So now, for the very first time ever, we're going to have a guest on The Daily Grateful. Isn't that exciting? Yeah. Wow, they were cheering for me.
They were. Wow. Hi, everybody. Welcome to The Daily Grateful.
My name is Michael Kroos. Hi. I'm your amiable and affable host. And this is where I show up five days a week and talk about gratitude.
Well, today, we have a very special guest. And our guest is Zachary Kroos. Hi, that's me. Yeah.
And we want to move the microphone just a little bit that way. Okay, that's good. That's good. That's good.
You know, this is the first time I've ever had a guest. So I had to, like, you know, and you should have seen. I'm telling you, you should have heard. Maybe I'll do a blooper reel sometime.
Really screwed this thing up. So today, Zach, I thought we would talk about gratitude when it comes to family. Okay, that sounds like a reasonable request. It is a reasonable request.
So I want you to expound on all of the things in your life that you are not, or that you are not, that you are now grateful for or have been grateful for in the past or will be grateful for in the future. Wow, that's a deep question. So here's where I'll start. I was at work last night.
Yes. I have a customer. I have a regular that comes in. She's an older lady, nice lady.
Yes. She always asks about my life. And today, or I guess last night, she was asking about you. She said, what's your father like?
My father was a tough guy, real strict. Went on this long rant about her dad. And I started talking about some of my favorite memories of things that me and you have done. And in reasons I am grateful for you as my father.
One such example, and I think you'll want to tell the story because it's so funny. Oh, by the way, other than the fact that I gave birth to you. Well, yeah, there's that. I did tell her that.
She seems very confused by that. People generally are, but it is a trick. Go ahead. I heard it was painful.
Not for me. You remember when, I must have been 11 maybe, we went to Clearwater Beach to watch Chris Angel, Mind Freak, escape, completely legitimately, of course. Absolutely, it was all magic. Yeah, yeah.
There was no editing or buffoonery at work. He legitimately escaped from a hotel in Clearwater. I don't remember which hotel. But you took me down there at like 10 o'clock at night to watch that.
Yes. I don't think you realized at the time that the traffic to get out of there was going to last three hours. But it was for a TV special that he did. And they had him in a hotel room on the fifth floor.
And they just blew the whole damn hotel up. And he just, boom, crashed down, bang, gone. And we have adventures. We've always done adventures.
That's the thing. To this day. To this day. And so that was a neat adventure because you'd never been to anything like that.
There was like a billion people out there. Oh, yeah. And we went out there. And this was back when cell phones were flip phones.
And I remember we parked way far away from the Pier 60 on Clearwater Beach. And we walked out into the sand. And some guy comes up and says, can I borrow your cell phone? And I looked at the guy and says, no, you can't.
And then he went and borrowed somebody else's. I think he took a bite. I don't know. But we sat there.
And we watched. And there was a helicopter. Remember this helicopter came flying over down by the thing to pick him up out of the hotel after he escaped from all being tied up. Right.
And we're watching this, right? And he's not up on the roof. He's out there being rescued. He's looking like a disaster.
Oh, my goodness. Gracious. And finally, you know, the time was going 10. Not in a helicopter.
You had to leave. Yeah, because dangerous. And of course, you can't have news helicopters nearby because there's their helicopter nearby trying to pick up Criss Angel. Right.
And that's not at all a coincidence that, you know, that is a coincidence. It's not a planned event that made it so news helicopters couldn't get shots of the event. That's not what happened. Yes, although the local Channel 13 did.
I didn't know that and was not leading you to say that because it's funny. It is. It was funny. But anyway, so we see the helicopter fly away.
And everybody's 10, 9. And we're all looking. And that thing blew up. And I swear to God, the sand on Clearwater Beach shook.
And this whole thing collapsed. And where was Criss Angel? We were all arm in arm with tears in our eyes. No, not really.
Because we knew it was a trick. There were some people. Some girls, well, my daughter. He'll be out in just a minute.
Yeah, the plan to reveal. Yeah. And then the next thing we see, we see him at a distance running out from the rubble. The rubble.
He's running out. He made it. He made it. It was a success.
It was all a trick. It was, you know. It was pre-recorded footage from inside the hotel. Right, from the day before.
And he just ran out the bottom and it blew up. Yeah, well, actually, he was in the building next door when the thing blew up. And then he came out of the building next door, threw all the smoke and everything, and goes running out there. Did you hear that?
That was my computer making a noise. Anyway. Any who's there. Any who's there.
We don't edit. We just keep going on. And then the fun part was getting out of Clearwater Beach. Because then we find out that the Army Corps of Engineers has to go look at all the other two bridges that take you off of Clearwater Beach.
And they had to check both bridges to make sure they were safe. So we were stuck out there for like hours. I didn't know that was why. That was why.
I thought it was just traffic. No, that was why we just had to sit there. That's kind of a dark thing to bring up the day of all days. Yeah.
Oh, gosh. Bitch, get out of the way. That's the one. That became that nice song.
We were driving out of Clearwater Beach. I got like 11 years old. And so for the rest of my childhood, whenever we were in traffic and there was a car that was just a little too slow, I would be like, move, bitch, get out of the way. Yeah.
We watched other things blow up. And that was going to be my problem. I took you out of school. I came in and picked you up out of school.
And we went to Philippi Park in Safety Harbor. And we sat there because right across at 8.30 in the morning, they were going to blow up this power plant and decommissioned for a long time. So we decided, you know, we went to watch the hotel blow up. Let's go watch this blow up.
So I pulled you out of school to watch a building blow up. You know what I don't remember is what I learned in school the day before. You know what I do remember? Watching that building blow up.
It was fun. It was awesome. We had excellent vantage from where we were. It was a lot of cool.
It was a lot of cool. It was a lot of cool. But we haven't, you know, I've been waiting for another building to blow up. Yeah.
I feel like they're trying to hide them from us. They are. So yeah, we did fun stuff. So that's what I'm grateful for is adventures.
I feel like adventures are the cornerstone to the human mind. You need adventure to make your brain grow, you know? Absolutely. And I think that I am grateful for you for showing me that and gifting me as my father and the person who gave birth to me.
You gifted me the ability to seek out and find adventure. And I think that's very important to who I am as a person. And I have you to thank for that. Absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah. And I bought you a PS5. Yes, I bought you that too.
As an adult. Yeah, that was like a year ago maybe. Maybe last year. Remember that?
We went to, we're not going to name the name of the store GameStop. Yeah. And we go to GameStop and Zach wants us PS5. Remember what the guy said?
Yeah. He says, if you want a PS5, you can join our loyalty program for $50 a year. Then you can enter a raffle. And then if you win the raffle, you win the ability to come spend $1,200 on PS5.
Right. And I said, no. And I said, what? And so we just left because I was not going to give these people money.
No, no. I just, you know, I joined their loyalty club and then maybe being a raffle that maybe then we can come back and spend a bunch of money and sacrifice a delivery. So we walk out. And I've always been good about this with you.
Always. And I looked at Zach and I said, Zach, within seven days, there will be a PS5 in your living room. And let me interrupt you to say, I don't know if your listeners are aware of how hard it was to get a PS5. It was like Scout.
Everyone bought every PS5 and then sold them for like $2,000. It was a whole thing. It was like really, really, really difficult to get a PS5. Yes.
And within maybe five days, three? Three days. I had a PS5 sitting, you know, coming right there for you. Yeah.
And there it was. And then there's also the bagel hat. Oh, wow. Yeah.
The bagel hat's the most important. Well, I don't know. I would say it's a good thing. Your girlfriend tried to throw it away this last month.
I noticed. I noticed. I stopped. I'll be throwing her out soon, too.
No. Just kidding. She's listening. Just kidding.
No, she cooks too well. But anyway, and she bakes. Oh, my God. Go visit them and get some bagels.
And down there, they had two hats that had a photograph of bagels all over them. And Zach said, I want that hat. I said, he wants that hat. Oh, no.
He got this at a trade show. You can't get the hat. And I said, I'm going to get you the hat. I looked up online trying to find this hat.
Well, I said, let me see the hat. I want to look it up. And so I took a picture of the inside of the hat with the tag and everything. And we go on the interwebs.
And we could not find this hat anywhere. No. As a matter of fact, I found the company that made it. And I called them.
And he said, well, that was a special deal for a bagel thing that we did years ago. I said, okay. And I knew Zach wanted the hat. I did.
So I went into Stu's Bagel and there was Stu. And I said, I want that hat. He goes, no, it's my collector's. But you got two of them.
And I said, and I have a son who wants that hat more than he wants anything else right now. More than I want his bagels. That's right. Yeah.
I said, I'll give you $20 for that hat right here, right now. He reached down, he grabbed the hat, handed it to me. I handed him the $20. And off I went.
And then I came from you and there's a hat. Did you even get a bagel? Of course I got a bagel. Yeah, I got a bagel.
But yeah, so I spent more than $20. But I got the hat. And you still have the hat. I still have the hat.
I saw you and Adriana out taking on the town you were wearing the hat. That's a good hat. So it's a good hat. Well, Zach.
Yes. You know what? What? It is just so cool that you joined me today.
Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to do it again sometime. All right. Well, we'll pick another topic.
Okay. We'll get together. And you can come into my studio where no one is allowed to come. It is a pretty masterful studio, isn't it?
The gold-plated walls and the marble flooring? Professional lighting. Oh, the artwork is phenomenal. The artwork is phenomenal.
We're not kidding about this. Well, okay. There's no gold walls. Or marble floors.
Or marble floors. You know, bad acoustics. Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Zach, thank you so much. And we'll see you folks tomorrow. Bye. Bye.