EXPERIENCE 1: Erik & Kim Whitin - Tri-State Concrete - Starting Over After a Wildfire!

Welcome to the LOCO Experience Podcast with LOCO Think Tank Founder Kurt Bear. Listen in as Kurt digs deep into the business and life stories of business owners and thought leaders at different stages of growth from all walks of life. Launching and growing anything can be a crazy experience, so expand your thinking and level up your understanding of what it takes to find success in the world of free enterprise. Welcome back to the LOCO Experience Podcast. I'm here with a member of ours at LOCO Think Tank, Kim Whiten and her husband Eric. And they've become a couple of my favorite people in Northern Colorado over the last 12 months. Kim has been a member for a couple of years, plus three maybe going on, probably going on three years. But we really started to hang out a little more increasingly than maybe the last 12 months or so. You even came to a party at my house in what early May, which was kind of taboo. Yeah. Anyway, I think you're at a party at my house, maybe like a month ago too. Well, but we're all good, right? Anyway, we're safe. Hey, why don't you set the stage for us? Why would the LOCO Experience want to have you guys as guests this week? Well, because I know you think we're interesting. I hope we deliver for you, but I think that it's really good timing considering everything going on right now. The Cameron Peak Fire is really displaced a lot of people and for anybody that knows us and knows our backstory. Obviously, we're good a little bit into that, but we obviously have a little bit of experience with fire and being displaced and being able to rebuild and kind of just we got a message of hope coming here today, maybe. I think so. Yeah. So Eric, why don't you tell us who does what at Tri-State Concrete? So I'm the operations manager and I take care of a lot of the field stuff and Kim, she's the office slash estimator, takes care of everything else besides what happens in the field. Okay. Hey, bring that microphone a little closer to you. It's good. Yeah, it's just fun, conversational stuff. So, Kim, describe your day. I will usually start to about 20 emails and returning phone calls that I didn't get to in the evening from the day before. Kind of going over the day with the guys, making sure that they don't need anything from me in order to kind of get the day going, going over the just pre-con with whatever we have going that day. I do all of the estimating, so a lot of that involves going to someone's home for our residential projects. I also do all of the estimating for our new home construction, so a lot of times I'm headfirst in blue prints at the office. So your job is a lot like mine, where you're the information hub of like too much information flow. Yeah, I think Eric calls me about 30 times a day. We're working on that. We're working on that. That'll be part of it. So I want to actually set the stage a little better. What does Tri-State concrete do? So we're a full-scale construction company, our concrete construction company. We do port walls, full-scale basements, excavation of those basements, site work, utility digs, flatwork, replacing concrete. What don't you do in concrete, Eric? Don't we don't do tilt up. It's about it. Okay, yeah. I like it. And Eric's also our concrete pump operator. No, he didn't mention that. So we have a concrete boom pump that he operates. So that keeps him pretty busy. You did a pump today, I think? I did. And what were you, can you say we were pumping? Oh, yeah, we today. We long-speak dairy has a huge addition, going on in Briggsdale. And we're, it's probably, I think it's a $200 million expansion. We're working on there, helping them out. Oh, of a dairy. I thought diaries were struggling. Not the ones that are making organic milk. Oh, okay. Is that about what you know about that? Yeah, it's all organic milk. So yeah, so they've got demand, they've got specialty demand. Right. It's not, it's not meat. The niches get the riches. Right. They said it when I was a banker. And it's usually true, like if you can do great quality organic milk, people want to buy that. Yeah, it's pretty amazing the size of the project. So you guys are doing like all the flats stuff? We're doing most of the boom pumping. So we're helping some other contractors that are doing all the concrete meat of it. Gotcha. We show up and do all the pumping for them, which is about all we want to do there. It's a lot. Yeah, you couldn't handle that whole project. We, we probably could, but we wouldn't really want to work that far away with all our guys every day for three years. Yeah, the project's been going on for well over a year. So we've been on it for over a year. Wow. Oh, that's cool. I didn't realize projects were ever that long. Oh, yeah, right. And people get mad when I tell them that we're book six weeks. So if I said we're book three years, I don't know what that would do to our reputation. Yeah, for sure. For sure. So who's your team? Like, tell me, tell us about before we get into the fire story and just different stories. You guys have both such amazing colorful backgrounds. I'm not going to have fun getting into this interview. Um, but just like, who's your team? Who's your key guys that you want to give shout outs to our ladies, especially, uh, and like describe your organization? Well, I have one guy, uh, Tommy is been with me since the first day we've ever reported concrete. I think it's been nearly 20 years. He's your right hand guy. Right hand guy. He's still working right now. And uh, he got evacuated. He's evacuated and working out right now. He's living in a hotel room with his four children right now in his wife. Wow. Yeah, been evacuated for almost over a week now. So he was with you when you guys were displaced years ago. Yeah, he moved here with us from North Carolina. And was he impacted by that or just to the extent that you guys were at that time? You know, they were evacuated as well at that time. Okay. And he was severely affected by the flood. They were not able. They were basically an island and weren't able to get out when the flood has come. So, um, yeah, there's been a lot going on there on that. Yeah, I'm a squirrel chase or Eric. But Tommy, you know, he's amazing. We love him. I mean, he's been with us from day one. We, um, uh, you know, we've, we've tried to expand and we've tried to do different things. We've had to bring on different managers over the years. And, um, you know, it just Tommy's always been, um, our right hand guy is just kind of always been the third leg of tri-state. I love it. I love it. That's cool. Do you don't have a right hand girl dinner guy? You know, I have some part-time help that are just I couldn't do it without them for sure. Right. Um, but definitely not a Tommy. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. I think, uh, you know, if you talk about, uh, I, there's a book, a popular book we talk about in local think tank, the E-Mith. Sure. And, um, you know, I think that that's the three, the three parts, right? Uh, uh, uh, you remind me it's been a couple of years. I'm gonna plug it. I can't remember. There's three parts. It's something about, you know, the doer, the operations person, the, the manager and, and the thinker, the entrepreneur, um, and Eric, you know, kind of fits that role. Tommy's operations. Yeah. He says he's operations manager, but he's more are like visionary wants to take us all these different directions. We can do anything. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think Tommy, you know, kind of fits, um, and Eric says we could do it. And, and then he says, Tommy, you got to figure out how to do this. I don't know. Sometimes you, I'm sure you're both there. And then they fight about it. Yeah. We'll figure it out through argument. Right. There are different sides of the political spectrum too. And they fight every day about it. It's great. But they love each other. And so they're great evidence that you can, you know, talk politics. Absolutely. Oh, I so love that. I love so many people of so many different stripes. And, uh, I 100% agree with that. And we always end to every podcast. We're going to end it with family, faith, and politics. And so stay tuned for that. I set a trend after the last, uh, the first two recording. So we're going to get there. So let's just, oh, let's describe the rest of your team. You got maybe another half dozen or something in employees that are laborable. We do. Yep. We got, we got another guy's been about six years, beeny. And he's going to be our, you know, up and coming field manager in the next few years. I'm sure. So he's like side by side with Tommy, maybe in a few years almost. I hope so. Yeah, we're looking for that. You know, Tommy's got a lifetime of experience under his belt. So it's right. Catch up with that. Well, and having other people get some of the benefit of being around Tommy, you could scale him. Right. And have another guy and another guy. He's right hand man right now. Right. And mine wins. Tommy can spare him. So that's awesome. And then, and then who is there? Are there other long termers or people you really want to shout out? Yeah, we got Dave. And he's been with us about almost 10 years. Wow. And he's, he runs a excavation. And, okay, there's a lot of stuff for us. Oh, yeah, machine operator machine operator. A good machine operator is not easy to find. He's what they called an old salty dog. So he's a little harder to manage. That's his military term. Okay. And he's a big jerk. Yeah. If he listens to this podcast, he's going to laugh at me right now for saying that not getting that. So I just want to shout out today. Yeah. Thanks for sticking around. Even though sometimes you think Kim's a little crazy. Yeah. And now you really made him laugh. But I mean, I honestly, in the, for the past year, we really couldn't do some of the things that we've been doing without our son. He's only 16, but he's made a good impression on me. I have to tell you, right? Raiden? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you hear this, I'm sure you'll listen. Know that you made a good impression on me. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, he's going to be, you know, the hopefully team leader sometime shortly. Right. And in 10 years, maybe taking over the bulk of the reins so you can drive your car bed around. Right. Exactly. So let's, so awesome to have a great long term team, right? Like, and because you moved your company here from South Carolina or some below North Carolina, but you know what? I want to do instead. Oh, yeah. We're going to get right into the fire because I think that's what's on our hearts of minds. But the natural that remind me, we're going to go back to like the way back machine. All right. Yeah. And get together with some of those stories. And like, how you guys met? I mean, Kim, you're like a debutante. And see, now that's not fair, because Kurt knows this story. And he wants me to tell it. This is what happens when you drink too much alcohol at Kurt's parties, which are rare and well-managed. Very much so. Yes. Yes. Very well regulated. We're blind at that. Yes. Boom. I'm on it. Thank you. Listen to that. You can hear the wine being poured. I think our gain is up. Yeah. That's a hefty glass there. That's a small glass, actually. I didn't get me to talk. Listen you up. You know, it's all good. We're having fun. And so we're going to talk about the fire first. Like set the stage of where your place in life where you had come from where? From North Carolina. From North Carolina. So I know you said you were going to go back there, but let's start there. Start with the decision to move from North Carolina to Colorado. Well, I, uh, by chance ended up in Estus Park by this. It's now by chance because you want this backstory. My dad and him and two of his friends were working in Arizona. And the work was kind of stale. And they had about two week laps. And they ended up on this huge road trip that started near. 17,000 mile road trip. I love it. California. And then somehow, yeah, my dad says, I haven't seen a brother of mine in 17 years. It lives in Colorado. Let's go there next. And I said, no, the first time. Okay. But then he kept edgings. Well, and you're already in a 17,000 mile road trip. Why wouldn't you go to Colorado? Well, we were in Vegas and woke up and didn't feel that great. And he said, let's go to Colorado. And I said, I could use an upgrade. Yeah. I've used a little break. Okay. I like it. So he called me from Estus Park. At this time, the recession had happened. We knew that we were. 2010. So this is no well. Oh, so your business was impacted back there. Oh, this was about 2009 because we moved to 2010. Yesterday was the 50th anniversary to the day of my dad's farm auction when he got sold out on his first business effort. And as you guys probably know, he's got a very successful farm in North Dakota right now and stuff. But that was, you know, he had to reset too. And I think that's like, that'll be a theme. I think that people pull out of this conversation. I hope is that there's a reset button. Right. And so tell us about like that decision. Estus Park. Well, I pulled up there to the overlook when he first came in off. I forget what it was. It comes through Lions. 36. 36. Yep. And I was amazed. I said, that's it. I'm moving here. So I called her to where we're moving. Well, right before this trip, right before this trip, he had come home and said, we're going to lose the house or the business. And obviously, if we lose the business, it wasn't going to be too long before we lost the house to anyway. So we knew that we had to make a move. And we were looking all up and down the east coast. We were looking at California where Eric originally was from a little too liberal for us. Something we'll talk about later. I guess. But just not where we wanted to be. And so we were really looking hard and really had no idea where we wanted to go. And in this crazy trip to Estus Park, he calls me and says, I found it. Right. We're moving to Colorado. Where? And I believed him. So I said, okay. This is like 2010, 2011. This is 2009. Okay. All right. Because I think at this point, he came back. We said, okay, it's too crazy. We can't do it. There's no way. What are we going to do? We know nobody there? How are we going to do this? This is crazy. We're losing everything. What do we do? As soon as we saw the building permits that were pulled here. Well, not yet. So we were going to go to Tennessee. Right. But we had a shirt thing. Right. In Tennessee. Oh, yeah. A job, a house. We knew a really good, a really great guy. That was 20,000 acre farm. We were going to get to run. I don't know. We were going to do. We were going to be a hay farm, or is it? Can you imagine? No. Yeah. There we go. That's 20,000 acre alfalfa farm. Like really alfalfa? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We were going to check it. We were going to cut. And basically said, you run it. You guys get to keep all the money. So just just live there and run this farm. Make sure it stays. So it was outside of Mcminville, Tennessee. Okay. So we went out there, and I cleaned the house, did all the shampoo. Carp, you know. Wow. Okay. We moved in. Right. Yeah. We were getting ready to move in. And then the drive back, I cried the whole way. I said, no. I don't want to do this. I know offense to anybody listening from that part of Tennessee that loves it. I'm sure it's lovely for the right person. North Dakota is amazing for the right people. Right. Yes. Too cold for me. Exactly. But I referred to it as the armpit of America. And that's what he was doing. And I was so excited to be to the armpit of America. I did. I did. I did. I did. I was miserable. I'm not sure I'm going to let you do that. No. And I said, I don't care. Let's just go to Colorado. I don't care if we know anybody. So, uh, we basically packed up all our equipment. Everything we, well, we didn't know what part of Colorado yet. And this is where we showed up here with a bunch of construction or concrete equipment. We went on Craigslist. And we found the house. I don't see it and found someone crazy enough to bring it to us without even with this. We sent him a check on the mail for the house. So they never met us or anything. Okay. So we found a real crazy person. Good. Perfect. Like people that make the world go around. Yeah. Actually, she's like an original Colorado into it. So Larry, she comes from the Betcher family line. Do you want to, I mean, just want to go out to Terry Perry for sure. Terry Perry. She knows. Go into these guys on the leg up. Yep. She knew she did. She absolutely did. She had no idea who we were. She invited this into her home. It was, she was pretty amazing. She was. And that was our first experience with, you know, Coloradians. Um, so it was a lot. It was, it was amazing. So we come out here and visit, we secured the house. We fell in love with the school up there. It's so prairie up back in the mountain. Sure. That was a big part of us. So you guys are crazy people too. That was evidence. Yeah. I love people in still prairie school. I'm sure I like all of them. But yeah, it's a big decision to be like, we're going to live in the boonies. Yes. We're not going to live in Fort Collins. We're going to live in the boonies. Yes. Oh my god. In the first year, you know, by four years, but at this point, uh, four and six. Wow. Okay. Yes. Um, and we still don't know that talent has autism. Right. At this point, he's still undiagnosed. Right. So we're still kind of struggling through that. So we move across the country in a caravan with like no money. We're running out of money through Denver to get here. I'm not. That's the foreclosure. Oh, we've just we've just walked like we didn't even wait for them to foreclosure on it. We just knew we were. So we just, uh, yeah, turn yourself on on silent, by the way, which Eric doesn't follow rules. No, not really. He's like me, but way more. That's awesome. Um, so keep going. Like, back into let's get into the launch, the relaunch of. So yeah, we had another shout out. Like, I have no idea if anybody would know, but a great financing company called Kraus Anderson, right? Most financing, we lost all of our equipment. We lost the house. We had all of our forms to do poor walls and one mini X track hoe. And he, they worked with us instead of repossessing our stuff because we're still fighting through the recession. We have no money. Tiny payments, but at least the panel. Yeah, and they worked with us three years into Kraus Anderson and Kansas City, Missouri killing it. Yeah, go get it. You want to sponsor the next episode of local experience? Honestly, because they've heard that little lifeline that, like, just kept us alive until we got here. You know, it takes to helping hand well, they also started our business in our original, our original to have been with them for a while. For a while. Right. That's awesome. Our first day in business. Okay, so you, you'd land. You got this house from Terry Perry. Terry Perry. Yeah, we're in Stoke Perry. Terry Perry was so. And so we're there for a year. We had got the house because they had divorced. They decided they were getting back together and they wanted their house back. Oh, so we had networked in the school, had connected with somebody, found another house to rent, moved into that one, and then that was the house that was in the fire a year later. Risk canyon. So this is in Stoke Perry still 900 Stoke Perry Road. So how far, like, from risk canyon to puter canyon or where are you at? So we're about three miles south from risk canyon, three miles south from risk canyon road. Okay, cool. Like where it kind of opens up in its meta. We there. Right before you get to the buck corn, I've written motorcycles through that Stoke Perry Road probably 200 times in the last 20 years. Oh, wow. Yeah, a lot of fun. So I'm sure that at some point, you were like, slow down what you're about to him. No, not us. Okay, I've seen a lot of accidents though, a lot of bike rides. Yeah, I'm always careful. Yeah, for sure. There's a lot of sand, gravel, a lot of the parts of the year. Yeah, for sure. Call it on. So we were there for a full year beautiful wood cabin. Completely ignorant to wildfire. Right. I had no idea. Right. They were growing all over the place. Oh, we just you should have been trimming it up, but you didn't know any better. Well, I think we did. It wasn't quite. Well, you just renters though, right? We were. Yeah, and it was just we really didn't know where we're we're we're from. When a fire starts, it's out an hour. Right. So it just goes out or they put it out. Right. So these month long, three month long, four month long wildfires are definitely something we never knew that happened. So this was 2012 or 2012 was a fire. This was 2012 when we took 2010. So this is two years, we were just starting to get established. Gotcha. Gotcha. So you've been doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Yeah, well, we want to work. Tommy. Oh, you've got a job even. When we first got here, he went to work for one of my biggest competitors. Oh, and for maybe 30 days. Well, is it a friendly competitor? No. And it's like, we won't talk about it. But it's one of those, like, you know, the hater pushed you to like, right? Because I honestly came home. I said, oh, my God, if this guy, why would we not start our company back? Right. If he could have a company, I can have a company. Well, and a lot of companies started by that. Like if my boss, who's such a jerk as this person can run a company, well, God, I can do a better job than he can. Well, the exact words were Colorado needs us to do conquer. Because he felt he was ripping people off. Oh, and I did. Yeah. And then I'm not going to mention names, but I definitely feel like they were shady. Well, and that's that's authentic. And I think that's, you know, that's one of the, I think commonalities of the local think tank members and stuff is it's people that are willing to just call a duck a duck as my dad would say. You know, and but also to like shoot you straight. Right. You know, and I learned a few years ago that my dad doesn't have any leases hardly. He's got like 10 landlords and only like one lease with what he thinks is probably Bill Gates. Right. And it's the first way he's ever had it. So he was like unfamiliar. But everybody's on a handshake and with a bonus, he has a good year. Right. And he's grown his farm that way just so those kind of loosely held relationships. Like we both want to begin this relationship here. And I think Eric misses that. You know, and he sometimes I make it so formal. Right. Because you're like, we've got to do the estimate first and the bid is that Eric's like, I told him $7,200 already. Absolutely. Kim, your job is to make it work out to $7,200. My favorite piece. That's not scalable. Hey, let's. Okay. So, so you're getting established. You're getting some traction with try to stay. You're doing some jobs. You're growing. You've told this guy, I guess, hey, check you later. I'm out. I'm going to go start my own thing. And what time of year was this? Fire comes. It was June. Yeah. June. Are all the sun Raiden at the time now is eight. Okay. And he is at his grandmother's house in Alabama. Okay. And we are at the house that morning. We have a friend that's staying with us that was coached Kim to talk to the microphone. I can't believe that. I'm so sorry. I can't believe that. I'm like, wow, he's listening to rules and telling me what to do. So, um, we had a friend there that grew up in the buckhorn. Okay. And that morning I woke up and I walked outside and I just saw this little tiny plume of smoke in the distance. Okay. And I immediately ran in there and I said, oh my god, something is this wake up right now? Right. And she jumped up in a panic. Like she knew what I did. Fire is real. Fire is real. So she jumps up and runs out. She says, oh my god, all my friends and my family live in the buckhorn. They're all off grid. I have no way to call them. I need to alert them immediately. And so she gets in my car and starts going down the buckhorn. Right. To alert everybody. Well, by the time she goes down on a canyon, because they can't see nothing. Can't see the fire. Right. Yeah. And she's just scared to death. I mean, the way it looks from where it's coming from, it looks like it's just dead center in the buckhorn. We later now know it's you know, it's nothing. Well, flowers road. But anyhow, so by the time she comes back, I mean, it's like Armageddon outside. It was obvious that we were going to leave. Yeah, it was and like in a few hours. Yes. So I'm packing everything to me that's sentimental or over five hundred dollars. Right. Anything else is out. Everything else. It's outfit that's questionable. That's out. You know, I got the custom made Bob Marley painting that I gave him for you know, 21st birthday or something. That's pretty cool. One of a kind. Yeah, one of a so you know, these weird things. But when I grabbed that, it kind of clicked with him. He said, what are you doing grabbing that? I said, I'm getting everything that we can't replace. Right. And he said, what do you want me to do? Get a moving truck? And just in the reality, I think he thought every single item I took out of that house, he was going to have to put back. Right. And so we are just kind of getting everything we can into a Jeep now. So if you can imagine trying to pack your life and do a Jeep. Right with two kids with two children. Well, we got one's gone. Now, oh, no, I'm glad you say that, right? Because you know what happens? Just grab Raiden and Talon right now. So, well, you know, Raiden, we already talked about a little bit in Talon. He's a dirt bike loving just fun kid that. Oh, wait, we were going to do family at the end. Oh, we're going to. Okay. Well, say sorry. Fire story. Fire story. Raiden's at grandma's. So I'm packing everything. I don't think I don't get one single item of his. You know, it's just you're in a hurry. You're you're right. So let's go down. Oh, he's letting go. He's yeah, he's a good kid. He's a good kid. But you know, so you just get everything. The last thing you're at grab, I think you should tell that story. Oh, my work boots. Go ahead. Down the way out the door. I there my my my butcher by the door. And I remember think I grabbed him. I said, well, if our house burns down, I'll definitely need these. Right. And they came in a big time use. Yeah. That's awesome. So what a dramatic scene. And you never went back. No, after until it when I learned, yes, when I when I looked back, when I was walking off the porch, it was like 80 foot flames in the air about maybe three or four hundred yards away from us. And it was just howling like a like a like a trick like a freight train. And the winds were probably 60 miles an hour. Oh my gosh. And the tops, the trees. I remember the tops, the trees were burning and the fire was blowing off the tops, the trees. So like some of those videos we've seen lately about some of those driving almost through the fires where people have had late notice and stuff like that was they weren't driving through the fires. It was they take us from the ranch on horseback riding and horses not with riders. Like just like just going through the streets. Oh my god. Oh, because they were trying to get as many as they could out. Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't vehicles. They were cutting all the fences running around cutting all the livestock fences. And just just get out of here. Yeah. And it was just so surreal to me how it went from like seven, eight hours. Yeah, that I was just like, Hey, oh, that wasn't so bad. How bad is that? Do you think? And then all of a sudden it was like screaming really bad. Yeah. It was a little spot, like a little campfire and there was a little sess in a plane flew down over it and it's going to circle around a little bit. Yeah, that's the one around a little bit. And then did you guys get like nine or one calls or anything like that? Or did you really have communications? Well, they cut our power off for a four o'clock. So at four o'clock, we were going to make dinner. And they cut the power off. So we were like, oh, we'll go out to dinner. But then when we were leaving, we were just so ignorant. We were to five. Right. We sort of packing everything up. We're like, oh, it's coming. We're like, I said, oh, it's not going to cross Stove Perry. They're going to stop it. For some reason, I thought the road was going to be sort of spout. They'd stop it. Yeah. Well, we don't know. We don't know. And here's another great shout out to Jack Lowe. So we take all of our stuff that we've put in the back of this Jeep and the back of air truck. Okay. And we go to a property on patients way or near there. And a wonderful man who's been our plumber through all these years does all of our projects for us. Shout out to Jack was plumbing. Alaskan Jack, amazing man, right? He's also currently displaced. And I call and check on him and amazing, just amazing person. I can't wait for him to get back home. But anyhow, we take everything to his home because it's behind the crystal fire line. Oh, right. And it's supposed to be. Yeah. I mean, he's evacuated again, fire burning all around his home. So it's like, here we are. All these other fires later. And it's still not typical behavior of fires, right? There's supposed to be a natural fire barrier there. The last fire burned 20 feet to his door. Right. There's also shouldn't be less than that. Left to burn. So we took everything to his house and left it there and went to dinner because we thought they were going to put the fire out a little bit and everything will be fine when we go back home. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's not that we couldn't get back out. We try to go back up. Right. No way. Being evacuated. So the next day, it looked like the where our house was. There were it looked like we it's it was burning where our house exactly was. So I was like, they wouldn't the resource center or the fire department or the wouldn't tell us for a house. I've undergone this. We don't know. Right. So I made it exact exactive decision to go up there. Yeah. And so the National Guard met me and we had a scuffle type of thing and then they're like, I don't know if my home is burnt. They eventually drove me up after confrontation. Yeah. So we got up there. Talked your way through it after being a jerk. Pretty pretty much. Yeah. Pretty much. They they'd called quite a bit of backup and I said, I'm going to walk through the woods. If you don't drive me and they said, okay, we'll drive you. Oh, so I guess that you called it. They called they didn't call your blood. No, I was looking to walk. Yeah. I figured you would. Yeah. I was going to know. I told my sets much more dangerous for me to walk through the woods than it would be to drive me. But it's a little you know, for the people that live in town that aren't aware of what happens up there during these fires when they set up these roadblocks to keep the citizens from getting back to their homes. You know, it's it's really intimidating. I mean, you're trying to get back up there to just see if your animals are alive, if your livelihood is there. And you know, there's people with machine guns blocking the road. You know, it's it's different. I'm not going to lie. I mean, it feels like you're in a third world country at that point, you know, being kept to get to your home. And I realized it's in an effort to keep us safe. Sure. But it's it's put you in a different mindset. You know, and and Mr. Well, you know, kind of not that different from when we got like locked at home this spring, right? Like you don't know if you're sick or not, but you can't leave. So you know, you can't go home, right? Oh, but you have to stay home, but different, you know, same but different. Yeah. Exactly. So we were really fortunate enough to know that our house had burned the first 12 or 24 hours. So they actually didn't confirm that our house burned down for 31 days, remember, 20, 28 days, but right around 30 days, they wouldn't actually tell us that our house was lost, even though we saw it gone. Well, he saw it gone. And it really did not register in my head that it was gone until I saw it on the board at the evacuation center. Even though he told me, he saw it gone. It wasn't until like I saw the address up there that it really was gone. I just thought like, okay, you know, well, it's hard to accept things sometimes that we don't. But right, most of the people who didn't get to get to see their house gone never knew until 28 days later. So they hold lives for up their whole life. We got to move on immediately. Don't even know. Yeah. All right. Great. What a blessing. It was. It really was. Yeah. But I really felt bad for the people who for 30 days sat down here in town and didn't know if they had a house or not. It was just so mind boggling how that's even possible. Right. That's not how it's going now. I hope that it's. Well, it seems like this has been communicated pretty good with the camera pick fire. Yeah, I think maybe the people in charge might have gotten to learn from some of the mistakes made in our fire. I can't speak for them because I refuse to live back up there after all these fires and the flood and you know, we're still in the foothills and the port. But yeah, that's as far as I'm getting back up there at this point. So. Well, so talk about it. Like so now you're displaced and you're where? The first week we're in a hotel on Mulberry, right? That's not. And your business stuff, you have a business location and stuff with some concrete equipment and forums and all that or was that at your home, too? It was. That was at our home. Well, so we were fortunate. The same few pieces of equipment that we came across the country with the forums and that track center, whatever. Yeah, we're luckily on a project. Oh, okay. Good. So we did lose a lot at the home, but we had those same signature pieces that we moved across here with. And so we did shut down at first. Tommy went and got a job at another company. And we were just so we were in the hotel for about a week. And then we were invited to live in the back of somebody's garage on Vine. Okay. And look, what's Vine? I'm imagining. What's Vine? I guess I should give another shout out to Hitch McCullough. Hitch McCullough gave us a place to live there. I knew I heard McCullough back in the day. Cool. Hitch shut out. Yeah. And so that was really nice, you know. So we're living in the back of this hotel net. I mean, back of the garage. It's time for Raiden to come home. So we go to pick him up from the airport. And the first thing he says is I can't wait to go home. So we were like, well, on that note, you hadn't told him. No, we know that's how much on vacation because we didn't feel like it would be a good thing to, you know, a good, yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I guess like, yeah. And then, you know, of course, I had messed up and not gotten anything of his. So it was like, he said, what about my dirt bikes? And they had burned, of course. Yeah. Well, there's no room in the Jeep. So, but Eric, you really, if he had thought about it, you probably would like put it on the roof or something. I am surprised, he left the door. There was a few things I was surprised. You didn't have a second vehicle. Well, so we had the Jeep and his work truck. It was so full of tools you couldn't put anything in it. Right. So there was, you know, Eric had lost a brother when he was 20. So there was some sentimental things there that we missed. Right. And plus things are the fires coming right at you now. Oh, I mean, it's like, yeah, it was right there. It came, me pretty much, those winds. I think it was moving like in 20 minutes. It was just like right on. It was moving like a mile. I mean, I don't know exactly a walking speed. Right. It was at least five miles now. It was coming and it was only started a few miles away. So it was pretty quick. Yeah. So now we have nothing, but you're living in the back of the garage. We're living the back of the garage. We're spending like, oh, I love the new digs, Bobby. Dad. Yeah, he was, you know, having a little bit of hard time. Well, let me tell you. So now at this point, right. Something amazing happens. Okay. Okay. Here's the hope part. Bring it. What our community did for us is like over the top amazing. Okay. Like at this point now, now there's traction being gained that we're displaced. And so are 271 other people, right? 272 homes burned in that fire. Okay. So we have the distribution center set up and we have the Lions Club, who's there. Dave Menon Hall. Amazing man, right. How about the man I can't even remember his name, but saw my son get upset when the little hot wheels car that somebody donated was picked up by somebody else. And the gentleman saw that and he saw the disappointment that Raiden didn't get to it first and then made an arrangement with Raiden to meet him at Toys R Us the next day to buy him one, right? Like there's these just these little amazing moments. Small random act of kindness. That we're amazing, right? Yeah. And you talk about small random acts of kindness. I feel like maybe you should tell the Justin story just a little bit real quick because one of our most important, most valued relationships that we have as a family, right? Uncle Justin. Yeah. Comes from this fire. From a small random act of kindness. I had a friend on Facebook that I hadn't talked to in 20 years. I thought you were going to have Eric tell the story. I'm going to have Eric tell it because that's what Eric might not be the conversation, but it does not happen so far. He's supposed to be the star. I'm going to let him talk. Go ahead and tell the Justin story. So, uh, uh, yeah, Justin. See, I was a Justin. He saw our story on Facebook and they were, you know, I never met him before, but anyways, he had seen us of something and when we got back on our feet, we took him out to dinner. Oh, just some random dude that was like here. Well, a friend of mine from eighth grade that I hadn't seen in 20 years. So we came out. We took him out for dinner. I instantly felt like we were brothers forever and, uh, you know, he's just been a major part of our life since he's, you know, he actually got re-going. He actually stopped into visits through for business in Denver and now he lives in steamboat and is married to a woman here in four Collins and he's basically moved in his family pretty much here in Colorado. Oh, that's cool. Before the fire, I didn't know him and now we're like brothers. Oh, that's so cool. Pretty, pretty, I look forward to reading him. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty interesting relationship there. But, um, when that, when we lost everything in the house completely burned and we had basically a Jeep full of memorabilia of our life. Pictures of you thought Marley, like, Christless day down you go. memorabilia is what I've call it, you know, just family memorabilia and this cool stuff. But, uh, it was one of the most freeing feelings I ever had in my life. I see you're listening up a little bit. I felt so free and so able to do any things and not wait, wait it down. So it was a huge weight, not having anything. It's like a really, really big weight, a mortgage or a house or stuff to put in it. Any responsibility. People didn't care about hair was done when I was wearing, they're like, Oh, all the grace I got. I told him I said, we could go anywhere, right and do anything right now. Whatever we want. We got a blank canvas right now. So it was pretty cool. But then we realized we should, you know, well, we stayed because of what the community was doing for us. Right. Why would we leave? Well, you wanted to be here. Right. We wanted to be a part of the, the, the, the whole reason we were here was to, you know, serve the growth of this reason. Right. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, take care of the concrete needs of the this place and through the fire, Kim being the, one of the PTO presidents at the mountain school, we really got, we really knew, we really knew, we really knew, we knew everybody that sucks their house. Sometimes people think that you're the secret to the success of tri-seat concrete, but kind of I became because she's like the networker and the person that finds the people that came about you, at least when your time of need was greatest. Right. So yeah, she, she did and the community really came together and I feel like we helped a lot of people get back in other homes. Right. Quick, quick. There's somewhat quick. Right. So you did a lot of projects. You did a a bunch of concrete works. We did. I think we did. We did. We 60 to 80 of the houses that burned, we cleaned up and report out of it in one man or another. Oh, so cool. Plus you had some equipment and different things and whatever. Yeah. So it was, but honestly, it was, like I said, it was the community, like if I was to just go through a list of shout outs, like the United Way was amazing. Lions Club, like I said earlier was amazing what they did for us, Timberline Church. They bought us a piece of equipment. Some of these things that just when you put them all together, what we were able to do, yeah, we did. We did. And it was just so amazing. Even just like individuals, Kenny Barker, John Mason, these guys believed in us. They loaned us, or you know, let us purchase equipment without any type of. No money now. No, no, no. No actual. No sign. Just when you can't, I mean, just these things that these men did having faith in us, having empathy for us. Relationships, right. Yeah. And they did that. Why? And you say, um, the, you know, the networker, but really when it comes to that kind of shit, it's him. They knew that he would perform. And that's where he stores. I think, you know, when that, when the old time or see the work we put in, you're a hard, hard worker. It's like a credit check. Like I don't take it. I don't know anybody that's more kind of a goofy crazy guy and works his ass off like nobody else than you. Like those two things, you know, that's a compliment. It is. Crazy as a compliment is a book that actually one of my facilitators recommended to me drew, drew Yancy shout out to Drew. He's been a big difference in my life the last year. But anyway, so it is. It's a compliment. And I want to, I want to get some, you know, this is going to be a storytelling one. So if those of you that are looking for business lessons and lots of learnings, there's going to be a lot about relationships and stuff here. But there's too much crazy to just like zoom in on the business topics too much because your business is pretty stable right now. Is that right? You get, you know, there's been a crazy year. It's the COVID nation and stuff. But you got some steady work at this plan. Yeah, I feel like yeah, we wrote this happening. We've been, it's been steady. The jobs have been smaller scale projects. Okay. But the work is super steady. So how do you adapt to that? Do you have to increase your margins then? Like you got to tighten up the prices a little bit and not spend as much time necessarily? Well, I've been doing a lot of their equipment mobilization and just a lot of the leg work because that's what eats up a lot of time and labor. Right. And you're really good at it fast. I am. So I've been, you know, getting bigger traders to all more things and, you know, yeah, working harder for less money. That's kind of kind of a theme around the, uh, the economy today and, uh, in a lot of industries, you know, a lot of people doing really well. Some of us, I think both of us are working harder for a little less money. Right. Or working a little harder for the same money. Maybe, yeah. Clubs. Same. Or maybe same. Yes. I'm about right to the same. I do the books. Working a little harder for a little bit less. Last year was a good year. Yeah. Last year was a really good year. I think so. You know, we just, we learned a lot from us. We learned that we maybe don't want as many employees as we had or, um, you know, and I think we might get back there. Yeah. But we just wanted to scale it differently. It's really about keeping the machine kind of full. Yes. And so there's a business lesson for you. Uh, Rory, when you're doing the audio notes, but it's like as long as you're whatever size your machine is, if you can keep it kind of full, it makes some good money. Yes. Yes. And so we did, we did have a rough first couple quarters this year. Yeah. The coronavirus just kind of shook the new home industry, which we really excel at. Right. Right. And so we had to learn how to kind of pivot. Um, and I had to really learn what my, what my best job was and make sure that that was the ones we were going after. Where do you get your leads? Like, is it, are you like Facebook? Is it community networking? Is it like, where does Tri-State Concrete find their people? Yeah. So a lot of its repeat work. Okay. We have, uh, contractors that we've worked for for years. Like residential homebuilders, for example, or like forage and bow, which is a wonderful company. Oh, I've heard so many good things. Forage and bow. I'm onto you. I want you in my club. I will arrange that. I've known them since before they were forage and bow. Yeah. Somebody I know works for them now. Cody shout out to my friend Cody. Yeah. Wonderful. Yeah. So Jordan and Annie, I knew you guys before you were forage and bow. So I'll go. Yep. All right. Well, I'm on you. But, um, anyway, keep going. So just, you know, yeah, just be very skill homes. Yeah. These wonderful homes. Oh, yeah. So that person too. Jerry, you know, oh, no. I'm lying. Um, black timber builders. Another wonderful one here in old town. Yeah. So you guys can all be sponsors. Yeah. Wonderful. We're very affordable. We don't know how much it is. Yeah, but it's very affordable. I don't know if that's the word, but great work. So it's really consistent. Like you're just like getting opportunities to bid with these people. A lot of times, you're not the only one bidding because you might be a farther out than somebody else or this with that. And so you can kind of manage how much work you do by that. Fair? Not really. No, I think that's fair. Yeah. Um, and then we also have a great presence on online. I think we have like when it comes to our Google reviews and our better business reviews, like in your search and you know, I mean, yeah, I think we kind of kind of have a great online presence. Also, when your competitors make it easy, you know, well, bad reviews are easy to get in concrete business. They are. Um, and if you checkers out, we don't have a lot. Right. Right. Well, sometimes people have expectations that are like, way up here, well, most of ours are actually from ex employees or people that we never worked for. It's, you know, like the neighbors, we might have like one or two actual legitimate better views, but the rest of them are like exactly. We're not perfect by any means, but I think we're damn near close to it. Like, Tommy's been doing this a long time and, um, I, you know, trust. This stuff doesn't suck. No, and Eric's doesn't need it. And right. And then the last thing that I would never want to leave a job with a customer that didn't at least say they liked me. Yeah. Yeah. So he tried very hard to get it right. If we didn't get it right, we were really close to getting it right, but that's not very normal. But yeah, most of my customers are repeat customers. Yeah. I like that. That's what I like to keep it. Well, let's cost a lot less money. Right. You know, the customers are expensive to get. And we've been in business 20 years. And we kind of know, we kind of know who we don't want to work for to if that makes sense. Right. Right. There's a certain class of people that we try to, like say, okay, this is double. Do you want to name them? Oh, wait. Not actual days. Okay. Is this where I clap? No, that doesn't matter. Yeah. No, um, just, uh, we can really tell what their personalities will be. Yeah. Well, and so I don't know. Class is the word group of people. There's a personality type. Right. A very picky, like you want to believe, like we'll feel bad if you make any money on the whole deal. Well, that or like the best for the least possible. Well, they want me to come replace concrete that doesn't need to be replaced. Yeah. That happens. I mean, it's just like, and you, it's just getting a warranty to claim before the war like they're like, oh, we want this for you. Yeah. It was right here. You know, and it's not right. And sometimes you're like, oh, that's maybe I should be a careful, a little cautious. Yeah. Well, I had a good boss. Actually, he was kind of a lousy boss if you're listening, but I won't name him. But he, but he had a philosophy of you should fire five to 10% of your customers every year. Yeah. And you know, I don't think that's always true. Like it isn't true at local think tank because I didn't invite you. And if I didn't think you were pretty awesome. But like in some cases, it is. You're like, well, I don't fire five percent every year. Yeah. We have outgrown some kind of funny story. And I won't divulge too much of it, but talk about forage and bow. There was a time when they were first growing that the size of their projects and the complexity of their projects, just we weren't a good fit for. Right. And we, we have hired them for a while. Or they fired. I mean, it was a mutual. It's not me. Exactly. Well, and then three four years later, here we are again, they've grown. We, we kind of stayed the same. Right. And now we're the same fit. Exactly. I think that's amazing. Yeah. Well, I just knowing like I think that's one of my philosophies kind of is like, if you just don't swim against the current too much or try to go cross current too much and just kind of flow with it right and being able to recognize it through, whether it's through your numbers, your projects, and just open communication with people that don't understand each other fully because we're all like these little independent little tubes, little brain with a stick tube, right? And we interact as best we can. But if we keep up lines of communication open, we can try to solve each of those problems. Absolutely. So I want to talk about the romance. You guys have some really interesting, uh, well, so Eric, you're the like nephew or something of, of a famous musician? Uh, yep. Edgar and Johnny Winners from uncles. Yep. Okay. And so you came from kind of a famous family. But and so I want to hear your crazy ass hippie story, bus stuff, and then but only in we're going to set a timer for minutes. And then I want to hear your, I don't want to say Debbie time, but it's a little bit that way, but not at all because of the branch of the fan you're the black sheep brand. Anyway, I want to hear you came and then the romance and you're going to bring them both together. Okay. So you're going to hear like my my childhood like raising an event and so so my my parents were my dad in the 60s was busted with a large amount of LSD. And my mom, her dad was the head of the FBI out of Miami branch. So that didn't go very well. Yeah. So my parents were on the my dad bonded out. Janet Reno was the district attorney then wanted to give him life over the LSD. You're a big fan of Janet Reno. No, not really. But she wanted to give my dad life. So my dad went on the run with Mexico. Okay. With your mom? Yep. Took my mom. Yeah. So basically to make a long story that sure we got a bus. We had five kids in a bus moving through Mexico and and your mom was like this highly responsible person. Yes. With from a pretty absolute right. I think that FBI they had spent something upwards of six million dollars looking for my mom and dad. Oh, shit. So they could whatever. Yeah. They were they were made or what my daughter. They wanted my mom back. So they didn't get her. It was a daughter of a prominent FBI agent. Oh my gosh. So um, so I start. Yeah. So we all through California might add mom hippies doing the hippie thing. We're growing up off grid living a bus eating all our food out of the ocean and harvesting out of fields and the forest. The fort. Right. There was a club called the Gleamer's Club where you could go and pick cleaning. Yeah. You could go get all the glue after they would pick the tree. So we would basically that and the ocean was where we got all of it and preserve it and can and rip it. Exactly. I never really went to a grocery store. I was probably eight years old. Maybe nine is first time I ever walked over the store. I remember. So you're like a wolf. Right. I've done for the oceans in the land. Right. And now we stayed abalone and perch was what I all I remember growing up eating. That was it. Abalone is what? That's like a shell. We got like a big giant oyster kind of thing. Yeah. A big con like a big giant oyster. So we'd fry those in the fire. Oh wow. And that's what I basically grew up on. So um, when I was 10, my mom called her parents for the first time in 25 years. Wow. And said, hey, we're alive. We have five kids. Um, we're in your city to clear out. Yeah. Um, and they were like, okay, come turn yourself. They're like to one day. They said, come turn yourself in. We'll make sure you only get probation. And uh, you'll do your probation thing. And you guys come with us right right now. Come see us. Right. So we went down there and we had turned himself in. He got two years of federal probation instead of life. Well, okay. It was probably worth it. Right. Totally. Right. After a while, the man is like, well, just come back because it's super embarrassing right now that we can't find you guys. Right. I wonder where he got his problem with the Thor. Right. They wanted to find my, they wanted to give him the two-year information and a six million dollar fine for restoring the money they had. All right. You're like, okay, go ahead and try to get my six billion. I got zero point zero million. Yeah. So, uh, that being said, uh, we did that turn herself in. We were all born at home. I helped deliver my brothers and sisters. So no one has. Here's the oldest. Uh, no, I'm the middle. Okay. So, um, we don't need to get in. We got our, we got our birth certificates and we had to go to, you know, these big court houses and right, get a fake last name and no birth certificates. He was 12. He did not get his, so so scared it over. Yeah. No, nothing. No. Wow. So, finally got all that and are you a Mexican citizen? No, you were born before and then ran. Right. I was actually born in California, but my sister was born in Mexico. Okay. She's such a dual citizen. Well, no, they didn't, they didn't, I wonder that. They just said, oh, you're born in California somewhere. Okay. Who wants to be a Mexican citizen anyway? Like whatever. Right. So, yes, she wasn't that, but, um, move back there. Did that, um, you know, from there, my, my, uh, well, I don't know how far we're gonna go into this, but let's, let's, let's dip her toe into the militia. Okay. So, when, uh, we right before we turned my dad cut white before my mom called her grandparents and we decided to go down and turn herself in. But I had met a guy down the street. We were doing fishing and, um, um, he was really good guy. We made good friends with my parents. So long story short, my dad, we're down there. My dad is doing his probation. He comes down and says, Hey, guys, I'm joining this big militia up in North Carolina. I really want you guys to check this out. And, uh, here it is. It's awesome. So my dad was like, militia, that's great. Let's join it. It's amazing. Like nobody thinks that that's where the hippies go is joining the militia in North Carolina. Yeah, it was, it's very, yeah, it's a very, uh, turn of events. Well, but it's not as weird as we think. Like our anti-establishment, anti-authoritarian, you know, whatever. Absolutely. But like you think it's the, like, this is a different thing, but you're like proof. So, so we joined the militia. You, you and who, uh, my, my whole family, you know, we basically moved in, we moved on to, uh, North Point team's property, which is the head of the militia. He was Secretary of State, nor Davis. He's passed away now. Okay. He was Secretary of State for Nice State's government for a long time. And then join the militia after. Yep. And then when we got there, he took always crazy people that joined the militia. It's not always crazy people. Usually not. No. So, uh, or maybe he took me under his wing. So he took me under his wing and put me in through all this special training and paramilitary, you know, and reading all these books and studies and Bible studies on this. That was when, uh, when I was 13. So give me like, how to 2000, uh, 1993. Okay. Okay. Very good. Thank you. So, uh, basically go do all that. It was super cool. I mean, you can never imagine the thing you were doing. Yeah. Doing guns. So study and learn. But it's not like school lame shit that I've been forced on for the last few years. The commander of spike, which is, uh, the rights was the highly, well, it's highly decorated green beret ever in history. Okay. The movies Rambo were inspired from him. Oh, I've heard that name. So, yeah, they're, they're, he's just over four minutes. Yeah. Let's keep going. It's an amazing guy. So he takes me under his wing next. So we're going to all these different meetings and he's, you know, he's writing books and we're autographing books together and to do all this fun stuff. And, uh, it was pretty overwhelming. They gave me a scholarship to West Point, which I did not take. Wow. Um, it basically, nothing weird, right? There's, there's no pedophilia. No, no, it was the weird. I always told him he was so lucky to avoid. Well, maybe, maybe not all these men, like he had, you're right. Half a dozen men that were so influential in his life. And I'm just so, but actually, that's the way the relations between men are supposed to be. It was, it wasn't always, it wasn't always on. No, and I never had any crazy things happening. Not in that field. No, cool. They were all amazing, man. And this super, super, super like, yeah, investing how people, man, right? Yeah. And it was, it was really a pleasure to be with them. But at the same time, you know, it was mixed up with Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, right, David Kuresh, all these different things were right in my circle. And, uh, when Eric Rudolph sort of bombed the abortion clinics and then Timothy Vaugh was like blown up the buildings in Oklahoma City, I was just like, you know what? I was slip aside of this. Yeah, the scene is like, maybe not something. I imagine that was a really tough recruiting time after that. I was, yeah. I was, I wasn't into that. And I was just like, there's a lot of stuff going on right here that we're still enough hippie in this family to, to be like peace, man. Right. We know bombshit. Yeah, I'm sorry. Right. I wasn't there. It was just cool. Defensive, whatever. We want to see these guns, but not at people. Right. Ever. And nobody's blowing anybody. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So close something up, but not people. That's when I kind of said, okay, I'm going to slip. And now you're like 18 or something? Uh, I'm 17. Okay. So you just a couple of years span three, four years span. Right. Or that you were involved. Right. But it was every day, you know, I wasn't, I was homeschooled. And I was, yeah, let us segue. We could segue a little bit to some of the issue. Some of the issue. Yeah, you talk about, um, hippies kind of transition you over to militia. One thing that doesn't transition well from hippies to militia is marijuana. Oh, yeah. Oh, did you get busted with weed so they kicked you out? No, no. No, it was just that I, I wanted to smoke weed and those guys. They didn't really like it. Right. They were green berets. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't like it. It's like you keep your body in prime condition. Right. And that doesn't include me to pop that. Right. It was looked upon as, you know, not what we were supposed to be doing. Yeah. Yeah. Fair. So, okay. And it was kind of like what I wanted to do. Fair. I think that's a fair answer. You know, like I feel bad for those NFL football players. There's one guy that's kind of on a big, big comeback right now that years ago he was like test positive for weed and test positive for weed. And then he was out of football for two years. And he apparently got a good therapist to whatever he's off the weed. But he's kicking ass. Right. And it's like, kind of just smoke weed too. You know, I'm a NFL football player. Don't I have all the powers? You know, I've been living Colorado. I live in Colorado. Right. So, Kim. So, we're going to come back to you, Eric, because it's going to be almost romance bill time for the young Eric. And perhaps I don't know. We'll see. Kim, ground me like, where did you come from? Was your was your mother or father a federal agent or anything? Not really, but kind of, you know, I have Italian roots will leave with that. But I come from really young parents, teenage parents. My mother had me at 16. Okay. My dad was 18. Wow. Yeah. My parents were 20 and 22. Yeah. We were pretty young too. But 18, 18 is way out. We were 22 and 23 when we have our kids. So, yeah. Can relate to that. This value in that. 16 is a little yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was tough. And my mom had a tough time as a single parent. Oh, they split up. They, well, they had a very interesting love affair over the years. They were back together and on. I don't know if we get them all you got. And you have siblings too. So, I have a little brother. Okay. And he is a six and a half years younger than I am. So, yeah. That was in part of the onigin. Yeah. Exactly. There you go. Yeah. So your dad was there sometimes. Most of the time not. Yeah. Pretty much. I pretty much grew up in a single parent home. Yeah. Mostly with your mom or someone with your dad. Never with my dad. I didn't meet him until I was six. And then when we were 12, we moved to Georgia and he stayed in Florida. So I didn't really see him again much until Eric and I were together. Oh wow. Okay. So, yeah. Pretty much spent my teenage years. Resue and did a good job. And she, you know, she had it tough. And I get a lot of my, just resilience. Yeah. Resilience is a perfect word because even though she was a teenage mother, dropped out of high school, got her GD. She was a cosmetologist when I was a child. So, she basically cut hair. Right. And when I was about 10, she decided to put herself through chiropractic school. Wow. Yeah. So she's a professional now. It has a wonderful life, you know, as we married in Alabama. Okay. Yeah. And then my dad and I actually have like kind of reconnected over the past couple of years. Okay. We actually talk every couple of days. It's not the typical conversation that you would expect. Okay. He's a character. It's like this. Grab your dad in one minute. Joe Pesci and Casino. No. That was way less than a minute. Good fellows. Oh, good fellows. No, I think it's more Casino. Yeah. Take one. Okay. Well, Joe Pesci period. Yeah. Yeah. He's had a gum. I want to meet him. Yeah. I can't wait to drink with you. You may be one of the few people I allow that. I think that's a compliment. It really is. You should take that as one. Okay. I've had other people ask. Like, who is that guy? Oh, I've had other people ask, like, can I meet your dad when he's in time? No, no, no, no, no, no. I can't wait. Oh, and you, you, I can't wait for your response. Eric, there's another ice cube in the freezer over there, if you want to grab one. So, um, so mostly ways by your mom, um, like where'd you graduate high school? So gosh, I, again, I didn't really know we were going to get this deep, but I guess I'll be completely honest. I was, I left high school in ninth grade. No. Well, I have a GED. I have a bachelor's in business, but I left school in ninth grade. I lived on my own since, since I was 16. Yeah. We need to get into stuff like this, because that's like a, like high school dropouts can become successful business. And there's kind of thing. I know, right? Yeah, but there's definitely other layers to it. I mean, I was, I was a troubled child. I was a naughty girl. Oh, yes. So from like 16 to 19, I tried really hard to get as much trouble as I possibly could. Like drugs, boys. All of it. Yeah. Yeah. So the whole reason I ended up in North Carolina was to just kind of straighten myself up at 19. Interesting. Yeah. On your own volition or were you like sent to North Carolina somehow? You know, I was 19, but my family let me know that I better get my shirt together. We're not going to really support you anymore or get your shit together. Well, I was, I was on my own supporting myself. Okay. Um, I had always worked. I'd always paid my bills, but I, but your friends were a terrible influence on. Absolutely. You can go get a fresh start. Yep. Yeah. They did all the wrong guys and did all the wrong things and stayed up way too late. Yeah. Yeah. You met you at me. Right. Which is like, you're kind of, you're, you're like me in that regard too. Jill, my wife is Jill and she's an amazing conscientious person kind of like you are Kim now is, but you know, I'm a little, a little bit edgy. You know, enough to be interesting. Like, that's, oh, I'm definitely edgy. Like, you know, like, my dad comes out sometimes. Like, you don't want to get me mad. I'd threaten to hurt somebody like right in the go. You know, it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So too often I never heard a microphone. So don't, don't name any name right now. Just somebody. Okay. So let's hear about the meeting each other thing. Like, was it love at first sight? It was. I actually said, told my friends that I was going to marry her before I ever spoke to her. I love it. Yep. That's, that's true. I want to share. So I, before I like had my second date with Jill, my wife, I told my roommates. I was like, I don't know if I should. If I go out again with Jill, I might never date another woman again. You know, girls are neat. But I was so glad. Yeah. So I saw how many years is that that we've been I think 20 years now. We'll be married 17 and January together 19. Okay. So what are you coming on? So yeah, 19 years ago, I saw her girl. You're like, there are no other women for me. I saw her get up. I looked out the yard and there was a truck pulled up and I said, oh, who's that? And then I saw my friend get out and then she was with my friend and I thought maybe my friend was trying to date her or something. But I saw her as I go, my God. I'm marrying her. And I didn't know her name. Right. I don't know who she was if they were married. I didn't know anything. But isn't that it's like that's that going with the flow thing that we were talking about before. Like sometimes it's hard to express to people that have never maybe been in love or whatever. But like, there's this thing where you're just like, okay, that's my person. Yeah, that's it. So yeah, I actually, I remember looking out the window and the window was kind of dirty. I never kind of seen her as this old dirty way. Because you hadn't played the window ever. I'm actually surprised there was a window. Right. My bachelor pad. Right. I think this house was missing doors. Oh, he wasn't missing a few from a few parties where someone got through the door. Well, the class is nice down there. Like that's part of like, why don't we do some more? I know. Yeah. I mean, you gotta be careful if I want to steal. Right. No one's doing a door. So you're 19 or something too? No. No, he's 21. 21. I'm 20. Okay. You know, and her friend had actually bought her over to see if she could get some herb. Some weed. You were a weed. Yeah. Yeah. So she was trying to get some weed. And you're like, I'm out of the militia and I'm pretty sure I'm just going to like, hustle weed or raise weed or whatever. Right. Hustle some weed and do some concrete. The weed that she wanted was super expensive. Oh, and I think I paid $400 an ounce for it. And I sold it to her for like $150. Oh, you're like, hey, so I got his number because I knew I'd be coming back. It was the best weed you'd ever get in your life for $150. You'd never ever get this. I don't really buy volume. But yes, so I made sure she would never buy weed anywhere else ever again. Right. And what was your second date? Oh, I made him chase me for a while. So I, nothing happened from that. And I, about a month later, I was at this restaurant that I worked at. I was a waitress at a steakhouse. And he comes into the steakhouse, walk up to him, make small talk, totally talking about myself. I go on and on and on and on. I'm like, hey, you're trying to impress him. Well, yeah, the guy was dating was out of the picture now. And I was letting him know it. You know, I was like, oh, you know, that guy that you called and hung up on. He also worked at the restaurant too. Yeah, no, he wasn't. But he was out of the picture. Anyway, let's move on. Yeah. And I was like, oh, you know, I'm kind of available now, you know, just freed up. I freed up. But honestly, no, because really, actually, I let me back up on that because I really, at this point in time, I was considering Eric to be a friend. Right. I was not romantically. What changed until you knew that he was interested. Well, no, what happened was right then I talked about myself on and on and on. I said, well, what are you doing? And he said, well, I just left my brother's funeral. Oh, well. And I instantly was like, well, let me take you home and fix you. And well, plus we'd had this chick with history. Well, yeah. And I'm your a fixer. I was a friend. You're like a durable project. Oh, little did I know. So we were friends for like the first month, which, that's cool. He tricked me with a back massage. Well, you know, it happens if you're together for a month, and friends, and he asked you to give you a back massage, you should be careful. Well, yes, unless you want to not be careful to a certain extent. I'm not going to ask you if I can give you a back massage. It's okay. No, I just think it's a sign of good respect. And I just like jump in. You know, well, he wanted to jump in. Well, sure. But that's part of your responsibility is to make sure he knows you're a good girl too. Yeah, she was. That's awesome. I was trying that on for size. Right. Just for a change. I just reformed myself. You know, like go around that and I'm like super cute tonight. So, so one of the things I've told a few people over the years is that in the end, the girl is the picker. She's the decider. Like, even though you said, I want to marry that girl. Like in the end, am I right? Is this series still correct? Like, you're the decider. You're like, okay, yes, I will let you marry me. I'm glad you think I'm so fucking amazing. Is that true? Or, or how does that work? Is it sometimes not like I think? What do you think? I don't know. Or is it just a question for Kim? I think I think that I said the other day to Jill. I think so. I think you're right. I think I wrote it in my journal. I think so. Jill grabbed me and made herself mine. Right. Would you agree with that? Like did Kim grab you and make herself yours? You know, I missed that. I missed the opportunity. I could have done that the first month. But I dragged it out too long. Oh, and I gave him the upper hand. Yeah. And when I gave him the upper hand, then he played it. He did. You know what he did? I'm actually going to credit them. Let me give me a little shout out to Eric Whiten. Okay. Real quick. He's responsible for me quitting smoking cigarettes. Awesome. 19 years ago, because he said, I'm not going to take this series. Yeah, you're, I mean, you know, I might take weed, but I don't date people that smoke cigarettes. That's exactly right. Yeah. Period. Yeah. And so it was like in that moment that I was like, shit, when did he get the upper hand? Right. That he's telling me, I can't be his girlfriend. So I go smoke cigarettes. Awesome. I love it. Up until that moment, I thought I had the upper hand. Right. Well, because the girl usually does have the upper hand. Yeah. So I was like, I was like, she's like, she's like, so we're like together now. And I was like, no, you're just my friend. I can't, I can't date a girl. This looks like cigarettes. And I remember looking at me, looking at me like, what? That's awesome. I love it. So describe the first years of love and merit. So how long before you got married? As much as you want to. Your concrete company, by then, were you doing concrete? Any were working in hustling and doing a little bit of this and that? Is that right? You know, I think we started, we actually started our concrete company, just write not too long about a year after we, we were together. No, before we got married. Yeah. Okay. I was a pretty successful, framer weed dealer. Okay. Gotcha. So I didn't really, in North Carolina. Yeah. I didn't really have, I was pretty, yeah. I grew up there. So it was really successful weed business, I guess. Mostly that. You framed just so you could have a job to report on. I framed for fun. All my buddies framed side frames. It was, it was, it was, they'd hang out with them. And that's basically how try say started. I never framed for, all right. And you're like, these fucking concrete guys are the, well, they can't ever get a concrete pump. Right. They started with the pump. Well, then the concrete pump would show up at work, and it would make like 500 bucks in an hour. Right. And I was like, who the fuck are these guys making $500 an hour? Right. They got pumped. Yeah. And I was like, dude, I was like, I was like, dude. So he said, dollars money and bought a concrete pump. I have it framed. The receipt is in 20s. Awesome. That was basically the starting moment of try say, that's right. That's right. Start a try state. Like I sold weed to get enough money. Well, the cops had bucks to me. Oh, much illegally is that three days before I started try state, the cops busted me for growing weed. No, for selling weed. For selling weed. But they didn't get if you want to. They didn't get any weed. They didn't find any weed that is charging me with conspiracy. Sell weed and the IRS gave me a fine for $12,000 to pay immediately. Okay. And, uh, and did you? Yeah, I did. Oh, yeah. They can they can in my house with the trailer. I'm going to take cars in my yard. Pay me cash right now. I won't take your cars. So that was the IRS. Those guys are things too. They are totally they're the most gangster people you ever see in your life. When they pull open your yard with a truck and a trailer and say we're taking your stuff. Right. It's like whoa. So there's an old quote that's like tax what you want more of or no tax what you want less of and subsidize what you want more of. And so it's like the the IRS. You want a tax net income. You want a tax income. You want less income. You want people to have less income. Well, let's tax it then. Let's tax consumption. Right. Right. Because that's what like makes the global warming at all. Right. Like let's refill shit. Like let's like maybe we can wash bottles and fill them back up again. Yeah. When I was a kid that we live in Oregon. Yeah. And now that's they did it. You could take your all your soda bottles back in. They would fill your they would fill your tubers of soda. No, an organ amounts again. I don't know if they still do that now. But it's like because things are recyclable. But now China doesn't take our recyclables. Right. So now they're just burned or buried basically. But people use so much more crap because I could take it's it's unintended consequences. But we're not going to chase that squirrel. Okay. That's long. Oh, we're already an hour and a half in almost. How long do you guys want to go? Do you want to go another half an hour? Is that cool? I don't mind. You want to get Eric talking on a story so that I can stay blessed for us. Just do it. Little girls room trip. Yes. Yes. I'm on a half a bottle of wine at this point. We'll talk about you when you're gone. Oh no. I think I might change my mind. So Eric, let's hear. There's I think there's a crazy story or two from the like North Carolina days with like, check it. Parties and different. Yep. We do tell one of those. Well, we, yeah, we could. I mean, if we could touch on a house party. That's it. So yeah, it's a part of how you made money, right? A lot of fun. Yeah, we could we withdraw some parties. We probably threw about maybe eight or 10, you know, blowouts. Yeah, six, seven hundred, eight hundred people plus parties. But like rock concerts. We would have live bands usually. So we I had was fortunate enough to meet one of Bob Marley's original bass players from trench town. Okay. He's in a band called the Nettie Love Joyce and we made friends young when I was traveling these reg A festivals when I was going to be 17, 18. So after the Melissa, yes, just just after it. Just just afterwards. Okay. So I met these these, this husband and wife. I got this big property. I got a throw a big house party. Yeah, Jotty Allen. He's one of Bob Marley's shout out. He was a grew up with Bob Marley. It was just an amazing legacy and like a legend in the reg A world. So he'd be so he'd he would come to our house and with his band and we would show these massive blowouts and they could cover Bob Marley's stuff like he wouldn't believe it. Just all kinds of, you know, all the cool reggae music. Right. So that would attract a lot of people and then we'd you know, there always be open weed smoking and that attracts a lot of people. Right. So a lot of times there'd be over a thousand people and we we charged $25 at the door. So and that's it. Right. That's it. And you could do whatever you want. We had open bar and you know, different things with a band a couple grand or a grand and they're already happy. Right. And they just have so much fives and tens and twenties coming out of your wall, drawers and dressers. Exactly. So tons of fives and tens and twenties. So those were a lot of fun and you know, you could a couple of weekends we were bored and so let's make some money and we throw a house party. Yeah. It would be huge. And I remember the the dry set concrete is a new piece of equipment. Yeah. The bands would always say, man, these are like the house paid parties we do in Europe with with a dentist Brown and all these, you know, huge reggae stars back in the 60s and 70s. So it was just like a really cool tribute vintage. It was a vintage parties. Yeah. And then after the after the band would would take a break or take a set break, we would have a real permedience that run the radio station. They would come in and throw like a do like an intermediate like a DJ like like DJ, but they would do like they would do these little little riffs and whatever. And do these little free styles with like, you know, all these different types of lyrics. And it was just like super, super like cultural different from where we were. So people are like, oh my god, they have these amazing parties. So they were the rape. We actually went a few states away. One time we were eaten dinner in like Savannah, Georgia and one of the waitresses that heard about our parties and we were talking about something else. It was just like, oh my god, you guys are legends. We actually flew that band out here and had a party here once. Oh, we did. Yeah, it must have been a place. The drummer went viral and got like three million views. Yes, playing the guitar and the drums at the same time. Oh, I love it. He did it on our party and it was like this amazing deal. So send that link to me and we'll put it into the notes of this pop. Yeah, it's probably got like five million views. Oh, and also, I know I quit the Facebook. I told you guys, but I quit it all together. But I joined the group in like Johnny winner into the Rockwell Hall of Fame before that. And so we'll put that is emailing that to Kim. Okay. And we'll put those links in there and anything else. Maybe try to state concrete website or Instagram if you got one or whatever we'll make that part of our thing here. We just make this shit up as we go along. Yeah, right. So I love it. Like so you are basically the do almost anything if it seems philosophically and ethically appropriate to make a buck and make the world a better place. Absolutely. Is that sound about right? It does. I'm good at this game. Yeah. And you are the relentlessly in love with that guy person that is capable of of building bridges and relationships with the people that could make that vision happen in some respects. Yeah, I mean, he's capable of doing a lot of stuff. Oh, he's a relationship guy too. Yeah, but it's a different type of relationship. He does his good old boy thing. And then I secure the job. Right. You know what I mean? Like he, he, well, it's like my team kind of like I'm a magnet kind of guy and Rory and Deb like make sure everybody can take care of because I know this is actually pretty cool. I think we could, this is a great segue. Yeah. To another great story because we talked about eventually somehow getting to where we could arm ashamed. Yeah. So this is kind of cool. Like how we ended up becoming the roles that we are. Right. So the fire happens. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Let's do it. Now try state is blowing up. We are, we are so blessed that this is so much work. So much work. You don't know what you're doing. Not only do we have so much work, all the work is there in the mountains. Right. So Eric is completely immobilized every single day. No cell phone, no communications because he's deep in Ryerson. Right. Okay. So I am forced now to learn the business, to learn the tech side, to learn how to answer the phone calls, to learn how to estimate it. Because you were just a trophy wife before. I just did the back end, send him here, send this. Exactly. Oh, I love it. At the same time, I'm joining VNI. Right. Which is a networking group here in Fort Collins. Great group of people fast track. Where you know Shane. Yeah. Right. So it actually is how you and I first met for sure. Yeah. Yep. So I have to we have to do weekly. We have to do a commercial. We have to promote ourselves. Right. Well, how else am I going to promote ourselves without learning about ourselves? Right. You know, I can't go in there and say, well, I send estimates. Right. You know, I mean, I had to get in there and I don't know how to do the estimates or anything. Right. Right. So I just started out slow. I would go to the job, take multiple pictures, all the different, you know, measurements that I would. I'd go back home and he would show me, teach me from there. Yeah. But being I was such a huge force you to get better at. Yes. That was where I had my first experience with peer network. Oh, like somebody from the outside looking in your business. Yeah. Where you wanted to go in and present yourself in a certain way. And know about your business in every, you know, when someone asked you a question, you didn't want to be blindsided. Right. You know, someone would say, Hey, well, do you do this service? I had to know what that service was and what we provided. And with that segue, you know, we've met some amazing people. We've met each other. Yeah. We met each other and a lot of other people and this is just a shout out to Shane and Chantelle Sigfried. Shane's part of this crazy RV accident. Yeah. He was our first business coach. Right. When we first joined, yeah. You know, one of the things that stuck with me that he tried to teach us was a short pencil is better than a long memory. I have no idea. We told that a lot. So I was like, I don't mind the last stuff now. Right. Same. I didn't start until I started hiring people and they're like, you're going to reach this. You know, because we are that visionary type and you are that integrator type. And so anyway, because nobody knows what we're talking about now. There was there was a there was a tragic, probably medical traffic situation where an RV barreled into at least 16 different cars and a bunch of hospitalizations and our mutual friend was taken off of life support two days ago. And it's been pretty emotional for a lot of people have been around in the last 10 days or whatever. So that's just a sidebar. We're going to like just hey, power to the family piece to you and just warm wishes always. But also to move on because life is for the living. And he was he would say that living is always a vibrant, vibrant person. Yes. And so where should we go next? Oh, I think so it's seven. Do you want to jump into family phase and politics before we get going or what are the stories? I want to hear like I want to hear like two more one more story out of each of you that's that's a pretty interesting just a little bit crazy. Not enough to get you in trouble. Thank you for thinking of that. So I want to hear about about talent. So yes. So we touched a little bit. Let's just let's just get into the family. We'll wander around and we'll we'll wind up here. Yeah. So we have two amazing children 16 and 14. Yep. Our 16 year old we talked a little bit about earlier Raiden works for the company. He's homeschooled. Right. Absolutely amazing kid can run any piece of machinery. Is that you mostly homeschooling them? Yes. Well, I mean Eric does too because you know a day at homeschool. You're good at some things and he's good at some things. I focus on life skills. Right. Well, Raiden can you know do mechanics on a John Deere skid steer. Right. So you know he changes all the breaks changes. You know, he's a very very mechanical guy who can do a lot of things. He's a do everything kind of guy. And he's basically highly trained. Yeah. And about everything I can do. He's getting there. I'm mini me. Yeah. He's getting there. I was also. So except for he's got a way better personality than you do. Yeah, right. He's your life. He also believes he's an up and coming battle rapper. Right. Shout out to whatever his name is. Oh, rapper name is. I love it. But Raiden keep pursuing that dream. I bet you can make money by wrapping that you don't have to do concrete anymore. I bet that thing my kids wouldn't do. Right. For sure. So then talent our youngest. You want to talk about talent? So yep talent. He's as Asperger's dual diagnosis with a mental. It's intellectual. It's intellectual disabilities. Yep. So he's a dual diagnosis. So he's kind of got on the autism spectrum. But he's also a little slow. Right. Then they they consider him high functioning. Which he's he's got a photograph. I love his personality. He's definitely a savant of numbers. Okay. But I just don't know how to get that working properly because you're not smart enough. Yeah. He knows a lot of numbers and he can he remembers everything. So he's a photographic memory. He can remember every single date that every single movie came out. It's released date. But you know, he just barely learned his birthday last year. Yeah. 14. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's well, I think we all have kind of a shared philosophy that there's a wonderful life available for anybody if they plug themselves in the right way. Right. So we we try to support him and make his life wonder as wonderful as possible. And he definitely makes which means he's spoiled by him. Totally. He's he's definitely made me a better parent, a more patient person. Yeah. And it's just a lot of insight in the world. It's like what what having a special needs challenge does to you. To on your album world is innocence of the questions and stuff. Like it's just like this. And like, it's so like insightful in its innocence. Yeah. We were watching a documentary on Netflix the other day. Love on the spectrum. Okay. And which is a wonderful. Another shot. Shout out to love on the spectrum. Watch it. But it really it was just so insightful to what kids on the spectrum, what they go through when it comes to love. And it and he's focused about that. Yeah. And he's focused on that. He asked me when he's getting married pretty often. It's a pretty weekly question. He's what like 15, 14, 14, okay. But it was really cute because one of the mothers of one of the kids on the spectrum, she had made the comment that his name was Michael that everybody needed a Michael in their family. And I knew exactly what she met. You know, our life is so much richer having a talent in our family. And sometimes I, you know, I love that. Yeah. For, you know, I hurt for the trials. He's going to go through, you know, people are not going to accept him. It's going to be right. I know he's going to make some people have made fun of him. Absolutely. Absolutely. They didn't do so. But sometimes I wonder if he has it better than we do. Right. I mean, he just, he's so happy and content. You know, 90% of the time. Right. I actually, this isn't the same at all. But maybe like when people first asked me why I smoked weed because I like came from a culture where it was bad, bad taboo. Sure. And then I went to college and not the first year, but half weeks was the second year I got a DUI. And I was like, well, I'm off the booze. I'm on the weed. And it was just better for me. And people would ask me at home that we're kind of judging me and stuff. Typically, it was a slowly growing thing. I was like, well, it just, it makes me dumb for a while because I'm just always like thinking about all these things. I'm doing I'm anxious. And I'm, you know, I'm sure I'm ADD-ish or whatever. But for me, that was like, okay, now I can just kind of mellow. Right. And, you know, not that I'm encouraging people. On vlog, could we? Right. But I can appreciate the bliss of not having all the weight of the world and all the concerns of the world on your shoulders. Absolutely. His biggest concern is when the next movie is being released at the movie theater. Right. Or what movies he has on hold at the library. Well, he has no concerns about swimming pool. If the swimming pool is like what one's dad buying me an RV. Is the pool still going by the way this fall? It is. It is. Yeah. I want to hear that story real quick. The pool story for talent. Oh, the talent. So I, I, uh, would like to interstate on to him about right in the dirt bike a couple of years ago. First birthday brand new one. Four years ago, exactly to the day yesterday. Oh, shout out to Raiden. Happy birthday. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So he got that. And I think it was like $4,500 or something or $5,000. And yeah, I came home and she said, well, what talent yet? I was just making a point that Raiden is spoiled. Right. And I said, well, he said, that's not fair. I said, all talent once is a pool. And she said, well, above my pool then. And I said, okay. So I went, got my excavator and drove it home, Mr. Diggard. I was like, I know how to do concrete. I'd never really did a pool about 200. Yeah. Theoretically, we dig holes. We frame it with walls. We always want to fill it with water. And so I built a house on. I was basically getting a building with this red neck pool. Right. And she cement pond. Yeah. Yeah. But you're gonna. I was building it. I was I was in it. And I was doing it. And she bought me out of picture of some just like red neck shot out to Lucas Lagoon's on with GTB. Yeah. She, she brought out this like picture of a some retarded disgusting pool. And she said, is this what you're building me? You're like, kind of, I was like, that's exactly what I'm building you. So like, no, you're not. Yeah. So not moving to McQueen, Tennessee, or whatever. All of a sudden, the budget of cement pond, we went from a 30,000 dollar budget to 220,000 lower budget. Pretty quick. But it's and he is correct that it went from being a simple little project. Yeah. I mean, I ended up with a couple of hours. Three waterfalls. Now the house is you. That was that was you. Well, I had to have a pool house here. Go bigger. Go home, guys. Yeah. So we went big. Yeah. 4,000 square foot pool deck. It's pretty that three. Yeah. So I think you should have a band party next year. Well, I think we should agree. I could find some people. I can help you find some people. Yeah. Eric would turn 40 this year. So I think we should do it like a makeup. Yeah. Totally. I think we should. It seems like the right time. I think so. By June, masks are not masks or whatever. The weather is nice. Yeah. Masked free. Let's do it. Masked free or die. Is that running into the talk? Trump took it off at like a minute. Yeah. So whatever. That's what I said. It's 73 old fat guy. I can be fine. I don't need big bottles all the time. I'm like, come on. I just take extra zinc for a while. And that doesn't mean I don't respect you. And I want your grandmother to die just for the record. And we respect everybody. Yeah. I mean, we joke about this. But if it makes you more comfortable, I mean, we put it on to make people comfortable. Sure. I do wear it for people who feel uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm way more comfortable when I'm not wearing it. Yeah. Me too. It's like a thousand. And that's me putting aside the fact that I'm more comfortable without it. You know what I mean? I think that that should be acknowledged. It has a really good knowledge. Whether it's physically comfortable or psychologically comfortable, it should be acknowledged that I'm making a sacrifice when I do this thing. Yeah. I don't like it. And if it folks my glasses up is probably the one. I remember one thing is like, I can't see when I wear my glasses. Right. And you're like working. You're like, I can't do this thing without fucking glasses. That's the really the people that don't wear it all day at work. Oh, I really so bad for them. Yeah. And I was served by a Rio Grande wait, wait, staff server on the patio one time with a small group. And he's like, he kept like forgetting stuff. He's like, I'm sorry. I'm like, almost 12 hours, masked the whole time, a couple breaks, you know, it's time just like, he's like sweating. And it's like his brain is like starving. Right. Yeah. No oxygen. And his mind, you know, the brain stars from oxygen, but the mind stars from like proper stimulation and proper support. Hey, you know, this is might be totally left filled on this. But like my nephew lives with us. He's 10 months old. And I'm highly concerned. He goes to daycare all day. And they wear masks all day. How is he learning how to speak properly? How is he learning the proper super. Yes. Right. No, it's true. We can't outsource. What's happening from the from the infants to two year olds when they're in this environment where they can't see faces. I don't know. Let's get off of it. Well, we are we are family politics and religion. We end every part of the family politics. I don't know. We don't know. In election, we haven't said shit about the election so far. I'm a I'm a I'm I think I'm going Kanye. I honestly do. Kanye. All right. Three Kanye votes. It's like the ultimate protest. It doesn't mean we think Kanye should be president. It just thinks we think everybody else is such a fucking. Let's make a joke of it. Right. I think you might make a good president. Actually, we would make a better president. I think the Biden. I probably so too. I would like to see killer Mike and the rock. Yeah. He president. Like that is like there's killer bikes running in Georgia, right? Is that that's a real thing? Yeah, it's real. Is he? Yes. I think I saw his bus. I saw I saw he's right. I mean, he's riding the bus right now around the country promoting himself. You know, I think he should just go straight up to the top and go for president because you know, in four years, we're going to be ready for somebody else. I'm pretty sure, no matter what happens. Yeah. And so I think that's enough on politics. We just I think that's enough trash. Yeah. That's good to trash. So talk about religion. Like you were like like this crazy ass never heard of the Bible hippie got into the militia. Yep. And then to the Bible study. We still argue about religion. Yeah. So I love it. I'm currently a seventh day Adventist. Ooh interesting. When when when the most the most the militia means you don't work on Saturdays. I extremely not honor the Sabbath as much as possible. Posting not just like I was supposed to not work on Sunday. I'm right. I'm right. But I have asked. He's been trying recently. Half past seven years. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. But more recently, I've definitely been trying to honor this. Have it more of this because I think it's a healthy and why seventh day Adventist. Because I think the Bible and face value. And I just think that there wasn't ever a change. Right. When it was Saturdays. So we changed it to Sunday just to be different from the Jews. So it's just face value. I just did face value. And I believe it pretty strongly that just read the Bible and it's what it says. So yeah. Well, I think almost everybody I know that doesn't believe in Jesus. Has never heard the Bible. Right. It's crazy how when you read it, how real it is and how many answers you can get out of life. Right. Through it. And and you just know that it can't be like made shit up because it's just too accurate. It's too accurate. It's too accurate. It's like five thousand years old. Right. It's too accurate. Okay. So that's your so that's why I stand. I have a seventh day Adventist with a Bible focused kind of relief. And then like when I grew up in the militia, you know, it was like this crazy religion that did their religion was a different twist. It was very, very anti-Semitic type of, you know, kind of this like really taboo religion. Right. And I was in that for a while. And then, you know, that was part of what you rejected probably. It was. It was. Yep. It was. And that's kind of where I went. Found the seventh day of Adventist. And I about, you know, got baptized in my own will at 21 years old. Oh, cool. So in the seventh day Adventist church, which you see, let's see where your mom came from. My mom was a member of the church, but you know, I was also, you know, 18 when I was brought into it. So what she was. No, it was a fresh thing. Right. Yeah. She was like, hey, do the seventh day Adventist around this region know you and stuff and you check it out. No, I do go, but I don't really know many people. Right. I don't. You're a corner. Yeah. Corner guy. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. But more of the online sermons and stuff is kind of what I do. You could do it in the bathroom. Stephen Lewis. Okay. I like it. I typically wake up in the morning to a Stephen Lewis sermon. That's, yeah, six, six a.m. All this something on God for at least an hour, hour and a half. Oh, wow. Six to seven thirty. I love it. Pretty much every almost every morning. That's a long passage. Yeah. That's super cool. I kind of get you a good day. Jill and I do a little we do first five. It's like a five minute like Bible reading kind of devotional thing and we snuggle and talk and whatever. And it's usually like 15. Yeah. But those are good. Sometimes it's sometimes it's not enough meat. Right. Right. He gets a little deep. Right. You're not the boss for so much. You're just like, no, I'd like the so where did you come from? We have different theologies. Right. So so so where did you come from? Where are you? So I was raised in a Presbyterian church. I went to a very prestigious Christian Academy in Fort Lauderdale. And they're kind of like the the world's going to work out the way it's going to work out and you just shouldn't go kick an instrument too much. Is that right? Yeah. And he's like you know, let's see. Make things better in the revelations because the world's coming to an end. So it's very drastic. Right. Um, not just different. You're just a moderate background arguably. Yeah. You know, I'm like in the mornings of like, can we start the morning like a little more positive? And he's like starting the morning like hellfire brimstone coming. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So that's where we're a little different. I'm more like, um, you know, I want to read out of Corinthians and he wants to read out of revelations. Right. Right. Yeah. I get that. Interesting. That's a really, uh, so how do you guys manage that as a couple? We usually fight about it. Really? So we've talked about this before. I really think that we should form the crazy eclectic Bible study group. But it's mostly about food and fellowship. And then we talk about the Bible for 20 minutes. Right. Or stuff. Um, and it's like a once a month dinner club. So these guys are in. If you want to be in on this club, it's going to be an extensive interview process and you better be a damn good. Uh, as Kim, my know is from having some of your chicken wings the other, uh, uh, uh, a few months ago. Yeah. So I want to close this out with whatever you guys want to make sure people know about like actually, let's have some learning stuff because we've really just been telling stories because I knew it was going to be fun to just tell stories. So tell me about like what you've learned about yourself, Kim, uh, over the last few years, because you what just like five years ago now really started taking the active interest in the business. Yes. And and it's been an interesting roller coaster really because, um, I think that that's the fire pushed me into a more active roller tri state, uh, which was both needed and resisted by the guys a little bit. Right. Because you're a girl in a boy's world. Absolutely. We haven't talked about that yet. We haven't. She definitely is. And and I think I do well when it comes to like bidding projects and being out there with contractors. I think it's over upper hand. Yeah. I do well with my my upper, right? It's the lower staff that it's dealing with the crews and the guys that I have a little bit more. So the sales and the clients are really good. Yes. Yeah. Just great with that. But yeah, there are other employees and some of the some of the staff it's it's so is that like a next building piece for you is that somebody else should do. Yeah. You know, I use a freaking. I know where we're going to do that. Yes. We and we have brought in other people because Tommy's not going to fall into that role. Right. Tommy's an operations guy. He doesn't have a train. He doesn't know how to manage. He you know, he feels for these. He doesn't have to do shit. Yeah. He's an amazing person at what he does. Um, is he going to train and manage and rule like a whole other team of 25 people. Yeah. He's not what he should do it. Even if he could. Right. If he would hit it. Why should he? Yeah. So there was there's been a it's been a roller coaster, right? I they did finally accept me because I get good jobs. You know, I really vet my customers. I make sure your jobs and they know that, right? Um, and then I I wanted to be something that maybe a concrete company isn't going to quite be, right? I I had my. You want to get a little too pro. Yes. I wanted too much doctor too tight for what concrete guys all. Yeah. So they bristle. They bristle. And this past year, it's been about acceptance. It's been about what is best for everybody. Yeah. What roles everybody is best in. What roles they enjoy being in best. That's most fulfilling to them. And then trying to scale from that. Instead of just saying because Tommy's Operation Guy, he should learn how to train and grow the company. And because I'm the salesperson, I should be making, you know, bigger, better sales. And because Eric's operations, he should be, you know, doing bigger project management. Instead of grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. It's more of an acceptance of. Yeah. What's our right spot? What is the right spot? And it's been this, you know, it's interesting because we're like, Oh, the right spot is not training and hiring this year, right? We're going to stay with 10 guys instead of doing 29 like last year. Wow. Right? It's a big difference. It is big difference. Yeah. And then we realized we didn't like that revenue. Right. It wasn't big enough to cover the whole thing. It wasn't what we were used to. So now we got to somewhere in the middle 18 or 20 or 20 or 20. 2020 COVID aside. It's been the year of like acceptance for me. Yeah. Like this is and then maximizing that like potential of each person and accepting, you know, both strengths and limitations. Absolutely. I had I had an interesting thought the other day I also journaled it was we we value each other because of like what they can bring to us. But we love each other for what they can't kind of sometimes. Like I know how much love you have at Tommy, but he's never going to let you scale that part of the business. Right. That's probably more like rating or Dave. Right. Right. And like that's the person that can be built around. That doesn't mean Tommy doesn't have a lifelong place within your organization at a fair value for his superb skill. Right. Sacrifice. Yeah. But but he also, you know, he would be uncomfortable building a new division of the company on his shoulders. That isn't his thing. Yeah. He pours a slab at night and he literally dreams about that slab. Right. He's worried. Where's the cure over there? He literally does until he cuts it the next. He's the sleeps and and no exaggeration. So, you know, you can't scale that. Right. Right. Who dreams about concrete? Yeah. Yeah. It's unskillable. Yes. There's no way that scale. Exactly. And so I think just appreciating him for the tremendous. And I think that's probably probably the theme of this podcast. If I I've heard one is really appreciating the diversity and the amazingness of everybody in your world and valuing them for what they bring to it. Absolutely. Is that fair? I think so. Yeah. I think that's. Dude, I hit it. I can tell you you're you're you're a big baby. I'll get you crying if we have another podcast episode, which we will. So we're going to sign off. Thank you, Kim, Eric. Let's have it last year. Cheers. Cheers. And Godspeed. Thanks. Bye-bye. Yes, bye. Thank you for listening to today's episode of the Locoh experience podcast. This is Kurt Baer, founder of the Locoh think tank and hosted the Locoh experience. And I'm here with Mori Shar, Locoh business developer and hosted the Locoh shorts episodes. We hope you heard some new ideas and business perspectives in this episode. Our mission and all that we do, including this podcast, is to share collaborative business ideas and solutions that uplift the business community. Subscribe and follow us where you listen to podcasts to get new episodes as they are released. Curious about Locoh? You can learn more about us at localthinktank.com where you'll find more information about our chapters, business resources and events for business owners and key leaders. If you're looking for perspective, accountability and encouragement along your business journey, why not apply for a chapter near you today? Why not? Why not? Why not? Why not? We'll catch you next time on the in-depth Locoh experience podcast with me, Kurt. And with me, Mori, for Bite Size Business Lessons in the Locoh shorts. Bye. Bye.