Foundation Nation
Foundation Nation
S4 - E10: Part 2 of special 2 part series "USA Air Force in the house" 🇺🇸
Ever been on the receiving end of a sibling's prank? You'll be in good company with our guests Kai and Lance from the Air Force. We tread the path of childhood mischief, sharing laugh-out-loud stories from the good old days. Kai's epic prank on his brother will make you cackle while Lance's shenanigans will leave you in stitches. As the laughter subsides, and the Washington sky pours outside, we transition into a discussion that hits closer to home.
Let's step away from the levity for a moment and spare a thought for those enduring the nerve-wracking wait for any sign of life from hostages in Gaza. We get real and raw about the emotional turmoil these families go through and the additional precautions our military must take in such turbulent times. It's a tough topic, but we hope for peace and resolution.
Who would have thought that a Palestinian protest in Cincinnati, the fear of darkness, and man-eating crocodiles in New York sewers could be discussed in the same breath? Yet, here we are. We debate on the significance of raising awareness for the Palestinian cause and then switch gears to discuss a prevalent fear in the US - walking alone at night. To lighten the mood, we jump into a riveting tale of a woman finding a crocodile in her toilet in Russia, and our peculiar desire to taste the legendary ninja turtle pizza from the sewers. Join us on this rollercoaster of emotions, from the lighthearted to the profound.
Hello and welcome to Foundation Nation. I'm your host, matthew Cote. Today on the podcast we're going to talk about some interesting recent goings-ons in our beautiful state and maybe even a few things going on in this amazing round thing we call home.
Speaker 2:Hey, this is Matthew Cote with Foundation Nation. Welcome back. I have a couple of wonderful guests today.
Speaker 3:Hi, I'm Kai. I'm in the Air Force. I'm based out of Little Rock Air Force Base. I'm at the 314th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. I'm an aerospace propulsion technician, or the less fancy way to say it is I just fix airplanes or airplane engines that break, so it's pretty cool, that's great, and our other guest is Lance.
Speaker 4:Yo, I'm Lance, Airman First Class. I'm with the 88th Comm Squadron, also known as the Ninjas. I'm stationed out of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and I'm a communication technician specialist and that means pretty much like we do the Wi-Fi stuff, making sure all the physical aspects of the communication is operational and working to the best of our abilities. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Thank you guys for joining. This is a couple days before Thanksgiving coming up or Thanksgiving is like the next day and we got some shitty weather, as usual. Thank you, washington. It's going to rain up tomorrow, I think. Nice, and yeah, I'm Matthew, I'm the host, I'm really. You can laugh into the mic.
Speaker 4:How the fuck does it rain up?
Speaker 2:Because, it rains so much it rains up, so does it rain?
Speaker 4:down soon? No, when does it rain down? It's a crazy rain it rains up.
Speaker 2:That's just how it is. It's just some angry rain. I didn't know about that. So we're tucked underneath the SeaTac airport here you might hear a couple planes here and there, and we're going to talk about a couple of interesting local and international kind of topics that are going on and hope you stick around. So what have you guys been doing lately? What is the? You know what I want to hear? Actually, I want to hear a cool story about your guys' brothers. You guys both have brothers. So, lance, are you an older brother or a younger brother? Younger brother, and Kai, I'm big brother. Big brother, oh, big brother, okay, okay, let me see Any meaning. Mind your mouth, okay, big brother story.
Speaker 3:What do you got? So? So it's me and Caleb, that's his name. Caleb is the name of your little brother. Yes, and he's five years younger than me. Five years younger than me, and before we were the most awesome best friends in the universe. I used to beat him up all the time and just terrorize him just because it was angry little shit.
Speaker 4:So so you do it, yeah you do it, it's how you do it.
Speaker 3:I remember one time I was in like seventh grade and I he like annoyed me. Somehow I forgot what he did, but I was like that's it, I want to get you. And like I just ran upstairs chasing after him like a juggernaut and he locked the door in the bathroom. He was hiding in there freaking out, and I wanted to get out. So bad because I knew if he stayed locked in this bathroom I'd get in trouble and seem like a whole, like a real douche. So. So he was really into this game called a farming simulator at the time, so I thought it was the nerdiest, lamest thing ever. You'd like play this stupid PS4 game and like farm crops virtually.
Speaker 1:I'm like such a nerd.
Speaker 3:So he was so happy you got the new farming simulator, like farm simulator 18 or something or whatever it was. So I we had a bunch of like old CDs laying around so I get like a old like Disney, like a like old Disney DVD and they had no label on it.
Speaker 4:So I'm like Caleb you don't come out of the bathroom.
Speaker 3:Right now I want to smash your new game. You better. Come out the bathroom. And he's like are you serious? I slide under the DVD. And he's like so I go and get a hammer and smash this trash CD and then slide it under the door. I'm like look what you did. I broke your new game.
Speaker 4:Just so freaking out.
Speaker 3:He's devastated, just having like a pack attack in the bathroom.
Speaker 4:Finally opens the door and my mom's like what happened.
Speaker 3:He's like you broke my new game and she's all pissed at me. I was like no, I did it. I was just trying to get out the bathroom, but I was so worried and I didn't get in trouble. I was so happy.
Speaker 2:Oh, lucky save day, lucky save day. God damn, you know he's going to hear this story. He's going to make them all like PTSD again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh God, I remember this episode oh God. He's like I got to pause this episode and go check out my where's all my shit, I think it's good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 4:Rest in peace. Farming simulator.
Speaker 2:He's still in the bathroom to this day. He's like yeah, yeah yeah, I thought you were going to say something like you went and like harvested all his carrots or something.
Speaker 3:Oh, no, I'm going to break it. It's going to be pieces. Yeah, I just sold all your fruit. Man, you're fucked now.
Speaker 2:No, I was a little evil guy. So, baby brother, what do you? What stories do you have?
Speaker 4:Okay, this was my freshman year of high school and Sean, older brother, he just learned how to drive right.
Speaker 4:Oh, he had his driver's license, everything. He was like cool he, he drove my mom's car to school on the first day he could drive to school. He drove the car to school and I remember I came with him is awesome. We're playing music and stuff and school goes by and at lunchtime I'm like man, I don't want to get some McDonald's. And I had these older friends and they're like dude, drive me to like McDonald's. And I was like okay, like I'm down, and so Well, it was this girl. She was the one who wanted McDonald's. Honestly.
Speaker 3:I lied, she wanted.
Speaker 4:McDonald's and this other dude was trying to come too. So I was like, let's do it, my brother's car's right here. So I hop in the car no license, nothing and go to McDonald's, get it, everything's normal. And then I come back to park and the parking spot somebody took it and there's this church right next to us and I'm like man, I'll just park there there's nobody parked in there at all and go, park the car, go to class, do all my stuff, and I call Shawn after school. I'm like yo, let's go back home, and yeah. So we're walking back to the car and I told Shawn no, no, no, I didn't tell Shawn anything because I thought he would. I don't even know, I wasn't even thinking Like my brain wasn't even functional, I was just so blindsided by trying to make a girl happy in, anyway.
Speaker 4:So we're walking back Shawn, there's two of his girls and one of the homies, and we get up to where his car should have been and it wasn't there. And he's like what the fuck? And I'm like no, here's the thing. I'm like where did the car go? I said where did the car go? And he's like dude, I have no idea. And we're looking around like the car has gone. I'm acting like you know fucking. This is my first time hearing about it. And all of a sudden, like this lady comes out from the church and she's like, are you here, are you guys looking for a car? And my brother's like, yeah, yeah, like I parked it right here, I don't know what happened. And she's like, yeah, there's a car parked over there in the parking lot. And she like you know, it fit the description that he was like explaining it to her and she was like, yeah, we had to tow it.
Speaker 4:And yeah so yeah, they towed the car and then they pulled up the camera footage and they saw me park it. It was bad man, I didn't yeah my brother didn't drive me for like a couple months.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I take the bus.
Speaker 4:Dude walk it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's pretty funny, that's pretty funny, that's a good one yeah.
Speaker 2:All I did with my sister growing up, I just I remember going to bed and before we'd go to bed I'd hustle in the bedroom and I was like I don't know seven or something and she was like three. This is like some real torture shit going on. So I'd run in my room and we were in bunk beds and I'd take a bunch of little babies you know, like stuffed animals, like babies. Take a bunch of babies, I put them up in my bed, hide them under the pillow and I'd be like it's tired, it's time to go to bed. And then my sister, she was like this miniature human being, like super cute like major innocent.
Speaker 2:She's like okay, let's go to bed. She goes to bed. My mom puts us to bed. I go up, get in my bed. Mom turns out light, leaves, leaves door open because I'm scared of everything. And then I'm like, looking around, I was like all right coast is clear and I'm bam. I'd throw him down, smack her right in the head and I'd quickly go to sleep. My mom would come running and go what's going? On.
Speaker 5:What's going on?
Speaker 2:I was like I don't even know, All night long 40 fucking babies later, you know and I was like okay, I feel good now. Good night, Devious. Yeah, that was one of my funner stories, though.
Speaker 5:Anyway.
Speaker 2:I killed her a while ago. She's dead.
Speaker 5:Foundation Nation is sponsored by Seattle's tiny housescom. Schedule your free tour today to explore the leaf, seattle's most unique tiny house.
Speaker 2:So okay, so we got I mean, you know, we got a couple of wars going on in this world, man, like some some serious shit going on, people dying, israel still. Yeah Well, ukraine, israel, russia, you know, palestinians, all that stuff, and I didn't want to talk too much about it because it's like super emotional and it's a lot of big stuff. But one thing that was kind of seemed safe and important to talk about was the families of the hostages in Gaza. They're still looking just for proof of life, uh-huh Like so did the Israelis bomb them into? Did they kill them all, bombing them? Are they all dead? I mean, they haven't heard nothing. How?
Speaker 4:many people are we talking here?
Speaker 2:Like 200 plus people Whoa that they kidnapped, that are just gone, and this is kind of crazy if you think about it. I mean, imagine going for a couple of months and your brother's missing. Yeah, it'd be terrible, you know, you don't know if he's alive or dead. I don't know how that feelings inside you would, but you could seriously like be crazy for the rest of your life. Yeah.
Speaker 4:You know it's. I'm pretty sure it's worse, knowing or not knowing where they are than knowing that they're, at least you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because, because, like every, single one of these people could come back. Yeah, and you're like mentally trashed forever. Yeah, you know, I think it's. I think it's like maybe like a couple of days. You know like, hey, my brother got or my sister or somebody got kidnapped a couple of days. They come back, all good, right, yeah, but I mean we're talking like a month and a half, two months or whatever's going on now and these people are like no proof of life or nothing. I mean that's tough as well. It's just. It's just. It just kind of like it bothers me. I feel sad for the people that are having to like go through that stuff, but how do you, how do you guys feel about it?
Speaker 4:Well, it's interesting because, as a military member, they're starting to take more precautions and even though I'm not even deployed or anywhere you know I'm in Ohio they're still like. I got a text from my NCO and he was like Created this group, chat for everybody and said hey, everybody check in making sure you're okay, making sure you're alive, mm-hmm, and it was like 30, 40 people all like yep, I'm good, you know I'm alive. All as well. Yep, all is well clear.
Speaker 2:How about? How about you guy? You got anything for me on CO.
Speaker 1:Um same thing same thing, same thing.
Speaker 3:It's a head wide yeah heads up yeah, people are getting deployed to places and are you guys?
Speaker 2:are you guys feeling pretty safe?
Speaker 4:For the most part, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just, it's kind of nerve-wracking when, like you see, people like right next to I, had a, a Friend of mine and he just got deployed within like 18 days.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so you're. So people are getting Deployed, people getting moved out, things are happening, you know, and it's fucking scary, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so that's the impact that is having on you guys. You know You're, you're seeing this horrible stuff happen and you're thinking like it it brings, brings the bar up a little bit, makes you guys a little nervous. Yeah, you know. But definitely you know, I mean I don't know every, every, every, every branch of military plays their role. You know, and I feel like you know, for the Air Force there's, it has a Significant role in supporting, like I feel like the Air Force in my mind has always it supports all the branches. Yes, you know, I mean. So like we bomb and the for these guys, we bomb it for these guys. You know we're supporting whoever's down there by the air.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know so until we work with yeah. So Hopefully, you know, this super touchy subject gets, gets dealt with and people start hearing about their family members and things start Clearing up. I just wanted to hear what your guys's perspective wasn't in your world, you know. So for me it's just like it, is it? I feel real bad for the people. I mean, of course, the people that got kidnapped that sucks, but I mean the people that are having to deal with it. You know I was like I'd lose my mind. I know I would not function properly with that going on.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we saw that Palestinian protest in a Sinsi. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right yeah.
Speaker 2:Palestinians are out there saying, you know, don't forget, yeah, so they were, we were, we were eating and we went to the bangles game. Oh, and there was a Palestinian protest, yeah, and they were. Well, there were, it was, it was a, it was a nice one, it was, everything was fine, and they were just saying don't forget about the Palestinians. Yeah, yeah, you know it's like, hey, you know, all the the people that got kidnapped and all the Israelis and Jews and stuff, they're getting a lot of attention, but also there's Palestinians, don't forget about them.
Speaker 1:So, it's?
Speaker 2:they were just like Raising awareness. I think so, but it seemed pretty peaceful, it seemed fine. I don't, I don't, I didn't see anything going on.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but then you see those videos on the internet, the people with the Israel flags and the Palestine flags and there's like two sides if it's not, unlike CBS yeah, nbc or CNN, I'm not watching it, okay, okay. Well, there's like Instagram videos of, like you know.
Speaker 2:And those things are.
Speaker 4:College campuses is where it's.
Speaker 2:I don't like to watch those things other than I. It's like entertainment. I try to I try to get my information from legitimate news sources that edit out things that are like gross and not healthy and not safe for my mind to watch and stuff like that, and so I I.
Speaker 4:Instagram is not considered.
Speaker 2:Sense Censorship, then sense editing yeah, if they're taking out stuff, I'm talking about like Some guy goes running up and and like unloads his gun into a crowd of people. I don't need to see all the people dying.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, I'm not really talking about that. I'm talking about like specifics, people, certain, like interviews, not getting like mentioned, oh yeah, for sure the news. The news is good until the news Is gonna do something good for some.
Speaker 2:I guess I just like to have, I just like to watch news. It has some credibility. Yes, they all have. I don't think I don't think what you're saying is talking about censorship. I think what you're talking about is like they're Showing you what a piece of the information right. So right in a way that they want you to see it.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, they're just leaning towards. Yeah, they're in one direction or the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's censorship, but that's also like that's more complicated than I know. That's basically like they want you to hear their side of the story, right, so what you can do is you can, you can read Newspapers you can read, you can listen to, like places like NPR. Npr is kind of a fair kind of news Broadcasting where they their real thing is like both sides of the story. Bbc, and Then you know a news source that seems kind of accurate to me is you know all the, all the big players. You know the CNN, nbc, stuff like that. I just I watch a lot of CNN because I just like the way that they report Uh-huh. But there's also other other guys out there like vice news. They literally go out there, they do.
Speaker 4:I was about to say the people that are going out there and reporting they're going out there, feel like would be more credible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the and I watch them too, and they go out there with a camera, with a mic, and they stand in front of a tank with Dead people on it or whatever it is, you know, and they're like I'm in Ukraine. Russia just bombed this tank and five people died and yes, and that's the real nice, clean, accurate news.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's what I was like more talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah and I watch that too, yeah, but then there's the, the mainstream media stuff too. That's you just. You just have to be mindful of what's going on and be like, okay, I take that with like a little bit of weight and then I'll go look somewhere else too. So, yeah, you have to be mindful of that. So the thing now talking about that they took a poll. The Charlotte observer took this interesting poll with a bunch of people. 40% of Americans fear walking alone at night. It's the highest in decades.
Speaker 4:I mean, yeah, when I see a girl walking late at night, like I want to make sure she gets home safe, right, yeah, so I'm, like you know, put on all black.
Speaker 3:I'm not surprised at this at all. To me this seems like reasonable stuff common sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I was scared. I didn't watch any TV when I was four or five years old. I was scared of the dark. Yeah, I mean the dark is a scary place, right monsters come out at night the mob.
Speaker 5:Yeah skeletons, skeleton zombies creepers, zombies creepers.
Speaker 4:Well, there's that one thing that always gets me. It's when it's pitch black in the room and you're going to leave the room. You know this looking you turn around. Yeah, isn't, yeah, you know there's that monster right behind you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, when you exit the cave man, yeah, you have to like back there click the light and then take off up the stairs.
Speaker 2:Later. Yeah, yeah, what's the scariest thing you guys have experienced in a dark darkness man? Do you have any? Do you have any dark whole stories? Hmm, so I'll tell you one to get to get the ball rolling in your noggin's. So I was. I don't know exactly what year this is, but I think I was eight or nine. Oh, and my old man took me to see predator. Oh, yeah, all right, dude, like you, don't do this to kids, man, this is like trashes their soul. So I'm in the theater is like me and my old man, and and At some point during the movie with this predator, he takes his mask off. Oh, and it's like teeth and, yeah, vagina mouth and stuff and all kinds of craziness. And I just lost my shit, yeah, and I was so scared and confused I didn't go out of the aisle of the movie theater. Yeah, I jumped every fucking seat backwards to get out.
Speaker 4:I Got like a light-hearted one. There's that movie, it right yeah, with the clown clown and I remember Me, my brother, two other friends. We were going to see it because it just came out and we're up to our shenanigans, you know, taking our time, end up there at the movie theater and get in. Movie starts and it's pretty slow at first, right. So it's like half an hour is in and it starts getting like freaky at least for me, and I Forgot what part. But Sean takes off. Hmm, like Sean is gone and and we wrap up the movie and go back home. Sean's like I'm never doing that fucking movie, ever again. I hate all of you yeah and and.
Speaker 4:Then we go back to the house, go to sleep, and, and, and. In the middle of the night I get woke in by Sean and he's crawling over me to sleep in the corner of the bed in the room and I'm like, oh shit, if you know, like throw some blanket over him, share. And then I just roll over to the corner and I Wake up again by rolling and hitting the floor and Sean's like completely pushed me off the bed at this leg right, and I'm like you, son of a bitch. So he came in, took my bed and Kicked you out yeah, kicked, kicked me out. And then I went to his room and his room's a lot darker because it got that like those black shades. You put it right, so it's pitch black and fuck dude, I could not go to sleep because I kept like seeing like this little glowing thing and yeah, so the clown got you up, so I just had the well, you know, on the couch.
Speaker 2:The as more Americans are becoming scared of the dark, the crime rates going down and down, and down. That's good, that's good, yeah, so people are like like actually scared of nothing. Huh, you know, like nothing's really happening. There's, the crime rate in the US is Something like 28% lower than it ever used to be. Whoa highest crime rate ever was in 1991. I'm lucky, I guess.
Speaker 4:Yeah so well they got to be scared of the key out boys, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the key boys. And no joke, I got a USB. Well, I'm out. Yeah, so funny thing happened and we call it what the flush Culprits clogging the sewer systems.
Speaker 2:So we're not talking about shit like giant, massive shits yeah no logs, no, we're talking like toys, like action figures I could call your toilet stormtroopers Sonic the hedgehog, legos, rubber duckies. This is the guide for clogging the sewer systems. These things are popping up all over the place, oh wow, and it's just. Kids are just throwing them down the toilet and they keep it them. Well, so the sewer department's getting them all and they're keeping them all, and they show a little picture here of all the little toys. They got the dinosaur from Toy Story, they got rubber duckies. Did you guys ever hear about that one giant freight liner that crashed in the middle ocean and had like a billion duckies on it? They went floating all over the world?
Speaker 5:No, I didn't hear about yeah, so something like 15 million rubber duckies were released into the ocean.
Speaker 2:Huh, and they're just floating around, showing up on beaches everywhere. That's pretty cool yeah.
Speaker 4:Imagine you're just eating that. Like that lobster and fucking half a duckies have a duckies in there.
Speaker 2:Two more grams of protein. We feeling good now.
Speaker 4:So how are they cleaning these things? That's what I'm thinking about. Like covered in shit, right, yeah, well, there in the sewers.
Speaker 2:Well, the sewer systems in Washington state. They can process everything but heavy metals okay. So literally anything can go in these things. You don't want to, you want all the paper and human waste and that's it. But it can process everything but heavy metals. So Every certain amount of time I don't know once a month or twice a month or something the sewer systems I've been in there and I've inspected them and worked on them and stuff for other structural reasons, and how they smell, they, they're wretched.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it starts out with the legit stuff, and then it breaks it all the way down to drinkable water at the end with drinkable water.
Speaker 3:Drinkable water Yep, tasty dude, I don't know water.
Speaker 2:But then it has a base filter that they pull out and it's full of metals Whoa, all different kinds of metals. Human teeth Whoa, um, you know. Pieces of rings, things missing parts of guns get grinded up in the system, all kinds of stuff. But it's, yeah, it's see, you know they got all these things going on, but the they're mostly worried about you guys ever flushing anything down the toilet when you're a kid.
Speaker 3:Yeah, all the time, yeah, living fish. I didn't want to take care of anymore Freakin, poor little guy Um right yeah fishes name. Wow, they didn't even have a name. He's just like my side fish I had. I don't know why it's always fish living in dead fish. Yeah, all bunch of sketchy stuff all the time.
Speaker 2:There's. I remember listening when I was in Russia long ago. I was listening to news on the or it was a radio that and I was listening to news on the radio and there was this lady and she's like I don't even know what happened, but a crocodile came out of my toilet.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:What? That's some bullshit. Look it up. A crocodile, like a little crocodile, came out of her toilet. So long ago, like back in the 80s, there was a infestation of like man-eating crocodiles in the New York sewer system, friend and they're huge.
Speaker 4:No, and they're huge.
Speaker 3:Long.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I was gnarly and they grew up down there and they got trapped down there and they're feeding off something rats, probably, whoa and they were super aggressive and they had to go in there and get them all out.
Speaker 3:Oh, I'm on that job, do you?
Speaker 2:imagine being in the sewer working on some plumbing pipes. Yeah, you know, you look down like a giant Crocodile is cruising by you, oh.
Speaker 3:I bet they're just like gnarly. They're like Mossy and moldy, glowing eyes in the dark.
Speaker 2:Yeah he's like how's it going man? Yeah, yeah GG.
Speaker 3:Okay guys.
Speaker 2:Well, it was nice having you on. Thanks for joining me the. This was a great episode. I think that you guys have anything more to say.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, get me in the sewer, so I'm hungry.
Speaker 2:Get you hungry.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I want that yeah ninja, ninja, turtle pizza.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right. Okay, guys, thank you and we're out appreciate.
Speaker 5:Foundation nation is sponsored by Seattle's tiny houses calm. Schedule your free tour today to explore the leaf, seattle's most unique tiny house.
