New Shop, New Era

A storage unit can only take you so far. We finally planted roots with a real two-bay shop—and the difference is immediate: safer turnarounds, faster service, organized parts, and a driver lounge built for actual rest. We break down the search in a booming Columbus market, why so many “perfect” buildings failed the test, and how we ended up with the right mix of space, power, and potential to scale our Tech Ops the way drivers deserve.

Inside, we tour the upgrades that matter most. Heavy-duty pallet shelving for clean inventory. A real steel workbench for vice-and-hammer fixes. An 80-gallon compressor and manifold plan so impact tools replace dead batteries and slow hands. And the big one: solving tire pressure right at the shop, turning dangerous 80s on steers into safe 120s before anyone hits the road. Safety isn’t a slogan when you cut the risk of blowouts and wasted miles just by having the right gear in the right place.

We also made the space livable. Fast T-Mobile business internet to power iPads, updates, and calls. An 86-inch TV for sports in 4K. Laundry, coffee, tea, and clean water so downtime feels like downtime. The goal is simple: reduce friction for drivers while we do the work—swap a microwave, replace dock bumpers, or prep a truck for its next team. Plus, we’re gearing up for community: weekend cookouts, casual meetups, and a place where road stories meet good food. Speaking of food, we detour through Louisiana staples, low-glycemic Parish Rice, and a spirited fried chicken debate, because culture and community fuel the work just as much as tools and torque.

Want more of this behind-the-scenes journey as we build? Tap follow, leave a quick review, and share the show with a driver who’d appreciate a smarter shop and a warmer lounge. Your support helps more people find us—and helps us keep leveling up for you.

Email us: theouterbeltpodcast@gmail.com
Website: www.hyfieldtrucking.com
Interested in joining our team? Email us at info.hyfieldtrucking.com we have open trucks! You must be part of a team. No solo drivers.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Outer Bell. This is the last episode of 2025. As you as always, I am here with my co-host, my good friends, my cohorts, my enemies in crime, my frenemies in crime. We don't do crime.

SPEAKER_04 0:27

Not as a team, no. Not as a team. No, no, no. Individually.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Listen.

SPEAKER_04 0:33

I'm more of a lone wolf.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yeah, well, you know, the speed limit's 50. I do 52. I'm not gonna say okay, whatever. So, anyways, uh speaking of which, uh, you are chilly. And buttermilk. And Eric. Thank you. And that's all of us.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

So uh uh, you are? Jerry, I was waiting to see if I got an and. Well, I I've never done the and before.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

The and's new.

SPEAKER_06 1:02

Well, they came pretty quick over there, and then you started to get this side of the remote. I got fatigued.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

It's a lot of how many and's can you say before you're a little tired? And it's a lot, because when you say and, it comes from like a, you know, that like one, two, three, we'll say it together. One, two, three, and you feel it? It's like it's it's in there. Yeah, you gotta like, it's just a lot. Anyways, so um riveting television. That's what we do here. Riveting. So is it television or radio? What are we? Both. Okay, so we are, are we? We hope that you're listening to us. Absolutely. So we're taking it. If you're on the RCA Victor.

SPEAKER_08 1:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

I'm not sure what that would be. What?

SPEAKER_08 1:47

We're not on record, we're not cutting records over there.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

But RCA Victors, didn't they have an AM radio built in?

SPEAKER_08 1:53

Oh, way beyond, unless that's what I've got at home.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Well I okay, if you know, uh if you're if you're like screaming at your at the top of your lungs, like, yes, of course they or no, they didn't. I think that RCA Victor had an AM radio built in because that's why they did the RCA building in in in in in uh New York City and everything, which of course is um Rockefeller Center. Rockefeller Center. So I mean I get it. I don't know.

SPEAKER_08 2:23

Wait, beyond uh my years on Earth here.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Yeah, but Vince, you would uh remember from like when your parents would talk about it.

SPEAKER_04 2:33

Yes, I would.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Y'all got signal all the way in Los Angeles from the RCA building in New York City, correct?

SPEAKER_04 2:40

Yeah. Yeah. It was impressive. It was uh long band radio. Just the the antennas just right and bounced it off the clouds and yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

It was amazing. And you had to hold the bunny ears?

SPEAKER_04 2:53

Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Which okay, which ones were the bunny ears? Were they the like the the one that looked like a bow tie?

SPEAKER_04 2:58

No, no, they were the look like bunny ears.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Like this with okay, I remember those. Do you remember the one that looked like a bow tie on it too? What was that? Like a UHF or Yeah, it was something else.

SPEAKER_06 3:10

It was something else. And maybe like the circular one.

SPEAKER_04 3:12

But I can tell you I think the circular one was a UHF. Okay. I think.

SPEAKER_06 3:18

We didn't have a bow tie one, so that might have been, you know, higher class or something. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

I like the new ones that do over the digital. They're like a little flat piece of plastic and they pick in uh pick up uh HD television perfectly from the local stations.

SPEAKER_06 3:33

Really?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Oh, they're great.

SPEAKER_06 3:35

Um do you do you want to know?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

I do want to know.

SPEAKER_06 3:38

RCA Victor Radio.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 3:41

Classic vintage radio made by the famous American Electronics Company. AM shortwave.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Thank you. Ooh, shortwave. So you would not well, I mean you might have if you would have got the clouds if they're just perfect.

SPEAKER_06 3:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

That's before you.

SPEAKER_04 3:56

By a couple years. But what about your your folks? No. My folks were around.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 4:00

I have a churn table. Piece of furniture. It was my grandma's.

SPEAKER_04 4:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 4:04

And it's kind of like a nightstand size. I don't know how to do that. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes. And it has um a um FM churn dial with a long bar. Totally reminds me of the old school. But anyways, um, but it's AMFM, and I don't know if it's an RC. I've done research on it. It's been years ago. I couldn't remember now what it is without looking at it. But it it needs a new speaker, but it still plays records and you can still tune in the radio with it and everything. It's pretty cool if you want to be nostalgic on a night.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

What about H-Track?

SPEAKER_08 4:41

It is not I mean This was pre-H RAC.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yes. Okay. So my my parents, uh, the one I grew up with, my parents is it wasn't a console, it was a um tabletop shelf mount. I don't know what you call it. It fit in the entertainment center. Remember those? Okay. The wall unit, I believe, uh, some might call it. And it was beautiful silver, plastic silver, uh, double tape deck, eight-track player, AMFM radio, and of course the turntable on top. Yeah. And that was the high-end brand uh JC Penny. Not to brag. Um, older than like late 80s, maybe.

SPEAKER_05 5:20

Yeah, definitely. I think it was definitely.

SPEAKER_08 5:23

This piece is older than that. This is probably circa 50s. Yeah, easily. Easily.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

It's older than the late 80s because they had it in pictures where my sister was alive and I was not. So it had to have been early 80s. Yeah, it had to have been early 80s. Nice. But um, yeah, man. I was thinking about the the other day uh uh because we love to get on tangents. I um I remember when I was a kid, like looking at the um Sears catalog and JCPenney uh uh Christmas catalog, they had electronics in there.

SPEAKER_08 5:54

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

And you remember the like the old rack systems they used to sell? And it was like um, you know, three or four pieces, and then they had the two giant floor standing speakers that went with them. Yeah. And it was like a one-piece deal, but you bought it from Sony, and it came with the the like the actual piece of furniture and everything.

SPEAKER_04 6:12

Right, and then usually had a turntable on top.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

I was gonna say turntable on it.

SPEAKER_04 6:15

And then I had the glass door because you could store your your records, your your records on the bottom.

SPEAKER_06 6:21

Yeah, see, I had the the turntable radio and double cassette, so you could actually record from one cassette to another cassette. Yeah.

Holiday Recaps And Louisiana Food

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Melissa had uh my sister, she had the um turntable on top, and right below it was a lie, I think it was a five-disc CD changer. Remember the platter, it's like spun around in a circle, and uh then below that was AMFM radio, and uh then it had the the two tape decks. But what hers was really fancy subwoofer, and it had the input so you could hook it up to your TV, and that could be your like stereo for like you could have your TV run through there.

SPEAKER_05 7:06

Cool. She was telling me the other day she's still making payments on that thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Of course, yeah. You know what's crazy about it is my mom and dad bought it, and the fact that they saddled her with payments on it back then, but uh, you know, Aaron's they they get their money. They get their money. They are not they're not screwing around. They're like no, they're not we are doing it. So um, no, I how was y'all's Christmas? I uh I had a really uh laid back Christmas. I'm curious how how yours was.

SPEAKER_08 7:34

We had family in town.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_08 7:36

I do believe it was um we would consider it still laid back. Yeah, played some new card games.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 7:44

Ate some good food.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

I agree. I uh uh thank y'all for inviting me over and letting me hang out. That was a lot of fun too. Yeah. Um Eric had to go down to Louisiana. How was that? Sam as every year.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Got to enjoy my rice dressing without liver.

SPEAKER_04 7:58

That just no snow this year, though, right? I mean, you had snow last year, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 8:04

That was once in a lifetime. Yeah. I remember that picture you sent us. If that happens again, the Earth's going in a direction.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Did we see that? Did we show that picture last year on the outer belt? I don't know if we did anything. I think we did where he was landing. Oh, when he's landing, it looked like Minneapolis. It goes crazy.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Snow in New Orleans. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:26

I missed having Eric here for Christmas time, but I love that when he goes down there, he brings back Boudin for us.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yes. Love it. Well, and and the rice. I mean, so uh they've got this rice coming out of Louisiana that is uh uh uh a scientific miracle. It's probably gonna result in uh zombies. Possibly, uh, but it's so it's sugar-free rice. How does that work?

SPEAKER_04 8:56

It's a low carb, low glycemic index, or like rice. So it's not sugar-free, but it doesn't spike your blood sugar like traditional rice does. And it's not a fancy, like wild rice, it's a true rice grain.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Like a white jasmine rice, basic, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:15

But it's been modified somehow to make it have a low glycemic index.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

It's really good. Uh, I made uh for the first time in my life, I made crawfish etuffet uh a couple days ago. It it came out pretty good, but we we served it over over that rice, and I was like, well, it just tastes like regular rice.

SPEAKER_08 9:32

It's really good rice.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Yeah. Which is a compliment because I I've been using, I think y'all have too, the cauliflower rice. And it's like it does in a pinch, but it is not the same.

SPEAKER_08 9:43

It's not really not the same, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

And it gets old quick.

SPEAKER_08 9:46

It does if it's not tacky, sticky, yeah. That textural chew like a rice has.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Sure.

SPEAKER_08 9:55

I mean, yeah. Like you said, it will work in a pinch if you're being on the healthier side.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

And I'll do it. There's a company out of uh out of Louisiana called uh Chef John Folse. Well, there's a chef down there called Chef John Foles, but he is a company that makes uh frozen um dinners. I don't know if that's the right word. So uh what he does is he'll make like a gumbo, and then they will portion it in bags and then uh put it in a little tub and then freeze it.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

And all you have to do is without rice.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Yeah, it's without rice or anything. So what you do is you bring it home, throw it in a boiling pot of water, half an hour later, you've got really good gumbo. I think y'all have had it before. I don't recall. It's it's really it's good. Um, but you have to add your own rice or whatever on it. And we were doing that with cauliflower rice, and what I was noticing is you do get that cauliflower flavor comes through. And cauliflower's not like super flavorful, which is why it's so sure you can do so much with it. But it does bleed through, especially when you have a dish that goes over rice. Right. And um, it's cool that we have this now, this this miracle rice that lets you uh uh do it. But the downside is it's only available in the South. You can only get in like Louisiana, Mississippi, or Chicago. Really? Yes. Those are your options. So and Chicago, I mean it's not that far. It's what five hours from here, six hours from here, but that's a long way to go for rice.

SPEAKER_07 11:18

Maybe they ship how far is it to Louisiana?

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Well, I mean I hear what you're saying.

SPEAKER_04 11:26

Well, we're talking about Louisiana though. Right.

SPEAKER_06 11:28

I mean I mean, there's a reason, more of a reason to go there than Chicago. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Yes. Yeah. Uh it's actually called Parish Rice out of uh Eunice, Louisiana. Um the name is unique because in Louisiana, instead of having counties, they have parishes, which comes from a Catholic church history. Yep. So it's a very unique name for say Louisiana.

Low-Glycemic “Parish Rice” And Sourcing

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Yes. South Louisiana is very uh Catholic. And um it's it's really good stuff. If you're if you like, if you're driving a truck and you get through Louisiana, pop into a local Walmart. Rouse's it's wait, does Walmart have it? I think they do. I think Walmart sells it. I know Rouse's does. Um Rouse's is a local uh store. The cool thing about going to a Rouse's if you're in the South Louisiana is you can pick up uh some parrish rice. They had all day long. You can pick up uh fresh boudin. Now it's not cooked. You gotta take it home and throw it in a skillet or something. Sure. Probably not on a grill if you're on a truck. Well, uh, some people have traggers on the truck. Um you gotta cook it a little bit. But um they have a lot of those like real Cajun staples. Uh and if you get the freezer section, check out the uh the Chef John Foles section. Uh, because I know Russell's curious his stuff. He's got like uh crawfish uh etuffet, he's got uh shrimp seafood gumbo, he's got um he's got so much stuff. Uh chicken and sausage gumbo, which it's unbelievably delicious. His his uh chicken and sausage gumbo is so good that I'm like, why do I need to learn to make a gumbo? Honestly, it's so good. It's like I will never make something better than this. Right. And it's fro I have a freezer, so I I went down to Louisiana recently, uh, and when I went down there, I picked up several bags of parish rice, and I picked up uh a couple coolers and filled them full of chicken and sausage gumbo from Chef John Folse and got them back up here to Ohio and stuck them in a freezer because it's that good. And I'm like, I I it gumbo, I'd love to be able to make gumbo and and and know that I just I was never taught that as a kid, I'd so I'd never have made one, but there's not a chance I'll be able to make one better than that.

SPEAKER_08 13:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

So what's the point? Yeah. It's like, are you gonna try to make a McDonald's cheeseburger? Probably a double cheeseburger? Oh but they got it figured out, right? The the mini onions? That's not your thing. Okay, I can see it. But still, what's the one thing in your life that you're like, I'm not gonna learn how to make because they do it so good?

SPEAKER_01 14:07

I'm looking at the map where it's available in um majority central south uh sorry, Rust Belt. It's not available to you.

SPEAKER_04 14:17

It's available on Amazon, actually. Is it?

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Yeah, I saw that too. Is it expensive?

SPEAKER_04 14:22

I don't know how much regular rice is, honestly. I think regular rice is fifteen dollars.

SPEAKER_08 14:28

That's not bad.

SPEAKER_04 14:28

Uh five-pound bag for twenty-four dollars.

SPEAKER_08 14:32

For your health, I mean Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah, for the ability to eat rice.

SPEAKER_06 14:36

Like you're eating it all the time. Well, so what was the size bag that you brought back? Was it two pound or five pound?

SPEAKER_01 14:43

I believe it was five pounds. I believe it was five pounds.

SPEAKER_06 14:45

I got the big one, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 14:47

So then twenty something.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

I remember when I was in Rouse's, I called Eric and I was like, hey, I'm I'm picking up this rice. How much should I get in what size? And he's like, uh a couple bags, smallest one they make, and I'm like, okay, hug at the phone and got several bags of the biggest one they made.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah, thinking back, as often as we get down there, you should get as much as you can. Stock up.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

And rice lasts for I mean, if it's sealed. Yeah, I mean, you throw it in salt to keep the salt dry. Like, you know what I mean? It it does last for a long, long time. But um, good stuff. If you're down to Louisiana, uh tr go to Rouse's, get you some of that, uh, and just look around the other the rest of the store. It's they have everything in Louisiana. It's very cool store. I'm a big fan of Rouse's stuff.

SPEAKER_08 15:32

We've done a lot of things. I mean, because you gifted us a bag. We've done soy sauce on it and uh butter. Some are just doing just regular butter. We've done um like uh a gravy over it for like Salisbury steak or Swiss steak or what is it? Stroganoff, just middle European steak. But I mean, and it it it holds well for all of it. Following the directions for your pan when you find the pan and for the specific burner, that's a big game changer for us. Like because I think if you use a different size pan or move it to a different burner on in our house, I think it might adjust time. But I've got it like perfectly timed with following the directions on the bag.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

So here's what I noticed. Um, when I was making the uh HFA the other day, and a zucchini bread you were over while I was making it and you got to partake at the craft ATF, um, I was actually commenting, I'm like, you know, I'd really like a rice cooker as much as I like it, which isn't very often, but I still do enough rice that I'm like, a rice cooker would be nice. If you don't know what a rice cooker is, I mean you put a scoop of rice in, you put two parts water, you close the lid, you press a button, and you have perfect rice every time. Most people in South Louisiana have it. Uh when we were in Japan, everyone had one.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

It also keeps it warm after it's done cooking. Yes. So you're not in a rush to hurry up and get it out after it's done.

The Big Reveal: Finding A Real Shop

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Absolutely. It doesn't burn, it doesn't stick. It's a miracle of science. It's not a Teflon pan. They've figured it out somehow. I don't know. It's witchcraft. Uh, but I was I was lamenting how I'm like, oh, I wish I had this. Then I made the rice, and not a single burnt, not one burnt stuck to the pan piece of rice. It came out nice. It wasn't al dente, because a lot of times I cook rice and it becomes like, oh, it's a little too al dente for me or whatever. It was dead on. I'm like, and all I did was follow the instructions. Oh, you know what I did differently this time? Because you and I were talking about it, uh, a zucchini bread, was in the instructions it actually said add a little butter or oil. Yep. And I've never done that before. Did you do it this time? And I did it this time, perfect.

SPEAKER_08 17:41

I switch it up with my fat source. Sometimes I'll do ghee, sometimes I'll do butter with a little bit of back bacon fat left over from a breakfast that I saved. Yeah. And I did a little dollop of fat. So just as some sort of a a fat, I guess. And um and I don't do the salt because if because it does call for salt. It does. It does say optional. It's the only thing on there that says optional.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

It is a teaspoon.

SPEAKER_08 18:03

But I'm like, if you're gonna add soy sauce to it or something else, then maybe no, no salt.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

I agree with that. We uh when I made mine, um the uh an out uh A2FA already has butter, it's very rich, so I just did a little bit of uh olive oil.

SPEAKER_08 18:20

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

I wanted to keep it kind of light. So no, it was uh it was a fun time. So um Heather, did you do anything fun for uh Christmas?

SPEAKER_06 18:32

Um not a lot. No, I kind of hung out with uh Blyson, Vincent family. Cool. Just chilled.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Yeah, yeah. It's always fun hanging out. I mean, like you got a great kid, it's fun hanging out with all y'all. It's you know and he's got a fun car, so I'm hoping it's always fun.

SPEAKER_08 18:55

Hope and travel both both there and back.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Yep. Uh Jerry, so right now you are in Minneapolis. No, you're not. You're in Detroit? Yeah, Detroit. You're in Detroit.

SPEAKER_06 19:08

No. Try again.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Where are you?

SPEAKER_02 19:12

Alpina.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Can I come again?

SPEAKER_02 19:14

Alpina.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Is that Uber?

SPEAKER_02 19:17

Nope. It's almost, but it's before you cross.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Okay. Where? Uber. You know, you upper peninsula of um Michigan.

SPEAKER_08 19:27

Got it.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Uh How would y'all's Christmas? Everything fun? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Cool.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Oh, I got to see his family. Yeah. He doesn't get to do that too often, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Well, occasionally they drive through, but it's been a while. His sister drive through, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:46

Sh well she lives here? No, but she only lives a couple hours away in um southern Michigan. Uh but his because here in Columbus, we're actually about halfway. My mom is nine hours and His family is eight hours.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Okay. I was just about to ask you how far because I remember when you were living down Tennessee, you all uh flew to um Alpina. And I was gonna ask you, is it fly worthy now or not really?

SPEAKER_02 20:15

Delta is the only one that went into Alpina. They are literally the only terminal whenever you go to the so they're the most economical. But the problem is, is um the last time we were there, they quit flying there. Oh Alpina built a brand new airport. Wow only has two terminals, only one was being used, and it was Delta. Um, but yeah, now Delta doesn't go there at all, and nobody flies there. So I don't know what is going on with Alpina.

SPEAKER_07 20:45

How close can you get? How close can you get?

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Uh I mean there's other places we could probably fly in within like a two, three hour drive, but to fly right into Alpina is crazy. Like they built a brand new regional airport and everything, and now it's not being used.

Touring The Space And Capabilities

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Right? If only you knew some of the oh, it's licensed. So um uh when you flew to Alpina, were you on a like a CRJ 200? That's that's the one has no first class, it's just all economy. Yes. So Delta stopped flying those. I wonder if that's when they cut a Pina. Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

I'm surprised. Uh I would be interested to see if they pick it back up at any point in time because they were the only ones utilizing it. How full were the uh flights? Oh, it was packed. Like when we went that one year, I I there probably wasn't even one or two empty seats.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_08 21:45

Hmm Horizon won't fly those smaller legs? That's what are they part? They're part of Alaska.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

That's Alaska, like uh Delta Connection. So Skywest or one of those guys.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Like what Portland uh Medford or Salt Lake City to Medford, those are all those little teeny planes because I have um you know, on the Delta card, I have a free flight that I'm trying to use before the end of the year before it expires, and I was looking for this purpose, and yeah, they don't fly there anymore.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Is it December 31st or January 31st if you use a buy?

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Uh December 31st.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Where are you going?

SPEAKER_02 22:23

I have no idea.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Anybody got any suggestions? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Cuba.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Quick, we need a truck for him to go pick up.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

I was gonna say, go fly out to see uh go fly out to Charlotte, see your boy. Does he live in Charlotte? Where does he live?

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Silva?

SPEAKER_00 22:41

He lives in Silva.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

I don't know who you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Michael.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

Michael Silva.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Your friend. What? Yeah, can't imagine living there.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

So um either. I tell my mom what she's like, you're not gonna ever come back here. I'm like, well, whenever you die and go, I'll come back. Maybe this will be the place I retire.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

No. So uh I can't imagine. You come back and pack the house up.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

So uh I can't imagine going back to it's actually grown. It's not a small little town anymore. Like, you know, you have the university there, and they're actually going through a whole restructuring of downtown right now, like tons of businesses. I guess it's been there since we moved there uh back in the mid-80s. That it's only been a two-lane road all the way through downtown, and now they're widen it to make like a turner lane in the center and two lanes on each side, so four lanes and a turn signal, so five lanes total. They had a bunch of businesses that they bought out and made them relocate, and like they're going through a whole restructuring right now.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

There's nothing like buying out a bunch of businesses that are thriving, it's crazy, shutting them down, building a road, and then the businesses the road are there to support, you bought out and got rid of.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

It's crazy because like a brand new Duncan came in, only been there like four or five months, and then they told them they were like, Yeah, you gotta tear it down.

SPEAKER_09 24:10

They had that we're gonna wow.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

So now Duncan is completely the last time I was there for Thanksgiving, it's completely leveled, everything's gone, and they have relocated to the opposite side of town. Yeah, there's a lot of businesses that they've uh they're readjusting and moving around, and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

Well, it sounds fascinating. I can't wait till the day that we get invited to go hang out in Silva, but until then, uh never, never you would hate it.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

I would not hate it. Yeah, there's nothing there. I think you wouldn't have to be. You just got done. No, seriously, I think Melissa would probably fit in a little closer than anybody else, and the reason I say that is because you are from the country hick like me. You know what I mean? Like the only thing to do in Silva on a Friday night is ride around town, and although teenagers hang out at Walmart parking lot, that's all there is to do.

SPEAKER_06 25:02

I was gonna say we would my hometown. Yeah, we would take over and make something to do. That's that's what you got to do.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

We grew up in big cities. We don't know like that's not a clue. Plenty to do in the good old city of Baton Roach. But we had half a million people growing up. You had uh gazillion. Gazillion. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't go to the beach, but the beach. So did y'all do that? Like the beach? Yeah, like did y'all just like on a Thursday, like, hey, screw it, let's go to Santa Monica.

SPEAKER_04 25:30

No, I was too far. Well, it wasn't too far away, but I was south of Santa Monica. Oh. And traffic just we used to go to Dockwaller or Venice. Okay. Venice is up there by Santa Monica, but that was just easier to get to for us.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

I get it. The last time we Eric and I were down in uh Los Angeles, we uh went over to Venice and drove through the canals or whatever. Yeah, it's really cool. It's cool. Everything I've got a time. I've been told it's like super dangerous at night. I don't know if that's true or not, but like I drive through there. I'm like, I could live here. If it wasn't for the fact that a 600 square foot house was six million dollars.

SPEAKER_10 26:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

Um that part's a little it's a tricky one. I don't know how to get past that. What I don't understand, and maybe y'all can help me with this, is if you have a house on the beach and it's less than a thousand square foot. It's two, three, four, five million dollars. But if I can find a parking spot and put my 1982 Allegro bus motor home with siding falling off, I can stay there forever for free.

SPEAKER_06 26:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

How does that work?

SPEAKER_06 26:44

Because you're not connected to anything.

unknown 26:46

Oh, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

I want to bring my airstream down there and just set up shop.

SPEAKER_08 26:51

Really? Set up shop in an airstream? Yes. You might not have siding come morning.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

You're like, you're uh your aluminum's too valuable.

SPEAKER_08 27:01

That's right. You walk out and you're like, uh, what's all this insulation?

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Yeah, go from a big silver uh airstream to just a pink, fuzzy airstream.

SPEAKER_08 27:15

Or in the middle of the night, you're like, oh, this is different kind of air conditioning.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 27:20

And you walk down the beach and you see your all new art lighting.

SPEAKER_08 27:25

It's art now.

SPEAKER_06 27:27

Oh, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

It would end up looking like a subway car. I have no doubt about that. But um, no, I I I love that part of uh uh California. I really do. I I my whole problem with this, I couldn't afford it to live in that kind of you know what was the other beach you said?

SPEAKER_08 27:42

You said Venice, and what was the other one? Brickin Ridge?

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Docweiler. Yep. I gotta be careful not to get Santa Monica mixed up with Santa Barbara. Two completely different places.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Santa Barbara, that's where they did the uh the Flintstones, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:01

That's hell. A lot further north coast.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Sorry.

SPEAKER_06 28:06

Wasn't that a soap opera though, Santa Barbara? It was it was it should have been.

SPEAKER_08 28:11

I mean Cruise and Eve. That was the powerhouse for that.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Isn't there a famous zip cut over there?

SPEAKER_08 28:18

I know 210. That's Beverly Hills. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

That's where I want to be.

SPEAKER_08 28:24

Those houses must go for more than two to three million dollars for a thousand square foot.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Yeah, they're ridiculous. But they're at least you get a lot of house. Well, good. It sounds like everybody had a fun uh holiday. And uh y'all looking forward to New Year's? Have y'all made your New Year's resolution? All right. Are we too old for that?

SPEAKER_08 28:47

Yeah, just do them.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Yeah, just do it.

SPEAKER_08 28:49

If you want to make changes, why wait for a new year? Just do them.

unknown 28:53

Just do it.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

Well, I mean, depending on the changes, insurance deductibles do reset.

SPEAKER_08 28:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

I got a I got a thing in the mail, um, or my email. I have a two thing I have to take care of. And they were like, um, your your dental plan deductible or whatever is about to end. Do you want to use it? And I haven't used any at all this year.

SPEAKER_10 29:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

So I'm like, no, I'll wait till January, because I'm not wasting that deductible now. Like, well, tag it on next year just in case more stuff happens.

SPEAKER_08 29:30

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

I know how to play that insurance game.

SPEAKER_08 29:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Ugh. But and I don't really want to get too much tooth drilled, but it doesn't matter. We teased it out a little bit last episode, and uh I guess it's time we talk about it. Jerry, don't you agree?

SPEAKER_02 29:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

So let's talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 29:50

All right, let's talk.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Let's talk. Over the past six or seven years, uh, we have operated our ops division, and ops is kind of like our tech ops. It's where we get trucks prepped. When we buy brand new trucks, we get them prepped and ready for uh teams to move in, get a truck back, we go through and we clean it, we do all the services on it, we make sure everything that's broken on it gets fixed and ready for the next team, right? And um that is actually Vince's department. He heads that up. Um you're the head of TechOps. I am. Uh some of us call you master of Tech Ops.

SPEAKER_10 30:28

So MTO for short.

SPEAKER_00 30:32

Okay, MTO, yeah. We have been working out of a uh a rental storage place. And and we've been doing it for a while because when we first came here, we had like one or two trucks that we'd occasionally get back and have to do. But as we've grown the fleet and we've grown the number of trucks, uh, we were able to get more spots, and it was super easy. We moved to a giant uh storage unit there. Um and it and it really enabled us to grow uh modularly. But over the past couple years, we've really been like, you know what, and we need a shop. It's time for us to have uh roots and uh an actual shop and building where we can do stuff. And uh so a couple years ago, maybe two and a half years ago, something like that, I started really actively looking. We hired a realtor, we started going around looking for places. Let me tell you, it's tough. It's tough. Columbus is a thriving, growing city. I love it. It's a lot of fun. There's really cool restaurants, there's great uh lounges to go to, there's uh excellent entertainment. Um, but because it's growing so much, what they're doing is they're taking in the industrial land that you have to have to be able to put a shop on for a trucking company, and they're converting it into they're rezoning it into housing, they're rezoning it into other uh things, Amazon warehouses, distribution warehouses.

SPEAKER_08 31:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

And we're not able to find these uh garages that you typically find in other communities. And so we've been looking for them, and it's not been good. Vince, we've been to a dozen or so places, easily, and some that were really promising, yeah, only to find out by the time I put our offer in, they were gone. Um others that were like, oh man, it's great, it fits budget, it's gonna be wonderful. You get there and it's a dump. Like you remember that one place with the second story that was like the two different buildings.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

They were like almost scared to walk through the building.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

That was yeah, like would you look at it? And the uh in the realtor was like, Have you had a tetanus shot recently? I feel like that should be an indication of it.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

And uh I remember for that one, you couldn't even pull a truck directly in the parking lot, they'd have to go a block down. Yes. Oh, that was a nightmare, that was a nightmare entrance.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Yeah, it was a nightmare. It had potential. It did have potential.

SPEAKER_04 33:04

If you want to spend twice as much as you paid for it to upgrade it.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Yep, yep. If you had five, six, eight million dollars, yeah, it it and that maybe what happens because sometimes that does happen, right?

SPEAKER_09 33:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Um, but oof, uh uh it was not it was not the right place. But we uh through talking with some friends of ours that run shops and and such, we have finally finally found a uh home. I like the way you said that. And albeit temporarily. Oh. Because there are more good things coming. Give us 12 months. Uh but we have a home, and uh I am super thrilled about it. Uh we got a uh it's uh uh a pretty good sized garage. It's two two bay, right? Like it or uh two trucks, I think is what they call. Yeah, side by side, side by the side. Side by side, two trucks. It's uh we have a it's a two-story building. We have driver's uh lounge facilities that we're building out right now. Nice. Uh so when you hear this, if you're already a uh uh high filled uh uh driver, you're probably thinking like, cool, let's go tomorrow. Not yet. We're working on it. Uh you finally get an office.

SPEAKER_04 34:21

Yeah, which I'm probably gonna lose.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Why are you gonna lose it? Okay, you get a communal office.

SPEAKER_04 34:27

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, we had somewhere for the first time yesterday where we could actually go inside and sit and powwow that the the ops team could actually sit and have a conversation about what was going on. Yeah. And we didn't have to, you know, pre-start a truck and get it warmed up and then go and squeeze in. We actually had a space to go and sit and have a conversation. So that was that was nice. Yeah, that was real nice.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

It's pretty cool. Uh as far as like um it's I don't know how to describe it. How do we talk about it? So two car or two car, two truck uh garage. There's space on the north side that we're east side that we're going to. What are it doesn't mean what's directions? East side, uh, we're gonna put uh a wall of shelving, the big heavy, I call them Home Depot shelves. You know what I'm talking about? They're like the tall metal ones shelves. Pallet shelves. I never knew them as pallet shelves. I always call that is what they're called, but I always called them Home Depot shelves. They're the Why are you looking at me like I'm dumb? So for those of you listening to this and not watching, Vince is looking at me like I'm dumb.

SPEAKER_04 35:34

So You know, if you had never been inside a warehouse where they have pallets on shelves, okay. I would be like, okay, he's only ever seen them at Home Depot.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Well, I've been to warehouses where they have.

SPEAKER_04 35:50

It's like, huh. They must have got that idea from Home Depot.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

I yes, I believe so. Yeah. Or Lowe's.

SPEAKER_04 35:56

Orlos, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

Or menards, let's be fair.

SPEAKER_04 35:59

You save big money there.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Costco.

SPEAKER_04 36:01

Yeah. Okay.

Utilities, Internet, And Driver Lounge Plans

SPEAKER_00 36:02

Uh so uh we're gonna we're doing a whole wall of just that. And then um over to the left side of the garage, uh, we have a really nice um it's so weird. The things that you consider nice after you've been working long enough uh doing like not having tools. Yes. We have uh I believe they call it a workbench. Yeah. It's so funny. Again, this is all crazy stuff that like we should have had this years ago and we just haven't been able to get it. But it's like a nice thick piece of steel that we can like put a vice grip on, should we need? Uh or whatever. And I guess that would be a vice, not a vice grip. Vice, yeah. Yeah. I think of like uh steps that we have to sometimes get because they're bent and you have to take a hammer to them. You can actually use a work with it, yeah. Yes, I'm so excited. I don't know if you can tell.

SPEAKER_04 36:55

Um but we'll be able to pull a truck in and work on it inside, not out in the mud, or the snow, or the ice, or yeah, but it doesn't get real cold here. It doesn't get real cold, it gets very cold.

unknown 37:06

Very cold. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

Oh, if it doesn't get as cold as Minneapolis.

SPEAKER_04 37:09

No, it does not or or Baton Rouge during a snowstorm.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

In all fairness, Minneapolis was two and we were six. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:17

So Minneapolis one.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Yeah. Yeah. There's a a whole area in the back corner too where we're gonna have small parts and and um I'm looking forward to it. And then there's a a whole nother upstairs that's just what you call it long-term storage? Yeah. Yeah. You know, stuff that we have long-term storage. Stuff that we pull out once a year.

SPEAKER_04 37:34

Yeah, and then it goes back up for I'm excited at the prospect of having an air compressor.

unknown 37:40

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Okay, can we talk about air compressors?

unknown 37:44

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Can we just have a real moment with their compressors? This is real moment with high field. They are so expensive. I get it. I get it. So I remember going with my dad to uh the Father's Day sale at Harbor Freight? Uh yes. No, no. So okay, let me back up. I remember going to Harbor Freight with my dad and buying a$39 compressor and six months later going to Father's Day sale at Lowe's to buy an air compressor that lasts longer than six months. And um it was like$100 for an air compressor, and it had the two like uh they look like long propane. So you know the green propane tanks that you uh take for a cylinder, you take for a grill or whatever, buying a Walmart four-pack. Uh so they look like long versions of that, and then it had a little compressor on it, and it was like, oh my gosh, we have this really cool$100 DeWalt. It was yellow compressor for Father's Day sale. So now that I'm like, okay, well, we need a compressor, like a like a real shop compressor for the yard, right? We need to go buy buy one. We have uh so started looking at them. You need 220 volts to run these high powered ones, which we never had the old place. So the ones we're looking at, we're like, oh, they're not really that good. The reviews are mediocre, whatever. The new place is like, okay, cool, we can finally buy an air compressor. So the one we found that we're like, this is the minimum of what we need to do what we're doing. How much do you think it would be?$3,500.

SPEAKER_07 39:28

$3,250.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Eric. We love this game. Five. Five dollars. Five thousand dollars. Five thousand. Uh zucchini?

SPEAKER_06 39:38

Uh four thousand two hundred and fifty-one.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

And my man forty five hundred. All right, we have to go again. So uh are we all over?

SPEAKER_08 39:50

We were all over.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

Uh no, two thousand six hundred. I was ready to spend seven hundred bucks. Sure. Oh I had no clue. I thought Seven, eight hundred bucks, we're gonna buy a nice air compressor. It's gonna be amazing. Two thousand six hundred. I'm like okay. That's a real number. Like, yeah, whew.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Yeah. Comes with a warranty?

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Uh six months. I'm like harbor freight. Anyways.

SPEAKER_04 40:20

So uh but when I when I see numbers like I'm showing you here, so we did a VIR on a truck today. Um, and these are the air pressures on the truck coming in. Um we run our steer tires at 120 psi. Correct. This truck on the left side was at 86, and on the right side was at 84.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:41

You know, and then none none of the other tires, one tire got close to being where you want, one of the drive tires got close to being where we wanted at 98 psi. We want that one at 100. But we had another one that was at 62 PSI. So, you know, getting that road that this truck back on the road just to get air in the tires is a hazard.

Amenities: Laundry, Coffee, Water, And TV

SPEAKER_00 41:01

It is. You know, it is, it really is. And I mean, like, when you have tires that low, so where we where our old yard was to the place where we could get air wasn't very far. No. And the speed limit is like 30 miles an hour. Yeah, back roads. So you can kind of back road it and and make it happen and and you're fine. Um, but you if you got in the interstate, you'd really run the risk of a blowout. Really did. So um I remember uh I picked up a truck up in Memphis. We had a team. It was a weird situation. This was years ago. Uh I mean like eight eight, nine years ago, long time ago. And team got one of them got disqualified for a speeding ticket or whatever, like a super speeder ticket. So it's like it happens. Um we were able to they were a good team, they've been with us for a while. So we were able to actually help them pivot and go to a different carrier that uh we didn't work with, but we were friendly with, and so we were able to kind of help them get over there. They ended up not being able to bring the truck back to us. So I had a fly to Memphis, and when I got to Memphis and I picked up their truck, the steer tire was like 62 pounds, which is nut it's flat. That is flat for what we do. I know your car probably has 35, 38 psi in your steer tires on a on a your on a truck this heavy, 65 psi, 62 psi, that's flat. That's uh that looks it's noticeably flat. And they saw nothing wrong with it. And I'm like how like how does this happen? I think it would pull. No kidding. Well, it's so I will say, so I I picked up a truck stop, so I was actually able to put air in it immediately. Uh a lot of truck stops, so if you don't know, most truck stops, unlike uh your gas stations, they have air in the fuel islands, most of them, so you can actually top off your tires while you're getting fuel and uh it's free, it doesn't cost anything. Uh it's just a service they do. Um whereas like if you're in a car, you gotta pay a couple dollars to the little machine and it bang fills them up. So I was able to actually go get air immediately. But just driving over to the fuel pump, they were so soft and saggy, like you could turn the wheel a little bit and it would just keep going the same direction. It didn't, it wouldn't respond to what you were doing.

SPEAKER_09 43:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Like it was crazy. So when I see those numbers, I'm like, that's terrifying. The tires it was uh I think it was Goodyear, it might have been bridged down, but I think it was Goodyear. Years ago, I had a commercial out on TV that said um the tires are the only safety device your car has that actually touches the road. Like nothing else on your car matters if your tires aren't good. Right. And uh I think about that all the time. It's like this is your life. I mean, a steer tire blowout at speed is usually fatal. It's not a good thing. No, it's not. And the fact that people can just be so eh, it's fine.

SPEAKER_04 44:03

Uh, it just kills me, just blows me away. How many trucks have we had that had a steer tire blowout at speed and were down for months with thousands of dollars in repairs?

SPEAKER_00 44:13

Yeah, it happens. It happens a lot. And sometimes that's tire pressure. Sometimes, I mean, we have had the like I'm not gonna say every blowout is a tire pressure-related issue. We have absolutely had people run over something metal in the in the road. Uh, Eric and I were actually, we didn't blow a tire out, but we had a close scare. We were uh crossing a bridge into Detroit, uh, your favorite state, and um there was a giant pothole in the bridge, and it was remember this, Eric? It was just rebar coming out. Wow. And you could see through to the water below.

SPEAKER_06 44:50

Oh, jeez.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

Now, we actually it was one of those weird trips where we like popped into Detroit, picked something up, and left, and when we came back, they had that whole area blocked off.

SPEAKER_08 45:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

So traffic couldn't, like, it had just happened before we got there. So, like, that stuff happens, I get it. But like in this case, that the one I was at, there was no holes in the tired, nothing. They just let the air go for years on end. They called that the angel share. That is the angel share. Well, you better have an angel on your shoulder if that's if that's the case. Um so yeah, no, it was crazy. So air compressors, okay, all this goes back to air compressors.$2,600 for just an air compressor. That's again, there's no hoses. I was gonna say, no, there's not that stuff.

SPEAKER_08 45:42

But I think there's a great need for it, you know. Not just for those. You know, you can get the blower aspect of it and you can blow out pet hair from like crevices that maybe you can't get to.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

I I know for a fact, uh, because zucchini bread, you do a lot of work cleaning and detailing. I have it, I know for a fact you're gonna love having that.

SPEAKER_08 46:04

Yep. But not only that's the high powered to, you know. Yes. I used to former life, when I was young mom, um we had an air compressor, high capacity, and the blow feature, I'd put it in the um like vent and blow the dust out.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 46:21

And uh get the crumbs and crevices and all those things that you can't normally get, even with like a brush and vacuuming, it just gets above and beyond.

SPEAKER_00 46:30

I'm looking forward to the tool aspect because how heavy is it? The compressor. It's fixed. And you have long just be the hose. Yeah, it's 80 gallon. It's five five horsepower, twin-cylinder oil oil bath, which means that it's gonna have to be maintained every so many hours. We have to actually drain the oil and put new oil in it, just like your car. Yep. It's crazy. Um, but it's it's it's a really nice thing. Uh, nice compressor. And the cool thing is, I told you this is a temporary home for us. It will relocate to the new home. Uh, but uh we'll have to get some um a what do they call that? Like a plenum or something like that, where the uh the distribution box so when the air comes out, it'll then split. A manifold, thank you. So the uh air will go into uh several different outputs, and uh we'll have one for tools because I cannot tell you how frustrating it is. Dock bumpers, rubber dock bumpers. If you're driving with this, you know what I'm talking about right now. You back up to a dock, they say you gotta make a little move, you make a little move, you'll do a little change, and then boom, you've accidentally ripped the dock bumper off your box, or not the dock bumper off, you've ripped you've ripped a third of the dock bumper off. So we replace dock bumpers all the time. Like all the time. And a lot of times I gave up, I I don't know if y'all have, but I gave up when I changed them out on getting the drill because I got so tired of just getting there, brrr, dead. Dead battery. And so it's like on your electricity. Yeah, so I'm uh it's I'm like, okay, well this sucks. So I just bring the the the uh Crescent not the Crescent Wrench, the uh socket set out and just do it manually. But to be able to have like an air-powered uh um impact wrench and be able to go br and pull it out, put the new one up there, prr and be done, literally take something that takes ten minutes and make it ninety seconds, like that's the part that I'm looking forward to.

SPEAKER_08 48:32

Yep, move along.

SPEAKER_00 48:33

Yeah. I am very curious how loud it'll be.

SPEAKER_08 48:37

Loud.

SPEAKER_06 48:38

Loud. You've been in a shop when it refills up.

unknown 48:41

I know.

Fried Chicken Detour And Food Culture

SPEAKER_01 48:42

Yeah, but it's like they it's running all day like a radio or anything. It's not five second five, ten seconds.

SPEAKER_04 48:49

A few minutes at a time. It depends on how much you're using it. So if we're going through a refill on all the tires on the truck, it'll run it'll run for ten minutes or so to uh get up to to pressure, but still it's not gonna be.

SPEAKER_01 49:02

Yeah, I'm thinking for that price you just mentioned uh how long it's gonna last over time. I think it's completely worth it.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

So I know the shop that uh that we are uh that that ended up getting us into this place, uh, that vouched for us, they have an air compressor that's dead silent. How much is that one? Like fifty thousand dollars. So we'll we'll supply the airports. It's it's beautiful, it's beautiful.

SPEAKER_08 49:28

It's a beautiful and put it in and then run your hose through the building so you don't hear it.

SPEAKER_00 49:36

Yeah, or like an outhouse. That's not what I'm gonna do with the back door. Or I mean like we could do like um so the temporary thing, we probably won't worry about it. On the full uh the permanent thing, sure. We could always do a um a wall, like wall it in with insulation and events. Sure. You know, like there, yeah, there's absolutely options uh for that uh to reduce sound, to reduce sound and how loud it is. But um no, it's just all that little stuff, you know, like just getting everything dialed in. Uh so this is a secret between me, you, and everyone listening. Yep. Um we forgot to switch the electricity over. Oops. Yeah. So we ended up doing that like ten days late, and it's like, oh, but it's never been a concern before. Right. Because we've always had um the the electricity was included as part of the whatever we used. Right, right. So so it was like, oh gosh, we gotta do this, right? Like it's literally like moving into a house. You have to go through all those little things utilities, the gas, the uh getting internet. You Jerry went on the internet uh search for us. Tell us about that internet hunt, because I tasked you with it. I said I want uh we want internet down there. We got a few different options. Uh, one of them is the internet device that we do have available for our team, should they want it um to put in their trucks. And we also looked at what ATT and all the stuff. Jerry, what what all do we do?

SPEAKER_02 50:58

I started off with the the big ones like ATT hoping to get fiber just because the nerd in me. Um unfortunately they're not there. So then I just kind of went down the list, you know, the normal your your bright speed and and uh uh spectrum and and and that type of thing, and uh also tried the units that you said that our teams are using uh in the trucks because we do have those hotspots. Uh and that's whenever I found out that there's good cellular coverage for T-Mobile, because that's what that runs off of. Yep. So yeah, so using those hotspots and stuff, I was able to realize that we had really good T-Mobile coverage in the area, uh, which is uh what led me to getting the uh T Mobile business internet uh to install there, and that's what I plan on doing tomorrow.

SPEAKER_08 51:48

Nice, very cool. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

I'm looking forward to it because I mean, like A uh ATT is terrible there, right? Horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, and I love ATT. Look, I'm a big ATT wireless fan. I was on Singular before ATT was around. Like, I'm just I'm an old school, love, love, love ATT. They've done me right over the years. I know there's tons of you that have horror stories with them, and I apologize. I'm not one of those. I they've they've always done right by us, they've always taken care of us. I love their international plan. Um, as you know, Eric and I, we do travel a lot internationally. Good thing to say about them. The new location, horrible. Horrible. So when we were talking about internet, I even told you like, I don't think it's gonna work with the with the wireless because the internet's so bad. You tried it anyways, and you're like, dude, I remember when you called me, you're like, you ain't gonna believe this.

SPEAKER_02 52:39

Yeah, just the hotspot that our teams are using that we give out uh uh that they're able to purchase the plan with. Um that was pulling speeds of five to six hundred megs. So which is bananas, and that is a smaller antenna that this business version, you know, will have a much uh stronger antenna and be able to probably pull faster speeds. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

No, I think it's really cool. Uh that'll give y'all uh internet, so you'll be able to have where ATT is failing you, you'll be have uh run your iPads, your computers, um make phone calls over internet.

SPEAKER_02 53:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

Absolutely. And then uh the other thing that I'm excited about is again this will be the driver's lounge isn't open yet, but it will be soon, and when it is, this is gonna enable us to uh stream uh sporting events at 4K and uh 4K? Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, 4K. And we're putting a 86 inch, is 86 inch TV down right now? Big TV. It's Samsung, whatever. Yeah. It was a big one. The big one. We went we went to Circuit City. We did. And we said we went the big one. The big one. And they said, You mean the you mean like the 13 inch? And we're like, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 53:55

The big one.

SPEAKER_00 53:56

And they were like, oh, the 27 inch. Yes. And you were like, Yes. And they said, but it's glass, and you're like, that's not right. So I went with the big one and uh got that mounted on the wall and uh be able to stream direct TV and all the stuff. And um, because I'm like, that'll be cool. And also, when you're over the road and you want to like update your garment, we all know that it's like oh, it's a lot of data, and it's a pain, yada yada. Well, now we'll have a guest network. You can come in while you're waiting on us to change a microwave out or a cooktop or your dock bumpers, your dock bumpers, or whatever, or you're just hanging out with someone who is getting something else done, you know, whatever. Being able to jump on the Wi-Fi while you're doing some laundry. Oh, there's also a washing machine in there.

SPEAKER_10 54:42

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

Now there's only one washing machine and one dryer, and I am very curious how this Hunger Games situation is gonna go down.

SPEAKER_06 54:49

That could be fun to watch.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

It would be fun to watch. You know what we need to do?

SPEAKER_06 54:53

Do we have cameras set up yet?

SPEAKER_00 54:54

No, what we need to do is get the coin operated. Why did we not buy coin operated machines? I just thought about that.

SPEAKER_06 55:00

You can add it on there.

SPEAKER_00 55:01

Not these. These are the these are the no, these are they can't add these. I know what you're talking about, but not these.

unknown 55:07

Man.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

What a mistake. Y'all, we screwed up. We should have bought coin operated wash machines. We didn't. So, anyways, um, you know, we'll get them. We'll do the coin operated soap uh larger dispensers. The soap dispensers.

SPEAKER_10 55:22

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 55:22

Little Tide Pods. Our Tide Pods are$19 a piece. So um I kid, I just pennies. And we only take pennies if you can find them because they're they're rare.

SPEAKER_08 55:33

No longer being minted. I know. I'm teasing.

SPEAKER_00 55:36

So can you get we don't make change? We don't make change, no.

SPEAKER_08 55:39

And it doesn't accept dollar bills.

SPEAKER_00 55:41

It does not. It only takes hundreds. 20s. Yeah. So what about Bitcoin? Uh it does take one Bitcoin at a time.

SPEAKER_02 55:50

So we can always get a credit card reader.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

No, where there's a will, there's a way. So can we be fancy and do the tap instead? Absolutely. Yes, Apple Pay.

SPEAKER_00 56:00

Yeah. So uh, but no, for now, we do have the uh washer and dryer available. It is only one, so we'll have to get a sign-up sheet or something. We'll figure that out. Uh a little uh coffee bar that I'm excited about that we're in the process of getting together. Um listen, we have bought the absolute cheapest Curig coffee you can buy.

SPEAKER_05 56:21

K cups. I think the brand is Lime Green Mountain. I think so too.

SPEAKER_00 56:26

Lime Green Mountain, yes. Yes, yes. They do uh uh uh factory rejects.

SPEAKER_05 56:31

They do, they do factory rejects. You might get a pod that's completely empty. You might it's you never know.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

You never know. You never know. Uh so uh when when we do finally open, if you do come hang out with us uh and you have K cups in your truck, grab one or two because you might want one. Uh but no, we are gonna have some coffee. We got some uh we've got to figure the creamer situation out. Do we want cold cream or the pods? I like the individual pods. I think the individual pods because they don't have to be refrigerated. I agree.

SPEAKER_08 56:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 56:57

And then and then I think just heavy cream or or half and half.

SPEAKER_04 57:01

They just have the half and half in there. And then yeah, but who's gonna monitor that refrigerator for whether that cream and the salad or not?

SPEAKER_00 57:07

Listen, uh if we've if you've ever worked in corporate America, you know right now what I'm talking about. A break room refrigerator can within 60 days become a hazmat situation.

SPEAKER_06 57:18

Oh, this will be cleaned out every two or three days. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

No long-term storage. No long-term storage. Uh can we do the French vanilla creamer?

SPEAKER_06 57:27

That's a deep. Whatever flavors you want.

SPEAKER_08 57:29

You're hitting the order button.

SPEAKER_00 57:31

Can we hide the French vanilla creamer in the office?

SPEAKER_06 57:35

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 57:36

No, uh, it's one thing I actually love about going when I uh I have to go to Panther's Orientation. Uh not Orientation, uh to their uh driver lounge. They do um so depending on which division of of Panther you're with, they have different uh ELD logging devices inside the trucks. And so um sometimes we bring them up there to swap them out if we have a team that's gonna go into a different division or whatever. So um I will I will sometimes go up there. Uh Jerry, you've done the trip multiple times. I know Vince, you've made that trip multiple times. Well, have you done it as well?

SPEAKER_08 58:08

Been a long time.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

Okay. I don't know there has. I've done it once. Okay. Best thing about that whole trip is either driver's lounge has comfy couches and a a decent couple tables. So if you need to get work done, you can too. But they also have uh coffee that they make in the morning, and then they have uh the good half and half creamer and the really good French vanilla creamer. Oh, nice. And that's my jam. So I'll get oh, they have this really cool machine that does ice and water, and then if you press the middle button, it has ice water. So it like shoots the little uh crunchy ice into the cup and the water at the same time.

SPEAKER_08 58:43

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_06 58:44

So we're getting those two?

SPEAKER_00 58:45

No. So I'll get one of the this is Panther. Listen, if you want that, you can have the go up there, Medina. Um but uh but I their coffee's good, and then I and then I do do the French uh vanilla creamers and it's good. Because I don't keep uh French vanilla cream at the house. I don't know why we don't. It's got so much sugar in it. So much sugar, that's what it is.

SPEAKER_02 59:04

You buy zero sugar. Yeah, I was gonna say you can get zero sugar in the case.

SPEAKER_06 59:08

Oh my god, sugar.

SPEAKER_02 59:10

It's not the same.

SPEAKER_06 59:11

And then it tastes like zero sugar. No, it's not the same. If you get used to it, maybe you condition.

SPEAKER_04 59:17

I don't like flavored coffee anyway, so I just do heavy cream and I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 59:20

Uh no, I I love French vanilla creamer. My whole my I've told you, we've talked about it. Pilot house coffee, the chilled French vanilla, a cube of ice, because it comes out lava, whatever that temperature is. It's my jam. Love it. But I I don't I don't I don't keep it at the house, and it is one of the things I look forward to when I go to uh the panther. So it'd be cool if we had that as well. Yeah, sure. Maybe we do a hazelnut in the fall, or am I gonna I'm thinking too too far. Okay, too much for this.

SPEAKER_08 59:50

I think you're gonna do anything off for some tea.

SPEAKER_00 59:52

Lipton?

SPEAKER_08 59:53

No, like tea bags for hot tea in case you're not a coffee drinker. Yeah, lipton.

SPEAKER_00 59:57

Lipton.

SPEAKER_08 59:57

Oh, yeah. Sorry, I was thinking

SPEAKER_00 1:00:02

Oh well, we could do that.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:03

Just a non the water the water machines that you have do both cold and hot.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:09

Yes. Oh, have we figured the water thing out yet?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:11

We haven't purchased water yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:12

Okay. So we got these really cool uh water machines. You know, like the uh the uh the water cooler, I guess is what it's called. Yeah. It's got the the the barrel on top and five-gallon jug. Yes. Or barrel.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:25

Or barrel, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:26

Five-gallon barrel, yeah. And you you do the water and it goes, right? Yeah. So we got that, but the water is hidden underneath underneath. Yeah. So you don't see all that. I'm excited. I I really I nerd out over that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:42

I it's a straw.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:44

Yes, it's a straw.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:45

I think I was trying when I was I was setting them up.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:47

There have been a couple of times where I was gonna go get water. So we have a couple bottles there at least, and it just hasn't happened yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:54

Well, so I'm not a fan. I and I've been to shops like this, smaller shops like ours, where it's like, oh, you want coffee? We'll just walk into the bathroom, get water, thing, and what and I'm like, I get that it's clean water. Sure. It freaks me out. So that's why I'm like, this is you know, when I lived in Baton Rouge, we had the beta man, Abita Man, A-B-I-T-A-M. And he'd bring the water to you. So it's kind of the same thing. I think is it Coligan Man here? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:22

We had Arrowhead or Sparklets.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:25

I loved Arrowhead. Yeah, that's good. Water Arrowhead. So that's what we're gonna have. So it's always fresh, clean water, and uh, you don't have to do the awkwardness of what have you. Uh plus the bathroom has a shower in it.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:38

It does have a shower in it.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:39

So if someone's in there showering, you don't be like, excuse me, I just need to get a little bit of water. Just a little bit of something, something. Jerry, you've done that before. It's just weird, right?

SPEAKER_08 1:01:52

The visuals.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

That's all I was thinking.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:54

I know.

Community Plans: Cookouts And Gatherings

SPEAKER_00 1:01:55

So we're trying to think ahead of things that'll be fun or whatever. Um, we have three couches. Uh so a big shout out, real quick. Uh, Eric, thank you so much uh for helping me move um a lot of the lounge furniture and um furniture and decor. Decor and that kind of thing over. Uh you and I took a Sunday. It's a good weather day. Neither one of us wanted to do it, but we were just like, let's just let's just do it. We went and did it and knocked it out. Got a bunch of that stuff moved over there. And then uh Heather and Melissa and Melissa and Vince, uh, y'all have done a fantastic job of sorting through a the momentous, gigantic. So at this uh storage place we had we had a 15 foot by 50 foot by 14 foot uh building full, floor to ceiling, front to back. There was a walkway, like you're walking through fern gully to get from the front to the back. If you needed something from the middle, you literally had to move stuff out of the way, get it there, and whatever. It was that packed, and uh y'all have done an amazing job of moving all that over uh to the new building. And I know we're still fighting through and getting everything organized, but the move is done. Yeah. And uh I know Melissa, I don't know who all helped you, but working and getting that driver lounge together and and making it all cute and and and everything, it just that all just happened so nicely and it looks so good, and I'm so dang proud of it, and so dang proud of y'all, that uh I just want that that props where props belongs. That it is uh been a really cool group effort and and and uh of what y'all have already done. And Jerry's about to go down there and put the internet and get the uh TV and TV, thank you, all that stuff going and the multiple networks because we have to have a network for uh ops to use, a network for the guests to use, a network to uh work with our sponsor of today, OTR Services.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:15

So if you are interested in getting a carb test that is C A R B for running out to California and in the state of California, reach out to OTR-services.com. Uh we can take care of all of your carb tests very quickly and efficiently. Uh, just go online, schedule your appointment any day that we are operating, and then we will come out to you. We do have some predetermined locations already on the website, uh, but we can come out to you and take care of that and make sure that you are legal and compliant.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:47

Are we making the uh shop a carb testing location or not yet, or we'll at some point?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:56

That is something that I brought up and we kind of talked about a little bit in the text, but we still need to figure out what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:04

Okay. So maybe if your listeners are like, yeah, I just need a carb test, I don't need this stuff. You might come visit us, or we might come to you as a pilot or a Walmart or what have you wrong. So, um very cool. I'm looking forward to uh seeing that how that progresses and what we can do with it.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:24

Not sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:25

Um but yeah, I'm excited. Uh Zucchini Bread, when I introduced this to you and Mel and said, hey, here's the deal, we're gonna be doing this. Y'all said y'all were extremely excited, and I was like, because you actually have a warm, climate-controlled environment to be in, and y'all said no.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:49

Really?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:49

Do you remember what it was that y'all said y'all were looking forward to having?

SPEAKER_06 1:05:53

The bathroom.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:56

Right. So that's a downside of working out of a uh out of a storage place, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:06:02

No facilities.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:03

Yeah. And if you've actually ever uh if you've moved in with us uh over the years, um that's one of the things we talk about. It's like there's no facilities there. It's yeah, it's it's unfortunate.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:13

As a recruiter, I always prep people go before you come.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:16

And how nice is it now that you don't have to make that disclaimer anymore?

SPEAKER_08 1:06:20

Yeah, that'd be nice.

Sponsor, CARB Testing, And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_00 1:06:21

Even even now, like if you get moved in before this place is officially opened over the next uh couple weeks, you um still gonna back access to the restroom, right? You don't have back like it won't be everything won't be prepped and ready to go, but still like just that little bit.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:38

They just have to smile and be nice and say please, and you we we may allow them in the building. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:45

Another plus about the new location is like for lunch or places to eat a lot closer than the old place.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:52

Yes. The old I mean, like I do like Wendy's in Subway, but there's a taco bill around the corner. And you got Wendy's starting.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:00

I thought it was weird to move them from one Wendy's to another Wendy's.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

Hold on. You said earlier, when I said, is there something that uh you make that or sorry that you're not trying to make because it's so good already? You were starting to say, and you got cut off, but you were starting to say fried chicken. That's the one. I think there's a KFC right there.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:19

There is a KFC right down by Taco Bell.

unknown 1:07:22

I love KFC.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:23

Right now, I know you were talking in general.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:26

Um my mom's fried chicken is specific, but next best would be just a really good fried chicken that a restaurant does. Yeah, it's a can't down there. I just am first off, we don't eat a lot of fried chicken, but I can't master it.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:40

I haven't I haven't mastered it like I've watched my mom do it, I watched my grandma do it, use the Crisco shortening, not oil, and a cast iron skillet and all of that, and it just That's you get the giant can, it's white, it goes in solid, heats up, and turns out, yeah. So uh french fries. Dad taught me um, and maybe incorrectly, because now we're learning about beef tallow and all these other things, but uh if you want to cook good crispy french fries, use Crisco. And they always were good crispy, so I he's onto something, right? Sure. Um, but fried chicken's one of those things I'm the same way, like pan-fried, deep fried, fried in oil, like how do they do it? And then you actually like watch one of those YouTube things on how did they do it? They have these like crazy expensive pressure cooker things that that fry them in pressure, and it it makes the the the uh outside of the fried chicken perfect and it makes it cook to tip just dead on. It's like we never had a chance. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_08 1:08:47

Like I get it.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:48

Um, but I I do know, like, uh especially growing up from South Louisiana, fried chicken was a big deal, obviously. And there were a lot of a lot of people that black iron skillet uh are or a Dutch oven, and they would make that perfect fried chicken, and I just never got it.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:03

Can I crash at your place tonight? Yes. Okay, why? My ex-wife would kill some fried chicken. I'm just saying skillet, cast iron skillet, she had two ago in it one time, one french fries, one fried chicken. She could mess with some fried chicken.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:20

So was it Which is not a bad thing. I'm just saying I never mastered it.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:24

Okay, I I get that. I just wanted to make sure I had somewhere to stay before I said that. Just in case you kicked me out for the night.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:33

I mean, I try it. Yeah. Usually at this point in time, I'm doing on a healthier option, you know, uh pork rind crumbs, and you're baking it, and it's obviously much different. But yeah, if I was to try it, it would be good old AP flour and the salt and the pepper, like mom would show me. And you know, you dredge it in the wet and you dredge it, but but then it's like I can't, I can't, it just doesn't fry.

SPEAKER_10 1:09:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:59

Like, I don't know if I'm not holding my mouth right, or if I don't exactly have it the right temperature, or I'm not using the right utensil. Like something is just not magical when I cook fried chicken.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:08

So when I worked in uh New Orleans, so those of you that uh I've talked about it a little bit on the show, uh put myself through college. I worked for um a four-star restaurant in um New Orleans, right? Uh on St. Charles. It's a great place. Eric's eaten there. It's it's really good food. We had a dish, it was fried chicken over red beans and rice. The red beans and rice, I would I would go to jail for the opportunity to eat more of it. It's so good. Like they're just unbelievably delicious red beans and rice. And they would do the chicken, flour, egg, wash, flour, deep fryer.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:51

And it was okay. Didn't hold a candle to what uh KFC or Popeyes was doing.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:58

I don't know what KFC and Popeyes do. That is so much well, it's the pressure thing, right? Like I just said it. Possibly. It's they have these these things with pressure. And I don't know if your ex-wife had a$10,000 uh pressure cooking fryer thing. Uh but for being a such a high-end restaurant and making everything so amazing, our fried chicken, in my opinion, was not as good as what you can get from those places. Yeah. Um so I I do think there's something there that you either got or you didn't get. I I don't know how to put it.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:37

Yeah, neither.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:38

Um because I do love really good fried chicken. I I've just had so much bad, you know? And then and then I'm also talking about like cooking a breast or cooking a uh uh boned in uh thigh or whatever. Like we've done the panko crusted um what do they call it? Like boneless chicken dryers or whatever. And those usually come out pretty good. Um but when you're actually talking about like no a chicken breast with the bones and everything that you have to eat around fried, it just it's so difficult. It's so difficult. I that would be a fun thing for us to like hone in on. But then the other thing is why? Because I can only have it like uh same thing. I I do try to watch what I eat, I do try to make sure I'm not eating too much bad stuff. And when you look at fried chicken, there's not a lot of redeeming properties.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:33

My mom had to stop making it because my dad's cholesterol had gone like through the roof.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:38

So well, and I feel like if you make fried chicken, then you have to make the gravy because there's all those bits in your That's my opinion. That's what I like.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:48

Gravy and fried chicken aren't a thing, I don't think.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:51

Oh, mom would make mashed potatoes. Oh, well, is it chicken fried chicken?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:53

I get that.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:54

Chicken fried chicken, though it is. Oh, chicken-fried chicken, it's a different thing. Take that chicken fried chicken.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:02

We're just talking fried chicken, and you have bits, brown brown flour bits, and then she'd make a gravy, and then we'd have mashed potatoes and the corn, and you'd have fried chicken and mashed potatoes.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:10

So you're taking the are you taking the fried grease with the bits and everything? Adding flour, making a cream a room, making a room, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:16

Adding cream. Uh it was always milk and water, equal parts.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:19

Because we had to make the milk stretch.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:22

Oh, I think mom gives it straight water or a little bit of chicken broth if she had it. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:26

So my grandma, when she would make gravy, that's what she did. There was all the flour, the the milk, all together, and then she would bring in her um sausage she'd already cooked and everything. Oh but that was breakfast. That's totally different, but still. Missed that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:43

Anyways, um You know, that'd be something that interesting to hear from our audience is um who thinks they have the bomb diggity chicken fr uh fried chicken recipe. Right? Yeah. I'd I'd love that at home at home or in the truck.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:56

Steve Steve Samuels, he does videos all the time on the real trucker couple. He's yes, cooking fried chicken in the the truck, and it amazes me. I you know, here's it on the tailgate too in the summertime.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:08

So that makes sense to tailgate in the summertime. Inside the truck, I've seen those videos, and the only thing I can think of is so your sleeper smells like fried chicken for the next week? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:18

Because if it's a good fried chicken, that's not bad.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:20

Fried chicken has that smell, right? It just it just lingers. Yeah. Like if you order uh KFC and you bring it to your house, a bucket of chicken, did they even do the bucket of chicken anymore? Oh, yeah. Okay. So that's again, how often I eat fried chicken, I'm asking if they do that. Uh, but the bucket of chicken, like you bring it to your house and you have your chicken, you have your co uh your your mashed potatoes and gravy, you have your coleslaw, you gotta have cold your coleslaw is fantastic. The next day you wake up and you walk downstairs, you walk in your kitchen, you're like, smells like KFC. Like it just has it just lingers. There's something about that thick, greasy air. Yeah. It just sticks to the walls. It's almost like nicotine.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:01

And you open the fridge and grab out breakfast.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:03

That's right. Cold chicken. You get that drumstick. Oh man, okay, extra crispy or original? Original. It's a shame that you're so wrong.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:13

Um, I didn't have a lot of KFC, so probably probably original.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:18

M Mom was Church's. Mom loved Church's Chicken, and we get that uh that that corn of the cob. And I remember uh Church's Chicken of the Corn of the Cobb. It was perplexing as a kid because I'd only had corn of the cob that was only like what two and a half, three inches.

SPEAKER_10 1:15:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:32

Church's chicken's corner of the cob was like a foot. The entire year. It was huge.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:39

It was like That was normal for me growing up. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:43

Well, you're from Corn, uh Iowa, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:45

And Nebraska.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:46

Nebraska, sorry. Yeah, no, not in South Louisiana, especially because we did the crawfish boils. You just had the little little uh corn of the cob.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:54

I didn't have churches. Did you have churches, Vince? You did? So I carry you on churches.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:00

And I got I've got a question. Uh sticks, wings or tenders? I'm a tinder person. Tenders.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:09

Wait, what? What are sticks?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:11

Chicken stick. Chicken legs. Chicken wings or chicken tenders. I'm a tinder.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:16

Oh, you mean sick drumsticks?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:18

Oh, I'm oh drumstick all day long. I mean, don't get me wrong. I I love a thigh. I I actually my favorite is a juicy breast. That's so hard to find.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:29

I'm a thigh curl.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:32

I'd become a thigh. So mom, my mom, it it's funny how like you find yourself as you get older turning to your parents. Mom was always thighs, ever. All she ever made was thighs. And as I've gotten older, I'm like, all I want is thighs. Uh but but if we're talking like fried, drumstick all day long. Jerry?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:52

He already said tenders. Oh, I heard it.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:54

Oh, tenders? Prefer tenders, but I will definitely go to a drumstick.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:58

Unless I'm getting, you know, hot wings, then then it's all about the wings.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:04

Oh, you like the flat?

SPEAKER_06 1:17:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:06

I don't like the flat. I like the drumstick. The flats are too much work.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:09

You gotta get between the little baby drumsticks are the best.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:14

Are you flats or like or the I don't care. The drumlet, I guess.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:19

I don't care. And if I'm really hungry, no bone.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:23

Boneless, boneless wings. The only problem I have with boneless is they're always breaded. I wish they had unbreaded boneless. I really do. I think they could I think that's a like I think they could do it.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:35

Possibly.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:36

This is another thing our audience can argue over. What's their favorite?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:40

And if you know a place that does unbreaded boneless, I want to know because I want to try it.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:47

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:47

I think it would be uh fantastic. And you don't get the breading.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:51

All goals for 2026. We'll go find unbreaded boneless chicken breadless, boneless chicken wings. Well, that's a whole mouthful.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:59

Yes. Well, it could be. I know. That's what I'm just saying. So, Jerry, uh, Jerome, you are a uh church's Popeye's KFC.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:09

I would have to say if I was gonna eat at KFC.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:12

Okay. All right. Definitely grew up as a uh uh so we started with Popeye, I'm sorry, we started with uh KFC, then we went to churches, and uh as I got older I really started enjoying uh Popeyes. I like the spicy uh flavors in the chicken, and I love uh red beans and rice, and they had the Cajun uh potatoes and everything. So uh I I I turned into a Popeyes person and I've actually gone back to KFC. I find myself now as a little bit older, having had a lot of fried chicken, KFC. But can I tell you real quick? Let's talk about church. I don't mean churches, I mean church. The church I grew up, we would do a like a like a fifth Sunday singing or something.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:00

And they would bring uh the fried chicken and you brought the uh sides. So we bring our baked beans, usually that was like kind of our things, but yeah, I've made the baked beans for y'all. Like y'all know we're it's we uh we're kind of known for our baked beans. And so we would do that, but that chicken was always Walmart deli chicken, fried chicken. Walmart, for being from Arkansas, was it good? They don't have a clue. Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:27

They don't have a clue. We had a grocery kit grocery chain in Southern California called Stater Brothers. They had a bomb ass chicken. Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Still there? Yeah. Growing up from me. Sorry.

SPEAKER_08 1:19:43

No, go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:43

I was KFC because we didn't have Popeyes quite yet. Yeah. And then Popeyes came in. Actually, my dad went from KFC to a place called Pioneer Chicken.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:54

Um and then uh Popeyes became the place and he would Past our local Popeyes to go to a different one that he felt had better chicken than the one that was local closest to us.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:08

I I I feel that. I don't go to my local Taco Bell.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:13

I go to one a little further down because of that. I I I do agree sometimes in those places. Some people are cooking with love and some people are cooking with efficiency. Yeah.

unknown 1:20:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:26

And then later on it became Stater Brothers or Popeyes, depending on if you're uh grocery shopping anyway, grab some Stater Brothers. Yeah. If you're going just for fried chicken, go to Popeyes.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:36

Because you grew up in LA, so obviously you know what I'm about to ask. I didn't I I've never experienced uh the Roscoe's Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:50

Yes. Is the chicken good? Very good. Excellent.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:56

Yeah? Excellent fried chicken. How's the waffle?

SPEAKER_04 1:20:58

The waffle's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:00

So they like it's like it's perfect on both sides.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:02

Oh yeah, and then the syrup. Oh yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:21:06

With grits?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:07

I want to go. What's a grit?

SPEAKER_08 1:21:09

Grits on the side here. Get it all in grits.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:13

Uh I I really That's a third back to last week. So, anyways, I really want to um we had a that matter. So uh we uh I really want to go I really want to go try Roscoe's. I've heard great things. Obviously, it's uh What are you doing tomorrow? Uh I was gonna take the citation somewhere. Where do you want to go? Oh Van I isn't that far, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 1:21:41

Probably one fuel stop.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:44

At least we'll hit a we'll hit a uh pilot or flying J. There you go. Get some of that great coffee to help you get it all the way across. Yeah. Oh man, no. But okay, well, we have rattled, we have uh uh talked about it. Uh so we're very excited we have this new building. Um I can't wait to share it with the world. We are we are absolutely looking forward to uh in the uh spring, summer, fall, doing some cookouts over the weekends, having some uh just hangout sessions. I don't know what do you call them? Like just hangs barbecues?

SPEAKER_08 1:22:18

Socializing.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:19

Socializing. It's been something we've been dying to do for years, and uh we finally have it. Um we do need to discuss the uh Traeger budget.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:30

Yeah, that's gonna be something we need to talk talk about. Because I mean the price of brisket. We need to talk about that. You're thinking let's take it off air.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:42

But those red hot dog wieners are like 33 cents for like a dozen.

SPEAKER_10 1:22:46

Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:47

So those are from Nebraska, too. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:50

That's right.

SPEAKER_10 1:22:50

Oh, so Heather has a hookup. So it has yes, Heather has a hookup. 25 cents for a dozen. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:57

Uh no. But uh we're looking for some like doing some of these exciting events, hanging out with everybody. Um I this feels I don't know how it feels for y'all, but it feels like a big jump in the evolution of what we are doing and and what we're becoming. And um, I'm really excited. I'm excited that we have uh this group of people we're going and doing this with, and I think it's just gonna make things better in the future uh for everyone involved. Hit that like and subscribe button, share us with uh any of your friends that are out there on the road. If they're looking for like an hour to kill, and you're like, I know this podcast, they're absurd, they go on tangents, they it's hard to follow, but like hopefully for a few minutes we entertain. Yeah. Um share this uh with them. Uh we we try to uh uh just give you a little behind the scenes of who we are and uh hope you get to know us a little better. But hitting that uh like and subscribe button, it's huge. It actually affects the algorithm. A lot of y'all actually are watching. Jerry, you were just telling me this the other day. A lot of people, y'all watch it, y'all download it, y'all see it. You don't hit the like and subscribe, and we know you're coming back week after week after week, but you're not hitting that button. It actually makes a huge difference in the YouTube algorithm and the uh podcast uh world, where they will then share our uh shows with the rest of the country, the other people doing it. Anyways, uh it's a huge deal. We really would appreciate you doing that for us. Jerry, I you know I've forgotten a lot of things. So if you wouldn't mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:36

If you're interested in high field trucking and all that we do over here in the expediting industry, check us out at highfieldtrucking.com. You can reach out to our recruiting office over there. Uh, we have a live chat Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. You can also reach out to us at 833-493-4353 option one or eight three three highfield. And uh if you have any comments, suggestions about the show or future topics for the show, feel free to reach out to us at the outerbeltpodcast at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:09

Absolutely. Thank you again for our corporate sponsor, Over the Road uh services, OTR Services. And uh until we meet again, have a wonderful New Year's and stay safe, everybody. Make good decisions.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:24

Happy New Year. And make your New Year's resolution to not leave money on the table.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:29

Happy holidays and keep those wills turning.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:34

Till next time.