Peter and Aubrey recap the surprise family trip to Las Vegas for Peter's 50th — the first time the whole family has been together since Alex and Lily got married. They cover the Backstreet Boys' "Into the Millennium" residency at the Sphere (including the Gen Z crowd singing along, often badly, and some truly unsettling visuals), the crab-leg assault at the Bacchanal Buffet, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and the main event: 20 laps in a Ferrari 296 GTB at SpeedVegas with a relentlessly encouraging coach named Nico. Peter also plugs his new Imperfect Practice piece arguing that the harms of social isolation have been exaggerated, and Aubrey announces she's getting back into research with her old mentor.

Show Notes

• The surprise: Lis planned the whole trip for Peter's 50th — he only found out the destination when his youngest son let it slip about Vegas ("Mom, he's gonna be the one driving there").
• First full-family trip since the weddings: Alex and Lily got married, but Hayden couldn't make it, and Lily was only a week-old "plus-one" at Aubrey's reception — so this was the first time everyone was actually together.
• The flight drama: Aubrey and Hayden's 2:45 a.m. flight out of Madison was delayed over federally mandated crew rest, so they drove to Milwaukee and landed about five hours late.
• The Signature at MGM Grand is an all-suite, casino-free resort with kitchenettes, its own pools, and key-card access into the MGM Grand — and it's literally a block from the airport. The Signature at MGM Grand
• Backstreet Boys at the Sphere: The "Into the Millennium" residency is a Sphere exclusive — Millennium-themed visuals with a spaceship flying across the dome, plus one new single with Mount Rushmore-style faces carved into snowy mountains that was both the cringiest visual and the worst song of the night ("it didn't have the juice").
• The crowd was surprisingly Gen Z: Peter expected his own demographic but found 18-to-30-somethings singing along to every word — often very badly ("their ability and enthusiasm did not match").
• Boy bands are a dead industry in the West: The 90s/early-2000s producer-driven machine that manufactured Backstreet Boys doesn't exist anymore — the only place it survives is K-pop.
• Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars Palace: Crab legs everywhere, funky dishes you'd never order at a restaurant, and the payoff for Aubrey and Hayden's cut — a weekend with no counting, no restricting. Bacchanal Buffet
• Spider-Man: Brand New Day is the fourth Tom Holland Spider-Man — lots of heart, stands on its own, and made Hayden cry (he's a softie). Spider-Man: Brand New Day
• The main event — SpeedVegas: Lis bought Peter 20 laps in a Ferrari 296 GTB on their 1.3-mile track with a 2,000-foot straightaway, a couple of hairpins, and 10 turns — Peter hit above 130 mph and heard the tires squeal on every corner.
• The Ferrari 296 GTB is Ferrari's first production V6 since the Dino — an 819-hp hybrid, which is why the car was new to him.
• Coach Nico: The orientation promised a choice between casual and pushing it, but Nico never asked — 20 laps of "faster, faster, give me more gas" (23 total with cooldown laps), and Peter was wiped afterward: "I need a nap."
• The merch: Peter came home with the "Speed Daddy" t-shirt and the onboard video, and he's already planning to do it again in a different car.
• The Vegas heat: 113°F on arrival, still 111°F walking back from the Sphere at 10:30 p.m., and 98°F at both 7 a.m. and 6 a.m. on departure day.
• Peter's Imperfect Practice piece: He published on how the harms of social isolation and loneliness have been exaggerated — connection matters, but you don't need to "friendship max" or optimize your social life.
• Aubrey's astro-adjacent fact: She's getting back into research with her old mentor — unpaid, no funding, but "there is always projects for us to be working on," and she's thrilled.

Peter and Aubrey tackle one of the hardest social transitions there is: making friends as an adult, after college's forced proximity is gone. Aubrey shares how COVID convinced her she'd turned introverted — until a weekend with a fearless friend showed her the extrovert was still there, just walled off. Peter traces how med school and residency made friendship functionally impossible, and how a Dungeons & Dragons group finally gave him a reason to show up — and the stickiness to keep showing up. They separate social isolation from loneliness, debunk the viral claim that isolation is as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and land on the same conclusion: friendship takes intentionality, and it's worth it.

• Making friends as adults: Aubrey's question of the week — how do you build community when you're new to a state, working, and there's no forced socialization like college?
• Aubrey's COVID identity shift: She spent years convinced quarantine turned her from extrovert to introvert, until a weekend with her most socially fearless friend showed her the extrovert was still there — just walled off behind anxiety.
• The college regret: Aubrey wishes she'd pushed harder in undergrad, when opportunities were everywhere — instead she sat alone in lectures and skipped discussions, convinced the effort wasn't worth it.
• Peter's med school trade-off: Peter admits he consciously chose career over friendships from medical school through his 30s — and says he'd make the same choice again.
• Dungeons & Dragons built the friend group: A shared curiosity among work colleagues became a weekly game — and the obligation to the party, investment in characters, and between-session talk at work is what made it stick. Dungeons & Dragons
• Adults need a reason: Kids become friends instantly on a playground, but adults need an excuse to gather — which Peter argues is why grown men love golf.
• The 6-hour board game: Aubrey played Oath, a strategy game built on lying and betrayal, and was still buzzing three hours past bedtime.
• Social media isn't a substitute: People who cut back on social media don't socialize more — they just dink around on other apps, and the heaviest social media users are actually the most social in person.
• Third places aren't dying (per the data): Peter's research found no discrete decline in third spaces except the COVID years, despite the discourse about them vanishing — the concept comes from Ray Oldenburg's The Great Good Place.
• Isolation vs. loneliness: Social isolation is a quantity problem (how many people you interact with); loneliness is a quality problem (how connected you feel) — the Surgeon General's 2023 advisory is the canonical rundown.
• Debunked: the 15-cigarettes claim: The famous stat that isolation is as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day traces to an infographic that was never cited in the actual paper — even the authors have distanced themselves from it. Our World in Data on the claim
• Dementia caution: The isolation–dementia link is likely reverse causation — isolation is often a prodrome of dementia, since people with early symptoms withdraw first.
• The Obelisk Gate connection: A two-minute work conversation about The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin turned into a new connection — proof that tiny interactions count.
• Therapist's advice: Aubrey's therapist told her not to force hangouts with people she doesn't mesh with — and her fearless friend credits hard life decisions that forced her into new social circles for her social superpower.
• Astro Fact — the Roman Space Telescope: NASA finished fueling the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope with 290 gallons of hydrazine — launching late August, it's expected to capture more images in its first 5–10 years than Hubble did in its entire lifetime.

Peter and Aubrey share everything they wanted to be when they grew up — from Aubrey's childhood spy fantasies and mermaid aspirations to Peter's astronaut dreams (crushed by a second-grade principal). Peter recounts his journey from orthopaedic surgery to urology, and Aubrey traces her path from pediatric cardiothoracic surgery to astrophysics.

Show Notes

• Plex FM: Peter built a custom music radio app using Claude/Fable that turns his Plex library into live FM-style stations by decade, genre, and mood — complete with dial hiss. Plex
• Coax: The inspiration — an app that creates pseudo-live TV channels from your Plex/Jellyfin library. Coax on App Store
• The Rest is History Festival: Peter attended the inaugural festival at Hampton Court Palace with Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. The Rest is History Festival
• Wildfire smoke in Wisconsin: Aubrey describes unsafe air quality conditions at summer camp, with a purple-level AQI from Canadian wildfires.
• Aubrey's spy phase: Mission Impossible fueled a childhood obsession with becoming a CIA agent — until she reconsidered working for the US government. Mission Impossible (IMDb)
• Peter's astronaut dream: Watching shuttle launches in school (including the Challenger disaster live) inspired it — then a principal told 7-year-old Peter he'd never make it because he got sick on the playground merry-go-round. Challenger disaster
• Peter's astronomer phase: He started a Young Astronomers Club in elementary school and hand-copied encyclopedia entries for a newsletter.
• Aubrey's mermaid era: She wanted to be Ariel, and still tells her camp kids her legs turn into a mermaid tail in the pool that they keep missing.
• Aubrey's legal/political detour: A mock Congress in 8th grade (2016–2017) made her consider law or politics — she was good at arguing but decided against both.
• Peter's engineering research paper: An 8th-grade report on electrical engineering convinced him in real-time that he wanted nothing to do with it.
• Aubrey's healthcare trajectory: She bounced from pediatric cardiothoracic surgery → NP → neurosurgery interest (killed by getting to know neurosurgeons in person).
• Peter's orthopedic surgery pivot: A two-week rotation confirmed the toxic stereotype — he chose urology after hearing a lecture on the Da Vinci robot. Robotic surgery in urology
• Why urology: Peter explains the prostate's difficult-to-access anatomy drove early robotic adoption, and he values the specialty's blend of medicine, surgery, long-term patient relationships, and better-quality call. Da Vinci prostatectomy
• Vascular surgery story: A med school mentor (Dr. McCann) defied a "students only observe" mandate and let Peter close a two-foot leg incision solo — the nurse fed him suture sizes.
• Aubrey's astrophysics pivot: She realized if she was smart enough to be a surgeon, she was smart enough for astrophysics — now first author on a published paper.