From Bans to BBQ - Life, Repairs, and Resilience

0:00 Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Space Tomatoes podcast with your host I'm Havoc. I'm Alex. Hello. See, now you know who we are. You can feel free to reach out to us. We're on Telegram. It's a great group. You can find us on Telegram by literally going to any browser and typing in t.me slash space tomatoes.

0:52 If you do that, it'll take you right there. You sign up for Telegram account. Join the party in there. You can download the episodes, have them on your own device. You can do whatever you want, create, you know, small clips of it if you want to or not. And you can see some of the information we post in there about episodes, as well as get to chat with LX and I. So give it a shot. You can also find us here on YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Podcast Addict, Podbean, and X. All those places. yeah that's a lot of places if you think about it i mean you know considering the reach of each one of them right i did finalize my telegram account finally today so i am officially you saying i'm on there but i really wasn't on there but i'm on there now yeah because i got you're a bad boy i i didn't do anything bad you know so it was all about this whole And I don't want to get into this, right? This is not something, you know, I'm not Joe Pundit or anything like that, right? But the whole Charlie Kirk thing, right? And one of the things that in discussion with someone was, you know, how they feel that it's intolerable for someone to have any thought other than remorse and sadness for his passing.

2:22 And while I don't disagree that the loss of a life should garner that sort of attention, because I do, loss of life is tragic, period, no matter what. The one thing that I did point out was, you know, literally last week you were cheering with glee when 11 people lost their lives simply for being on a boat in the ocean off Venezuela. the armed services has zero proof and they've stated this, that there was anything on that boat. It could have been immigrants. It could have been drugs. It could have been a night trip fishing. They could have been going to catch squid. Uh, nobody knows, right? Nobody actually knows for a fact. And yet this was a gleeful celebration of 11 lives lost. Right. Uh, and I pointed out at one point they they said you know this is intolerable and it's not okay to to you know uh you know poke fun of someone losing their life to another user not to me and my statement back was except when it's a boat right and apparently that was that was reported and I've been temporarily suspended for pointing out the hypocrisy.

3:50 That was enough to get you a line man, huh? They don't even check anymore. If you get reported for specific things, they just ban you. Yeah. They just suspend your account immediately and they'll deal with the ramifications later. And I understand that there's enough users. They can't go through and check everything. And Facebook did that a decade plus ago to me on a meme I posted that was a balloon filled with, I don't know what sort of gas, but it touched a candle flame and it went whoosh, right? Nobody was harmed, right?

4:32 Nobody at all. And it went to that song, I don't know who sings it, this girl is on fire right and right when the flames came up it went this girl is on fire but then later it shows everyone's okay and it just whooshed a big you know fireball but nobody got hurt you know maybe a little singed hair maybe right but nobody was injured burned uh or anything like that but they they you know the video came through and their their uh you know algorithm their analytics saw that and went oh you're posting harmful content and i was like no i'm not i don't do that right i'm not i'm not that guy you know uh so anyway it happens i i managed to appeal that and nobody was harmed it was you know meant to be funny even though situationally a bit scary i'm I'm not even sure there's anybody on Facebook monitoring that stuff anymore.

5:39 That it's not just completely AI now. Oh, they, they have a team of people, but that's not who does the initial. Okay. Right. They're the review. All right. Right. So that's, that's my experience has been a little bit different. So like I'm, I'm scrolling through there and I saw like a sponsored content and it was an overtly sexual act. Like almost, you know, everybody was naked doing stuff. And, you know, like I don't want to see that on my Facebook. I reported it and then I get a report back. Oh, this doesn't violate our community standards. So we will not be removing the post.

6:20 That was one time. Now, another time I saw one, it was an animal being like electrocuted or something. And, you know, I don't want to see that either. I reported that one. Same thing. This post does not violate our community standards. We will not be removing it. And I'm like, okay. I'm not sure why that stuff even popped up in the first place, but. Nobody even knows what their community. The whole thing's intentionally vague, right? Because that gives them the leeway to just go ahead and be like, yeah, we'll ban you for this or we'll do whatever we want.

7:02 you know you're adjusting your lights there you go there we go I forgot to light up my blue background man so you know get that color popping look doesn't that look better folks would you not say that that looks much better it adds bonus points it does right it's kind of like wow oh it's a light does it get you a thumbs up on the video hopefully maybe two probably not they'll be like yeah whatever dude you turned on a light and I agree with that I don't deserve like recognition for turning a light on I don't think even though I turned it on and changed the color still kind of thinking loser you could have turned it on before you started the video but no You can do it right on the fly, too.

8:03 Back in the day, you'd have to be changing out color gels and all kinds of stuff, right? Right, yeah. The LED stuff is amazing nowadays. What they do, it really is. I mean, the ability to set temperature, color, strobe effect, whatever you want is pretty amazing. And to do it either from a control on the back of the light or from an app on your phone. it's pretty fantastic what if you don't have a phone you have a tablet apps fit on your tablet so you can use your tablet just checking you don't need a phone my goodness one of these days I'm going to buy you a phone with like a lifelong plan and I'm going to give it to you and we're not going to share the number with anyone it'll just be for you no thank you that's it I don't want to.

9:00 You don't want me to be able to contact you? I'm heartbroken. Saddened. Why don't I just wear a GPS tracking collar around my neck? That's about the same thing. No, you can leave it at home. Don't ever take it anywhere. Just leave the damn thing at home. I don't care. It's good. I can contact you when I get lined up. You can call my wife. She's always got her phone. She never leaves home without that thing. yeah there's something about that though you know is this your wife i'm not yeah i'm not your your parent talks to her watch and tells her how how far she's gone where's lx where's lx where is he locate lx for my please no i don't want to do that i'm just going to get you you know what i'm going to do i'm going to get you a a pager that's i had one back in the day no tracking no tracking no nothing me too two-way i'm gonna get you a two-way old school blackberry pager and that way we can like no matter what delete delete delete delete delete delete edit this part edit this part edit it's not good man oh man see it's been a day man i'll tell you what though when you're sitting there working on a project and it fails it's so disheartening and then you got another project and you kind of

10:34 sit there going i don't really want to not not because i can't not because of anything but What if that fails too, you know? You ever get like that? I take it you're talking about your electrical project to get going on. Yeah, I freaking hate electrical. And I didn't want to do this, but I thought, you know, I've done switch replacement before, no problem. We've got a three-way switch, not a big deal. And no, two-time failure now. And I've done everything right. i took everything off left the bare wires took my klein meter you know turn turned everything off pulled everything off bare wires took my klein meter found the hot wire on the primary switch the source switch and then i took all three wires i tied them together i went to the end i turned it back off then i went back tied the three wires with another wire so that i knew i had good contact right i actually had to ruin a perfectly good extension cord because i am not an electrician So I don't have like spools of wire just laying around.

11:41 So I'm like, all right, screw this extension cord. And I wrapped the wire on it and everything. I went to the other one and I'm like, all right, well, these two are hot. So this is, these are their common traveler wires and, you know, or the two traveler wires, I'm sorry. And then I found the source because it's not doing anything. So it's the one that goes to the light and I hooked it all up correctly and I came back in and nothing. although at one point the light started flickering that's when i was like yeah we're we're done we're done we're calling an electrician sparky needs to come on over here and fix my problem because now it's wrong all because i wanted a dang diagram dimmer switch maybe are you sure that the light fixture that you're trying to dim is dimmable because some of them are not oh okay all right Yeah, 100%.

12:31 And so we're the bulbs. And in fact, when I did the first iteration, I took off the source and replaced it with a dimmer switch, but left the light switch on the other one, and it worked, and it dimmed, and everything was fine. But I have two dimmer switches, because if I've got a three-way switch, I don't want not to be able to dim it on one side, have to turn it on, walk around to the other side, and then dim it. You know what I mean That just stupid so Sorry Yeah So the next piece of the next project is to hang a big piece of wood on the wall Maybe we need an electrician on the show.

13:14 That would help. You know what? Maybe. Yeah. I do, actually. I do. I'd actually like to get him on, too. He's a cool dude. Cool dude. Yeah, very cool. In fact, that would be fun. I'm moving my camera there. I'd be like, hey, so what do you think about homeowners trying to do these jobs? And then they call you in in the middle of a job that they can't do. How does that? See, now I didn't leave everything all effed up, right? At the end of the day, when we were calling them, it's literally your job has been made easier. I can show you which one's a hot wire. You don't have to believe me, but I promise you that's the right one. I can also show you which one is the source.

13:56 That's like my first question. I'm sorry, the load. I can show you the source. I can show you the load. I can show you the travelers. Why it's not working, I cannot. You're probably going to kick yourself when you find out it's something simple. I'm sure it's something simple. Yeah, it's probably something like switch these two travelers around. It's literally probably something that's stupid, which really shouldn't impact it, but I don't know. So, or the connectivity to the light itself is, is not good, but I don't believe that because it worked and worked well the first time. So I think it's literally going to be something that stupid, but I am not going to start playing around with just switching wires and see what happens when I turn power back on.

14:42 What's the worst that happens? Fire and, and yeah, not good. I don't like electricity. I don't like glass. i don't like plumbing but for very different reasons and okay fine i'll do plumbing but electricity and glass are two areas like electricity i will deal with on light fixtures light switches things like that let me get my list here i'm gonna write this stuff down outside of that i i'm calling an electrician because sparky knows what it feels like to get zapped and i've even met some of them that don't even mind it they don't care they're like oh you know and uh you know fine that's you i i'm not like that i i don't want electrical current running through my body from an external source to find ground no thank you i'll pass have you seen these guys in these uh i don't i don't know where they were exactly like probably india or pakistan or something they'll climb up these poles like barefoot you know like and add a add a bare wire on the on the main power line and run it to their house or whatever and i'm like it's crazy yeah yeah dumb ways to and they're doing it like in the rain and you know who cares right well they're barefoot dude seriously you literally are an you're a conductor at that point that's exactly what you are you know what i mean you are a ground waiting to happen

16:12 and and that's not going to work out well for you you you will become a potato chip and um yeah you you will be unalived it's a tragedy and it should never happen don't touch electrical wires if you don't know what you're doing just don't call an electrician if you have a good idea of the basics you're fine with doing simple stuff but don't get into the involved stuff And when it comes to a panel, don't, don't just do not. If you are finding yourself in a position where you are unscrewing the plate on a panel and you don't know what the hell you're doing.

16:53 I would never do anything like that. You know what you're doing, though. I don't I don't have any issue with you doing something like that. You're like, yeah, I got this. Right. but i i know people that do that kind of stuff just like oh i watched a youtube video or it's gonna be fine no you're you might die like bad things can happen electricity everybody's a youtube expert now like auto mechanic stuff everybody knows how to do it i watched a youtube video on right you probably mechanics probably get these people in all the time well i watch youtube on it It's only like a 15 minute thing. Why are you charging me so much?

17:33 And this guy says, well, then take it to him. Go ahead. Call your YouTube expert and take it to him or do it yourself. But don't come in here telling me a YouTube guy did something and it only, you know, blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, you know, sorry. This is my life. This is my job. You either want my services or you don't. Right now. I will say this. I have not had occasion to have met one in quite a long time, but there are mechanics out there that are unscrupulous. Let's put it that way. So, you know, uh, get a clue or take someone with you that has.

18:17 No, knowledge is definitely power. You know, even if you can't do the job yourself, you can watch a video on it and know like whether they're telling you is just complete lies or not. I mean, the fact is anything automotive mechanical related these days is going to be expensive. The labor rate is expensive. The parts are expensive. Like everything about it is expensive. But I mean, the alternative of buying a new vehicle, that's not much better either. So new vehicle, new vehicles in general are a bad day, right? I'm sorry. There's something neat about the main, the warranty and all that and having your service.

18:59 But I'm telling you, you're far better off getting a lease return that's been handled well than you are buying a brand new vehicle. You just immediately threw money away. Immediately. I'll play Dave Ramsey. I mean, if you get a million bucks in the bank and you're not worried about, you know, like making any bills, buy a new car. Like, who cares? But. I still wouldn't. I just, I don't think, I think I'm done with new cars at this point. No, I think I definitely. I've had plenty of new cars and they're even worse now with the fees. So they're the hidden fees.

19:39 So you have the, they'll advertise the price online. Like, I don't know, 30,000 bucks. That's for a cheap car, for a lower end car. And then you get there, you find out 30,000 bucks can't even buy you a freaking skateboard anymore. You can buy an entry level car for 30 grand. Yeah, you can. Yeah. Really? Like one of these tiny little economy, super economy, Nissan style things or something? Yeah, no, you can get like a Honda HRV, like the base model one. It's a little bit smaller than a CRV. You can get one of them for like $26, $27.

20:19 But I mean, it's bare bones. No liftgate, no nothing. No navigation. No. Nah, it's got power windows. Nah, it's not a stick. Got no windshield wiper blades because, you know, those are extra. No, I mean, it actually didn't look bad. I was watching a video about one the other day. And, I mean, it's got alloy wheels on it. It's got like some kind of touchscreen thing, which I'm not. I mean, everything has that now. Alloy wheels or alloy hub? No, it's got alloy wheels.

20:59 You'd think it would come like steel wheels with hubcaps on it, right? This is just the base model. It's actually got a real key. You put it in the ignition and turn it instead of the push-button thing, which I actually like. I do, too. My wife has one of those push-button things, and one day we went to the store, and she's like, all right, I'm going to run in and get stuff. You go ahead and hang out and just come scoop me. and uh the thing started screaming at me like screaming at me like oh you need to put it in park and stop right now because your key is gone and i'm like oh crud because she had walked in with her purse her keys the keys were in her purse so and i was just i i was really close to just parking the dang thing and turning it off because it was so annoying i have a similar story to that my uh neighbor had to go out to the airport and he said hey man can you do me a favor and can you think you can drop me off at the airport you know take my truck and if you need to use it for the weekend you know no problem i'm like yeah dude i'll bring you down there so i bring him down the airport he drove down there and then you know like i dropped him at the the drop-off point he hops out i said you got everything yep i got everything you know i hop in the driver's seat he's like all right man i'll see you in a few days or whatever i'm like all right dude see you as soon as i left i pulled you know like 50 feet away or whatever like this light on the dashboard starts blinking and you know whatever it is and i'm like what the heck

22:32 is that and then you know like i realized that after i left the loop dude and then i'm like oh man i don't have a key for this thing like because there is no ignition and uh like i did borrow my wife's phone to go down there and i try to call him no answer i call him again no answer call him three times no answer so so i loop around like the thing and i'm like oh man he's already gonna meet now he was still standing outside talking to somebody and i'm like honking the horn and he's like oh hey i thought you left i'm like i did you forgot something he's like what what's going on i'm like you got the key and he's like oh yeah oh yeah like i don't know how does that work does it like shut off after a while or are you just not able to start it ever again unless you get the key you can yeah you can't start all right so it'll keep running for safety reasons right you don't want to just stop right steering a vehicle with no power is not as easy as you might think it is so having it shut off mid driving would be terrible in my eyes and the brakes go mushy everything about the vehicle becomes very very manual and by manual i mean you're turning the wheels under a multi-thousand pound vehicle right manually and it's not easy okay uh so yeah not good not good not good at all so they'll leave it running but

24:07 they'll it'll scream at you and tell you you know essentially order you to pull over and park yeah right i mean and don't do that either go back to where the key is because if you pull over and park you are stuck there and you're walking back to get the key well while convenient i've never forgot the key while it was in the ignition i have never like left it anywhere right right like it's there it's not going anywhere but yeah the push button stuff annoys me i i personally am just annoyed by like there's some electronics that i see a good use for like backup cameras and you know or backup radar or something like that you know but all of the just gobs of electronics that stuff is the thing of nightmares i mean it really is i remember i sent you that video the guy redoing the vehicle's electronics and you look at it dashboard the whole vehicle's torn apart on the inside and there's nothing but wires everywhere mechanics every mechanic i've ever met just they would rather gouge their eye out with a grapefruit spoon than deal with like anomalous electronic issues because you don't know where that problem is and it's a not fun adventure intermittent issues are even worse about

25:40 Well, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Anomal intermittent. Yeah. Yeah. No, thank you. Mm-hmm. Usually a short, some wire somewhere touching bare metal or something, getting scraped and now you got to take everything the dash the the freaking seats out the panels off the doors the back seats the everything needs to come out to expose the wiring harness And then you just got to go through it with a tracer and try and find where that short is. and you're you're talking about gobs of money gobs of money because that's that's all manual labor that's all labor right and mechanics look they're going to charge you for your part they'll probably have an upcharge on the parts because they have to actually keep them in stock at least some of the most common right so they put it put a charge on it and that makes sense that's fine but the thing that gets you on a mechanic is the time it's it's when you're paying that 150 bucks plus an hour and then you realize someone is literally tearing your car apart looking for a little teeny cut in a wire that might be exposed to bare metal once in a while right now you're talking 20 40 80 hours of searching for this little problem or even if

27:13 they replace the whole wiring harness you're talking about you know a week's worth that that that's one of the ones that you want to have under warranty you don't want to pay that out of pocket yeah we'll just just buy an older car honestly that doesn't have all that crap like my my truck it's got it's got microsoft sync in it my worst problem would be tear that thing out and just cut it cut it wrap it in electrical tape and we'll call it good i don't you know i do have concerns about some of these vehicles that like a lot of these uh features are controlled from that that screen so if that thing goes out and I can assume that they're not inexpensive to replace.

28:01 No, of course not. I mean, what is the lifespan on one of those things? I mean, I know my iPad, I'm replacing one of them things, you know, every probably five years or so. I don't know. Yeah, but you're doing that for performance reasons. This is a closed environment where you're not getting, on an iPad, the apps, the capabilities of apps, all of that ecosystem is going to improve over time, right? The vehicle itself, it's not going to. The engine isn't going to go, oh, well, unless it's VW, and you pay your $22 a month, and then you get your extra, what is it, 244 horsepower, whatever the hell it is.

28:42 I got some weird-ass bug just landed on my desk. Looks like a wasp. That's awesome. In a not-so-awesome way. Touch it to your tongue. See if it's a spicy one I kind of want to just Bang it with my hand But I think I'm going to exercise prudence And leave it alone Catch it and let it go outside I'll stay over here I'm just going to leave it alone for now It'll eventually die There's nothing for it to do in here Give it a sip of your whiskey Mmm Nah, I don't want to become a friend I'm not looking for a wasp friend Like, hey buddy let's hang out you got any more that whiskey over there be like no dude you need to go you and your stinger go away we're probably boring everybody with all these auto mechanic uh stories no it's fine so they look you know hey this is part of our topical conversational podcasty type Oh, and speaking of mechanics, a big shout out and a big, huge, amazing thank you to Mr. LX for pulling our oldest son out of hot water on his way home from here to go back to Florida where he lives.

30:02 his vehicle started experiencing charging system malfunctions and lx was kind enough to say yeah you know bring it on over here we'll look at it and try and get you fixed up so huge shout out huge thank you and no this doesn't mean go to lx with your mechanical problems or he's gonna freaking solve stuff for you. Although if you do have car mechanic questions, I would be happy to give an answer if I know. I don't know everything, but I know some things. I've been around the blog a couple times. There you go. Yet another great reason to join Telegram.

30:43 If you're having car issues, you can talk directly with LX. There you are. Worst I can tell you is, I don't know. True, but he does know. This is the whole thing. It was an easy job. Thankfully, it was the four-cylinder model, which is easier to work on less stuff under the hood. But now we found a couple things that needed addressed immediately, and we got it taken care of. Yeah, you were telling me. Was it the coolant system or something? Yeah, the radiator hose. They put like a plastic coupler in the middle of the rubber radiator hose with a little barb on it for a vent hose.

31:27 And apparently they get a little bit of age on them and they just snap right off. And there goes all your engine cooling. Not good. So this is like an overpressure situation, a little nipple that you could bleed off. It's just a little vent tube. Yeah. Yeah. Just part of the system for bleeding air out of the system, I guess. I'm not really sure. Why would you bleed air out of the cooling system? It's by default. No, you can't have air in the cooling system. Well, not in the pipes, but I mean, the radiator is the feed, and the radiator itself is literally not filled completely to the top.

32:08 This particular vehicle, the radiator has no cap on it. There's no cap on the radiator. You have the bottle on the side. What do you feel? Yeah. Through that? That's odd. Why? That seems slow, ineffective, and stupid. That's just how it is. All right. Effective and stupid it is. Actually, I mean, it was easy because you don't have to purge it of air. Some of them are bad. Some of them you really have to go through. Yeah, no, it took a while to fill up.

32:49 Yeah, whereas a radiator cap gives you a sizable entrance to just pour a five-gallon bottle in there. I mean, technically, the pressure cap on the reservoir is the cap, but it's just not on the radiator itself. Yeah. And again, tiny hole. Yeah. No, it's just a little tiny little pipe. What is up with the Japanese over here? What's up with the tiny holes? Do you have tiny inserts? Questions are being asked.

33:30 Just saying. I like Toyota products. You only like tiny holes. If you have a tiny object to insert into the tiny hole, that's all I'm saying. that's all I'm saying. Not even going to go there. Not even going to take you on that one. What? It's a radiator. Get your mind out of the cover. My goodness. I couldn't resist. It had to happen. But anyway, yeah, that and the replacing the alternator so charging system problems and the alternators usually hopefully it was a pretty easy job yeah it's weird it's weird on new engines that you have to remove components to get to other components this one wasn't horrible like my vehicle horrible horrible horrible horrible just change it up well yours is a 6 and it's packed in there especially like a transverse engine that's you know like a front wheel drive thing they're usually not fun to work on yeah that's what that chrysler was i did a motor mount on that thing that killed my arm too but i managed to hold uh most of the engine up on my arm for a a bit of time not by my choice obviously this was you know uh it happened while i was doing it and

35:11 i was unprepared and well my arm was in the way and so well you know it held it up yeah we we i had torn a motor mount on this thing and so every time you hit the gas yeah go wank up against the top of the hood that's not good and i was like that no that's not good at all that needed to be fixed so replace that motor mount got it all back in uh this was part of my engine jack right here uh yeah fun times fun times i was young you know forgive me i was only like 18 glad you're young you heal better oh and we didn't have youtube either so i didn't have anyone saying oh and by the way when you do this yeah that's crazy now being being older makes it a little more difficult my uh the arthritis makes it harder so let's be arthritis so right so like every time i work on stuff now my skin is so thin that like i i cut myself on everything My wife orders some of these arthritis sleeves.

36:21 They're like for old people. I don't know what they are. They look pressured things. They work great. I put those things on. I didn't cut myself. It was fantastic. I cut myself making a brisket. I had some of your brisket. All right. I was actually trimming. Yeah, I was trimming, and I stupidly was reaching around, and I had the knife like this and I was trimming, going to trim something. And when I did the point of the knife just barely touched me, but it was a breaking, breaking knife. And, uh, they're, they're very sharp, extremely sharp, uh, sharp, uh, large blades. So I didn't have perfect control of the tip is what it came down to.

37:15 So my finger took the tip. Just the tip. Otherwise, that brisket was excellent. I did. It was wonderful. Awesome. I'm glad. It's all gone now. We have none left. Oh, good. We had it for lunch and dinner. And you saw the two pints of tallow, right? I sent you a picture of that. So we got two pints of tallow out of that. We got enough food for us to eat. I've eaten scrambled eggs with it. We still probably have another few pounds of beef from it. It's a really good thing.

37:56 Not to mention we have some reserved that's been put away to be added to chuck or top around or whatever, depending on how lean we want the hamburger meat. Add that into your grind with some brisket and fat from the brisket. And I promise you, your hamburger will take on a whole new dimension. I promise you. You will notice the difference, and you will be pleased. The downside is it takes forever to cook that stuff, apparently. Yeah. Yeah, you're sending me these pictures pretty consistently, and I'm like, man, that's taking a while.

38:36 yeah it takes somewhere it depends on how hot how hot you cook it i i i am still a low and slow kind of a guy so when it comes to barbecue brisket it's gonna be 12 to 16 hours almost always sometimes it a surprise and you get it at eight but you know this is the thing with barbecue and everyone all I like the most well person in the food group or friend group for this is it be ready when it ready because i don know i can tell you i can give you a range of like six hours when it when it'll be ready is that good no that's how do we eat dinner on that you don't you're here for barbecue when it's ready you eat period That just goes against all my sensibilities.

39:30 Because when I cook, and it drives my wife nuts, I get the little timers going because I know exactly when things are going to be done. And I can tell her within a small little window, we're going to eat it this time. Within like two minutes. You know what they say, right? No, I don't. What do they say? Good things come to those Who wait Sometimes I'm not good at waiting Well then that's just a lesson That's all that is It's just a lesson Here's your lesson We're going to teach you how to wait By making you wait But the brisket was good I gotta admit that much There's something magical About a good old southern barbecue man nothing nothing about that is is bad uh other than you just don't know right so like when we've had big barbecue events and like when we did a whole hog we we start out at like you know midnight the night before right and we cook and that way we know that it'll be ready on time uh the thing about like a friend group or something is kind of the opposite. It's like, oh yeah, let's do this.

40:53 Okay. We're going to do this, but it's going to take a while. And okay. And then it's like, well, is it ready? Is it ready? Is it ready? No, it's not. When's it going to be ready? I don't know. You know, one, one piece of beef might be ready in eight hours. The other one's 16. so within this eight hour period of time we'll have food nice so but the benefit is we can pull up the pellet grill i've got a yoder ys 640 which is a wonderful piece of equipment i'm not a big fan i had two tragers before that uh and while they are wonderful great consumer model uh the sheet metal on it's awfully thin and it burns through pellets depending on the weather outside you're going to have just variations that i don't personally find acceptable the ys640 is like quarter inch rolled steel so it's going to hold heat a lot of it and that protects you from things like you know cool days where the wind starts picking up you know once in a while but it's not consistent or even if it is consistent you're cooling the chamber off on a thin sheet metal system uh and that's gonna that that will 100 percent always impact your cook so we can put it

42:25 in that sucker at night and go to bed and when we wake up magic has appeared that's like that little rotisserie oven i got i said it forget it right pretty much yeah pellet grills are just that they're the lazy way um i would love to fire up tess i have a lang 60 inch uh trailered smoker that i would love to fire up but the problem with that is i'm hanging out with friends and we all love each other we really do but nobody wants to hang out with me sitting by a firebox for 9 12 15 are you sure did you ask are you you're just assuming you're assuming again aren't you i did ask i did ask and most said no and the ones that said yeah sure we'd totally do that i know for a fact you're going to be like I'm going to go inside for a bit and I'm just going to be sitting out there just going let me add another log okay let me close this damper let me open this one blah blah blah blah blah and then you know people come visit but I'm going to be sitting out there by my damn self all alone and you know I want to hang out with my friends this is my time of the year that it's one of the most enjoyable times of the year for me. It really is. You know,

43:56 I have my wife, uh, sometimes family as well and friends, and it's just uninterrupted time for friends and family. And that to me is there. It's, it is it to me, it's one of the most enjoyable times of the year. It's just amazing. And I love it. And I don't want to miss out on a full day of it when there's only three to four days of it every year. I don't blame you at all. That makes a lot of sense. But we are thinking about building up a little shelter out there so we can get everybody out there and we can all hang out and it'll be a little better suited to people that don't want to be hanging out. It gets a little cold out there sometimes, depending.

44:49 I'm just saying. I'm just saying. It's really hot where you are, and I live through that. It wasn't that bad. I told you to wear sunscreen on the kayaks. I warned you. You didn't listen to me. In March. In March, I got sunburned. Badly. In Florida. Badly. The year before we went in May, and it was just. what's the word I'm looking for it was nice pleasant is the word you were thinking of 90 plus degrees is not pleasant I'm sorry it wasn't 90 yet it was getting there it was like 93 one day I was like this is too hot you get used to it you're the one telling me you'll get used to minus 43 in Wyoming all right maybe you won't but you'll live with it yeah and you know what there won't be neighbors that'd be nice i'm just saying right you can have hot with neighbors and a lot of them doing construction work at 6 a.m.

46:17 No, they don't do it at 6 a.m. Glaring mariachi music and, you know, doing all that kind of stuff, having 14 cars in the driveway and, you know, or you live a little bit cold and nobody. Maybe. It's a trade-off. It is a trade-off. Everything in life is a trade-off. yeah so anyway the oldest got home and he's all happy he's super stoked and and yeah i just can't thank you enough i really do appreciate the help on that because i was you know i mean from from my perspective i'm like well if it was here then okay i i can help you through all this this isn't a huge deal but when you're you know eight hours away driving there's nothing i can really do except order order a flatbed right and then hope that pedro's condom shop and mechanic repair actually is going to do right by you and not just soak up i'm sure there are some mechanic shops out there that are honest and do a good job there are there are i don't know of any but i'm sure there are some out there i don't know well there's there's one here that we we trust really really do they've done an excellent job uh it's a place called doc imports d-o-c

47:51 imports in monroe north carolina and they do an excellent job they're honest folks they have done you know our acura and the toyota and always been you know priced well and and i do understand where the prices are right as well as you know on time and good work solid work right so they do exist they're out there but especially when you're out on some highway in the middle of nowhere uh you know you tend to get these shops that typically service local boys and you know all that kind of stuff and then when a you know flatbed pulls in or you know, vehicle from the interstate, they see dollar signs. Sorry, but they do. And, you know, not all of them. I'm not going to disparage every country shop because I know there's some honest ones out there, probably most of them. But you always have that chance of getting hooked up into someone that's going to rake you over the coals because they can. And there's no other option except like a five, $800 tow bill.

49:06 Honestly. Yeah. And they know. Honestly, that's why we rent the car to drive up there. Not that I think our car wouldn't make it or something, but you know, like one repair and like that I could do here easily myself, like say the alternator went out, right? Like I could do that here, but without your tools, I'm not doing anything. And you know, you're just at the mercy of wherever you're at. I'd rather just pay a little bit of money and be like, hey, come get your car. It broke down on the center. Give me another one. Well, not to mention the fact that you've got, you know, in this case, you've got, what, about 1,000 miles of round-trip travel. Yes, 1,000, 1,200, something like that.

49:49 Why put the wear and tear on your vehicle? If you look at it logically, it's about the same dollar amount for wear and tear over time. to rent the vehicle. And then basically you're just renting out that wear and tear time and giving it to someone else. That's fine. I think it's a good call. Especially. Nope, sorry. Go ahead. I was just going to say the other thing. My wife does most of the driving and she really enjoys the adaptive cruise control and the lane assist on the newer cars. Our car does not have that stuff. and you know for for a long distance journey like that it's pretty nice i mean around town you really don't need that stuff but you know we had to we had to turn off the adaptive lane assist for my wife because it was constantly screaming at her i don't know was that a good call or well i mean around town i i don't know so like my friend had a Yeah, we're in town lanes.

50:54 I don't know. Like, so. And you just crossed over into the other traffic lane. It's fine. My friend. No, she's a really good driver, but it's also very sensitive. It is sensitive. It's not necessarily you crossed over. You just encroached a little bit, and it went, wee, wee, wee. And she was like, this is annoying. Those back roads. And I don't. Those back roads where you guys are. They're a little narrow. Yeah, no disparaging. my wife. She is an excellent driver. We turned it off because annoyance. I've never felt uncomfortable with your wife driving. I think she does a good job.

51:36 Same. Those narrower roads, I think, trigger that system a little bit more. They do. We live in the country. And so when you're driving down our two lane roads, which by the way, are 55 mile an hour roads. Which is crazy to me. It just seems like you're going so fast. But there's nobody out there. Yeah, but they're going like... Nobody. that's a lot can you do that again it's like a it's like a roller coaster ride it's probably just because i'm not familiar with it because florida is just like this that's it yeah yeah well it's all flat you have no real you know everything's kind of grid pattern too even your your freeway system is is largely grid patterned, right? You've got North, South, East, West. That's it pretty much.

52:38 Yeah. So it's, it's a bit different, but yeah, no, she's, she's a phenomenal driver. She really is. The only, the only issue I've ever had with driving with my wife had nothing to do with her driving. She had this thing and she doesn't do it much anymore. In fact, very, very rarely, if at all but she she had this thing where we'd be going along and she'd see like a pretty horse or something she'd be like oh and i'm like you know freak out i'm like ready to stomp on the brakes and it's like look a pretty horse right but then i'm i'm like you know not paying attention for whatever reason we're coming up on a red light and she's like hey um red light nice uh red lights coming up it's still red you might want to break but a pretty horse is and i was like we gotta stop this we we really gotta stop this is not okay so it was pretty funny yeah she's she's an angel i love her she is the most amazing woman that has ever graced this planet in my personal opinion that's my opinion hopefully everyone else feels the same about their spouse or significant other but that's the way i feel hopefully everybody feels that way if you don't sorry for you yeah yeah uncomfortable situation to be in and i i I wish the best for you, but you know, I,

54:11 I'm happy to have someone that I see as my complete and total. I call her my one true perfect. That's what she is to me. She's a wonderful lady. One day we're going to try and get her on this podcast. I know she's hesitant. She's like, Hey, I don't want people to, you know, like really? Why? What's the problem? Make her famous. Yeah. My wife's the same way. We will. She's a little shy. No. A little bit. Your wife's anything more shy. Sometimes I'm like, wow, did that, did that, yes, that was said.

54:51 Yeah, she just, yeah. I told you, you get her on here once and everybody's going to be like, hey, put her back on there. We don't want to hear from you. Right. I know. You guys are boring. We'll leave them on there. We'll end up giving up the podcast and it'll be our wives doing it. It'll be like, I don't need a minute here. But hey, you know, special guests. That's all it's going to be. I think we're getting a special guest next week. Yeah. We've got somebody lined up. Good friend of mine.

55:31 What were we going to talk about? I don't know. Stuff. i like talking about stuff i i what do we talk about yeah let's see this should work out break lx takes notes on where my little like you know what can i do to incite a riot havocs triggers i'll underline that one twice we can bring that one up for sure next time i didn't even send you into a little uh little rant mode today nah um i'm out i'm over the rant today i'm having a pretty good day it's been good except for that failure with the stupid light switches you know what you can do right really you can go to the dollar store and just get those like lick them stick them like those little press button led lights just get a you know a bunch of them things just put those up be like ah you know just push that's it you're fine little touch lights just get a little led strip with its own little dimmer switch on it there you go we're done put your studio lights ever you know those are dimmable right do it right from your phone They are. You are correct. We could do that. That would actually work.

56:56 I'm sure you want it done the right way and all that. I do. I do. And it's really annoying that it didn't work. Yeah, I'd be annoyed too, to be perfectly honest with you. yeah yeah you know hey i'm gonna i'm gonna go hang a big piece of wood on the wall and hopefully that'll turn out well and if it does then all right what's that about you're gonna hang a log on that wall okay pretty much any particular reason yeah i'm gonna put uh cast iron screws that have a hook on the end in it for all of the cast oh nice yeah yeah what are you gonna i think it'll look i think it'll look pretty nice once i bet it will no that'll be nice get them all out of the you know stacked up on your counter or table or wherever you got them stored put them somewhere nice the only the only concern I have right now is that it's a, it's like a, uh, probably six or eight inch piece of wood.

58:11 It's a cleat. Do you, do you know how a cleat operates for, for stuff like that? So it's basically a piece of wood, like imagine a 12 inch piece of hardwood that you took a miter saw and mitered down like this one side attaches to the board the big piece of wood we're putting on the other side attaches to the wall and then you just slide it on there and those pieces sit together and it holds it right But I only got one stud that I can do this on So I'm going to drop three deck screws, three inch deck screws through it, pre-drill, drop three into that.

58:56 My only concern is hopefully that's enough. It should be. I mean, the shear on those deck screws should be, you know, in the thousand plus pound range, right? If it doesn't work, it always should have in your mind. Yeah. That's not going to help anything, is it? Really? Like, well, that should have worked and it didn't. Bummer. Yeah. So hopefully it works out well. I think it will. I'm hopeful. That'll be my W instead of my L's. I don't want any more L's. When are you doing that? I don't like those L's.

59:37 Oh, okay. Probably. You'll have to send me some pictures. Either that or tomorrow. Either that or tomorrow. We'll find out. I will. Yeah. Yeah, you'll see it. You'll see it when alpaca comes. It's gorgeous. It's a huge slab of wood. It's beautiful. Beautiful maple. It's gorgeous. It really is. Yeah, your statement. You reminded me about that time that I was going to try out for the World Procrastinator Championships, but I'll get to it later. Yeah, I haven't signed up for that. I'll probably do it tomorrow. That's right. Now, I want to see how the thing turns out.

1:00:17 I'm sure it looks great. Well, I hope so. I mean, it looks wonderful. It's been one of those things. this stupid wall has one stud in it and i've just been sitting there going how am i going to do this and is this gonna work you know i'd much prefer to have two studs at least that i could anchor this thing into um but i don't so you need those 3m command strips right well i was thinking about you know using uh uh uh what do you what do you call it drywall anchors liquid nail liquid nails i was thinking about backing it with some liquid nails which would give it some added strength but yeah i don't know if i really want to do that either because then if if it doesn't work out then now i've got a chunk of drywall torn off the wall too so reminds me of when i redid the cabinets in the kitchen when we first moved in here.

1:01:20 Like the studs weren't exactly where you wanted them to be. And it worked out. It's still on the wall 20 years later. Like I've seen videos of where they all fall down and hasn't done that. So. Yeah, this is, this is a 36 inch wall, which is a bathroom on the other side. And it has exactly one stud at 16 inches. It didn't go 16 on center. there'd be another stud in there on the other side but there's not for make sure there's no pipes next to it don't don't miss the stud and hit the pipe yeah pre-drilling already so it's it's all wood it's a it's a stud i just took the the tape went to 16 on the corner and then pulled out two inches knock yep there's a stud in there did a quick drill drill test through the drywall hit resistance drilled in pulled the the drill bit out little little drill belt you know wood came out of it so we're in good we're in good you got that covered then i think i do but i thought i had the switches covered too it's it's one of those things you You want to make God laugh?

1:02:40 Tell him your plans. Nice. Well, I'll probably let you go to that then. You probably got to get going on that thing, huh? Running out of daylight. Right? Right? Daylight. We have lights. You do. I know we live in North Carolina, but we did get lighting, you know, like last year. Last year. And they're saying, you know, next year, it might be 2027. but they're saying next year we're going to have indoor really it'll be amazing you like the out yeah i know right you know it's done us well it really has be out there with your thoughts and all that yeah yeah yeah my magazine from 1927 just keep the same one in there you know from back when i was a kid you ever been to a place without an outhouse oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah i I actually have friends that live in North Carolina that have an outhouse.

1:03:40 That is. Yeah. Well, they're fully off grid. And instead of putting septic, which requires, you know, electricity, et cetera, they put in outhouse. Nice. They have no connection to anything, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Good. And the government doesn't come in there and say, hey, you can't do that. the government doesn't know that's why just saying like hey we need to collect your off-grid tax i'm sure there's one give up a give up a tiny bit of convenience but what do you get in return right hey it's nice too it's really well done i mean it's it's you know sizable it's not just a little pooper you walk and a door and there's a pooper it's got like sinks and and tanks and stuff so you can actually use yeah wash your hands and do stuff and you know it's it's a nice little outhouse right it's it's well done it looks very nice and so is their little their home their cabin style home nice is really beautiful it's small but it's beautiful it's it's what they need it's got everything they need uh and they're able to power it very efficiently with very minimal equipment uh through sorrel solar right so and battery but you know it's nice and they have you know wood

1:05:10 wood wood stove like a real wood stove to cook on etc um so yeah it a really nice place sounds like a nice setup i wouldn mind something like that yeah yeah i think they're on like 100 acres or so so that's awesome yeah it's it's a really nice honestly just a really nice setup it's hard to get into and out of and the storm that came through that wrecked North Carolina and Tennessee left them stranded for a little bit well yeah because there's a creek so you come off the road which is just two lane country road and you go down the hill a ways and then you cross a creek and then you go up the hill a ways probably about at least half a mile into their property well when that that storm came through that creek became a lot bigger than a creek right so they they kind of got stuck out there and because they don't have services nobody was like looking for someone because they're out of service or whatever well they're all right yeah yeah me too me too because for a while later nobody could get a hold of them well because they they couldn't get out of their property and in that area you know cell towers and all that kind of stuff was gone right so are most of those uh places that got devastated like

1:06:43 back to operation are they still working on it i think uh you know some of the towns like asheville and stuff uh are you know the town the proper you know town proper is is largely black back but when it comes to rural it's hit or miss i mean there's still you know roads from my understanding there's still roads that are down right will will they be put back i i don't know like a one in a hundred year thing or something or yeah yeah century century storm yep wow maybe now now's the time to buy i don't know maybe i should move up there yeah maybe i mean tragic event that happened i mean i'm sure there's some people that said screw it i'm just not building back i'm getting out of here and maybe maybe not though you know you're you're dealing with a different type of of folks in general that live out there um and they're not they're not the type to just give up when heartache or heartbreak comes.

1:07:53 So I'm sure there's some, but I think the majority of them, this is where they lived, where their parents lived and their grandparents and so on and so forth, generational places. They're not going to go anywhere. They'll figure it out. Yeah. I mean, even the Florida people that get flooded every year, they just keep doing it again for some reason. I don't know. Yeah. yeah yep yep and i can see it up where the mountains are but when it comes to like you know like here we have the the you know outer banks and every few years or so those things get devastated by a hurricane that comes through and it's like you live on a sandbar it's it's a barrier island it gets reshaped and reformed with storms and it's meant to protect the mainland and they constantly go through this and then they rebuild and it happens again it's like you know hey man if that's something you want to do on your own dime i'm all good with it but you know the government constantly comes back and says well you know we may need to increase taxes to pay for these roads it's like it's a sandbar it doesn't need a road shouldn't have a road i don't want to pay for infrastructure for it someone wants to live there great i have no problem that's on you though don't make me pay for you to live there it's almost as crazy as like when i drove to uh california there there's like houses hanging off the side of a cliff on the side

1:09:27 of the uh the ocean there i'm like uh that doesn't look safe oh yeah and it's not you'll see you'll see instances of exactly that where the the fence is hanging off the edge of the cliff because it used to be their backyard but now it's just a portion of a fence just kind of you know like here's the cliff and the fence is off like was that the pacific coast highway is that what that is yeah dude it's like create i mean they're like gigantic houses and they're just like dangling over the side of a cliff i'm like man what is that yeah lunacy is what it is well i want the best view ever well this is not a good place to build a house i don't care i want a house built here and they go through extraordinary links to try and keep that from happening but it's natural erosion so guess what it's gonna i could sleep at night right yeah what if we fall off the cliff well you know crazy and it's happened right it's not like something that doesn't happen it happens it's happened before it will happen again but you know hey whatever i got my you know $40 million mansion on the cliff in front of the ocean.

1:10:56 Yay for you. I don't know what to say about that one. What do you say? Oh, okay, great. Cool for you. I guess there's something everywhere you live. I mean, we got sinkholes here, I guess. I don't know. We got hurricanes. We got, I don't know, whatever. Alligators in your backyard. Yeah. less so in a lot of places but yeah sure some places like i don't know what we really have right we don't really have a problem with wildfires or mud you got clay mud you got plenty of that we do and that's problematic for other reasons but it doesn't impede your your livability right um ladybugs yeah they're dangerous right the annual incursion um yeah so i don know we don really have much that comes along in the way of natural disasters other than hurricanes coming through every once in a while But I several hundred miles inland right Or 200 miles inland So most of the storms by the time they hit us it just rain a lot of rain maybe some wind but not bad like maybe 50 mile, 70 mile an hour gusts or something.

1:12:17 So we're not, we're not getting hammered like that. You know, that's good. So I always got a place to go if I need to retreat from here. Well, that's what I've always said. So when do you want to do that live stream thing? I've been thinking about that giveaway. I've been collecting my dryer lint and I've got a pretty good collection ready to go out. If you want to do that. Well, let's pull up the calendar here. I heard you talk about the giveaway. I don't know what you're giving away, but I'm ready. Why don't we schedule that for Saturday, October 4th? All right. Yeah.

1:12:57 Well, let me check my calendar first. Okay. I'm good. So Saturday, October 4th, it is. Awesome. Yeah. No. I'll have to make some exceptions, but I can clear that day out for you. All right. All right. We'll probably do it towards the end of the day, I think. That'd probably be good. Yeah. You know, 530 or so, maybe. Does that sound good? So Saturday, October 4th, 530 p.m. Eastern time. I'll let you handle all the technical aspects. I'll just show up for the party.

1:13:38 live stream with with giveaways we'll have some uh certificates for the jones plantation film if you're interested in seeing that you can get a certificate to get your copy of the jones plantation give that a watch uh might even uh work out some other gift certificates as well all right well we'll have a few giveaways and we'll do random i'll find something on the interwebs that does you know list of names and does a random pull uh and we'll use that all right so uh as fair as i can make it i'm not making any promises if you're on and you win something great if you didn't i'm sorry but i'm just going to use some other tool i'm going to put list of names and let it grab a name so just be careful you don't want to have to ship nothing like internationally so no i've seen where that backfired on somebody yeah it'll all be something we aren't shipping physical items what will what will make it is something like gift cards or gift certificates for something etc so we'll try and find something that'll work for anyone that wants to join and you know like the jones plantation film right you can watch your copy of the jones jones plantation with this certificate um yeah so maybe like a you know a google and an apple play

1:15:12 card or something well i'll figure something out we'll do some giveaways we'll have some fun conversation we'll take questions from the audience we may even see if we can't pop you right in get you on the show yeah surprise you're on the show live no sorry we won't do that to you but if you're interested you know hey that might be something we'll do too but saturday october 4th 5 30 p.m eastern time is going to be a live stream live actually live yeah yeah sounds exciting no bleeping no no bleeping no delay just you don't bleep anything anyway yet I might start bleeping myself out I deserve it sometimes man that boy got a mouth on it sometimes I just gotta say the right thing to you that makes it happen mm-hmm mm-hmm it sure does alright well I think we're at a good place to wrap things up and thank you everyone for giving us some time today. We really do appreciate it.

1:16:30 Hope you've enjoyed the show. If you did give us a thumbs up, if you didn't like us, give us thumbs down, throw something in the comments. We respond to comments. We like to reply to you, uh, join the telegram telegram channel in there. You can chat with us. You can make comments. You can ask questions. You can ask about, you know, a guest in a specific field or whatever you want. Send a meme. I don't care. Right. Uh, join, interact, be a part of the crew, right. Um, you can find us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcast, I heart radio podcast, addict, podcast bean or pod bean sorry and uh x as well as telegram t.me slash space tomatoes to join the telegram group do it from any browser just open it up type the character t as in tom dot me as in me, mine, I am me slash space tomatoes. You can use spell check for that. If you have trouble spelling either of those words, don't think you do, but if you did, you can use that. And that'll take you from that browser to telegram. It'll ask you for a sign up and you can sign in free. It's fun. Join us. And lastly, no matter when you're listening to this, no matter where you are,

1:18:05 have an amazing day. See you, everybody. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.