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Butt Joints (dot) Com w/ Ed Johns
51 Plays1 year ago
We're joined this week by our good friend Ed Johns. Ed is a woodworker and maker of all sorts. Sit back and enjoy!
Find Ed here: https://www.buttjoints.com
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Greene Street Joinery is a custom design & build shop located in Monmouth County, New Jersey. We build multigenerational furniture with an eco-friendly and sustainable mindset.
Inspired and guided by the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement, we believe in the use of traditional craftsmanship and simple, well-proportioned forms; sustainability and ethical practices; and importantly, taking pleasure in our work as craftsmen to create quality pieces of enduring value.
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Transcript
Sponsorship and Guest Introduction
00:00:28
Speaker
The American Craftsman podcast is sponsored by Hayfla. Hayfla offers a wide range of products and solutions for the woodworking and furniture making industries. From hinges and drawer slides to connectors and dowels, sandpaper, shop carts, wood glue and everything in between. Exclusive product lines such as looks LED lighting and Slido door hardware ensure that every project you create is built to last. Learn more at hayfla.com.
00:00:54
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the show. We're joined today by the illustrious
00:01:01
Speaker
Dr. Butz himself, Ed Johns. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person that calls you Dr. Butz. Right.
Origin Stories and Humor
00:01:10
Speaker
But you have sort of this alter ego, buttjoints.com. Right. Yeah, it's just two by fours and drywall screws covered in type one three. What about duct tape? Use any duct tape? Maybe that's a 2024 goal. Introduce more duct tape. Yes, and the T-Rex tape.
00:01:30
Speaker
your new sponsor for the coming year, right? Yeah. Yeah. Duck brand. Oh yeah. Ducked. Always gets me. Yeah. Yeah. Which came, well, yeah, which came first, the duck or the ducked? I think it was always ducked with a T and then we mispronounced it and always called it duct tape.
00:01:52
Speaker
But there is a brand. Yes. Yes. I think they piggybacked on the vernacular. Well, this is one of those opportunities where we have this, this thing called the Google web. Yeah. Let's see. What came first? The duck or the duck? When did duck? Right here, babe. Yeah. Somebody's already googled it. Yeah. 1984. So yeah. Um,
00:02:23
Speaker
long after the advent of well, that's when was when was duct tape invented. Iconic tape was invented by an Illinois mom named Vesta Stout and wanted to save who wanted to save soldiers lives in World War Two. Here was 1943 and Stout who had two sons serving in the US Navy was working at the Green River Ordinance plant near Amboy, Illinois.
00:02:51
Speaker
You ever look up a history of band-aids? I don't think so. It was like a guy and his wife was getting all these like cuts from like cooking and sewing and stuff. He was like, Oh, we can, he came up with this idea to put a little bandage on tape. When I think of that, I'm like, well, what were they doing before? Like tying a piece of gauze. Yeah. I think that's what it was. It was like wrapping gauze. Yeah. Just bleeding all over the face. When was that? Like the 40s or 50s or something?
00:03:20
Speaker
I don't know. It was like a Johnson and Johnson thing. Well, I guess when was the hand aid invented? 1920s. Hand aid was invented in 1920 by a Johnson and Johnson employee, Earl Dixon in Highland Park, New Jersey. Wow. Shout out to New Jersey for his
Bandages in Woodworking
00:03:38
Speaker
wife, Josephine, who frequently cut and burned herself while cooking. prototype allowed her to dress her wounds without assistance. So yeah, because I guess you'd have to like hold a piece of bandage and then wrap tape around it.
00:03:49
Speaker
So he was just tired of helping her, so he invented something. Listen, woman, if I got to wait an extra 30 seconds for my dinner, we're going to have a problem. Looking at that picture, do you guys remember the steel, the metal containers? I was just about to say that. Yeah. I remember when they came with that, the little flip lid. Yeah. Yeah. Those were pretty cool. Those containers. Yeah.
00:04:15
Speaker
Now everything's in just like a little flimsy cardboard box. You can buy like fancy band-aids and like, they're not, I'm sure they have like that too, but
00:04:26
Speaker
Hunter has, you know, kids love fucking band-aids. Yeah. With the stuff on it, right? With the picture. Yeah. And like they want a band-aid for everything. So like I tried to, I'm like, band-aids are for blood. You know, like if you have a scratch that doesn't warrant a band-aid, you know, like a band-aid is to cover up something that's bleeding. I mean, maybe I'm being a dick, but. It does make the complaining stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like, you know, I don't.
00:04:54
Speaker
When you're a parent, you overanalyze all these stupid little things like, I don't want him, you know, going through life thinking he needs a Band-Aid for... Anyway, my wife bought some Band-Aids and they're in like a metal thing like that, but it's like a separate lid. And it's more, it doesn't stand up like that at least flat. Anyway. I like the cloth kind now. Yeah. Oh yeah. They stick better. Yeah, they do.
00:05:23
Speaker
I mean, you could put one of those on all day and work in the shop. Yeah.
00:05:28
Speaker
The plastic ones that are good are like a clear, like a clear, I think they're like the waterproof ones. Those hold on pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they're sealed on all sides. That's the one thing about the Band-Aid is that this right here, it's like, you know, this goes edge to edge when really needs a little bit of adhesive on the sides. Yeah. I guess, you know, sometimes you got to use two and overlap them if it's a large wound.
00:05:57
Speaker
Yeah. Anyway, we went real off the rails about 40 seconds in. Well, you know, it's not an unrelated topic to woodshop. Yeah. You know, we go through our share of band-aids. When we don't have band-aids here, I'm like the paper towel and masking tape.
00:06:22
Speaker
It's not so much the cut that's bothering you, but you can't get blood everywhere. You know, it's like you start looking down and you're leaving stains on your work.
Extreme Sports and Risks
00:06:40
Speaker
When I lived over here, we put carpet in the baby's room and we went over to the guy by the shop raid. It's like, uh, DNR flooring or whatever. Oh yeah. Manny used to work there. Yeah. So the, I'm just sitting there working from home and like the guys were going in and out and I see one guy run out of there just holding his hand. I'm like, Oh shit. And then, yeah, he hooked himself real good. So they cleaned it up except for like three little drops on the, I'm like, Oh, okay. No. And like, I wouldn't, I would have helped you, but I guess some people would go nuts, you know? Yeah.
00:07:08
Speaker
Yeah, the carpet knife. That's it. Yeah, those are like some gnarly razor blades. Right. They're the hook, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like when they're ripping the stuff out. I was going to say we have that green tape. I like that stuff. I don't know what it's called. It's like, oh, yeah. Yeah. It's almost like gauze that had, but it's not thick like that. It's like a like a one ply gauze that sticks to itself. OK. Yeah. I don't know what the hell it's called.
00:07:37
Speaker
Oh, like Kerflex or something. Let me grab it. Yeah, that's that stuff's great because you can wrap and get some tension. Yeah. Oh, yeah, it's like almost like athletic tape. So that works pretty good. And it just it has like it's almost like like a tack cloth. Yeah. And it sticks to itself.
00:08:02
Speaker
But, you know, the edge always wants to come up. So it's like, I use this and then like I'll put some electrical tape or something like that around it. You got to secure it somehow. But the electrical tape right on the skin, that residue that it leaves, that stuff doesn't want to come off. The vest is when you have to do it like nice and tight so you can... Oh yeah, like the tip of my finger is getting awfully purple.
00:08:29
Speaker
Well, you were an EMT. Yeah, for like 10 years. Wow. So you're like, yeah, these idiots don't know how to dress well. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You've seen it all. I mean, yeah. So there's like tips you pick up. Like if you're wrapping a limb, right, you start small to go large because if you go the other way, it falls on itself. Oh, yeah. That's good. Good point right there. Prepare for the impending apocalypse. Right. Ternicates.
00:08:55
Speaker
What is it when the world doesn't end? But it just gets the dystopia. Yeah. Yeah. Dystopian future. Yeah. Oh, man. So you hear that, people? When when the zombie apocalypse, when the zombie dystopia sets in, wrap your wounds from small to large. Yeah. It's really bandages are cool, too. They're they look like a like an ace bandage for the pad on it. But then there's like a plastic.
00:09:23
Speaker
It was like a hoop and you can twist it to get tension on it. So it's not quite a tourniquet, but you can do like a tension bandage. So like a pressure bandage to kind of like isolate the area. Yeah. Or like get pressure to help stop without. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've seen like several woodworkers that keep like a tourniquet in the shop. Right.
00:09:47
Speaker
I mean, it's not a bad idea. So the thing is like you can buy it, but you got to practice with it. Yeah. Cause when your femur squirt and you're like, you're not going to know what's going on. Like you're lucky for your, you haven't passed out by that. Right. Yeah. You got about a minute, maybe. Yeah. Oh geez. Yeah. It's like the Heimlich. You know what I mean? If, if, if you don't practice. Right. Yeah.
00:10:08
Speaker
And so the I went to a combat life saving class once with a with a navy corpsman. And he had a saying that was you never rise to the occasion you fall to your highest level of training. Well, yeah. So like that was intense. Like we're in Connecticut and we were doing this is good for a woodworking podcast, right?
00:10:29
Speaker
Um, we were doing like scenarios and he had like rubber guns and like explosions and IEDs. And this guy was a great instructor. His name's Chris Stoner. Uh, yeah, he's out in like Montana or somewhere, but, uh, like if you've got a group of guys together and fly them out, he'll bring all this stuff. But, um, what he did was he altered the scenarios to the students level of training.
00:10:55
Speaker
So if there was just like, you know, some guys off the street, he'd be like, oh, this guy got hit by a car, help him. Whereas like, I made the mistake of being like, yeah, I was an EMT and there was a guy who was like an operating room tech, so we're not scared of like blood or anything. So he gave us a situation where there's like people shooting each other and there's a bomb going off and like, and we're like, ah crap, you should have told this guy. So it's so real that people passing by because it was at a karate studio.
00:11:22
Speaker
that's in like one of those business development parks. It looks like a storage unit. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So they're on like a Sunday and some people were just there like checking us. They called the cops on us because they thought it was real. Oh my God. Yeah. I feel like you need like a big sign as like training in. Yeah. So he had called them and said like, we're doing some, you know, messed up stuff. But apparently with the shift change or something, the message never got there. So it was like, it was a good class. It was worth the money.
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's cool. I mean, when I was diving, I took my rescue diving certificate class, but it was like, if you don't do it, there's no way. I can remember little bits and pieces, but I don't think I could save anybody. Yeah. Did you ever see Deepest Breath? I think it's on Netflix. No. It's a documentary about these people who are in competitions.
00:12:17
Speaker
See us far down in the war. Oh free diving free diving Yeah, and it's insane like some of them will come up and they're just brain dead. They're done
00:12:25
Speaker
Don't they go down for like 20 minutes or something? I think it's like eight, nine, something like that. Isn't it? They're like 300 meters down or something. And they see the pressure just with all the water. Yeah, you have to go up in stages, otherwise you get the bends. I guess it's like chasing the dragon, right? So like they go lower and lower and lower and I got to do this, you know? Yeah. Like how do you know what your breaking point is until you just die?
00:12:50
Speaker
Well, I guess that was too far. That's like those guys that do the rock climbing without, you know, ropes and stuff. I'm like, that's insane. Yeah. I saw a video the other day. I think it was, I think it was on Instagram. Instagram now it's like, I don't know about you. You probably aren't on and off, but it's like, I see like six people die on Instagram daily now. It just comes up.
00:13:18
Speaker
But this lady, I think it was El Capitan. She was protesting someone who got like a, like a climber who got arrested or something, something like that, like a free climber. So she, oh no, it was, I think it was another base jumper. She base jumped off of it and her parachute never opened and she just like hit the crap. So in college, I went down to Embry Riddle for a year, that'd be a pilot. So in Flagler in Florida, they have a skydiving school.
00:13:47
Speaker
So I was like, I'm gonna do that. And there's two ways you can do your first parachute jump. You can do tandem where you're just strapped to a guy. They're like, sign here, let's go. Then there's called AFF, advanced free fall. So it's an eight hour class. And you jump out with two instructors and they're just physically holding on to your jumpsuit. And then once you pull the cord, you're on your own.
00:14:09
Speaker
So I'm like, well, I'm gonna do that one at a time. I mean, strapped to another guy. Yeah. It's like, I feel like it's, you know, a little more in your control too. It's like, I don't have the word with this guy. So anyway, we're going through the class. Of course, it's like six in the morning and like, I'm a college, I'm not paying attention, you know?
00:14:26
Speaker
And so then after lunch, they're like, all right, you know, you learned everything and they're like real cool about it too. They're like, yeah. So if all else goes wrong and you're going to hit and you have both your shoots are done. Well, if you're going to land in water or land on land, land on land, because you might drown and if you get knocked out and if all else really fails, you know, aim for the most expensive car in the parking lot.
00:14:52
Speaker
Anyway, um, the instructor that I was supposed to go with, um, hit his face on the plane. So
3D Printing and Technology
00:15:00
Speaker
it's called a sky van. So it's like a refrigerator with a door that opens up the back and then everybody just jumps out. So I guess he jumped too high or something and he smashed his face up and apparently they had to wash the blood off the plate. Oh, wow.
00:15:13
Speaker
So they felt so i guess it's like a hippie thing where all these skydivers who just hang out at the airport. So they found a guy named laddie. And this dude just in vans and like cargo shorts he's got his sunglasses on the back of his head but he's got his instructor license like we got this guy going with you.
00:15:29
Speaker
Oh God, I got a fill in, a stand in. And he was cool as shit. And he's like, are you nervous? I'm like, yeah, a little bit. And he's like, yeah. So that's the number one rule is if you don't get the butterflies, it's time to stop because you're going to do something stupid. Yeah, that's with anything in life, I think. Yeah. So then I find out like in the line, this dude got arrested for like all these base jumping off, like pulling up the towers and he's jumped off that Jesus statue in Brazil. Oh, yeah. And I'm like, all right, well, this guy knows what he's doing, you know, and
00:15:58
Speaker
So they give the students the biggest parachutes possible because it's just like you're just thinking around. This dude has a parachute, looks like a camelback. Oh my God. Yeah, but that was that was fun. We were talking about base jumping. So yeah, those like base jumpers, some of them are just like holding it in their hand and they throw it. Yeah, they're just like, you're not going to catch me doing that. I would.
00:16:23
Speaker
I would probably skydive. I'm not going to go seek it out, but if I was somewhere and they're like, hey, you want to go skydive? I'd be like, yeah, whatever. But I'm definitely not going to base job. Yeah. I mean, you got to have a lot of experience for that. I guess, yeah, maybe.
00:16:40
Speaker
So you don't hit something. If I skydived, maybe I'd be like, Oh man, now I'm going to base jump. But yeah, I think it's like 10 or 12 jumps before you get your basic license. And then there's different categories of what you're allowed to do. So, but I mean, once, maybe twice is probably good enough for me.
00:16:57
Speaker
But yeah, it's like scuba diving or like, uh, I don't know what else would be comparable. It's like, you got to have a pretty good, uh, expendable income to get into this kind of stuff. Yeah. You know, it was like a $5,000 trip and my wife didn't want to go. So it's like,
00:17:15
Speaker
That's a hard thing to navigate. You know, it's like I'm going to take this trip. You stay home. Yeah, I'm going. I'm going to go to Grenada and scuba dive for a week with my friends for five thousand dollars. And, you know, plus all the training and everything. It's not even like you can just go and scuba dive. You know, take all these classes and you got to stay up on it. Yeah. So the barrier to entry is like really high. Got to have all the gear. Yeah. It's yeah. It was way too expensive of a hobby for somebody like me and
00:17:45
Speaker
You know, it's it was an experience. I'll say that. I mean, I did do some dive and went down to like 120 feet to see this shipwreck and stuff like that. Right. Well, I don't think I would do it again. Yeah. Like how long you would probably have to get recertified, right?
00:18:06
Speaker
Yeah, I probably would. I don't know how long those things last, but I wouldn't even feel safe like going out now. So if you like go to the Bahamas, you can't just like go scuba diving. No. Sometimes they do the class like in the pool at the hotel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen they have those things. It's kind of like a helmet. Yeah.
00:18:27
Speaker
maybe like covers like half your body it's like a yeah there's like an air bubble in there yeah yeah but aren't you like sitting on like a scooter yeah yeah that's what i was thinking that but i thought i'm like that's great sounds crazy um i feel like you could probably do something like that but yeah yeah because the certification is you know it's like a pretty
00:18:47
Speaker
I don't remember exactly how long it took, but it went over a couple of months. There's a lot of book learning and each stage has a practical where you go in the water and you got to perform certain things. The one thing I do remember is that
00:19:10
Speaker
You know, you have like each, you have the octo that, which is your spare thing. So you always have a buddy that you're diving with. And it's like, let's say something happens to your oxygen. You're supposed to be able to share mine, but the test.
00:19:28
Speaker
disallows that. You have to share your actual oxygen. So let's say you're out of oxygen. I breathe for 10 seconds, then I give you my oxygen for 10 seconds. And then the first thing you do when you get the oxygen is you have to exhale because there's water in it now. And it's the longest 10 seconds.
00:19:54
Speaker
It has a one way valve so you can blow water through it. Right, so you put it in your
Woodworking Philosophy and Client Relations
00:20:00
Speaker
mouth and you exhale, blow it out and then you can breathe and you can breathe for 10 seconds.
00:20:08
Speaker
So you do that for a couple of minutes and it's really a mental game. I've never really done anything that requires like that kind of like taking a bunch of class. I mean, I guess like getting like a hunting license would be the closest thing. This is one class though.
00:20:25
Speaker
Um, now I guess it's all online. I think I, I think I went to a couple. Oh yeah. Cause I remember that there was like an online class and then it was a field day where they teach you how to like climb over a fence. Yeah. They're like, yeah, you got safely go under a fence over a fence. You got to shoot a couple clay pigeons and put your gun on the other side before you fall on it. Right. Yeah. Um, yeah, I did that back in like a 1998 or 1999. So it's,
00:20:52
Speaker
Right. What's even like the motorcycle class, right? Like if I got another motorcycle, I'd go back to the safety class, just like I don't have to pass it. But at least because they don't just do the minimum, they teach you like some defensive driving to, you know. Yeah, the pylons. Yeah, we've had a couple of people who ride motorcycles on. And the the general consensus is that it's mighty scary out there. I mean, it's scary enough in a car. Exactly.
00:21:20
Speaker
That's, that's me too. It's like, I won't go back on a bike on the roads. It's just, it's not worth it. Yeah. And you see a lot of dickhead motorcycle drivers too. I hate that. I, I mean, especially when I rode, you know, cause it's, it just, it gives off all the wrong info. Leaving here like on a Friday in the summer. It's because, you know, I'm going, uh,
00:21:47
Speaker
south on 36 and it's only a couple miles, but you know, it's like the super speedway out there. Yeah. Stoplight races. Yeah. I live right between two lights on 36. Like I live on the corner of the highway and it's brutal, right? Like we try and eat dinner outside in the summertime sometimes and it's like nearly impossible. It's just like right there. And you know, they're in packs of three or four.
00:22:16
Speaker
Yeah. I'm not much further off the road. So we share that same agony. It's crazy. There was that guy that died a couple of years ago. They were paving the roads and there was like a five or six inch difference. Oh wow. And he tried to go up instead of down and that didn't work out for him.
00:22:35
Speaker
Yeah. When I was living in Highlands, um, this is, so this is probably going back at least five years, five to 10 years. Um, a guy died on the bridge on a motorcycle. Yeah. There was like a bunch of track. I think he like plowed into the back of a car. I was probably trying to split lanes going real fast. Yeah.
00:22:58
Speaker
Yeah, it's crazy. You know, that corner by my house, Chestnut, there was an accident there last night. There's like at least one a month, at least one a month there. You know that, that dumps out like right in front of that side entrance on Wilson Ave to Foodtown. It connects Main Street and Wilson. Yeah, we'd be in the shop and we'd just hear like,
00:23:24
Speaker
We were like, uh-oh. Yeah, at what time was it? Because like when school lets out and stuff like that and the way the lights are timed, the intersection's too close to the intersection at 36. So the cars back up and everybody's trying to sneak out and it's just... People coming from the wet side. Yeah.
00:23:45
Speaker
They're doing like, you know, it's foot on the gas, say 100 yards from the other side. Let's say 200 yards from the other side of Wilson Avenue to Chestnut. They're doing 60 by the time they get to Chestnut. You know, they're just like, and it's like a little bit of like a hill because the highway is crowned, you know. So they come up over this blind thing doing 60 and some grandpa pulls, you know, he's trying to get the food tax.
00:24:09
Speaker
Right. And it's foot on the gas. So like the reaction time just isn't enough to get your foot onto the brake and they always wind up in Ed's yard. Yeah. Or somebody would be pulling out of food town trying to go across onto Chestnut and the traffic's backed up. That's when they really get wild. Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. So Ed, tell us a little bit about yourself.
00:24:31
Speaker
Yeah, so I consider myself a woodworker, mostly hobbyist. I'm a software systems engineer for a real job. So I got into like the Instagram maker community a couple years ago. Previous to that, I did like homeowner stuff and renovated a couple bathrooms and
00:24:56
Speaker
So I started off, you know, gathering tools and things out of necessity. And then a couple of years ago, I moved into a place at a garage so I could start doing more of the stuff, you know, the hobbyist woodworker stuff. Got involved with like the maker camp stuff and Clubhouse guys. And now I'm just kind of having fun with it all. I do have buttjoins.com, which
00:25:24
Speaker
I've been on it. Yeah. So right now, you know, actually, there's a yeah, we have a sticker right there, right, right below Matt from first news. OK. Sorry, above. Nice above. I mean, so I mean, it's funny, right? It's catchy and you remember it. But like when I started, you'd watch like always YouTube videos, like English guys, like making hand cut dovetails. And they're like, Paul Sellers isn't too bad. But there's like guys not super pretentious.
00:25:54
Speaker
Yeah. And it's like, this is the perfect squeeze out ratio and you need a degree in carpentry to make this. It's kind of like a reminder to not be too pretentious about it. Just make something that you like.
00:26:10
Speaker
And like, I like the humility factor of it because that's something that that's lacking. Yeah. Well, it grinds my gears. Huge is like, you know, the pretentious hobbyist woodworker who takes themselves way too seriously. It's like, listen, man, like, come on.
00:26:32
Speaker
Well, if you think about it, what's a bunch of way, right? Like kids put stuff together all the time. That's woodworking, right? You make a shelf with nails and like, you know,
Economic Challenges and Housing Market
00:26:40
Speaker
so yeah, go back to basics. Yeah. I have fun with it with type on and like the feuds we get into with like hatch and all that. Yeah. And so there was that whole era where I was just making dumb reels of pallet wood. And I did like that. So I thought there was something there. Yeah. I gotta bring that back in a different, in a new, uh, new format, I think. Yeah. So.
00:27:02
Speaker
If you come up with a formula where you have a set storyboard and it's like each reel uses the same layout, but you just change the subject matter.
00:27:13
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean, like, I'm always doing something different. So it's almost like a Chris Powell's. That's what I'm doing today. I would like to kind of get to the point where, like, I'll make a bunch of cutting boards or something, like make 10 or 15 of them. Hey, here they are. Just do, like, drops just to kind of get it to pay for itself. But I don't have any illusions of actually, like, you know, putting my job over this or anything, but.
00:27:34
Speaker
I think that's a mistake that a lot of people, or like a misguided fantasy that a lot of people have. It's like, it's like the restaurant business. Yeah. Like I like to fish. It's like.
00:27:45
Speaker
I know that maybe it's not a good analogy. Like if I was a professional fisherman, I don't think it would ruin it for me. But it's like a lot of people enjoy doing woodworking, but it's like if you turn it into a job, it's not as much fun anymore. If you need to do it to eat. Yeah. Yeah. Like this, you know, having this as a job comes with a lot of. Right.
00:28:09
Speaker
There are other stressors and factors, you know. Yeah. I mean, I hear you guys in like clubhouse and stuff and it seems like the works fine, but it's like dealing with the customer and doing this and subcontractors and deliveries. That seems like it really drags you down.
00:28:22
Speaker
Yeah. It's like, you know, when something goes wrong, you have to figure out a solution. There's, you know, you don't have as much flexibility because you're building something for clients. Like we showed them this rendering of what it's going to look like. It's like, you can't just go changing things around because we screwed up. It's like we either got to make it again or, or, uh, you know, come up with a really good solution. That's going to be undetectable.
00:28:48
Speaker
I feel like if you guys had like, uh, like a salesman and then like, uh, somebody to talk to the customers and you guys could just build the stuff. Yeah. You know, like a designer sort of go between. Yeah. It's not even so much like commute. I like communicating with the clients and, and you know, because coming from like the restaurant business, it's like pretty similar, but yeah, it's all the, it's just all the stuff that goes wrong. The clients are usually very nice. Okay.
00:29:18
Speaker
I think, yeah, you know, we get, uh, get some people who suck, but we try and like head them off at the beginning. Well, you already know how it's going to go, right? Like, yeah, it's like, well, we could see that we are not going to want to work with you. Yeah. I think I'm done with customers forever. Just between like, cause I, I, that maybe cause you were in fine dining, right? Like I was in like, you know, delivery pizza guy and all that kind of stuff.
00:29:45
Speaker
And then now I deal with customers on the software side of things. And it's like, uh, I mean, I'm probably, I don't want to go into negative light, but you know how they, welcome to the, welcome to our podcast. It's just like your top 10% of customers you love. And then there's like the middle group that give you all the problems. So it's like, oh yeah, that's true. So you're a problem solver. You're a tech guy.
00:30:09
Speaker
Yeah. So I'm in the fulfillment group, which is like a little bit of, uh, customer service or tech support. We do stuff for like, uh, reporting for management, um, chase the payments. So it's, you know, you ever see the movie office space? Yeah. So the guy that gets fired first.
00:30:29
Speaker
Oh, yeah, the guy who makes the game. Yeah, he's like, I I'm a people person. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, you never want to let the engineers talk to the customers directly. So I'm the guy in between. Yeah. Yeah. A jump to conclusions. Right. Yeah, that's my joke. I'm the guy that gets fired first.
00:30:51
Speaker
That's a good movie. Yeah, that's a great movie. I love the scene where they're bashing up the copier. Oh, yeah. Yeah. John JCH cabinets. He actually he like recreated that with a smoke detector. Okay. He reposted it recently. It was like 10 years ago or something or maybe five years ago. You know, because he's he works in all these houses and
00:31:17
Speaker
They can't like pull the tab out or something until inspection, something like that. So these they're always beeping, low battery. And it was like always in the back of his his video. So he like made a a this is before Reels even existed. Just an Instagram video post of him just like smashing with the same music, like smashing up this smoke detector.
00:31:38
Speaker
We had talked about doing it with the Oliver planer that we had. Yeah. But a couple of people were like, that's probably not a good idea. Whatever happened to it. Oh, I don't know. We're going to go there. Never. Never mind. The thing with Matt is just popping in my head. I don't know. Okay. Yeah. Because I think I said I'm 20 bucks. I didn't. Matt, if you're listening, you're supposed to smash up that router plane.
00:32:06
Speaker
Or was that was it definitely that he was going to destroy it? I thought that's what it was. That's what I thought. Yeah. Maybe he's busy with his new shop. Yeah. I'm going to have to text him. Yeah. Cause I'd like to see that. Apparently they redesigned that router plane. Oh yeah. I didn't buy ones. I don't have any skin in the game. Me neither. That Jay cats Moses. Yeah. What a faker.
00:32:35
Speaker
Anyway, what was I going to say? Something popped into my head before. Oh, you've been getting in big time into 3D printing. Oh, yeah. So I got the bamboo, some of those skill required. That thing is like taking the 3D printing door by storm. I mean, you've had enders before and you know how fidgety they are. This is open a model and print. Yeah, like it's crazy.
00:33:01
Speaker
I've been watching this YouTube channel with my son called Wicked Makers, and they they do all this like they'll take like an animatronic from an animatronic, whatever one of these things from Spirit of Halloween, like a skeleton that like moves around and then they turn it into like they turned it into a spring trap from Five Nights at Freddy's, which is like, you know, this thing that all these kids like right now, it's like a scary
00:33:29
Speaker
Chucky cheese character thing but they like 3D print all these things and and he's like oh he's like maybe you could I'm like I don't want to get back into this and like that you know the end because you had one ender could be like a black hole yeah of headaches.
00:33:46
Speaker
I mean, yeah, because you buy it for 200 bucks and then you need the silent board and the touchy thing. Yeah. And then you need to level it. So you're in it for three, four or five hundred dollars before you even have something that's reliable. And then even with all that stuff, it's like, you know, when you break a belt, it's not like it's very easy to change. Right now. So that's I have I have a.
00:34:06
Speaker
We had two when we were doing all that stuff. We sold one. I still have one and it has a broken belt. And actually the original, I forget what happened. The original one I bought, I bought from a website that seemed like a little shady. So I canceled it, but then it showed up and I got, I forget, but my mother-in-law has that one and they never even opened it. So I'm like, there is like a brand new Ender three sitting in a box. Like, you know, maybe
00:34:37
Speaker
I don't know just throw it on Facebook and buy the bamboo man. Yeah, I just I don't want to drop like six seven hundred fifty bucks. Yeah But I don't know about the time you get done like fidgeting with it like it's I don't know
00:34:49
Speaker
Yeah, I'd sooner just not do any three. So, like, I think there's a whole thing like I was going to make toys with it and contribute to the plastic pollution and whatever. Yeah. But like, if you see, like, with Corey Odyssey, yeah, like he's making like fixtures and like shop things. We've, you know, used it for stuff like that. Right. We have screw boxes that I made three years ago that we still use every day. Right. And, you know, we could have bought them somewhere. But yeah, at the time we didn't know what, you know,
00:35:20
Speaker
Well, yeah. And I think the, the biggest thing is like modeling, right? Like an infusion or whatever. Like if you get that part down and it's like, Oh, well, all right. Just let it print overnight. And I have it tomorrow. Like I think you just have to use that in the right, the right setting. And then it could actually be like an asset to, to, you know, the tools you already have.
00:35:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's great for like doing a dust collection, like all the weird vacuum adapters, even like those paint stand things. Oh, the triangles. Yeah. Yeah. Well, our buddy Dino, he printed out these ones that have like a slot
00:35:56
Speaker
and like an elevated part so you can, you know, move them around, like, you know, to make a painting turntable. He uses a bamboo for that. He 3D prints so much because he makes all these vacuum pads and stuff.
00:36:11
Speaker
He's coming out with a dust collection port for like a blue mini press. Yeah. I'd like to do something with our hinge port machine. That thing makes so much, so many shavings. I bored what? Five doors yesterday. And it was like a mountain of oak chips. That thing is nice though.
00:36:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's weird though, because the dust port opening is flat against the back. Yeah. It makes it so the machine has to come out. Yeah. I think we could probably, it had to be 3D printed, some kind of thing that comes off to the side. That or just drill a hole into the side. Yeah. Exactly. You know, four inch hole saw hole right in the side. Because to put it in the back, it's, it's
00:37:01
Speaker
crazy. I mean, how much room you'd need. I think they figure, you know, kind of like a miter saw, like a lot of times people have, you know, we only have that 24 inch deep cabinet there, so.
00:37:17
Speaker
What, uh, what are you working on now? Um, well I'm getting a laser hopefully tomorrow. So, uh, CO2, I just have the diode now. So I'm just kind of messing with that. So, uh, deal popped up. We're going to use CO2 from whatever buddies and, uh, I'm looking forward to, uh, you know, the speed of that. Yeah. Then, but then there's like, I gotta put any freeze in it and kind of learn how to focus things. Yeah. Unconditioned in the, yeah.
00:37:43
Speaker
So I think that, you know, it's not like a skill, but it's definitely a little trick. Yeah. So I got to learn all that. What are your plans for the laser?
00:37:52
Speaker
Well, engraved stuff like cutting boards and things like that. So I think I can make a little bit of money there, but I'd like to do like maybe router templates and maybe a little bit of boxes or like the tab and slot kind of things. So it'd be nice to get like two or three products that are mine. Just kind of batch them out, you know.
00:38:16
Speaker
That's something that we've been talking about. You know, we have this laser and it sits there most of the time. We use it a lot for like making, like you saw those oak cabinets that we just did. They have that cut out in the toe. Right. Like I just cut a template on the laser and use it for that. You know, it's so much faster for me to just come in here and draw it and send it to the laser than it is to actually, you know, because the old school way would be, we would draw it on a piece of quarter inch, cut it out close. We would sand up to the line, you know, more accurate.
00:38:44
Speaker
too. Yeah. And that's the thing. It never comes out perfect. Like those came out for all intents versus perfect. You know, it just takes the guesswork out of it. Yeah. I remember when I was making speakers all the time and stuff like that, trying to make a good circle. Yeah.
00:39:00
Speaker
Oh, there's always like one spot that and and it just translates to everything that you do. Yeah. The hardest part is like if you have a radius and it meets up with a straight line. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And that is always that there's always a little. Yeah. You either go past or you don't go far enough. Right. And then you try and sand it out. Yeah, it always looks weird. I hate that. That drives me insane.
00:39:26
Speaker
I learned about the grid array function on Lightburn. So you can take a shape and then there on the left, there's, it looks like a, like a grid. Oh yeah. So you touch it and then you tell it how many rows and columns and spacing, and then it does it for you. I'm like, that would be good for something like a speaker grade. And you could use like any shape you want, like initials or, you know, that may be something. So that's how we do the salt boxes.
00:39:55
Speaker
And even just like this late labor program, like you would, there's so much here than you would never know until you need to do it. And then you Google it. Yeah. Oh, so this is, this is showing up on the, uh, on the mom port that went back. I get an email this morning from mom port. Thanks for joining our affiliate program. We've automatically created an account for you and, and a coupon code. I'm like, really? Oh, you have to make a reel of that. You sure about that? Uh, Oh my God.
00:40:24
Speaker
I got to somehow change this back to the correct bed size. But yeah, that's how I have this is there's I think this is the original and then I have an array. Yeah, this is just four rows. So you're doing another 500 pretty soon.
00:40:44
Speaker
Yeah. The pre-sale is this Friday. Okay. That's not your story. Yeah. Yeah. That'll be mid, mid May delivery. So we got some time. I got a quote back for the, um, for the wood, which came out to about four grand. Okay. Yeah.
00:41:05
Speaker
Oh, no, Lewis Lewis's prices were OK. Hobo Cooch isn't listening, but they weren't even close. The cherry was relatively close, like within a dollar per piece, which that's not bad. You know, we're buying. I figured for 280 pieces of each. So we have 30 extra pieces. And the one that was like double.
00:41:31
Speaker
Right. So I wonder if it's just because they're set up for that and they do it all the time or. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe they, they might just have access to some really cheap Loma. I don't know. Cause I bought some stuff for the laser, not like your quantity, but they have those, uh, like the seconds boxes for like 20 bucks. So they'll send you like 30 pounds of wood and it's like awesome. Yeah.
00:41:52
Speaker
So yeah, they seem like a good good outfit. I know it's like a family. Like it's just like one family that all like the kids and everything worked there. So Ethan is the guy that I deal with there. He's like, I guess like the sales sales guy. Yeah, I mean, I've been I've been happy with the material. Yeah, you haven't had like, you know, out of
00:42:16
Speaker
2,500 pieces or whatever that we bought. Like only a handful were like truly unusable. Right. You know, there were like maybe three boxes that were too sappy. Yeah. Then we put in our second spot. Yeah. We got to give you a buck. Do you have, do you have one? Uh, no, I don't get one. Yeah. We're going to give you a reach into the grab bag. They're on the floor now. They were on that cart. I was halfway here and I forgot. I didn't bring you to the revision to, uh, new friend stuff. Uh, next time. Yeah.
00:42:47
Speaker
I got a whole bag of them. Yeah. Keith is a, is a laser guy now and, and a 3d printer guy. He can't be left behind, you know, his personality. Yeah. He's just developing all those skills. No friends, but he's, uh, he's trying. Yeah. That fiber laser looks cool. Yeah. I don't do a lot of metal stuff. So I don't know if that'd be a good thing either. Yeah.
00:43:13
Speaker
No, I figure we know enough people wherever we needed to engrave metal. We get it done. Yeah. Yeah. The, um, the bigger CO2 lasers can do like a little bit of etching. Um, but you need like 150 Watts and then I think you need like an oxygen. I think you can, you can cut some steel. Um, but it's very slow. You need like an oxygen assist or something. Yeah. What's the off gassing like on metal? Is there any, I don't know,
00:43:43
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I don't think it's anything bad. No. No. Cause like if, when you use like a, a settle towards, yeah. Yeah. I guess mostly the plastics that are. Yeah. Like you can't don't put any PVC. Yeah. Like that makes like ammonium chloride or something. That'd be, that'd be good. Murder plot. Yeah. Like, uh, you know, you're working the maker murders.
00:44:09
Speaker
I watch a lot of those British murder mysteries. Yeah. So they're always like, how did they die? Oh, do you guys hear about the where was it? Kansas City or something like these three dudes went over their buddy's house for to watch the football game and then nobody heard from him and then they went to the house and they were all dead. What? Yeah.
00:44:31
Speaker
I think it was Kansas City. I mean, Kansas City just played last weekend. Let's see, football fans. It was like one of the lowest temperature games ever played. But the guy whose house it was, was alive and it was like three days later.
00:44:50
Speaker
Like the people show up, they're like, what's going on? Like I've been looking for you and he's like, like showed up in his underwear to the door or some kind of thing parties in Kansas City, Missouri, investigating after the bodies of three men who reportedly gathered to watch football were found outside a home last week on a day when forecasters said the temperature dip well below freezing. The men all between ages 36 and 38 were found dead the evening of January 9th at a house in Northland, northern suburb of Kansas City in Platte County.
00:45:18
Speaker
Kansas City Police Department told USA Today. Tuesday police said officials from multiple agencies were working to determine how the men died. A spokesperson with Forensic Medical of Kansas located in Kansas City confirmed the dead as Ricky Johnson, David Harrington, Clayton McGinney. According to the information from Police Captain Corey Carlisle, on the day they were discovered, the fiance of one of the men visited the home to check on him, found a body on the back porch, and called 911. Police, no obvious signs of foul play.
00:45:49
Speaker
So would they go out, get drunk, go outside and freeze to death? I guess. Pretty freaking drunk, man. Officers responded to the scene at 9.51 PM. Police said, uh, police said, confirmed that there was a dead body and upon further investigation, located two other dead bodies in the backyard. The three guys dead in the backyard, but the other guy, does it say, resident at the house was cooperative with detectives the day that the men were found dead.
00:46:19
Speaker
He didn't know there were like three dead friends in the backyard. This case is 100% not being investigated as a homicide. Uh, Bikini said, I guess I think that's the police chief. Wasn't that null involved or something? I don't know. That's weird. Yeah. Let's see. No update.
00:46:43
Speaker
Yeah. Like, you know, your three buddies are dead in the backyard and you don't know. It's like, well, I mean, they were here, but then they went outside and I didn't see them again. There's something fishy going on there. No foul play. Well, maybe we didn't find any signs of foul play, but it definitely sounds like foul play.
00:47:04
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, real stupidity or like you say, drug use, people, three guys won't just die. Yeah. Yeah. Where'd, where'd Dave go? I don't know. Where the heck did Dave and Steve go? Let me go take a look. Doesn't make any sense. I mean, I got to see if there's an update.
00:47:35
Speaker
That's from 22 hours ago. I can't be. I get on Twitter. Everybody knows everything on Twitter. Kansas city fans found dead. Families demand answers after mysterious deaths of chiefs fans. This is what I'm talking about. A little more salacious. Family and friends are demanding answers after three men were found dead outside of a Kansas city home.
00:48:02
Speaker
Blah, blah, blah. Two days later, the men were found dead in the backyard of the residence with no apparent signs of foul play. What are they expecting to find? I mean, two days, the guy who's survived and whose house it is, doesn't report anything, doesn't
00:48:21
Speaker
Family and friends believe circumstances around how these men died don't add up. I'm furious. Everybody is furious. Jennifer Marquez, the mother of one of the victims said, nobody believes this story. None of his friends, none of the families, none of us believe it. Marquez says her 37 year old son David Harrington went to a friend's house to watch the Kansas City Chiefs game on January 7th, but never came home.
00:48:44
Speaker
I don't know about friends and family say they made several attempts to contact the homeowner who hosted the football gathering, but they could not get ahold of him.
00:48:54
Speaker
Beyonce and one of the men went to the home, knocked on the door to no avail, and then broke into the house. Beyonce then reportedly found one of the bodies and called the police. Homeowner reportedly told police the men froze to death as temperatures dip below freezing in the area. Kansas City Police Department said they are waiting for the medical examiner's cause of death for the three men before jumping to conclusions. I mean, I hate to laugh at the death of these guys, but the circumstances are
00:49:23
Speaker
Ridiculous. Yeah, they froze to death. I mean, he's on the back porch. You haven't looked out the back door. Right. I've never froze to death, but I seem to think it'd be a little painful at a certain point where you're like, oh, yeah, I should go inside. And like I could see maybe one guy got so drunk that he passed out. Yeah. And then like the door locked or something like that. But
00:49:51
Speaker
three people, but, and then you don't notice them for two days. You don't like, yeah, I haven't heard from Steve, like even after an hour, like I mean, unless everybody got real fucked up, maybe they were, they must've been on some kind of drugs. So they all pass out.
00:50:11
Speaker
Three of which are outside. And three guys are outside. And then the guy who wakes up inside is too afraid to call the police. I mean, how long does it take to freeze to death? It could be a couple of hours. Yeah. Yeah. I think you'd probably go unconscious first for a while and then everything kind of slows down. Well, why, I mean, why would they even go outside?
00:50:34
Speaker
I don't want to smoke a cigarette or something. I don't know. A little crack inside the way it feels like. Yeah. Clearly this guy doesn't have much going on. I'd really love to see some video of this to get a real picture of, of the house and everything. Of who we're dealing with. Yeah. Well, I guess you could do the please body cam eventually. Yeah.
00:51:00
Speaker
Yeah. I wonder if the guy was home when the lady broke in. Like he was there, but she had to break in to get in. Oh yeah. Cause I read somewhere that she broke into like a basement window or something. Sounds awfully fishy. It's, it's completely fishy. Yeah. No foul play.
00:51:19
Speaker
We're definitely not definitely not thinking about this as a murder. Oh my gosh. That's crazy. Makes me think of like Fargo or something, you know, that show. Oh yeah. Yeah. John was just saying that that was really good. Yeah. What's the craziest thing you ever saw as an EMT? Oh geez. Um,
00:51:41
Speaker
uh craziest isn't like actual crazy people or like somebody getting impaled with something oh uh had a kid who had his face run over with a dirt bike oh man yeah they flew him out so he lived and uh
00:51:59
Speaker
We took the guy, so the guy was drunk on a dirt bike, hit the kid. He was like elementary school. So, but then we, so they flew him out and then, uh, we took the guy who hit him and he had a open femur, uh, fracture. And, uh, like, I mean, what he did was unthinkable, but like the cops are just like beating the crap out of it. And then like, you see the bones sticking, you're like, Oh geez, like,
00:52:26
Speaker
So he, he hit the kid and then crashed the bike. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. So that's what the cop, they crashed the bike. Yeah.
00:52:37
Speaker
He fell on these batons. That was like probably the craziest trauma. But I did a whole bunch of psych transports. And a lot of times when you get committed, if it's involuntary, they'll put you in restraints. And you read through some of these people's, you know,
00:52:57
Speaker
The paperwork was like an encyclopedia and so yeah some of these the funniest one I ever had was well I probably shouldn't say funny cuz you know but the guy was arrested running around naked on a golf course and he was screaming he was going to the White House to meet Obama for lunch and It probably wasn't even lunchtime was it
00:53:18
Speaker
I mean, yeah. So then we pick him up and he's in a, this is from one facility to another and he's just in a hospital gown. He's like, I would give you a tip for the ride, but I don't have my wallet. It's like a comedian. Is that something that you could contract it out as a first aid squad? So at that point I was working for a private ambulance company.
00:53:41
Speaker
Is that like Monoc is a? I work for Monoc. That's a private, right? Yeah. So Monoc doesn't exist anymore. Oh wow. So that was Monmouth and Ocean Hospital Corp. So now I think it's Barnabas or JF. There's like a couple of major ones. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like the hospital has their own ambulance now.
00:53:58
Speaker
Yeah. So I think what they did is, uh, the hospitals kind of come together in a collective and then they create their cartel. Yeah. Uh, this was, I was working for a private ambulance company up in Somerville and they did a lot of transports. So, uh, yeah. And then, um, that guy was like, yeah, so I need to have kids so I can harvest their organs so I could have extras. Oh my God.
00:54:23
Speaker
like checking the restraints and like those guys. Like when you show up for like an involuntary transport, are there other, like is there law enforcement involved or it's just you and another guy and you got to wrestle this guy in? So if it's like, if you're taking them from like it's home, usually there's some kind of domestic thing and there's usually cops there. If you're going from like facility to facility, there's usually not
00:54:50
Speaker
Yeah, they're in restraints already probably. If it's just a mental health thing, it's usually just two guys. Yeah, somebody just brings them out. So in those situations, you're not actually... I mean, I could see that the potential to provide care would be there, but you're not doing anything medically, you're more just transporting this. Yeah. So generally, they're not
00:55:14
Speaker
At the empty level like two guys like they're considered pretty much stable if you're if they're you know like a Cardiac care or something they're sending the advanced ambulance with a nurse and a paramedic and an EMT so but uh
00:55:30
Speaker
Yeah, people that are going till I got, you know, they're going from a mom with medical to I'd say this transfer probably doesn't have a mom with medical to Riverview for a procedure or something. Yeah, you're usually going to like a cath lab or like, you know, or like a burn center or something like that. But there's something a critical care ambulance then. So yeah, they let the EMTs just deal with crazy people. Here you go.
00:55:56
Speaker
There was one guy who was, I forget exactly what it was, but he had been convicted of murder in the past. Like he just like murdered this family. Not just one person.
00:56:06
Speaker
And then I guess he did like his time and he got out and then he did something else and he was like committed. And he was knocked out on Hal Ball, which is like a sedative. And we were going from somewhere to Trenton Psych. Trenton Psych was like, you don't want to go there. And he was in his sleep. He got out of one of their streets. Oh my God. I'm like an 18 year old kid. I'm like, I'm jumping the hell out of here. Yeah.
00:56:30
Speaker
My my cousin's wife. I think that's where she worked was Trenton Psych or might have just been the prison. Right. But she was like a forensic psychologist where she, you know, like was dealing intimately with this, like criminally insane people. So that's wild. Yeah, that's like.
00:56:51
Speaker
How do you leave that at the door? I was just about to say that. It's crazy. I mean, I watched these. I mean, we were we stay up at night. Yeah. I watched these police interrogations. We watched a couple of North Carolina where it's like a video of a police interrogation and like somebody doing commentary and they usually they get like a
00:57:17
Speaker
attorneys and psychologists and stuff like that to make notes and then they make a video about it. And some of the stories about these people, it's just like, you know, sometimes people just snap. They're like, yeah, he just had a psychotic episode. It's like, but he killed his whole family. Yeah. That's the ones you can't predict. Those are the scary ones. Yeah. Yeah.
00:57:40
Speaker
Anyway, that's a lot of mental trauma, you know, from 16 to 26 when your brain's still crushed. Yeah, plus ADD stuff. This is why this podcast exists. How'd you get into EMT work?
00:57:57
Speaker
So, uh, well, my dad was a Jersey city fireman. And, uh, so like right after nine 11, you know, you say everything, I had to do something. So then I got into, uh, office of emergency management in, uh, Sayerville fire academy, but they never like let us do anything. We took all these classes. So then when you're 16, you can join the first aid squad. So then I was like, Oh, I'm going to do that. And then after that, I just didn't leave until you got a real job. Yeah.
00:58:25
Speaker
How old were you in nine eleven. I was born in eighty six so. You must have been like a sophomore. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah we were in class when the towers came down so. Yeah I was in our I was in seventh grade art class. Okay. I was teaching at Kenosse High School we were in school. Yeah.
00:58:46
Speaker
And the world was never the same. Right. Well, I kind of brought the whole vibe down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, man, our generation's really living through some, some shit. Yeah.
00:59:01
Speaker
global pandemics post 9 11 world. It's unbelievable. I'm on the brink of world war three. Well, if you just turn off the news, your life's a lot better. Yeah. Yeah. Cause yeah, I was, I mean, I avoid the news at all costs, but sometimes it just, it just happens voice itself into your life. These things, you know, you're reading, it's like, Oh, uh, you know, um,
00:59:29
Speaker
somebody with those Hootie rebels firing on ships, US ships. I'm like, what, what are we going to do? What, how is this all going to work itself out? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we, we did a bunch of bombing, uh, us in the UK, like whatever last week.
00:59:51
Speaker
Yeah, I'll skim the headlines like typically just on Reddit. I can go to the news and just like kind of see. Yeah. And then it's like if something piques my interest, I'll read an article. But yeah, like watching the news on TV is crazy. Yeah. Especially the Fox News people. Oh, yeah. Even CNN, you know, everything on CNN is breaking news, breaking news. I'm like, how is it? It's all breaking currently. Yeah. Yeah. It's.
01:00:20
Speaker
the state of things. So like, you know, real estate. And I mean, Jeff and I talk about this all the time. Like, you know, me growing up, a single parent working, you know, as a shoe salesman had, could raise a family and own a home.
01:00:43
Speaker
Yeah, we're like, you know, working the checkout at the grocery store. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like some people did that for their whole lives. And why shouldn't you be able to do that? Right. That's a decent job. It's well, yeah, at least it used to be. Well, yeah. You know what I mean? It's it's honorable to work. And now you're either 16 or you're retired. Yeah. Yeah.
01:01:07
Speaker
Yeah, there's no end in sight. We were talking about this the other day where, I mean, I'd heard about it peripherally, but I saw some like real news and real data about these Wall Street backed institutions purchasing huge swaths of homes. Oh, the whole Zillow thing, right?
01:01:32
Speaker
like BlackRock and I forget what the other there's a couple other ones just you know these investment. I'm speaking outside of my knowledge, but these big investment firms basically buying up all these single family homes, you know.
01:01:49
Speaker
Like there was a neighborhood that gets built and they bought all the houses, 243 houses. They just bought them. Yeah. And then they get to set the rent and you know, whatever. Um, you know, it's
01:02:08
Speaker
It's, it should be illegal, I guess, but I don't know how to frame that. Um, you know, in a free market, like how do you do that? But it's, it's certainly, um, you know, altering the, the, the market space and, um, you know, the quality of life.
01:02:32
Speaker
or mostly young people. Or there's just no opportunity. Yeah, like I think the number of houses for sale versus the number of houses that are for rent.
01:02:49
Speaker
you know, it's probably the swing has been greatly towards renting because, you know, like our landlord, for example, I don't know how many residential properties he owns in this town, but, you know, he just came after, you know, a couple of years after Sandy bought a bunch of properties and now he rents them out. I'm saying that there's anything inherently wrong with that, but, you know, there needs to be some protections for regular people too. Yeah, protections. That's a, that's a good way to put it, you know,
01:03:15
Speaker
Because we were here in Sandy, like right across the street, and then you see all those lots, you're like, oh man, I wish I wasn't broke, you know? Yeah. This, he bought this for like $190,000 or something. It was dumb. Yeah. He put, I don't know, let's say he put a hundred into it over the years, which I'm sure it's like, he put a roof on it really. Yeah.
01:03:36
Speaker
Um, and there's a vacancy penalty in Kingsburg. So paying these penalties too. It's not, it's not a ton. It's like five grand or something, but, um, and now, you know, what's our rent for the year? You know, in three years in, in 10 years, it would be totally paid off. Yeah. And we're paying the taxes. Yeah.
01:03:59
Speaker
I know you said you had a meeting at two 30. Yes. I don't know if that means you have to leave here at a specific time. I have a little bit more probably from here, uh, I don't know, like one 15. Okay. Um,
01:04:13
Speaker
Tell us about the scouts, man. Oh, yeah. So the crowd, the scouts. Yeah. So scouting, uh, I'm a cub master for my daughter's, uh, cup pack. So in case anybody didn't know the scouts take boys and girls now. Um, so I, I deal with, uh, the cub scouts was elementary school. And, uh, you know what it is, uh, it's a character development program at the end of it, but, uh, we do a lot of outdoor stuff, uh, citizenship, uh,
01:04:41
Speaker
You know, there's some science stuff like it's a pretty well rounded program. The little kids they usually meet twice a month. Then we go on trips, we go to a police station in a fire department, those kinds of things. But, you know, we like to get the kids together outside of school and they create new relationships and we do fun stuff. And then, you know,
01:05:02
Speaker
It's all in preparation for them to be the productive members of society. We could use a couple more of those. Get them over here and give them all a broom. Yeah. Today we're going to learn about sanding. Right. But yeah, we go over responsibilities and duties and a lot of it's getting them to realize, hey, it's not just them in the world. There's other people too and can't do things without people. Yeah.
01:05:29
Speaker
So I did, I've been, went to a lot of training, um, for the Scouts. So I did their wood badge class, which is, uh, it's a, uh, a leadership training that was developed by Carnegie Mellon. Um, so it's five days in the woods. Uh, like it's, it starts like seven and it ends at like 10 at night. Like it's intense. And then you actually have to do.
01:05:57
Speaker
Sort of like a thesis You have to create projects that you have to do yourself that define your your view of where you fit in scouting so I completed the class though. I'm currently working on my they call them tickets and then you know, I get to wear once I complete the tickets to wear a different color neckerchief so Pins and patches man. Yeah, so
01:06:23
Speaker
Tell us a little bit about what you're doing. Yeah. So, um, a lot of it, one of my views is cause I was a scout as a kid and I got so much out of it. Like my best friend, just like lifelong memories and skills too. So I, my whole thing was like repaying the program for what I took. Um, and a lot of it was kind of trying to make, uh, the cycle repeat. So kind of cementing things that, um,
01:06:52
Speaker
You know, for future generations to have some improvements with like our pack, uh, technology and website and stuff. Um, one of the things is like when you were camping, like my view is one of the best parts of the food. Yeah. So in talking to people and I mean, you can see my family to seek here. I'm really pretty experienced with that. We're right behind you. Yeah.
01:07:17
Speaker
So like a lot of people just do hamburgers and hot dogs and they're like stressed out. I'm like, man, you did like some basic equipment. You can cook some credible stuff in the woods. And, um, you ever, uh, watched Andrew Zimmern, the, so his whole philosophy is you can go to a person who's a different culture, a different country, maybe even different language. But when you sit down and break bread with them, like there's this bond that there's this fellowship you're sharing.
01:07:42
Speaker
So that happens in the woods over a campfire when you're cooking, whatever, right? So I'm going to put together a class. There's what's known as University of Scouting. And it's a peer-led kind of thing where somebody says, oh, I know a lot about this particular subject. I'm going to create a class in like 45 minutes to an hour. And so one of the things I'm doing is meal planning, right? And when I took over this role,
01:08:11
Speaker
I was thrown into it, and I had to figure out like three or four different menus because I have vegetarians, Indian vegetarians, you know, no restrictions, I have no beef and pork, and I have some kids that are just picky.
01:08:27
Speaker
So it was about like finding things that you could do to create one meal with different variations, you know? Like there's the classic that they teach everybody is the spaghetti and spaghetti and meatballs, right? You cook the sauce and the spaghetti and the meatballs separate, take what you want, but then you can do chicken meatballs, you can do halal meatballs, throw garlic bread in there, you throw a salad in there, and then everybody just takes what they want, right? Right. But, you know, you go on three or four K-abouts and you're eating spaghetti and meatballs, it gets a little old, you know? Yeah.
01:08:55
Speaker
And it's like, we eat that at home. Yeah. Right. Let's eat some camping, camping food. Yeah. But I was lucky. The past leaders kind of set us up equipment wise. So we have a trailer I pull up there. We have a Blackstone and we have a Camp Chef burner. It's like 30,000 BTUs. Like, yeah, so we can do almost anything. So I did pizza in the woods on the Blackstone, the mac and cheese, chicken fingers. I think we did tacos.
01:09:21
Speaker
And like maybe the little kids don't care so much because they're just running around finding rocks and stuff. But when you when you when you connect with the parent, you're like, no, this is what it is. Yeah. Like it's it's not what we're eating or what we're doing. It's this quality time. Yeah.
01:09:37
Speaker
That's what you're going to remember. And then you wake up in the morning and it sucks the first night or two in the woods. You're sleeping on the floor, you're used to a thermorest mattress. But then there's hot chocolate and coffee and you watch the steam come off the lake. You're like, oh, I get it now. So a lot of times you can't tell them, you have to show them. So that's one of the things we've been doing, some recruiting things.
01:10:03
Speaker
So traditionally, for the past 100 years, a unit would have a recruiting night, and we'd put on all our pins and patches and look like fake generals and be like, come to our meeting. But families who didn't grow up with scouting are like, what are these weirdos doing? Yeah, I will say there was always, for me, there was always like, and talking to you has totally changed my perspective because we've talked about
01:10:25
Speaker
the Boy Scouts, like, I don't know, half dozen times, like, in depth. I always, I'm like, this is lame. Like, you know, I go play in the woods
Scouting: Lessons and Misconceptions
01:10:34
Speaker
by myself. What do I need to go to the Boy Scouts to learn? You know, but not understanding what it's actually all about. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, from an outsider's view, it totally is weird and lame. But like when you start looking at the reasons why we do things and the lessons we're actually teaching, you're like, oh, that doesn't sound bad at all. You know? Yeah. It's like, this is like a, you know, it's not just dicking around in the woods. It's real.
01:10:54
Speaker
Yeah what i mean we teach them like fire safety and life safety and survival and you know there's a lot of like life lessons there too and like if you look at the history there was a guy named sir robert baton powell he was a english general he finished up his military career like right before world war two and he spent a lot of time in africa
01:11:17
Speaker
And then when he got out, he actually created scouting as a world peace program. And he thought that the youth were the was the, the, the method to get to this world peace. But because he was a military guy, a lot of the stuff he created is like military esque. Yeah. Right. And so, and but if you actually go back and read a lot of the stuff that he's written is like scout masters should have the attitude of an older brother.
01:11:42
Speaker
We want them to have fun and we want to teach them stuff, but we also want them to fail. Because if they fail in this program, that means they're not failing later in life because they'll learn from it. So yeah, we'll give them the little animal patches and everything, but there's a process there. And even just things like, why do we wear the uniforms? So one, it's an equalizer. So if everybody looks the same, there's no more social economic differences. Two, it's a responsibility because the kids are supposed to keep it in good order.
01:12:11
Speaker
Three, it's a platform for them to have some achievement because the more badges and stuff they earn, they can display that and be proud of it. Right. So like on the outside, you're like, what are these weirdos doing? They're all wearing the same thing. But when you get into the mechanics of it, you're like, Oh, that actually makes sense. You know, so like even a lot of that stuff, I didn't even realize as a kid and coming back as a leader and, and, um, you know, seeing it from the other side, you're like, Oh, that's why I did that for 10 years. You know,
01:12:40
Speaker
So there's a lot to it. And I think it's a great program. It's just like, you know, there is a, those bad actors that did like, there, there's no denying it that happened. Right. But they did irreparable harm to all the, the leaders that did their job and all the millions of Scouts that had great times. Yeah.
01:12:57
Speaker
Like that and anything it's a microcosm of society right so you know and then there's there's rules and there's changes and like That there you're you're doing the best you can to keep everybody safe So it's like don't discount the all the good that happened because of the bad stuff you know
01:13:16
Speaker
Like I can't like no adult leader is ever alone with a kid. So there's always at least two, two adult leaders and everything's conducted in plain view. There's no, nothing's private. Like, um, you know, even if you have to like send an email to somebody, there's at least two adults on it. Like, so it even goes into that level of detail.
01:13:37
Speaker
Seems the Catholic Church can adopt that. Well that's a problem too, right? Because the Catholic Church was a charter organization for a lot of scout troops. So everything that was going on over there, a lot of it got unfortunately
01:13:53
Speaker
Dumped on. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a lot of Catholic churches that are not renewing their PSA charters. So then all these kids and all these leaders that did absolutely nothing wrong, now I have nowhere to go. And then you got to scramble to find a new charter org or units as well, you know?
01:14:08
Speaker
What
Joining Boy Scouts and Events
01:14:09
Speaker
I like if somebody who's listening wants to get their kids involved what's like the time financial commitments how do they find a go to be a scout org and you put in your zip code and then especially like in the Northeast there's a lot yeah, and then you'll have a contact information and you just call the leader or their representative and go and
01:14:31
Speaker
to a meeting. And, you know, if you're lucky enough to have a couple around, go to all of them and see because there's like a, with any group, there's like a vibe. Yeah, yeah. So if you go to a meeting, you don't feel right, go to a different meeting. Yeah, you might show up and the leaders like a real militant kind of, and then, you know, the other
01:14:49
Speaker
So every unit's gonna have their own dynamic like some are very outdoor focus summer very community service focus summer skills based so you just gotta find the right one that's for you near your family. For the registration you're looking at about a hundred dollars a year.
01:15:06
Speaker
But if that's an issue, there's a lot of councils that have what's called friends of scouting. So it's alumni and businesses and charitable kind of. And usually there's enough money there where if you need need help, all you got to do is ask for it. So there's a mantra that money should never be an issue. So, you know, I think every kid should be at least exposed to scouting.
01:15:32
Speaker
Yeah. And you know, those are the kids who need it the most. Exactly. Yeah. So like, you know, scouting is not for every kid, but every kid should at least go to a meeting or two and see if, and it helps if the friends are involved too. Um, especially with the little kids. And then, uh, yeah, I mean, I think every scout master or scout leader would be like, at least try it. If it's not for you, that's fine, but probably you'll like some aspect of it.
01:15:58
Speaker
Yeah, they do like open house kind of things or it's just like if you're interested, you could just go to a meeting. It depends on the unit. I would say most cup packs or you could probably just go. But yeah, just call the guy or email him and then they'll set you up. Where are the meetings held?
01:16:16
Speaker
Uh, it depends on the unit. Like my pack meets at a VFW. Um, so there's like firehouses sometimes at schools like, um, but they're, they're local to the, to the community. It's depending on where you, you are. And then there's events, I guess that encompass multiple.
01:16:33
Speaker
Yes, so there's usually those are council level events. So like the camper is for like the fifth graders and older there's a Klondike Derby coming up. So usually that's in like the February area.
01:16:46
Speaker
Oh, that's like a bobsled. Yeah, they're like, they're like dog sleds. Oh, and they pull the. Yeah. So instead of dogs, you have the scouts, right? The scouts you work as the dog. Yeah. So it's like, uh, I think we were talking about that lat. You were here around that time last year. So I'm building another sled for the girls troop. And I got some old skis from a Facebook. And so the whole thing is it's a scout skills competition.
01:17:14
Speaker
So every patrol is competing against each other and they have what's called towns. So there's like fire starting town, first aid town and cooking town. So they have to put all their gear in the sled and pull it around. And it's modeled after, um, there was a really bad Alaskan blizzard in like the forties. And the only way they could get medicine to these towns to get the sick people better was dog sled.
01:17:38
Speaker
So they take that theme and then create it, you know, a hundred years later. And then we make the scouts compete against each other. But it goes back to that. Like we want you to actually fill up these things that you learn. And then later, if you ever need it, you know how
Leadership and Community in Scouting
01:17:52
Speaker
to do it. Yeah. That must be hilarious to watch. Oh yeah. And dude, the girls are like scary. Like when they get going, it's like, I'll just step out of it. Here you go, man. Yeah.
01:18:03
Speaker
I remember third grade, we did like a whole thing with the Iditarod. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like we like followed the whole thing through. Right. I forgot that was even a thing until just now.
01:18:13
Speaker
Yes. And there's, uh, oh, so actually for the adults, I heard there's, there's rumor of, um, Patriots path, which is the council. I'm in doing an adult, uh, pioneering weekend. So pioneers, when you get like trees and tie them together and make like arches and stuff. So there was one couple of years ago where the older scouts did it and they did a block and tackle rate, like engineering rigs. They lifted the Rangers truck off the ground. Oh, wow.
01:18:41
Speaker
So there was rumor of them doing that for for leaders to go and learn like making shelters and stuff for more like structures like fire towers and yeah so school.
01:18:54
Speaker
Maybe not on the podcast, but I could show you the pictures that I have of what they did. It's kind of cool because now as an adult, I get to go back and do stuff that I had fun doing as a kid, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it's good to have an outlet, you know? Right. This is like my church, you know, like there's a fellowship there. You're kind of interacting with people and kind of part of something bigger than yourself. Yeah. Those are important lessons. Yeah.
01:19:22
Speaker
So, and, and it's like, you know, as a leader, like the week leading up to it, you're like, I'm making plans and this and this, and then you get grumpy. And then like, when you see the kids and then like you give them the lesson and they get it, you're like, Oh, that's, that's why I do that. That's cool. Yeah.
01:19:41
Speaker
I like what you had to say about the food. I used to do a lot of camping right out west. And I always swore that the best food you ever have is when you're camping. Yeah, that hunger and shared experiences. I watch a couple guys on YouTube, like one Australian guy, one guy from New Zealand, the guy who lives in Alaska,
01:20:05
Speaker
And they make these videos like I watched one last night a guy Went out for like five days in Alaska just with a backpack and you know and like You could see him like, you know, and then he cooks and it's like you can see him eating and it's like that's like the best You know that food tastes the best out of anything because of the situation, you know Yeah, you worked hard all day. You've been hiking and you know, it could be something simple but it tastes so much better because I
01:20:34
Speaker
Yeah. Go a little, little ash in there. Yeah. Yeah. A little dirty. Yeah. What do you call those little coffee pots? Those, um, mocha pot. Yeah. Like the silver ones. I have one. It's makes one cup and I used to cat bring it with me on my backpack and everybody would say, what are you bringing that for? But then in the morning I'd have that thing going over the fire. Oh yeah. And they're like, Oh, you think you can make me a cup? Like, no.
01:21:01
Speaker
I don't really have enough. I think I'm going to do a pour over because then all I need is a big kettle of boiling water and then I can do hot chocolate or if people have different coffees because I was doing the percolator and I usually burn it.
Tools and Sponsorships
01:21:16
Speaker
Yeah. I had a buddy who had a perk like, you know, this is mom's house. He had a percolator or his mom had a percolator. And, you know, this is like in like early 20s, you know, you go out and get drunk and then wake up in the morning and have that percolator call.
01:21:33
Speaker
Yeah, those are all like tin percolators with the little glass down on the top. You can see them popping up there.
01:21:45
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you got any final words for us? I'm just, thanks for having me. I mean, it's kind of cool. We're glad to have you. We've been trying to get you on for a while. It's tough. Mostly with the kid, right? Yeah. But yeah, it's cool. Like, you know, you guys as professionals, then hobbyists, it's like this ecosystem that like everybody's kind of equal and like, you guys help us out.
01:22:10
Speaker
So, yeah, it's cool to finally get here and, you know, the podcast. Yeah, we're just we're just regular folks. All right. We'll be the last. We'll be the last we see on the podcast, I'm sure. OK, the Edd podcast about band aids and politics and these are the best episodes. Yeah. Just just imagine what we're going to get into in the next one. Yeah, exactly. You start that. Oh, my God. We didn't do our sponsors. Oh, real quick.
01:22:39
Speaker
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01:23:05
Speaker
Located in Kansas, Ridge Carbide Tools provides high quality products with outstanding customer service at a fair price. What are you cutting? In the beginning, I held this up so that I would remind myself that we wouldn't forget. Yeah. And we got to talk about our Sanders. Yeah. We want to thank Unida.
01:23:29
Speaker
We did use those quite a bit. Yeah. I don't know. I just blanked.
Closing Remarks and Promotion
01:23:32
Speaker
My brain just totally blanked out. We did a lot of scuffing. Yeah. Yeah. No, those three by fours are, I mean, they're super handy. Matt actually from first two just got one. Um, Corey, I know bought one not too long ago there. Um, it's one of those things where you really don't know what you're missing until you've tried it. Um, you tried it at maker camp. That was nice.
01:23:55
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know if maybe that's the best application like a picture frame. It's like holding a baseball, you know, and it's, it's a super easy control. Don't get the same fatigue. Yeah. You know, if you're really at it all day. I usually turn it down to the second lowest setting because it's got three, three settings. The first setting draws such a little power that the vacuum doesn't keep on.
01:24:21
Speaker
So I can't use it on that, but yeah, use it in that middle setting. I gotta try that. Yeah, it works great.
01:24:28
Speaker
So thank you to Unita. Yeah. Really appreciate it. Yeah. Well at that we will see everybody next week. I was thinking about hitting up Walter, maybe seeing if he wants to come on. I don't know. It's a little short notice, but I'm trying to get another guest. We're shooting for as many guests as possible this season. People enjoy it and we enjoy it. Yeah. People are sick of hearing just us. Like while in the shop, we did this. We're pretty boring.
01:24:57
Speaker
All right. Well, then the guest makes the content, right? Exactly. Yeah. It's like having a talk show, you know, like like so, Ed, promoting my book next time we're here. So check out Ed on Instagram. Check out butt joints dot com. That'll bring them right to your Instagram, right? Currently. Yeah. So just go to butt joints dot com.
01:25:15
Speaker
And if you have any interest in the Boy Scouts. Yeah. Oh yeah. My son has expressed some interest in the past. So see if he's still into it. Yeah. They fickle the kids. Oh, I know. And yeah, the interests are so fleeting. Well, see you next week. Thank you. Take care. We truly appreciate you listening.
01:25:36
Speaker
If you want to support the show, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Share the show with your friends or consider subscribing to our Patreon. We'll see you next week.
01:26:12
Speaker
you