Our littlest dog Zoe woke me up early with a request to go outside. When I got back to the room, I couldn’t fall back asleep. We’re on a road trip from Dallas to Chicago because a couple friends who own a restaurant in Highland Park, IL are having a BBQ emergency and we decided to be spontaneous and support the meat.
Laying in bed, trying to go back to sleep, I was thinking about the next episode of GeekBrief.TV. It’s episode #400. Cali and I think celebrating round numbers is arbitrary. We’d much rather celebrate the episodes that are good–the ones that inspire funny comments and make people smile or laugh. The 400 number isn’t even accurate because we haven’t always given every episode a Brief number, and if you’re pedantically minded, like we are, celebrating 400 is celebrating an inaccuracy and it doesn’t compute.
The restaurant we’re traveling to is called Bluegrass. It was opened in Highland Park at the same time Cali and I opened a self-storage facility for Extra Space Storage next door. Jim Lederer and Chef Dave Teichman fed us well. In fact, when we were saving money like crazy to get out of debt and buy production equipment, Jim and Dave made us honorary Bluegrass employees and gave us an employee discount. The bar manager when Bluegrass opened, Brad Davis, introduced us to all manor of martinis. Brad was so charming and funny (and generous with his pours) that when Cali’s sister Ariane decided to move to Chicago from Atlanta, we looked forward to introducing Brad to Ariane. We fell in love with martinis and Brad fell in love with Ariane. She fell in love with him too. 
So far about 30 people have RSVP’d for the Emergency BBQ Meetup, and it just hit me! Brief 400 is going to happen back where Brief 1 happened!
It’s the place where we lived when we first heard Adam Curry on NPR talking about Podcasting. Adam inspired us with his idealism about the indie nature of Podcasting. It’s where we lived when we first heard Dawn say “Get ready, baby! Get ready! It’s The Dawn and Drew Show, ohhh!” It’s the place where we coined the phrase, “Tyranny of the Day Job” because no matter how well we were treated by Extra Space, the day job was getting between us and our driving desire to podcast full time. It’s the place where we spent a whole weekend with Cali’s whole family the Summer before Curtis Safford, our brother-in-law died of cancer. It’s the place where I interrupted Cali’s shower one morning in October 2005 and told her our next goal was to start a podcast that’s good enough and popular enough that we’ll be able to do it full time.
About a week before our last day at the day job, our Curtis passed away. We packed up the truck fast, dropped off our stuff in Dallas and headed to California for the funeral. Curtis was an IT guy at USC and he’s the person who converted us to Mac. He’s also the father of our most awesome 3-year-old nephew, Loki.
Friends of the Brief (FotB, pronounced FothBas) who come will be able to see where we started, where we lived and taste how good we ate when we WEREN’T eating Ramen Noodles. It really feels like we’re going home.
8 Comments
Nothing like reliving past memories to let out some good old emotions. Thanks for sharing, Neal.
What a heartwarming reflection of good times and see how far things have come. Glad you shared it and took us back to those memories with you.
I am always amazed at the stories Team Geekbrief has.
Enjoy yourselves in Illinois.
Stop by and get some throwed rolls at Lamberts Cafe on the way back.
Neal, that’s a great story! Kat and I are quite sentimental and have several spots like that back in Austin.
Looking forward, I can see our little rental house in GP being one of those places that in years ahead, we drive by to just get a look at. To see where we started our realcookn.tv journey and thus, our bid for freedom. And remember back to that fall evening when we finished watching several briefs and said, “We can do that too.”
Thanks bro,
-d
You guys have done it!! This granny wouldn’t be a podcast/mac enthusiast (Cali’s term) without your inspiration and willingness to follow your dream.
Memories.. I know Cali’s Dad is proud.
Enjoy your trip.
Looking forward to #400
You tell a good story, Neal. Thanks for sharing. I think it’s fantastic that #400 will be shot back where #1 was. I understand the reluctance to attach any great significance to “the big round number”, but the incident of the specific episode is really just an excuse to celebrate what the two of you have accomplished over the last 2 1/2+ years. In that fairly short time, you’ve postively touched many hundreds of thousands of lives. Many lives have significantly and permanently improved their quality and direction for having you and Cali enter them, mine included. So when we celebrate #400, it’s not really a number of shows in the can we’re talking about, it’s an overall impact on individual lives and the world we inhabit. Thank you for making the world a shinier, happier place. I can’t wait to see what the years to come will hold.
I am so looking forward to meeting Cali and you. Not because you are the “famous” couple doing GeekBrief but because you come across as two wonder people who have found a way to do what you love for a living and because of what comes across as a sincere appreciation for your viewers. See you Sunday.
Congrats on a great show and glad you two can make a quick road trip as needed. Life is going well and I’m rooting for you to succeed wildly.
Hope to meet you on the Big Trip in Denver.
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