Episode Transcript

Sean Sebring:

Hello listeners and welcome to another episode of SolarWinds TechPod. Today we’re going to be exploring your bug out bag for your holiday tech survival kit. So, what brings you peace of mind around the holidays? And joining me today is my co-host, Chrystal Taylor as usual, and a frequent guest of ours, Andy Garibay.

Chrystal Taylor:

Welcome back, Andy.

Andy Garibay:

Hey, thanks for having me.

Sean Sebring:

Welcome. Yeah, super excited. I love that you join us on the holidays for these. It’s just kind of a fun breakup from the normal “serious tech talks” that we have.

Andy Garibay:

I can’t be serious.

Sean Sebring:

To kind of introduce some fun, silly tech-related holiday topics today. So, yeah, when I was putting this together, it was hard not to accidentally go back into some of the other episodes that we’ve done. So, truth be told, there’s still fun topics to just kind of rip into, what tech did I like? What tech don’t I like? We almost did a ghost of Christmas past kind of thing. So, what we’ll try and do today is what tech is essential for you around the holidays? And to give you some ideas and what would be maybe a good starting point is travel. There’s lots of travel around the holidays, especially for folks who don’t normally travel. If you’re a frequent traveler for work, maybe you’ve already got your kit set up. So, as an infrequent traveler who’s like, “Oh, it’s a holiday season again. I got to get myself prepared.” Andy, we’ll start with you. What is an essential in your travel, or I suppose what tech is essential for you during travel?

Andy Garibay:

So, yeah, it always depends on where I’m going, what kind of vacation it is. But for the holiday travel, I’m usually going over to relative’s house, which means sitting on the couch a lot or trying to find something to do. So, anywhere I go, I’m not including my phone because it’s always in your pocket, but that takes care of like 90% of the things that I want to do. But anywhere I go, I have to have noise-canceling headphones. Always bring my Kindle. I’m a dork. I always got my head in a book and I will bring my Switch. But the Switch is a double-edged sword because the minute I bust it out, it’s just like this kid magnet-

Sean Sebring:

Everyone else wants it.

Andy Garibay:

And they’re like, “Hey, what’s up, can I get a turn?” It’s like, “No, get off. I don’t want your grubby fingers on this thing.” So, yeah. But those are the essential electronics, technology that I bring. I never, ever bring a laptop, computer, pad, anything like that. I purposely try to … I don’t want to be on a computer most days, so I definitely don’t want to be on them during the holiday.

Sean Sebring:

That’s a good point. A tech don’t around the holidays is get away from the computer, the PC, whatever it might be.

Chrystal Taylor:

I’m never away from the computer.

Sean Sebring:

Yeah. Awesome. A lot of those I actually vibe with, and especially if you’re going to bring out something entertaining for yourself that’s accidentally going to tease everyone else to say, “Hey, come bother me now.” It’s like, ah, it’s a double-edged sword as you put it. Chrystal, how about you?

Chrystal Taylor:

Well, Andy mentioned something that I think is important for us to consider, which is traveling with your kids. And so I brought to play some things that I think people might forget about because even if you have offline things, tablets for your kids, they’ve got their own Switches, whatever, you might forget things like a power bank or maybe a portable storage for offline media. So, don’t forget your offline media, especially if you’re going through airports or trains or whatever. When we traveled earlier this year, and it wasn’t for holidays, but I will say that it was very nice for us each to have access to offline media so that when we were taking the trains or when we were waiting around in the airport or whatever, we had something to do.

And when he was smaller and we traveled, we would travel for the holidays to visit my dad in Colorado or something. And he was like four or five. Having something nearby that can keep him quiet and to himself for everyone else around, not just for yourself, but for everyone else around, consider having something to help them be calm and quiet because it’s chaotic enough. I definitely think noise-canceling headphones. And if you have noise-canceling headphones for you, also get noise-canceling headphones for the kiddos. It helps them, especially if they’re having a hard time focusing or calming down, like being able to block out the chaotic noise of an airport or just the family. I know my son is an introvert, and so when we go to these big parties and family gatherings and things that we go to, we’re both introverted. We’ll reach a point.

And now that he’s older, he just tells me. But we’ll reach a point where it’s clearly obvious that we’re kind of done. Our social batteries are empty and he’ll just come find me and he’ll be like, “Mom, my social battery is empty. Can we go home now?” And I’ll say yes. But when he was younger, he didn’t have that mental check to be able to say, “I’m done.” He would just start getting upset at things. So, if you’re having those kinds of things, I think noise-canceling can really help with that as well. Find a quiet corner for them where they can hide away from everyone. Find a quiet corner for me where I can hide away from everyone at the holiday party. It’s okay.

Andy Garibay:

I was going to ask, Chrystal, so for you personally, what is your offline media? Are you doing playlists, podcasts? Are you doing something off a streamer like Netflix?

Chrystal Taylor:

It depends. So, I will do movies for … Because you know what’s funny? You know what’s funny is I don’t make time to watch TV or movies in my everyday life, but when I’m traveling for work or whatever is whenever I watch TV and movies. At home, I just play games and read, but when I’m traveling, I read when I travel, but I’ll take a break from that and I’ll watch things. So, traveling usually is TV and movies. I will say though that I will game sometimes, but it’s harder for me to game when I’m traveling because I’m too aware of things happening around me.

Sean Sebring:

It’s too hard to immerse, right?

Chrystal Taylor:

Yeah. I get anxious, I guess. If I’m ignoring it, I get anxious that someone’s going to get too close to me or something because I don’t need people in my little private bubble with myself. And so it gives me anxiety to get too into a game whenever I’m traveling. So, I’ll go with movies. Usually I’ll take offline movies. This year it was KPop Demon Hunters. I watched it five times while I was traveling.

Andy Garibay:

What is your travel gaming? Is it a Switch, a Steam Deck?

Chrystal Taylor:

My go-to for traveling, I have a Steam Deck and I also have a Switch. So, it depends on what I’m doing. I typically now will take the Steam Deck because I have access to way more games on the Steam Deck than I do on the Nintendo Switch. And then my son will take the Switch. So, we take both and then we just alternate who’s playing whatever.

Sean Sebring:

I did a bunch of travel actually this last fall and it’s a mix of what both of you said. It’s very ritualistic because I actually travel often and kind of like you said, it depends on the occasion, but I almost treat them the same. As soon as the door close, it switches from business to R&R. When I’m on a plane, it’s R&R, but in a business mode of R&R. So, it’s a little different, but I have a specific bag for those things. It’s my murse, my satchel, whatever you want to call it, my messenger bag.

Andy Garibay:

Man bag.

Sean Sebring:

But it’s got the specific cords, which have to be in there and they’re rolled up a specific way and they don’t leave the bag. Even when I get back home, they stay in there. That’s their specific purpose. You got your earbuds, which I like earbuds, noise-canceling headphones, right? If you like the over the ear, totally fine. I like the earbuds. I’ve gotten used to them. I got an iPad that’s entertainment only. I only got the iPad because it was on the company store. Otherwise, I wouldn’t touch an Apple product personally. We’ll throw some tech in there. Everyone likes to pick their platform of choice. And audiobooks, man. I love audiobooks. I will spend hours and hours-

Andy Garibay:

can’t do ’em.

Chrystal Taylor:

I can’t do it.

Sean Sebring:

It’s the only way for me to get through books because I’m so physically busy. I have to be doing something. So, if I’m on the plane, I can do an audiobook because I can just then … I’m not actually … I’m trapped. I can’t go anywhere. I’m like, okay, I’ll just sit back and do this. Or if I’m out and about in my regular day, I go for walks and listen to my audiobooks. I mow the lawn with my audiobooks playing. So, yeah, definitely have some very specific things. And I agree on the don’ts.

There’s certain techs where I’m like, “I can’t engage.” Games, games are really hard. Even when I’m in my “R&R” state, let’s say I was at my mom’s for a week, I could play maybe a quick mobile game or something on the iPad, but even then it’s just so hard to … You feel guilty hiding out in a room, playing a game, and you’re like, “Shouldn’t I be using this time to go…?” But to Chrystal’s point, that social battery only goes so far and we’ve become trained over the last 15, 20 years, but I could get so much dopamine by myself.

Andy Garibay:

I mean, it’s the reason you still don’t live with your parents.

Sean Sebring:

True, also true.

Chrystal Taylor:

I have an alternate suggestion, Sean, which is just invite everyone to play a game with you. There are a lot of really cool, great social games that anyone can play because they only use a mobile phone. So, one person owns the game like Jackbox is like this. And let me-

Sean Sebring:

Love it on the Switch.

Chrystal Taylor:

Just a warning about Jackbox games. They’re super fun. They can get out of hand real fast. So, decide upfront if you’re going to involve the kids or not so everyone knows. That’s what I would say about, fair warning for those social games because they are free form. So, you can write whatever you want, you can draw whatever you want. So, yeah, it usually devolves, especially if there’s alcohol involved, but they are very fun. And because you are each using your phone, instead of everyone having a gaming device, you all sit around the couch or the TV wherever it’s at and then you play.

It’s very engaging. So, depending on, you can get everybody involved in that. Everybody’s got a phone nowadays. You can get everybody involved in that. So, I would say if you are fiending for playing something or the party’s getting boring or you’re trying to find an escape, games are a good way to go about that. We’re a gaming family over here. We play board games, card games, dice games, everything on my full extended family. So, there’s going to be games somewhere happening and there are the social games that are also really good.

Andy Garibay:

Yeah. We’ll play Mario Party a lot, me and the kids.

Chrystal Taylor:

That’s dangerous.

Sean Sebring:

That’s risky.

Andy Garibay:

Dude, it-

Sean Sebring:

That’s risky.

Andy Garibay:

It is destroying our family.

Chrystal Taylor:

That’s like saying you’re going to bust out the Monopoly today. We’re going to end some friendships maybe.

Andy Garibay:

Yeah. Yep. It always ends with somebody crying. It’s amazing. It’s so good.

Sean Sebring:

Yeah. Or passed out in a box of pizza. I’ve been there too. No, great stuff. So, we kind of did a pretty good broad … If you remember anything, of course, bring it back up. But another good thing when we think about staying with family around the holidays, especially as Americans, I’ll say, is food, right? And it’s most cultures as well around whatever holiday it may be, but food is a big thing and tech has become a big part of it. If you think about your traditional Christmas dinner, you got either ham or turkey is probably one of the bigger ones that comes to my mind. And there’s different tech for turkeys nowadays.

It’s not super new, but in the last 10 years, deep-fried turkey has been something that’s been more regular in my family. And there’s different tech approaches to what kind of deep fryer you have. The gas ones, absolutely terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. Can you imagine? There’s videos, you’ve seen it, where someone puts a still-frozen turkey into magma oil and then kaboom, it was in a gas grill too. So, yeah, terrifying. Either way, kitchen tech. We also brought up some of these neat kitchen gadgets on some of our past podcasts where we talked about what are some neat, interesting wishlist kind of techs. So, again, we’ll start with you, Andy. Is there anything when it comes to kitchen, because you’ve said before you love cooking, what kind of kitchen tech is a must have around the holidays?

Andy Garibay:

So, whenever I was younger and everybody gets their first apartment and everything like that, I had tons of kitchen tech because you’re trying to cook something really well in a microwave or a George Foreman grill or whatever. So, I had a bunch of that stuff, but as I’ve gotten older and thankfully more space and a bigger kitchen, my kitchen tech has gone out the door. I don’t have any more kitchen tech except for a stand mixer, but I barely count that. And I was so against an air fryer because I was like, “Oh, lazy, just put it in the oven or whatever.” And so I finally got one. My wife just kept asking for one, so we got one because I didn’t want another thing on the counter, but I found the space that we could tuck it away and absolutely love it.

But all of those gadgets that I used to have, I just phased them out because they just sit in a cabinet and every year or two, I do the clean out and rearrange and I got rid of them. But I used to have … Then I went through like five George Foreman grills, three Magic Bullets, all those random things of like, it cooks eggs in a microwave or it’s a bacon tray or it’s a whatever. I used to have this sleeve that you put potatoes in that you cook in the microwave and it said it made them perfectly. And it was like, it’s just microwaving a potato. It didn’t do anything special, but it was like, “I got to have it.” And so I had all that kind of stuff. And then the more and more you use it, you just realize like, this is garbage.

But the things I want, I want a pellet smoker with all the Bluetooth and wireless temperature gauges because I obviously love smoked food, but I do not have the patience. I’m not that kind of person who’s like, “I’m going to start something at five o’clock in the morning and it’ll be ready 12 hours later with constant checking.” I can do that, but if I can just Ron Popeil “set it and forget it” style, I’ll be super happy. So, I really want to get one of those, but also like the price point, do I really want to get one? Because those things are like, I mean, it seems like entry level, they’re $1,200 or something like that. It’s like not ready to pull that trigger.

Chrystal Taylor:

Andy, can I recommend to you the Ninja version? It’s smaller, but it’s way less expensive. My dad freaking loves it. He uses it for the RV, but it does do the pellet smoking in a Ninja grill.

Andy Garibay:

I was looking at one of those and the reviews were kind of lackluster, but I don’t know anyone personally who has one.

Chrystal Taylor:

My dad loves it.

Andy Garibay:

Your dad loves it.

Chrystal Taylor:

Yes.

Andy Garibay:

I might try that then and just like order it off Amazon so I can return it or Walmart because they don’t care because the price point is actually pretty good. And yeah, I don’t need this huge thing. I’m not going to make eight racks of ribs and all that kind of stuff. So, I might have to try that. So, yes, I do want one of those Ninja electric smokers, but they’re like six in one. They’re like air fryers, smokers-

Chrystal Taylor:

Oh yeah, Ninja doesn’t do anything that’s just one thing.

Andy Garibay:

…. grills, boilers. It’s like hells yeah! No, I have a ninja air fryer and it’s a roaster, a this, a that, or whatever. So, yeah. Okay. I’m sold. I’m going to have to try one.

Chrystal Taylor:

I don’t have much to add to this conversation mostly because I don’t like to cook. I’ve mentioned this several times. I’m not big on the cooking. If we’re doing holiday cooking, most of the time I’m not the one doing any kind of a main dish. I will say that the air fryer, I will also recommend an air fryer. And I’m going to tell you my specific reason is that if you’re cooking a big dinner and the food is not ready yet, but the kids are hungry, air fryer is fast. You can whip them up some chicken nuggets or whatever real quick just to tide them over.

But I also think that the instant pot is no longer like the hot item, but let me tell you, you can make a pot roast in an hour, guys. An hour. And it is pot roast time. I am ready for a pot roast. So, that’s all I got. I don’t cook a lot. I don’t have a lot of cooking gadgets because I don’t cook a lot. So, I don’t have a lot to add to that conversation.

Andy Garibay:

I just used my Instapot this week. You can make beans from dry in one hour, made a huge pot of borracho beans and they were so, so good. Freeze of the rest of them.

Chrystal Taylor:

I’m coming to Andy’s house.

Andy Garibay:

If you don’t cook, which I know this about you, then tech wise, what’s your go to delivery app? Are you a DoorDasher, Grubhubber? Are you a Favor?

Chrystal Taylor:

I have two subscriptions. I have DoorDash and Uber Eats. Uber Eats, I will tell you that I like them better for the reason that you get Uber. The driving app is the same. It’s the same subscription. So, you get the Uber Eats and you get the Uber Rideshares in the same subscription, which is multipurpose. And I like that better because it seems like a better deal, even if it’s not. I don’t know.

Andy Garibay:

I’ve never used Uber Eats. Can you combine them? I need to go to the airport and I want chicken wings.

Chrystal Taylor:

I don’t know.

Andy Garibay:

Bring them to me.

Chrystal Taylor:

But I think that I should try.

Andy Garibay:

Yeah.

Sean Sebring:

Full service. Full service.

Andy Garibay:

Exactly. That’d be awesome.

Sean Sebring:

I love that. Do they have Deliveroo in the States?

Chrystal Taylor:

In some places, yes.

Andy Garibay:

Never heard of it.

Chrystal Taylor:

I think so.

Sean Sebring:

Okay. Deliveroo is a big one over here in the parts of Europe that I’m at. Also, I don’t manage those apps at all. That’s when my wife’s cooking. On a stressful night, she says, “I’m cooking pizza tonight from the chair in the living room.” And I’m like, “Got it, babe.”

Chrystal Taylor:

I’m going to use that.

Sean Sebring:

So, I’m like, “Unspoken language. Totally got it.” It’s one of those nights. But yeah, definitely a tech essential when it comes to “kitchen tech”, for sure.

Chrystal Taylor:

Yeah.

Sean Sebring:

I will swear by the air fryer too. Actually, after we moved to Ireland, we haven’t had a microwave in over two years now. And it was an interesting adjustment at first, but we figured out different ways. So, basically small pie tins are great for, also Sean, portion control. You put an appropriate amount in there. And then the little silicone sleeves you can put at the bottom, just helping with the cleanup. There’s so much to do, but it works so great. And Chrystal, to your point, it’s rapid baking. It’s like the Instapot version of baking. It does a lot and very taboo here. You can even do steaks in it. I know, I know. Don’t hurt me. You people who are like connoisseurs of cooking meat. I’m just saying you can.

Chrystal Taylor:

You can.

Sean Sebring:

I would still always grill a steak over that.

Andy Garibay:

I mean, technically you can boil a steak too, Sean.

Chrystal Taylor:

Yeah. Yeah. You know what? I did try-

Sean Sebring:

I don’t know if you can come back on the TechPod now. I thought I was pushing it.

Chrystal Taylor:

Outcast, outcast. I have tried to air fry a steak and I’ll tell you I overcooked it immediately. I don’t know how to balance that. I don’t know what to do with that. So, I cook it on a cast iron skillet if I’m going to make steak.

Andy Garibay:

I saw a video-

Sean Sebring:

No, it’s tricky.

Andy Garibay:

… of how to make fried chicken in an air fryer using two different … I’d have to watch the video again, but first you roast it, then you turn on the air fryer to get it crispy. I was like, that sounds messy, but I’m going to try it. But it still sounds cleaner than … I love fried chicken.

Chrystal Taylor:

Yeah, than making fried chicken.

Andy Garibay:

Oh my God. Every time I’ve tried to make it it’s just splatter everywhere. It’s just so annoying. So, I never make fried chicken.

Sean Sebring:

Well, and not just that, but cleaning the batter that somehow turns into the sediment of the batter at the bottom of the bowl.

Andy Garibay:

And you can’t put it down the garbage disposal and you got to just scrape it off into a trash can.

Sean Sebring:

Yeah. It becomes concrete too. But yeah, no, double frying in the air fryer is a great trick. You cook it the first round, let it cool for a second, right? Maybe toss it if it’s tater tots. That’s a great one. Tots. Toss them, season them, toss them, let them cool for a second, put them back in on the highest heat for what, five minutes, and then bam, they’ve got that extra crisp to them. So, the double fry in the air fryer is great. On the note of meat though and Chrystal overcooking a steak, I don’t really do steaks in there, but we do lots of meats in there. To your point, Andy, frying is awesome because of the mess and pork chops are notoriously hard for us because you can’t get the breading to stay on because it’s such a juicy meat, right? It’s a fattier meat. And so the air fryer’s fantastic for things like pork chops, which is actually what we’re going to do tonight. Funny enough.

Andy Garibay:

Sounds good.

Sean Sebring:

But on the note of meat, I’m a goat. I’ll eat anything and my stomach’s just fine, but Sierra has to know is it cooked? So, we have a digital thermometer. So, she lives and breathes by the digital thermometer when it comes to meats, especially like poultries and stuff like that. Yeah. And it’s always out when there’s lots of cooking going on and she swears by it. So, that’s a huge help for us. I’d like to say also a digital scale, but I don’t use anything like that. This is portion control right here.

Andy Garibay:

Exactly.

Sean Sebring:

The eyeballs. Okay. You got to eyeball it. That’s how the seasonings work too. Okay. We don’t do no measurements. It’s eyeballing.

Andy Garibay:

Only thing I ever measure is baking because that’s actual chemistry, but yeah.

Sean Sebring:

Well, that’s science, yes…

Andy Garibay:

Seasoning, making something. Yeah. It’s always just eyeballing it.

Sean Sebring:

Yeah. The meat’s color coded, right? Yeah, done enough. It’s not hollering anymore.

Andy Garibay:

Exactly.

Sean Sebring:

So, one other thing that I don’t use, but I have in the past, it was okay. It was nice, was one of the meat carvers, especially if you got an assembly line of people waiting for turkey or ham, especially if it’s not a precut ham, having that the meat carver is really nice. It speeds it up quite a bit.

Andy Garibay:

There was something magical about around Thanksgiving or Christmastime whenever your grandfather or grandmother or whoever would bust out that, and the [meat carver sounds]-

Chrystal Taylor:

The electric knife.

Andy Garibay:

Yes, yes, yes. And then the day you’re old enough where they’re like, “Would you like to slice the ham?” Yeah.

Sean Sebring:

The heavens open up.

Andy Garibay:

Cut way too thick of a slice, but it doesn’t matter. So cool.

Sean Sebring:

You know what’s another fun piece of tech that’s … I don’t see them anywhere anymore. I don’t know when it was first like the big thing, but they used to be cabinet- or wall-mounted or you had one that was on the counter surface and there’s a lot of these things being opened around the holidays is the can opener.

Andy Garibay:

I know.

Sean Sebring:

I feel like they’ve been wiped off the face of the planet and it’s all back to manual, which personally I was more a fan of anyway, because I could never get the magnet to hook on there right for the electric can openers, but where’d they go?

Chrystal Taylor:

I think that’s why they went away is because they just weren’t effective enough and they didn’t last.

Andy Garibay:

Yeah. I still see electric ones, but they’re just handheld. They look exactly like the manuals. I use a manual.

Sean Sebring:

You just clamp it.

Andy Garibay:

Yeah, you still just clamp it and then you just hold down like a little trigger button and it does it.

Sean Sebring:

I find it satisfying to get the crank though.

Andy Garibay:

Yeah, exactly. But no, yeah.

Sean Sebring:

Same with opening a bottle of wine.

Andy Garibay:

I haven’t thought about those in years, especially the ones that were mounted underneath it where it’s just like, what?

Sean Sebring:

Well, you talked about when your grandparents busted out the electric carver, I think about that heavy duty, again, against the heavy duty wood cabinets, because most stuff’s not heavy duty cabinet-wise anymore, but you’d fix it in there and you’d feel that clunk, the big heavy magnet trying to grab the can and you’re like, “I got it for sure.” Nope, it’s going to spin for the next 10 minutes and you’re going to be like, “What the heck’s going on? Can I get into my pumpkin puree?”

Chrystal Taylor:

Yeah. All I think about whenever I think about those wall-mounted electric can openers is Futurama. Bender gets in fights with it all the time and loses.

Sean Sebring:

Segueing into a next topic, this is something that Chrystal brings up all the time in completely unrelated episodes. Any episode, I swear it could come up, is tech support for family. She’s always talking about tech support for her mom specifically, right? And I have this, my mom frequently reaches out, even though my brother’s more of in the IT tech world where it’s like the hands-on tech support tech world. So, now I’m like, “Brother’s got you better.” I’ll play myself down. I’m like, “Oh, he’s probably just got more knowledge on it now.” What is it called? Shift left, we’ll say that. I’m actually just being responsible. But anyway, when it comes to getting new technology for, let’s just say older generations or even younger generations, which I experience a lot now, is that holiday tech support, right? It could be even putting batteries in, which that’s probably something I want to unpack with you guys on here is what’s your tool for that? But before I do, let me go to Chrystal first this time. Chrystal, holiday tech support, any horror stories, anything specific for you?

Chrystal Taylor:

Well, the main story that always comes to mind is my mom calling on Christmas Day because she got a new iPad and wanting to know what her wifi password is. And I don’t know what her wifi password is but having to tell her where to look for it. But yeah, I think that generally speaking, there is always some tech support happening. Something doesn’t work as expected. My son and I got new graphics cards, I don’t know, two years ago, I guess for Christmas. So, doing the install on that, he’s still learning. So, I do tech support for him. I still do tech support for him. Something’s not working correctly. And I’m like, “Did you update the driver?” “Well, what do you mean?”

I’m like, “How have you not learned this yet? “So, yeah, I think generally speaking, there’s a lot, but I also get to share the burden of tech support with my brother, but I am an easier person to talk to. So, I think I get it a lot. I was going to bring up as part of this kind of for parties and stuff, if you have those who can’t travel or maybe they’re ill or maybe they’re older and they can’t travel or they just had a baby and they want to be part of the festivities, but they’re not there. It has become a thing for us and our family that we do a meeting, a Teams meeting or a Zoom meeting and set up a camera over the TV in the living space and put them on the TV and they can be part of it.

I will say there are issues with this as well, because as you can imagine, it’s like joining into a conference room full of people and you’re one person and you’re not part of the conference room. So, there’s some situations there, but I have managed that for parties for my family before and getting them involved and making sure someone is by the microphone so that they can have conversations and things like that. And I think you can still be part of it and not actually be there if you’d like to. There’s lots of tech options for that.

Sean Sebring:

Andy, how about you?

Andy Garibay:

Yeah, just anytime my parents wanted to get a new electronic, it was just a nightmare because same thing. They don’t know their wifi password, they don’t know their Microsoft login, they don’t know the whatever. And after decades of yelling at them to just get a piece of masking tape, put it on your router and write your password or write down your actual passwords, which they would do, but then they wouldn’t have a place where they would specifically put passwords. So, then they’re looking for a Post-it note on a desk that’s just garbage.

Chrystal Taylor:

Yeah.

Sean Sebring:

Lots of Post-it notes.

Andy Garibay:

Yeah, exactly. So, I finally got to the point with my father. My mother’s no longer with us, but I got to a point with my father where I just lost all patience and I told him, “Just Google it. You are a very smart person. Do not give up on yourself. I believe in you. You can figure this out.”

Chrystal Taylor:

Yes.

Andy Garibay:

He wanted to buy a new printer because he had this HP that just took over the … I won’t say any more about them. But anyways, he wanted a new because he was like, “Ah, it takes over the computer and I hate it.” So, I was like, “Just go buy a Brother or an Epson.” I’ve always had good experiences with them. They just act like a printer or a scanner. So, he bought this Brother. He was like, “How do I hook it up?” I was like, “Just open the box, do it, just plug it in. It’ll walk you through it.” And sure enough, two days later, he calls me and he’s super proud of himself like, “I got it working, this and that, blah, blah.” And I was like, “See, dad, you can do it.” And then just every time now it’s just like, “Google it.”

Because I know enough about computers to where if he has a problem, I can tell him, “That’s an easy Google solve. Otherwise, okay, next time I’m in town, I’ll take a look at it.” He was complaining about his speakers the other day and he was like, “I want to be able to change the base and the treble and this and that.” I was like, “Well, just go to the equalizer and change it.” He’s like, “Oh, it has an equalizer?” I was like, “Yeah.” He’s like, “Where is this?” Google it, dad. If you can’t search for it with the Windows key, what’s the Windows key? All right, man, just Google it. And sure enough, he calls me two days later and he’s like, “I found the equalizer. Now everything sounds great. I can hear voices.” Good, good. I’m very proud of you. But now with the kids, really the tech support is just any electronic you have, you have to have an account, you have to have a login, you have to have an email address associated with it.

So, it’s just a full-blown hour of just running in those circles of just frustration of like, “They’re eight, why do they need an email address for this? And I don’t want it on my … ” Whatever. So, it’s that. And I will say it’s not the biggest technology thing, but I’m so over it is, Sean, you brought up batteries in electronics. I do not need a screw to hold the battery compartment to the device. If I ever see that and I’m aware of it before purchase-

Chrystal Taylor:

You’re not buying it.

Andy Garibay:

I’m not buying it because I don’t want to go to the kitchen to my little drawer that has my tiny little screwdrivers and be like … I don’t care at that point, just swallow the battery. It’s ridiculous. So, that’s my biggest bane during Christmas of like, “Oh, needs four AAAs. Let me go get the screwdriver. Who moved this screwdriver?” So, yeah, anyways.

Chrystal Taylor:

Yeah.

Sean Sebring:

Yes. I couldn’t agree more. Yeah. I’ve got them laying the backs with the screw. I’ve got them laying all over the house at the moment because we keep these Christmas decorations stationary. You’ll put them up and they stay there. So, I’m like, I don’t need to secure these batteries in from a fall. I’m not tossing it. We’re not going for some battle damage here. But anyway, yeah, so we’ll try and clip it back in because it has this soft click and then you’re supposed to screw right afterwards. We’ll just do the soft click. Sometimes it comes out as we shift it slightly and I’m like, okay, it could just stay there. That’s fine. The thing’s still glowing, so I’m done with it. But then my son’s got all these tiny little screws he’s just walking around with and I’m like, okay, that’ll be in my toe later, but at least I didn’t have to go through the mental anguish of finding, oh, I can’t find the little tiny screwdriver anymore. Big problems, big problems. I got to a point where I got a bit set for a drill.

I had to reinvest in some of my Ryobi tools over here in Ireland because I couldn’t bring any of them with me, but I got another bit set and I was like, okay, I got some small ones. But then my problem is I grind up the soft tissue of these baby screws and I’m like, oh my gosh, can they have decorations or a toy setting on these things or can we get real screws if you’re going to put a screw in there in the first place or you just rage and realize the screw was basically worthless and you pry it open and crack where the threads were.

So, it just depends on which kid’s toy am I on? The first one or the 14th for Christmas. And couldn’t agree more on the account situations. Huge pain, but I feel like I’ve got myself in somewhat of a Zen place now because I just kind of cloned my naming convention for myself for the kids. They’ve never touched these email addresses, got them all in the Google family thing now. And Google’s made it much easier to be able to link these things in. Still, I agree. Why do we need it? You need to know what my kids are doing, link to my family. You need to see what’s in their email? Nothing. It’s so silly, but data valuable, I guess, whatever.

Andy Garibay:

The one thing I have been doing over the … Finally got smart enough over the past couple of years is that anytime I’m, for instance, getting a Switch or something like that for Christmas. I don’t care, I will open the box, charge it, set it all up. So, on Christmas morning, I’m not being bothered because obviously they want to play with it immediately.

Chrystal Taylor:

Yeah, do it ahead if time, that’s smart.

Sean Sebring:

Clever.

Andy Garibay:

And I get that because I was the same way. But on December 8th, I will take the time to do everything at my leisure. So, on Christmas morning, they can open it up, they can play with it, and it’s fine. It’s still going to be wrapped or in a bag or something like that. They don’t care that the box has been opened. They’ve never been like, “What’d you buy this used, you cheapo?” Yeah. So, I do actually take the time for the past couple of years to just get it all set up because I can watch TV while I’m doing it because Christmas morning is just too much going on. And plus I want to look at my new socks or pajama pants and be like, “Yay.” So, I don’t want to be bothered with like, “Hey, can you log in?” Like, “No, go away.”

Chrystal Taylor:

I agree. And in the same line of having to use an email to sign into everything is, why does everything need an app and why are all the apps different? Can we not? I don’t need an app for the toy that someone gave my kid. No, I don’t need that. Why are we tracking metrics for any of these things either? Along the same lines, toothbrushes, all kinds of stuff. You’re like, why? Why do I need that? I don’t want that in my life. Get out of here.

Andy Garibay:

Create an Oral-B account for maximum clean.

Sean Sebring:

Then I feel at a loss when I’m messing with a Tamagotchi and I’m like, what is going on here? You’re telling me I have to read paper. I have to go research how to keep this thing alive. Oh, it pooed. Now what do we do?

Chrystal Taylor:

Oh, the Tamagotchi.

Sean Sebring:

And there’s so many different little things. She’s got a hamster ball. My daughter has a hamster ball and it’s really cool because it has the spinning LEDs and it spins and creates the images when they flick the LED flickers on. So, it’s not actually a panel, it’s a spinning wheel. And I’m like, oh, that’s so cool. What’s its purpose? It’s a hamster ball. And she comes up and hands it to me and is like, “Can you help me?” And I’m like, “Why is it? Why is it existing?” You wanted this. Yeah. So, tech support can go in so many different directions for these things from the physical hardware to remote support to hands-on troubleshooting. But it’s a curse and a blessing because there’s so much joy around just … After you’re done, it’s more satisfying, I guess, helping a family member, even though you kind of grumble about it a little bit and they don’t give you a positive survey score, but it is what it is.

Chrystal Taylor:

My CSAT scores are in the tank.

Andy Garibay:

That reminded me last year, my youngest daughter, she wanted a Tamagotchi and I was like, it’s not 1997, whatever, but she saw it at a store.

Chrystal Taylor:

It came back.

Andy Garibay:

So, she got it. I say she got one. We gave it to her like idiots and within an hour realized, “I don’t want this. I don’t like this, whatever.” So, we basically euthanized the Tamagotchi by … Because it would just beep constantly like, “Feed me, feed me, feed me.” And it was just like, alright, man, you’re going into a drawer in another room until the battery dies or you find … And so sadly, Tamagotchi passed and she hasn’t started a new one since, but it was just like, oh gosh, this is ridiculous.

Chrystal Taylor:

Yeah. I mean, it just takes you back, doesn’t it? To when Tamagotchis first came out?

Andy Garibay:

I never had one. Did y’all have a Tamagotchi?

Chrystal Taylor:

I had a Tamagotchi.

Sean Sebring:

No, I didn’t, but my sister did. And I remember just, again, how do you keep this thing alive? And what I love about these things, just because I have a child’s sense of humor is all of them poop. All of these digital creatures that you’re supposed to keep alive poop. And why is that? I guess they’re like, there’s only three things we can get it to do. We can make you feed it.

Andy Garibay:

It can cry.

Sean Sebring:

You can pet it. And then it poos. Yeah. Well, no, it always cries. Yeah. No, it’s crazy. It’s funny. Yeah, it is. I don’t know. Constant stimulation is what it’s supposed to be. And then the kids get bored with it. Can you take care of it? Is what it became for us. And I’m like, excuse me. I have you. Is that my grandchild now? Okay.

Chrystal Taylor:

Yikes.

Andy Garibay:

Don’t worry, sweetheart. Daddy will take care of it. Hold up a pillow.

Sean Sebring:

Yeah, the pillow.

Chrystal Taylor:

All right. We’ve talked about hanging out with family and travel, tech support, all of these things. But one thing we haven’t covered yet, which I think is important, is decking the halls. Do you have any cool tech or automation that you use? I am excited because I finally got my … As you can see, I’ve got RGB lighting inside my house, but I finally have the eave lighting on the outside of my house and it’s amazing and it’s automated and I don’t have to think about it and it’s not coming down when the season is over. I can have Easter lights or whatever if I want to. I can just have whatever I want and I’m very excited about it. So, do you guys have any … I also have RGB lights for my Christmas tree. Everything is RGB now. So, do you guys have any tech that you use for decking the halls as it were?

Andy Garibay:

So, for me, weirdly specifically, just for Christmas, I keep it very low tech.

Chrystal Taylor:

Really?

Andy Garibay:

I literally do garland, tinsel, figurines. And when I bust out the Christmas buckets for the decorations, I don’t have any lights except for on the tree. And a couple of years ago, I put up just some string lights, LEDs on the house. And yes, they stay up just like you all year round and I just change it. It comes with a remote control and I just changed the color pattern or whatever, depending on the season. Like right now it’s Christmas lights, but the minute Christmas is over, it’s going to go to an icy blue for winter and then it’ll go to pink in February and then it’ll go to green in March, you know… I have all these color schemes that we just cycle through for the year because the minute I took down the Christmas lights one year I was like, well, one, I hate putting them up, taking them down. And then two, your house just looked bare and bland. So, like, screw it. I’m just going to leave them up and whatever.

But that being said, for Halloween, it is much different, especially this coming year. We’ve been this hodgepodge because our girls were so young, but now they’re getting to an age where they have very specific interests and they’re getting on board with the rest of the family. So, we would have a random Nightmare Before Christmas blow up and then an Olaf and a Halloween man. It’s like, “What?” It’s just all crap. But we actually have a game plan for next year because Halloween’s the biggest holiday in our house. Next year, we’re going full-blown tons of stuff, lights, LED stuff projected onto the house and all that kind of stuff. And we’re going to have a haunted graveyard and it’s going to be sweet. So, we’re going to go high tech for Halloween, but something about … I know it’s all childhood nostalgia for me. We purposely keep it low tech. I don’t want anything flashing or beeping at me or anything like that. It’s just busting out eight random snow globes that are packed away every year, just stuff like that.

Sean Sebring:

I haven’t had decorations in a couple years because I’ve moved abroad, don’t own my own house anymore. But when we did, my house in North Carolina was a taller house. It was on stilts. So, it was really hard to get to the second floor and it’s kind of scary. And we had big trees that would kind of go around where the edge of the house was. So, I was like, man, it’s going to be a real pain to try and get lights up, especially do we just taper the lights and they just stop where the tree branches are in my way? It looks kind of tacky.

The lasers were such a huge relief for that house. The house before was a nice cookie cutter subdivision home. Those ones are super easy to deck out because they’re very just a couple angles. You can’t put trees all around them unless they’re already 20, 30 years old and the tree’s grown up, but that one was super easy. But for the house I had in North Carolina for a few years, the lasers were saviors. It was great. And you had your Santa Claus on the sleigh just gliding across the front of the house. And I’m like, all I did was run an extension cord and slap that puppy in the ground.

Andy Garibay:

Exactly.

Sean Sebring:

And I’m done. I’m done. And then you got the laser beam ones that just flicker some specks of green and red and all that stuff, just dance it up. I’d like to do more. I always want to do more, but again, there’s this balance to your point of if I’m going to have to take it all down, that’s a lot of work. When the kids are at a little bit of a different age and they can help me and be a part of it, then it’ll mean a little bit more. They can understand the experience a little bit better. But for here where we’re at, again, going back to the batteries and those little tiny screws, that’s the majority of our decorations because they’re so simple and easy. It’s a string of penguins. There’s like four penguins. It’s two windowsills widths long. They just go in the windowsill and they go on at nighttime and then they go off.

So easy, so simple, and then they go in a bucket. You really don’t have to put them up. You set them on the windowsill, wrap some garland around the rails going upstairs, that kind of stuff. So, yeah, we keep it pretty simple now, especially because we don’t have our own property to deck out, but that is also something that I love about the holiday season is driving around and seeing everyone else’s.

I’ve never really experienced it in the US. I did, houses, don’t get me wrong. But one thing that’s really cool about moving to Ireland is the villages and communities are much smaller. And so there’s a lot more communication about what the village or community is about to do. And so they have the light up ceremony, which is on a specific evening. So, the whole town, village, comes out to Main Street and they’ll have oftentimes a little miniature parade that goes through the main street of the village. And then there’s a countdown, three, two, one, boom, and then the lights go up on the main street. It’s really cute.

Andy Garibay:

Oh, man. It sounds like you live in a Dickens novel.

Sean Sebring:

Ah, well, it’s not too far from it at times. I’ll say that. But yeah, it’s really cool. And I love, even when I lived in the US, I put the kids in the car once the sun started going down at an earlier hour and we would just drive around and we would look at other houses.

Chrystal Taylor:

So, follow up question on the decking the halls question, which is, how do you feel about pre-lit versus not pre-lit Christmas trees? Or are you a live tree person? I’m allergic, so I cannot do the live trees.

Andy Garibay:

Live trees are disgusting. Why would you bring the outside into your house? Go live in your backyard. Second, it is pre-lit all the way. The minute it stops working, you throw that thing to the curb on bulk pickup and you buy a new one. I know I am causing lots of garbage. I’m part of the problem. I understand that, but man, because it’s all positioning and I realize I can put the tree in the middle of the living room, but there’s nothing more I hated than having the strings and then just like a little parade around the tree to just put all the lights…

And then there would be that one year inevitably that I forgot to plug them in to check to see if they turned on and you would plug it in and half of them wouldn’t be turned on. I was like, oh, cool, cool, cool. So, then I got to re-undo it. So, now I’m pre-lit all the way. The only thing I would ever consider putting onto the tree light-wise is, man, I still love the look and sound of the bubbler lights, those super old school. Do you know what I’m talking about?

Chrystal Taylor:

I do not.

Andy Garibay:

So, they’re like from the ’70s and early ’80s, but you could still find them at random places. They have to be a fire hazard. But what they are, they’re string lights, but the light itself is this bowl on the bottom and coming out from the bowl is a glass or plastic tube filled with colored liquid. And the bowl has a light that shines through the liquid. And as the light heats up, it makes the water or whatever is actually in there, the liquid, bubble. And you’ll hear this and if everything’s quiet in the house, like on Christmas night, you’ll hear this slight little “blub blub” ASMR bubbling and then the lights with the bubbles cast these fun-

Chrystal Taylor:

Reflections.

Andy Garibay:

… shadows and reflections and everything and they’re awesome. Just look up bubble lights or bubbler lights.

Chrystal Taylor:

I’m going to look it up. Sounds awesome.

Andy Garibay:

They’re amazing, but they usually only last like two seasons. They’re annoying to put away because they don’t spill or anything, but you still have to be careful packing them. I’m so used to just like lights in the bucket and just forget about it for a year. But they are totally worth it. They’re so cool. I love them.

Sean Sebring:

They may have discontinued those right after the acid garland that was popular in the ’60s.

Andy Garibay:

Aaaa, so worth it.

Sean Sebring:

No, but it’s funny you mentioned the sound, the ambiance. I have this ancient angel that was the tree topper, right? You have the star, whatever. We had this angel that was probably as old as, maybe just younger, or maybe even older than I am, but I got it in the inheritance of things. It was passed down. It still works, but it had a rotating wheel at the bottom. You can’t see the wheel itself, but it makes the light kind of rotate around the bottom so kind of like the glow moves. And it’s so old that when that wheel moves to a certain point, it just [squeaking sound] … Every five to 10 seconds, I can’t remember, but it’ll be quiet and you’re just appreciating the glow of the Christmas sitting on the couch by yourself because your kids woke you up. And so you’re like, what else do I do? But go downstairs and let the Christmas lights enterta …

What was that? Oh, my angel’s talking to me. But to answer your question, Chrystal, I’m both. I agree with Andy. I have that, but then every now and then there’s the year where I’m like, hey, you know what? We’re going real. We’re going real, man. The nostalgia’s just going to hit too hard. We’re going real and we’ll get a real one and we’ll do the decoration. And thank goodness lights have gotten so much better. I remember the struggles of going through the line of lights to say, which one do I need to replace? The filament’s out on this one. Oh, the connection is bad. I need to kind of wiggle it and make it plug in better so the rest of the lights turn on magically. Ah, what a pain. Fortunately, the LED ones are so much better.

Andy Garibay:

So much better.

Sean Sebring:

I don’t have that problem anymore. But yeah, I’ve been there the pain of having done all the work, forgetting to check. And it’s a rite of passage as a parent probably, but I feel like especially as a dad, you got to go climb the roof. Oh, that’s the worst when you’ve hung them up on the roof and then they don’t work. It’s just so rough. It’s so rough.

Chrystal Taylor:

That sounds terrible. I didn’t actually answer my own question, so I’ll answer it now.

Andy Garibay:

No, yeah, go for it.

Sean Sebring:

Yes, cool.

Chrystal Taylor:

But I have two Christmas trees and I have one for-

Andy Garibay:

Woo, look at you.

Chrystal Taylor:

One for upstairs, one for downstairs. Actually, the reason we got a second Christmas tree is because my dog kept stealing ornaments and destroying them and she’s not allowed upstairs. So, there’s a second tree upstairs where our custom ornaments go that we don’t want to be destroyed. And the downstairs one has balls because she’ll steal them off the tree, which is funny because that’s not the first pet I’ve had steal ornaments off the tree. Okay, story time because now I’ve distracted myself and I must tell this story. Once upon a time when I was like 10 or 11, we had a pet potbelly pig that lived in the house.

Sean Sebring:

Oh my gosh.

Chrystal Taylor:

Lived in the house. She was about 300 pounds and she was litter box trained. So, we built a big enough litter box for her to use. She used a litter box, but she would eat the glass ornaments off the bottom of the tree.

Andy Garibay:

Oh my God. So, you lived with a monster in the house.

Chrystal Taylor:

Oh my God. She was amazing actually. My favorite thing about her is she would jump up on the couch and if you were sitting in her spot, she would root you out with her snout, which was not fun for anyone because she’s massive. And yeah, she would sit. She had a spot on the couch and everything. And if you fed her pecans, she would shell the pecans and spit the shells out and only eat the meat.

Andy Garibay:

Oh, really?

Chrystal Taylor:

Pigs are awesome, dude. Anyway, that’s my side deal.

 

Andy Garibay:

What was her name?

 

Chrystal Taylor:

Her name was Squealer. I did not name her. I did not name her. She was a great pet though. But so yeah, long story short, I have two Christmas trees and one of them is pre-lit. The newer one, which is the upstairs one is pre-lit. The downstairs tree is not pre-lit and more to the point has individual branches. So, it is an effort to put the tree together. It’s an older tree. I got it for $25 because-

Sean Sebring:

Hey, my newer one’s the same.

Chrystal Taylor:

It’s amazing.

Sean Sebring:

So, they’re not that uncommon anymore.

Chrystal Taylor:

It is my favorite Christmas tree I’ve ever owned or had anywhere near me.

Sean Sebring:

The one with the individual branches.

Chrystal Taylor:

Well, it looks incredible. It takes more work. You have to fluff out.

Sean Sebring:

So much more work. And no one helps me.

Chrystal Taylor:

No, my son won’t help me. Absolutely not. He does the upstairs tree and I do the downstairs tree. The upstairs tree is like three pieces and you’re done.

Sean Sebring:

Yeah. Yeah.

Chrystal Taylor:

And mine takes much longer because it’s like six and a half feet tall and it’s got 14 layers of branches, it takes me like two hours.

Sean Sebring:

You banana peel each…

Chrystal Taylor:

But also is not pre-lit. But I’ll tell you, Andy, you were talking about, and you were doing a little dance around putting lights around the tree. And I don’t do that because I put my tree against a wall on one side. So, I am the person that don’t look at the back of the tree because it go around and then stop and then go around. So, one side of the tree is just barren and it does not look good, but you can’t see it.

Sean Sebring:

It’s 2D lighting is what you’re doing. 2D lighting. You’re just on the front.

Chrystal Taylor:

Yeah.

Sean Sebring:

I love it.

Chrystal Taylor:

And then this past year is when I got the RGB Christmas light string. So, I use those, but previously I had like two or three strands of lights that I kept in rotation. There was LEDs and then there was some more classic multicolor ones and then just plain white ones. So, depending on how I was feeling, I’ll use different lights. I like the flexibility. I don’t like that I don’t have any flexibility in the pre-lit tree. It’s just whatever lights came on it. And yeah, then once one’s broken, doesn’t work anymore, you just throw the whole thing out. And for me, I can’t do that. I have one pre-lit tree and that’s enough.

Andy Garibay:

All right. So, when is it coming down though?

Sean Sebring:

Ooh, actually two parts to that. When does it go up and when does it come down? Another controversial topic. But yes, Chrystal, you can go first.

Chrystal Taylor:

I can go first. Okay. I’ll tell you that I am a Thanksgiving girlie. So, Christmas starts after Thanksgiving is over. Typically, and they’re not up yet, but typically I try to put my Christmas decorations up the weekend after Thanksgiving. I am not a Black Friday shopper, and so I don’t do that. So, usually that Friday, Saturday is when we put up our Christmas decorations. This year that didn’t happen because there was a lot of other things going on, so I haven’t put my decorations up. They will go up this weekend, but they go up right after Thanksgiving, typically.

Andy Garibay:

When do you take it down?

Sean Sebring:

And when do they come down?

Chrystal Taylor:

Right after New Year’s, usually. I wait till after New Year’s because I’m lazy.

Sean Sebring:

Gotcha. Mine’s pretty much spot on, about the same thing. We actually might do it the week of Thanksgiving, especially if we’ve got plenty of time off. It might be like instead of a big day to get Christmas started, it’ll be a gradual week of Thanksgiving. Oh, we’re putting it up. We’re putting it up. So, that way the week it’s like evolving into Christmas, the week of Thanksgiving, and then you get your first taste of Christmas when you eat a turkey to prepare for your next turkey. So, yeah, we have a little oven here. Our spatchcock turkey was so good.

Andy Garibay:

Nice.

Sean Sebring:

So good. How about you, Andy?

Andy Garibay:

Did you say when they come down?

Sean Sebring:

Same as Chrystal. It’ll either be … It’s almost always New Year’s Day. You’ve either imbibed too much the night before and can’t do it. So, then it’s the day after New Year’s Day, or it’s New Year’s Day because you’re like, well, I got the day off, so let’s take it down.

Andy Garibay:

Yeah. For us, Christmas decorations usually go up the week of Thanksgiving because I finally have gottem rid of all the Halloween decorations. We do not care about Thanksgiving in this family. We’ve decided we’re going to be selfish for Thanksgiving.

Sean Sebring:

I love how he said that so unthankfully too. It was perfect.

Andy Garibay:

We have decided as of our core family that we’re going to be selfish and we’re going to do whatever we want to do as a family because we’re already going to see everybody for Christmas anyway. So, what do we need, two months of stress and just random arguments over nothing? No, absolutely not. So, we do exactly what we want for Thanksgiving. We take our time taking down the Halloween decorations, they go up and then the Christmas decorations, I pack them all up basically when the girls go back to school, which is always January 5th, 4th. But I leave the tree up with the lights, no decorations, but I leave the tree up with the lights in the living room well into February because the minute that comes down, for me, the living room’s just depressing and bland. And when the lights are out, the glow-

Sean Sebring:

Got to taper it down …

Andy Garibay:

… of the Christmas tree is still just magical to me. And so we’ll just leave the tree up because that’s a separate bag in the corner of the garage. So, we’ll just leave that up all the way through the winter months. And then sometime after Thanksgiving, I mean, Valentine’s Day towards the end of February, it’s like, okay, I’ll put the tree up because spring has sprung, it’s coming. So, that’s what we do.

Chrystal Taylor:

Do you think that helps with the seasonal depressiony feelings, having the lights in the house still?

Andy Garibay:

For me, absolutely.

Chrystal Taylor:

Because January is generally just a really hard month for a lot of people. Let me tell you, it’s not great to have a January birthday. January is a hard month for a lot of people and that’s a good idea. I’m going to try that this year. I’m going to just leave it up and see how I feel through January.

Andy Garibay:

Like I said, I pack up the decorations, but I leave the tree with the lights because it still makes that glow. It’s still great. And plus my girls still see the tree, so they’ll put a random thing that they made at school or whatever.

Chrystal Taylor:

Oh, that’s cute.

Andy Garibay:

On the tree. And it’s like, hey, great, whatever. But yeah, no, if I have the space or different … Honestly, we probably will graduate to like, oh, we have three different trees for different times of the season. We already have a very small four-foot Halloween tree that we put up with Halloween decorations and a big pumpkin jack of lantern as the topper, but this year we’re probably going to graduate to a full size Halloween tree of at least six feet or something.

Chrystal Taylor:

I like the idea that the tree is sort of dressed as the headless horseman.

Andy Garibay:

Exactly.

Sean Sebring:

Yeah.

Andy Garibay:

Exactly.

Sean Sebring:

I love it. Well guys, this has been a really fun conversation and it never isn’t, but it was a fun, I suppose, much more reminiscent, nostalgic. It was all still related to tech, but all still related more so even to just the traditions and how we’ve taken our past experiences with the traditions and evolved them into our current state of, well, I get to make the choices now. How am I going to do it? So, it was a lot of fun just self-reflecting and realizing, oh yeah, I used to do it that way and now we do it this way. So, what a fun holiday episode. Thanks again for joining us for our third year in a row, Andy.

Andy Garibay:

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for the invite. I actually look forward to this holiday tradition of being on TechPod. And so glad that y’all join me on Movies And Mainframes. If you haven’t checked out that podcast listeners, it’s Chrystal and Sean are regular guests on that podcast and it’s really fun. I host it and we just talk about technology in movies and television shows and we kind of explore themes and if they get the technology right, or very, very wrong in a lot of cases. So, check that out if you haven’t already.

Sean Sebring:

What a fun holiday episode. Thanks so much for listening. And if you haven’t already, subscribe and follow for more TechPod content. I’m your host, Sean Sebring, joined as always by Chrystal Taylor. Thanks for tuning in.