Christy Hathcock- Scientist, Math Nerd, and Fire Enthusiast (#38)

Daniel: [00:00:19]Hi guys. And welcome back to the dead by tomorrow podcast. This is Danielintroducing our special guests for this week. And Andrew told me that when itcomes to family, I have to do all of the introductions. He doesn't. He doesn'twant to, I don't know, create family drama or things like that. I'm not reallysure, but this week we have Christy winter coming on to the podcast.

She is my youngest sister and she is a lab analyst at servi.So she's a girl scientist, which our mom is very proud of. Our mom is proud ofall of us, but I think we're going to maybe find out this episode who she's themost proud of since we've talked to Christie, we've talked to Beth and we canjust look at the number of listens since Susie probably makes up 75% of ourlistening stats.

So Christie, welcome to the podcast. Excited to have you onhow's the day going.

Christy: [00:01:19]It's pretty good. So chill Sunday. Not much going on.

Daniel: [00:01:23]You don't work on.

Sundays, you get tochill.

Christy: [00:01:25]Yeah. I get to chill just Monday to Friday.

Daniel: [00:01:28]Okay. Let's let's dive in a little bit around what you do for work, how you gotthere. Really just your whole life story, but you've only got about 30 secondsto share it.

I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm

Christy: [00:01:44]not prepared for that.

Andrew: [00:01:45]It's actually 15 seconds.

Christy: [00:01:47]Oh, God. Well, I got my degree in chemistry, minor in Spanish and math. Igraduated and I didn't have a job yet, so I was panicking. I almost signed upto go to nursing school, like one click away, and then I just emailed. Everylab in Amarillo, who their manager had their email public cause I was desperateand  email me back and I interviewed andit went fine.

And so I was really glad that they gave me a chance. And sothey're an agricultural lab. So we do testing for farmers ranchers and somecity work. And generally just like lab work, you get your sample, you prep itin whatever way it's supposed to be prepped. You run the analysis and then youreport the results.

So I feel like people don't really know much about lab workother than just what they've seen in the movies, but.

Daniel: [00:02:40]Okay.

Christy: [00:02:40]The sampling technique is really important, at least for our work, because anagricultural stuff, it's like, it can be very heterogeneous. Like your soil canbe completely different in one part of your field than another part.

So you have to be careful and make sure you get a samplethat's representative of the entire field. And we also do feeds and plants andwaters and all that, and it's important for every aspect, but I mainly do soil.

Daniel: [00:03:07]samples, is that, what, what are the farmers using that for? I mean, is it hightech enough or. All right, we are going to grow this type of crop in this typeof area. We're going to use this type of fertilizer with this type of area. We,I dunno, need our animals to not be in this soil because of XYZ or what are theprimary use?

Christy: [00:03:28]Those are all things that they consider. So depending on the type of nutrientsthat are in that soil, the texture, the pH it'll determine what kind of cropsyou can even grow there. And you don't want your animals in a certain part thatcould be high and nitrate or presic. Cause that could be. Well, it can killthem if it's high enough concentration, but normally it just causes likeintestinal distress and.

Daniel: [00:03:56]how did does it kill them? Because, because they're eating, what's growing outof the soil or they're eating the dirt and. it has too much nitrate. Like thatkind of sounds

Christy: [00:04:04]It's it's the feeds. I'm pretty sure. Anyway, I don't think they're just eatingthe dirt, but it feeds, they're like too high and presic which is cyanide ornitrate. It can kill the animals and humans if it's high enough, but we're morelike we can handle it better than them. So it's very high tech actually.

Like they do use it for a lot of things. There's a lot ofinformation that we give them and they have agronomists that tell them likewhat fertilizer they need to use and what parts of the field. And they have awhole map of their field a lot of times. And it like shows the areas that arehigher in nitrate, higher in phosphorous, whatever they ask for the test.

And so it can determine. You know what crops they can grow,their what fertilizer they need to use there and stuff like that. And it's allpart of the investment that they make because farming is really like a veryhigh dollar industry in America. And so this whole part of the lab work is partof their investment, which then they can make a return on, you know, later whenthey harvest.

Daniel: [00:05:07]I don't know if you've ever seen the show. I think it's called like 10,000 waysto die or something like that. It sounds like you should see if they'll let youon the show. It was like a guest scientist. And then it's like an episode wherethis person just like drops dead. And then you explained that they died becausethere was too much basically cyanide and the feed or the soil around.

Christy: [00:05:25]I mean, that would be interesting. I think it would just scare people into noteating plants,

Daniel: [00:05:30]I mean, that's the whole point of that show is to

scare

Christy: [00:05:32]So,

Daniel: [00:05:33]from mundane things.

Christy: [00:05:35]Yeah, I did watch some of those episodes and it did scare me. I didn't touch onelectrical pole for years.

Andrew: [00:05:41]Hold on. You're saying you touch electrical poles now.

Christy: [00:05:43]I mean the wooden ones, I didn't think was anything wrong with them

until I watched that I

used to I to lean on him and wait there, wait for my friend.

Yeah, that was alittle hangout spot.

  No       Um would not say that I was anglingthere. I just think I fell into it. I think it was because I was naturally goodat math and science and I was horrible at reading because I couldn'tconcentrate. I've gotten a lot better, but it was bad there for a while. And soI was like, I guess I just need to do something in math and science.

That's what I'm good at. So yeah. Started out there. Andthen eventually just got my degree and then was like, well, don't know what todo now. So just fell into it. It wasn't like a, a long passion for me that Ihad been wanting to do my whole life.

 That's whateverybody

says        Yeahthat's the, that's the general consensus. When I tell people what I did.

majored

in.  I definitely likemath more. It has, it's always true. It has a lot more sense to it. Whereas thescience is like sometimes Adams will act this way. Sometimes they act this way.And I don't like the guessing aspect of that. Very theoretical. Maybe if it waslike physical chemistry, cause that's a hard math base, but.

Yeah. A lot of my chemistry classes were very, just, you hadto imagine what all these little atoms looked like, and I need to see somethingon paper or like in front of me, I need to see it happening. So that made it alittle difficult. So I'm definitely more of a math person, I think.

  Okay Okay, I mean,there's a lot

of physics and so I use a spectrometer. I would say Iprobably use my degree maybe 20 to 50% of the time. You could probably justfollow instructions and do my job, but once there's a problem, then you wouldneed a little more information to fix it. So. I think it's probably morephysics, C chemistry than math, for sure. The math side is just in thesoftware. It does it itself with all the equations. I don't do any of that. So Ijust plug the number in and then it runs it for me.

Andrew: [00:09:20]What an unfortunate twist of events and for you.

Daniel: [00:09:28]And your job. I feel like most jobs have you come across different storieslike, oh Yeah.

this time, this crazy thing sort of happened to me and allof that. And so what have been some of the, either crazy. Coworkers situationsthat have happened or has there ever been a moment where like, guys y'all haveto see this sample that we just analyze, it's doing some weird stuff.

What are some of the things that stand out to you

Christy: [00:09:55]Well, one time, I almost, I'm pretty sure I made cyanide in the lab by accidentbecause I used the wrong thing. When I was making every agent and then all of asudden we all started coughing and it was right when COVID hit. So we werelike, what is happening? Are we all sick? All the sudden? And then I turnedaround and I look at my volume metric flask, and I had it on heating too, whichis even worse because it was just making everything bubble over.

And I was like, oh my God, I just rushed it into the hood.And I was like, please, don't fire.

Andrew: [00:10:28]Yeah.

Christy: [00:10:29]is super chill and she was just laughing and it was like, well, if there's anyCOVID in our lungs, I guess it's dead now.

Andrew: [00:10:35]From cyanide that's, that's the cure we've been looking

for?

Christy: [00:10:39]I don't know that it was cyanide, but it could have released some cyanideparticles possibly.

Andrew: [00:10:45]Well,

Princess bride is, you know, build up that resistance. Youknow, next thing you know, it'd be running around in a mask, fighting Italiansare Sicilian.

Christy: [00:10:52]Exactly. I mean, there you go.

Daniel: [00:10:54]Creating cyanide. Almost certainly not something that anyone else we've everhad on the podcast can claim to have done.

Christy: [00:11:02]I mean, I was cleaning out my cabinets the other day and I literally found abottle of potassium cyanide. I was like, this is not okay. It should be storedsomewhere safe in a way from like public consumption areas.

Daniel: [00:11:17]So does that mean that you know how to make. A range of different poisons andtoxins.

Christy: [00:11:23]I mean, I guess I could, if I just looked it up like on Google where you'd havethe materials for sure.

Daniel: [00:11:29]So you could just do a Walter White, like breaking bad sort of

Christy: [00:11:33]oh yeah,

Daniel: [00:11:34]yeah,

Christy: [00:11:34]for sure. Every time I tell somebody that I have chloroform, they're like, canyou glorify for me? no. I don't know why, but so many people want to bechloroforms just to see what it's like.

Andrew: [00:11:46]Raise his hand.

Christy: [00:11:47]Exactly.

Daniel: [00:11:48]It's mostly just because of community. Otherwise I wouldn't have that much ofan interest in it.

Christy: [00:11:53]that's fair. Well, it's really easy to make too. So.

Daniel: [00:11:57]I'm getting a little bit scared now, now, knowing the things that you haveaccess to and The things that you know, and, and all the jokes that have beenmade, sort of at your expense throughout our childhoods. I just,

Christy: [00:12:08]true reason I became a scientist

Daniel: [00:12:11]It's I'm glad, I'm glad that I think everybody's on pretty good terms now.

Christy: [00:12:15]so far as you know,

Andrew: [00:12:16]Christie's playing that long game.

Christy: [00:12:18]Yeah, patients.

Daniel: [00:12:25]So I'm going to pivot away from soil and cyanide for just a little bit, and wecan 100% go back to that. And I'm sure Andrew has questions about poisons andthings, but we did just have Doug on. And we talked to him a little bit aboutbaseball. And one thing that I asked him about was how in the world, heconvinced you to become a baseball fan, because I remember us watching, I don'tknow, random TV shows and movies like superstar with will Ferrell.

I don't think we watched a single second of sports togethergrowing up at all. And so once he became a baseball fan and a Yankees fan. Whatthe heck, like when did this happen? And so Doug told us the story about how ithappened, but I'm curious from your side, what, what was it that made you abaseball fan?

Like how did Doug pull it out?

Christy: [00:13:16]It was a very slow burn because we dated for five years before we got married.And I'm still probably like only 30%, the fan that he is. And I'll never be asmuch of a fan as he is because he's crazy. But I just like live sportingevents. So I'm cool to go wherever. I mean, maybe not golf, cause that soundssuper boring, but anything interesting.

And so he took me to a bunch of baseball games andeventually I was just like, yeah, this team seems cool. They have a lot ofhistory and cool people, babe, Ruth, all the players that you always hearabout. So eventually I just started liking them, but I don't know. What did hesay? I'm interested.

Andrew: [00:14:02]We can hold that hostage. If you want. The episode did release today.

Christy: [00:14:05]Oh, yeah.

Andrew: [00:14:05]No, he he said it was an ultimatum, actually, if we're going to throw Dougunder the

Christy: [00:14:09]Oh yeah I mean, I guess that he may have said that, but I was just like, okay,whatever. I mean, I didn't dislike baseball, but I wasn't like an avid fan, butI have learned a lot.

   Um I mean, I tryto help him out with that, but he always just shakes his head and is like, letme do it. So, which I'm fine with. Cause I don't really like cooking anyway.

So exactly Yeah

Andrew: [00:14:57]want?

Christy: [00:14:57]Nothing.

Andrew: [00:14:58]And then if he acts up you a cyanide poisoning.

Christy: [00:15:01]Yeah. So very painful way to die, but sure.

Andrew: [00:15:05] I guess he'd really upset.You.

You dated for fiveyears. Let's talk about that. Was that difficult? Was that you keeping Doug atarms distance and then he finally stopped combed you enough? Or how does thatwork for you?

Christy: [00:15:25]Um Well, we started dating when I was really young and I was always someone whowas like, I'm not going to get married until I'm 30, because I don't know. Thatjust seemed like a good age. And I thought too many people I know were gettingmarried too young. And then, so we dated for five years, like while I was incollege.

And then when I moved back and then after that, I was like,It's been long enough. It's a good enough time. So it wasn't really hard. Imean, long distance was a little hard for two years, I guess, towards the endof it, I was very sick of that driving two hours away, which isn't even thatfar, but it adds up after awhile.

Yeah.

       Complicated inthe science world. I at first wanted to do medical stuff. And then I decidedagainst that. And so I just got my degree in chemistry. Cause I was like, whyeveryone's talking about stem, you know, stems, the future stem is where themoney's at. I didn't look into it that much. And it turns out there's not thatmany jobs in lab work and a lot of them, you have to have specific certificationsfor.

So in medical labs, I couldn't work there because I have tohave a license to work in the medical lab. And then there's all sorts of likecosmetic labs and research labs, but they all want you to have like veryspecific things to work in that lab. So I'm not really sure cause I just kindof fell into this job.

And this, my manager is very chill, so he just kind of letme do it. I'm not sure about other labs, how stringent they are. I'm guessingit's kind of like every job where they list a bunch of things that they wantyou to have. They want you to have this certification specifically in cosmeticscience, which is like, who has that?

But they'll probably just hire you anyway. I guess if youhave a degree in science, that's what I'm hoping. Anyway, if I have to changecareers,

   I guess.

Andrew: [00:17:43]What would you say to people who want to do what you do?

How would you, what kind of advice would you give? Anotheryoung child who is like, man, Christie's the coolest, I want to be like her whenI grow up or, you know, Andrew who would like to learn how to do math.

Christy: [00:17:57]I would probably say if you want to work in a lab to just have a clear idea anddo your research on what kind of certifications or backgrounds they're going tobe looking for for that lab work, because research labs typically want you tohave a master's or PhD. Medical labs. They want you to get a medical labcertification.

And so I would just be really specific about what you want.And if that doesn't work out, you can always become a teacher. Is what I'vebeen told.

Daniel: [00:18:28]Well, in one thing that you said earlier that I feel like is worth sharing withthe young ones, the. It's the fact that the job that you got you got becauseyou just emailed everybody and you didn't just say, oh, well, like there's nota job posted on indeed or whatever. So I guess I don't get to work in a lab.

Like you took steps to really initiate and to be proactive.And I think that's really important. And so I'm curious now, now that you'velanded the job. Working at the lab.  Doyou have a next step that you're aiming for? Are you thinking, Okay. maybe I dowant to go ahead and get This certification.

And what did you say cosmetology what's the next step

that

you're aiming?

Christy: [00:19:15]This lab is pretty small, so there's not a lot of spaces to like be promoted tounless somebody just leaves. So I like that job and I liked the people I workwith. So if there was a place to promote, I wouldn't mind doing that otherwise.If I wanted to stay in Amarillo, I'd probably try to get on at Pantex causethey pay big men.

And that just sounds like a really cool job to have. Butother than that, I don't know what my next step is. Honestly, I'm just kind ofout here floating, seeing what's out there. I might try to keep working in alab. I've looked into other avenues. I could go down such as teaching or Idunno, the Amarillo chemical society is always posting 20 things you can dowith your chemistry degree that aren't in the labs.

So, well, I look into those every once in a while. But Ithink I'm just one of those people that doesn't necessarily always have a plan.So I'm just kind of figuring it out as I go right now.

Daniel: [00:20:16]Yeah, And that's so funny. Cause that's so different than me. And I do want toask them about that too. So you're the youngest sibling and we only have aboutfive years between us. So it's not like a crazy distance. We like to spend timein the same house. We were rarely at the same school if ever, but not, not likea crazy just pocket. and.

Of between me, you and Beth, you're the only one that wasn'thomeschooled. And so how do you feel like that impacted what your personalityultimately was? The fact that you were in public school the whole way throughthe fact that you were the youngest and Beth and I were a little bit closer inage.

Like how do you see that sort of shaping some of what yourpersonality ultimately ended up being.

Christy: [00:21:01]Well, I hadn't ever been asked that before until you asked me earlier. So I hadto think about it for a little bit, but I feel like there's pros and consobviously to homeschooling versus public school. But I think maybe one of thecons is I don't think that I really got to have a chance to determine my ownpersonality when I was young, because.

One, you're trying to fit in with all your classmates and beaccepted and two it's like other people are going to decide your personalityand then you almost have to just live up to it. And that happened to me timeand time again, where people, I guess, cause I was like shy at first they wouldjust assume that I was like really bookie and really sh like quiet and justintroverted and love to read and like loved school. And I hated school. I wasjust really good at it, but I tried to fit this mold of being that stereotypefor so long that it took me a while to realize that I do like sports becausefor the longest time I was like, well, school people don't like sports.

So I need to just stick to my role, but I feel like maybehomeschoolers. And maybe it's why other people find them to be so weirdsometimes. Maybe they like have a chance to just break their own mold and betheir own person quicker than other people. So it seems odd because no one elseis doing that.

Everyone else is just trying to be the exact same aseverybody else.

Daniel: [00:22:28]Yeah, it's possible. I feel like some of that mold still gets created by yourfamily.

Christy: [00:22:37]Oh, yeah. I think like people's first impression of you is the impression theywill have forever. And with family, especially like whatever you were when youwere young is what you're going to be forever. I think.

Daniel: [00:22:50]Yeah. Yeah. I'd say it takes some like really intentional effort to change thatup. If you want to change that up. And I mean, that's something we've talkedabout with some other guests in the past is. When you meet friends and meetpeople, there is this sort of perception of you that maybe is different thanwhat you have with family.

But then when you go back to family, you kind of go back tothe person that you were your entire life. Like you just slide right back intothat mold.

Christy: [00:23:18]Yeah, for sure. Different personalities for different groups.

Daniel: [00:23:22]Yeah, it's kinda tiring. I, I try to, I try to just make them all the samewhere I can.

Christy: [00:23:27]Yeah. It can be advantageous for work at least because sometimes you don't wantyour actual personality to come out. If it's you're like crazy loud and youwork. Quiet office. Like you need to adjust, but

Daniel: [00:23:41]Or just don't work in a quiet,

Christy: [00:23:42]yeah, that's also true, but some people don't know.

Daniel: [00:23:52]So,

as we were talking about this episode, our mom specificallywanted to talk about you being a girl scientist, which. You know, you're just ascientist, right? No such thing as girl scientists, you're all scientists, butno, in all, in all seriousness, is there, have you noticed either in yourworkplace or going through and getting a chemistry degree at tech, was it ascenario where, you know, you were the only girl in the small groups or what isthe dynamic of your office look like?

Christy: [00:24:23]So in school, I noticed my science classes were about 50 50, and a lot of thegirls were either. In general, we're either going to go into the medical fieldor go get their PhD. In my math classes, they're typically full of engineers.And a lot of times I was like one of three girls in there. And those were theclasses where I felt like I was being singled out a little, especially becausenot to brag, but I did do really well in calculuses so, or calculi, whatever.

I'm not an English person. So I would always make One of thehighest grades. And a lot of times when you make one of the highest grades,they'll call it out in class and tell people for whatever reason. I don't knowa competition. So I did get some dirty looks, but I don't know if that wasbecause I was a girl or just cause they were like mad that I did well, but theguy next to me was definitely weird about it.

But I noticed more like kind of a weirdness in college thanI do in my workplace. Everybody seems really chill there. It's 50% girls, 50%boys. I haven't really noticed anybody being weird towards me cause I'm awoman. So I don't know. I haven't really thought about it, but glad mom is out therefor the ladies supporting.

Daniel: [00:25:35]Yeah. I feel like in an ideal world, it'd be great. If it is something whereyou don't have to think about it. And that's great. So, I'm glad to hear that.

Christy: [00:25:44]Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew: [00:25:45]And shout out to Susie for, for repping, for the women and, you know,supporting the podcast, getting us on here. Honestly, I think Susie, might'vebeen more excited about Christie coming on. Then Christie has been about comingon very excited about it,

Christy: [00:25:58]I mean, I did take notes, so, you know, I came prepared.

Andrew: [00:26:03]You're doing better than me. That's a good start.

So, what do you do outside of work? We we've talked a wholelot about what you do during your, the things that bring you money, but part ofdead by tomorrow is we want that good work-life balance. And we want to talkabout the things that people do outside of how they make money. So what wouldyou say your claim to fame or whatever you want to call it is whenever youclock out.

Christy: [00:26:32]I think, I mean, I'm pretty just chill normally on the weekends, I'll just hangout with friends and there's not a ton of stuff to do any umbrella, but we'lltry to go out and try new things and stuff like that. But my main thing that Ithink Doug and I both like to do is travel. So we always. Plan at least one bigtrip a year, this year we're going to Hawaii.

So I think that's probably what I spend most time thinkingabout and wanting to do. And we always go to Denver and Dallas a couple oftimes a year to we went to Dallas several times this year because of my niece.So I think that's definitely what we like to spend our money on. And we like tospend our time planning and thinking about okay.

Andrew: [00:27:14]I like it.

when are y'all going to Hawaii? What are you going to do?Which island? Whose idea was it?

Christy: [00:27:19]We're going to Oahu August, we'd both have talked about several times going toHawaii. And then we were like, well, it's very expensive. So we'd have to savepretty heavily. And then that stimulus checks happened. And so we just put allof that towards Hawaii. We have a Southwest credit card. So we got like allthese points that we could practically fly there for free.

So it just worked out timing wise and we're just planning onhitting all the tourist spots, Pearl Harbor. We're going to swim with sharks.We're going to go to the north shore, get some shave ice as they call it. Theydon't put the Dion there for some reason. Go to a luau, you know, all thisstuff that you see in the movies.

Andrew: [00:28:03]I like it. Hawaii is pretty cool. It's that's good. So you'd say y'all are kindof travelers and it's, it's a hard claim. Like it's a hard thing to put becauseyou don't get to travel every night after work. It's it takes patience. And I'mgoing to say fortitude, you have to be willing to. Wait and continue movingtowards a goal that is not immediate and sometimes it can be a year out.

So is there anything you guys do to stay strong on this, ory'all just both workhorses that saving money and planning trips.

Christy: [00:28:34]Doug is not a workhorse at saving money, but I,

Andrew: [00:28:38]Finally, some shots being fired.

Christy: [00:28:40]I am the one that saves the money,

Andrew: [00:28:43]Okay.

Christy: [00:28:44]but normally we'll just plan like once a week we would Set aside some time tolike research stuff and he's like very into planning trips. So it's his numberone activity. So he really likes to do that and look into all this stuff, doall this research and make sure that we're getting the best out of whatevercity we're going to.

But I guess I'm pretty good at I dunno what you would callit, but. Having some grand plan, like years away, I'm good at keeping thecourse and just accomplishing little goals and getting towards the big goal atthe end, I would say I'm better at that. So it doesn't

track03: [00:29:23]bother

Christy: [00:29:24]me that much.

Daniel: [00:29:30]Okay, Christie. We are now to the part of the podcast where we tell stories.And by we, I mostly mean you tell stories, so interested to hear a story.Either you can tell a story about Andrew and I were we're egotistical. We'realways happy to hear those. Or if you have other stories about work things ortravel life, whatever that might be, the floor is yours.

Christy: [00:29:55]Okay. Well, I know Andrew wants to shame Daniel and have a sad. Or a bad story,but I really can't. I can't remember anything too bad that Daniel did in my childhood.I feel like I honestly don't remember you being there all that much. I thinkyou were out,

Andrew: [00:30:13]abandonment.

Christy: [00:30:14]you were out with friends a lot, but I remember one time I was on the swingoutside cause I was always outside.

I feel like, and I busted my knee up so bad on the tree andit was balling and for whatever reason, mom and dad. Did not want to deal withmy cut. So I remember you grabbed the, you were like 10 or something and yougrabbed the iodine and I was freaking out. Cause I thought it was going to burnso bad because I thought it was like rubbing alcohol and you're like, no, Ipromise it won't hurt.

And I was like, I don't believe you. And then you poured iton my leg. And I was like, oh, really doesn't hurt. And then cleaned me up andI was all good. And that's basically what I remember from childhood of Danielwas just him being nice to me, I guess,

Daniel: [00:30:59]I'm going to say that that, that sparked your interest in chemistry. I'm goingto claim that right

Christy: [00:31:04]Yeah. And like, why does this cleaning thing not hurt and why has no one usedit on me before?

Andrew: [00:31:10]Daniel.

Christy: [00:31:11]I know, I don't know what mom and dad were doing. Maybe they weren't home. Ialso remember Beth in the background also freaking out because I'm sure she'sthe one that shoved me into the tree.

Andrew: [00:31:21]Dang.

Daniel: [00:31:22]probably true.

Christy: [00:31:23]Yeah.

Daniel: [00:31:24]It's probably a situation where that like Beth did that. And then she wasfreaking about freaking out about being in trouble. Maybe mom and dad like leftme to watch it all. And so I knew I had to take care of things. Well, otherwisewe wouldn't get to hang out at home without a babysitter anymore.

Christy: [00:31:40]Classic older brother, but you also tried to light things on fire all the timeoutside and almost lit the propane tank on fire while I was in school.

Daniel: [00:31:50]I don't remember that either, but this also sounds like something that'ssparking your interest in chemistry, just a lot of chemicals.

Christy: [00:31:56]I was a little pyromaniac as a child. I would go to the park and start firesall the time with my friend.

Daniel: [00:32:02]Like

Christy: [00:32:02]They're just like little fires,

Daniel: [00:32:04]of fires are we talking about?

Christy: [00:32:05]just ones like under the tree, just a little babies,

Andrew: [00:32:08]Under the tree,

Christy: [00:32:10]that way. No one could see us. Where they had those girls up there, you know?So we'd put stuff in there and just see what it did.

If it caught on fire. Listen, I turned out fine. So I don'tknow about her, but I'm perfectly normal now.

Daniel: [00:32:23]Now you work in a laboratory full of flammable chemicals and it's all fun.

Christy: [00:32:29]There's no fires in there. You can't have an open fire in there anyways, soit's fine.

Andrew: [00:32:34]One step away from ours. And this is what I'm hearing

Christy: [00:32:37]that's an accurate term. They were worried about it at the elementary. Theywere like, who keeps sliding all this stuff on fire in the park, leaping allthese remnants.

Andrew: [00:32:45]just going to put this out here. Kristy Daniel and I we're not the most wellbehaved children.

Christy: [00:32:50]Oh, I know.

Andrew: [00:32:51]I don't, I don't think either of us ever got any teachers or principalsattention. You know, like where the schools, like we got to hunt down thisperson and figure out who's up to this that never fall on us or fell on us oranything.

So

Christy: [00:33:02]Well, I think they knew it was me, but they didn't do anything about it. Sothat's on them.

Daniel: [00:33:07]I'd be surprised if they did, because whenever, whenever a school was lookingfor somebody lighting fires under trees, I feel like they're stereotyping for avery , specific type of person. And I don't feel like you fit that mold.

Christy: [00:33:21]No. They're normally boys like teenage boys.

Andrew: [00:33:24]Yeah, I'm not going to lie. If someone told me back then that Christie was anarsonist, I would have laughed very hard and then not believe them.

Christy: [00:33:31]Yeah. We also used to dismantle the soccer goals and then hide all the nuts andbolts and this neighbors. Do you remember

Andrew: [00:33:38]Who

Christy: [00:33:38]Do you remember that house on the very end of the street that had those vinesthat went all the way up to the house? We hit a lot of stuff in those vines.

Andrew: [00:33:45]I'm getting new, new faces of Christy. I never expected,

Daniel: [00:33:49]What, what other like civil disobedience is? Did you do growing

up?

Christy: [00:33:55]don't think that, that I did all that, but I think it was just those, I mean,we

Andrew: [00:34:00]a nice word for crime.

Christy: [00:34:01]it's, it wasn't that bad. We never started anything serious. They dideventually take out those soccer goals and never put them back up, but thatcould have been for different reasons.

Daniel: [00:34:12]Yeah, I I'm just amazed. That's definitely not what I expected to hear in. It'ssomething I had no idea happened. Sure that mom is in the same boat. So aftershe listens to this episode, I look forward to getting a text saying, oh, it'sone of those. Don't tell mom stories that came out in the podcast because we'realways like mom, we don't have any stories like that.

We told you everything, but Christy, you were holding out onus.

Christy: [00:34:37]I told her once. I mean, I don't know if I told her about the soccer goals, butI told her about the fires. I used to carry like a knapsack with the lighter,which no one realized was missing from the house and like random flammablethings. And they just thought I was just carrying a bag for no reason to thepark.

Andrew: [00:34:55]Daniel. I think you almost died as a child and it was not for any of thereasons I expected.

Daniel: [00:34:59]Yep. right.

Andrew: [00:35:01]Wow. Wow. This is revolutionary.

Christy: [00:35:04]Well, you're welcome.

Andrew: [00:35:05]Does Doug know about this?

Christy: [00:35:07]Those who Doug. Oh yeah. We've bonded over our pyromaniac. NES pyromania sassy.

Daniel: [00:35:13]Oh, that I expect

Christy: [00:35:15]the least yeah. That's least surprising thing from Doug. He did much worse. Hegot cops called on him, so,

Andrew: [00:35:22]Wow. We're going to go redo an episode with him. He did not talk about anyillegal activities last week.

Christy: [00:35:27]wow.

He may have to tell you though, that in private, you know,statute of limitations

Daniel: [00:35:31]He basically murdered a duck. That seems

Christy: [00:35:33]that

Andrew: [00:35:34]That's

Christy: [00:35:34]Bruno,

Andrew: [00:35:35]God bless that duck.

Christy: [00:35:37]every time you pass by the discovery center, he points it out.

Andrew: [00:35:39]That's a little dramatic for him, then it sounds

Christy: [00:35:41]It really is.

Daniel: [00:35:43]Okay. Oh man. Well, all right. Unless you have other stories and it doesn'thave to be a view lighting things on fire. You can share happier stories too,if you want.

Andrew: [00:35:53]Okay.

Daniel: [00:35:53]I don't, I don't have anything to say to that. So

Andrew: [00:35:56]building catches fire, I know what happens.

Daniel: [00:35:58]I'm almost scared to give you this offer, but we do like to ask, is there achallenge that you would like to give to our audience members and generally thevibe we're going for is, you know, living your life to the fullest and thingslike that. Which again, sounds, I don't know what you're going to say withthis, but what, what challenge would you like to give to our, our audience?

Christy: [00:36:20]Well originally I was going to tie it back to my work, but I feel like I barelyeven talked about that, but I was gonna say to just be a little more interestedin the world, you know, find out where your food comes from, how it gets made,or I just encourage people. Cause everybody always says that they didn't likescience and they hated it in school.

But if you have something that you enjoy, like cars, Computersor whatever it, science is like everywhere. So you can always find out howthose things work and the science behind them. And that will get you interestedin science.

Daniel: [00:36:55]Okay. I love it. I'm trying to think of what, what I need to find out

Christy: [00:37:01]You like sports. There's tons of science with sports.

Daniel: [00:37:05]That's true. If I was reliving my college experience, I would love to go into akinesiology type of field. I think that

Christy: [00:37:15]that'd be cool.

Daniel: [00:37:16]super cool, but I'm not going back to school Christy. Sorry for your challenge.Can't do it, but

Christy: [00:37:22]I don't want to go back to school either.

Daniel: [00:37:24]I'll find some YouTube videos.

Christine, thank you for coming on to the podcast andtelling us a little bit about what it's like to work in the lab. What it's liketo actually use your degree for your job. Telling us about all of the firesthat you apparently started at Amarillo in all the reasons why people shouldfear you. So

been a pleasure having you on and just hearing your stories.

So thank you

for

coming.

Christy: [00:37:53]See you later.

Daniel: [00:37:54]And to all of our audience members. Thank you for listening in. If you want tolearn more about Christie and learn more about her job we'll, we'll have somelinks in the show notes. If you want to come on the podcast, just let us know.We're happy to talk to you, but you're going to have to tough cyanide creationand that's, that's a tough bar to clear.

So thank you guys for listening and we hope you have a greatday.

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