We’ve all seen it but do you really know what lightning is? Professor Joseph Dwyer says lightning is an electrical mystery. A mystery he’s trying to unravel. We talk lightning, gamma rays, blue jets and the safest place in a storm. Then, we unveil a “scary” Top 5.

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Professor Joseph Dwyer: 01:39

Pointless: 37:31

Top 5: 56:02

Interview with Lighting Researcher Professor Joseph Dwyer

Nick VinZant 0:11

Welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode lightning, and our biggest fears,

Joseph Dwyer 0:21

lightning is a electrical discharge that forms a hot channel to call a leader, it's about as wide as your finger. There are giant electrical discharges above the thunderstorm. So sometimes lightning can, instead of going down to the ground can shoot up to space, those are called gigantic jets. And actually, Lightning doesn't really see the ground until it starts getting pretty close. And so a lot of people pick the worst thing they could do.

Nick VinZant 0:49

I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, we really appreciate it, it really helps us out. If you're a new listener, welcome to the show. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for all of your support. So our first guest studies lightning, what it is, what causes it, and why it is so much more than what it seems. This is lightning researcher, Professor Joseph Dwyer. I want to mention real quick, we do get pretty technical at times. But he does a great job explaining it. So just stick with it. Because it is absolutely fascinating. What lightning is and what it can do. So I I know what lightning is, but at the same time, I don't know what lightning is. So I guess what is it really?

Joseph Dwyer 1:48

Well, that's a little bit hard to define. I mean, it's one of those things that you know, we know it when we see it. You know, the way a scientist would define lightning? Is it is it is a large scale electrical discharge measured in kilometers or if you prefer miles.

Nick VinZant 2:05

But what's like what's happening up there? Like I sort of

Joseph Dwyer 2:08

stepping back big picture, most lightning starts inside thunderstorms. We don't know exactly how that happens. It's actually one of the biggest mysteries in the atmospheric science is how does lightning get started inside a thunderstorm you have millions of lightning flashes a day around the planet. And yet, we really don't know how it gets going inside a thunderstorm. So somehow a thunderstorm charges up, we're not exactly clear exactly how that happens. We have some basic ideas, then somehow, electric fields charges get really big and opposite charges attract. And the thunderstorm wants to get those opposite charges back together again, and it does it by making lightning. And it's not exactly clear how the spark gets going. But somehow it manages it.

Nick VinZant 2:56

Why don't I guess well, how can we haven't figured that part out yet?

Joseph Dwyer 3:01

What's the heart hard thing to do? So I know, thunderstorms are just right over our heads. Sometimes it's just like, it's right up there. Why can't we figure this out? But it's you can't really see what's going on? Because there's a cloud in the way. And okay, you know, let's go put something up was flying airplane in there? Well, first of all, it's a dangerous thing to do. You just don't go fly an airplane inside a thunderstorm. You may not end up with an airplane afterwards. But okay, maybe we can launch rockets or send balloons and people do that. But the problem is whatever starting lightning is probably maybe little pieces of ice maybe that big or you know, little things inside are starting lightning. And if you send this big conductor, you know, many feet across like you know a balloon payload or rocket, it's going to initiate lightning all on its own before lightning would get going by itself. And so you're disturbing the system every time you try to measure it.

Nick VinZant 3:56

That makes sense to me, right? Like the simple act of studying it then immediately kind of creates a circumstances where you can't study it

Joseph Dwyer 4:04

anymore. Exactly.

Nick VinZant 4:06

So if we're on a scale of one to 10, right, like I'm kind of a numbers person. If one, we don't even know what this bolt in the sky thing is right? We think it's Zeus throwing sunder thunderbolts, and 10 is we got this figured out. Where on a scale scale of knowledge, do you think we would be on that one to 10 scale with lightning?

Joseph Dwyer 4:29

That's a good question. I've never quite thought about it that way. I mean, we've made a lot of progress. And you know, since the time of Benjamin Franklin, you know, it's been, what, 270 years or so since his kite experiment, and everyone kind of assumes that he had it all figured out. So I think he fast most people would say, oh, Benjamin Franklin, you know, we're 10 there. We got it all covered up. But what actually he showed was that lightning is an electrical phenomenon that wasn't obvious at the time people knew about, you know, little sparks in the labs and and electricity at the time, but it wasn't obvious that that thing that they're seeing up, there was the same thing that they were studying down here. And he really made that connection. So we figured out, you know, thanks to Benjamin Franklin, that lightning is electrical, in nature, which is a big deal. But those more things we can say about light, and you know, that involves electricity. So, you know, in the following centuries, people have made step by step progress, figuring out, you know, how it propagates, you know, we're really good at saying what it does. And, you know, there's entire books written about what it does, but we're not so good about saying how it does it. So the what it does par, you know, we're probably up around, you know, a nine or so the how it does it are, which is really what scientists want to answer, we're probably down around a three or four.

Nick VinZant 5:53

So if I kind of understand this, right, essentially, there's a build up around in the atmosphere around, usually, it seems like a storm, and there's too much of one electrical charge to the storm says, let's use the lightning to get rid of this part. What was that?

Joseph Dwyer 6:12

Yeah, so I mean, there's charge separation that goes on inside a thunderstorm. So okay, so thunderstorms, you got a lot of precipitation, you know, water, hail, things like that. And you have updrafts and updrafts will blow up the light cloud particles, and they go up to the top and the heavy stuff, hail and rain fall down, and they bump into each other. And it's like walking across the carpet. And you can pick up charge and the charge the updraft blows the lighter stuff up, which usually charges positive, that heavier stuff falls under its own weight. And that usually charges negative, so you separate the charge. So by a mechanical means, and you start building up more and more charge, and the electric field in between the voltages rise, and it gets big enough, where then it sparks kind of like you know, you build up a charge walking across the carpet, you touch a doorknob, you get a spark, and somehow, but we don't Okay, so that's a big picture. But the problem with that is we know how big the electric fields, how intense the charges need to be to make a spark. And they're never close to that. And so people have been searching for these big electric fields for decades and never have found them.

Nick VinZant 7:30

I get what you're saying, but I can't quite grasp it with my mind, if that makes any sense.

Joseph Dwyer 7:37

So we know that you need very intense charges, very concentrated charges to break down air. So air normally doesn't conduct electricity very well. You know, airs, you know, we are fairly well insulated by air, if you're standing next to a wall outlet or something, you're not going to get a spark suddenly flying towards you are electricity shooting out of a wall because Ayres, you know doesn't conduct electricity. Normally, to get air to conduct electricity, the air has to break down and make a spark. It's one way it does it, it makes a hot channel. And electricity can flow along that hot channel, they are so hot, it starts conducting. And so how do you get that spark going? Well, you need fairly large electric fields, the charges have to be so concentrated, that air just can't take it anymore. And it goes. So what can't withstand the voltages that are being applied. I'm using voltages in electric electric fields interchangeably, it's actually the electric field that it gets large. And so to make a spark, you need big electric fields, highly concentrated charges, and we just cannot find them. And so somehow we're still getting a spark some way inside the thunderstorm, and we don't know exactly how that's happening.

Nick VinZant 9:06

So we don't know exactly like what's producing enough of it to get it started.

Joseph Dwyer 9:11

Correct. We Yeah, they we know there are big charges up there. But they don't seem to be quite big enough or concentrated enough.

Nick VinZant 9:19

Is all Lightning Lightning. Is it all the same? Are there different kinds different?

Joseph Dwyer 9:24

Is all lightning the same? Okay, well, there's a couple of ways to look at it. So most lightning never leaves the thunderstorm. So most lightning starts inside the thunderstorm and never leaves maybe two thirds of it. Three quarters of it. Never leave the storm that's called intra cloud lightning. And so you'll see thunderstorms lightning up and there's a lot of action. And then every once in a while it'll send one down to the ground and that's cloud to ground. That's what most people are concerned about when when comes down and can potentially hurt people. And are those two types of lightning the stuff up there and the stuff that comes is down the same Yep, basically, it just went someplace different. Consider heat lightning. So a lot of people think that heat lightning is something different, it looks different, you see the sort of the skylight up and there doesn't seem to be a thunderstorm, it seems to be something different. And it's actually just lightning from a normal thunderstorm, that's far enough away that you can't hear the Thunder Thunder can only go so far. And so there's a lot of different ways we see lightning that we give it different names, but it's actually just the same thing. Now, having said that, there are some types of lightning that do seem to be truly different. There are giant electrical discharges above the thunderstorm. So sometimes lightning can, instead of going down to the ground can shoot up to space, those are called gigantic jets. And when you start going up towards space, the air gets, you know, the density of air gets so low, that it starts behaving differently. And it turns into these giant blue fans that shoot up to space. And so it starts behaving differently. Other types of electrical discharges are when you have lightning near the ground, you can get these giant red jellyfish above the thunderstorm with the edge of space, those are called sprites, and those are behaving differently. And there's other types of electrical discharges inside thunderstorms, too. There's types that make lots of gamma rays. You know, the thing that made the Incredible Hulk you know, the, these are energetic photons. So if higher G versions of X rays, and thunderstorms can make those two, and there's some type of electrical discharge inside thunderstorms that can make gamma rays, and that seems to be different as well. How come

Nick VinZant 11:42

I've never seen like the stuff going up like that sounds like that would be amazing to see,

Joseph Dwyer 11:47

it's not as common is normal lightning. And it's very brief. And so you have to have good dark adapted eyes, the sprites can be seen with the human eye, they last about a 1,000th of a second, if you have good dark adapted eyes. And usually, sometimes you can catch it with a corner of your eye. And but by the time you look, it's gone. And so people for for a long time have sort of been seeing these but not knowing what they saw just this brief flash of light above a thunderstorm.

Nick VinZant 12:18

So what determines where the lightning goes,

Joseph Dwyer 12:21

I mean lightning, pretty much could go where it wants to it can carry its own charge and modify the electric fields. And so it's really hard to predict exactly where it's going to go. But generally, it's wanting to follow where the charges are. So why he wants to neutralize the charges. And why he can come in both polarities, you can have negative lightning, which wants to find positive charge, you can have positive lightning that's wanting to find negative charge. So it's sort of following the electric field, trying to find the charge. And when lightning goes down, there's often some positive charge at the bottom of the thunderstorm. And when negative lightning goes in, it kind of stops it all up. And if it's still hungry, it will go on down to the ground.

Nick VinZant 13:03

So if it hits somebody is it because they were charged in the opposite of the lightning, or just they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,

Joseph Dwyer 13:13

more wrong place at the wrong time. Now, it's a little bit complicated us it's called the lightning attachment problem, which is another thing we don't fully understand. But as lightnings coming down, it's going to hit something on the ground. And actually Lightning doesn't really see the ground until it starts getting pretty close. So normally there's a layer of charge right above the ground, that kind of blankets and makes the ground look featureless from the whitens point of view. So it has to get pretty close within, you know, 100 yards or so before it starts seeing structures like houses and trees and people on the ground. So you know, once it's sort of zoomy did its overhead is going to hit something in your area. And then it decides what to do. And one thing that determines it is that as it approaches, the charges are so big in the lightning that you start getting all these little sparks off of things on the ground off the tree branches off of TV antennas off of people's heads, and whichever spark raises up and catches the lightning, whichever one wins is the one that gets struck. And so yes, you will have some opposite charges on you that develop and that will cause a spark. So yeah, it's complicated, but usually lightnings gonna strike somewhere in the area anyway, you just end up being unlucky.

Nick VinZant 14:34

So the lightning even like when this lightning strike starts, it doesn't even know where it's going. It just kind of like going this way down.

Joseph Dwyer 14:42

It's going down to the ground it senses the ground. The ground, for example, most lightens negatively charged and the ground will look positive to it and it's wanting to get the opposite charges or tracking is wanting to get to the positive charge near the ground.

Nick VinZant 14:57

So I always kind of think of obviously of lightning Is the bolt itself. But what's kind of happening right around that part that we see?

Joseph Dwyer 15:07

Yeah, so lightning is a electrical discharge that forms a hot channel to call a leader, it's about as wide as your finger. And which is a pretty neat trick, actually, you know, lightning can travel hundreds of miles. And yet, it's only about as wide as your finger and somehow it can conduct electricity over that distance and break down the air in front of it, make it a conductor. So as it's propagating, it is breaking down the air is turning the air into a conductor allowing electricity to flow into the channel, it's feeding the channel and heating it up. And so it's making the channel propagate forward, heating up the channel breaking down the air sending more current. And this part is is coming down to the ground is not super bright, it will sometimes as it comes down, it will travel in a stepwise manner, it'll go some distance pause, almost like it runs out of steam than leap forward, pause, leap forward, sometimes it branches is it comes down to the ground, it's these hot channels are forming coming down. And then when it touches the ground, you it's kind of like a short circuit. So you have this millions of volts up here in the thunderstorm, you suddenly touch the ground. I mean, if you ever accidentally put jumper cables one way across a battery, you know, it can be impressive. But imagine putting jumper cables across 100 million volt battery. And so you suddenly have a short circuit between the cloud and the ground, and you get a massive rush of current up the channel that heats the channel to about 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, about five times the surface temperature of the sun. And that's what makes it so bright, it suddenly gets really hot from all the current flowing. And so it's very bright, and then the air expands on the shockwave. And that makes the thunder we hear.

Nick VinZant 16:55

They know you mentioned kind of gamma rays and X rays. Is that Is that coming off of the lightning or coming off of the storm?

Joseph Dwyer 17:02

Okay, well both actually. So thunderstorms, as I mentioned before can make gamma rays. And that seems to be happening in sort of a large scale electric fields inside the thunderstorm. So yes, thunderstorms make gamma rays. But it turns out, lightning also makes x rays. And that comes off of the so the tip of the lightning as it moves. And these are X rays kind of like a chest X ray. They're about the same energy. like to think that you're watched like a Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs Bunny struck by lightning, you can sub momentarily see a skeleton right? That's actually you know, scientists with a laugh that haha, those cartoonists don't know what they're talking about actually how to write all along. Alright, he does make X rays. And I suppose if you could see X rays like Superman, it would look just like a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Nick VinZant 17:54

How much when we talk about gamma rays, right? Like, are we talking about a lot? Like, do I need to worry about turning into the whole care?

Joseph Dwyer 18:02

No, I actually and this is this is important. Because sometimes people hear about X rays and gamma rays and radiation, they get really frightened. And a lot of people have close encounters with lightning. Nobody should be frightened about the X rays or the gamma rays coming out of lightning, it is scientifically interesting. And scientists get all excited about it, because we can measure it very easily. But in terms of a radiation dose, it is not significant. You know, if you had you're struck by lightning, you're dead a far larger dose if they took you to the hospital when x rayed your head. So you know, it's not something people need to worry about. You're not going to get sick from radiation from lightning or anything like that.

Nick VinZant 18:44

Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Go? Some of the questions that are kind of dumb, or brilliant, like they might be dumb, but brilliant in their own kind of way, whatever.

Joseph Dwyer 18:57

There's really no dumb questions here. Great. Okay, just pause. I'll tell you a quick story. When I first got into this field when I was 20 something years ago, I was doing space physics. I didn't do nothing about lightning. But I was living in Florida. And it seemed like something to study. And so I found a local whitening expert who had been working in the field. And I've asked a question like, well, how does this work? Like the questions you're asking? And his answer will be well, nobody knows. And I asked another question in here today. Well, actually, nobody knows. And after a while of doing this, I realized this is a great feel, because all the big questions have not been answered. And so there's really no dumb questions here. Because usually the answer is something like nobody knows.

Nick VinZant 19:41

That's where I've been surprised about during this is that like, Oh, I thought we would have figured some of this stuff out by now. Like I just assumed like, oh, yeah, we know exactly how that thing works. But it seems like we kind of don't

Joseph Dwyer 19:54

big pictures. We have a good idea and like I said we know what it does really well. We can describe what It does. But just the how it does this tricky, it's just really a hard problem. And you know, even drawing a picture or diagram of what is a lightning channel look like in detail, it's, it's even hard to do that, you know, because it's, you know, you're seeing the bright stuff. That's easy. But that's just the hot channel, that's just a hot channel with current going through it, we can't really see the damn stuff or all the interesting stuff going on. So it's just it's a lot of difficulty in doing good measurements, like we need to

Nick VinZant 20:29

do is there is there is there lightning that we can't see that hits the ground?

Joseph Dwyer 20:35

The well, he can't see. Well, normal lightning, you're always going to see but okay, you need to if you're going to do a sense of measurement, you know, you need to know where you're going to point your camera, right. And to get up close to lightning and study it, you know, you want to be close, insensitive and things like that. So you need to know where to point things, but you never know exactly where lightnings going to strike. So that's a difficulty, it's difficult to get close. And then it's difficult. If you do get lucky, and you get close, it's hard to repeat the experiment. Now there are places like the Empire State Building where lightning strikes all the time, but that's awkward lightning that's initiated from the top itself. And that's not quite the same as studying the downward stuff. So there's a lot of problems and trying to figure it out and learn about it.

Nick VinZant 21:23

Yeah, it just sounds incredibly difficult to study, right? Like, we got our camera set up. Crap, it's behind.

Joseph Dwyer 21:31

Like you was especially hard with the X ray. So up until about 20 years ago, we did not know that lightning animate made X rays that wasn't known. And why didn't people figure that out? Well, you have to get sensitive X ray detectors near the lightning. And that's just really hard to do. And, you know, within 100 yards or so. And you have to wait a long time to be within 100 yards of a lightning strike with sensitive instruments, then if you get lucky and managed to do it, then it's hard to repeat the experiment. So like over the previous, you know, 50 years or so occasionally some would say if like, I think lightning makes exercise, I think I saw something. And okay, let's let's try to verify this and you wait another 20 years till somebody tries to get something close. And it's just really hard to verify and confirm any results.

Nick VinZant 22:21

Want to follow up on one thing that kind of jumped out at me that you said, when we were talking about like lightning coming from the cloud, so to speak to the ground that sometimes it seems to like pause. Is that why sometimes when I see it, it looks kind of like it goes in stages, like it goes to here that it jumps, then it goes to there. Yeah, yeah, that's

Joseph Dwyer 22:40

exactly why need pattern is because lightning steps. So lightning propagates in a stepwise manner. This is called the stepped leader, because it's steps, you know, maybe about 1020 yards or so each step, and sometimes it can branch so it will have this zigzaggy branch appearance. Why does it do that? Actually, we don't know. How does it do that? We don't know?

Nick VinZant 23:04

Um, start with one of the easier ones. Does lightning strike twice? Sure.

Joseph Dwyer 23:11

There's lightning strike price all the time. So the I mentioned the Empire State Building, Empire State Building struck many times a year. And here's the tall, pointy thing. And when there's thunderstorms in the area, you often get lightning, there's no reason that lightning can't strike something twice, especially if something's tall and pointy, and you have a lot of lightning in the area, you could have lightning strikes something multiple times. But just if you take just a patch of ground, you might have to wait a while just simply the odds of that happening in that spot, again, is going to be small.

Nick VinZant 23:44

Will it ever like for I had read something one time or heard something one time that if somebody gets hit by lightning, they're like, charged in a way and they will attract lightning strikes again? Is that a myth? Or is there any truth to that?

Joseph Dwyer 24:02

I mean, any charge that someone would pick up by being struck by lightning will be very fleeting, it will be gone on instantaneously. Now certainly a lot of current will flow through somebody when they're struck by lightning typical currents with a lightning strike or 30,000 amps and it can be much larger than that and so that it could potentially leave a little residual charge which would then quickly dissipate. So no, some no one is going to attract lightning after being struck now probably where something like that comes from is if you have somebody that likes to go hiking during thunderstorms on ridges, they might get struck more than once just simply because they put themselves in the wrong place.

Nick VinZant 24:43

Most frequent and least frequent locations. Most lightning happens

Joseph Dwyer 24:47

overland not the oceans and if you look at maps or lightning is it is you know it fought you can see the outline of the continents. There's lots of lightning in United States in Central Florida, that's the lightning capital of Central Florida. The Central Africa has lots and lots of lightning and the there's a lake in South America that actually I think has the highest concentration in the world. But that's just because of the local weather patterns.

Nick VinZant 25:20

Are we getting more or less lightning now than we have in the past?

Joseph Dwyer 25:26

Okay, that is a good question. So we know that climate is changing. And so does this mean, we're going to get more lightning or less lightning? It's hard to answer that because while there's a couple of reasons, one, we don't understand how lightning works, how it gets started. So theoretically, it's hard to predict what will happen. It's also you want to look for long term trends. But you really need to look over a really long period of time. And we just have not add the instrumentation, consistently measuring things for a long enough period of time to really make sure that we can see trends. Probably First, I would say for certain there will be shifting weather patterns, which will mean the patterns of lightning will probably be shifting somewhat.

Nick VinZant 26:12

How do you feel about force lightning? Like, from Emperor Palpatine? Star Wars?

Joseph Dwyer 26:19

Yeah, I think that definitely needs more research. I'll work on I'll put that on my list is something I'll work on after I figured out normal lightning?

Nick VinZant 26:27

How powerful is your average lightning strike? Is there any way we could harness this?

Joseph Dwyer 26:33

Oh, I wish that were true. My research funding would be a lot better if somehow lightning could be an energy source. But unfortunately, no. So lightning certainly is very powerful. There are 10s, if not hundreds of 1000s of amps flowing through a lightning channel, the voltages are measured in hundreds of millions of faults, and you combine those that's a lot of power. And of course, we're seeing that with how bright lightning is. But lightning is also brief. So the entire bright part of the lightning will last maybe say a few 100 microseconds a few 100 millionths of a second. And so lots of power, but over a short time. And so you combine those things, two things together, there's not a lot of energy there. So if you suppose you wanted to try to make a lightning farm and maybe capture all the lightning, you can get, maybe do it in someplace where there's a lot of lightning like Florida, and maybe try to get lots of towers and everything. And if somehow you can collect all the lightning and get all the energy out of all the lightning and some lightning reasonable lightning farm, the best you can do is power, one 100 watt light ball.

Nick VinZant 27:46

What would happen though, if we didn't have it? Like, what if the storms didn't produce lightning?

Joseph Dwyer 27:51

You know, lightning does affect atmospheric chemistry, and can have some beneficial effects there? You know, you turned off the lightning, I'm sure there would be a lot of consequences, some of them that would be not so pleasant, is it possible to turn off lightning, that would mean we didn't have thunderstorms. And that means we would have a very different atmosphere than we have right now.

Nick VinZant 28:15

But it wouldn't like the out the lightning isn't like an outlet that keeps the storm from just spiraling out of control or anything like that.

Joseph Dwyer 28:25

I mean, in a sense, it does. I mean, the thunderstorms charging up, and it's the safety valve sort of on the thunderstorm, there is a lot of energy inside a thunderstorm. And, you know, it's so it's a way of sort of, you know, relieving the pressure of some, in some sense, you know, electrically and so if you just had a thunderstorm that can charge up without lightning well, okay, there are other types of electrical just discharges that will start kicking in little discharges, that would sort of reduce the thunderstorm electric field over time. So I would say if you sort of could somehow turn off the big impressive lightning, the probably little stuff would start kicking in

Nick VinZant 29:10

honest way you've ever heard of someone getting hit by lightning?

Joseph Dwyer 29:14

Well, okay, I'm not trying to answer exactly the question. So let me let me answer a sort of a related question. So a lot of people are hurt by lightning by taking shelter under trees. And that seems like there's a you know, you're outside there's a thunderstorm it seems like that would be a safe place, you know, okay, then you know what the tree gets struck out of the rain under the tree, but actually being near a tree is one of the most dangerous places you can be during a thunderstorm and so a lot of people pick the worst thing they could do, and stand under a tree and they go stand there. And the reason is, is lightning likes to strike tall pointy things. And so that tree has a reasonable chance of getting struck. And lightning strikes are messy, there are currents flowing everywhere, there's going to be sparks flying off the branches of the tree, there's gonna be currents flowing through the ground. And so you're sort of tying your fate the feet of that tree. And so if you're standing next to the tree, okay, the tree might get struck, but then concerned off what's called a side flash and get you off the branches, the currents that come down, the tree will flow across the ground will go up one leg down the other. That's called a step voltage. And that can shock you that way. So a lot of people are hurt by taking shelter next to the trees, it's not a good idea.

Nick VinZant 30:41

The one that I can think of I was used to be a reporter working in Central Florida. And lightning happened in a football game, but it hit a fence on the other side, ran through the fence and shocked somebody on the other side of the field,

Joseph Dwyer 30:56

you really don't want to be standing next to long conductors, you know, or when you're at, you know, the safest place to be during a thunderstorm inside a house. But you don't want to connect yourself electrically to the outside by talking on a phone with a wire, I don't know if there's exist anymore a thermocouple wire going, Oh, yeah. Or, you know, all the things I used to say don't do like, don't go up and turn the knob on the tv And don't talk on the phone with the wire, we don't really do those things anymore. Just don't anything that has a wire that connects you to the outside or even plumbing that connect you to the outside. Stay away from that during a thunderstorm.

Nick VinZant 31:35

What read what are you researching now? And how do you think that that will affect the world? It's a pretty dramatic way to put it right. But like, I guess what are you studying now? And what do you think the effects and ramifications of that will ultimately be?

Joseph Dwyer 31:50

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple things I'm working on. I'm working with colleagues in the Netherlands using data from radio data from radio instrument called Low far this can measure this lots of antennas around Northern Europe, and can kind of triangulate where the radio waves are coming from and map out the lightning in detail. And it's very sensitive. So we can sort of see the first instances of when lightning gets started. And so that the big question is, how does lightning get started? Well, we're going to measure all the little discharges very carefully with this instrument. And that's telling us something about what's happening right at the beginning, which is a big question. So I'm working on that. Another thing I'm working on is I'm trying to understand how thunderstorms make gamma rays. They're these monster bursts of gamma rays that come out of thunderstorms. They're called terrestrial gamma ray flashes, they can blind spacecraft and lower Earth orbit. And we don't know how they work. They're really cool. They're really exciting. They're telling us something about what's going on inside the thunderstorm. And I'm trying to figure out how those work.

Nick VinZant 32:55

Do all thunderstorms create lightning? In one way or another? Whether we see it or we don't?

Joseph Dwyer 33:02

Well, sort of by definition, if it's a thunderstorm, it is making lightning so not all clouds make lightning. So yeah, I mean, there's some types of clouds that make lightning and others that don't, that you do have to have the right conditions, you have to have be able to have, you know, a lot of energy in the atmosphere and great updraft you seem to need to have is that for. So the cloud needs to be tall enough, where you start forming is that seems to be an important ingredient.

Nick VinZant 33:33

Is does it ever go from the ground up? Or is that a myth?

Joseph Dwyer 33:39

No, well, okay, most lightning will start inside the thunderstorm and then propagate, you know, either in the thunderstorm or come down to the ground. Now when it strikes the ground, there will be a current way that sort of races back up. So the first contacts to the ground, and then the current gets really large when it contacts and the current wave will go up. But that's still lightning coming down, it just sort of reacts when it hits the ground, and there is a wave that propagates up covery coils back up. But there are other types of lightning that can be initiated from towers, Empire State Building and other tall towers. That is basically upward of lightning that starts at the tower now that can either be initiated by something inside the thunderstorm or sometimes does go off by itself.

Nick VinZant 34:31

That's pretty much all the questions we got. Is there anything you think that we missed? Or?

Joseph Dwyer 34:34

I mean, it's always good to go over, you know, sort of, how do you stay safe during a thunderstorm? That's sort of the Public Service Announcement part of it. So lightning does hurt and kill a lot of people and you really don't want to be part of a lightning flash. You know, it'd be a really bad day. But good news is we really don't need to be afraid of lightning. We just need to, you know, have a healthy respect for you know, how much it can hurt. So if there is a thunderstorm in the area, it's really quite simple. You just go inside inside a house a building, and it has to be a substantial structure. I'm not talking about a baseball dugout or something like that it needs to be, you know, a house or inside an office building or something like that. That's generally the safest place to be. And to stay inside until all the lightning thunders gone. Wait about 30 minutes afterwards, every once in a while a thunderstorm will say the big one. So the grand finale at the end, you don't want to be part of that grand finale. So wait 30 minutes till the show's over. You know, and then it's would be safe to go back outside. But once inside, you know, don't connect electrically to the outside world. And then that's generally say, it's not safe standing outside under a tree. Cars are relatively safe as long as it has a metal frame. But if the best advice is if you hear thunder, go inside

Nick VinZant 36:00

is the thing about like I always learned like One Mississippi, that would tell you how far away it is. Is that true?

Joseph Dwyer 36:07

That Yes. So the way a lightning flash works is the lightning will strike, say the ground, it's very hot, very bright. And we'll also make thunder at the same time. Now light travels very quickly. So we see the light almost instantaneously. But it takes a while for the sound to travel along. Sounds fast, but not that fast. So it can take many seconds for the sound to reach us. And if you count from the time you see the flash to the time you hear the thunder, you can figure out how far away it was. Now, that's part of what we call the 3030 rule you if you counted if you can count to 30 and, and not hear the thunder, then you know that's by some measures probably far enough away the second part of the 3030 rules wait for 30 minutes. But the first part of that 3030 rule is really dumb actually, because if you can hear thunder at all, it's close enough to her to you. So you're just giving it an extra 30 seconds to get you by standing outside of sight counting. And so if you just hear it at all, just go inside, you don't need to count.

Nick VinZant 37:12

I want to thank Professor Dwyer so much for joining us if you want to connect with him. We have linked to him on our social media accounts. We're Profoundly Pointless on Twitter, tick tock, Instagram and YouTube. And we have also included his information in the episode description. Okay, now let's bring in John Shaw and get to the pointless part of the show. What's the unluckiest thing that's ever happened to you?

John Shull 37:40

meeting you? Nice unluckiest thing. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, I haven't been very unlucky. I have a lot of things that have gone wrong. But they're like small moments. Nothing major.

Nick VinZant 37:55

But you don't feel like overall, you're an unlucky person. Which one? Would you say you're closer to being unlucky or lucky?

John Shull 38:02

Definitely lucky. I mean, I met my wife. I mean, people who know me know, maybe you feel the same boat. I probably shouldn't be married at this point, at least not to a good person.

Nick VinZant 38:14

No, I would agree with that.

John Shull 38:17

I have two great kids. I mean, you know, it could be a lot worse. So I would definitely lean lucky.

Nick VinZant 38:23

Yeah. I don't think that I've ever been like Lucky, where things kind of go well for me. But I don't think that I'm unlucky either.

John Shull 38:35

I mean, I'm unlucky in the sense of like, I don't win bets. I don't even come close to winning bets. I don't come close to winning anything. Really. I don't remember the last time I won something.

Nick VinZant 38:50

I can't think of anything that I've ever won. I've never won. Like, the only time that I would say that I really won something is one time in Vegas. I want $110 playing a card game that I didn't even know what was going on. I don't actually know anybody who's really won anything. There

John Shull 39:07

was a friend of mine, his mother won the Michigan Lottery when we were teenagers. Like 350,000 or something.

Nick VinZant 39:17

If I won less than a million dollars in the lottery, I would kind of feel unlucky. Because like, oh, I won the lottery. How much did you win? 50 grand like, Oh,

John Shull 39:29

I've always wondered, I've always felt that way actually, as well. You know, when, you know, obviously being in the news, we get releases of things and information of people who have won. Hey, this person won 96 grand. Like

Nick VinZant 39:45

that's really okay great. If I feel like you're I don't even consider it winning the lottery at this point. If it's not over 50 million even a million dollars and I call he won a million like can but he wasn't Unlike a billion something a little while ago, I'm not that impressed unless it's over 50.

John Shull 40:05

Here's a question for you. Do you believe in that statement? It's better to be lucky than good.

Nick VinZant 40:12

Yeah, 100%. That's absolutely true. I think that if you find that if you look at most people who are unsuccessful positions, it's a combination of basically luck. Right? Either they were born with the genetic abilities to be in that position, either through athletic or through intelligence, or they were born into the circumstances of having connections like that. I think most of life comes down to luck. I think your life is basically decided for you before you're even born.

John Shull 40:40

I mean, that's a mic drop moment. I can't say it any better than that. Yeah. I, I don't know if that's luck. I mean, being born into privilege and power and all that thing. I don't know if that's luck. But at the same point, I don't know what else it would be. So I'll go Yeah,

Nick VinZant 40:54

I mean, it's, I think it's complete luck. I think basically, if you look at your entire situation in life, it's pretty much just the luck of the draw. Like you either born into good circumstances in one way or another. You weren't. And if you weren't, it's very difficult to get through it.

John Shull 41:13

Yeah, absolutely.

Nick VinZant 41:14

Okay. All right.

John Shull 41:16

But yet, it feels like there's a lot more unlucky moments for people than there are

Nick VinZant 41:20

lucky out there. Because you only remember the negative man.

John Shull 41:24

But you're positive. Look at that hair cut.

Nick VinZant 41:27

Look at that hair cut. Paid $18 for that. Yeah,

John Shull 41:31

it looks good, man. Your age still having hair like that. That's,

Nick VinZant 41:34

that's all look, as long as that's at my age. All I care about is if it's there. I don't even I don't even look at the hair cut. I could care less. If the hair is there. I don't care what it looks like. I don't. Not at all.

John Shull 41:50

If the hair is there, that should be a new slogan.

Nick VinZant 41:53

I'm not bad mouthing it, because then it's gonna leave. How's your hair look great. I don't care what it looks like if it's there. That's all I care about.

John Shull 42:03

At what age do you start to get worried that your hairs are gonna start to thin out and fall out?

Nick VinZant 42:08

As soon as you start to see it? Go man, that age varies for a lot of different people. I have some friends who are probably worried at 14.

John Shull 42:17

I mean, listen, you know, I'm laughing. I don't mean to laugh. Because I know it's a very stressful thing for men and women. But yeah, that's not a situation I'll ever have to worry about. I'm probably going to die with a full head of hair. Alright, speaking of critics, let's give some shout outs. Let's see. We'll start with Jim Dowd. Joe shields. Emanuel Soto Christian Boxley Robell QBD Trent Kip, Liam Dobson, Avery Stenson, Luis Ortega, and Winston root of sin. And I ended on Winston because I don't know why. But it's good to see it Winston every now and again.

Nick VinZant 43:02

Winston Trent and Liam are some of the names that are good names, as long as you don't hear them very often. They need to be like one out of 50 or one out of 100. And then those are good names. But if you had a lot of trends that can go bad pretty quick. You can only be a few trends, or Liam's unless you're in like England or something you got more Liam's

John Shull 43:27

Good day, mate. All right. Let's see

Nick VinZant 43:30

Australian.

John Shull 43:31

Yeah, same thing.

Nick VinZant 43:32

You do British try. Just try British.

John Shull 43:35

I don't think I can.

Nick VinZant 43:37

I don't even know what it sounds like to be honest with you. It's, you know, Governor, Governor. Hello, Guvnah it's close enough. Let's move on.

John Shull 43:46

Yeah, anyways, I got a couple of bangers for

Nick VinZant 43:50

you. Okay, okay. Okay.

John Shull 43:53

You have to pick one of these. And this is all you can use for the rest of your life. regular glue, a glue stick, or white out?

Nick VinZant 44:04

Well, glue stick just because it's the most easiest to use. I don't think I've used glue in 20 years.

John Shull 44:12

I mean, apparently I've used it recently because it's the reason why I thought of the question while I was using glue on my children's homework. Why are you doing your children's homework? It was a parent activity. And we were making an Easter egg thing together. And I got I got to thinking I also haven't used glue in a long time. But I feel like glue is underrated.

Nick VinZant 44:35

Yeah, I mean, is there an alternative to glue? Tape I guess. But I'm not going to put I would much rather use tape and glue. I trust tape more than I trust glue.

John Shull 44:49

You Yeah. I mean, unless we're going like like gorilla glue you know or like the cement glue. Like then then you know that that whatever you're doing isn't going anywhere but Elmers glue and an irregular glue stick garbage.

Nick VinZant 45:06

Yeah, I would I don't even if it's Gorilla Glue, I'm not really trusting it that much. I trust tape far more than I trust glue. Always have really? Do you ever you ever sniff glue?

John Shull 45:19

was more of a whip it whip it kind of guy with the aerosol than a than as a glue sniffer. Believe it or not.

Nick VinZant 45:27

I've never done any of that stuff. Oh, I mean, I've known people who have tried it. But I've never done anything that like where I'm inhaling things. I knew a kid who inhaled gas that didn't. I mean, you could imagine how well that turned out for him. Like gasoline. I think he's sniff gasoline.

John Shull 45:46

What? What are you more leery of eating 4am Taco Bell? Or expiring next day meat from the deli counter?

Nick VinZant 45:57

Actually, I'm fine with both of those, honestly. Yeah, I

John Shull 46:01

don't know. Because either way, I feel like how talk about You're shitting your brains out the entire weekend or the next two days. And if you get the meat, it's a 5050 chance of it actually being okay, for you to cook it.

Nick VinZant 46:15

I'm actually I'm gonna go ahead and say, um, I would be more leery of the 4am Taco Bell than I would be the meat, right. Like, if you're getting that from a grocery store, they've got some pretty decent regulations that I think that they'd have to have. The difficulty with the Taco Bell is that you don't exactly know what has transpired. In the making of it. I don't feel that way about the grocery store. I'm not worried about the quality of either one being a little bit past its prime, it's fine. I'm worried about what went into putting it together. Which Taco Bell would be my bigger concern.

John Shull 46:49

Have you ever showed up to a fast food establishment at closing time, whether that's 2am or 4am. And you know, something's going on with your food.

Nick VinZant 47:01

Yeah, and you don't do that. As the person who started out my first job was in a restaurant, you don't show up. You don't show up within an hour of closing time. Fast food, maybe 30 minutes. You don't do that to people. If you if you show up five minutes before closing time at a restaurant, you get what you deserve. I don't feel bad for you.

John Shull 47:22

I don't I don't necessarily disagree. I also am going to go out on a limb here and say I am thankful I've never worked in the restaurant industry. Because I'm not sure I would eat out or eat fast food ever again. If it is indeed. Like that Gotti at some places?

Nick VinZant 47:39

I don't think so. I think that you can I think that most people like you do pretty well. Considering I think most places are pretty fine. Because you don't want to get in trouble, man.

John Shull 47:50

Yeah. Don't want to don't want to get in trouble and stir the pot. Alright, let's see. Okay, so our choices this week to talk about American Horror Story season 12. Starring one of the Kardashian ladies, that was really the only reason why because they never know which one is

Nick VinZant 48:10

it? Which one is Kim, I

John Shull 48:12

believe

Nick VinZant 48:14

it's interesting that they've never really been able to turn anything that they did into anything else. I mean, I know that they've been successful in business. But I think if you reach that level of fame, you would be successful in business, regardless of what you did. Like you're just attaching your name to things at that point. But they've never been able to transition into like, singing or well acting, or turn that into anything else. Besides being famous for being famous?

John Shull 48:46

Yeah, nothing. It's actually kind of amazing. Let's see other choice the Masters is for all you golf fans out there pretty exciting. This weekend's I guess the biggest story wasn't even who one was more or less that Tiger Woods is probably done playing ultra competitive golf. If for those of you who didn't watch or know of him, he literally couldn't walk after two rounds. I'm not and I'm not saying that golf is easy, like, whatever. But he was I think he did a lot more damage in that car accident two years ago than any of us will ever know him. He could. He looked like an 85 year old man. It was terrible to watch.

Nick VinZant 49:24

Yeah, it's also impressive to me that 20 plus years later, let's just call it 20. For the sake of argument, 20 years after he kind of started to decline. He's still the biggest name in golf.

John Shull 49:37

It is kind of Yeah, it is ironic, right? That his name just transcends the only one you care about. Yeah, I mean, it's also kind of a testament to him, no matter how shitty of a Personal life He has or had, that he you know, goes out there and still tries when he doesn't have to at all. Not even not even a little bit. Let's see. No Our choice here work from home wars. Apparently, there's all kinds of data recently from different studies that were done from all kinds of different publications and groups and things, basically saying that, you know, like, 50%, like, these were a couple of the headlines. And I remember, like 50% of office buildings are unoccupied now due to people working from home. And one. One study basically said that people who work from home are like 96%, more successful and productive than being in the office. So there's a movement now post COVID, you know, for work working from home again.

Nick VinZant 50:37

Yeah, I mean, it seems like a much better idea. I'm somebody that works from home, it's definitely more productive. I think that there are some, like the CEOs of companies want people to come back in. But I don't think that those CEOs of companies have realized that the entire work balance has shifted, because not only have we started working from home more and proven that this can be actually be done, we're in the middle of a population shift, where these older CEOs that used to have kind of it used to be a big thing, it was a huge, like privilege for you to get a job. They need us a lot more than we need them. And I think that they're going to come to the realization that like, look, there's not as many people who are of working age as there used to be, and you don't have this power that you once did. And I think that it's a fantastic thing for the average person, the average worker to be taking back control. And I think all of us should band together and say, We're not going to put up with this shit.

John Shull 51:34

Yeah, Twisted Sister said, we're not going to take it.

Nick VinZant 51:38

People are sick of it. I think that there's a huge movement that people are sick of shit. And I have always hated the idea that somebody had a job interview. Why do you want to work here? Well, I don't want to work here. I want to work here, because you're paying me. So this idea that we really want people who work here, like this is just a job. And I think it's completely fair to go on a completely massive rant, that companies have been screwing people over for a long time. And this idea that you're gonna give us less of a product for more money. Well, now we're going to treat you like you've been treating us and I'm only going to do the amount of work that you're paying me for. And they don't like it very much, but fuck them.

John Shull 52:20

Wow. Yeah, usually it's me on the ramp. But well, in saying that the winner of the poll, the topic this week, was, is puffer fishes.

Nick VinZant 52:31

What do you love? All right, all right. All right. You don't have to tell me twice. What is it about poker fishes.

John Shull 52:40

Corporate America rant to puffer fishes. Which this isn't a good story, essentially. But basically, a couple in Malaysia bought a couple of fish that they were sold, obviously, that they did not know where puffer fish is at the time, and they ate these puffer fishes and all died.

Nick VinZant 53:01

That's like super toxic.

John Shull 53:04

Yeah. And I, I two questions for this one. I don't recall a time in my life, where I like bought something, not knowing what it was, or thinking that I didn't even know what it was. Like, if I buy a salmon and it doesn't look like salmon. I'm not gonna eat it.

Nick VinZant 53:28

Yeah, I'm not really you gotta watch it with that man, like food poisoning is no joke. Any kind of stuff like that, like I'm a fairly outdoorsy person. And there's some trails in Washington where I live where they're like, you can pick the blueberries, like I'm not doing that.

John Shull 53:45

I mean, if I buy like a package of meat, and if it even looks a little dank or a little wrong, or, you know, a little brown is on the hamburger meat or something. I'm not doing it. I'm now nope, I'm not doing it.

Nick VinZant 54:02

Unless I was hiking a trail and there was somebody there with botany degree credentials standing next to the blueberry bush saying this is okay to eat. And they had their degree with them. I wouldn't do that man. Like, I don't think that would suck. What a way to go. Like that's one of those things that could just happen to you. And you wouldn't even know it. That's being unlucky. Like how'd they die? Well, they bought first of all you probably like what were you doing? Like let's get the cheap fish at this market. We've never been to seems legit. Like maybe you should have thought that one through a little bit. But that

John Shull 54:38

so unfortunately, the couple I mean, it was pretty terrible what happened to them? I don't want to make light of that but and doing some further research about puffer fish eating. Apparently chefs in in the Asian world, specifically Japan. They have to undergo a three year extensive training course, to be able to serve the fish like conserve the fish.

Nick VinZant 55:02

Yeah, it's like real. I think it's called fugu.

John Shull 55:05

It is called Fulgur. Look at you over there.

Nick VinZant 55:07

I have this book that I read the first book that I read in 10 years that was talking about like, Look, you gotta be really careful eaten a puffer fish. It's apparently a terrible death to like us. 68 from the inside. Yeah. Yeah, like it's. Yeah, that's getting unlucky.

John Shull 55:23

Yeah, that is. That is. And

Nick VinZant 55:27

that'd be the worst to like, that would be the worst thing if an afterlife does exist. And you go up there and like, How'd you die? bought cheap fish in a market trying to save five bucks, and it turned out to be poisonous. Like,

John Shull 55:45

that would be Yeah, that would be like the same thing as like me getting bit by like a scorpion and dying. Like, right little six inch animal that kills me. 280 pa man.

Nick VinZant 55:56

Cool. All right. Well, I mean, that seems like a reasonable fear. But let's go to our top five, which is top five, unreasonable fears, like things that you know are not going to happen or not dangerous. But you're just incredibly paranoid of them. What's your number five?

John Shull 56:16

You know what I figured I'd start off this top five with something I've talked about on this podcast since the moment of its inception, essentially. And that is my irrational fear of parking lots.

Nick VinZant 56:29

Why did parking lot scare you so much?

John Shull 56:32

I don't know if it's the confrontation because like I don't I don't think it's the actual What am I looking for? It's not the actual act of parking. I think it's having to find a spot and then you know, if someone else is coming in their way do they do you let them go to you go do you stand your ground? Do you know do you fight over it? Just a lot of angst there.

Nick VinZant 56:54

Now are you like this though? If somebody else is in the car with you?

John Shull 56:59

No, because in all Park, five minute walk away from the storefront. I don't care if that's the case.

Nick VinZant 57:08

I don't think I think it should be one of the written. I think it should be a rule of the road that you don't judge people's parking. If you are not driving, then you can park. You can't say if you are not driving. You shouldn't say anything about where somebody's parking. Don't point to the closer spot. Don't say go up there. You should leave them alone. It is their choice where to park just like it's the driver gets to choose the radio station. driver gets to choose where to park? Sure. And I'm with you. I'll park at the back of the lot. This is this is not worth my time. I'm not spending 20 minutes trying to get three spots closer.

John Shull 57:43

Absolutely. Yeah. I don't even care if it's you know, 20 below. I'll park I'll walk I don't really care. I just don't want to deal with having all the all the nervousness that goes into a parking in a parking lot.

Nick VinZant 57:58

My number five is quicksand of all always been scared of quicksand.

John Shull 58:04

I mean, I get it, but I mean, how many times are you ever going to run into quicksand? Have you ever even been in quicksand?

Nick VinZant 58:11

Never even I've never seen quicksand. I don't think I would even recognize it if it walked past it. But I'm terrified of quicksand. terrified of it.

John Shull 58:21

Oh, okay. I mean, I get it. I just, that's irrational, right? Because you're probably never going to have to face it. So like, I kind of get it.

Nick VinZant 58:30

I don't even think it's actually dangerous. I think that you basically only sink to your waist and then you just kind of have to walk out. I don't think that it's actually but I just remember seeing the show. I think it was like Hound of the Baskervilles with Sherlock Holmes, and he died in quicksand. And ever since then, I've been like, watch out for quicksand.

John Shull 58:49

You've just been like it's over. It's out over the over and you're

Nick VinZant 58:52

just immediately dead. If you don't even look at quicksand. Sure. Number four.

John Shull 58:59

Severe weather. And it's irrational in let me explain it's irrational because I live in an area where yes, we get snow we get when we get ice, we get thunderstorms, but I'm talking about I'm talking about like a like a hurricane or a tornado specifically. Basically, we I mean, where I live the chances of that, well, they might be going up now. But the the average chances of that are basically like point 00 or 2%. But yet, if there's a thunderstorm if there's a huge snowstorm, I start to get a little fearful like here we go a severe weather incoming, when there's no fear at all, really to be had.

Nick VinZant 59:38

I grew up in Kansas, and if there's severe weather, everybody goes outside to look at it.

John Shull 59:43

Of course there's I mean, we've had a couple of those storm chaser folks on here and they're, I mean, they're wild. They're insane. Just to hear them talk about I go towards the tornado and the hurricane and I love Kansas. No, no,

Nick VinZant 59:58

my number four is that garbage disposal All, I'm always worried anytime you got to put your hand in the garbage disposal, like I'm checking the power, I'm making sure nobody's around me. Okay, making sure there's not like lightning outside. I'm always worried about my hand just getting chopped up in the garbage disposal.

John Shull 1:00:17

So kind of along the same lines in the kitchen, my number three is like leaving the gas on like leaving the stove on. Or like a grill you know, outside with the propane tank, like that's my number three. So I just say leaving the gas on for my number three.

Nick VinZant 1:00:32

Okay, okay. Yeah, that's this leaving the stove on is something that you're always worried about, but very rarely do I would say you do it one for every 1000 times that you've worried about that you've done it. I'm My name is three's jellyfish. I've always really been afraid of jellyfish. I just don't ever want to encounter a jellyfish really even look at a jellyfish.

John Shull 1:01:01

As as you should be. I've I've swam into school of jellyfish and got stung the hell out of on a cruise. So yeah, that is not fun.

Nick VinZant 1:01:12

Wait, how many? Okay, you really swam into? Like, how many jellyfish are we talking about?

John Shull 1:01:16

I had three welts on my chest.

Nick VinZant 1:01:19

Now three. Don't come at me Don't say swim and do it. Okay, unless it's if it's not 10 or more don't like let's like, Okay, you got stung a couple of times,

John Shull 1:01:29

right? Yeah, that hurt. Like hell. Those three stings.

Nick VinZant 1:01:33

One more than a couple. Right? A swarm? downplay it there. Johnny drama. And somebody peed? And did I bet did I've actually been stung to it fucking hurt? Somebody pee on it? Did you pee on it?

John Shull 1:01:47

No, we went to the first aid station. They put some kind of vinegar solution on me or something?

Nick VinZant 1:01:54

I can't ever remember if you're actually not supposed to pee on it. Or if you are, I think it actually makes it worse. But I can't remember. It's one of those things where like, with the bear, are you supposed to charge the bear? Or back dead for the bears? Like one that you stay still and one that you go after? How much would that suck? Right? Like if you just pick the wrong ones? Like Wait a minute. Okay, so the bear you run out and the mountain lion you act big, but then you pick the wrong one. And more us. I know you got that backwards? You're crap.

John Shull 1:02:28

Yep, you're dead.

Nick VinZant 1:02:31

What's What number are we on?

John Shull 1:02:33

So we're on our number two. And this might be lame. But it's I mean, it's a fear of mine, by far, and that is leaving my dog outside and forgetting about them. And in saying that, say it's cold outside, I let them out in the morning. Oh, I get, I get the kids ready, I get myself ready. I put everyone in the car. And sometimes I've gone back home. Like after all of that just to make sure I let him inside. Just it's just a fear of mine, that he'll be outside that will have forgotten about him. And you know, his paws will freeze off or something or like, it'll be too hot in the summer. And he'll dehydrate like, you know, it's just it's it's literally one of the biggest fears I have.

Nick VinZant 1:03:21

How far away from the house have you gotten and turned around,

John Shull 1:03:24

I dropped. I mean, I was probably I was probably an hour into my trip. And I was like I it was you know, it was one of those days in the summer, where it was getting like maybe 50 in the morning and was gonna get up to 8590 and he I don't have a lot of shade in my yard. So he doesn't have a lot of places to go. And it just so happens for whatever reason I went back home and he was still outside I'd forgotten him you know, and he would have been outside all day, you know, which nothing probably would have happened but he would have you know, he would have had no water and he's a big dog is a lot of furs. So, you know, that's, I probably check. I'm kind of OCD so I have like four or five things I do before I leave the house every morning that I make sure I check ones the gas ones the shower, make sure I let my dog like I sound like a crazy person. But hopefully somebody out there can.

Nick VinZant 1:04:13

I agree. I mean, like if turning around an hour out. That would be like whoa, man. That's like getting that's pretty obsessive. But then the fact that you left the dog outside as well. It's pretty lucky. I'm like that about locking my front door. I think I've usually it's only usually when I walk out somewhere or if I'm getting in the car, I'll probably go back to make sure the front door is locked like two or three times.

John Shull 1:04:37

I like it's maybe it's maybe it's more OCD than fears but but I mean I it's a terrible feeling. It's one of the most terrible feelings I think I've had. So what's your number two

Nick VinZant 1:04:50

social interactions with people. I dread social interactions, more than I probably should. Like they always ended up being like kind of harmless. Like when you gotta go, you gotta meet new people, or you gotta go to like a work party with your significant other, like, I dread that a lot more than I should I dread social interact, it's one of those things that the amount of dread that I have for it versus the amount of damage it could potentially like, what's going to happen? You're going to talk to Steve, and you're just gonna die right afterwards like, no.

John Shull 1:05:30

Yeah, I mean, I don't think I share that. But I completely agree. I think a lot of that's probably the most, I don't know, connecting one on the list for ACC, because I think a lot of people have that that fear. The Dread

Nick VinZant 1:05:43

to outcome ratio is not worth it at all. Like no matter how much you dread any social interaction, it's not like something really bad is going to happen from it.

John Shull 1:05:54

Yeah, half the time. It's it's just a wet fart or a puff of white smoke, right? nothing actually happens.

Nick VinZant 1:06:01

I don't know about the wet fart part. And you may have lost me on that one. But what's your number one?

John Shull 1:06:08

Once I think it's lame, but it's me and it's it's cockroaches?

Nick VinZant 1:06:12

Oh, I would think that that's probably a lot of people's number one is bugs. They're just terrified. But they can't do anything to you. But they scare you.

John Shull 1:06:21

Yeah, I'm I'm gonna sound really uneducated, more, more so than usual here. But cockroaches to me signify dirtiness and just grossness and nastiness and boof. Like having lived in Florida a few years and there's cockroaches that fly down there. Like flies. Nope.

Nick VinZant 1:06:42

Yeah. They're terrible. I don't even like the word cockroach.

John Shull 1:06:46

Now. It's no roach.

Nick VinZant 1:06:48

Oh, that's one of the worst words in the English language. I would I had I thought about putting bugs is number one. But my number one is for me. I mean, it's hugely irrational. But I think about it at least once a day and I'm terrified of the possibility getting sucked into a wood chipper.

John Shull 1:07:07

Yeah, that's definitely that's like your quicksand thing? Like, how many times have you even been around with shippers?

Nick VinZant 1:07:13

I've been around with shippers three times in my life. But so for people who maybe don't listen regularly, I used to be a news reporter. And I've covered three stories of a person getting sucked into a wood chipper and dying from it. And that sounds like the worst. I don't want to go anywhere near a wood chipper. I'm terrified of wood chippers.

John Shull 1:07:33

I mean, I It's probably quicker than you think once you get to that one of the vital organs or one.

Nick VinZant 1:07:38

But that moment of sheer terror when you're like, oh, fuck, yeah. Any kind of heavy machinery death?

John Shull 1:07:46

Oh, yeah, for sure. Absolutely.

Nick VinZant 1:07:50

What's your number one? Or well, I mean, what's your honor, but I mentioned

John Shull 1:07:54

so kind of staying along the bugs like I've ants, like I have a I hate ants. I mean, we had answered my house a couple of summers ago, like one of the kids left out something on the floor. And it I mean, I wouldn't go into that room. Like it just bothered the hell out of me.

Nick VinZant 1:08:13

Okay, okay. I mean, I'm not too worried about him. I can step on him.

John Shull 1:08:18

Yeah, you think until there's 1000 of them and they just keep coming. I have water like flooding. Like I know that. That's not necessarily irrational. But like every time it rains, I think to myself, like is my basement gonna flood today? Because it used to flood every time it's sprinkled.

Nick VinZant 1:08:37

Yeah, okay, that one makes a little bit of sense. Not really worried about flooding.

John Shull 1:08:43

Like eating fruit and vegetables from like, grocery stores. Like are they covering bugs? Are there bugs inside of them? Like I could you know, you see these different Facebook in and social media videos about bugs, you know, on the surface and things that you can't see like it's freaks me out.

Nick VinZant 1:09:03

Always worried about biting into something like a popcorn kernel and it just cracks your teeth. Like I'm always worried about that. I'm careful when I eat certain things that like Oh, that'd be careful.

John Shull 1:09:14

Yeah, you know um, for me it's like you go to bite into an apple and there's just like it's like a rotten core and there's just shit in there.

Nick VinZant 1:09:22

I don't want to think I don't think about that. I'm just saying it's an

John Shull 1:09:25

irrational fear and then ladders

Nick VinZant 1:09:30

Oh, I think that's worth it though. Especially as you get older you start to get a little bit more scared of ladders.

John Shull 1:09:35

Anytime I have to get on like a ladder i just i My knees shake. My heart starts racing.

Nick VinZant 1:09:44

Yeah, I can I get it. That kind of along those lines. One of mine is jumping. Like I've reached an age where I feel like if I jump off of this thing, my knees might just shatter into pieces like my whole bot legs could just crumble and break Mike, I'm gonna tear if I jump off this one step, the ACL, MCL, meniscus, femur, all of it's just gonna crack.

John Shull 1:10:09

It's all just going. It's all gone.

Nick VinZant 1:10:11

All gone. My other one is caves. I don't ever want to be in a cave.

John Shull 1:10:18

Yeah, I don't ever want to be in a cave either.

Nick VinZant 1:10:23

Oh, okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless if you get a chance. Let us know what are some of your biggest irrational fears, things that you really shouldn't be afraid of like wood chippers, but you just are. And as always, if you have the time, leave us a rating or review. It really helps us out doesn't have to be some big thing. Just a couple of quick words. We really appreciate it.