The Shark Deck. I'm Johnny Mack with five good news stories. How would
you like to go around the world in eighty days? Well, what if
you were in your eighties? That shouldn't stop you. It's not stopping eighty
one year olds Sandy and Ellie. They're off on a mission to see all
seven continents, nine wonders of the world, and visit eighteen countries in just
over two and a half months. They're off to a great start. They've
already set foot in Antarctica and flew over Mount Everest via plane. All right,
those are two pretty big ones. It's gonna get easier from here,
right, What do you have to see? Like the Eiffel Tower? Sandy
said, Hey, Ellie, don't you They could be fun for us to
go around the world in eighty days at age eighty. Ellie was like,
what are you talking about, Sandy? And then they were like sure.
Then there was that Besky pandemic, so it got delayed a little bit,
but they have finally gotten underway, packing light, traveling cheaply to see as
much as possible. Sandy says, we don't travel first class and so on.
Other ladies will say, oh, I'd love to travel with you two.
And the first thing I always do is look at their hands. If
they're well manicured, they don't want to travel with us. I love this,
Sandy said. My daughter's not too concerned. She just says, well,
if mom falls out of a hot air balloon in Egypt or off the
mountain, that's fine. She's living the life she wanted to live, and
I'm happy for her. You know how these two became friends. They met
twenty years ago on a trip in Zambia and they just clicked. Great advice
from Sandy, She says, don't sit in that chair and waste away.
If you don't use it, you lose it. Hey, who's not down
with a cruelty free circus? The Circus Theater run Cally in Germany has figured
out a way to do this holograms. Yes, they have holographic elephants custom
built for the circus using three D animations, photography and virtual rending. They
have eleven digital laser projectors positioned around the stage. Those flash animations onto a
circular net hoisted up for each performance. There's still actual acrobats, clowns and
dancers, and you can just look at a light show where the elephants used
to be kind of cool. Good news for Scotland's forest. You see,
a thousand years ago, twenty percent of Scotland's land was covered by forest.
By the middle of the eighteenth century that number was down to four percent.
But they jumped on this way back when and started to reforest. Well.
Now after two centuries the forest covers almost back to where it was a thousand
years ago. So it can be done. It just takes a minute.
Speaking of olden times, a seventeenth century golden ring is estimated to fetch at
least twelve thousand dollars at a British auction. It was found by retired school
teacher in his backyard. The ring is from sixteen twenty. Richard found it
while he was planting a shrub. It was about ten inches deep on the
grounds of his sixteenth century English farmhouse. Nigel Mills is a consultant to the
auction house and says dates from sixteen twenty very likely belonged to Humphrey Cockerham of
Collumpton in Devon. The ring bears a seal with the coat of arms of
the Cochrham family and the initials H. C. Behind Humphrey was recorded as
the head of the family in sixteen twenty and lived at Hillsden Manor in the
early seventeenth century, which is forty two miles east of where the ring was
found. The family were great patrons of the church and their name comes from
Old English kockin, which means dweller by the stream. Richard said he was
amazed when he heard how much it was worth, and he's planning to use
the proceeds from the sale to help his children. I am Patty Callahan Henry,
I am Mary kay Andrews, I'm Kristin Harmel, and I'm Kristy Woodson
Harvey. Friends in Fiction is led by four longtime friends, the four of
us with more than seventy five published books between us. Through end of conversations
and interviews, we discussed the books we've written, the books were reading,
and the art of storytelling. We are here with endless stories to support indie
bookstores, authors, librarians and readers just like you. We are always seeking
innovative ways to introduce dynamic voices and trends in publishing. On this channel,
you will find hundreds of episodes with some of your favorite authors, including the
four of us with our new releases, as we reveal the stories behind the
stories, offer writing tips, and talk about about the creation of novels,
memoirs, and nonfiction titles. So if you love books and you're curious about
the writing world, you are in the right place. You can listen to
Friends and Fiction on any major streaming platform. I don't know what it is
about this podcast, but there's a lot of McDonald's stories. Here's another one
in the headline. My colleague churche guests for food at her wedding. I
got McDonald's instead. See, a woman wants her wedding and she was kind
of annoyed to find out the guests had to pay for their meals, so
she left and grabbed McDonald's. Yeah. Apparently, one bride was trying to
offset costs for her wedding and made her guest page for the food. They
were gonna have to pay about fifty dollars for a stake. The guest in
question explained that the bride was a coworker and she'd be told before the wedding
she needed to have to pay anything to tend, but that turned out not
to be the case, and she was like, no, I'm not having
any of this and went over to McDonald's. She asked the bride if it
was cool, well, if you know, in mind if I stepped out
and grab some Mickey D's. The bride was fuming at that suggestion and even
branded her colleague cheap for refusing to eat at the wedding. So how do
we sort this out as friends? We take this to Reddit, of course,
and they McDonald's fan said, reasonly, my colleague invited me to her
wedding, which happened yesterday. I was super excited and happy for her.
Just in case, I asked her if there were any guest fees and she
said, nah, you don't need to pay me anything. On the day
itself. Everything went well until the reception and my shock, I was presented
with a wedding menu that had prices on it. For example, steak fifty
dollars. Everything was ridiculously expensive, including the vegetarian options. First, I
wanted to question her because she lied to me they n't have to pay for
anything, dude, it was her wedding day. But it was her wedding
and I didn't want to spoil her day by embarrassing her in front of everyone
good choice, However, the only other option was to simply not eat,
as I didn't bring enough money for both the meal and to ride back.
But that was completely unfavorable. So i'd to get my lunch to safe space
for the wedding meal and was pretty hungry. Suddenly I remembered that I saw
McDonald's about five minutes away from the hotel. As tectfully as it could.
I asked the bride if I could make a quick stop at McDonald's as I
didn't bring enough money for the reception meal. I said i'd be back in
time for the gift ceremony and cake. I thought she'd agree, but to
my horror, she got really upset. She said she'd put so much effort
to get this Michelin Star restaurants service. Yet I still wasn't ant that I
was trying to bring her down by saying that I'd rather eat McDonald's. Bride
said it was the woman's fault for not bringing enough money, and she claimed
that when she said the women to have to pay, she only meant there
was no attendance fee. Are their usual cover fees at weddings. What furious
the bride seld the guest to leave the wedding, and she did, grabbing
McDonald's on her way home. Oh wait, there's more. Back at home,
I told my boyfriend everything. He thought it was a funny story.
You're right, boyfriend, but said I was an a hole finding of the
money. I could always pay her back later, and his exact words is
it chose the wrong time to be stingy. My other friends agree as well,
saying it was not tactfully of me for doing that at the wedding and
although she lied, I should have just brushed it off instead of tambra or
happy spirits. After hearing their opinions, I feel quite guilty and embarrassed.
That was fun. That's your five good news stories for say. Follow the
show for free on Apple podcasts or Spotify or YouTube wherever you get your shows.
Have a great day. Who does like vacations? Do you need some
inspiration for your next road trip? Are you excited to get out there and
explore the world again? Hi? I'm Johnny Mac. My podcast is called
Travel Is Back. Travel is Back is travel for regular people. We hop
in the car with like coach views or miles. We eat at normal places,
we stay at normal places, So what I do is I hop in
the car, and I grab my portable recorder and I go somewhere. Season
three kicks off of a road trip to Key West. You can check out
the back catalog. There are popular episodes covering Chicago, Nashville, Vancouver,
Seattle, a whole bunch more Travel Is Back road trips or regular people.
Follow show on Apple podcast or wherever you get your shows. These are quick,
these are casual, and it's for regular people like you. Travel is Back