Farming Lessons Paying Off

(upbeat music) - Hi again everybody, and welcome back to the flagship podcast of Nostalgic Creative Problem Solving. I say that because when I was telling this story last week about like treasure hunting this time of year, it reminded me of something else that happened this time of year. It involved like state, FFA, and state baseball. Every year, you know, the first second week of May, it's always the second week of May, there's always state, FFA over in Pullman, and state convention was like a highlight of the year for so many people, and we loved it because it's A, where like you're competing for the chance to go to Nationals, and also B, you just gonna go over to Pullman and like hang out for three days with your friends and a ton of other people, it was so much fun. Problem was, like I said, it also was the exact same time as like state baseball tournaments. And one year, we were in both. I wanna say it was probably like the spring of 2008. It was my senior year, and we'd qualified and we're participating in state FFA for parliamentary procedure. And nearly that same, well not in the same time, on the same day, like that afternoon, we're also in like one of our first state baseball tournament games. Problem was, me and then I think two other people, I wanna say it was Garrett and Todd Pinter. We were in both, and it was a big problem because we were a big part of the FFA teams, and we were also a big part of the baseball team. We were in the starting lineup and everything, and we had to be there. So naturally, Mr. Carter wasn't happy, Mike Burt wasn't happy, and both were like vying to like make sure like we were participating in their events. Like we either either choosing to go to Pullman to participate in state FFA, or choosing to go down to Yakima and do state baseball. Couldn't possibly drive between the two, because when we were like given our times for each, like we had like the early window for baseball, remember we tried like everything, like switch to the later window, couldn't do it. We were given a certain time to participate in the state FFA competition, couldn't move it up, couldn't change that at all. So we were in impasse. It's like how do we do this? Because we don't have enough time to like to drive between the two. We would miss, you know, it's the first several things of the game, if not the first half of the game, if not more. And we, we just didn't, we never would have solved it. And then, uh, Stowe up Warren Neal, who had an airplane, has an airplane, and he's like, hey, you know what, I could fly you guys, 'cause also on our state FFA, 18 was a sun shun. It's like I could fly you guys. Like you guys compete in Todd Auditorium and Pullman at your time, do your Parley Procedure event, and then come over to the airport, which is just a couple miles from there. And getting the airplane, I'm gonna fly you down to Yakima and you'll be there in time of the state baseball game. And lo and behold, it worked, and it was crazy. Like just the idea of us participating in Pullman for one thing, and then flying in like a little like private, I think a small little airplane down to Yakima to be there in time for the baseball game was awesome. Like we had someone there to pick us up. We got there on time. I think we were probably a little late for warmups, but it all worked out. I have no idea if we won the baseball game. I know we didn't get first place in the Parley, these are competition, 'cause we didn't go to nationals, but it was crazy. And just it was one of those things where it's like, I know look at like every problem, like it's like a crossword. Like you can stare at it forever, and sometimes it just takes you walking away and coming back and all of a sudden, it makes perfect sense about a solve it. Every problem's the same way, as long as you look at it the right way, especially when you can get an airplane, a private little airplane and be flown from one spot to another. It was awesome, but that was this time of year. And there's so many great memories of like state FFA from this time of year and baseball at the end of school. I love late May and early June, 'cause there's just so much nostalgia caked into it. All right, today on the show, usual stuff. Tell me something good. The IOU1, which is kind of a follow up from last week of getting like the play structure. And then what I'm into, I finally locked it down. I'm gonna do this year and I gotta talk about that. First though, to tell me something good. (upbeat music) Tell me something good. My last Friday went to the Mandalorian movie. The Mandalorian, the Grogu in the Mandalorian, Mandalorian in Grogu, however it's ordered. I met the point where I had to really part to what movies I go to. It's usually like the Sawers movies, the Marvel movies, because it's hard, because Kendall's great to do some with girls and then I was able to leave this work early and go to a theater and watch it and then be home in time for bedtime. And I loved it. It was a great movie. I feel like for whatever reason, the critics are hitting it hard, you look at the critics scores and they're like 60% and then you look at the audience scores and it's like 90 plus, which makes so much more sense. I don't know what you expect of a Star Wars movie. Or what they expect. It's exactly what you should expect. It's like a space adventure movie where you're going through and you're killing the bad guys and the monsters and the good guys win. And it was just awesome. Like it was kind of like a continuation of the Mandalorian show, in all the best ways. I say that as a compliment, 'cause they did it perfectly. There was great characters, great cameos. The action was awesome. I was shocked. I didn't realize when I booked the tickets, that the tickets I went by myself. I love going to movies by myself, that it was the weekend obviously of Memorial Day which also meant that like Spokane Schools had a four day weekend and that Friday was off. Because when I showed up at the movies at 330, you would have thought it was a Pixar movie. Like there was so many kids in that theater, which is, I hope like it just helps the movie to just have legs and go because it's meant for both adults and for kids because of such the giant like Grogu following. But I had next to me a family, I was so worried because the family came in and it's like a mom and a dad and a kid who's probably three, a little bit younger than Emmy. And then another kid who must have been no more than like one and a half, like clearly even younger than Gabby. And it's like, oh God, the entire theater. Like in this movie, it's got action and it could be scary for that age group. Of course, just sitting like right next to me. To their credit though, not once to that little kid, that baby, that almost like toddler baby, like make a single sound, there was no crying. And this is a loud movie. There's like intense action and stuff. And it was in the Dolby Theater, which is extra loud. But hey, to their credit, didn't interfere at all. The movie was great. There was a ton of, again, like it was a very kid based audience. It was like cheering and laughing and stuff, which is always cool. But awesome movie. I loved it. And I hope it's one of those ones that just like grows because it made some money and it's so weird because people now compare movie theater success and the box office billing to pre-COVID times. And you can't do that. It's so different now. Not only secondary to COVID, but with just how people consume media now. It's like it's less than theaters. And no movie makes as much as they used to. And people are like, oh, Star Wars is done because it didn't make as much. And it's like, well, compare it to more recent movies. And it's actually doing really good. It was an awesome movie. I loved it. And I would highly recommend it. I mean, especially if you watch the Mandalorian shows, or any Star Wars story, that it was awesome. Like just the creativity, again, like you're just, it's a bad guy. Or it's like, it's like the heroes kind of going through space and killing bad guys in his school. I loved it. Great movie. I highly recommend the I.O.U.1. [MUSIC PLAYING] You know who you are. Yeah, who you want. Last week I mentioned that we'd finally found a play structure like for the kids. It's got a swing set. It's got a slide. It's got like the stuff like rock wall. You can climb up. It's this two-story playhouse basically with the slide coming out of it and the swing's coming out of it. And I think I mentioned we got it for free. It was just somebody just trying to get it out of their yard, which was fantastic. And it looks great. I on Saturday. We went to the lake on Saturday, which was awesome. Got a trial, pop his new boat. Kids loved it. Girls loved it. We got to go to Harrison. And everything. It was a great time for the lake. The weather was fantastic. Every day, great time, everyone came out. We stayed the night. And the next day, we left early. So I could go home and I could finally get this thing built. Because it was going to take some time. It's one of those things you can't do with the kids running around. So Kendall was able to take the girls out to see your sister. And it was my job to stay home and get this thing built, which also involved. We had planned paint. You could take off all these windows. There was 11 of these window plates that you could take off. I say a place. It's like a two-foot high window. And you could take those off and you can paint them. And we painted different things to kind of just spruce it up a little bit. And between the painting and the hardest part was sitting on our driveway. And I had to get back to the backyard. So I had to push one side of it and then push the other side. I didn't even honestly didn't think about asking for help. I'm sorry, Brandon. I should have called you. It made it much, much easier. But it didn't take long. It was a lot of just lifting up one side and moving three feet. Pick up the other side and move it three feet, scooting it through the yard, trying to make sure it didn't fall down like the hill that we kind of have in our backyard. But as able to get it out there, we've got some kind of tall grass in our backyard that we don't really keep up. It's just kind of grass separates our yard from the golf course. And as able to mow that down, we actually now make use of it because that's where I put the play structure. I mowed a nice and short play structures out there kind of between our actual yard and the golf course making use of this extra space. Which is great. It's going to be kind of tricky in the winter because that area becomes like a swamp when it starts to rain just a little bit. So we're probably going to have to like jack it up on center blocks or something. So it's just mold and rot. But man, it turned out great. I was able to get it all mowed down and move it out there. And I was very proud of myself, like the creativity, trying to like hook up the like swing set part because what it is, it's like it was a bar that goes across the swings hang off of and then like a like a teepee like pyramid shaped like couple sets of boards that would hold the swings up on the opposite end. Hard to do with one person again, could have asked for help is one of those things where it's like I love just trying to figure this out on my own. And what I did was I got a ladder and used the ladder as like a stepping point. So like I got the ladder jacked up and was able to put the swing the cross bar of the swing set onto that and then attached the back end of it. So it would hold up by itself and move the ladder and it worked out great. All this to say that the IOU one is for his for grandpa is for dad, it's for Garrett, it's for everybody else. I've ever worked in a shop with who is instilled in me the idea that you should save all hardware. Save nuts, save bolts, save the extra washers. Even if they're not sorted, even if they're just floating around on a toolbox somewhere, save 'em. Because you never know when those things are gonna come into play. And sure enough, I had this thing all assembled. And I realized when it was like sitting kind of propped up on the ladder, I'm gonna try and attach everything. I, at some point in the process, whether that was in the, in other guys' backyard, when I was moving it out of there, or in the transit process, in my pickup somewhere, I was missing three bolts. Or no, no, no, I'm sorry. I'm just missing three nuts that were meant to obviously found bolts and to keep things stable and keep them high down, couldn't find 'em. Had the whole thing built, I was so excited to actually like have this actually finished and done like in one night so there was no hangover to the next day. And I was missing three nuts and it's like, oh no. So I go and I check. And I check, I've got two different toolboxes. I check 'em both. And low and behold, I found exactly three of the type that I needed. I do not save those. At that point, like ACE, other hardware stores are already closed. The next day was Memorial Day, who knows that they were gonna be open again. But because I'd saved those things, because all of these people taught me, save this stuff. Even if it just seems like junk, save it 'cause you never know when you're gonna need it, I needed it and it came in huge. I had just enough and I was able to finish the whole thing. I started at two-thirty in the afternoon and I worked straight. I took a short break 'cause I had to go on a run which I'm gonna talk about next. I had to do that and I came back and I worked, I didn't sit down and get distracted one time. I took until like after eight o'clock to finish this whole thing. It was what, five and a half hours more or less. Pretty much five hours. I've just worked on this thing to get it all set up. And I got there. It's done. It looks awesome. It's in a really good spot. Like it's, I tried to, it took me some time to figure out where to put it, because we have like a stretch of work that had gone. I had to get it level. I was very proud of getting it level. I got the level out and everything looks perfect there. It's not tilted or slanted or anything. But I put it in a spot like where you can see it out our window from like when you're standing at the kitchen. Like at the kitchen sink you can look out and you can see him kind of at a diagonal like them playing there. Couldn't have done it if I would have put in a different spot but that was a purposeful thing and then also making it so it's relatively further away from the golf course 'cause if I would have put in a different spot, a lot of golf balls land there. And the last thing you want is a kid playing on the swing set only to get knocked in the noggin with a ball. So it's a little bit further away and a much safer spot in a spot that I haven't found as many golf balls before. So there's all that. It looks great. Kids already I've been out there and playing and they loved it. I had to spray it down for bugs 'cause Mano Man bugs are attracted to that kind of thing. That would for whatever reason, tracks bees. But got that all handled and it's been great. We've used every single night. They've loved it. It's been really fun just to have something like that out of our backyard. So when they're bored they can go out and do that and we still the chance to walk down to the playground but it's nice to have something just so much closer. Like I've got everything painted attached. It's cool. I'm very happy about it. But I never could have hoped. So again, I owe you one for all the people that taught me to save those nuts and bolts and screws and everything else. All right, last but not least, Sean's what are you into? - All right, listeners, it's time for hidden passions, wild hobbies and that one thing that you didn't know miles was obsessed with. Buckle up, it's time for Sean's, what are you into? - Last year my goal was to do something called rim to rim to rim, which is basically you go to the Grand Canyon and you're running from one end to the other and back again. It's something that a lot of people do over the course of several days or a week they camp out, they take their time. It's a collective, depending on which route you take 'cause there's different trails you can go. It's more or less 48 to 50 miles. And what that is is it looks kind of like a giant half pipe. There's a giant period of time like where you're just sitting into the canyon and then you hit the bottom and you're going straight. It's hot as heck 'cause you're like, you're in the box of the Grand Canyon where even in late August, sorry, late August, that'd be even hotter. In late October, it's around 80 to 100 degrees and then you climb up the opposite end and you climb up. And I think the elevation of that's like 7,000, 8,000 feet. I could be wrong, but I just know that there's a lot of time. You have to do it to be our October's over with or you're looking at a lot of snow. So it is temperature extremes, is weather extremes. And I want to do it last year, but there was a fire. They had to close it down. You couldn't access the North half of the trail. So it's like why go down there to only do the calf of it? So instead I did what was cactus to clouds to cactus, which is cool. And this year I'd plan to do something different. I'd plan to do, it was, it's like this long trail run through the Grand Teton. It's like a 40 mile thing through the mountains and it's supposed to be really, really pretty. But a couple of weeks ago I was looking and it turned out, I think like the day that I looked was the day that they'd kind of announced it. Was the Grand Canyon was opening back up again. After being closed for the longest time because of worries of like mudslides and uneven ground and unsafe terrain and possible whatever else, they were finally able to open it back up again. And it's like, oh man, you know what? I guess I guess I could do that maybe next year. And then I realized like wait a minute, like I'm not doing, that was my goal all along. And here I am trying to just push it off another year, even though I could do it now because why? And it's like, oh, because that is intimidating as heck. Like it always scared me. And it scared me even more after I finished the thing last year, because I, again, I kind of thought about doing that. They closed it down. I did something else. And the one that I did was like 30 miles. And that was a ton. Like the same elevation gain. It's like 20,000 feet elevation up and down. And it was a lot. Like, oh man, I don't know. I could possibly do that. And when you do the rim to rim, like there's no, you can't get out of it. Like there's no where where it's like, oh, you know what? I made it halfway and I'm kind of tired. I'll have mom like pick me up on the side of the road and drive me home. There's none of that because you're in the freaking Grand Canyon and there's no roads down there. There's no, you know, a billet, like if you're, if you check out, like that's, you've got to get yourself out of there. I mean, outside of them bringing a helicopter in, which they only do for emergencies. Like you're stuck. So if you commit, you got to commit. And like even if it's a situation where it's like, I get to the North Rim and I'm tired, like that's a four and a half hour car ride then back to the hotel because you got to drive around the entire canyon. So it's, it's scary. Because I've never gone 48 miles, let alone 50 in my entire life. And to go through the heat and to figure everything out, it was daunting. But I'm like, hang on, that's the whole reason why I'm doing this. Is it do stuff that scares the heck out of me? So like, all right, let's do it. I was going to plan on this and I gave myself a couple weeks to really think about to make sure I was just doing crazy stuff and I wasn't just backing out of it, but I've landed on it. And I'm going to try and do that this year. It's, it's booked for mid October, like one of the last days it's open before they close it, secondary to redoing parts of the trail and possible snow. So it's, it's on the calendar. And just the sheer amount of planning this thing takes, like, A, you have to be in physical shape to be able to do it. I mean, to cover 48 miles in a day alongside the, the 20,000 feet of elevation drop and gain, it's, that's a lot. Like, you gotta be ready for it. Because again, there's no bailing out in the middle. Like, you have to cover that ground and appear to time. So you can get out of there before it gets too dark and too late. Also, there's not just like, drinking fountain along the way. Like, you've got to figure out how in the world, I got to figure out how in the world, like, where are the water stops? Like, I got to figure out some kind of map and like, map it out so I can plan on like, oh, I can fill a water here and here. But this one would be closed down because of different situations. So I gotta have a backup and it's just, there's so much like weird stuff like that. Trying to figure out like where the water's at, how much food to take if there's, there's one place on the trail. It's called Phantom Ranch that you can like get, it's like a little, it's like a campground, but they have a tiny little convenience store there. So theoretically, like you could get, you could refresh your water there, you could refresh a little food if you're wanting to do so. Like that'd be an option. But just trying to plan out the water, trying to plan how much water to carry on my body and like, to take like the sterilizing tablets if you need it so you can fill out of the river, when you're by a river and the food, there's just, it's an amazing amount of planning. Like, you gotta figure out pace in the cow. If I like to do a 10 minute per mile pace for the first half and then I, I close out and climb the second half, climb the North Rim at this pace, like what time will it be and then how much time do I have to get back before it's too dark and too late. It's just crazy amount of stuff. And that's what's so intimidating about it. It's like, hey, you gotta be in good shape but also be, you gotta plan the stuff out or it's dangerous. I mean, if it's gonna be 85, 90 and you're trying to run through that at a certain pace, that's a lot, especially if water could be scarce. So I don't know. I look forward to it 'cause I love that challenge. Like that's the whole point of doing this. I wanna do stuff that's like, is hard, that I see as hard because that to me is like, it's cool. So there's nothing to work for and I love just like, going out and finding things that I got gonna accomplish and there's so much built into this. Like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not to be in the best shape of my life, which is crazy to think. Like I've done marathons before and fortunate enough to finish those. This is nearly twice that. Like I've done nothing even close. So I'm gonna make sure I'm gonna, literally the best shape of my life to be able to handle this and to finish it on time. You gotta figure out the clothing and again, the water, how much water you're gonna take and the food, it's crazy amounts of stuff to try and figure out and to have all the planning of it and to like, really people's blogs and see what they say. I think the benefit is this trails a little bit more traversed than what I did last time and I was really worried about the, the tarantulas and steaks and stuff. I don't think that's as big of a deal here because there's simply more people on this trail and I'm hoping that scares everybody away or all the transels away and everything else. I just, you don't wanna deal with that. Or the bacon or the sheep that I ran into last time. I just don't give me any nature. I just wanna be able to do this and see the sights 'cause it's beautiful and it's really pretty and it's cool. That's what I wanna see. And I wanna see if I can do it and see what happens. I guess worse comes to worse. I end up walking back and I arrive back at the little cabin that we'll have at two in the morning but I don't know, it'll be cool. I'm excited about it. Is there's a lot of planning to do a ton of research and then a ton of, let's try to go break and had to do a run when I was building this place structure 'cause you just gotta get the miles in, man. It's building a ton of volume up and just getting through it. But it's cool. I'm excited about all that. Excited about planning it and figuring it all out mid-October's when that happens. And yeah, a lot's to go between now and then. Anyways, thank you all for listening. I appreciate y'all taking the time and Emmy Gabby sound by on the way out. I'm trying to think about got anything else for ya. There's one more pickles. One more game. We've tied every single game, believe it or not. We are O-O and Stefan probably. No wins, no losses, but man, we've tied seven times. It's been great. One more game of that. Anyways, done rambling. Thank you all for listening. Appreciate it. Talk to you on the flip side. Have a good one. Bye. There's the love. What do you think about that love? That love.