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00:00:01
Joan Mitchell
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This week discuss abstract expressionist Joan Mitchell and fill you in on what's going on in both shops. Thanks for listening.
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Transcript
Podcast Sponsorship and Introductions
00:00:00
Jeffrey Krug
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, wood glue, shop carts, and everything in between. Exclusive product lines such as Lux LED lighting and Slido door hardware ensure that every project you create is built to last. Learn more at hayfla.com.
00:00:25
Jeffrey Krug
Additional sponsorship provided by Ridge Carbide. When you need the right saw blade for the job, put your trust in Ridge Carbide tools. For over 50 years, Ridge Carbide has been producing industrial saw blades designed with the exact specifications for the cutting results you expect. Before you buy, call us and we'll help you determine the right tool that meets your needs and your budget. After the sale, Ridge Carbide provides sharpening services for all your saw blades, dado sets, router bits, and jointer planer knives.
00:00:51
Jeffrey Krug
Located in Kansas, rich carbide tools provides high quality products with outstanding customer service at a fair price. What are
Western vs Japanese Saws and Folk Art Furniture
00:00:58
Jeffrey Krug
you cutting? shame book Enjoy the show. the chain
00:01:06
Jeffrey Krug
Welcome back. Just had a little handsaw shootout. Yeah, that was fun. That was fun. I should have practiced a little. Yeah, me too. ah Western saw versus Japanese saw.
00:01:22
Jeffrey Krug
I like that. So I know. ah I know. ah Well, spoiler alert, Jeff won. And he was using the ah he was using the Western saw. But I just like to control on that Japanese saw.
00:01:35
Jeffrey Krug
I don't know if we mentioned it last week. I picked up. but two I think I did. mentioned Yeah. Yeah. I I picked up that. I don't know. Chris calls it a dovetail. So I don't know what that's. Yeah. That one they call dovetail because he has a crosscut. He's got the dovetail flush cut and the flush cut. And they have he has the right over also, which is rip on one side. Crosscut on the other.
00:01:55
Jeffrey Krug
All right. Works good. I'm excited to cut some dovetails. I want to make some very rudimentary hand cut joinery pieces of furniture like inspired by folk art kind of stuff. yeah ah Really just to take the pressure off me and to take the pressure off anybody who just wants to go out and build something.
00:02:16
Jeffrey Krug
They don't want to screw it together. Maybe they want to make like a simple, ah like a serving tray, but just make it with dovetails, something like that. Yeah. And then paint it up or stain it, you could stain it. But I could see kind of a folk art thing where you have like a checker set, like a serving tray with a checker set in it. It's kind of a fun, useful thing. Yeah. We used to make a lot of that kind of stuff.
00:02:38
Jeffrey Krug
When the place that I worked at back in the 80s was called the woodworker, we made a lot of signs. Everything was hand carved. We would rough everything out with a router, then hand carve everything. And we made a lot of ah you know kind of milk paint ah early american type furniture Yeah, yeah and then as as ah his business went on eventually when he left it was like everything was just painted white you know it was just ah kitchen cabinets yeah yeah and all'll just change yeah you you know, because that kind of stuff is being produced so cheaply and quickly and just sort of mass produce. Now, whereas back then that was like there were actually people making that stuff. Now, if you want that, you could just go to Target and they have 10,000 things just like or AC more, you know, whatever. Yeah, was that.
00:03:28
Jeffrey Krug
I was at one of those Hobby Lobby. And you know, it's like there's a wooden spoon for like $4.99. Like, oh, wow, I could build that for 100 bucks. And six hours worth of work. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy some of the stuff. Like, ah it it was either from Hobby Lobby or AC Moore. My son and wife came home with like ah a sign, like a Halloween welcome sign. It's like shaped like a coffin. It's got like a skeleton hand. And it's clearly cut on a laser. Yeah.
00:03:55
Jeffrey Krug
ah It's like three millimeter plywood or something, you know, it was probably like 20 bucks. Yeah. Well, I think the um these projects are for would not obviously would not be to try to sell. They would just be to.
00:04:12
Jeffrey Krug
just a fun project to go out in the shop on a Sunday morning, you know, like that guy who wants to go out, cut some dovetails and build something. And there definitely is a difference when you see something made, even if it's simple, but made well with solid, solid wood. Yeah, it has like a, you know, then you're kind of going for like a, like a folk art piece, you're not trying to mimic something that you saw at AC Moore. Yeah. You know,
00:04:39
Jeffrey Krug
And yeah, there's something to be said about making something useful, um something that you're going to actively use. Then you're not worried about it being so perfect either. It takes a lot of pressure off because it's like, I'm going to use this going to get banged up like it's not it doesn't have to be your dovetails aren't like tight, tight, tight. yeah And you're painting it. So yeah, that's part of the idea of painting it kind of slop a little pain in the put some milk paint in there, wax it up.
Debating Abstract Art and Joan Mitchell's Influence
00:05:06
Jeffrey Krug
So we talked a little bit this week about an artist. What did you think? Did you look at it at all? Yeah, I watched both videos. So the second video was a little painful. Okay.
00:05:19
Jeffrey Krug
um So talking about Joan Mitchell, yeah and I guess she was like a mid-century abstract. Yeah, I would say an abstract expressionist. So Jeff and I were talking, we want to definitely focus on more woodworking and occasionally throw an artist in there. ah Because i I do think that this show is as much about interior your design, because let's face it, if without interior design designers, you're not doing a lot of work.
00:05:45
Jeffrey Krug
Yeah. And like, you know, you need to look at any furniture build in in the um ah context of the whole room. You know what I mean? You can't look at it as just a piece of furniture. You need to look at it as where it's going. What's the purpose? All that. Absolutely. And I i think a lot of woodworkers are artists, whether they've come to realize that yet or not.
00:06:10
Jeffrey Krug
um Generally, most woodworkers enjoy their surroundings and I think that art can really bring a lot to a surrounding. And so the and it can serve as inspiration for furniture. ah Definitely, yeah. The reason why I bought up Joan Mitchell, so I guess next week you'll pick somebody I can learn love a little bit about. Doesn't matter to me if it's a woodworker or an artist or an architect, whatever. ah But the reason why I picked Joan Mitchell was I've always found her a little challenging because it literally does look like your six year old scribbled on a on a sheet of paper. Yeah. So that's sort of my dilemma. um I can appreciate abstract art like that, but it's like, what is the measuring stick? You know, that's why that's why it was so challenging for me. And for years, I didn't really appreciate her work.
00:07:10
Jeffrey Krug
But for whatever reason, I'm seeing it now. I don't know why. and ah Like the one that one video where the guy talks about like, um
00:07:21
Jeffrey Krug
Capturing the feel of the landscape instead of the visual. He was good. That guy was really good Yeah, and you know what we'll do. We'll put links to both of those videos on the youtube video. Yeah, let's um Make a note. I'll put it in the it'll be in the audio too. It'll be in the description I want to just give that guy a shout out. I want to just see what the name. Do you remember the name of his channel? I don't he was really good and um the other The other reference was more of a news, like a news channel that was just talking about an exhibition of Joan Mitchell's. And they were kind of like, I feel like overhyping. That's what they do. I mean, I understand that she's probably a very famous and well-respected artist, but they seem to just be like, ah imperfect paintings is this channel. um Relatively small channel, 21,000 subs.
00:08:11
Jeffrey Krug
I thought that that would be kind of a good video to watch with your son. Yeah, I mean, if you can, let's like I could say the same thing about my daughter. Am I going to be able to get her interested in that? Probably not. But I thought he did a good job of explaining things and ah and making me more interested in the artist. Now what happens with with the other video, it's just sort of a lot of art speak. And so a lot of BS. I think with They were like, she grew up in an upper middle-class family and did a lot of horseback riding. Yeah, so which means she was rich, yeah which means she had the time to paint right and not have to do anything else. Well, it was like that thing that meme I sent you where it was like people who appreciate art and it's these two well-dressed guys and it's like people who do art and it's the dude in the back like wrapped in a blanket on the street smoking a cigarette with an empty bottle of wine.
00:09:02
Jeffrey Krug
And that's really true. And I think art today is I don't know where art is today, because I think the world is in such a weird place and science and AI is so far out. i I think how can art even compete, right? What makes me interested in art like historically, historically, let's not even say important, but like, just older paintings is the world was younger. And so everything seemed different back then. Yeah. And if you if you're able to afford to be an art collector,
00:09:40
Jeffrey Krug
if you're gonna buy a Joan Mitchell, well, you have like a little piece of history, right? So you have kind of what's going on in that whole timeframe of, of other abstract expressionists. Yeah. Of the time. Right. But all that being said, and like, I don't think she could have made a single painting if she wasn't somehow supported. Because I don't think she really made any money until she's very way later in life.
00:10:06
Jeffrey Krug
But all that being said, when I look at her paintings now, i I like a lot of them, but a lot of them have to do with the architecture.
Creating Personal Art for Homes
00:10:16
Jeffrey Krug
So this would be interesting for any viewer who wants to know, um think about how the architecture affects a painting, because you can't have those paintings in a in um anything that's not sort of magnificent. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like imagine that in just like your normal ah den yeah in someone's house. like Exactly. in ah In a split level, you know. um What I didn't like about her work was that it was comprised. There was a couple that I liked that had less of this. A lot of very short strokes, very close together and overlapping. Not a lot of negative space and just like
00:10:57
Jeffrey Krug
very sort of erratic feeling. The ones where there were more like um sort of sweeping lines, I liked more, but it was just, I don't know, it was I wasn't a big fan. So one of the things as a painter One of my challenges is having to have structure, right? Because I'll be like, I don't buy it. It's too easy. This doesn't this is bullshit, because it's too easy. They're just lines. Yeah. So think of it like this, though. Say you made like a cap, say you made like a server, you know, like a you know, like a 30 inches tall by 60 inches wide by 18 inches deep with shelves and everything, right?
00:11:43
Jeffrey Krug
Solid walnut. But now the drawers, or not the drawers, but now the doors in the front, instead of them being walnut, could you imagine one of those as a painting? One of those paintings as the doors? you get Yeah, as the face. Yeah, yeah. And now, now there's like some structure to it. Yeah, it's like within this very defined rectilinear shape. And these are just little vignettes in these openings you're saying?
00:12:12
Jeffrey Krug
That's so so what I'm explaining then is because I'm explaining the architecture for the painting that so like if you don't have the architecture, if you don't have that kind of a multimillion dollar home, can you still make something like that work because you've created architecture in the cabinet? Right, I've been thinking about like furniture like that for a while. Yeah, where the face is a is an abstract painting. But the shell is a functional ah piece of furniture, right? Yeah, that's a good idea. Something to think about. Yeah. Maybe we can make one one day. Yeah. Her color choice to I don't know. Like I said, i I didn't like her work for years. And for whatever reason, I'm, I'm noticing it. You know what I mean? And now that I'm, I'm looking at it more, of course, you know, YouTube is just serving me up more and more Joan Mitchell.
00:13:08
Jeffrey Krug
Maybe ill I'll pull up the um the video. I'll turn the sound off because we don't want to get copyright struck.
00:13:21
Jeffrey Krug
Oh, there we go. We're getting a nice ad for or some kind of shoes. So this is the second video. They they showed more art in this one. So we're looking at a ah video now that is just full of color, just just are, you know, paintings are just full of color, blues, oranges, whites, you know, like like this. Yeah, I know what you're saying. Yeah, look at that. Like what? it I know art is supposed to be interpreted by the individual, but it's like this one. I like the blue one with a little bit of yellow. This has the negative space around the outside like this. Yeah. This one is even not the worst, but
00:14:06
Jeffrey Krug
um How do I know that it's good? You know what I mean? Like, I wanna... I don't think you do. That's the other thing, too, is... Couldn't anybody, yes, anybody could make that. I think the only reason why Joan Mitchell was able to make that is because she was able to afford to make that. yeah And then what happens, so I do think a lot of people could make that. Meaning I think- I could pay 500 paintings just like that and a couple of them are bound to be good to the general public. You know, people will be like, wow, that's cool. So that's kind of what I wanted to bring up too because just because like almost nobody can afford these paintings, right? They're millions of dollars. okay
00:14:44
Jeffrey Krug
I can't afford those paintings. But if you're interested in in ah your home, interior your into you know whatever your interior space is, and you'd like to bring art into it. Make it yourself? You can make it yourself. yeah And especially if you're a woodworker, because then you can make a very simple ah gold leaf frame, because a lot of times you'll just have a very simple frame.
00:15:08
Jeffrey Krug
The idea of buying original art like that is ludicrous, unless you can somehow afford it. And even buying paintings that are, you know, $10,000 and $20,000, $30,000 is kind of crazy and unless That's just kind of money. Like, yeah, I have clients who would be like, it's that's not even money to them. Right. And so they'll spend that kind of money. But for me, I would never spend that kind of money on a painting. You could use ten thousand dollars in a much more constructive way somewhere in your house. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I guess the point is. Anybody can make can make art and part of looking at part of
00:15:50
Jeffrey Krug
making halfway decent art is just to look at a lot of art. It's just no different than reading a lot of books if you want to be a writer like that. I love it. I love that color though. The Yeah, like the color. This is nice, but so that's Yeah, totally agree. It's very hard to grasp that and and I I just like it because
00:16:16
Jeffrey Krug
This almost this like almost resembles like a field of flowers or something. This feels like it has like a bit of a form, but some of them... Well, I wouldn't be surprised because of your taste in music that you start to gravitate towards some of this stuff. ah As you... Like this, I like. More than... you know And this.
00:16:38
Jeffrey Krug
Like these ones, I seem
Home Improvement and Creative DIY Projects
00:16:39
Jeffrey Krug
to like that. I don't know. They have a bit of more of like a feathery kind of edge to the to them. But um that one I like. This is a very abstract conversation because people can't see these paintings. Yeah. Talking about it. I'm trying to figure out how I can get on the video version um like showing what we're looking at. I don't think you're allowed to do that because it's copyright. Well, yeah, it couldn't be like a YouTube video, but um if we were like just pulling stuff up. Well, what you could do is on a website post. I mean, we're not going to do that, but we could always put those up. um But we'll have links to these two videos. Yeah. And you can look at them. And and my feeling is this woman looks um like she's a miserable a person to deal with. I agree. I do think I do think, though, that the the idea that people can make art for their own home
00:17:33
Jeffrey Krug
And, and also have their children make art like big paintings. That's even better than going out and buying like a painting at wherever you buy paintings today. I don't know. Home goods. Yeah. Like if you go to home goods, home goods, I'd rather, you know, go to home goods, buy that painting, paint paint over, top of it paint over it with white gesso or white paint or whatever.
00:17:57
Jeffrey Krug
and then just give your kid a couple of tubes of paint and then bring it back to the shop and make a gold leaf frame for it. Yeah, like this. This looks like something that my son. Yeah. Yeah, that one's not my favorite, but some of her stuff I really like. Like these back here. I can't see what's going on, but they just look like. All blue. Well, so then then and and we can get off of this, but the the last thing I'll say is um
00:18:27
Jeffrey Krug
looking at a realistic landscape, ah I'll spend i'll spend more ah spend less time looking at a perfect painting of a real landscape than I would one of those. Because the real landscape is never going to be as good as a real landscape in life. yeah And I've already seen it. So with the with the abstraction,
00:18:56
Jeffrey Krug
It's sort of like you're looking at the movement of the painter. You're looking at the the the I don't know. It's there's something more to it in my for me. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I can definitely appreciate abstract art. Maybe it's just not her style that yeah like.
00:19:19
Jeffrey Krug
Yeah, i'm I'm totally not surprised. i've I've known about her work for decades, and it hasn't been until recently that something about it is is like, I don't know, i'm I'm liking something about it. Maybe it's just the freedom. Part of it too, I think, is that there's a certain amount of confidence to paint something like that. Like, how do you know if it's good? Confidence or arrogance? Both, probably.
00:19:47
Jeffrey Krug
No, so anyway, I think I have some like look There we go. There we go. We got a joe mitchell right there That's right. That's a hunter crew. I think that's that's like supposed to be something So now you just gotta it's a good Godzilla That's a sheep. That's a shin Godzilla. I like the one I like the abstraction better Even though it might not you know, that's abstract looks like volcanoes based in something real yeah, yeah um Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about Basquiat because I feel sort of the same way about that. It's like it's so rudimentary. What makes you... Oh, because you had a client who had a few Basquiat's. Well, I was thinking... Yeah, and none of them are actual Basquiat's, ah boskyats but he he's an artist and he's heavily, heavily inspired by Basquiat. I was thinking he might be good to have on. We could talk about Basquiat. I thought... that you had a client that actually had real Basquiat? No, no, we he had a big it's that whatever his final painting was, the writer on death or whatever it's called something like that. ah But it's not ah we we went back and I was asking him about it's not because you said it's like a 30 million dollar. Did you did you ever do that epoxy table for them? No, no, his girlfriend took it back. I was going to say because that looked like a nightmare to me. Yeah, no, then she didn't want to spend the money.
00:21:05
Jeffrey Krug
okay But he's a cool dude, and he loves Basquiat, and his paintings are all very reminiscent of Basquiat. Yeah, I talked to him. I mean, the funny thing is a lot of people rip off Basquiat. Yeah. ah Because it's a doable thing. Yeah, it's again, it's like so rudimentary. It's really more about composition than like than technical skill. um Yeah, I don't know. i
00:21:37
Jeffrey Krug
I don't I saw the movie Basquiat, Julian Schnabel made the movie Basquiat's pretty good. Julian Schnabel is also a painter. um Is it a documentary or like a biopic?
00:21:49
Jeffrey Krug
no who was who ah you know who was in it was um David Bowie was in it. David Bowie played Andy Warhol, I think. okay So I like the Basquiat paintings when he and Warhol collaborated towards the end of both of their lives. And the reason for that is you get the structure of Warhol with these really of clean graphics with the abstraction of Basquiat. So that again, it's that clean graphic holds the abstraction together for me. Right. So those are my favorite paintings of Basquiat's. But I don't know. I still I I do like Basquiat's work. I like sort of like the macabre nature of them. They're kind of like freaky a little bit, you know,
00:22:40
Jeffrey Krug
Yeah, I don't know. i I like the colors. You should watch the movie. It's a pretty decent movie. Yeah. ah It's an old movie now. It's probably 25 years old. Yeah, because David Bowie's been dead for. Yeah. What a decade now, at least. Yeah, at least. But yes, I mean, I think there's so many different and that's the other thing with abstract artists. There's so many different abstract artists and there's so many different abstract artists that look kind of similar. Like, so if you if you looked at Basquiat and you, and you knew who Joan Dupofé is, you would say, Oh, there's the connection. So Basquiat didn't, he didn't just come out of from outer space or from nowhere.
00:23:25
Jeffrey Krug
his mother would take him to museums all the time. So he had an art background. right And then when he started to do street art, he was heavily influenced by what he was seeing in the museums. So a lot of people like to to kind of go on and on about the raw nature of the streets and this young new African-American artist on the scene when in reality he was drawing from high-end museums right and well-known artists. um But I do like i like his work, and I also like what was going on in the art scene back then with um with him. and
00:24:05
Jeffrey Krug
It was what, like the late 70s, early 80s? More like the mid to late 80s. I think that I think that Warhol died around 89 or something like that. ah But, you know, like Keith Haring, you know, Keith Haring is. ah it Sounds familiar. He would do. um He would do all these subway murals. Kind of like stick figures. You'll know Keith Haring as soon as you see it. ah Yeah, I think I know. I think I know what you're talking about. Yeah. Like this. Is this Warhol Basquiat? Yeah. So you see the graphic there. Yeah.
00:24:48
Jeffrey Krug
and the GE.
00:24:52
Jeffrey Krug
Paramount. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. So did you ah did you do any work for that client? No. Really? So you just went, that was a long time ago. Yeah, we went to measure some stuff. They need a designer. I ah gave him some info. And um he's a cool guy. He's Bruce Springsteen's producer.
00:25:17
Jeffrey Krug
Really? He's a real like real famous producer. Wow. He's had like some huge hit songs. Where's that? Where's he's he's over by me, isn't he? ah Yeah, without giving away too much info. He's actually he's pretty close to you. Really? Yeah. Huh? Like, maybe less than a mile. Wow. Yeah.
00:25:43
Jeffrey Krug
pretty wild. Yeah, really, really cool, dude. Well, yeah, I'd i'd love to meet him. Yeah, that'd be that'd be fun. Yeah, it'd be good to have an in person guest too. It's been a long time. Yeah. Are you still thinking about getting getting this to work so we can have zoom? Oh, yeah, yeah, it's ready to go. We just have to it's all about scheduling. We got to find who we want to have on and then make sure that you know, because our schedule is kind of loose. So we got to make sure that it aligns with I've been trying to ah get over here now at 1.30 on Wednesdays. I mean, I always text you yeah Monday morning, um but 1.30 gives me like my morning and my feeling is it gives you your morning. Yeah, it's good because then this runs into the end of the day. Yeah. So we usually finish um shooting by 2.45, 3 o'clock, then we got an hour here and then stop and go home. Yeah. Yeah. So what else are you working on?
00:26:41
Jeffrey Krug
ah So we're working on the boxes and I'm having issues again. I'm i'm officially I'm done after this I know I said it I said it already but I'm gonna text Adam him and be like listen I just want to give you as much of a heads up as possible like I'm done. Yeah, I don't blame you I don't blame you. I mean, because it's just there's always an issue. Yeah, I don't know. This job is like cursed. Yeah. um So now what's happening is the laser is burning the mirrors. um So we were running into issues and um I tried a bunch of things and then like I got in there with a flashlight and and looked at the mirrors and the mirrors have burn marks where the laser beam is hitting them.
00:27:24
Jeffrey Krug
So if you don't know how to c o two how a CO2 laser works, there's a tube in the back that generates a um tube filled with CO2, generates a laser beam, hits one mirror, bounces to another mirror, hits another mirror, bounces down through a lens, and the lens focuses it into a specific diameter based on the ah diameter of the lens, and that's what cuts or engraves.
00:27:50
Jeffrey Krug
so where the beam is hitting these three mirrors, there's a burn mark. And you know you can imagine if it's not a perfectly um reflective mirror, you're gonna lose some beam strength. So now the boxes aren't cutting out properly. So I'm getting some areas are cutting, some areas are not. And so I had a ah set of mirrors that I had leftover from the old laser. I put those in and ran some tests, burnt.
00:28:20
Jeffrey Krug
bought new mirrors, different style mirrors with a different coating, put them in this morning, ran a couple tests, burnt. So I either heard you reading an email or a voicemail or something. Are they saying that they're something dirty like the there's? um She said so I finally I called and um
00:28:45
Jeffrey Krug
and tried to get ahold of them today. I was on hold for 50 minutes with full spectrum laser and then the call miraculously disconnected. um Hello, thank you for reaching out to us. Can you send any examples of the burnt mirrors? They shouldn't be burning unless either something is misaligned or debris from the material you're cutting is getting on them and being burnt on. So I sent the pictures over. I mean, you can see. gee So this is the first mirror.
00:29:14
Jeffrey Krug
This is the second mirror and this is the third mirror. And it's almost like it's like annealed from the heat. Yeah. um And, you know.
00:29:26
Jeffrey Krug
I said to her, I said, I've run hundreds of hours without this happening on this and other lasers. I'm getting good extraction and staying up on cleaning. So, you know, it's not like I'm letting it get dirty in there. It's not like the smoke is building up to the point. So initially we had issues with extraction. So I thought that that's why the first batch of lens the first lenses had those burn marks. I thought the smoke got burnt onto the things. so um but Remedied the extraction. It's still happening.
00:29:56
Jeffrey Krug
Well, sounds like they're gonna hopefully send you some mirrors and maybe a some other troubleshooting because it seems like. I don't know. I mean, I i killed a set of $30 mirrors this morning. So it's like, and I didn't even cut, you know, I should have cut 64, 70 boxes today and I cut like eight, 10, maybe not even.
00:30:21
Jeffrey Krug
That's a tough job. Yeah. So I don't blame you. Not even halfway done with the cutting yet. We haven't even gotten into the walnut. Oh, my gosh. ah When is this supposed to wrap up mid December? At least your head of the game. That's what I said the last time. So we'll see. It was all hands on deck last time.
Woodworking Projects and Future Plans
00:30:41
Jeffrey Krug
Yeah. So we have 85 cherry boxes that are fully assembled, ready to be sanded.
00:30:47
Jeffrey Krug
We have another 85 plus or minus some more that are ready to be um hinged with the lid. So those will be ready to be sanded. And I have about, um I want to say there's like 65 or 70 on that table that need to be, they're cut. They need to be processed to the point of assembly. And they're all sold out. So you got 500 you have to do. Yeah. 250 and 250. All right.
00:31:15
Jeffrey Krug
Well, at least you know you're not going to do it again. So now you just got to get through it. Yeah. um Yeah. So we'll see. I don't know why it's doing it all of a sudden. I don't know if the laser is running too hot. Like, you know, like there's too much power coming out of it. It's reading the correct milliamps when it's running 26 milliamps. So I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what full spectrum has to say.
00:31:40
Jeffrey Krug
Yeah, hopefully you can actually get them on a call like a video call or something. Yeah. um So I paid when I bought the laser, I paid for like premium support or something. So I jumped to the front of the line. You know, when I saw that that was offered, I was like, yes, I'm yeah, it was and it was cheap. It was like 250 or 500 bucks or something. um So yeah, we'll see. Yeah, but front of the line and you still get put on hold for 40 minutes. Well, the email they returned in like in less than an hour. Okay. So.
00:32:11
Jeffrey Krug
So i we'll see. I got the new air dryer that showed up today. I think we might have talked about that last week, or i was taught I was talking about getting a new air dryer. So that finally showed up. Did you sell the one? No, it's still there. So if anybody's interested, I have a Harbor Freight air dryer.
00:32:27
Jeffrey Krug
um It works fine. It's just it can't. It's not a high temperature air dryer. So my compressor puts out very hot air because it's a two stage and there's no after cooler. So I needed a high temperature unit. Would you pay for the the new one?
00:32:47
Jeffrey Krug
2,700, 2,800. I think Walter has the same air dryer yes as the Harbor Freight one. Yep. I guess it works for him. Yeah. And it for me, it works under normal circumstances. But when we're running the boxes, that compressor runs all day. you know I'm running 60, 70 PSI like eight for eight or 10 hours through the laser. So it cycles on and off every Um, you know, it's 80 gallon tank and probably every 15, 20 minutes. So it's creating a lot of moisture. Um, and it just can't keep up. And that's really bad for the laser too is water getting in. I think that could be the issue. No, because you know, I'm running samples where I just cut two boxes and the air is all dry because I'm not like running it real hard and same issue.
00:33:41
Jeffrey Krug
I have a question. I'm doing work on my kitchen right now. This is kind of um it's kind of a ass renovation on my kitchen because we put some new windows in and eventually I want to just do a whole new kitchen, but I had to retrim the windows on the inside and I took down all the old kitchen cabinets, took down the- All of them? Not all of them, only on that one wall. Oh, okay.
00:34:11
Jeffrey Krug
Uh, and then I took down the tile backsplash, which was glued to the sheetrock and I got all the glue off. What'd you take that? You had to take it to the dump. No. Threw it in the woods. Yeah. Threw it in the woods. Um, no, I, uh, I threw it in the garbage can. We have these gigantic garbage cans. Yeah. So it's, that's my mission is to keep that those things, up fill those things up. Yeah.
00:34:37
Jeffrey Krug
And so it's going out tonight. Me too. I put my windows in there. You can get anything. If you can cut. I go out there with a sawzall, circular saw cut everything up. They don't care. It's not like when they pick them up by hand where they're looking at what's in there. It's just heavy because you got the tile in there. Oh yeah. My can is actually broken because I've.
00:34:54
Jeffrey Krug
Did they give you a new one? No, if I asked, they would. Yeah. The back is like totally cracked. oh Mine's mine's getting beat up, I think, from the way the machine picks it up. Yeah, because it it squeezes it. Yeah. So um so I got everything in there and I don't think we're going to put kitchen cabinets back. I think we're going to put shelves like open shelves. Yeah. And we're and my wife is going through like a purge of like getting rid of stuff she doesn't use.
00:35:21
Jeffrey Krug
she she's got a couple of pots that she really likes. We bought one, we bought the, it's a La Croixe maybe. oh yeah ah Expensive but nice. And so like that's my feeling. Get a few good things and get rid of all the crap. Because you don't use the crap because you got one good thing, you don't want to use it. And anyway,
00:35:44
Jeffrey Krug
so what I'm, I got rid of, you know, I basically got the walls cleaned. I was going to put Azek down. but for backsplash. But I had all this poplar. So I just used poplar and double primed it. And on top of the backsplash, I'm putting a B board. Okay. And it's just a quarter inch MDF. It's really thin it might even be 13 16. So it's gonna have a wave in it. You know what I mean? Yeah.
00:36:15
Jeffrey Krug
So i you know I can nail it to the studs, but what would you use? if Would you glue it too? And what would you use? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'd use PL. You would. So if you were going to use PL, would you just use a couple of dabs like every 12 inches? Or would you do a? I'd do like a squiggle, you know? Squiggle, OK. Like around the the border and then fill it in with like a big squiggle. OK. And so the idea there is. And I would cross-nail it into the sheetrock. Yeah, OK. Pinch nail it. Yeah.
00:36:44
Jeffrey Krug
yeahp Now I can hit studs, but I'll pinch nail too. Yeah. You know, if you could put a straight edge on it and see where it needs it and where it doesn't, you know what I mean? But you just want to hold it until that glue sets and you might, you know, sometimes you don't want to follow the wall. Sometimes you do want to follow the wall. So it's kind of. Yeah. And if you put a ah good amount of P.L., you can use that as like a liquid shim. Sure. And if you're going to put shelves on top, especially where the shelves are, that's where you want to make sure that it's nice and flat.
00:37:12
Jeffrey Krug
Well, for the, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, it's the shelf thing, I might actually build almost like a bench. Like if you just like think of just like a 60 inch run with two legs. Oh, and it'll sit on the countertop. And just put that right on the countertop. Yeah. And then this is like kind of temporary. So this could be here for a year or 10 years. 20 years.
00:37:41
Jeffrey Krug
But anyway, so that's good. The reason why i I was asking too is because, you know, you sometimes use glue and then you're like, oh man, I wish I didn't use glue. But I think if I end up going into this, I think if I like really redo this kitchen, I'll go down to the studs. Yeah. And even if you rip off the face of the sheetrock, like you could, you could spackle that in. It's not that big of a deal. Yeah, I definitely could do that. But I think I mean, because quarter inch, you don't have a lot of meat to nail now. So like, that could pull right off the nail and the nail will just pull right through the material. Yeah, so I'll go pick up some peel glue. I'm putting that up. So I got the um everything's funky. Everything's a puzzle, you know. And so ah
00:38:26
Jeffrey Krug
you know, like even like underneath the cabinets, there was no sheetrock. So I'm, you know, puzzling in the sheetrock where the cabinets were. Oh, yeah. um And it's, it's always uncomfortable working above a countertop because it's like a weird height space. Like it's not quite tall enough to work. ah It's actually too short to work on top of the counter and to lean off of the ladder. It's like, so yesterday, I was like, Wow, I can't believe how tired I am just from doing this kind of demolition construction type work. Yeah, I'm really slacking on my kitchen. I haven't really done anything in a while. You got you got a Thanksgiving coming up quick. Yeah, so I got four weeks or whatever it is. is your Are all your cabinets done? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So what needs to be done? Painting and stuff? I got to do the door. Yeah, painting, the floor, the doors, the trim. You won't call Lou? Lou. The painter? I don't think he's painting anymore. I was wondering about that. Yeah.
00:39:23
Jeffrey Krug
He did a great job. yeah How do you know he's not painting anymore? I had some clients reach out to him. and okay yeah That'd be a good use of money. He was good. Yeah. um you know My whole thing was like I've covered up so much of the walls now that it shouldn't be too bad to paint. like it's just Everything has one coat of primer. Yeah, and I haven't put any panels on. okay So I don't have to cut tight to any of the cabinets yet. Oh, nice. um and there's no trim on, so the painting should go relatively fast. But, you know, I just gotta do it. What would you use on a ceiling of a kitchen that had been used hard for the last 20 years without an oven vent? So there's, we don't have and ah we don't have any oven vents in our house. Yeah. Do you have an oven vent? No, I just have like a recirculator on, I have like a microwave over the stove.
00:40:21
Jeffrey Krug
um I don't know. I mean, the easy answer is in there, but I don't want to use it. Yeah, you know, it's gonna fly all over the place where it's gonna fly and it's gonna smell. Yeah, it's like that's a commitment. um You might just have to clean it and then sand it a little bit and then use a good primer and then... maybe'll ceiling but Maybe I'll just do a test with Freshstar. Drop ceiling. Just go right over top of it. I can't stand drop ceilings. You could put beadboard on the ceiling. Yeah. Zinsir would be the way to go. Yeah. But that is that is messy. I think that stuff's like 100 bucks a can now too.
00:41:06
Jeffrey Krug
Yeah, I bought a quart of it a while back and it was like $35. So maybe it's more than 100 bucks, 120. But that's the so doing the, you know, like I trimmed out the window, that was easy because the one window, the jams aren't really perfectly flush with everything's old, you know,
00:41:29
Jeffrey Krug
The nice thing about the one window, though, is I was just able to make a frame just with pocket hole screws, backband it, and then just nail it right to the chin. Oh, yeah. That's the best way. Yeah, then it like worked out well. But the other one's a bay window, and it's you know you've got there's a lot of different levels, so it's going to be a real puzzle. But I'm in the same boat that you are, trying to get this done for Thanksgiving. Yeah. um I got rid of my sash weights, finally. I pulled those out. like Two years ago, I put them up on Facebook for free, so I pulled out like 24, 28 sash weights. Why won't you just take them to the metal recycling? Oh, cast iron's not worth anything. No, no, no, just just throw them in the pit. Just throw them in the... Oh, ah well, so originally I was saving them for Freddie from period craftsman. Okay. He got out of restoration, and um so they'd just been sitting in like a Rubbermaid container on my porch. How heavy is one?
00:42:24
Jeffrey Krug
They're like five pounds each. Yeah. Wow. Like my wife and I moved it to put it on the porch because I chose I told the guy, I'll put him on the porch, you just pick him up. And it was heavy. It was really heavy. Wow. um So the guy came, got him and he he refused to leave without giving me 30 bucks. Oh, nice. I was like, that's cool. He's like, I got to buy these all the time. I didn't even ask him for what. Yeah, I'd be curious to know. Actually, I know people use them for fishing, like for bottom fishing. That makes sense. um So I don't know, maybe that, or maybe he restores windows, I'm not sure. So your windows are in, they're not trimmed on the inside yet? No. And when you put them in, you didn't have to deal with any exterior trim because of the replacements? Yeah, there's storm windows out there. Okay. Yeah. Which I'd love to get taken off. If you did that, would you have to deal with the siding on your house?
00:43:21
Jeffrey Krug
I'd have to like do some sort of aluminum rack. Yeah. You couldn't you couldn't come up with like an Azek frame with like a like a J channel cut out on one side or something. i Probably not. It's the juice isn't worth the squeeze. I have aluminum siding. I got you. Like it's aluminum with asbestos underneath with like clapboards underneath that or shakes. It's a lot.
00:43:46
Jeffrey Krug
It's when I was in construction years ago, we used to do that. Like we'd go over we'd go over old asbestos ah siding with Vinyl no, we'd go with we yeah, we'd go over at first though with ah styrofoam. Yeah, it was like ah They were like three by fives or five or something. Yeah. Yeah, so we'd go over it with that and then we'd go over it with vinyl. Mm-hmm. That was like a ah a Lot of jobs we did in the late 80s doing that kind of work Yeah, there's really not any good reason to strip it all the way down, you know But you can only do that so many times. Yeah
00:44:23
Jeffrey Krug
I mean, if I were to if I were to build a house today, I'd probably put vinyl shake. I like the way vinyl shake looks. Yeah. What about you? Um, do I have unlimited budget? Okay, let's talk about that then because I'm I was talking about a limited budget but unlimited budget unlimited budget. I like like cedar clavards. I like to look at that. But then you got to paint it.
00:44:46
Jeffrey Krug
Well, if I have an unlimited budget, somebody else is doing that. That's true. I still can't think like an unlimited budget. Yeah. Yeah. Like if I'm doing my house now, vinyl. Would you do clapboards or shake? um I like the look of the shake. the yeah What do they call it? Cedar impressions. Yeah. And it goes into a corner board. Yeah. A lot of people do that on the front and then they do regular ah vinyl on the other three sides just because the Cedar impressions is more expensive.
00:45:16
Jeffrey Krug
Yeah, no, I'm I'm just always looking at ah maintenance, too. Yeah. Yeah, the vinyl will fade over time, but that's really it. I think that, you know, you get 20, 30 years out of it, probably. And if you go with a neutral color, you know, it's did you have to put a roof on your house? No, it's probably got another five years, at least five or have you had to do any patching on it? No. Can you walk your roof? I haven't Oh, God, I got two by four on 24 inch centers.
00:45:47
Jeffrey Krug
really for your for your roof rafters yeah that was pretty standard back or two by six two by six that might be two so two by six back in the in that time period that's pretty much what they all are but is it a pretty steep roof yeah i think it's a 12 on 12 wow yeah and it's there's no way to get up there unless you go up with an extension line or something i can walk out of like a dormer which I'm not doing that. Yeah, well, that's the thing. You get to ah a certain age if you're not comfortable with it, don't do it going up on a roof. I ah i think I talked about cleaning my roof. And yeah, yeah, that worked out really well. But I yeah
00:46:29
Jeffrey Krug
I felt when I was doing i was like, okay, this is like, as as high as I want to go. And this is like, I was using your ladder. And um I was originally going to do it from the roof. And i I didn't even want to go up on the barn roof, which is basically flat. But just, I don't know. Once you start thinking that way, it's not good to do it. Yeah, I mean, the stuff that I did in the past, I was never I never enjoyed it. But I would never do it now.
00:46:54
Jeffrey Krug
Well, it's not worth it. That's for sure. Like the idea of like getting hurt. Yeah. Just you're just better hiring somebody who can ah actually do it with the right equipment and is comfortable doing it. Yeah. I follow this guy, Donnie, Donnie Meyer Studio. He's a painter, like a residential painter. I met him at New Doors.
00:47:12
Jeffrey Krug
really cool guy. um He'd be fun to have on. But he put up a story yesterday and he was like painting a roof and he was like, this is what $300 an hour looks like. And it's like, yeah, you gotta, if you're gonna do it, you gotta, to you better be getting paid for it. Well, the painting is just the the last part. Look, think of all the prep that he's got to do before that. Oh, yeah. I mean,
00:47:34
Jeffrey Krug
Yeah, that's not for me. I don't mind painting, but I don't like being up. I don't really like painting outside. And I definitely don't like painting in uncomfortable places. Yeah, I really don't like painting. It's too messy. I like the fact that you can listen to a podcast or it's like ah you're getting something done and you're taking a mental break. You can listen to a book or you know, I did my fair share of painting this summer with that window.
00:48:00
Jeffrey Krug
ah and some other things around the house. i I just do all the work to my house because it's like impossible to find anybody to to do anything. um Yeah, it costs. It's ah prohibitively expensive. Have you had anything done to your house by anybody? Well, I had the garage ripped down, I had the fence done. Yeah. But you haven't had any like interior your work done to your house? No. I had the plumbing. I had some plumbing work done in the kitchen. Like they replaced the cast iron stack with PVC.
00:48:37
Jeffrey Krug
But that's really it. You wouldn't do that. ah That's like a little bit. You know, having seen it done, I think I could handle it. But it was one of those things where, you know, it was just like it had to get done. yeah And that was the way to get it done was to pay somebody else to do it.
00:48:54
Jeffrey Krug
You know, cost me like I forget four grand or something. Oh, man. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. Things get expensive quick. And then the dude asked for more money. Like he was like, well, it kind of took longer than I expected. And it was like, you know, my wife's coworker's boyfriend, who's this guy's a dipshit. And, you know, he kind of ah had me with my back against the wall, not my back against the wall, but he caught me off guard. If it was like over text, I would have been like, fuck you.
00:49:23
Jeffrey Krug
ah I'm a softy on the inside. Well, it's it's tough when you get caught like that. Yeah. It's like you don't have a minute to think about it. Like, wait, wait, this is weird. I'm going to think about this one a little bit before. Yeah. ah If I ever get any kind of an email or or text, I just that I'm sort of questioning what's the rush? I don't need to respond to that. Yeah. I'll think about it for a little while. Well, it's good to make the other person sweat a little bit, too, sometimes. That's true. Like, I'm going to give it a couple of days, a couple of days.
00:49:52
Jeffrey Krug
What else you're working on? We've got those beds and finishing now. I've been spraying the the blue, which is a nice color. um So those need ah certain parts are done because it's like the back of the bed, which is on the inside. So I just wanted some color on there. They don't have to be super nice. I don't want it to be bad by any means, but they just need to be coated. They don't need to be like pieces of glass.
00:50:18
Jeffrey Krug
So those are done, but the show parts need one or maybe two more coats. We'll see. um And then that's gone out. I have a reception desk. We're getting ready to start. I should have material on that maybe tomorrow. So just a melamine commercial reception desk. Nice. And then you'll just have ah time to get the boxes done.
00:50:40
Jeffrey Krug
Yeah, we got that. I should be doing that island. I was supposed to hear back from her today. um Just confirming all the details. we We should be starting that soon, too. I got another kitchen on the horizon. So we'll see the kitchen. That'll be exciting. Yeah.
00:50:58
Jeffrey Krug
I had a question about the table. How's the table doing? The dining table. Good. The finish is still curing. You know, it takes a long time. So that does does that mean you're not using it? ah We just used it for the first time on Saturday or Sunday, but with a tablecloth. And how many coats of finish? I've put on an additional two or three since I brought it home.
00:51:27
Jeffrey Krug
And this is the ah real milk paint. Pure tongue oil. Pure tongue oil. Yes. It's a citrus smell. Yeah, so these subsequent coats I've actually cut with some ah mineral spirits just to get it, you know, it's less finish and more solvent to get it to to gas off faster. is that Is that like filling your house with a heavy smell? It's smelly. It's not too bad though. All right. Well, you're lucky because it's been really
Commuting, Career Changes, and Work-Life Balance
00:51:54
Jeffrey Krug
nice. ah You can have the windows open. Yeah.
00:51:57
Jeffrey Krug
It's crazy 75 degrees here in Jersey today. Yeah, which is I mean, it's almost the end of October, October 23. That's nuts. Tomorrow cools down a little bit. Yeah, sometimes Halloween here is like hot. Yeah, and sometimes it's cold. But yeah, so these these coats at home I've been putting on with four steel wool.
00:52:19
Jeffrey Krug
So that's giving it a little burnish and working in the- Are you doing the whole table or just the top of four coats? Just the top. Yeah, I was gonna say. Yeah. So does the base just have one coat? ah Well, it's not one per se, it's multiple coats over one or two days. And you're you're you're convinced that that'll ah hold up? Oh, yeah, I know for a fact because I i have stuff that I finished in that way.
00:52:45
Jeffrey Krug
No, no food. Like if you spilt red wine on it, no problem. Spilt chicken grease on it. No problem. Really? So it's it's it's like water locks. It's like, you know, water locks. I feel like you'll get a view leave. Okay, you leave a drink on it overnight with a water. What happens with a water ring? No water ring? No. Wow.
00:53:09
Jeffrey Krug
Yeah, you'll definitely get a water ring with water locks. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Like they talk about using I use it on fine furniture or what I consider like nice pieces of furniture. I would never put water locks on the floor. And I see they they have commercials for it all the time. How many coats are you doing? On the tops. I'm doing like four and six. I'm doing a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Like my cutting board is made out of Uh, sapele and maple. It's finished with tongue oil. If you're the same exact tongue oil, you cut beets, strawberries, any of that stuff. There's no stain, nothing. How do you wash it? Just a hot, just hot water. Hot water? Yeah. No soap? No. But I don't, I'm not cutting meat on there. and What do you do? Oh, so you're using a nylon board for cutting meat? Yeah, I have like a, yeah, big, uh, rigid plastic one. I have some of those flexible ones that I use for just like little crap. I'll cut, um, like cooked,
00:54:05
Jeffrey Krug
meat on it sometimes. Like if I had like chicken thighs or something that I'm chopping up, I might do it on there. But not raw meat that I have to like no like wash it with. Yeah, but that's what I was talking about. Like, ah just the just the oils from the from the cooked meat, you know, sometimes can get in there and couldn't also be hard to wash off.
00:54:26
Jeffrey Krug
Yeah, no, this is you just wipe it off with some hot just like a paper towel with hot water. So this this tongue oil is food safe once it's cured. Yeah, I think they say every finishes food safe once it's cured. As long as it's not a film finish that could break off and get into your food like you wouldn't want to use a polyurethane on a cutting board. Yeah, it wouldn't look very well. Yeah. were good Oh, yeah, it would be all chopped up. But yeah, what's going on?
00:54:51
Jeffrey Krug
ah
00:54:54
Jeffrey Krug
I got back on the bike this week, we can't not talk about bikes. Okay, I was going to ask you, but I was like, should I not go there? Yeah, Ed Johns is calling it the American Bicycle Podcast. um Yeah, so last week I didn't go out at all, just recovering from maker camp, eating bad and the schedule. and So Sunday we actually went out, myself, Allie and Hunter,
00:55:17
Jeffrey Krug
um Ali took my old bike, which is that, you know, it doesn't really work. It's too big for her. So she can't really get off it very well, but ah took him out. He's still on training wheels trying to learn. So we parked um over Wetside, Leonardo and rode the path a little bit. And then we um we rode down to my sister-in-law's house and then he sort of had enough. He was falling and getting real frustrated and upset.
00:55:46
Jeffrey Krug
It's hard to keep up when you're on training wheels. Yeah. So like, I got my kids off training wheels very early, completely for selfish reasons, because I wanted them to be able to keep up. Yeah. And um the trick to it is you put the seat down so they can touch the ground with bent knees. Yeah, I've tried it, but he just, yeah, it's a battle.
00:56:07
Jeffrey Krug
All right. I got my daughter. to I mean, that was like my thing is like ah just taking their training wheels off. I'm like, yeah, just like just like push around with your feet and then get it enough speed. You can lift your feet up and and the bike will balance itself. It's a gyroscope. You know, the faster you go.
00:56:22
Jeffrey Krug
the more the bike balances on its own. Sure. um But, you know, he's sick, so. Sometimes, also, like a baseball field, like, um because the clay is hard, ah it's just nicer to fall on dirt yeah or grass or whatever ah than it is on Macadam. Macadam. So that's what I did with Olivia. I would take her somewhere where, I think, right over in Navishing School, because it's just like a hard packed crummy grass field, like, not real grass.
00:56:51
Jeffrey Krug
And once, you know, once they got that, but I have pictures, I think Jack might've not even been five. Like he was really tiny. Like he almost looked like he was in the circus. People would like laugh, you know, like, what's this kid doing?
00:57:03
Jeffrey Krug
But yeah, the um but training wheels just slow you down. There's nothing fun about riding a bike with training wheels. And I have them up so that it's not like the bike just sits there. But then he leans. Yeah, but it's I guess it's kind of you're supposed to get it to where neither of them are on the ground. It just kind of catches the bike from falling. um And we're trying to teach him, like you know you got to like if you start to lean too far this way, you've got to try and correct yourself and lean back the other way. but you know, I raised the seat up so that because the seat was so low that his feet would touch the ground, but then you can't really pedal right. Yeah, I agree. um I actually raised the seat on my bike.
00:57:44
Jeffrey Krug
And because it it like I felt like my knee was a little too bent at the very bottom of the thing you want extension. Yeah about an inch and a half. you You want your leg almost to be like that like not just a slight just a slight bend. Yeah. So you know well you you go for your comfort but you don't want to be.
00:58:04
Jeffrey Krug
you know, where your knees are up in your chest when you're you're riding, you don't get no power, you don't get any power. I still feel like my hands, you know, my hands now, I feel like I have even more pressure on my hands because I'm up a little bit higher. So I'm like leaning forward a little bit more. I don't know.
00:58:19
Jeffrey Krug
And so that's the first and last time you rode since Maker Camp? No, I rode Sunday, I rode Monday, and I rode today. Oh, you rode this morning? Yeah. By yourself? Mm-hmm. So you actually went out and did a workout? Yeah. Nice. Yeah, Monday and today. You enjoying the bike? Yeah. You're having the best weather for it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's like, holy crap. It's frickin'... You know what it was? Last week, too, it was cold in the morning. It was like 40.
00:58:42
Jeffrey Krug
yeah And I was know still recovering and I'm like, this doesn't sound great. We started the ice bath again last week and I turned it off again, not turned it off, but I stopped doing it because it got warm again. But it was cold. Michael and I were doing it. Michael got a job. So I'll just be really brief. Michael was working like in a boiler room in New York City. So like unbelievable hours and ah You know, commuting into the city, not making a lot of money because, you know, you kind of eat what you kill. And he he did that for a while until he got some tests that he had, ah like some financial tests that he did. And he's like, OK, I'm done. I'm just going to caddy the rest of the summer. And he just went and started another job last week. I guess he accepted the job about a month ago and he started it on Monday. And he literally starts at nine o'clock in the morning at local or in the city.
00:59:35
Jeffrey Krug
local. It's like, it's like 15 or 20 minutes away. So he wakes up early. So he's got like three hours before he's even thinking about like, and then he gets home at five o'clock. Like he was home last night at 515. Nice. I was like, wow, I'm really happy because the good thing too is he started with a job right out of college down and down. um in Maryland, really ah kind of a boring job working for Purdue. And it was just like you'd you'd almost go to a a almost like a factory, you know, like a factory like a farm factory looked like in the middle of a field. So no, no social life at all. And you would go there and sell futures or try to sell futures in in agriculture, right?
01:00:24
Jeffrey Krug
And he said, wow, that was just really boring, not really great pay. Came back, did this thing in the in the city, working in all kinds of stories, working with these like kind of like ah Wolf for Wall Street kind of guys, Wolf Wall Street kind of guys, like real characters, like i funny stories that I won't repeat here.
01:00:43
Jeffrey Krug
um But what an experience for him. And now he's doing this and and ah it's pretty cool because he's all ah about work. He's all about exercising. So he'll have plenty of time to like cold plunge, go running, whatever. Yeah, go for him. Yeah, that that commuter lifestyle, man. It's not for me. I don't think it's for anybody, really.
01:01:05
Jeffrey Krug
I don't think so either. And everybody, like they they they move out here because of the boat. And they'll say, oh, it's great to have the boat. But you talk to anybody who uses that boat on a regular basis. They hate that boat.
01:01:18
Jeffrey Krug
Yeah, it's still an hour. And that doesn't even get you to that's just when you're when the boat leaves. So that doesn't count getting to the boat and getting from the boat to your office. So it's two hours. Well, that's the thing. I was I was going into Long Branch to pick up my truck because my truck finally was fixed. And so my wife and I are going together. And ah wherere We're about to take the left on Seven seven Bridges Road off of Rumson Road. And Laurel says to me, she goes, we've been in the car now for like 15, 17 minutes. She goes, can you imagine commuting to the boat from here? Because then you've got another five minutes. So it's like 25 minutes just to get to the boat. yeah Then you got to take the boat. And there's traffic in the morning you know because everybody's gone at the same time. And it's funny because
01:02:11
Jeffrey Krug
the The boat didn't come to Atlantic Highlands until about, I don't know, 15 years ago. Yeah. As long as I can remember, I've been here like, yeah, 13 years. so So maybe just before you got here, but everybody was like, Oh, it'll be great. You know, the um all the traffic in town, like people stopping and all that. Commuters don't stop. Oh, no. When I lived in Highlands, it's just like a racetrack to get out of town.
01:02:35
Jeffrey Krug
Yeah, they fly to the boat in the morning, and then they fly home. Nobody's stopping at the shops. I mean, now they're getting wasted on the way back on the boat because the boat's got a bar. Yeah, that's the funny thing too. So Michael, Michael said to me, he's like, I don't want to I don't want to be one of those guys who's just like sauce.
01:02:52
Jeffrey Krug
hu at 6 30 at night. And you know, after work, like, you could see the patterns. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like that's every day the same guys. Yeah. You know, three, four, five drinks from from the moment they leave Manhattan to where and then they get in the car. Yeah. You know, whatever. Yeah, there were there had been a few instances of like, you know, ah dangerous driving that, you know, when I lived in Highlands. I'm not surprised. Yeah. Now they have the Belford boat.
01:03:21
Jeffrey Krug
That's probably going to do, well probably already has done wonders for the real estate over there. ah Yeah. So I don't know if they're keeping the contract because it used to be. ah something else, like Belford Ferry or something, or or or New York Waterway. I forget, somebody else had the contract.
Real Estate Costs and Home Ownership Challenges
01:03:39
Jeffrey Krug
That's not going to be Seastreak? Well, so Seastreak kind of like stole it out from underneath of them on like a technicality, but then I think the other company sued whoever is the one that decides, blah, blah, blah. So I don't know if it's going to stay Seastreak or it's going to go back, but it looks like Seastreak put a lot of money into the infrastructure over there.
01:03:57
Jeffrey Krug
um You know, they have like a little coffee thing about real estate there ten years ago. Yeah everywhere ten years ago Well, I think I think we're both positioned pretty well Regardless of I know we got lucky. Yeah, I was talking to Mike the plumber today and he's like, yeah He's like you got to be a millionaire now to buy a house in Keensburg. I don't know how this happened I mean, it's just crazy yeah, all these private ah Whatever buying the homes and then renting them. yeah yeah that I think that's terrible. I mean, it just just totally destroys the whole concept of the American dream. yeah you know I don't know how that's legal. Yeah, why it's not illegal. That's a good question. Yeah. Well, we'll leave you with that to ponder upon. And we'll talk to you next week. All right. See you next week. If you enjoyed this episode, please tell us