From Bob's Office

12/3/19 We welcomed our good friend Kyle Vitwar to this episode of the podcast. He is another member of the Valley Christian community and came to summer camp with us a couple years ago. We battled sounds from the outside world as there was work being done on the roof, so don't mind the hammering, pounding, sawing, whistling, and any other random noises that you hear in the background.

We started by talking about our Thanksgiving weeks and having some story time from Jake and Kyle (0:00-31:20). Then we recapped the football weekend, starting with our NFL teams and a some of the craziness of college football. Plus some quick NBA talk (31:20-56:00). Then we turn our focus to Kyle and spend some time talking about his sports playing career in baseball, basketball, volleyball and track & field. Kyle also shared a little about his family and his experience with choosing and attending Vanguard for college, why he chose to study Liberal Arts, and his plans for being a teacher moving forward (56:00-1:23:23). From there we talked about his church life, his experience in high school ministry as a student and as a leader, and his involvement in Royal Family Kids Camp during the summer over the last several years, with some random stories sprinkled in along the way (1:23:23-1:48:54). We ended with talking about Kyle's personal faith, from his journey to owning his own faith to a couple people that have been examples in his life and some scripture that has been really meaningful for him (1:48:54-2:21:21).

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11/26/19 This episode's guest is Ian Silva. He has been a good friend of Jake's since they were both little, and it was a lot of fun letting our audience get to know him. Another alum of Los Altos and Valley, Ian is currently studying sports management at Grand Canyon University. And he's another big sports fan. We also have our firsts sit-in guest, Owen! In our intro we talk about our weekends and cover the Packers and Rams getting routed, and Jacob and Owen attending the Rams/Ravens game in person. Ian gives us some insight into the Chargers and the college football landscape (0:00-47:00). Then Jake gives Ian some rapid-fire questions and the conversation covers all kinds of topics, including Ian's high school football and baseball career, his Scottish mother and Mexican father, his summer camp experiences at Green Oak Ranch, his obsession with Texas, jeans and boots, and his private school education (47:00-1:20:10). We talk about the decision-making process for why Ian ended up at GCU before he had to take a quick break from the show and we talked to Owen for a little bit (1:20:10-1:36:50). Ian then fills us in on when he got diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome and how he has overcome that challenge in his life (1:36:50-1:54:30). After a quick discussion about coaching and leadership, we spend a significant amount of time on Ian's faith and the role it has played in his life and the people who have taught and influenced him (1:54:30-2:34:34).

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11/21/19 Our guest on this episode is Ethan Scherch. We are very excited to share this show with you, even considering its length, because Ethan had a variety of topics to go over with us, and we had some amazing conversations as a result. We started with a preview of a couple of this weekend's NFL games, including Colts/Texans, Packers/49ers, and Rams/Ravens, which Ethan and Jacob will be attending in person (0:00-28:30). We spent a few minutes getting to hear about Ethan's life as a Ravens and Spurs fan, keying in on some Baltimore history and discussing Ray Rice and Ed Reed briefly (28:30-45:40). Then came our first lengthy discussion. Ethan is a huge soccer fan, so he informed us on a lot of things regarding the MLS and the national teams. That conversation flowed smoothly into a really good dialogue about the topic of equal pay in sports for men and women. We didn't solve anything, but there was a lot worthy fodder (45:40-1:31:50). Ethan then gave us an overview of his immediate family and talked about what it has been like growing up with two older sisters and now two nieces as female presences in his life (1:31:50-1:41:55). The following conversation started with a look into Ethan's experience in seeing a therapist, and what it looks like for us as individuals to seek and receive help towards improving our mental health. The consensus: See a therapist at least once. It's worth it. (1:41:55-1:56:20). Then Ethan talked about growing up in Texas, mostly in Austin, before moving to Missouri and finishing high school there and his extensive career of playing sports along the way. He also explained how he ended up at Concordia, Irvine for college, and how influential his time studying abroad was for his personal faith and views of the world (1:56:20-2:14:45). The last portion of the show was a look into what Ethan's faith looked like as a child, how it developed through high school and college, and how he views ministry things now. We also discussed discipleship and what that looks like, and how important it is to have actual, real-life conversations with people in order to learn about them and share ideas with them (2:14:45-2:55:32).

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*If you want the full experience, just let it play out. But if you would like your ears to continue to work, you might want to skip or mute the episode from the 1:02:50 mark until the 1:03:12 mark. We had our first bad technical issue and it created an unpleasant noise multiple times.

11/19/19 On this episode we welcomed our first female guest! Faith Negron is a recent graduate of Valley Christian High School and currently attends Berklee College of Music. She is a long-time member of the Los Altos Grace community and comes from a movie-making bloodline. We started the show talking about our weekends (0:00-11:45). Jake is very excited about his new Pokemon and Star Wars games, and Jacob had an all-day Harry Potter marathon. Then we got into some of the major sports stories from the past five days. From Trout and Bellinger winning their respective MVP awards, to Tua Tagovailoa's season-ending injury, Colin Kaepernick's workout, and full coverage of the Myles Garrett fiasco (11:45-46:45). Then Faith gave us some background on her and her siblings' sports history. Faith had a rough go of it in softball, but found a home in soccer (46:45-57:50). After that, Faith gave us an introduction to her family members, full names and all, before moving into a description of her education background (you don't want to be in lower band... But you DO want to be in Broadway Showcase) and current status. There may have been a Baroque joke (57:50-1:22:38). Faith's father and grandfather are both in the movie industry, and she wants to follow in their footsteps, so we traveled down the IMDB rabbit hole with her while examining what her career might look like (1:22:38-1:36:10). We finally got to ask her a little about the development of her relationship and a couple of her favorite bible stories, and what it was like to attend private Christian schools through graduation (1:36:10-1:52:43). A quick story about a disastrous Casting Club meeting was followed by a short discussion about having her name in a faith-based community (1:52:43-2:01:43). We ended the show with a terrific look into Faith's perfectionist/type-A mind and all of the habits and decision-making that go along with that personality type (2:01:43-2:32:14).

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11/14/19 A last-second guest change means we were joined today by Mateo "Swipa" Dominguez. He hails from Gilroy, California and is a freshman at CSULB studying criminal justice and playing ultimate for Long Beach Pyramid Scheme. After an intro describing the presence of some background noise and a sad fish story, we briefly previewed a couple of the games for this NFL weekend (0:00-17:52). From there we took quite a journey through yodeling, Jake recounting his near-death experience this morning, another Pokemon and Star Wars segment, and Jake discovering new information about J.R.R. Tolkien (17:52-29:05). We returned to sports a little bit and talked about the latest basketball injuries, then our gripes with the College Football Playoff rankings (29:05-43:55). We finally turned our attention back to Mateo to hear about the origins of his nickname, but got sidetracked again by some of the old cartoon tv show themes we listened to last night (43:55-1:08:00). When we got control of ourselves again, Mateo gave us some insight into his who his parents and siblings are and what they do, and what life growing up in Gilroy is like, especially in regards to the Gilroy Garlic Festival (1:08:00-1:20:12). Then Mateo told us about his high school career, and he and Jake had an in-depth conversation about running track and cross country. Mateo also told us about how he decided on CSULB, and his interest in criminal psychology (1:20:12-1:45:00). Then Mateo gave us a thorough look into the shoe reselling business, his personal business plans, and so much more than we ever could have hoped to know about shoes (1:45:00-2:08:30). Lastly, Mateo had the opportunity to attend the Camp Flog Gnaw musical festival at Dodger Stadium last weekend, where a big news story developed and spread all over social media. He filled us in on all the details the media missed out on, while teaching us again about another subject we know nothing about (2:08:30-2:37:06).

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11/12/19 Today's guest is Jason Dunn, the worship pastor and all-around handyman at Los Altos Grace. We had a great time hearing about his journey through life, church and faith. We started by recapping our weekends in going to games, taking pictures, and Disney+ (0:00-18:26) Then we recapped Rams/Steelers, Packers/Panthers, 49ers/Seahawks and had some NFL MVP talk (18:26-34:20). We followed that with a quick look at the Lakers and why Jacob is invested in Iowa basketball, followed by Jason giving a brief synopsis of his sports fandom and playing career, featuring Slurpees and guitar during baseball (34:20-49:56). Then Jason told us about his parents and siblings, his education at Los Altos and Brethren, and how much Los Altos has meant to him and his family in the past, now, and into the future (49:56-1:18:12). Next, Jason told us about his life after high school, including some time at Fullerton College, joining a metal band, spending a very interesting year in New York, moving back to SoCal and becoming the worship pastor at a church in Anaheim, then making his way back to Los Altos full-time and engaging completely in worship (1:18:12-1:53:50). Finally, we got to talk to Jason about the beginnings of his faith, how it is the center of his marriage, and how he will pass it on to his children, with a quick interlude about his beard and favorite movie (1:53:50-2:30:51).

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11/9/19 Special bonus episode this week! Jacob helped coach some ultimate frisbee in San Diego on Saturday and while driving three of his players down to the tournament, they all agreed that recording an episode would be fun! Don't mind the white noise of the car and the freeway in the background. But come along for the ride we had talking about ultimate, movies, how the three guys got to where they are and where they're going, and some freeway shenanigans along the way! Big thanks to Morgan "Rush" Ortiz, Christian "Ghost" Plascencia, and Krysean "Pluto" Baluga for being good sports.

11/10/19 Our guest today was Alex "Ajax" Grimm. He's in his fourth year at CSULB getting his degree in history and pursuing a career as a teacher and he's the president of the ultimate frisbee club team on campus, Long Beach Pyramid Scheme. We started the show with anticipation of Disney+ starting on Tuesday, so there was a lot of Star Wars talk, with other Disney topics and then some Harry Potter sprinkled in (0:00-24:05). Then we talked about upcoming football, including Steelers vs Rams, Packers vs Panthers, the three primetime games, and Antonio Brown's latest rant (24:05-48:00). We followed that with a quick conversation about basketball (48:00-58:45), then hearing about Ajax's rooting interests (58:45-1:09:00) and his playing career in soccer and ultimate (1:09:00-1:21:15). Ajax told us about his parents, his brother, and his education, including the transition from public school to private school in high school (1:21:15-1:32:00), followed by a great discussion about his Catholic faith, First Communion, Confirmation, and current faith life.

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11/5/19 We were joined on today's podcast by Kyle Oscarson. Jacob was a leader in the high school group for Kyle at Long Beach Grace and now Kyle is a CSULB graduate and pursuing being a physician's assistant. The guys covered their weekends in the intro (0:00-10:45) before getting into a recap of the Packers/Chargers game and other news from the football weekend (10:45-35:10). Next was a couple quick conversations about baseball free agency and a Lakers update (35;10-59:30), followed by Kyle giving us a rundown of his favorite teams, players and moments (59:30-1:23:10). Then Kyle gave a very thorough description of his family, his education and the transition from private school to public school, his church history and some cool moments he's had serving youth, and where he is at with his education and his career pursuit (1:23:10-2:03:10). We ended by asking Kyle some questions about what it's like to be a middle child and his relationship with his brothers, his experience in Boy Scouts and earning his Eagle Scout, and some final thoughts about his faith development and how he sees God at work in his life right now (2:03:10-2:26:47).

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10/31/19 Happy Halloween! Our guest today was Ryan "Crash" Lepore. He's a CSULB alumni working on getting hired as a firefighter. He's a huge sports fan and has played sports his entire life, including professional ultimate for the L.A. Aviators. In our intro we introduced our first sponsor (thank you Emily Harrington!), discussed our pumpkin carving with youth group last night, a fire across the street yesterday morning, and talked a little about the Nationals winning the World Series (0:00-13:00). Then we looked at this week's football schedule while getting sidetracked with a couple other topics including Gatorade, Nike, Adidas, and geography (13:00-49:55). We briefly mentioned Steph Curry's injury and the KAT-Embiid fight from last night, then followed a Rootstown, Ohio rabbit hole highlighted by aardvarks and armadillos (49:55-1:00:20). Ryan then filled us in about his history with sports, including being a fan of the Packers, Braves, and Kings, and growing up playing soccer, hockey, baseball and ultimate (1:00:20-1:29:15). Then we got to talk about Ryan's family and upbringing and his elongated pursuit of a firefighting career (1:29:15-1:48:20). Lastly, Ryan discussed his faith journey with us, including being the least-informed kid in youth group and having a heart-breaking breach of trust with a youth leader that had lasting repercussions with Ryan's family (1:48:20-2:24:00).

Join us on this and future adventures by connecting with us on Instagram, Twitter, Spotify and iTunes! And a big thank you to Emily and Maddie for the sponsorship!