100% Dad Ep 5 (2) Interviews with Dads- Joe Smith

Welcome to the 100% Dad Podcast, interviews with dads. This is number 5 with Joe Smith, a military dad in South Dakota. We talk a little endometriosis, a little COVID, in the medical field, some kids weightlifting, and a whole bunch of other things. I'm gonna go ahead and warn you, my microphone was not performing fantastically, so we're gonna work on that for future, future podcasts, but It is what it is. Uh, we had some fun talking, and with no further ado, here we go. We can edit, remember?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's good. Yeah, we need to. So I'll talk slow and I'll pause in between sentences so it's easy, easy to delete stuff.

How's my hair?

It looks good, man. You did a great job. Did Ryan cut that hair?

Did you see it?

It was impressive. What are you, what are you doing? Are you, are you, is it, is that your intention just to grow it out or what?

It's a straight up fro. Um, so Ryan, two things happened. Ryan asked me, I usually, I've always gone like a number 2 fade.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And my haircut for high school, um, well, I buzzed it a little bit back then. Um, so she said she wanted me to grow it out a little bit longer. And then she also said I'm starting to go a little bit bald, like she was making fun of me.

Okay, I'm not going bald.

So this is—

you can't, you can't go bald when you got long hair, right?

I mean, I think I'm starting to thin up front a little bit, but yeah, so now it's like it's a straight up fro, like it goes—

hey, you gonna— are you gonna braid it too? Get it braided?

Uh, so I've told a few people Not many people outside of your family know that I braided it though.

Yeah, you should go get— you should go get it braided. Go just ride up to Jacksonville and tell Brittany to braid your hair.

How we didn't take pictures of that.

There's no— there's got to be pictures somewhere. There has to be somewhere. I bet someone has it.

It's not like we had phones.

That's true. Yeah, no, no, we didn't.

We didn't have phones like we have today.

But no, I think, I think with like the flip phones, you know, like the little flip phones, the Razrs, that was like our senior year. Yeah, true. That's true. But God, that's crazy. That's crazy to think about. That's crazy. It's like, what do you mean we didn't carry a Polaroid around and snap a shot to get an instant photo?

We were still— I used to, um, gosh, remember Kayla Shrek?

Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

She used to always have those, um, disposable cameras.

Mm-hmm. The little wind— you wind it and take a clip. Yeah, yeah.

So I used to steal them and take pictures. She would have them developed like a month later. It'd be 50 pictures of my face.

But it's crazy now, it's like if we see a little spinning screen, we're freaking out. We're like, this is ridiculous, it's taking too long.

Yeah, no, um, no patience.

No, not at all. That's a fancy mic you got there, man.

I got two of them. If you, if you were here and we were 6 feet apart, you could have had one too.

Oh, it does have like a boom arm where it like comes down and like So I didn't get that stand. Okay, it's—

I can do some things.

Oh, like a little tripod stand? Yeah.

So my first 5 podcasts just sucked. Um, we were running them on— one of them we tried to do through the computer, uh, one of them, a couple of them through our video camera, which is like a DSLR camera that we just do video on.

Yeah, yeah.

Uh, I tried doing it on my phone and everything kept timing out, or like the audio wasn't hooked up right. And so like, I just bought a system where like I can have good mic with good sound quality. I can monitor it while it's going and see that, yeah, you know, both mics are working and capturing.

Oh, that's fair.

And you know, it came with some other stuff, but yeah, it was like a whole system you bought. Uh, it was like a kit. There's, there's all this crappy plug-in. I, I genuinely don't fully understand. I don't even want to learn it. Um, but I have to.

Yeah, just get it to work. You're like, hey, let's make it work.

So annoying.

You'll figure it out as you go though.

Yeah, so I didn't— I just had to buy a new laptop because it won't work with my old laptop, so I just bought a new laptop. Oh, we were supposed to leave last week to go on the road, which by the way, we might be coming up your way first.

Yeah, come on up because the Northeast, the Northeast is shut down. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Oh yeah, yeah, probably not a good idea to go to Jersey or New York right now.

We were going to South— we were going to Southeast route and then kind of really starting to, um, like enjoy New Hampshire, Maine, that area, go up to Canada and come across. And, uh, we still have the reservations, but they're slowly getting canceled.

Oh geez, that's crazy.

We'll know more.

Is there any anticipation of them like opening those up, um, for that, or what's the deal? Yeah, yeah, I wasn't sure if like if you contacted those individuals directly, if they would be like, yeah, we're talking about opening it up next week.

So most of the campgrounds we're staying at are private because we have such a big rig.

Uh, yeah, they won't let you stay at like KOAs and stuff.

Uh, well, KOAs are private.

Oh, are they? Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like state parks, um, national parks, things like that, they're obviously not, right? So those places have kicked everyone out and just said they're not taking reservations. Uh, most of our places, they're still But then there's rules of, you know, some states you got to— if like, if you're coming into the state, you have to self-quarantine for 14 days. Some places, yeah, or, you know, the campground is getting classified as a short-term rental, and so you stay there a minimum of 30 days. So then we're getting into positions where we go somewhere, we have to stay there, and there's nothing to do in that community. You can go for hikes, but you can only go for somebody. Yeah, or you're just bored out of your mind.

Yeah, you're like, got it, got it, we hiked this one 5 times already.

Yeah, that's bored out of our mind here, but at least we have, you know, the house and Like, we've kind of quarantined in our neighborhood. Yeah, like all the kids are still interacting and everything.

There's no way, dude, it'll be a good time. I think, um, so I'm actually— so one of my buddies that I work with, one of the other PAs, he's like big into like side-by-sides and stuff. So he has a, he has a, a quad Razor Turbo, um, and he like takes it out all the time. And, uh, so he's like, dude, yeah, come over, we'll go riding. And there we— so our house is, uh, so we have a couple acres and it's I don't know, it's crazy, man. It's crazy to describe how like we're backed up to the national forest and the trails like right down the road, like hundreds of miles of trails. So of course I'm like, it, uh, in— it's Blackhawk, South Dakota. You know, you can Google it, you can like satellite image it. Yeah, I'll give you the address. You want the address? What is it, the address?

Oh, it looks dope.

Yeah, it's just nothing but— it's crazy, man. We go back in the forest and stuff, but my buddy's like, yeah dude, come over. We're potentially gonna go over this weekend and, uh maybe do some riding. I don't know, I'm kind of scared to get in it because if I get in this, you know, Razor, then I'm gonna be like, oh dude, I gotta get me one. So I'm kind of like, yeah, I don't know, I don't know if I want to. What's that?

So yeah, you can play in all this, dude?

All of it? Yes, that's all national forest. It's all completely public land. Like my—

it looks mountainous.

It's, it's hilly. Yeah, it's hilly. I was— it's not— it's certainly not mountains, but it's definitely hilly. Like that picture I said, you remember that picture I sent you? Um, like a while ago, and I was like, when you guys coming up? And I like had it in the background. That's kind of how— that's kind of how it is. Yeah, I don't know, that's how it is though. It's like hills, I guess, hills. But yeah, it's pretty, pretty open. Yeah, that's the house before— that's like the house way back in the day, that one right there. That's it right there.

That's like after 2008, man. You need Google to come back out to your street.

Yeah, for real. They probably can't get up here, dude, when it snows. It's a crazy hill to get up here, like insane. Like in the winter you got to put them in four-wheel drive just to be able to get up the hill.

Is it down here?

Yeah, it's right there. Yeah, that one right there. Oh no, the hill is like way back. It's like way back there. Like it's like, it's kind of, it kind of winds the roads. But yeah, behind the house though, it's just, yes, forest, man, forest property. So it's pretty cool. You just park right there in the driveway right there. You got, you got a nice little spot, right?

Yeah, I didn't even look for that. You got power?

Uh, I mean, yeah, we have power. I don't have anywhere specifically for you to plug in, but we have generator and stuff.

Because your, your mom and dad are, uh, they're living in a fifth wheel, aren't they?

Yeah, they live, uh, I mean, they live with someone they can plug in though. They don't ever bring it out here whenever they visit.

I was about to say, do they ever, do they ever come visit you?

No, they have. Dad's come out. Mine come out yet. Dad's come out, but he just brings his truck and just stays in the house. Um, but yeah, we don't have— I don't have anywhere specifically for, for that hookup, but I mean, you know, you got you— I saw that generator on that thing. I saw your— I saw your— is that a— is that a Cummins generator on there?

Have I sent you a picture? Yeah, it is.

I, I saw pictures of it. I, I think you— I think you put pictures of it on the blog, right? I think you put it on a blog, like you had like a kind of a walkthrough. Yeah, I saw that big green generator in there and I was like, okay, has to be coming.

You haven't seen this yet.

Hold on.

Uh, where are we at?

I don't know how to show.

All right, shared screen. Boom.

I don't know what I'm looking at. I'm looking at— oh, what? Hold on, dude, that's crazy.

So we haven't released this yet, but yeah, so this is sitting in my front of my yard house right now.

That is legit. Is that a wrap? How do they do that? Is that like a vinyl?

No, I hand-painted that.

Yeah, with like pastel.

That's watercolors, bro.

That's— dude, that's, that's crazy. Like acrylic paints and stuff. That is— that's sick.

Yeah, I like that.

That's super cool. You just keep it hooked up to the truck at all times? You just pull it around everywhere you go?

Well, I just got it like 2 days ago.

Oh, gotcha. That's so cool.

Now, like, you know, you can see here we're plugged into the house, but it's just running, uh, 20 amp.

Okay, what is it? What does it plug into in the house? Like, does it plug into like the actual, uh, like breaker box?

20 amp, 15, so your normal 3, um, 3-prong plug. So I can't run everything on it, but it'll run, you know, refrigerator, some lights, TVs, uh, charge batteries, things like that.

Oh yeah, you can plug that in.

If I turn almost everything off, I can run an AC unit, but I just have to monitor it carefully. Um, once you get past, you know, 15 or 20 amps, whatever that plug's rated for, you know, we'll either pop the breaker or start to melt the cord if we try and pull too much.

Yeah, that's fair. I mean, yeah, you, you could plug that in for sure. I mean, every garage has a plug-in like that. Yeah. So yeah, at least, dude, that's so cool.

Yeah, I like it.

That's, that's so legit, man. That's super nice. Yeah, right, nice.

Getting there. I put my blind up in the backyard. I had to take it out of our hunting property, and so I keep catching the kids up there. I told them not to climb up.

Yeah, there you go, dude. You come up, go hunting too. I want to try to get in on this year, dude. But what's crazy is, that's another thing too on the property, I don't know what it is. There's deer everywhere. Like, you literally walk outside and there's like 10 deer everywhere. So I just been throwing corn out and we've been feeding them. Like, they eat out of our hands. Like, they'll eat the— the—

might be a little hard to shoot basically your dog.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. But if I just like go— I figured if I just go like into the, you know, into the property, like way back there, a couple hundred yards or something, hopefully it's like a different, different family of deer, and I'll just wax one of those.

And then just, just start setting up a feed pile that— can you, um, can you shoot over feed in South Dakota? Do you know?

I don't know. I don't know. I know, um, Adam, Ashley's husband, my brother-in-law, he would, uh, he sent me some, uh, like, like field cameras or something. What's up?

Not only have I not heard this guy's name—

you not know, dude? She's been married to him for a couple years now. Yeah, really? Yeah, Adam. Yeah, dude, he's, he's super cool. Uh, yeah, he's a big-time hunter, so he sent me some like field cameras to set up. I haven't set them up yet because I— because of the snow we just had like this past Sunday. But I was gonna walk back there a couple hundred yards and put some corn down and just set the camera up because he wants to see what kind of— what kind of deer, kind of buck we get in the middle of the night.

Yeah, so you gotta kind of set up your, your blind or your, your stand or whatever out there and then start feeding. Yeah, they get used to it because— yeah, the deer in Florida suck, dude.

I can honestly walk out my backyard, I feel like, and just like reach out and grab one. Same with turkey.

That's how my mom's house, Maryland. Yeah, she's got like 11, 12-point bucks in her backyard in a neighborhood, and she's out there like— she hates them because they eat her garden. She can't do anything about it because it's a neighborhood and it's Maryland and they hate guns. Um, but she's out there like trying to chase it and hit it with a broomstick, and it's like charging her. Like, it's not even scared of people.

That's crazy.

Yeah, I've got silencers, I can just go take care of them.

Yeah. Just wax a couple of them. Yeah, throw them in the freezer.

I mean, as long as I'm on the roof and like the bullets at a down angle, like you have to worry about hitting the neighbors.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. You should be able to do that and just put like a big zip line or something and go over the top of them.

Yeah, you know, if any deer go missing in Maryland now, I'll be like suspect number one.

That's right, especially now that— well, at least it's not live though, so they won't, they won't be able to come get you.

No, that's true. I can edit that out.

Yeah, exactly. Make it sound like it was me, like, I don't know, this guy was talking about killing deer.

She would never let me. Very—

she likes, she likes her buck to eat all her garden. That does suck though, I'll be honest. It does. Like, we don't— I can't really put much like flowers or anything out. We have like 2 cherry trees, or 2 apple trees, a couple cherry trees. I think that's like the only thing that will grow. I hope they flower. I haven't seen it yet. I know they fruit because when we bought the house, there was like apples were dropping and stuff when we got it. But I don't know about flowering. But I don't know about like flowers on the ground though because I think they make like repellents. I don't know how that— I don't know how well it works. So yeah, I don't know, talking about to prevent deer from eating the flowers.

But what does it do with the apple and cherry tree?

Oh, nothing. I was just saying we have apple and cherry tree.

I was saying I don't know if they actually had like these special flowers around it.

Oh no, I don't know. I don't, I don't know if they have flowers. I'm saying I don't know if they flower because I was saying it sucks because we can't like put nice flowers out or anything because they'll eat it all. But I was just saying, we have the apple and cherry tree. I'm hoping that they look pretty. I don't know, we'll see. Otherwise it's super boring looking because the deer do eat every damn thing that's on the ground.

My dad was convinced he was going to— I remember him telling me this when I was like 8, when we were up in Maryland. He was going to go to the zoo, convince the zookeeper to give him a big sack of lion turd, and he was going to just spread it around the house. Because what deer is going to go where a lion clearly has been?

It's true. That's probably, that's probably the, um, probably the easiest way.

Well, I'm not sure, you know, Maryland deer know what the heck an African lion poop smells like.

Good point, good point. They probably have not been exposed to an African lion poop. You're probably better off putting like a dog poop around or something. Yeah, well, dude, where is he now? He has like a place, he has like a— what is he— he has like a— what is this thing he talks about all the time on Facebook? It's like, uh, the River House or the Mountain House, or I don't know what it is. What is that?

He's got nicknames for everything. So he has the house on the St. Johns.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, you've probably been to that one.

Um, and then he bought a cabin in North Carolina.

Yeah, that— okay.

And he Airbnbs that one out, and I think he might have bought a second one.

Okay.

He's up there now, I think.

Oh, is he?

Yeah, he's refusing to see the kids because, uh, Oh, because of COVID I don't know if he's worried about catching it or what.

He's like, no, I don't want to.

We're pretty sure we had it because we were up in New York City before the first cases got announced.

So, oh really?

We were in New Jersey for a few days and then we went up to Connecticut to get our RV. While we were getting that, um, Levi, our oldest, was starting to not feel well. Uh, you know, we were in a big city, so we figured he was just got, you know, whatever, a bug.

Sure.

Yeah, there's so much crap everywhere in New York City. And he's such a nice kid, he's like picking up trash everywhere he goes and like trying to throw it away, and there's just trash everywhere.

Oh geez. Yeah, like, just leave it, dude. You're not gonna be able to— you know, you can't save the world right now. You can't save the world.

Aiden, our 3-year-old, is like running his hand along handrails that are wet and just like licking his hand afterwards.

That's what I try to do for a while too. I was like, dude, I want 14 days. And I was licking all the doorknobs. I was like, give me 14 days off.

So, so he ended up getting really sick, um, and I, I still think there's like a 30% chance it was a flu. I'm only like 70% convinced it was 70, a solid 70. Okay, maybe 65.

No, I mean, yeah, I'm with you.

Yeah, well, because it may be real bad flu, uh, bad fever, and the cough wouldn't go away. And we all— so we all got it like within 3 days of each other. Okay, but we're at my mom's house and they're old people. It's my mom and my stepdad. And yeah they never got it. They never got sick.

Did you guys do a good job of like washing your hands and stuff?

Everybody's faces, like I laid on every possible surface because I wasn't feeling great.

Yeah.

And I don't handle that well apparently.

Yeah, you're just like—

we just thought it was a bad flu. I mean, we didn't really take anything for it, just NyQuil and whatnot. Um, the cough never really went away. Um, and what else was it? We— and we all lost our taste for food, which apparently— so those two symptoms, the cough that never went away And like 5 days after you feel better, you're still hacking up a lung. Um, and then the— we had all lost like the taste, like food we normally like just tastes like cardboard. Um, and so I think it was like 4 weeks ago or so they started releasing like more symptoms that it could be.

Yeah, like abdominal symptoms or whatnot. You're like, oh yeah, yeah.

And so, and that was— some of them were like, oh, we might have— hopefully we did have it, then we— yeah, the immunity, which now they're saying there is no immunity.

Uh, there is— I mean, you could develop— you develop antibodies to it.

So the idea is in South Korea is now, um, people who had it are re— getting re-hospitalized.

Yeah, but there's, there's two strains of it though. There's like the H and L strain, or the S and L strain, I don't know, depending on who you ask. So when they're saying like, oh, you can get, um, you can get affected with it twice, really what you're getting infected with is the second strain. I mean, more likely than not, because I mean, in the grand scheme, it's still a coronavirus. Yeah, it might be a beta unit, but it's still a coronavirus that we're still going to develop antibodies to, you know.

So I mean, you're in the medical field because, yeah, you're like, I said, I'm like, oh, you're like blah blah blah blah blah. I didn't even know there were strains.

Yeah, there's a couple, there's two different strains of it basically just from mutating, but that's why people are getting infected twice from it. But I mean, yeah, if you have the antibodies, it's still gonna, I mean, it's still gonna help you prevent it. They're actually, they're actually coming out with now because the, the test for it, which is why we weren't— I was like doing my best, like the best I could to like try to, to try to educate people on why we weren't testing them. And of course, you know, naturally with with the hysteria that's out there, everybody was just like, just test me. Like it would have made a difference, it wouldn't have changed anything if they knew they had it or not. But 'cause the test that we have, it's a PCR test, which is a, that means it's a diagnostic test. So it's not really good at screening everybody for it. It's just really good at telling you, hey, if it's positive, that means you absolutely, there's no false positives with it, right? Like you absolutely have it if it's positive. But it's like up to 40% false negative. So people are getting negatives and there's a possibility that you actually still have it even if it's negative. So I try to convince people, which is why we were only testing people that were like higher priorities, healthcare workers, first-line workers, um, or like frontline workers, um, elderly people with comorbidities that are like really have other illnesses to be concerned with. We were only testing those, but man, it's, it's crazy, like the, the how persistent people are. It's crazy, like, no, I need to be tested, and you're like, dude, I'm, you know, it's not going to change anything. Even when they come back negative, I say, okay, well, I'm going to treat you the same way, and I tell them exactly what I'm going to do. I don't know. But then if it comes back negative, they're still comforted that it came back negative. Of course, I'm not telling them that, dude, you might still have it, but it doesn't matter. I still treat the same. That's what, that's what the, that's what's not getting, I guess, getting through to individuals is. So, I mean, and it's the CDC says it right on the website. It's just people, people only cherry-pick what they want to hear from the CDC. Um, but the, the, the, the treatment, it's always over-the-counter treatment. It's, it's, it still requires your antibodies and your immune system to fight the infection. Uh, yes, there's some things you can do with regards to like the, the viral pneumonia that people are getting and the, and the, the, the, the pro-inflammatory like cytokine storm where it's, where it's causing everybody's immune system to kind of overreact to it. Like, yes, that's— there's things that they can do for that. But for the everyday individual that just has the cough, you know, the dry cough, the, the fatigue, the body aches, like, that's all treated just like the flu. It's all treated just like everything else.

So I tell them—

exactly, yeah. And I, and I tell everybody that. And then what I've, what I've been doing, and this is actually per CDC, I just tell them isolate yourself for 7 days. So it's at least 7 days, and you have to be fever-free without antipyretics. So no Tylenol, ibuprofen, naproxen, nothing like that. So fever-free for at least 72 hours with it being at least 7 days. So let's say you on day 7, you're like, hey, I still have a fever. All right, well, that's at least 9 days, or what, 10 days now. So if they isolate themselves, because in order to transmit, you have to have a specific amount of viral load. I don't know exactly what the amount is, but you know, you can't just give one virus and it touches your mucosal surface and all of a sudden you're infected. It needs a decent amount of it. It. So this whole idea behind individuals coughing— unless I just cough directly on you, but like coughing and then it's in a room now and I get sick— that's probably unlikely because you think about how gas spreads, right? If it aerosolizes, it's gonna spread out. It's not like tuberculosis where it can be airborne, you know. It is still aerosols. It has to touch mucosal surfaces to get it. More likely than not, people are getting it by touching stuff and then touching their face with it. So this— it's I mean, yeah, so overall, basically, like, the longer when you have it and your symptoms kind of subside and that viral load diminishes because your body fought everything off, you're likely not going to transmit it to someone else. Yes, you're still contagious, but it's likely not going to be transmitted because you're not coughing up as much, you're not sneezing up as much of the same— of the, of the amount of virus that you had when you had the symptoms. But it doesn't matter.

Like CNN, like some medical expert just—

that's it. I mean, I mean, the, the little StreamYard things at the bottom, so I was hoping that's what it is. You can just copy put this on Facebook too, like the not expert dude that has to deal with this crap up in South Dakota that nobody has it. Yeah, you just put that up there and let everybody hear it.

You guys even have— how many cases do you guys have?

Um, not— I don't think we have— I don't remember. Yeah, it's not many, man. It's not many. I think we had— I know in our region, like in our area of South Dakota, we've had like— I don't think we have any— maybe one death, maybe. Um, but yeah, I think it's like a little over 1,800 maybe today. Maybe it's like 2,000 today in the state, but it's mostly East Coast. So I'm not— I haven't seen it yet. I've tested probably not personally, but like I've ordered the test and, you know, other individuals have tested it. I've tested probably like 15 people now and I haven't had one. We haven't had one positive on base yet even. So yes, we've been pretty lucky. I'm sure it's— I'm sure we've been exposed to it. I'm sure it's out there. We just haven't With that 40% negative, you know, false negative, I mean, there, there probably are individuals that have it that I've been in contact with. It's just, it's not that easy to transmit. I'm not going to walk around and like breathe hard, you know, I'm not going to give you the, the wind of God and blow COVID on you.

We haven't talked anything bad yet. So why are you making this so serious then? More than the flu? Because I feel like the flu is more deadly.

Yeah, well, So right, right, right, right. Yeah, so with the amount of numbers, I mean, it does make sense, right? So I was actually looking this up yesterday because I've been— I had to try to stay on top of it, but I was actually trying to—

the whole world is like freaking out on it. The government, right? Government leaders, like everyone's gonna shut down for it. And it seems like there's like— we get it, it kills people, but statistically, see, that's the— it doesn't even compare.

Question of the year. That's the question of the year, man. That's the part that I don't— I don't understand.

Oh, just about every country.

Yeah, that's the— that's—

that's locked down or still taking it super serious.

Yeah, that's the part I don't— I, I don't get. I think the, the only way I can rationalize it in my head is like, we know every single year we're gonna have the flu, right? We know it. We, um, you know, every year the flu rapidly changes way faster than coronavirus does, like way faster, which is why every year it comes back around. People get reinfected with the flu. It mutates a little bit, but for the most part, we We have antibodies to some of the receptors that are, that are on the flu virus itself, which is why it doesn't hit you as bad, even though it still does, right? There's so many people that die of it. I think the most recent statistic I looked at yesterday was like, because we don't know for sure, but it was like somewhere between 20, like 24,000 and 70,000 have died already in the US from the flu this year. Because I was trying to compare the two, you know, like, well, how many have died from coronavirus? How many have died from flu? Right, exactly, for the exact same time period. So I was like, well, which one is deadlier per se, right? And in the, in the end, in the grand scheme, The way that it's killing people, it's this— it's the same way. It might have a slightly different, um, time frame and timeline, but it's still— you get an upper respiratory infection, may— it may attach to a different receptor, but still you get upper respiratory infection, then it turns into viral pneumonia from someone that possibly doesn't have a really good immune system, um, and then it turns into a pro-inflammatory response where it's called acute respiratory distress syndrome, and that's when they're having issues with like pulmonary edema, and that's what the individuals need to get on ventilator. So I honestly, I think The scary part is it's because it just jumped from animal to human, there's, there's no antibodies. Like, we didn't develop any antibodies in our system, in our immune system, from it at all, you know. Like, whereas with the flu, we kind of have— we, we recognize it a little bit because of the one that was last year and the one that was the year before that and the one that was here before that. With this one, there's no recognition at all. Um, and then for two, I think double up— because it's doubled up with the flu, you know, where it's, you know, I think With the media, they make it sound like coronavirus in itself is overwhelming the healthcare system and making it to where the healthcare system can't handle it because of coronavirus. But I think in reality, it's, it's coupled with the flu. We're dealing with the flu, plus we have to deal with all the regular heart failures and diabetes and, you know, strokes and things like that. And we're also dealing with coronavirus at the same time. So I feel like that's why the healthcare system is getting overwhelmed. With regards to the hysteria, I think it's just because it's the new flavor. Kind of like H1N1 and Ebola was. It's like the new flavor of the year.

But I mean, those were taken seriously, and like government-wise they panicked, but not at this level.

Yeah, yeah. I think it's just because of the transm— how quickly this can transmit. Like Ebola, I guess, doesn't transmit as quickly. I, I haven't done a lot of research or studying on Ebola to know its transmission, but I think there wasn't many cases, if like 1 or 2 maybe in the US. I don't know exactly the amount, but because it is an upper respiratory essentially upper respiratory infection with like lower respiratory components, um, it just transmits much quicker, transmits similar to the flu does. So I think that's just why it's so scary. It would be nice, it would be nice if everybody took the flu as serious without the hysteria, but it still took all the precautions. I mean, this is what's, this is what's crazy to me too. And I mean, I say all this like, uh, um, you know, like I'm immune to it. I'm certainly not. But what's crazy is like, you know how I bite my nails all the time, right? And I, and I, and I know the flu is going around, you know, I know the flu is going around. It goes around every single year.

15 years ago.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's what's crazy, it's like I know this is always the case and with influenza and how people can— or a lot of people die from it. And but now because of coronavirus, even though I know it's like similar, I'm like, stop chewing my nails. It's, you know, it's crazy. It's like, so I'm, I'm buying into it as well. I'm like, you know what, like I have to make a change too. So I don't know, it is, it is pretty nuts. So I do not know. I do not, I do not 100% understand the hysteria, but at the same time, I wish it was mildly— I wish influenza was mild, at least mildly taken as serious as this is every year.

So this is supposed to be a dad-related podcast. Yeah.

Yeah.

So why don't we tell everyone who you are, what you do for a living, if you're married, how long, kids, all that jazz.

For sure. Joseph Smith. Um, what I do for a living, I'm a primary care physician assistant, specifically in the military. So I deal with, um, active duty population right now in South Dakota. Married for— it'll be 10 years in a couple months now. It'll be 10 years, uh, with Katie. And I have two kids, Kendra, Brayden, 9 and 13.

9 and 13.

Yeah, right, right. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, Kendra, 13, the girl. Yeah, that's a— she's not bad though. She's not— she doesn't remind me of my sisters, that's for sure.

That's good.

Yeah, she's, she's much easier to deal with than them, that's, that's for certain.

Well, in South Dakota, I mean, how much trouble can a teenager really get into?

That's true, there's not much. There's not much. That's why we actually went out in like the country to keep her isolated. Yeah, to keep her isolated out here. But I mean, yeah, she's just a good kid all around, I think, though. Like, I don't really have— I don't have to do much with her. She's kind of self-motivated for the most part, knows what she wants to do, you know, knows what she enjoys. So she makes it easy for sure.

That's good. I still picture you with like a 5-year-old, I guess, and I just—

you don't even have the same— same for you. Yeah, that's true, you still have little kids, but same thing.

3-year-old, that's true. 3, 6, 9.

That's true, that's true. Yeah, yeah, youngest is 9 years old now, man. We're just out throwing the baseball and shooting a basketball earlier too.

They can make their own food and take care of themselves and—

yep, pick up after me and, you know, clean my floors and clean my baseboards. Yes, it's not— now that doesn't mean— that doesn't mean they do it every time though. They certainly don't do it every time. They start to be reminded like every time.

Do you guys have like chore lists and things like that?

No, I mean, there's expectations. Yeah, it's pretty much expected. I mean, the expectation is— no, it doesn't, doesn't stay this way naturally because they somehow, somehow get away with not doing them. But the expectation is that they're kind of responsible for the dishes for the most part. We have chickens and ducks now too, so they've been helping out with the chickens and ducks for the most part. We don't have to ask too much, they kind of just taking it upon themselves. Um, I have to keep, um, the chickens and dogs and like 3, 3 months now. 3 months maybe.

Yeah, you don't have eggs yet then?

No, unfortunately not. October. October is what we're shooting for.

Yep. So we had chickens for a few years and it was, uh, I really liked them. Yeah, I enjoyed having them. It was kind of like having our own little farm.

Yeah.

And the kids liked having them, but we had— we got rid of— well, hey, because we're leaving, but they still— kids stopped taking care of them. Oh yeah, there's only like about 7 or 8 times where like I was just at work work crazy at work. Uh, like, I was leaving when it was dark, coming back when it was dark. Um, and so I, I just wasn't even checking on chickens. They were supposed to be doing it. They weren't doing it, thinking I would do it. And, uh, and that's wrong. So we— I just put them up on Facebook and they were gone within like 10 minutes.

Did they get caught up quick?

Yeah, we had a nice, like, hand-custom-built coop and everything.

Oh, nice.

It was like a walk-in one. I mean, it was, it was, it was a sweet setup.

Nice.

It's all gone now. And now where we have the coop, all these tomato plants are popping up.

Did you plant tomatoes? Oh, not at all.

So we used to feed our chickens—

I hope you like tomatoes, right? There's—

I mean, there's an entire— it's like a 10-yard by 10-yard section of just tomato plants.

Now you're like, dang it, we should have gave them strawberries and stuff. Maybe tomatoes are super simple to grow. I don't know, I guess, dude. But, but to be honest though, the ducks are fun. The ducks are super cool because they're like— I don't know, the chickens don't mind you come and pick them up, they don't care about that. But the ducks, they, they want their space, but they want to be around you, you know? Like, they'll— if I'm outside, because they have their own little coop as well, like their own little— it's actually a dog run that we made for them, and with a little pool. And they'll go in the pool and swim around all day. And then we're outside and we let them out of that, they want to be within like 2 feet of you, but they don't really want you to like grab them and pick them up. But everywhere you go, they'll follow you. It's pretty cool. They do a little quack, quack, quack. It's pretty legit. Ducks are fun. It sounds like it. Yeah, except their poop stinks pretty bad though.

Yeah, so I got some questions here about like how pregnancy was in the first few months at home, but you're so far removed from that, you probably got amnesia on all that stuff.

Yeah, I don't remember too much. Let me see if I can date back to that.

Do you guys have any desire to have a third kid?

Yeah, so actually we've been trying for like years, like years. I mean, we've been trying for like, yeah, for like 6 years now, maybe 5, 6 years. Katie has endometriosis, so she has issues with, um, trying to conceive or basically getting pregnant. So yeah, she's not able to. But yeah, we've been trying for like 6 years. So I want like 20 of them now the kids are older because it's basically having 4 parents, you know.

How do you feel about it? Uh, you've been— at first, you've been out of the young kid game for so long.

That's true. It's probably because I don't remember. It's probably like being a 25-year-old again and wanting kids or something. I don't know. Like, when, when it, when it was first proposed to me, I was like, no, no, no, I don't want to do it. And Katie was like— she had that like baby fever. This was years ago now. And I was like, no, I don't want to. And then it was like, you know what, okay. You know, I always said like, I don't want to just have kids just because, you know, I have baby fever or whatever. I always want to— I want to have kids if I'm happy where I am and I'm happy where I am in life, and I want to be able to spend, you know, to incorporate a child into that and bring a child into my happiness, you know. Um, and then, and then I don't know, at some point I guess I was there and I was like, yeah, let's— you know, I do want one too. Um, but maybe that was just because we were so far removed from having an infant then that I did. I don't know. But now it doesn't I didn't even— it doesn't scare me, you know. I mean, I, I— maybe it's like being in the mid-20s again and you're like, yeah, I want kids, you know. I don't know. Or maybe just because I know how fun they are at 9 and 13.

Yeah, I would have, if it was up to me, 16 or 17 kids in that range. Um, but Ryan, Ryan just said no.

Yeah, she's like, she's like, she's like, I'm the one that has to deal with that crap.

She was, she was done after 2 because she doesn't do pregnancy as well.

Oh, okay.

And so she was done after 2 and I snuck a 3rd in there.

Um, and then go work like a ninja.

Um, what do you call that?

She didn't even know what was happening, huh?

So our first baby was priest Levi, and so, okay, C-section, and then in St. Augustine at our tiny, um, one-room hospital. Yeah, once you have a C-section, you have to have continuous C-sections.

Oh, okay.

So the doctor gave her an option, uh, because she was looking at getting her tubes tied or me getting a, uh, what do you call that, vasectomy, which I was not thrilled about the thought of. Um, and the doctor said, listen, we're going to be cut open, it's $25 if you want me to just do it right then and there, right after the C-section. And then we asked how much it would— Ryan asked how much it would be, uh, if we went back in like a year and decided to do it. It was like $1,300 for—

oh, for her?

She made that decision with them. Yeah, because they'd have to recut and go in and tie and—

got you.

Okay, so she got her tubes tied after the delivery of, uh, Aiden.

Okay, okay.

So we're either going to adopt or, uh, I'd have to stray.

Adopt, adopt 13 more kids. Adopt 13 kids.

I'm not sure we're gonna get to the record. The goal was You know, if we could beat John and Kate plus 8, uh, then we should get our own show, or the Octomom. And that would have been—

especially if you had that many in the fifth wheel, then I think you would for sure get your own.

There would be no fifth wheel. I mean, it'd be like a— we'd have to get our own train.

She would just have to pull one as well with another, uh, another truck.

So there's some families that do that. They have their fifth wheel and then they have a minivan that follows because there's just not enough people that can fit in the truck.

Truck.

That's crazy. In the, in the trailer in most states.

Yeah, yeah, that's crazy.

That's, that's too much work. Yeah, at that point I think I would just shove some kids in the fifth wheel, not tell anybody, because—

yeah, yeah, turn the TV on. I mean, you keep the, you keep the little, uh, what do they call the sliders? Just keep them in, just keep them nice and tight in there.

Of course you have to bring the slides in.

Yeah, I mean, the kids, the kids are small enough, they'll fit, they'll be good.

They will. And so ours, you can fit in. You can't get into their room, um, because they're like— they— we have the back of the fifth wheel is double bunks.

Okay.

So when they compress together, like, there's no getting in the doors. There's just— okay, that room's unusable.

Yeah, because that's the one, that's the one, because that's the one that has— it has like, um, like bunks, and it has one that goes up and down and the couch underneath it that turns into a bed too. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I've looked at fifth wheels too. We were thinking about, uh living, like doing a full— when we were in Texas or in Florida, because we're only going to be there for 13 months, we were, we were considering getting a fifth wheel and living in it for that 13 months. So that was one of the ones, like one of that style we were looking at, because essentially they get their own room back there.

And yeah, you'll have a living room and you can put them— that's, that was our whole thought, right? And we can still clean up the RV, we can watch a movie and then go to our room.

Um, yeah. What do you— how many bathrooms in your fifth wheel? Is it one or two? Oh, is it two?

Okay, so the bunkhouse has its own bathroom. You need to go on YouTube and there's like a 15-minute tour of, uh, okay, of the RV, and you can— it's more details, like MTV Cribs but a lot later.

No, not, not as spicy.

Okay, but they are good. So we've got one TV in our house and it's usually covered by a wooden mat most of the day, so we're just not TV.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The RV just comes with 38,000 TVs, and so every single room's got to be outside of— it's got a TV. Um, so it did feel like MTV Cribs when I shot that.

But yeah, yeah, you're like, check this out, we have running water.

Maybe that was a big deal, but MTV Cribs, how many TVs you had?

And, uh, yeah, absolutely. Oh yeah, and where the— where the magic happens. Yeah, this is where the magic happens. Yeah.

For sure. So I learned, I was reading an article years ago, uh, that half those shows, half those episodes were fake in the later years. Like, really, the artists were renting homes and then showing off the rented home.

Really? Yeah, these super rich people, they probably could afford it.

And it was right, and it was Redman, uh, remember Redman and Meth Man?

Yeah.

So Redman, his episode, they wanted him to do that, and that's what the article was kind of premised on. He's like, no, because I remember his episode, he's like in the end town townhouse of like some neighborhood, just a normal neighborhood. It was a townhouse and like all the walls were white, nothing was hung. There was a futon, there was like a TV on a milk crate and like with video game systems all around. And I guess that's normal.

That's the good life. I'm surprised they didn't cancel it. They were like, no, no, we're not doing this.

No, but he refused to, you know, to fake it and just showed everyone the real deal.

Hey, hold on one second, I'm gonna run to the bathroom real quick. I'll be right back.

There's no bathroom breaks. I guess I'll do that too. You can come say hi. So good. Oh, he's back.

Back. I heard that. She said hello. I said tell her I said hello. Yeah, I heard it. She's like, tell her I said hello. Tell him I said hello.

She was like, who's on there with you? Like, um, a physician's assistant out of South Dakota.

Why?

I'm like, because we need dads on the show. Like, he's a dad. She's like, we had to get connected. I'm like, we went to school together.

We went to school together.

She had no idea you were a physician's assistant.

Oh, really?

She thought you like did satellite code.

I, I used to do stuff like that.

I remember.

Yeah, I just switched. I just changed all the time, you know.

Yep, that's what she just said.

Yeah. I get bored with what I'm doing and just decide to switch. I still don't know what I do when I grow up. Who knows, I'll probably be doing something different like a year or two.

All right, so you're gonna have, um, another kid if you can. If you guys looked at adoption at all or foster or any of that stuff?

So we've, we've, we've talked about it for the longest because we're still like actively trying, but we've, we've talked about it, but I don't think it hasn't been like a formal like conversation, you know. It hasn't been like, hey, let's you know, this is something we can really consider. I've, I've brought it up like, yeah, you know, I don't know, like watching movies or a show, I'm like, man, it'd be cool to get like a teenager, like then we don't have to change diapers. And she's like, no, she's like, no, no, because you know, for, for me, the most fun ages are like when I can interact with them and do things with them. It's not the goo-goo and ga-gas, it's the, hey, let's, let's go do the, the, the daddy-child type things, you know. Yeah, so like right now it's pretty fun.

At age 17, you get a fun year, then you got 4 years of college, you paid for.

That's true, that's true, that's true. Some— something to consider. Maybe, maybe there's a clause when I adopt them, like, must come with their own college fund.

I guarantee there's some sort of scholarship or grant program for adopted kids.

I bet there is.

Yeah, there must be.

Yeah, for sure. I bet you.

Uh, where was I gonna go with that? I had a really good question.

Did you— you didn't write it down and you ruined it? No, you just, uh, ADD got the best of you.

It's my life, my life. Um, I feel like you guys have to talk about that though, don't you? Like, there's gonna be like a timeline eventually. How old?

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, 30, 33, 33. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I still feel— I mean, probably they're probably 40, like, all right, once, once we hit age 40, then, yeah, I think, I think when— no, you know what, I don't know, because I feel like there's been timelines in the past and every single time we kind of push back a little bit. I think if, if Katie didn't have her medical condition, um, and like, like if it was something that was absolutely definitive, like we can't have children anymore, like if we were both like infertile or something, then I think we probably would have actually had a formal conversation regarding it. But because it's it's still possible, you know. I think we just still hang on to that hope, you know, hang on to that aspect like, oh, we can have another kid instead of adopting. So yeah, it hasn't really been a formal, formal conversation. It's just kind of been in talking and passing, just because we still like hold on to that hope. Like, yeah, maybe we can, you know, maybe we can still have another one.

That makes sense.

Now I think, I do think at a point where if it becomes that, then I think, yeah, there'll be a full a lot more conversation for sure. Hopefully we'll get to that point.

You're in the medical field because I always thought endometriosis, it was— you could work around that. You could, um, yeah, probably expensive as hell.

But so that's the— so the top— yeah, that's the tough part for sure. There is for sure. Like, so like, so we've done, um, artificial insemination. We've done it like, um, or 3, 3 times, 3 or 4 times. Um, and this was— I'm trying to think back 2015, 2015, I think was the first time we did it. She got pregnant, but like, basically immediately lost it. It was— they call it a chemical pregnancy where it's like she didn't really actually become pregnant, didn't implant in the uterus. And then we tried it like 2 or 3 more times. The problem with endometriosis is it's extremely under— I don't know, we don't know a lot about it. It's like understudied. It's— there's actually, there's actually like endometriosis specialists now. That's not really— it's not a real, um, credible position in the medical community yet, like individuals that like specialize in going in to do surgery and taking it out. Uh, with Katie's— Katie actually has an extremely rare version of it where her— she actually has it in her, in her diaphragm. So she has fenestrations or holes in her diaphragm. That, um, caused her lung to collapse. So she's had like, yeah, like, um, 6— I mean, she currently has a collapsed lung right now. So she's on like— she's had like 5 chest tubes since October. Um, and the problem is, is so now it's essentially in her thoracic cavity. Um, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, they're, and they're, they're like— the chest tubes are good size, you know, they're like at least a centimeter or centimeter and a half in diameter. Every time they have to go in there, it's always in her right side. Um, so with her, it's a matter of like, with endometriosis, there are some things you can do to try to get pregnant, you know. Like, oftentimes they'll go in and they'll try to clean up as many lesions as they can, and then they try to get you pregnant as quick as they can with like hormones and whatnot. Um, and then they consider like, hey, maybe a hysterectomy, maybe it's time for that, or hormone suppression. Um, with her, um, you know, she's kind of past the point of like, okay, now this is painful, now this is infertile, now it's like, hey, now this is more emergent scenario, you know, because her lung continues to collapse and stays collapsed actually. Like, her lung compliance is, is not where it was initially just because of the amount of collapses she's had. She basically has a chronic collapsed lung now. Like, it's just always, always that way. Um, it's, it's not, it's not as large. So basically they put a chest tube in, they kind of reinflate it essentially, but it never reaches like full capacity. Um, and they've, they've done like pleurodesis, which is kind of basically to scrape the lung to try to allow it to stick to the pleural cavity. But it's not working. So she's in that— we're in a process still kind of going through with insurance. And, you know, she's already been to University of Colorado Denver. She has a referral to University of Nebraska to discuss it with their cardiothoracic surgeon. But there's specialists, like very sub-specialists that deal with this stuff. It's not really a credible position in the medical community yet. It's not really, you know, like they don't— I don't know, they don't send people to these specialists really. And because they're so specialized in this stuff. A lot of them don't even take insurance, so they're like, nope, you'll be private pay. Which of course, can you imagine surgery in both cavities plus hospital stay? You know, they're, they're charging, they're charging what they want. Yeah, they're charging what they want, um, and they're backed up for like a year. And that's even just to get— have people go with just regular endometriosis in the, in the pelvic region just to get surgery on that. That's not even including like what she has in her thoracic cavity too. So that would be a whole nother ball game, and they have to, um, work, like, collaborate with the cardiothoracic surgeon that has experience doing that as well. So it's, uh, yeah, it's a, it's a pretty serious deal with what she's going through right now. So, yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty crazy. Yeah. And that's, that's the thing too, is, um, there's, you know, there's clinical practice, clinical practice guidelines regarding like how to treat things like endometriosis. And the first questions I always ask is, are you trying, are you not? And they usually say, hey, like do some hormone suppression, and then oftentimes it ends up being a hysterectomy because that's like historically how they've treated it. But a lot of new studies come out now that, um, are kind of changing the way they do that stuff and the way they're addressing it. And I think in 10 years or so, um, they're gonna do it different. But right now we're still like— we're all, you know, unfortunately on like the backside of that hill, you know, where it's like it's ramping up but we're on the wrong side of it. Um, I wish I could fast forward 5 years and then and, you know, they'd handle it that way. So yeah, we're, we're fighting to get to wherever we want to go.

20 years ago—

that's true. Yeah, that's true. 20 years ago, they would automatically take our uterus out and we wouldn't have had kids. They'd have like, boom, that's it.

You got to be an optimist, Joe.

See, that's true. That's true. That is true.

All right, um, what's your work schedule like? Like, how often are you— you know, you were saying you like doing things with the kids now, so I'm assuming you're like, you're trying to make life happen, but how present?

Yeah, um, right now because of COVID it's a little different for sure, like the medical community and my schedule is all over the place. Typically, um, I would say I leave the house by like 6:30 or so, you know, so I wake up probably 5, 5:30 in the morning, leave the house about 6:30, um, get home 5, 5 to 6 o'clock or so, about 5 or 6 o'clock 4 o'clock. Um, usually Katie has like their homework done and everything for the most part, especially now with the Daylight Savings Time. They're, you know, there's sunlight outside so we can still get involved. So that's— I still have a couple hours with the kids every night with Katie and the kids to, you know, eat dinner, hang out, do, do activities, things like that. What's that?

You're not seeing them in the morning?

The kids? No, no, I'm out of the house before they— I would say I'm out of the house, Kendra's awake because her school's early. And actually, before the school shut down, I was taking her to school or taking her to the bus stop because she starts school really early. But Brayden was asleep in the morning before, you know, I was out of the house before he even woke up.

And that's 5 days, was it?

5 days? Yeah, it was Monday through Friday.

Schedules are like—

yeah, no, I'm at— so it depends, it depends on where you are. I'm in an outpatient clinic, so I don't do any inpatient stuff right now. Um, so my schedule is Monday through Friday. But like, if I was at a big hospital, like when I was in Florida, that's a, that's a full hospital. So I was doing inpatient work there, um, and that one's, you know, could be in the middle of the night, could be on a Saturday or Sunday. Um, yeah, that one was a little bit different, but here it's, yeah, it's Monday through Friday.

So you got your weekends, you got your evenings.

Yeah, yeah, it's super nice.

Yeah, yeah, that sounds like good.

Yeah, I'm not, not, not on call or anything. Well, I'm on call once a month. Medical? No, no, for sure not. I would— no, yeah, there's most of my, most of my patient population, I would say Besides like support, you know, like finance and like administrative individuals, most of them do shift work. So a lot of times, and we actually like within the clinic we see, you know, because we have certain patients that are impaneled to us. Like I'm responsible for, you know, a certain squadron or whatever it may be, all those individuals that are in there. But oftentimes every week there's always what we call a late provider and early provider. So typically one would come in a little bit later and that's to accommodate those individuals. Because again, most of the military is, shift work, you know, they have swings and nights and all that stuff. So some of them get off work at 6 AM and then they're either going to sleep or they need to come in and make an appointment right away. So that would be an earlier provider would see them, or vice versa, they need to come in really late. So yeah, I would say most of military, it's not— it does not have that same luxury that I have to work just Monday through Friday.

Nice.

You guys can get a side-by-side so you can start riding through the mountains, man. It's, uh It's so, it's so hard not— it's, it's tough. I was— I go back and forth on it because I tell Katie this the other day when it was like 70 degrees out, and I told her, I said, I said, babe, I don't, I don't know if a side-by-side is what I want to get though. I was like, because when, when I close my eyes and it's 70 degrees out and there's a nice breeze and it's beautiful, I was like, I don't picture myself on the trails. I picture myself on a boat on the lake doing something like that, you know, or camping with the water right next to me.

South Dakota.

But yeah, there's, there's a lot of lakes out here, a lot of lakes and fishing. And yeah, yeah, in the summer it gets warm because most of them are pretty large man-made lakes. So yeah, they get pretty warm and you can swim and kayak and fish. There's a lot of, um, like skiing and recreation, like water recreation out here. It's a big, it's a big thing. But of course, so side-by-sides out here because there's hundreds of miles of trails. So of course I would love it if I was like, had an infinite amount of money, I would get like side-by-sides and a boat. But for me, I'm like, God, man, I don't know what, what I want, you know.

So how much faster could you shovel the driveway if you just had a plow on a side-by-side?

So with that being said, every single one of my neighbors— like, if you went on Google Maps and you looked at all my neighbors, every one of them have a side-by-side or four-wheeler with a plow. I, I have a snow blower, so I, I shoot the snow with the snow blower, which it's I, I would be almost impossible to do it. Yeah, it'd be almost impossible to do with a shovel. It's crazy because sometimes you get like 12-15 inches of snow, and I would not be shoveling that with how heavy the snow gets. But so snow blower is pretty legit. But those people, like my neighbors, will be plowing their driveways with their side-by-side, and they'll be like, hey Joe, you want me to just take care of that for you real quick? And I'm like, no. I'm like, no, you don't have to, you know, get my pride. It's like, no, I'll take care of it. But really, they just say they go down in one sweep and then they go back and they're done. And so it's literally 2 minutes maybe.

And I'm like, do any of them have the snow, uh, the snow blower on their side-by-side?

Yeah, one of the neighbors has a, um, one of the neighbors has a— it's not— he has it on his John Deere tractor, but, uh, he has a snow blower on that. And but he also has, um, he's not a side-by-side, but he has like a Polaris four-wheeler and he has the plow on that. So he'll go down and plow for first, and then his son— his son who's a teenager comes back with a John Deere tractor and a snowblower and like clean— like brushes the— I think it's like— I don't think it's a metal snow— I think it might be even a brush. We like brushes the roads where it's like super, super nice, you know. I'm like, dang, but it still shoots the snow. It just like brushes a little bit and shoots it. So yeah, I don't know. Yeah, but either way, like way better than what I'm doing. Yeah, without a doubt, like way better. And there's me still snow blowing, you know, for 45 minutes while they're done in 2 You gotta be an optimist.

At least you don't have to shovel it.

It's true. So with that being said though, and I was like, you know what, I might get a boat, but I was like, but we still got to get like a four-wheeler with the plow though, because for work, work, I need, I need it for utility purposes, right? Meanwhile, I'll be out on the trails riding it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I wanted to get one for hunting because, uh, it's just a pain to, uh We— I hunted on 12,000 acres, so that was our hunting club. And okay, from where you could park your truck to like where I had my stand, um, it was a nice walk when I like scouted it and everything. And I scouted it with an ATV, but it was a nice walk. It was like an old— an old logging rail around some wetlands. And so I put up my stand, I put up a blind, uh, started feeding, put up my cameras and all, uh, and then like 3 weeks later just got some torrential downpours and that entire logging road became a river. And never, ever, ever dried out.

And so, okay, every single time I went out there with—

if I had my brother-in-law's ATV, I could ride out and it wasn't a big deal. But, uh, you know, when you're hunting, especially in Florida because the deer are so skittish, yeah, you drive that loud-ass ATV up and you're not gonna see anything for a while. Although that is how I got my deer. I drove my ATV up to my stand, and because my stand was underwater too, uh, geez, I would like stand on my ATV, climb up. I mean, I had knee-high boots, um, and like sometimes the water would even get in those boots.

But that's crazy.

Both times I took a shot, uh, yeah, my buck during black powder season and, uh, rifle. Both times I had driven the ATV up. So that whole walking in and being ultra quiet in the morning, I'm like, pointless.

You're like, nope, not, not convinced.

I'd just rather go in 30 minutes earlier, get there quick, and just take a nap up in the tree stand.

Yeah, for sure. I think I would be able to rationalize it if I was doing that. I, I, I, I, I do believe I rationalize at least a four-wheeler. I mean, Katie's on board. She's like, 'Get what you want.' I'm like, 'Oh God, I don't know,' you know, kind of going back and forth. And for sure, like, with a four-wheeler, it'd be like— I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say it's gonna be a weekend purchase, but with a four-wheeler, I can be like, 'All right, let's go out and buy one,' you know, just pay cash for it. The side-by-side, it's like, man, you know, at least right now I'm like, I don't have $20,000 to put into a toy just to pay cash, and I'm not about to just take a loan out to get a toy, you know.

So I'm like, you can get decent used ones a couple years old for, uh, yeah, a full family size with a pickup bed for like 10 grand.

Yeah, they're, they're, they're up, they're up here too for sure. It's just like the, the Razors, you know, I'm like, that's why I told my buddy I can't ride it. It's like, I, I can't—

you have a specific one?

Well, or be like, it'll be like a Can-Am. There's actually one I'm looking at by Kawasaki, it's supposed to be like super reliable. People that's more like utility and family oriented. That's why I told my buddy I can't get on his, like, I can't ride his because I'm not going to want to get anything else.

You got to get one that's super fast too.

Yeah, and really powerful. You have to get the best one, the fastest and most powerful, otherwise what are you doing?

Yeah, and the accessories. You got to get the sound bar, you got to get a, you know, the plow. Might as well put a PTO on there for some future use. You get it?

Might as well.

Automatic, uh, feeder and like fertilizer system.

It'd be good. I mean, again, I could probably rationalize it. Like, it's for work.

You gotta salt the driveway.

Uh, yeah. And really, people, people drive these things to work down here. Like, there's razors all over the road everywhere. They're driving to work. So I could, I could save on diesel potentially. I don't have to pay diesel.

How far is work?

For me, it's like 30 minutes away.

3 or 30?

30. 3-0. Yeah, maybe it'd be a nice little— yeah, it'd be a nice little track.

That would suck.

Yeah, that'd be pretty— that's pretty crappy. People, people take them to the grocery stores all the time though. They like just put a trailer behind it and they take their Razor to the grocery store.

It sounds like Florida and golf carts.

Yeah, I believe that.

Um, so you mentioned money. Um, so you paying cash for everything now? You debt-free?

Uh, no, no, I wish. We were until we moved here. Well, I take that back. We were minus a mortgage and we still have the house in Colorado. So minus that, but someone's paying that for us.

So you still have a house in Colorado?

Yeah, we have a house in Colorado still. We've been renting it out since we moved out of it, making good money. I can't afford to rent my house in Colorado. I just let them keep paying for it for me. So that's pretty nice. They pay significantly more than a mortgage. So outside of that, yeah, up until we got here we were, and then when we got here, We bought this house sight unseen. Well, I mean, videos. Our realtor did videos and stuff because we wanted somewhere to move when we immediately got here. He told us, hey, dude, it's a big hill. You're probably going to want four-wheel drive vehicles. We had— I had a Camry and Katie had a Kia Sorento, like front-wheel drive from when we were in Florida because I sold my F-150 when we were in Colorado. When we got to Texas, I sold it because— no, no, not at all. So up until that point, we were debt-free and then we got here and And I was like, crap. I was like, crap, we need it. And I was like, you know what though? I was like, if I'm gonna get a truck, I'm gonna get a truck that I can do. I don't have to— it's a diesel. And what actually ultimately convinced me on getting the diesel was, um, for one, I, I wanted it, you know. I remember back in the day you always like Cummins. So I was like, dude, I want to get a Dodge Ram, you know, because you were like Cummins diesel hardcore. And I know my dad had the Powerstroke, so I obviously ultimately ended up getting the Powerstroke. But I wanted it because there was a Facebook Facebook post of a guy that was selling his diesel on, on Facebook, and it had 450,000 miles on it. And I was like, I was like, okay, yeah. I was like, all right, you know what, that's it. I made my mind up because I was like, you know what, I think I'm just gonna get another F-150.

But I mean, interior is going to fall apart and the doors will be barely hanging on, but the engine is going to be awesome.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's— I mean, it's crazy though. You're right now, I'm riding on the highway and it's at like 1,800 RPMs, you know. It's probably why it just last forever because it doesn't really have to do any work, barely, unless you're actually making it work. So yeah, so that's why I'm getting the diesel. And with Katie, we wanted something that would be a little more comfortable to, uh, to travel with because her parents like 6.5 hours away. So we knew we'd be doing a lot of trips in there. So then we got her— we got her the Tahoe. So yeah, so unfortunately we racked up— no, we didn't buy new. I would never buy— for right now at least, unless I can't pay cash, I'll never buy it new. Um, and even then I might not— I probably wouldn't either. Smart move. Yeah, I probably wouldn't either just because of how quickly things depreciate. But yes, we bought them both pre-owned, good condition. But yeah, so yeah, that does hurt and that hurts. And now with that being said, we bought her Tahoe and we bought them both in October, November, I think November we bought them. And the Tahoe is going to be paid off next month because I'm like, screw that. Yeah, like, yeah, just 2018, 2019.

Oh, you're doing that super quick.

Yeah, we bought them in 2000. Yeah, we bought them in 2019 and we're just like, boom, paid off. Like, everything's going towards paying them off because the, um, so I was calculating, I was doing the amortization calculator on it and I was like, um, you know, because it's savings accounts are crap right now and I don't want to, because of the house in Colorado, I don't want to like put all my money into like a CD or anything, like any of my extra outside of like investment money. I I'm going to put it in a CD just to try to collect something. So I was like, you know what, the interest rate, I wouldn't be able to get this money back on a CD even right now if I wanted to. So I was like, let's just throw it into the vehicle. So yeah, with the amortization calculator, just by paying like 10 G's on the Tahoe, it automatically saved me like $2,000. And the interest rate's not terrible on it, but it's crazy how fast it works. I'm like, no, we're getting these things paid off immediately. So that's pretty much Pretty much where it's going right now is all the money is just going straight into the vehicles to pay them off.

How about you? How much longer you got on the truck?

A good amount of time, but it's going to be the same thing. I don't even necessarily consider that I'm going to be paying it for that long. It's just more a matter of as soon as the Tahoe is paid off, then it's straight to the truck. That's going to get paid off. Yeah, so I might anticipate that it's going to be paid off. Probably the truck will be paid off, ultimate goal, by the end of this year, hopefully 2020, maybe 2021 if we have to.

That's great.

So yeah, not too, not too bad. It's still— I still say I hate seeing interest, but so, you know, better.

So when you buy a vehicle, especially a truck like that, because it's just awesome, and like, I know—

oh dude, yes, yes.

You love it more or less, uh, factoring in the payments now, or, or way, way better when it's paid off?

Way better. Every vehicle— I loved my Camry. I loved it because it was paid off. We paid cash for the Camry. Camry. We, um, pay cash for the F-150. I love both those vehicles. I know I love the truck, don't be wrong, but I didn't want to let go of those vehicles. And Katie didn't want to let go of her Kia Sorento, just knowing that it was completely paid off. It's like, dude, I don't want these payments. And we knew going in to buying these, these vehicles or financing these vehicles, we knew that we were going to hate the payments. And yeah, sure enough, it's like now I see it every time I make the payment because I don't do autopay for most of my stuff just because I don't like to I don't like— actually, I don't do it for anything because I don't like to not know where it goes. Um, and when I have to make that payment every time, it just like, it eats me up. I do— I feel good making a huge payment on it. I hate making that little monthly payment, that little chip away. Oh, I can't stand it. Yeah, it sucks.

That sounds like you know what you're doing. That gum—

yeah, yeah, I don't know about that. I, I, I do what I can as I go.

What is your, uh, what's the savings rate on your, uh or interest rate on the savings right now?

Terrible. I think I just got an email the other day, it was at 1.5%.

Oh, that's not bad.

Yeah, well, yeah, it was available. It was when we— when I first started it, I think it was— I want to say it was 2. It was like 2.15 or something like that. And slowly, because it's a variable rate, you know, so slowly it's just been trickling down since. And I'm just like, oh, it eats me up. But I'm just like I don't necessarily consider my savings account as like my, my loan. It's not my long-term investment. I consider it more— yeah, I consider it more as like, this is, this is money that I can, I can, I can use as necessary, but I might as well be using it, making a little bit, you know, $40, $50, $60 a month off of it versus just sitting in a checking account doing nothing. So, right.

And I'm assuming— well, you're military, so do you even plug into retirement, or you just have your military pension?

You're just Uh, we, we have, we have TSP through our savings program. So we—

it's—

they've recently changed a little bit with the new retirement system. I'm in the old retirement system where it's still pension-based, but they— I still do have the TSP, which is kind of like a Roth IRA. If they have a Roth IRA and IRA, they can go into it, or that you can kind of choose which one you want to do. Um, uh, so we have that, which there— it's, it's extremely good. I don't remember the specific numbers on anymore, but it's extremely good. Like the, the the, the amount of money I essentially have to pay for it is like pennies. Like, I don't even know, like fractions of pennies for someone essentially to manage it. Um, and the amount we can put in every year is, is really— it's like $17,000 or something. I don't know, it's, it's extreme. Yeah, it's extremely high. Yeah, it's like, dude, why wouldn't you? So it's like max out that every time, you know. Yes. Yeah, it's crazy.

So you get pension and a separate retirement?

Yeah, if you In order to get pension, I have to do 20 years, right? So, and I'm at— I just passed 8 years, so I have like 12 years left. So to get the pension, it's, it's 20 years minimum. And what it is essentially, it's 2.5%.

You don't pay into a pension though?

No, you don't pay into a pension. No, that's absolutely what— you earn a pension. Yeah, 20 years you do. Now with that being said, the new retirement program is a little bit different. The new retirement program in the military, you kind of pay into your retirement. You still get 2% every year of your— so basically When you, if you do 20 years in the military with the new retirement system, you get 40% of your base pay no matter what for the rest of your life. Like once you retire after 20 years, you get 40% of it. Um, but they match up to 5% every year as well. So it's kind of like a mix and match. You still get the pension plus you, they, they're matching, they're doing a match right now as well. Whereas for me, it's just, I would get 50, I would get 50% of my base pay at retirement. Like once I hit 20 years for the rest of my life. So it's 10% more. I don't pay into it and I still get the benefits of the TSP. It, it would have been very even if I had those options when I first joined the military, been very close to even, but because that new retirement program didn't open up until I was like 4 years into it, they wouldn't have been like, okay, based off what you've done, we're going to go ahead and try to catch you up. It wouldn't have been like that. They'd have been like, I don't know. I only essentially would have had 16 years to pay into it instead of a full 20. So I was like, nope. I'm gonna stick with what I got because I was given the option in the beginning.

Probably a smart move.

Yeah, yeah. What's up?

How many years you got left?

12, 12 years, a little less than 12. Yeah, I got a little bit of time. Yeah, I'm a little less than 12 years. Yeah, but I mean, there's, there's some options we can do. I mean, because I can, I mean, I can even do something like, um, go like active guard, like active Air National Guard, or active, which basically get on get on reserve and go like active orders or something, and that would still accumulate my time in the military as well. So there's, there's some different options. Um, we don't know for sure what we're going to do. We're just kind of like playing as we go, you know.

So, so my brother-in-law just retired, I think last year, from the military. And so he was in the Navy, I don't know, 12, 14 years or something. Then he went out and went private as well. And then, uh, he got divorced and all that kind of stuff, and he was like, screw it, I'm going going back to the military. And because I think he only had to do like 6 more years and he got pension. And then he retired and like got rehired by a different section of the military, is off overseas making like 3 times as much as he ever did.

Yeah, yeah. If you get, if you get a contractor job, yeah, yeah, if you get a contractor job, they make crazy dollars. Like if you go overseas, like I know I've seen people that got in military, they're like electricians or something, they go overseas, get like $200,000, and then just come back and like, I don't know, I think they like work for a year and come back for a year and for you and don't work for a year. I'm like, okay.

I forget exactly, I think he's 90 days over there, 90 days back. Okay, it's something weird like that.

That's fair. Yeah, that's, that's not— that's probably, it's probably some type of tempo they have, I don't know. But yeah, that's— I believe it though. Yeah, there's, there's contractors. I've dealt with a lot of people that do stuff like that, and it's— I mean, they don't have like insurance and stuff a lot of times when they do it, but they make super fat cash real quick.

Yeah, well, they already have their military—

that's true, they have their retire— or their, their insurance from that. Yeah, so that's true. Not a bad gig then. Not at all.

Um, what are you doing for kids' college?

Um, so, uh, no, no, no. So I have the, um, um, I transfer my SGI benefits to them because I don't, I don't necessarily, you know, because I already have with this and whatnot. I, I basically the military paid for my master's. So I, uh, transferred my— I converted my GI benefits to— it's called the SGLI benefits— and I was able to divide it down the middle because they'll pay for me for— if I get on the military, they pay for basically 4 years of my college for free, essentially. Um, and then— but I'm able to transfer it to the kids. So I split it down the middle and I give 2 years to Kendra and 2 years to Brayden. So for at least 2 of the years, um, they're gonna— they're paid for, and they can use it up to, I think, age 25. So it's gonna be 25 years old. And that pays for— they get a little stipend as well, which is pretty good, like on top of tuition and, um, like books and whatnot. It also pay them like $1,800 to $2,000 a month for like room and board, essentially.

So, so, so how would that work? Because I'm thinking in my head, I feel it's my kids, because I'm not super sold on like college has to be the way to go, because obviously I'm gonna drop out. So, right, yeah. So could you Like, do you have to make them honor the first 2 years, or do you send them to community college and pay for it yourself for 2 years, then let them go to the big expensive school for the last 2 years?

That, that's what we anticipate.

That's what we kind of figure, because like, can you make that decision later, or do you have to—

Yeah, absolutely. No, so all, all I had to do right now, which is the cool part, is all I had to do was basically click on a button essentially and go through counseling. But I had to click on a button to say I'm giving this to my dependents. And then once I say that I'm gonna give it to my dependents I can give one person one month, the other person almost 4 years. I can divvy it up how I want to. I can give some to Katie, some to the kids. They can kind of mix and match. And I don't have to make that decision right now at all. I can make that decision for sure later on. So what we anticipated, if they want to go to college and pursue an education that way, a formal education that way, what we anticipated outside of scholarships and grants was, you know, community college or something for the first 2 years and then a big university after that. And that's when we would use it. That's when you do SGLI is to pay for like that big university when they're kind of out on their own. Because yeah, I'm with you for sure. Now it's almost like, you know, trades are perfectly fine. You can get an education now just with Googling a lot of things. You know, you can get, there's PubMed, there's so many resources You don't need to get a formal education for sure anymore to do this stuff. So, and with that being said, I feel like I'm another person that went to a university and then was like, and basically essentially failed out at that first university I went to because I wasn't ready. I don't think I was ready as an adult to be on my own making proper decisions. 'Cause to me it was just like, oh man, I'm just gonna go play football. I didn't go to school because I wanted to get education. I went to school because that was the next step for me to play football. So then I came back, went to community college. I certainly wouldn't say I got my head together, but I definitely think my grades improved from the community college. I became a little bit more mature. And then when I went to university, still young and not the smartest person, but I do think I was more prepared than when I was 17, 18 years old to go off to a big university somewhere else. And not make the smartest decisions there. Yeah, without oversight. Yeah.

And then now, if you had to redo it, would you do military first?

Man, you know, I, uh, I feel like for what it's given me, I think it's— I think it's mostly hindsight. Um, I think everything worked out so well for me in the military just because of of the background, you know, that we have, like growing up playing sports and being in more of a disciplined environment anyways when it came to sports and a structured environment like that, I almost feel like it was a platform for me to shine. So when I did join the military, of course going in, to me it was just a way to pay the bills and take care of the family. And I remember when I was like getting recruited by the Air Force Academy and stuff, I was like, "I'm never going military. This is crazy." I think in hindsight now, I, I'm, um, I don't, I don't know if it's luck. I don't know what it is, but I was, I feel like I was given a perfect platform for me to excel in the military because it offered many, um, many opportunities for leadership, uh, many opportunities to be, to be any kind of a limelight, to, and to be on a platform to be able to, um, interact and, um, kind of influence and inspire a lot of people at once. And because I was a little bit older and more mature at the time too, that I tend to to be looked up to a little bit. And there was just so many leadership opportunities that it almost, I say it kind of built my confidence a little bit. And like, oh, I can do this. Oh, I am smart. I am capable. I can lead these teams. And then, so I think it was just a perfect storm of it worked out. And then a lot of things worked out in the military, you know, with like the healthcare, like taking care of my family with healthcare. I never have to worry about their insurance ever. You know, like the VA loan to be able to purchase houses and things like that. Did the tuition. Assistance where I went back and got a whole other bachelor's degree outside the one I already had, and then the master's degree. Um, you know, just the education opportunities and all the things in hindsight, I was like, wow, this is crazy, the, the things that they offer if you just take advantage of it. But I don't think as a 17-year-old I would have done that, you know. I don't think as a 17 or 18-year-old I would have actually taken advantage of, of all those things that I was allowed to, you know, kind of given. So Yes, I don't know. I don't, I don't think it would have been the same experience if I joined the military at a young age. It's almost like I think, though, that, that a couple years in between helped me mature a little bit to be able to take advantage of the opportunities.

Plus, you wouldn't have met Katie.

True, true, true, true. Fair enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, that's true.

I think— what else the heck do I want to talk to you about? Looks like you're staying in shape. That's good, I guess. Yeah, yeah, you do PT?

Yes and no. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, they, they'll have been halted right now because of, uh, because of COVID what's going on, because we can't have more than 10 people in a, in a closed environment. But, uh, yeah, I got my, I got my little home gym. I got a little squat rack and everything. I found that I prefer working out by myself, like doing my own thing, than I do like a big gym anymore. Um, but yeah, we have to, we have to stay in shape. For the most part, at least, at least looked the part. You know, there's a lot of people that look the part and not really run too much. But yeah, I have to—

so there's probably not a lot of home invasions in the, in the sticks in South Dakota, but if there were, I'm assuming you could, uh, you could throw down and protect.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. We'll be taken care of. Um, and my chickens and ducks will scare them away too.

Hey, Wilma.

Not. That's true, they wouldn't. The ducks would just get close to them.

In South Dakota, you're probably— you probably have real predators you gotta be concerned about.

Surprising. I thought that was gonna be the case up here. I haven't— I've seen— I've not seen a predator yet since I got up here. I thought for sure there was going to be like bear, and I, I keep being told there's mountain lion everywhere, but I have yet to see one. They say, they say, oh, make sure you're carrying when you go out at night.

I'm like, okay, just wait till some chickens are missing.

That's true. Yeah, I'm anticipating that. That's why we got 8 of them, that way at least, you know, stop for at the end of the, end of the year.

Yeah, make sure next year you get some more chicks.

Yeah, just keep replenishing them. Okay. Yeah, do they die that quick?

Uh, a small percentage. Yeah, we had one just lay down, never get back up. We don't know why.

Okay.

And then we had one die as a, uh, as a chick. Okay. So when there's when there's chickens there and there's baby chickens, like, they'll clean each other off, like, peck around their butt and so they don't— they're, uh, what do you call those, their flutes or whatever, don't get—

yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, I don't know, it's good, they're comb or something like that.

Yeah, now this got the combs on top.

Oh yeah, I don't know, I don't know the anatomical parts of them.

So sometimes they're basically— their, their butt gets packed and they— you got to clean it off so they can poop.

Yeah, okay. And yeah, that was— Katie did that this year. She could like— it was almost like clay poop on their butts, and she would like pull it off and clean it up. Okay.

The mother chicken would always be pecking at them and cleaning that off for them, so they kind of take care of themselves.

Okay.

Humans do it, but I guess she didn't. Uh, if you don't do it right, you can hurt them or, or disembowel them, or I don't know. But I don't know, Ryan did it once and tried to save one, and the poor thing just didn't make it the night.

So we always— where were you at?

We're killing that little—

where were you when that happened? What was your thought process? Were you like, oh, I'm not doing that? Were you like, oh, if it goes, it goes?

I was like, this is survival, nature's law. If it can't survive—

that would have been me too. I'd have been like, oh, I don't tell you, you want to get the chickens.

So I wanted to get the chicken. We just walked in the Tractor Supply. I'm like, that is a great idea.

Yeah, that's what we did. We did the same thing, man. We didn't even have heat lamps. We got heat lamps all on the same day. Walked into Tractor Supply for chick days. Yeah, we got the chickens. We got 4 on like a Saturday, and then we went back and we were like, you know what, I think we need more. We got 4 more the next day.

I went in to get a tool and I'm like, are you kidding me, you just sell chickens here? And I started looking at all this stuff and I went home and I'm like, Ryan, you need to come to Tractor Supply with me. We took the kids and we're like, we're doing this.

That's odd. That's so awesome. Did you get a lot of eggs from them?

Oh, so many.

Yeah, like more than you could even eat.

We had, I think, 10 egg laying— oh yeah, way more. We had flats and flats and flats because they laid on the day. Now we got Rhode Island Reds, uh, because they can handle the heat. I have, I have a Rhode Island Red too, and we fed them real well. Uh, okay, I never did the calcium or anything because they didn't need it. Um, okay, but because we have 3 boys, you know, it's a household of 5 and we eat a lot. So we had a lot of scraps, just like scrap food.

Uh, yeah.

And so they ate all that plus, you know, you know, a good feed.

And, uh, you can feed them scraps? Like what? Like, like scrap? Like what? Like vegetables or like whatever?

Really? The only thing they really will need is citrus. But like, I mean, if we were like making asparagus and, you know, the tips of the asparagus, I mean, literally everything. A chicken carcass, we toss it out there. Really the bones of steaks and everything.

Yeah, that's good to know because their food's getting expensive right now. Yeah, they're eating, they're eating so much food.

Yeah, like onion, like when, you know, the leftover parts of onions and everything, like we throw that. We just have a bowl in the counter at all times, and like instead of anything edible, yeah, plausibly edible, instead of putting it in the trash, we put it in the bowl, and we just— if anybody was going out in the backyard, they just took it and dumped it.

Did you wait for them to be adults before you did that, or you did that when they were chicks too?

Yes. Yeah, we wait.

Oh yeah, be adults. Okay.

Now the funniest thing we did with, uh, when they were little is we had some leftover ground beef, um, like scraped the pan and we tossed that in and they went crazy over it.

They loved it, huh? Oh my goodness. Yeah, like carnivorous. Yeah, carnivorous chickens, man. Like, your chickens are crazy.

We did, but I mean literally everything, um, especially vegetables because, you know, you're always chopping off ends and stuff.

All right. Yeah, okay.

In the fridge if it was getting old.

And, um, that's good to know.

It was pretty hard, but yeah, we just— everything went to them. They pretty much—

that's good to know. Watermelon, it's happening.

Yeah, they loved watermelon, Ryan.

Yeah, I'm gonna clean out my work fridge with people to leave their crap there, and I'm just gonna like put in a bucket and bring it home. Like, free food.

Some— sometimes you can go like, uh, if you have a bakery or something, or like the bread department because they just throw away their old bread. You can grab bread and toss them the old stale bread.

That's a good idea. Yeah. Oh yeah, just save me money, man. Good, because their food is getting way too expensive for me. I'm like, this is ridiculous. Like, I, I'd pay less just to go get a dozen eggs at the store real quick.

Oh, it— so it makes no economical sense.

It's just kind of fun.

Now if you have like 50 or 60 chickens, maybe.

Yeah, and like we're selling, uh, selling the other ones and whatnot. Yeah, we just do it for fun though.

We always had more than we needed. Yeah, and it was kind of like that farm lifestyle for— with 3 boys, so yeah, you know, I just liked it.

So yeah, what'd you do with the chicken coop now? You gave the chicken coop— you— it went with the chickens?

Yep. Okay, so I put it up on Facebook for free because I'm like, who's gonna— chicken coop? Like 300 responses. Like there were so many, like I couldn't keep track of them all. And like people were getting mad at me that I hadn't responded to them. Um, and you know, on Facebook, I don't know if you ever sold things on Marketplace before, but like, like, we have, we have a couple cars because we gotta get rid of our cars before we leave on tour. Yeah, so we have a couple cars that we're trying to sell, and like, I've sold these things probably 20 times, like negotiated.

And they don't show up or what?

They never show. Like, it's not like they came here, they're like, oh, this isn't what I thought it was going to be, or give me a better deal or something. They never show.

Jeez, that's crazy.

We go through this like day-long negotiation and answering questions and you say, all right, you're coming, and they don't show up. Yeah, 20 times. Now maybe some of that's COVID or people just bored, but we've literally sold them so many times.

See, that's super frustrating. Yeah, that's super— that's crazy. We did— we did— we saw the Sorento. We sold the Sorento on Facebook and we went through similar to that. It was probably 5 or 6 people. It was super frustrating. It's like, dude, give me a break. Or they would be like, yeah, I want it, and they would show up and then come to finance it. Like, yeah, we didn't secure financing. And it's like, okay, like, well, you should probably figure that out. Like, I'm not just gonna let you leave here. Like, you should probably figure that out because I want to get paid, you know. I want my money if you're gonna take my vehicle.

When I sold— I remember that '68 Mustang I had back in high school.

Negative, I don't remember that. You don't remember that? No, I remember your jink. That's what I remember.

It was seafoam seafoam green. I barely— I had the Jeep, then the Ranger, and then—

oh God, I remember that. I remember that Ranger, the seat would fall back.

And yeah, that was bad. Um, and then I got that 1968 seafoam green, uh, Mustang.

I feel like I vaguely picture it. I feel like I vaguely picture it.

I've got a picture of it somewhere else. Yeah, I had to keep it at Pam's house when I was in college, but it was in my garage when I first bought the house. But you probably weren't in Florida for that. So I ended up selling that, and they, uh, they came up from Orlando to buy it. And, uh, I don't know, I can't remember exactly how it played out, but something was like, oh, I didn't bring enough cash, I brought— I just brought this much.

I'm like, like a quarter of the amount of price. Yeah, get out of here, man.

I guess you're gonna have to— or no, it was— he went to the U-Haul place to get like the either the truck or the dolly or something like that. It was more than he thought, so he didn't have enough. It was like bucks. I'm like, I guess you better go to the ATM or the bank or something, because yeah, I don't know.

Like, well, I'll be here all night, just go to the ATM, we'll come back.

Yeah, magically within like 3 minutes, his buddy, you know, of course had some extra cash.

Yeah, he went, he went to his car and pulled it out of his glove compartment. He's like, oh, okay, so you did come with more cash than that. There it is, you're just trying to negotiate. Okay.

They're paying. Uh, you got a will in place?

Yes. Yep, yep, for sure. Actually, uh, I just had to update it the other day for the, um, for the potential for deployment. So we— I just had to go through and update everything just to make sure it was all current.

And you're in there, so you probably have like the living will and like the healthcare directives and all that?

Yep, absolutely. My advanced directive is— I notified all individuals that are on it to let them know, like, or to at least ask them, hey, would you be— would you be willing to make this decision on my behalf?

That's why I'm not— you never called me.

I didn't want to put you through that turmoil in case you had to unplug me. No. Yeah, so yeah, went through all that, just went recently, went through all that again just to kind of get it all, make sure it's all up to date. That's one thing the military makes sure as well, which I think is understandable, so make sure that all that stuff's in place like at all times.

The amount of dads I talk to that don't have a will blows my mind.

Oh yeah. This is something I don't think about. They're just like, oh, I don't know, never thought, never thought I might die.

I, I don't know what it is about it. They just— people don't do it.

Yeah, it's crazy.

We've had a lot of young people dying in San Augustine lately. I don't know what's happened, but like, um, like in the, the 30s age group, um, we had like 4 or 5 just like within our social circle. Not people we knew real well, but they were like friends of people we knew real well.

Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Like, I didn't go to any of the funerals or anything, but, uh, it was just really close to us.

That's crazy.

I think over half of them died without— it just caused problems. Like, not only— yeah, with that, like, an unexpected death, but then, like, their spouse is just dealing with all this crap because— geez. Um, you know, one of them was like, just everything was in his name.

Oh my goodness. Yeah, everything.

And like, so she couldn't Like, I think they ended up taking— I can't remember what happened, but because probate's such a pain when you don't have a will, but everything got locked up and tied up. I don't think she'd get to the bank accounts and things like that. It was just like a complete nightmare.

Uh, yeah, that's, that's so unfortunate. Yeah, it's so—

it's got a will, it just would have said, hey, when I die, my wife has full control.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. It's crazy, it's crazy that it seems like— I think everybody just assumes that it's like, that's how it's going to be. Like, oh, you know, I know, I know, you know, this loan's in my name, but whenever I pass away, my wife would just take charge of everything, or whoever it may be. And I think it is assumed that everything everything's going to go to kind of the next of kin or the other spouse. Um, that's definitely not— definitely not how it works. So on top of that, it's like they don't want to deal with all that turmoil, you know. They don't want to be scheduling this and doing that and going through that. And then when they're the ones that are responsible for all of that stuff, even if you assume that's the individual that's going to be getting everything, uh, if they're the ones that are responsible for every one of those things, you know, and there's no alternative or no, um, or no alternate or no— nobody else to help them It's like, dude, now talk about respons— the responsibility. And, and they're not able to grieve like they should. So yeah, I've— I for sure think that's something important to have, without a doubt.

Uh, you're a military, so they give you life insurance, don't they?

Yep. Yeah, yeah, we have life insurance. I mean, we, we pay for it. We, we pay, we pay for it, but it's, it's great. It's great, great price. So, but yeah, that's always— yeah, I mean, they take care of us. It's It's small things that, you know, I didn't realize going in either.

So, so when you do the will, um, uh, does Katie do it with you and does she have her own?

Yep, yep, she has her own as well. Particularly, it's very important for her because Kendra being my stepdaughter, so it's extremely important she has hers, um, as well. Yeah, so we did it, we did it all together, um, just to make sure, because naturally what decisions I make with regards to how I die, she kind of has to be on board with it as well.

So Do you guys— I guess, how in deep do you guys get with that? Do you guys like say, hey, if I were to die today, like, this is what you need to do, this is where things are? And do you guys actually have that conversation?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yep. So she knows. So I have, um, I'm, I'm like this crazy spreadsheet person, um, and crazy documents person. So I have, um, documents of absolutely every login that I have, um, documents on exactly when everything's due. I have a spreadsheet for my, for my budget that I know every cent that I spent since 2013. Like, I can go back to 2015 and look at it. So she has access to all that stuff, safes for all our files and everything. So, you know, we talk about obviously what we want, what I want when I pass away, what she wants when she passes away. Not just kind of understanding of what we— A, what we put in the will, and B, like, you know, these are our wishes. That way it's not just the first time they hear about it is not when they're reading through through it and you're like, what in the world? You know, that's what they want. So yeah, you know, they wouldn't be surprised.

All you see in the movies.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it's certainly, it's certainly not a surprise. And that goes for, um, all my alternates as well. So like, as an example, you know, Katie obviously is, you know, is the beneficiary for everything. But, um, you know, for like, if she's not in the right mental state to make a decision, then I speak with— I do the same exact conversation with, you know, the alternates to let them know, or at least ask them, for one, ask them if they're willing to, and then for two, have a conversation with them about— again, so they're not surprised in case something like that happens too.

How are you guys handling dating? Like, is there like an age limit or— or other—

oh man, um, that's another one of those things we haven't formally talked about. I think, uh, based off of, um, the vibe I get, I think Katie's gonna be a little more strict than I am. Um, I, I will say— and I will say this, and I I don't know, maybe it's not politically correct. I don't know the best way to put it, but I don't, um, we, we try to, um, to, to encourage our kids to, to, to be around other individuals that, uh, I, I would be okay with them being around per se, you know. Um, I think just in our social circles and whatnot, um, naturally for— I don't think no matter what, for dating, I'm not gonna be happy when I find out Kendra's dating someone. I'll be like, oh man, but Um, it's not, it's not really a path that we've crossed yet. Yeah, we haven't really crossed that yet. We haven't really done a lot of talk.

Was that 8th grade or 9th grade?

She's in, she's going, she's in 8th grade right now. She'll be going to 9th grade next year. It's coming, it's coming for sure. I know that, you know, she's kind of at that stage where she's like, that's getting talked about. Yeah, she'll admit to us when people, when people are cute, you know, like, but, but it's only like celebrities that she'll say. She won't be like, oh, this 'Oh, this dude at school is super cute,' you know. But she'll be like, 'Oh, I like Spider-Man,' or whatever it may be. Um, but the specific— the specifics on dating, yeah, that hasn't been— that hasn't— we haven't completely addressed it yet. I don't— I don't— yeah, it's, it's, it's a tough one. We definitely have to sit down and discuss that for sure. Yeah, I think so. She's, she's the tough one. She, she grew up in a kind of a more conservative environment as well with her dad. I grew up as a dude, so like whatever my parents did with, with, with, with Ashley and them, I don't, I don't even know. I didn't even pay attention to that crap. I was like, whatever, because I was obviously had a little bit more of a liberal lifestyle than they did. So I don't know, I don't think it was as hard.

So are your boys, your, your son's rules gonna be as free as yours were, or are you going to, uh, no, they're not.

They're in a different direction. Yeah, they're not gonna be. They're not, they're not gonna He's my work for sure. I'm gonna try to channel him in a different direction. Uh, yeah, yeah, without a doubt.

I feel like we lived without supervision for a couple years. Yeah, yeah, like it was there, it just wasn't necessarily—

it makes you wonder how we got to where we're at, right? You're like, how— hey, how I'm not like dead yet or like in jail or something like that, you know? And I agree, I say it all the time, I tell Katie all the time, like, yeah, like Sometimes where I slept at night, or where, you know, where Townsend and I were, I was like, I don't know, sometimes it was there, sometimes it was at my mom and dad's, you know, Lee's, uh, my house, like wherever, like wherever we laid our head, that's where we slept, you know. It was like, it was different all the time, and there was no rhyme or reason to it. It's, it's super wicked. I don't know how we made it through it, and we turned out okay.

So I mean, that's something I struggle with, with as far as like, what am I going to do in the future? Because I had that freedom I turned out okay. At the same time, very small variables could have changed the trajectory of everything for sure.

Yeah, no, I— yeah, I'm with you on that as well. That's a hard— that's a hard, uh, that's a hard, hard path to go down. I don't— I don't— I don't know. I, I like to believe I'm a channel, you know, channel him in a certain direction, or channel Brady in a certain direction, but I don't— I just don't know. I think everything's almost gonna be a game time decision as it happens, how I'm feeling that day, I guess.

Well, you have to make decisions with the facts that you know, you know, who are his friends, what, you know. Yeah, what's his history and what kind of decision-making is he doing? And yeah, you know, I guess how the trust is.

And yeah, absolutely. I think, I mean, that's, that's a similar thing. I was thinking about this today. It's a similar thing with regards to, um, I hear it all the time with, um, like What is it like, they use like double-edged sword, or, um, what do they call it when you treat, um, a girl different than a boy? What do they call it, double standard? Is that what it's called? And I always look at it, I'm like, you know what, because I tell Braden this all the time and he'll complain about something. Well, Kendra doesn't have to do it. And I say, yeah, you're not Kendra. Or Braden doesn't have to do it. I said, yeah, you're not Braden. And I was telling him, I was like, dude, I have different expectations for you, not just because you're a girl or a boy or because you're 13 or you're 9. It's because you're you and he's him, you know? Like, they're completely different people and they respond to completely different things. So yeah, I, I treat them differently, you know, I have different expectations and different standards, and that's just because they're different individuals. Sure, it has something to do with age, uh, you know, maybe something to do with gender, I don't know. But at the end of the day, it's just because they're, they're different and they respond differently to me, so I do different things to them. So yeah, I guess double standard, I don't know.

Personalities and styles are real.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. So yeah, because yeah, I feel like I hear that every single day. I don't know if you've heard that yet, but I hear it. Like, Kendra doesn't have to do this. I'm like, yeah, you're right, but you're not Kendra.

Yeah. What's discipline like in your house? How strict or how lax are you all?

Um, both of us, um, kind of have different, um, for sure different styles, um, different, um, things that irk us. I would say I'm more of the— I hate to say the lecturer, but I always like, I try to explain everything. Every decision I make, I try to explain them. I say every decision I make, there's a reason for it. I try to let them know what it is. Kendra is receptive to it. Braden is probably just like zones out and just doesn't listen to anything I'm saying. So for him, it's completely different. With Kendra, I can't explain my thought process and she's like, okay, you know, You know, I get it. After she gets through her little emotional turmoil with Brayden, yeah, he doesn't respond. Sometimes I just have to tell him if he's doing something inappropriate, I say, you know, cut it out. And he'll make his little noises, his little ughs, and I'm like, stop. Like, ah, and I have to basically stop him before he gets started. So yeah, I definitely approach it a little different between the two of them. But I will say, no matter what, for both of them, there's very— I don't know what it is, but I have very strict kind of daily tasks, daily routines, I guess you say. I don't know if it's like a routine, and there's just certain things you can't falter on, per se. It's like, dude, it's been the same way every time, you know? Like, this is— it's always the same way. So I— so don't, you know, don't change what's working, essentially, in certain things. So they understand those expectations. They know that. So, and then I can always go back on that. I live— I try to live by that example. Example, and whatever it may be as well. So I can always say, dude, I do the same thing, you know, it's the same thing I have to deal with, so you have to deal with it too. Um, so then at least I'm not like, do not that do as I say, not as I do type of mentality. What do they say? It is authoritarian, not authoritative.

Did you guys do spanking when they were younger? Your kids are way too old.

Yeah, now, now for sure. Now I can't remember the last time we did. We did. There was never a formal— I, I never remember being like, you know, Katie being like, "Braden was terrible today," or, you know, me being, um, me being like, "Braden, whatever you did, you know, X thing you did was bad," you know, I get a spanking. I never remember anything like that. It was more like pops on the butt, I guess, right? When they're doing something, I get their attention, I'd smack on the butt a little bit. But yeah, there was— I never remember like the whole put them over my knee, whip them, or anything like that. I just, I just don't—

I just, I just don't think—

correction. Yeah, absolutely, because they forget. They forget it, you know? And I did too. Like, there— I, I wouldn't be able to come home and be like, what you did at 10 AM this morning, you're gonna get a whipping for. Like, I just wouldn't. I don't think I'd be able to do it. And they wouldn't know what the heck they did in the first place. They'd be like, dude, I don't know why I'm getting this. So I think just to catch their attention, just to catch their attention real quick, yeah, for sure I'll do that. But that's been— yeah, I don't even know when the last time that was now.

That's probably a military thing if I've ever heard one.

What's that?

The instant correction?

Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, uh, maybe they pay attention a little more.

How do you punish now? Is this talking or grounding or chores?

Oh geez, yeah, they don't really get grounded too much. No, I would say mostly it's electronics. Uh, mostly we take electronics. Um, or I don't— great question. I do not know, to be honest. We really don't.

Are your kids so good that you don't have to?

No. No, not the case at all. I think it's just instant corrections, um, repeating myself over and over as necessary because they're never gonna need it on the first try.

Just constant adjustments.

Yep. So now with that being said, there are sometimes— I don't know if I've ever told you about this, but there's sometimes, um, you know, as they go through into certain ages and they're, they're, they're required certain things in school, or there's certain milestones in school they have to reach. Like a perfect one, I remember in Florida in 4th grade we had to do the little essay thing at the end of the year, right, for like the standardized testing. I don't know if they do it in Florida anymore. But I was just always remember, by the time I was in 4th grade, I had to do— I didn't know the whole intro, 3 paragraphs, conclusion, standard essay format type of thing. And I remember for a while Kendra didn't know how to format an essay. So for a little while there, there was this period where it's like if she— if something happened and she was making a routine of doing the wrong thing, or it became a trend, and I would say, okay, you know what you're gonna do now is you're gonna— you're gonna write me an essay. You're gonna— you're gonna do a standard essay, you're gonna do a research paper. Or whatever it may be. So now Kenner knows how to research. So I had her, I remember over the summer last year, there was something that she, multiple things that she did over and I was like, okay, well this will benefit you and it'll benefit me. So I made her give me a presentation on AP classes, like AP classes and dual enrollment so that she would understand it going into high school because of course she's starting next year. So that was one of the things she had to do. And she said in the end she kind of enjoyed it just because she got to learn learn about those things. And then we went to this, this year when we had the, like, the high school night where we kind of learned things. When they were giving a lecture on, um, you know, these are kind of the paths and the trajectories you can go in high school— which, by the way, dude, high school is legit now. Like, they have career paths you can go down in high school. Um, she understood what they were talking about. So they were saying things like AP classes and dual enrollment. She already understood what they were saying. She was like, I was able follow that and understand what they, what they were talking about.

You made her do an essay on that?

I made her do a presentation. Yeah, so she had to put a PowerPoint presentation together and present to Katie and myself. Um, and then, um, of course she was— that's legit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she, she was able to, um, and she, she presented twice because I told her, I was like, dude, I'm not taking the first thing you throw together in 30 minutes. So she presented it to us once, I gave her feedback, and then, um, and then she had a couple days to kind of refine it, and she presented it to us again, and it was great. And I learned from it. I was like, okay, so now I knew what to expect from her as well. So I was like, cool.

What'd you get in trouble for? Do you remember?

Dude, I can't even remember. You know, most of the time it's— it for me, and something important for me is most— mostly, um, like character type things, you know, like integrity and things like that. It's usually not the onesies-twosies, like, hey, I didn't do the dishes. It's usually like the, um, you've been selfish, you've been, um, um, I can't think of anything else right now. But yeah, basically like, um We've been having issues with lying. Yeah, so things like that, things like that that I feel like are character things, and I don't want those to become trends. Those are the things that really get me to where I'm like, you know what, there's been a trend here, you know, this is what we're going to do to fix this. And again, Kendra is super receptive to that stuff. She like picks it up real quick and she's like, okay, I got it, you know. Um, and then she did the, she did the presentation, learned a lot. And yeah, she's, she's— I don't know, I don't have any plans for her for sure. I mean, you know Lack of activity, I would say not playing sports, you know, and stuff. That's kind of, that's kind of a struggle. But, um, otherwise good kid.

Um, I like that strategy of whatever the structure— because the only reason it's really resonating with me is because Levi's having that exact same issue with essays right now. Just not understanding like the make your point and like the 3 supporting sentences for each paragraph. And I guess, yeah, for some reason it's just— we just made him redo an essay like 8 times, like 3 days.

Yeah, dude, for sure.

I don't know what you're doing here, but that's not it.

Yes, yes, absolutely. Yeah, Brayden's doing essays right now. He has 3 essays due by May, or by like May 8th or something, and I've kind of been working on it with that. It's crazy. Um, I mean, it's, it's very important. I feel like being able to write is so important. You have to be able to write. Uh, there's some things in school for sure, it's like, dude, this is— what are we doing with our time right now? But you have to be able to construct a thought and put it down on paper. Um, and, um, so we've been working with Brayden on that too. But I do remember, yeah, before— this was years before the presentation— that was one of the things Kenner had to do was write a format— a format essay. Um, I can't remember what it was on. I want to say it was on being, um, it's like being selfish, or, um, yeah, I can't remember what it was on, something to that effect. But it was a research as well. I made her do research on want to do, because that's something else I think is important. All these electronics that all the kids are on, they don't know how to do research. I was like, dude, how do you not know how to Google?

So, so we're taking something that they don't want to do necessarily, but they need to do as a life skill, and using that as punishment.

Yes.

Reinforcement the behavior that they were doing wrong.

Yes. Yep. And, and it benefits them too, you know. First, definitely benefits them. And I, I'm okay with it. I'm okay being a little more strict on like making them go back and redo things over and over because I know it's benefiting them, you know. So I'm just like, I'm fine with that. I can, I can go to sleep at night knowing that it stinks for them right now because it's going to benefit them in the long run. 100%.

Levi is going to be writing some essays over the next month or so. That is his punishment, like month or so.

Sorry, Levi.

Uh, you have any attitude issues?

Brayden has a big attitude. Brayden is— dude, he is— he's like what I've been told, he's spitting image me when I was a young kid. Oh man, his attitude is terrible. With him, it's one of those things, I have to snap him out of it real quick. And you know, one of those like, don't say one more word, no more words, zero, I don't want to hear one sound. And he'll walk away and just kind of hold it inside real tight. Um, Kendra, no, not really, dude.

At least he's holding it in. I, I— well, no one says that to me, I just can't help but be like, okay, still have to—

he, he probably does in his room, but it's enough to where he can at least— like, dude, you have to maintain that, that, that tactful presence. You have to maintain that tact and watch who you're saying and how you're saying it.

Yeah.

Um, so yeah, he probably— I'm sure when he walks— when he goes into his room, he closes his door. He's probably— he's probably saying words he shouldn't about me, but I don't hear them. I suppose he can vent all he wants to his pillow. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, yeah.

Uh, do you guys even need babysitters anymore?

No, no, for sure. They, uh, yeah, they're pretty self-sufficient for sure. And Kenner can manage most— pretty much everything if she wants to. And Brayden really doesn't require anything either.

Did you guys ever have a— was that ever an argument for you guys? Ryan and I never cared. We would take anything that breathed and fogged a mirror to watch our kids. We just didn't care.

No, we didn't either. I will say we, um, we didn't— we didn't— yeah, we never really argued about it, but I know we didn't do a lot of— I feel like we didn't do too much. Maybe— I don't know, maybe we just got lucky and her parents were around those ages where we did require babysitters. But I remember we didn't, um, there's a lot of times that we didn't really— it was like, dude, it's been a month since we've gone on dates, you know, which, which for sure stinks. Um, there was definitely never argument though. I remember being in Texas, like the first time we were in Texas, and there would be, you know, individuals in my unit or my shop that would just watch the kids, and we didn't really care too much, you know. We— I mean, obviously we'd— I'd meet them first and stuff. Um, but no, I was never like, what are you about, you know, what's your character? I was never like that. If you're watching for a couple hours while we go on a date. And I work with the individuals a lot of times too, so that's one thing that I'll say.

They don't want strangers watching their kid, or, or like a babysitter, like, yeah, or they wait until their family's available.

It's just— oh yeah, yeah. I, I guess I've never been in that situation, to be honest, because I've always had, uh, I've never had a higher stranger. Yeah, because either we had family or we had someone that I work with, you know, because it's another, I guess, benefit of the military community is where like I can be like, every, every base has like a Facebook page anyways, and it's typically like overwhelmed by spouses, you know, like usually wives. So they're always like, hey, is anybody free? And, or hey, does anybody want to do a playdate? Or hey, does anybody want to go to the basketball courts or send their kids to basketball courts? So it's, it's been very easy. Yeah, it's been very easy to, uh, to do that. And a lot of, again, being in the military, people would get deployed and come back and make a kid, so all the families have a bunch of kids, you know, so it's almost like they want other kids to come over to entertain their children. They're like, yeah, come on, bring them on over on Friday night and they can play with my sons, you know. So it's been— we've never had— it's never been an issue, you know. I think more often than not, if we didn't go on a date, it was like because of work or something, you know, something very, very unfortunate, like a period of time where it was like, dude, how is our schedules not matching up? Than it ever was wise that we just couldn't get someone to watch the kids.

You're in year 10, um, so I assume either right now or 3— probably more so 3 years ago, you guys must have had a really rough time in your relationship, because usually around the 7-year mark—

7 years, like, wouldn't that have been— what we got, 2020, 2017? I don't know, maybe, maybe. Yeah, I don't know, probably. We for sure had— yeah, absolutely. It definitely hasn't been perfect, without a doubt. It hasn't been perfect. Um, yeah, for sure, for sure not.

So I might have assumed that. There's been no marriage I've ever spoken to that's been perfect unless it's like 6 years old or a year old.

Or— yeah, yeah, for sure.

Anything that's 10 years old, there was a time where somebody was about to kill the other.

So, yep, yep, yep. And probably multiple times or one was going to kill the other person. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's, it's so crazy, the different dynamics of like being married and in long-term marriage, being married for a while versus— I don't even know— the small stuff, dating, you know, even dating or girlfriend, boyfriend. It's so such a different dynamic. Um, yeah, I don't know, it blows my mind, you know. I mean, even something as simple as like, uh, it's not the nuisances of, hey, who left what around or who didn't pick up that anymore. It's more like, what's, you know, what's this person about? You know, what, um, you know, what, what are they, you know, what are their goals? What are their aspirations? A little— it's a little crazy, a little things here and there, you know. What, what has the trend been over the past couple months? You know, it's so crazy how the ebb and flow and the dynamics of marriage are so much different than, than dating and whatnot.

It is weird. Yeah, it's weird. Like the— I don't want to say roller coaster because that implies like high highs and low lows. But yeah, the way it just is, it's constantly shifting, that relationship, like the closeness and then friction and then rebounding. And yeah, it is really interesting.

But yeah, you wonder, you're like, what, how'd this happen? You know, what are we doing? I don't know. Yeah, it's crazy how that works.

Oh, cool. Uh, you got anything you want to put in? Um, it's almost about 2 hours. We're gonna have to cut that down.

The conversation every day like, hey, when do we get this tour started? Or is it kind of like, hey, well, let's check next week?

There's 62 feet of freaking rig driveway, which I'm not sure the neighbors are super thrilled about.

Yeah, that's fair.

Of like, let's just go. That's why I'm— that's why I was kind of telling them, like, let's just go to the farm, like, and we can just— we'll be in West Virginia. And, you know, the farm is in such a small town in West Virginia. West Virginia's got no cases anyway, that—

yeah.

No, there's enough to explore. At least we're on 400 acres where we can literally just go do whatever, whenever. Um, and like, I'm more comfortable there. It's not a campground, it's family property.

So, right, right. Yeah.

And then, then we can just make a decision. We can go west, we can go northeast, um, you know, depending on how everything reacts the next couple weeks.

Yeah, I think, I think it's a good idea.

Yeah, I think so too, but you know, she kind of wants to stay and just, uh, um, where I guess ride it out here a little.

I mean, worst case scenario, you always go— you go to West Virginia, and then if you're like, hey, nothing's opening quick enough, you can always just come back. But it's still kind of one experience.

I said that exact thing.

Yeah, still just want to ride it out, huh? Yeah, seems a pretty benign, benign thing to do. Just go up there, hang out for a little while, and come back if necessary.

We'll probably— I think once May rolls around, what have we got, 7 days? So another the week. I think once May 1st rolls around and we see how everyone's reacting to those openings, um, yeah, we'll probably make a decision to leave like May 6th or 7th or 8th or something like that. We'll see.

Yeah, it's gonna be awesome. What are your plans with it afterwards? Like, so you do your tour, like, is there going to be a period of time where you're like, all right, you know what, we're done doing the tour, you know? What are you— what are you gonna do then?

So real— we have it planned for like a year and a half, 2 years, um, Um, and then, you know, that's kind of like our family adventure. Uh, we're being much more liberal and like how we spend and what we do. Uh, like just very relaxed and enjoying it. Um, at the same time trying to build Huntsman Dad brand. So a couple— there will be a couple factors. Um, if we're not having fun, we'll definitely end it. I mean, if it's just like if we're not comfortable, if we're not enjoying it as much as we thought we would, or if there's just too much friction um, whether it's family-wise or, or just enjoyment-wise, uh, then of course we'll just end it, get back home. Uh, we won't force that just because we had the plan. We will, right? The first 3 months are rough. We'll, we'll, yeah, go through just to make sure it's not just, you know, getting adjustment, right?

Yeah.

Um, but we wouldn't do that for like a year and a half. Um, we might just maybe skip or, or stay places longer so we don't have to pack up and move as much, or Uh, maybe just go to only certain areas instead of trying to hit everything. Yeah, but then, you know, we'll just kind of have to make a decision, um, of how 100% Dad's doing, you know. If it's growing, if it, if it seems to be something viable, then we'll continue to push and promote it. If we're really having fun, there's really no reason to end it.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, keep going because Ryan phrased it really well the other day, like, we've never been able to do so much and like see so much of the country and explore and have so many opportunities but feel like we're missing more than ever. Because like Georgia alone or Florida, you could spend months in any state. Yeah, still not do everything.

Yeah, absolutely.

Over like a couple weeks in different parts of the state. And there's so much— the country's so big and there's so much to do. We almost feel like we're not getting to do so many things because you have the opportunity to do it. Well, because there's other things we're doing and we're just going past it or near it or a different time of year.

Uh, okay.

Yeah, there's just, there's just so many things. So we're doing more than we've ever had before, had before, and we are— we're being exposed to so many things, but at the same time, there's so many things you didn't do that you could have done. Yeah, but you'd have to stay there for like a year and everything.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I don't think in a lifetime you can explore this country fully.

No. Yeah, I don't think so either. It's just—

nope. And so it's—

nope. Even if you just hit the highlights, you wouldn't be able to, like, all the things. Yeah.

So I mean, the way she phrased it the other day was, was really good. It was dead on. Never, never have we been able to do so much but feel like we're missing out on so much.

Yeah, so it's—

I don't know, we'll see. But if we're having fun, you have to keep it going. If we're able to build the brand that way, just build the business around it, um, that'd be really cool. That's obviously— yeah, the goal.

Um, yeah, like the, the 100 Dad World Tour. I think you'll— I think, uh, you know, as go to different locations, you know, you'll, you'll, you'll kind of bring in that community as well to it.

So that's the goal. And certainly, um, I'm just driving this through town from like where we got it wrapped to the house, uh, it grabs looks. I mean, it grabs— like, people are noticing it.

Yeah, for sure. Like, what is that? Who's that celebrity?

Yeah, you cannot miss it. Yeah, I was gonna get the truck done but it was gonna be another $10,000.

I'm like, uh, yeah, yeah. And then when you're done and you want to like, you know, do something different with this brand, then you have it on your truck. I think you should just pull it off or something. I don't know.

Where are we at?

Yeah, that thing's super cool, man. That's— yeah, that definitely— that would definitely draw attention. People gonna be— do you have like all your networking? Yeah, okay, like Facebook and everything on there, because people are gonna be going straight to that. Yeah, that's super cool.

Yeah, we're trying to make it, uh, not too busy and still get the point across.

Yeah, that's awesome.

The other side, and then the back has it as well. This side was a lot more difficult because you got all the doors and pop-ups. And I've never thought about that before.

What's that? A failed clean is a successful deadlift? Yeah, that's what I tell it. I tell everybody that stuff because people that do like these mainstream lifts— because I actually, quote unquote, part of my, part of my thesis actually was on, um was on youth sports development, was on actually youth athletic development, because I was curious as to like when children can formally start working out. Because I would, you know, we were always told when we were kids like, oh, you can't work out till you go through puberty, blah blah blah, because it messes up your joints. So I did my thesis on that, of course, because Braden was kind of around that age where like he wanted to start doing stuff with me. So I did it, I did my thesis on that. I found it quite quite a bit actually. So, like formal training, formal training, you can start like 6 years old for like real formal weightlifting training. But, because of a quite— it's quite a bit of variables, but they're not going to build muscle just because they don't produce the same testosterone that we do, but they will— they have more neuroplasticity between the ages of 8 and 11. So, they actually build muscle memory way faster at that age group than we could as adults or even teenagers. So, it's actually better to get them in at an early age. And they did a lot of the studies. What kind of work? Because nobody's ever questioned whether a child can run forever and do a bunch of things, right? Because like kids play soccer and do this and they're active all day. So nobody's ever really questioned that. The worry was always like, hey, can the joints handle weight? So they compared— mostly it was in soccer athletes because that's, you know, soccer is this huge thing that parents and coaches and like there's all these elite teams and everything. So they compare it mostly with soccer athletes and they found that they call it peak height velocity, but they found that kids that are doing this formal plyometric training and weight training before they reach peak height velocity, which is the height or which is the point in time where they're starting to, you know, that period where all of a sudden you just hit a growth spurt, that's the kind of peak height velocity. And if they, they use that as the, the metric because age doesn't really— age is a, a, um, an interval, I guess, but it doesn't— you can't really say, oh, when you're 13 years old, you go through puberty. Everybody kind of goes through a different— very different times, right? So they consider peak height velocity, that growth spurt. When an individual hits that growth spurt at, say, 12 versus another one hitting at, say, 12 and a half, they're, they're at about the same level at those times, just a little bit different age. But so they use that as the, as the quantifier, was peak height velocity. And they found that before they hit peak height velocity, um, there, there's absolutely no benefit to weight training to build muscle compared to plyometrics, but the benefit is more in the neuroplasticity. So those, those movements, they learn those movements, their body learns those movements way better with weight training. So plyometrics in and of itself was the best— or sorry, was, was better than weight training by itself, but the combination of the two is by far the best and showed the most improvements. Um, and they're in their— in their, their metrics were like box jump, broad jump, vertical You know, it's little things like they can test explosive power. And, they found that the combination of two is the best. And, it wasn't because they got stronger, it's just because of the neuroplasticity. Now, obviously, it's a completely different story once they do hit peak high velocity and they are producing testosterone. At that point, it is like you kind of got to do the combination of the two, plyometrics and weight training. Because of course, if you get stronger, you're going to be much more explosive as well. And then, plyometrics helps with the complete range of motion. So yeah, it was, it was pretty cool. Is there's actually, um, a huge write-up on it. I can, I can send you my PowerPoint if you want to, like the one that I did for my presentation. It'd probably be like kind of deep, but there's a, um, I can send you the link from the, um, the National Strength and Conditioning Association if you wanted. I don't know if you wanted to. It's like, it's a pretty straightforward write-up, so it's not too hard to read through.

Levi's been asking me about working out, and I was like, you know, we can start doing something, but it was, I was gonna do all bodyweight kind of stuff because— yeah, no, that's absolutely the same thing of like, I don't want to damage his growth plates or something.

Yeah, so you can do that. And they found that because they were like, you know, these people are— initially it kind of started because they were like, people are so worried about whether it's in the joints, but you're putting way more, um, way more pressure and torque on your joints playing, doing things like soccer, you know, all the time, then— or these youth league basketball all the time, these kids are in AAU— then we're concerned with like every once in a while doing a workout. So the National Strength and Conditioning Association kind of developed certain like parameters, you know, like don't go over this amount of time. And I want— I can't remember the exact amount. I want to say it's like 16 hours a week, which seems, seems like a lot, and it is a pretty good amount. And there's nowhere— there's no way where you may come close to that. Like, Brady was training with me for a little bit, uh, when we were in Florida, and he does a little bit now, just like goofing off. I don't ever put weight on or anything. It's mostly like, like Like, I'll have them do a power clean, but it would be with a broomstick, and it's really just to go through the motion because it's not going to benefit them getting to do anything else. I'll have them do squats, but it's with like body squats, you know, air squats, and it's again, it's just to go through the motion, um, because the weight's not going to benefit them really at this point. So do things more explosive movements though, like box jumps, broad jumps, that, that will benefit them. Um, it'll be, uh, it'll be, I guess, um the, the movement itself benefits them more than the explosiveness itself. So just the act of doing it is way better than like, come on, man, jump farther, jump higher. That's not as important as that, just actually doing it. Um, so yeah, he's at the perfect age to do it. I'll send you, I'll send you that article. Well, it's like that write-up, and it's, it's, it's, it's called, um, it's the National Strength and Conditioning Association's position on, like, it's their position on youth athletic development. But I'll send you that, and it's a super easy read. And it kind of goes through like, this is what they believe and these are the reasons why. So what's that?

Yeah, but we're just talking now. It's been 2 hours and 30 minutes.

Yeah, sorry.

Timer. Joe says he doesn't care. Are you going to bed? It's like midnight.

Yeah.

All right, I'll probably be up for a little— I'll probably do that puzzle and just knock it out because I'm not sleepy. It was good knowing you.

Bye.

I need to get back to this call, get back to this business.

Yeah. I'll— yeah, I'll send you the paper though. It's pretty simple read. That way you can at least have some, some, some take on it. Um, yeah, but it's pretty cool stuff. I don't even know where the hell I was going with that in the first place. There was something I was doing with that. Um, oh yeah, the whole failed, failed, successful. So anyways, oh yeah, yeah, that's why I was going with it. So I, I used to tell people that all the time when we— when I would do Olympic lifting, because there was, uh, they did studies on the amount of force that's generated for a power clean versus— or snatch versus a deadlift even. And it's even the— and so they broke up the power clean and snatch into like 3 different phases, like from the, from the floor to like mid, and then from mid to the second phase essentially. And they found that on both phases, like it's almost like double the amount of force is generated. So it's like even though you're doing— let's say you're doing a power clean, even though the first half is a deadlift, you're still generating more force doing that than you were if you were just doing a deadlift by itself. So even if you fail on the second half, you're still generating force, so you're doing more work that way. Because it's a deadlift plus like a, uh, yeah, yeah, it's like up, like upright row. Yeah, yeah, so you're still, yeah, so you're getting it even if you fail on the upright row aspect of it, just that first beginning part from the ground to your waist, it's like twice the amount of work. So I'm like, dude, I can do twice the amount of work in like a tenth of the time, you know. So I'm like, dude, sign me up. So that's what I, that's what, that's pretty much what I do for the most part now is little things like that.

All right, Cool. All right, all right, have a good one.

All right, all right, man, it's been fun. See you.

See ya. That was podcast number 5 with, uh, Joe Smith, a military dad, uh, talking about some South Dakota and endometriosis and, and some COVID and some kids weightlifting. Uh, check us out, 100dad.com. All the, all the symbols are there on the screen for the social media follows to find us. We're gonna get better at these podcasts because I recognize that the audio was not fun, so we will be fixing that in future episodes. Thanks for tuning in.