362 | Breakfield and Burkey’s inspiring story!

0:04  
Welcome to positive talk radio. Our goal is simple to explore evolving ideas, one conversation at a time. So stay with us. As right now, we present. We're really looking forward to talking to these two again, today they are established really credible authors. They've done. They've got a billion books, not a billion, but you've got quite a few books out. And the Enigma series, which is a really cool series of books that that you have out and, and Brookfield and Berkey are with us today. That's that sounds like a musical group,

0:45  
doesn't it? And we're sitting wrong, because the names are backwards for how we're sitting.

0:50  
Yeah, but you've got the comfortable chair. So while there it is. Okay, so.

0:54  
Absolutely, absolutely. So you are authors in the Enigma series. I actually all started with a your, Charles, your love for World War Two. And the things that went on there, and with the Enigma, transcription machine, and stuff like that, and all of the things that you talk about about that, but I wanted to ask you, because you list on your website. By the way, if you want to follow along with us, you can by just going to Enigma book series.com. And you can find out a lot about them, one of which is your stepfather worked on the Manhattan Project in World War Two. During World War Two you did? Oh, that I'm sorry. Your stepfather did?

1:42  
My stepfather did Yeah, he did. He was a metallurgist by perfection. And he ended up going up to the University of Chicago and be sure did he was on it.

1:54  
What is a metallurgist?

1:57  
A metallurgist is someone who actually can do the chemistry of metal separation was used for some of the uranium stuff. How much of a chemist I am. Okay, you got it?

2:13  
That's a bit of a technical term. I do believe that yes. No. Does he aware of over time since World War Two, the Manhattan Project has been the focus of many movies. There's who was he aware of all of that, and all the things that went on, supposedly, with the whole process?

2:33  
No, but what he was quite excited about needs to do some oversight for some of the not Chernobyl because that one was a bad experience, but some of the other nuclear nuclear plants that we had in this country, and and he actually went to a couple of other countries, but not not Russia to actually do some oversight and make sure that all the processes and procedures were in place. And they were following them. And it was stunning. From his perspective, it was stunning.

3:06  
How did he feel about nuclear energy? It was obviously he was a proponent of it.

3:11  
Well, he, he thought it was a horrible war tool. But the value of it from an energy perspective, when done correctly, could be phenomenal in the long run.

3:28  
How did you feel about it? Because I'm, I'm told that the waste lasts for like 10,000 years or whatever, because in Washington state where I live, we've got Hanford, which is a storage site for nuclear waste. Was he concerned about that at all? Or Did he figure we'd figure it out?

3:47  
So I don't know that it even came up on his radar as being a problem other than it needed to be stored for safety. But we have an awful lot of things. Kevin, as you know, that we create as humans. And then we never can figure out exactly how to store things, you know, when we're when we're finished with them.

4:07  
What wish we can uninvent them.

4:10  
You know, I mean, there's a couple of really funny things like all the grades of plastic that are so hard to recycle and oh, by the way, the electric car batteries that you know, they don't want to be recycled either. So

4:23  
it's that state of unintended consequences. Yeah, we think it's gonna be a really good I use like straws. We think that's going to be a really good idea, but they last like forever, and ended up in the middle of the ocean somewhere.

4:38  
Well, exactly, that's why I mean, most people are doing things like getting metal straws or get em I've got half a dozen metal straws that I use for company now. Just so we don't have any more in the plastic guys.

4:48  
Good for you. That's that's where do you buy metal straws? I've never even seen them. Amazon. Everything's there. You can buy anything in Amazon If,

5:00  
and if that doesn't work, go to Etsy, because they're cheaper. Oh,

5:06  
they're more economically sound. That's it. Yes. And and, and Charles, your father was a fighter pilot, by the way. Thank you for his service and thank you for your service.

5:19  
Yes. He was. It was, it was one of the things that I wanted to be one not when I grew up. I mean, I was, I was I was groomed for, for being a Air Force pilot, until I discovered that my eyesight wasn't 2020. So the rule was in that day, and age, if you didn't have perfect eyesight didn't matter. What you what you wanted to do, you know, you're not gonna fly. So it was it was really a letdown. But I moved through a lot of his storytelling, the that's, that's part of that the the thing that he did, what now and, and that's, he's where I got my love of watches from so short story about, about his he's in an aircraft. And those days World War Two, at the end of it, I mean, you would you would put your watch on, make sure you knew at the time, and because you have had distance, fuel consumption and time to be able to mathematically calculate how long can I stand here before and longer in the air. And I need to turn around. So he bought, he paid the unheard of price of $100 for a beautiful watch that, you know, the rest of the guys are like, he's the lieutenant. And you know, and now the $100 was like, you know, three months salary kind of thing. So when he strapped it on the mind, this is going to be great. It gets in to the P 47. gets ready to take off, you know, they get get up enough altitude, grabs the lever, slams it over smashes his watch when he's lifting up the the blending in. And so it's like, I won't burden you with the expletives that he he uttered at that point in time. But, you know, he has to kind of you know, he's he's watching and working. So you know, guys, do we have enough fuel online, depending on you from when I need to around, gets back takes it to the jeweler to give them the job versus here, I want the same fixed another crystal got it to two weeks or two weeks later, he gets the watch. He now puts it on the inside of his of his arm, rather than the outside. It takes off, slams the gear up. And you know, no broken watch. Wow, this is great. I got to watch this backwards. Okay, if I can, I can deal with that. Coming around. Now, as you're focusing on the runway, you what you want to do is flare, cut the engine back, you know, do all kinds of stuff. And he already dropped down the gear and he drops the lever down smash. And Brexit breaks it again.

8:10  
You know, you would think because I've never been in a fighter plane, or a military plane of any kind, really, at least in the cockpit. And you would think that there would be like a, I don't know, like a gas gauge. But there weren't any gas gauges apparently.

8:28  
Well, then no, there's gas gauges. I mean, but they were all analog driven. And, you know, this was the the failsafe, okay, you got the fuel consumption. Okay, I'm checking this out, or how much how long do I get stay in here? What is the estimated amount of airtime that I can I guess the before have to get back for the for the field. It's not like an aircraft carrier where, you know, I gotta know where he is. I mean, that's, you know, that's really the fridge, as far as I'm concerned, landing on an aircraft carrier at night. So Oh, yeah. But you're keeping track of the of your distance and how much time I can spend in the air in a fight. And that's usually what the criteria is. Before I have to start looking for a gas station.

9:15  
But you didn't have that little thing like we have on cars today that says 224 Miles remaining.

9:23  
No, no, we didn't. Didn't didn't have that. And but you know, and we did have Volkswagen bugs. And I know, I know that one of you. Their first car was a Volkswagen bug. I remember that. You know, they they don't make them anymore like they like they used to but there's

9:44  
no I loved my first VW Bug. It was terrific.

9:47  
Now was it a deluxe? Oh, was it the regular standard?

9:50  
Oh, no, it was a standard bug. It rolled over really well.

9:55  
Which you did, and where were you going when you when you rolled over? Were your little

10:02  
apps coming back from Santa Cruz down in Santa Cruz mountain road.

10:09  
And those are the you know, those who were so small that you didn't need seatbelts, because you you were gonna hit the ceiling no matter what you did really?

10:17  
Well, even Well, I'm really short. So I typically didn't hit the ceiling but, but they did roll really well. And I mean, it was really, it was an odd circumstance, I ended up rolling and getting back on all four wheels. And that was, there was a little tiny dent in the top, my friends from high school put their big feet in, punched it out, it was perfect.

10:40  
And that saves you a bunch of money in the end the repairs.

10:44  
Exactly.

10:45  
Yes. What now one of you is also a expert on skeet shooter.

10:53  
Yeah, that would be who they mean.

10:56  
And how did that happen? How did that come to be?

11:00  
My father, because, and I didn't, didn't pick up on this until I was like 17 or 18. But I'm like 10 or 12 Seems like a whole the shotgun. He wanted me shooting moving targets and course do skeet. skeet shooting was a was a way to sharpen the pilots eye for okay, if you're at this angle, you have this much lead to be able to shoot your Emissary. Okay, got it. Now, it's in from this direction. And it's it's a semi circle, that, that you basically go from station to station, they throw these clay pigeons out plane targets and at a certain mile per hour and your your your objective is to muster. So every weekend, we that's what we did me and my brothers. Even my youngest brother, who is the judge, bear, my dad had to help him hold his shotgun up. He was he was interested in having all of us learn how to shoot moving targets. In case we chose to be pilots, fighter pilots in particular. So that's how we got started. And then when we moved to Germany, there were say a several rod and gun clubs that sponsor competitions, and including the the German regionals and the European Open. And so we got to compete in those. And I took high overall number two, when I was 17, in front of a field of 1500 other competitors that shooting off for gauges.

12:36  
And that how many how many shots? Would that be that you would that you would shoot? Or how many how many of these clay pigeons did you have to kill?

12:43  
That's 400 out of 400. And then funny story about it was that we I tied with my younger brother for the Junior Championship of Europe. We missed two birds and we when we go into what's called sudden death. And that's

13:05  
each other though they keep

13:06  
no no, they keep throwing clay pigeons you move around like you're shooting. And the first one who misses and the Nick and they're out of there. So we made made around 25 straight quarters. Everybody's like, you know, wow, this is really entertaining, you know, and of course, we're all to nailbiter. And I'm just a high house station industry. My brother nailed it. And he won the championship. So I was a little bit miffed. I guess that's probably the way to put it. That I felt felt that that was one, but I don't know. There wasn't that you remember that? That sequence where Joe Forman you know keep looking at the the fight with him and Muhammad Ali. And he's like, how was winning? I was gonna win and all of a sudden I wasn't. I was down hard. Like, how did I do that? So I know exactly why George Foreman felt

14:04  
you were winning. You're winning. I'm gonna win. I'm gonna win. Oh, yeah, I did. Oh. So not only did you guys were do champion shooters, you had the champion two champions in the same household as right. Yeah. That's, that's really cool. I have you both kept shooting overtime.

14:26  
I lost my younger brother. Oh, I'm sorry. Several years ago, so. But it's one of those things where you know, every once in a while you feel the urge to pick up the gun and, and go out to the skeet range and shoot and you realize just how slow your reflexes have become.

14:46  
It's amazing what this this old age stuff will do to you. Yeah.

14:51  
So. So it was all age. I don't recommend it for anybody. But there it is.

14:58  
The alternative sucks. Yeah. Yeah,

15:01  
exactly. But but if you, you know, if you're careful, and you take care of yourself, and you have good genes and all that, and a lot of it is more luck than anything else. Yeah.

15:11  
Yeah, making sure you don't have, you know, looking at your smartphone while you're trying to get across the crosswalk. And you're not paying attention to the science. Yeah, that's, there's a there's a career limiting event.

15:23  
Exactly. Now, which one was it of you? That? Let's see, I guess both of you have been known to pick up furniture from the side of the road and and fix it up just for fun.

15:36  
Yeah, we both do that. We're horrible, horrible collectors, and we hate things being thrown out that can be fixed.

15:44  
It's curious, because we were out walking the dogs. And doing like we always do, you know, talking about the the next story or, you know, working in an existing story over and we came across this pile of like, antique parts that somebody had carelessly thrown out. And I'm, like, stunned, I'm like, Look at this guy. Look at this headboard. You know, this looks like a chair. And so yeah, my dad story in my truck, and we fill it up.

16:16  
The pickup truck filled

16:19  
with all this stuff. We must have built, you know, half a dozen chairs. A full bed,

16:27  
dining room table through one of your daughters.

16:29  
Yeah, dining room table. Most of it. I speculate what happened was that there was a an elderly gentleman that had every intention of being able to fix that all those broken pieces and put it back together the way we did. And he ran out of time. And the people who took over the house, you said What's all this trash here? All right, throw it up, had no quote of the value that was there. On the loveseat. You know, we recovered the really nice oak chairs that were just it was a shame to see them thrown out so carelessly.

17:09  
Yes, indeed. And so you were you refurbish them, and then they're either at your house or you gave them away to relatives and that sort of thing? Yeah.

17:17  
Anybody who needs who needs a thing of furniture, call us first. We have my storage area.

17:24  
And if you need a dress to go out on Saturday night with I know that you can do that too.

17:29  
Yeah, I can. Well, that's why I did the upholstery part. Because I'm, I have the sewing background. Yeah,

17:39  
sometimes. And we've done we actually had some friends who said, I bought these, these, these chairs, they're falling apart, guys, can you guys help them with it? And we brought them over here, and we reworked them. And, you know, made them they were antiques, and but they're the glue and had I had to pull them apart physically. We glue them. And then we started putting in teaching ourselves how to be able to put the upholstery on, because the way that was done in a manner that you don't do anymore.

18:09  
They had something called tufted backs on them, which is where you have little buttons in the backs and it kind of looked like it was Oh yeah. Yeah. So that's not a skill that you actually pick up in high school or, you know, it's not something you can actually get easily. So we found that research didn't did a really good job if you want to clear of them, Kevin, we can talk.

18:31  
Absolutely. Well, I You You You're one of your gowns actually made it to the Texas beauty pageant. Yes, Miss Miss Texas. Miss Teen.

18:41  
Yep, She sure did. And it was beautiful. It was oh my gosh, it was beautiful.

18:46  
So you're accomplished writers, your furniture makers. When you have time for all this stuff.

18:55  
In between our normal professional jobs.

18:58  
I know your foot you're also working full time. Exactly.

19:01  
She never want to get bored. We can sleep some other time. You know?

19:07  
Boy, you are it's really fun to talk to you. Because you are you guys are so dynamic at what you do. And in a lot of cases and you've got how many books have you done?

19:18  
Well, we have 12 in the series itself. We have one prequel to the series called out of Poland. And then as of December the first we will have 910 short stories out.

19:34  
Oh, very nice. Well now what are the stories short stories based on?

19:38  
So they're mostly backstories to a degree of characters that are within the big books.

19:45  
So what happens is a lot of times we'll you know, we'll tear through a story and somebody will say why don't you like know a little bit more about this character? Aboard they go we're this couple girl maybe they look like And we're all set to tackle the world and, and have a romantic getaway and then we have some more. And so you know, that's the we pull those kinds of details and we put them into a short story and basically exercise the characters to kind of define who they are.

20:22  
Now, I got to ask you, because the first time that we I interviewed you, I said, chances are that you can go to any airport in the country, and you will find one of your books in one of the bookstores, paperbacks as you're getting get on an airplane. Is that so? Is that true?

20:40  
No. We'd like it to be true. But no, it's not trying to get into now, it could be because we certainly have them available on Ingram. And so they could order them if they wanted to. But a lot of the bookstores that are in airports are kind of kind of closed, or they're owned by the full big house publishing companies. I mean, there's just different reasons why not, if we truly were, you know, die for number one New York bestseller, we might have a shot at being there. So you know, I mean, I'd love to say we are but that would be alive. So I won't say that. But

21:23  
we were at a library over the weekend. Yes. And they just loved, love the outpost, or we had a couple of the librarians come by, and look both ways and say, I'm what I was one of the reviewers and a couple of books come to sit anybody like, I couldn't stand finish them. I couldn't fit your book. I couldn't put it down. I tore through it in two hours. I'm just like, you know, like, Wow, you're amazing. Can I get a Can I get a signed copy from you? Trust us, you can do that. No problem.

22:00  
How did how did that feel they have your books on and

22:03  
we love signing. But we love going book things and signing. It's a lot of fun. In this case, though. It was actually before a committee of 25 people. And so they shared different books and allowed. I don't know how many books came into there. There was there was a couple of 100 books that came in for their consideration in this in this huge library in a small town in Texas. 19,000 square foot library. I mean, it's a good size library. But they only had 20 they only had 2020 or 25 authors that they actually buy divided and they I mean, these invites are crazy Kevin, they hand wrote a note your book has been accepted. Would you consider coming to our event on this day? And they all signed the handwritten invitation? I mean,

22:59  
everything was so cool. What can we get out there? And we were treated like celebrities. Oh man, it was fabulous. It was like you couldn't get I had trouble getting my head through the door afterwards.

23:13  
Well, you know you you are celebrities in the in the fact that you've got a whole series that, that if somebody decided they liked the first book, then they're gonna follow through with the entire series. And it's gonna take them a little while to get through the series.

23:29  
But it is and we're kind of you know, we're kind of getting ready to launch the new series now. So the first book in the new series, which is the Enigma airs. And did we tell you why we were doing a new series Kevin,

23:42  
did we Oh, you didn't?

23:44  
Well, because I I protested stomp, my foot jumped up and down and said, We're not going to do a book 13 We're just not going to put that kind of doodoo over here. So we argued and argued and did rock paper scissors five times until I won five times five straight.

24:05  
takes a little while. I'll just go on record anytime she says I'll do rock paper scissors. Go ahead and just give up give up write down because you know you're not going to win. This was the champion Rock Paper Scissors person on the planet.

24:19  
Enigma errs is the next series. So Enigma series is the first series books one through 12 A Nygma. Airs is coming out next year. And a Nygma tracer is the first book in that in that series and it's ready to go to the final editor

24:39  
Wow. So again, I questions begs to be asked what do you come up with all the time?

24:47  
Well, sometimes there's just this, this driving urge to ignore everything else and just work on it. Now and that's, you know,

24:56  
well, we don't watch TV mother. Neither of us watch much TV I mean, once a while his wife will say, Oh, come on, you're gonna watch this TV show with me. But TV is not a big driver in my household, it's not a big driver in his household. So that's not so bad. Um, but you know, a couple hours here a couple hours there, you get stuff done.

25:16  
If you're comfortable riding, then it's okay, I'm gonna get, I have an idea. And you know, in two hours, you can crank crank through a good sized chapter, and have it ready for the other person to look at.

25:31  
So let me get this straight. Because a lot of people will be listening to this and watching it going. It must be a couple, because they're spending so much time doing this together and stuff. So then when I when they find out well, no, you're not you have separate households, and you live separate lives, as well and separate jobs and all that. The question then begins to be asked, How did you guys meet?

25:55  
I hired him. No, seriously. It was so funny. So So I worked at a company in the tech industry. And it was a kind of an outsourcer group. And he was looking for a job. And he was his wife was ready to have child number two. And so he wanted to I didn't know that though, during the interview, and I was one of the three people that interviewed him and I, he struck me as being very solid with what he wanted to do. He was good at technology at that point in time for what we needed in the organization. And so I put my, I put my best little writing skills together to write my recommendation to my boss and say, he's got it, we got to get him on board.

26:43  
Wow, see, now that's unusual. So were you his boss for a period of time?

26:48  
No, he was my boss, I actually hired my own boss.

26:53  
Now, that is a unique story.

26:56  
Well, so the the site manager was one of the one of the people that did the interviews, the assistant site manager was the other one. And I was the third one in that pecking order. And so he was going to replace the site manager is what happened. And so all three of us were interviewing him for how do you get along with people and the environment and that kind of thing? So it was kind of a very fair, diverse hiring practice for those times. Yeah, actually been diverse and practical for these times.

27:27  
It would be Were you surprised, Charles of that? That happened that way?

27:32  
Actually, I was. And the reason is, because if I'm walking out to go out to my car, I see none other than the guy that I used to work with, from my, the job that from this company that imploded from debt. He's they're interviewing as well. And I'm like, oh, no, I gotta be able to compete against him. You know, and I asked afterwards, after they had hired Madison. So How close was it between me and the Mr. haircut? And they said, wasn't even close. We couldn't, we couldn't wait to get rid of him. He was he was so

28:11  
arrogant would be the right word. He was really, you don't want to you don't want to hire somebody to be over people who's too arrogant to get out of their own way. You just don't you want somebody? It's gonna make a team? And we need a team?

28:25  
Yeah. Well, and that that's another book for you guys. hiring practices on how to build a great team.

28:36  
That's funny.

28:38  
Yeah. So I mean, the so and how long did you guys work together?

28:43  
Well, that particular job,

28:45  
a year, about a year, and then I moved on to another job. I mean, I, I needed a different opportunity. So I got a different opportunity. And then the contracts changed where he was, and he wanted another job. So I wrote up a recommendation for another job that he was gonna go to, and he got that one to my quote is pretty good. I could just be an, you know, a recruiter.

29:10  
And then what happened was, that was like two years dense to two years dense. And then we ended up at Nortel Networks, which I got there first, they recruited me and I was like, okay, cool. This is good. And as soon as I got in there, they were they were hiring people as fast as they could, growing like crazy. And I said, Well, hey, I'm over here in professional services. And they said, How do I do? I didn't know anybody and I said, matter of fact, I do. And so I introduced this Birkir to the to my hiring manager. And the last thing I said to him, I said, She has my full faith and confidence, you would be remiss not to take advantage of her skill set. Next thing on Oh, she's moving in the cube next door to me and say, well, where's coffee?

30:06  
So, whose idea was it to say, I like you, I think that we would have fun writing a book, whose idea was that

30:14  
nortel's, we ended up writing technical workshops and technical manuals until we were like nauseous. And we decided that really wasn't I mean, we wrote white papers for different organizations, and you know, got a little bit of extra pocket money doing that. And I got a gig to write a nonfiction book, and I invited him to contribute to it.

30:40  
To really her idea,

30:41  
but But honestly, it was like, okay, writing nonfiction, as fast as technology move is not what we want to do. Because it's old, the day it hits. It's just, and it's not rewarding at all. So I suggested to him that we could write about technology, we could create a foundation of real technology. We could layer on people that we have known or elements of people that we have known. And when all else fails, we can kill people and not go to jail. He said, Okay.

31:15  
She had me when guac, the horrible boss, and I say, oh, Sign me up. Where do I what do I put my John Henry on that one?

31:25  
Let me and was it easy for you to begin writing together? Where you've been writing technical manuals, but to come up with kids, you know, and I don't know this to be true, but my assumption is that there are people that are good at writing technical manuals that don't have a terrific amount of imagination, and character development and all that, because it's not really part of that.

31:49  
Yeah. So I mean, basically, it's, I mean, we were professional services, we were doing installs, we, we were teaching and this is probably where we get that storytelling ability, really find, find finely honed, teaching other people, the technology and then going, I don't get it. Right. Okay. All right. Do you understand where this kind of algorithm will do? I don't get it. Okay. So you learn to be able to get ideas across using

32:23  
foul language that guys like me can understand when

32:26  
you go the Imagine if you will, you have somebody who picks up this device, and they want to play some phone call? How would they do it? So it's that same kind of thing. You just end up getting slapstick stupid about it, and you just create.

32:43  
Yeah, that was that was, it's not uncommon. It wasn't uncommon for me to build a real nice graphic, one page and spend 40 minutes explaining all the technology to the CEO or a CEO, or CIO, and in their, in their speak, so they can understand. And so it got to be. Second Nature. Just telling stories is the selling, selling technology is telling stories.

33:14  
Today, they call it journey mapping. But it was it's still it's still telling stories. And the best part about his graphics, all this complex technology. And half of the pictures that were on there were Lego pieces.

33:29  
Well, it's Ellen DeGeneres or share her shows ended now. But she did a segment one time on on older devices and having like somebody that was 20 years old, try and figure out and so they brought in a rotary phone, the old phone that you would pick up and it was had a dial on it and stuff like that. And they had a 20 year old trying to figure out how to operate this phone. Couldn't figure it out to save it again. You know, she was couldn't figure it out. So that's that's kind of what you guys, do you just make it simple for folks so that they can they can figure stuff out.

34:07  
Yeah. So So Kevin, you're you're, you're mature.

34:14  
That's one way to call it. Yeah.

34:16  
Well, here's our here's our joke that's going to come true really soon. And that is Do you know how we keep everything secret from the young people. When we write stuff down?

34:28  
We write stuff down in cursive. I have a funny story for you. My mother who recently passed and she was 90 and had a great life. But she always wrote because in her day, when when she was going to school in what was it in the 40s. She was born in 30. So in elementary school would be in the late 30s, early 40s. And they taught cursive. That's what that's how everybody wrote. And so she always did that. had it. And then she would send birthday cards and letters to my kids. And my and my kids would go, what is this? And it's like, you can read that as you know what? Because it looked like little scribbles to them. And so she had to then turn, turn around and learn how to print so that the kids can read her their birthday cards.

35:28  
I understand but I bet you you can do cursive. And so if you want to keep secrets, write it in cursive man, nobody will ever understand.

35:36  
It's like It's like the Enigma machine.

35:39  
Yes, it's an encryption device. There it is. Run your run the words through cursive writing in there undecipherable. Okay, there it is.

35:49  
That that's it. So that's, that's now you can write a book about the 21st century, mid 21st century when cursive is no longer all the people who knew curves are no longer here. And it's like the Navajo, like in World War Two, the Navajo whispers, yes. Which was used for to keep the secrets of what was going on standard stuff. So yeah, it's technology is amazing thing, but it just keeps changing.

36:19  
So you've been on our website, because you found those little tips and tricks and seven odd things and stuff like that. Yeah, there is something else on that website that that you might find interesting, or your listeners might find interesting. So if you go to the free stuff area, you can actually get a copy of specialized terms. Now, I don't know how it is in lots of professions, but I know that in the technology profession, acronyms are a way of life. You know, we have ATMs we have I don't know we have 100 gobbing million of them. So we've used specialized germs inside the stories, specifically, to make sure that people can understand the real foundation of technology. So pop tarts was once mentioned by Kirkus review for being such a fun look at technology. Pop Tarts. Yeah, pop tarts are the name of our super computer, which is IQ obod. Yeah.

37:28  
So IQ obod. Actually, we use it to poke fun at the high tech world because a lot of people think that you know, we're closing lunatics and we shouldn't be given the right time of day. But you know, when you take you take something like a supercomputer and you call a nick Abad because his full name is immersive, collaborative associative, binary overriding deterministic systems.

37:53  
I can't even believe that you've remembered them

37:57  
he's got a tattoo on his arm. It's okay.

38:02  
Know and the, the other one which was the polymorphic override of phrased technology. Associating associating a real time anagrams that's, that's what Pop Tarts is. And we use that, as a programming language. We call it that. And then the Kurdish review just how, at the use of the word collapsed it into. So each one of our books usually has a silly acronym that we've taken and assembled to be able to help with the storyline, but also to remind people now, you know, you shouldn't take it take tech too seriously, because you'll never get out of it a lot.

38:53  
But my nephew is a programmer of note. And he keeps telling me that while I asked him one time with the family sitting around I go, so what is it that you actually do? And he said, Well, let me tell you, it goes like this. And that's the last words I understood him. Say, everything else after that was like, and his parents were sitting there going, now we've tried, don't even go there, you'll never, you'll never figure out what he does. Because it is so complicated and so complex, and they make it I think they enjoy it. And when they make it sound so complex,

39:29  
exactly. That's why we have specialized terms, and people can find them in at the back of each of the stories for terms that are in that book. But then we decided we go ahead and bring them all together and create a document in case people were like crazy. And wanting to know what a term was. Oh,

39:46  
that is cool. So if you go to a NEMA book series.com Or give them just go to, I mean,

39:53  
negative series works just fine to perfect, and

39:57  
you can go to the last page which is freestyle. And the you choose your file to download and use given your information, and they'll send you the file. That's really cool. That's, that's really cool. Because you can like, where's Linda? You'll have to explain that one to me. But the synchronized terms seven top security tips.

40:22  
A really good one. And that really will help people that's a download to help help people stay a little safer on the internet. Yeah.

40:31  
Well, can I be so rude as to tell you something? Okay. While we had been sitting here, during our interview, one of the things that were people are able to do is to comment in and we have got a comment. And I have been sitting here blocking these people as they've been doing it, but what I can't block, and so I'll just show you briefly. And it's I mean, it's PG, but it's it's

41:07  
Kevin, I never knew you had those kinds of followers. Okay, gotcha.

41:11  
I didn't either, because I blocked let's see 1234567. And they keep, they keep on trying to infiltrate the system. So I keep blocking them and stuff. But I had I, I swear I've never been on as like, you know, if you're talking to your wife, and I swear, Honey, I've never been on that website. I have no idea what they do there.

41:36  
Well, exactly. I mean, it's funny because these people that are trying to spam you and just be annoying as can be. Think how many wonderful things they could do for society overall, if they would redirect all that energy into doing something good. But no, there got to be little. pizzazz.

42:01  
That's gonna get out I'm pretty sure.

42:04  
I don't think that will get turned out. There's no bad word. This is not one of the seven.

42:07  
No, that's not one of those seven. No, we're good. See. And the other thing is, is that because it's a podcast, we aren't governed by the FCC regulation. Even better.

42:17  
any worse than that one, I promise. That was pretty bad. I'll have to go wash my mouth out with soap later. It's okay.

42:22  
No, you're fine. You're just fine. But, but to see, that's the thing is I, because the past, this is how you know, you're gaining traction. Somebody that you don't have any idea that is out there, all of a sudden find you and they start spamming you. It's like, Oh, good, there's still at it.

42:47  
Yeah, and that's always the depressing piece of our particular world, is all these bad actors in the dark net. Only need is one mistake.

42:59  
That's, and

43:00  
then, and then it's like, okay, the amount of effort to get them out. To get rid of them to purchase system. It's like that's why the, you know, we always see that the bad guys are separate bad guys are always one step ahead of the cyber good guys. And it's a it's a cat and mouse house that me evolution of prey versus a predator. So that's why we're interested in in handling and getting them giving information, this will help you defeat some of this, this is something you should know, to help keep you safe. And keep your your information and your bank account from being torched.

43:37  
It's, it's really, really an important topic because they can they're there, they're smart. And when there's money involved, you know, I interviewed a gal, oh, a couple of months back. And she thought that she was talking to a doctor who lived in London. And it actually was a man in Ethiopia. And, and she and this person from Ethiopia conned her out of three quarters of a million dollars. Holy crap. Wow. And they were they were so the work that you're doing to enlighten people and educate people about security is really important. Because, you know, you don't know who you're dealing with. I'll give you an example. Yesterday, this morning, at four o'clock in the morning, I get this friend request from somebody and they say they are in New York City, you know, in Washington, DC. And they have I always check now, before I because you know, when you're on Facebook and you have lots of friends requests and you and your stuff like that. And so now I always check to see if there's a bunch of old guys like me as friends on her honor site. And if that's the case, then I know that it's probably not legitimate and it may not even be And this is what is just infuriating is it might not even be a girl, that's, that's contacting you and you sitting in Ethiopia.

45:08  
And worse, worse than that, it might not even be a human.

45:11  
Oh, that's that that's depressing. You know, that's

45:14  
a bot that you're here. And a lot of times, that's what they'll do is they'll feel they'll set up a whole bunch of automated devices, and say, run this routine,

45:24  
and get information, just bring me stuff. Yeah. And then the guy sitting in the back room, whatever they're doing in that back room, they're going through and picking out the gem of information that they want to be able to launch an attack.

45:35  
Yeah, I had this nice, nice gal, hit on me on I guess it was LinkedIn. You know, here's my profile. And you should know that whenever the profile started yesterday, it's probably not that valid. But it was becoming picture. And she was petitioning, you know, just how are you? What do you tell me where you're located? And what do you like, and just, you know, just drilling for information a little too aggressively. And then that she vanished, and surfacing? How's everything? You know, I'm so hungry, can you send me some money for so I can buy food, you know, and just played it quite well. And I went, Oh, my gosh, sweetie, you know, realizing at this point, you know, it was a probably architected by a couple of guys saying, okay, he'll fall for this kind of line, if if we give them this kind of information. And so they go through the script. And, you know, pictures are phony, the background information is phony. And it's, you know, how can I get into your, your thought processes and pray on that one thing that, you know, it's really hard to resist. And that's sympathy.

46:55  
Yep. Yep. That's, and that's how they use this. This lady got taken, because they have thought they've developed a relationship, and at least a friendship anyway, online they never met. And the pictures obviously were false, that he would send but he would talk about, you know, I'm really need to get home. My family really needs me. But I, I my credit card got locked up. And you know, all the stories that they out? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yep, Can you loan me, you know, $5,000, so that I can get home. Because my sister's got, you know, whatever it is, whatever story they make up. And so she did that.

47:35  
And then keep snowballing it, let me get a little bit more, let me get a little bit more, let me get a little bit more

47:41  
come to find out that she that the guy that was in Ethiopia doing this wasn't even in charge. He was one of many that were sitting in phones and sitting in computers doing this. And they have learned the art of persuading people that there's something that they're not

47:59  
seduction seduction game. That's what it is. And they seduce you with a story that you can't resist. And if I get enough information about somebody, you can build a compelling story that says, This is what they're going to buy for by downfield. And it's, it's really sad. But the social engineering geniuses from the dark side, dark net. They're good. They're extremely good.

48:27  
So they also know the demographics and the and the age bracket. So there's a big push going on right now for 60 and above. Tar targets. And it's because, well, and they, but they seem to have more success with women. And the reason is, because 60 and above were brought up that people are innocent until proven guilty. They're also brought up to care for others and be part of the community and trust for them the trust and they're not as jaded as someone who's either been hurt. Or someone who's younger, because their parents are starting to tell them don't believe people. And so there's a big thing going on with this, you know, hey, you should you should like me, because I'm here, you should honor me because I'm I'm a veteran, you know, I mean, and I do I have friends that have been veterans, and I honor every one of them. And, you know, I think the world of them, but you know, it's a very easy way to target somebody and say, you know, I'm a veteran, I was in this deal on DACA and make a story that that really pulls that empathy string. And so like your doctor, you know, I need help because I can get the VA to help me or I need help because of this or I need help because of that. You know if you could just give me $10 If you could just give me $50 I don't mean it's just if you can put it in money order and mail it to him. If you really want to do that take the time to do a money order because it makes you think, do not electronically transfer anything.

50:10  
Oh, no, no. So this is your next book series is how to how to prevent people from stealing your stuff.

50:22  
It's been in our series already. So you know,

50:25  
I should really probably read your books. Before

50:30  
we baked it into a book number seven, we turn the tables on the bad guys. And they got whacked. So there's social engineering that we did on them.

50:40  
The Enigma gamers, we just released the second edition a little while ago, like I don't know, a month ago or something, that one you would have fun with Kevin, because it is that kind of social engineering. Yeah, table's turned,

50:54  
I need to get that I need that I need to read that book. As a matter of fact, if you go to, I think a book series.com Or just an English series.com, you can download, you can't download what you might be able to, but you can certainly buy the books and buy them from these, these, these two are really nice people. And they need to they deserve to make a lot of money from what you're doing, because, and I really wish you guys well, when you come back and see me again, sometime,

51:20  
I would love to come back and see you and anyone who wants to order between now and the 10th of December, in the United States off the website, we will mail a signed print copy to you in the United States, we'll mail them for free, I can't mail them out of the United States for free because it costs more than we make. But inside the United States, if we get a request online, which you can buy right from our site, and you know, very securely, we will ship them and you'll get them by Christmas.

51:51  
And that's all the ebooks are available on. We've got the redirect links on our website to get you to Amazon for ebooks for those that want to put one more book on their Kindle.

52:04  
Awesome. Awesome. I want to thank you guys for being here. I've got to run. But is there anything else you'd like to add? Before we go?

52:12  
I want you to have a very happy Thanksgiving.

52:15  
A great, thank you today. You know, this year, it's actually going to be a Thanksgiving, not just Thursday.

52:21  
That's exactly right. We're all thankful. Thank you for having us. Kevin, you are amazing. And we appreciate you.

52:29  
I appreciate you guys a lot and what you do and I it's it's a it's a lot of fun. And so go to their website and Nygma book series.com I beg you please. So thank you guys and stay right where you are. I'll be right back. Maybe up Hey, thanks for enjoying this episode all the way to the end. Please give us a like and subscribe to this channel. This has been a production of positive talk radio dotnet please visit our website oddly named positive talk radio.net For more details about us and our mission, which is to provide great positive programming designed to inspire us all. I'm Kevin McDonald. I'm proud of these shows and I'm truly hope that you'll like them and share them with friends and family. So on behalf of our entire team, remember, be kind to one another because each other's Oh