Open Forum in The Villages, Florida
This weekly podcast will cover in detail, people, clubs and activities here in The Villages, Florida. Each show will run 10-30 minutes. Become a Supporter of this show for $3/month. Supporters will have access to all episodes. Our newest Supporters will get a Shout-out during a show.
Open Forum in The Villages, Florida
From Stage to Voice Control Peter Bernard's Journey in the Spotlight
Discover how to transform your living space into a voice-controlled haven as we sit down with Peter Bernard, the tech maestro of the Villages. This week, Peter unveils the secrets behind smart home magic, from Ecobee thermostats synced with Alexa, to the merits of having a C-wire and the allure of the Nest alternative. Our chat reveals the inside track on why wired doorbell cameras trump their battery-operated cousins, with a nod to Peter's favorite RioLink setup, blending security with the convenience of Home Assistant integration.
Savor the tales of brain health elixirs, from the polyphenol-rich red wine and dark chocolate, to the omega-balanced Mediterranean and MIND diets that could keep our gray matter in tip-top shape. We whisk you away to the Villages' dining scene, where the ambiance of our local eateries plays background to the symphony of flavors and the camaraderie of an improv club dinner. Peter and I exchange fond restaurant memories, underscoring the importance of the dining experience beyond the plate – it's about the people, the laughter, and the warmth shared over a good meal.
Then, take a walk down memory lane with Peter, from his days gracing the stage alongside theatrical greats to his tenure in front of the camera where he honed the craft of unbiased journalism. He shares the sting of being dubbed "fake news" despite a career built on integrity, and the shift into sales training where education met entertainment. As we wrap up, we celebrate the art of captivating an audience, a skill Peter truly embodies, and extend an invite to you, our listeners, for your suggestions and stories. Join us next Friday at 9 am for another enriching encounter full of insights and nostalgia.
Become a Supporter: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1974255/support
Open Forum in The Villages, Florida is Produced & Directed by Mike Roth
A new episode will be released most Fridays at 9 AM
Direct all questions and comments to mike@rothvoice.com
If you know a Villager who should appear on the show, please contact us at: mike@rothvoice.com
Welcome to the open forum in the Villages Florida podcast. In this show we talk to leaders in the community, leaders of clubs and interesting folks who live here in the villages to give perspectives of what is happening here in the villages Florida. We hope to add a new episode most Fridays at 9am. We are a listener supported podcast. There will be shoutouts for supporters and episodes. As a supporter you will get a direct email link to Mike. In season 5 we are making significant improvements and changes on an ongoing basis.
Mike Roth:Now you can help me afford to keep making this podcast by becoming a supporter. First, a quick note about the podcast. It's available because I absolutely love doing it, despite the fact that it cost me probably more time than I can actually afford. Now I can't buy back my time, but there is one thing that you can do that would be really helpful, and that is help me to afford making this podcast. You can do that by going to the website openforuminthevillages. com and clicking on the supporter box. You're making a small donation of $3 to $10 a month and you can cancel at any time.
Mike Roth:Really, a small donation of $3 will still make a difference and I'd really appreciate it, but you can't afford to do that. I completely understand it's economically tough times for a lot of people, but there is something that you can do for free that can really help. If you want to, you can rate the podcast. You can give it five stars or maybe even give it a review on whatever podcast application you're using. That will make a huge difference because we will be discovered by more people. If you're able to do that, we would massively appreciate it and it would help keep this podcast going in 2024.
Emily:If you have a book that you would like to turn into an audio book, let us know via email to Mike at Rothvoice. com. Hope you enjoy today's show.
Mike Roth:This is Mike Roth with Peter Bernard. Thank you for coming back for our second episode, Peter. Now why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about what you've done since you've moved here to the villages?
Peter Bernard:Aside from some improvements to the house, I've become involved with the Villages Tesla Club. I'm also helping my neighbors who have problems with technical issues in their house. We have Ecobee thermostats and some of them have Alexa devices and become quite verset solving those issues. So I've been to a number of Tesla owners' houses and helped them with things. Either that or they come to my driveway. Some folks have had trouble with the Ecobee thermostat and you can put them online so you can use your voice with Alexa to tell what you want your house to be temperature-wise.
Mike Roth:That's probably the next issue that I have to deal with is integrating picking the Wi-Fi thermostat. Integrate with home assistant. A lot of people said Ecobee, and then I looked at a number of different models of Ecobee.
Peter Bernard:Right, well, we use Ecobee Lite and that's we meaning the villagers builder, put those in, it's fine, you don't need the top of the line, it works just great. I can say Alexa set the thermostat to 72 and it says the thermostat is set to 72. So it's easy to do. And if you're not technically oriented, obviously we live in a retirement community so folks who are of our age sometimes are not quite verse on some of that stuff.
Mike Roth:I looked at the installation instructions and it was talking about a-.
Emily:"C wire.
Dr. Craig Curtis:A " wire yeah.
Mike Roth:Yeah, you have to have a s wire. Are the houses and the villages built with sea?
Peter Bernard:wires. They are where we are. I don't know about here. I'm going to guess you are too, because they've been in existence for a long time. You have a heat pump here, right, I guess?
Mike Roth:so Okay, well, probably has a sea wire, then, and the other issue I was trying to figure out is how to get the old one off the wall without breaking the wall Probably just snap off Most of these thermostats.
Peter Bernard:You just take them with two hands and give it a good pull. Now, if you get a bunch, if you do that, don't come calling me later on.
Mike Roth:Later I may have you show me how to give that one a pull.
Peter Bernard:I would also suggest that, if you don't want an Ecobee, the Nest makes a real good thermostat as well. Well, it's owned by Google. Well then, I don't want it. No, you're an Android guy, that's Android all the way.
Mike Roth:Yeah, well, you know, on the front doorbell camera, I wouldn't buy a ring camera.
Peter Bernard:I used to have one of those. It worked pretty good. Now I have the Google version of it and I love it. Yeah, I put in a RioLink camera.
Mike Roth:I saw that and I don't recognize that brand. It's a Chinese brand with. American backing. It has its own built-in SD card in the doorbell cam and it's fully compatible with Home Assistant and it's got its own app, so it lives on the Android phone.
Peter Bernard:I would suggest people who are listening to this podcast. If you're considering a camera for your front door, get one that is wired, if you have wires going out there already.
Peter Bernard:Don't get the one that you have to bring in every now and then and recharge the batteries, you will forget and then your system goes down and doesn't work anymore. Normally they will alert you of a low battery, but people I've known people who have had these and it goes dead and they wonder why their doorbell camera is not working anymore. Most of us have either I think it's six or 12 volts that comes from a transformer in your attic and so therefore it's really easy to do Right.
Mike Roth:it was a very easy installation and the RioLink camera came with two ways to install it. You could power it over ethernet. I wasn't crazy enough to pull an ethernet cable down to it. No, if your house is pre-wired, that's quite a feat.
Peter Bernard:Especially down the door jam no way, it's a really crazy idea.
Peter Bernard:Another question is what if I'm involved with my neighborhood? I'm involved with the AED program automatic external defibrillator Great program. I've gone around to some of my neighbors and descaled their water heaters, their gas tankless water heaters. They need to be descaled once a year and I how do you descale a water heater? It's very simple. On most of the modern ones there are little connectors on there that you can hook up a submersible pump and then you use white vinegar and run it for 45 minutes and it descales it. So I've done probably seven of them since I've lived here. We recently had an AED fundraiser and I offered to do two of them for somebody giving a donation and when I'm finished with this podcast I'm going down to his house and descaling his water heater.
Mike Roth:I didn't realize you had to descale them that frequently Once a year. It's not bad, yeah, with the electric power and water heaters in most of the villages If you change the anode rod once every five years, which is a pretty simple thing to do if you have a big range.
Peter Bernard:Yeah, they sometimes call that an element. I've never attempted one. You will get calcium carbonate buildup on there and you can kind of tell, because they kind of pop and whistle and wheeze and that means there's usually some kind of calcium carbonate buildup.
Mike Roth:I just let it go five years, pulled it out and three quarters of the rod was gone. Okay, it's sacrificial. And then I put a new flexi rod in, so it was easy to do and easy to replace Mike, one of the things I'm proud of.
Peter Bernard:In my neighborhood there's a couple who are disabled and I've got to know them very well at some of our functions and when I was sitting at their house I was looking around One's in a wheelchair and one gets around with a walker and I said I can make your house so that you can do a lot of the stuff here by the sound of your voice. And they said, oh really, and they did. They went out and bought the stuff, I installed it and got it online. And you talk about job satisfaction. Obviously it wasn't paid for this, but I felt real good knowing that she can say Alexa, turn on kitchen, Alexa, turn on pantry. And with her limited mobility I was able to make it so that they were able to live a better life.
Mike Roth:That's good. You know we had another fellow on the show. If you want to listen to the whole show, listen to Jim Bodener his first episode with me. He talked about converting one of the villages home so that it's fully wheelchair accessible with zero steps in it, even from the step from the outside to the inside. It's amazing to me that the villagers doesn't build houses that way automatically.
Peter Bernard:Well, they don't, but this couple that I was referring to. They got involved in the building stage and so there are no thresholds in their house to go from one place to the other outside You'd go to their pool in the back. There's no step or bump, and that's great for her and her wheelchair Even to the outside, yeah, oh, yeah, okay so that was done.
Mike Roth:Right Now we're going to take a short break to hear from Dr Craig Curtis. He's going to give us his Alzheimer's tip of the week. Been popular in the culture is drinking red wine or dark chocolate for health. Will that help your brain in any way?
Dr. Craig Curtis:Great question. So both red wine and dark chocolate are loaded with polyphenols. Polyphenols are plant micronutrients. There are about 8,000 different polyphenols that if you follow a Mediterranean or mind type diet, with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables and berries, you will consume large amounts of polyphenols. So there's a polyphenol in red wine called resveratol that we've actually looked at for memory loss. The studies haven't shown that it worked. However, these studies probably required more time in different dosing, so we won't get into that. But in red wine there's a polyphenol called resveratol that seems to be very important and polyphenols the intake of polyphenols are probably where these diets really shine. That, along with omega 3 and omega 6 intake.
Dr. Craig Curtis:With over 20 years of experience studying brain health, dr Curtis's goal is to educate the village's community on how to live a longer, healthier life. To learn more, visit his website, craigcurtismdcom, or call 352-500-5252 to attend a free seminar.
Mike Roth:There are a lot of restaurants in here in the villages, from the country clubs to the squares. 500 restaurant reviews on Yelp that's a lot. What kind of things do you look for when you go out to?
Peter Bernard:eat. My opinion of that is it's really simple to do the right thing Be attentive, have good food and have a little follow-up, be friendly and smile. How many times you've been to a restaurant and your water's down to its last sips and they don't come over and refill it? Where they come over and ask you after you've been eating a little bit, say how is everything cooked to your perfection, do you like it? I take little mental notes. I take notes of what music's playing and how loud it is. If it's too cold, I can't tell you how many times I've been to a restaurant and I'm shivering. There's a place in Leesburg. We love it, but I have to bring a coat in to eat there. Which?
Mike Roth:place is that.
Peter Bernard:Wolfie's.
Mike Roth:I don't know that.
Peter Bernard:Yeah, it's right on the main drag. They love their food. They're super friendly, love it. But I brought my family in there the other day by mother-in-law and my wife, and they were sitting there with their ship and they had to go back out to the Tesla and grab coats.
Mike Roth:Yeah Well, every place I go here in the villages I take a sweater, even in the middle of the summer. Right, I have a sweater assigned to the trunk of each car because I know especially in the summer you walk in and they have that Berks Center turned down, real cold Icebox.
Peter Bernard:Icebox, Mm-hmm. So it's a simple equation. There are certain restaurants that I go to and I know I'm going to get good food, get good service. There's not going to be any question about it.
Mike Roth:So one of your favorites this is an unpaid plug. No Oakwood Smokehouse.
Peter Bernard:Very good. I love Oakwood Smokehouse Harvest pretty good. Fiesta Grande pretty good. You're talking about the one in Colony. No, fiesta Grande is in In Brownwood. Brownwood yeah, I don't like, but I don't want to blast anyone on this podcast.
Mike Roth:Well, I'll talk about the good ones.
Peter Bernard:Okay, the good ones. Well, I mentioned, I love Wolfies, except for wearing a coat all the time.
Mike Roth:What kind of food?
Peter Bernard:do they serve at Wolfie's?
Mike Roth:It's everything. It's a diner. It's a diner. Yeah, you can get a steak. Is that the one that advertises 90's diner in these days?
Peter Bernard:No, no it's a different one, different diner yeah, that's where you get a free slice of pie with a coupon. So there are certain restaurants that I, when I say, my wife and I, are talking. Where do you want to go to eat? We know our go-tos Now. We are fairly new here in the villages, having moved in in May, so we're still not versed on all the ins and outs around here.
Peter Bernard:When I was in Pinellas County I lived there for 33 years I could tell you I could rattle off seven restaurants right now that you go to. I could also tell you some stay away horrible and I rank them on Yelp. If you're not familiar with Yelp, it's a place where you can give your opinions and you give them stars one through five. You can also rate your plumber, you can rate your doctor. I do mostly restaurants and, as you've stated, I have 400 or so reviews on there and people read them. I used to post them on social media and people would call me or respond and say, hey, I saw your review on so-and-so. I'm glad I'm not going to go there now. Yeah.
Mike Roth:I happen to like Paisanos.
Peter Bernard:Oh, so that's one of my favorites. I gave them a great review. And in that same plaza, on the other side, is a place called Kumo that's the Japanese place.
Mike Roth:Yeah, it's new, it's Asian.
Peter Bernard:So oh yeah, their service is superb. Their food is good. I think their prices are reasonable, considering the price of going out these days, which I think is ridiculous. Everything starts at 17. It used to be 13, 12, but I guess the price of food is causing that. But I've never had a bad meal there and everyone is very courteous and cordial. I love it.
Mike Roth:Yeah, I love the food there too. The improv club every Monday at 8.30 after our improv session takes the short drive from Rohan over to Paisanos. Something to eat and drink. That's not. We had 12 of the 25 people come over, so it's a really good socialization place. The food is good, the atmosphere is nice.
Peter Bernard:And in nice weather you can sit out in that screened-in patio. It's beautiful. You can always tell Mike a good restaurant. When there's a wait on a Wednesday night you know there's not a wait at some we had a wait last night, on a Monday night. There you go.
Mike Roth:So the word is out yeah, yeah, it's a good restaurant and we have a lot of good restaurants here. You know, Lopez is good, Bombers is good, Havana Club Havana is excellent. Yep, you can go to any place you like Monkfish it's one of the few places you can get Monkfish.
Peter Bernard:I haven't been to some that you've mentioned because I'm fairly new, so I'll have to try some of those I have been to. Lopez have been to Havana.
Mike Roth:At Bella, the new place up in Bella Vita. I've heard good news about that. Oh, fantastic yeah.
Peter Bernard:I like it.
Mike Roth:Absolutely fantastic service. The food was just as good. The Primo steakhouse in Brownwood excellent, Tremendous improvement for what they had before there.
Peter Bernard:I think when I leave here I'm going to go get everybody to eat. There were a lot of places.
Mike Roth:Yeah, a lot of places you have to come up on Monday, the 4th of March. We're going to have the first Mercedes show of the year at Lake.
Peter Bernard:Sumter Landing Nice. We do Tesla shows and I did my first one a couple of months ago. It's fun because people come up and ask you I'm sure you've seen this where they go, what about this or what about that? And there's a lot of misconceptions about electric cars. They you know what do? They catch fire, what happens when you run out of batteries, and I say what happens when so do electric cars catch fire. Well, very few per capita. A gasoline car catch fire? Yes, they do, but much more than electric cars.
Mike Roth:I was driving in a gasoline car on the freeway in Cincinnati on a winter's day and the darn car caught fire and was totaled. Wow, you got out okay. Yeah, we got out okay. But, you know, surprised the heck out of me.
Peter Bernard:Yeah, during this last winter there was a lot of whoop to do about Tesla in the cold, and I will tell you right off the bat that cold is not a friend to battery cars. You do lose some range. Hopefully you're smart enough to top off your car before you go on a trip, so you have that little buffer zone. You know, I fly airplanes and I would never think of taking off in an airplane with a quarter tank of gasoline in it. You fill it all the way to the ground.
Peter Bernard:All the time you want that buffer. What if where you're going to land is too windy or something happens where it's closed? You need to have plan B or plan.
Mike Roth:C too. Yeah, yeah, it's really important. Electric cars bring a whole new level to that, especially the ones that they put out, like the Chevy Bolt or the Nissan Leaf that have extremely short ranges and slow charging times true, yeah, they haven't developed that 240.
Peter Bernard:Well, they have 240, but they don't have the DC quick charge that a lot of other cars have. Right, the bolt? I used to have a bolt and they ended up recalling every single one of them, because the battery made by LG chem Was catching fire. They were telling owners to not park in their garage or near other cars for a while. Holy crap, that's horrible.
Mike Roth:Hey, software, that's what I think you know. Yep, but they wouldn't call up that. No, had to be just a manufacturing error yeah this is a Microfiber, dr Craig Curtis for. Today's Alzheimer's tip been popular in the culture is drinking red wine or Dark chocolate for health. Will that help your brain?
Dr. Craig Curtis:Anyway, great question. So the Both red wine, both red wine and dark chocolate are loaded with polyphenols. Polyphenols are plant micronutrients. There are about 8,000 different polyphenols that if you follow a Mediterranean or mind type diet with lots of, lots of fresh fruits and vegetables and berries, you will you will consume large amounts of polyphenols. Mm-hmm. So there's a polyphenol in red wine called resveratol that we've actually looked at for Memory loss. The studies haven't shown that it worked. However, these studies probably required more time in different dosing, so we won't get into that. But in red wine there's a polyphenol called resveratol that seems to be very important and polyphenols that the intake of polyphenols, are probably where these diets Really shine. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Craig Curtis:That, along with omega 3 and omega 6 intake with over 20 years of experience studying brain health, dr Curtis's goal is to educate the villages community on how to live a longer, healthier life. To learn more, visit his website Craig Curtis MD. Calm, or call 352 500 5252 to attend a free seminar.
Mike Roth:Peter, why don't you tell us a little bit about your early years as an actor?
Peter Bernard:My favorite thing to talk about was when I was a freshman in high school I auditioned for a role in the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera production of Oliver. Our star was Ron Moody, who played Fagan in the movie, and our artful Dodger was Davey Jones from the monkeys. So yes, I, I knew Davey Jones. I was with him on stage for six weeks in Los Angeles and then we took the tour up to San Francisco at the current theater, if you know that place In Los Angeles, it was at the Dorothy Channel of Pavilion, which is the music center. So I was in that. That was fantastic. My dad being a musician and a writer, he wrote a movie starring Chuck Connors and Stella Stevens and Eartha Kitt called Synanon, and he cast me a role in that. So I'm in that movie and I have a DVD of it that I play every now and then. I was about six or seven, I don't remember too much about doing it, but it's fun to have been in a movie at your house young.
Peter Bernard:I did a whole bunch of stage when I was young. I think it prepared me for the television career. I'm not afraid of getting in front of people and talking nerves are not part of my vocabulary. The only time I ever got nervous about television is if I didn't know something was solid, that it was gonna happen, like I'm, for instance, if I was introducing a story and they get in my ear Just it's about what? We're about to air it and they say we don't have your tape, we don't have your story, and I had to wing it and try to make sense of a minute and a half In the course of just me being on camera without notes about what. So that made me nervous.
Peter Bernard:But just being on television or being in front of people and stage doing this, I'm comfortable. Talking to folks yeah, I could see that I Live by the model that a shrinking violets not going to get ahead in life. You've, you've got to put yourself forward and you have to be Voiceless and confident. Those are words that I've always used when I auditioned for the Oliver gig and when the other things that I've done in life. You don't look down and say aw, shucks. You look people in the eye and give them a good handshake and say I'm your guy, yeah that's how I got the Tesla job, did you?
Mike Roth:yeah, well, they just desperate for another salesman.
Peter Bernard:No, no, they. They had a lot of people try to get the job. As a matter of fact, when they called me, I hung up the phone and said to my wife, os In that I wasn't really sure how, what part-time was, and it was four days a week, eight hour days. And I'm thinking, oh my god, I thought this was gonna be part-time. Eight hour days, four days a week, that's almost full-time. Yeah, so 32 hours a week, oh yeah. So Eventually I quit because one my boss was kind of a getting on me for stupid stuff and I thought to myself, peter, you're at the time, you're 62 years old, why are you putting up with this?
Mike Roth:Yeah, yeah, exactly, you don't need it. You know I need it.
Peter Bernard:U nfortunately, yeah, and people my last few years, my last few years doing reporting, people would come up to me as I was on story is and yell to me fake news, fake news. And I'm telling you, mike, that hit me in the heart because I prided myself as telling it straight, not having a biased opinion on what's going on and, furthermore, what's fake about a murder that I'm covering. How can I possibly be faking that up? Well, I know what they're doing. They're parroting what some politicians have said and it hurt me because I am very proud of what I did for 40 years.
Peter Bernard:Never once did I get caught or say anything that was off base or biased. Now sometimes I get my fat wrong and I would keep me up at night. I'd wake up in a cold sweat at three in the morning saying did I just? Did I say so and so? And people will catch it. There's a lot of years and eyes out there, eyeballs watching television news, and if you say something that's not right, they're going to get caught on it, and then the next thing that's going to happen is they're going to call your news director and he's going to call you in the office and say what the heck was that?
Mike Roth:Yeah, I get turned the I turn a lot of national news people because they express personal opinions as opposed to news.
Peter Bernard:Yeah, and we covered that and that's wrong.
Mike Roth:Yeah, yeah, I mean it's mixed together in the sales training business. In the beginning probably the first year I did sales training and the next 24 years I did enter training Okay, okay, you have to entertain them. To keep your attention, I broke the material up into 10 or 15 minutes segments and in between the segments there was always a joke or a magic trick. Right, okay, so it forced me to learn a lot of magic.
Peter Bernard:Well, you know, along those lines, mike, there's a thing I call Dancing Bear Syndrome, People's attention span. Yeah, you're making faces, people's attention spans are very short.
Mike Roth:Oh yes, we've been trained as Americans to have shorter and shorter attention, so there was two ways to combat it.
Peter Bernard:One I wrote my copy so that it came out and six greater could understand it.
Peter Bernard:You know the sixth grade mentality. I would not use any big words, no, four syllable words, and I would make it so that there was always something that became a surprise. Usually I had a minute and 20 to tell my stories. I had every six seconds I wanted the Dancing Bear to come out and say, hey, you better come over to your TV and if you're not watching you're missing this. And the best was to have what I called a Shazam at 118 or 120. And it was a. I called a bow tie or Shazam. So I would end my story by saying and you know I can't even think of a story right now and he decided he's going to kill all the puppies. Peter Bernard, news channel eight. And it left people going what did he just say, yeah, and they talk about it at the water cooler next day. Do they still have water coolers in offices? But people, if they talked, about it the next day, Covid, they came back.
Peter Bernard:So if they were talking about it, if they said did you see Peter's story last night? And he said they're going to kill all the puppies? What the heck was going on? I won, I got their eyeballs, I got them by the juggler and I grabbed them and I pulled them into that TV set and they watched me for a minute and 20 without running and getting a piece of toast in the kitchen Right.
Mike Roth:Well, they came back to the TV. I hope they come back I hope they never walked away.
Peter Bernard:My job was to keep them for a minute and 20. The rest of the newscast be damned, but I was responsible for a minute and 20.
Mike Roth:Good, , Peter thanks for being on the podcast. My pleasure, my good meeting you Good I think, we think alike Good.
Emily:Remember our next episode will be released next Friday at 9am. Should you want to become a major supporter of the show or have questions, please contact us at micatrothvoice. com. This is a shout out for supporters Tweet Coleman Ed ed Williams and major supporter Dr Craig Curtis at K2 in the villages. We will be hearing more from Dr Curtis with short Alzheimer's tips each week. If you know someone who should be on the show, contact us micatrothvoice. com micatrothvoicecom. We thank everyone for listening to the show. The content of the show is copyrighted by Rothvoice 2024, all rights reserved.