I'm Jerry Banfield, and it's January 12th, 2025. I'll be honest, I struggled with what to put as a title on this one. It gets so old being a YouTuber and always having to think of some sensational, clickbait title. I already have enough people watching my videos. Why do I need more? I don't even bother to read my YouTube comments anymore. Why even try to get anybody else to watch at this point? Anyway, that's where my head was at when I sat down to record this.
I missed my vlog yesterday because Laura ran the runDisney marathon this weekend. She ran her first ever marathon. Yesterday we got up and went straight to Disney in the morning after dropping the dogs off. Then we had lunch at T-Rex, which was awesome. I gave the kids $40 each to spend at Downtown Disney, and I told them that if they got out of line they were going to get fined $20 each. If even one of them got out of line, both of them would get fined $20 each. They barely avoided it, but we had a nice time.
Lunch at T-Rex and ice cream at Ghirardelli
We had a nice lunch at about 3 p.m. at T-Rex, and the food was actually pretty good. Laura got a New York strip, I got the veggie burger, and the kids got kids' meals. Madeline had pizza and Jack got a corn dog. Then we went to Ghirardelli afterward, where Jack and I shared a banana split and Laura got a mint cone. I paid $4 extra to get it dipped in chocolate, but she said she'd pay $4 not to have it dipped in chocolate. So I went over to them and asked them to leave the chocolate off, and they obliged.
The T-Rex lunch with tip was about $130, and I paid $60 for ice cream at Ghirardelli. I actually paid for everything, although I asked Laura for $3,000 a couple of days ago because I didn't want to sell any of my ICP. She got an SBA loan for the hurricane, and I paid about $3,000 extra for the roof versus what the insurance money gave us. So that worked out well.
A long, restless night at the resort
We went to bed at about 9. Laura got in bed around 8 and started resting, and I got in bed with the kids at about nine. We stayed in Disney's All-Star Movies Resort in the Mighty Ducks building, which was fun. We actually got the kids to sleep in the same room in two queen or full beds, and I slept in a bed right next to Laura. Laura was up tossing and turning all night, so I could barely sleep. Plus I had a pillow that was like a rock.
Laura was up most of the night. She finally got up and left about 1:30 in the morning to go get in position for the Disney marathon, and after that I could finally fall asleep. She said she got to start the run just a little before 5. It got down to around the high 30s, maybe 38, 39, 40, and she got cold. I kept thinking how nuts it was that she had to be out there so early. It was hours of standing around before she could even start. Then a little before five she finally got to start running the marathon.
Meanwhile, I woke up with the kids a little after seven and we went down to the cafeteria in the All-Star Movies Resort. I had a good breakfast. Jack got waffles and bacon, and Madeline got just bacon, yogurt, and a Go-Gurt. Madeline put Jack's butter and syrup on his waffle and did a really good job of it, and it was tasty. I got a brownie and a banana, one of those big Mickey-ear-shaped brownies, which was good. I should have taken a picture of it, but I'm tired of taking pictures of stuff. I just can't hardly be bothered. I'd rather generate an AI image. Taking pictures snaps me out of the experience. I've gotten so burnt out on photographing everything that it ruins being present.
Rethinking my career, again
And then I rethought my whole career again. I caught myself wondering, maybe I should go back to being a police officer. I'm sure I could get on at St. Pete Police Department or Pinellas County, or be a trooper or something. I'm still in good shape physically. The night shifts are horrible, though, so I rethought it.
I look back at my teens and twenties and notice that I had such great opportunities that I just didn't use. I hardly thought about what I wanted my future to be like. I put the minimum possible effort into it, and I had such a narrow mind. I ended up going to the University of South Carolina Honors College and enrolling in their ROTC program, and it was such poor planning on my part. I hated moving to South Carolina after living around the world as a military brat. I thought South Carolina was a backwards place to live, and it certainly felt that way even in the capital in Columbia. As for ROTC, I didn't even put much effort into it. I had a mom who was a colonel in the army and a friend who was in the Pentagon. I had so many opportunities. I could have gone to West Point. I could have been on track to get into the CIA or something. I look back now and realize I didn't even consider any of those possibilities.
So then I thought, okay, what possibilities am I not considering now? Am I looking 20 years into the future? At this point I'm kind of amazed that I've arrived where I'm at when I put so little planning into my life 20 years ago. Twenty years ago I was not thinking at all about where I might like to be now. But I am thinking about it now. In 20 years, I'd like to have 5,000 or 10,000 songs that I've created. I'd like to have five or ten thousand vlogs recorded, maybe five or six thousand. I'd like to have most days of my life recorded as a vlog 20 years from now. That would be awesome. I love recording videos, but it's amazing how long it took me to just do it and to enjoy it.
Then I came home thinking about my crypto channel. I know I can do better. I know I can, and I want to. But what is doing better? Is me getting more and more views really doing better, to the point where I can't hardly even interact because the audience is so large? What is better? You take for granted that more is better, but is it actually enough better?
Packing up without Laura there
Today it was so weird packing up without Laura there, packing her suitcase and the whole room with the kids. Laura is usually the primary parent. She's usually the one who gets all of that done while I do other stuff, or I help with it and follow her direction. But I got everything packed up. The kids and I carried everything down to the car.
Then we went to the video arcade. The hotel had a nice arcade, and the pinball games were only about 30 cents or so. Jack went to town. There was an old-school Star Wars game, the real Star Wars, episodes four, five, and six, not the other ones, and I got so nostalgic for my childhood. I played that some. Jack played that one a bunch, plus Avatar and a couple of other pinball games. He's learned to play the games that are the cheapest and give you the longest and the most play. Madeline got upset because I wouldn't buy her her own card, but never mind, I'd already given them $40, and I bought arcade money out of my own pocket, putting another $25 onto the card.
Missing the finish line by 20 minutes
Then I got aggravated because I missed being there when Laura crossed the finish line, by about 20 minutes. I didn't want to get there too early with the kids and just stand around, but I also wanted to time it exactly right. I missed by about 20 minutes because the buses and everything took longer than I thought. I figured we could leave about an hour before Laura would cross the finish line, but we stayed in the arcade a little too long. Then the runDisney bus took 20 minutes just to get to the hotel, another 20 minutes to get to Epcot, and another 20 minutes for us to walk from the bus to where Laura was.
But it worked out perfectly. Even while I was aggravated, I thought, this will probably work out perfectly anyway, and it did. Laura got a couple of minutes to eat and sit by herself after completing her first marathon. Then we walked back and had lunch at the hotel. I had a Korean-style Beyond Burger, which was actually really good, and it came with some nice fries. Laura got a bacon cheeseburger, and the kids had ice cream and fries for lunch. I just let them eat whatever they want. I try to surround them with healthy food, but you go to Disney and it's like, you want ice cream? Fine, have ice cream. To me it's so silly when parents say, eat your cheeseburger so you can have ice cream. What? Forget it. Just go straight to the ice cream. Skip the cheeseburger.
Then we got in the car. Laura had been trying to tell me she wanted to do this by herself and just leave me at home with the kids. I said no, we are definitely coming with you, and I'm so glad we did, because it was nice having lunch with her. We let the kids go off to the arcade across the hall on their own, which Laura was a little nervous about. I said, Madeline's nine, Jack's six, they ate in here this morning, let them go to the arcade and we'll get lunch by ourselves. Then Madeline and I went and got the car, and Laura and Jack met us at the checkout driveway. We couldn't get extended checkout because everybody else asked first. It would have been nice so Laura could have showered, but it didn't end up mattering. Laura took a nice nap on the way home, the traffic was super smooth, and it only took us an hour and a half to get back home to St. Pete, which was awesome. It had taken us about two hours to get there because of a little traffic. I'm glad I don't get too aggravated in traffic these days, even with people blowing by, speeding, and driving a little crazy at various points.
And I'm like, hey, as long as we don't wreck, it's all good with me. Yesterday at Downtown Disney, the kids blasted open the door. I have the child locks on, but I'd opened the door and walked to the back of the RAV4, and the kids blasted the door open and put a half-centimeter scratch in the car next to us, which looked like it was pretty new. I told Laura, I'll just go repark the car. If I'm not going to leave a note, it's small enough to ignore. Our RAV4 has scratches like that all over it. This one didn't look like it had any yet, but it's got one now. Sorry about that.
Laura said, just leave it. It's a tiny little scratch, it's not worth it. I figured at this point either I'd need to just leave some cash under their windshield wiper or something. I'm not putting a note and a phone number and all that over something that costs like 50 bucks to buff out or paint over. But it still was annoying. I told myself I should have held the door like I usually do. And then Jack felt bad, because I said, Jack, you scratched this car. And he said, no, I didn't. I said, could you just not lie and make up whatever you want? I saw the door hit and scratch the car. Parenting is such a thing. You really have to stay on it.
It's so funny to think of how the kids act with me versus how I acted with my dad. Jack just slapped me on the stomach and stuff. I would have got smacked upside the head instantly if I had slapped my dad in the stomach, even playfully, or slapped my dad on the butt. It was just a different environment I was in. And I'm glad the kids have fun with me. I appreciate how playful they are. I make sure to tell the story because they're so playful. They'll sit there whacking each other and climbing all over each other at breakfast, and I try to intervene as little as possible because they're being playful. I don't want to stop them from being playful. Just let them go nuts. And it seems to help them be more cooperative afterward. If you let them have playtime, they seem to be more cooperative at other times.
Taking the weekend so Laura could run her marathon
The drive home was smooth. We got home and Laura took a shower and got in bed for a nice few-hour rest. I feel really good helping her do her marathon, because usually life is often, at least from my point of view, very much about me. It's my videos, it's my schedule. Laura is the primary parent, but I have the freedom to kind of do whatever I want, and Laura will make room for it. It was nice for me to take a weekend where I'm going to make room for Laura to do whatever she wants, and I'll take care of everything. It was really nice.
I made the kids two pizzas I bought at Whole Foods, one cheese and one veggie vegan pizza. Jack and I split the veggie vegan one, and Madeline ate half of the cheese one. So they did get their pizza after their ice cream. They eat seaweed snacks too. Then we took the dogs for a little walk. We'd dropped the dogs off with the dog walker yesterday. He sent 21 videos after having the dogs for like 10 hours. I swear I spent more time looking at videos of my dog that he took than I spend looking at my dog normally around the house. This guy's commitment to being a dog walker and dog boarder seems like a really sweet job.
I paid him $100 for a day and a half with two big dogs. He had a couple of other clients there, so he probably made $300 or $400 this weekend having six big dogs at his house, walking them and taking them to the dog park. He films a lot of videos, so you know he's on top of things. That's pretty sweet work. I haven't had a real job in a long time. If I had to do something else, I'm not that much of a dog person like he is, though. He just loves them more than I do.
Why I love people more than dogs
I hardly even understand how much people love dogs. They get all upset when their dog dies. To me, if my dog dies, it's like, okay, I'll get another one. A dog's a dog. To me, a dog is kind of like a car. I realize they're alive and they have souls or whatever, but I'm just not that attached. I'm about as attached to my car. I've had my car since 2006, and almost every girl I've ever dated has been in my Corolla. There were a few in high school and college that missed it, but I'm very attached to that Corolla. I would be just as sad to get rid of my Corolla as I would be for both my dogs to die, because I'll just go to the rescue and pick up two new dogs, and those dogs will just be dogs too.
I think it's funny when people love dogs more easily than they love people. Yeah, because dogs are easier than people. People are harder. But to me, my dog only does so much for me. I always think it's a little perverse when people love their dog so much more than a person. I find myself wondering, what's your dog doing for you that's that special? The way some people love their dogs, I only love my wife that much, and I know what she does for me that's that special. So maybe some of you are doing something with your dogs that I'm not. But a dog is a dog. I love my dogs, and I treat them well. I feed them and walk them. We're all different like that.
I really love people. I guess some of you don't understand how I can love people so much. Why do you love people so much, people are horrible? Well, dogs are horrible too. They crap all over the place, bark relentlessly, and act stupid when you know they know better. Oh look, I'm a dumb dog. No, you're not. You're just trying to act dumb to mess with me right now.
Feeling lazy next to a marathon, and rethinking 40
So we got home and the kids went down the street with Laura's parents for dinner. Laura's mom made dinner to celebrate Laura doing her marathon. I'm doing my vlog. I wanted to go play basketball, but my neighbor stopped me to tell me she sold her house and she's moving out of the neighborhood. She stopped me right in time to prevent me from having enough time to go play basketball before the gym closed. And I also feel lazy at this point. My wife ran 26, probably 27 miles by the time she went around so many people, and probably walked a couple more. I feel lazy. My wife probably went close to 30 miles today, and what have I done? Took the kids to breakfast, took everybody to lunch, drove a couple of hours, walked the dogs two blocks each way. Maybe I'll start doing some runs. I would love to be able to pass the PT test that 20 years ago was so hard.
I was also thinking about what I should do for the titles on this vlog. I scrolled through a whole bunch of vlog titles, some of people's best ones. One of them was like "early 30s vlog." Maybe I'll title this "I'm 40 vlog" or something like that. I think that sounds kind of a dumb title, but you need things that are relatable for people. And I don't even like to identify with being 40. My body feels fantastic. To me, the idea of age and numbers and certain things happening at certain times makes sense for things like puberty, but even puberty doesn't happen at the exact same time. It ranges from 11 or 12 years old to 16 or 17. So there's a big range even for puberty. And dying ranges greatly too. You could die of natural causes basically anytime, although it usually ranges from 50 to 100.
So I don't even like to think that way, that oh, I'm 40 and therefore this happens and that happens. No, my body functions about the same as it did 20 years ago. I don't see any reason it would function differently now than 20 years ago, because the cells in the body are still being renewed. It's only this idea that I was born on a certain date. That's just ideas. But I've come to believe that what you believe, you make into reality. So my reality is that I'm immortal in spirit, this body is made out of stuff that doesn't die. Atoms don't die. It's an energy form that I put together when I decided to incarnate here, and it's going to stay together as long as I feel like keeping it together. And I try to take care of it. If you enjoy these slices of everyday life, you can find more of them in my Life playlist.
And I've gone off for 20 minutes already. Nice. I think that's enough.