From frozen alpine lakes high in the mountains to icy rivers in the heart of Alaska, Luc Mehl has spent years chasing Wild Ice. We talk the increasing popularity and danger of Wild Ice Skating, the best ice rescue techniques and skating on thin ice. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Pops/Sodas.
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Luc Mehl: 01:37
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Candle of the Month: 51:59
Top 5 Pops/Sodas: 56:08
Interview with Wild Ice Skater Luc Mehl
Nick VinZant 0:12
Welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant. Coming up in this episode, wild ice skating, and the best pops, or sodas, or soda pops, whatever you want to call it.
Luc Mehl 0:25
I mean, in the simplest terms, it's just this like, like childhood play, it's super easy. It's the scariest, it's certainly the highest consequence, the current of the water means that there are zones of thicker and thinner ice and you can't, you can't reliably read that from the surface. And then if you break through ice, and there's a current below you, that is just, that's a terrible formula. There's a great guideline here, it's called the 110. One. And that refers to one minute, 10 minutes, one hour than the first minute is, that's when you really need to get your breathing under control. I want
Nick VinZant 1:04
to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance to subscribe, leave us a rating or review, we really appreciate 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 has spent more than a decade chasing wild ice, everything from high altitude alpine lakes, two rivers and marshes. This is wild ice skater loop Mel, is wild ice skating fundamentally different than ice skating? Or is it really just ice skating outside?
Luc Mehl 1:44
It's kind of a dorky term. And I have I have a little like into internal battle about how much to use it or promote it. Because I mean, before there was wild ice skating, there was just ice skating. I mean, the what's really different is that in the rink, you're not skating over water, right? And so the outdoor ice there, I guess there is always a chance of breaking through the ice and getting wet.
Nick VinZant 2:10
What do you like about it?
Luc Mehl 2:12
I mean, in the simplest terms, it's just this like, like, childhood play, it's super easy. You're gliding, you're changing direction. But it's not like running or jumping or playing basketball or something. And so just the the efficiency of the glide and the forgiveness. I think it's actually quite, it's, it's quite the right way to say I was gonna say it was easy to learn. It's not that it's easy to learn. But it's, it doesn't take long to get to be able to do the basic stuff to move around, like half an hour, anybody can get out there and half an hour and feel like okay, I'm skating, like those are all super rewarding aspects of it for me.
Nick VinZant 2:51
There is something about it, though, when I watch it, like even though it's kind of a simple thing. Like, it seems crazy. It seems totally crazy. What is it about it? Like? Why do you think that that is? Well,
Luc Mehl 3:03
I mean, like what part of our human evolution thought, okay, it'd be really smart to slide around on these sharp blades on hard material that can break under our feet, right? Like, that doesn't really serve human evolution at all. But it goes way back, like historically, you know, 1000s of years. I think. And I don't know if this is true, but when I was in high school physics, I still remember this where the teacher said, or the book, whatever said that the lowest friction setting you can find on Earth is a skim of water on ice. And so I think there's probably this just human you know, Neanderthal brain. It's just like, Whoa, this is cool. I'm traveling without friction. And that definitely feels true. For me the glide, we talk a lot about the glide. It's like I just I just went 30 feet on one stride, that it's so fun and novel.
Nick VinZant 3:59
Is it dangerous? Do you feel like it's a dangerous thing?
Luc Mehl 4:03
You know what? And I do pay attention to this because I teach I'm ice rescue instructor. What goes wrong most often is our impact injuries. So maybe breaking a wrist, landing on a knee or an elbow, hitting your head, that'd be pretty serious on ice. So that's what goes wrong. Most of the time, statistically, what people I think are more aware of and more worried about the perceived risk is of breaking through ice and going into the water and that is super scary. Statistically, it's not as big a deal.
Nick VinZant 4:41
How often would you say that like okay, has that happened to you before when you've been out doing it where you just crack through it?
Luc Mehl 4:47
It happens quite often when I am on on shallow water and I know the consequences going to my knees and not much past that. So like we will skate a bunch of marshes and swim I'm here and there. It's like, oh, no, I got my feet wet. You know, it's not a big deal. On deeper ice, I don't, I don't really mess with thin ice when it's deeper water. But so this season in particular and most aware of what's going on in in south central Alaska, I think that there were three or four people that broke through the ice in the early weeks of the skating season. And that feels like a lot to me. But there were a lot of people going out hundreds and hundreds. So again, statistically, I don't know how significant that is. And I don't think for any of those people that it was a scary experience.
Nick VinZant 5:36
It's usually not a I
Luc Mehl 5:38
just thought I better add to that, that we just we Eagle River, which is just outside of Anchorage, where I live, there was actually a fatality just last week where a woman went on river ice, and that's a different story. Because you've got current under the under the ice, it's a much scarier, higher risk environment. And a woman was swept under the ice just last week, she was out walking her dogs. So so there is there's real risk to it for sure. I shouldn't underplay that. Is
Nick VinZant 6:11
this something that not to not to kind of relate this back to what we did the event that we just talked about? But is this the kind of thing like, Look, if something happens to somebody, they're usually pushing it? Or they just got really unlucky? Or is this more of a thing that like, oh, this can happen to anybody at any time? I
Luc Mehl 6:29
think it's, it's rarely a surprise. I think the people that break through are thinking Oh, yep, you know, I know I'm pushing it, and, and those. So for the three or four people that I talked to you this year, they're all wearing safety gear, they've got ice picks, they might have a life vest on like, they kind of know they're pushing it. So it's not a big surprise within this community. I will say and I don't know how, how in the weeds you want to get with any of this. But early season iced, these, these breakthroughs that I'm describing, that's really different than late season ice. And the difference is that now the thickness is a pretty good proxy for strength. So if you go out there, and you know, there's four inches of ice, you're pretty much good to go as a skater. If I try that same thing, and March four inches of ice isn't necessarily strong enough to support my weight. And it's a question of, sort of the internal strength of the ice and ice can rot what from within, especially when it gets a bunch of solar radiation. But for example, in January of this year, I guess almost a whole year ago, in New Hampshire, there were three ice fishing fatalities in four days, something like that. And it was like eight inches of ice. That's shouldn't be enough ice. But it was enough ice for them to be driving ATVs and snow machines out. But then in the late afternoon with a bunch of solar radiation, that ice was rotten, and a few people broke through and drowned.
Nick VinZant 8:05
It might not make this a very good analogy, but I think it'll make enough sense, right? Like so it can be like four inches of solid ice, like concrete, or it can be like four inches of solid ice, kind of like Swiss cheese. Yeah,
Speaker 1 8:17
that's right. On. Yeah, if you just make those holes really small. That's a pretty good analogy. The what's going on is it's the, what rots first are the boundaries between nice crystals. And so if you could kind of put all the holes of that Swiss cheese model up the grant screen boundaries. And then once those boundaries are shot, the crystals can kind of slide or break past one another. That's the difference between the early ice and the late ice. All right, so
Nick VinZant 8:45
you need this much ice, like how many inches centimeters, whatever of ice do you need? Like, okay, you can do it at this much. You really should wait till this much.
Speaker 1 8:57
Yeah, you're gonna get different answers depending on who you ask. And if you ask the municipality, they're gonna give you a really big number, right? Because they want to err on the side of so for example, in Anchorage, I think they'll say you need five inches before you consider going out on ice skating, like at five inches, maybe the city puts a sign up that says or takes takes the sign down that says then ice. The physics of five inches is that that's a that can support a huge load. But the city wants to make sure that a group of kids can play hockey and maybe encounter a thin spot and still have enough ice. So there's that answer. And then for me personally with the the skating I do, and it's often in remote settings where there isn't anybody to help or anybody to tell you how to time how thick the ice is. The magic numbers for me are two inches and four inches. So that's is that five centimeters and 10 centimeters. At two inches. They'll support me and me I can, I can kind of get away with it, but I'm on high alert. And I test the ice strength as I go pretty frequently, four inches is like, just kind of like I can, I can relax a little bit, let the pressure off my shoulders, and it's like, Okay, sweet green light, we can, we can run with this, I'll go faster, I'll check less frequently. So those are the numbers that I keep track of two and four. And I check them throughout the outing.
Nick VinZant 10:26
When you look at kind of the ice, like say, like it was using a lake for an easy example, right? Like, well, you generally find like, if it's two inches on the shore, it's two inches in the middle, are you going to be like No, but it's going to be two inches here, and it's gonna be three feet here, it's gonna be half an inch here, or is it pretty like now when it's pretty uniform throughout whatever surface of body of water you're using.
Speaker 1 10:47
So the strategy is, you always want to know how strong the ice is under you. But it's unrealistic to check it every three feet, right? There are different ways to gauge the strength of ice, and we could talk about that. But the shortcut is to assume that any ice that looks the same that has the same kind of texture or surface is probably from the same age, same sort of crystallization event. And so if I test that ice on its edge, I will generally assume that it's the same throughout that body of ice. But then that body can be bound by different bodies. And there's usually visual cues that you've crossed into a different chunk of ice. And it can be that it can be a little step up, or a little step down where there was older ice that was thicker, and therefore more buoyant, and so it stands tall. Or it can be the color if there was snow on the surface, or even a wind texture. There, there are a lot of different ways to sort of get clued in that I've just crossed from one, one sort of, I'll treat it as uniform chunk of ice into another chunk of ice. So I stop and I check the thickness, the strength of that new body of ice. That makes sense.
Nick VinZant 12:09
Yeah, right. Like if it looks different. Check it again.
Speaker 1 12:12
Exactly. It's that simple. And it's easy to say that it's that simple. But then when you're flying out there, because you can move at 10 miles an hour. It does sometimes take some some just sort of have this like a personal contract to stop and then recheck the strength of the ice.
Nick VinZant 12:29
How do you check it you just stick a pole sharp pole down there is what I'm imagining. Exactly.
Speaker 1 12:35
So you we carry our ice probes, and they're made specifically for some of this outdoor ice skating, and you just smash it smash smash Smash, they've got these big steel tips, sharp steel tips. And with that, it's kind of like a personal calibration. But if I, if I smack at the ice twice, and I'm able to break through it. I know it's just enough to support my weight. But right on the edge. If I smashed through it three times, four times, five times before the pool pops all the way through, then I'm feeling pretty confident about the strength of the ice.
Nick VinZant 13:12
Now, is there any kind of advantage to skating thin ice, right? Like, are there certain people that would be like, Oh, but thin ice is the best ice.
Speaker 1 13:21
There are certainly a sub community of skaters that really seek out that thin ice thrill. A lot of those folks are wearing dry suits and different protective equipment because I think they know they're more likely to break through the main motivation to skin to to skate. Thin Ice is that that's generally black ice or the crystal clear ice so you get to see through it. And if there are cool textures on the on the lake bed, that can be really rewarding visually. There are also some fun sounds and then for the people that are sort of motivated by that sort of playing on the edge of the their risk envelope. Then, you know, you're always a little bit on edge like oh, I just pulled off something and, and so so that does appeal to a number of skaters. And then there are a number that don't mess with it. They wait for that sort of four inches. They wait to see that somebody else has already gone out their thing.
Nick VinZant 14:20
But now the see how long is the season, right? Because how does the snow not just cover up the ice on the lake? It
Speaker 1 14:27
depends where you go. But, for example, in Alaska, it's pretty typical that we'll have a sort of a first freeze if it's cold and clear before the snow falls. And so that'll be the first window of skating. And then it is true that we'll get snow on on that ice. But if there's a thought and this happens more and more now with with climate change, if there's a bunch of range rain or if there's a bunch of warm temperatures, then that snow can can melt or partially melt and, and re resurface the lake and be skateable. Again, that type of snow we call White Ice, because it's usually got some of the trapped air that that was in the snow. Black ice is the stuff that's just perfectly clear, it grows down into the water. White Ice is ice that kind of grows up into the air, because it's, it's capturing snow and turning it into ice. But we'll get several of those pulses through the winter, even in the middle of January, if a big warm front moves through. The other thing that can happen is that the load of the snow on the ice can cause it can imagine just the ice getting bent down into the surface of the water. And that can cause water to come up through cracks and holes and then flood the ice. And then that will again cause like a new surface of White Ice,
Nick VinZant 16:02
would you say is there a difference between like, okay, skating on a lake versus a river versus a marsh?
Speaker 1 16:09
Yeah, there's there's big differences between those. What I like about Marsh skating is that the consequences feel less significant. If I break through, it's again, that sort of knee deep water. And that makes me feel like, Oh, sure, I'll try this, I'll skate some thinner ice than I would otherwise. It's also super fun and dynamic to carve around all of the marsh grasses, that can be a lot of fun. Skating lakes. That's where you I at least feel more confident about the uniformity of the ice. And I really liked the large lakes or we have a handful of, of canoe trail systems here. So it's like, you'd canoe it's a lake and then Portage to the next lake and then Portage to the next. And we've able to escape those. So you can you can do these loops and get on 14 different lakes in four hours, you know, covering 20 miles. So that style of skating is very fun. And then rivers is what I've done the least of because it's the scariest, it's certainly the highest consequence, the current of the water means that there are zones of thicker and thinner ice and you can't, you can't reliably read that from the surface. And so it's much more likely that you would accidentally find that ice. And then if you break through ice and there's a current below you that is just That's a terrible formula.
Nick VinZant 17:33
Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Yeah, you bet. What's your favorite place to do this at?
Speaker 1 17:41
Well, I'm completely biased about being in south central Alaska. And, and we, we don't get a particularly long season, but we get these really different environments, from marshes, to rivers, to glacial lakes, where you can kind of go up near icebergs to some of these big lakes that are like 1000 feet deep. So I'm totally biased about about doing it here in Alaska.
Nick VinZant 18:05
Is there any place that you would say like, that's kind of like every wild ice skater who really loves it wants to go here,
Speaker 1 18:13
that might be lake by call in Russia, because that's the lake that's that's most reliably skateable. In fact, they have I don't know if they still have, but they used to host races skating events there. I think it must just be like a true desert with very little precipitation. And the ice grows to be meters thick, like just ridiculously thick. And so you there you're out there with hovercrafts and teams and camps, mobile camps along the ice. So that's probably the most most recognized destination within the skating community for outdoor ice.
Nick VinZant 18:51
How popular is this? Is it going up going down staying the same?
Speaker 1 18:55
I think it's getting quite a bit more popular. And I think part of that is that with some of the changes with climate, we're getting longer skating windows. And I think the other part is that it's it's kind of a low barrier activity. Like if you already have skates or if you upgrade to new skates. That's, that's the main expense. The safety equipment is pretty affordable. And so I think there's a lot of a lot of families a lot of young adults that are sort of rediscovering skating. What is your best tip? This isn't a direct answer, but I feel like anybody that goes out on on good ice smooth ice and doesn't fall doesn't get injured is going to end that day thinking like that was awesome, and I want to do more of it. And so the best tip I think it's probably just to go try it and and I would not recommend going to some novel place within ice that nobody's been to Before as your first outing, like I'd go where people go, whether that's a city maintained or monitored lake or otherwise, bring a bring a thermos of hot chocolate and make a make an easy fun day out of it. But I think just that, that that sort of childhood ease of travel when you get to glide like that, I think everybody comes out of that feeling like that was a worthwhile use of their time.
Nick VinZant 20:24
And it's still a wind from my wife, but she always says like, people love to go, we like we like that, like when you're just like, Oh,
Speaker 1 20:33
it is completely that this, that's great. My wife and I have this too. And she'll go, we really log and then we'll reach a rest stop. And I'll just say we, you know, like, like, that's our little internal joke. So yeah, we're same boat for sure.
Nick VinZant 20:47
Um, are people starting to push it? Do you think that it's getting more popular that people are kind of starting to push it? Yeah,
Speaker 1 20:54
yep. And I think I'm one of those people. We've done some remote trips. And I've, I've come back mostly like years later, once I got more formal in my in my training with ice rescue and understanding what can go wrong. And looking back and being like, Whoa, I can't believe I did that. Generally, we can't believe I did that without testing the ISO strength as we went or without carrying the right safety equipment or without having practiced some of the rescue scenarios. But for sure, I think like any sport, there are, there's a psych a bell curve, right. And there's that top 10% of the enthusiast are going to be pushing what's possible and trying to redefine what's possible. These are like the, the free solo climbers in the rock climbing world. And for ice, those are probably the people that are playing on thin ice and remote ice. And that's probably going to go really well for a lot of people, and then it's probably going to bite a few people in the butt.
Nick VinZant 21:54
Is it Ultimately though, when you kind of look at the danger factor of it? Is it just coming down to like, look, it's not so much that you're doing it in this place. It's that you're doing it on this thin ice, right? Like if throwing out a dramatic example, you find a lake at the top of Mount Everest, right? Like is that? Is it crazy? Or not crazy? But is it dangerous? Because of the remoteness? Or is it dangerous? Like no, you're just that ice isn't good enough to do that?
Speaker 1 22:21
Yeah, that's another great question. It's It's like our this is, again, sort of in the weeds. But one framework to talk about risk assessment is is and this is largely coming from the the natural disaster community like landslides, earthquakes, is to think about risk in terms of the hazard, the exposure and the vulnerability. So the hazard is a thing that can go wrong. Like, it's something we don't have any control over. And that would be like the strength of the ice being on thin ice could also be cold air, cold water, that blowing air like all of these environmental factors that we don't control. The exposure is what's exposed to that hazard. And that's often a decision for us, like I am choosing to skate this lake on the top of these Himalayan peaks or at Mount Everest, whatever, yeah, whatever. Yeah. And then the vulnerability is like, how bad is the damage going to be if things do go wrong, if I'm exposed to this hazard, like, what's going to happen if I do break through this ice, and that vulnerability, we have a lot of control over. So if I go through the ice wearing a dry suit, and a life vest, and with these pics already in my hands, it's not that big of a deal, it's actually kind of fun. If I go through the ice as a, as a three year old kid, and my parent is 200 feet away, that's a big deal. Right? So the vulnerability depends on on your experience, your training your equipment, so that all those three things together exposure, vulnerability hazards, those all kind of overlap to, to define that overall risk. And, and so it's this balance of where are you doing it? What's your experience? What equipment are you using? And then how good are your communication skills with your team? You know, somebody recognized and is I'm not say it, or to somebody is somebody in our group really pushing and not checking in with the group because of their own personal objectives? Like all of those things come into play.
Nick VinZant 24:29
So looking at this, like, where is this? Why does that ice look like that? That kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 24:37
So this is rabbit Lake. This is a five mile four and a half mile hike from Anchorage. And this was from late October, which was the earliest I'd ever skated. But we just had these unusual, cold and clear conditions unusual for October that allowed this ice to form quickly. and cleanly so there's, there's very little trapped air in it. And this setting which is up in the alpine up above tree line, that means you can tell there's no soil there. There's no trees on the edges, like dropping pollen into the lake. So it's just a very pristine lake bed and ice.
Nick VinZant 25:18
Now, how thick would the ice there be?
Unknown Speaker 25:21
What's your guess?
Nick VinZant 25:22
Three inches?
Speaker 1 25:24
Yeah, right, right on three to four inches. Yep, spot on. So we go to a lake like this. And, and I and I escaped the whole perimeter. Because if we go back to, or say go back, but we skate the whole perimeter, because that sort of if something goes wrong, it close to the edge. Right, you can get out of the water. And I test the strength of the ice along the entire perimeter of the lake. And then I got some confidence, like it's all three to four inches, let's start moving towards the center, and playing around with where these rocks were.
Nick VinZant 25:57
Now how, okay, on a scale of like, one to 10? How rare is this kind of an occurrence, right? Like you're gonna get this happens every year like, man, I've never seen that before,
Speaker 1 26:08
to the combination in this video of being able to visit alpine lakes, and then have such good ice, that this is the first time I've ever been able to do it after 1213 years of of pursuing this stuff pretty pretty actively. So I think this was very rare. In my experience, we'll get just good ice, other other years, other times of the year. But the combination of this Alpine setting with that ice with the lake bed that was unique here.
Nick VinZant 26:40
So that's a river then I'm assuming, right? Yeah, this is a
Speaker 1 26:43
very low flow River, which you can maybe get a sense of because of the meanders. And so this is one where I'm a little like every one of those dark bands that we skate over. It's like, is that going to be thin ice. And so initially, we were testing the thickness quite frequently. And then we start getting confident that it's well behaved ice, and then kind of opened the gates and started moving a bit faster. That
Nick VinZant 27:09
really kind of shows like the difference you were talking about. And like, Okay, well, there's a change in the ice. Yeah, like there I can see like, okay, that, and it does look like Oh, that's pretty dramatic, right? It's not like, is this light blue or light baby blue, right? It's like, oh, that's blue. And that's red kind of thing.
Speaker 1 27:27
Yep. And that's, that's, I think that's pretty, pretty typical. I, you know, if it's, if it's a color shade like that, it's usually pretty obvious, or there are some settings that have these little frost flowers, and you can get like different flower density. These are the crystals that grow on the ice. But that's a really cool way to see different bodies of ice as well. There's all these really cool visual indicators. And
Nick VinZant 27:54
this is, that's a marsh right? Oh, that's all over the place.
Speaker 1 27:59
Yeah, so this is a against some, some low volume, low current creeks, and then a bunch of swampy marshy lands. This is an environment favored by muskrat. So we'll see a bunch of little muskrat mounds throughout the day.
Nick VinZant 28:20
Do you feel like you have to be in really good shape to do it for a long time? Or is this kind of like, man, it's pretty easy, honestly. Gosh, it's
Speaker 1 28:27
pretty easy. I will say that. If I do a long day on my hockey skates, I definitely feel that in my legs. And then if I do that same long day, and my Nordic skates, that's what we're wearing in this video. They're so efficient, the Nordic skates that, that I don't get nearly as much fatigue.
Nick VinZant 28:47
Okay, so this is a rescue kind of walk me walk me through it a little bit. So
Speaker 1 28:52
this is one of the ice rescue training courses that I taught earlier this winter. And I I only teach these on thin ice. When I took my formal training, we had something like 18 inches of ice and the the team prepped it by cutting out a huge hole nice but but getting out of ice was kind of like getting out of a swimming pool. It didn't. There wasn't much to it. And I that's a very unrealistic experience. And so my philosophy and all of my outdoor education work I do is I want the training to be as realistic as possible. And so we went out to this lake, I had scoped it out ahead of time and I knew that it was just barely thick enough to support a person's weight. And so we go out and I have this progression of of exercises that people work through to get comfortable pulling themselves out of the water. They're wearing dry suits, and life vests in these clips, but then the final iteration of the courses is the option to go in just in their street clothes just in their skating. Close. And so most people choose to do that because we're close to the cars close to home. But that is a very different experience going in without all the extra flotation, your face goes under the water. There's a little bit of a panic even for me doing this professionally and having practiced it a bunch, like when I when I do that, as part of this training, I have that same panic attack was just like, What the heck, you know, I didn't? It just makes sense why people panic and why that causes so much problems when people break through the ice.
Nick VinZant 30:31
Now, in that one, why is she covering her mouth? Is that like a training part of it is that oh, that she just happened to do that?
Speaker 1 30:38
No, that's training. And it's a great good observation. What she's trying to avoid, there is this gasp reflex and your previous episode with the with the cold weather expert. Talked about this as well, like we have this, this, this reflex as mammals. And, and I can't explain it as well as is your PhD. But I think of it as like, the human brain is like something's about to go wrong here. And I want to get as much oxygen in my lungs as possible, and lock it off. And that's a great response. Unless your water Your mouth is at the water line or below. And then you can pull in a bunch of water and have trouble breathing. And so the the technique to avoid that is just to try to build muscle memory that you automatically put a hand over your mouth, when you realize you're about to break through the ice.
Nick VinZant 31:36
I think if I can kind of paraphrase what he said really quick is like basically our body is just conditioned that if we get really cold really quickly, we take a huge breath of air and in the water, you can fill it up with water, and then you drown and die, which is a problem. You know, when you look at that now if you but if somebody was by themselves, right? In ice, that's, you know, not I can put my feet on the ground? Can you get out of that? Or is it like? Is it easy? If you're on the side? Could you pull yourself out with your hands? Or do you have to have like equipment or somebody with you to get you out of there? It's
Speaker 1 32:14
pretty easy to gosh, I mean, I shouldn't even say that pretty easy. What I will say is that if you carry the ice picks, and this is like the $10 investment, I mean, there's no reason not to have ice picks, we wear them around our necks, you can see him in these videos. With ice picks, that's what provides the traction to claw your way out of the ice. Then that makes it much easier to get yourself out of the ice. With enough practice, you can do it without the ice picks. But at that point, it's kind of like a party trick. Like why would you? Why would you do without the Yeah, like everybody should have the ice picks. They're cheap, they're easy, they're intuitive. So for me personally, with the practice that I've done, I'm not that worried about breaking through the ice, even if I'm on my own in the middle of nowhere, because I've gone through the motions, I know what to expect. And I know how to how to get myself out. Yeah. And then we also, we also carry a rope in case somebody does have trouble getting out. There's a great, there's a great guideline here, it's called the 110 one. And that refers to one minute, 10 minutes, one hour than the first minute is, that's when you really need to get your breathing under control. So if you got some air in your, if you got some water in your lungs, when you broke through, or if you just panicked, you have a minute, you can take a minute to chill out, like just get on your back and breathe. That's what matters the most. And then you have about 10 minutes where you can use your muscles where you can functionally tread water. You can grip strength to hold on to the ice picks, or to grab a rope if somebody's throwing you a rope. And then you have maybe an hour ish before you might get hypothermia. And there are some this is tied in most of the ice rescue trainings across the world I assume. And it's a great guideline and it really just just more than anything there to emphasize. The first thing to do is to find a way to relax, just chill out have confidence, make a plan and then and then do it. And if you can get that far the rest is probably going to be just fine. Oh, that's pretty. This is Justin one of my one of the guys I started playing hockey with and he has a lot more skate control than I do is a lot of fun to chase him around.
Nick VinZant 34:43
That's that ice looks a lot different to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1 34:47
this was this was on Kenai Peninsula. So a couple hours south of Anchorage. And it was black ice. So it's that same really nice strong ice that grows down into the water. And then it's got some of these frost flowers on the surface. So this is basically like, crystallized do. That's crazy. It's so cool. And that's what I was mentioning that like, if you saw transition from from more or less frost flowers across a boundary, then you'd think, okay, that ice must be a different age. And that's where I would test it again with the probe. And that's what Pat is doing here. That's
Nick VinZant 35:29
pretty much all the questions that I got. Is there anything that you think that we missed? Or kind of I know, you teach some classes on wild ice skating and rescue, like, how can people find out more that kind of stuff?
Speaker 1 35:40
Yeah, good question. There, there aren't a lot of resources online. Most of the formal training is for is for rescue professionals and fire departments. That's the training that I went through. And a lot of it's not very relevant to recreational skaters. And so the courses I teach in Anchorage, I kind of cherry picked those aspects from the formal training and combine that to what I had learned with my own experience. But there aren't a lot of people doing that there are a few groups in Canada, teaching courses like that, I created an online course to sort of fill that gap for people that don't have access to in person training here in Alaska. But I think at the most fundamental level, it's like, if you go out to a lake, and there are a bunch of people that have already been out skating, it's probably a pretty, pretty safe destination for you to be skating on. The caveat there is that that changes in the spring when the when the ice starts to rock, like we talked about earlier. That was a that was a really long, sort of closing thought for you. But that's what comes to mind. Real
Nick VinZant 36:47
quick, I want to take a moment and tell you about one of the sponsors of this show, every plate, every plate is America's Best Value Meal kit, it is the cheapest meal delivery option. And right now, they have some great deals that they're offering to start off 2024. If you are craving steak, they are introducing $1 steak for life. And we've got a special offer from every plate that I'll tell you about in just a second. But one of my favorite things about every plate is just the cost. It's $1.49, a meal, the quality, and the variety. Right now they have 26 tasty and affordable recipes that change every week, they've got breakfast, 15 minute or less meals feel good food, big batch favorite, they've just got all kinds of food changing recipes that I have really enjoyed. And to get to that special deal that they're offering right now. You can get meals for $1.49 plus $1 steaks for life by going to every plate.com/podcast and entering the code 49 pointless. Now you have to have a subscription, and it must be active to qualify and redeem those $1 steaks. But you can get started with every plate for just $1.49 we have put the link in the description plus that code if you want to check it out. Okay, now let's bring in John Shaw and get to the pointless part of his show. What percentage of your life do you feel like you know what you're doing?
John Shull 38:28
I mean, since I've had children zero, and I mean that,
Nick VinZant 38:33
I wouldn't say that maybe 50% of my life, maybe 50% of my life. I know what I'm doing.
John Shull 38:38
I mean, I guess I'm actually thinking about it. workwise Sure. Being a great husband. Yes. Being an excellent lover, definitely. But then you throw fucking kids in there and it all goes to hell. So maybe 50% For me maybe in
Nick VinZant 38:56
things that have an answer, like a definite solid answer. I think I got that pretty figured out like 70 to 75% the problem I think is is that so much of life like you don't really know. Like, is this going to be the right job? Well, you don't know until you take it. By think so much of life you don't know the answer until it's already you've already made the decision.
John Shull 39:18
Also think that's the biggest. Like, that's the scariest thing to people is do you take that chance? I think I think people struggle with that more than you know are how many things are you good at is how many chances do you take in a day that could change things enormously that you don't?
Nick VinZant 39:37
Well? You mean like big things are like little things, obviously big things,
John Shull 39:41
but little things? I mean, what if what if you don't decide to go to the grocery store that day, and you just sit around and do nothing? You know what if you decide not to cut the lawn, then you get a ticket for not cutting your lawn. If you've gotten tickets for not cutting your lawn. Now I'm a maniac about it. I'll cut My lawn in the summer, twice a week sometimes.
Nick VinZant 40:02
So do you really have that much difficult of grass? Or do you just have a crappy mower that you haven't taken in and you need to have it serviced? Because there's no you cannot tell me that you need to cut your lawn twice a week. That's ridiculous.
John Shull 40:15
I mean, I can send you pictures this summer, if you really want we can keep a grass tracker or something. It's I mean, it gets gets long, it probably gets to be four or five, six inches long.
Nick VinZant 40:27
After a week, this is very suspect we're gonna have to put this conversation on hold until this summer when we can evaluate. But that's pretty suspect amount of time to cut in your lawn, to be honest with you. I think I'm pushing it every 10 days and like, Oh, that's a lot. And I live in Seattle. And then, like green is everything here.
John Shull 40:44
I live in Michigan, where? Right now we can't get sun to save our life. I think it's been, like 34 straight days without the sun. No wonder I look translucent right now. Listen,
Nick VinZant 40:58
I don't appreciate that. This is our first show of the year. And you've already brought weather into it. I'd like a formal apology.
John Shull 41:08
I apologize for bringing weather into our first episode of 2024.
Nick VinZant 41:13
Ah, you brought cutting your lawn in. Did you age 40 years in the last week?
John Shull 41:20
Sometimes I wonder I I used to be you know, I was sitting there last, you know, during the New Year's Eve, on New Year's Eve, they could have myself. I'm fine. Sitting right here, dozing off at 10 o'clock. I don't need to be out there at a party or with other people. It's weird
Nick VinZant 41:42
how life changes. Like now if people invited me and like now I just have a lot of responsibility in this time of your life. Right? Like I think if you're out there partying and going out and doing all those kinds of things in your 30s and 40s. You aren't really taking care of whatever you're supposed to be taking care of. You're not really handling your responsibilities. Like no, you shouldn't be tired and worn out and just want to go to bed.
John Shull 42:11
It's like a one beer and I'm more of like I'm falling asleep with a beer in my hand. So that's that's where I am with my life.
Nick VinZant 42:17
I watched bluey. I loved it. Ah,
John Shull 42:20
I love blue. Okay, are you kidding me?
Nick VinZant 42:22
I love blue. All right. We're not getting in this conversation about bluey mowing lawns and the weather.
John Shull 42:27
You brought to be fair, you brought bluey up, but I'm not going to ask for an apology because it's a great show.
Nick VinZant 42:35
Okay, you ready? The first
John Shull 42:37
shot outs of the new year? Oh,
Nick VinZant 42:38
yeah. Let's see, you're supposed to do something you did you do it?
John Shull 42:42
No, I did not do it. Okay,
Nick VinZant 42:45
completely started turning 24 off, right? You were supposed to, like rhyme it or find only people with movie names or some kind of theme and you just dropped the ball entirely.
John Shull 42:55
I completely forgot. So you just set it. So hey, you're right. Starting? I mean, starting 2024 of the way,
Nick VinZant 43:02
the same way we Okay. All right. We are going
John Shull 43:05
we are going into year six. You think I could get my shit together? By now?
Nick VinZant 43:11
Oh, no, I know that if I asked you to make any kind of change, it's going to be anywhere between three to six months before you finally do it. Oh, I did a poll. Now that I think about it. I did a poll.
John Shull 43:21
Can we just get this out of the way? Good? No,
Nick VinZant 43:24
because this is what we were talking about. So I asked the audience how much of your life do you feel like you know what you're doing? 42% said 25% or less 32% said 25 to 50 18% said 50 to 75. And only 8% said 75% or more? I would be willing to bet that 78% That said 75% or more is probably the section of the audience that knows the least. Right? Like if you think you know something. That's what's weird about life, the more you know, the more you realize you don't know what's going on. It's probably why stupid people are so sure of themselves in the internet comments.
John Shull 44:01
Well, all right. So listen, this is gonna be the last episode of The bangers. Because I got I got I got a surprise. I don't know if it's a game. I don't know how you describe it. But next next episode. Okay, we're gonna get you. I'm gonna get you so, okay. I'd say that's the only that's the only way I'm gonna tease it. But
Nick VinZant 44:22
do you actually, do you actually mean the next episode? Or do you mean like six months from now? Next
John Shull 44:27
episode this. This has been something I've seen because I've, you know, I used to do fun facts. And then I used to, I used to, you know, do some questions and then we went to bangers so I was like, what are the people want? What, you know, what do they want? What do they want to see or have Nick VinZant Say to them? So, okay, so you know, we'll, we'll see. We'll see what happens.
Nick VinZant 44:51
All right, target date, march 2027.
John Shull 44:54
If you're if if your blood type was to come back a certain kind of food. What do you think? It would be soda
Nick VinZant 45:00
and chicken tenders. I think that's what what would yours come back as
John Shull 45:10
it would just be a black line just dead now probably like beef jerky, like the sausage, bacon beef jerky, like those things.
Nick VinZant 45:23
God, that would be amazing if your blood type was just the food that you ate the most.
John Shull 45:27
I know it's alright, so this one is more of a theoretical question for you. But which out of these two bones say you were to break them? Do you think say you were in the middle of a jungle and you broke one of these bones? And you had to obviously get to safety or find somebody for help? Which one of these do you think you could break and do that successfully? your back or your femur, which is the largest bone in your body?
Nick VinZant 45:55
I think that breaking your femur can kill you. Because if you broke your femur, you probably really did something else. Like you could maybe just break your back like a hairline fracture and kind of be okay. But I think that if you break that femur, that's like harder than concrete, like you just did something. That's probably the least of your problems. Me if you break that,
John Shull 46:20
and per usual throwing, throwing realism into the questions is not what I was planning on you doing. But you asked me
Nick VinZant 46:28
a question. Why would you not want what I really thought like, what do you want me to say? Okay, what would be the answer that I could give you that would make you happy?
John Shull 46:35
I gotta try to do my Nick VinZant accent. Oh, God. Well, I
Nick VinZant 46:39
want to hear you do an impression of me.
John Shull 46:41
I didn't actually have one. I was just gonna say, Oh, my fever.
Nick VinZant 46:48
Yeah, dude, I wouldn't want to break my femur you get really hurt. Like you probably did something else. Right? Like it very. And if you break your back, I think that that problem is gonna solve itself. Anyway.
John Shull 46:56
How many bones you break you back in your day? Four. And we're gonna count fingers as one so you can't say like you broke three fingers. Three different
Nick VinZant 47:10
leg. Like twice. Leg once. Skull once. And twice.
John Shull 47:21
You broke your skull. How?
Nick VinZant 47:23
I mean? Yeah, cracked it open.
John Shull 47:24
Well, that says a lot. Okay. 30 seconds. How when? How old were you? How do you do it? I
Nick VinZant 47:32
was eight years old. I had my head down to see how fast I could ride my bike and rode it headfirst into a parked car. Says it's incredible that a human being could survive that if you think about that.
John Shull 47:47
Yeah, I mean, you might not survive it now. But back then. Oh, no.
Nick VinZant 47:51
Good. No, I mean, you can't really well, you can't see it a little bit. There's a massive scar goes all the way across my head. Oh, I think it was like 72 stitches on the inside and 72 on the outside. So that's about 144 stitches.
John Shull 48:06
Wow. For an eight year old and especially a tiny one like you were it's a lot of stitches.
Nick VinZant 48:12
Oh, I was in I was like yeah, like it was life threatening injury. Thanks for bringing up childhood trauma.
John Shull 48:17
No, I feel kind of bad even asking. Okay, well, let's just move on to Oh,
Nick VinZant 48:24
okay. All right. You will make fun of my dead mom. Won't make fun of my mom now.
John Shull 48:28
We're not starting off 2020 for them, but the dead mom conversation. Love your mom. She's a great lady. All right. Rip alright. Don't Don't don't make it seem like he
Nick VinZant 48:39
should have just bailed on it when you when you messed it up.
John Shull 48:44
Fucking See, that's what that's one of those moments. Where
Nick VinZant 48:48
are you digging back into you're digging back into it. You had to come back around, thought I
John Shull 48:53
was in control. And then in the blink of an eye was out of control. So people who say they, they think they have 75% of their life and controller are wrong. So Well, I 100%
Nick VinZant 49:04
agree. I think 25 to 50. Anybody says more than anybody says higher than 50%. You better watch out for that person.
John Shull 49:13
Putting on some kind of list or something.
Nick VinZant 49:14
Exactly. blacklisted. All
John Shull 49:17
right. Best drunk food. And I'm not talking about you know, you've had a couple of drinks. And you know, you're kind of hungry. I'm talking about like, you're completely sloshed. And this is this food will just put you into ecstasy. You may fall asleep with it on your chest and you wake up in the morning in the same position. So I have nachos, pizza or tacos.
Nick VinZant 49:42
I would say it's very close between nachos and tacos or nachos and pizza. I would say it's very close between nachos and pizza, but I would give pizza the ultimate edge. I think pizza is probably the best junk food.
John Shull 49:54
See I it's tough because I've gone the pizza route. I've also gone the taco route If I put nachos as three pizzas, two tacos as one, I
Nick VinZant 50:05
don't see how that you can possibly put nachos ahead behind tacos. Because nachos and tacos are kind of the same thing if you think about it. Yeah to
John Shull 50:14
sir. I mean to a certain degree but tacos. You tell me. I mean, you go to Del Taco or Taco Bell or one of those fast food restaurants like that. And you're getting a, you know, a wrapped taco that just doesn't, you know, tickle your fancy.
Nick VinZant 50:28
No, I'd rather have nachos me. Well, you know, I'm going to eat tacos, but I'd rather have nachos any day of the week. Or like
John Shull 50:35
when we were younger and used to party and you would wait in line for that stupid taco truck or whatever it was burger truck. I
Nick VinZant 50:41
was the that was still the best. That was still the best. That's still one of the best burgers I've ever had in my life. But I never had it sober. Can you think of what's what's the best food that you've ever had in your life? Like, what would you say is the best single instance of food that you've ever had in my in your life? Oh,
John Shull 50:59
I mean, it was a flaming yawn. Steak from from a local steakhouse here. I mean, by far, it
Nick VinZant 51:06
was such a snob. What I
John Shull 51:10
mean, you asked ever, I mean that thing. Just give me a second. What's yours? I'm just gonna sit here and think about it for a minute.
Nick VinZant 51:18
Mine was actually I don't remember the name of the place. I don't remember what I got. And I don't even remember really where it was. But I was on vacation in like, someplace in Oregon. And there was an Indian taco truck or an Indian truck, like an Indian food truck. And I got something that was the best thing I've ever had in my life. And I would it's a five hour drive from where I've lived, where I live now. And I thought about making that five hour drive to go get it again.
John Shull 51:48
Well, I think we need to put this on record. If if I ever come out to Seattle, we make that five hour trip. Oh, we would do it in a heartbeat. Listen, is it time? Is it time? I
Nick VinZant 51:59
was wondering if you were going to remember that it's the first of the month.
John Shull 52:04
I mean, I fail on everything else on this podcast except for one thing. And that is this right here.
Nick VinZant 52:11
Okay, well, with that build up. It's time the outlaw candle connoisseur Rides Again, candle of the month
Okay, one more time.
John Shull 52:33
Well, thanks for that intro. It's gonna be a simple one actually. I usually go a little different. But winter night stars is the candle the money wounds from the Yankee Candle Company, it's actually on sale as of this recording. So probably on sale throughout the early stages of January and get it for $15. Once again, as most of my candles that I've showcased here over the last couple of years, you can get a multiple different kinds of wicks, in terms of numbers styles, you can get them different sizes, burned times gonna run you know, normal 30 to 180 hours depending on the size and the number of books you get. But it's amazing friend of mine actually because believe it or not people locally who listen to this that know me who were are a guest every time they find out on the candle kind of sewer. So actually somebody that knows me personally gave me this candle back. I don't know, August, September, it was near my birthday. And I lit it up probably sometime in early December. And I mean it went it lasted a weekend. But it's amazing. So you're gonna get obviously to winter night stars is the title. You're gonna get a very, like piney. Almost like ginger rally, or ginger soda smell. But it's I don't even know how to describe it. It's like you're in the middle of a of the Appalachians in January. With clear air, blue skies and just trees all around. It's amazing.
Nick VinZant 54:17
That was the that was probably the best description that you've given for candle of the month watch that was a good description right like you took me there before you were kind of just name and smells and things like that but now you set the setting for it. Well set the setting that's a start for 2024 like I
John Shull 54:35
said if if it's not you know if it's not me failing at everything else in the first episode, I had to make sure I nail that down. So what
Nick VinZant 54:44
though but okay, now what amount of burn time are you going to look at and be like, Oh, that's just not enough burn time for that candle.
John Shull 54:52
I mean, well, I mean, I usually stay away from the they're called trial mo I don't mean to say this. Like you don't know what they're called trial size. Look The smaller ones, I don't know anything about candles, they usually go from, you know, six to 18 hours, like I feel to get the, I kind of take the series actually, to get the full aroma from start to finish, you need to have to have a candle that has a good lifespan, which, you know, it's usually a couple of days worth of burning.
Nick VinZant 55:23
Do as a candle was like, Well, you have you found candles where you would start them off and you'd be like, Oh, that's good. And then it goes bad or vice versa. Like where do you think is the sweet spot of a candle?
John Shull 55:38
You I mean, when you first light it? I mean, obviously you get everything on the top. And then it Sue's out. And then you'd be like, you know, a day later. What's the smell? Oh, it's the middle part of the candle. And then the middle part is probably the sweet spot.
Nick VinZant 55:55
Okay, okay. God is just this is it fascinating to me that you know this much about candles?
John Shull 56:02
I wish I didn't. I wish I didn't.
Nick VinZant 56:05
Okay, are you ready for our top five?
John Shull 56:08
I am. I think it's going to be a controversial one. But we'll see where we're where we land here.
Nick VinZant 56:14
Okay, so our top five is top five pops. Or sodas. Top five sodas or pops or soda pop. However you want to phrase this. What's your number five.
John Shull 56:24
I stay I stayed pretty. Pretty generic. But But anyways, we'll see where how this goes. My number five. I'm gonna go with ginger ale.
Nick VinZant 56:33
be hard for me to put ginger ale that high. be hard for me to put ginger ale that high because I would never just drink like, Oh, I'll have a ginger ale. I might mix it with something. I would never just be like, You know what, give me a ginger ale. Because I'm not 95 years old. You want to sanka some fresco with that.
John Shull 56:54
It's good. It's delicious. I I think I think people are gonna think that it's an obscure top five out of everything that's out there. But I'm okay. I'm fine with it. Probably the only choice on my list to where I'm like, You know what? It deserves bottom, my top five for sure.
Nick VinZant 57:12
Okay, I wouldn't put ginger ale in my top 10 I can't think of a single back I'll have some ginger ale by itself. It's a hard pass. My number five is Mountain Dew code red.
John Shull 57:24
Okay, I actually think out of all the Mountain Dew, which I'll get to get to a little bit later. I think that's the worst variant other than the blue one that just came out electric shock or whatever. I think Code Red is the worst variant of Mountain Dew.
Nick VinZant 57:42
I think that there was some times in college in which I would have four or five Mountain Dew code reds just back to back to back. Mountain Dew code red dominated my college years.
John Shull 57:53
Like I said, I'll get to all Mountain Dew and a little a little bit here.
Nick VinZant 57:59
Okay, yeah, it's
John Shull 58:00
number four is root beer.
Nick VinZant 58:04
That's my number four is root beer. I love root beer. I think Luke Root Beer is very underrated.
John Shull 58:10
It is I still don't really know what Root Beer is, or what's in it, or what it really actually tastes like. But it's delicious.
Nick VinZant 58:20
Now, do you have a brand but that you do have a preference or as root beer root beer? To me Root Beer is kind of just root beer like it's all the same? Pretty much.
John Shull 58:30
Yeah, I mean, obviously, we could name the major brands. I don't really know. I mean, I don't have an I had a lot of the operands. But so yeah, root beers just root beer. I
Nick VinZant 58:41
guess I would go a and w if somebody asked me like, well, what kind of root beer would you ultimately want? Well, like a and W Root Beer, I think. But I have no idea what Root Beer is either.
John Shull 58:51
I have no idea. But you're not a gardener. Okay, well, I'm
Nick VinZant 58:55
not even gonna look it up. I don't really want to know. What's your number three.
John Shull 58:59
So my number three and it's kind of a cheap way out of this. But I have coke slash Pepsi as my number three.
Nick VinZant 59:08
Okay. That's right. I can
John Shull 59:11
understand that. Like because I that. I know the difference like to me, I'm a Pepsi guy, right? But I don't mind coke. So it's, you know, Pepsi is a little more sugary, a little more bitey cokes a little more smoother to me. But people have told me it's the other way around. So maybe it's just the way that one perceives Coke versus Pepsi. I have no idea
Nick VinZant 59:32
but I'm a Pepsi man myself. I'm a Pepsi man myself, but I'll drink Coke. I don't have a problem with it. My number three is pineapple Fanta. If you can get your hands on some pineapple Fanta which is difficult to get your hands on. It's an incredible pop. It looks like something that came out of your body after you haven't had water in a week. But it's an incredible pop. It's It's amazing. It's great. Pineapple Fanta I've
John Shull 1:00:00
never had Fanta, like any kind that I can remember at least. So I guess I'll take your word for it.
Nick VinZant 1:00:09
It's great. It's a way to get fruit and pop at the same time.
John Shull 1:00:13
It's such that's such a, like a wrong thing to say but we'll leave that one there. My number two is the only kind of like specific that I have. And it's Cherry Pepsi Wild Cherry Pepsi.
Nick VinZant 1:00:31
My number two is also Wild Cherry Pepsi except mine is specifically diet Wild Cherry Pepsi because give me all the chemicals. Just the camera
John Shull 1:00:40
here, or do we have to have the same top five?
Nick VinZant 1:00:44
Because dude, we're bad. We're best buddies. We're starting out. 20 we're starting out 2024 As the same person,
Unknown Speaker 1:00:54
mic
Nick VinZant 1:00:58
that are number one is the same too. I bet her number one is the same too. Because No, I know. Okay, what's, what's your number one?
John Shull 1:01:06
My number one is Mountain Dew.
Nick VinZant 1:01:10
Can you tell the story real quick about how you had to have liver problems because of your Diet Mountain Dew addiction?
John Shull 1:01:17
Well, quick story, my liver Well, I had liver issues from drinking other things. But I basically started a lifelong problem with kidney stones. Because in college, I don't know man, when you said you would drink for back to back. I probably drink 12 and a day maybe. And that's saying it lightly. Because they used to sell the one liter maybe they still do I don't drink it anymore, obviously because I would have kidney stone every month. They used to sell the liter bottles, the one liter bottles and you could open them and so it wasn't like a two liter bottle wouldn't go flat if you didn't drink it fast enough. So I probably I probably go to the gas station on my way to the gym, oddly enough. Pick one up before the lift and then on my way back I'd pick up maybe 10 or 11 for the rest of the day.
Nick VinZant 1:02:15
Oh my like diet.
John Shull 1:02:18
No, they were there. They were straight. They were straight Mountain Dews.
Nick VinZant 1:02:23
I remember drinking 12 Mountain Dews a day.
John Shull 1:02:28
Yeah, so Anyways, long story short, I ended up getting a kidney stone going to the hospital, obviously. And the doctor came back and was like, yeah, pretty sure it's gonna be because of all the mountain Do you drink and now I can't drink it. If I if I even have a Diet Mountain Dew my stomach starts to hurt. I don't know. Obviously that's not kidney stones. But I just think my body is like leave us the fuck alone.
Nick VinZant 1:02:54
Dude, I think that you may have some compulsive behavior issues, right. Like you're mowing your lawn twice a week. You drink 12 Mountain Dews. That's insane to me.
John Shull 1:03:06
So
Nick VinZant 1:03:07
I mean, 144 ounces of Mountain Dew a day. That's to Julie yours, dude.
John Shull 1:03:14
I mean, we were pumping. I mean, we were pumping. I mean, a lot of water back then, too. So when I was paying so much and then you get to the night and then you drink, you know, liquor and beer, and I have no idea how I don't weigh 500 pounds. I'm getting there. But I don't know how I don't weight yet.
Nick VinZant 1:03:32
Dude, if you had 12 of those that's talking that's probably like 1200 At least 1200 to $1,500 1500 calories a day in soda. Oh my God. You are not a healthy man.
John Shull 1:03:48
I mean, once again, I don't want people to sit and think like I did that for years. But I can confidently on record say I know I did that for probably a month and a half.
Nick VinZant 1:04:00
Yeah, yeah, it's really good that you stopped I don't think you would have made it much longer. Imagine just drinking yourself to death off Mountain Dew like how would you do it Mountain Dew?
John Shull 1:04:09
What? Like, who's this idiot? I mean, it's delicious, I guess but what's your number one
Nick VinZant 1:04:19
Diet Dr. Pepper? I think Diet Dr. Pepper is the best overall soda. It's the only one that I would actually say is kind of thirst quenching. Like oh a quench my thirst.
John Shull 1:04:31
What there's there's many things that bothered me about what you just said. But one of them was before I said my number one you indicated that you and I may have the same number one
Nick VinZant 1:04:44
oh yeah, I forgot briefly about your Mountain Dew addiction.
John Shull 1:04:48
Whether Mountain View was my number one or not? Dr. Diet pepper would not be in my top 40
Nick VinZant 1:04:56
Yeah, dude, Dr. Pepper is good. That's the best one bag if you can actually get your hands on the Dr Pepper zero, that kind that they made because people are like dogs. Ooh. Oh, right, like that person that somebody makes fun of you for drinking diet soda. You know exactly what that person looks like. Oh, what's your honorable mention for your internet craps out?
John Shull 1:05:19
Orange Crush, Cherry Coke. You can tell them a big cherry fan. I also I don't know why I put this on there probably just to have another citrus pop. But Sprite. Even though I'm not
Nick VinZant 1:05:34
all like Sprite. I like Sprite I can put Sprite. I'm not gonna put it I can get it as high as number seven.
John Shull 1:05:41
And then surge. I put rumor surge from back in the day. No. Mellow, yellow. No,
Nick VinZant 1:05:48
I don't think I've ever had a Mellow Yellow.
John Shull 1:05:51
Oh man, and you lived in the real Midwest. Can
Nick VinZant 1:05:56
you think of pops? Famous pops that you've never had the ones that I can think of right off the top of my head or Mr. Pibb never had a Mr. PIP and I don't think I've ever had a Mellow Yellow.
John Shull 1:06:09
I just haven't had a lot of the ones in the last decade. So I mean, if there's a popular pop that's come out, or a variance, I probably haven't had it.
Nick VinZant 1:06:20
I don't think there's any kind of new pops. I can't think of a new pop. They're all kind of Pepsi or Coke or something like that. But I can't think of like the new brand that's changing the market changing the game.
John Shull 1:06:32
I think that's the thing you can't get into the market those two conglomerates will get you out of it before you even start it.
Nick VinZant 1:06:40
Okay, that's gonna go ahead and do it for this episode of Profoundly Pointless. I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, leave us a quick review. We really appreciate it really helps us out. Let us know what you think are some of the best pop slash slowed at sodas slash whatever that you think are out there. I cannot believe that that man drank 12 Mountain Dews a day. That's incredible. I don't think I have 12 Anything a day.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai