SPEAKER_01 0:01

What's up? Oh hang on one sec. Yeah, no no worries.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Hang on D sound.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

What up, dude?

SPEAKER_02 0:14

What up, dude?

SPEAKER_01 0:17

I didn't get the tapestry background like you told me to do.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Yeah, hey, I literally I'm not gonna lie, this was set up today. I had to get it all good.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

That's AI, actually. That ain't your real background. I swear to god, look at She's real. Word, what's up, man? What's up, brother? How are you? I'm doing great. I love the mustache. Has that been around for a while now?

SPEAKER_02 0:46

This is probably three months in now. I had a little I had the beard, and we're going about probably ten years with beard getting bigger, bigger, bigger, and then it was just one of those where I was like, I was like, I need to get this thing off. And I did a little uh little trim up, started going, then all of a sudden I'm like, oh my god, I'm going for it. And then I just did the stash and I'm like, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

And uh now is this is it connected to the face or is it up, is it coming off like mine does?

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Uh no, it's good. Oh no, it's connected. Because I did I did the curls before when I had a beard, and that was I mean, it was good, but the wax, keeping that wax on the side, and every time I ate something, I'm like, oh my god, this is kind of a it was an investment in time.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Yeah, I'm like every day I have to do it because if I eat, it's just going in my mouth the whole day.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Yeah, that's a thing. Well, you know, soup is the enemy. It's like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Once it's trimmed to the side though, I'm pretty good. If I keep the mustache trimmed off my lips and this is curled, it doesn't get in my mouth. But I'm with you every year I shave the beard off, and I might have the mustache for a little, but I end up shaving the mustache too.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Yeah, you look like Matthew McConaughey.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Oh, I wish I were him. Yeah, but no, I the boys at work call me Pierre now. They're like, oh, Pierre. Pierre, or I get Mario a lot from uh Super Mario Brothers. Pierre is better.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

I don't the Mario I don't see, but maybe a Luigi.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Well, I did all my ancestry stuff, and come to find out, I'm all French. Basically 75% French. I was like, what mind blown. So that was a little eye-opener.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

I did it too also, and it's mostly Poland, but some Canadian too. And French. And a little Irish, but mostly Polish.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

We're Canada brothers. Yeah, because most of my stuff, as of right now, I think it's 30%. I didn't even know they could like link the lineage like to Canada, but 1700s, they've got me there, so it was 1700s, and then 30% Canadian, so I was actually uh thinking about doing a little bit of citizenship application, see if I get a little dual citizen.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

So no Miami for you, you're going north?

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Oh, no, I'm gonna be in Miami. I would just like to have that as a little little backup. Been to Canada a few times, and she's gorgeous up there, but yeah. Oh, for me.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Those long winters, though.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Oh good old New England winters, thank God. I mean, today we're I'm in Connecticut now, so we're like 45 all day. And it's one of those where I went on a cruise in February and got back. Literally, the day I got back was the day of the blizzard. And we our flights from Puerto Rico got canceled, or not canceled, but our layover. We weren't gonna make it because everybody was in panic mode. So got back or got to Puerto Rico Airport, got there. They said, All right, everything's delayed. We can get you laid over to uh Providence. And my mom had my truck, she had my dog, and she's like, I'll just come get you. I'm like, Are you sure? She's like, I don't mind. She's like, I'll come get you. She picked us up. Well, actually, she gave me my truck back. We drove back to Connecticut as we're driving back, the squall started the next day. I was shoveling for two days straight. Work got canceled, everything I canceled. I'm like, I went from the Caribbean for a week to full on blizzard.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Dude, the same thing happened to me. We were in Orlando, and we were supposed to fly back the 24th or the 25th in February, and uh our flights got canceled. We couldn't find another flight, so we ended up staying three extra days in Florida. We got an Airbnb, I had to rent a minivan, and I had to get, you know, three car seats for the kids. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

We got the three kids now.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

That's why it was so hard to find a return flight home. It was like impossible. And they were like four thousand dollars. We ended up finding one three days after, so we just were like embraced it. I was like, took some more vacation time and then got an Airbnb. We were chilling by the pool, loving life, and we're like, ah, we'll we'll miss most of the s the storm, and we came back after.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Yep. Oh, I would have if I could have done that, I would have that would have been a dreamland because I was like, all right. Or a little even just the layover, they sent us to a beach club. They're like, go, it's like 15 minutes from the airport, go to this beach club, go hang out for like three, four hours, and come back, and then we'll get you on the flight to Providence. And we got back, and that's when the airport was everyone was in Mayhem, and then what was it? Uh when we landed in Providence, everything was a ghost town. I've never been to an empty airport before. And it was weird.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Yeah, that's a weird that must have been a weird feeling.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Where um in Puerto Rico did you go?

SPEAKER_02 6:15

We well, so we went to Puerto Rico, that was the cruise terminal out of there. Oh. And we went down to um we went to Ciracao, which was I've been there before, but Ciracao was heaven. Um we did Aruba, St. Croix, St. Martin, and then um back to Puerto Rico with two sea days. So it was uh it was amazing.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

I did okay, I did see pictures from your trip. Okay, um I can picture it now.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Yeah, I bet you're gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

That seemed like uh I was dreaming about those pictures.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

It was uh it was one of those where my um my fiance now we've been I met him, I had never been on a cruise before, and this was our sixth cruise with Virgin Voyages. And so we we did the cruise, and this one out of all of them, wow, it was crazy. We got the suite, we did um the suite itself, we did a bid upgrade, so it was his 40th birthday, and I'm like, alright, what are we gonna do? Not as much of a people person, so I'm like, alright, what can I do? I bought the bought the normal balcony, and then they give you the little upgrade option, went up upgrading, and then it wound up where we got the biggest balcony on the whole ship. And it was wow, it was crazy. People came up to the room and they were like, What? You got record players and the mini bar, and it was a blast, so definitely uh definitely a fun time.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

We got kind of spoiled in uh Disney too, because we were like a five-minute walk from Magic Kingdom, we were on the fifteenth and sixteenth floor and had a two-floor suite with like four balconies, and it was just like a big thing. Um I don't know what they call it. I see, like, this is how bad my memory is. I was there in February, I can't even remember the name of the hotel. Yeah, but it was sick because we could walk to Magic Kingdom. We didn't even go, we had little kids, so we'd go for like a half a day and then go back to the hotel and swim and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Oh yeah, because they're done after a few hours.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Smoked. After waiting like in a couple lines for an hour, they're just like crawling over each other, like mayhem, dude. Disney is mayhem. I don't know if I want to ever go back.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Yeah, well, and I mean the thing is with kids. I'm like, I just see so I won't lie, that's why we do virgin, because every single time we will get off the ship, and Virgin's adults only, and we'll get off the ship, and we've gotten off many times where we see the Disney ship, we see the Norwegian or whatever, and the families, though you can see like the dad looking over at us, and everyone's just all kids free and everything. They're like, There's no kids on there, and we're like, Yep. And they're they're just like, Oh my god. I'm like, I see the look in your eyes.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Yeah, dude. And before we got on this call, I went on Instagram and I was like, I'm gonna catch up with Chad, I'm wicking excited. I think he's a carpenter now. Did I make that up or is that true?

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Oh no, that's very true. Yeah, carpentry is I well, so the thing is, like, I mean, before working with you at Via, I went to Valley Tech for carpentry, did my four years, graduated and everything with that, and then did the whole mass maritime thing. So I went down the Cape and did that for a year or two, and then it was one of those where I was like, I need to get back into my carpentry roots, um, and up in mass, worked for a couple cool companies, like was doing some things, and then when I met my fiance's name's actually rich too. So when I met him, oh, we got we got the rich, and I met him. We um we basically did it's the first time I've ever done like a long distance. I mean, it's only stayed away, but for a year he came up to my place, I would come down here back and forth, and then he's like, Do you want to just move in? I'm like, you know what? Sure. I was so we did probably I think two months of me driving back and forth from Mass, and I'm like, I gotta look for something, and went on ZipRecruiter. I mean, as far as carpenters, everyone's hiring because they just need people. And I found um found my boss, well, ZN Construction, I found them, and he actually called me and every other company. I was just getting like either the front desk girl or like the hiring manager or something. He's the owner of the company, and he called me. We talked for an hour. It was like this cool connection, everything. So I checked, he's like, check out our Instagram, checked out the Instagram, like, what the heck? Like, you guys are doing some cool jobs, like you got cool videos, like there's a whole vibe going on. Started with him, it's been four years now, and I mean we're doing we're doing crazy projects down here with kitchens, um, kitchens, baths, and then I do my custom built-in thing. I'm actually on number three already this year, and to walk into a house, have a homeowner give me now with the AI thing, I'm getting AI pictures of I want this, but can you make it in real world? And then I get to do that. Boom. I just went and saw one of them today that I worked on for two weeks from build to install. Walked in the house today, had I dropped off for key, and when I went, it literally brought like a tear to my eye. I'm like, oh my god, it's beautiful. Like it's just a really cool, like, and then to hear the homeowners like you're you're in people's house every day. So it's one of those where it's like not just I don't know, it's not just pushing buttons or kind of talking over the phone like you're in someone's house, you build this whole little rapport, and then now we've got Instagram followers, we got Facebook followers, we've had a few with I've actually done a few videos where we've had over a million views, and uh that's not easy to do. Yeah, it's it's wild, like this you wouldn't think that like just doing carpentry would get that way, and we actually got an outreach from um from HETV about I think it was a year or two ago, and me and my boss did the interview, everything. Well, I literally did all this prep to get like a whole set behind me ready, like get the lighting right and stuff, and he and I just we got the outreach from it, and it was so quick that the HG TV lady calls us, we get the laptop set up. She's like, No, can't be do the lighting's horrible right now. Get out of the office, go into the shop. Do you have better lighting? Because it was fluorescent. Then we go, we open the garage doors. He and I, by the end, we she's like, lower, we need you lower. Hold on, we're trying to get the perfect shot. We're sitting on milk crates on the floor trying to get this perfect angle. And it went for a little bit, and then we never ended up getting the call. It was whatever, but I mean, as being a little HGTV nerd as a kid, that was like, oh my god, just to get an outreach from it.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Yeah, because that shows authority. If you have that on your website, yeah. Backlink to HGTV and just on social media, it's like good to have that authority for your business.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Well, and we're even doing um, we're doing Barnes and Nobles now, too. We got um my boss met up one of the homeowners we work for in Connecticut. He's one of the big um, one of the big heads at who runs the um hiring of companies or hiring of crews to get Barnes and Nobles built. And we've already done, I personally have done one, two, three, and then did a look at it, one of them. So those are 12-hour days.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

I love Barnes and Nobles.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

It's so cool. It's such a fun, like, and they the new business owner, he set up a whole thing. It's been a really it's a cool experience, it's a lot of work, but it's when you finally walk out of there, you're like, oh my god, in two weeks we built this entire like we do all the actual bookshelves and all the cabinetry for it.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

So yeah, that's a lot of shelves, a lot of books.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

Yeah, it goes by like how many each like bookshelf unit, like that's how they gauge a job. So it's like, I don't know, 200 units, 300 units, however it goes. But when we do it, it is just full-on hustle. We're getting there at four in the morning. We have to unload up to five tractor trailer trucks by 7 a.m. So from 4 30, 5, whenever we get there, unload the things as fast as we can and then start building.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Do you so in vocational school when you did want to go back to carpentry, did you was it like riding a bike? Did you pick it up right away again? Or is it something you never forget, or does practice like you had to get reinitiated to how things are done?

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Oh, it was it was definitely like riding a bike. It's one of those things even before vocational school, like I will say, like my little my little kid passion, I was drawing, I mean, I was drawing house plans at eight years old. My grandmother still has a whole binder of me drawing house plans, and I was watching HG TV as like a little kid. So I like Bob Vila and all that kind of stuff. I was just like obsessed with it. So when I jumped in, and then like finding a company where it's like, oh my god, like they want me to do that whole like go deep, just go do your thing here. You draw the plans, you do your thing, and then I jumped back in. It was like wow. Because I'd worked, I did via, and then I did um I did I did probably three, four years of straight up going to festivals, DJing, club promoting, like the whole nine yards, so early 20s. I mean, I'm 35 now, but going through all the early 20s, it was nothing but just kind of wild times. Then got back out of that and was like, alright, let's get back into this. And it was it kind of just snapped right back in there. It was like, damn, alright, this is there.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

We got some good pictures together at a couple clubs in Worcester from back in the day. I don't know what they're Club Blue, maybe?

SPEAKER_02 16:46

Yeah. Oh my god, I forgot we went to Club Blue together with our cherry being. It was that was on Water Street.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Oh, what oh, okay, yeah. What was the one on Main Street? There was another one we would go to sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

Oh, there was Water Street.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Blurry Vision, blurry visions. We called it blurry visions.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

Oh my god, my mind is blurry. I remember that one. Wow. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Our friend Katie was a bartender there.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

Yep. And we called them. Yeah, because basically it was this much booze with just uh, here's a little soda. Oh my well, literally still to this day, like I I talk with um like the guys at work and stuff, and they're like, You you kind of did like a little bit of everything. I was like, listen, I did. I was like, but those days back then, like we were like, I mean, working at Via, we were a solid, solid crew. And I went back and saw little Cheryl this past fall, and she's a manager now. I'm like, babes, I'm so proud of you. Like, we all me and Ashley, I mean, your sister, me and Ashley literally jumped out of an airplane together when Steve when Steve had us do the skydive.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Oh my god, I didn't even know that.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Yeah, we did skydive um rota uh skydive.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Fucked out. I would never do that.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Her and I well, it was her and I because they only brought two people up at a time, and then we've got the guys strapped behind us, so it was four people in the plane, and then the pilot.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Steve Steve was ri driving the plane.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Oh Steve was driving the plane. Oh yeah, in all ways. He was I think everyone driving, we were following him, and we were doing like 90 miles an hour down the highway just trying to get there because we were late. We got there late. We missed the safety video because they're like, There's no time. There's no time for the safety video. So they're like, Can you guys just sign right here? So we all just blindly signed and got in the planes. I mean, Ashley are going up, and the thing is literally like it's shaking the whole way over here.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

She's grounded.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Yep. She wasn't supposed to be out jumping out of planes. I can't believe you didn't know about that one. See? She's gotta keep it from the big brother.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

I feel like I heard about it afterwards, but like it's it was so long ago that it you're flooding memories back.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Yeah, I mean what was that? I was 1920 and 21, so yeah, that was a long time ago. And honestly, still to this day burned into my mind as some of the awesome like most amazing memories, too.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Yeah, I mean when you work in a restaurant, like you're it's your family kind of because you're like working that late shift, and then there's not much to do at 9 30, 10 o'clock at night. You just have your after shift drink, and then who knows where the night's gonna go.

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Yep. Oh my god, absolutely. And then I mean when I get up do it again. Get up, do it again, and then when I picked up with um when I was bartending, I mean, me and John were there till two or three in the morning every night because we were doing cash out, bar cleanup, everything. It was like, oh my god, that was a whole nother level. And when I went back, they still had all the classic things still on the menu. I was like, all right, I'm ordering this, this, this. And I was like, Cheryl, can you get me the bread? I want that bread and oil, bring it over here.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Cassie she makes me take her once a year once or twice a year.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Yeah, so you're still hitting it up too.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Yeah, yep. Got to. It's like the you just revisit it. Yeah, because you got your favorite items and you want to go have 'em.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

And I mean they reminisce as far as across the board what what works, keep going with it. And they definitely, definitely the things that they have the everything on the menu. I mean, they're solid. And they've lasted now. Okay, so we do the math, yes, 17 years. That's so crazy to think about. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

But they've been open longer than that, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:09

When I started, it was the third year in. And then I think we we were all there for the five year.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Oh, I wow. Yep. So we were kind of early, early. We were part of the success.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

Oh, we were we were the beginning. I mean, the chop house and the soul, the soul had been at when we started, the soul had been open for 30 years. I think the chop house had been open for like 10 or 11, and then we were like three, and then I worked till it was five years old, and it was like, wow.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

But I mean if you're from Worcester, you know Rob and Madeline, the owners, they know what they're doing. They run a beautiful restaurant, fresh food always. And Madeline, who d does the decor, it's just like super classy and always beautiful. Oh my god, beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Everything imported. Like, I mean, that's a thing. I've never worked like Somewhere where I mean, you know, they told us a story. This the floor, the tile floor, or the flooring imported from Italy, the booths imported from Italy, the silverware from here, from there. Like it was just they they kept the freemium product, and then I went back all this time later, exactly the same. And I'm like, wow, alright. Still keep going, and that's why they're successful.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

And if that should if we could have just filmed that uh that whole error, that'd have been a good TV show.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

It definitely, definitely would have. And well, there were some pictures, but those just got those just got me in trouble.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

That Cheryl, uh, I was going away to Georgia, and Cheryl went and hit record on my iMac, and I have like 45 minutes of a house party, and then the cops come and then it's over.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

Oh my god. That is, I would give anything to see that because I can only imagine. We were probably we're a little babes at that point.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't want to blow your spot up or embarrass you, you know. Uh you weren't doing anything weird, but you definitely were getting down. There was music playing. I think your shirt came off at one point. Um you might have been grinding up on uh, you know, a couple people, whatever, you know. It was the party.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

I think that was the party that Haley. I hung upside down because that was my little thing. I hung upside down from the door frame, and Haley actually did the we did the Spider-Man upside down kiss. That was a what yo.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

I mean, even like the older staff, like G2 was there. No, uh, Greg. Do we call him G2?

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Oh yeah. Greggy Babania.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Yeah, he was there. Everyone was there. It was like do you remember that party?

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Uh I I do. Now that you say it. Yeah, I do remember.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Remember there was like a couple there that no one kind of knew, and we don't know where they came from, and they were just grinding on each other all night?

SPEAKER_02 24:19

The whole time, yep. And then I think there was a couch portion of that program. It was that was a wild night.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Brad was walking around and he's like, guys, the cops are here, and I'm like, I'm leaving tomorrow, whatever. And the cops are like, You're not going uh anywhere tomorrow if you go if you're in jail. And I was like, Alright, guys, we're gonna stop this party.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

Oh, yeah, because Brad lived upstairs. That's right. Brad was up there.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

No, no, he he didn't live upstairs, but he was there. Was and he might have been dating a cop at the time.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

No, I think he lived on the second floor. Oh, and he was dating the copy. No, that's the one. You were on the second floor.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

This is on Vernon Hill. That's Ashley and Paul's and Brad's old apartment behind the soul.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

This was Vernon Hill.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

I remember that one.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

My buddy Louie Lou. He he his mom owned the house.

SPEAKER_02 25:11

Louie Lou. I do remember oh yep. Wow, you just that is a whole nother I thought I had all those in there. Wow. That just opened up. I do remember that party now. Yep. Do you what do you want to see uh a 10-second clip or no? Oh, definitely. I've I've got nothing to hide. If anything, my boss has been asking me, is like, I want to see this podcast after. He's like, I want to check. I was like, I can you see this? I can see.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Oh, it's all it's also in Sepia.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

Oh my I a hundred percent remember. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

I don't want to blow anyone's spot up, so we gotta get Greg comes in. See?

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Oh well.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

That's enough, that's enough for for the people.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

In his full via uniform.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Oh, yeah. Thank you, Cheryl, for pressing record, because that's like a time capsule.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

She's she was the reason that I even got into Spotify and everything because I remember we would be, she's like, Babes, I got the Spotify, and at her apartment over there behind the soul, she would have it set up, and we that was our DJ booth because her and I were gonna be we're gonna do our little DJ thing together. And then Wow. Oh, that's an amazing memory. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

That's why I was excited. I was like, I need to talk to Chad and see what he's up to.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

I can't believe you had like, well, and I've been actually so because I was like, alright, I gotta get a little prepared, like see what this is all about and stuff. I've been watching for like all last night. I was like going through clips and watching everything, and I'm like, wow, I was like, you got all kinds of people. I was like, we gotta, we gotta get because I mean I'll whatever you put out, I'll I mean, I'm I wanna share it and do a little promo on that action because I mean it's a it's a cool thing. I've done um I've done what was it? I think I did two podcasts with my boss, and we just I mean, kind of carpentry talked and like how the trades are changing and stuff like that. But I mean it's one of those where it's like this is something like oh my god, we have so much content over the years. I'm like, wow, it's been a long time. And I mean, even just to hear from you, the whole thing, whole experience is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Oh, thanks, man. Yeah, it's been super fun. You know, it was kind of like a push to get more comfortable on camera, and I was like, I need to be doing something that's uh like weekly or monthly putting uh oh content, not just you know, for years I would just put out the most random stuff, and people are like, what is your even channel? And I was like, honestly, it's like an external hard drive. There's no rhyme or reason. If I make a project, I just put it out. Yep. And then, you know, I'm like, I'm gonna do something a little more focused this year. And it was fun just because I love the process of learning how to do stuff. Oh, yeah. What I want to do is press record on once a week, have a guest, and then I want it to like auto-publish to all the platforms. I want Opus Clip, which is this AI reels chopper, to chop all the videos up, and then I want them to auto-publish like all the reels throughout the week so that next Monday I put out a new one and new reels come out. But right now I'm sitting on probably like 300 reels from past ones, so I'm trying to like auto-publish them all, and there's a limit to every day, but all they do put a limit every day? Yeah, uh it's something like 70 50 or 75 videos.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Well, because the thing is, I mean because you know with the algorithms and everything, it's just content, content, content. When I I'm not gonna lie, I mean, I kinda recluse that I go on vacation, it's just share, share, share. I do anything, go to a festival, kind of share, share, share, and like I'll go on like I was looking at my analytics on Facebook, and during the vacation where I was just sharing every day, just a picture, maybe two or three every day. I looked at the analytics and I'm like, I had 58,000 views in a week's span. I'm like, oh my god, alright, and then I got actually got monetized with it just from the share, share, share. And I'm like, this is kind of it's funny because Facebook wise, I've got so many people from the past where my followers and everything, I put something on Facebook, boom, I get I get up to a hundred likes, whatever. Um, I put something on Instagram, I'll get like, I don't know, 15 likes on something. It's just it's such because Instagram, I I'm on there, but I'm still, I guess, I guess I can say I'm an old man with my Facebook and sharing the stuff though. I mean, if you're doing both, so that's why the whole trip I did dual share, so it shared on both, and I'm like, all right, we got a little bit of action going on. It's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Yeah, I mean, I could only hope to do those numbers. My hope is that I continue to improve on the show and maybe get like a sponsor. I feel like Facebook would be a great sponsor because that's how I started to find people to do the podcast. Yep. Originally, the idea was because I found an old yearbook and I was like, what happened to these people that I went to sixth grade with or kindergarten through sixth grade with? And then I was like, oh, and that's when the show idea popped in my head. And I was like, how am I gonna find these people if they aren't on Facebook?

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Oh, yeah, I saw that video, Reese. Yeah, the one that you did when you were trying to search and you're like, it's it is mind-boggling. Well, the thing is, a lot of people do like random names, or they get married, like with girls, their names are out, all their last names are changing, so you go type it in, it's like nothing, nothing. You're like, how do I find them? And or some people just choose to do the whole delete everything, and I'll say probably the only one that I'm I don't even have an account, I think, is TikTok. And I know that's where all the kids are now. That's the one where it's just like boom, you put something on, it's boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, rifling off like followers, and that's the only one I'm not on, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Uh I get some so my past guest DJ Manipulator, he has a video right now on my TikTok, and it has like 65 comments and like 200 likes. That's a lot for me. Usually it's like a couple comments, you know, handful of likes.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

Um the thing is, I mean, you you know with ever you know with every good podcast, I mean, good podcast, good videos, whatever, they all start the I mean the film quality, the the backdrop, the this, the that. They start off small and they start getting bigger and bigger. And I mean, some of the people you're following, guess what? Now they're doing commercials, they're doing sponsorships. It's like, all right, you gotta start somewhere.

unknown 32:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

That's why I'm not too concerned about using the AI chopper. Like, I'm not gonna sit there and edit every video and make it perfect. I'm just gonna throw it all out there and keep making the content, and then, you know, if I want to pursue this more, try to get sponsors, and then hopefully we can like build a studio or figure out a way to travel and do it and get some help as far as like optimizing and monetizing and let like a someone handle that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

Absolutely. I mean, just watching it and stuff, the whole concept, everything, like it's definitely gonna get there. It just it takes time and it also takes a strange little one little algorithm tweak or one share that goes viral or something, it changes the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

I mean Ooh, thank you for putting that energy out into the world. That's good.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Oh, I'm pushing for I've been I will say that is the one thing that I've realized after all these years that the energy, the the push out, the the actual like believe it becomes reality definitely is. And a lot of things, I mean, nowadays, there's people who don't even do that great a stuff, and you're like, wait, how the heck do they get that many followers? But I mean, this is something that's like a cool thing, and a lot of times it just takes that one like the one video that we've got over a million views on our Instagram. I think my work Instagram has we have 17,000 followers now, and the million or the the million, I think it's at 2.5 mil right now. It was a song. So I mean it was just me putting on a cabinet panel. And then she put the song that was trending at the time. So it's like uh it's literally just like you're kind of it's like alchemy. You're just kind of messing with it, and then just one little thing works and boom, you're like, alright, now I got a little little boost, and then you just gotta keep working at it.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

Because the biggest thing right now is like with our social media girl, I've been doing a lot of the videos, like doing the instructional videos, doing the this or that. A lot of times the videos that like spike up are just goofy ones where she's seen a video online. So where I was talking about the HGTV thing yesterday, um, she posted on the company Instagram. Um I'm not gonna lie, literally, like reading the post, she put up a whole thing saying that I'm leaving the company and I'm going to HGTV. And she put that up there, got I think 130 likes. I got over 10 phone calls, my boss got over 10 phone calls, she got calls, our sales manager got calls. It's just been the phone's been ringing off the hook. Um, my sister's messaging me, all these people, like, oh my god, it was like it's an April Fool's joke. But at the same time, it's the one thing I'm like, oh, I would kill for that. So it's kind of but reading like because she did a whole farewell, shared all these pictures to me. It was like strangely, like, kind of like I don't know, like seeing your own funeral kind of thing. I'm like, wait, I don't want to leave you guys. But it just she's like, I don't even know. She's like, I'm watching the analytics, and it just like popped up odd like magically. She's like, it's wild how it just happened. I'm like, it really is just so random sometimes. And I mean, with you doing this, I mean, who knows? Maybe down the line. I mean, do you have you got a little lineup of a couple more people you're going with?

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Like 30.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

Oh, hell yeah. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

Yeah, it's it's um blessed. I didn't realize I even had that many friends. Cause like you say you're a recluse. I mean, I'm kind of an introvert, you know, like, especially now. I just want to stay home with my family every day. It's rare that I go up, like, I went to my friend's 40th birthday party and we were there for like, I don't know, an hour and hanging out. But like, they were ripping it up like they were young still. They were outside ripping butts, and I was like yawning. I was like, I was like, yes, do you want to just go grab a quick bite to eat and go home? She's like, Yeah, and I was like, let's go. But maybe because we have three kids under five or not. But when we were hanging out, I was kind of on my way out too. I was a little older, so I was like starting to be like, all right, this lifestyle, like I was starting to go to college, because I didn't go till I was 25. So I was like, all right, I need to go to college and I need to figure out what I'm doing with my life. Yep. Um, but waiting tables helped facilitate that because that's the only job you can really have when you're trying to go to school during the day.

SPEAKER_02 36:49

Oh, definitely, yeah. It sucks because your your nights, your weekends, they're gone, but I mean, that's the only time you can work if you're doing, like you said, school during the day. And it was true, yeah, because you were you were like the responsible good boy, and we were all the f the wild just being crazy whistler kids. I guess and then well, I mean, I know you were still wild, but it was like I always looked at you like, alright, he's being more respectable and good. We were just getting in trouble and being wild and stuff, and then you were carving that path. Took me a little bit longer to tread or climb the ladder a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Yeah, well, and being a little older, I was like, Alright, I know that I need to do like I knew I wanted to get out of debt, and I knew I wanted to do something, you know, not that uh uh waiting tables was fine. We made great money and I did it for a long time, but when you're in the industry for a while, you do want to get out, you know.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Yeah, I mean, because every day, I mean, there is I mean, you know, on a Monday afternoon or something, you're just sitting there. I mean, even even little Cheryl, she her little dream, she always had in her her uh credit card book there or her uh bill book, she'd always have a picture of Hawaii or something. She was always dreaming of. Guess what? She went to Hawaii, lived there for a few years, did her thing. Like a decade, right? Yeah. She was there for a while. And then when I went to St. Lucia, she's like, babes, I've been dreaming of going there. She's like, How was it? How is how is everything there? And I was every time an island that intrigues her.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

I had the pleasure of every time I went to Asia, I would stop and visit with her for a week in Hawaii. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Yeah, I yeah, I saw a couple picks of you. Didn't Brad go out there too? Or didn't did Brad live?

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Not with me.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

Yeah, not with you, but I think he went out there a couple times with her too. I was like, everyone's going out to see her. I will say during the.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

You got it when you got that opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

You got to. Did you stay with her?

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

Oh, that's oh, I'm jealous now.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

Dude, it was so much fun. Like, we would she obviously is local, so we knew all the cool beaches. We did this thing called floatilla on July 4th, where you just pack up a bunch of drinks on floats, and you literally float out like a mile or two out to all the yachts, and everyone's just drinking and swimming from yacht to yacht and have floats. But dude, coming back, we were s we got drifted out so far, we were literally struggling to get back.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

A bunch of jet skis tied our float onto there and like in a couple boats, like they would like pull us for a little and then go help other people. But eventually we got pulled back almost to shore, and the waves were so strong that we were trying to swim, and the waves were just throwing us into the ground, and there was just like beers and uh people lost their sunglasses, and like we were just tumbling into shore, and we were obviously hammered. And when we made it, we were I was just so thankful to be alive because I was like, that was crazy. We were out there for like six hours.

SPEAKER_02 40:13

Wow, yeah. So you wash up on the land, you're like, kiss the ground.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

The whole time I'm thinking, how is this legal and how is no one dying? Because, like, if you're not a strong swimmer or you're wasted out there, you know? Anyways, that crazy flotilla.

SPEAKER_02 40:31

That's I didn't even know about that. That's freaking cool.

SPEAKER_01 40:35

I wouldn't do it now. Like, if now that I know about it, when I was young, I was like, Yeah, let's swim out there. Now I wouldn't do that.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

Oh no, now I'd be like, oh, there's a lot, there's a lot at risk now. It's amazing how you get the older by and you're like, oh my god, I don't know. Let's think about that. Because even you saying, like, even with the kids and everything, we don't even have kids, and I'm like, oh, Friday night, I just want to be home. Well, one thing is we work opposite shifts. So it is kind of a Monday through Friday. I do my obviously my normal carpentry day shifts, but Monday through Friday, he works 3 to 11. So yeah, we are the weekend, the minute, Friday night, he gets home at midnight. We see each other, and then we get midnight, Saturday night together, and then Sunday night, and then it's like Sunday night. We're like, no, go back to it. I will say it's kind of reserved me a little because now I just I mean, when I get home from work or something, if I'm alone, I'm outside doing projects. I mean, as a carpenter, the house has been abuzz with all of my projects. I've built the deck over the past couple years. I just I can't stop.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Levels. All levels. Have you seen uh Seinfeld? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:53

Kramer, he's like, Wood.

SPEAKER_01 41:55

I'm gonna Wood Jerry, wood, all wood. It's gonna be levels.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

I literally start talking, he looks at me, he's like, Oh my god, another one. I'm like, Yep, because he'll come home. I mean, he's come home before even oh no, on a weeknight. I I'm staying up later. So if he comes home, I'm either painting walls or I've got something ripped apart. He's like, What are we doing right now? I'm like, just I got another idea. I can't stop.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

Yeah. I love when people add wood accents to their walls. It's just like so classic and timeless. And any t you go into the old houses with all the crowns molding and lines uh just the wood. Uh it's just so beautiful to me when you accent walls with with beautiful carpentry.

SPEAKER_02 42:37

Well, and as a as a fellow Worcesterman, the Worcester 3Dekkers still to this day. I mean, you can even have the whole apartment as trashy as it can be, but it has some of the most beautiful woodwork you'll ever see. And you won't ever see like woodwork like that. I mean, you know that the half like I think it was like your apartment with like the little half things with the columns and everything. I look at that and oh the staircases. You got a th all the three-deckers, you got those staircases, they got banisters as big as can be. Like, people aren't even putting that in million dollar houses now. Like, it's just crazy to look at like that old New England style where it's just like everyone wants the three-decker I grew up in on Vernon Hill, um, the front staircase, yeah, it was all like this really white teak wood.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

There was stained glass windows on every floor, just letting that light in. And there was like antique wallpaper, like uh very nice silk screen wallpaper, and yeah, and every hand railing like had a design on it, and you know, everything had like multiple layers. Yeah, it was done, and the it still looked great a hundred years later. Yeah, it looks good today.

SPEAKER_02 43:48

I mean, I working with all the products and all the things that we work with, because I mean the wood now, I mean, people say things aren't the same anymore. Even the wood that we get in is Isn't the same because with climate change and stuff, trees grow faster. So you get a two by four from nineteen twelve where all those those things were built, balloon frame. The bottom stud went all the way from foundation to ceiling, um foundation to the roof. You can't find trees that tall and straight anymore. Dude, you can't even like saw through it.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

Like the shit is so hard.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

No, it'll burn blades. And then the new stuff, the the new stuff, you literally everything has to be engineered lumber now. Because you can't do like an old I mean, you pull all the ceilings down, everything in one of those buildings, there's beams as big as can be. Now it's gotta be engineered because the new stuff, the grain is it's the grain spacing. So back then the grain is like tight, tight, tight. I mean, just really it grew slow, low and slow. Now the grain, you can it's wider than a finger, and things will collapse if you don't even try. It's just wild how even the climate will change those things.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

So why do you say you're a rec recluse now? Just because you like your home time, you're probably exhausted after work.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

Literally, I get I will get to work, do my thing, come home, and by the time I get home, I mean I might get home at like five or six or something. So I walk in the door, and I mean, now with the uh the old age, it's a little bit different on the body. I'm on my feet all day. I've got I've got the old man arch supports and the work boots. I'm like, alright, so taking all the supplements and stuff, and it's just one of those where it just kind of wears on you every day. And I will say, I went so hard in the tw in my twenties and partying so much and doing everything and anything that like now coming home and kind of just being like a recluse is like a whole new thing for me. It's like something I've never really done before. And another thing, outside my work friends, I've got a couple friends down here, but I mean I'm out of state. So it's not like I can just go out, like it's not like I'm in Worcester, and I can go out to all the bars where I know everybody or I know everything or know everything else.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

If you even know anyone anymore because it's all young now.

SPEAKER_02 46:15

It's all young. No matter where every time I go up and stay with my dad, my dad will be like, come up and stay the weekend in Sutton. I'll go stay there, and then we'll go out in Worcester, and I go out to anywhere, and I'm like, I don't know anyone. Like, this is so weird.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

I haven't run into anyone in Worcester that I knew in like five years.

SPEAKER_02 46:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:35

I ran into Rachel at the uh parade to uh this year with her.

SPEAKER_02 46:39

Oh, you did? Rachel! Oh, I miss her. Her? Well, the funny thing is, some of my like core Facebook followers still got Greg on there. Greg, his girlfriend, um Cheryl, we got Ashley. Um, but Brad looking at everybody on there. Davey Jones, Dave Renault. Dave Renault. A memory just came up for St. Paddy's Day. He and I and one of my exes w went to um we went to St. Paddy's Day in Boston. It was me and Dave with a dog in Boston in Chinatown because he won. And I love it because I We went to uh St.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

Patrick's Day too, me, you and Dave. That was that one though.

SPEAKER_02 47:26

No, that was. That was Worcester, because we did the Worcester one and we all got wild, and then we went to the Boston one with Dave, and then when I was on vacation, I was posting all the pictures and stuff, and I put one up in the in the little bathing suit. Dave's just with his typical baby. I'm like, I love you and miss you. Like it's just like wow. Because now, I mean, it really is it's also I'm finding I am definitely an extrovert by nature, but like to make new friends at this age and in a different state, it's very different. Like you don't have that like core where you're out, you know, like one or two people, and then guess what? You meet two, three new people, and it's a whole new wild thing. It's a little different now. So I'm like, alright, the core people, they really were genuine. And I don't even want friends.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

I don't want new friends.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

I don't either. Like, I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

I want like a book and a hot tea. I want like um to do something creative like my podcast and exercise from time to time.

SPEAKER_02 48:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

And then I'm happy.

SPEAKER_02 48:38

Yep. Well, I've been I mean, if even as far as drinking and stuff, drinking, smoking, doing all the crazy wild stuff, it's been actually a few months where I've been since we got back from the cruise and everything, I left on the cruise. I was probably going going like whatever, just smoking, drinking, doing my thing. Got back from the cruise and on the ship, can't smoke, can't do anything. I got back, and I was like, you know what? Let's try this. Since I've gotten back from the cruise in February, I now have a pre-approval for a mortgage. I have a real estate agent looking. I am looking to buy a three family now. I've got this whole new outlook where I'm like, alright, it is time. I'm on. I actually got coming in the mail, I've got some creatine coming in. I've been taking my fish oils.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

I'm like, all right, it's time to start ramping things up and getting a little so now I've kind of been that's been like my new obsession, trying to get into a healthy weed, like get you into too of a relaxed state, and then you don't feel motivated to to reach out and do that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

I will definitely say getting back from I mean, I get back from work, so for the past, yeah, since I've gotten back from the cruise, I'll come home now. Now, since I've gotten back, I've come home, I've gotten all the closets in the house organized, and for the literally for as long as I can remember, that was the one thing where I'm like, no, it's the one thing keeps me calm, keeps my OCD at pay, relaxes me, everything. Now that I'm not doing it, I'm like, oh my god. And people would always tell me, oh, in my 30s or whatever, I stop smoking, and I'm like, oh, I'd never do that. That's the one thing kind of keeping me sane. Now I'm like, whoa, I was friggin' knocking the brain down a lot with that. I'm like, kind of feel like my brain is like a whole new mind. I'm like, this is this is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 50:37

I mean, change is good, you know? Maybe in 10 years you'll go back to it and it's it'll have a different effect.

SPEAKER_02 50:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:43

You know, at least you can look inside and be like, this isn't working for me, and you change.

SPEAKER_02 50:48

Yep. And I'm not oh, I'm definitely not saying I'm never doing it again or whatever, if I'm at a on a weekend or a party or something, sure. I'm not saying, oh, I'm sober or any of that, but like I've noticed like Monday through Friday in the evenings. I'm like, let's just try one thing different. I've tried that, I've gotten a lot more done. And I never I always thought that was the one thing kind of keeping me like motivated to do stuff. Now I'm like, all right, it's a little shift in the mind.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

I switched to tea in the morning off of the coffee, and I do have a coffee midday, but I just feel like the tea, uh I think I'm just more hydrated with tea and water than coffee for some reason. Oh, you definitely are. I I feel so much better drinking tea when I wake up instead of coffee. Less anxious, less jittery.

SPEAKER_02 51:36

When it's a wicked dehydr, it's a I mean, that's a dehydrant, it's a diuretic coffee itself. So I mean, I've even and yeah, that's another thing that I've even cut back on too, because without smoking stuff now, I'm like, wow, I have a lot more energy. I don't need like two coffees anymore. I have my one coffee in the morning and I'm like ready to ready to go.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

Yeah, that and people are like, Rich doesn't really drink ever. I go, no, because if I'm gonna drink, I want a cigarette. And if I want a cigarette, I want some weed. And if I'm gonna drink, I want to stay up all night and drink and then drink coffee too. Like, I don't it's all or nothing when it comes to that lifestyle.

SPEAKER_02 52:13

Mm-hmm. I think that's a that's how I even smoked a cigarette. I mean, when I was with my ex when I was working at V and everything, I was totally against smoking, hated it, gross. And then we'd have a party at the apartment. I'd get a little drunk, be like, give me a few drags of that, give me a few drags of that, then alright. Then the next day I'm like, uh, you know what, give me a drag of that again. Then before I know it, I'm buying a pack, and then boom, into it.

SPEAKER_01 52:41

The camel crushes, because you would it's menthol when you crush the bead.

SPEAKER_02 52:46

Yep. The camel crushes, the Marlboro smooths, because when you're well, all the youngins like all the little flavory stuff. Now Massachusetts, you poor guy well, I'm not smoking cigarettes anyway, but Massachusetts, you can't get any flavors. Vapes are only three percent.

SPEAKER_01 53:03

Kids don't even smoke cigarettes, they just vape, and they don't even drink anymore.

SPEAKER_02 53:07

No, they don't. That's well, so that's a hu that's actually a hot topic right now because Boston, Worcester, the basically the whole country right now are seeing huge, huge deficits because the young kids don't want to drink. They want to go home. Even school dances, they're talking about young kids right now who school dances, they get there for like a half hour and then they get something on their phone and they're like, we should go. This is boring. And then you know what I think it is?

SPEAKER_01 53:38

I was talking with someone about this the other day. I think they're scared to let loose because someone's gonna film them and then they're gonna get posted and go viral and be embarrassed. Yep. You just can't fear the judgment. If you're a kid now, you have to have super confidence and like not care.

SPEAKER_02 53:56

Yeah. Well, and the thing is every so you brought up the video earlier. I will say I did watch that. I could barely make out that was even me. It was in sepia tone, it was grainy, and honestly, it looked like like a ghost hunter's video. Yeah. That's that's the epitome that we had. Our cell phones were potato pictures, there was nothing on there. Nowadays, you've got full HD video of everything, you've got voice recording, and everyone's got them at all times. I mean, at those times, I don't even remember if my phone was even in my pocket at that party. I don't remember any of that. But everyone now, the young kids, you're right. Like high school parties. So, I mean, that was when we were in our 20s. High school parties, I had none of that. I remember my mom being like when I had the flip phone, the old Motorola. I could be like, Mom, I don't have service. I'm not gonna be able to talk to you, I'm gonna be out all night, and then just I did have service, but just turned it off and oh, it can't reach me. Now there's kind of no excuse in the parents with all the trackers and stuff, it's wild.

SPEAKER_01 55:03

Yeah, because I was at an eighth-grade party when we were in eighth grade, and there was older kids drinking and doing drugs, and we were like, it this is shady, so we actually ended up having to use the home phone of the house party we were at and call someone to come pick us up because it was getting weird.

SPEAKER_02 55:19

Yep. Oh, we have the cell phone.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

We had to like use we had to like find the house phone and like memory, you know, you had to know the your parents' number, and we're like, uh, you should come pick us up. They're like, We knew we shouldn't have dropped too often that that party because they didn't want to let us. They pulled up and they were like, We're you're not going to this party. And we're like, come on, you're embarrassing us. And they and they go, All right, call us if anything happens, and they let us go.

SPEAKER_02 55:43

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

I remember we actually Oh no, you go. I was gonna say we had to do counseling at school because the cops came to that party and a couple of people had alcohol poisoning.

SPEAKER_02 55:57

Oh, and you had to do the alcohol counseling.

SPEAKER_01 56:00

Well, we're in I wasn't drinking, we were in eighth grade. But there were some kids who were, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:06

That well, that was in in shop at Valley Tech, they made us do that. We were fine, and then in Carpentry, I think, junior year, one of the kids brought in a water bottle full of vodka and was slugging it, and one of the kids is like, dude, I'll give you twenty bucks if you smash your finger with a hammer. The kid was sure. Did that smash his finger, and then the teachers are like, What's going on? Wait a minute, and they went in. We had the cops like breathalyzing the water bottles, and we had to do AA in class for like basically everybody just slept through the whole class. But for like a month or two, they were like going after it. Nowadays that'll be on the on the news. It would not be anything like that, or they're not even doing that.

SPEAKER_01 56:56

My friend, my poor friend, we were drinking whiskey on the train tracks, and he got alcohol poisoning bad at friendlies on Grafton Street, and an ambulance had to come. He had to get his pump stomach pumped, and yeah, we were it wasn't on the news or anything. He almost died.

SPEAKER_02 57:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 57:12

Nothing really even happened. We just went into school like the next day, and everyone's like, uh, wow, that was pretty fucking wild, huh?

SPEAKER_02 57:19

The the days of UV. UV blue, UV pink, all the different Dragonberry uh what was that Dragonberry vodka? Oh Smear knives it was a rum. It was a rum. Dragonberry and it wasn't a name. It wasn't like a big name. I remember that one. Mr. Boston.

SPEAKER_01 57:44

I never mess with the Mr. Bostons.

SPEAKER_02 57:47

No, I just would look at that. I was like, if it's a plastic bottle, even young, I'm like, nope, nope, nope. Cause I go to Fitchburg State with my my best friend Erica, and we would go to Fitchburg State, and those were the times it was like, oh my god, the kids are getting rowdy.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

What um do you have any other hobbies? I know you go to work, you kind of chill at the house. You is your hobby woodworking now, or do you like paint or do yoga or something?

SPEAKER_02 58:20

No, I've actually been um I mean as far as hobbies and stuff, I've been been doing my gardening, but uh my big thing is I've really been I've been trying to like get as far as like hobbies, they're kind of just like basically home stuff. Like it's sad to say, but like I've the biggest thing that I've been trying to, so the one thing that I've been trying to get going again is when I was in Worcester. It's probably like four years, whatever after VR, I was doing the at Bar FX behind the Palladium there. I was doing the gay nights. So down here, the big thing that I've been trying to do, I've been networking a lot, and I'm trying to get another because down here we have one gay place in Hart in um West Hartford, and then one down in New Haven. And the two of them are far and few between. There's nothing really going on, so I've been trying to like get my little promotion on. So I've been scouring a lot, kind of making some new friends with that, and me and Rich have gone out a few times, and my new thing that I'm trying for this summer is I'm trying because Middletown where I live, we're right on the Connect oh, right on the Connecticut River. So we're down there, you've got the waterfront, there's a bunch of cool bars. So I've been trying to get like a whole thing because when I did the one at Bar FX, it wasn't about I wasn't doing with drag queens, wasn't doing any of that. I was trying to do it for like the music. So like my whole thing down here, all the other nights are all about that. So I'm trying to get something that's based on like the DJs, the music, get a whole like core scene where it's not just about whatever. I just kind of want like a cool scene going on. So I've been that's one of my projects, and then I've been not gonna lie, my real estate thing, I've really been honed in on that. It's been almost a year. Oh, it's been like I but it's like sad to say, like my fun hobbies there's not really been a ton. I kind of had not this past summer, but the summer before, it was June. My best friend Erica, that I was just saying with Fitchburg State and stuff, her and I went to high school together. We were best friends of sophomore year, went to Italy together, did all this stuff, and then she actually did her, she did the gastric bypass. She was doing great, and then two years ago, I get the call from her roommate, and he's like, She passed. I'm like, What? What do you mean? From the gastric bypass thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:05

I remember her.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:06

Yeah, Erica. She was she was heavier all the time, and she was my little wild child.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:11

She had dark skin, she had dark, dark tan skin.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:14

No, that was Waleska.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:16

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:17

Waleska, my best friend from Venezuela. But no, it was my That's who I remember. Yes. Waleska. I love her. My little qu her and I still, she's got two beautiful babies. She's doing her thing. She's a nurse. I'm so proud of her. But yeah, my friend Eric.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

Sorry to hear your friend. That's that's awful, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:39

That was one thing where it was out of the blue, and I looked it all up. Come to find out, it was due to that gastric bypass. The one thing she was trying to fit in with society, trying to be healthy and slim and everything. Did the two years of like kind of like a whole health cleanse. Well, when you do that, your spleen and all your things, they're microfiltering everything because your stomach's so little, her spleen ruptured in her sleep. No drugs, no depression, no none of that stuff, just boom. So after that, for literally like two years, I've kind of just like that's kind of why I recluse, and I was just working on projects around the house. But I did all that, I finished all my tasks, and this whole year has been one of those from like, alright, it's time to start conquering. And between getting things, projects done around the house, the property, but the travel thing has been, I mean, on the weekends we just watch travel videos all the time. Like, we've gone in the past five years. It'll be Rich and I's five-year anniversary in June, and we've done France, Italy, I mean, not not Italy, um, France, Germany, um, Ireland, we've done the whole Caribbean, and so the research that we're doing now, we're trying to do Greece, we're trying to go over to Thailand, so a whole bunch of things as far as travel-wise, that's really like I will sit there for hours and just research, like, all right, where are we going? What's the best little deal with the cruises and stuff? So it's been kind of a it's been a lot of done Europe.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:17

But if you go to Vietnam or Thailand, dude, just fly in, book a hotel for one night, and then just wing it.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:24

Yeah. Well, I mean, in Thailand, you can go to like Fouquet and stay in one of those like floating like things on piers. That's what we're trying to look at, and you can be there for like a week, and it's like, I don't know, it's like a thousand dollars. I'm like, oh my god, the the flights are cheap, everything's cheap. I'm like, I just want to travel, see things, so I'm trying to like leisure things up a bit and go do that. But it was weird because I did have like I had like two years of like mental lockdown where I was like, all right, the only thing I know to like get my stress out is just do a bunch of stuff, and like I mean, the things I did around the house, I literally took and ripped apart every single thing of everything around me. Yeah, just rebuilt it all from the ground up. We've had backhoes here doing retaining walls, like I've it's kind of been like a full-time project, is the house. But I'm like thinking about like fun things now. This year has been like, alright, I'm back into the fun. We need to do like weekend things. That's why this weekend for Easter, we're gonna be back up either going in Worcester or Providence, but staying at my dad's house. And it's like weird to like vacation tote mass. It's kind of a fun little fun little escape.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:42

Do you see yourself making content in the future? Like it seems like you're good at social media. Do you want to start to do travel videos or carpentry?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:51

Yeah, well, and it's it's funny you said that because I was talking about Rich tonight, and one of the things that I'm really thinking about, and why I want one of the three families, is because most of them looking at they all have a garage, and here we already have the groundwork laid, we want to build a garage, but I want to do basically a full set, and I'm like, the whole thing is I can do all the videos. We do, I do them for work and stuff, but when I'm doing them for work, I still gotta get work done. So, like, our social media girl will come to me, she's got uh she's got an idea, and she's like, Alright, and action. So I gotta come up with what I'm saying in my head real quick, I gotta do the work kind of quick, as I've got three other guys on the job site who might not think the social media is anything important, and they're just like kind of looking over at me, staring at me, and I'm like, oh my god, this is so much pressure. So on my own, that's literally what I was talking about tonight. I was like, with this whole like coming on here with you, I'm like, I'm ready to start that. Like, that's a real thing that I've always wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

You let me produce a video, I'll make it so wild. I'll make it so wild. I'll be like, all right, Chad, here's some fake ecstasy. Be like, all right, I need to make the video, and then I'm like, action, and you're gonna be like, hold on, Instagram, I just gotta do some ecstasy real quick. And then you come back all cracked out of your mind. I'll just give you a bunch of espresso, and then you're like Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:22

I've all jacked up. Oh, that I saw there was actually a video of a bunch of it was uh a bunch of like they have the British shopbacks, and it was a bunch of them just doing lines of sawdust, and I was like, that is absolutely hilarious. They were just and then after they all did the lines of sawdust, somebody put on all the rave lights and all the little shotbacks are like wiggling dance with googly eyes on them. I'm like, this is hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:46

Then at the end, we'll just put a disclaimer like no drugs were consumed, only pixie, you know, pixie candies.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:54

Only caffeination. Well no, because it's crazy, because literally for I mean for basically seven years straight, festivals. I've done I mean actually, so in the past five years with Rich, we've done Day of Dead Mouse, um, we've done we've actually been to three breakaway fests now in Worcester. We went we were at breakaway last July and we saw Shaq. Shaq was uh headlining or DJ Diesel. Um, but we did that, and it was wild to see, like you know, you say like you don't know anybody in Worcester, the entire crowd. Every one of them were little 21-year-olds, and they were all from Boston because now Worcester has the whole influx from Boston with the T and everything, and I'm looking around like I don't know any of these people, what the heck?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:46

Because I did Tomorrow World, Electric Forest, I did Ultra, all of those for on and on, and then the past it gets confusing too because their style is copying the 90s, so you're like, wait, they dress like we did, but they're not us.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:04

They're not they're not pulling off the is cool. Well, but the thing is, with the drugs and all the party stuff, now I'm going in like, alright, I've had my drinks, whatever, but I'm looking around like these kids are all effed up on whatever. They're all just mollyed out and this and that, but they're sitting there doing the lights on each other, and I'm like, wow, I used to be in there. Now I feel like a dad, like, what are you kids doing? Make sure you drink some water. I literally offered a girl water because she was over in the corner doing like I'm like, Are you okay? She did the dry heave. I'm like, I know that look. I was like, it's time. I was like, here, and she's like, Thank you. How do you know that? I'm like, just take that bottle. It's all yours.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:54

Is it weird? So you work in like a mato dominated field. Does anyone ever give you a hard time? Like, or do you work mostly with really cool people?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:06

So that's actually that's actually kind of a cool topic because I will say, I mean, the company I work for, veteran-owned, all a bunch of macho straight guys. I'm usually like I'm dressed how I'm dressed now. If you saw the pictures of me literally uh an hour ago trying to like get this all ready, I'm just in work shirts, work boots, baseball cap, and I blend right in with them. They let me go do my pizzazz and let me do my videos and stuff, but I will say I've never in my mind ever imagined that I would have like as an accepting group of guys every single like if I were to say, hey, someone's giving me crap, those boys would roll up and be like, Alright, where is he? We're gonna rip him to pieces.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:58

But they are it's Tradespeople have a respect for the trade. There's something about the craft of it. I don't think they care if it's a girl, a boy. I I think it's like you can get respect doing a trade, whatever kind of person you are, if you have a passion for it and you can execute.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:15

Well, I think I think that's my dr I think that's why work and doing like the quality and like the level of projects that I'm doing, I think that's one of my huge drives because I want to prove to the guys just because I'm just because I'm different doesn't mean I can't perform. And doesn't mean I can't try to outperform. And it's like really, really that's the vibe I get from you. Yeah, it's like I'm I'm not I don't need to prove myself, but like I want to be like, listen, I'm just normal. You see me as like they they know my fiance, they're the guy the conversations we have, it's going back and forth. This one's talking about the girls, uh one of my co-workers, one of the homeowners, like, or another guy walks by, is like, that's your type, isn't it? I'm like, I friggin' love you, man. Like they there's I I just the acceptance like every single day I wake up with like a thankfulness to all everything above because cool. In this world, like there's not that, but that's why I'm like, I really am just basically a straight guy who likes dudes. It's it's a very different round.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:29

Yeah, me and you could just go out and do our thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:32

Yeah. I mean, in my younger days, I will say, I was definitely a little frilly, and that's not that's just I mean, who I am by nature, but I mean, as far as like if we're gonna get work done, I'll lift just as much as you. I'll throw it over my back, like let's go work horse. And I try to prove like it doesn't matter what you are, you need to, if you're hardworking, you do you have the skills, that's just there. And honestly, the jokes that they throw at me, I die sometimes. Oh my god. So with the jokes, because that's the thing, I got thick skin. You can throw anything at me, and I love half the stuff they throw at me. I'm like, I've heard a lot of those jokes. That is the funniest one I've ever heard. They're even like, hey, I bet you'll like, I don't know, we're going to a house. So, like, I bet you're gonna think like this one's a cutie or whatever. Sure enough, I walk in, I'm like, you know my type. Like, goddamn, it's it's a cool, it's a cool feeling. And then I go when I walk in too. We've got a bunch of guys who can kind of just be macho. We go in, we're doing a kitchen, a bathroom, we're ripping someone's house apart. I start talking with the homeowner's wife, she's like, wait, you've got design ideas? I'm like, I got you, girl. Bum. She's like, I would have never even thought of like with the built-ins, it's literally I will be either dealing with the wife or the couple together, and it kind of takes like my side of things to be like, give it that little design flare that because the other guys just be like, Well, that's dumb, or that doesn't work. But I'm like, hold on, I got a little little jazzy idea, and she's like, How did you know? Like, I'm over there like when she's looking at paint colors. I'm like, that one's on trend right now. She's like, How do you know that? I'm like, I watched the thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:24

I'm HG TV master.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:26

Yeah, I was like, it so I like to have my little design flair with it. But awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:31

Yeah. Well, glad to hear you're doing well. I didn't think you wouldn't be doing well. I just good energy.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:41

Yeah, good energy. It's just not uh other than travel and stuff, there's not like a whole lot going on. I've just been kind of buckling down for the past couple years and working, trying to get some big things going, and then like you said, with the video stuff, that's really, really been on my mind a lot lately. And I'm like, I wanna I wanna do that because I mean especially with carpentry.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:05

If you have your studio built out, you know, and you got two cameras, a close angle and a wide, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:12

You gotta do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:12

A lot easier to turn it on, and you can even just start talking through a project and then go have someone edit it, or just put it up in the natural state, you know. No editing, just press record, make the whole video, throw it on YouTube, and then just send it. That's hot on YouTube right now. You see a lot of content creators just taking their phone and talking for 45 minutes and then uploading, and that's every video.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:38

Okay, all right. Well, that's that's actually good. Yeah, because that's that's one of the things that I was wondering. I'm like, all right, do I need because I won't lie, technology? Oh my god. I'm over in the laptop and like I'm like, babe, I can't, because he works for NBC News, so he's uh he's been there almost 20 years. So awesome. Does he work with the media? Like on cameras and stuff, like yeah, he well, he's does all the production. He's been doing the beautiful oh, he's behind the scenes with all the boards, and that's why like I was like, Oh, can we get a mic? He had a whole mic, he had everything all set up. We looked in the basement, and I've been ripping things apart, and he's like, I can't find it right now. I'm like, I know, but no, he's got the computer-wise, that's why when I moved in here, beautiful house. He's been taking care of everything, but I came in, I'm like, hey, I can do this, this, this, this. He had been here 15 years, everything was same, same. I come in and I'm just ripping stuff apart every day. He's like, Can we just leave things alone for now? I'm like, I've got ideas. He's like, I just could never do it. But it's that yin and yang. I'll be in the comp I'll be over in the computer. I'm like, I can't get the other bar in the spreadsheet. He's like, hold on. Boom, done with that balancing act. But I mean, it's one of those where if he were to help me out with that and I get a little set going on, I would love to be doing videos like that. And then at the same time, if I mean if I were to go and do another application, even with HGTV or with whoever, that's one of the big things I want to do because I love what I do, love the company that I do, but for some reason, like in my heart, I'm like, I want to do I don't know. I want to like I've been media. Yeah, everyone wants to be famous, and in that world, I'm like, that's my thing. I'm not gonna try to say that I can sing or DJ or any of that stuff. Been there, done that, tried it. And the one thing I'm like, that's something that not a lot of people are striving for. So it's kind of that's been the thing, and I mean, where we had the interview, I'm like, we're close, but not there yet.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:03

Well, I wish you good luck.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:05

Have to call my buddy Richard.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:06

Let me know if I can help.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:08

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:09

Although you want you you're looking for someone who's successful, you don't want to be schmucking it around with a creativity scientist.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:17

Nah, I I'm just as much a scientist as you. None of it's figured out. Well, like I said, it it takes a scientist. No, it a lot of times people don't even want the perfect polished stuff. People want that like nitty-gritty. Like, I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:31

Oh, yeah, they want messy in between.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:34

Yeah, I know half the stuff that I even go and scroll and everything. I'm like, I want the messy messy. Like, you want the real quality stuff, you want something that's like actually homemade. That's why with like I mean, you can go buy everything off the shelf. People want handmade stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:50

So but yeah. Well, man, really appreciate you do wanting to do this with me. It was super fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:00

Yeah, you too. I hope we can get some good clips out of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:03

I yeah, of course we will. Definitely. What a great conversation. It was amazing to hear what what's been going on.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:12

Yeah, you too.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:13

Thanks for sharing your travel videos and uh travel stories, I mean. And maybe someday I'll get to meet Rich.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:22

Oh, definitely, yeah. Well, we'll be doing the deck premiere party this year, so maybe do a little involved. Yeah. Yeah, bait from Wister. Yeah. I mean, obviously that's obligation time, whatever, but I mean it's an hour and ten from Worcester.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:41

So Yeah, but me and my wife, we try to do little like if we get a babysitter for the night, get a little Airbnb or a hotel, get away for a little.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:50

Yeah. Well, and that's the thing. We're 20 minutes from old Saybrook, so we're literally 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:57

We we vacation there twice already.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:00

Alright, so then yeah, we're literally twenty twenty-five minutes more north.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:05

I love it, because we go to like all the beaches are perfect for the kids. We get an Airbnb on a private road, and they like you can just like walk to the beach and we love all the little shops around there.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:17

Yeah, it's cute. It's also, I will say, too, like, I feel like now that you were saying all that, I'm like, I feel so like hobbies and crazy things. I will say, love where I live, but Connecticut is just Connecticut. There's not a lot going on. Yeah. Nightlife, there is literal that's why I'm like, oh, I'd have a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:38

The restaurants close at like 8 30.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:40

Liquor stores are closed at 6 on Sundays. It is very just like we go on, we'll look on Facebook, we'll look on every app everywhere. There is literally, I will say that's why it's like, oh, the excitement is traveling going away. Cause like here, like in mass, I could have a blast every single night in Worcester, Boston, wherever, Providence. They're all boom, boom, boom. They're all 45 minutes from each other. Here, yeah, it's that's why I've just been working in the backyard and trying to create. Like, I mean, I've got we've got LED lights, like he has all the woods lit up with LED lights. We've got speakers going in, like, we're trying to create something here because it's there's there's a bit of dryness.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:25

Get uh Chad and Rich's house party on live stream and just have a bunch of crazy people over.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:31

Play records and DJ and Yes, we literally he just was looking at record players the other day. That is, yep. And actually, I was looking at decks again because I might get mixing again. And Cheryl already said she's like, I'm trying to get down here, so it might be a little partial reunion with some people. Fill me in. I will. You have a good night, brother.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:53

Yeah, you too.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:55

If uh if you ever want chat whenever again, I'm always down. Yeah, whatever you share. If you're cool, like I'll share whatever you want. Like, once you post stuff, I'll go and rapid fire. Get a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:11

Yeah, I'm gonna tag you too. I'll tag you and all the stuff. So Oh, perfect. You'll be able to share it. That's what I gotta get better at because with that auto posting, it's I need to they probably updated it. You probably can auto tag before posting now. I don't know. I'll go in and manually do it though. It's not it's not tarred.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:28

Yeah.

unknown 1:21:30

Cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:30

Well, I appreciate you. Glad to talk to you. You have a good night.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:34

All right, it's nighty night time, it's past my bedtime.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:37

Me too. Good night, brother.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:39

All right, bro. See ya.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:41

See ya.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:42

Appreciate you.