The OuterBelt's Podcast
The OuterBelt's Podcast
From Joann's Fabrics to the USPS: Navigating Change in America's Institutions
What happens when a seemingly simple fabric store closure ripples through the trucking industry? This week on The Outer Belt, Patrick, Vince, Buttermilk, Eric, and Jerry dive into the unexpected domino effect of Joann's Fabrics going out of business. Their closure creates a surprising challenge for truck maintenance – where will companies source the specialized vinyls needed for seat repairs when online color matching remains frustratingly unreliable?
The conversation flows naturally into an exploration of another American institution facing transformation: the United States Postal Service. As email has replaced letters and online payments have eliminated mailed checks, the USPS continues searching for financial stability. The hosts share fascinating insights about recent service changes affecting rural communities and debate whether the postal service will survive long-term. Their discussion reveals how deeply mail service has woven itself into American culture – from the community connections with local mail carriers to nostalgic traditions like chain letters and physical birthday cards.
Along the way, the conversation meanders through delightful cultural touch points, including Conan O'Brien's Oscar hosting performance, the death of physical media like cassette tapes, and favorite TV shows for long-haul drives. Throughout it all runs a common thread: how digital transformation continues reshaping American institutions, traditions, and daily life – especially for those in the trucking industry who witness these changes while traversing the nation's highways.
Whether you're a trucker looking for practical industry insights or simply enjoy authentic conversations about American life in transition, this episode delivers with humor, heart, and unexpected connections. Join us on The Outer Belt, where the roads may be long, but the conversations make the journey worthwhile.
Ready to connect with us? Email theouterbeltpodcast@gmail.com or call 833-HYFIELD to share your thoughts or learn about joining our team.
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Okay, say it again, I just caught that.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome to the Outer Belt. I'm Patrick and you're all my friends, shirley Buttermilk, eric, zucca, d-bread and Jerry. Oh man, what a show, what a show. We got a great one for you tonight. We're going to be talking about all the things you're not supposed to talk about, like the ages of women.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 2:No no.
Speaker 4:Skip. Yeah, you don't ask women her age. Come on, you know that, patrick, why not? Even Jerry knows that. Weight, age and religion Exactly, just don't mess with it. I wonder what Zucchini Bread would say.
Speaker 3:Oh, but she's not here, she can't give her opinion.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3:She's leaving me hanging, the only woman to fight this cause. I know I don't care if people ask me my age. It's not a big deal.
Speaker 4:How old are you?
Speaker 3:I am 49 and I'll In the fall.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 3:Yes, sir.
Speaker 4:Oof-ah.
Speaker 3:Oof-ah.
Speaker 1:Time for a trade-in Speaking of trade-ins.
Speaker 4:I forgot you could hear me in your headphones.
Speaker 1:It's too late for the warranty. Wow, wow.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's the last year of the infamous 2-2. Year 11. That's awesome, going out strong. Yes, it's the last year of the infamous tutu Year 11. That's awesome Going out strong.
Speaker 2:I love it. You got your fabrics, your tool.
Speaker 3:No, my dress comes in this week. I'm so excited because, well, some of you may know, joanne's fabric is going out of business.
Speaker 2:So you're excited.
Speaker 3:No, I'm excited that the dress is coming in so that I can go match material and hopefully get a discount. Yes, Because I don't know how else to match colors online. Because I don't know if you've ever shopped for color-y things online. But the little square they give you online doesn't always look like what you get in the mail.
Speaker 2:Yes, I have noticed that there's actually a very cool YouTube channel that servants a lot.
Speaker 4:There is a very cool YouTube channel.
Speaker 2:That we watch. That talks about this very thing? Yes, it does. And the Patagonia colors, what's it called?
Speaker 4:Pantone.
Speaker 1:Pantone the.
Speaker 2:Pantone, which to me sounds like a cool 1950s record label. It does it does it really does, or?
Speaker 1:the Pentatonix. Is that what you're thinking of? No, no.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking of, like it's the Weezers on Pantone Records. Notice the disc it's green number seven.
Speaker 1:So yes, there's.
Speaker 2:Half as Interesting H-A-I Half as Interesting on YouTube. We talked with them last week too.
Speaker 4:We can't discuss them again this week, can we?
Speaker 3:I don't think they're sponsoring the show but anyway, yes.
Speaker 2:But if you'd like to, you can subscribe to Nebula. Yeah, exactly Nothing but love to y'all. We love your stuff.
Speaker 3:Just want the outfit to come in so I can hopefully go get some material before Joanne's completely clears out some of their stores. There's two that I have in mind. Third is a backup. There are five in our general 40-mile radius.
Speaker 2:I'd like to not go to all five to find all the material I need. Have you been to them?
Speaker 3:lately I've not.
Speaker 2:I'm curious how thinned out they're getting. My plan is and I probably should do this tomorrow honestly so in our trucks, the seat manufacturers or not seat manufacturers, the sleeper manufacturers. Yes, they do like the custom upholstery and they use these leathers and vinyls, and the only real place to get them locally is Jo-Ann Fabrics. Yeah, and so so like if we have a seat come back and it's ripped or something, we're able to go over there, get a matching vinyl and fix it. Sometimes you've done full-on um upholstery changes.
Speaker 2:Right like you completely, have re-wrapped all of it and make it look great. Um and so this is like that we're losing this ability. So we brainstormed the other day at your house and kind of decided let's go buy up the remainder of the vinyls yes, the basic colors, the core colors, so colors cream, gray and black are kind of the core colors that we use on those seats.
Speaker 2:My thought was and I think I should do this tomorrow, yeah, so hopefully, when you're hearing this it's done is, if you give me the numbers, I'll go hit all five stores and come back with, you know, bulk, bulk vinyl, so that over the next, you know, six months, we are good to go. Can I interject?
Speaker 4:No, I'm going to, because we just did a truck a couple weeks ago. I want credit for this too, because I helped her. It wasn't just a buttermilk project.
Speaker 3:It was a buttermilk and chili project. You're a great stapler.
Speaker 4:I am a great stapler. I've heard stories.
Speaker 2:I've heard stories of your stapling. You're not allowed in staples anymore, not on wood. He hasn't got my finger. You have to shop at office, max and office depot staples I'm just too good for.
Speaker 4:They got jealous. They did my skills um, and we're. We're getting this fabric the last time. And she says to me should we buy, like this whole thing? Because this was when there were just rumors of stores closing, it hadn't been officially announced. And I looked at her and I said how often do we do this? When's the last time we did this? A year and a half, two years ago?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not common.
Speaker 4:We're going to be okay, they're built.
Speaker 2:well, it's not super common.
Speaker 4:We're going to be okay, and then, a week later, we have another one.
Speaker 3:We have another one, yes.
Speaker 4:And I told her not to buy the extra fabric, and now you're telling her to buy the extra fabric and I'm like, from now on, just ask Patrick.
Speaker 3:No, and I agreed with you too, because it had been so long and again at the time that that had happened that we had our discussion. We did not know that they were going out, but the lady in the store told us that they weren't ordering more vinyl, like everything was on hold.
Speaker 4:You can kind of get a vibe, they had stopped ordering and then, when they were allowed to order again, the manufacturer didn't have what they needed. What they needed, yeah.
Speaker 3:So that's when I told vince maybe we should buy up, and he and he's like well again, when's it been?
Speaker 3:it's hard to match fabrics because it is you know we went a completely different color on the last one but it goes with the theme of the truck. Um, so we're matching the rest of the fabric styles in the truck. But it's just really hard and, like you said, how long it had, how long had it been since the last one. And it made sense. But then when that next one came the following week, and then their notice of bankruptcy and closing stores and I was like I don't know where we're going to, maybe a marina boat, maybe they'll sell us a couple yards of their fabric, like I don't know where else to go online. But again there's that tutu dilemma that I was just talking about.
Speaker 3:But again there's that 2-2 dilemma that I was just talking about. How do you match color from a square pixel on an iPad or a laptop or computer? It's so hard to tell what color You're like.
Speaker 2:Okay, so my iPhone it looks like this. On my iPad it looks like this. On the computer it looks like that, but if I pull up the Windows computer it looks like this Totally different.
Speaker 5:And if I cast it to the television, which one of these do you think it is? The answer is none.
Speaker 2:You order cream, it comes back. Banana yellow.
Speaker 1:I'm nervous. Numbers associated with the colors.
Speaker 4:Well, Pantone does, but you have to license the Pantone number from Pantone in order to publicize it.
Speaker 3:And fabric doesn't come on the backside of the fabric that says Pantone, color number, whatever, no, it comes back like Jim Bob's vinyl, exactly 722.
Speaker 2:And then you have to cross-reference it If you ever go to Napa to cross-reference a filter? It's cross-referenced from the manufacturer to Wix W-I-X, which is a filter company.
Speaker 5:I know it's a computer thing, y'all are confused.
Speaker 2:But to Napa Gold, to Die Hard, to Binford Tools, to Craftsman's Executive Series, to Craftsman's Basic Series, to the one you want. And throughout that process it changes ever so slightly.
Speaker 4:So by the time you get it you're like well this is not what I ordered, and it could be that Jim Bob's vinyl has created a whole different name for that color.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and it's you know, Martha's Kitchen Purple.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 5:Right, yes.
Speaker 4:Well, you can't find Martha's Kitchen Purple anywhere, because it's licensed strictly or it's copyrighted or trademarked by Jim Bob's vinyl and it just throws a whole wrench in the works.
Speaker 2:So we found these fabrics at work. That's why I'm thinking Just buy them.
Speaker 3:We can go, that'd be easy.
Speaker 2:I pop into the store. I want this. What do you want?
Speaker 3:The whole scheme, everything you have left. And then they go and they measure it. They call it a. Oh on those, I don't know what they call them.
Speaker 5:Because it's a roll. It's a roll.
Speaker 3:It's not like fabric, where they call it a bolt.
Speaker 5:Jerry, you were going to say, I was just going to ask have you tried any other stores like Michael's or anything?
Speaker 3:They don't have vinyl.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the thing with they don't have a lot of those fabrics are UV protected.
Speaker 4:Right, so inexpensive.
Speaker 2:It's very similar to. You know, I can't think of what it's called Witness protection.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but UV protection is for the UVs, not-.
Speaker 4:It's protecting the UVs. It's protecting the UVs Well, actually from the UVs. Yes, so it's not at all like it. No, it's different. That was a bad, terrible analogy.
Speaker 2:Bad Patrick, Sorry. So yeah, a lot of that stuff like Sunbrella and all that. It's great. So in the back of my house I have a couch that's sitting in direct sunlight Bad afternoon sun, it's just, it's the worst thing you could possibly.
Speaker 5:Scorching, scorching.
Speaker 2:It's the worst thing you'd possibly want for outdoor furniture. You'd never do this, but I have a couch out there, like an outdoor couch, sofa, whatever it's called, and the fabrics on it are sombrillo. They look dead on the exact same way they do when I bought the couch seven years ago.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:You go buy something from Walmart and put it out there Without it, you know, a couple years in the sun it's bleached.
Speaker 5:It looks totally different.
Speaker 2:So Sunbrella is a big maker of that kind of vinyl fabric and all that stuff. It's just way overkill because our trucks the vinyls are inside they don't need any protection.
Speaker 3:I don't know what the so it makes it drastically more affordable. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I agree, I want to go up and work with you and get those numbers and then, I'll go do the rounds while you're on phone calls.
Speaker 5:It wouldn't hurt also just to ask them whenever you go. Maybe they can give you hints or places that you could order online or that you could check out other stores that might work too.
Speaker 3:You know, maybe we can take QR codes or your supplier. Absolutely, get the manufacturer and reach out to the manufacturer.
Speaker 4:They probably won't sell you small quantities, but they might tell you where else they sell it Absolutely, and they're like you're in tell you where else they sell it Absolutely.
Speaker 2:You're in luck, we sell it right there in Nashville. Oh, that's super close Now losing joint fabrics is a tough blow.
Speaker 3:It's a blow. I don't go often, but once a year, but when I go I spend a lot of money. Several hundred dollars to make these tutus and I'm very sad to see them go. Well, if you shop more often.
Speaker 2:You don't do enough crafts, so for me it's really brutal. You could say so for me in Baton Rouge. My mom, she, was a seamstress, and so as a little kid I would get dragged around to all these fabric stores small independent fabric stores, none of which are still there because it's hard to be a small independent anything.
Speaker 4:These days.
Speaker 2:We'd go to all these fabric stores and we used to go to a place called Cloth World. I remember them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, was there a place called Cloth World I remember them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, was there a place called House of Fabrics? There was a place called House of Fabrics, but not in Baton.
Speaker 4:Rouge. We didn't have one. That's where my mom went all the time.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so we went to Cloth World and then one day they were taking the sign down and they were putting a brand new sign up, Joanne Fabrics. And we're like what is Joanne?
Speaker 4:Like y'all got bought out. Who is this, joanne lady?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like y'all got bought out and they're like we were actually bought out like five or six years ago. We're just now getting around to changing the sign out.
Speaker 2:Wow, it took them that long, but like it was a place I went to literally every week for as long as I can remember my childhood and I remember I bought Pufkins there. I don't know if Pufkins they were very similar to Beanie Babies. It was a whole fad that was going on back then. I remember it was one of Melissa's, my sister's, one of her first places to go apply for a job and go and do that with her and just all these experiences. I have all this memory, all this Americana kind of feelings towards it. It's not a place I shop now, but seeing it go it's a little sad.
Speaker 3:It's a little like a piece of my mom is kind of eroding away. I did two Christmases back-to-back in my childbearing raising years One I did aprons for both the adults and the children, so it was like a Christmas my childbearing raising years and one I did aprons oh yes, for both the adults and the children.
Speaker 2:So it was like a Christmas present, so I did go buy. Were the children tripping on them. No aprons, aren't they long? No, I made children's size. I made children's size aprons, but they were matching and they matched the family's.
Speaker 3:you know the family crest, not necessarily size aprons, but they were matching and they matched the family's, you know.
Speaker 4:The family crest.
Speaker 3:Not necessarily the family crest, but like what the family was interested in. I think I did cats on one. There was cats on one of the aprons and things like that. And then the next big project I did where I had to go to Joanne's was I did tie blankets. So it's two pieces of the heavy fleece material and you could get really, you know, dialed into what people liked. I know, with the boys I did one with like a football theme on one side and their favorite color, you know, camouflage on the other, because they have that type of material. And so basically you're just taking two pieces of fleece and putting them together. It's no sew and you just tie them together. And that was really important to me. So again, I have shopped over the years at Joann's in my last, again, 11 years.
Speaker 3:It's only been once a year for the two-two, but they've always had what I need, you know, and I'm very sad to see them go.
Speaker 2:I understand a lot of people are buying online.
Speaker 3:I don't know how they're matching fabric colors.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the thing. They're not just a fabric store, they really are a craft store. They are. They have beads and everything yeah they have a huge fabric selection, but they really are a craft store. Yeah, and Michaels, and really I mean the Gauntlets Hobby Lobby, right. Yeah, they just do everything else so much bigger and nicer and better, and then the rest of it you can buy on Amazon, yeah, so it's a tough space to be fighting in. And if you want to save money, you can buy it at Walmart Like they have.
Speaker 3:so much, or the Dollar Tree or wherever else. Oh, that's right, dollar Tree has a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I remember going there quite a few times too.
Speaker 3:Well, speaking of going out of business, what do you think about the post office going out of business? Do you think it's going to happen?
Speaker 2:It's not going to happen.
Speaker 3:I saw an article.
Speaker 2:I did too. It's not going to happen, and here's why I don't think the post office is going Because it is a US government-owned branch. It is, However.
Speaker 4:It is completely independent financially. Is it Air quotes for those listening.
Speaker 2:So if you know anything about the post office, they haven't made money which they're not supposed to make money, they're not supposed to no. But they haven't paid their own bills in a long, long time. They have been consistently.
Speaker 3:Probably didn't back on the horse and pony day either. Huh, they did. There was a time. There was a time, sure, there was a time.
Speaker 2:Sure Jerry was very young.
Speaker 5:No, it was 1892.
Speaker 2:No, there was a time that they were not so bad off, and really the modern age of computers and email have just wreaked havoc on them Sure.
Speaker 2:For the past couple decades it's been a while Someone's going to fact check and be like it hasn't been 20 years, it's been 17. Whatever. But for a while they've been losing money like crazy and, uh, we've been bailing them out and helping them out and all this stuff. But, um, they are their own, self-funded, just like amtrak self-funded, uh, entity that's air quotes for those of you that are listening on the podcast yes, pure sarcasm, uh.
Speaker 2:And so they have had to modify and change with the times. So, if you look back in 2013, the usps was trying to eliminate saturday delivery. Uh, they fought that battle until 2016, 2017 and they finally gave up because congress wouldn't let them. They tried so hard and they couldn't get it approved. Um, so us they've been trying to find ways to cut services and or make more money. Their one-day packages I'm trying to remember, I think one-day overnight service is now a FedEx product. So if you go into the post office, I think under one-day it actually says FedEx, right?
Speaker 1:Or something.
Speaker 2:There's something like there's a partnership with FedEx, where FedEx handles it, so USPS doesn't handle the overnight stuff anymore, like they used to Vince Amazon. They were doing something special with them, right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the post office was doing last mile delivery, basically, where Amazon would deliver packages to the post office and then the post office would deliver them all the time really. But they also did it on Saturdays and Sundays delivered parcels which they weren't delivering mail, but they were delivering Amazon parcels.
Speaker 2:That was a big deal because they didn't work on Sundays. Right, exactly, not working on Sundays.
Speaker 4:And then Amazon, once they got their own fleet up and running they stopped using the post office for deliveries.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the post office has been in some form of turmoil for a while now. And they're really trying to figure everything out and become profitable again. I had a family member that worked for the post office and they were talking about how Amazon and these other companies were complaining, because they wanted to know when a package was delivered at your house.
Speaker 2:They could send you an email immediately saying your package has been delivered. I mean, I love it because I get that email and it shows me a picture. So, like on my street where I live, sometimes they'll put the package at my neighbor's house or there's another address about half a mile from me. That's similar so they'll sometimes put it over there, so that picture helps out tremendously. If I don't recognize my front door, wrong house. And my uncle was like so do they want us to scan every item? Like blowing his mind, ridiculous level.
Speaker 2:How could that possibly happen? But UPS and FedEx and now Amazon have been doing that for a long time Long time.
Speaker 5:They've had that feature for a long time.
Speaker 2:So I kind of feel like they've been a little behind the times. Plus, I mean, with emails, you would think like, oh well, there's less mail going through the mail system, so it should be more efficient, right, because there's a smaller quantity, right, it should be easier to handle. Sure, but what happened is they lost all that revenue.
Speaker 4:They lost the revenue and then they couldn't invest in the infrastructure to be able to do that real-time stuff.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 4:I mean USPS. Still today you get a package delivered to your mailbox by USPS and the next day you get notified that your package has been delivered. Absolutely Not even the same day. It's the next day when you get notified it's been delivered.
Speaker 2:Well, even for where I live. I have signed up for that service where every morning I get an email with what's being delivered today, and it's always for tomorrow, it's never for today. They're like here's what's going to be in your mailbox today. And then I look at it and I'm like I'll see you tomorrow.
Speaker 1:I'll see you tomorrow, I'll see you tomorrow, plus all the junk mail. Imagine having to document all the junk mail that shows up.
Speaker 4:Well, that's a big thing too, is the post office lost a lot of that business because it wasn't profitable for junk mail companies anymore to send it. We still get a lot of junk mail in the mail, but all those mailers went away. Magazines went away. A lot of people aren't sending letters like they used to. We're not sending checks through the mail to pay our bills anymore, so there's a lot of revenue that went away with the post office.
Speaker 2:We're not really sending birthday cards or Christmas cards?
Speaker 1:No, we're not, not to mention the bills that come in through the mail, right, or you're just not doing it at all.
Speaker 4:If you're going paperless. You're not seeing that bill in the mail, right? No, what did you say, Melissa? I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:Birthday cards and Christmas cards.
Speaker 2:It seems like a tradition of the past.
Speaker 3:It has, I'll send some stuff through the mail. Still, I just sent a couple of packages. It was just after Thanksgiving, after we came back from a vacation in Orleans. I had some socks to mail and I chose to mail them through USPS.
Speaker 4:Well, we mail like— and I think they got there yesterday, you know they do give a tracking number so I can track.
Speaker 2:Sure, they do.
Speaker 2:Again using website and we send out, like with trucking, if you're not in the business or not in the business yet, with trucking there's a lot of like stickers you've got to put on the side of the truck or things like that, that you have to have the physical sticker. I can't email you a sticker, right, correct. So we have to send a lot of stuff out and we used to use FedEx and overnight and, oh my gosh, at the end of the year you'd be like, how do we spend forty thousand dollars with FedEx? Like, are you a PS?
Speaker 1:and five average forty five dollars a pop.
Speaker 2:Yeah so we moved to using the USPS and um have saved a tremendous amount of money because of that um. But outside of that, if it's a permit that doesn't need to physically be mailed, it's done via email.
Speaker 2:It's done via email or we have a really cool website now that's out where our teams, our drivers, can go in and actually pull the permit straight off the website and then send it to like if, if they have printed on the truck, print it themselves or send it to the truck stop and have them print it. I was going to say Kinko's, I'm stating myself, our FedEx office Stating yourself so.
Speaker 3:I still think it's pretty cool, though, that if you wanted to write a letter, you can do a little paper envelope and mail something to someone for a very nominal fee Our postcard or I did those when we were on the road.
Speaker 4:She did postcards that went on the road.
Speaker 2:yeah, I did postcards, so 2019, we were in Italy and I got some postcards and sent them back to my mom and a couple other people from Italy and they arrived there, you know, two weeks after, I did, sure, uh, but it was still very yeah, I remember as a kid my aunt and uncle who was very close to they went to Cozumel and they sent me a postcard in the mail and again same thing.
Speaker 2:I got it after they got back to the country. Uh, but that meant a lot, like you know, that thinking of you kind of concept, and we've had some exciting things within Highfield that were a very similar concept, because it does feel so good to get that I like mail, mail's fun. When it's not junk mail.
Speaker 4:Or blackmail.
Speaker 2:Well, depends on what side of the blackmail you're on, it's true, it's true. So, like even at the house, 90% of my mail is junk mail. Sure. Oh, yeah, and only one or two or three items are important.
Speaker 4:You know it's funny. I went to the mailbox yesterday. I don't get our mail very often, but yesterday I got out of the car.
Speaker 4:I took the trash out, grabbed the mail from the mailbox, talked to the milkman yeah, I had to have a conversation with him because I noticed we had extra milk, yeah, so I'm not sure why, but apparently we had extra milk yesterday. Anyway, so I take the mail out. There are four pieces of mail. Two pieces were addressed to somebody different at our address, or current address or current address or current resident right. One piece was actual junk mail and one piece was addressed to Melissa, which I think was also junk mail.
Speaker 3:It was.
Speaker 4:So you know all our mail yesterday was straight in the recycling bin.
Speaker 5:I have a love-hate relationship with the mail. Our mail here in columbus sucks at our house is the worst, absolutely horrible service I have ever seen in god's creation. Like I'm signed up for uspscom as well. I get the notifications every day, literally. Don ordereda phone case, the prime example. It was supposed to come this past Wednesday Every day. Literally it was supposed to come yesterday. And he opens the door and the mailman's walking up to the front of the house and he hands him his mail and it's not there, like it's never. Nothing arrives at our house like it's supposed to Never. Now, with that said, and as much as I despise the US Postal Service, going back to your original question, I don't think it's going to go anywhere, and the reason why I say that is because you have all of the last place, last mile places that FedEx and UPS does not go to Correct.
Speaker 5:You have all the little bitty towns in Arizona and Wyoming and these little bitty places that's got 20 people that live there. Usps is the only place that goes and also on top of that, you bitty places that's got 20 people that live there.
Speaker 2:Usps is the only place that goes Absolutely.
Speaker 5:And also, on top of that, you've got to have two-thirds of Congress to approve it, and that's never going to happen, right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It's very unfortunate. Not unfortunate, but it's just the way it's built. If you want those blue mailboxes, you ever wonder? You see the blue mailbox on a street Right.
Speaker 4:Not the mailbox, like your mailbox, but the blue one.
Speaker 2:You ever see one and you can see that it's like this mailbox was installed in 1948, because all those have dates on them. And you'll see some really old ones and you're like has there been a single piece of mail put in this?
Speaker 5:box in 20 years.
Speaker 2:And when you're driving over the road you'll see it. Sometimes your local places you're like oh yeah, people use it. But when you're driving over the road you'll see some in weird spots and they're still there. And the reason they're there is because of what you said. It's very easy to get a mailbox installed, but if you want one removed, it takes Congress and nobody, no congressman, is going to say take this mailbox away. That's possibly serving my constituents, sure, because it costs the USPS an extra $5 a day in gas to go out there and check it Like no one's going to say that, and so it ends up costing the US Postal Service a fortune of money.
Speaker 3:I still think it's an alternative. Alternative, though, to FedEx or UPS.
Speaker 2:It's a good alternative. It's an affordable alternative. They are maybe not quick, but they're relatively reliable.
Speaker 5:They're relatively reliable sure Don's family to this day. You're talking about cards and stuff. Don and every one of his sisters, his mother, his father, birthday Christmas Easter.
Speaker 3:And that tradition. But it's a traditional thing and if that's something strong in your core values of being raised odds, are you're going to continue that?
Speaker 5:I've often asked like why are you going to? He'll be like I've got a birthday coming up, I've got a credit card, Christmas is coming, Easter is coming, this is coming. I'm like why do you do that?
Speaker 2:That's just what our family does. Well, you can tell the Postal Service leans into that, because when you go into the post office they've got a whole wall of cards.
Speaker 3:I might have been a sucker too for those.
Speaker 2:I like them. I dig the stamps. You know what I mean. We typically buy stamps by the 100 packs. You get the roll, but it's no difference in price to order the regular stamps. Sometimes I go in there and I'm like, oh, we're doing Star Wars, we're doing Star Wars.
Speaker 1:I'll take 100 of the Star Wars stamps.
Speaker 2:That's always fun and it's cool that you can order exactly the number of stamps you want, so you could be like I want 106 stamps and they will cut that thing up? Yes, they will, and they will give you your 106 stamps. It's really cool how that works.
Speaker 3:I worked for a property management company and we used to mail packages out and I didn't realize this until I worked for them. But there are stamps of many denominations, not just your. I guess they're calling them forever stamps, which is your base rate for standard cards.
Speaker 4:First class mail.
Speaker 3:Yes, and then there's postcard stamps.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:But there are denominations. You got one cents, two cents, seven cents, I mean like there are. There's like 52, 75. I'm just rambling, I don't think they're all of this, but we at this property management company had to stock all these different denominations because we had a wear and we would weigh the mail Yep scale.
Speaker 3:We'd weigh how much these were. You have to configure how much it was going to be and then we would put stamps, because it was quicker to do it that way than to take all the mail down and have it individually scanned and weighed and paid at the end. So we were. We were doing it on our end, so all you had to do was go through the drive-through slot and throw it in the box. But I didn't realize there were so many different denominations of stamps.
Speaker 2:Did you have Forever stamps back then or no?
Speaker 4:No, that was before Forever stamps 2009, 10, 11, 12?.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Somewhere around there.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:So I don't know if Forever was quite there yet. There yet.
Speaker 2:So when I was a kid, I remember going to the store and actually this happened more recently than that.
Speaker 4:Going to kid.
Speaker 3:I remember going to the store and actually this happened more recently than that, going to April 12, 2007, before every stamp started, so it might have been then.
Speaker 2:So I remember going and doing the stamps, for I think back then a postage stamp was 35 cents Does that sound right.
Speaker 1:I think it was 35 cents for a while.
Speaker 2:And so you would get the 35, you know cent stamp on there. But then with postage would change like hey, there was a rate increase, so it went from 35 cents to 38 cents, so you get the extra. So you got the three one cent stamps to put on there and then give it to them until you ran out, until you ran out, and then when you had the new 38-cent stamp, it was fine. So when Forever Stamps came out, I was like, oh my gosh, amazing.
Speaker 3:Right, we don't have to worry about that, because you can jack up the price whenever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could buy 10,000 Forever Stamps and never worry about.
Speaker 3:Do you think they're losing out on money?
Speaker 2:No, I think they're just happy. People are using their service.
Speaker 3:But I have gone to the store where we did a Forever Stamp and Eric and I were concerned is this too heavy? Yes, like sometimes you can tell, and this feels a little heavy Sometimes I'll just throw an extra one on there if I think that.
Speaker 2:Well, instead of doing another Forever Stamp, we did one Forever Stamp which covers us at 52 cents, whatever it is right now, 73 cents, 73 cents.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's how much a stamp is. Now I'm on the website right now.
Speaker 3:Back then I think it was why didn't you realize they'd gone up so much?
Speaker 2:Oh, when this happened, it was 50-something cents, okay, and they waited and they said, yeah, it's going to be like 60 cents. And so they actually, instead of putting that little white sticker that they printed off their shelves, they actually grabbed a nickel stamp and slapped it on there On a credit card.
Speaker 1:So I'm sure the swipe fee cost more than 15 cents.
Speaker 4:How?
Speaker 3:much are forever stamps now 73 cents.
Speaker 4:Oh my goodness, how much do you think a postcard stamp is right now?
Speaker 2:Just for the record 15 cents is what it used to be when I was a kid.
Speaker 3:I think the last time I knew it was like 42 cents or something, but I haven't been keeping up with how much they are.
Speaker 4:Yeah, postcard stamps are 56 cents.
Speaker 3:I do not think I paid that much when we first started trucking.
Speaker 2:I don't think we did.
Speaker 3:I've got a roll of those in the drawer. I haven't mailed a postcard and I guess I'd have to double up. So what are some other denominations? Just curious Baptist.
Speaker 2:One, two three, four.
Speaker 4:There's Southern Baptist One, two, three and five cents One, two, three.
Speaker 1:Oh you're funny. One, two three and five, Jerry, you knew it was coming eventually.
Speaker 3:Okay, what else Is that it? Somebody had to say it.
Speaker 4:That's all I've seen, so far Well, there's bigger ones. Well, if you're doing an express mail package, you can buy the express mail prepaid stamp.
Speaker 2:The flat rate ones. The flat rate yeah, interesting. Very Well, jerry, it's interesting you mentioned, uh, how they serve the rural communities, those little small towns and everything, because they do. And uh, I was just reading an article. It's so weird that you would mention this, melissa and jerry uh just reading an article where they are uh making some, um, delivery adjustments to their standards. So, like the post office has these standards required by Congress, you must do X, y or Z. You must deliver the mail in sleet, snow, rain, hail.
Speaker 3:In a covered wagon.
Speaker 2:Whatever it is, you will do it six days a week. There's these rules that they have. You will have five days to get a package delivered. I think that's their current standard.
Speaker 4:First-class mail five days, yes.
Speaker 2:And so the US Postal Service is actually changing a standard which is no longer doing afternoon pickups. They're changing their standards to where they won't be doing afternoon pickups anymore. Now if you think about how mail works, a truck shows up 4 or 5 am in the morning from the major distribution center and they unload the truck, they route everything to the local Jeeps that go Jeeps, the local grooming long-life vehicles that deliver the mail. And then people go out and deliver the mail and while they're out delivering they're also picking up fresh mail and then they get it back to the post office, they sort it all up to which distribution center it's going to and then a truck comes in that afternoon, picks up all the mail and brings it back to the distribution center. So you have a truck twice a day, one in the morning, one at night, right, and the next day Rinse and repeat all over again.
Speaker 2:So what they're doing is in these rural areas when there's not the quantity of mail that's coming and it costs more, because less packages Means it's a higher transportation cost, they're going to move to strictly morning Pickups and delivery. So when you send a letter out and the postman picks up your letter at your house then goes to the post office at the end of the day and unloads all the new mail. It will not get picked up that night, it'll get picked up the next morning. So they're going to unload the truck and then reload it and send it back to the distribution center and that's all they're going to have for the day, whereas before, like I said, they would then come back that night and pick up. So it is for those rural areas going to add on one day. Basically of time they say they can still meet the five-year.
Speaker 4:Five-day, five-day, five-year. We'll still get there for you in five years, folks, don't worry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they'll still meet the five-day requirement, but stuff that maybe would have normally taken two days will now take three. So they'll take three days and not take four, et cetera.
Speaker 3:So mail your birthday and Christmas cards an extra day in advance.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Make sure you're online doing bill pay so your bills won't be late.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly, which I mean don't a lot of the. I'm trying to remember back when I wrote checks and sent them in Most of those like credit card companies they would go by the postmark date, right? Yes? So, in theory, if theory that won't change because it's still going to get postmarked that night at the post office.
Speaker 4:Right, it just won't go out until the next day Exactly.
Speaker 2:So they are saying that by doing this it's going to I love the way the article put it it's going to improve productivity and save at least $3.6 billion a year once fully implemented, or $36 billion in 10 years, and I'm like that seems like some easy math. I don't know that we had to break it down like that.
Speaker 1:I was looking at that, as you were reading it thinking yeah, $3.6 billion times 10, $36 billion.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it3.6 billion times 10, $36 billion. Yeah, it seems weird.
Speaker 2:It seems like when they normally say things like that. It's like buy one for $5 billion or get two for $7.
Speaker 5:Exactly.
Speaker 2:It's such a weird way of saying it. It really is, but they say, through transportation, mail processing and real estate cost reductions, that it's going to save that much money Makes sense. So it's pretty cool. Of course, there are a lot of people. I shouldn't say it's pretty cool, it's a change. There's a lot of people that are against it. Obviously, people living in the rural communities don't like that.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:There is a postal regulatory commission that doesn't like what they're doing. They actually have accused the USPS of overestimating the savings and that it's really not going to save that much money and they're being overly optimistic and things like that.
Speaker 3:I don't think an extra day, a delayed day, but still getting there in time is going to.
Speaker 2:Yes, and they did say they're going to those communities. They are reaching out to their commercial customers, which I thought was strange that they're not reaching out to everyone, but they're reaching out to their commercial customers, which I thought was strange that they're not reaching out to everyone, but they're reaching out to their commercial customers and letting them know you will have an extra day of delay. So, if you need to, you may want to send something out a day sooner or you can let your customers know accordingly. It is of note that, through all of this and with they had over 17,500 comments saying hey, we're concerned about the delays, yada, yada, when they were proposing this rule, they're still going forward with it. They don't really care what we think they the.
Speaker 2:So you got that. You got the postmaster saying are you get the regulatory commission saying we don't think it's going to work? And it is of note that just a few days ago the Postmaster General did actually announce his retirement. He did so could be coincidence, but it is interesting that you know he's retiring Through the midst of all this change.
Speaker 3:Maybe it was just time.
Speaker 2:I think so. I mean, like it's hard to say They've been working on this now for four years Like not this but the whole scope of changing it.
Speaker 2:I think they're calling it Delivering for America Plan or something like that. They are really working on improving their numbers, getting financially solvent again and in that amount of time they have saved they've reduced $1.8 billion in transportation costs, which I look at that and go how many trucking companies going bankrupt have been postal service? A lot of them. They've absolutely been trimming that tree quite a bit. They saved $2.3 billion by improving productivity at the different facilities and getting rid of a few facilities they didn't need. And they say pricing and product adjustments, ie they're charging more they've actually brought in. So they've done those cost reductions of what is that five About?
Speaker 4:$3.5 billion is what the article says.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. Oh, that's pricing adjustments, I'm sorry so the price reductions. They've actually gone in at $4.2 billion of cost cutting and they have increased the price of the things to bring in about $3.5 billion more than what they normally have been doing. So they're making improvements. It's still not enough. They're still not solvent. I mean, think about that when you add $3.5 billion and you subtract $4 billion that's $7 billion of swing and they're still not solvent yet.
Speaker 2:There's obviously a huge need for a lot of changes, so this is what they're doing to try to make that happen. So it'll be interesting to see what happens in the coming years. What services change? Will they finally get some autonomy to be able to get rid of some of these blue mailboxes? Will they eventually eliminate Saturday delivery? I think at some point that's coming.
Speaker 3:I don't need mail on Saturday At this point.
Speaker 2:It feels silly, doesn't it? Do you need mail on Saturday.
Speaker 3:Jerry, I feel like if you really need something, you probably would have Amazon did and it would probably just jump on the door.
Speaker 5:I was about to say. Almost everything I do is Amazon or something, or FedEx or UPS or something like that, and if I am expecting something through the mail, don't get me wrong, I do like that little extra day if I am expecting something. I have a phone case coming as well. It's supposed to be here this Saturday. I know for a fact it's not going to show up. It's nice having that extra day of oh, I'm going to get my device and not have to wait until Monday.
Speaker 3:How often are you doing that, though Very, very rare you know what I miss, though.
Speaker 4:I miss getting chain letters. I haven't had a chain letter in so long. They're fun to read on a Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 2:Do you need some dish towels? All right, Father.
Speaker 4:Luke.
Speaker 3:Do you need dish towels too? Us women used to do the chain letter dish towel thing.
Speaker 2:For all of us youngins that never dealt with a chain letter unless it came through Yahoo. Could you please explain to the good people listening?
Speaker 4:what a chain letter is, you would get a letter in the mail, the email right, so you've got mail. The USPS would show up and unless your mail carrier was knocking on your door and saying you've got mail.
Speaker 2:Mine did. It was awkward growing up. I bet it was. Especially because our box was out at the street.
Speaker 4:Right, so you had to walk to it. That would be funny if he actually put mail in your box and came to your door and knocked and said you've got mail.
Speaker 2:So a side note real quick. That's fun to say it is. You've got mail, so a little side note. You do it. I know you want to.
Speaker 4:You, so a little side note.
Speaker 2:You do it. I know you want to. You've got mail.
Speaker 4:Yes, so you've got mail.
Speaker 1:You've got mail.
Speaker 2:I do, yeah, I do have mail. I had mail, I lost her. Yeah, I thought it was special today, though, when you asked how she was doing. I rarely do that. Squirrel yeah, rarely, rarely so we'll get off your squirrel and get back to mine yes. What was I talking about?
Speaker 4:Mail. You've got mail, no, so we actually the same letter.
Speaker 2:We had the same postal guy lived in our neighborhood from like my birth to maybe 15, 16 years old Wow, and we all knew him. His name was Johnny. He was a great guy. I watched him. He was right across from the elementary school I went to, so literally watched him like from the old Jeep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the original, the Jeeps were cool, they were so cool.
Speaker 2:Right-hand drive Jeeps to having the Grumman, and it was brand new and it was like oh my gosh, it's so cool. Yeah, Now you look at him, you're like how?
Speaker 5:is that thing running Anyways?
Speaker 2:So he retired when I was, like I said, 15, 16. He was the greatest mail guy in the world. Everybody knew him. He was super friendly. It was one of those things where I'd watch these ridiculous shows on TV like Leave it to Beaver and stuff, and they were like, hey, mr Mailman, and they're all happy. And I'm like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Like you know, everybody else is like, oh, I hate my mailman. No, we loved him. He was a great guy Cookies during Christmas, like the whole thing. And then we got the next mailman after that. It was terrible and it was like, oh, this is what they mean. This is why it's a joke. And he would do that. He would actually put the mail in the mailbox and then if he had a package for you, he'd bring that one package and leave it at your door. So even if you got a package at your door, you still had to walk out to the mailbox and get the mail it's like if you're making the trip, bring everything.
Speaker 2:Sorry, anyways, your chain letter.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and the chain letter inside it would say you know you have to send this letter with a dollar or something to these people on the list or to five friends or whatever, and if you don't, you're going to have bad luck forever or some variation of that, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Hmm.
Speaker 5:Yeah, there's like an episode of Golden Girls where Sophia is like she opens her mail or something and she's like ah, so-and-so, I can't remember the name. She's like just passed away, and Dorothy's like aw, and she's like there's $5 I'll never see, or something, because it was a whole chain mail thing.
Speaker 3:We would do the dish towel thing. I would do that a couple times.
Speaker 4:I have no idea what that means.
Speaker 3:Again, you, it's like a chain letter. You get a letter and it says some schmoozy, you know woman's tribe thing, and you have to send dish towels to the names on here and one back to me and five to your next friends, or however it all works. Again, the goal was that in the end, if everyone participated, yeah, you would get like 15 dish towels or something from 15 different women.
Speaker 2:And it only cost you 15 dish towels.
Speaker 3:Well, I don't think that's how many I had to originally send. I think it was like two to four.
Speaker 4:Again, I don't remember how it works. Did you ever get dish?
Speaker 3:towels back? Occasionally no, because most it's just like.
Speaker 2:Would they even be usable? I'm just imagining. Oh did you?
Speaker 1:I think that's the point.
Speaker 2:You would put them in a bag or an envelope.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm imagining you would have to use the USPS to mail your dish towel A dish towel like stapled to a postcard?
Speaker 2:No, you would.
Speaker 1:So you know you had to go down, you had to buy packaging you had to buy.
Speaker 3:You know you had to rewrite your letter and add the other people's email or not their email, but their name and address.
Speaker 2:So you couldn't just take a dish towel, write on it with a marks a lot?
Speaker 3:and then put a stamp on it and send it.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's hysterical. I had never heard of such things.
Speaker 4:Could hold US Postal Service.
Speaker 2:Jerry, what did you send back and forth? Jerry found a racket word for a penny. He could get 30 CDs.
Speaker 3:I've done that when we've talked about it.
Speaker 2:I know we don't get political and I apologize, but I did see a thing where it was like Doge is going to come after all. You people who never fulfilled your promises to Time Life Music oh, that's funny.
Speaker 3:My mom had quite the collection of that.
Speaker 2:I wanted to fill that Woo they were all cassettes. I wanted to do that so bad. And my mom and dad were like no, you will not do that, that is a scam. We will end up having to sell you into slavery to pay that. And I was like, well, I don't want that. Speaking of cassettes.
Speaker 4:We did a trash run today. We went to the highest point here in Columbus the landfill.
Speaker 2:Oh, the mountains of Columbus.
Speaker 4:I got a beautiful picture of it. I got to share that with you guys.
Speaker 2:There's green in the distance.
Speaker 4:It was a little foggy down low, but you could see the buildings up above. It was a cool picture. Is that it right there? That's it. That's it. How did you get that?
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, that is it Interesting, interesting.
Speaker 4:But where we were offloading our garbage there were broken cassette cases and cassettes on the ground. Yeah, I guess someone cleared out something and there were cassettes there.
Speaker 2:Wow, Did you have the cassette? It was made of a plastic they don't make it anymore and it had drawers and you'd pull the drawer out and it was like three of them three drawers. And I think it was wood grain covered it was. And it had that piece of chrome on the handle that you'd pull out.
Speaker 1:I think I had that for VHSs.
Speaker 2:They don't make that plastic anymore.
Speaker 4:I think I had it for cassettes and VHSs. Oh yeah, 8. I think I had it for cassettes and VHSs.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, 8-tracks too, oh 8-tracks yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:No, we didn't have that for the 8-tracks, but I mean, I just remember that plastic and the feel of it.
Speaker 4:It was yeah.
Speaker 2:They don't make it anymore. It has to have chemicals that kill you. It has to Diesel, diesel. It has diesel in it Oil.
Speaker 3:Oil petroleum.
Speaker 2:Asbestos.
Speaker 3:According to Landman, everything we have and use is petroleum.
Speaker 2:I can see that we're just now starting to get through Severance Great TV show. If you're watching it, really having a blast with it, but we're also in the middle of watching Tulsa King.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, so good. I want to go to a Never mind Tulsa, yeah, tulsa, I want to go to Tulsa one day.
Speaker 1:Now's a good time to ask our listeners for some favorite series that they watch while they're on the road.
Speaker 4:That's an excellent question, Eric. You should pose that.
Speaker 1:Listeners post in the comments some of your popular series that you watch on the road TV series, yeah.
Speaker 2:Not movies. We're not interested in James Bond or Star Wars or Mission Impossible. Lord of the Rings Lord of the Rings is a great way to kill an entire weekend, entire week.
Speaker 4:I went to get a beard trim on saturday and while your hair grows fast they were, they were talking, they had they play a bit a movie or something. He's like oh, we're playing lord of the rings again. I think that was on the last time you came in here.
Speaker 2:Yep, it was it hasn't ended yet. That's the thing it hasn't, it's not a repeat. It's not a repeat it's the extended director's cut extra edition yeah, what's the criterion?
Speaker 4:or something edition?
Speaker 2:yeah crazy, I love that crazy my sister is a huge Lord of the Rings nut. I never I hated Lord of the Rings. Remember the old cartoon, the Hobbit. I remember being forced to watch that and hating every minute of it, but we had popcorn, so you watch it.
Speaker 4:She used to talk to me about Lord of the Rings in the van. We were going somewhere or something, and then I told her I didn't know anything about it and now my eyes just glaze over. So she stopped talking to me about it While you're driving, yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:That's why she quit driving. She's like, if I talk about this, we're going to come crash.
Speaker 2:No, I used to like hated it, so I didn't go see the new Lord of the Rings. But when the second Lord of the Rings came out, I was working in a movie theater. So I got us in for free, yeah, and I'm like, well, just trying to get away from the family. So a movie sounds good. So we went there and watched this and I was like holy cow, this is so good. And then we went home and we watched the first one on DVD, two DVDs.
Speaker 5:Because it wouldn't all fit on one. I remember when Titanic was on two VHSs.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, we had that. Yeah, we had that Wow, titanic. Melissa probably still has it.
Speaker 3:Two VHSs.
Speaker 2:Now hot take. Could Jack have made it on the door?
Speaker 5:Yes, yes Would that have been a great movie. No, yes, it would have. It would have been a great movie.
Speaker 2:No, yes, it would have. No, it would have made a great movie Because her other husband made it. So then they could have been hiding together on the Lusitania. They could be talking about how they built this incredible life for them in America.
Speaker 5:I just wanted to hit her upside the head whenever she threw that thing over the back of the boat. I just wanted to be like what are you thinking?
Speaker 2:So you believe in elderly abuse?
Speaker 5:Absolutely. In that case, all day long Please don't hit Vince.
Speaker 1:She shouldn't have thrown the I'm not throwing anything. I'm not throwing anything.
Speaker 2:She could have pawned it. I mean just straight up pawned it.
Speaker 3:She could have fenced it or all those things. I don't know. We're watching Castle right now. I was going to say fencing.
Speaker 2:Really that's interesting.
Speaker 3:Do a lot of thefts, need a lot of fencers?
Speaker 2:I don't know. We watched.
Speaker 3:Castle last night Fix me on the insfe.
Speaker 2:This is recorded. I do need to remind you we're watching.
Speaker 3:Castle Vince has not seen it. We started it and last night's episode was about the elite in New York wearing fancy jewelry and how it was getting stolen and then fenced.
Speaker 1:I'm like where do you?
Speaker 2:even find a fence, I fall asleep on that one Possibly. Probably Was it on longer than 10 minutes.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, after 8 o'clock yes, yes, can I say this o'clock yes?
Speaker 2:Yes, can I say. This past week I watched something I haven't watched in a while. I've kind of lost interest, but my boy, my ginger from another mother, was hosting, so I really wanted to see it.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 2:It was the Oscars.
Speaker 4:The Oscars yeah.
Speaker 2:With my good friend Conan O'Brien. It was so good, so good, I know, so good. You hear so many people talking about I didn't watch the Oscars Bunch of crap I ain't never heard of and whatever. Yada, yada. It was so funny. It was. There was one one segment that was political. Nothing else was One segment that was political, nothing else was, and the movies that they highlighted were actually really good box office Very inclusive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very good box office, Nice movies and stuff, not the usual. Like you watch and you're like, oh, there's 10 films I've never heard of. These were really big name movies and it was a really fun night of watching the Oscars. I really enjoyed it. Knew who all the actors were Like, it was really cool to watch. It's not always that way, Sure.
Speaker 4:What channel did you watch?
Speaker 2:What services did you watch? So we watched it on Hulu. Hulu, which means we watched 97% of the Oscars. And do you know why I say that?
Speaker 4:Because it went over and Hulu cut it off.
Speaker 2:Yes, I got to see the best actor, which was Adrian Brody. He's the one. If you know who he is, you know his face here. It is right here. He's a good looking guy. Yeah, as guys go.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:He was actually he did the Pianist. I don't know if you ever saw that Roman Plansky movie. He did King Kong, which is where I knew him from. That's the good Peter Jackson, king Kong with.
Speaker 1:Jack.
Speaker 2:Black.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And he's done quite a few other movies. He did Midnight in Paris. He didnight in Paris, he did. That's yeah.
Speaker 3:It's like a rom-com.
Speaker 2:It is kind of Grand Budapest Hotel he did. He's been in a bunch of stuff Predators. He's been in Asteroid City, which came out last year it was great. And he's in this new movie, the Brutalist. And he's in this new movie the brutalist and, uh, he won best actor and it was like it's pretty exciting to see like, hey, I know this person.
Speaker 5:They're a really, really good actor uh and uh.
Speaker 2:So we're like all right up next is the best actress of the year and won't stop hulu's. Hulu puts the screen up on there saying your show has now ended. Please go to the menu and select other shows to watch or whatever. And I was like are you kidding me? Oh man.
Speaker 1:Adrian Brody did break the record for longest ever Oscar speech. His speech was five minutes and 40 seconds. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 2:That's why it cut off. What can? His speech was five minutes and 40 seconds. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 3:That's why it cut off.
Speaker 2:What can you talk about for five minutes?
Speaker 4:I don't know, but we've been talking for the last hour. We have not you have not I have, that's true. I mean, that's preaching. Sometimes you do monologue.
Speaker 2:Well.
Speaker 3:I try Imagine if you're Best Actress and you go home and re-watch it so after best actor they must have had best actress and then best movie.
Speaker 2:And then best film or the year or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:So, you missed two.
Speaker 2:So I missed those two. So now I'm like searching through and I'm like maybe Hulu will get it back up. They never did and it was. Yeah, it sucks. So I had a five and a half minute long speech because I didn't get to see it. Wow, yeah, it was.
Speaker 3:So Conan did a good job.
Speaker 2:Conan did a great job. He was very funny. He was talking about how he's going to rush things along and we're not going to go long this year, which he screwed up. But to really drive home the point that he's not going to go long, he did like a four-minute long musical dance about how we're not going to waste people's time.
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 2:Just ridiculous stuff they brought. Are you all familiar with Dune? Have you seen the movie Dune or do you know the concept?
Speaker 5:of it.
Speaker 2:They have these sandworms which really remind me a lot of Tremors.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:In the movie, and so they brought a sandworm out and he played the harp At one point. They brought a sandworm out later and he did a dance on stage. It was just. If you are familiar with Conan O'Brien, his late night show, the Tonight Show with him he's ridiculous, I think, would be the word I would look for You're familiar with Conan O'Brien's humor.
Speaker 5:No.
Speaker 2:Early 90s or late 90s, just ridiculous outlandish.
Speaker 3:Outlandish is a good word. Dumb and dumber.
Speaker 2:Over the top Crazy humor, and that's exactly how he did the Oscars. It was.
Speaker 1:He did a great job as hysterical sort of, in a way, making fun of making fun of the oscars, but at the same time holding it somewhat reverent but the same time kicking it down the stairs but at the same time gracefully guy hand helping hand, I mean.
Speaker 2:Like it mean, it was very interesting. They did a great job. I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun Nice, and I hope they bring them back for next year because it was really entertaining. And a lot of years it's not A lot of years you're like, oh God, this is going to end.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I thought Billy Crystal did it right At some point Back in the day.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Billy Crystal did it right At some point Back in the day. Yeah, Billy's done it before.
Speaker 3:Maybe I think he was pretty funny. If I remember, that's been a hot moment ago.
Speaker 2:I love, I still think of I think it was the Golden Globes, but Ricky Gervais, when he was just so brutal. So like, come up here, thank your God, get off the stage. We don't want. Thank your God, get off the stage, don't. We don't want to hear your politics, we don't want to hear your beliefs. I mean, like it was just beautiful. It was the last year he hosted, shocking, but it was great. And the whole night he's like talking about Apple and what great, wonderful thing they're doing while they have child labor in sweatshops in China making their phone. Like he just went through every little. Now I will say this After that, they switched their production effort to Taiwan.
Speaker 4:And where else do they make iPhones? They're still producing iPhones in China, but they're also making them in Taiwan, india and Brazil. But there are other reasons why they're making phones in those two areas, sure, sure, sure.
Speaker 2:I don't think it was because Ricky Gervais made those comments, but it is an interesting coincidence.
Speaker 3:My phone could have came from Brazil. That's pretty cool, could?
Speaker 4:be? No, probably not. Generally speaking, the phones are made in Brazil. Never mind, yeah, you wouldn't get it because they speak Portuguese well, how exciting yes, yes, it was a really fun night.
Speaker 2:I enjoyed it a lot. I enjoyed it a lot. Well, I guess this brings us to the point where we say if you have any comments, so long farewell, auf wiedersehen.
Speaker 4:No sorry, I thought we were doing them the sound of Music exit. I got confused. I do the Sound of Music in the live theater twice a week during the week.
Speaker 2:Oh, the Columbus Little Theater. Yeah, I heard you do an amazing job with that song from Frozen.
Speaker 4:I do, it's an amazing job with that song from Frozen? I do, I do. Yeah, it's an amazing song. It's a little out of my range, but if I exercise I can get there.
Speaker 2:Well, I was told that's why you wear the leotard.
Speaker 4:It helps you get those high notes, it helps bring the air. Yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, it's really coming from your stomach.
Speaker 4:You have to sing from your stomach. No, it's coming from your diaphragm.
Speaker 2:You sing from your diaphragm and use your diaphragm. I get that, but when I was in Bay End to simplify it and double it down, for us middle schoolers.
Speaker 4:They would say your stomach, but it was really your diaphragm.
Speaker 2:Louisiana folks Jerry how can you find us?
Speaker 1:Well, so Apparently down a rabbit hole now.
Speaker 4:This is the point, Well so apparently down a rabbit hole. Now this is the point. You can email us at the outer belt podcast at gmailcom.
Speaker 3:Yes, Jerry, you throw your voice well.
Speaker 5:Or visit us at highfieldtruckingcom, or call us at 833-493-4353.
Speaker 3:That's 833 Highfield.
Speaker 2:Option 1. And if you have any comments and you'd like to hear something that we, you'd like to see something on the show that we could talk about or give us anything, that's pretty much it. No, if you want to comment on the show, tell you how much you like it, how much you hate it, things we could do better talk about, how much you miss zucchini bread. Certainly, drop us a comment, shoot us a message. Like they said, an email.
Speaker 2:If you're interested in working with Highfield, you could reach out to us on the website. There's a contact us form on there. You can call us at the phone number we listed before, which is 833-HIGHFIELD or 833-.
Speaker 3:Highfield 493-4353, option one.
Speaker 2:And you'd get a chance to speak to either Delina or Melissa, our excellent recruiters. If you want to chat with us, we have a chat box on the website. You can reach out to us there Lots of ways to get a hold of us. I do want to address real quick Mr J. I did see your comment and we are actually working on getting back to that. I'm going to be perfectly honest and say that we talked about a great many things and we did not do a good job of keeping notes.
Speaker 4:We didn't, we didn't document it.
Speaker 2:We've talked about so much. We're like we want to talk about this. Have we talked about this already?
Speaker 5:I don't remember.
Speaker 2:So we have a research in progress and hopefully next week we are going to bring you some more exciting history of Highfield how we do it, why we do it, how we built it, et cetera. So that's coming. It should be next week. If it's not, it's not my fault. It's coming, Jay.
Speaker 3:I want to know if Truckin' Crochet ended up watching Quick Change after the last podcast.
Speaker 2:I love that song. Time for a quick change no wrong movie.
Speaker 3:Quick Change with Bill Murray and Gina Davis. No, I want to know if they watched it though. They left a comment and were wondering what the movie was. It's one of my favorites. It's very funny, very 80s-esque, so you have to put your brain in Top Gun mode Put your brain in the 80s-esque. It's good.
Speaker 4:Interesting. It is available on Amazon Prime Video if you are a Prime member, and also on YouTube TV if you subscribe to YouTube TV and a couple places you can rent it also. Yes, it's an older movie, so it's not necessarily wide availability.
Speaker 2:Is there anything we need to worry about, like the Delta pilots that watched Top Gun before they left Minneapolis? Anything we need to?
Speaker 3:worry about there. No.
Speaker 2:No, okay, quick change, quick change, jerry. Final thoughts.
Speaker 5:Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Make sure you hit the thumbs up button. That's all you have, yeah. Well, in the meantime, everybody stay safe, make good decisions, don't leave money on the table and keep those wheels of turn them.
Speaker 3:Good night.
Speaker 1:Bye leave money on the table and keep those wills atonement. Good night bye. Thank you.