00:00:53.67 Stan Lemon So Jonathan, i had intended to record this earlier. i've I've dried my feet. It's been a decade kind of week, but i I wanted to wish you a belated happy first contact today.
00:01:05.74 Jon Correct. Which is also a happy Easter.
00:01:09.16 Stan Lemon Oh yeah, yeah, that that was going on too. That was going on too. But but happy first contact day. I think this is a really important you know time of year when the Vulcans first greet humans.
00:01:20.35 Jon Correct. Is from Cochran?
00:01:22.73 Stan Lemon Yeah. Oh, Zephyr and Cochran. Now there is an American hero.
00:01:29.08 Jon Eventually.
00:01:30.72 Stan Lemon Eventually, right?
00:01:33.80 Jon So what year is that
00:01:34.12 Stan Lemon Someone important said, when is, like 2066? When think
00:01:38.73 Jon no it's well past that that's like when the third world war starts
00:01:38.76 Stan Lemon when is no i don't think so
00:01:44.97 Stan Lemon Hold on. What happens? April 5th, 2063 is the day of first contact between humans and aliens, specifically the Vulcans.
00:01:52.18 Jon really you were i thought it was much later than that so
00:01:54.90 Stan Lemon I was close, Jonathan. I said 2066. It was 2063.
00:02:00.10 Stan Lemon No, man. Because, like, think about it. so So the original series is in the, what, mid-22s? And if I recall right, Enterprise is in the mid to late 21s.
00:02:11.92 Jon Right.
00:02:12.71 Stan Lemon Yeah. So, you know. Yeah, but anyhow, all that said, right? Talking about space. It has been one heck of a week on the final frontier, has it not?
00:02:26.35 Jon absolutely has been. i am so invested, Stan.
00:02:30.35 Stan Lemon Okay, so we're talking about Artemis specifically, right?
00:02:34.46 Jon Yep.
00:02:34.51 Stan Lemon And I'm assuming you watched the launch.
00:02:38.79 Jon I watched the launch, but not live, unfortunately.
00:02:42.22 Stan Lemon What were you doing that you couldn't watch it live?
00:02:45.45 Jon Um, I don't know. Cause what, what time was launch?
00:02:49.93 Stan Lemon It was like 6.30 in the evening.
00:02:52.68 Jon Yeah. So I think that we were like eating dinner and right.
00:02:53.67 Stan Lemon you were probably in the car. It was 6.30 my time. So it would have been 5.30 your time.
00:02:57.83 Jon So I was in the car, but Lily and I watched it, um, after the fact, shortly after the fact, but
00:02:58.18 Stan Lemon Yeah, you were in the car.
00:03:04.11 Stan Lemon Okay. And this is probably the first rocket launch you've watched with her, right?
00:03:08.86 Jon Oh, with her. Absolutely.
00:03:10.12 Stan Lemon Yeah, okay. See, we've we've watched a few Falcon launches as a family, which were exciting. This is, like, I remember the first crude Falcon launch we watched. Again, super exciting.
00:03:21.86 Stan Lemon this is This is just a different level. I think, one, because Elon Musk has nothing to do with it, right?
00:03:27.14 Jon That could definitely be, yeah.
00:03:27.49 Stan Lemon Oh, it's a huge factor.
00:03:29.35 Jon o
00:03:29.83 Stan Lemon it's a huge factor for me.
00:03:30.03 Jon ah
00:03:31.40 Stan Lemon um But also, like, there's something about... the let's see if this makes sense there's something about nasa in its purity not like um commercialized privatized spaceflight but just nasa that is so i don't know breathtaking don't like it's it's just awesome just awesome and this is a cool rocket too
00:03:47.80 Jon Right.
00:03:56.20 Jon Yep.
00:03:59.34 Jon Cool rocket. Watch the rocket. Watch separation. It's a cool mission. You are a big Apollo fan, and you know way more about the Apollo missions than I do. So this has got to be like next level for you.
00:04:15.88 Stan Lemon Yeah. So, uh, I definitely big Apollo i in particular, i am a huge gym level fan and, um, not just cause of Apollo 13, but ah like Apollo eight, uh,
00:04:24.96 Jon Nice.
00:04:30.15 Stan Lemon such a cool, epic story in terms of the the launch, the circumstances that lead up to it, what those guys choose to do and read and say as they're going around the moon on Christmas.
00:04:43.21 Stan Lemon And, ah you know, Jim Lovell passed away just a few months back now, right? And I think on Instagram, I posted, i have i have his book, the original printing, not the post Apollo 13, the movie printing.
00:04:57.90 Stan Lemon And i have it, it's signed, written written out to me by Jim Lovell. um I posted a picture of that, you know, when he passed away. But apparently he had prerecorded a greeting to the astronauts as they were approaching, them like, and they played it to the push of the moon.
00:05:13.31 Stan Lemon And I ain't gonna lie, man, I got, my allergies got a little, you know, acted up.
00:05:17.00 Jon ah
00:05:18.15 Stan Lemon but
00:05:18.18 Jon Yeah, I mean, that's got to be crazy for those astronauts too, um as they're taking part in this moon mission, have been training for years. um And like, for sure, you're looking back at previous moon missions.
00:05:32.71 Stan Lemon Yeah. And yeah this is like Jim Lovell is in a league of his own, right? In terms of um time flown and which, i you know, like the folks that go to the International Space Station are now totally eclipsing what he did. But he had he had almost 30 days of time in space, which and and spanned across four missions, right?
00:05:58.03 Stan Lemon right? At a time when these, these missions were not that long, right? They got a little longer with the shuttle, but I think the other thing too, that is cool. He had two Gemini missions and two Apollo missions. And if I'm, let's see if my my memory is going to serve me right here.
00:06:10.54 Stan Lemon The second Gemini mission, um is that the rendezvous one or is it the first one? Oh man, I'm, I'm, I'm drawn a blank, but basically
00:06:19.04 Jon I'm not the guy who has the answer for you.
00:06:20.91 Stan Lemon Yeah, well, all right. If only the robots were a little little faster. So it's the first mission. So he spends 14 days in space, 206 orbits, with another guy named Frank Borman, who was the captain of Apollo 8, the first one around the moon, right? And they they rendezvous with Gemini 6.
00:06:40.65 Stan Lemon So this is this is what's bonkers. The whole concept of um the the command module and the lunar module docking in space so they could go to Apollo ah trips, they they have to prove out that they can actually dock in space, Jonathan.
00:06:49.64 Jon Mm-hmm.
00:06:54.50 Stan Lemon And that's that was that was his first mission in space, right?
00:06:55.05 Jon Yep.
00:06:58.78 Stan Lemon so like
00:06:59.43 Jon So cool.
00:07:00.67 Stan Lemon Yeah. He's just got his fingerprints over the most monumental prerequisites to Apollo 11, right? um And then everybody knows him because Apollo 13, which is a big deal. i'm not going to lie. But like everything he did up into that moment, bigger deal.
00:07:16.24 Jon Right.
00:07:17.08 Stan Lemon So... Yeah, i don't know It was cool. I imagine it had to be, because like as as much as I'm talking about him with this like admiration, he's a legend in NASA.
00:07:27.55 Stan Lemon you know So to be greeted by him posthumously, i had, I meant, you're pushing him.
00:07:28.59 Jon right as you are approaching the moon like
00:07:34.54 Stan Lemon Yeah, crazy, crazy. We're back at the moon, John. We're back at the moon.
00:07:37.13 Jon i know we got such great photos from this mission um nikon and iphone 17s they have dlsrs mirrorless ones too so
00:07:41.96 Stan Lemon Shot on.
00:07:44.75 Stan Lemon No, iPhone. iPhone, come on, man. go down play
00:07:50.54 Stan Lemon They do, but their the iPhone is the approved phone for for this mission. like How cool is that? They're taking photos on the iPhone. i don't know. It's it's it's so cool. Yeah.
00:08:01.35 Stan Lemon so
00:08:01.35 Jon Yeah, this this might be the most commercialized ah NASA mission with all the product placement.
00:08:09.03 Stan Lemon there's There's definitely a lot of product placement. I actually saw, um what's her name? Jessica Alba, is that right? Who's who's the one that does honest?
00:08:17.16 Jon Yeah, the one, some skincare thing, I saw that too.
00:08:19.29 Stan Lemon Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Honest company, right? So, so there's, um, there's a, I saw video of her on Instagram listening to communication between Houston and the Artemis with one of the astronauts asking for skincare product from Honest trying to find it because she was pretty sure that they had on board, which, uh, I mean, like if, if that's, if that's you, if you've, you've made that product, how cool is that?
00:08:37.84 Jon Yep.
00:08:43.88 Stan Lemon You know, um,
00:08:43.87 Jon Yep. And you saw the Nutella floating around?
00:08:48.68 Stan Lemon I did not see that one. That's, that's cool. Do you think, okay, like Nutella is not place paying for product placement there, are they?
00:08:56.65 Jon i don't know. This might be as conspiracy theorist as I get. But. good
00:09:00.85 Stan Lemon Oh, you, you think, you think Nutella is on? Is it like, but it's part of big NASA branding?
00:09:06.19 Jon I mean, these are not cheap missions, Stan.
00:09:10.33 Stan Lemon Well, I'm sure everything's intentional. Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay. right. All right. So I was reflecting a little bit on, well, actually, hold on. Let me back up. So you watched it after launch. So you knew, by the time you watched the recording, you knew that nothing had gone wrong.
00:09:27.88 Jon That too, yes, which is important when you're watching with a two-year-old.
00:09:28.20 Stan Lemon Right? Okay.
00:09:31.91 Stan Lemon Yeah. Okay. Fair point. fair point It didn't even cross my mind that I should not let the kids watch the And and i I guess I should have now at, so that was that was Wednesday night, last Wednesday at Maundy Thursday service, your father-in-law included a prayer for the astronauts on the Artemis mission, which I thought was cool.
00:09:51.76 Jon Oh, that's cool.
00:09:52.81 Stan Lemon Yeah, I think he included him on on Easter Vigil too, or maybe Sunday morning. One one of them, it popped up a couple times, but I thought like that ah you know those was great, right? And I talked with him a little bit about it afterwards. And he said, look, man, my generation holds their breath for every launch.
00:10:09.64 Stan Lemon and And I thought about it, right? like he's He's referencing Challenger. and And I can definitely see how I was i was itty bitty. You were not born yet. um But I'm going to hold my breath on their return because while I'm not the Challenger generation, I am the Columbia generation.
00:10:23.71 Jon Columbia, yeah.
00:10:24.08 Stan Lemon Yeah.
00:10:24.15 Jon Right.
00:10:24.68 Stan Lemon Yeah. um And it dawned on me that like my kids don't have any conceptualization of the stakes, right? Like they we they've seen the Apollo 13 movie because i've i it's up there in terms of my favorite movies of all time.
00:10:41.23 Stan Lemon um I've watched it many times, but it's different to watch. Like, I think it's it's it's different to watch the movie that tells that story and then to be, don't know, do you remember where you were at when Columbia i ah exploded on reentry?
00:10:58.25 Jon I don't. Yeah.
00:10:59.77 Stan Lemon See, I remember exactly where I was. It was a Saturday.
00:11:01.39 Jon yeah
00:11:02.04 Stan Lemon I think it was a Saturday. I'm pretty sure it was a Saturday. And I was at the high school and we were doing a speech tournament practice for, I think, but like divisionals or finals whatever.
00:11:15.26 Stan Lemon So we were in a classroom um and yeah, i like I can see exactly where I was at. And I'm curious to see if I remember the date right. What day of the week was it, Jonathan?
00:11:30.89 Stan Lemon You think it'd be easier to find this out. Anyhow, so, you know, i'm i'm ah that'll be on my mind as they return. and I hope they return safely. and And I look forward to seeing even more of what um what they took and what they learned and all that, right?
00:11:49.90 Stan Lemon But did you find it yet, John? You look like you're Googling.
00:11:54.30 Jon I've got February 1st, but I can't.
00:11:57.00 Stan Lemon Yeah, like what day of the week was February first 2003. It was a Saturday. I found it. It was a Saturday. See, how's that from my memory, right? I may be getting old, but man, I still ask about it.
00:12:06.28 Jon So I would have been in eighth grade. So I was probably at home. Maybe at a basketball game.
00:12:13.45 Stan Lemon Okay. So again, like if we were not doing this extra practice for our speech tournament, for our forensics tournament, I would not have been at at school. I don't know where I would have been probably at home. Um, and I don't remember how, who found out first or whatnot, but we, we totally disrupted everything to pull in a TV and and watch the live broadcast.
00:12:32.14 Stan Lemon Um,
00:12:32.46 Jon Pull in a TV stand before you could just watch it on your phone.
00:12:35.98 Stan Lemon Before you could just watch on your phone. Yeah, exactly. And it was a big old CRT TV. There were a limited number for the floor.
00:12:40.65 Jon On a cart.
00:12:42.19 Stan Lemon It was on a cart. Yeah. Yeah. Old school. Old school.
00:12:43.83 Jon Ratchet strapped down.
00:12:45.19 Stan Lemon Yeah. But, but you know, I think like that. So again, I said Columbia generation, your father-in-law being part of the challenger generation. And i think that just frames, like it adds a little bit of a, I like, I found myself holding my breath.
00:12:58.09 Stan Lemon Right. Cause this is not a, it's not a given thing that it's going to, it's going to happen. And i I reflect on this because I have actually seen a space shuttle launch um from the Zephyr Hills area. So it was a clear day, space shuttle launch, and looked up in the sky and saw that visiting my grandparents. And I remember my grandfather saying, oh, it's just another one of those shuttle launches.
00:13:20.46 Stan Lemon Right? And and i I was like, oh yeah, I guess it is, right? Because I think we had trivialized space flight there, especially at the tail end of the shuttle program, because it was like, they were doing it all the time, or it seemed like it was all the time, you know?
00:13:30.36 Jon Right.
00:13:35.08 Jon Yep.
00:13:36.56 Stan Lemon There were multiple shuttles, they were reusable. Like it lost some of its luster in terms of the frequency. It shouldn't have, but it did. we've had this long gap and the Artemis has really struggled to also like this, this program has struggled, you know, um, over there, we're on the other side of the moon.
00:13:51.01 Jon Yeah.
00:13:54.03 Stan Lemon It's cool.
00:13:55.47 Jon Super cool. um What else do I want to say about the mission so far?
00:14:02.44 Stan Lemon Well, you sent me a text yesterday or was it this morning? It was this morning. Um,
00:14:07.56 Jon Oh, yeah, where they they made contact with the International Space Station and they were communicating back and forth. And I'm like, these people are communicating with Houston ah like from the side of the moon. So why do I think that this is so cool?
00:14:26.60 Jon um But it it was just super cool. And they just were chit-chatting like over the comms.
00:14:34.41 Stan Lemon I think the, so, and it's not like a, um as far as I know, right, it's not like a a capsule has never communicated with the space station as it's approached to dock.
00:14:44.85 Stan Lemon Like, I think that's the thing, right?
00:14:44.87 Jon Right, yeah.
00:14:46.73 Stan Lemon The nature of, because they're not gonna stop by the International Space Station. It's not part of the mission.
00:14:50.41 Jon Yep.
00:14:51.63 Stan Lemon um I don't know, man, this is this is the thing that we have watched on TV and celebrated in Star Trek, right? Like coming to life.
00:15:01.67 Jon Right. The space station hailed the spacecraft.
00:15:06.12 Stan Lemon It hailed the spacecraft, right? As it was i was going into, you know, or orbiting around the moon. Like, it's just it's just so cool. This is this is exactly what um I've always wanted to be true in the universe.
00:15:19.03 Jon Yep. We got some really great images um from the far side of the moon. They named a couple craters. they didn't So, I don't know. They must have this all mapped out, and apparently they found craters that hadn't been named yet.
00:15:35.47 Stan Lemon Well, there's there's a so part of the moon that they've never seen before, right?
00:15:38.74 Jon Okay.
00:15:39.18 Stan Lemon In terms of previous orbits.
00:15:39.91 Jon Right, because the other ones were too close. so Okay.
00:15:42.15 Stan Lemon Right. And so um that allowed them to see things they haven't seen before.
00:15:43.01 Jon Okay.
00:15:47.81 Stan Lemon So, you know, you see new things, you get you get to name them, right? And um i did you watch the videos where they talked about why they would name what they were going name and all that?
00:15:50.50 Jon Yep.
00:15:56.22 Jon Yeah.
00:15:56.97 Stan Lemon Yeah. I don't know. its I think it's just cool. It's just cool.
00:15:59.37 Jon It is.
00:15:59.65 Stan Lemon The the intentionality of it all.
00:16:03.18 Jon I like it.
00:16:03.37 Stan Lemon But...
00:16:04.91 Jon Cool stuff.
00:16:05.00 Stan Lemon So are you gonna watch the return live?
00:16:05.43 Jon Be interesting to see what all happens. um What time is it supposed to be?
00:16:12.48 Stan Lemon Oh man, you can ask the hard questions. When does the Artemis 2 return?
00:16:15.02 Jon It's Friday, right? I think it's Friday afternoon, so I probably won't be able to see it live.
00:16:20.31 Stan Lemon You're not gonna watch it at work. It's at 8.07 PM Eastern time. So that'll be 7.07.
00:16:24.43 Jon Oh, so then I probably can, yeah.
00:16:26.22 Stan Lemon Yeah, you'll be home. You'll have a glass of wine.
00:16:28.14 Jon Stan, we could go into the Vision Pro and we could sit in the theater together and then we can watch it at the same time.
00:16:36.14 Stan Lemon Can we do that on YouTube?
00:16:38.23 Jon There's a YouTube app now. Maybe it's not sitting in the theater, but there's like SharePlay or whatever.
00:16:40.65 Stan Lemon ah can you
00:16:44.94 Stan Lemon Okay, we should experiment with this because that could be cool in a nerdy way.
00:16:46.54 Jon We should.
00:16:50.54 Jon Maybe we won't have avatars, but we could SharePlay it.
00:16:54.11 Stan Lemon I'm up for it, man. I'm up for it. I will definitely watch it and I look forward to seeing it. Have I told you i've I've seen most of the Apollo capsules in person at this point?
00:17:06.47 Jon I don't think so.
00:17:07.47 Stan Lemon Yeah, and and a bunch of the Gemini,
00:17:08.81 Jon I was with you for one of them, right? That one you've probably seen before, right? No, we didn't go to NASA.
00:17:13.61 Stan Lemon which, yeah, we went on different days.
00:17:14.85 Jon that We were both in Texas at the same time, but we went on different days.
00:17:18.96 Stan Lemon here um Yeah, a bunch of the Mercury Runs, bunch of Gemini ones. I should actually sit down and write out a list of the same.
00:17:23.15 Jon We saw they had a rocket in the um in Dayton at the Air Museum.
00:17:32.81 Stan Lemon Did I take you to the the Air Force Museum? Okay.
00:17:35.31 Jon Yeah, so we saw... What was it? Saturn V?
00:17:41.35 Stan Lemon No, they don't they don't have a Saturn V. You're talking about the missile missile complex. So those are those are missiles.
00:17:46.57 Jon Yeah.
00:17:47.47 Stan Lemon those aren't
00:17:49.14 Jon Uh...
00:17:49.61 Stan Lemon I mean, there's some overlap, right? Because original the original space program program was just strapping capsules onto the top of missiles. But yeah, different. but i is there I think there's a capsule. I should actually spend some time map mapping out. Yeah, they have a...
00:18:05.26 Stan Lemon Okay, there's a Gemini B there, it looks like. And then they have the Apollo 15 command module, which is the one I was thinking of as well. So yeah, that's like that's a great museum.
00:18:16.46 Stan Lemon Like you to talk about a cool place to go, the US Air Force Museum.
00:18:19.63 Jon Did they have one of the shuttle transport planes there too?
00:18:24.39 Stan Lemon No, no, they have a mock-up of the shuttle, but they don't have, yeah.
00:18:25.21 Jon Okay. Okay.
00:18:28.97 Stan Lemon No, um the the transport plane, that's in Houston.
00:18:32.16 Jon That's in Houston. Okay.
00:18:32.87 Stan Lemon Yeah, one of the 747s is there and you can walk into it. They've they've attached it to the side of the building. It's part of the exhibit there. that's That's pretty cool too.
00:18:39.27 Jon Got it. Yeah.
00:18:40.71 Stan Lemon Yeah. There's actually, there's a Lego set of the 747 with the the shuttle attached to it. And um if I had more places to display Lego sets at this point, I think I would buy it.
00:18:52.50 Stan Lemon I'm tempted by the Artemis set. I bet you those things are going to sell out like crazy. So yeah, good deal. Hey, um so I mentioned that I was at your father-in-law's for for Holy Week here.
00:19:05.87 Jon You were.
00:19:06.63 Stan Lemon I wanted to tell you about, I don't think, did I send any pictures from the Ferrari dealership?
00:19:11.08 Jon You did not. I saw some on Instagram, I think, from Lucy.
00:19:14.57 Stan Lemon Oh, right, right, right, right. I got to post-ups there. Okay. I to say about this because it's kind of funny. so So Henry, my son, loves cars, right? And he loves stupid expensive cars. I think they're called hypercars. And we're talking about like cars that by themselves cost multiple millions of dollars.
00:19:31.13 Stan Lemon Right. And Kona Sega is one of the brands that he's really infatuated with. there's There's the Regera, the Jesco. And I think if I remember right, this is a Swedish car company, but they like we're talking about, they they make like less than 10 of a vehicle, right?
00:19:46.60 Stan Lemon In in total.
00:19:46.79 Jon Yeah.
00:19:47.60 Stan Lemon these These are so niche. It's just beyond belief. And there are, at like at this moment, in the United States, there are only two Conacegs.
00:19:59.08 Stan Lemon Actually, it might be in the world. I think it's actually the world, not not the US. There are just two Conacegs for sale, right? They're both Conacegs Regeras. And turns out that they were at Conaceg of Chicago, which is actually just part of a Ferrari dealer, right?
00:20:11.52 Stan Lemon Right. And Henry has asked multiple times, like, can we go out and see the the car dealership in Lake Forest? And, you know, that's that's kind of out of the way. I was like, no, not going to do I'm not going to this, right?
00:20:22.91 Stan Lemon Your father-in-law wanted a board game.
00:20:23.21 Jon Yep.
00:20:24.39 Stan Lemon I was like, oh, son, let's go. Let's go to the Coast Guard. dealership. So we drove out Ferrari dealership and apparently it did not used to be open to the public.
00:20:36.36 Stan Lemon Right. And, but now it is. So we were able to go in tons of Ferraris. I mean, you know, a quarter million dollars a here, quarter million dollars there, uh, really nice cars. They don't do test drives. That's a discussion for, fors ah yeah we we'll come back to it.
00:20:50.67 Stan Lemon But they had these two Kona Segs, the Kona Seg Regeras out. They're wild. And then they had another car car called a Pagani, which apparently just is niche. So between the three vehicles that we're looking at, this Pagani and these two Kona Segs, I think Henry calculated that the current asking price of all three combined was like $15 million. dollars Yeah.
00:21:11.21 Stan Lemon Isn't that wild? Like just to think like, you know, and, and so to the right of them is a Ford GT, one of 50 that were built for the 50th anniversary of the Ford GT. That, that was the car that I liked the most.
00:21:22.13 Jon Yep.
00:21:22.17 Stan Lemon Um, I think I posted that one to to Instagram, but, um, the, we talked to to this one sales guy and he told me like, you know, people don't drive these. They just like, these are, these are show pieces.
00:21:34.70 Stan Lemon Like that's a different, that's a different life, man. I can't even wrap my head around that, but yeah,
00:21:36.81 Jon Right.
00:21:39.43 Stan Lemon He happened to have the key to the Pagani on him. He was going to put it back. He'd just shown it to someone. And um we couldn't go in it because like, you know, this is this a four $5 million dollars vehicle. Like we're not going to get it but he opened it up so we could look inside.
00:21:54.54 Stan Lemon Every
00:21:54.54 Jon Did he have to wear gloves to open it up?
00:21:56.81 Stan Lemon No, he did with just his hands, which is, it's that's a fair question.
00:21:58.19 Jon Okay.
00:21:59.93 Stan Lemon It's a fair question. All carbon fiber body. um Every inch of this car had a level of detail to it that I, it's it's just unbelievable to see.
00:22:14.70 Stan Lemon And and i um we we always talk about craftsmanship, right?
00:22:18.38 Jon Mm-hmm.
00:22:19.93 Stan Lemon I'm sure these cars go fast. I'm sure they handle well. The craftsmanship and the detail of the aesthetics is what really blew me away.
00:22:27.62 Jon Nice.
00:22:28.56 Stan Lemon Yeah. So I asked about test drives, right?
00:22:33.33 Jon Mm-hmm.
00:22:33.67 Stan Lemon And the guy was basically, you know, you don't walk in here deciding like, am I going to buy a Ferrari or not? You just decide what color and what model. And I was like, I asked him, I said, you I mean, how how do I know that I want a Ferrari versus a Lamborghini? Like, maybe i need to go to a different dealership.
00:22:50.83 Stan Lemon And I was like, you know, that isn't what a test drives for you. And he's he's like, no, no, you just come in, you you pick one. And I was like, hmm, okay. then I said, well, like hypothetically, if I were rich and I wanted a test drive one, what what would that look like? And he just laughed at me. He just chuckled.
00:23:10.67 Stan Lemon I don't know. Yeah. I did, but I'm, I'm, I'm fascinated with this. Like would someone buy a Ferrari without ever test driving?
00:23:17.24 Jon Yeah. And like, what does the sales process look like if that's the case? Is there one?
00:23:23.05 Stan Lemon Yeah, I don't, I mean, that's a great question.
00:23:24.20 Jon yeah
00:23:25.33 Stan Lemon He told me that as far as like the Pagani that was there, he had someone fly, like most of it, most of the sales that they do apparently are out of state. Cause there's not, there's not like a ton of dealerships for this kind of thing.
00:23:33.90 Jon Sure.
00:23:36.94 Jon Right.
00:23:37.07 Stan Lemon And so he's got a guy who's in a
00:23:38.09 Jon Well, especially in the Midwest. Like, where else would there be one?
00:23:40.01 Stan Lemon area area right Yeah, right.
00:23:42.89 Jon All
00:23:43.82 Stan Lemon But he's got a guy coming to fly to look at the Pagani, right? and And I'm like, okay, so he's going to fly up and you're not going to have him drive it Like this, that's the part that still blows my mind.
00:23:54.65 Jon right.
00:23:55.15 Stan Lemon yeah Like surely, and I, and I even inquired like, you know, brothers is there a test track that you would go to? And he's like, ah, there's one up in Wisconsin. There's one down in Aurora or Joliet, Joliet, not Aurora.
00:24:05.30 Stan Lemon And I was like, all right, but that's nowhere near you. Like what, how do you, surely, surely if I'm buying this vehicle.
00:24:11.49 Jon Surely someone has wanted to drive this, right?
00:24:13.77 Stan Lemon Yeah. Yeah. I assumed it would be like a leverage discussion, right? Like I'm going to leverage, know, I'm going to give you, I'm going to give 50 grand so I can take it out for five minutes, like something like that, you know? um But this guy wasn't like, he's just like, no, if you want that, you just buy it.
00:24:28.95 Stan Lemon That's a different world for me.
00:24:30.62 Jon Yeah.
00:24:30.70 Stan Lemon i don't know.
00:24:32.20 Jon Well, I am not a car guy, but I have seen Ford versus Ferrari, and I have now seen the F1 movie. So mostly I'm into the racing.
00:24:41.03 Stan Lemon So I, I like both of those.
00:24:41.19 Jon um
00:24:42.23 Stan Lemon What did you think?
00:24:43.27 Jon I like them both too.
00:24:46.54 Stan Lemon So the the hunt for John's bad taste in cinema will not fall with those two.
00:24:52.46 Jon yeah I don't think I have bad taste in cinema, Stan. just don't buy into the hype as much as other people do.
00:24:57.07 Stan Lemon had
00:24:59.99 Stan Lemon i'm still I'm still challenging Mrs. Lemon to record where she thinks Jonathan veers off.
00:25:07.64 Jon enough.
00:25:08.59 Stan Lemon So she just doesn't doesn't have anything.
00:25:08.62 Jon Yeah.
00:25:10.43 Stan Lemon So I i just got to keep my open. But um I got to tell you that I don't think I would buy a Ferrari because of that movie, Ford versus Ferrari.
00:25:13.70 Jon Okay.
00:25:20.69 Jon Yeah.
00:25:21.67 Stan Lemon Yeah, like i I think Enzo is portrayed like the exact opposite of someone I'd want to give my money to.
00:25:28.36 Jon Fair enough.
00:25:29.19 Stan Lemon You know, I don't, he's probably not even still alive. But like, i don't know. i I'm not a Ford guy by any stretch, but I was i was rooting for Ford by the end of that movie.
00:25:38.25 Jon For sure. I think of the two, I like that one better than F1. Yeah.
00:25:42.33 Stan Lemon it's a better story for sure. Yeah. Um, F1 was clever. Like I thought it was, i thought it was well done. i was interesting. The self-sacrificial ending good, you know, but
00:25:52.84 Jon Yeah, and I think that ah it was kind of a fresh take on the like old and outdated athlete trope.
00:26:02.25 Stan Lemon yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. Um, the, uh, have you watched F1 at all?
00:26:09.74 Jon not an entire race or anything like that.
00:26:12.17 Stan Lemon Okay. do you Do you enjoy watching watching racing?
00:26:15.95 Jon Uh, historically, no, I think there's probably something to f one that makes it more interesting than NASCAR or Indy or,
00:26:21.64 Stan Lemon Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree with you. i like i Okay, hot take. Indianapolis 500 looks so boring to me. And I know I shouldn't say that because like this entire city that I live in loses its mind in the month of May, but I really don't...
00:26:39.09 Stan Lemon I don't, don't see the appeal in the circle over and over and over and over again. I mean, I know there's exciting things that happen, but to me, there's like a, there's a,
00:26:47.79 Jon I think it would be pretty exciting to drive that, but maybe half the length.
00:26:53.61 Stan Lemon yeah, yeah. I can see that. I can see I just, I don't know. There's exciting stuff that happens, but i don't want to sit there and wait for it. You know, I think that, I think that's my,
00:27:01.39 Jon So what you're saying is that we should go out to Vegas sometime for the F1 race?
00:27:06.25 Stan Lemon i I think that would be a ton of fun because I had, so Apple now has rights to F1, right?
00:27:12.29 Jon Mm-hmm.
00:27:13.26 Stan Lemon I have watched time trials and and some portions of races. And it's it's kind of interesting. There's a lot more that's going on because the the tracks aren't just a circle, you know?
00:27:23.13 Jon For sure. Yep.
00:27:25.87 Stan Lemon So, yeah. All right. Last thing from the Ferrari dealership. Do you remember the Plymouth Prawler?
00:27:36.36 Stan Lemon Okay. This is like a roadster. You should look this up while I describe this. The Plymouth Prowler was a roadster that Plymouth, owned by Chrysler, did, I think, in the late 90s. Maybe it made it to the early aughts.
00:27:48.14 Stan Lemon I thought it was a cool-looking car. Henry thought it looked ridiculous. They had one of these.
00:27:53.26 Jon It does kind of look ridiculous, but I see why you like it because um it's got a nod to like early American automobiles.
00:28:03.49 Stan Lemon It's got a nod to early American model mobiles. And I think i think the the curvaceousness of it and the shape and the exposed wheels, I really love the exposed wheels in the front. um I don't know. There's there's just something cool about It's not a big vehicle.
00:28:19.34 Stan Lemon I think the pictures are misleading because the pictures make it look bigger than it is. It's actually a rather small vehicle. But they had one at the Ferrari dealership, of all things, in the far back. And I think the crazy thing about the Prawler, if I remember right, the engine was horribly underpowered. Like, I think it was like a V4 from a minivan that they stuck in this body.
00:28:38.44 Jon The 1997 model had a top speed of 118 miles per hour.
00:28:42.76 Stan Lemon Yeah, that's not even like, that's it's not.
00:28:44.52 Jon who It was electronically limited though.
00:28:47.47 Stan Lemon Oh, well, so was the minivan, right?
00:28:49.77 Jon Right.
00:28:50.51 Stan Lemon i But it's, um this is a car that was all show and there was there was no guts to it. But I still, I don't know. maybe it's Maybe it's the late 90s thing again. I really liked seeing it.
00:29:04.07 Jon Yeah, so it looks like it ran 97 to 2002.
00:29:09.07 Stan Lemon Okay, those are good years. Good vintage.
00:29:10.41 Jon Starting out at starting out at forty four six twenty five first suggested retail price in two thousand and two
00:29:21.67 Stan Lemon boom boom boom Wait, wait, wait, wait. What was the, what was the original sale price?
00:29:25.93 Jon thirty eight thousand three hundred
00:29:28.23 Stan Lemon Okay. And did you say 97?
00:29:29.26 Jon in ninety ninety seven
00:29:31.05 Stan Lemon ninety seven That was an expensive car in 1997. I wonder on eBay motors, what a Plymouth Prowler runs now.
00:29:39.79 Jon Due to limited trunk space, a $5,000 Prawler trailer option was available from Chrysler dealers.
00:29:46.92 Stan Lemon Oh, you should you should look up the trailer because that it is the most ridiculous thing you could possibly imagine. um All right, here's a new listing, $33,999. Here's $23,000. this has not retained its value is what would say.
00:30:01.05 Stan Lemon Here's a $22,000 Plymouth Prowler. You found the trailer, didn't you? Yeah. Here's what I don't understand. If you had bought Plymouth Prowler, you you found the trailer didn't you
00:30:09.18 Jon It looks ridiculous. yeah
00:30:10.54 Stan Lemon yeah i here's here's what i don't understand if you had bought a plymouth prowler What are you doing in your life where you want that trailer?
00:30:18.02 Jon Yeah. Right.
00:30:21.23 Stan Lemon You know, like I, I just, I don't know.
00:30:21.34 Jon Right.
00:30:23.15 Stan Lemon And, um, for me, the, there was a champagne colored one that had the right color for me. Like I, I'm seeing champagne as probably just purple, but yeah, I don't know.
00:30:33.99 Jon so so Is this the one? Let me see.
00:30:37.28 Stan Lemon Which one?
00:30:38.23 Jon I'm going to send this to you.
00:30:43.34 Jon Oh, that's just going to take to Wikipedia page.
00:30:46.03 Stan Lemon No, no.
00:30:46.24 Jon Hold, please.
00:30:46.30 Stan Lemon All right. Here. Yeah. ah That looks black. That looks black. Here. I'll send you this eBay Motors one. So I'm calling it champagne, right? Which citrus? It's not citrus, is it?
00:30:58.01 Stan Lemon I can never remember what citrus is.
00:31:00.68 Jon I always think of champagne like a ah beige color.
00:31:01.41 Stan Lemon But.
00:31:05.90 Jon Yeah, so that was with the image I was trying to show you.
00:31:09.32 Stan Lemon Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Doesn't that color look great?
00:31:13.87 Jon I mean, I wouldn't drive it, but sure.
00:31:16.59 Stan Lemon it I, I, I called it champagne. I guess it's probably not champagne. It's just like good wine. Yeah. The, the prowler with trailer.
00:31:25.25 Jon Yeah.
00:31:27.08 Stan Lemon It's the most ridiculous thing. So anyhow, that was there. And, um, Henry was a little, we'll just say embarrassed by how excited I was to, to see the prowler, but I got a picture that's on Instagram. So, yeah.
00:31:42.03 Jon Well, what's nice about Plymouth is that they tried different things instead of everything looking like a box on wheels.
00:31:42.38 Stan Lemon Um,
00:31:49.74 Stan Lemon Yeah. Well, they did for a minute, right? They they don't exist anymore. They're gone, but yeah.
00:31:53.19 Jon Right, so it didn't exactly work out for them, but...
00:31:55.89 Stan Lemon Well, that brain didn't succeed. So anyhow. All right. ah Here's the thing I wanted to talk to you about today. I finished the book that you recommended I read.
00:32:07.63 Jon Ah, yes!
00:32:09.23 Stan Lemon you want to You want to maybe summarize this or explain it to our dear listeners?
00:32:13.29 Jon Unreasonable hospitality. We talked about this a couple episodes ago. You were not bought in
00:32:16.84 Stan Lemon Yeah, but I'd only made it like 15% in. Yeah, I hadn't bought, I had only 50% in, hadn't bought into it.
00:32:19.24 Jon Yeah.
00:32:21.88 Stan Lemon I finished it and I i stopped by Shake Shack because of it, so.
00:32:25.93 Jon Nice. Was I with you with Shake Shack the last time you were there?
00:32:27.16 Stan Lemon All right.
00:32:30.55 Stan Lemon What's that? Yeah, have I been to Shake Shack since we did the milkshake tasting? i I don't think so.
00:32:36.62 Jon We should figure out what episode that was.
00:32:39.02 Stan Lemon Yeah. If only the robots. Claude, when you are reviewing this, would you please go and find a link to the Twist of Lemon pod episode that involved a review of Shake Shack?
00:32:52.62 Stan Lemon Nah, it won't do it. won't do
00:32:54.35 Jon I believe that the highlight was the french fries at that point in time.
00:32:58.67 Stan Lemon So I remembered it differently. I thought the fries were disappointing. That's what I told the kids.
00:33:03.91 Jon Oh, maybe that's what it was because you had read up on like all the research they put into it.
00:33:10.70 Stan Lemon I had read into or you had?
00:33:12.43 Jon You had.
00:33:13.39 Stan Lemon that This feels like way more like a thing you would do. um Yeah, we'll we'll we'll dig it up or the robots will dig it
00:33:16.90 Jon We've got to we've got to ah go back and find that episode. so Anyway, Unreasonable Hospitality is written by this guy who's opened a bunch of restaurants. I don't know to pronounce his last name, otherwise would say it.
00:33:29.52 Stan Lemon up. William Guidara, Guidara, right?
00:33:31.66 Jon Yeah.
00:33:32.85 Stan Lemon Is that?
00:33:32.87 Jon um yeah And this is basically, i don't know, it's part business customer experience book, part memoir of him ah chasing his Michelin star.
00:33:47.75 Stan Lemon Well, the Michelin star is actually not as significant as the 50 best restaurants list, right? Which is a, I mean, it's your you similar space, right?
00:33:59.37 Stan Lemon um But this 50 best is kind of how they open up the the book to, or he opens up the book to by saying, you know, we were 50th and that wasn't, or 49th, something like that, right? Like near the bottom. They made the list, but that wasn't that wasn't going to cut it.
00:34:17.13 Jon Yep. Yeah, so cool.
00:34:18.44 Stan Lemon um
00:34:20.19 Jon But you did not like it for the first 15% of the book.
00:34:24.84 Stan Lemon Yeah, well, I mean, here's here's the thing too. So him him and the guy that started 11th Madison Park, which is the restaurant that really is the focal point of this book, eventually break up, right?
00:34:36.17 Stan Lemon So they're not they're not doing their thing anymore.
00:34:36.37 Jon Mm-hmm.
00:34:37.73 Stan Lemon So i think I think knowing that kind of soured the initial read of the book. They had a long run together. it's you know, it's, I probably over-rotated on the breakup, as as I'm prone to do.
00:34:52.27 Stan Lemon But yeah I think you should describe why you recommended this book, because I'm not totally sure I know why you recommended this book to me yet.
00:34:59.08 Jon I mean, ultimately, um you were talking about your Michelin-starred restaurant experiences and the detail and things that um went into those experiences. So I thought that you would like this um specifically because we're both pretty great...
00:35:18.12 Jon um proponents of the customer experience um and having it really spelled out and the thought behind decisions and seeing when things failed, um I thought would be appealing to you.
00:35:30.28 Stan Lemon Yeah, and once once the book got into the actual experiments that they were trying to do is they moved their way up in terms of the 50 best list, getting their Michelin star, the New York Times review, which they actually, I think, put more clout in the New York Times review than they did the Michelin stars.
00:35:45.23 Jon Mm-hmm.
00:35:45.74 Stan Lemon um That was interesting. So ah here's... here's What fascinated me. So I'm all for delighting your customers with the thing that you you make or do, right?
00:35:58.92 Stan Lemon For me, if you've been following my YouTube channel, it's it's building APIs. APIs for developers to use, and it is important to me that they be fantastic.
00:36:11.91 Stan Lemon ah I had not thought through the way that I approach API design through the lens of a restaurateur, but I think that's kind of what this book does.
00:36:25.16 Stan Lemon um i I will just say this. I've had some really great meal experiences. Um, at a Michelin star restaurant, they're very different from the level of like hospitality that he's describing here. Like, like I, it's a long shot between the Michelin star restaurant i went to there for Valentine's day and in where he's at or was at when when he owned 11th park, 11th Madison park.
00:36:53.03 Stan Lemon Um, I am curious, do you did you ever consider the possibility that what he was describing as doing is being like too over the top?
00:37:03.98 Jon I mean, I think he... describes it that way. The name of the book is Unreasonable Hospitality. um But I kind of think that at least the thought process of getting to that level should be the North Star.
00:37:22.35 Jon I think that you got turned off when you know he started stalking his future patrons to build a dossier on them. But...
00:37:30.60 Stan Lemon which Which, funny enough, like I learned more about the dossier perspective from the internet than I did from his book. Right. um There's some fascinating things that he talks about doing like, like a customer left a bottle of champagne in the fridge and they sent someone to their apartment to pull the bottle of champagne out of the fridge because it would eventually pop in the fridge.
00:37:54.39 Jon Hmm.
00:37:55.11 Stan Lemon Right. um Which is, i immediately I'm thinking to myself like in what universe would I give my keys to my waiter to go to my house and do that. Right. It's like, like I had a little, that was one of those things where i was like, I, I'm not buying the premise here.
00:38:11.46 Stan Lemon Um,
00:38:11.54 Jon Yeah, and I think that the this is the danger too, right? um Especially in this world of data where we're now trying to correct where maybe we don't know everything and be able to predict everything about people who visit your website.
00:38:24.62 Jon um But I think there is a point where you probably go too far. Um, like the great example of this, uh, was in like marketing automation and target, I think sends, uh, this mailing about expecting your baby, ah to somebody. And it's like the 16 year old girl whose parents find out that way.
00:38:49.86 Jon So
00:38:51.79 Stan Lemon Yeah, that's a bit extreme. That's a bit extreme.
00:38:53.50 Jon yeah.
00:38:55.15 Stan Lemon The ability to profile, like, I mean, you know he talks about like we were Googling customers before they showed up.
00:39:01.68 Jon Mm-hmm.
00:39:01.80 Stan Lemon Right. And, and okay, I get it. Then I started to ask myself, like, if I walked into 11th Madison Park, what, what would they find out about me? Right. From, from Google. And I, I'm,
00:39:17.99 Stan Lemon I don't know, maybe the podcast is probably where all the interesting, i keep saying 11th, it's 11 Madison Park. um I keep thinking to myself, like the the podcast is probably where people would learn the most raw uncut. So just just to be clear, I love red wine.
00:39:32.90 Stan Lemon from outside the United States, in particular, France and Italy. And um I like red meat and I hate beets. If you are Googling me, know that I hate beets. I do not want to eat beets at your fancy Michelin star restaurant. Do you understand? No beets, please.
00:39:52.39 Jon So this is the name of the episode. Stan Lennon hates beats.
00:39:55.79 Stan Lemon It could be. that That everybody will know. I don't think it's a secret. Actually, it's funny on the beet thing. So we have – there's like Indianapolis has a decent restaurant scene but not fine dining. There's one place that I know of with tasting menu.
00:40:11.37 Stan Lemon And i keep looking at it and thinking about going. But the beets are on the menu. The beets Carpaccio, I think, if I remember right.
00:40:18.05 Jon Yep.
00:40:21.16 Stan Lemon So –
00:40:22.52 Jon Well, it'll be okay.
00:40:24.97 Stan Lemon No, it won't because beets are just gross. it So coming back to the book, right? there's um There's other stuff he did that seemed more reasonable. there was There was like they overheard a conversation between guests that had like the perfect New York experience, but they didn't get to try a hot dog.
00:40:42.21 Jon Mm-hmm.
00:40:42.35 Stan Lemon And they they go out and buy a street dog and they, which in New York, they call him them dirty water dogs. um They replayed it and chop it up into smaller parts or whatever and serve it, right? To get that full experience.
00:40:54.44 Stan Lemon um Okay. Like that, that seems reasonable.
00:40:59.18 Jon so that's more on the line of of like disney and like again i don't know that i would call that reasonable um because they don't make any money on that that's purely with the guest experience in mind
00:41:14.31 Stan Lemon Yeah, it is. And it's, it's um I appreciate that part of it. I i also appreciate like some of the stories stories around ah making menu adjustments.
00:41:27.35 Stan Lemon So there's a whole bit about like, they stopped giving out menus and they had a conversation about what you want or what you didn't like.
00:41:31.57 Jon Right. Yeah.
00:41:31.91 Stan Lemon So that, and like that resonated with me because I would be able to say, I do not like beets. Right. And I, so I would not get beets in my, my menu. I don't know how as a kitchen you do that. And he didn't really, he didn't really dive into that.
00:41:42.95 Stan Lemon Right. So that that was one thing I kind of wanted to know from the book side, like yeah his, ah his whole perspective is from the front of the front of the house as it were. And I'm really curious how a kitchen adapts to that kind of, kind of craziness. But, um,
00:41:57.90 Stan Lemon In spirit, right, I think it's it's about going over and above to make sure your customers have a good experience. i I am not sure, like I think unreasonable is a good way to describe the extent to which they went.
00:42:13.58 Jon Yes.
00:42:14.89 Stan Lemon And I'm not necessarily.
00:42:15.34 Jon They also had a different goal than you, Stan.
00:42:19.34 Stan Lemon Okay, well, all right, to explain.
00:42:21.87 Jon I mean, their goal was to end up on this top 50 restaurant list and top it, really. um
00:42:28.52 Stan Lemon and my My goal is to be on the top 50 APIs list, John.
00:42:31.66 Jon Right. And so your customers want different things. Yeah. These people really want a extraordinary experience, whereas your customers want stability, things to work, it to be easy to implement, um things along those lines.
00:42:48.36 Stan Lemon Yeah. And so here's here's kind of a, I don't want to say a revelation, but one of the things that I've been noodling on since I finished this book the type of thing that they're describing doing, it it works when we are talking about small scale, low volume, right?
00:43:07.63 Stan Lemon it it it really It really doesn't work in many other settings to be completely honest with you.
00:43:07.67 Jon Yeah.
00:43:14.79 Stan Lemon you know that That's I think the thing that I was struggling with maybe the most out of this is like what what they did fundamentally doesn't work elsewhere.
00:43:24.84 Jon So now um if you go into the specifics of the details, yes. If you look at this from a frame of mind of the customer experience overall, um like this is very apparent in hospitality situations. We see this, we saw this on Disney Cruise Line specifically, um where specifically when something something went wrong, um they went over the top to fix it.
00:43:53.48 Jon um You've seen that multiple times. You've seen great things in these hospitality environments. um So I think where that plays into when you are building a product, um or in my case, really it is me trying to get the customer facing people to think in a more hospitality mindset, specifically in customer communication, um or providing the experience when they're trying new instruments, um things of that nature. ah That's frame of mind um rather than like, here's the specific like, hey, when we bring the bill, we're going to bring a bottle of port or whatever it was.
00:44:34.38 Stan Lemon Oh, yeah, At the end, it wasn't poured. It was as brandy, I thought.
00:44:38.12 Jon Brandy.
00:44:39.27 Stan Lemon And then, or was it cognac? it was cognac.
00:44:41.55 Jon don't remember.
00:44:42.63 Stan Lemon i think it was cognac. Yeah, I'm with you on the frame of mind. I just don't think he actually talks that much about the frame of mind versus...
00:44:50.73 Jon He doesn't directly. um And I think this is probably where I'm weird because I get these kinds of things out of everything. Like when we go on a Disney cruise, I see, okay, how are they treating customers? What are the details? Cause I think that it's very much a detail thing. um And where can I find where those details make a big difference in my context? Yeah.
00:45:17.96 Stan Lemon Okay. This resonates. i remember I've been with you in Disney world one time at Epcot, the weakest of the parks. And we were there for the light show, which I find meh.
00:45:29.61 Stan Lemon And you were like latching onto to every single detail and aspect of everything around the lagoon where they do the fireworks, like everything, uh, things that I'd never noticed. So I get that.
00:45:41.70 Stan Lemon I, this is This is where though, for me, the book, um i would I would argue falls short because if you don't introduce this frame of mind, the the ah premise is not repeatable outside of a context of low scale and low volume.
00:45:58.95 Stan Lemon Right. And that's, that's what I'm interested in is like most people do not work in, a situation where the margin for an individual customer is so exorbitant and you don't have to have a lot of customers.
00:46:09.62 Jon Right. True.
00:46:10.97 Stan Lemon This kind of goes back to the Ferrari dealership, right? it's a similar, similar boat. So they can spend an inordinate amount of time and hospitality on an individual guests because the margin is so dramatic. Right.
00:46:27.01 Stan Lemon Uh, But that's that's not most people's context, right? So I think about like, if the the the mindset I go to is like, how does this apply for a plumber, right?
00:46:39.82 Stan Lemon and And I agree that there's like ah there's a mindset, there's a frame of mind, there's a framework there that a plumber could use, but it is not obvious.
00:46:48.02 Jon Yeah, I think the question is, what does this look like at scale?
00:46:55.05 Stan Lemon And I don't i don't know.
00:46:55.37 Jon And sure you do, Stan.
00:46:56.34 Stan Lemon that's... that's
00:47:00.33 Jon It goes back to Disney.
00:47:03.18 Stan Lemon Oh, you think, you think Disney is the epitome of unreasonable hospitality at scale?
00:47:07.75 Jon um I wouldn't go as epitome, but I think that they are working towards that um with kind of these standard things that they do. Right.
00:47:18.60 Jon um So they add these magic touches, the Disney hug rule, where as a kid's hugging them, they don't let go until a kid is first. Like that is a difference maker at a very young age um that.
00:47:34.31 Jon is standard um across all the characters you meet. um We see this by, as you're walking onto the cruise ship, though this doesn't appear to be true on the adventure, um your family name is announced to the entire ship.
00:47:48.32 Stan Lemon Hold hold sidebar, sidebar. what do you mean it it doesn't appear to be true adventure?
00:47:52.17 Jon I was watching some YouTubes and and like they don't have a grand ballroom that you enter on, so they were like entering on deck four and everybody was cheering and they didn't do the name announcements on the maiden voyage or the one after that.
00:48:05.87 Stan Lemon Really?
00:48:06.78 Jon Yeah.
00:48:08.42 Stan Lemon I wonder, they probably don't do what Disney does on other cruise lines. I have no frame of reference because I've never been on another cruise line, but I would imagine like if I get on Carnival, they're not cheering my name in the in the grand ballroom.
00:48:17.55 Jon Correct. Right. Correct.
00:48:21.66 Stan Lemon Huh. So I know you follow the internet on Disney Cruise Line more closely than I do. Have have people been in a tizzy about this?
00:48:31.08 Jon I have not seen a tizzy, but it was commented upon as a difference.
00:48:34.93 Stan Lemon Fascinating. Okay. All right. Resume your analysis at Disney. just had to sidebar that.
00:48:39.31 Jon um You see this in the parks. You see this um with the magical moments. like All of the cast members are empowered to make these next steps as they see them.
00:48:51.15 Jon um You see it in them piping smells into different areas. um And it's just their focus on detail. If you look up on Main Street, you have all this detail where um the customer can kind of go as deep as they want to.
00:49:09.10 Stan Lemon Okay. All right.
00:49:10.86 Jon Now what does that look like for APIs?
00:49:11.31 Stan Lemon And
00:49:12.52 Jon Yep.
00:49:15.21 Stan Lemon man, i that's a good question. I don't know. Because I think like from an API perspective, it should be easy to reason about. right mean there's like There's a certain obviousness to it, which means that there's not like, i don't think there's hidden details. It has to be obvious. has to be easy to understand. Okay.
00:49:33.13 Stan Lemon um documentation SDKs have to be clean and easy to grok, right?
00:49:34.99 Jon Intuitive.
00:49:39.27 Stan Lemon Intuitive, yeah. Intuitive is a big part of it for sure. And then you go into like, is it available? Does it do the thing that I tell it to do when I tell it to do it?
00:49:47.56 Jon every single time.
00:49:47.75 Stan Lemon um Every single time. And i like so this is where i where I struggle a little bit, right? Because the the name of the game in an API is Clarity, predictability.
00:49:59.22 Stan Lemon There's no surprises. And I think some of the things you're describing with like Disney, those are wonderful surprises hidden in the little corners of the park or the ship, right?
00:50:09.91 Stan Lemon I don't think I don't think i want those in an api
00:50:10.32 Jon Yep. Correct. um But Apple at its best has really intuitive interfaces, so much so that the elderly can just intuitively know how to use it, whether they have computer experience or not, or a toddler. um And it just comes naturally.
00:50:35.73 Jon So I think there's something there. I think there's something to, um, time to value, um, for a new customer who's like, okay, can I get up and running using the API that I need to quickly?
00:50:48.43 Stan Lemon Yeah, your your moment to wow, right?
00:50:50.19 Jon Yeah.
00:50:50.94 Stan Lemon Yeah. Okay, all right. I think I'm tracking. The Apple one is interesting to me because I i actually would think of, there's there's um there's a discovery, right? Like a usability discovery that is Apple's nailed by and large.
00:51:06.38 Stan Lemon um And gosh, we could probably talk about that for hours because if you remember back in the day, like one of the what are the objections to the long press was that it wasn't discoverable.
00:51:18.47 Jon Right.
00:51:18.54 Stan Lemon Remember this? um
00:51:19.49 Jon Yep, for sure.
00:51:20.59 Stan Lemon And so they put tertiary things under long press. Like it was never the default behavior for stuff, but now everybody knows the long press. And so you can start to see where Apple has shifted from, this is a place for tertiary things and this is actually place for primary things um or things that are interesting. Like I always go back to the stickers that you can generate from a photo.
00:51:42.12 Stan Lemon Right? Like that's the capability that there, as far as I know, there's no other way than to just long press on John's face and drag it off the image. Now I got a sticker, you know? um But they've been able to, they've been able to shift that way because of time and education.
00:52:00.59 Stan Lemon um And they didn't make the shift until, until those things had happened. So I, you know, right, I'm i'm all over the place.
00:52:07.98 Jon But what I'm saying is like you don't have to have this highly curated experience um in an API. In fact, that would be detrimental to what your customers are looking for.
00:52:18.95 Stan Lemon And that that's where this where like I don't know what an unreasonable API looks like.
00:52:23.27 Jon um So think about all the things that annoy you about bad APIs. And sometimes you're just surprised because you know um this isn't a pain anymore.
00:52:34.47 Jon or this actually looks nice um and it's readable um or something along those lines. I think like going back to your plumber example, I don't necessarily want my plumber to surprise me, um but if he's like overly responsive and professional in his communications, um or if I can book something online, like those are little things in the details thinking about my experience that separates you from 90% of plumbers in the area.
00:53:04.43 Stan Lemon So you know that I like my plumber a lot, right?
00:53:06.83 Jon Yes.
00:53:07.56 Stan Lemon Yeah. I've like, I actively recommend Sorelio to people. I like, I just a fantastic plumber. The thing that I like is I get rich explanations, usually like pointing at the thing, ah what has been done or what needs to be done it.
00:53:21.95 Jon Yep.
00:53:25.67 Stan Lemon And I can get as much depth out of that as I want. Um,
00:53:30.06 Jon Which I'm sure it doesn't happen with every customer of theirs.
00:53:34.79 Stan Lemon No, probably not. Probably not. But there's a, so, cause I like, whenever I have a contractor, right? I want to understand the work that's being done. And I can tell you that this aspect of Sorelio is unique, right? right Like it is is shockingly unique at how easy it is for me to say, Hey, can you show me what you did and explain it to me?
00:53:55.73 Jon Hmm.
00:53:55.85 Stan Lemon Um, I actually had, ah actually had a roofer here not that long ago of similar, um, experience, right? Watergate roofing here in Indianapolis.
00:54:07.11 Stan Lemon And the, the, I, did send you the video? I can't remember if I sent you the video that he made for me.
00:54:12.35 Jon I don't think so. Not from a roofer.
00:54:13.03 Stan Lemon Okay. I should send you this cause it's, it's kind of cool. So I was basically like, Hey, you do free inspections. you were here a couple of years ago. I had you do some nail pops. We just had a whole bunch of hail and high wind storms. want you to go up and look and see if anything's wrong.
00:54:23.47 Stan Lemon Right? So he goes up, And there was a strip of shingles vertically that were not sealed down and he had chalked them, right? And then he takes, I didn't have to ask for this. He just you just did it.
00:54:37.67 Stan Lemon ah He took his phone and filmed this. He showed how each shingle pops up, right? Now, how do I know that they're supposed to do that? Right? So he walks over to another part of the roof that's proper and then shows that it doesn't do that all in the same video comes down, shows it to me and sends it to me.
00:54:53.00 Jon Nice.
00:54:54.72 Stan Lemon So I have it right. And, and again, like I, I don't need my roof replaced.
00:55:00.17 Jon So that's a detail about customer experience, right?
00:55:04.36 Stan Lemon It is, yes. But i don't I still don't know how to translate into my APIs. Maybe maybe it comes down to um the amount of like discoverable detail about the thing that you do with an API.
00:55:16.97 Stan Lemon maybe Maybe that's like, can I go find all of the things, all the side effects that happen from an API call?
00:55:17.12 Jon Right.
00:55:23.58 Stan Lemon Maybe that's maybe that's the way I need to frame it.
00:55:27.08 Jon Or could you start like recommending next things um based on how they're using the API now?
00:55:36.84 Stan Lemon Yeah, but that's really hard to do from an a from a purely API perspective. Recommend the next thing.
00:55:41.09 Jon Man.
00:55:41.71 Stan Lemon And like you don't want you don't want dynamic shape, right? You don't want evolving shape of an API.
00:55:45.45 Jon Right.
00:55:47.59 Stan Lemon Now, you can do a lot of that stuff over in a console where you show what's happening you know as a result of your API. But but like that's that's the thing. like i'm I'm just trying to wrap my brain around. like What does unreasonable hospitality look like for an API?
00:56:00.46 Jon You know what you need to do, Stan?
00:56:00.70 Stan Lemon Yeah.
00:56:03.31 Jon You need to sit on customer calls and listen for friction points that they don't even know themselves.
00:56:09.93 Stan Lemon that they don't even know themselves. I spent some time on on customer calls, John. they're they're They're very different for an API company. I look back to like my time at Salesforce and what it was like when people would just yell about the position of a button.
00:56:22.36 Stan Lemon It was very different.
00:56:23.15 Jon Yeah. Yeah, your customer developers who are trying to build things with yours. So like, I don't know, what does this look for a roofing nail company?
00:56:31.31 Stan Lemon What does this look like for a roofing nail company? I don't know. that's so So anyhow, the the like come full circle here. There is... um I think there is something to this unreasonable hospitality. I like the story.
00:56:47.43 Stan Lemon I think it's, I think he actually does a good job of telling the story. Again, the beginning is a little slow, but once he starts getting into their evolutions, I also, and this is something i did resonate with a lot. I really appreciated how he talked about failure and learning from failure and the willingness to change.
00:57:00.57 Jon right.
00:57:03.98 Stan Lemon He also has just some really great manager zingers and like tidbits in here. um The one that really stood out to me, Jonathan, was you don't hire a resume, you hire the person.
00:57:17.55 Stan Lemon and And I thought about like how true, unfortunately, as i as I sat there and thought about it, most of the examples where I was like, man, and i I wish I had hired, i wish we hadn't hired the resume didn't didn't go well.
00:57:30.86 Stan Lemon But um there's some, I think there's some good, you know, some good knowledge in the knowledge in the book. There's, um do you remember the 95-5 rule?
00:57:41.57 Jon I don't. I remember the name, but I don't remember what the rule is.
00:57:42.95 Stan Lemon So
00:57:45.74 Stan Lemon the the principle is basically like 95% of what you do, like you're going to from from like a cost management standpoint, very conservatively, right? You're going like really tight and really precise. And then the 5%, you're just going to like throw all caution of the wind. So I think he he uses the the blue spoons from the Museum of Modern Art, the ice cream stand they ran as an example, right? They were wildly expensive for what they were doing, but they they just made a better experience.
00:58:15.11 Jon Right.
00:58:15.27 Stan Lemon I think there's something to that in terms of how we manage experiences and products that I want to explore realizing. Because I think i think there's some there's some magic sauce in that 5% that we have to figure out how to account for.
00:58:33.43 Jon Well, sounds like you still have a job, Stan.
00:58:36.89 Stan Lemon I've always got a job, Jonathan.
00:58:38.25 Jon ah
00:58:38.62 Stan Lemon I've always got a job. But, you know, ah the other thing, so, because, you know, I someday want to release this exercise app. I keep thinking about, like, what is the 5% in the exercise app? You know?
00:58:51.36 Stan Lemon It's definitely not the Apple Foundation models. Oh, i before we wrap up, just quick AI excitement.
00:58:55.50 Jon At this point in time.
00:59:00.19 Stan Lemon So, have have you have you been following what Google did with the Gemma model? Do you know anything about this?
00:59:06.35 Jon um All I know is that I installed that ah app that you told me to install and haven't really used it for much of anything.
00:59:13.42 Stan Lemon Okay, the Edge Gallery from Google. I actually recommend everybody check this out if you have even a slight bit of interest in AI. So so the the thing that's cool, right, is Google open-sourced this model, Gemma 4.
00:59:26.47 Stan Lemon I mean, they didn't open source. They've released it, like you can get it free. And it's intended to run on device. And if you play around in the Edge Gallery, like on your phone, it's it's quite responsive. And it does a pretty solid job, I think,
00:59:41.87 Stan Lemon There's still like, it's still not going to be, you're not running on an NVIDIA GPU, so it's not going to be chat GPT 5.4, but here's, here's what I keep thinking about to myself. So Apple, when they wanted to do the smarter Siri, they were all bent on doing on device models.
00:59:56.94 Stan Lemon Right. And i I think for a certain amount of stuff that happens on my device from a private privacy perspective, it has to be on device. Like I, I believe that. Okay.
01:00:05.22 Jon Yep. Yep.
01:00:06.19 Stan Lemon So we know that Apple has done a big deal with Google. right um Gemma 4 drops. They have this Edge gallery on iOS. I think this is all part of the buildup to WWDC.
01:00:21.10 Stan Lemon I think this is like, we're starting to see the seams of what local AI on your iPhone is going to look like. And I'll just tell you this. I played around Gemma 4 over the weekend on my phone, on my Mac via Olama, via OpenCode.
01:00:36.78 Stan Lemon um This is a pretty snappy model. this would be a huge upgrade in place of the ah the foundation models that Apple ships today. So all that's to say.
01:00:46.83 Jon What kind of things did you test it with?
01:00:49.93 Stan Lemon ah Well, so like on open code, right? I had it write some JavaScript code for me, write some tests. I had to do a little bit of Swift code. Swift code is interesting because like Claude really struggles with Swift, but but Codex is decent.
01:01:04.23 Stan Lemon Like it's it's just not a, it doesn't have the knowledge base, I think for other languages.
01:01:05.35 Jon Right.
01:01:08.87 Stan Lemon um I had it ah do like find me libraries nearby because my closest branch is going to close for a few weeks. I can't do a hold for pickup there. i was like, go find out distances for each of those. I did a couple of prompting around exercise stuff, right? Like, hey, tell me what the difference between is a pigeon stretch and a figure four stretch and when I should do one or the other, right um Those kind of things. There's more to be done for sure. i did some some voice dictation on the phone. That was okay.
01:01:42.54 Stan Lemon um Voice is hard. i think I think Claude voice largely sucks. Codex has got good stuff. So anyhow, just trying to like take a couple of my usual ChatGPT use cases and and transport them in.
01:01:56.17 Jon Test them out. All
01:01:57.07 Stan Lemon Yeah. And, and I'll just say like, it's wildly different than the other open models and it's faster. It's significantly faster. The one thing that keeps killing me, cause I've gotten in the exercise app, this foundation model implementation.
01:02:11.37 Stan Lemon ah When I say go make me an exercise routine of 15 minutes of cardio, Like I could go make a pot of coffee. Like it's just, it takes a while, you know?
01:02:20.61 Jon right.
01:02:21.93 Stan Lemon And that was another one I tried to like, like, let's just see what, what happens. 15 minutes and of of cardio. And it outlined it, outlined it very quickly. Um, there are, ah there are no bindings for Swift yet to use this model. So i can't use this, this model in Swift code yet, but it says on their website, coming soon, which is another reason why I think this is the future.
01:02:45.43 Stan Lemon um,
01:02:45.43 Jon All right. Well, WWDC is how far away? OK.
01:02:48.62 Stan Lemon It's in June. So we got a couple months yet, but everything's about to get, everything's, yeah, everything's going to get more and more interesting as we go.
01:02:51.67 Jon Well, maybe we'll see some more interesting things.
01:02:57.03 Stan Lemon So, but on that note, John, I think that's, that's too much AI for Liz if she tuned in this week.
01:02:57.93 Jon Nice.
01:03:01.65 Stan Lemon So,
01:03:02.19 Jon Well, she hasn't said anything yet, so we may have lost her.
01:03:05.12 Stan Lemon oh no. I wonder if we, like, uh, Claude, uh, can you please email Liz and tell her to check out the podcast again? All right, Jonathan, until next time, my friend.
01:03:16.04 Jon All right. Later.