The OuterBelt's Podcast
The OuterBelt's Podcast
Ribs, Retro Gadgets, and Road Warriors
Ever wondered how a simple barbecue mishap could turn into a lesson about communication and timing? This episode kicks off with a hilarious near-disaster involving barbecue ribs and the comedic chaos that ensued in the kitchen. Meet our crew—Patrick, Buttermilk, Eric, Jerry, and Mr. Chili—as we navigate through the amusing logistics of forming a hypothetical barbershop quartet. From there, we nostalgically explore the evolution of technology, reminiscing about rotary phones, pagers, and those indestructible Nokia phones with T9 texting that shaped our daily lives.
Remember the days of pirated software and the tactile clunk of electric typewriters? We dive into personal stories of mastering early typing skills and discuss the significant impact these experiences have had on our careers. Listen to our reflections on the transition from MS-DOS to Apple computers in schools and ponder the future of touch typing in an age dominated by tablets. Speaking of nostalgia, we also share a delightful recount of a rainy Sunday barbecue with the Hyfield family that turned into a memorable event thanks to some creative truck equipment use.
As the episode continues, we celebrate the inspiring story of 90-year-old truck driver Doyle Archer, whose 60-year career on the road is nothing short of legendary. From his passion for trucking to the latest innovations in electric trailer adapters for diesel trucks, Doyle's journey offers fascinating insights. Join us as we wrap up with heartwarming birthday celebrations, musings on American patriotism, and an engaging discussion about the historical film "Greyhound." Whether it's the joy of cookie cakes or the pride of flying the American flag, this episode is packed with humor, nostalgia, and heartfelt stories.
Email us: theouterbeltpodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.hyfieldtrucking.com
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We did ribs this week too.
Speaker 2:We did ribs this week. She just about made me leave her. I get home from work and she's like, okay, I'm going to party at the barbecue and throw the ribs on. I look at her, like, throw the ribs on at 4.30 in the afternoon, how long is it going to take? Eh, 20 minutes or less. And the look got stronger. The look was like, okay, I'm about to leave. She goes. I mean, they've been in the oven on 250 all friggin day.
Speaker 4:Oh, I'm like okay all right you should have led with that I thought it was going to be like the uh, the casey masterpiece, pre-cooked right uh ribs. It's already been.
Speaker 2:I knew they were fresh ribs and hadn't been cooked. I'm like 20 minutes or less. Okay, it works for hamburgers. It works for hamburgers.
Speaker 4:Hey everybody, welcome to the Outer Vell Podcast. I am Patrick and you all know my friends.
Speaker 1:Buttermilk.
Speaker 4:Eric Jerry and, of course, my consigliere, the one and only, mr Chili. That was like in harmony, I like that. It really has been. I thought we were going to talk about it.
Speaker 2:Well, we should talk about it, that's like 30 minutes of my life.
Speaker 4:I'm not going to get back All the harmony we've been doing.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're talking about doing a barbershop quartet, but so far it's just the two of us.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 1:Do they call those a barbershop?
Speaker 4:duo. It's not quite the same. It isn't quite the same.
Speaker 1:Do you need a bus? A whole big bus? We do need a bus.
Speaker 4:We need a bus. Bus only like specifically one that's at least 40 years old. Yes, preferably turn of the century have you heard these new kids on the block. No, but they're calling, uh, like the millennium, the, the turn of the century, like talking about, like cds, oh, that's turn of the century media and stuff. I'm like, oh no, I can't, can't handle this, I don't.
Speaker 1:They're really old Wow.
Speaker 5:I get a kick out of watching the TikToks where they hand them a rotary phone or something like that and they don't know what to do with it. No clue.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I thought that was cute. But the problem is they're giving them stuff like pagers and asking them what's this for, and I'm like wait a second. Or they give them a Nokia and they're saying how do you text? And I'm like this is hitting way too close to home. I'm not okay with this. It does not sit well with my soul. What is it? Was the Nokia, the slide?
Speaker 1:No, nokia is regular with Snake. The T9, is that called T9? Exactly how many 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. The T9, is that called T9? Yeah, exactly how many? 1, 2, 3, 4.
Speaker 4:Oh, and the predicted text. How great that was. It was fabulous.
Speaker 2:Oh man, it was better than some of the stuff Siri comes up with.
Speaker 4:I was so fast with it and I remember going to the iPhone and being so frustrated because iPhone because you had a full keyboard and you couldn't just feel it wasn't tactile, you couldn't just know where it was. And of course now, if you handed me a Nokia, I'm sure it still works, because those things were impossible to kill, they were bulletproof.
Speaker 4:Not just bulletproof, but they could be reassembled. They could be I can't tell you how many times. Back in the day I used to work at Hobby Lobby and I was a framer. I used to frame people, okay, and we'd be like unloading the truck, you know, and then you're pushing the pallet jack of stuff around or whatever, and I'd get a text and I'd be kind of coy or not sly, I guess, would be the word look at my phone and then try to put it back on my pants and if I'd miss or something, it would just hit the ground and then try to put it back on my pants and if I'd miss or something, it would just hit the ground, burst into 17 pieces, and then you just pick up the 17 pieces, put them all back together and boop, it works just fine.
Speaker 1:Like imagine doing that with an iPhone. Now, right, did you have it memorized where?
Speaker 4:it was like okay, the letter C, 1, 2, 3, 4?. Like you knew how many clicks it took to get to that letter once your finger landed on the key. I did to the point where I didn't even know that it was three letter or four to get to.
Speaker 1:It was three right ABC Yep.
Speaker 4:It was three. I didn't even know that. In my head I couldn't even process it because I just did it so much. I just knew, like I never learned typing which is funny that they used to teach.
Speaker 1:I don't even know if they teach typing anymore. I did typing in school.
Speaker 4:I took one semester typing not even a semester typing Like a part of one of my classes was a little bit of typing. It was terrible at it but now I can type great because it's become such a normal mainstay of our life that it's funny that at one point this was a skill we needed to teach people and now it's like everybody kind of knows how to do it. It's very rare to find someone who's still doing the one finger.
Speaker 1:It happens, it happens, yep.
Speaker 4:And there's no shame in it.
Speaker 1:I love when they went to the slide phone so that you could use it like a keyboard, because I had taken the typing class and I could do like 70 words per minute. So it was like, oh, this is easy. Granted, it was with your thumbs, but so much easier than 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2. You know, with the digits on the Nokia.
Speaker 4:I thought it was easier to text and drive back in the day. Not that you should. I was a young, stupid person On the Nokia.
Speaker 1:I could just whatever I could feel it, I wasn't even looking, I was just doing it.
Speaker 4:Whereas now that's impossible. But texting now is easier while you're driving because you can go hey, siri text, stop it, stop it.
Speaker 2:My iPhone. If you can't see my phone, my iPhone just went off.
Speaker 4:You can tell her to text someone for you and tell her what to say. You don't have to touch it, you don't have to look at it, nothing. That part's gotten a lot better what were you gonna say?
Speaker 2:I still I don't touch type. Yeah, I don't hunt and peck really, though, either, and I'm a couple of fingers when I'm typing, but I'm so familiar with the keyboard that if I hit a wrong key, I recognize it like the feel is wrong I can go back and fix it without having to look at the computer screen and go yeah, I screwed that up. I can go back and fix it, just because the feel is just not right.
Speaker 1:You've got it down in your own manner, but a quick way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know where the keys are.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm not looking for keys. I'm not the fastest, obviously, but I'm productive enough.
Speaker 1:So you're not doing ASFD or whatever that is over there.
Speaker 2:I'm not touch typing.
Speaker 1:That's been a hard moment.
Speaker 2:But I know where the keys are.
Speaker 4:I actually saw something on YouTube the other day. It was a documentary on the keyboard and it was pretty interesting. The QWERTY keyboard, do you?
Speaker 2:know why we have that.
Speaker 4:QWERTY, qwerty. Yeah, do you know why?
Speaker 2:we have it. It's a method of where the keys are, of where the keys are. The keys we use most often are closest within reach.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 4:That's what I thought. That is not the case.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 4:They designed it because old school typewriters with their arms oh, that's right. If they found that a regular ABCD keyboard, you had too many issues where you would have two of the arms pop in at the same time and they would get they're so close and they would actually tangle up. So they did the Q-W-E-R-T-Y, the QWERTY version, to separate all that, and so that was their solution. Was they just worked out, okay? Well, if these keys are in these positions, they're not going to cross each other because they don't have that many letter combinations, because what you don't want is two bars side by side.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 4:S and T side by side would constantly hit each other. It's actually not the fastest form of typing, because I always thought like, oh, it's the most economical. They figured out like not economical but efficient, rather Because they figured out okay, this is the most efficient for your brain to work. It's not. There's actually better keyboards out there now, but nobody's going to them. It's not, there's actually better keyboards out there now, but nobody's going to them, because you've got 7 billion people who learned on a QWERTY and it's good enough.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of folks that are fans of the Dvorak keyboard Keyboard D-V-O-R-A-K. Okay, that's what's in the top.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's a geek's keyboard, basically. So after we went away from the arms, the hammers and went to like a ball or even a computer, or a processor. Then you don't have that, but it's more efficient, they say. But you have to teach everyone, or everyone has to learn again.
Speaker 1:relearn that muscle movement, my mom had the big metal, huge, heavy, 400 pounds. It felt like typewriter and probably all the way up until I was maybe a sophomore junior, that's what I used to do my essays and book reports and whatnot. You couldn't do it in the style that we do our keyboards now, or even electric typewriters, because you had to strike the key so hard so that it would lift the arm to strike that ink ribbon to make a letter. But it was true ribbon and it was whatever. But I've got I had. All my reports were done with that. You had to get your fancy white out, you know, make sure it wasn't gloopy, and all that. But boy, talk about sore fingers after a you know four-page essay because you literally had to push so hard. And then, I don't know, seventh, eighth grade, I ended up doing typing, which was all electronic key typewriters. And boy, that was so nice, you could even do autocorrect and it did the little type over with the whiteout on it. And then now we're up to computers.
Speaker 4:So when I was in elementary school and we had to do a paper, computers were starting to become a thing. So they told us on some of our papers we could do them typed or we could write them out if we wanted to.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 4:And I was always like typed I'm not going to do the handwriting. That's what we had growing up was a 1950s typewriter.
Speaker 1:It was cast iron.
Speaker 4:Cast iron.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 4:I was going to say, if you ever see, like in the old movies, where they take a typewriter and they sling it against someone's head and they kill the person, yep, 100% believable If they were strong enough. Because if they were strong enough to do that, mean that thing was going to hit you hard enough to kill you. It is a. They were so heavy and I do remember typing, I do remember getting them cross, and if you didn't hit it hard enough and then it was like really soft and it was hard to read, you had to kind of do that thing to bring it back and the white, the little white thing you had to do, and then you had to hit the t again and so it only white out the T.
Speaker 2:But you ever notice how it wouldn't be the same space as the T, it would never be in the right spot.
Speaker 2:So I was listening to a different podcast a couple days ago and they were talking about how somebody figured out something was a counterfeit. It was supposed to be from like 1983. It was an ID card for a company, yeah, and the person who was investigating whether it was real or not, the typewritten information on the ID card was perfectly straight, because they had just chosen a font on their computer word processor and typed it out. Yeah, there actually is a font that someone created that for every character on the keyboard there are nine different positions that that character can show up. And, as you, use this font and you type.
Speaker 2:It randomizes where the font is, so it's not all perfectly lined up. It looks like an old school typewriter. That's very cool. It is very cool.
Speaker 1:That's neat.
Speaker 2:More geek stuff, sorry.
Speaker 1:You over there, did you old timey typewriter?
Speaker 2:it.
Speaker 1:Jerry had a quill.
Speaker 4:I don't know if you've heard of quill. He went down to the local store there in the hills of North Carolina Ink bottles.
Speaker 1:Ink bottles.
Speaker 2:Jerry was poor. You forget that. So Jerry went and got Indigo he went down to the creek and pulled a feather off a duck to make his quill True.
Speaker 4:And then he grabbed a piece of charcoal from the family and crushed it and then added a little water to get that right texture.
Speaker 1:That's funny, you, how about you? Old school typewriter?
Speaker 4:Oh, she just accepts that as your answer.
Speaker 1:I was.
Speaker 5:That was it Did you do Quill.
Speaker 1:No, no, you did say yes on your typewriter.
Speaker 5:I did do typewriter I remember I was I was probably freshman in high school when I got my first like little word processor and it was like an electric typewriter and but it was a word processor that held like maybe two to three sentences in memory and whenever you got it all in memory you could hit enter and then it would type it all in for you fancy we never had one of those.
Speaker 4:I saw those like in the catalogs and stuff and I always thought they were cool, but by the time we ended up upgrading we just went straight to microsoft word. So that was. We completely skipped that, that step before we had a different one, notice Notes no, it was like Word, but it was something else.
Speaker 2:Microsoft had a basic.
Speaker 4:It wasn't Microsoft, it was someone Corel maybe made it Okay.
Speaker 2:I know CorelDRAW, but they did other stuff as well.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And WordPerfect. There's WordPerfect one.
Speaker 4:That was it so we had WordPerfect as a kid, I'm sure pirated, because I don't know how any of those companies made money back in the day who could afford it, right, yeah, I mean, and before they learned how to, like you know, make it to where you had to have codes and all that stuff, you just. I got a game, downloaded it on my computer. Buddy wanted it here, you got a game download on my computer.
Speaker 5:Buddy wanted it. Here you go. Yeah well, even after they come up with those, you know 19 digit keys, everything else. I was downloading that off a bit torrent, like you won't believe, and I'd sit there. I would try, probably 50 codes. Find one that works, then it would work for like three months and then it'd get kicked off.
Speaker 4:But I mean, I look back at it now and I'm I'm less than happy that we did that, but but it was a different age back then, different time back then, and now everybody's gotten smart. It's so easy, like Microsoft Word that I've got right now. It's an annual subscription, it costs pennies and works great, and they've got a customer for life. Like everything's gotten a lot slicker on that end. No one's using Napster anymore because Apple Music is. How much is Apple Music? $5 a month, $9.99. $9.99?.
Speaker 2:Well, let's not give credit Apple all the credit for getting rid of Napster.
Speaker 4:I mean that goes back to Well yeah, there was a whole FBI thing. Well, yeah.
Speaker 2:But you know you had Pandora before that and Spotify before that, bearshare, limewire.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the only program I remember being gifted when I was growing up is AutoCAD, and it wasn't until college.
Speaker 4:It was just before college, but what did you do as far as typewriters or anything like that?
Speaker 3:I don't remember having to do the cast-on ones, I just remember plastic ones. Nothing I could hurt anybody with.
Speaker 2:We still keep Eric limited to what he can have around him no sharp tools, nothing heavy. We're still concerned about our well-being, safety scissors.
Speaker 1:Even the electric ones, though at school those were heavy. Those were like a cast iron-y, very heavy metal.
Speaker 4:Never had them.
Speaker 1:They were very big. I remember you had to turn it on and it was like starting up a whole engine.
Speaker 4:No, my school, from a very young age. They got rid of all the typewriters and they had nothing but computers. Yeah, now these were MS-DOS based. Sure, it was weird because I learned MS-DOS based and something happened in the early 90s where all the computers got replaced with Apples, and I remember making that jump and being like I hate this.
Speaker 5:Apple made a huge push in education in the early stages.
Speaker 4:It was such a hard adjustment to make. As a kid you would think it would be easy, but it was like everything was in the wrong spot and it didn't work right. I hated it.
Speaker 2:No one's asked me what I used as a kid Stone and chisel Okay that's where I was going with it.
Speaker 4:I figured you all knew stone and chisel.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, outside of stone and chisel.
Speaker 4:Occasionally for Otto, he would go up to the mountain Mount Sinai, I believe a burning bush with lightning into the tablets. Nice, Exactly what he was supposed to do. It was very convenient, it cost me my soul.
Speaker 2:So my sister had a typewriter. She was four years older than me, she was actually really good at typing and so she had a typewriter and I was horrible at typing, failed miserably in eighth grade. And my sister would type my reports Not voluntarily, my mom would make her because she knew if I sat there to type a report I'd be all night long doing it, and my sister would knock it out in like half an hour If it were a longer report, otherwise she'd just be done with it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:My sister did my reports. I wrote them.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And she had the pleasure of reading my chicken scratch and typing it up. My handwriting is still horrible to this day.
Speaker 4:My handwriting is abysmal. My signature makes a doctor look legible.
Speaker 1:So she should have been like a stenographer or something.
Speaker 2:She actually was a dispatcher a 911 dispatcher for a while, and she had to take a typing test. She had to type so many words for a minute and she just killed it.
Speaker 1:That's cool, oh so, writing your reports kind of paid off. It did pay off, that's cool, oh so writing your reports, kind of paid off.
Speaker 4:It did not ready typing your reports. Do you wonder if, um, with the big push to like using tablets as computers, instead of actually having a laptop, you now would just have a tablet? Do you think that's going to kill people learning the, the, the typing skill?
Speaker 2:No, because people that use tablets as their main device are still using keyboards with them, just Bluetooth.
Speaker 1:Do they in school? Because I know at school they give you little iPads, schools.
Speaker 4:A lot of them do now.
Speaker 1:yeah, you know, starting in like first, second, whatever grade, the whole class gets an iPad to learn from.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the touch typing goes away because you don't have that tactile like we talked about with the Nokia phone. You can feel where the buttons are. You don't have that tactile on the iPad screen, but who knows?
Speaker 1:Interesting with the next generation Maybe. I need to ask. Anna how that's working out for students.
Speaker 5:I remember my first Nokia cell phone, so I had this case on it that had like a little what do you call like a. It's almost like a little power. I don't know how to describe it, but it would be something that would connect to like a battery or something, and it almost looks like it's really flat Like a ribbon cable Ribbon cable, thank you. It's really flat, like a ribbon cable ribbon cable, thank you. Exactly so it had a ribbon. Oh wow, and it would. It was on the case and what it did was is it connected to the battery? And then it was all hidden underneath the case and everything. So then whenever the phone rang, the whole entire thing would light up rainbow colors oh my gosh oh my goodness, do you remember?
Speaker 4:my first, do you remember so many people back in the day used to have the um like their nokia or sony ericsson or whatever phone in there, and it was inside of the black leather case?
Speaker 2:yeah with the like plastic clear vinyl front yes, and it had the little thing that looped over the front and you still could pull the antenna out and everything.
Speaker 4:I uh, yeah, I just just funny all those things. Of course, dad had the Motorola, the gray Motorola flip phone with the battery. That was about an inch and a half thick. And then that went away and he got the same phone but the battery had a half inch bubble instead of being two inches, and that was so cool.
Speaker 1:My mom had the car phone in the bag.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I did too.
Speaker 1:Like the phone, like the house phone, in the bag in the car.
Speaker 4:Yeah Well, I know I've mentioned it on here before the Freightliner Argosy. When they were still making that cab over truck back in the early 2000s, their literature like their from the factory brochures had on the doghouse a car phone like and it's not bluetooth or anything like that. That didn't exist back then. It wasn't a headset that was tied in, it was just a phone. You just pick it up and you, uh, I think you've actually it had the phone and I remember other phones having this. Do you remember the phone that, uh, the numbers were on the back of the handset. Yes, so you could like dial and then pick up and do it.
Speaker 4:It was one of those phones, but uh that's the way my back phone was in the car when I got to use my dad's phone for the first time ever because I pressed like send, and then I started to put the number in and it wouldn't let me and I'm like what's happening here, because I was so used to you pick up your phone at your house, you get a dial tone, you put the number in and you listen for it to go, and this thing was the complete opposite. You had to put your number in first and then hit send and then that would connect your number and it was just like I remember being so confused by that.
Speaker 4:Yeah there was no dial tone to listen for. There was no dial tone or anything. Yeah, it's just. You know, modern technology was that learning curve?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And now you don't even have to do that, you just say hey, siri call.
Speaker 4:Hey, siri, call Eric. No, not you, I'm just kidding. Yeah, never mind Sorry. No, not you, I'm just kidding, never mind Sorry. Oh, my phone's calling Eric Highfield, that's funny.
Speaker 1:I don't know about y'all, but this past weekend I had so much fun. I had a lot of fun too.
Speaker 4:It was a busy weekend. It was a busy weekend. We did so much. I just want to focus mostly on Sunday.
Speaker 2:Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.
Speaker 4:Live at the Circleville. Yes, we had the opportunity to go hang out with some Highfield family Four teams, four teams and have a nice barbecue yeah, outside of the truck stop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it loves, it loves, yeah, some tailgating Yep, or lift gating, lift gating, I think, is what they call.
Speaker 4:Yeah at Love's, at Love's, yeah, yep we've got some tailgating Yep or lift gating. Lift gating, I think, is what they call it right Yep lift gating.
Speaker 1:That's terrible, I love it.
Speaker 4:You know some of those trucks that's the only time the lift gate gets used.
Speaker 2:Well, that's their test to make sure it's working monthly.
Speaker 4:That's right. That's right. That's right. I uh, I thought it was great, had the opportunity to go out there, got invited. They were gonna do it on saturday. We had scheduling conflicts but they bumped it to sunday because one of the teams wasn't going to make it there from a load they just delivered. So they bumped it to sunday so we were able to go and really have a great time of fellowship and just hanging out with everybody. You know a couple teams I've met, a couple teams I hadn, so it was good to, you know, shake hands and all that good stuff and just have conversation and just shoot the breeze, like if you ever hear us cause we've done a couple of these before and been to them since we've been doing the Otter Belt and we've talked about it before but if you ever go to those we don't really talk business unless you want to then we're willing to have that conversation, sure, but we're really just there to hang out and enjoy each other's company and stuff.
Speaker 1:Be human.
Speaker 4:Yeah, be a human being. Yeah and eat and eat and eat.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of good food. I love the way they again utilized parts of the truck to make it all happen, because it was on the cusp of a big rainstorm. So they just opted to use load bars to make a buffet table inside the box and then lined up all the plates, which I thought was really cool, just in case and plus, you know, they didn't have tables big enough. I suppose you could have put it on another lift gate, but that's what they opted for. I just very ingenious.
Speaker 4:Yep, I think they were trying to avoid the shuffle of getting everything put up when that rain hit. Yep, because we really did hang out right until that rain hit, and it was a storm. It wasn't just rain, it was a storm. It was a storm, but they had. You know, jay was out there barbecuing and so was Chris.
Speaker 1:Yassine.
Speaker 4:Yassine, thank you, was out there making hamburgers and somebody brought pasta salad. I think it was. I didn brought pasta salad, I think it. I didn't get it. I didn't. Y'all may know more. I didn't get the names of everybody. It's Christine. Christina brought the pasta salad. The potato salad and the watermelon fruit thing and I didn't have the fruit, but I did have the pasta salad and the potato salad and they were both awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I love good homemade salads and things like that. They're just, you know so much better than store-bought. The barbecue was great, the pulled pork which I loved, and they had you've heard of the Four Sixes Ranch right, yes, they had Four Sixes barbecue sauce, so I used that with my. I'd never seen it before, so I used it with my pulled pork. It was really tasty. Yeah, I just had a great time. It was nice hanging out, brought the fold-out chairs and, just, you know, kicked it. Just hung out, yeah.
Speaker 1:It was very nice. It was a good time I enjoyed it.
Speaker 4:I know Jerry and Don y'all were going to come but you had an obligation in Michigan that you couldn't get out of. But that would have been the one thing. I think that we would have been just like one of Don's famous brownies or something. You were missed.
Speaker 1:They talked about Outer.
Speaker 4:Belt not being all together. Yeah, they talked about you.
Speaker 1:Where's Don's goodies? You know, all of those kind of things were talked about.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we talked about you, Is it?
Speaker 2:weird that they talked about Don's goodies. I mean without you there, I don't know Everybody talks about Don's goodies. As long as you're okay with it, it was very fun.
Speaker 4:So we left there and again, the storm was right, it was already upon us, it was, it was raining and we ended up driving over and, uh, there was a park over there. We've been talking about visiting so, um, obviously we couldn't go and hang out, but we wanted to go, like, put eyes on it and see if it's a nice place or not. Drove around it for a while, got to see a huge lake I mean, the lake was. It was wild, it was like a hurricane out there and watching people seeking shelter and stuff. It was freaking hysterical.
Speaker 1:It rained pretty hard.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and then I got back to the house and called it a day, and we did have a long weekend and I was beat. After that I was like I'm going to sit here and do absolutely nothing, and that's what I did Nothing.
Speaker 1:We did something Friday, saturday and Sunday. Yes, we did something Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So Monday was a nice reprieve. We did go grocery shopping, but outside of that. It was like nothing.
Speaker 4:We didn't do that. We did a little bit of honeydew lists around the house, but that was it. It was really just a relaxing day Watched a couple movies, cooked some food we already had, like just chill. And then on Tuesday, as you all know, it was my birthday. Thank you for all the people that reached out and wished me happy birthday. I had a lot of fun with that Pretty low-key birthday. It's not a special year, so that's fine.
Speaker 4:Don was supposed to make me a cookie cake, but that didn't happen for some reason. But I guess you'll talk to him about that, won't you? So for those of you who don't know what a cookie cake is, this picture right here is what it is. It's basically just a giant cookie like a 14-inch pizza, large pizza. That's a cookie. They're usually soft and gooey and then they put the icing around it and you know happy birthday, happy retirement, happy divorce. You know, whatever it may be and, uh, it's my, it's one of my favorite uh, desserts. I love a good cookie cake. Um, red velvet cake, cookie cake those are kind of my two back and forth that I love I ordered you one one time as a surprise.
Speaker 4:You did I remember that I remember that I think the surprise was more for you, though it was.
Speaker 1:I order it online. Did the thing go and pick it up?
Speaker 4:Oh, and I just want to throw out real quick, it was the Great American Cookie Company. She did not skimp on any money. She got the real, authentic, delicious thing.
Speaker 1:So I go and pick it up, huge box, and I'm like, oh my goodness, not very heavy though, and I open it up and I look at it and in my head I'm like it's a cookie it's a cookie.
Speaker 1:this is a gigantic chocolate chip. Where's the cake? Like I was so disappointed I thought for sure that they had messed up. I think I even may have texted or called Eric, because he was in on the plan of surprising and I'm like this is it A cookie? Like you told me, it was a cookie cake, it's just a cookie. He's like that's it, it's just a cookie. I'm like okay, that's what he wants, which is what he wanted. But I just didn't understand this whole concept of you using the word cookie and cake in the same sentence. Now they put the giant cookie on top of a cake. Sure, you could have sold me on that.
Speaker 4:But it tastes different than a regular cookie. It's not crunchy at all, it is denser, it is a lot thicker than a regular uh cookie. It does have a more rich flavor, I think, than your average cookie does. Um, and then the icing is like a nice kind of touch to it. Um, at a lot of malls used to be I don't know if you still can or not, because I haven't been to a mall in a couple quite some time um used to be able to buy a slice of cookie cake from great american cookie company. Um, I don't know if you still can or not, but they would just have a cookie cake there and they were just selling it by the slice. So I remember getting those. But also my jam at Great American Cookie Company was always the double-decker cookies with the cream.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:They'd take an M&M cookie, which was my favorite, and then they would do the icing and another M&M cookie and you'd be walking around the mall just getting high on sugar, my brother makes those.
Speaker 2:He calls them whoopie pies. Yes, he does an oatmeal cookie with the cream in the middle.
Speaker 1:Oh man you know, how much I like oatmeal cookies. His are so good.
Speaker 4:Are they got raisins in them? No, I don't think his do. These are so good. Are they got raisins in them? No, I don't think his do. I don't think his do that would have been a nice birthday surprise it would have been oh man, I'm going to visit him.
Speaker 1:It's not very far away, he's not far.
Speaker 4:Apparently. I need to go with you Apparently, apparently, chicago, peoria, Peoria South. That's different.
Speaker 1:I want to go to.
Speaker 4:Chicago.
Speaker 1:Jerry wants deep dish. I thought we were doing outer belt on the road. We need to do an outer belt on the road.
Speaker 2:I thought we were doing deep dish pizza and Chicago dogs.
Speaker 4:Let's do it, and then we can go to Detroit, maybe watch a game, maybe Go to the Henry Ford Hospital Museum. What is?
Speaker 5:it Henry Ford Museum. We delivered there.
Speaker 4:Really I wanted to go for a long time.
Speaker 5:It looks awesome.
Speaker 1:Auto parts. No, it was.
Speaker 4:He was in a deal for O'Reilly.
Speaker 5:O'Reilly. Surprisingly, it was actually artifacts from Benjamin Franklin. It was a lot of his first inventions that he ever made.
Speaker 4:The Henry Ford Museum is not a car museum, it's a time period museum. It's a whole village there set up. It's supposed to be really, really nice. I want to go see it.
Speaker 1:Fun fact, some family lineage dates back to Benjamin Franklin. For me, Really. Really really.
Speaker 4:Are you part of the? I mean, do you like get?
Speaker 1:No, no royalties.
Speaker 5:Then we went there a second time as well and delivered actual artifacts from the Titanic.
Speaker 1:Oh fun Really.
Speaker 5:Yep, exactly what we had on there, I just know that the manifest said artifacts Titanic.
Speaker 2:Do you see where the guy in Ohio is building a submarine to go to the Titanic? I did see that. Yeah, somewhere here in Ohio. I did see that, yeah.
Speaker 4:Somewhere here in Ohio. I did see that, but he's working with a reputable sub-builder. Okay, fair enough. I think, from what I've read, it's going to be built out of steel. Oh, really Steel. Not. Fiberglass Not fiberglass, no, no, just because it's good enough for a boathole doesn't make it good enough for a submarine. Yeah, I get it. Look, there's nothing wrong with submarines and doing that kind of thing. Like Cameron Mitchell. That's not him. That'd be the chef. We're talking about James Cameron.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 4:James.
Speaker 2:Cameron Mitchell.
Speaker 4:Didn't he make like a ton of dives to the?
Speaker 2:Titanic and all that.
Speaker 4:He did Safely. Yes, I think if it's done properly, there's not a big issue with it. The problem with with ocean, ocean, gate, gate, ocean, whatever it was was he was doing things and people were saying you're making a mistake, like you, what you're doing isn't safe, and he was like nope, it's safe, we can prove it. You know, the problem with proving something is it has to be repeatable. Right, and he can't repeat his claim anymore so it was ocean gate ocean gate.
Speaker 4:All right, yeah, um, even the name of his company sounds like a uh like watergate, or you know Gate, or you know what I mean. Like we always throw gate after.
Speaker 1:I think that they would have tested it, wouldn't they have?
Speaker 4:It actually had done a few dives before yeah, some deep dives too, and it just the way I think it was described to me is because I was thinking like fiberglass is pretty darn. Carbon fiber, rather, is extremely strong. That's right, it was carbon fiber. Carbon fiber, rather, is extremely strong, that's right, it was carbon fiber. But carbon fiber has a lot of pull strength, so when you pull on it it gets stronger. When you compress it it doesn't have a lot of compressive strength. And the problem is, when you're down that far, you've got all this weight compressing on you and you know a couple dives weakened it and then this last dive did it in.
Speaker 4:But that's why you use titanium and all these other alloys and stuff that are way more expensive but they're proven, they're safe, they can handle that pressure. I mean, you know steel and all that does, because that's what we build buildings out of, it's what we build bridges out of, that's used to that compression forces. I do wonder at what point do we need to leave the Titanic alone? That was the only thing I saw was like, okay, you're going to build a sub, you're hopefully doing it the right way with a company that's going to make it safe and you're going to go and prove that it's safe but at the end of the day it's like are we not exploiting a graveyard? Prove that it's safe, but at the end of the day it's like, are we not exploiting a graveyard? You know we don't take some down to um the arizona. You know we don't go visit other shipwrecks. I guess we do in some cases though, don't we do?
Speaker 2:we also go visit certain graveyards.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know what's the new orleans, or? Oh yeah yeah, or they do tours certain graveyards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know New Orleans, yeah, or they do tours of graveyards. So it's certainly something that we do, whether it's right or not, I don't know. Yeah, it just seems odd.
Speaker 4:I don't know, it's just weird to me.
Speaker 1:Are they doing it for historical purposes or scientific, like, are you studying maybe why it broke?
Speaker 2:apart, seems like it's tourism.
Speaker 4:Yeah, from what I saw, he was just doing. It based on we can safely tour and do these things. So I don't know. It's weird to me. Sure, you don't even see that much. You know what I mean. Like the ships, the subs, I've gone down with the robotic cameras and stuff. They give you so much more detail than what you're actually able to see, sure, so I just I don't know, it's weird. I don't completely understand, but I do understand the fascination with titanic.
Speaker 4:I just don't understand the desire to go visit the site sure you're saying so that's what does it for me, but I tell you what I do understand on our private facebook. We have a private Facebook page for high-field trucking, for the drivers, once they've signed a lease they're able to join on here and talk to each other. They share war stories, they share cooking tips. We pass out sometimes some information there. We do it also via email, but sometimes people see their Facebook before they see their email. So people will share weather information.
Speaker 4:Bridge closures, Bridge closures, yeah things like that, and one person I think it was Jay, actually the same guy that did our cooking for us a few days ago or a few weeks ago. He sent a post up about these electric truck, um, trailer thingies, I don't know how to describe them.
Speaker 4:That's a good way to describe um, and said I think this is what they were talking about. The other day we looked at that picture and I was like I don't recall that. So I went to the ad and read through it and I'm like I don't think we've talked about this at all. But when I saw what it was, I'm like this is an interesting twist and I think we should talk about it. There's multiple levels of intrigue on this one for me. So this is about a company called Revoi EV. R-e-v-o-i EV.
Speaker 4:Here's a picture of their device right here. E-o-y-e-v here's a picture of their device right here, and what it looks like and what I thought it was originally and what it actually is are two different things. It is a small trailer that goes on the back of a 18-wheeler or tractor and then you hook up your actual trailer to that. On it is an electric battery pack and a couple motors that actually drive the axle that's on that trailer. It's only a single axle, I think, and it drives that axle. So what I thought it was when I saw this picture is I thought this was an extended battery pack. So if you're driving a Tesla or electric Peterbilt or whatever down the road eCascadia, this thing would extend your battery life, right. So now, instead of being able to drive 500 miles, you can maybe drive 1,000 miles. Now, right, I thought this might be a creative way to help with the battery limitations, because if you're running team, you don't have to stop, and so you could actually get in that full amount of time.
Speaker 4:But that is not the case. That is not what this is for. This is actually an adapter to take a regular diesel-powered tractor and make it more fuel efficient. So what they do is you hook up all this thing. It's got all the batteries in it, it's got the electric motors on that axle to help propel the truck forward, so your engine, which is burning diesel to, doesn't have to work as hard, so it it therefore sips diesel. So what they can do is they can take a truck that's going, you know, six miles, seven miles per gallon, but they can do 15 miles per gallon because the diesel engine does not have to work so hard. The electric pack is actually doing all the work, or a lot of the work, um and with uh, when they go to accelerate, which is some of the more fuel consuming portions of driving, the battery can give more power to help make that more, uh, efficient.
Speaker 4:So when I saw that and I was like, okay, that's a cool concept, right, so I take my existing diesel truck, I put this thing on it, I get better fuel economy and, uh, I still have my diesel motor. So if I'm not producing enough power or if I don't have electricity, I can still go further. Right, like, I'm not limited strictly by the battery. Um, kind of turns it to a hybrid setup, so to speak. Right, not a true hybrid, but a little bit of one. The only thought I had was it's a cool concept, but a what's it weigh? Right, that's going to limit us, because then it limits what you can haul. But also, B, how expensive is the thing going to be? Right, so they've addressed it in the article.
Speaker 4:They were talking about the way they pack trucks these days, not including like food. So we're not talking food, we're talking mostly parcel stuff. They run at a cubic foot footage before they hit the weight limit, so weight's not really. The biggest problem right now is they actually run at a cubic space. So they're filling the truck up front to back and it could still be heavier, but there's nowhere else to put anything. So that's the market they're going after. Now, if you're hauling lettuce, you're paid by the pound and you're trying to get your truck as light as possible or fuel the same for you. They're going after the retail customers, the people that are hauling that kind of stuff. Is their goal.
Speaker 4:The second thing is the cost. It is actually a subscription service, so you pay by the mile of what you use. You don't have to actually buy the thing, so there are no upfront cost. You are only using what you've subscribed for and if you go over there's some overage fees that you can pay. So you're not like screwed. They will, um, allow you to get better fuel economy and they're saying the difference in fuel economy will cover the cost, will more than cover the cost of what the actual thing costs. So if it costs a dollar a mile to roll down the road, but with this thing on your truck it would only cost you 30 cents per mile. It's going to cost less than that 70 cents per mile to rent it, so to speak.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 4:They're going to have yards across the country because they call them swap stations, and they've already got two of them up and running in Texas and Arkansas and you can pull in, drop your dead one that's out of battery juice and go over and pick a new one up and be on the way. I think they said it takes about five minutes to drop your trailer the Revoi, pick up the new Revo and be on the way. I think they said it takes about five minutes to drop the your trailer the revoy, pick up the new revoy and put the new trailer on. Um, the revoy is pretty smart.
Speaker 4:It's got some cool things. So, like underneath it you've got that, obviously the main live axle, but where um it goes, uh, right behind your your truck, there's actually two dolly wheels that come down. They will actually like self-support the whole thing on wheels and I believe it'll even reverse itself off of your truck for you. So it's pretty intelligent. It does a lot of stuff For what they want to do. The amount of capital is what makes me wonder if they're going to be able to pull it off or not. You'd have to have such a huge network and you'd have to have such a huge network and you'd have to have so much money in these things right like he's got.
Speaker 4:They don't say what these costs to make, but they've got to be incredibly expensive they have to be expensive.
Speaker 2:Um, and right now they're only running between texas and arkansas. That's where the swap station how many do they have?
Speaker 1:does it say no?
Speaker 4:it doesn't say how many they have, it just says they have the two swap stations. Yep, but again, I think it's a neat concept. It's just how do you scale it? Sure, why are fleets not going out and buying 1,000 electric trucks Because that capital is so huge?
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 4:And if these are just a little bit cheaper than that, it's not really helping. So I don't know. I think it's a cool service. I expect we'll see some more of these in limited markets working for certain customers. Um, I was really thinking like, you know, like a hobby lobby who owns their own private fleet of trucks, walmart, who owns their own private fleet of trucks. I think they would see the biggest benefit out of these kind of uh devices. Um, and the fact that it's based out of arkansas makes me think I wonder if it is walmart.
Speaker 4:Um, running stuff down back and forth from texas um is it considered pulling devils? It doesn't say, but I'm assuming it has to. It doesn't say, and apparently there's like, because it's, it's, it's pushing a tractor, it's already being pushed and it's on a pivot. It says it's smart enough to figure that out as well, so that it's not, you know, causing it to jackknife itself or something in the wrong place. Yeah, so it's apparently smart enough to know how to do that, but it's uh, it's a weird concept.
Speaker 2:The thing weighs about 22 000 pounds, so it is very heavy, sure, um, and you know, I could see this being the swap stations being installed in depot terminals like a walmart terminal or ubs terminal or anywhere that's running ltl or private fleet point spoken will kind of thing, where in the terminals you have a swap station or they just have a charging facility in the terminal where they can charge it overnight or during the non-use period and the next driver picks it up and keeps going back the other way to the next terminal or the other terminal.
Speaker 4:Well, they did say that it's. I know I said 500 miles earlier. It's 250 miles is the range. So you figure that's what, four or five hours of driving. So I could see you putting that like if you had two major hubs it's a common freight lane then you could put a swap in the dead center of that and then a driver could work his full 10 hour shift. Right, they do the swaps still be able to pull in, swap over and then go and finish up their shift there. So yeah, it's very interesting. Um, it is an e-axle, which means the um axle, the motors are built into the axle. There's not like a drive shaft or anything like that. I'm kind of curious to see how it, if it actually works. You know there's, there's the, the, the product itself is unique, and then there's the whole. Can you make money at it? And then I also wonder, as fast as electric truck evolution is occurring and designed, will this even be relevant in 10 years?
Speaker 2:Right. Well, it may not be, but if they can get them out there on the road now and build their network now and get a foothold in the market, because no one has a foothold in the market right now in electric tractors, tesla's struggling. They wanted to have 50,000 tractors on the road by 2025. They've built 200.
Speaker 4:And you see, with Tesla, especially big news out of Tesla a couple weeks ago was that Pepsi bought 50. Not 50,000, not 1,000, not 500, not 100, 50.
Speaker 2:Which, when those 50,000, not 1,000, not 500, not 100, 50. Which, when those 50 are delivered, brings their total fleet to 83. And other Tesla customers that have placed orders for Tesla tractors based on Tesla's production of 50,000 available by this year or, I'm sorry, yeah, this year, they're still waiting. Those tractors haven't been built, they haven't been delivered. Pricing has changed. There's a lot of changes there. I mean, tesla has a nice product, but if they can't deliver them, fast enough.
Speaker 4:There's also a cost of money concern. Right, like everybody knows, the Fed has raised the interest rates. So people that placed orders two years ago because on the Tesla tractor thing we're talking people who placed orders two, three, four, five years ago because on the Tesla tractor thing we're talking people who placed orders two, three, four, five years ago did it expecting all right, I'm going to pay 4% on that loan and that's how we're going to factor it and we can make a business model for it. Well, you turn around and say, okay, well, now you're going to pay 10%, 12%. Yeah, that's night and day different, that cost of money. Even though it doesn't seem like much, that could be thousands of dollars a month more per unit.
Speaker 2:And if you're budgeted for X number of dollars and your plan was to buy, let's call it, 100 tractors with X number of dollars, it might be that cost of money is so much now that you're buying 90 tractors with that same money and that's just roughly throwing it out there. I don't know the math on it, but it's a challenge.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it absolutely is. I think the people that are moving forward, the Pepsis and the Walmarts and such that are placing orders for these things and trying to get them right now they're trying to by good faith with government institutions that they are trying to get their emissions down. It has nothing to do with the business model.
Speaker 4:I don't think they cash flow yet based on because at the end of the day, a half-million-dollar tractor burns doesn't save enough in diesel to justify its increased price Right, especially now that diesel is coming down. When things like that happen like diesel is starting to come down again, tractors the market has gone cold Not cold, but it's definitely not as hot as it was so the price of tractors are coming down themselves. So when you factor that stuff and you add the limitations of electric, it starts to look less interesting. It does when diesel is $6 a gallon. It looks real interesting. It looks great.
Speaker 4:Yeah a good example of that would be like the propane truck market, the natural gas LNG truck market, like when fuel's incredibly high, people buy them and you see them all over the place and then when the fuel goes back down, they kind of disappear, unless it's a big fleet that has a majority of those. So, anyways, it's just an interesting thing. I'm very curious to see if they can bring this to market on a large scale successfully or if this does end up being just a couple of regional places. Yeah, thank you, jay, for bringing it to our attention, because it's not something I really knew about and I'd love to know what it is that we were talking about, where you saw this and thought it was the same thing, because that is an interesting kind of change.
Speaker 1:Why don't we talk about the one company running up Houston to Dallas?
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, yeah, with the driverless trucks. Yeah, the driverless trucks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw an article, kind of piggyback on your Musk talking, where it said that Tesla can penalize you for selling your truck in the first year.
Speaker 4:Yes, that's a Cybertruck, though right, it was a Cybertruck.
Speaker 1:But like $50,000 or something. If you sell it in the first year.
Speaker 4:I'm like whew, you better really love the cyber truck there's been a lot of interesting financial things people have been doing lately. Um, that's one of them. Uh, if you resell it, you get in trouble. But also with leases, there's a lot of leases that are going out now that, um, you know, traditionally at the end of your lease you have the option to buy it back. Um lease, you have the option to buy it back. And if you don't want to buy it back, you can then sell the car or the vehicle and then pay the lease off or whatever. There's a lot of leases that are going at now where they're saying you don't have the right to buy the car back, like it's a three-year lease period At three years and one day we're taking the car Period. And there's other ones that are saying if you want to buy the car, you can, but you can't sell it. Like there's no option. If I have a car that I'm leasing and, melissa, you're interested in buying it when I get out of it, that's not an option and that has to do with the cost of cars inflating as fast as they are. So they already know, based on their projections, that it's a better deal for them to buy your car and resell it than it is to let you take it, whereas that's traditionally not been the case. So it's very interesting.
Speaker 4:The money side kind of goes back to the truck we were just talking about. Like interest rates have changed, the price was good, it changed, inflation has changed and all that really determines who's buying these trucks and when they're buying them. This equipment is not like buying a Chevy pickup and getting a credit app and getting 0% interest for five years. It is way more complicated than that, and I have my Jeep because I wanted it and like it. You can't buy a truck based on I want it and I like it. You have to have a business model there to support it and all that factors into it.
Speaker 4:It's not just what's the cost of the equipment, it's also the cost of the funds and these people, these big companies, they're not paying cash for it. You know I mean some are, but most aren't, most. It goes on the books. It's a depreciating asset. We're either going to lease it A lot of people lease them. So a lot of the people that are buying Tesla trucks not Cybertrucks, but the big commercial ones they're not really buying them, they're leasing them or if they are buying them, they're using money like loans and stuff like that, because it just makes more sense on a depreciating asset. Melissa, you also had an interesting article. It kind of piggybacked off the one from last week it was a feel-good one we do like feel-good articles guinness world record um the oldest truck driver.
Speaker 1:Holds it at 90 years of age. So oldest truck driver holds guinness world record at 90 years here's a picture of him he says he has no plans to retire from his 60 years of otr, which is a long time yep his name is doyle archer.
Speaker 1:He was officially recognized as the guinness world record holder for oldest male truck driver this year and has traveled 5.5 million miles in his 60 years driving truck. He secured the record at 90 years, 55 days old back in February. So 90 years and 55 days. He says he doesn't plan to retire anytime soon. His health and holds good. He's going to keep driving. He says. I do not have the word retire in my vocabulary. I enjoy my job very much. I couldn't imagine being 90 years old. How about 90 years old and passing a DOT physical? Can we talk about that?
Speaker 4:That's some pretty good, healthy Scott. He clearly keeps himself in good physical condition. I mean, you see the picture. He's not a, doesn't look terrible at all, yep.
Speaker 1:He's out of Kansasipsburg, kansas, for his company got that good midwestern blood he says anything you can haul in a truck. I've hauled it. My favorite views I've been able to witness are the mountain views, scenic prairies and the timbered forests of the great country. I just thought it was a really great story 90 years and he got a national recognition or Guinness World Record for it.
Speaker 4:Think back in the 1960s, when he started driving. The trucks have changed so much since then.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You know he was driving back when they didn't necessarily have seatbelts. Little things you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Air conditioning was optional for only the nicest highfalutin Right. You know. We've seen them Like in those 1970s and 80s trucks where they're retrofitting air conditioning into them like in the 60s. Forget about it, Unless you were in like a really nice Kenworth or something, but even then maybe not To go from all that to what he's in now, like I bet you he still has a CB handle.
Speaker 1:I bet you there's locals in his area that can utilize that CB and call him on his handle and he'll answer.
Speaker 4:I bet you he's just part of that era? Yeah, probably, you know, same truck stops.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 4:Knows Betty at the pancake factory or whatever. You know what I mean. That's cool. That's a long time to be trucking. I guess you really got to like it, right? I mean, I love trucking and I saw some amazing things back when I was driving and it is one of those things where if I had to choose like if, if life crumbled or whatever right I might would go back and I probably go back and drive again like I enjoyed my time on the road I really would go back and do it again.
Speaker 4:Um, but 60 years in one career, I mean most people 60 years as they're planning for retirement. This guy's 90, he's's like no.
Speaker 1:I'm good, I'm just going to keep driving, yeah.
Speaker 2:I wonder if the variety of freight kind of kept things spicy for him too. You know, just doing, he says that you can haul the truck. He's hauled it, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I wonder if that's, he's gone all over too. He's not just like a local or regional route, he talks about Las Vegas.
Speaker 4:In the Space Center he talks about that and a few other places.
Speaker 1:So he's going everywhere. Maybe that does keep it spicy, as you put it.
Speaker 4:It is cool. One of the things that's great about America is every business pretty much has to have something delivered by truck at some point, so we really do go everywhere and see everything.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you why he's on the road so long in life. He's been married for 70 years. He's got nine children, 25 grandchildren, 26 great-grandchildren. That's why he stays on the road.
Speaker 4:And he has an interest in antique cars, oh sure. Or as he knows them Cars, yeah, and John Wayne movies. Who doesn't like a good John Wayne movie, though? Let's just be honest.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that 70 years been married.
Speaker 4:He's got nine kids. That means they were 10 years in their relationship before he started driving.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and now you know why he started driving.
Speaker 4:He actually it does say that he worked for a lumber company and that's what he wanted to do, but his asthma got to him and so he wasn't able to work there anymore. So, yeah, interesting, I do like that. The cactus on the side of his truck almost looks like it's a hand flipping us off. But you know.
Speaker 2:It kind of, does it kind of, does it kind of does.
Speaker 1:That's funny.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, though. 60 years behind the wheel, 5.5 million miles, that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 4:I hope that I'm kicking as good as he is at 60.
Speaker 1:Right 90.
Speaker 4:Dead, 90. Sorry, I hope he is at 60. Shoot.
Speaker 2:At 90,. Yeah what At 60. He is at 60. Shoot.
Speaker 1:At 90. Yeah.
Speaker 4:What a great time. So, speaking of all the healthy chat and looking great at 90 and all that stuff, I guess it's time for Patrick's weekly weigh-in. Yeah, and first and foremost, as you all know, we are sponsored not by Octavia. No, we are sponsored not by Octavia, and today's fueling is going to be the classic sour cream and chive mashed potatoes. So what these are are mashed potatoes with sour cream and chive.
Speaker 2:That title that you read wasn't very descriptive. It's not very descriptive. I'm glad you described it for us.
Speaker 4:Sometimes it's confusing. Yeah, sometimes it is. It's dried potatoes. It does have milk and chives and eggs in it. It actually tastes pretty good. The texture's a little off for me. I do like it. I still order it because it is tasty. It's less of a potato and more cream of potato.
Speaker 1:Waffle maker or the pancake maker.
Speaker 2:Yes, make yourself a potato pancake, that's a good idea A little less water yeah.
Speaker 1:So it'll make a potato pancake, so it'll be crunchy and a little creamy. The waffle maker, though, makes a whole thing. So many crunches Almost like a french fry. Or a little creamy. The waffle maker, though, makes a whole thing, so many crunches Almost like a french fry or a hash brown, like a waffle fry. Okay, Okay, okay, I'll try it.
Speaker 4:I'll try it, but this and it doesn't take long. Yeah, and I've always been. I mean again, I've always been lazy, so it's always just in the thing add the water, microwave it eat it and it is good. The texture is just a little off on this one, but I like these ideas. I'm going to have to do the waffle maker thing, kind of a French fry thing.
Speaker 1:Maybe I'll have to show you how to whip it up.
Speaker 4:Whip it real good.
Speaker 1:Make one, I'll come over and tutorial you.
Speaker 4:So that is the feeling of the day. Again, these are all nutritionally similar, so if you like this one, you can have five of these in one day, and it's the exact same as as eating one of the other ones, um, the the, the side.
Speaker 4:I call this a side one because potatoes aren't really a main course meal. It's always side. Um. These would always be afternoon um or nighttime. Sure, something to eat. Uh, cause it is kind of a weird like you, you might eat just a pancake, but are you going to eat just the potatoes? It's a little odd. So, um, that's what I always did just kind of use these as in the afternoon, um, or if I'm having a day at the office, then it'll be like um, a pasta, not a pasta, but something for lunch, whatever of these I'm in the mood for, and then two and a half hours later, I have one of these and it's almost like I'm just having a long lunch.
Speaker 1:Right, that makes sense and they kind of work off each other. I've seen too that you could do it soup style, so you just add obviously.
Speaker 4:Oh, that makes sense potato soup quite a bit more water, yeah. It more water and uh, yeah, it could be like a potato soup. That'd be kind of cool.
Speaker 1:You could even cheat and put a little cheese on it too, I mean you could even do that, yeah, with the way it is, I mean because the program does allow you so many fats yes, so you, you can add they say don't cheat everything, because if you cheat everything, then what are you really doing?
Speaker 4:right, uh, but every now and then a little, something like on the on the buttermilk, mac and cheese, I add a little, a little cheddar cheese on top. I think it makes a world of difference in how it tastes. And again I'm adding Tablespoon of cheese, you know, like not a ton, and it just just gets it to that level I need it. Right so, but I did step on the scale this morning.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 4:I did see that number.
Speaker 1:Well, it's always going to give you a number.
Speaker 4:Sometimes it gives me an E, sometimes it gives you an E.
Speaker 1:W-E-E-0-0. You stepped on too quick Error.
Speaker 4:error Danger Will Robinson. Just to recap, the last two weeks it's been 270.462,. Something like that this week. Yes .462, something like that this week.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm proud to say that we are finally in the 260s Nice 266.8, 266?.
Speaker 5:Wow .8?.
Speaker 4:Yes Wow.
Speaker 1:I'm impressed.
Speaker 4:Yes, nice work.
Speaker 1:Was it the haircut that helped? It was. I lost a pound of hair.
Speaker 4:It probably had to do something right.
Speaker 1:I'm kidding Congratulations. I don't want to discredit your hard work.
Speaker 4:Well, you know, I was worried about it too, because all you people that made me go down to Circleville. And again, I already told you I had the potato, potato salad, the pasta salad, because it looks so fresh and delicious and it was yummy, yummy, yummy. And I put the barbecue sauce, which is you know sugar, all over my pork and everything. Um, I just knew I was gonna just blow up, but I tried to just like focus on that being the main meal of the day as opposed to eating a bunch of feelings that day. I actually just scaled that back and just had that and I had water. And even I did have Coke Zero out there with everybody because I want a little caffeine that I just made sure not to put anything else in me. That because I knew I'm like man, when you're eating like this, it's so easy, it just takes a little bit of push, then you've knocked yourself out. So, yeah, I feel pretty happy about it.
Speaker 2:Nice Congrats. You should probably go celebrate tonight with a nice cheesecake.
Speaker 4:I was thinking cheesecake. I got a Junior's cheesecake in the freezer and I just need to thaw it. I don't have a Junior's Cheesecake in the freezer and I just need to thaw it. I don't have a Junior's Cheesecake in the freezer, it's in the fridge. I don't have one in the fridge either. It's on the counter.
Speaker 1:That's funny.
Speaker 4:No, I love Junior's Cheesecake. I'm a huge proponent. This diet sucks for that. But you know what?
Speaker 1:I'll have Junior's Cheesecake when I hit the goal weight. There you go, bye-bye there you go?
Speaker 4:Yep, so anyways, that about wraps it up. Did we forget anything? Anybody got any announcements? Any last thoughts? I have something to share with you all. Oh, one more episode. We have one more episode before our summer break. Oh, so, be sure to join us next week. Be our last episode. Then we're going to take about what did we say? A six or eight week pause and then we'll be right back up. But yeah, we are one more episode left. Please, if you like what you're hearing, tell your friends. Share our content. Hit that like and subscribe button. If you haven't give us a thumbs up, leave us comments, even if you just say good job, fatty. You know, I know it's from the heart. Share our content. Hit that like and subscribe button. If you haven't give us a thumbs up, leave us comments, even if you just say good job, fatty.
Speaker 2:You know, I know it's from the heart. This is a good time too to go back and just re-watch or re-listen to the previous episodes, you know.
Speaker 4:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:If you need something to keep you going while you wait for us.
Speaker 4:Maybe you joined us in season two. There's a whole season one that's got lots of content out there. You get to see how we've changed. If you're watching it, you see how we changed this configuration up a lot more. You get to see what life's like pre-Buttermilk and pre-Eric.
Speaker 2:And you can vote and tell us where you want them going or not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 4:What the voting? Absolutely. Some people are just trying to get out of work.
Speaker 1:Topics. Think about all those topics you have now. You have lots of great ideas. Start sending them over. Yes Email.
Speaker 5:The Outer Belt Podcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 4:Or if you're listening to us on a podcast app, you can hit the comments, not comments. Contact us. What's it called?
Speaker 5:Text us. Text us, that's right. Text us yeah.
Speaker 4:And it'll text, jerberry, here. You can go to our Facebook or Instagram. At the Outer Rep Podcast you can call 833 Highfield, you can call 833 Highfield. You'll talk to Buttermilk or Delina or Jerry Kayla. Thank you, you can send us a carrier pigeon. Jerry's address is Columbus Ohio.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just address it to Jerry at Columbus Ohio. The pigeon will find him. They're really smart.
Speaker 4:It's got to be one of those Hogwarts pigeons, right, our owls. I guess those are owls. Just to know, just generically, this is the exact jerry I wanted to go to yeah it comes by every day around
Speaker 2:noon, or tap it out morse code.
Speaker 4:I'll get it because I'm the old guy here, so yes, yeah, I was thinking about that and I was thinking about you all. I watched a movie just uh night on Apple Plus called Greyhound Okay, and it's about the convoy. It's a great movie. You haven't seen it? Go watch it. It's got Tom Hanks in it. Who doesn't like Tom Hanks? And he's the lead ship in a 37-ship convoy going from America to Europe during World War II, from America to Europe during World War II, and there's a section in the middle of the ocean where the planes, the anti-submarine planes, can't reach because it's just too far away, and so he's there to defend him, and three other ships.
Speaker 4:I think, eric, was it three other ships? Two or three? Yes, and it just shows them how they attack the U-boats when the U-boats are successful, what that looked like, what the rescue looked like, how many people passed away in it all this stuff, because it's only a few days that they're actually in that zone and outside of that, then the airplanes come and they just hit the U-boats, so the U-boats don't even go in the area where the airplanes are, and so it was a really interesting movie.
Speaker 4:But in the middle of the movie, when they're trying to communicate over long distances, they can't really do that via radio. They can do short distances. If you come up right next to them, you could radio, but you know 37 ships. You're talking long distance from front to back. They would use lights and they would tap out Morse code in lights and then the other person would respond in lights. It was also convenient if you had a U-boat, because U-boat can hear your radio. They cannot see your lights, and so it just made me think this is what Vince did back when he was younger, and it was a great movie. I encourage you to watch it. It's hour and 36 minutes. You're in, you're out it. It was a great movie. I encourage you to watch it. It's an hour and 36 minutes, you're in, you're out.
Speaker 2:It's not one of those three-hour war epics, right. I broke into the shipping industry as a deckhand, you know swabbing decks and that kind of thing, yeah. But as I worked my way up, you know you had to learn Morse code. If you're going to work on the bridge, that makes sense. Period Makes sense, right. Yeah. So I had to learn the signal flags. I mean, before that it was smoke signals, so I had to know that first. Oh, yeah, yeah yeah, just a lot of knowledge in this big brain of mine.
Speaker 4:Well, they did. The flares. I'm sure you remember the flares, for when they had the emergencies. Flares were after me. Oh, okay.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you were back in that time with Paul Revere.
Speaker 2:Not quite. I was just after Paul Revere Gotcha Just after him.
Speaker 4:I wish I had met him, but they still called him Pauly right back in the day. Pauly yeah, yeah I remember hearing about good old Pauly.
Speaker 2:The redcoats are coming.
Speaker 4:The red coat, yeah see, I I never had that form of shipping. I built ships okay, um so it's a different perspective. It is I built fire ships.
Speaker 2:Okay, they're like fire trucks, but they float on the water on the floor.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and uh, when I was building fire trucks, we had fire uh ships. We had to learn uh how to install the morse code equipment okay. Okay, and so that was my experience. But by the time I came along, they weren't doing light signals anymore, it was just a beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. And so we had to install the little tapper. Yep, and you had to be careful Because if you just, if you like leaned your hand on it, it would just be beep. That was so annoying.
Speaker 2:And somebody's like who's dead? Who died Exactly Flatline.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so that was a good time. It was back building the fire ships. Those things could throw some water. Speaking of fire trucks, Ships. Well, you mentioned fire trucks. Yeah, back when I worked for Ferraro.
Speaker 2:Fire Apparatus. I saw the coolest thing on Memorial Day. Locally here in Columbus, there's a company that builds fire trucks yes, sutphin, I think it is yes, and you see them coming along the highway and usually they have chassis in various forms. Yes, they got a lake out there they use when they test the fire apparatus. It's really cool to see. They had a single ladder truck out there on Monday and the ladder was up and hanging from the ladder was an American flag on top and then they had all of the flags of the armed forces.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's very cool.
Speaker 2:And it was tied off at the bottom, so it just hung and blew in the wind. It was really really cool to see. It was neat. It was really cool to see yeah that's awesome.
Speaker 4:I do know back, uh, memorial day and veterans day. Um, when I was traveling the country on the fourth of july, I remember seeing several cities we'd go to. They'd have the two um ladder trucks, oh yeah, and hanging the american flag over the interstate.
Speaker 4:Yeah, um, really cool, and that was always a cool thing to see. You know, it's one thing we do at our houses we fly an american flag out front, um, and we keep one out there all the time, and it's just. I don't know, that's one of those little things that I didn't do as a kid, but it feels incredibly important to me now to do. I don't know where it came from, I don't know why. I don't have a good logical reason. It's just, yeah, proud of the country and support it in every way you can. There you go.
Speaker 1:There, you go In.
Speaker 4:There you go In the meantime. Thank you so much for hanging out with us.
Speaker 2:Stay safe and make good decisions and don't leave money on the table, just don't do it.
Speaker 5:And keep, as well as a turner, bye, good night.
Speaker 1:Thank you.