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Week 20 - Surprise its the Swedish Maker!
27 Plays2 days ago
This week Kieran fails to show up on time so I called in a favor. Lets not talk about my week
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Mix-up
00:00:01
Speaker
This is the Garage Avenger Podcast.
00:00:11
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Garage Avenger Podcast. I'm Justin trying to share the joy of building my death machines in my garage in the hope of one day making a living out of it.
00:00:23
Speaker
And I'm Kier... No, I'm not Kieran. I'm the Swedish maker. Ah, the The enemy is on our podcast. I got the link and I thought, let's log in and see what this is all about. I love that you've named yourself Kieran. In Sennkaster, yeah.
00:00:47
Speaker
So what's even happening, Pierre? Huh? have you Have you been enjoying some Eucharist beers? That's the thing. He just said he was sending them, but I don't think he did.
Beer Mishaps and Rivalries
00:01:02
Speaker
ah I thought surely I'll have them before New Year's, but no, nothing. no Nothing at all, right? No. He said on your podcast, they were stuck in Oslo. I think that's a bullshit. I think he's swindling you guys.
00:01:16
Speaker
Yeah, probably. Yeah, actually, I kind of secretly want him to swindle you. just Yeah, you heard you say that loudly. It's not secretly.
00:01:28
Speaker
um So how happy 2025, Pierre. Happy to you too. um Welcome to the show. Kieran didn't show up just so you know people. He like sent me a message saying, oh, I'm running late. And I'm like, dude, it's half an hour late. Like, that's not late. That's like not showing up. so From my perspective, I get a phone call while I'm in the in the loo.
00:01:59
Speaker
from Justin. And I thought, oh, I should, I could pick up because it's Justin. But I thought, no, i I'll give him the courtesy of ah getting out of the bathroom before I call him back up. And he said, do you want to come on the podcast? Because Kieran's not, he's an old show. So ah here I am. I think we probably should have invited Steve as well, just so he doesn't feel left out. Yeah.
00:02:22
Speaker
Sorry, Steve, next time i'll good I'll give you a buzz.
00:02:29
Speaker
if We could just move the Three Northern Makers podcast to this one and then it would maybe be the Three Northern Makers podcast. Yeah. Because the three of us. we should We should at some point publish your podcast on our channel and vice versa. It's great marketing. I don't know actually how this like rivalry started.
00:02:53
Speaker
I have no idea, but it's quite ah kind of fun to... There's been some things said. Yeah, some things have been said. yeah
00:03:06
Speaker
ah Yeah, that's good to know. What's been happening that since the new years for you, Pierre? Any big news? Not really that much. Like like I'm having a, I've had a time off. I mean, I work some hours in the morning, but that's mainly been just scripting or just taking care of emails and stuff like that. So I haven't really done anything and I'm starting to feel pressure again. So it was stupid to take time off. You listening to another podcast?
00:03:42
Speaker
Oh, no, I'm not listening to another podcast. Holy crap. It's my beer. I was just looking at this today. I was like, what is going on with this package? You have this tracking code on here. And I'm like, it's still stuck in Oslo. Why? Sure it is, Kieran. Sure it is. When you say Oslo, it's actually in Konodu, right?
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah, well, you know, yes and we can see a bit backward, I guess. yeah I see it. I bet Steve's going to get his beer before I do. He actually will. it's It's already been an attempted delivery. I couldn't get in the back door. Really? And the back door was closed. That's weird of you, Steve. He's always got the back door open for me, so.
00:04:42
Speaker
ah Welcome, Kieran. Yeah, well. Nice of you to show up. Yeah, it was nice. ah A bit of snow chaos here today and kids getting to Bonnehage was a bit of a bit of a nightmare. Yeah, so. You didn't have to plow the whole street, mate. You could have just, like, plowed your way. Well, I do live at Comeru, so I might have had to plow at least my way up the hill to the Bonnehage. We've got at least, like, 20 centimeters already today. It's crazy. So.
00:05:14
Speaker
Yep. But is it min minus degrees? Yeah, it's like minus so minus five minus six at the moment. so All right, so it's gonna stay. yeah Yeah. So it's not gonna do down here. Now it's gonna piss rain tomorrow. So control. Yeah. Well, welcome.
00:05:35
Speaker
Yeah. this yeah thank you um We've actually really spoken. It is. Yeah. Oh, nice to meet you. There's been like messages on Instagram and stuff, but that's about it. Yeah. And, uh, it's actually a perfect timing for
Home Brewing Adventures
00:05:50
Speaker
me to come on. Cause I've, I've just, my wife gave me a brew, like a brewery machine for Christmas. Oh, yeah. Okay. So um I just a couple of days ago made my first batch. Okay. Yep. And I have no idea what I'm doing, but, uh, Sanitation, sanitation, sanitation. that's Oh, I did that, but I've i've got greasy fingers already from there. What kind of beer was it? Do you remember? It was ah called Vienna Lager, because I bought like a like a kit with hops and all that stuff. Yeah, a good fun. Yeah, it's it's a starting point. I'm going to make an IPA later, but um
00:06:33
Speaker
Yeah. ah journeyone I should. I can give you the recipe. Brilliant. No, Karen, you need to go and do courses. This will cost you 3000 croners for a course with the brew master of Eucharist Brewing.
00:06:53
Speaker
but i i I think it's easy nerding down on it because I all i already started thinking like, how do I get to get get get a beer that it's clear that is clear without any so like segmentation at the bottom? yeah Welcome to the rabbit hole.
00:07:10
Speaker
oh ah yeah yeah Well, if you want to know, the first thing that's going to help you a lot is a thing called Profilok.
00:07:23
Speaker
add in the last 10 to 15 minutes of the boil. Cause I had a bag of that. And when I was finished, i I looked, Oh, what's that bag? And I found it and I was like, Oh shit. Then the other is, uh, the main thing is, is, is like, uh, you can use other products. Like there's a one called Peru's Clorox, which is an enzyme that helps facilitate dropout of proteins and, uh, and yeast. And the other one is, uh, is just cold.
00:07:53
Speaker
cold to do it. So yeah, keep it cold after it's finished fermenting, of course. Yeah, okay. So there you go. Just don't put them outside and freeze. Yeah, well, I mean, you can freeze distill. There you go. You just pick out the ice that's frozen and then get stronger beer. Ah.
00:08:16
Speaker
That's a lie-back. Jesus, Karen. You've just solved many people's problems. I just want to drink hard liquor. I don't like this i don't have a wheel yeah i don't like this bloated feeling and I want most effect. yeah So I'll freeze my beer. There's way easier ways. It's called buy vodka. Yeah.
00:08:43
Speaker
yeah yeah There you go. All right. Cool. What are we doing? Are we, are we going to record a podcast together? What's the deal? We are recording a podcast. All right.
00:08:59
Speaker
I'm late to the party. Sorry. Yeah. I just said previously that Justin called me ah earlier and said, Karen's a no-show. Can you, can you come record a podcast with me?
00:09:12
Speaker
yeah Yep. Well, I mean, it's we we we know we can finally be like, we could actually, I mean, technically, maybe I'm not classified as a maker, but you know,
00:09:24
Speaker
Maybe I could actually be the third maker in this the three northern make it. Well, you make beer. I mean, that that's that that's true. Yeah, that is typically maker thing, isn't it? yeah Making beer, making logos.
00:09:46
Speaker
Yeah. through So, uh, but I said my first beer was called Vienna Lager, but of course I'm going to make my own stickers. So I was thinking of calling it crying Jesus um and i have a picture of a Jesus that is crying. Yeah. You know, that's the thing. that's There's actually one biblical verse that says Jesus wept. Oh, is it? Yeah. she came out I'm just kidding. There you go.
00:10:16
Speaker
hey Yeah, cool. Well, I mean, that's fun and fun, isn't it? Like you you get into the creative side of it's not just the beer, the beer is like the final product, but like the the joy comes in the creation of it, isn't it? It's like that's where it's really fun. And then like doing all the labels and design and then you're like, give it to your friends. And then they're like, Oh, what's this craft here? I've never tried before. And you're like,
00:10:39
Speaker
well um they like I didn't wash the bottles properly. They're all spewing everywhere.
00:10:52
Speaker
Good stuff. All right. Well, I thought since I was kind of in charge of this podcast, then I would just start with saying, I already asked Pierre what he'd been up to this week and he said stuff also. Kieran, what have you been up to this week? Well, I've been tasting Epic craft beer this week, namely actually Swedish craft beer. Is it called Epic craft beer? No, I'm sorry. It's omni polo.
00:11:20
Speaker
and the Swedish brewery Omnipolo, and which is based out of Stockholm. I went and like they have the most expensive craft beer I've ever bought in my life. Seriously, I can here in Norway of like, I bought this. It's called Bianca. it's um It's a strawberry mango passion fruit, Sauer Lassie.
00:11:46
Speaker
if you know what that even is, uh, basically the sour beer. That's so so sweet that it's like drinks like syrup. And, um, it's that, that can four 40 mil can was 200 crowns at the, at the wine monopoly. So the system, like, I was just like, you know what? It was an experience. I'll tell you about ah like, literally like,
00:12:11
Speaker
pouring oil out of a can, but it's basically fruit puree. And um it was an experience, I'll tell you that. There's there's a reason why those guys are known internationally. and So that's really fun. And then we, there was some other beers from them and a few other American breweries that I, that I just found some stuff at the local bottle shop and yeah, got into it. Just started testing some things, tasting some things, actually blending things together. Cause I had this idea,
00:12:40
Speaker
from years ago where I went to new um Garage Project in New Zealand today and they gave me some of their beers which are mixed fermentation with like a sour beer mixed with a sweet IPA and it so it was some next level shit.
00:12:59
Speaker
And I just decided, well, what if I could do this at home, just make a kettle sour and then blend it out with a sweet IPA? That could be really cool. So I decided to do some like testing at home, ah but didn't really hit the mark with it. so But yeah, so that basically has meant that as a result, I've been redesigning like a bunch of different recipes of my beer. So just to really kind of hone in where I'm going to go ah for the future and what I'm going to do. So that's exciting.
00:13:29
Speaker
And yeah, that's pretty much and buying as a result, buying a fuck ton of of ingredients to to match that. So think I think I've spent nearly 5000 crowns on on beer, like cops, molten yeast for like three brews. So very cost effective. But they're going to be interesting. That's for sure. That's the plan. So What about production, Kieran? What's ah what's coming up in the new year for production?
Expanding Beverage Horizons
00:14:00
Speaker
Well, we've got to we've got I've only got slots, the brewery slots coming up in February and March. um So ah I've only managed to book two slots so far. um There'll be definitely a follow up to the um Nordic triple. So that will be the Nordic double.
00:14:25
Speaker
which actually might be the Christmas beer I sent you that you haven't received yet. yeah So, and so you can give me me your feedback on that and whether you like it or not. And ah yeah, and then there's going to be ah hopefully if all goes well, there will be ah the Holy Ghost in production in February or March.
00:14:53
Speaker
sir So I'm still, still got an issue with these chili, uh, additions. Cause like, you know, these, when you go to a, to a brewery to get these things done, they want things done in their way and, uh, they have limitations on their equipment or blah, blah, blah, blah. So I just, uh, I have to find, I've i've basically got to get this particular recipe for my chili tension.
00:15:21
Speaker
done and I've got a lead, I've got to follow up on that and hopefully if that pans out. Bam! Holy ghost to market. So I'm excited about that. We are big fans of Holy Ghost. Definitely. So yeah. And then I've also been toying with the idea of doing like a single hop series and that will like release every two months.
00:15:46
Speaker
And so do like a so ah beer brew every two months, just limited must like like a real heavy hopped IPA, ah but only with a single hop variety. um So that's going to be, and I think and it's going to be called the anointing, which refers to the oil anointing in church.
00:16:07
Speaker
in the hop oils and um and it's going to have like basically the same type of label for everything with a slight variance so you can differentiate the Citro to Mosaic and the Galaxy hop versions. So I'm going to save a butt ton of money if I get all those labels printed at once and and then I can just produce them throughout the year as as I can and as ah as needed. So that's going to be fun.
00:16:35
Speaker
and What about, I don't know, yeah we've never really talked about it on the podcast, but you're bringing some stuff over from Australia. Do you want to share that or you want to keep that on the down low? All the seven listeners that we have. i um Though i'm um a I'm importing wine as well. um So I got some wine coming into the country, which should be quite excited about actually. um Wine comes from uh, our mother's hometown of Margaret River in Western Australia. And it's, there's some really special interesting stuff coming. So I'm, I'm really happy to bring that to market and see how, how people react to it. Basically, um, the, the kind of star of the show, if you will, is this product, uh, wine called fuchsia, which is like a, like a rosé, but it's like really different from pretty much anything I've tasted before.
00:17:35
Speaker
It's a strawberry daiquiri wine. That's what it is. That's how it tastes. Yeah. Yeah. Even though it's just made, you know, it's just wine. It's just grapes, but, but, uh, yeah, it's just, uh, it's, it's an amazing, it's kind of got this summer crushing wine. That's my man. Ice cold. This would go down a treat. Women would go crazy for it. So that's my hope that I can get it in front of, you know, some, uh, some people in ready for the summer and, uh, and people will just be loving it. So that's the dream.
00:18:07
Speaker
And then sell that and there'll be like at a little side hustle that will kind of help fund the other sides of Eucharist. So yeah. Cool. That's gonna be it. Yeah. There's also a white one and ah and ah and a red one as well, but you know, damn.
00:18:22
Speaker
I mean, they're both very interesting, but, you know, the start of the show is future. I could go on for hours about this stuff, but I'm not. What was interesting is we were there in November and, you know, the we went to that winery and what was crazy about that winery is what do they have, like 50 or 60 wines? Yeah.
00:18:44
Speaker
And you could go around and I was like free tasting. Yeah. Free tasting. And she said, you can take up to eight wines. And then she winked at you. And no, yeah no one's counting. no no one's count She's like, no one's counting. Basically. And it was self-serve. So you just, you went and just like poured a glass and just sat there in the beautiful garden that they had there as like gorgeous. And then we ended up stopping and talking to the actual owner.
00:19:14
Speaker
of the winery. Who was doing the gardens? Who was doing the gardens, yeah. Lovely lady. Yeah. Grew up there and and her and her husband basically run that winery. So that was really cool. She was like, shit just to give you an idea, like she was the kind of old, like she would have been, what do you reckon, just like in the 70s? Easily like mid to, yeah, mid 70s. Yeah. And she's out there doing the gardens, still pretty fit as a fiddle. And we ask her like, is there any good food in town?
00:19:44
Speaker
And she's like, oh, I don't know if you'd like what I like. I was like, what's what you like? She's like a meat pie and sauce. um She said ah she said a potato pie. Oh, that was a potato pie. Yeah, shepards pie. Yeah. So I'm just like, that was her go-to choice for good food in town. I mean, there's plenty of good restaurants and and cafes and stuff around, but that was her go-to. I thought that was gold. Yeah. And she was like, she was in the garden watering the garden and she like, she kind of got my feet a little bit and she's like, did I get you? And then she, I just said, uh, Oh, just a little. And she, goes eventual she gets re more purpose and then And then she goes, now you're wet. 75 year old woman, just wetting, wetting her customers basically. like
00:20:37
Speaker
so So from that visit, you got the contact to to get them to deliver? or Yeah, so yeah, I talked to the lady there and we and we had a small discussion and yeah, and I followed up with the email and they were excited to see if you know how the Norwegian market will take things. So the one fun thing too is is that my distributor here in Norway can also sell into the Systembolage.
00:21:03
Speaker
So, ah so as soon as I get like wines, not an issue, because the only thing you like, you don't have to have ingredients on wine. Uh, so that's easy just to like chance for like to say, Oh, well this product's available in Sweden. Now, uh, the beers, however, have to have a Swedish ingredients text on them. So all my current beers don't have that. So I have to update the labels and things like that and get rid of the ones that don't have a Swedish text.
00:21:32
Speaker
and before I can bring them into. So that will be actually, that'll be a great way to bring new Chris beer into into Sweden. So I'm kind of stoked about that when they open that door. So i'll um I've got to follow up now and update all my labels. And so the next productions will have Swedish on the labels and and hopefully be available to you there in. That's amazing. I'll ah then I'll order a bunch of it. Yeah, cases, please. thesis multiple. It'll still be cheaper than buying it here. I could guarantee it because you guys taxes are way better than Norwegian taxes. and So yeah. um Yeah, so please do. There's actually you know, it's really funny. I get an email or or an Instagram message every other week from some rando in Sweden ah asking if where and how they can get hold of the beer.
00:22:31
Speaker
So I think of there's like a weird cult following in Sweden, actually. So I'm looking forward to being able to tell. them Yeah, well, just order it down at your system. Okay. I'm really I'm excited about that. So I wonder if if you pire have something to do with this, because most of them are from the south.
00:22:48
Speaker
Uh, not sure, but surely there are listeners of the podcast. but This is true. This is true. that Surely it's OPA. He's like just creating multiple accounts, multiple emails.
00:23:02
Speaker
he just Putting pressure on Karen to bring it into suite. Well, there is ah a bit of a mystique um ah around the beer since we can't really get it. Yeah, right. So everyone wants what you can't get. Yeah, exactly.
00:23:17
Speaker
yeah it's just like Meanwhile, it's Pierre just like, oh Sven, that's a good Swedish man. I'll use that one in the front. I just think about his stupid Borat. He's like, you're never going to get this. You're never going to get this. and Then one day, Pierre gets it. Yeah.
00:23:41
Speaker
so yeah Local Swedish man overdoses from beer consumption. um That's cool. yeah Yeah, that's pretty much me being for this week. and Yeah. Awesome.
00:23:58
Speaker
Come on, Justin, tell us about the sled. Yeah, go on. All right.
Sled Project Challenges
00:24:03
Speaker
So this week, I've been finalizing the sled. I had to like paint the last couple little bits. I put red accents on everything. It looks pretty good. And then I was looking at it this week, and I was like, ah, something's missing.
00:24:20
Speaker
Something so it needs to be like it feels like it needs to be a little bit more um Mad Max type thing. I don't know why but so I decided I was kind of 3d print a full skull The front ah So after a couple of attempts, I found a good model that I could use and I treated printed this not full scale, but I probably say about maybe ah half scale Bulls head, maybe a bit smaller actually, but um yeah, 3D printed on that and then mounted it to what what is like a phone holder. So I could like have the GPS with the speed and the and the distance and the time sort of set up so that I could potentially
00:25:09
Speaker
measure the the world record that I was going to break down Kolkitraken. But it was a really interesting week because I end up using the 3D printer for a lot of other crazy stuff. So I am ah was missing like a circlip.
00:25:26
Speaker
on the back part of the brake assembly. I probably, probably dropped it on the ground and then vacuumed it up. I mean, you're never going to find it in that thing. So I was like, yeah, I'm not going to go to be determined to buy one circlip. That's not going to work. So I was like, I'll just 3D print one. So I just modeled it real quick in Fusion and then 3D printed it. The print took literally like four minutes.
00:25:55
Speaker
And I had this circlip and I just went click and it fit perfectly. So a problem that would have probably taken me like 40 minutes of driving and a pain in the ass because I would have to buy a massive circlip kit.
00:26:09
Speaker
you know, with with probably like three, 400 kronas literally took me about six minutes total with designing and printing. So it was pretty good. That's sweet. So I felt like didn't suck into the Swedish system of mass consumption from China. from china big data
00:26:36
Speaker
It's so funny because Bilteva is like very much like probably only 20% car related. Maybe not even, actually. Yeah, I mean, they were like, hmm. There's no money in cars. People don't buy stuff for their cars anymore.
00:26:54
Speaker
It's true. No one fixes their own cars anymore. So I guess they had to change their model. But I mean, the other side of things this week, though, is um I've been struggling a little bit with my sponsor. So I get this message from my sponsor saying like, ah how's the video going? We haven't seen anything yet. My mother. truck Are you kidding me?
00:27:20
Speaker
I'm like having a freaking spin out. And so I decided I'm going to write this message back. This is all done over WhatsApp. um And so I sort of had to explain that this again, that this project is like a very big project. It's hundreds if not probably a thousand hours of work and this video is going to take a long time to come out. Do you expect something before this? If so, let me know. And there just came this gobbledygook of like badly translated Chinese to English back and I was like,
00:28:00
Speaker
scratching my head like, what does she want? I don't understand. Like, does she want me to make like a YouTube short now and then then post the long form video? And then all of a sudden she's sending me links to Pierre's video.
00:28:16
Speaker
saying, this is what Pierre did. Here's some inspiration for you. And I was like, what? OK, do you want this now? Because I can't do this now. And she's like, no, no, no, you work on your time. and I was like, oh, thank fuck Christ. I was stressing out for like a whole day because there was also the time difference right between China and here.
00:28:41
Speaker
And so you don't get a reply, you go to bed, you know, and you're thinking ah through the whole day and the whole night, just go, what, what do they expect from me? Like, I feel like this is my first major sponsor kind of thing. And, you know, like you want to be able to.
00:28:56
Speaker
perform for them so that you, you know, you can work with them again or show new potential sponsors that you you can you can do sponsorship and stuff like that. And I just so I felt so frickin wired of this all. And in the end, she's like, oh run on your own time schedule. And then I thought, you know what, I'm going to push this a little bit.
00:29:21
Speaker
So I sent a message saying, well, I have another project that I could be finished in February that could be of interest of you to you. ah Would you be like interested to also get on board with that project? And she writes back, sure, keep us posted here.
00:29:37
Speaker
I was like, ah I understand, you know, busting my balls. I haven't checked that I haven't delivered and all of a sudden you're willing to give me another project that I just all of a sudden saying that I've got available. So.
00:29:55
Speaker
That's so what I've also been working on this week. I've been 3D modeling a part to get machined by PCBWay, which is a sponsor you've hadn't realized, ah to adapt my hand truck go-kart to a snowmobile. So I basically change out the wheels with tracks, ah like snow tracks and skis at the front.
00:30:22
Speaker
So I need to machine... You've already got some skis, don't you? I sure do! ah So yeah, I got the... So that's also been modeling that. I've printed about three or four different versions to make sure that I had... the the drawing right and as so I'll send that off this week and see if we can get that process going and that way when I finish this project this sled project then hopefully I can go straight into that project and start making the video for that and again put the world rally car on hold because because the snow and ice will melt at some point and then the snow tracks will be useless. So I probably should do that one first. Um, yeah, so that was my week. Um, that's, that's it. no hold Hold the phone. Well, what are you talking about guys? I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about.
00:31:31
Speaker
Now, go on. Go on Justin, tell them what you did. I don't want to. Go on, tell them what you did. I dug a hole. That was a castle reference if you... with more no one knows No one knows the castle. no but Cold Australian movie, anyway. Yes Justin, tell the people what happened. Do I have to? I feel so embarrassed. I feel like such a failure.
00:32:03
Speaker
Yeah, but that's part of your thing. Cocking up. Alright, so this week I did finish this lead and I had these big plans to go test it.
00:32:18
Speaker
Now, down where I am, there's not enough snow on the ground, and I spent ages like waxing the skis to get really like to get them really fast, and I did not want to go over like ah like a rock and just gouge the crap out of this these skis, because that would eventually, when I decided to take it down, caedurkin will slow me down. So I don't want that. So I decided I was going to come up to Drummond. Now, Kieran and his wife, Lynn, told me about this um this hill that they have there called Gummelbucken. And it basically translated ah to English. It's the killer of small children.
00:33:00
Speaker
slide clo um It is a it's the old road up the mountain where I live, ah which is now in the wintertime is a ski trail, though I don't know who would want to be going like actually cross country skiing up or down that thing. And ah yeah, it's a one point four kilometers long and descends at least 500 meters, I think. It's quite a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like a 500 meter descent.
00:33:34
Speaker
So it's like, it's pretty decent. So yeah, tell the people what happened, Justin. So we we got the, so the plan was that we're going to test this thing on gum or buck in.
00:33:48
Speaker
And then we we're going to go afterwards, we're going to go to Oslo to Korkiträcken and not drive the the sled there because it was going to be too busy. We're just going to hire the sleds that they have like available for rental and we're going to go down and do like a scouting trip basically it's so that I could find places for people to stand to help me film it.
00:34:11
Speaker
um And yeah, basically just find the best places and and also understand the track because I'd never, I've never gone down it. and it some of it looks pretty good. Like I've watched a lot of YouTube videos about the hill and it doesn't look super, super steep. I'm like gum a bucket, which was crazy in some places. So we we decided that we're gonna test this sled out first. So we we dragged it, I managed to pack it in the back of the car. We drove up to Drummond and as as I was pulling this thing out, I'm watching people drive past
00:34:50
Speaker
And there was this lady, she drove past in her Nissan Leaf and she drove past and she kind of like did a double take and then her eyes just went super wide and her mouth just went like this. I was like, what? was I was like, then I realized like, oh yeah, and people probably haven't seen such a contraption with four skis, suspension and a bull skull on the front.
00:35:16
Speaker
With blood painted on the tips of the horns, I might add. And and a blood handprint on the side. I had to match the red and the red of accents of everything. It would have looked weird if I didn't do that. So, yeah. um We drag this thing. I had like ski protectors. I made like these foam ski protectors. So we but kept them on, but dragging it across like the gravelly snowy road. It's actually really hard work because the sled itself, I reckon, weighs probably 25, 30 kilos.
00:35:53
Speaker
so it's not exactly light and yeah so we dragged to the top of the hill I had my kids with me. They all wanted to bomb the hill. They did bomb the hill before I even got the balls to like strap on my helmet and i go down the hill. So the first thing I had to do was test the brakes, see if they actually worked, ah see if the the crazy metal teeth that I had designed actually dug into the snow and actually stopped or reduced the descent to a controllable manner. So we sort of stood on the top of the hill
00:36:29
Speaker
I sort of rolled it down a little bit and then just pushed on the brake and held it down and seemed pretty good. Seemed like it, it braked and was doing what it should. Of course, like it's a drag brake, so it's not like super effective, like car brakes would be um on wheels, for example, but you know,
00:36:52
Speaker
pretty pretty effective considering the surface, because the surface was a little bit icy there too. There wasn't a huge amount of snow enough to like be and not destroying the the skis, but like it was a bit icy. So we decided, right, I'm going to give it a stick. Let's go. Let's go down the hill. So I let off the brake, went down. The thing was all over the place.
00:37:17
Speaker
It was so sketchy, like the back just wanted to slide out instantly. And I couldn't understand why until I just stopped and actually thought about it for five seconds.
00:37:29
Speaker
I just wish that I'd thought about this before I decided to go with this design because it really was a stupid decision. So for anyone that's been on skis or a snowboard, you know, you're always on an edge. You're always riding the edge of the ski or the snowboard. When you go flat on your skis, it's like uncontrollable. You feel super unstable and it's like it's flat and you've got no steering. You've got nothing. Nothing happens. And that's exactly what was happening on the back of the sled. I had no steering. It was just like, I don't know what to explain it like.
00:38:11
Speaker
But you had to have your weight exactly right. And so I went down the first time and I was like, that was sketchy as I did like some crazy, you know, shit. But I couldn't at the time, I thought that this it was the steering that was wrong. So I wasn't getting enough weight forward to get the steering like the skis sort of dug in at the front to turn.
00:38:37
Speaker
So the next run, I stood up on the pecs and I went down and it got so squirrely. It was like I was drifting, so I had like a massive opposite lock on trying to keep this thing going. And then all of a sudden my weight went on the wrong side of the ski.
00:39:00
Speaker
and the ski edge just bit and I flew like I don't know how far I reckon easily three four meters just threw you off like just me there just like boom like Superman style office I haven't even checked the footage yet but like I'm thinking in the video, if I'm gonna edit this into the video, and what like che I might be like having like intense music and then it just cuts to like this.
00:39:31
Speaker
oh So like, I don't know how to explain the music, like an enya kind of like slow motion footage. I landed straight on my shoulder. And to be honest, I'm pretty happy I didn't injure myself. I think one advantage was I landed my shoulder up and because the hills quite steep,
00:39:59
Speaker
you you have the slope to reduce the impact. So you kind of land and you and you slide. um And then my friend Frederick, you know, he likes to think of himself as like a pretty good rider of some, so you know, he rides quad bikes and he rides motorbikes and stuff. And he's like, ah, give me a go. And he was like, holy shit, this is said insane, I can't control it. I mean, he ah like, ah it must have thrown him near, like, he did the same thing as you. and he Nearly. he He actually landed on his feet and ended up running down the hill. Yeah. Lucky. I don't know how. like how
00:40:39
Speaker
But yeah, they bent the steering, but the the bent the handlebars as well. So things were a bit messed up there. And so we tried a couple more times, but we realized like the steering in the rear skis, you really have to be like on an edge. So you have to be wanting to steer like fully on that edge and hold it on that edge to get the skis to work. And that's not what happens when you go bomber hill.
00:41:06
Speaker
get to do it's like a fast speed run down the hill you don't stay on an edge you want to go straight so you can keep the speed and so yeah i realized that skis at the back especially were not the right option We should have taken some inspiration from the actual snow races the kids were using, which have like these ribs down them that basically help the skis to stay so true. Karen, I clearly was smarter than these engineered snow sleds that have been engineered for fucking decades. I was clearly smarter, Karen. My design is going to work, apparently.
00:41:48
Speaker
So that just sucked. I really thought I was on to something and ah just the the feeling of failure kind of really it just slowly ate at me during the during the day. um The only upside was I went bomb the hill on a normal sled. It was so much fun. man It was so much fun. I did a little recce trip for Justin.
00:42:17
Speaker
And I'm like, you know, there's like a nearly 40 year old man by myself coming down this this hill like this. And it's like, and it's goes through the forests. So like it just goes down this massive hit hill and then you pop out into like some residential area near some houses. And I was struggling to keep this thing under control. At one point, that's the whole sleds.
00:42:41
Speaker
lid sideways and I flipped off it just like Justin did on ears. And then ah came down the bottom full pelt and there's like this pile of snow to slow you down. But that was just a jump. I just launched myself off that thing.
00:42:58
Speaker
On a kid's snow racer. Yep. That was good fun. I recommend it. What is the solution then? to Well, I think to be honest, I've been toying with ideas. So like I was thinking about replacing the skis completely, but then I thought, why don't I just, for example, I was thinking about getting some like aluminium angle.
00:43:22
Speaker
and sort of only on half the skis, so not the tips of the skis, where the where the weight of the the the sled is, i I'll like maybe use like at some aluminium angle and I'll cut it so that it's just sort of maybe five millimeters into the snow and hanging over the edge of the ski.
00:43:45
Speaker
and maybe screw that into the original bolt holes of the thing. So you got these kind of rails that hold the back straight. That's kind of what I was thinking maybe might be the solution, but I really don't know if I should just leave the video as is and just say it was a failure. i know Because I've got these thumbnails at the moment that are like, it's got like a picture of like just the rear brake mainly, with all the teeth and stuff like that. And I was like, I was thinking maybe using a title. a title
00:44:22
Speaker
such as like, I built the most or the deadliest sled or something like this. ah And so of that leads into it like it was super deadly. The irony is if you went with the original snowboard on the back idea, I think it would have been a lot better off. You think so? I think it would be exactly the same. I think you would have the weight distribution would have been different on a wider surface. So you would have more likely held an edge when you put you put your weight onto it.
00:44:53
Speaker
So i I don't think so. I don't i think it would be exactly the same we were sliding all over the place. what What if the max skis move in parallel with the with the steering in the front? They kind of do you just got to lean hard but you don't it doesn't lean enough. So I could change the angles. But you the the the truth is most of the time you're not steering.
00:45:18
Speaker
Most of the time you're just going bombing the hills straight down. Just holding on for dear life and praying. Yeah. then And then when you need to turn, you know, it's like, you sometimes you grip, yeah lose control. Yeah. Yeah. You need, you need lateral grip. So it just needs, there needs to be some sort of, um, as I'd say, in Norwegian sport, some tracks for the skis to be running in to kind of hold it.
00:45:47
Speaker
in position. So that's why I was thinking about making these little ribs, like on the side with some aluminium angle. Just sit sort of five, five, six millimeters into the snow and then the rest of skis as it is.
00:46:01
Speaker
and And if I didn't do it the full length of the ski either, it means the ski can still work as it should when you're turning. Because what happens is when you turn or you put weight on one edge, the ski wants to like flex, flex it. And then it goes onto these edges because the skis are not straight. They're kind of like bell shaped or tulip shaped or whatever you want to call it.
00:46:26
Speaker
So that's something I failed to fully understand before I started strapping these things onto the back of the thing. As like how they actually work. I just thought if I lean with the with the sled and the the skis go up a little bit on the angle, they'll turn. They'll like, they'll hold the edge, but that's not how they work.
00:46:48
Speaker
So, yep, that was a complete failure and I cried a little bit when I got home on Saturday. um And then I drowned my sorrows by trying to replicate Kieran's barbecue pork belly. how did you How did you manage that without a smoker? In the oven, just slow. Okay. Just totally coated in a barbecue sauce eventually.
00:47:14
Speaker
Oh yeah, it was delish. Wasn't as good. Wasn't as good, but pretty close. yeah But anyway, Ciaran, this leads me on to being nearly impressed by my pork belly. Yeah, it leads me on to this. Double rainbow all the way across the sky.
00:47:41
Speaker
Mine.
00:47:45
Speaker
What's blowing your mind, Kieran and Pierre? Who wants to go first? ah We'll let the guests go. Okay, I'll go. So i I bought a VR headset for my for an upcoming video, really, for Christmas, but I gave it to the kids as a Christmas gift as as well.
VR Gaming Fascination
00:48:06
Speaker
And I just told them, like, be careful, because I need this for a video, so be careful with it. But they keep knocking into walls all the time. but because like I downloaded a game, a table tennis game.
00:48:20
Speaker
wo And it's so ah realistic. Like it feels like I'm actually playing table tennis and I go multiplayer every day a couple of times a day that I play against, like I suppose kids. It's not, it's probably grown men for sure. Yeah, probably. There's just some guys in China just like practicing against everyone. World champions.
00:48:47
Speaker
ah But I didn't think it would be that good that that's actually blown my mind ah Also, I've never been a gamer so I've never been really hooked to video games, but now I feel hooked like a couple times a day I go I need to play table tennis again Well, you don't need to go out in the cold barn right and like hit balls and you at least got someone else to play against and Yeah. Yeah. Because when the kids go, dad, can we play table tennis? You play like, ah they can't play really. And you don't have the patience patience to teach them to to be any good. Well, most kids don't want to learn. They're just like, they just hit it back. Yeah. yeah We're bonding with dad and they're like, shut up and get better.
00:49:38
Speaker
ah You know what's blown my mind this week, Joss? Tell me. You're not fucking killing yourself on Saturday. That was pretty close. We just saw this thing flipping over like a fucking rally car in like those old school, like 90s rally videos. And just seeing you fly off this thing. I thought you were done for sure.
00:50:03
Speaker
I was like, all right, do I need to call an ambulance? Well, I love that they thought I was done because it took you forever to get down the hill and actually check that I was okay. I was just like, there's no reception down there.
00:50:15
Speaker
to see be okay first I wonder, I need to check the footage because I'm really certain there's like this bit where I was flying off and i when I actually land on my shoulder, it's like a o
00:50:33
Speaker
where the wind sort of taken out of me. But it's interesting too, because i I realized like going down the hill, you have no control. Whereas like if you're driving something motorized, do you have full control of how fast you go and then also so generally like how you can brake and like balance the acceleration, the brake sort of, and you can warm up to the speed I guess you get. But with that, like you kind of feel like, oh, things are going well, things are going, ah, I'm dead.
00:51:06
Speaker
two if Yeah, you've got no time to break and just like ease into things, especially with my shit design. And that that leads onto my mind blown this week is how freaking stupid I am to say, to not say that my ski solution was a dumb decision. We can't argue that. no ah Yeah, you know, some might say it gave me the
00:51:41
Speaker
does number two one cool
00:51:48
Speaker
Hey, just grab a hold of something. We're gonna get through this.
00:51:57
Speaker
hey that Sounds pretty nasty. How about courtesy flush over there? um
00:52:09
Speaker
I think the Three Northern Makers podcast needs more intros like this. Not much of this. Steve, what's your... but It's not you for a spear. It might be very as soon if he opens his back door. Jesus.
00:52:30
Speaker
yeah
00:52:32
Speaker
What tells you like maybe he got delivered and the guy was like, I wonder what's in this one. He's not home. Oh, beer. Sweet. Well, if I see some like untapped ratings coming in from England, I know what happened. Yeah, so go on, Justin, tell us what's giving you shits this week. Post-Christmas food. So in my house, we went all out for Christmas, as you always do, right? You buy too much food,
00:53:04
Speaker
and you have all this leftover stuff. Now, the New Year's, I'm thinking, right, New Year's, i don't I'm not a really big believer of like New Year's resolutions, but I was thinking, you know what, I'm gonna ease off the candy in this and the caffeine.
00:53:22
Speaker
this like that's my kind of goal is to basically cut a lot of the sugary stuff that I end up eating at like nine o'clock at night because I'm tired and I should actually go to bed but you know um ease that off and then you know right now I'm at three cups of coffee a day I want to get that down to one and hopefully to zero at some point because I just although coffee is delicious i think it's delicious because you're addicted to it so so yeah uh post christmas food gives me the shits because it's everywhere you can't avoid it and i have a sickness that
00:54:00
Speaker
When I see food, I can't let it go bad. We can't just throw out good food. It doesn't work, right? And I'm nearly sure Kieran has this too. That's what happens when you grow up in a household of four boys. Like there's like, everyone's like gets a portion size of the food and there's like one like pork chop left.
00:54:20
Speaker
And then there's like, everyone's just like shoveling food in their mouth as fast as possible. So that then because the rule was if you finish your plate, then you can go for seconds. Yeah. Everyone wanted seconds. like So it was just like this speed eating to try and get the the last pork chop and everyone's like the fork just gets like jammed in the in the piece of meat before before anyone else does. And then you claim it for yourself and you win.
00:54:44
Speaker
and That's how we grew up, and because you know we had to two other the brothers that were were you know equally as competitive for the last pork chop as we were. So that was why we we can't... Mum used to have this fridge magnet on the fridge. I don't know if you remember this, Justin.
00:55:06
Speaker
And it's ah this like pig like with this ah like his buffet of food on it. And the the slogan said underneath it said, I'm on a seafood diet. I seafood and I eat it.
00:55:18
Speaker
And I bust that down out now on Norwegians all the time and they're just like, ah it does not complete. But they, yeah, that's that's how we grew up. Like, I see food and I eat it. Like, it's as soon as it's there. I'm just eating it.
00:55:36
Speaker
Well, I'm amazed because like ah i'll be I'll be going into the kitchen just to do something else. right like Maybe just find a bit of paperwork that I left lying around on the bench or something like that. and Then I'm looking at the bit of paper and I'm like, wait a second, and how did this like handful of M&Ms get in my mouth? I don't understand. What happened? I didn't even see it coming. I didn't even consciously decide to take those handful of evidence. They just just happened. So it's give me the shits. All right, Karen, what's ah what's giving you the shits? What is giving me the shits? um To be honest, I haven't really had much to be honest. So um I'm pretty I'm pretty I'm pretty my guts feeling pretty good this week.
00:56:26
Speaker
Yeah, after you're fasting. Actually, that's true. I will have to admit though, like I'd like ah ah one of these like longer fast periods was like nearly two days without food. Then soon as I ate food, my body was like, what is going on? You got to clear out everything.
00:56:45
Speaker
but Sorry. yeah for me that was ah That gave me literally the shits, I think. um What about you, Pierre? What have you got? I would say people, like especially people before Christmas. like Always people. I hate them, but especially before Christmas. like Everyone's Australian maniacs.
00:57:08
Speaker
um Everyone's acting like maniacs. You go to the store to buy like some butter, and and the store is full of people acting like complete asses. They're just grabbing stuff in front of you. They they don't have peripheral views, so they or they do, but they don't care. You're trying to pass them. They're like, I'm looking at this shelf now. I'm not going to let anyone through. Yeah. What's going on? Have you lost SPA?
00:57:42
Speaker
Well, he's still on mine. I don't know. He's silent. Yeah. Yeah. So what about what about? ah Yeah. I'm a bit distracted because I lost him. Oh, no. He could he was there the whole time. But anyway, yeah, I know. Are you with us now? Was I rambling too much or you kicked me up?
00:58:10
Speaker
No, you were still there the whole time. You're like, ah, and you're looking all funny and you're like quiet and you're typing on your keyboard. You can even hear you talking. Okay, I was trying like, is my internet out? Because both of you froze at the same time. So I was like, oh, maybe something. But anyways, yeah, that gives me the shits. Everything around Christmas, basically. Yeah. And all these like special treats that you're but supposed to make, like it's not Christmas without them. Like,
00:58:40
Speaker
Why do we need like 10 different types of biscuits? I mean, and you just eating biscuits until February anyway. You know how many pepper cockers we've got in our body house. We're going to be eating pepper cockers until at least March. It's crazy. Yep.
Cultural Reflections on Norway
00:59:01
Speaker
cur you ah Pierre, what should people go check out? oh I watched a pretty good series on, ah and ne I think it was Netflix, about this like undercover agent, ah but you caught me off guard, so I can't remember the name or anything. Oh, is it Night Agent? That's the new one that's come out. No. Oh, maybe it wasn't. No, it wasn't Netflix. Perhaps it was some other... The Jackal.
00:59:35
Speaker
Oh yeah, okay. Every remake of the old... Yeah, The Day of the Jackal. that was ah But that was on maybe Prime or Sky Showtime, I can't remember. Sky Showtime. Yeah. Good? I liked it a lot, yeah. What about you guys?
00:59:56
Speaker
Jess, what do you, what do you have to recommend this week? I've got two recommendations. I've got one that's a little bit fun. ah It's called the Social Guidebook of Noi.
01:00:14
Speaker
i Just is holding up the book. Can you explain what's on the book cover, Justin? So on the front cover you've got these like stick figure heads and underneath there's four heads and there's a a face where it says happy and he looks like non-emotional at all and then sad is non-emotional Angry is non-emotional, and then drunk is a big smiley face.
01:00:46
Speaker
It's by Julian Borrello, and he's a French-Canadian, I believe. ah It's just gold. like So, Norwegians love and hate this book. So there's two reactions when they, we we often have it on our coffee table, just to shit-stir people. Because when they rock up, they'll see this and they'll immediately open it up. And there's two reactions. The first reaction is, huh, yeah, that's so true. we do we We do that. That's so interesting. And then the second reaction is, who's this fucking immigrant guy?
01:01:25
Speaker
What does he know about Norway?
01:01:31
Speaker
So i I just randomly opened some pages here. It says the title is here is cross-country skiing. ah Sport often practiced alone in the dark under freezing temperatures and requires no communication. A very Norwegian sport.
01:01:49
Speaker
good ah There's just all this other stuff like in how to date in Norwegians and stuff here. It's so fascinating and like how to praise Norwegians. um The dating one's pretty funny because I'm not sure this was the case for you, Kieran. So no it says here's the normal timeline for dating. You meet somebody, you ask them out for coffee, you go on a second date for coffee maybe, then third you go out for dinner and then
01:02:20
Speaker
then you might go get a chance to go in the bedroom. Whereas in this book it says, Norwegian women, you meet them at the bar, you sleep with them, then then maybe you get to say hello to them in the corridor. Then if you've been doing well with talking to them in the corridor, then you might go on a coffee date.
01:02:45
Speaker
And then you might go out for dinner and then you might sleep again. to gets I'm not sure that's how it worked. and That's not how it worked for me, but I don't know. Kieran, is that how it worked for you? I can't say it did, but i I married a good Christian girl, so that wasn't going to work for me anyway. Boring!
01:03:07
Speaker
So, yeah, it's a really good read. And for anyone that is Norwegian or is not Norwegian, just wants to understand like how how Norwegians work. It's a frickin fantastic book. And it's always a conversation starter. So the so the Social Guidebook to to Norway ah by Julian Borrello. Well, I um don't really have a super good recommendation, but I started watching Severance on Apple TV yesterday.
01:03:37
Speaker
Um, it was really fascinating. So I jumped in to like three or four episodes and really enjoying it so far. So it's a basically about, uh, a guy who works for this company where you, your work life and your social, like your, your normal personal life are separated. So they have an implant in their head, which means that when they go to work, they don't remember what their true self is.
01:04:05
Speaker
And so they have basically two split personalities and you have your work personality, like essentially never leaves work. So when you, you finish your day at 5pm, you go out the elevator and then when you jump in the elevator, you become your normal self again and you can remember your life, but you can't remember what you did at work because it's all top secret, what they're doing. And then, and then you have, uh, and so they're,
01:04:33
Speaker
regular life has no connection with their work life so they don't even know what both parts themselves are doing. A really really fascinating concept and I was really really like very kind of intense and freaky ah but I really enjoyed it so so far at least and there's none the season they've just released so it must be doing well it's really good take it out.
01:04:57
Speaker
severance. Is anyone else confused by silo what's happening right now? yeah me too jesus um only li fraud That's what I should have said. That's what giving this shits stagnated series releases. Like I'm waiting every free fucking Friday for another episode episode of silo. I'm like, come on. And then every episode is a disappointment because it doesn't reveal enough.
01:05:24
Speaker
Yeah, like trips and drives, just dragging it out. Oh man, just trying to milk the season. Milk out money, that's what it is. Yeah, so yeah but yeah that's right. Yeah, that was against one of my last weeks, yanking my chain, giving me the shit subscription time.
01:05:39
Speaker
and
01:05:43
Speaker
Well, I think we'll leave it there. I dragged Pierre into this, said it would be an hour. It's been an hour. So thanks so much for ah for joining us on this ah rare Three Northern Makers podcast. We'll get Steve on next week.
01:06:01
Speaker
All right, guys. Well, thank you so much for listening. We will catch you next time for a bunch of dribble. Thanks for listening, guys. Auf Wiedersehen. Ciao.
01:06:15
Speaker
hey the hey do