Make Trades Great Again
Whether you're a seasoned professional, a newcomer, or simply interested in the trades, the "Make Trades Great Again" podcast offers something for everyone. Our goal is to promote the value of skilled trades, provide essential resources, and build a strong community of passionate individuals.
Industry Insights - Educational Content - Community Stories - Technology in Trades
Tune in now and be part of the movement to make trades great again!
Make Trades Great Again
Eric went to the party & Andy went fishing with the guys
Ever been to a customer party that involved an ice cream truck, a 70-foot bonfire, and mouth-watering barbecue? Well, we have! Join us as we recount our experience, including our strategy to ward off political debates while we indulged in the fun. Our better halves, our supportive wives, were part of this adventure too, adding to the merriment.
As the party winds down, we switch gears to a different sort of fun - fly fishing with a former high school classmate and their guide. Prepare to engage with stories of how we got our boat ready, the joy of sharing food and drinks on board, and the thrill of fishing in the great outdoors. We also fantasize about our future boat, adding to the exuberance. Buckle up, and come along for a ride packed with laughter, camaraderie, and just the right amount of adventure!
Send us your feedback or topic ideas over on our social channels!
Eric Aune @mechanicalhub
Andy Mickelson @mick_plumb
Newsletter sign up: https://bit.ly/MH_email
Yo yo yo, Andy, how you doing, man, I am doing great. This is the bonus episode. It is straight as today, where we it's, where we add, where we add value to your day. Yeah, every time you listen to this bonus episode, just for all the listeners, every time you listen, it will still be the bonus episode, it will be and it'll be free. Free, there's value right there. Very, you didn't have to pay a thing for this, nothing, nothing, ok. Ok, you're never going to get this 30 seconds back. Nope, just like that. You might not get the next nine and a half minutes back.
Speaker 1:All right, a few weeks ago I brought up that I got invited to go to a party from one of my customers. Yeah, remember we chit chatted on the whole mixed business with pleasure kind of thing, absolutely, I think, got brought up in there. You know we don't love doing business with family, but you know, whatever I didn't say, it was pleasurable, that's right. Well, I went to the party. Yeah, how'd it go? It went well, it was a lot of fun, excellent. You know the onnies we like to show up fashionably late. Ok, it was one of those like hey, come, come anytime after two and it'll go from anytime. You wanted to kind of campers out in the field bonfire, at least 70 feet tall. I was insane. Wow, Big old party, shindig it was. It was a shindig, there were, there was a, there was an ice cream truck. Really, yeah, we showed up at all about four, like I said, fashionably late and kind of yeah, and late afternoon into the evening party you're looking at that technically was probably going to end up being realistically nine hours long, you know, if you got there at the beginning. So we, so we, you know we shaved a few, yeah, we shaved a little bit off, showed up right when the ice cream truck was there. Excellent, good timing. Yeah, it was good time, it was super hot and we're like, we're eating our ice cream and you know, chitchat and getting it introduced to people.
Speaker 1:Nice, I met somebody that listens to the podcast there, did you? Yeah, nice, and he watches all the mechanical hub shint and Hannigan's on on Tic Tac. Excellent, that's fun. Customer. Or maybe potential? No, well, maybe potential. No, no, I'm not going to. He lives out and he was there. He's all the way here from Fargo. Crazy, yeah, that's a drive, especially the last part. It was like an hour east of me so, like he had to drive even further, so we had, we had a blast. We did have a couple beers while we were there. Yeah, just a couple, we were only there, for we were there for about three and a half hours.
Speaker 1:Ok, state for dinner type thing. Yeah, oh yeah. Oh yeah, you brought up the dinner. You know what? They had a caterer coming in doing barbecue. Oh, like man. See, this is why you got a mixed business with the plajor once in a while. You can't give those opportunities up. I got to have dessert before dinner. Couple of them from an ice cream truck, yeah, couple scoops, you know. And then we got barbecue served to us. That is phenomenal and, like I said, we had a couple beers.
Speaker 1:But I bring that up because, you know, I think it's important to note that I don't think it would be a great idea, and this came up in our first conversation about this is yeah, watch yourself, you know, don't maybe at your customer's invitation to his backyard barbecue. That's not the place for you to like. I'm going to unwind for real today. You know this is going to get weird. You know that's right. So you know, I think that goes with. No, it doesn't go without saying, because I said it. But you know, like, I think that's common sense. Yeah, yeah, no, I think so.
Speaker 1:I think I took my own advice. Yeah, I took my own advice. I didn't get tuned up, you know, right, I think. In fact I think I had two siters, because that's what I'm saying, because that's what others drink. A choice, yeah, so I guess the room in the old Soft-sided it's not a pack out cooler, but it is a Milwaukee cooler, yeah, and I just throw them in there, ice block boom, yeah, nice. So you didn't get into any bar fights, no brawls. You didn't have to tip over a bathtub or a bathroom or an outhouse or something like that. Yeah, no, no, I didn't have to do the whole, you know, like, flip the table, yeah, that's good, that's good.
Speaker 1:As a plus, I was able to successfully steer clear of political conversations. Well, that's good, that's which I was. I Don't know the crowd. I know, yeah, customer a little bit, but I wasn't sure if that would be present. Sure, but in when I left, I had kind of made a mental note and then nobody talked to me about politics, which is totally what I wanted on a Saturday evening when I try to enjoy myself. That's right. I know it's not about yeah, no, I have no interest to talk about that. So, yeah, went well, I, heather, was, you know, a trooper. She went and she Participated a little bit in the shenanigans.
Speaker 1:I did show her, like, remember that electric basement? I did, and it was in this tiny space, it was a sauna building, okay, and so like a little seated room, like go hang out, and then there was a the big sauna Wood fire thing. He built this on his farm property. It's really cool. I was showing her that. I'm like, you know, just doing that stupid Boyfriend, husband, you know I built that. I built that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the kids, my wife, like, oh, look, I've seen you bend that copper pipe a thousand times on Instagram. Thanks for showing it to me in purpose or in person. Person, yeah, oh, my god, it looks so much bigger in person. Oh, yeah, she's like, oh, it's so much shinier. Thanks the true, the white, the, the, the resilience and the whiteness of the cabinet, of the boilers, just like that person, you know, like the lighting's better, lighting's better, definitely better.
Speaker 1:But you know what they had? They had at this party. They had basketball, excavator basketball really. Yeah, yeah, he's good, this guy's got all the cool stuff. I'm just gonna sounds like it. It's got like a 30 horse, I don't know, it's some kind of Kubota, yeah, mini-ho, you know Right. And I and he's like, yeah, I got. He.
Speaker 1:I saw the three garbage cans and the basketball sitting there and I'm like are you really letting people? And he's like, dude, go do it. Nobody will do it. So I go up there, boom, boom, boom, three, you know three baskets. And he's like, oh, you got to do it faster than that. And I think I was just going slow because I'm like I was using the grapple on the bucket right and on a basketball. I was like I don't want this to catch a tooth. And then like, pop the basketball, yeah, so I was, you know, taking my time and I just wanted to make sure I got three baskets. And I did. And he's like you gotta do it faster. So then you Let somebody go, let somebody go.
Speaker 1:Because it once I got it, I think people were like really intrigued, because I don't think people understood what the heck was going on. Right, right, like, what are you supposed to do here? Yeah, I was just sitting there and like running, you know, yeah, and so I got that. I got that going a little bit and then, after a few people went, there was a break in the line in the. The host, the customer, is like okay, go do it faster, just see, because nobody was doing very well. Well on it, you know, but they're having a blast and I was having a blast watching them.
Speaker 1:Heather was laughing. I kept telling Heather, you got to go up there, you got to go up there. But, um, I went and did it again and I made the three baskets in 40 seconds. Nice, which was pretty. I mean, I'm gonna tell you, yeah, yeah, impressive.
Speaker 1:But you had to pull the bat, the box, basketball, off the top of a like a road cone, like an orange. Okay, yeah. So you gotta, you gotta know the skills a little bit. Some mad skills, yeah, well, I don't know, they're not mad. I'll tell you, I've never been a great operator when it comes to digging. I can do it. I can do it all day long. It's not, I'm just not good at it. Right, you know? Right, like in my head, I'm gonna. I could see this trench is gonna have the perfect fall on it and right, yeah, the wrong way. I don't know how I get like I, I pile the dirt closer and closer and closer to the edge. Yeah, because I'm just like trying to do it faster. You know it's stupid, I'm terrible at it.
Speaker 1:Well, you don't mix pleasure with business a little bit, and you did that recently. On a totally kind of different note, yeah, something that that I don't know. I, I enjoy the heck out of a fishing off a raft or whatever fishing off a boat. I just fish and spawn. I don't, and I don't do it often enough that I'm like, oh, I'm super proficient at it. You know what I mean. But but it's still something that's that's fun to do. And so a couple of years ago we had I'd gotten invited on a guided trip with with a manufacturer, and I met the guide that we went with this just this last week, who happens to live, just like you know, 20 minutes up the road for me. Oh, and so we both went to high school about the same time. No, you know random people around the area.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, cheryl and I had been talking about it, you know, basically for the last year, like, hey, we need to do this, we just need to do it, we need to put it on the schedule. Never got on the schedule specifically. Yeah, to take a. Take the schedule. All the all four guys off for the day? Yeah, right, all of us off the day. Nobody's, we're not schedule on anything. You know, when do we do that? When's not a busy time? Well, it just seems like lately it just hasn't been there's not been a downtime, yeah, and so I don't know, like three weeks ago we were talking about it, cheryl's like well, let's just, who do you want to do it with? And she goes like I'll just set it up, you know, and I was like OK, well, I don't know.
Speaker 1:There's this guy, kyle, the guy you knew. Yeah, yeah, this, what is it? Our, our, our 406, or our. It's Roush's real 406, fishing, so real, being R E L. Cool dude, high school gym teacher out at one of the high school you know local high schools here and in the summertime he runs a guide outfitting business and so, anyway. So Cheryl calls him and gets on the gets on his website, finds a date. He's like yeah, no, I'm all up on that date. And we're like sweet, and she starts setting it up and got a couple of got him and another one of his guy that he knows that he sub subcontracts with to run another boat, boats, yeah, yeah. So we had two, two of us in each boat and the guide and we just had an absolute riot. All four of the guys, yeah, working at. Yeah, yeah, we all put in on the Blackfoot and you haven't been out yet, but we're going to have to go out and check it out.
Speaker 1:And it's, if anybody ever I mean older folk like you and I, the guys like you know, old guys, you've probably seen the movie of River runs through it. Yeah, I, yeah, it was not interesting to me at the time but, yeah, that whole, the majority of that rip, that movie was filmed on the river where we were fishing. So that's, I mean, that's kind of the stuff that you're fishing on. People look at it and like, oh, that's, you know, super scenic, oh, this is cool and it is. I mean, though, the whole way down it's just like it's it's cool.
Speaker 1:And you're fly fishing yeah, we were fly fishing, end up catching a bunch, so you know, handful of cutthroat, some bull trout, some brown trout not the brown trout that you find in the toilet, there's actually like a real brown. I know we have brown trout. I know what you're talking about. You forget that I do enjoy fishing, but to be, I'll be, I'll. I'll open up for the first time to the rest of the world. I don't know how to fly fish like at all. Yeah, never even tried it, not even one, so I'm sure I can handle it. I have jigs tattooed on my arm yeah, some of it like walleye and crappie fishing. Yeah, so that was cool. So everybody had fun. Yeah, everybody had a good time.
Speaker 1:It was we did it on a Thursday. Yeah, so we, you know, met, met it I don't know what. 730 or something like that, but normal work time. And we got home at like 550 that night. You know five or final. I said 550, 530 or 560. Something like that. It was 552. It was I remember. Yeah, because I remember like it was yesterday. Yeah, I remember because I could smell dinner and oh my God, so that was cool. So nobody got hurt. No, nobody got hurt.
Speaker 1:How did you handle like food and guys eating out there or what? Yeah, we did. The guides Took care of lunch. We had to bring our own beer, for we wanted beer. So we brought a couple of coolers with beer and Gatorade and soda and whatever in there and then the guides brought they they took care of lunch and it was. They had some like pastrami sandwiches and whatnot. So, just in case you didn't catch your lunch, yeah, or do you have to throw them all back? No, I mean, we could have kept them, I'm sure, but yeah, I got to just like whatever. Catch them another day, yeah, I get you. Yeah, no, same thing here. That's cool. That sounds like fun.
Speaker 1:I wish I worked for people that took me fishing. I know it was fun, it was a good time. My boss just doesn't even have the boat ready half the time. Yeah, always late. So it always makes you fade for the gas Fishin. Yeah, I always see, says he's going to go fishing. Yeah, you got to haul the boat and yeah, it's never ready. Yeah, what's that? What was that excuse? I give my customers, like or I just tax them, like, oh, I'm running 10 minutes late and in reality I'm just tick, tock in or something. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1:The idea of the putting the boat in the water is like it's fun, and then you have to do it and you're like, yeah, no, it's not that bad, I love it. I love it. We got to do a little mechanical work on ours and we might actually sell it and then look for a boat over the winter, we'll see. Look for something a little little little more modern, a little newer yeah, just newer. You've had this one, what like eight years now. Oh God, no, no, I never. Yeah, I thought you had that. Okay, I mean, no, it's, it's old, I've had it for a long time. It feels like, well, I wasn't new when I got it. Yeah, yeah, it's just fine, it's time, all right, and then, once I do, I can take my employees fishing. There you go. What, the final local guide that I went to high school with. That's right, sucker, you guys are lucky. It sounded a little jealous. Yeah, it was fun. All right, dude, it does sound fun. Take it easy. All right, I've got one.
