I didn't even know. But we went out and met him for lunch yesterday and I walk in the door and Adam looks right at me. He goes. So what the hell is with pickleball? And I'm like, wait, I haven't talked to Adam. Like he goes, you guys were talking about it on the podcast. And then he goes. I listen to like I Adam's a truck driver, so he listens to our podcast on a lot of other podcasts he's just like you're like one of like three or four podcasts that brought up pickleball all in the same same week that I'd listen to it. So I believe you me, I went into hyper detail about how fun it is and all that. And we were started talking Adam and noodles. If you're listening to this, I better see you guys out there when we play. It's inevitable now. But yeah, like.
Speaker 1:You've been called out.
Speaker 2:It's grown even more so like we couldn't get down to the courts this week because all the Hall of Fame stuff. They had the usual parking lot blocked off for event parking and you had to pay to get in there and they weren't even really letting you use the courts. So we went to the ones in North Canton behind the Walgreens off of Cleveland. They were people that were packed there, met some new people, added some people to the group chat again.
Speaker 1:How many people are in that group chat now? Like 40?.
Speaker 2:So not all of them are in there, but it's got to be pushing like 30, 35 or something like that, because some significant others are in there, so some of them you have to count as yeah. Well, you've got to count them as double. So it's like Brock doesn't have an iPhone, but Jordan does, so Jordan's in there and I just have to count them as two.
Speaker 2:So and I've already got people barking up my tree when are we going to play in the winter? I'm like I'm not fucking. No one's paying to do this job.
Speaker 1:I go, I was like who nominated you as?
Speaker 2:the team organizer I self nominated, I guess. So now, like this week, I'm got a meeting with the owner of the Hall of Fame Fitness Center to try to see what it would look like, because it is like a private facility and these people that I'm playing with are really only interested in the pickleball courts. They don't want access to the pool or the lifting facility in there, but on the upside that they do like the facility, there's possible upsells for them. So I have to go and talk to the owner about what it looks like structure-wise.
Speaker 2:It's just a pickleball, or management, or something yeah to have access to the courts. I think we were thinking mid-October or November, through April or until March.
Speaker 1:Did you about to? Go to Hall of Fame Fitness and open up an entire revenue line for him just based on pickleball.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm saying if I can get 20 people in there I mean for five months or whatever I'd be willing to drop them 2 to 3 grand for us all to go in there and be able to play Mondays, wednesdays and Fridays or however they structure it, and I don't know how many people are because it is a private club. I don't know how many people are actually using it. So if anybody listening to this is interested in joining the group or looking for a place to play over the winner, or knows of even a better, more lucrative opportunity for indoor pickleball courts for over the winner, please email me or reach out and let me know. We're always looking to add more people, and the more the merrier makes it easier to get games, and if you have any insight on some good indoor places around here, that would be extremely helpful.
Speaker 2:On my end, since I guess I'm organizing this entire group of dingle berries, like I had heard. So funny enough. And if this is true, or if this does happen, I guess a shit ton of the and we might have talked about this, I can't remember. I know I've talked to some people about it the Bed, bath and Beyonds, all the ones that are closing. Like a staggering amount of them have all been turned into indoor pickleball courts. They're huge. We're all OK.
Speaker 1:Hold on, pause, pause. So there's a wait. Let's first. There's a whole bunch of Bed Bath and Beyonds going down.
Speaker 2:The company went under. What I didn't know that I'm pretty sure Bed Bath and Beyond is the owner is the guy who threw himself off the building.
Speaker 1:I'm about to pull a Jamie from the Joe Rogan podcast and Google this Bed Bath and Beyond. Oh yeah, sue Gove, wait, since after being named CEO of June 2022. Oh, hold on. Mark Tritton, yeah, damn OK. Bed Bath and Beyond executive died from an apparent suicide after falling from the downtown Manhattan luxury skyscraper where he lived.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was like a year ago, wasn't it? Yeah, it says 2022.
Speaker 1:And right now the current CEO is Sue E Gove and they're going through like a massive cutback and restructuring.
Speaker 2:Well, the one on the street.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it looks like, yeah, they're probably closing down like 80% 90% of their stores.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but look, some company or individuals have been buying up the Bed, bath and Beyond property and turning them into huge indoor pickleball facilities. Dude when I yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1:When I type in Bed Bath and Beyond and I just type in the letter P, the first thing that pops up on Google is bedbathandbeyonddotpickleball chords question, mark. Now at least in St Louis they'll be able to swing their little paddles in the vestiges of the once great Bed Bath and Beyond.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I guess like structurally Bed.
Speaker 1:Bath and Beyond, old Navy and Saksaw, fifth Ab stores are all being converted. Wow, that's a lot of real estate being converted into pickleball courts.
Speaker 2:Well, dude, I'm pretty sure Bed Bath and Beyond is right next to Old Navy, on the strip Jackson. I think there might be a store in between, but I don't know, there may not be.
Speaker 1:No, I'm pretty sure that they're all right next to each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but yeah, I guess, like from the video I watched where Shami was talking about it. They said structurally it's perfect because they're huge, lofted. They're basically warehouses, so you don't have to worry about balls flying and hitting the ceiling. They're all concrete all the way through. They just need to be cleared out, repainted, put some fencing in there and then put the court surfaces and lines and nets and it's basically just good to go.
Speaker 1:So you're saying that we need to go buy a Bed, bath and Beyond?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm saying that, that one they're coming out.
Speaker 1:That's crazy.
Speaker 2:But there is a high percentage that there might be courts right there in the middle of the strip, which would be nuts.
Speaker 1:Dude, that would be actually really really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I'd be down with that.
Speaker 1:So Huh, the more you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do you know? I mean, I guess that's like. I've been thinking about that for a while Every time I drive past. They can't in the center of them all. I'm like there's got to be malls all around the country that are just sitting empty or retail spaces, because Amazon's not getting any smaller, yeah, and I think they're actually pivoting a little bit to getting to the point where they're building retail spots because they're realizing that there's something about the shopping experience that people really enjoy that's communal, it's deep in our genetics, dude. It's like some hunter-gatherer type shit browsing around and picking up things and being tangible. But I mean they shut down dozens, if not hundreds, of malls around the country. I mean, even in Belden, how it was what? The Belden Village Mall and then it was Westfield Mall and then it was Belden Village Mall and like it keeps switching owners and stuff.
Speaker 2:Westfield yeah, because they just keep trying to pawn it off to someone else.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly. So at least they're repurposing it. Ceo throws himself off a building and the entire company's crashing, and at least it can get repurposed into something that people will enjoy and it'll probably bring a lot of people to the strip. I bet you that Panera right there is going to be busy as hell it already is, but if they put pickleball courts in there, there's no way that all those restaurants right there are not going to be just that.
Speaker 2:No, I agree, I think it would be absolutely nuts.
Speaker 1:Well now I'm curious If you're a listener and you live somewhere other than Canton Ohio, what is the pickleball scene in your area?
Speaker 2:Like shoot us a message More people that show up to the normal courts that we go to every week. People are being added to it. Well, yeah, if I wasn't in.
Speaker 1:Europe. Right now I'd be playing with you guys. I definitely am interested and, as a former tennis player, being able to, because it's hard to convince people like, oh hey, you want to go play tennis.
Speaker 2:Not everybody. The barrier of entry there is pretty nice Because.
Speaker 1:I've got to go get a racket and I have no clue what I'm doing, and the courts are huge and I feel like the speed yeah, exactly, the courts are huge. The speed of the game is pretty high and it's exhausting. I mean, running over a whole tennis court can be crazy, but is pickleball typically like? Do you play singles pickleball?
Speaker 2:Is it typically doubles? So the standard game in people like if you're waiting for courts precedent is always set for doubles.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. So that's the opposite.
Speaker 2:And I would prefer to play singles because I'm kind of a ball hog, but the game was developed to be 2v2.
Speaker 1:That's cool. That's cool, well, yeah, yeah. So if you've got insight into what pickleball looks like in your area I know we've got listeners in LA, west Virginia, new York I'm curious. I'd work. Curious because I didn't realize that it was going to be such a big thing. And we've been talking about this now since the beginning of the year and it's just been doing nothing but picking up steam. So apparently this is the pickleball summer.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, it's reaching a fever pitch. So, yeah, I'm bummed. Today it's rainy here. I don't think I'm going to be able to go play, and that's after doing a full quad day too.
Speaker 1:Yo what.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been having. I still live five days a week and then go out play pickleball on top of pickleball.
Speaker 1:No wonder you're getting on a.
Speaker 2:Monday's a Wednesday. Yeah, dude, I'm gonna be shredded.
Speaker 1:That's way better to screw running. I'm gonna go out and play pickleball for a couple hours.
Speaker 2:You getting ready for a show. I'm like, not exactly guy, not exactly, I'm trying to go pro. I've got four years to compete heavily in the 35 and over division, so hold on a second.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine your big ass and like a professional pickleball, like screen? I will train for it. Dude, I haven't trained.
Speaker 2:If anybody's listening to this and knows like a trainer or somebody who, if you play pickleball like semi-professionally or regular or whatever, I will go through a full training regiment, like I'm getting ready for Wimbledon, I will do it. I'll go, I'll do whatever it is, because there's like a, there's a rating system that you have to get yourself rated before you can go into tournaments and stuff. Like I will do the whole shebang, I'll train for it.
Speaker 1:Bro, and once you commit yourself to something, too, it's stupid how dedicated you are to it. I gave four years 35.
Speaker 2:I'll join the open and I'll do the 35 and over division. I don't start crushing people.
Speaker 1:Apex will sponsor this shit out.
Speaker 2:I'd be stoked oh boy.
Speaker 1:Well, on that note, I'm gonna have to run because I got another meeting coming up here, I got to hop on. Yeah, I texted him. Let's wrap up the podcast. I'll fill you in and then pop off, so alright, everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, appreciate. You guys Love the fact that me and RJ don't have to do so much planning for these podcasts and y'all are still enjoying them. It makes it a lot easier on us and a lot more enjoyable to not have to like be so official all the time and just to kind of be ourselves. So thanks for hanging out with us and we'll catch you on the next one.