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Men's Health with Keith
44 Plays2 years ago
This week we welcome our good buddy Keith to the show. Find him at Blackthorn Concepts on socials and hosting Working Hands Podcast
E-Mail Us Your Questions: TheAmericanCraftsmanPodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Unusual Intro Music Story
00:00:08
Speaker
American Craftsman podcast has tavish way of killing homeless with table legs to finish sheep.
00:00:26
Speaker
Oh, my God. He did such a good job. He's got a future. Yeah. So that's our new intro courtesy of David Vitamin of Bida Bida Burks. Bida Vida Benjamin. Yeah. Oh, man. I woke up one morning to that in an email last week and it set the tone for the whole day.
Sponsor Acknowledgment and Website Issues
00:00:52
Speaker
It's better than the original lyric.
00:00:55
Speaker
Yeah, for those of you who don't know, Rob, why don't you give a little rundown on what the intro music actually is. The intro music was from a band I was in back in. I think that was recorded in 1992 in San Francisco. It was actually just a four-track bedroom recording back when like digital home recording stuff was in its infancy.
00:01:20
Speaker
song about John Henry. The actual title of the song is Heart Like a Mule. But the Taylor Swift thing is even better. Well, nailed the melody. Oh, yeah. Before we reveal our secret guest,
00:01:41
Speaker
Although you probably know somehow from the title or the description. We want to thank our sponsor Haefla. Haefla 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 looks LED lighting and Slido door hardware ensure that every project you create is built to last. Learn more at Haefla.com.
00:02:07
Speaker
Yeah, check them out. Although you probably haven't been able to access hateful.com because they've been having some issues. So hopefully that's cleared up. That might be cleared up now for all I know. Yeah, hopefully on their part. So we got a guest in the studio.
00:02:26
Speaker
If you haven't guessed by now, who do you think
Guest Introduction: Men's Health Discussion
00:02:31
Speaker
it is? Just the guest. We got Keith here from Blackthorn Concepts and Working Hands podcast. Working Hands podcast. It's a men's health podcast. It's a men's health podcast. Working Hands. Lately, we've been turning into one. Yeah, that's true. With Make What You Fear.
00:02:50
Speaker
We won't force you to talk about make what you fear or working hands or anything if you don't want to Talk about whatever.
Podcast Plans and Previous Episode Reflection
00:02:59
Speaker
Yeah, you know, there's always good chance for shameless plugs Yeah, I got nothing to hide So how'd you get started as a maker? Yeah Back in the 80s. Yeah
00:03:14
Speaker
Uh, you know, as usual, we have nothing, nothing specific planned for now for today. Um, so last week we had the the question of the week. We had to announce a winner. I mean, could it be? It's the competition hasn't been so stiff, but last week we had some decent questions. Yeah, it's like you guys got some woodworking questions, too. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Um.
00:03:43
Speaker
So we had, obviously we had our buddy Matthew Cirio with the question about the joints, which we failed miserably at. Threw us a little bit of a curve ball. Yeah. I did see that coming, but...
00:03:59
Speaker
But I wasn't sure. So I think I think Matthew's the winner. Yeah. Yeah. He's just for effort alone. That's true. You know, you got to award the effort and the creativity and the ingenuity. And that's true. We can't let Matt win again. We did get, you know, two questions within envelopes. You know, he's putting in the effort.
00:04:25
Speaker
Yeah. And some good. They're already I archived them in the email, but we did get some good questions. Not that I can remember what they are, because once we hit what's the opposite of record? Like you hit record and then was it stop or stop? Yeah. And and when we hit stop, all memory of what was spoken is gone on the podcast. What happens in the podcast stays in the podcast.
00:04:55
Speaker
Yeah, this morning somebody's like oh, yeah, you're talking about the podcast. I'm like I was yeah, I I don't remember mine and we had it like I had it mine I listen to it when I edit it and then I'll even listen to it Before it goes out and make sure the editing was okay And I don't remember I spoke it I listen I edited it I listened to it and I still don't remember what I said I
00:05:20
Speaker
That's the way it is with everything.
Confessionals and Vacation Plans
00:05:22
Speaker
You ever go thumbing back through the photos and go, oh yeah, I forgot I made that. Yeah. Some of you spent a lot of time in Africa. It's like, oh yeah, we made that. Oh yeah, we, yeah. The confessionals, we built those confessionals. It goes further. There's vacations, I forget. Oh, geez. Oh no, I haven't taken enough vacations to forget any. Yeah.
00:05:49
Speaker
Yeah, we're due. We're going to go on a little fishing trip. That's true. Yeah. Keith's coming along. Yeah. Again, um, the annual, I won't call it a green street fishing trip. I feel like that's unfair to everybody else, but now annual. Yeah. The now annual. It's a green street, green street organizers. Spring steelhead slinger. Yeah. Just trying for some alliteration there.
00:06:19
Speaker
It's sort of a Jersey thing, right? Anybody else except for the the got the new guys up there in Connecticut. Yeah. Try state centric. Yeah. Well, they are from New Jersey. Yeah, it's true. So, yeah, we got that. It's April 20. Is it 21st, 21st to the 23rd? Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:49
Speaker
So, yeah, excited for that. That's actually that's going to be here quick. That's in two months. Yeah, basically two months.
Dominican Republic Vacation and Mafia Story
00:06:58
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to Dominican Republic for my sister-in-law's 40th birthday, but I don't think that's until next year or the year after.
00:07:08
Speaker
Is that where the wedding was that you went? Yeah. Yeah. The plan was to go back to the same place. And then my wife's like, well, Mallory doesn't know if that's where she wants to go. I'm like, the whole part of the thing was we already knew where we were going. It's like that takes like half the stress out of a vacation. It's like we've been there. We know what the deal is, what it's going to be like, what to expect. Like now you're just throwing a whole curveball into this whole thing for me.
00:07:34
Speaker
Yeah, that was I got in a fight with the Dominican Mafia down there one time. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Expand on the story. So we went to a resort and they tell you don't leave the resort. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:07:47
Speaker
So I didn't. And they have down like the cabanas down by the ocean. And we had a room. I don't know how we got it, but it was one of those ones that comes with like your own butler. Oh yeah. You might have stayed at the same place I was at. Probably. I'll show you. The Royalton Barbaro. I don't know what it was called, but we had a button club.
00:08:09
Speaker
I don't know. And we went down for like, I don't know, three days or something, four days. And when you have a butler, they give you a phone and you can call the butler whenever you want, right? That's the only thing that phone does, but it's a phone. It's not a walkie talkie or anything.
00:08:25
Speaker
So you buzz him, and he's the butler for not just our room, he's not a personal butler, but they call him a butler. And you can buzz him in the morning and say, I want to get one of those cabanas down by the ocean. So we did that. He sets us up and I go down and we're laying in this cabana with the thing around it. And my wife's like, I'm going to go back to the room for a minute.
00:08:48
Speaker
She leaves and I'm just sitting there right and there's a family that comes in next to us but they're one in from the ocean so now I'm on the ocean. The minute you go into the ocean you're leaving the resort. But as long as you're past like that like a post out there as long as you're inside the post locals can't go in the post.
00:09:08
Speaker
Apparently locals can and they do and they came up to me and now I'm In one of those cabanas with the curtains on three sides, but it's just looking a catty corner at the ocean And these three guys come up and they start yelling at me that I stole from their store yesterday I landed I landed last night, so I wasn't in their store yesterday So he's screaming at me that he wants my money back. He wants my money back
00:09:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I was like I don't have your money right so naturally in my arrogant state I start screaming at him and I stand up But I'm standing on the bed because they won't let me out of this three walled thing I'm screaming and it's like it's curtain so you can see in see out and I'm just screaming so finally I buzz the Butler
00:09:59
Speaker
Right with the phone I'm holding in my hand, but I never hold it up to myself and I start describing what these guys are doing as I'm yelling at them, right and Then as I'm doing that these guys are getting real I write I look down and like one guy's got his fingers that have been cut off from
00:10:14
Speaker
college is such a devious things that stuff and then i start to push my way out of this cabana and the guy from the cabana next to me jumps up and start speaking spanish and intervenes i have no idea what he said but he come the whole situation now
00:10:34
Speaker
Butler comes down with security from the thing and I know it's all intertwined like they were trying to do it and supposedly it was the big eagle tattoo on my back that was what what pinned it for me to this guy right so securities there so they asked me to turn around I turn around I have no tattoo on my back so it wasn't me
00:10:59
Speaker
So apparently they leave or whatever. And the guy in the cabana next to me comes over and he starts talking. He's like, dude, I I could hear that you're from Jersey and your accent. And I knew this wasn't going to go well. Right. You weren't going to back down and those guys were going to kill you right here. You know, I was like, OK. Oh, my God. I figured it was a scam. You know, they come up and just make a scene and hope that you give them money, you know, like just to like. That's yeah. Smooth the situation over.
00:11:29
Speaker
I'm sure that's what it was, but I wasn't going to back down from it. Yeah. So same, you know, well, no, not same thing. When we were there, it was like, you know, morning time. I forget my wife. It was the morning of the wedding. So my wife was it was for a woman that my wife works with and she's a hairdresser. So we're down there. My wife is at the wedding venue doing the hair, you know, for the bridesmaids and the bride and all that shit.
00:11:55
Speaker
So I'm walking around, you know, this place by myself. I'm smoking a cigar. When I walked down on the beach and then the cigar salesman comes up to me and trying to sell me all these cigars and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, how come that says, uh, what did it say? Havana. And he's like, oh, he's like, I'm not trying to scam anybody. It's just the seeds are from Cuba. I'm like, yeah, yeah. I'm like, thanks. I'm like, I'm good. I'm like, I got cigars in the room. Oh, man.
00:12:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's always sketchy when you go to a place where, you know, it's like almost third world country outside the resort area. Yeah. And one experience I had was down in Martinique. And one of our friends in the traveling party had to see a dentist. And so you had to go off the resort. And
00:12:51
Speaker
No joke. The dentist's office will call it, because what else do you call it? Dirt floor. The dentist comes out, no shoes on. Makes the blood easy to clean up, bro. He takes a look at my friend's mouth and he says in his broken English, oh, it's got to come out. Here, drink this bottle of rum and we're going to pull the tooth.
00:13:20
Speaker
I went to, I went to Cuba and I wanted to buy, yeah.
Cuban Adventures: Cigar Purchases and Tourism
00:13:24
Speaker
Do you have to go through Canada or anything? No. What year was this? Uh, 19. 2019. Yeah. 19 or 18. Yeah. And, um, we go down and naturally you want to buy cigars when you're there just because, so
00:13:42
Speaker
research in it is supposed to buy it like if you're buying it on the street and not the story can get it cheaper and it's legal for them to sell it to you they can only sell so many per family so what they do is they get all the people who work there and they take their bounty that they're allowed to get or they get as a bonus from the cigar factories
00:14:01
Speaker
And they bring it all into one place and they sell it from that little marketplace. Yeah. But it's like a personal marketplace. So it's like buying from Rob, not buying from Green Street. So it's weird because they have to have like these labels on their shirt in order to be able to sell. Right. And they can't market it to you. They're just standing on the street with the label. That's how it goes because they can't interfere with the tourism.
00:14:27
Speaker
So you see the label as we were walking and we were doing a walking tour because when you go down there we had to go for some like it has to be educational so you have to take the tours or whatever and then you're free to go about and do whatever you want but we're on the tour and I keep seeing them so finally the wife and I decided all right let's go buy some
00:14:47
Speaker
Right. So we talked to the next one we see and it's like they lead you down an alleyway. Then they lead you. I'm out right there. It gets worse. Then they lead you upstairs into an apartment out the back of the apartment downstairs to another alley and then back up into another apartment. And you're like, this is getting really weird. But luckily, I don't know how to get out of this place now. Right. And you don't want to be rude and say, no, I don't want it. Like now I got to go back through that guy's apartment. Like.
00:15:15
Speaker
like it wasn't like through the apartment the first time it was like through a hallway but you could tell it's not a public for thoroughfare right it's through a building of apartments or whatever yeah they don't want you to be able to tell somebody how to get you know easily how to get to this place right then they get us into the thing and it's actually in somebody's apartment and their little grandmother's there and they have one box of every different type they offer out
00:15:38
Speaker
and you point at the box you want, because there's a language barrier, and I'm like, I'm gonna get shivved here, like right now. You know? No cigar and a gaping wound. Yeah, and I'm standing there and I'm like, this is crazy, right? And they tell you, as we went on a cruise to get there, they tell you on the boat, if you're gonna buy cigars, they have to have this thing to get it back on, like this ribbon that they put over top, and it's like that you paid the taxes and it's legal, otherwise you're gonna be arrested.
00:16:06
Speaker
You know, they try and scary about everything and none of these boxes had them on there. I'm like, here we go. You know, like I'm smoking this right now. Yeah. And I'm already like, well, I'm like a whole box of cigars. Yeah, I'm hip deep. I'm in I'm in this person's apartment and there's a bunch of people around me and I don't know who's a customer and who's not. You're in this little room. The room we were in had probably 10 people in it and it's smaller than the room we're in right now.
00:16:31
Speaker
And I was like, Oh, and then you buy it beds. Yeah. And when you, the minute you buy it, they yell back like behind the curtain, cause there's a curtain, you know, like into the kitchen, they yell back and they come out with the box and then they let you inspect it. And then they put the, the seal, they put it on while you're watching and it's all legit, but I didn't know that. And it's like the whole thing seems sketchy the whole way. Yeah.
00:16:56
Speaker
But yeah, it's an experience to tell on a podcast someday. Did you have an overseer when you're going through the streets and stuff like that? On the walking tour, yeah. Yeah, we got in trouble because all that took place and then they just let you leave. Well, the way I left is not the way I came in. So now I'm running through the streets trying to get back to this walking tour. So we got in trouble anyway.
00:17:18
Speaker
But once you're done with a walking tour, then you're free to do whatever you want. And so you could just wander the streets of Cuba on your own independently as a tourist? Yeah, and I did that. Havana. I wandered Havana by myself. My wife didn't feel like coming with me at one point.
00:17:37
Speaker
I'm just not taking photos at night. It's pretty sick. I mean they don't mess with you. It's it's crazy like they had Like when they're given the first beach or what everything has to do like you're in the square They're like this town square and there's people that come up to you trying to sell you stuff because they know that you're not Yeah, Cuban, you know, I'm I don't look Cuban so they come over like Cubans. I
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah, but the way I'm dressed doesn't look like that, you know and They come over and like I had this one guy come over and he didn't speak any English But he's got a card and a marker and I know what he's doing, right? He's drawing a caricature of me and then he did one of the wife and then he's like trying to sell them to me and
00:18:19
Speaker
And I'm trying to hear this woman tell us what we have to do and where not to go And who to talk to about cigars, you know, they're trying and this guy's bothering me, you know, so I just I rip out five dollars out of my Whatever I had in my pocket right and I hand it to him. Yeah just to get it Or maybe it was Cuban money I don't know but I ripped off a five and I go to give it to him and some girl went to grab the rest of it
00:18:48
Speaker
Right. And I, you know, I went and pushed her. I pushed her away. And sure enough, somebody came over and grabbed those like both of them and escorted them out of the square. I don't know what happened. I don't want to know.
00:19:05
Speaker
But it's weird like they tell you that they are not like they're very strict about Interfering with the torque because they don't want to get a bad name the tourism is where all the money comes from Yeah, they know that you know where they're positioned in the world geographically That's like
00:19:21
Speaker
I mean, that's that's the main economy down there for all those countries, for the most part is tourism. Yeah. And they they've been shut off from the United States since 1958 or whatever it was and just reopened in whatever. It must have been twenty eighteen or something. So it's yeah, it's like, don't screw this up. Yeah. Did you see lots of classic cars and everywhere? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got a bunch of photos of my show you one day, but
00:19:50
Speaker
It's weird because they look beautiful. But probably everything. From 50 feet away. Yeah. You know, they're 50 footers. And then you get up to them and you can tell they're piecemealed together like summer run on boat motors and bullshit. Like they're just keeping them running.
00:20:06
Speaker
You know, like whatever they can do to keep that alive. I mean, some of them are real nice. And then depending on what grade of car it is, if you want to use it as a taxi, the grade of car is the grade of how much you pay to take that.
00:20:22
Speaker
Yeah, so you can get in one that looks like a clunker you'd see in a yard somewhere here and pay five hours and probably go around the whole island, you know? Yeah. And then there's one that's real nice. You pay five hours. He'll take you to the end of the block and kick you out. You know, he wants 100 bucks or whatever. And it makes sense, you know? What about gas stations? I didn't see any. What is there to do in Cuba? Just sightseeing? Yeah, sightseeing. How's the food? I don't know. It was good.
00:20:52
Speaker
Oh, you must have eaten. I was only there for, yeah, I was only there for, uh, like maybe 24 hours. Uh, cause it was right around the time they were locking it down. I think we were the last boat to go before. Uh, so yeah, it must've been 2019. Yeah. Yeah. We were in Vegas. Yeah.
00:21:13
Speaker
as the new I'm like reading reddit they're like my yeah there's like this weird new disease in China and then we're getting on the plane it's like people are wearing masks and we're like oh shit we're like what the hell I'm like we're gonna get sick yeah I know I was talking that they
00:21:29
Speaker
no longer allow us to go back to
COVID-19 Reflections and Personal Health
00:21:31
Speaker
Cuba. No, not for the pandemic. We went in May, and then I think in May they were doing talks about not doing it, so a lot of the cruise ships just redirected. They're not going to pay for port fees if they can't go. And then by June it was over.
00:21:47
Speaker
Yeah, we were actually when we were on the way to the airport like in a in a in an Uber. They're like, yeah, you hear like, you know, somebody in the Tropicana's got this this crazy disease. And we're like, we thought we're going to be goners. Yeah, like for sure. It's like we're going to get on this plane and just we're just going to die. Yeah. Plus, if you don't know the.
00:22:09
Speaker
Vegas was really big with Chinese tourists. Oh, yeah, and it was Chinese New Year So everything was like decorated with Chinese New Year theme. What time of year is that? December January. Yeah it was Everywhere, you know all the Chinese themed stuff promoted because there were so many Chinese tourists Yeah, and we were we
00:22:33
Speaker
You know, it's hard to go back now in time, like before the pandemic and imagine how free everything was. Yeah. And like how that was just a foreign thought, you know, that this, you know, we never lived through anything like that before. Yeah. Well, I mean, look at it's like any big thing. Like it used to be always pre 9 11. Now we're going to have pre COVID. Oh, that's pre COVID talk. You can't do that.
00:23:03
Speaker
Yeah, I remember TSA didn't even exist before 9-11. Yeah, I mean Jeff's hardy story is a hundred times funny things about how I got my passport and everything like that. I would never fly today.
00:23:19
Speaker
No, I mean, I don't have, I don't have a birth certificate. Yeah. So I went up to Stanford, Connecticut to get my passport because I figured I could fast talk them up there, which I did. That's like, Hunter, we can't even get my son a passport. Both parents have to be there to get a child a passport. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. That's weird. What if one of you is like non-existent? You take off.
00:23:48
Speaker
Poor kids gotta suffer. Now this is coming from my wife also, so it's probably not even true. Don't put that in the record. She doesn't listen.
00:23:56
Speaker
Oh, but yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Post COVID world. You know, they're going to I think in what may like, I don't think there's going to be a post COVID. I think it's just going to be pre COVID. Yeah. I think you're right. It's endemic now is the flu essentially. Yeah. We're learning all these words now. You've heard the word endemic, but it was never part of your vocabulary. Right.
00:24:24
Speaker
Now it is. It's an indefinite pandemic, endemic. Yeah, you know, like, I mean, I guess it sounds kind of screwed up to say, but it's like most of the people who were susceptible to dying have already died. You know, it's like there was a predisposition in certain people, you know, whatever, having to do with genetic makeup or something. And basically everyone at this point who's made it through
00:24:50
Speaker
Probably has the ability to make it through any and you know, it's like that's if they've gone Right. Well, yeah, I'd like to see what the percentages are like worldwide. We could look that up Yeah of who has it. Yeah hasn't like I know people have got it three times so I
00:25:11
Speaker
I didn't, I never tested positive when I got it. I didn't go for an actual test, but my wife had it with the home tests and I got sick at the same time she did. Um, so it's not coincidental, but mine didn't test positive. So technically I've never had.
00:25:28
Speaker
Yeah, and it was it was like late in the pandemic, right? Yeah. Yeah, it was in August or July. So, yeah, it was similar with us where like my son had it and tested positive and then like my wife tested positive and I was sick, but testing negative. But then I finally tested positive. So this is this is from five days ago. Overall, about two hundred twenty nine point seven million people or sixty nine point two percent of the total US population have come. Oh, sorry.
00:26:01
Speaker
that googling bad Google this December 14 2022 from Harvard half the US population has had covid but many cases are going on reporters right you got to figure yeah like Rob has never had covid but he's probably he's probably right right
00:26:26
Speaker
And you just get mild symptoms and walk through them. Yeah. It's like, is this a sinus, you know, like a mild sinus infection or do I have COVID? It's like, I don't know. I can't forget one of those afternoons where you're just hot all day and you're like, man, I must be running a fever. I'm going to be sick tomorrow and then by dinner, you're fine. Yeah. I mean, some people can just clear infections out pretty quick. Oh yeah.
00:26:52
Speaker
having a kid, you know all about that. It's like a 24 hour fever. You're like, man, Hunter's really chatty. It's like, I bet he's about to get a fever and then like they'll have a fever, wake up in the middle of the night with a fever and then by the next day, it's gone. Yeah. It's like, what the fuck was that? Like, where did that come from?
00:27:12
Speaker
I don't remember the last time I had a fever. I didn't even have a fever when I had COVID. No, he really had just mild symptoms, right? I was really run down. That was the main thing. I was just exhausted. And I had a headache. It started off with a stomach ache.
00:27:28
Speaker
Um, and that was before my son was even sick. Like I, I don't get like stomach pain. You know, you get like indigestion or like something and you're, you get like bubble guts or whatever, but like I woke up and my stomach hurt. Um.
00:27:44
Speaker
And I didn't even think like I never tied that as a symptom for COVID. Me either. But apparently I guess Omicron or whatever the hell it was. That was one. But anyway, this isn't the pandemic episode. It was the vacation episode for a while. Another episode where half of the listeners shut it off 10 minutes in. Don't shut it off yet. Yeah. We'll talk about woodworking at some point.
00:28:12
Speaker
Yeah, maybe. Two minutes before the end. Well, a little bit of woodworking Keith's going to make me a coffee school.
Coffee Discussion: Custom Scoops and Brewing Preferences
00:28:19
Speaker
Yeah, I am. Yeah. Yeah. I could use one except I use an entire cup of beans.
00:28:25
Speaker
Do you want a coffee scoop, though? It has to be one cup, though. All right. I'll rummage through your scrap. There you go. It's probably going to have to be a glue up with that size. Yeah. Or it's going to have to be like this big around and shallow. Yeah. Here's a cup of beans. You know, I grind up one cup of beans to make my pot of coffee. Yeah. I just... Oh, you grind every morning? Well, I grind it at night for the morning.
00:28:51
Speaker
I have, I have a grinder too. So I don't necessarily measure the measured out cause the grinder measures it, but I saw you making it and I just want one. All right. It has like a dial, right? I grind my own, but I just fill the grinder and then I dump it into a jar. So I'm good for the week. Yeah. Yeah. I do it in the morning when I get up. I usually do about 6 PM, get it ready for the next day.
00:29:17
Speaker
The only time I'll grind fresh is if I'm going to do the French press. Yeah. Do you change your grind setting? Yeah, that's why I grind it for the front, because I'm just asking the door in the day. How hardcore you are. I'm not as hardcore as you. Well, I'm not even that hardcore. Technoform. I do. And I have a Baratsa Angkor.
00:29:41
Speaker
which I destroyed. What did I do? I put... I have a Target French press. And a Mr. Coffee drip machine. Oh God. Mr. Coffee. I don't know what brand it is. You gotta upgrade that. Why? Give yourself a Technoborm. Send me a link.
00:29:56
Speaker
affiliate link. Let's see. Technivore is about 300, 350 bucks. What's like 3% of that? It's like $9 we can make. I remember when we were talking about the Technivore for the first time. Yeah. We were at the, what's her name's job? Yeah. Well, we shouldn't say. Yeah. The kitchen. Yeah. Yeah. My wife did not want me to buy that.
00:30:24
Speaker
My son had just been born. I'm pretty sure she wanted to murder me as she readily admits. Yeah.
00:30:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's the way. Yeah. Well, I had that nice, uh, it was a bun and I got it at big lots for a good deal. Like probably like 80 bucks. And that was like a really highly rated coffee maker. Yeah. The bun. I forget what it was called, but it just stopped working. And, uh, I actually brought the toms.
00:30:55
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of buns in the catering world. Technivore mocha master. That's the highest rated drip coffee machine in the world. Handmade in the Netherlands. Do you really notice a difference? Oh, yeah. Yeah. OK.
00:31:14
Speaker
send me an affiliate. It's a nice piece of not we don't need the we don't need the affiliate. It's a nice piece of machinery. And it's like, you know, one factory or they make all the parts. So we're supporting jobs in the Netherlands. Mm hmm. Because God knows nobody in the US is going to make a coffee maker factory. No.
00:31:37
Speaker
I hear they're bringing it back. They're bringing back manufacturing. Yeah. Oh, I did. Small scale manufacturing. Yeah. I did watch highlights of the state of the union last night. And then, you know, everybody tries to sell the U S manufacturing that it's coming back, but we'll see. It's going to be a long time. Yeah. They got incentivize it.
00:31:57
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, because it's it's almost like us, you know, you you're you're a niche company if you're building things in America, using American labor and American parts and everything like think of like 1620 like these pants I'm wearing people, you know, and it's it's not that expensive, but like they're cheap. I'm wearing their cheapest pants foundation. Yeah, 128 bucks.
00:32:27
Speaker
I did. One of the things that the president said was that they're going to pass a law that on any federal building project, like where anything is being constructed, any construction project, all of the building materials will have to be made in the United States. How is that not already a thing? I know. It's crazy.
US Policies and Taylor Swift Humour
00:32:50
Speaker
It's crazy. Well, I mean.
00:32:53
Speaker
this things like the i don't know if this is entirely correct so i i guess i shouldn't say it but it don't isn't it um like the the drug prices that are set like we can't uh our government can't um negotiate the prices well he did say and you know listen i'm i'm not into politics i don't watch
00:33:13
Speaker
politics because now it's like that's like a thing like it's like a spectator sport exactly but I did I watched the highlights of the of the thing I watched it this morning he said that Medicare is now going to be able to negotiate drug prices you know insulin a violent insulin cost ten dollars to produce thirteen dollars of packaging and they're charging you know potentially hundreds of dollars in certain states right it's it's insane
00:33:39
Speaker
You know, you got those buses filled with old folks going to Canada to like buy drugs and stuff like that. Yeah. Because, you know, you get on a fixed income and they're living off that Social Security. Living their lavish life. Yeah. You know what one good way to get them off Social Security is?
00:34:03
Speaker
make it so they can't afford their medicine. It's all a scam, it's all a conspiracy. You know who's behind it? Taylor Swift. Oh man, he's got a point. Why is she taking out the homeless people though? That's just an initiation. That's true. That's just more of a blood sport.
00:34:24
Speaker
It's like the Coliseum days. Yeah. It's not her. It's the people she is working for. If they're okay getting rid of a homeless, it'll be okay getting rid of the elderly. Yeah. Do you think she does the thumbs up and the thumbs down? They are bad drivers, the elderly, so it may alleviate some stress. Yeah.
00:34:42
Speaker
Oh, this is taking a turn. They've got all the good recipes, though. They do. So she probably got to find a way to harvest the recipes before they get taken out. One good way is to print them onto a cutting board. Yeah. Laser rich onto a cutting board. We know Jason doesn't listen to this podcast, so that joke's going to fall flat. Yeah. A cake recipe on a cutting board. Tell me how that makes sense.
00:35:07
Speaker
That's like putting the soup recipe on a cutting board. Well, at least you cut out the vegetables. Yeah, soup recipe makes sense. Yeah, you got to cut the butter for cake. Well, no, usually a cake is going to have melted butter, isn't it? Or oil. You're still going to cut it for the right amount. Do you cream the butter and the sugar for a cake? I think it depends if you're using the creaming method. Yeah. What about the muffin method?
00:35:36
Speaker
The muffin man? The muffin method? Creaming method? Muffin method?
Baking Techniques and Culinary Memories
00:35:40
Speaker
No. Yeah. I'm not much of a baker. Muffin method, you mix all the wet ingredients and then you pour them into the dry ingredients. Yeah. Creaming method, you start with your butter and your sugar, you cream that, then you add your eggs, then you add your dry ingredients. Yeah. That's how you make cookies. Yes. I've never really been a baker.
00:36:05
Speaker
Um, but I've worked in some places, you know, where they have the pastry chef and I've been like a hanger on the pastry kitchen because I like to get all like the, the cookies that come out before it's like here, I'm trying a new recipe. Rob, you know, what do you think? Um, yeah. Used to be like a three o'clock ritual, you know, grab a cup of coffee, swing by the pastry department and see what's what. Oh yeah.
00:36:36
Speaker
Yeah, like the two cookies that like baked together, you know, the edges touch. Bring it back memories, Jeff. Oh yeah. I worked in a lot of restaurants, none with a pastry chef. No. When I was at Dennis Foy, they used to bake the bread and they were like these rolls. Oh my God. It was so good. Fresh baked bread is always the best.
00:36:55
Speaker
Yeah, even like packaged white bread. When I was a kid in Texas, I worked at this hardware, wholesale hardware place. And right next door was a bread bakery that made like packaged like Wonder Bread kind of bread. And it just smelled so good all day. There's something primal about the smell of yeast.
00:37:23
Speaker
That's good. I remember when I worked at the one pizza place, I used to make bread with the pizza dough. Oh yeah, sure. I love that. Like gachia and stuff like that. Throw it right in the pizza oven. Oh man.
Dieting and Snack Cravings
00:37:35
Speaker
Yeah. Fresh baked bread. I haven't had a carb in at least like six weeks. You're going to go off the rails on Super Bowl Sunday? Oh no. No. I can't. You're going to go off the rails for the fishing trip? Yeah.
00:37:52
Speaker
Yeah, I'll probably I'll be on the straight and narrow until then. Yeah, it's just the recovery time is just too long. It's so bad. It's like being a drug addict, you know, like once you you can't you can't be a crackhead and then just take one hit a crack. Like give it up and then you're like, I'm just take just one hit. No, it's like you're just going to destroy your life there for a minimum several weeks.
00:38:18
Speaker
Yeah. You know, it's like, it's been like a good month or more that I've been on this soup diet. Right. So still on there. Yeah. Probably fit out the window. So did you barely to get up on a roof here. Yeah. I mean, it's only, it's only about this one, but it's, it's almost like a entirely vegetarian. Like I've probably eaten, you know, chicken.
00:38:48
Speaker
three or four times, you know, little bits. I had a burrito bowl. I had like a chicken pot pie. That sounds good right now. Chicken pot pie is so good. Yeah. My wife gets them from Sickles. Ooh, man. Not even like a shitty frozen one. No, it's good. It's like homemade. What is this place down the street? I want to get back to the soup, but what is this place down the street with the big sausage king? Oh, that's pretty good. It's supposed to be good.
00:39:15
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't got anything. I came in a different way today. I'd never driven that way. Yeah. Yeah. They're supposed to be good. Yeah. That's right across from Burrow Hall. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, what kind of soup are you eating? Just vegetable? I mean, Amy's. Yeah. And these vegetable? All vegetables. Ministrone or whatever? Ministrone, French country, lentil. Are they made with, with like beef stock or are they all vegetable stock? All vegetable stocks.
00:39:40
Speaker
Yeah, the ones that I eat mostly are except for the lentil are like tomato based. Has your energy level. I feel like it's a little bit higher. Mostly because I haven't been eating a lot as much junk. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's a killer. That's the stuff that slows you down. Gets me every time. So like, you know, I got a bad sweet tooth. Yeah, welcome to the club.
00:40:11
Speaker
Mine's not bad for sweet too. I mean, I eat a lot of sweets, but mine is more of the snack. Oh yeah. If I go grab a thing of chips, I'm eating the whole bag. Like I'm terrible at it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when you're an adult, there's no way there to tell you, Hey, Keith, that's enough chips. Yeah. Have you left your own devices, you know, God forbid, like nobody's home to even just have like, you know, a hint of judgment.
00:40:38
Speaker
Then you hide that bag down into the garbage pile. It's like, man, you're like elbow deep in the cupboard, like reaching for snacks that aren't even there. You know, when the wife goes away, I'll get fast food. You're like, what else we got in here? What are these? Oh, these are pretzels that my wife bought eight months ago. Oh, yeah. And they're stale. These chocolate covered pretzels. Oh, yeah. That was like when we did the Christmas snack episode. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, we were.
00:41:06
Speaker
I felt like I had about 112 fever from all the sugar. I turned that one off. Yeah. Keith has, uh, what's it called? Phonophobia, mesophonia. Yeah. We were chewing up a storm. Yeah. There was no way around it. Actually, I think I suffered through it.
00:41:25
Speaker
What won? What was the best one? It was Aldi's, right? I think it was those chocolate covered pretzels, the peppermint pepper candy cane pretzels. Did it have bits and pieces of the candy cane? I hate those ones. It was pretty good. The popcorn was good too. There were a couple of big surprises in that. I wish they had had some savory Christmas snacks, but they didn't have any. Oh, you went specifically for Christmas. That's right.
00:41:56
Speaker
And like Lidl or like Aldi, those kind of places are usually good for that stuff because it's all kind of like seasonal. Yeah, like not a lot of novelty kind of stuff like a Trader Joe's, you know.
00:42:07
Speaker
I like that time between Thanksgiving and Christmas when nobody cares what they're eating. You know what I mean? Like nobody judges you if you eat like five turkey dinners in that month. Nobody cares if you're baking cookies every day and eat them. Nobody cares. People expect you. Yeah, they're not going to eat weird if you're not baking cookies.
00:42:29
Speaker
Yeah, but then to turn that off on January 1st is very difficult. Oh yeah. Especially when everyone has a couple cocktails on New Year's Eve and then tries to start fresh the following day. Yeah, the second I feel like is the... That's when I started, like when I buckled back then it was January 2nd. You can't. After New Year's Eve you're gonna eat healthy on New Year's Day? No way. Yeah. Let me ask you Keith, if you have one dessert, like one kind of dessert, what would it be? You can only have one.
00:42:59
Speaker
like one specific or just one kind well it either or you know you can if if you if there's a specific like let's say it's ice cream chocolate i would go about ice cream i'll go you got a flavor
00:43:15
Speaker
That's the tough one.
Ice Cream and Cheesecake Preferences
00:43:17
Speaker
I'm a big fan of vanilla. Yeah. Or like a chocolate chip. Good vanilla ice cream is very good. It's hard to beat, I know. That was like, so my son went to a birthday party on Saturday and
00:43:31
Speaker
No, I'm going to change that to raspberry. Raspberry ice cream? Hmm. Black raspberry? Yep. Yeah. That is good. Um, he and my wife got home and they were talking and she said, Oh, bud, what kind of cake did you have? Do you have vanilla or chocolate?
00:43:46
Speaker
They said chocolate and And we both said like yeah, like when I was a kid, I probably would have had chocolate too, but now I'd probably have vanilla Oh, yeah, like I feel like you get to a certain age and it's like you switch from chocolate to vanilla. What's up with that?
00:44:02
Speaker
Uh, your taste changes. Yeah. I mean, I still like chocolate. I don't get why people claim, Oh, it's vanilla, right? Like, Oh, that's plain. If you get a good vanilla, it's not playing. It's got some awesome, like, especially if it's handmade or fresh made with a fresh vanilla, the best store-bought one is Briar's. I like Briar's too vanilla. Briar's gets a little icy for me sometimes. You gotta eat it when you buy it. Yeah.
00:44:30
Speaker
I think Turkey Hill French vanilla is a contender. That's the creamy colored one, right? It's like, yeah, like a little bit yellow. Yeah, I've had it. Yeah, that's pretty good. It's good. It's no match for Briar. Yeah. I like the Briar's Neapolitan. That's good. Yeah. Um, you ever have Neapolitan? Are you like, if you get Neapolitan, are you like a digger into one, uh, flavor? No.
00:44:57
Speaker
No, at that point you might as well just buy one gallon or whatever for half a gallon. I'm very territorial. I like the scrape width wise across that thing. Get a little bit of vanilla. No, I said I'm very territorial about my Neapolitan. I was going to say, you know that strawberry range. Like if, if I open up the Neapolitan and somebody's been digging in one flavor. It throws off the whole ratio. Oh yeah. You gotta keep the ratio. Go get your own box of ice cream. Yeah.
00:45:27
Speaker
Nicholas Creamery. Man, they have a brown sugar cookie dough. It's like a brown sugar, like a vanilla ice cream with brown sugar and then cookie dough. Yeah. That's fricking good. What's that creamery out where you grew up? Uh, I dunno.
00:45:48
Speaker
Oh, Halo, Halo Pub, Halo, Halo Pub, Halo Top, Halo Pub. Yeah. When I worked at Dennis Foy, that's where we got the ice cream. They were clients and they would bring the ice cream, the Tahitian vanilla from Halo Pub. Yeah. When I was in college, we used to go there because I don't know what Halo Farms, Halo Farms was the ice cream shop.
00:46:06
Speaker
Yeah. We used to go there and my freshman year, I was like the only freshman with a car there. Cause I used to go to the spot. Yeah. So we would go over there and they would have like days where they would run a bus over so you could just go and.
00:46:20
Speaker
Everyone who got on that bus was buying for like 30 people. You know, so everyone will come back with huge things, but on the days they weren't running the bus, I would drive over and we would say, all right, I'm going. And everyone would give you like $5 for their little pint of ice cream, whatever they wanted. The pints at the time were like two bucks. I was making a killing just done, you know? That's like right by the circle, right? I forget where it is. There's like a circle right there.
00:46:47
Speaker
Yeah, Halo Forest. That was some pretty good.
00:46:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. They use like the real Tahitian vanilla beans. That's the thing about vanilla. It's like, oh, vanilla is this synonym for like plain or whatever. Like vanilla is one of the most expensive, like real vanilla. It's an exotic ingredient. Yeah. Like we're talking, you know, Tahiti, Madagascar. You know, it was like one of those things that people explored the world in order to try and find. Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:17
Speaker
What about cheesecake? Where you stand on cheesecake? I love it. Yeah, me too. What about ricotta cheesecake?
00:47:25
Speaker
I don't know that I've had it, but it sounds awesome. Yeah, it's good, but I don't think it's as good as like a New York side. No, it's a little bit almost. It's like savory side and it is grainy. Yeah. Now for the cheesecake, like the regular New York style. Yeah. Do you like it with the swirled in strawberries or raspberries or the chocolate? Or do you like just straight cheesecake? I go plain, but I'll eat any type of cheesecake you put in front of me. Oh, me too. But I favor the plain, but do you favor crustless or with the crust?
00:47:55
Speaker
I'm gonna have crust. Yeah, I like to crust. I'm with Jeff on this one. I'll eat any cheesecake you put in front of me, but I'll go plain first, and it's gotta have- I'm gonna throw a curveball at you. Did you ever have the one where it's the Oreo crackers instead of- No, I never did. Oh, that's the one to get. Yeah, Oreo crust. Yeah. It's not Oreo creams. It's got to weigh like two pounds. Yeah. Cheesecake's got to be heavy, otherwise it's not a good cheesecake. Yeah.
00:48:24
Speaker
It's kind of make you feel like you need to go to bed right after you. Yeah. Yeah. That's like a bagel. You know, don't give me no eighth inch of cream cheese. It's got to be a solid. It's got to squeeze out the sides when you bite into it. Three one five. I don't even know where that is. Yeah. Like it's got to be like nearly a half inch thick of cream cheese inside the bagel.
00:48:49
Speaker
Yeah, see, this is where I waver. I like a lot of cream cheese, but some places you go to where it's like that inch or whatever, like a pound of cream cheese. I don't like that. If I bite into it and it's squeezing up through the hole in the middle, that's fine. But if it's falling at the bottom, I don't want any squeeze because the cream cheese should be dense enough where it's not squeezable. You get your bagels toasted or not? No, no, you cannot toast a bagel with cream cheese.
00:49:13
Speaker
I don't. I just wonder. I like toasted with butter. Butters. Yeah. I know. Here's the key with a little sprinkle of honey on there. I never had that. A little butter, a little honey.
00:49:24
Speaker
Oh yeah. We, I used to do toast like that as a kid. Get some of that John Peters honey. And we're cinnamon sugar toast. That was a big one as a kid. I'm not big on cinnamon. You just put butter on there and then sprinkle cinnamon sugar on there. I gotta make that for a hundred. I don't know if I ever made that for him. Oh yeah. Try with the honey. Yeah. I do like that butter and honey man on a biscuit on a bagel. Yeah. Oh,
00:49:49
Speaker
This may be too localized for all the listeners, but wah-wah.
00:49:55
Speaker
I went to Wawa the other day and they have their bagels sizzlies. I know they're grouse, right? But in it, but in a pinch and you're hungry and you got to stop there. Well, you're on the road a lot too. Yeah, I'm on the road a lot. Sometimes you can't be choosy. So I don't eat breakfast all that often, but this one day I was hungry. So I went there and they have a pepperoni one now. So it's lices of pepperoni cheese on a bagel. It was delicious. That does sound good.
00:50:26
Speaker
It's also a heart attack and a little, you know, it's a heart attack waiting to happen. Well, I went to WVU for a couple of years and a big thing in West Virginia is pepperoni rolls. So it's like a soft like dough and then they put pepperoni and cheese inside and roll it up. And you know, you get them in the convenience stores and like a prepackaged. Yeah. Quick check has those here.
00:50:47
Speaker
Yeah. And those are freaking good. And yeah, they were like dirt cheap. I'm getting hungry. They had ones that had like Pepper Jack cheese inside of it. Pepper Jack with pepperoni. That's good. Anything with pepperoni is pretty good. Yeah. Let's be real. I haven't had pepperoni in years. Oh my God, you're missing out. Well, they don't put it in soup. No, that's true. Pepperoni soup. Pizza soup. That's like something they're eating in the Midwest.
00:51:16
Speaker
What are we having tonight, honey? We're having pizza soup. That makes me think of when I was... Pizza soup with a cheesecake casserole afterwards.
00:51:24
Speaker
I was in high school in Texas. And so this is the 70s. And I worked at Pizza Hut. So I came from New York where, you know, pizza is pizza. Yeah. And now I'm working at Pizza Hut and I'd never really been exposed to that style of pizza before.
Pizza Memories and Preferences
00:51:43
Speaker
And they had just come out with the taco pizza. So then in case you didn't know what that was, because I don't think they make it anymore.
00:51:53
Speaker
I think Domino's tried it for a while. I haven't seen it. Like when I was in high school, like the local place, you know, they make the crazy pies for slices. They would have taco pizza every now and then. Well, the pizza, hot taco pizza was instead of like tomato sauce, they spread refried beans. Right. And then they put like cheddar cheese or some kind of ground beef. And yeah, they didn't have ground beef. They had like these little pellets.
00:52:20
Speaker
Yeah. Of TVP probably textured vegetable protein. And that was their taco pizza. And I was working there trying to wrap my head around all this stuff. Then did they put like shredded lettuce and tomatoes? Oh, yes. Yes. Yeah. Black olives. Yeah. Yeah. After it came out of the oven and dressed it with the with the cold stuff.
00:52:41
Speaker
I mean, I'm not going to lie. I'm not like a pizza purist where some people are like, that's not pizza. Like, I don't care about the the semantics of the name. I'll eat the hell out of a taco pizza. Oh, me too. Yeah, I don't care. I have to admit, I mean, because I love Mexican food. It's just a taco on dough instead of right. Exactly. I know. So I had my share of that stuff, too. I was like, I'll make fun of people that put pineapple on pizza, but do whatever you want. I can say it's not pizza.
00:53:12
Speaker
I do think most of the country doesn't make real pizza, though. No, my in-laws get into that. They're like, it's not pizza. That's flat bread. I'm like, that's not give it up. I remember when Corey posted that one thing and it looked like a look like a quesadilla and he called it pizza. I'm like, that photo doesn't look like it. And we got into the argument.
00:53:34
Speaker
Yeah, you're not getting good pizza. We had good pizza in Rhode Island. That was really good. But like a Neapolitan pizza, I feel like that's easier to replicate elsewhere within the country. But like a regular, I don't even know what you call it, just like a regular pizza. Like a street pie, like a regular New York style. Yeah, you can't get it anywhere like you can get it here. You know where, I mean, too bad we got the commercial plates because we're going to drive right past Grimaldi's.
00:54:05
Speaker
Do you know Grimaldi's? Yeah, I mean the Yeah, it's so thin like the pizza cooks in like three minutes and it comes to the table It's just like you can eat like six slices. Yeah, you know what? Now what's thinner Grimaldi's or Pete and Elvis? Well, I've eaten at both places and I prefer Grimaldi's I do not like Pete and Elvis
00:54:35
Speaker
Pete and Elders is a different, it's more like a bar pie style. I don't know how to describe it. Where it's kind of real thin, like a cracker. You can see through it. That's how thin it is. I mean, Romaldi's is super thin too, like that. It's just the seasonings and the sauce and even the flavor of the crust is different. Yeah. I think Federisi's is similar to Pete and Elders. I've never been to Pete and Elders.
00:54:59
Speaker
But it's for me, it's more of a nostalgia thing. You know, it's like it's not the best pizza in the world, but it's in the style. You know, I've been going there my whole life. My dad's been going there his whole life. Where's this way? It is in Freehold, Federica. Yeah. Main Street. It's good. Like Spumoni Gardens. Yeah. You know, you get that's William Pye and it's
00:55:20
Speaker
There's actually a place in Bay Ridge. I can't remember the name of it That has the best Sicilian pie where it's like really super light and fluffy that style it's it's I got one for you to try next time I come here from my house. I'll bring it. All right It's called Brooklyn Square, but it's from Jackson. The guy had a place in Brooklyn. He moved out to Jackson
00:55:48
Speaker
What's the other big place, the big coal fireplace, Lombardi's? Is that what it is? That sounds familiar. Lombardi's. I think that's like the oldest pizzeria in New York or something. But Spamoni's, I was working one time in the building across the street from there. Oh yeah, I grew up on West 12th Street. Yeah. Which was, you know, walking distance. I think it was Spamoni's in Brooklyn, right? Yeah, L and B. Um,
00:56:14
Speaker
There's like a corner, like a triangle type building there now. It used to be like a little square or something. Landmark. No Lita. No Lita restaurant is I guess that's a neighborhood now over Manhattan. 32 Spring Street. Landmark restaurant serving coal fired thin crust Neapolitan pizza since 1905 Lombardi's. Yeah. America's first pizzeria. Little Italy. But Spamoni's I was there and they were filming a
00:56:43
Speaker
movie okay because i was all excited i'm like oh finally i'm right next door i have no excuse not to go in and grab some and they were filming a movie there so i couldn't even go over and you got to get this baloney it's you've got to get it while you're there you need it like it's unlike anything else that i've ever had anywhere what is it it's got uh almonds extracted or something
00:57:04
Speaker
Well, it's three flavors. It's chocolate, pistachio and vanilla. And it comes, you know, just how they give it to you. But the consistency and the texture of it is different, very unique. It doesn't have almond extract in it, though. Well, it's got pistachio.
00:57:26
Speaker
It was one of the flavors. I used to work with a guy who would always go, like now I work with a guy, but I don't travel with him, but he always goes there and he brings whatever back to the office. I don't work in the office anymore. But I used to work with a guy that if we were anywhere in like a one mile radius, which is a long ride in Brooklyn sometimes, it could take you half an hour. We would go there. And the one time I was working across the street, I couldn't go because they were filming a movie. Yeah. You ever have a panel?
00:57:54
Speaker
Did you ever hear of it? It's like this chickpea patty. And then they smother on like this, we got the cheese and serve. Is it fried? Yeah. Where's that? That's bimoni gardens? No, it's at, it's at, you can get it at pizza places. Like some of them, it's a Sicilian thing. And then it comes on like some soft bread. It's like a little street food. It's, it's,
00:58:23
Speaker
It's a, this is where I go wrong. This is what make me want to stop by somewhere on the way home. Pizza place and get something. Yeah, man. That sounds good. Yeah. You can't get them everywhere. Well, you were the one who, who just introduced me to what's the other thing? Not a bagel. What is it? B Ali B Ali. Yeah. Those are good. And now I see them everywhere. I had never seen one before.
00:58:50
Speaker
Mmm. Oh, yeah fritter chickpea flour other than is water salt
00:58:58
Speaker
on bread too. They're like, let's put this on bread. And then you slather on the regatta. Oh man. When I used to work at the pizza shop, we used to do all sorts of crazy pizzas. Like we had a salad pie where you would chill it after you cooked it with the tomato sauce on there. Then you put like a spring mix on it. That sounds good. That was good. But then we made a BLT pie. So instead of sauce, we would put mayo on the dough. Oh yeah. And the minute you put that in the oven and you start cooking that mayo,
00:59:28
Speaker
People are like, what's that smell? Everyone orders a BLT pie after that, everybody. Mayo's one of those things that gets a lot of hate, like a lot of undue hate. You put it on pizza crust and cook it. People are ashamed to admit that they like mayonnaise. It's like something weird about it. You try cooking it in a crowded restaurant. The whole bar lights up. An open-faced sandwich, like your bread, your mayonnaise, your meat, your cheese, and then put that in the broiler.
00:59:55
Speaker
There's nothing better than that. Your wife loves mayonnaise. Oh it's so good. But I never had it.
01:00:00
Speaker
Like growing up, we never had it. And don't be afraid to lick the knife after you use the mayo. You're just afraid because you think you might like it. But you know what I really learned to like it on? It's like, you know when you have chicken cutlets and you have them left over and you're gonna make a sandwich? Chicken cutlet, tomato, fresh sliced tomato, and mayonnaise.
Tomato Discussions and Hydroponics
01:00:23
Speaker
Yeah, they call it a chicken California. Is that what they call it? I don't do fresh cut tomatoes.
01:00:29
Speaker
You know, you don't like tomatoes, right? No. I mean, I'm kind of allergic to them, but I also don't like them either. I don't like the texture. Tomato and nightshade. Yeah. I like what is that? Nightshades, like eggplants, tomatoes. I like a good tomato. Like I don't like a bad tomato. I mean, obviously.
01:00:49
Speaker
Yeah, well, you know, I mean, I'm sure you know, they ship tomatoes green, like unripe, and they chemically make them red. That's why they taste not good, because, you know, they want them hard. Yeah, they gotta last longer. Yeah, so they don't get damaged during shipping. That's like the wax on the apples, you know, they put like this impermeable seal on the outside, so they last like whatever, months or something. That's why I scrape off that.
01:01:19
Speaker
stuff. That's why I just don't eat fruit. I love fruit though, it's unfortunate. I went to a place when I was in college in Trenton that was doing hydroponic tomatoes. They were doing it so they could, it was like a research and development for some company they wanted to.
01:01:38
Speaker
be able to sell Jersey tomatoes wherever and they wanted it to be fresh. And the easiest way to do it was to do it in a controlled environment. So they were doing it like in old warehouses where they were going to set up hydroponic places. So they could be, I don't know if it's still around, but we went, we took a tour of it because we were in a, I was in a hydroponics class and it was amazing to watch it. Like what they do and how they work. And like, if you took one of those tomatoes, they each one looked perfect because there's no bugs. There's no,
01:02:06
Speaker
Nothing no dirt to get on no dirt to get on them and roots growing water and what just water no soil I mean, I don't think there's something there. No, so it's like suspended I think yeah, I know we had a develop a Hydroponic system after that so I built one and work great nutrients to the water
01:02:28
Speaker
Yeah, there's like a food you put in the water like plant food They they sell these little things are about like this big And it's like a arrow garden is that what it's called Yeah, I have light and it's got you did put like your lettuce in there. Whatever. It just grows right there in your kitchen Yeah, well, I mean I have one we bought it for my mom for Christmas or something and since she went away she Gave it us to care for her for the winter
01:02:57
Speaker
So if you gave me here, it's your problem now pretty much Don't let my plants die. I let them die. Yeah, the wife went away for like three days and I Didn't know I had to put water in it. I thought the big vat had enough water in it It ran dry. So I killed those plants. I bought new pots wait for those two to grow again. Hopefully I can I
01:03:21
Speaker
Sounds like my little pet turtle I had when I was a kid. You forgot to water it? My mom was cleaning up and she put them up on top of the refrigerator to get them off the counter. You remember those little plastic things they used to sell? Yeah, with the gritty top that went on the top. Yeah, it had like a fake palm tree, like window thing. Yeah.
01:03:44
Speaker
And there was like a light up there and it dried up all the water and you know, where's the turtle? And he was all he was dead. I had one stink when I was in the third grade. My mom was a first grader kindergarten teacher in the same school.
School Memories and Discipline
01:03:59
Speaker
But when I was in the third or fourth grade or something, I forget our class had sea monkeys. Do you remember that? Yeah. Gem from the eighties. And, uh,
01:04:09
Speaker
I mean, they were back in the sixties when I was a kid. Yeah. I don't think they have them anymore, do they? Probably. They probably just rebranded. Well, you know what they are, right? They're like germs or something. They're brine shrimp. Yeah. So we had them and at the end of the year, somebody got to get chosen to take them home. Naturally I got chosen. So I brought them to my mom's classroom for her.
01:04:37
Speaker
to bring them home in the car, because I had to take the bus on the last day of school. Before the end of the day, she's showing her class and drops them all over the floor. Her whole class was crying. She killed all the monkeys. She killed all the monkeys. So your mom was a teacher in the school you went to? Yeah, the elementary school I went to. What was that like? I didn't know any different. But I mean to have your mom around all the time.
01:05:06
Speaker
I got in trouble more. That's what I mean. Yeah. Didn't get away with much, could you? No, no, we could drop the hammer on him. Yeah. Well, I mean, I used to get in trouble sometimes, but we used to get, um,
01:05:19
Speaker
during lunch period they would have like you'd eat and then I don't know why they would do this but the last 15 minutes of your 30 minute lunch you had to be dead silent and if you weren't eating you had to put your head down right and it was called quiet time or head down time or something and if you just respected any of the teachers they would have you go
01:05:37
Speaker
stand against the wall. Keith's forgetting to mention this was a New Jersey state penitentiary for children. So they'd have you go stand up against the wall. So I had to stand against the wall often. But yeah, you hold a little paper. Yeah, that I mean, that was every now and then they'd make you hold the hold a piece of paper with your nose. Did they hit you back then? I mean, how old are you, Keith?
01:06:06
Speaker
42 42 all right so i mean 43 somewhere there because i'm 60 so like i'm i was in school in the early 70s basically yeah like they could hit you if you couldn't and growing up in new york
01:06:24
Speaker
like they'd let you out for recess or whatever they called it, but you weren't allowed to run because there were too many kids and it was all blacked off and people would be pushing and shoving and people get hurt. So if you got caught running, you had to stay.
01:06:41
Speaker
if you
01:06:59
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:13
Speaker
And each teacher had a fiberglass paddle. And they would have like. We got to bring that back. And you'd have to go out in the hallway and grab your ankles and the teacher would just let let it rip right on your ass.
01:07:31
Speaker
That's fantastic. Gotta bring that back. It was unbelievable. I'm kidding, obviously. But, you know, so you're supposed to go out there to get like your two or three wax, but if you were like me, I'm sure this is going to sound very familiar to you. You can't leave well enough alone, you know, so they're wailing on you and you're being a smart ass at the time. Yeah, absolutely. You're egging them on, exactly. And so three could turn into
01:08:01
Speaker
ten you know and all the kids would be like up at the window they had those Clara story windows standing on the desks and everything it was a whole huge thing I was a terrible student yeah yeah I would torture my teachers I had a nasty spell
01:08:26
Speaker
I think, you know, as a teacher, they call that junior high. Nobody wants to teach junior high.
01:08:34
Speaker
When I was going to be a teacher, that's what I wanted. Yeah, that's the hardest age group. I thought that would be fun. Yeah, but that's the most, like, I don't know. They're old enough where they know a little bit, but not old enough where they know too much. Yeah, they're not gonna be too smart-assy. Yeah. Like a high school kid, high school kids were, I mean, in junior high, I was, you know, just, I was just there, right? Yeah. But in high school, I was an asshole.
01:09:02
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Through and through, you know. I straightened up in high school. I took a look around and I said, I better I better write this ship before it's too late. Yeah. Yeah. I just I just rode that knife edge between good and bad. Just good enough, but just not not that bad. Now, I met your dad and I don't know him that well, but something tells me he wasn't fooling around if you got in trouble. Oh, no.
01:09:30
Speaker
Mean I wasn't getting in trouble. I was in a trouble high schooler, but although my senior year. I was only there for like 90 days and You're supposed to be there. I think a hundred and eighty eight eighty two hundred and eighty two and you're allowed five unscathed or excused absences or whatever or ten or whatever
01:09:51
Speaker
And I had like 90 to excuse or unexcused absences like just not going there. And they let you graduate. I'm going to tell you the story. I shouldn't. But I went to get called down to the office. Right.
01:10:07
Speaker
and the secretary's there and she's reading my file and she's like, listen, you have only completed 90 full days of school, because I used to go in every day and then I'd leave. And she's like, you've only been here for 90 days, that means you can't graduate. And I was like, it's kind of weird you're telling me that the week before. I was like, whatever. I said, so what do you want from Dunkin Donuts? She told me she wanted a large light and sweet. I said, oh, okay, I'll be right back.
01:10:34
Speaker
and I come back in and I get the large Dunkin' Donuts, like I just left school. This is like first period, I left school. I come back with- I'm talking to the lady who controls the- Large Dunkin' Donuts and a dozen donuts and I put it down and she goes, I can't wait to see you at graduation, Mr. Drennan. Back to class I went.
01:10:53
Speaker
just goes to show you it's not what you know it's who you know that's right that's right and um not much has changed since you know what i mean yeah we had a guy mr cook and he was like i guess was it like uh they called him like a student manager or something but he was the whatever the truancy officer for the school
01:11:13
Speaker
And yeah, I had a similar thing where he called me in. It's like, I see here, you know, this shows that on the on the 10th, you weren't in fourth period history. I said, no, I was there. And it was just, you know, it just let it slide. Well, I mean, to give you an idea, we were in this program called Wings, which was I forget what it stood for, but
01:11:36
Speaker
It was in the tech ed program right so they didn't call it tech ed that back then but that's what it was tech ed program and we were we had a radio station at the school we would have to go yeah we'd have to go out and sell advertisements for the school for the radio station.
01:11:52
Speaker
So during that period, we were allowed to leave. So they knew the cars that could leave that were in this program were supposedly good kids, none of us were. So we would just leave and go out and market like you would if you worked at a radio station. You'd have to go door to door in your local community and get advertisements that would then air on the radio station.
01:12:13
Speaker
So we were leaving all the time so like junior year that started you know and then by senior year me and the eight of us that would do this would be pretty good at it and we would just disappear. But the guy who ran that program and I'll say this because I'm sure he's retired by now he was fantastic.
01:12:35
Speaker
But he would tell me like hey I'm having a pool put in in my house, and I need to get electric out to the pump No problem, sir
01:12:46
Speaker
And you leave like this is in the homeroom and I would leave and I'd go dig the trench and I'd come back to school, you know, and he would. Yeah. It's funny cause things are like that. When I went to high school in Texas, I was in a class called vocational agriculture, you know, cause it was a small rural town.
01:13:13
Speaker
And that was like second period. And the kids that I hung out with, we were on the football team. OK. And they would say, go to the teacher. Oh, we have to run into town to get feed or whatever. And like so you have to. So the school had a pickup truck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here, teenager, take the keys to the school pickup. Yeah. Oh, man.
01:13:43
Speaker
Yeah, just got a text message. We would take this old truck and drive into town and like just come back for football practice. Yeah, right. With 20 pounds of feet or whatever that you needed for the, you know, the steer or the, I think they had chickens and stuff like that too. Yeah. We'd like leave the period before lunch and then we drive. So where I grew up about a
01:14:12
Speaker
I don't know, half hour, 40 minutes, I guess kind of south of New Brunswick. So we'd like leave the period before lunch, drive to New Brunswick, get fat sandwiches, like skip the whole rest of the day. We'd like go fishing or me and my buddy Sodi would like look up on AutoTrader where there was like a cool car and go like, can we check out the the Z06? You know, we're like two 16 year old kids in in like my Crown Victoria or something.
01:14:40
Speaker
And the guy, you know, they would humor us, but it's like, you know, we're not going to buy this car. Yeah. Is it coincidence we wound up in these, you know, fields of work or is these these stories
Educational Challenges and College Experience
01:14:52
Speaker
are just all too common? I'm sure we would be like stockbrokers or something if we were in school the whole time. Be retired at 34. That'd be some tech billionaire.
01:15:07
Speaker
I think it has to do with how you're wired, you know? Yeah, school wasn't for me until I got to college. I really enjoyed going to college, class in college. I didn't, I hated school up until that point. It just, there was nothing in it for me. Yeah, I, it depends on the subject. Like a lot of my college classes, cause I went to be a shop teacher, so. Okay.
01:15:34
Speaker
half of my classes were phenomenal and I loved it and I would spend extra hours in the labs and stuff you know which is the wood shop or metal shop or whatever just doing whatever but then when it comes to history and and physics and chemistry and like yeah yeah didn't I learn all that stuff in high school I mean shouldn't I've learned at all if I had gone to high school you know what I mean like it's in a way
01:15:56
Speaker
like the lecture classes. I can't do it. I can't sit there and take notes for, you know, a 90-minute class. No matter how interesting the subject is, like, if it's interesting, I want to sit there and put my full attention into it and not sit there and write notes. Notes are hard. I mean, that's the thing.
01:16:17
Speaker
Yeah. It's everyone learns differently though. Yeah. Like I had one class, which is why I'm not a teacher. It was American history class. Yeah. And the guy would just get up there and read the book. Oh yeah. And then all of his tests, quizzes and finals were all essay. Oh God.
01:16:42
Speaker
So he didn't grade it on, if you got the information correct, he graded it on how well it was written. So I failed. Professor Zainine, and if he's dead today, I'm okay with that. I took this class five times to try and get rid of the F, and I failed all five. So when you go,
01:17:06
Speaker
I wasn't a bad, like I'm not stupid, I'm not a bad student, but when you go and you fail a class, you have two tries to get rid of that F, right?
01:17:15
Speaker
So that didn't work, because I failed it three times. So on the fourth time, I went down to the dean, and he's like, all right, I'll make it a C if you get an A on the fourth try. And that didn't work. He gave me an A. The teacher hated me. Like the third time I took it, or the fourth time, he's like, he would be going through the attendance. And he goes up, and he would get to like, I don't know, dean or something. That's a bad one for a school, but you know.
01:17:42
Speaker
whatever comes before dreaded yet and he would be like many get to the next name ego alright i want everyone to look in the back there that's mister drennan if you want to know who won't be passing this class it'll be him and they just keep going yeah break you drennan he just didn't like me for some reason you know what i'd never cause trouble in his classes history class where you just reads is no reason you're at this moment but it was just it's funny cuz i thought history
01:18:10
Speaker
Yeah, I'm terrible at history, don't get me wrong, but... You said something or like, you know, in one of your essay questions, you wrote something that first semester that he didn't like and he just decided he's like, that's it. Well, here's the other problem. I only took this class. I could have taken any easier history class, but I took it because my roommate at the time once said, hey, I'm taking this class. You want to take it with me? It's one and done. You know, if you take this class, then you don't have to take a second history class. You're just one and done.
01:18:36
Speaker
I was like, all right, yeah. And my roommate was ridiculously smart, but on top of that, he had one of those idetic memories or whatever. So he would sit there during the test and his eyes would be going back and forth and he would read the book from, from memory, you know? And I'm like, how are you doing this? See, he could write down and he was a good writer and everything. Like, so I don't know if he knew we were roommates and one guy looked like he was cheating and then there was me. I don't know.
01:19:01
Speaker
I'm sure if I went back to school now, I'd probably have a 4.0, but yeah, you're just not mentally ready for that kind of stuff sometimes. No, no, I was always, I mean, I graduated with a 3.86 or something like that from college. I was much better student in college than I was in high school.
01:19:23
Speaker
As a history teacher, I realized that's a lot of people that have like the great man way of teaching history where it's all just names and dates. And I wasn't like that at all. I used to give like a quiz every week.
01:19:39
Speaker
10 questions, what we go over. And I mean, I taught in some not great schools and you have to pass history to graduate. Open up every class was like, this is your best chance to ever pass American history. Just play, you know, and we're gonna get along. And that's the way it went.
01:20:05
Speaker
It's crazy people hate history. I don't like it. They have a lot of bad teachers in history
01:20:12
Speaker
There's also the problem with there's a lot of bad concepts in teaching history. So there's like this guy who just reads it and then you have to tell him a story back. And then there's people who are like, well, you got that date wrong. It was 1943, not 1942. The grand scheme of things, does that really matter? It doesn't matter at all. That's the date that's significant. But there are teachers that only go by dates because they're a numbers guy.
01:20:40
Speaker
like there's a lot of weight like when you get to math you either know it or you don't when it gets to history right or wrong in math yeah when you get to history i mean yeah i used to like to you know concentrate on like more conceptual things and yeah also you'd run into kids that couldn't read at grade level so
01:21:01
Speaker
You have to come up with something, some way for them to process the information and get it back to you because they would have trouble reading the textbook. I forget now, it's been a long time since I've been in college, but what are the different types of learners? There's like cognitive, kinetic. There's seven different types of intelligences. As a teacher, you have to hit all of them.
01:21:25
Speaker
kinesthetic yeah yeah like visual auditory yeah
01:21:32
Speaker
Yeah, I remember doing some kind of finals project like that, comparing, you know, an athlete to somebody who was, let's say, like a physicist. Right. And where we would, you know, tend to say somebody who's a physicist is intelligent, but somebody who's, you know, a world class athlete is talented.
01:21:57
Speaker
Yeah. But at the same token, there is some intelligence needed to be a world-class athlete, too. Right, that was my argument. Like, look at Tom Brady. Yeah, it's a different type of intelligence. He wasn't the most athletic guy in the world, but he's the most intelligent, so he appears to be the most athletic guy. So we all made it to college, despite our... Yeah, I didn't graduate, but...
01:22:27
Speaker
I just went for the death. I got accepted. I feel like that's all I went for. I just figured I'd saddle myself with that for the rest of my life. I got into TCNJ not because of my grades in high school or anything but because one my brother went there so I had like that you know they try and get the lineage going or whatever and then I got a letter because I was
01:22:56
Speaker
Conditionally accepted after I met with the dean of the school of engineering So I had to go down there and meet with the school of engineering this guy Dean Crannock right and I met with him and he's like listen You don't belong here. You shouldn't be coming in with your grades, but because this is a new
01:23:15
Speaker
program that we're doing at the school, we're going to bring you on because your brother goes here and wrote a letter that said, you know, a recommendation letter. So I wasn't supposed to be there. So then I get there and my first four classes were all like rudimentary classes that I had a pass just to prove that I should be there. He's like, if you don't pass these and I aced them all. And then I got not straight A's, I got a lot A's and B's, but my grade point average was fine. Like I was in the, like the, probably the mid threes until that history class.
01:23:45
Speaker
My junior year and then five times doing that real when you got five F's for one And it all goes on your transcripts and then I brought it down and then and then they're like well You can't get a teaching certificate because you're like at a two point seven four and you need to be a two point seven five You're kidding me. Oh, so that guy really screwed you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think I was like a two point seven or I was like real close fractions
01:24:12
Speaker
fractions. Yeah. And then I argued that you, I mean, can't they take the two off? They would have and just leave three F's and they wouldn't do anything for me. You know, they want my money. They want me to keep going back. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it's all about. You know, they're like, well, if you had taken it in summer school, we would have passed you.
01:24:32
Speaker
Well, I went a whole extra year trying to get around it. Yeah. Does it like average back out? Like, does the GPA encompass as many years as you're there? Yeah, it would have, it would have, but then I just, I took the technological studies degree and got out.
01:24:51
Speaker
But yeah, I was like that in math. I didn't take any math in high school. I took the bare minimum. And then when I got to college, I was at Brooklyn College and they had like this core curriculum thing. I was taking a one and done kind of thing.
01:25:09
Speaker
And I was so far behind conceptually, I didn't know anything. So I'd go and I had like this African math teacher who had like a heavy, like sort of broken, like British English and native accent. So it was hard to understand. And then I'd go to the labs, you know, with all the students and they were all foreign students to all the ones who were doing the best in math. Right. And I was like, I'm doomed.
01:25:39
Speaker
So when I was in high school, I remember I did terrible in geometry. Whatever comes after geometry I think was trigonometry. So like I did so bad that like to keep you moving through, they just gave me a different, like there was a different math class for kids that weren't good in math.
01:25:57
Speaker
But then when I was looking for colleges, I was like, oh, maybe I'll be an engineer. And they're like, well, your math is terrible. You can't do it. And now I graduate. And then all I do is geometry and engineering. It's like, doesn't matter what you learn in school. It's all about context, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I actually taught math on sat at Saturday school still wound up. I was like one page ahead of the kid. Yeah.
01:26:23
Speaker
I'd go into class terrified that somebody would ask me a question that was like, you know, that I had no answer for. I only know how to do what we're going to go over today. That's a good question. Save that for tomorrow because we're actually going to get our answers like that.
01:26:42
Speaker
I'm glad you asked that, because that's actually what we're going to talk about tomorrow. There's a big technique, like if you're giving speeches or whatever, like if you're teaching a lecture and somebody asks something, like if you say, if you have a question about anything I'm talking about, raise your hand and we'll go over it right away. If somebody raises their hand and it's something off topic, the idea is we're going to get to that later in the lecture and then go back to what you were doing. But if it's on topic, then you answer it.
01:27:07
Speaker
Right? It's the same thing with teaching. Oh yeah, we're going to get to that. You never get to it. And they forget about it. You think you would have been a good teacher?
Teaching Practice and Career Path Frustrations
01:27:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
01:27:21
Speaker
Well, yes and no. I would have been a good teacher to anyone who wanted to be there, which was kind of why I wanted to be the shop teacher, because it's all electives. Especially in high school, you have to want to be in the wood shop, or just have you removed from my class was my thought. But I can't really handle stupidity that much.
01:27:44
Speaker
Well, yeah, you have to have a lot of patience and you have to and dealing with the adults. It was hard. It was harder than the dealing with the kids.
01:27:54
Speaker
One of the reasons why I didn't fight the whole thing about trying to go back for my, and I probably should now, go back to get my license for it, is I was doing JPE or whatever, where you're teaching at a school. I'm teaching in junior high and, uh, I was in a shop class and two of the girls come over and they're like, Oh, that's a nice shirt, Mr. Dreddon.
01:28:19
Speaker
And then they walk away, right? So then the teacher comes over. It was like towards the end of class anyway. The teacher comes over and he goes, oh yeah, I can't really have them saying stuff like that. You know, you can't say thank you to something like that. I was like, okay, whatever. And then the class ended and it was my last class. So I had to go back to class. He's like, all right, now we gotta go down and fill out paperwork. Fill out paperwork for what? You know, I'll be back tomorrow.
01:28:44
Speaker
I had to fill out paperwork for potential sexual harassment with these kids because they complimented me on my shirt and this is like 2000 2001 time frame somewhere there when I was teaching and yet you had to fill out paperwork because it was probably your school it was over there yeah um
01:29:07
Speaker
Thomas R Grover middle school. That's the one. Um, wait, this is a guy that touched me. Uh, that's a bad joke. It's not appropriate to joke about that. But yeah, he said that's probably every day he has to go down and it never gets like, unless it becomes an issue, it's not a problem, but he, you have to go down there and fill out your paperwork. So you're,
01:29:35
Speaker
Oh, it's like getting ahead of the threat of, oh my God. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, you can't have- Can you imagine what it's like today? Because, you know, kids can, you know, they're schemers, we're all kids, you know? Yeah. They're like, I'm gonna get rid of this guy, watch this. Yeah, and all they have to do is even just,
01:30:05
Speaker
make something up completely like yeah you hear about that nothing could have happened and then all they have to do is go to like a guidance counselor and say something like you know you know mr so-and-so makes me uncomfortable the way he looks at me and you're done it goes right in the file
01:30:22
Speaker
And what's weird is in a shop class, you got to be attentive to every kid and like watching their every move, you know, you'd be looking at their hand and they think you're looking at something else. Yeah. You're in big trouble. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was probably a good twist of fate because I don't think there's many shop programs left. There are. And they've all switched to tech. And well, that's the other problem, like.
01:30:43
Speaker
I started school and then they switched to this Tech Ed stuff, you know? So, which is fine, but it's all like pre-engineering and everything. And it's great, like I had a guy from my old high school who became a tech teacher, right? And he's now teaching at my old high school and I contacted him to find CAD drafters. I'm like, just give me the guy who's not going to college. He's graduated, it was like in May. I was like, who's gonna graduate in a month?
01:31:11
Speaker
That's not college material. That's in your CAD class. Give me that guy. I can give him a job. And he wouldn't do it. He wouldn't, he wouldn't recommend any of the kids that weren't going to college. He's like, I don't want to promote anyone not going to college. Like your whole point as a teacher is to set these kids up for the future. Like not everybody's built for college, but everybody needs to make a living. Right. Right. And I'm offering a pretty decent job, right? Within a couple of years, he gave me making 75, $80,000 a year out of high school.
01:31:36
Speaker
that's a wonderful thing to do and he wouldn't he's like i'm not going to recommend any kid and he was sending me these college kids right he's sending me all these graduating engineers like mechanical engineers and stuff i'm like i don't want these kids he's like why they're good hard workers i'm like i'm looking for a drafter i'm looking for a career drafter this guy's gonna come in i'm gonna have to spend six seven months training him and by that time he's gonna get bored and find a job in engineering and be gone
01:32:04
Speaker
Like, but what? Yeah, I didn't have a shop if you had shop, but I did take one elective course in middle school that was like, I forget what they call it. It was like something engineering. You know, you build like a little bridge out of Popsicle stick type shit or like a thing to drop an egg and make sure it doesn't break, you know, that kind of stuff. But that was it. There was no wood shop. There's no metal shop. There was no shop shop, you know, for like auto shop. None of that.
01:32:34
Speaker
See I went to school during the golden age of shop. Yeah, there was auto shop wood shop. Yeah, we had all that I did things like leather craft. Yeah lost wax casting like I took cooking was as close to I took I took a Flower tying like dried flower tying as a class in high school. I took my fishing time and I
01:33:00
Speaker
Lyrale making Wow in high school. Yeah, like as a high school like one semester course You got like four different things to choose but my senior year. I basically took wood shop almost every period I could They had robotics in high school And I think that was the same thing in one semester Yeah, I think I didn't have the prerequisites to get into it, you know, you probably need a calculus or something Yeah
01:33:25
Speaker
That's the problem. You don't really need that. No. Somebody somewhere makes that crap up and then they pigeonhole you and you could have been the guy who makes the robot arms. Yeah. I mean, I could take calculus and fail. There's no I don't have to do it. You tell me I can't take robotics and fail. Like if I don't know it, then I don't know it. Yeah. I get robotics 202. You should have to take one or two.
01:33:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's a shame they got rid of all these shop classes. I mean, they they, you know, you know, every well, they're all pre-engineering curriculum, doesn't she? Yeah, she was a teacher. She got out of it. Now she like literally writes the textbooks.
01:34:03
Speaker
Yeah. I just think it's crazy that even still, when we were in school, they pushed, oh, if you're not going to college, you're a POS, you know? And they're still pushing that mantra in schools, and I'm like, stop. Everyone I know that didn't go to college is probably better off than me. I'm 20 something years out of college, and I just paid it off a month ago. And I wrote a big check just to get it off my plate.
01:34:32
Speaker
Like I wasn't anywhere near done. I think I had two years left. Did you have Sallie Mae? Or was it private? Sallie Mae. Yeah. Well, it was like I couldn't, I never qualified for any of the government stuff. So I guess it was private.
01:34:51
Speaker
You know, I was also in college for the better part of a decade trying to get rid of a history of so. I hope you're listening asshole. I hope he's not. He's in a nursing home somewhere. He picked up woodworking, you know, in his old age. That bastard Drennan. Yeah.
01:35:10
Speaker
He wasn't that old then, he's probably still alive, but he's, everyone hated him. I would go down to bitch to the dean, like I gotta do something, the dean of the history department. I'm like, oh yeah, Zainine, yeah, yep, yep, nobody likes him. Pretty much, yeah. That's really unfortunate. I mean, usually as a teacher, you think about all the times you may have helped somebody, because a good teacher could really change and influence a life.
01:35:39
Speaker
just with a little bit of kindness or a bit of advice. But here's a great example of somebody changing the whole course of a student's life. Yeah. And I took the class five. It's not like I didn't know the material. You know, I'd read the book. I didn't have to buy a new textbook every year. I had the book highlighted. I knew from past people who wrote papers and stuff, you know, they would give me papers. Like I had people trying to help me pass this class, but it was the essays and the finals.
01:36:09
Speaker
When you're there, there's no cheating then I cheated my way through a lot of college but not that class you couldn't chat GPT How you doing on time Few minutes. Yeah You gotta get to your class I gotta get to my class that's that professor's pretty good. I'll tell you guys about that later
01:36:33
Speaker
Oh yeah. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. A nice long one. We haven't had a good long one in a while. So how long was it? Uh, about an hour and 40 minutes. Not bad. Yeah. It goes by so fast. Yeah. Oh my God. I mean, when we did the one with Manny, it was like four hours and we're like, man, it's been four hours already. Manny, I know you're not listening, but we're going to have you on soon. I've been trying. We'll have to do an episode from a lodge. Yeah.
01:37:01
Speaker
I think we're gonna have our hands full. We're busy. I think you can get it done after a day of fishing when people are cooking before the drinking starts. Yeah, we're gonna have to plan a nice meal. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Got to see if what Brad Steele is, if he's covering up. Yeah. I don't want to cook for that guy.
01:37:19
Speaker
Like I said, I think he's I don't think he's food snob at all. No, okay He's like the cheesecake thing. You know, I like this cheesecake, but I'll eat any cheesecake Even like a cheesecake, you know, does he listen? Did you make the wings last time didn't we have wings
01:37:40
Speaker
No, no. We had clams, clams. We had saw meatballs and sausage. We had, uh, I did burgers and sausage burger. Anthony made pulled pork. I made the meatballs and sausage. We cooked the clams that, that the, uh, clam jammer brought. Um,
01:38:03
Speaker
I think that was it for dinner because it was only Friday night and Saturday night. It'd be nice to make like a roast or something like a couple of tenderloins of beef maybe at Costco. A little chateau brion. Beef Wellington. I was just talking to the wife about that last night. We were watching a cooking show. I was like, I've never had a beef Wellington. I don't think I've had it either, but I like everything that's in it. I was watching that master chef or whatever it is. Oh, is that Gordon Ramsey? Yeah. Yeah.
01:38:28
Speaker
Well, anyway, we could do we could do this circle 100 times where we say we're going to end the show and then we talk about something else. Yeah, we got to get Keith back on the road. Well, thanks for for listening. Everybody take care. Don't forget to write in your questions. You got three weeks. Look up, make what you fear.
01:38:44
Speaker
Yes. Check out Working Hands podcast and Make What You Fear. They have a bunch of prizes from a bunch of different places. Yeah. Good stuff. And there's how many weeks left? Two. When's this hair? Friday? Yeah. It's the end of February. It ends. Yeah. This comes out on the 10th. Yeah. Check it out. So you got a couple of weeks to enter the contest. Make What You Fear 2023. Talk to you next week.
01:39:07
Speaker
As always, Rob and I, thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next week. If you want to help support the podcast, you can leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. You can join our Patreon or you can use one of our affiliate links in the podcast description for vesting finishes or Myoderm CBD pain relief cream. Again, we appreciate your support. Thanks for tuning in.
01:39:45
Speaker
Ain't no shame, but there's been a change