All right, all right.
Feeney talks with friends.
Episode 122.
This is great. I'm with a good friend, Stephen. What's up buddy?
What's going on? How are you?
Stephen Aspinall, account executive for universal Connectivity.
Makes right.
What is that? Talk to me like I'm a third grader.
What is telecommunications?
It's a great question. It's a loaded one.
It has to do with everything.
With your network and phones.
I like to tell people Tesla means distance and communications.
Obviously means to communicate.
So it's taking information back and forth between different interfaces
or softwares.
So email computer.
It integrates texting 365 email
your phone's internet and a new product
we just launched was the emergency notification system for schools.
Okay. Security cameras or.
No security cameras. Yep.
Again, I teach third grade, so.
But we're here with Stephen.
All right.
I'm Eric Feeney, founder and president of Friends of Feeney.
Our mission is to help children and families
in need assistance after heartbreak or tragedy.
And I use this podcast.
Feeney talks with friends, and I talk to a wonderful people
in the community that are doing great things.
And Stephen, I'm really excited to talk to you.
I've known you quite some time.
That's right. Go way back.
That's right.
House grew up on the same street.
Yeah, not grew up, but.
You grew up on that street? Yes.
I just moved in when you were about ten.
Yeah. 27. 27.
So I think you were 12 then.
I was done 16 years ago.
Do the math. 11.
You were 11.
I known you for 16 years.
Soccer player in a while. Yeah.
How's the soccer game going?
Soccer.
It inexistent right now.
Currently, I took my skill set and brought it over to coaching,
so I'm currently playing or currently coaching for West Hartford Travel.
So I've been doing that for close to a decade now actually.
Yeah, yeah.
Awesome. Awesome. No, you're a good guy.
I'm very excited.
Again, like I said, this is episode 122.
Go back and check out 121 with Joey Bats.
That he does hip hop for the homeless.
Nice to have you spit some bars.
You want to rap a little bit?
I cannot rap.
How about Tracy Carter?
Go back and check out.
Tracy Carter is the executive director of Anchor Camps.
He played basketball at University of Hartford.
How's your hoop game?
It's getting there.
What's better, your rap game or your hoop game?
Probably my hoop game, for sure.
Do you play pick up hoop?
I used to a little bit here and there, but it was a few times
during the summer with a couple friends, but nothing to, rigorous.
Do you play pickup soccer?
I used to in my family, but nice.
Like I said, not. Not really too much anymore.
It's me who's. A better soccer player. You or your dad.
Or me, for sure.
That's not a question.
At. Is that a challenge?
So back
to, we have sponsors, we're here at Maximum Beverage.
Come out and check out this wonderful selection of beverages.
Thank you for hosting us.
And thank you, Direct Line Media.
Stephania and Dave,
this would not be possible without Stephania and Dave and some other,
podcast sponsors The Fix
IV, Luna Pizza, Parkville Management, Golf Law, people's
Bank, float 41 and Keating Agency and West Hartford Lock.
So with West Hartford Lock being said, what are three keys
that make you an a great account executive for universal connectivity?
What are three keys that make you good at your job?
That's a great question as well.
There's actually four things that we pride ourselves in, okay.
Universal connectivity.
So when you
go through the interviewing process you're supposed to help these four key areas.
For the company.
One is human touch.
So how involved are you with the customer?
And engaged in the community.
Two is pragmatic creativity.
So how creative can we be with our solution
to cater towards our customer's needs?
Three is thoroughness.
So how thorough are we with our documentation processes?
And making sure that our clients are taken care of.
And four is being happy, you know, are we going to present ourselves
properly and, you know, acts like we do what we love. So.
All right. Very nice. Thank you.
I think that translates to a lot of jobs I could as a teacher,
you know, building that rapport and relationships is very important
where your students and your coworkers happiness.
I always come in with a positive attitude.
No one wants to learn from or work with someone that's miserable, right?
Thoroughness.
You want to do your job to the best of your ability.
And what was pragmatic?
Pragmatic, pragmatic creativity?
Pragmatic creativity?
Yes. I try to bring in engaging in fun lessons and,
and make sure my, my students are having a good time.
Yeah. All right.
Very cool.
That was our I asked for three.
Steven your go getter. You gave us four.
There you go, man. How long you been at the job?
I'm going on six months now. Nice.
Yeah. So,
still gaining my own accounts, you know,
learning about the industry, the ins and outs of everything.
But I came from a previous sales role.
So I have experience in that respect.
Very nice, very nice.
And where are you located?
We're right in West Hartford Center.
So right below the Bank of America, which is next to the Chamber of Commerce,
West Hartford Chamber of Commerce, West Hartford Chamber.
Are you guys a member?
We are nice friends, a Feeney's a member.
What's how how was your interactions with the chamber?
Oh, I love it.
Yeah, I love it.
It's there's no better local networking and,
you know, support that you can get from, you know, a business chamber.
It's the largest in the state, largest non single town in the state.
Yeah. 119 oh yeah.
You were there Chris Conway Abby Rappaport Smith.
Hooray! Castro.
We're our guests for a hot wing challenge.
You stopped in. You had the the bomb.
How was that experience? Oh, that was pleasure.
Really miserable.
Yeah.
It's good to get on the podcast.
Under those circumstances.
It didn't really sit well on my stomach, but that's all good.
Yeah, we
could feel it twice, you know.
Oh, it was. It was. Landing.
Burn out. Burn. Oh.
The bomb.
The bomb is no joke.
I would go back and watch 119 Chris Conway great.
Guest, great episode to.
Conway, also the executive director of the chamber.
And he mentioned during the podcast that you are parking lot buddies.
So that's we. Are I see him all the. Time.
I see him all the time.
Chris Conway good, good guy.
So telecommunications,
not like I think a teleporting
tell a telecommunications tell you because you, you broke it down.
Teller and communications.
Well done. Like I if I was a third grader.
I think you did a great job explaining that.
Thanks.
Yeah.
So one example to give actually, just a little sidebar.
The earliest form of telecommunications was back
when tribes would have to communicate from a large distance.
So one tribe or one location, of troops.
Would you put out a smoke signal and the other group would send
like, a drumming in response to it so that they know they're coordinated?
So that's the very earliest, most primitive tale of telecommunication.
Has got a little history lesson here.
Yeah. I'm a lifelong learner. Say it all the time.
Try to learn something new every day.
Thank you. Stephen, you just taught me something.
Yeah. You want to learn?
Make that connection.
And so they communicate.
They one didn't do smoke and the other one did smoke.
One did sound, one did smoke. Correct?
Yep. Nice.
Do you know what tribe or where or just you just know I just.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I just know that they used to do that back in the.
Where did you get all your degrees?
So I spent some time at Western New England,
and then some time over at central, doing mechanical engineering,
which kind of bridged the gap
from the aerospace industry over to the sales engineering industry,
where I was working with robotics parts and sourcing them,
from different companies to various companies were essentially a brokerage,
that brought me full fledged into sales because I enjoyed the sales industry
so much.
And then, you know, got picked up by universal connectivity,
8 to 12 months later.
Very cool.
Now, what if someone wanted to connect with you and reach out to you?
Do you have an email or phone number you like to share for our listeners
to connect with you if they want to work with universal connectivity?
Yeah, sure. So, universe connectivity.com.
My email is S Aspinall at Universal connectivity.com
SSP pinnacle at Universal connectivity.com.
You heard it here for you.
Go get you some sales.
Do you get commission.
Yes I do yeah.
Should I say I don't know. Maybe maybe.
I don't know.
I when I had a financial advisor on I can't ask about the stock market.
Yeah. They can't talk stocks. Right.
But I'm guessing you it's your job.
You work. So how are your accounts?
Oh, let's play a game.
Sure.
Your your day at work, your accounts or your activities or your events.
It's first, last, best or worst, your first day of work,
your most recent last day of work.
Ooh, your best day at work and your worst day at work.
Okay.
How do they go?
How do they go? You can any order you want.
Okay, I guess I'll start with first, and then I'll go last.
And then I'll do best.
And then worst. Worst.
Okay. At least. Favorite.
Wow. That's a loaded question because there's not too many bad days at work.
My first day at work started very, you know, slow
as you do in any job, I guess.
Doing a lot of trainings, a lot of,
you know, grassroots stuff where you're just learning about the products,
the industry that you're in, the company, you know, values learning.
Everybody's face at work.
My most recent day was today.
It was a busy day.
I had a couple meetings
doing a lot of emails back and forth all over the phone or through email.
And yeah, we're actually working on a solution for a specific client currently.
So we're kind of working in the weeds with that.
That's something, you know, that's our pragmatic
creativity approach.
The best day at work and the worst day work,
best day at work was closing the deal.
I guess.
Worst day at. Work?
You want to elaborate a little more on the deal?
Well, it's still in process, so I can't really go into specifics,
but it was a it was a it was a good deal.
Well, congratulations. Thank you, thank you.
First deal.
That was more of my largest, I guess.
Yeah.
My worst day at work.
So that's the thing.
I don't really have too many bad days at work, but.
Good answer.
Yeah, yeah, you should ask me.
A lot of my days are terrible.
Not just kidding.
No, that was a game.
So that's a fun game. You can do it any time.
First, last, best or worst, you know, vacations, friends, teachers,
whatever you want.
Activities, soccer events. So central.
Do you know Tom pin?
It's pencils.
Yes I. Do.
He went to central. He.
No he didn't went to he didn't. He didn't go to central.
He currently is the athletic director.
Yeah. Central. And you had him on your podcast. Yeah.
Of course I know him. And we both know why.
Oh. He's in the neighborhood.
That's all
that I don't know, I saw weeks ago.
He's probably.
90. Foley's number 94, Tom Pindus, Pences.
I always jack up his name.
I checked it up on the podcast.
And he was number 94, and he made a reference
to a basketball player during that episode.
Yep. Right.
94. You do so many of these, maybe it's,
And then Eric Bergen was the central guy.
DJ Joey Oh was a central guy.
Have you ever been to Elmer's? Of course.
Way back in the day.
We could.
We could play our first, first, last, best worth.
Elmer's ready? Go. No. I'm kidding.
Oh, yeah.
What? D.J., Joey. Oh, was a D.J. Elmer's.
He went to central.
So, you know, Bergen had 100 views.
Tom had 200 views. Joey oh, had 200 views.
How are we looking for views? What would you promise to me here?
I think we're going to get to a thousand.
Nice. Yeah, nice. Okay, okay.
And then how is that engineering degree at central?
Car challenging.
What made you choose that path?
Yeah. I mean, from a very early age, I was.
I loved problem solving, I loved mathematics, I love science.
So going into a field related to that was difficult to gauge
as to which one I wanted to actually pursue.
Whether it was computer science, engineering,
mathematics, physics, whatever it may have been.
So I kind of stumbled upon mechanical just because it was a blend of all of them
together.
You got some, you know, courses with coding,
got some courses with math, physics, everything in between.
And then, you know, obviously
with the higher up you go, the more complex it becomes.
But yeah, I mean, it's a challenging degree nonetheless.
But you come out of it and as a more resilient
learner, I guess that's a good way of putting it.
No joke.
Do you use some of the things that you learned at central
in your engineering class, currently in your role as the, account executive?
In my current role, no.
But in adjacent roles to me, yes, absolutely.
Obviously the engineers over at the business do work
very hands on with, you know, low voltage equipment.
So having that physics background or electricity or,
electrical background definitely is helps with the knowledge piece.
It's nice. Yeah.
So me being a teacher 21 years, we're talking education.
Do you have a favorite teacher that stands out or favorite moment with a teacher?
I knew this question would come up.
Did you do your homework?
I did 90% of the time.
The other 10% may have been at lunch, the, the period before.
But it's still got done nonetheless. And,
I have a couple favorite teachers, specifically Connor.
Connor is a great staff, by the way.
I don't know how hands on
you are with Connor stuff if you have, you know, district's
get togethers or whatnot. I know a few of them.
They're they're phenomenal.
Specifically, if I want to give some shout outs to some of my old Connor teachers.
Miss Zango, who is now Miss Brian, who recently got married.
Not recently actually.
Now, it's probably been close to a decade as well.
Miss Brian, miss Peretti,
and Mister Noel Wells are my.
Those are my top three. So two English teachers and Mr..
There was a math teacher.
So I don't know if I've ever heard those names
there.
Any feedback you get on them.
They're strict but fair and they're fun when they need to be.
It's like the perfect, most ideal high school teacher you could really ask for.
Yep. Fair and stern.
But you can also crack some jokes on occasion.
Yeah, yeah.
Outside of class.
Of course. Mr.
Noel's, What's he look like?
Mustache?
Maybe for reading. But no glasses. Really?
Bald guy?
He's been there for years.
I'd say over 20 years.
Yes, I think I know him. Yeah.
I think I just saw him at the best at the football game.
He's out a lot at the activities.
Yeah.
All right.
Brian. Noel. Yes. Good guy. Brian.
Noel I'm going to look him up real quick though.
Yes, I know exactly who that is.
I know everybody. Loves gray hair.
Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, sure. Yeah.
Good guy. Really good guy.
All my friends, when we were in high school, senior year,
I think when we were taking calculus, we all loved him.
We all. Nobody hated him.
So really, really good guy.
We had group group collaboration sessions with, like, little five of us.
We got into our pods.
And this time we'll send it to.
What minute are we, Stefania?
See? 16 16th minute.
Brian. Oh, well, shout out Connor.
Let's see if this is him.
I believe his first name was Brian.
No, no, no,
that's, That's me.
That's Tor Fisk.
Yeah.
Kind of in math.
Yeah,
it's kind of incognito.
He's.
But I think I.
I think it's the person I was thinking of.
Yeah, I.
Know for a fact I very. Confident.
I do know he goes to a lot of,
basketball games or whatever.
Yeah.
We had a couple other Conard grads,
Gavin, Sherry
and Callum Sherry, they were twins.
They were Gatorade runners of the year, really.
And they got a free ride and they're running at Stanford now.
So great podcast. That for that.
That's awesome. 45.
That's like 500 views.
Wow Riley Fox played who just graduated.
That's episode 93.
He's at Yale now okay.
And he is up like he's like 600 views.
Wow. Connor. Connor. Guys coming through? Yeah.
Between your CCU poll and your Connor pool, we're looking at like, 2000 views.
Okay, I'm here for it I can't wait.
It's going to be great.
Great.
Well, thank you for shouting out teachers is really cool to hear.
You're appreciative.
You're a teacher.
Us former students appreciate you.
So yeah, I've shared multiple times
when someone mentioned their favorite teacher out.
You know, is that person still alive?
Can we share it with them?
So it's good to hear.
So, Brian.
Well, we'll be happy to hear that.
And who were the other two, Mrs. Bryant?
Mrs.. Brian.
Brian, I don't know how, because I never had her
when she was Miss Brian, but I know she her maiden name is Zango Z
and glue and Peretti PR it pretty.
Teach English.
Yeah.
Very cool.
And all kinds a great school.
My daughters go there.
How are they doing, by the way?
Yeah.
Juniors. Juniors. Wow.
Student council are busy.
They just did black box theater.
One is in mock trial. Okay. With,
Mr. Islam and Miss Esposito.
Okay. Two wonderful teachers doing a great thing.
Mock trial.
Next week, they're going to present and and go through out the trial.
They it's a competition.
You you go against a low school like an athletic event.
And it's really cool.
It's something I've never knew too much about.
But last year they did it through New Britain Superior Courts.
Next week they're going to be at Hartford Superior Courts.
So wonderful problem solving, public speaking,
thinking on the spot.
Calling out someone for,
what is it? Convention.
It was like objection.
Convention of language or convention of time.
Just I pick them up on Sundays and Tuesdays
and they just come in like, oh, you know, it's like a head
to head competition of words and just trying to catch someone out.
So, so interesting. You know, I grew up,
didn't have that opportunity or didn't know about mock trial.
So to see my daughters doing it, it's very exciting, very proud of them.
They're doing a great job.
Student council is another thing.
They plan the pep rallies, the homecomings,
pep rallies, model U.N.
so they go to UConn every year
and they represent their country like the United Nations.
Neela Hummel brag won best delegate.
So she came home with a gavel.
You know, it had engraved on it.
Best delegate. So it was really cool. Certificate.
I thought of her.
That's awesome. Yeah. No, it's a great school.
I'm very excited.
Bridgette.
Softball. She's catching.
So she's got. We just went.
She was just went hitting the other day to get ready for the season.
Yeah, getting ready for golf.
Just a wonderful program.
Great. Like you said, the staff is wonderful.
Yeah.
From the administration down to all the teachers, counselors?
Yeah. You can't mess with West Hartford.
Yeah, yeah.
That's why we moved here.
So, yeah, 16 years ago, we my girls are 16.
So you figure out why we moved here?
My wife was pregnant.
We lived in New Haven, I was going I was working in Waterbury.
Shoot. My wife was working in Milford.
My, I know were pregnant.
We had to go to a good educations, school system.
My family, my wife's, my mother, and lived in Waterbury.
Her mother and dad lived in East Granby.
So West Hartford was right in the middle.
We settled, we saw Wolcott Park, we saw that
we can go, you know, towards the mall and towards Dora.
And little Dora wasn't there.
But like with.
Blockbuster at the time, maybe blockbuster.
Yeah, it. Was a blockbuster. And the.
And the mail slot, it's still there.
Devdas is still there. Yup, yup.
I saw blockbuster.
I remember being a blockbuster and I remember laser hair
removal was like a Chinese restaurant.
And next to the, American Eagle. Yes.
Yeah, American Eagle and was one big Chinese restaurant.
But then they they knocked it down and made it a bank and a hair removal.
And then Bombay olive.
What was Bombay olive?
Well, that old
it was something.
It was an Ihop.
Very good. Like 30 years ago.
Yeah. Yeah. Before way before I moved here.
But I remember driving to the mall once,
getting lost, taking a wrong turn and seeing that Ihop.
Yeah.
Because the bamboo was still looks like.
Yeah, the Ihop shape. It's funny. Yeah.
And then the place,
the Hartford Health Care building across the street right on the corner
next to the cat.
Yeah. Cats, cats, cats unlimited.
That used to be a restaurant.
To be a pretty famous local one. Yeah.
Do you know the name? I forget the name. Like an.
Were you born in that house?
Yes. I was. Nice. Yeah.
Very cool.
No. Great neighborhood.
Yeah. So you went to walk it. And to walk. It.
Did you go to Sedgwick?
Went to Sedgwick. Conard? Yeah.
Very good. Nice.
And how about doctor K?
I never got a chance to work for doctor K, but obviously, you know,
I'm from the neighborhood.
I moved in and Kathy said, hey, that's the principal at walk at school.
Maybe you should talk to him. Yeah, go.
Hey, doctor K, I'm a I've been a teacher for eight years in Waterbury.
You know, I'd be interested to to go to a walk in, I joked.
I was like, hey, I'll paint your house, I'll mow your lawn.
He's like, I got someone for that.
That was me.
Yeah. Probably.
And then like five years later,
I'm still driving to Waterbury.
The commute was 35 minutes traffic.
It was awful.
And he was like, hey, I got good news.
Bad news. Good news is I can get you an interview.
Bad news is I'm retiring.
So I said, I'll take it.
Yeah. And, I got the job.
Doctor Singh came in, jazz
Singh came in, and doctor K moved to Washington state.
Yeah. So hopefully if you get this, well, maybe you'll send this to on me.
And my doctor said, well, Plato, you're the man.
I'm still in contact with them through Facebook and Instagram, so.
Okay. Yeah.
Thank you for everything. Plato.
And then my daughters babysit his cats, and he's a great guy.
He wrote in, like, Greek letters.
Yeah, we've seen his handwriting. Yeah.
So weird that that whole family is is brilliant.
Very artistic, articulate.
Just smart individuals.
Are you run the same age as the twins?
They're two years above me. Above?
Yeah. Acha Chloe and Lexi.
Very cool. Yeah.
So we grew up next to each other.
We played outside together,
and then they moved.
Was a little sad because they were my neighbors, you know?
Yeah.
And then you got.
Well, Tom's in there now.
Tom's in there now. Yep.
Who you had 94 podcast, 90.
Four cast, 94 or 98. He's 98, 98.
Okay. Well, maybe I do.
We mentioned Jesse Armstead, maybe then 98 or basketball
and basketball players usually aren't big numbers like 98.
Maybe he's a football player.
Forget I forget who it was.
But so how's the coaching soccer.
So ten years coaching at the West Hartford?
Boys or girls or both.
It's been flip flopping year to year.
Currently I have the boys, so I have the second graders and the fourth graders.
So is it travel?
It is travel.
You always coach.
Travel always goes travel nice.
And where do you travel? To
various places.
It depends on who wants to play us.
So we're entered into a league that's in the Greater Hartford district.
So you got your Glastonbury's.
Manchester's all the way to, you know, your Newington
or Simsbury is your grand bees.
You could even play someone like summers.
That's 40 minutes away.
But, you know, once you get to that certain age point
where you're traveling all over the state, you could be traveling
to Greenwich one day and then you know, mystic the next.
So it really depends on who you play.
What, what tournament bracket you're in, what what league
you enter in and stuff like that.
So you got.
Second grader driving 40 minutes to play.
So that particular example driving to summers was with the fourth graders.
So still same kind of thing. They're still very young. Wow.
Oh that's good.
Well, I mean it's called travel for a reason.
You do. Travel. Hence the name.
Very cool.
No, I've never sponsored a soccer team, but friends have finally
brought this to me last year, so maybe it's a good opportunity to share.
We sponsor.
This is our minors. Friends of Feeney. This is ours.
Oh, nice.
Very nice.
Got the corporate color screen.
There's our. Coach.
So really excited to be the West Hartford girls softball league.
They made a nice little friendly. That's really nice.
What are you coach?
You should coach.
I did coach, so you did for soccer.
I was the. Best. Hands down.
Bar none.
The best kindergarten.
The first grade soccer coach ever. Nice.
Once it got to second or third grade when you had the no positions
and where to go and build strategy, I lost it.
What about softball? You know baseball, right.
So I coached my girls and everything.
Okay. T-ball,
softball, soccer.
What else did they do?
Basketball.
Well, then then my
then my wife took over the basketball head coaching made me assistant coach.
Oh, I didn't know that.
And said, if I, you know, if I continue to yell, what are you doing?
Where's your. Player?
She's going to I'm going to sit in the car.
She's like
yelling, what are you doing?
Is not helpful.
Well, you know, but,
no, it was great coaching.
But then after a while, it's like you try to be coaching.
Your children are definitely a challenging because they see you all day long.
Yeah, sometimes they may not agree with you and
they'll tell you that, you know.
So I know that too. Well.
Did your dad coach you?
He tried to give me pointers here and there.
We would walk over to Wall Park and it always ended.
I was maybe 5 or 6 years old at the time, but it always ended in a in
a crying argument. So
those are those are some of the memories I cherish though.
Of course. Yeah.
So the funniest thing ever is like I taught third grade at walk at school,
my daughters were in third grade at walk at school.
Yeah.
They brought home the third grade homework that I collaborated with my colleagues
and made, and they said, no, dad, we don't do it this way in school.
And I was like, are you kidding me?
I just sat in a meeting with your teacher, so I couldn't imagine not.
I had inside source like I was in the mix.
Yeah.
So I couldn't imagine a parent
like, I hear that a lot.
Oh, Mr. Feeney, we don't teach math.
I never I didn't learn math this way.
Mr. Feeney.
The new math. Mr.
Feeney, you common core math.
You know, so a parent
like I don't want
to say a civilian parent or,
hands off parent or someone that's not in the school system.
Parent. Yeah, I. Couldn't imagine what the students are saying.
Like, no, dad, we do it this way.
I have my own daughters.
Tell me, when they were in third grade, it was hilarious.
I was like,
fine.
Well, I remember when I used to I dogs at Berkeley
or Dog one time and when you guys were.
No, this is actually the different time
I was actually setting up a tent in your backyard.
Do you remember that
for a gathering that you had one summer?
Okay.
But anyways, I was setting up the tent and I just see your two daughters
just sitting there reading for hours, and that's all they did.
So if you can imagine if they read their entire childhood how smart they would be.
So maybe, maybe they did know something that you didn't.
Oh no, they're smarter than me for sure.
They've said words like ad hoc, adherent, and ad hoc.
It just the other day I should make a list.
A camp met
a a camp met like, I don't know.
There's so many words. I'm like, what?
It's a new vocab word. Like it's a new word.
They still have, but they drop them like it's nothing.
You know? It's like.
But no, my girls, like you said, I.
I don't want to take credit.
But when my wife was pregnant, I read to the belly,
my wife's belly, read a book every day and I just read.
And then when I came out, I read to them every day.
Yeah.
Picture books.
Because I'm really good at reading picture books.
But then again, being great kindergarten first grade soccer
coach, I'm a really good kindergarten first grade reader.
And then when they got into Harry Potter and stuff,
I read the first chapter, Harry Potter.
And I was it's like, what are these names or what's going on.
You know.
So but Harry Potter was they read Harry Potter like second grade really.
Or maybe even
I want to say second or third grade to me.
To me, those books are daunting because as a fifth grader,
even if you're looking at those and those are like 300 pages long.
Yeah, 500, 500. Some of them. Yeah.
And my sister once waited at Barnes and Noble to get the book.
When she got the book, she went home and read it throughout the night.
Oh, and read the whole book.
Wow. So maybe they get the reading for my.
Which one was that? Was that Deathly Hallows?
I think it might have been the first one or the second one.
I don't know,
but that's funny that you say my daughters were reading.
They still love reading.
That's all they did. Yeah.
They're really good. Readers.
So that's what, that's what happens when their father's a teacher, you know?
No, I think, yeah, it's still.
Those good habits. Reading is.
Reading is important.
Reading is fun. Reading will take you places. Absolutely.
It's high courage that I encourage all my listeners.
And, that's that's a good recommendation.
Read.
You have any recommended books, podcasts,
movies, TV shows we recommend are on the recommendation for.
I don't have any books that you know your viewers would like.
They're more so like business books and, and, telecommunications books. But,
yeah, I mean, I'd love the Harry Potter series.
I read the first book of Game of Thrones.
So as far as novels go, that's what I've read, really,
but it's typically business related books.
I suggested reading Who Moved My Cheese last podcast.
I gave it a copy to Joey Bats who move my cheese the Inner Game of Tennis.
Another great book.
It's about achieving a goal, and it could be the inner game of anything.
Inner game of interviewing, inner game of,
I wrote my my Neil a does rivalry
and so rivalry.
Yeah like shooting. Yeah.
Really like the mental
portion of that.
It's like very physical draining and mentally.
Yeah.
You have to squeeze the trigger the same time you have to hold your breath
and pause at the same time every time.
It's challenging.
Speaking of which, you see that Olympian that did the the one arm pistol?
Oh, yeah. The turkey barrel.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was funny.
I someone dressed as him as Halloween or Brian's.
Brian had a party.
Your other neighbor.
Oh yeah.
And someone rolled in a couple rolled in is the Australian breakdancer
and the Turkish shooter, and they pulled it off.
It was so good. Yeah, it was. Really cool to see.
Yeah.
So recommendation.
So I recommend recommended Yellowstone.
You ever watch Yellowstone.
Bits and pieces here or there.
But I haven't sat down and actually.
You know, you ever play John Madden football growing up
John Madden, the football game.
Oh, mad John yeah, yeah.
Met my dad when he said John Madden I was like, okay,
I thought that's you meant, but you just pull. Them out.
A little bit, a little bit here.
There's a as a FIFA guy though.
Oh yeah. There's a documentary on Madden.
On Amazon.
Okay. Oh, I loved it.
Like Madden raised me.
Like I think it was 89.
The first one came out for Sega had it and I had them all.
I think I stopped playing around like
2008 or 2010, who knows?
But it was a great documentary.
So yeah. Yeah.
So funny.
People, kids don't even realize that he's a person.
They just think Madden as like a a concept or a game.
But like a FIFA or like an NHL or whatever video game.
Yeah.
I remember the first time I played FIFA freshman year, Southern Connecticut State,
my buddy Jeff Craig's room, I think it was Nintendo 64.
Inc diagonal screen.
You know, you could kick it up to yourself.
Corner kicks.
What's a diagonal screen.
Didn't run.
Didn't it run this way or did you go side to side
to go left to right.
Or did it go like on an angle. What do you mean like.
The the gameplay, the flow?
I don't know what you mean, but the, you know.
Like Matt and you go up and down, you're going north.
Oh. Oh, that's what you mean.
Okay.
You're kind of going.
Yeah. You're going, you're going up.
If you're on offense, you go up.
But if you're playing someone, if.
Then they're facing down. You sure?
I thought so, at least the newer ones.
When I maybe.
Was new, maybe they, they maybe they rotated it.
But back in the day, I swear I could be wrong.
Now you're making me question myself.
Almost like,
what was the game, NBA live?
What kind of went on an angle, really?
FIFA, I thought, started on an angle.
I could be wrong. Up and down.
So I haven't played them in
close to like 5 or 6 years now, but FIFA one side to side.
I think Madden went up and down.
The same with two guy NBA two K.
Went up and down. Went up and down.
And then it like once you lost possession it would flip flop.
And then the other person from the bottom up okay.
Yeah that'll get you dizzy though.
It does. It's a couple turnovers in a row.
I remember that actually.
He was like oop then.
Well it has like a little pause.
Yeah like a.
Little a little do a freeze frame and then it'll rotate the screen.
And then you'll have the ball after
technology man
these games are getting more sophisticated and new added
My little nephew Nick, I played last Christmas,
so you don't even have to buy the game anymore. You pay for it.
They send it right to your box.
I'm probably telling you something, you know?
Wait, what do you. What do you mean? They send it.
Like you just send it to your sister.
Oh, you download the file. Download it? Yeah.
My bad.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's how the loop I am.
Download the file.
They send it to your box, you know. You know what I'm talking about.
But I used to have to wait in line at GameStop.
Pay in advance.
Oh, I still remember those days.
I used to go to Funko land and put a $50 deposit down,
wait in line to get the Madden.
Yeah, go. Home and play with my buddy BG.
I mean, Madden was there was a line, but now no line.
No wait you just again download it. My bad.
Send it to your back and then.
But so I haven't played in a while.
This is a Madden store I now for you guys going to be interested but
and the first time I played it was last Christmas, my nephew Nick,
he would kick off, come down, pummel me, I would fumble, he'd get it.
He laugh at me, he score, I throw an interception.
He run it back. He'd run around.
And you know, I was still trying to figure out the buttons.
It's been a while.
He beat me like 35 six.
Then I was like, all right, let's keep playing.
Got it down to like 2814.
Finally I learned the buttons and I got Derrick Henry
and I grind it out, pound in ground like ran the ball first down,
waste some time, pound the ball first time.
Wasted all the clock.
I beat him.
It was like 14 to 12 or 14 to 13 or something.
Somehow. So I kicked a field goal.
I don't know what it was, but I beat them.
And I
kind of said, hey, you know, I beat you or whatever.
Maybe I teased him a little bit.
He starts crying, oh, boy.
And then everyone's mad at me.
I'm like, he didn't tell you the first five times.
He's laughing at me, mocking me, beat me by 50 points,
and then finally, when I win and I say something, I'm the bad guy.
But funny Nick story on Christmas.
Madden.
Nick's every year he's going to be a guest.
I'm like, come on Nick.
He likes fantasy sports.
So I'm like, In August we'll do a fantasy football preview.
Like, hey, who we drafted.
What are we going to draft Nick for three summers?
Oh uncle EA, I got, I got sports, I got to go to school.
We're going on vacation.
So Nick I mean, here's your chance, buddy. Let's go.
Should he do it?
How's your. Fantasy game? Do you play fantasy football?
I don't my my dad, actually, surprisingly enough,
just entered in the fantasy soccer League, though for players.
Surprise me.
You get players, Or teams.
It's a weird. Yeah.
I think it's teams. I don't really know how it works.
He sent me the file and says, hey, enter in this.
But it's like it's too late.
But I think it's like, you bet each week on a certain team to win.
And then at the end of the season you accumulate all the points.
Very cool.
So I don't I don't know exactly how that works, but.
So what are the two license plates?
Your dad has two football license plates, I think. One.
Oh on the car. Yeah, yeah.
One is Barcelona.
Yep. Do you know the other one.
Manchester United. No.
Real Madrid?
No, it's another EPL team.
Do you know your EPL teams? No.
Maybe you have to break that down Liverpool.
Oh yeah. So that that's his team.
So he loves Barcelona like the style that they play.
And so he really enjoys watching Barcelona.
He's he's a good fan but he's really truly a Liverpool fan.
So that's his that's his right or die team.
And and Liverpool's major rival is Everton.
Everton not Manchester not match.
Oh they're all really. In different leagues.
They're in the same league.
So the way that European soccer is different
than American sports in general is they have what's called a relegation zone.
So if you're in the top bottom
or in the bottom two teams in the top league, then you move down
and the top two teams from the B league move up to the A-League. So,
I don't know where I will.
I don't know where I was going with this, but.
I've heard that and I looked into a little bit because that's Ted Lasso.
Oh, Ted Lasso in the season
like they win to go up or and then Deadpool.
Ryan Reynolds owns a team. For real.
Yes. And his team finally made it up
Ryan or. Yes.
Yeah.
They they were allowed to like be regulated.
Regulated is called
relegated. Relegated. When you go down.
Oh I don't know promoted. Okay.
What did I think.
And that constantly happens every.
Year every single. Season.
So that's good because I think NFL should do that
because you got teams like the Giants. I'm a Giants fan.
As of maybe
two more days because I might be done with them.
But but they should. Get done like a relegated fan.
They should get relegated to down to play with like lower level
and then a motivate the last place teams to get better.
Right.
Because it's not just hey, you made the playoffs.
You're good.
Well the bad teams have some motivation to not be so bad right?
That's it. It works. In the.
NFL. Teams try to get last play so they get first pick, right? Yes.
Isn't that a thing. And how does that work for soccer?
Do they get first paid or it's all paid right.
It's all paid.
So once you're eligible to play, you could be eligible at 14 years old
if you want to.
Although there's some now some legal issues with hiring kids.
Like, this is one kid named Calvin Sullivan, who's
I think in Pennsylvania or something.
I forget where exactly he's American.
But he was purchased by Manchester City, another EPL team.
So that when he becomes of age 18, he's
going to transfer over to their academy program.
Yeah, Freddie Adu did that.
Freddie Beckham started a little younger, right?
There's Landon Donovan. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Taylor Tolman, maybe may maybe one of them.
There's a couple others for sure. Yeah.
Everyone's saying, like soccer will never make in America because of commercials.
What's your take on that?
True or false.
Because we need. False on that point.
But it eventually will for TV wise.
I mean, yeah,
Oh, that's a loaded question.
I can go down a whole rabbit hole.
But long story short, the reason why soccer argument keep going both ways.
I think that it well,
but there's an argument that's saying that it won't because it doesn't
have that drive from a youth standpoint that other countries do.
So if you look at any inner city basketball court, they're all filled
with kids just shooting hoops all day right after school.
They go from 2 to 8, six hours.
They're just shooting hoops or over and over and over again.
So the love for the game is there for soccer.
It's all fueled by money.
So the more money you have,
the better team that you can get on from an early stage.
So there's a conflict of interest with money.
And you know your cultural upbringing and there's a whole lot of different
factors that go into it.
Where you could create the argument that soccer won't be as big
as it is in Europe or South America or whatever other country.
Yeah.
Because, well, my take was for to play,
I guess it's bad argument, but to play basketball,
you just need sneakers and a ball and you go to a park
because people will be gathering at this park like, say, walk in park
every time I walk my dog. Sunday nights is jam.
Yeah, there's at least when I moved in 16 years ago, I went to play there.
I was like, they call me old man or the custodian
because I cleaned up the glass.
It was up. Make me self-proclaimed nickname.
But I was cleaning up and I'm like, no one wanted to pick me.
And then at the end, I played a couple games
and I swear, this is this is build my confidence.
I was ready to leave and some guy goes, hey old man, you.
Want to play?
And I was like, whoa, he could asked anyone?
Yeah. Yes. Asked me. Yeah. I was honored.
Yo, is he that experienced player Park.
You know, like he saw that I was grabbing rebounds, playing hard.
But that playing on pavement hurts.
I'm too old for that now.
It's bad on your back and your knees.
Yeah, but again, back to soccer when you.
If you were to bring a soccer ball to walk park per se
there's not other kids like maybe occasionally.
Occasionally there's pickup.
I play pickup actually.
Soccer with your dad, I bought cleats. Did you really? Yeah.
All his buddies.
They're all Peruvian dudes, right?
Yeah, actually, I think I do remember that.
And then you had the goalie really close.
They're really close goals. Yeah.
Like not why goals like that? Like.
Well, probably about.
Yeah. That's. Yeah. Yeah. I play with your dad. Yeah.
Now he schooled me.
That he. I like.
Well we both kick the ball at the same time.
And I thought I broke my toe on my ankle and he just like powered through.
Oh boy. He's used to kicking.
Yeah.
My kicking. Like, it was almost like it wasn't really a kick.
It was like a reach out and call me in an awkward position
where he was like in a kicking position, like he got a lot of force behind it.
And I kind of just put my toe out there.
Lesson learned. Yeah.
Then I was a toe kicker, and.
But I was good exercise.
Yeah.
And wearing cleats for the first time hurt my feet.
And it was just. Oh, it was great.
I want to play again. Let's do it.
Let's get some pickup. Run going. Yeah.
Come springtime, springtime into summer, I'm sure we'll be.
I think he had family members there.
Maybe cousins or uncles that lived in Newington.
Probably. Yeah. Sounding right.
Yep, yep. Alex? Tony?
Yeah. Louis, I. Wish you were. There. Hello.
Maybe you were. There.
I may I might have been younger.
I might have been in like middle school. Yeah, that was a while ago.
This is like my girls were young.
Yeah, yeah, I think I do remember that it was over at Wolcott.
Yeah. And then,
some,
Who else?
My buddy Rinku plays over there. Oh, you know, Rinku.
That's what I was going to say. Back to the, the pickup.
There's a big Nepalese culture.
Yeah, community. And and West Hartford.
Yeah.
Rinku is obviously one of them, but he.
Was playing his plays there.
Now he.
I wave and I go, hey, let me play.
He's like, come on, any time. Feeney.
And I was like, oh, I had my dog with me.
Yeah, was my excuse. But yeah.
So all of his, all of his nieces and nephews and friends, daughters and sons,
they all go over there and play and like, I think like weekly if not a few days.
So there's. The pickup.
There's the my argument defeated that pickup.
Soccer doesn't exist but it does.
But that was more organized.
Like, hey, I'm going to call my friends and get them to the park, right?
Yeah. Okay.
You can show up solo, get on a team with random strangers.
Yeah, from all different backgrounds, cultures, upbringings.
I mean, it's a great sport to just,
you know, to play and
you're just trying to best the players.
I mean, but
no one passes out walk it.
That was another thing.
I was like, that's why I was like, that's why
I grab so many rebounds because I'm like, these guys are not passing at all.
Yeah, let me just rebound.
So I grabbed them.
I just got channeled my inner Dennis Rodman and grabbed a lot of balls.
There you go.
That's why they called me the custodian, because I was cleaning up the garbage.
Yeah. The custodian.
Like I said, you always need one of those in every sport.
Yeah, whether it's soccer and soccer.
Garbage cleanup.
Dennis Rodman type.
We defender like a tough defender.
Or what do we someone.
It could.
Be anybody.
There's a lot of more slide tackles. Yeah.
Our equivalent of it would be the garbage goal getter.
So any rebound that you could just tap a foot on where you could just push
the ball on the back of the net. Gotcha.
So my coach growing up, he was, he was an Englishman.
His name is Steve.
And, he used to say all the time, I love garbage goals.
Those are the goals you have to fight for.
So it's the
it's the it's the point in your game where you can show the most passion.
Yeah.
It's like knowing where to be in the right place.
Yeah. Putting some extra heart into it. Yeah. Hustle
the want the drive.
Yeah. Yeah I like that.
I remember this one time I was, this is, I was 12 maybe, so I was U13
I was around that age but there was this kid that I played
with who played at central.
Actually, his name was Danny, and he missed a goal scoring opportunity
at our opponents on and then sprinted as soon as the other guy got the ball,
he kicked the ball from their box to our box.
And this kid literally just chase the ball.
As soon as they got a shot on goal, he did a bicycle kick off the line
and our coach pointed to that and was like, that's who you need to be.
I was like, crap, I got to do that.
Yeah, yeah.
I'll hustle all heart. Yeah.
Nice.
Anything you want to add?
I know we talked your job.
Universal connectivity, account executive.
We talk neighborhood, we talk soccer.
Anything that you want to bring, any questions for me?
Any things you want to bring up?
Well, I'd love to know what's next for friends of any.
Yeah. What's next? You did the parade.
You're doing the podcasts.
You're doing all these other charitable events for.
Yeah, we just had a toy drive.
You at Luna's Pizza, right, Luna?
Pizza hut one, two, four.
It was pretty cold, but I think we got maybe ten,
ten garbage bags.
Oh, wow. Maybe more.
At least five huge boxes.
Heavy boxes.
And those are going to the walk at Caring Schools Committee.
Well, welcoming schools committee, coats, maybe even ten coats.
That's going to the Chrysalis Center.
And wear those toys and coats.
Where do they go to like where specifically?
Like, yes, Hartford or.
The Hartford is it's called a Chrysalis Center.
And they help, people trying to
get back into society based on either
that experience homelessness or some sort of
issues, you know, with their life or employment.
So they were going to have coats there
and then families at school walk at school.
Okay. Yeah.
May or may not be able to afford some toys.
Toys R it's really local helping our community.
But we have pond house tomorrow.
This is.
Well, this is going to air next week, so this will already pass.
But, let's grab lunch.
I like to thank everybody from the let's Grab Lunch group.
They're doing,
their Christmas party, and
they picked friends if you need to be their beneficiary.
Honored for that.
So thank you so much for that.
What else do we got?
We're going to take the chamber party that we talked about at a villa.
We'll also be collecting toys for Friends of Fini, so please come.
I think it's,
it's going to be next Thursday the 19th.
Again. We're going to miss this, but thank you for everyone at the chamber.
Thank you. Chris and Katie.
We have a wolf pack.
Here we go to hockey Wolf pack.
Yeah. February. This is good.
More than enough time because this will air and have time to purchase.
February 28th.
Huge group outing, friends.
A Feeney night at the yard.
The wolf pack. So please come if you can.
We're trying to get Frank to tank from Barstool Sports to join us.
Oh, really? I just sent Jenks a text today.
He hasn't gotten back to me yet, but let's.
But we'll see who's jinx. Jinx or jinx?
Jinx is,
Matt?
Jinx is Frank the tanks right hand man.
You know who Frank tank is? Yeah.
We had him at Parkville Market.
Doing the hot dog count.
The best he. Was rated. Them out. Yeah.
They were hitting home runs or they were striking out.
Then he signed autographs and took pictures.
He's a wonderful person. Frank de tank.
We're huge friends of Frank.
He's a, you know, cares a lot about friends.
A Feeney is a very helpful and thoughtful.
We're trying to get him to come back again and set up
inside of the wolf pack.
Not it's not happening yet, so.
But we'll see.
To get a booth, maybe a little table.
We got friends of Frank t shirts.
We got these little things he could sign, so we'll see.
That's awesome. It's February 28th.
Not confirmed yet, though.
The the wolf packs definitely happening.
Okay, Frank to Frank. Thanks. The parents. Gotcha.
If not, definitely not.
Not happening yet.
Yeah. Keyword. Yeah.
Anything else I got my man Matt.
Board of directors. You know Matt. Of course I know Matt.
That's a great guy.
I see you, Matt.
Matt, did I miss any dates?
It's golf tournament.
Golf tournament? More than enough time.
Oh that's September.
So connectivity should be a sponsor.
Yeah. September 13th, 2025.
I think this year I was a little late to the, the deadline.
Yeah. I wanted to sign up.
What was the day before?
It was, I think to golf to to golf. Yeah.
I was ready because the chamber event was the chamber golf
event at, yeah, it was Wampanoag was a day or week before.
Yeah.
Did you play in that one?
I did. Oh, nice.
That was a really good event, too.
So didn't win.
But Brooke Golf said she's going to be a big time sponsor.
She told me this yesterday or Saturday.
But golf is going to be a sponsor.
Amazon will always be our technology sponsor.
King of dings will be our lunch sponsor.
And t flag pin flag sponsors.
Maximum beverage does a whiskey hole.
So after your golfing you got to, you know, get some some liquid
all in one juice.
So speaking of which, that's already met.
That's why I'm on this podcast, right?
Oh, did we do we tell the viewers how I got on, tell them.
The whiskey fest. Let's go whiskey fest.
I won the raffle, so that was awesome. Yeah.
Thank you. Maximum beverage.
I think the fourth year
now we've we've been the beneficiary of their whiskey event.
200 vendors, some wonderful whiskeys Litchfield whiskey
coffee, whiskey, banana whiskey, you name it, it's there.
It was at the,
shoot.
Where was. That? Farmington Gardens. Farmington gardens.
It was at the Hartford Golf Club for years,
but Farmington Gardens, it was a great time.
And we put out a raffle.
We have a wonderful raffle raised up close to $2,000 on our raffle.
And the first time ever we said, let's put Feeney Talks of Friends
podcast guest to be,
you win this raffle, you get to be a guest.
And guess who was our first winner ever?
There we go. Hi, guys. Stephen Aspinall.
Well, there's only like, a couple in there, so I was like 100.
Well, well, at first, after I, after I started
giving it all the attention that everyone else started putting theirs.
And so I was very fortunate to win them all. Yes.
I mean, you had good odds. Yeah.
Yeah, pretty good odds. Yeah.
But you're here. You won your buddy too.
Who were you with that night?
Cheater Bay?
Actually, can I shout on my fourth cheater bay jump spy key?
He has an Instagram page.
He's a social media influencer.
He does a lot of jumping.
He ran track and field that Eastern Connecticut State University,
now does a lot of dunking competitions over
with certain camps, or does a lot of other, trade shows.
I actually just came back from one where they were demoing a,
what is it like a test your reach thing where you can ring a bell at the top
and sort of the different heights, and it's like, how.
How can he how high can he jump?
Does he do exercises?
Can he teach me how to jump? He can. Absolutely.
I can barely. Touch the net.
He has a jump program
that you can actually get, or I'm sure he'll just be willing to help you out.
So we got to get him on to be a guest.
He put in for that.
He did that first.
You were talking to Come Together collab.
We could have. We know we'll. Have a man. Yeah.
What's his name?
She cheated by cheat eBay.
His nickname is Chey.
I don't know if he can tell what his name is.
He's Nigerian.
So, you know the name?
The name means something. You know?
So that'll be your first question to listen.
Be a good friend. Our motto is be a good friend.
Hold the door for someone.
Be charitable, give compliments.
What makes G a good friend?
He's loyal, he's honest, and he's.
I don't know, he's just.
He's just a good friend. Loyal. Nice of them since kindergarten.
So you can't get better than that as you. Walk at school.
He is. No way. Yeah.
All right.
Great way to end on being a good friend.
Good friends rule. Do you have the sticker?
It's a new sticker.
I think I got that one last time.
You had those at the Hot Ones challenge, right?
Oh, yeah. Hot ones. Yeah.
Be a good friend again.
This was the Feeney Talks with Friends podcast.
Thank you. Direct Line Media.
Thank you.
Maximum beverage.
Thank you to my guy Steve Raffle winner.
You heard it here first.
We're raffling off guest spots on the Feeney Talks with friends.
Go ahead and like and subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
and all your other, streaming platforms.
Again, this is episode 122.
We had a great time talking with you.
Any closing remarks?
Be a good friend.
I don't think it's better than that.
That's a great closer. Beautiful.
Well said. Simple. Well said.
Well on three we're going to say it again.
So we'll say be a good friend on three because that's how we end. 123.
Be a good friend.