435 Podcast: Southern Utah
Explore the heartbeat of Southern Utah with the 435 Podcast, your go-to source for all things local in Washington County. Stay ahead of the curve with our in-depth coverage, expert analysis, and captivating interviews. Whether you're a resident or visitor, our podcast is your key to unlocking the latest happenings and trends in St. George and the surrounding areas. Tune in now to stay informed and connected with our thriving community!
435 Podcast: Southern Utah
Student-Athlete Experiences & Future Opportunities for Young Adults
Join us for a compelling discussion with two outstanding college athletes from Utah Tech University who provide a unique glimpse into the life of student-athletes and their thoughts on current political issues. We explore their transition from high school sports to the demanding world of college athletics, including the thrill of their first win and the prospect of setting records. Their journey offers invaluable insights into balancing sports and academics, as well as handling adult responsibilities like family and future homeownership.
Our conversation takes an intriguing turn as we examine the striking differences between millennials and Gen Z in navigating the digital age. We dissect how video game culture has evolved, as well as the contrasting ways these generations consume news—from TikTok to traditional newspapers. Together, we brainstorm ideas for creating a vibrant, student-friendly environment in St. George, complete with entertainment hubs that cater to the young and the young at heart, while considering the impact of such developments on community engagement.
We also reflect on significant societal themes, such as voting for the first time and the stories of family immigration. Our guests share personal anecdotes that reveal the resilience required to adapt to new cultural landscapes, alongside discussions on political engagement and real estate investment as a path to future financial stability. Whether you're pondering the future of tech trends, the role of politics in young lives, or innovative ideas for enhancing college life, this episode offers a thought-provoking tapestry of insights and stories.
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#CollegeAthletes #podcast #DigitalAge #GenZ #millennials #UrbanDevelopment #stgeorgeutah #southernutah #435podcast
[00:00:00] Intro.
[00:01:11] College Athletes Discuss Sports and Life.
[00:12:55] Generational Gap and Technology Trends.
[00:16:00] City Development for College Students.
[00:25:02] Youthful Perspective on Voting and Future.
[00:30:55] Immigration Stories and Family Background.
[00:42:55] Future Generations' Perspective on Politics.
[00:50:41] College Students Discuss Elective Classes.
[00:57:09] Future Home Ownership and Real Estate.
[01:08:34] Real Estate Investment Strategies and Advice.
I'm not a parent. I won't be for a long time but I was like you know, this affects my future who knows when I'm going to have a kid. So I had to go in and see what that was about and I found out that was something I stand very strong behind. It's like if my 10-year-old child's trying to make a life-changing decision, they should not be able to just go to their teacher or principal.
Speaker 2:From the Blue Form Media Studios. This is the 435 Podcast the pulse of Southern Utah.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in another episode of the 435 Podcast. I'm your host, robert McFarlane Today. Today's episode, we have two college athletes from Utah Tech University talking about their lifestyle the lifestyle of a college athlete and their view on politics all the craziness that's going on in the world and we hope you enjoy this episode. Also, it's National Diabetes Day is right now today, and it's Awareness Month. That's why I shaved my beard. We'd love to raise some money for the Washington County diabetic youth association, so check out the link in the description. Uh, enjoy the episode, guys. We'll see you out there.
Speaker 4:I'm from Northern Utah and then, um, um, I was working in like corporate management and kind of gravitated down here and moved back in 21.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:Got into real estate. So, Utah or BYU fan. He played football at Davis High School.
Speaker 1:Davis High.
Speaker 2:School Hall of Famer.
Speaker 4:Hall of Famer, hall of Fame, hall of Fame, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tell them the story. What story? You are a part of the Davis High School Hall of Fame.
Speaker 4:That is true. Yeah, so we won For something specific. Well, we won the state championship in 04. In football, graduated high school in 05. Probably before you guys were even born, I was two years old.
Speaker 1:I was also two.
Speaker 4:So that's another thing, dude. So we're 37.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, we wanted to have you guys on, because we're totally disconnected.
Speaker 4:I was like I don't even know what it's like to be in college anymore.
Speaker 2:I'm actually officially just far enough away where I'm like I don't even know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, it's wild, because I still feel like I'm whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like I'm probably what you guys I still think I'm in college, yeah.
Speaker 4:Like in my head, I'm like oh, I'm still just like a college yeah, have a an accounting class together yeah, get closer, get closer.
Speaker 1:We had this realization um our teacher asked about like what grade we were in when covet hit, when it first hit, and like, uh, who was in high school? Like, who were? Was it your senior year? Like for for me it was my sophomore year, for you junior year, yeah. And then she was like anybody uh was in middle school and there's like a couple people who raised their hands and I was like, yeah, anybody was in middle school and there's like a couple of people who raised their hands and I was like, yeah, that just.
Speaker 4:I mean, when you think about it it's not that crazy, but it was like yeah, but that's like you know, like for you guys that's like an integral part of your life, right, but for us that was just like you know. I was whatever. 33, 34, 37, now yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I just had a kid.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I just had my third kid and we just bought a house and I'm looking at the world like what is going on? This is so far out of anything I ever would have imagined this would happen when I was at this age Right and so. But then you look back in generations and you're like, oh well, my grandfather kind of had something like this and my dad actually kind of had something like this happen right. Like every generation right. Jfk got shot in 1962.
Speaker 4:Every boomer could tell you exactly where they were right, 9-11,. Right Like I was in ninth grade. Right, exactly so, like every generation.
Speaker 2:We have like these moments that like shake us up and then it impacts there's just residual impact on that like for the rest of that generation's existence, but we, we kind of just keep going on this little roller coaster around and around. You know, and so I'm curious, though, utah tech in general. So are you on the football team?
Speaker 3:I am yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:so what do you? What position you're playing? I'm the kicker, you're the kicker, you're the long snapper. Yep, you guys are like the duo.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, Dynamic duo. Don't mess it up. You have one job.
Speaker 2:You have one job and it's always like two seconds left in the game and it's like don't mess this up.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:That's the standard is perfection every single time. Long season it's been a long season.
Speaker 4:Just got the first win though.
Speaker 1:Big one.
Speaker 2:Did it feel good.
Speaker 4:I can't imagine.
Speaker 1:Because this is first year in the WAC, correct UAC. We were in the WAC, the Western Athletic Conference, and then actually this is our second year in the UAC. That's right, Combined with a bunch of teams out east. I forget what the conference was.
Speaker 4:It's like the ace son or something. Ace son yeah, yeah, americans yeah, but you, I mean you played unlv. Unlv is a great team right I mean, and it just comes down to recruiting, right?
Speaker 2:I mean, absolutely, that's what it comes down to is recruiting, so getting out on the field. Have you guys had much field time?
Speaker 3:yeah, we ryan's got a ton of field, quite a bit quite a bit yeah there mean a lot of punts.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, a lot of fun. Oh yeah, at one point we were actually on track to break the single season punting record for the most amount of punts in a season. I believe the record was set before like 95 by rutgers in like 2016, I believe, yeah, somewhere around there, and so we were on track to to smash it. But I mean, you know, we've picked it up over the last couple weeks, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So what do you think's?
Speaker 1:changed. I mean just the belief. I mean we came out swinging against Central Arkansas. Everything was just. I mean, we were executing on all levels and we were like oh dang, because they were ranked number nine at the time and so we weren't sure what to expect. We're 0-9. Yeah, so we're like we got nothing to lose. Let's just go out and play football, no pressure.
Speaker 1:That's what we can do no pressure and it started clicking and we were just like, okay, we could actually do this. A's like man, that just shows our potential. You know, yeah, yeah, first year head coach. Though right, yeah, first year. Yep, yeah, he came from uh boise state this past season, but before that he was with stanford for like 15 years, played at byu right idaho state yeah, I think it was idaho state cool yeah, nice, sweet.
Speaker 2:So thinking about like getting punched in the gut because the score you Right Idaho state yeah, I think it was Idaho state Cool. Yeah, nice, sweet. So thinking about like getting punched in the gut cause the score you guys. I guess they'd score on you a bunch and it was almost like, do you think that was like the? The wind got knocked out of your sails and a couple of those games, and then it was hard to like pull it back together. So thinking about like being able to recreate what the wind that you guys did get, do you you think you're gonna be able to do that, because it sounds like you guys have all the tools I mean the last couple weeks, like ryan said, it was starting to kind of click.
Speaker 3:And then I guess, against central arkansas was like everyone was firing on all cylinders. And I'd like to say that we've kind of I don't want to say we figured it out, because you never really maybe a little bit, yeah, turn the corner. And I'm excited for these last two games. Like we got West Georgia in two days and then our big SUU game, the week after.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a big one, and I think West Georgia is like a brand new football program.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they were in Division II for a while and then this is their first year as a D1 school. Yeah, cool, sweet.
Speaker 2:So what do you think about Utah Tech? How did you know about Southern Utah? Had you lived here before?
Speaker 3:No, I've actually. I think I've driven through it one time before I actually moved here and I was going up to Montana for whatever reason and I actually learned about Utah Tech. It was Dixie State at the time when my kicking coach from back home he kind of reached out to me.
Speaker 3:he's like, oh, this school might be looking for a kicker this year and like you should reach out to them and I honestly had no idea that the school even existed and okay, like a big part of what I wanted to do was I wanted to stay as close to home as I could, so I was looking for schools in Arizona, and then this one is practically on the border of Arizona.
Speaker 2:So you could throw a rock and hit it Arizona if you got a really good arm.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, there's some houses that have backyards. This goes right to Arizona. Back to Arizona, crazy.
Speaker 2:So so getting a scholarship, that was a key, key thing.
Speaker 3:Um well, I'm still not on scholarship, oh okay, but I'm hoping at the end of this year and it was kind of like, let's go coach, let's get some scholarship come on, pay the kid pay the kid yeah, so it was just the opportunity to play, because it was my only college offer and you know I just took it and ran with it yeah, cool, sweet, Cool, Sweet man Cool.
Speaker 2:So, um, what have you thought of Southern Utah? Like is it? Is it the kind of the college vibe that you thought it was going to be? Or you were kind of just like I don't know what it's going to be like.
Speaker 3:So, I kind of had a general idea, just cause from what I've heard before I moved up here, everyone's like super big on outdoorsy stuff. Like all I heard about was the golf, like the golf capital of the world, and that's interesting.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I picked up golf a couple of years ago, so like that was really exciting. Like, oh, I got to play all these cool courses. Which course is your favorite, you know, out of all the city courses? Cause those are the ones I play the most. I love Southgate, yeah.
Speaker 4:Southgate, the ones I play the most.
Speaker 3:I love southgate, yeah, southgate's fun. Underrated for sure. Underrated dixie red hills too.
Speaker 2:I love dixie red hills too. Yeah, dixie red hills is always always a top two good walking course for sure yeah, walking course I still like sunbrook, sunbrook's fun sunbrook's real good yeah, so, uh, the golf has been fun. So I mean, what? What is a college life, like you know, thinking about, what do you guys do? Is it? Is it just school football and you play golf and you fish, ryan? Is that?
Speaker 1:is that pretty much it, yeah yeah, I mean, um, that was the thing that attracted me here in the first place, was just that, like you talk about that outdoorsy lifestyle, um, especially the hiking, I mean, oh, all, the, all the places you can view, like snow canyon you know, that's such a you can drive 20 minutes outside of saint george, you're up there and I mean there's just so many beautiful things you know, um, but kind of the thing that that kind of lacks, I feel like is uh, like the if you're looking for a city life, you know, I don't really think that's yeah, yeah, yeah. There's nothing like that here, non-existent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you think the students like, if, if it existed, is that something that they're like, man, we really wish that was here. Or is it they come here and they already expecting that it's not going to be that, so they're not really like disappointed in it?
Speaker 3:I mean, I feel like a lot of the kids are typically from. They're from like Vegas, california, arizona, and a lot of kids are from up North and my kind of theory is a lot of kids come down South to St George for like spring break, and that's when everyone's here and they think it's like, oh, like so many people are here, it's so fun, it's so cool.
Speaker 2:And then they get here for college and it's just like a desert yeah, fun it's so cool, and then they get here for college and it's just like a desert. Yeah, so, and there's a bunch of bunch of older people. Oh yeah, there's a bunch of older people, for sure. If you want to get good at pickleball, though, there's a 65 year old like female that would whoop your butt at vernon worthen park anytime you wanted. Oh yeah, yeah yeah it's embarrassing.
Speaker 2:There's some. There's some uh old people out there that I'm sure are fun to hang around with when I was a college kid.
Speaker 3:I've yet to play pickleball in my life are you gonna?
Speaker 2:are you gonna be like one of those people who've never seen star wars where you're like, well, now I can't even watch it, because it's like a point of pride that you're like I'm never gonna do it because I've not, I haven't done in this how?
Speaker 3:I was honestly no. Like I've always wanted to try, I've just like never gone out and done it.
Speaker 1:We gotta do it, dude we gotta get that going yeah, we gotta get that going I mean our utah tech's pickleball team national champions. Yeah, that's what I just heard I had no idea yeah, I follow bella, she's student body president over there.
Speaker 2:I follow bella keep. I try to keep up with what's going on over there, so like the campus life there, though do you? Because are you guys both on campus?
Speaker 3:I can't remember uh, we're like right across the street from campus.
Speaker 2:Okay, pretty close so is there like? Is there like any parties? Do you guys? Is there some pretty good events like on campus that's organized by the students there?
Speaker 3:yeah, there's, uh, every wednesday there's like a student event and I went to one yesterday and it was like an open mic night where if you could sing, tell jokes, play the guitar like you had five, ten minutes, and people would just like go up and was it pretty pop?
Speaker 3:was it was cool, pretty packed uh, it was probably about 50 percent capacity. Yeah, yeah, but it's still a really fun time. I just think sometimes they don't feel like inclined to go out, and whenever they do end up going, they really enjoy it. But just I don't feel like it's either they don't advertise it well enough or people just like to stay home.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure yeah, maybe they just want to sit and watch YouTube. I don't play video games, mm-hmm. There, a lot of you do a lot of Gen Z does your generation? Is everybody still playing video games? Oh yeah, I play you play so, like in your free time, like if you. If you were gonna pick anything, what would you pick?
Speaker 3:I mean it depends on how much free time I have. If I have three, four hours, I'd probably go golf. If I have like 20, 30 minutes, I'll probably turn on and play video games what are you?
Speaker 2:what are you playing?
Speaker 3:uh, I've only played one game for the past four months and it's the new like ncaa college football game that just came out, and ryan and I actually started this like dynasty mode where we both start off as the coach of the same school and then we kind of like divert and like see who goes where and how, who does what. That's crazy still, yeah that's kind of cool.
Speaker 2:That's cool. So do you play? Can you? Yeah, I don't know I I guess I'm thinking about like the games, like sports games. I never really did sports gaming, so I don't know how integrated it gets.
Speaker 3:Like could your account and your account play each other in a game is part of the season goes yeah, actually they have this really cool mode, but I we can't do Cause we only have one like console.
Speaker 2:Oh, one console. Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 3:If he had his own and I have my own, then it's like you could integrate into like oh, cool yeah.
Speaker 4:That's pretty sweet. So my, my boys like I'm, so I think. I think this kind of leads differences in generations. Is the technology gap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because they're the first fully plugged in social media technology at their fingertips. They're the first ones.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because you guys don't know.
Speaker 2:I read a newspaper in high school. I picked up the newspaper every single day and I read the newspaper.
Speaker 4:That's how I got my news. I played the snake game on my Nokia brick. Yeah, me too. Right, I had the same thing.
Speaker 3:Same exact thing. My first phone was a Nokia Nice. Yeah, it was like a little.
Speaker 1:See, that's good, that's cool.
Speaker 2:Because 97, you guys born 97?.
Speaker 4:03. 03. 03. I literally just guessed I was like yeah. Well, like, because you guys don't know, I mean, you don't know what life is like without social media, right, like, I mean, how old were you when you got an Instagram or a Facebook?
Speaker 3:My dad both my parents tried to keep it away for as long. Yeah, so I was probably. I want to say 12, 13.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's kind of my theory on kind of the, the generational gap, like between, um, I don't know, between us, like you know, mid late 30s millennials, like elder millennials, and what gen, gen z gen z then gen alpha, after that whatever right, yeah, gen alpha is right behind them yeah so so thinking about how do you guys get news like what are you just?
Speaker 2:are you legitimately like? I keep hearing it's like some insane percentage of uh gen z gets their news on tiktok. Is that how you guys get your news? I?
Speaker 1:I try to stay away from that, but that is true. A lot of people just go scrolling and I mean whatever they see or hear, they're just gonna run with it.
Speaker 4:So so if, if there was a nightlife like I, I don't know, I've heard some people compare. So like Chris Connors, Farmstead, Shout out to Farmstead. What's up, Chris? He said that St George should aim for something like a downtown Tempe, right, when, like it's walkable, right. So I guess maybe my question for you guys is if there was a scene like that here, would college kids go?
Speaker 1:to it Absolutely. I definitely think so yeah.
Speaker 2:So, the scene being what, though? Because I think of downtown Fullerton, right, I went to Cal State, fullerton, and downtown Fullerton is like it's a party street.
Speaker 4:That's where you go party, like that was a party street, right.
Speaker 2:It's like bar after bar after bar and it's just like a couple of different themes, but it's basically everybody just getting trash and loud music and that's clearly not ever going to be here.
Speaker 2:No, so like, how do you, how would we shape it? Like, if you guys were to shape for your generation, generation back? You know, is it like? Uh, there's this place called chicken and pickle. Have you ever you you've never played pickleball, so you probably have no idea what I'm talking about? But it's called chicken and pickle. Have you ever you you've never played pickleball, so you probably have no idea what I'm talking about? But it's called chicken and pickle and it's like this uh, roasted chicken place. But you can have. They have all kinds of food, but it's for big parties and they have pickleball courts. They have indoor pickleball courts. They have like cornhole, uh, throwing spaces. They have a bunch of different yard games, uh, that pool tables, um, so it's kind of like a, a sports, like an active game type bar at the same time, cause they have a full bar, um, is that something that you think would have a bunch of college kids at? Or like what? What would you guys design? Um?
Speaker 1:That sounds cool to me. I like that idea. Obviously it's not going to be like downtown Fullerton. We're not going to have bars, which I don't think that's just a problem.
Speaker 2:Nobody wants that, nobody wants it. And the kids? Yeah. I don't think you would want to go to that. Even if it existed, I don't even think you guys would go to it. Yeah, but what does it look like?
Speaker 1:What do you guys think? I just I mean, I like everything we have downtown, like down the boulevard. I kind of think of that little corner where Pizza.
Speaker 2:Factory is Pasta Factory. Yeah, george's Corner.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like super condensed but there's a little. You can like kind of walk through there and there's like little areas to hang out, there's cool lighting and stuff. I know people like that there and there's like little areas to hang out, there's cool lighting and stuff. I know people like that. Uh, other side of the street there's like this alleyway with like murals and lights hanging.
Speaker 1:I actually we have a, yeah, city view a friend who got proposed to there, that's nice, that's awesome yeah so that's a pretty cool spot, but I just imagine, like you know, just like a, like a square, you know with with shops, places to eat something like chicken and pickle in there yeah, you know where there's activities and just for every everybody to be centralized, because I feel like it's like there's an area by george's corner that's just kind of condensed and it's just all the way down that street.
Speaker 1:So it's like yeah if you're going somewhere, you're driving there, parking there and that's kind of your spot so, and this is what I'm hoping to do.
Speaker 2:So you know the vacant lot right next to george's corner, right?
Speaker 2:So if you just keep going down st george boulevard, but on the same side of the street is george george's corner, there's a big vacant lot there and so it used to be a hotel, st george inn so they tore that down. The city owns it. They're they're gonna have a developer go in and put something in there, and I'm hoping they'll put something that is you know an activity, a community type activity, entertainment center there, like there's. They could just have you know shops, a couple of restaurants and stores and then a bunch of apartments, which would be okay. But if they had like a little movie theater in there and like, maybe Laser tag, like a yeah, maybe an upgraded laser tag, you know what I mean, because, but even laser mania not throwing shade at laser mania it is fun, but it's old, it could be bigger, it just could be bigger right well, and it's dated yeah, um, but so like thinking of, like you know, a couple of other activity type stuff out there, but what about like a video game type place?
Speaker 2:do you think that there's they would?
Speaker 4:you would go to a place and play video games like an old arcade like one of those 24 7, like a one of those 24 7 golf lounges. Oh, but for video games. Dude, but for video games.
Speaker 2:So like you business idea, he could have a console. Like you, you have a subscription to the place and the console is at the place. You just log into your own account.
Speaker 3:I feel like that would be pretty cool, but I feel like a lot of kids would just be too lazy to get up and go like I just got it right.
Speaker 4:It's so funny what did Blake say? Video games at home.
Speaker 2:I don't want my video games out in public. I like it in private. Who lets the dogs?
Speaker 1:out. I love dogs the Baja please send them in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, send the dogs in man.
Speaker 1:Send in the dogs. What kind of dogs are they?
Speaker 4:Okay, they're not dogs that will bite your face off.
Speaker 1:I mean Blitz, could those are the cutest ones. Sometimes I don't think Blitz is smart enough. Oh hello.
Speaker 4:Hi guys.
Speaker 2:Blitz is smarter than me, I think.
Speaker 1:They went straight to Ilya.
Speaker 3:Hopefully they don't pull the cords, he smells good. Yeah, that's kind of what I was worried about.
Speaker 4:Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't think they're worried about that, thank you. So, yeah, just thinking about what is it that that generation, what your guys' generation, wants to do outside in the world, it seems like we're on that right route. It's just slow to get there, you know what I mean yeah, it takes time.
Speaker 2:You're only. You know if you come to college you're four years. Four years time for any development, you know is is like a standard amount of time if you have the idea yeah, and the college is oh, oh, hi, you're just right there. You're just right there. The college is growing rapidly and so development is just going to have to catch up. I think yeah.
Speaker 4:Is really what the bottom line is. Well, I think student housing is like the issue for enrollment, because there's no like. I've heard the argument or seen the argument before. Well, ever since the school changed names which we should probably talk about that at some point like, do kids care about that at all? But my point is is like the school is not growing really at all, but that's because there's nowhere for the for students to stay right. I mean, it was like 12, the enrollment's like 12, 500, something like that are you guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what's your rent? If you don't mind me asking so I did the semester rate and it was it's for student housing right yeah.
Speaker 4:Okay, so it's not technically off-campus, but it's like school-approved, yeah, like actual student housing.
Speaker 3:Okay, and per semester I pay it's like a $2,000 flat fee and then there's like 70 bucks a month in utilities. Oh got it, so it's nothing horrible.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's not too bad. So call it what two grand for four months.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Cool, yeah, so that's not too bad. So it seems like if it was really that tough to find the housing, it would be more expensive. Or do you think they're just rent controlling it because, like, well, college kid can only afford this and we only have, you know, 5 000 rooms period and anybody else has got to go get a house? Do you guys know anybody that's like, yeah, they couldn't even get student housing and they have to live off off campus. Do you even know anybody like that?
Speaker 3:I feel like most people I mean because I usually just hang out with, like the football players and I don't know if they get first dibs on the campus housing but most of them either live there or I can only really think of maybe four like student housing areas. There's all the campus views and then there's the stay, which is where we're at.
Speaker 4:And then they just finished some Right.
Speaker 1:Brand new campus view yeah, brand new campus view. Yeah, okay Got it.
Speaker 3:And then there's Red Rock, which is a couple miles away, and then there's like Vintage Tabernacle, which I heard. That place is pretty pricey and then 605 is also I heard is pretty pricey.
Speaker 4:I've heard that's pricey too, like $1,800 a month or something like that.
Speaker 2:I think they had room rates 605, right they had. I think they had room rates 605, right, is that what you're talking about? Yeah, I think they had individual room rates like uh, 600 bucks, but it was like an intro, it was just the banner up there, so they have a couple of different layouts. I think in 605 too, it's like you can two beds or one bed or three beds, so there's a few options. So housing for you guys hasn't been a problem. So, thinking like long term you probably got you're not going to stick around st george likely though. What do you guys think? Do you think most people stick around?
Speaker 4:or or wouldn't want to. Yeah, that was going to be my question too. Like is there a conversation on campus about that? Like our kids like hey, I'm from southern california, but like I don't want to go back there, I want to stay here. Are there? Are kids talking about that on campus? Is that even a conversation at all?
Speaker 1:yeah, I, I mean, I've definitely, you know, thought about it, talked about it with my parents and, uh, my girlfriend, about what we're gonna do, you know, once we, once we graduate, because obviously, if we're not going to school there anymore, right, you know what are we doing? We gotta find somewhere else to live, right um, and obviously california is so expensive so ridiculous, so expensive, and that's where all my family's from.
Speaker 1:But the nice thing about St George is it's an easy drive down the 15. I literally just get on the 15, drive for five hours, get off on my eggs and I'm home, yeah, so it's definitely something I've thought about. And St George is super intriguing just because of the business opportunity and that's what I am getting into. I'm majoring in business management and so just all the opportunity here. You know I've been to build a network. You know, just through football and everything I'm a part of, and also just you know it's, I feel like it's a great place to raise a family. I mean, I'm sure you can attest to that man that's yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I mean, I don't know exactly how you know it's going to pan out, but you know it's definitely something I'm open to Do you do you feel like there's possibilities for jobs?
Speaker 2:Like, have you got feelers out there yet? Like how, cause you're a junior right? Yeah, junior, yeah. So I guess maybe it's a little early. Maybe next year you start kind of getting feels for job opportunities. What do you think now, let's say you were graduating this next semester Do you think there'd be options, or do you even know?
Speaker 1:I think there would be. I feel like I know enough people ex-football players and coaches and we have this mentorship program, so all these huge business people in St George. They come and help us out and so I always have those connections. And you know, back to the former players, there's guys who are in real estate and whatnot and just I mean I feel like you can look around anywhere and find a job. Really, I mean, I haven't looked into anything specific yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but yeah, I mean I haven't looked into anything specific yet, yeah, but yeah, yeah, because I think there's a little bit of like a boogeyman mentality that gets fired up, at least on the political side of things, to like hear, maybe the generation that's disconnected, that's like this is anecdotal, this is happening to my nephew, or something like that. And now I'm going to because I'm already a politician and decision maker I'm going to apply that to the entire community and saying, you know, hey, we need to do these things and get something done for this generation. And it's like there's not enough job opportunities. It's like, wait a minute, isn't? Isn't there not enough job opportunities, or is there actually a lot of job opportunities and you can live here and find a house if you are just diligent enough to like seek it out. So I think sometimes we get kind of a we worry ourselves to death over stuff that's not really actually a problem yet. So, but I don't know, did you guys vote?
Speaker 3:yep, I did, you did not. I honestly didn't know I could vote in person thanks for being honest man yeah I appreciate that because I, because I'm from arizona and the ballot got sent to Mesa and my dad's in Sedona so he wouldn't have been able to go and grab it and ship it out to me. I would have, but just didn't have the time to.
Speaker 2:That's okay.
Speaker 1:So you did vote. Yeah, I did. I mean, fortunate enough, which I didn't know. That either I didn't know if you were from out of state. You could go vote in person and I didn't do too much research on it. But would you, if you, if I, were to vote in person here, would it be for? Would it count towards California or Utah?
Speaker 2:It depends on where you are resident of. So what is your residence? So if you're a resident of california, you'd be there. Where's your driver's license california, california. So it'd be a.
Speaker 1:It'd be a california vote right, yep, but yeah, so my mom was. I was fortunate enough she brought it up. We had a uh, the home came home game a couple weeks ago. She came, brought it up to me. Yeah, so it was honestly cool. I really enjoyed the process. Yeah, because it was like I, you know, like I got all the props and everything.
Speaker 2:If we lined up 100 people, I bet you you would be the only one to be like I really like the process. Maybe I'm totally wrong, but I'm surprised at that. I'm surprised, probably your first time voting right.
Speaker 1:It was my first time. Nice. That's awesome, yeah, so there's a little bit of excitement there, yeah, and you know I.
Speaker 4:Well, the older you get and the more tax bills you got to cut and you know car registrations you got to pay, you'll get beat down. Yeah, I bet the more eggs you have to buy.
Speaker 2:I bet and milk.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and all these other things. Yeah, not to be discouraged, not to be discouraged, yeah.
Speaker 2:Don't not to be discouraging.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't, don't you hang around us too much.
Speaker 3:We're a little too cynical, so you're like man, these guys are kind of hanging, aren't they for real?
Speaker 2:um, so you like the process, so take me through the process. Like what? How did you unfold it in your mind? Did you get the ballot, then start looking, or were you kind of thinking about it before the ballot came?
Speaker 1:I thought about it, you know, a bunch before the ballot came in, but I didn't know exactly what I was supposed to look into. Um, and the most intriguing part was looking at all the, all the Senate's and everything beyond just the presidency, I was like, okay, who are these people? You know, I gotta, I gotta figure this out. And just looking through all the different propositions and just doing my research on that and like, through doing that, I was able, you know, to find out where I stand and just kind of you know know what things are valuable to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kind of inspect that a little bit. What was one of the things that, yeah, what was in that discovery? What did you find that was more important to you, that you hadn't realized?
Speaker 1:oh, I mean I was. I remember I was looking at two different senates, I believe, and you know they. They seemed pretty similar, you know just from what I was looking at. But one of them mentioned something I'd never heard about and that was parental rights. And I'm I'm not a parent, I won't be for a long time, um, but I was like you know this, this affects my future. Who knows when I'm gonna have a kid? Um, so I had to go in and see what that was about and I found out that was something I stand very strong behind. It's like if my, my, if my 10 year old child's trying to make a life-changing decision, they should not be able to just go to their teacher or principal and just move forward with that without me knowing. Yeah, isn't that crazy. It seems so crazy to me.
Speaker 2:It seems weird that that would be something you would be running on. You're like I think this is a good idea, and then they think the normal people on the planet wouldn't look at that and be like, yeah, I don't think that's right. I don't think a 10 year old has. Have they not met a 10 year old? My thought is like maybe these people have never actually met a 10 year old before and they were only a 10, a 10 year old. They, they, they got there and they already thought they knew everything, because some 10 year olds think they're that smart and then they never met another one, met another one. It's like why would you think?
Speaker 1:that person has the ability to make decisions like that. It's crazy. I mean, there's a reason you know. You're not allowed to vote until you're 18. You can't get a tattoo until you're 18. You can't buy alcohol or anything else till you're 21, because you know we.
Speaker 2:We've seen that. You know there's proof. We can't be trusted before that yeah, not developed yet? Yeah, no, not at all. Um, so you're called a single issue. Voter is what the political people would say. It's like there's one issue that really drives this person over that one. So did you even have to think about the presidential election, or did you feel like you were already aligned one way or another?
Speaker 1:I felt like I was pretty aligned one way. Yeah, you know, I mean, the biggest thing to me is I don't want to be one of those people who's just brainwashed either way. Yeah, you know, based on the way I was raised, so you weren't upset when kamala lost it, didn't?
Speaker 2:you didn't have to take time off of school or anything like that.
Speaker 1:No, I did not.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh I saw too many videos of people having full-blown meltdowns. I was like there's, they have to be active. I, I spent. This can't be real. I spent too much time. I spent way too much time watching those videos.
Speaker 4:I just couldn't stop People crying about it. But here's what's interesting, though, if you think about, like, what these guys were doing in 2016,. Right, I mean, you were 10 years old, 12 years old drinking juice box. So, like the the um, the polarization maybe of of trump in 2016, like for you and me, we like we went through it right we, we, we remember.
Speaker 2:Basically I remember. I remember vividly saying like I can't believe I have to listen to this guy for four years. He sounds so dumb, I hate listening to him talk. That's how I thought in 2016, and now I'm like at least trump's talking sense like it.
Speaker 4:That's just nuts to me. I think that's the case for a lot of people, but eight years later I remember. I remember when he said because you'd be in jail just rolling on the floor laughing, just dying, right.
Speaker 2:So uh where where are your parents from? Like, where are you from?
Speaker 3:both of my parents were born in the soviet union. They're both lived in tashkent in uzbekistan and that's by like kazakhstan, russia, kind of that area, central asia. And yeah, my dad came here in 1989. He spent uh, just because the paperwork was so difficult to get from the soviet union he spent a month in austria and then he spent six months in italy and then he finally came here and he lived in new york for probably 10 or so years, my mom there. Wow, funny enough.
Speaker 4:And then what were they doing for work? Yeah, I was gonna say what was his first job so my dad in new york.
Speaker 3:In new york he actually had basically every single like typical immigrant job you could think of like he was washing dishes, like yeah, washing dishes, making pizzas, he was a hot dog vendor and then, just like a taxi, he was taxi driver. How could I forget that? That was like his main job in new york. Yeah, and yeah, he had his yellow cab crazy. And uh, I mean he's a barber, like that's kind of yeah, by trade and he would just pick up like little jobs wherever and yeah, so he met your mom there.
Speaker 2:Where's your mom from?
Speaker 3:so my mom is from tashkent as well okay and he his aunt or his cousin, kind of introduced them both. I've got it yeah dude.
Speaker 2:That's cool because kind of migrate like uh.
Speaker 3:Typically they go to other areas where a bunch of people from their area are already existing right so enclaves, and so this was a specific area in new york yeah, so queens is full of, like, buharian jews which is what my dad is, okay and just a lot of russians as well. So it was kind of just like that little community that transferred over.
Speaker 2:Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 3:That's crazy.
Speaker 2:So as far as your race being, you said Boharian Jew.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's, they're ethnically Jewish.
Speaker 2:Ethnically.
Speaker 3:And religiously so after King Cyrus, right, if I remember correctly. After he freed them from Babylon.
Speaker 2:Got it.
Speaker 3:The Boharian Jews were kind of the people that stayed king cyrus right, if I remember correctly, after he freed them from babylon, got it. The buharian jews were kind of the people that stayed in persia and everyone else went back to israel. So we were kind of that group that stayed back okay, got it and.
Speaker 2:And so then were you raised a specific religion or?
Speaker 3:yeah, I mean we weren't super involved in religion, like I mean, I was still like very faithful and all that. But my dad, every once in a while probably every couple months we'd go to the synagogue and like we would always go to my grandmother's for like shabbat dinner and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:So we were still like inclined a lot of traditions are still there, yeah, so then how did he get to arizona?
Speaker 3:um, honestly, he just kind of he went, he visited a friend, I'm pretty sure, and then he just liked the way, like it was a lot more open. New york is super clustered and yeah, typically left-leaning. If and he's obvious he's a lot more conservative, so he wanted to choose a lot more conservative state.
Speaker 4:Yeah, interesting, which probably answers the question on why he got out of Europe and came to America and like Because the wall fell in 85?, 89., 89.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was like right at that same time. So it was kind of like is the doors open? Everybody's like sweet, let's go somewhere. Yeah, so it was like right at that same time. So it was kind of like is the doors open and everybody's like sweet, let's go somewhere.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and especially since, like the 1990s in like what was the Soviet Union, was particularly difficult because, like everything fell apart, they all had to, like, rebuild from the ground up. It was just probably the best time to get out, just to get out, yeah, and New York was the place he came.
Speaker 4:That's pretty cool, man Dude.
Speaker 2:That's an awesome story, man that is a cool story, like the immigration story that my family has.
Speaker 2:It's like, well, a long time ago they went to Canada and then they settled Southern California, which is kind of cool because it was like the orchards and all that stuff. So my great uncle was the first president of Sunkist. So Sunkist was just a, a co-op of orchards and so they just kind of pooled everything together and so then they um, yeah, it was basically a co-op, it was the first business model and then it expanded to become, you know, sun kissed, as we kind of see it today, but the navel orange, which is like the main orange. There's a picture of my uncle, um, standing next to the very first navel orange tree, because they crossed, cross-breeded two, two oranges a bunch of different times to get the naval orange and it's like a picture of him standing next to this tree. I'm like that's kind of a cool, you know, uh, pioneering origin story family money went down the other side of the escaping escaping soviet russia seems so much like more like a story that you like write down.
Speaker 3:And then like my family still, or at least my dad's side, they still like they never really hated it there. They just like love the idea of America a lot more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the opportunity.
Speaker 3:Like cause my, my grandparents, they had, they wanted no part of moving. And my dad he was 16 at the time, by the way he was like no, we're getting this paperwork filled out Like we're all going. And they're like, okay, whatever, yeah.
Speaker 2:Dang. That's pretty crazy. That's wild man, that is wild. That's a different era. Yeah, that's totally different era.
Speaker 4:I think our buddy Nick Nick Rostopchin's got a similar story.
Speaker 2:Oh to that, correctly escaped, like you know, russian communism or whatever yeah, it seems like a very fear-based like running across, but it sounds to me like your dad was more like no, there's like opportunities, like land opportunities. Here, the windows open for us to go and we're what. We know that this is not going to be better than what's over there have you guys gone back to uzbekistan?
Speaker 4:have you been back?
Speaker 3:no, my dad's been really pushing like he wants to go this summer if we can. But we did go to the Republic of Georgia and Armenia, which it's pretty far. It's by Turkey.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and a lot of Armenians in Southern California. Really Yep yeah. So we went, I have a good friend, Heather Rohana.
Speaker 2:Shout out to Heather.
Speaker 3:I don't think she's.
Speaker 2:Rohana anymore, but she's Armenian.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we spent about a month there when I was I think it was the year before I went into high school and I just got to see a lot of like the mountains, the landscape, the people and the people there are fantastic, like they're probably one of the most hospitality, yeah, hospitable. Yeah, that's the word yeah Cool, that's kind of what they're known for.
Speaker 2:Yeah, friend. Hospitable yeah, that's the word. Yeah, cool, like that's kind of what they're known for. Yeah, friendly, like come in sit down, let's have some food.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because my, my dad knew a guy who knew a guy who had an apartment there and we stayed with him for the month and so awesome they like took us into their home. No question, yeah, fed us, showed us like all these cool places.
Speaker 2:It's awesome it was a really cool experience. That is awesome. We're really good at making other foreign countries seem really scary, like it like oh no, they're mean over there, especially in movies they always like, especially like middle eastern. Yeah, uh, like the depictions of that, it's like everybody's mean. This guy on youtube he backpacked across china, they dropped him off in like the middle of china and he was gonna hitchhike for three days across china. He's, he's english and he's like apparently, the chinese people are very mean. This is supposed to be pretty hard, is it the? But I don't know, I don't think he's bald anyway, yeah, is it the bald guy? The? The bald guy. That was all you're gonna give. There's only one bald guy on youtube, youtube I don't think it's the bald guy.
Speaker 4:This is a different guy.
Speaker 2:He's a different guy I know who you're talking about now, but he literally hitchhiked across china. He just stuck his thumb out and like bald and bankrupt police officers were like helping him.
Speaker 2:They're like waving people down, like can you help this guy? He's trying to hitchhike. And they're like, can't we just get you a bus ticket? Let me buy you a bus ticket. He's like no, no, I don't want you to buy me a bus ticket, I just I want to see if I can do this thing. They're like, oh, okay, and he's talking to chat gpt and then it's translating it for him. So he's just talking into the, the chat gpt, for aught, and it's, uh, instantly like translating so they can have full conversations, like passing the phone back and forth to each other. Wow, it's pretty crazy. But you think you would think that the people in china there would be some english person you know trying to hitchhike they get arrested and put in some like prison somewhere, like that. I feel like that's the way media portrays. It portrays it, but that's not the reality. I backpacked europe. Everybody was nice, except for in paris, dude they do not like americans, yeah they do not like americans.
Speaker 2:I, I was, uh, I needed to print something, oh my ticket, because they wouldn't take my digital, uh, my, my digital ticket. The only the only train station in all of europe that wouldn't let me take a digital ticket. They made me have a printed ticket. I was like, are you kidding me? And she's like no. And my train was about to leave, so I ran up the street. I found a computer shop and the guy pretended like he couldn't speak English. I was like I need to print this. And he just kept talking to me in French and I almost missed my. It was completely stressful. Paris, and I got bed bugs. Bed bugs in paris, dude, yeah, so anyway, that's, it's only bad place. I guess my one anecdotal experience, but that's pretty crazy, dude.
Speaker 1:I'm glad, uh, I asked you about that, jeff asked about your parents, because that's a cool story anyway, that was something I realized because, you know, the presidential debate came up and I was like you know I'm gonna be voting this year. You know, I might as well tune in. Did you watch it too? Did you watch the debate?
Speaker 3:I watched a little bit yeah a little bit.
Speaker 1:I was I mean, I wasn't super involved in politics before this. Obviously, you know, like the when in 2016, um, I, I didn't know what I was 13 yeah, yeah, there's no reason for a 13 year, right to be involved in politics. I was like let me listen to these guys talk. And they just had an argument about their golf game. Like the informality of it is kind of mind blowing.
Speaker 2:I actually never really thought about the person that had never seen a debate before like you watching that for the first time and being like wait, this is what they do.
Speaker 3:It's actually embarrassing. It's so embarrassing.
Speaker 2:It's actually embarrassing. It's so embarrassing, it's so embarrassing. I was a political science major and I took a speech class and I used to watch debates. We used to in class and we had a few specific debates that we watched live and just thinking of, you know, the politicians of yesteryear, and then putting that side by side with, like, donald Trump, it seems like idiocracy. There's this movie Idiocracy.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've seen it. My dad made me watch it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it seems like we're just so rapidly approaching that kind of a scenario and I can't imagine for like your generation looking at that and being like, oh man, this is my first. I'm really impressed by these two people. There's no way you thought that.
Speaker 1:No, not at all. I was like, I feel like I could. I mean, I probably don't know as much as them, but I feel like I could put together better debate than 100 yeah 100 nobody cares about your handicap, you're gonna run our country.
Speaker 2:Like you're the ego the egos were so on. Show at that point is like you clearly don't care to run the country for anything except to beat this guy. Like you guys are just mad at each other. It's like why are you guys arguing with each other? How about you just make your positions and move on? But they can't do that yeah so you know we'll, we'll see.
Speaker 4:I'm hopeful of the next generation of politicians after trump yes, well, yeah, because you think about, like what the next four years looks like. Um, I mean, these are fairly pivotal years, especially for you guys on what you know, like what's going to set your political trajectory, what you're going to do for work, what taxes look like, what housing affordability looks like. I mean, next four years, a lot of those decisions are going to probably come to a head, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean, even just the debate between Wall, walls and vance was way better, way better, way better yeah, that's.
Speaker 2:That was way more reminiscent of what a debate is supposed to be like. Was those two and and even walls. As an individual, he's still a pretty polished politician, but he kind of always had this like kind of dumb look on his face, like he was kind of shocked at whatever jd was saying. Did you notice that? Yeah, he always seemed like surprised at, like what was what jd was saying? And jd is just very, uh, polished and smart, articulate.
Speaker 4:Self-made too, yeah, self-made, yeah he just seems like a normal dude, comes from nothing. His mom was like a drug addict and he, uh he put himself through college and became a venture capitalist, made millions and millions of dollars and got into the Senate. Cool yeah, uh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so thinking about that next generation, and it'll just make um if you're a Democrat or if you're a left-leaning, uh, conservative. You know, as a college kid, you're still trying to figure it out, I think. Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but, like you know, as a college kid, you're still trying to figure it out. I think, oh, yeah, yeah, but like for us we're 37, like what makes sense and what doesn't, there's not going to be a lot of difference in our lives when we're 41. Right, we're probably going to keep. You know, like my, our kids will be a little bit older, you know. But, like for these guys, their lives are going to be completely different in four years, yeah, than ours are.
Speaker 2:So well, and then just thinking about like, as you understand, if you even care to some people I think are just like I don't want anything to do with politics. I think there's a big portion of the people that are just like I don't have time for that, I'm not really motivated to understand more. My life is, you know, going to go in a trajectory in one way or another. Right as a Christian, right you think of okay, is this vote actually going to change something? Okay, and that belief in that. And then also, is this my, my duty to do it as a citizen?
Speaker 2:I'm really hopeful, though, that the generation behind us does look at it as their responsibility to you know, if, if we don't keep this institution um, on its foundations, like the constitution as it is, if we don't stick with that, and if we keep going off track or thinking the constitution is not a like an experiment, just an experiment, that wasn't really well thought out, that was way it's way off base. You know, like the constitution, as its design is thousands of years in the making, right, they've, they've taken all the education of you know Rome and and you know civilizations hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and said this is this kind of document is how we're supposed to run the government, and we're so far off track right now. We can't keep going off track.
Speaker 1:You gotta get back to that. What makes us so much better than all of that knowledge? Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's almost like it. It we're sitting on a foundation that allows us to get better in some areas and make mistakes, but self-correct right, but if you start eroding at that framework, that can self-correct. Like Trump won the presidency we're going to, the pendulum is going to swing back the other way, but those mechanisms at some point can get corrupted to where we can't swing back. Like what if Trump doesn't win and the left continues to lie to us or gaslight us in really monumental ways and then they erode the constitution in just enough way to where no election is fair at any level you know what I mean, and then that slips off into complete chaos, right, yeah, and so it's that leaning on the foundations. I'm hoping the generations behind us really drive that home. Yeah, but just thinking of like constitution and government classes did you, was it, were you guys interested in that at all, like in high school? And then have you had to take any in college? I think you have to have at least an American government class in college, right?
Speaker 3:I think it was either government or history, and I chose history cause that's just more interesting to me.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, just like basically the general past. What'd you pick?
Speaker 1:I think I did history because it was online. Yeah, nice. See, this is what I'm worried about.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like I, I remember the constitution, classes and things like that, but as an adult I've had to do more learning on my own than school ever did.
Speaker 1:I do wish I picked the government class. I didn't think about it like that at the time, but it's like a utility and that's the thing, too, with with college.
Speaker 2:I look back at it and, too, I was like man. I wish I would've taken classes. I'm like I'm going to need this skill, not like what is going to get me a degree. It's like what skills do I? That to? Just the average joe? I get a paycheck. How do I manage my own money?
Speaker 4:well, I think that's part of the part of the problem. Like I look back on mine, I went to the university of utah and I did um, like basically start to finish. Like I started, um, I had some credits from high school and then I did a semester of college, um, before my uh mission. I went on a mission and came back and started, but like they made me take an art credit, like I had to do a digital photography class, right, and I actually kind of enjoyed it, like it was fun, you know, like it's not something that I ever would have chosen, but it's three hours a week that you could have learned something way more valuable.
Speaker 4:So my whole thought process in the class was like, wait a minute, I'm paying to be here, but they are telling me what I need to study, and so I, you know, I look back and I'm like maybe there's some things that I could have done different in college.
Speaker 2:but I think there's a you get put into a box a little bit depending on your major, but I mean I was a political science major, so it's still pretty niche right. And so as a business management maybe it's more, maybe I had you have more options than I did.
Speaker 4:Well, I think you still got to take generals, Like they make you take some generals right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Actually. So the best class I've taken in college so far has been this random one I took my freshman year. It was like a. It was a family relationships class.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you were telling me about this. I remember that.
Speaker 1:It was incredible, like maybe, maybe just for me, I'd recommend it.
Speaker 2:It's like a life skills.
Speaker 1:It's like a legitimate life skills class yeah. Talking about how to, like you know, manage relationships within your family. You know it goes back down into your family tree and it helps you just diagnose any trauma you might have and it was super helpful. I enjoyed the entire class.
Speaker 2:He was fully reprogrammed in that one class. Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Well, there's probably something to be said about that. Maybe I'm in the wrong thinking. Okay, maybe some of what the school is trying to do is open your mind up a little bit.
Speaker 2:Did you have to take that class or you just picked it?
Speaker 1:No it was what's the word for it Elective, Elective. It was just an elective class.
Speaker 2:And you were like I'm looking for a bird class, I need an, A easy A.
Speaker 4:I did that with an astronomy class class at the university of utah and I loved every second.
Speaker 2:Oh, I made a mistake I made a mistake and thought that the rock and roll history class was that and she was like if you think this class is going to be easy, you'll be lucky if you get a b that's how mine was dude and I was like, oh, dang it, this is gonna be way harder.
Speaker 2:But it was actually very interesting. She went into like the history of music and how michael jackson ripped off like half of his his art was all taken off of, like african um musicians, like blues and and uh, rock musicians before michael jackson. And then she even went in to show there's only certain frequencies and patterns within music that humans find enjoyable and we basically patterned out all of those things. So now we're just like repeating those things in just a few different, tweaked ways. We're putting new lyrics onto almost exact same songs, and so she'd play these two songs at the same time and you'd literally hear the same song, but the words make it seem different, but they've basically mastered. Okay, this is the type of music that this group of people, people listen to. This is how you know. If you like blues, hip-hop, you know r&b.
Speaker 4:It's like the side by side of greta van fleet and led zeppelin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they just basically just ripped the whole thing off, right, the whole thing off, and so and then we all just consume it.
Speaker 2:But you didn't know, you're not as familiar with led zeppelin, so you're like oh, I know greta, greta van fleet, but we all like the same music, just just different names of the bands and it. It kind of sent me off on a a weird like dang it we're. We're kind of in a spiral. We just do the same thing over and over again. But it was before. I had a Christian worldview of like societies doing ourselves the same thing over and over again. We do it with music. History of rock. She blew my mind.
Speaker 1:I got an, a nailed it. Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 2:A minus. It was an a minus, it wasn't an a, it's not, it's not. I was. I was like no, I'm gonna get an a, I'm not gonna have a minus in history of rock. Come on, one paper did me in, oh well anyway. So we all have that elective class. That's kind of cool. But the constitution right, learning government and stuff like that, that's a huge need. At least between Jeff and I, I'm like we got to figure out how do we educate the future generations on government, get them excited about it, you know. So what are you guys going to do next? What are you guys doing tonight? You can play video games.
Speaker 1:What is it Probably Thursday night. It's Thursday, no practice tomorrow. We get a little bit of sleep.
Speaker 3:A little bit of sleep. Cool, it'll be nice. Cool, I got to do a PowerPoint for my entrepreneurship class.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, what's it on?
Speaker 3:So we're doing a minute pitch on, like a business idea that we have. Yeah, dude, that sounds awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude, let's test it out right here.
Speaker 3:Okay, so the only thing that Mic discipline, mic discipline you gotta, you gotta lean into that mic, though kiss that mic. So the business in itself is, I was just kind of thinking about how, like, a lot of college kids just cannot find any good furniture anywhere and they're either too poor, they don't have a car to lug anything around, or they just don't have the time to go look for any good like good deals.
Speaker 3:So I was thinking that either like online probably online- because that's the easiest we'll either go to like offices because they apparently in the united states 17 billion tons of furniture is thrown away every single year, which I had no idea that's insane.
Speaker 3:So we'd either go to like walmart for any blemished furniture or any offices that are throwing it away. We just buy it at a reduced price. And then even seniors who are like looking to offload their furniture, we just buy from them and then we'll just resell it to freshman sophomores just looking to get any sort of furniture so so sophomore or freshman orientation, you get hey, you need furniture.
Speaker 2:This go to this website, yeah.
Speaker 4:And then it's like a discount college kid furniture store and they deliver it, yeah, so that was gonna be my question do you have like, um, like, would each school or whatever have their own like storage facility, where you can store stuff and then like kind of recycle through it and if it gets beat up then you just throw it away?
Speaker 3:or yeah, I mean, I was thinking something like that, or if it was something that was easily taken apart and then like could easily put, put back together, we just ship it out to their just right, to them. They just get it in their front door, set it up and they're good to go that's interesting idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's almost like a. It's getting the attention of of all the college kids to know that that's the resource. And then the type do you think pickiness like the type of furniture? Do you think college kids are all that picky?
Speaker 3:uh, it honestly depends on the person. I feel like there's a lot of people out there that want like the cool, like aesthetic room, and they'll, and then I feel like there's a lot of people out there that want like the cool, like aesthetic room, and then I feel like I wonder if this is a pitch, so if it's like in a different, a specific market, right, so you're picking, like this area, you say, okay, well, out of all the college dorms, we just furnish the college dorms, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so the business would be. It's uh, the college kids would say, hey, this is the, this is what I need and this is the package, and you can furnish it, but it's not theirs. It's like they rent it for that that semester and and then you either take it back if they, if that next person in that room doesn't want the furniture there, but you can move it somewhere else.
Speaker 2:I wonder if you did like we just design it for him yeah, just design it for him, like you know where, all the like you just named most of the the student housing anyway. So you, you figure out, you know how many rooms are there, how much, how many beds you need, how many desks it's honestly, that's not a bad idea. And then and then you could just you're already pre-furnished. Like okay, hey, what's your address? Oh yeah, we have furniture that can fit for that that place.
Speaker 4:It's x amount, a semester or whatever because, and then if you're a college kid and you happen to like have a truck, you can like sign up for a delivery service or something where like hey, um, yeah, I'm.
Speaker 2:I'm curious the colleges don't already have that, like hey, uh, will you grab me this while you're out, type like community page where, like, the different students could help help the different students out like hey, I'm sick, can anybody grab me? You know something at the?
Speaker 2:uh, yeah, walgreens or whatever and you just send it out to everybody and somebody gets a notification like hey, five bucks. I could pick this up almost like I'm already at walmart instacart it'd be like instacart for college kids, yeah, where you it's like favors, like hey, my, you know, light bulb went out. Does anybody have a light bulb? You know, I don't know. I'm trying to think of like the problems that you guys might face, yeah, and you throw it up on the message board.
Speaker 4:There's always little things like today dude we just gave you like 18 ideas, I know 18 pitches write those down.
Speaker 2:Today we're luckily, we recorded them nailed it.
Speaker 1:We're at a swiffer pads today and it's kind of an inconvenience to just run to the store for one thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like anybody have an extra swiffer pads, I'll pay you five bucks or whatever. Two bucks, yeah, yeah, I so. So, thinking about that furnishing idea, that's a pretty good idea, dude, I like it. That's a good one. I think you're gonna do well. You do well, entrepreneurship for sure. So, um well, I mean, you answered all my questions.
Speaker 4:So the one question I have not one, but like kind of the like what's next, like maybe in conclusion, type question is do you, because we work in in real estate, mostly residential do you guys have any idea what buying a house looks like, where, like when you would want to even buy a house, how much money it takes? Is that even a conversation on campus, like our other kids, like I want to, I want to make sure I have a house before I'm 30 or I want to buy a house next year is are people talking about that kind of stuff? Are you guys even like thinking?
Speaker 4:that way like involved in that conversation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean there's definitely a fair amount of kids, especially as you get older, like junior, senior year, when you like really need to start looking into that. I'm kind of getting on that cusp where I have two years left of school and football and whatnot, so like maybe this year, next year, I like really need to start looking into it. So I think it's just like as people get older, then they really start to like research and look into things. And from what I've heard, the housing market in St George is relatively expensive, so yeah it's just.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean across the state. You know it just depends on what would you want, like, what do you guys think when you're first home? What?
Speaker 1:would you guys want? What do you guys think when your first home? What would you guys want? That's a good question. I mean, I don't think I would get done with school and immediately look to buy a house because you know it. It depends on you know my marriage and our situations with our careers and what that looks like where you're gonna go next, right and because my first house is gonna be the house that my child grows up in you think so?
Speaker 1:I, I believe so interesting. Yeah, I mean that's, that's kind of how it's gone in my family. Okay, now, um, and maybe I mean, maybe it doesn't go that way, um, but I think that's, I think that's actually awesome that that's like the thought process you have.
Speaker 2:I guess I'm surprised because I wouldn't have thought you would be thinking that long term in that first house that you buy.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, I mean, I just wouldn't want to. You know I I'd never moved too much. You know, during my lifetime, during my childhood, yeah, I've lived in the same house since I was born. Yeah, in corona, california, and so shout out to corona, shout out corona the 909 town.
Speaker 2:The 909, not the 951.
Speaker 1:Don't, don't get out of here with the 951, it's the 909, I don't know, yeah, and so I mean I definitely think that's a conversation that needs to be had more on campus. Um, because I feel like a lot of kids have no idea and they're going to hit that point where they're about to graduate, they're about to be done with school and they're just going to sit there like okay, how do I, how do I get to this point? Cause I don't want to live with my parents for forever. You know, maybe they'll take me back for a little bit you know, right after school, or maybe rent for 10 years.
Speaker 2:So like this is what I, this is what I think. I think if you look in St George, there's not a ton of like first time home buyer investments, but like if you were to rethink that buying a house is buying a single real estate and then that's the only one you ever buy, rather than thinking a house is like a 401k or an IRA or like, hey, this is an investment vehicle, this is like a way for me to in my future, the value of this property is going to help me retire, right, right. So my first house that I bought would be a house that we could have lived in for 10 years straight. It was a beautiful house in a cul-de-sac single level, three beds. I had an office, good size garage. Everything works. It's fairly updated and we cash flow now as a, as a rental, around $700 a month net. That's after insurance taxes, all the management fees, all that stuff. We we take home $700 a month, right.
Speaker 4:Because?
Speaker 2:because you kept it and bought another one because I kept it and bought another one and then I have a renter in it. And so when we think about a house not just as a place that you live in, you raise your family, but you look at a house as a dwelling. It could be a condo, right, where you could go in and buy a condo and although that condo might not appreciate super fast if you bought it and then getting renters in there to cover the mortgage and the principle that you have into it. And now, all of a sudden that that asset is appreciating, not with the money that you put into it but at the total value of it. Right, so it might cost you let's say it costs you 15 grand, 20 grand to get into a condo right.
Speaker 2:Now that 20 grand isn't the only percentage growing. If I put that 20 grand into a stock market, then it would only grow 20 grand at a percentage up, right? Well, if you put it into a house, the house is appreciating at the value of the house. So if it's, I put 20 grand in to get a $200,000 condo. Now it's appreciating at 200,000, not at my initial $20,000 in, right, so now it's compounding on the appreciated value, because real estate only goes like this. Now it goes down. If you zoom in it goes down over shorter periods of time, but just like a retirement account, you're like I'm going to hold this asset for 10 or 15 years. It goes up. It doesn't always go down for a full rift. But if you could kind of think of housing a little bit different, rather than just a place that you're going to raise your family, but another vehicle, just another asset, another asset that's going to help you get retired, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that's something we've talked about educating the college kids and because some people think that, but other people don't even look at real estate in that vein. Right, it's like a tool for wealth later on, and the sooner you get into it, the better, just like anything.
Speaker 3:One question that I did was I kind of came up with was I know there's people out there that want to buy a home and then, instead of just like giving it out for rent, they want to put it in like as an Airbnb or anything like that, a Vrbo. How would you guys like look at that?
Speaker 2:So, just like any any other investment, right? So, like, what's the revenue that thatrbo is going to bring in and then what's the cost to manage that? Right? And so, um, currently in st George, the vacation rental market, home values are in free fall. Like they're. They pull back 35 from the top and they're just they keep going down because there's no demand for them and they're not really making the amount of money that covers itself.
Speaker 2:Like, if you got a loan now, if you have cash and you bought that property fully with cash and you're not, you don't have a loan on it. Yeah, it's going to provide you income, but what's? What's your loss? Like you put that cash in that house versus putting that cash into the stock market, which one would be better, and it's probably arguable. You could put in a 10 year treasury bill and make a better return than buy a vacation rental. You know what I mean. So, like this window of time, if you would have asked me two years ago, I would have been like, yeah, vacation rental values are exploding, right, and so that that long arc right Is part of that real estate.
Speaker 2:But a single family, you know, just typical home, that's really the investment. That, as a as a younger person and getting into is. It sounds maybe boring, but it's like the entry level standard. What's the um? The type of house the most number of people would have an option to buy. Like how many? Like the lower income is actually the best investment properties because they're always rented. You're never going to have to worry about somebody doesn't want to rent it, right, and so if you can get in the lower income bracket and something that's universally, universally um, able to rent out to like it's on a single level, doesn't have two stories, you know, an older couple can go in there in and out, or a brand new family, college, kid utility, versatility that's kind of the biggest thing I would look out for in picking up real estate. And then other areas of the country like you guys are from other areas, those other areas might be better places to invest than St George.
Speaker 2:But getting curious and kind of looking out for values and kind of understanding that you can buy a house from anywhere, you don't actually have to physically be there, right, you can do everything over notary and you can go check it out one time over a weekend and be like, yep, I like this house and the numbers make sense and then you don't actually have to be there. I would say getting a property manager like a good property manager is. Another key piece to it is is paying for a professional to manage it and rent it out and make sure they handle it. You bake that into the numbers, so like 10 a month, make sure that that's factored in and somebody else does the work. You don't have to do it. You're not going to like take a phone call because the dishwasher went out you know, somebody else take that call.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. So just something to think about yeah, oh, yeah, for sure, and you don't have any money. You can buy a house with no money down, zero money, and they'll give you a grant yeah, they'll give you money.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I know a guy I met him at the gym. He's 25 now, um but he he borrowed a down payment for a house just like a crappy old house in, uh, I think it's in washington right while he was going to school, borrowed money, uh, from his parents for a down payment. How?
Speaker 2:dare you say that about that house? It's probably not a crappy house.
Speaker 4:Sorry, I took you off track well, I mean, it was old and beat up, right, needed a bunch of work, right, uh, so borrows down payment from his parents, starts um after classes and like in between classes stuff starts uh, pressure washing people's driveways. Um, takes him six months to pay his parents back. He gets like four or five other guys to rent the house with him. He's making like 1800 bucks a month on top of the mortgage and now, four years later, the house is worth 120 grand more than when he first bought it, right, yeah? So lots of, lots of different ways to skin a cat when it comes to real estate. Um, but I think um kind of a universal thought is um, real estate is a long game. You can own real estate anywhere in the country and um, uh, you know, somebody told me this one time but you don't get rich selling property. Or, in other words, the more, the more properties you buy, the better off. Yeah, you buy it, don't sell it.
Speaker 4:And then with this kid, I mean, you know he bought it when he was 21. So 30 years later, if he keeps the loan the entire time, 30 years later he's 51. The 30 years later he's 51, the house is probably worth triple what he paid for it and it's free cash flow.
Speaker 2:Whatever it is, whether you're laying it out or you know whatever, so yep wow anyway it's. It's an interesting, interesting um perspective that the college kids need to hear. So you gotta spread the word, you gotta tell your friends yeah, it's good, you know, by real estate.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you're like and it might not be everybody's, you know, not everybody in college is like I want to. You know I want to be a millionaire, you know right, yeah, but not everybody in college is like I want to. You know I want to be a millionaire, you know Right, yeah, but I think everybody in college would be like, how fast can I get to retirement?
Speaker 2:And like, how, like residential real estate dude, we've talked to dozens of people that were like I just we just started buying houses. You know, they worked a standard, you know, made 80 grand a year, right, but they just kept buying houses and staying steadfast with that and they retired millionaires and that's like all that they did was just buy up real estate. And then they they decided like, oh, if I sell this house, this house in this house, I can pay these two off and make five grand a month and be retired. And now I have a you know $2 million in cash that I can go buy another house in Scottsdale or something you know. And they were worked, you know teachers. They worked $80,000 a year jobs and that's it.
Speaker 2:So that strategy and thinking any college kids should be thinking okay, how, how fast can I get to retirement? It's like the whole point of going to work, maybe to build something, but you don't want to have to work. So how can I make money enough to where I could wake up and all my bills are paid, I could buy food, I'm not worried about anything, and that money just keeps coming in Real estate can't help you get there, aside from whatever other job that you're doing, but the sooner you get into real estate, the better it is. Over that long tail, that's my pitch.
Speaker 4:There's another pitch right there. That's great, it's good. But vacation rentals can play into that too. If you're like, hey, I want a vacation rental portfolio depends on location, location 100, it all is the location right. Like if you buy a, if you buy a house in you know des moines, iowa, and you're like I'm gonna make money. You know airbnb and it's like nobody's going to des moines maybe a few people, and it's also timing right.
Speaker 2:It just depends on the timing. It's like right now maybe people aren't traveling to saint george, but maybe they're traveling to memphis because the East Coast is closer and there's a lot more people. Theo. Vaughn lives in Memphis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2:But thinking of like vacation rentals as a portfolio and that's kind of that, takes a lot of knowledge, a lot of effort and time. It's like okay, I got to find which market is good and which market's not, but that'd'd be good business idea. It's like figure out what are hot real estate markets and make it like a little barometer.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah, get agents to sign up for it. Have AI like build you a model that just like spits out daily uh a real estate deals across the country.
Speaker 2:Like we analyze the data, this is a good one. It's in Mississippi, that'd be a cool idea idea. Yeah, man, we're not gonna do that, we're gonna just sell houses locally. You could do it, dude, you could do it. You could do it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, all right, that's it yeah, dude, thanks for coming, thanks for having us. Absolutely, man, it was fun.
Speaker 2:Good luck the last two games. Thank you, I think you're gonna win both yep hands down to you know, baby su, you is going down oh yeah, we're getting that axe back.
Speaker 3:Getting that axe back, yeah, cool guys okay, we Cool guys.
Speaker 2:Okay, we're going to be watching you. Thanks for coming on, we'll see you guys, thank you, appreciate it, see you guys, thanks for listening in. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe. Make sure you're following us on all the social media websites. We love your support. We love the dialogue. We want to continue that going?
Speaker 4:Find us at realestate435.com. We'd love to help you find.