Transcript
johngrimsmo: Good morning and welcome to the business of machining episode 379. My name is John Grimsmo.
John S: And my name is shots hunters.
johngrimsmo: And this is a weekly podcast where we get to talk about our businesses and our lives and sort of the internal therapy session for, for good and bad, not bad, helpful. Um, and kind of check in on each other and see where we're at and and see if we can help each other, uh, manage running business and life and being in our forties and just,
John S: Yeah, yeah, i yeah.
johngrimsmo: yeah.
John S: yeah
johngrimsmo: like that But yeah, things are good for me. How are you doing?
John S: Good, yes.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Back in the thick of it, I want to talk a little bit about what we're up to. I have a couple questions for you and the audience as well, but then I think I kind of already mentioned this about having taken some time off. We went on a fishing trip, then we went on a family vacation, and then my wife was lamenting how summer camps were kind of over and so we've got kind of a 25 30 days left before school starts and so it's a little bit different with childcare and I was like you know what I'm just gonna take Jane my daughter on a trip and we impromptu like a little over a day's notice just decided we're gonna go to New York for a couple of days and
John S: just like as a parent, you know, she's, she'll be eight soon. um So young, but on the flip side, like totally lockstep. Like we, we went around the city, the ice cream museum, you know, had food, you know, meals together, us saw play, like just, you know, it's, it's like whole, I don't i want to sound too mushy. It's what life's all about. We had an absolute great time. And then not to spoil your beans, but I was telling you, Hey, I'm not going to be on the podcast and you, you know what,
johngrimsmo: Please.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I mean, a couple weeks ago, i well, for a while now, I've been like, I got to take the kids either individually or separately on a trip, just daddy -kid trip.
John S: yeah
johngrimsmo: um So I asked the kids a couple weeks ago, I was like, where do you want to go? Just anywhere. and and You know, just let let me hear it. I might say no, not Antarctica or something, but um but but let me know. And Claire's like, New York City would be really cool. And Lave said, either New York City or Italy, because I want the pizza.
John S: little Little Italy works.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly. um So Clara, I've been thinking about New York City, and then you mentioned that you and Jane were going on a day's notice. And about two days later, I was like, Well, this this weekend's our only free weekend for the rest of the summer.
John S: Oh, wow.
johngrimsmo: So Clara, you want to go?
John S: You're only 20 minutes to the New York State border, John.
johngrimsmo: yeah Exactly. And ah Exactly like you said, it was an incredible trip. Claire's 14 now, and we've traveled some together, but not tons, nothing big. She hasn't flown on a plane in seven years, so it's been a while. And so we got flights, Buffalo to New York City. Flight was a little delayed, but we got there, and it was good to teach her how to fly on a plane. I'm trying to picture in my head, if she goes off on her own, she's got to know these things, right? She's got to know how to handle herself in all these situations.
johngrimsmo: So it was funny because we took off and we fly to NYC and the pilot's like, oh, it's pretty busy down there. So we're just going to circle the the airport for a little bit, um, for about, you know, maybe 30 minutes before we can land. No big deal. So we're like, whatever. I just keep watching my movie and and we just do it. And then the pilot comes on after and he's like, uh, he's like, so JFK is not accepting any airplanes right now.
John S: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: So we're going to go back to Buffalo and refuel. We're not that far away. And then we'll try again. And we're like. Are you kidding?
John S: What?
johngrimsmo: like That sounds like a joke. Where's the punchline? like like And he was not it was not a joke.
John S: Oh my god.
johngrimsmo: He just left it silent for the next five minutes. where Everybody's you know politely freaking out. and And then we turn around a circle and start going home. And we're like, what the heck?
John S: Oh my god.
johngrimsmo: We land in Buffalo. We literally watched the fuel truck come on. I got to see the fuel gauge and watch how many gallons, 1 ,000 gallons, by the way, they refueled.
John S: It's crazy.
johngrimsmo: And, uh, the flight attendant was politely joking with us, but also very serious. He's like, and don't use the electrical outlets while we're refueling. Ha ha, but I'm serious. I'm like, whoa.
John S: Really?
johngrimsmo: And then we sat on the tarmac for like an hour or two, I forget. And then the pilot's like, well, I'm, uh, I'm coming up on my 12 hour shift and I legally can't fly anymore. So unless we leave in the next two minutes, uh, the flight's canceled.
John S: Oh, John.
johngrimsmo: So Claire and I, and the whole plane's kind of freaking out. One guy's like, I got Yankees tickets, like I'm missing.
John S: Yang.
johngrimsmo: You know, we had magic show tickets that we missed, whatever. Claire and I looked at each other and we go, I gave her the choice. I was like, we can either be at the whim of Delta and have them like reschedule our flight um and and wait around or go home and come back, whatever, and then be there tomorrow and miss our Hamilton play tickets um for tomorrow.
John S: Oh.
johngrimsmo: Or we can just drive there. And she's like, how long's the drive? It was like eight hours with some charging for the Tesla. And she's like, let's do it. So we we drove, we rolled into NYC at 1 a .m. and found a parking garage and just left the car there for four days, three days. And it was awesome.
John S: That's awesome. I mean, I got to say like, it's one thing if you were to just delay in Buffalo or, or whatever, but to like circle New York, see the, to see the skyline, like that's super deep.
johngrimsmo: I know. I couldn't actually see it, it was cloudy. so i don't
John S: Okay. Maybe that's better. That's demoralizing.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Oh, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Right. It was like funny. So I'm like teaching Clara these life lessons of like, the conditions are never perfect. Life's going through your curveballs. Like, like, what do you do what do? How do you handle it? And she was cool as a cucumber.
John S: That's awesome.
johngrimsmo: Um, and it it was great. So like that set the stage for. these kind of growing up lessons that she got to learn throughout this trip because she's 14. And you know, one day she's going to do a trip like that on her own or with her friends or whatever. And like, okay, I got to teach you these lessons. Like, how do you be safe in New York City? How do you like ah to watch for people, not just put your head down all the time? And it was great.
John S: Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: It was absolutely fantastic. And we had so much fun. I saw Hamilton. It was amazing. She loves plays and musicals and things. That was awesome. Went to the magic show anyway. We bought we bought it twice.
John S: yeah we oh
johngrimsmo: we We missed the first one, bought it again, whatever. It was worth it. It was worth twice. and
John S: Tits, can you tell me more? I'm just curious. What's this magic show? Where is it? What's the?
johngrimsmo: it was um We just kind of looked on on the ticketing sites, like StubHub, I think is where we found it, or Today Tickets, or whatever. And it was these two guys from Sweden that was kind of directed by Penn and Teller, apparently, or their mega company, I don't know.
John S: Oh.
johngrimsmo: but Um, these two Swedish guys and the show was called Stalker. And the whole theme is like, like, um, in person, you know, they have people up on stage and, and, and the whole theme was kind of around stocking and, and learning all this information we have on each other on online and knowing things before they happen and a lot of sleight of hand and like card tricks and things like that.
John S: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: But they tied it in together to this beautiful, funny, hilarious play. And you know it was like, everybody stand up. OK, everybody under the age of 20 and over the age of 40 sit down. And they started to narrow down until two people, a boy and a girl, were standing within dating range, single, et cetera, et cetera.
John S: mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: And they're like, I'm not saying anything, but you're both good looking people.
John S: Stop.
johngrimsmo: If you want to go meet up after the in the lobby or whatever, go go ahead. This is just funny things like that.
John S: That's hilarious.
johngrimsmo: And the best one was they pulled this guy up on stage. um And uh, and handed him a Rubik's cube and they're like, have you ever solved one of these? You know, can you just shuffle it up for me? And he starts doing the speed cubing things with his fingers and he's like really good at it. And it was like coincidence, right? And then they, they did the whole, like another cube in a box and they. randomly match the patterns kind of thing, which is supposed to be impossible because there's gajillions of patterns.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And so he mixed it up. And then the one in the box happened to be exactly matchy matchy. It's like magic jerk, right? The funniest thing was at the end of the show, they brought him back on stage and they're like, so, uh, I wasn't a coincidence. Like we stalked you before the show. We saw your Instagram. We saw it. You're a speedcuber. We made this whole beat around you.
John S: No way.
johngrimsmo: It was awesome. And he's like, you, you came to a show called stalker. Like I'm not going to apologize for it.
John S: Yeah, no, that's ah William and I went to oh shoot It was at MGM. I can't remember the its household name magician not Penn and Teller not David Blaine I'm embarrassed to say I can't remember the guy's name and I Mean I was kind of like okay, you know, I'm going to a magic show with my son my son um i'll I'll make the best of it.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John S: I mean John I go again tomorrow David Copperfield I would go I
johngrimsmo: Oh yeah. I've never been to a big one like that.
John S: again tomorrow. It was like unbelievably fun for me and for William. Some of the things I'm still, a couple of things I kind of think I kind of figured out was fun, but some of them like, like I got nothing.
johngrimsmo: yeah Yeah, yeah.
John S: I have no clue how you did that.
johngrimsmo: And this was a small venue, like, I don't know, 100 people inside, maybe less. It was fantastic.
John S: That's great.
johngrimsmo: And so the whole trip, we she's like, i want to so I want to eat at a fancy restaurant. I'm like, okay, look up Google Maps and pick one. And since she found this Italian restaurant, we ate at a Brazilian restaurant where they like shave the meat off the skewer.
John S: Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: I've never done that before. And we just, amazing time. Just fantastic.
John S: That's great.
johngrimsmo: Just super good, good time together. I don't think I've ever spent four days just with her, you know?
John S: Yeah. we' We'd heard about it and it's something my wife and I sort of said is like, let's do more of that. I don't want to get into the whole, like you have so many, you have 47 Saturdays with your kids or or whatever that it's stuff is. It's like, no, but it is, it is great.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: And conversely, Yvonne stayed home with William.
johngrimsmo: Mmhmm.
John S: Obviously they had a great time. They did some fun stuff. And then and Yvonne and did this first. So now we have to do this awkward, like rock, paper, scissor to decide what parent and what kid gets to pick what thing next.
johngrimsmo: Yeah,
John S: And is it like,
johngrimsmo: yeah.
John S: Is it this year? Is it next year? Like what's just kind of a go with the flow?
johngrimsmo: Totally, totally. And yeah, we we haven't, past five, 10 years, we haven't vacationed hardly at all, like little trips around Niagara Falls, stay a night or two in the Sheraton or whatever. Nothing big, mostly, you know, i'm busy with work and money hasn't flowed as freely as I wished it had. Past 10 years of them growing up and kind of get to the point where like, obviously I can't throw caution to the wind, but I'm going to do some stuff. Like Claire's 14, you know, if she leaves at 18, like some kids do, I do have limited time with her, you know, to, and and she's still kid enough that she wants to spend time with me.
John S: Yeah.
John S: that
johngrimsmo: in These teenage years, she may not want to spend as much time with me, right? So I'm just soaking it up as much as I can.
John S: Sure.
johngrimsmo: It's great.
John S: Yeah. Good view.
johngrimsmo: That's it.
John S: Glad of your house. How's shop life?
johngrimsmo: The shop's been awesome, steady. You know, summertime, people are taking the odd day off here and there, a week off. Everything's running steady, smooth. It's nice to be able to take a couple days off and not even worry about the shop whatsoever. and Yeah, things are smooth. We've got kind of some of the classic issues that have still been plaguing us like, like flatness of blades through heat tree lapping, things like that.
John S: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: We're fine tuning it quite a bit. And I think we're looking for that last 1%, but it's bugging us so bad because we're looking so hard.
John S: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: We're like, I know we can get rid of it.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So we're still playing with that. Grinding blades on the speedio is better than ever before, but still you know, could be, could be more consistent, could be more reliable. um
John S: It's not it's not off your mental to do list, sounds like.
johngrimsmo: Exactly. That's a good point.
John S: Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Good way to say it. And then speaking of my mental to -do list, the past week or two, I kind of, I flipped my brain and I was like, all these little things that bug me and that keep coming back to my brain and that I'm not doing and that I've just festered
John S: Mm -hmm.
johngrimsmo: I'm going to get them done because i'm I'm sick of having too many things on my brain that are important, but are like, you know, I'm too busy.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: So it's been fantastic. I've gotten so many small, like weighted things off my brain, little projects here, and they're both at home and at work. And one of the big ones that I just finished last night was getting back to inbox zero in my Gmail.
John S: Hey.
johngrimsmo: And I'm like really proud of myself because I've been at like inbox a hundred for years.
John S: Sure.
johngrimsmo: You know, there's, there's just old emails that are important, but I haven't dealt with. And the past few days, it was just like, you know what? I'm, I'm not accepting this anymore. I want zero and I got to it last night and I feel so good. Like, yeah.
John S: That's great. I was going to ask, that theme, I think that's been common amongst both of us for quite some time, what or was it just simply like nothing changed? I just went and did it. like
johngrimsmo: Kind of, yeah. And, you know, the past five years I've certainly learned a lot of discipline in myself and a lot of it is just like having the nerve to just get up and do it.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: um For me, I got to be careful because I can easily run in the wrong direction and do like unimportant things and leave the important things festering. But I'm kind of looking at that list going, that's important and it's not getting done. Oh, that's a problem. Like, get it done. And a lot of these are small projects. They take, you know, between two minutes and an hour. and i'm like Well, just to get them done.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Like, stop it.
John S: yeah
johngrimsmo: Stop complaining that you're too busy. Just get your stuff done.
John S: It makes me want to re listen to the audio book that that Tim Grover relentless Michael Jordan trainer guy that was a kind of one of those in especially with the benefit of hindsight momentous changes for me probably four years ago at this point three years ago and um just sort of talks about like stop thinking you know make a
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: So in your situation or in mine, it's like, okay, you've looked at a list of four things to do. You know, one of them is important and one of them is quick. That's the end of the internal conversation.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John S: Like, like hard stop, shut your brain down and go do the task. And I still will say, well, what if I, what am I switching out?
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: What if I do another, like, no, no, you just gotta like, and it's like, he talked about going to the gym.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: It's like, if you're going to go to the gym, make the head decision, your head to go to the gym and then immediately stop the internal debate or thinking about it or delaying it.
johngrimsmo: Yes.
John S: Just stop. And we, we think too much. Just, just go do it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, absolutely. Yep. And it's, I realized on my drive in this morning that I'm, while I am fairly disciplined, I'm much better at following a system and having these systems in place like inbox zero is a system for me now.
John S: Mhm.
johngrimsmo: And, you know, I've wanted to do it for so long, but I've got all these old emails and new emails get lost in the old emails pretty quickly.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And I'm a big fan of putting done emails away at different folders, and they're out of the inbox. But I've had old stuff that's just kind of lingers. And then the new stuff that is important kind of lingers too. It's messy. And now it's a system that I can easily keep up with. And I just deal with the daily flow. And it's it's it's going to feel good every day, like a little hit a dopamine to be like, ah, last one, done.
John S: Mm
johngrimsmo: A new one comes in. You're like, I have one thing in my inbox. I'm going to do that thing. And then it's the same with working out. Like I heard many years ago, you know, put your running shoes next to your bed so that you run in the morning, you wake up and you, Oh yeah, I gotta go for a run. While I don't run. Um, I started my, my workout shorts or my pajamas. I stopped wearing pajama pants, the hard stop. I wear them on, I wear them on Christmas morning and that's it.
John S: -hmm That's
johngrimsmo: Otherwise I sleep in my workout shorts. And what do I do first thing I work out.
John S: That's so lean.
johngrimsmo: Right. And that's, that's my system.
John S: you
johngrimsmo: And now I don't think about it. And now I can't not work out. It's just part of the morning routine. Um, so I try to apply that for the to -do list and the work and things like that. And it's, it's that like, like you said, stop thinking. Now, when I wake up in the morning, I don't think I just do.
John S: yeah i In this case, see that and I'll raise you a, instead of just being a zero inbox, go get these emails sent to other people in the company.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and having a zero inbox will make that more obvious as well.
John S: Yeah, right.
johngrimsmo: And and I'm putting filters in place. So like all the junk emails that are not important. It just disappear. um The orders we're getting for buyers choice. um are still coming into my inbox, but I'm flagging them already. I like to read them because a lot of them will have comments from customers as they're ordering, which is really like nice. And at some point I'll stop reading them, but it's really nice.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So like, you know, and and that's a good idea actually.
John S: Use, use AI for them to a tag, had AI summarize them once so a month for you.
johngrimsmo: You could do that.
John S: Well, that's a segue to something I want to bring up, but I'll, I'll hold that thought.
johngrimsmo: Probably.
johngrimsmo: Okay. That's interesting. But yeah, having it clean will make things more obvious as to what's coming through on a daily basis and what I don't need to deal with and what, you know.
John S: Yeah.
John S: 100 % and i I know I've said, ranted on this before, but I've kind of you, I've you my inbox is sacred. So I don't allow, like I don't subscribe to any junk, like anything that comes to me and you know, I don't, I've relaxed a lot about it over the last few years, but nevertheless, when I buy,
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah.
John S: um you know I bought a hydraulic fitting for Johnny Five two days ago and the company immediately signs me up for their you know daily funnel flow of sales tactics.
johngrimsmo: Right.
John S: And then when you when you unsubscribe, it's like, well, please give us 10 days. um It's like, well, bro, I never subscribe. You just chose to put me on there.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: um I've chilled out a lot about it, but I'm still
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: voracious about unsubscribing because I view it as somebody that sounds a little bit like a Karen but you know you're stealing my time and I want my inbox to be the stuff I care about and I say this humbly not in any way meant to be arrogant like I now get so few emails a day that it's wonderful
johngrimsmo: yeah
johngrimsmo: Totally.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: um And it also has been that other theme you and I have wrestled with of like, really, what's that next step of detaching yourself? And so but having been gone a lot, um in the past, even when I was on vacation, it was still easy with your phone or your laptop to kind of play quarterback on stuff. And now, you know, vendor emails are going to Serena and invoices are going to Yvonne or um customer service questions are going to Alex. Like it's, I'm not even involved, which again, kind of gets back to like, okay, but how do you have a pulse?
John S: Sorry, I'm rambling.
johngrimsmo: yeah Yep, yep.
John S: puls Pulse on the business, which is a question, but it doesn't make me want to undo any of but i what's happened there.
johngrimsmo: Yep, 100%. And I view the same even to my Instagram feed. Like i I have unsubscribed from people that I subscribed to a long time ago that no longer suit me. And i like I want to clean, I want to enjoy my my five minutes on Instagram when I jump on and not be burdened by, you know, a bunch of boring stuff.
John S: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep.
John S: Which is funny, because you know you and I were certainly around for the genesis of, well, frankly, YouTube, but certainly Instagram.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: And um I think some of us have lost perspective. I've re -embraced it, as I think I've faced some sort of personal shifts in life, to where it was supposed to be fun.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: and um you we've slowed down our YouTube content both for personal choices about that, but also it wasn't our business model. I don't, you know, wasn't out for sponsorship. You know, that's how we make money. um We'll still post stuff and sort of coincidentally, I don't think it was a contrived, let's stay ahead of the curve, but you're you're seeing all this chatter about, you know, these YouTube channels are being bought by private equity firms and like the whole donut team just just left and people aren't watching it and Mr.
johngrimsmo: Really? I am. Yeah, yeah.
John S: Beast has, and It was a very predictable outcome in the sense that it became so popular. It's just like a cable TV network. And um there's there's a sadness to it of like, I just wanted to make stuff like if I want to post an eight minute video on Johnny Five struggling on this, you know, thing or like, Hey, I did send cut sand and then I'm going to do this, bring this part here. Like that's still something I'm wrestling with.
johngrimsmo: Mhm.
John S: Well, why don't I just do like, I don't care. um Anyway. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, and on that same point, I just told life this morning. I was like, and remember, it's it's not your job to watch all of YouTube. like It's there as ah as a gift to us. we We have no, we don't owe it anything. We don't need to watch all the content of this one creator.
John S: yeah
johngrimsmo: like You don't feel like you need to consume it all. It's like, remember back when Instagram wasn't random? It was like a linear feed and you just, you scrolled until you caught up and that was, you're like, sweet, I'm good.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I followed, I caught up with all the people that I followed. And now they're introducing suggested stuff, which is enjoyable sometimes, but I don't know.
John S: It's a drug.
johngrimsmo: There's no end. It's it's ah it's a drug. it's It's doom scrolling, right?
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And I've taught myself to be like, okay, um Instagram's here for me. I'm not here for it. You know, like I'm in control here and I will stop whenever I want.
John S: Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: but
John S: Yep.
John S: Well, so that's my that's my question call to action for you, but also another kind of one that I'd love to hear from the audience.
johngrimsmo: Yes.
John S: of i was on I had a community foundation board meeting this morning, and one of the folks that joined the call started doing an AI note -taking software called Otter, like the animal. ive I opened the browser tab. I wanted to read about it. So in no way am I like endorsing it. I don't even know really exactly what it does. But there's something that's half curiosity, half frankly, FOMO of, hey, what is Grimshoe using? What is you know al wamo using or phil daughters worth like um yeah like what are people using in their daily lives? And it can be for business or work or kind of that mix of both.
John S: um And I thought I'll say the things that came to mind for me, to the extent that that helps anybody, you know, Saunders still uses fresh desks for almost every inbound communication, which isn't exactly the kind of answer I'm looking for in this question. I'm more trying to ask what are newer like smart AI stuff. Like the same thing I mentioned of like, I don't exactly know how to give like chat GPT access. Well, actually you probably do with what's the Google and Gemini.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: because that's what I'm going to guess has somehow has permission to access your email, which means, okay, every, what what did you say?
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John S: It's the maker's choice or no customer buyer's choice.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, every, every buyer's choice email. Yeah.
John S: You can tag it.
johngrimsmo: If, if I just summarized the notes section, and that's all I care about. That's the only reason I'm looking at them daily.
John S: I don't know any ways in why Jim and I shouldn't be able to do that for you.
johngrimsmo: Summarize that once a week and send me... That's a great question.
John S: You know what I mean? Like, that's the kind of point of AI and reading, to listen upon listening to podcasts about where AI is doing well and not doing well. It's doing really well at summarizing data sets, summarizing research papers. You know, explain like I'm explain like i'm five what this 30 -page document says.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: Mm -hmm.
John S: um So I use Freshdesk Asana for project tracking a little bit within Saunders. I use Google Sheets on a personal note just to keep track of my life. So it's my to -do list and like, I use it to keep track of every month and every quarter, what are the things I have to do. That way I don't worry about it. I kind of have my own deadline. I use my iPhone voice notes a lot because,
johngrimsmo: Yeah, you've said that for years.
John S: Anytime it's now my keyboard, it's like like button shortcut, and anytime I can't necessarily type or I don't want it to type, um I will just um say it. Actually, now that I think about it, that will auto, quote, unquote, AI dictate it. Similarly, I'm sure everybody knows about this, but your phone can now transcribe a photo into text, easy, inaccurately.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John S: So you don't want to write something, you just hover your phone over it and then hold it over the text and it turns it into text, which I'll then put in my Google sheet. So that's been super easy to to, like if I have a passage of a book I'm reading in the morning and I want to copy it into my book summary file, I just hover over the photo, yeah, it takes 10 seconds.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
johngrimsmo: No way. Is there an app or is that an iPhone thing?
John S: Just an iPhone thing, I'm sure, I think Android's ahead of this, though.
johngrimsmo: I don't think Samsung. I don't know.
John S: um And then the other big one is screen pal. Again, this is not AI or sexy, but I use these 30 second to five minute video screen clips of screen pal all the time. I mean numerous times a week to relay information, have asynchronous communication where I can talk to somebody, but without being on the phone with them, sending them fusion summaries or sending them, I was looking at a contract yesterday, I sent 30 minutes, 30, well. three minutes of notes on a contract back to somebody way more efficient. It conveys tone. Um, so screen pass a big one, but I'm sure there are so many more new cool ones that I don't know that that's kind of what I want to hear from you and and from our audience.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah, I don't I don't know what this is It's a new thought process for me. I don't have anything off the top of my head. um Like we use Google Sheets for lots of stuff in the shop.
johngrimsmo: Trying to think. I used to use Trello a lot as like the Asana note taking app.
John S: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: And I use it, there's a couple ongoing boards that I just had to, mostly on a personal note, like once a month kind of thing, not scheduled, but so I don't really use Trello anymore. So I've been using GURP, our internal ERP system for to -dos, for notes, for processes, for for all kinds of stuff.
John S: You're great.
johngrimsmo: So that's where I put that. I basically built a place to put information, which is awesome.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: What else do I use?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I guess I feel like I'm kind of behind the times of what's out there. Like we don't even use fresh tasks, but I've been meaning to think of, like I had the guys look into it a little while ago and they're like, we're fine doing Gmail as we're doing it. But yeah, I've been using chat GPT more.
John S: Okay. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, which is, and obviously you're in control. Don't just trust everything it tells you and don't just follow it. you know Paste whatever it tells you onto your website or whatever, but but we definitely play with it.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And using it for programming and tweaking in Python scripts and stuff has been amazing, has been super cool.
John S: That's super cool, yeah.
johngrimsmo: i Coming out of the speedio, I'm de -printing probed results. So like it'll probe a feature and I'm, you know, deep print the exposition, Z position, the feed rate, the whatever and into a ah line. And I using chat GPT, I was able to write a Python script that stripped just the numbers from just after these keywords from the whole document and gave me just a little column of things that I could paste into a spreadsheet and make a graph from it.
John S: Yes.
John S: Yeah, yeah.
johngrimsmo: and And I was like, sweet. I just parsed an entire file and took out 10 key numbers that I wanted and can now make a graph from it. And that could probably be automatic as well if you really cared.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: But yeah, so that's really cool.
John S: Maybe I'm asking the wrong question too, because yes, I want to know the answer to what other people are using that they love, but I think maybe the but thing I should be saying is like, Where do people younger than me are more into with this? Where do they learn it? Because 15 years ago, I read Lifehacker a lot, and that was great for stuff like this.
johngrimsmo: Hmm.
John S: um I don't feel like it is anymore. So is it like is it Reddit or is it social? like there Are there Instagram channels or I don't even know, I guess, what to say or ask?
johngrimsmo: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: um
johngrimsmo: There's a lot of YouTube videos on this kind of stuff and and probably shorter Instagram, TikTok videos that do that. But I find that it's, a lot of it is life hacking without purpose. And it's only like, I don't know, watching all too many of those videos is like, well, there's no point in this. Like you need an application to make it valuable for you. Even chat GPT by itself. It's like, cool. But when you have a need, you're like, I don't know anything about Python and I need to make this script.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Then it's fat fantastic.
John S: Yes, you're right. I am, but I guess maybe it's a personal curiosity where I like enjoy, I enjoy ah winning at life. And so I feel like
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah.
John S: um you know, that idea of, hey, why if you're going to a meeting and you want to take notes, just turn in your phone app on, summarizing the whole meeting for you at no effort to you.
johngrimsmo: Never even thought. Yeah.
John S: Do I need that? No. But do I think that's kind of cool? Actually, I do.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and maybe there's a situation where that is super valuable, you know, like, like 10 fold return kind of valuable.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And, and you just, that's up to the business owner or individual to like apply it properly. Um, you it's like, like 3d printing when it first came out and when anyone first gets into it, you know, like everybody goes out and buys a bamboo and they're like, okay, now what? I just download things from Thingiverse and I print them off. It's like, yay, it's a toy, right? But then you and me and others like us apply it massively to our lives and our business. And it's like, it's not that it makes money in our case, it doesn't, but it, it supplements and it allows us to do insane things that are either impossible or unlikely.
johngrimsmo: I'm not going to machine these things. That's stupid.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Like that's when it becomes valuable.
John S: I totally agree. Right.
johngrimsmo: And I guess that's the point I'm trying to get at with these life hacky things is like, cool, but until you apply it properly, it's it's cool.
John S: Right. Yeah. But I think for me to auto force multiply my own life you know using dictation stuff. like I like sending people audio messages even on my phone. I'd love to actually be able to send somebody a voicemail, not because I have anxiety about calling them, but it's just like, hey, I don't even want to bother you. I just want to leave you this message for you to handle when you see fit. i just like it's It's interesting and it helps. It kind of helps me do my job, but also in a way that actually all facilitates towards almost, I don't want to say slowing down, but focusing in on being able to do the stuff I want, whether that's go to New York with Jane or just sit here and program a new part.
johngrimsmo: Yup, yup.
John S: So that's the other question is, I had on one of our summer interns look into creating a Saunders Wiki because we have a lot of information here.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John S: we have digital process sheets, we have ven internally only internal.
johngrimsmo: Internally.
John S: We have vendor notes, you know who have we extended terms to, or who have we actually had payment issues with. You kind of create like a watch list for customers that reorder. um All sorts of things like this. and A lot of it's in Google Drive, but funny enough, in my opinion, as good as Google is at search, Google Drive kind of stinks at search.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I struggle with it too.
John S: And like yesterday we found our emergency contact sheet had duplicates and so did people didn't know which was the latest and it gets noisy. So, it kind of reinvigorated my thought of well having a wiki really feels like it would have some momentum because now we have a single place that is the parent level sacred source where everybody could go to add Hey, um Here's the new air compressor, um notes on it, and anybody can edit it. And by the way, then the Wiki, he's thinking, Wiki doesn't even have to have all the information.
John S: It's just like, here's the air compressor. There's a process bin that has the manual. There's a CD -ROM copy that's on our shared drive now. um Here's a couple of links to filters. And I really like this, but I'd love to hear, because I think you did this in GURP.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, I did put all that in groups. So in my vendor section for every vendor, like if Saunders Machine Works was a vendor, I think you are actually not sure. It lets me put, you know, if it if it mattered, your email, your content like, You are my contact at Saunders Machine Works.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Here's your email and phone number and secondary contact. And I am the main contact from Grimsmo to talk to you.
John S: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Um, cause I won't always be. So it could be Spencer, Angelo or whatever. And that way, uh, for you.
John S: I hope it's you.
johngrimsmo: yeah but But that way I know who's talking to who and i I as the overseer can look at any of those vendors and be like who's in charge of this account and who deals with that vendor and who buys that typically.
John S: Okay.
John S: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: And I put in note sections for you know payment terms, are we using credit card, which credit card, last four digits, whatever.
John S: Mm hmm.
johngrimsmo: Do we have username, password for that site, does it not matter?
John S: Oh.
johngrimsmo: And I pretty much just put our password manager as the answer for that, because they're all hidden in the secure password manager. um And let me look real quick.
John S: That's great.
johngrimsmo: What else is in there? and I want to see if you are, and I can search Saunders Online Services. Nope. Oh, just for podcast hosting.
John S: You know, but that's a perfect example.
johngrimsmo: but Yeah.
John S: I would have the bomb in the wiki and there would be just random notes of like, hey, here's where it's hosted. Here's some things that can happen.
johngrimsmo: Mm -hmm.
John S: Here's how to get a hold of Grimmsville if I'm out and whatever.
johngrimsmo: Basically.
John S: If I get in a car accident, somebody needs to call you to cancel or whatever stupid stuff like that.
johngrimsmo: Yep. And it's, it's so much that I'm trying to get out of my head and put into a system that anybody in the company can find as needed because there's, I don't even know how many vendors I have like listed all that doesn't tell me the number a hundred, 200 Zeiss.
John S: And can any can anybody edit it?
johngrimsmo: Yes, and I could make it not, i you know, I have blizzard bloom, ah ah chatter, damasteel, you know, everybody pretty much.
John S: Yeah, that's great.
johngrimsmo: um And just gets it out of my head so I don't have to think about it.
John S: Well, it's funny because drew the interwork on it was like, well, so kind of like a website. And I was like, so it's funny you say that because what's the difference between a website and a Wiki? And I'm embarrassed to say it took me a second. I'm like, well, the difference is that a Wiki, everybody.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: has, I guess, login credentials so that that way anybody can edit it, but the edits are kind of tracked by user.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John S: So because it's not a website, it's not something that one person or a group of people control. It's anybody who's an employee at Saunders can create. Okay, we realize we don't actually have a section on the forklift. So and then what's what I really like about this is I want the Wiki to have decent search. That way you can search it and that's where we've got results that matter versus the you know plethora of information in Google Drive that is not always the best.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, it's hard to find.
John S: yeah right that funny
johngrimsmo: And it's to spread out. That's why I love spreadsheets and I hate spreadsheets at the same time because there's a million of them. We use them so much. And one of our guys likes to lock spreadsheets so that he's in control and people can view. But then if we want to play with it and edit and postulate ideas, he's like, well, just copy it. and then have a copy and play with the copy. And that way the main is fine. I'm like, ah okay, whatever. um So, so we have the vendors to do that. And then we also have a procedure section where we have main categories are GURP, finance, finishing, heat treat, lapping, machines, sales, shipping, things like that. In the machines category, I've got
johngrimsmo: The router, I've got the bamboo, I've got speedio, I've got fusion procedures, kern.
John S: Yeah, right.
johngrimsmo: In the kern, I've got basically errors and solutions. So kern workpiece door stuck open and the solution. Aroa reboot procedure and the solution. Tricks to start in the middle of the program. PLC stuff.
John S: That's in the gerb wiki.
johngrimsmo: Yep.
John S: So that's what's funny. I think we're gonna use it a little differently where we would create the horizontal and the 4 ,000 horizontal serial number, but then what it's gonna have below and however the wiki's format is gonna be like, okay, um John has all the Okuma factory stuff on a Google Drive here. The normal day -to -day files that we may be in and out of to check on are here. that We have a word, our Google Word doc of all of our running notes over time of error logs that you can look through here. That way the the wiki is more of a guide, oh like pointing you toward different assets.
johngrimsmo: yeah yeah yeah ye
John S: Matt, thank you.
johngrimsmo: Which I use this to, I'll paste the link to the Google Drive in the description of this thing. If it can't live in here, but I'm i'm finding it easier to have it live right in here anyway.
John S: Okay, that's yeah.
johngrimsmo: Um, unless there's a PDF or a video or a spreadsheet or something and it has to be out, but then I'll just paste the link and you just click on it.
John S: Sometimes I just have to talk it through. I realized, well, let's just see if Google has a Wiki. And sure enough, I just Googled it. And Google has Google sites, which can serve as a Wiki, which fingers crossed could be great to like easily cross link with Google docs.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: And we pay for Google suite stuff. So I'm going to check that out when we hang up.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, that's cool. Yep, it's fantastic.
John S: Oh, sorry.
johngrimsmo: And the point is you need to store all your information in a very easy to find place on any device as needed and buy anyone as needed.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And make sure everybody is aware that it's possible, you know, like train the system.
John S: Yeah.
John S: So on that note, another one I just saw. Okay. I had actually hit my algorithm got me. It was a, um, AI auto video editing software. It was marketed toward like a vacation trip where you take iPhone or GoPro footage and you just don't do anything with it, which, okay.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: I hear, I hear you got my attention. Um, I'm also kind of thinking, Ooh, can I use it for Saunders stuff?
johngrimsmo: Yeah, yeah.
John S: And, um, I'm not going to mention the name because now I just clicked through and it's like GoPro video that I want to be 69 minutes long is 400 bucks to edit, which that doesn't, that's not something I'm interested in, but there's got to be more stuff like that out there.
johngrimsmo: Whoa.
John S: Um, you know, Canva to create thumbnails.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Like, I don't know what's the best practice these days.
johngrimsmo: Exactly. Yeah, somebody did send me a link to a website that kind of listed the top 100 AI apps out there, whether whether it's created and they exist.
John S: Oh, there you go. That's cool.
johngrimsmo: And this was a year or so ago when chat GPT was just getting like late hot.
John S: Mm
johngrimsmo: And so I clicked through it and I was like, wow, there's a lot of crazy cool stuff out here that people have made little sub GPTs to apply these things. And I'm sure it's just exploded even more now. But the point for you, for me, for other busy individuals is to not be enamored by all the cool new tech, cool stuff, and just fall down the rabbit hole of mindless learning for cool sake. That is fun sometimes, but it's too quiet.
John S: -hmm
John S: Oh no, that's completely what I'm doing right now to be to be honest John.
johngrimsmo: yeah
johngrimsmo: But your your goal, your your actual goal is to find stuff you can apply.
John S: Yes. Yes.
johngrimsmo: Even though it is super fun to be like, wow, look at that.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: I don't have a need for it, but damn, that's cool.
John S: Well, but I think the first off, this needs to say a family friendly podcast. That's your first morning, John. Um, well, so like tool path .com, which, yeah um, is interesting to see if and where that's going to go anywhere.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
johngrimsmo: yeah
John S: This idea of it taking over a lot of the monotonous automation behind the clicky stuff. When you get started on fusion, that's interesting to me, uh, much more like, Hey, when our guys go do a part or when I go to want to make a part that My opinion is that that will happen. I don't know if it's going to be from that company or others that are either currently or in the future going to take a stab at it. But 100 % inevitable at this point.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: It's not everything we know.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Yeah.
John S: Boy, we have not talked about machine. I'm sorry.
johngrimsmo: That's all right.
johngrimsmo: I like it.
John S: What's on your machine? it's What's ah manufacturing? You got five minutes left to save the podcast. like
johngrimsmo: Five minutes left. Um, now, like I said, everything's running pretty steady.
John S: Okay. okay
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: The, we talked about last week, current's good. The, I guess you're just, you work on the blades a lot, right? And that's what was, that was, that was, what was kind of stopping you from getting back to the fail.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah. And some excuses in there, but also some like the reality of like rasks are our daily production bread and butter. Like if they're not working, then we're wasting time and losing money. I want to get those working and I want to apply that skill to the field as well.
John S: yeah
johngrimsmo: Um, so yeah, admittedly still super slow on the field, but, um, just about to put that at the top of my list and start cranking hard on it. um We're still dealing with not just flatness and warpness of the blades, but I think I talked about a couple weeks ago, also geometry shift through the heat treat process, the bead blasting, the engraving process.
John S: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And we're actually starting to scrap a couple of blades because of this issue. And it doesn't feel good because they're like done and there's hours and hours into them. By that time we realized they're no good.
John S: yeah
johngrimsmo: So we're starting to put checks in place earlier in stream to, uh, find out if it's good or bad before anybody puts any more effort into it.
John S: Yeah. Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And at least then that triage's effort doesn't solve the problem, but it doesn't waste time either. I'd rather scrap it at 50 % done than at 100 % done.
John S: yeah
johngrimsmo: um
John S: This is the whole movie on you.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, the whole and some of the stop -in geometry features shifting. and And we're still trying to figure out exactly why and where and how. CMM is helping, but you really got to take the time to analyze results.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And Angela and I are going to spend tomorrow doing that. And it's still really like, OK, everybody leave us alone. No distractions, no problems. We're just going to stare at numbers for and screens and graphs and stuff for the next little bit. And I know we can do it because it's happening somewhere in this process. They are moving, they're changing. there And maybe it's not much, but it's enough to make a difference for us.
John S: Yeah, sure.
johngrimsmo: Logs be.
John S: I feel, I mean, like i don coming in without but a lot of information, but is it not possible to add a final, final, final machining hop where you take off hard mill two thou off criticals?
johngrimsmo: That's what we do for the Norseman blade. and it's It works decently enough. I don't want to do it for the rask right now because it used to work.
John S: Oh yeah, sure. You're right to step backward. I get it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly. you know Throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping it fixes previous problems when maybe we could solve the source of the problem.
John S: Sure.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Well, hum humbly said parallel process, parallel track it. So go do the apply the Norse missile and doing a final hard milling hop. That way you're not making scrap. and you're right you're making money and shipping your blades while you spend more time researching it to then go to an improved process.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, the the effort in that is designing and making a new fixture to hold this hardened blade because the shapes are all different than a soft blade.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And then, you know, the tool selection and programming, not such a big deal, but then also you have to make now blades with extra stock left for heat treat.
John S: Sure.
johngrimsmo: So now you have this separate chain of events.
John S: I am.
johngrimsmo: And like a blade flows through the shop in probably a week if we're on it between every step. And that's that's that's hard to make a change and see a result. Because we don't see it today. We see it a week later. And it's like, how many blades have we made in that week with the new style? So a couple weeks ago, I made two blades with some tests and flowed them through. And they weren't like done, done for about a week or two.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: And that's that's hard to make a change.
John S: My appetite though, so like we have this, we have this with anodizing.
johngrimsmo: But we're getting close.
John S: It's not an issue by and large except. we're joined We've done some custom work where there'll be a couple of holes that have an obnoxiously tight post -anodized process. And rather than try to worry about that, we have gone through just a different workflow where I just i take that away from the anodizer.
johngrimsmo: Okay.
John S: Sometimes it means we leave 20 now and we blow through the anodizing and the customer's okay having it raw. Or sometimes we leave enough that we can hard We can machine the anodizing, which is not fun, by the way. You can do it. But at least I know I have control over it. We've kind of figured out how to do that. But i I guess what I'm saying, I've kind of given up on the whole like, well, you know let's just hope the anodizer doesn't screw it up.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: Because it's it's just not a, blah, blah, blah, sustainable and scalable solution.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Like for a fixture plate, is this several holes or not all of the holes you're trying to.
John S: The one that now the one that I'm thinking of it most specifically was a fixture plate esque custom job for a company um where there was one hole that needed to be I think it was a minus zero plus three tenths or something. And again that's kind of like look I'm just going to be honest right now we're not going to hit that. knowing where you put, how much dissolved acid or or ah aluminum is in the tanks when they run them, who runs them, how are they gauging them, what temperature they gauge in the mat ah where are where are the racking points, how well conditioned are the racks in, like I've learned enough to just be like, this is a fool's errand to think you're gonna send you know fought well into the five figures of these by UIs to an anodizer and expect them to come back and work.
johngrimsmo: Sure.
John S: So you just tackle it a different way.
johngrimsmo: yeah Which is a good but way to think about it, tackle it a different way.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: So what are you up to?
John S: we So we we need a triage, similar to like kind of what you were saying of pick your pick your poison, pick your projects. We have two shimp worked products, gen two soft jaws that we're still making. jen We're going to do a gen three hobby vice won't be a big change, but it needs to happen. A couple of other things that all have work to do on the VF2, full stop, like they have work to do. Some of them are pretty far along, but but they're not there.
johngrimsmo: Mm hmm.
John S: And so Alex Garrett and I need to sit down and huddle. And what I've kind of learned is it's okay to have a meeting to talk about all of them, but the outcome of that meeting is going to be be a surgeon, full blinders. We're going to pick one. And we're going to decide which one needs to happen first, and we're going to do it.
johngrimsmo: Yeah.
John S: We're going to do it really well. And after that one's done, we'll look at the next thing.
johngrimsmo: Exactly.
John S: um
johngrimsmo: Otherwise you're too mentally burdened by like, we got to do all three. And like nothing happens or you pick away at little things.
John S: And I just keep coming back. I don't know if it's my age or what, but like, if you tell me I got to build Johnny five, I kind of have a panic attack. And if you tell me I need to work on the Johnny five's head, I'm still kind of like, Oh my God, where do you start? But if you tell me, all you need to do is figure out how this clevis is going to fit on this one shaft. I can do that.
johngrimsmo: Yeah. Yeah.
John S: Got to break it down.
johngrimsmo: Yeah, exactly.
John S: Yeah. That's me. That's what's going today.
johngrimsmo: Love it.
John S: Yeah.
johngrimsmo: All right, my friend.
John S: Shall we call it?
johngrimsmo: Let's do it. We'll see you next week.
John S: All right. See you next week. Take care.
johngrimsmo: All right, bye.
