Reflections on Family and Ohana: A Tribute to Todd Cochran

Welcome to five Minutes with Gray Hair Dave.

He has gray hair.

He has a gray beard and he wears glasses like the guy in the artwork.

Oh, and the guy in the artwork is better looking.

Now here is Gray Hair Dave.

Well, well, well, folks, that was 11 labs on that intro.

11 labs.

IO e l e v e n lavs IO I haven't looked for any new ones lately because I still like the ones I have.

And I hope you do too.

I am.

I'm back.

Hope you're all ready for another exciting, fun filled trip with green Gray Hair Dave.

That's right.

So what's going on lately here, folks?

What's happening with you?

I had heard from one of my, one of my listeners that normally I dropped my, my podcast on Tuesday and I didn't this week.

And that was, that was my fault, my bad.

I was in a, was in a mood yesterday and the day before.

There was a lot going on here in terms of me having to get a few things done, which is all has to do with the other job.

Not this job, but the other job.

You know, we've all got somebody we report to and you know, there were some problems and we got them worked out because of a few people that I had to deal with.

And yes, there was some frustration.

And I want to tell you something folks, and I'm sure you all know this and maybe you don't, but if you have worked for or know somebody who has worked for or in a large organization, you know that communications can between departments, especially departments that are miles away from each other, can be difficult to coordinate and to get answers right away.

And you have to also deal with days off of the person you need to get a hold of or the person you normally get a hold of isn't there and, and so on and so forth.

So you're what would normally take a little bit of time with a couple of phone calls?

Takes a couple of days because of email.

So I know what you're thinking out there because I thought it too.

Dave, why don't you make a phone call?

The two people I wanted to call was their days off or they were out of the office.

We do have the ability to go to other cast members calendars to see if they're available if we need to schedule time, which is one of the cool things I used to do that when I was a scheduler.

People would contact me and want to have a conversation.

They get on my schedule because they'd go to my calendar.

So I have the ability to do that not Not a lot of regular Frontline people know how to do that.

I just do because I've done it before.

I've done it and where I've gotten on other people's schedules and people have gotten on mine.

So we got that all straightened out.

And you're probably thinking also, Dave, did you work last week and no, I did not.

That, again, is part of the issue.

Part of the issue being that I went to the doctor on Tuesday.

The note goes out from the doctor to Disney.

Disney then has to decide, well, where is this going to go?

So it goes over to this department of this department, then has to get a hold of my department, and my department then has to get a hold of another department who has to get a hold of another department to schedule me.

So the one department that is really important didn't get that message until Thursday.

So when they sent their email out to everybody who's supposed to have it by that time, it was Friday.

And before they're getting answers, well, Friday is my last day of work for a week.

So, boom, there goes a whole week's worth of work.

No pay, which, not that I can't live on what I have in my bank account, but I'm expecting that money.

I'm expecting to work that week.

You know, I would unders.

And I understand that the process.

So let's be done with that and all is well.

And thank you to all who helped me.

If you listen, if you don't, they should, because I'm worth listening to, I think, don't you?

Oh, I tell you.

Let's move on to the next subject.

Let's talk about family.

There's a word in Hawaii called ohana.

Ohana means family.

Earlier this week, one of the.

I want to call.

I'm going to say it, one of the legends of podcasting passed away rather suddenly.

He has been around since the very beginning, since 2004.

And Todd has.

Is part of a.

He's a CEO of Blueberry.

He is on a couple of podcasts.

He's got a couple of organizations.

He's done well with it.

And his name's Todd Cochran and you might know him if you listen to the podcast, like the new media show.

Let me think here.

What is other one is real quick here.

Let me get it up for you.

He had.

He's on also now.

His new media show is done with a co host, Rob Greenlee, and then he has Geek News Central.

So I understand there will be something on Geek News Central this week, which I believe usually comes out on the weekend.

But it could be, it could be wrong, could be Thursday.

But it's a huge loss.

He's.

He was a powerhouse.

He was a heck of an influence in the very beginning and, and up to this day he's of an influence and it's sad.

He was, he was 61 years old and he had lost a bunch of weight.

I found out today, and he has passed away from a heart attack.

Those are.

That's what I was told.

It was a heart attack.

So, you know, let's take a second, if you're a podcaster, to pause and, and reflect on that for just a second.

Not that he doesn't deserve more than a second, folks, but he would want us to get on.

He.

I was listening to Dave Jackson's podcast earlier today about him, about Todd and he had a hour long talk that recorded that was from one of the podcast movements, I believe one of the podcasting events years ago.

It's got some great information on it.

So if you could, if you think about it, go to.

Oh yeah, it's the School of Podcasting.

So if you go to the latest episode of School of Podcasting, Dave's got it on there and it's like an hour and five or ten minutes.

It's worth a listen.

To anybody out there.

It's really worth a listen.

He had a great life.

He lived in Hawaii for a while.

He was in the Navy, did a lot of things there.

It was.

Interesting story.

He's a Michigan person too, when he.

His home was from Michigan and he lived there a lot, but he worked all over the world.

What a guy.

So you know that, that's a sad thing.

I heard about it and it, it took me back a minute.

But anyway, on to the next subject.

Let's find something happy.

Happy, happiness around us.

Geez, I don't know.

No, I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding.

Other than the work issue.

Boy, it was a gorgeous weekend down here in Florida.

Rained, but you know, it's that time of year but.

And we've been pretty lucky with the amount of rain we hadn't been getting that we finally got some rain.

I did talk to my brother this week.

He called me yesterday and we had a long conversation, which is wonderful.

I miss being around him and my other brother, I really do.

It's amazing how family, or as Todd Cochran would call it, Ohana and Disney uses that too.

There's a restaurant called Ohana.

It's a family restaurant.

But it's interesting to me when you don't see or talk with your family a lot.

You don't tend to have them forefront in your mind.

And then something happens, like happened to us where my next oldest brother lost his wife a couple weeks ago.

I mentioned that.

I talked about it.

So, of course, now you're thinking about all those things, and you're thinking about family and you're thinking about your life when you lived back there, what it was like and can it be the same?

Should I go back?

And all these fun things, they pop into your head, especially when you don't see your family very often.

So that gives you pause to think about these things.

And as people out there in the world, I think you need to think about it, too.

Are you talking to your family enough?

If you're arguing with somebody in your family, I want you to think about it.

Is it worth it?

You know, I've had this steadfast rule in my life, and it's worked for me a long, long, long, long time.

If you make me mad today and I don't say anything the rest of the day to you, let it be.

I'm going to get up tomorrow and it's all going to be fine because it was yesterday's news, and I can't change that.

That's gotten me out of a lot of fights and a lot of upset feelings by others because others know if you.

If you push me that far, I am going to come back at you if it really makes me mad.

And I just don't see the need for all this confrontation in the world right now, especially among family.

And I hear about it all the time, and you just.

It's not needed, folks.

It's just not.

There's no reason for it.

So make up with whoever you're not talking to in your family.

You be the bigger person.

And you're really not being the bigger person.

You're being the smart person to say, I can't think of my life without you in it.

Okay?

Because someday something could happen.

This guy had lost a bunch of weight as a podcaster.

He'd lost a bunch of weight, was getting healthy, and boom, all of a sudden, a heart attack.

Doesn't mean you shouldn't start getting healthy, but who knows, right?

So anyways, talk to your family.

If you don't have any, talk to somebody else.

So anyways, that's.

And that's the end of that subject.

Okay, I want to talk about a couple more things really, really quickly.

If you are thinking about starting a podcast, you've got some interest in it, I want you to go to boomerpodcasters.com There's a.

It's a podcast.

There's only about six of them out there, but it gives you the basic ideas of what you're going to need to get started.

Leave me a message on that website, either through the contact me page or through the little microphone in the bottom right hand corner.

Yeah, you got to put in your email address, but like I've said many, many, many, many times, I do not sell email addresses.

I keep them.

I'm selfish.

Also, you could go to Gray Hair Productions and leave me a message because I can help you get started, but I can also edit for you once you're done, or I can show you how to edit really quickly and, and do these types of things.

Gray Hair Productions is G R E Y Hair productions dot com.

Go, go look at it.

And if you're.

If you know somebody who's podcasting who maybe needs some help and doesn't realize it, or if you're thinking about it and you're going, man, this takes a lot of time.

Let me give you some of your time back, okay?

Just leave me a message.

Either website, be happy to contact you and set up a time where we can get on a zoom call, or whatever we got to do to talk.

All right, next.

If you know somebody who does not know what a podcast is, doesn't know where to find one, doesn't know what genres are out there, show them for me.

Use five minutes of Gray Hair Davis, the example.

Here's where you find it.

Show them how to follow, subscribe, whatever theirs is, grab the phone, put their fingers, show them how to do it.

Okay?

They need to know, because podcasting is a great, great medium.

And the way it's going lately, it's a very powerful medium.

Okay, next.

And this is something I say every time, and it means a lot to me.

When you're out and about today or tomorrow or this week and you're going somewhere, you see somebody you don't know, smile at them, maybe give them a little wave, you're gonna make their day.

And they in turn will make yours.

So on behalf of Gray Haired Dave here, sorry this is a day late, but here we go.

It's coming out today.

I will talk to you next week.

You all have a great day.

Bye.

Bye.