Anything but Coding - Landscaping, Fitness, and more!

Welcome to Syntax, the podcast with the tastiest web development treats. Rid. Today, we've got some tasty anything but coding treats for you today. This is a show we do, I don't know, every 3 or 4 months. We do the anything but coding show, and Scott and I just get to chitchat about what's going on in our lives.

I I don't know about you, but I per not prefer, but I really enjoy rid. Hearing about other parts of people's lives other than just coding. Like, we sneak it in with the sick picks here and there, but this is an entire show about, rid fitness, new gym, landscaping, house projects, ninja warriors rid Doing outdoor Internet access point work, all kinds of really interesting stuff, so buckle up real quick. Let's talk about, rid. About daddy. I don't know if that's a good way, to present it, but if you didn't hear, Sentry, we joined. No. Syntax, we joined Sentry, rid.

In in March, something like that.

And, we are now totally supported by Century. That's probably why you haven't heard any Of the ad reads recently, and it's also why we are ramping up to launch some really cool stuff, which We're excited to to share with you. So you're gonna wanna check out Sentry at sentry.

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Thank you, daddy century.

Rid. How are you doing today, Scott? I saw you were at a concert last night. Yeah.

We saw The Strokes Last night at Red Rocks, and Red Rocks is just legendary venue. The Strokes are, like, one of Unreal. The pictures.

Yeah. It's one of those bands that, like, I have just always wanted to see my entire life. I, like, had my entire My style in high school was like, oh, how much can I look like The Strokes? So For me, I was I've been a fan for such a long, long time. It was, like, just a a dream come true for me to be able to see them, but to see them at a venue like that was Just really. Just just the just the best.

I am I am very slow today. I, I I seriously, we we got back at at late, like, I don't know, midnight or something like that. I I didn't get to bed till, like, 12:31.

And I don't I don't know about you, but I don't know how many times in my past 2 years that has like, since we've had kids, I don't know how many times I I didn't even stay up till midnight for New Year's.

So so

it was like waking up this morning. It was like I felt like you were hungover. I haven't I haven't rid. New Year's in, like, 5 years. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I what what is this? I I remember I used to, like, go to shows rid And, like, stay up till like like, be crowd surfing and be all sweaty and, like, lost my voice and get home at, like, 1 AM. Rid And then I would have like, I worked at Tim Hortons as a baker. I would have, like, a 5 AM shift, and I would just, like, roll out of there like a zombie, ears ringing, And somehow be able to to pull it off. Now I can I can hardly oh, I stayed up till 11:30 last night? Can't get going today. Yeah.

Rid. My my most painful or or shameful, you know, not getting any sleep and then going to work story is one time when I was working at Target. I was rid Went to a concert the night before or something, and I was just very, very tired the next day at work. I had to be there at, like, 7 or something, and I I must have put my head down in the break room and and fallen asleep or something because, some girl came up to me who's working there. She's a cashier or something. Tapped me on the shoulders. Like, hey. Are you okay? I was like, what? Oh, yeah. Why? What's up? She's like, you've been asleep in here for, like, 3 hours.

This is like, oh, no.

Oh, no. Ready. Oh, man.

That's crazy. I don't think I've never in my life fallen asleep

anywhere other than a couch a couple times. Yeah. I don't typically. I'm gonna tell you that. I I I don't fall asleep very easily. I don't fall asleep on airplanes. I don't fall asleep in cars, rid. But this particular day, I was I was very, very tired. You know what? The this concert last night was was wild too because, you know, Red Rocks is a It's an amazing place. It's this massive, massive, stone or or or not, like, red. Red rock structures that's protruding from the earth all around you, and there's, like, a dinosaur ridge over there where you could see actual, dinosaur in like, You know, fossilized footprints, imprints into the the rocks and stuff like that. It's just like a truly amazing place. But last night, We've got there not, like, super early, but early ish.

And let me tell you guys, we had to hike. And I'm not I'm not saying, like, hike, in a small way. We had to hike 20 minutes from where our car was parked to our seats, and it was all uphill rid At elevation in the mountains, we were walking back to our car on a dirt path. It was like it It looked like the Lord of the Rings or something. You're, like, on a journey to our car.

It was it's the furthest I've ever parked away at Red Rocks. It was, like, It was absolutely wild. So by the time we got Courtney did her her, like, her Apple Watch for walking. That's how I know it was a 20 minute walk. She did it she did it both ways. It was rid. Just an an adventure to get in and out of that place last night. Oh, man. That's wild.

Let's go into our 1st topic here, which is landscaping.

Rid. Scott and I are mid thirties, so we are fully into the landscaping portion of our lives.

Rid. A couple of years ago during the pandemic, I installed like an acre of sprinklers at our cottage that feeds out of the lake. Rid.

And I've been like it's been so rainy this year. I haven't had to run them that much. Like, we had wildfires earlier. Yeah. Now it's been really rainy, And, the grass is looking really good, but you've been you've been working on your grass as well? Yeah. You know, our

our yard is is It's interesting because clearly the people who lived here before us had, like, you know, professional landscapers taking care of it and stuff. But at the same regard, they weren't, like, Yeah. Taking care of some of the big bushes and stuff like that. So I've been just in the years that I've lived here, the 2 years now, it's like just Chainsawing and cutting and and all this stuff to get it into a nice place, but our grass is such high shade that I cannot Keep the grass full.

And we've had, like you, just a massive amount of rain. Although we we had, like, typically, we're very dry here.

But because it's been so rainy, it's it's been a good opportunity for me to, like, try to rebuild our grass. So I've been seeding really heavily, and I'm making some good progress. I'm I'm feeling really confident about it. Just try I I I feel confident in landscaping stuff in general, but, like, Yeah. I don't know. For me, the the grass has been, like, something I haven't been able to get ahold of just because it's so so shady back here. So I've just been mowing really, like Yeah. Really infrequently keep it letting the grass grow, letting it fill in, and and seeding like crazy. And, I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. It's good. Yeah. We pulled out like, rid We're in the same situation as you as we bought this house that somebody had owned for 20 years.

And it was clear that it it was very nicely landscaped When when they had bought it, but they just never really maintained it at all. So it just like rid I can't believe how aggressively you need to prune back a lot of the stuff. So, like, we were we were chainsawing out a bunch of these, like, overgrown bushes, And we were finding, like, we found a whole patio, like like a little tea set patio under there. We found all these, like, angel like garden gnomes and stuff. Like, it had grown from these, like, little tiny little bushes to probably 20 feet by 20 feet, and it was just like, we just Cut the whole thing out, and we're just, like, replanting. People always get mad when I cut down trees, because I think I'm, like, killing the earth. But, like, You also have to maintain that stuff. Otherwise, it just starts to look like garbage, and

it's it's not nice to be around. Yeah. You have to trim back rid. So crazy. I I always learned that from my dad because he would come in and just, like, cut way, way back everything, and, he's like, listen. You gotta do it. Even if you like this branch, you gotta cut it off, you know, of just, like, stuff like that. You know? Like, even though you like this the way it is right now, rid. You know, you need you need to go hard on it. I I personally you know, I've been getting better and better about trimming back. You you look at those photos of, like, rid. Mayan or Aztec temples that are completely covered.

It's like they just thought this was a mountain, but now they they trimmed it back, and, oh, shoot. There's a temple under there. That's what your, place that reminds me of. I've been dealing with, like That's crazy.

Like, we have situations where things are growing better in our lawn that aren't straight up Grass, and I'm getting into the idea of, like, what do I keep and what do I I, you know, stop from growing. Like, for instance, we have, like, purple clover growing in the front yard, and some people will get rid of clover because a lot of With the weeds, weed, preemergence and stuff or or things like that will get rid of clover. Yeah. But clovers actually look good for your lawn, and, You know, it helps Oh, yeah. It's a pollinator. There's little flowers on it that, you know, bees can get. So I'm like, I'm leaving the clover. I don't wanna be I don't want it to go, like, free for all, but at the same time, I don't like pesticides, and I don't wanna be pulling a lot of weeds. So so I'm definitely not one of those people that's, Like, letting it go free for all or anything like that, but I I do run into a situation where it's, like, what do I leave, and what do I not leave, and how how wild do I wanna be on this? But, yeah, I'm definitely currently in that situation right now. We have that at our cottage where, like, we've got all different types of grass,

rid growing in. And as long as it's green, I don't necessarily care. We got lots of clover in there. It's nice. You can see the bees like it because rid I like, I went deep down lawn care rabbit holes for a couple years, and it's wild because a lot of like, you can't buy any of this Stuff in Canada, but a lot of the like, Americans use two four d and Tenacity. And you can just, like, buy the stuff on Amazon that you just Blanket your grass in, and it kills literally everything but Yeah. The actual grass, which is amazing that somebody figured that out. But you're not you can't buy any of that. And, like, I'm not gonna fight it. Like, the clover stuff, like, I I know people do full clover lawns and and whatnot, and I'm not really into that as much. But, like, I don't mind having a little bit Pop up there. It it it kind of covers the dirt. I know. I I wanna, like, ride the line between that, that world where you're just, like, letting it be for the pollinators, But also that line where it actually looks nice as a, like, you know, a proper lawn. But at the same regard, I don't wanna be, you know, just pouring all these these,

You know, weed killers and stuff into the ground, and I I don't wanna be you know, I just don't wanna I don't know. I I I have a hard time with that that world because it's like, I do want it to look nice, But at the same time, I don't wanna, go nuts on it. So you've been you've been, working on your gym quite a bit.

Rid How how's that going? I've I've seen the the progress on the Instagram, so it's looking really amazing. Yeah. If if you, if anyone's interested, you go to my Instagram. I have, like, a saved I have a story where I showed the whole build, and it it was awesome. So I like in I think about March, February, March, I decided I'm gonna start this. So we had this, like, basically storage room.

Our house is, like, really wide, which means that it has tons of basement. So I built my office down there. We built the kids playground. We're gonna do my wife's office, and there was an entire another storage room. And, like, having too much storage is Recipe for disaster. Because you just start You just fill it. Throw it in the basement. Throw it in the basement. And then, like, you you just expand the amount of stuff you have to storage. So we try to aggressively we actually took Ten feet out of our main storage room and made that into playroom.

And then we took this other storage room and turned it into a gym, which was awesome. So we rid Drywalled it. Like framed it, drywalled it. I've got this, like, rubber flooring in, which is kind of cool. And then I got all of the we had a spin bike And we had a treadmill that I had bought from, like, a friend.

And then I bought, like, a full, rid Like rack functional trainer. I actually imported the whole thing from China, which was super cool experience. Like, A lot of that stuff, with the exception of Rogue stuff, a lot of the big brands, Hammer Strength, REP, All there's, like, a 1000000 different brands. They're all made, in this one city called Nantong in China. So I like rid There's this website called ImportYeti. You can like do a reverse search on a lot of these big suppliers, and you can find rid kind of like who's making this stuff. So I contacted them, and I'm like, this is kind of like I want to buy a rack, and I want to have functional trainer added to it.

Rid. And they just, like, built up a custom rack, and I bought a bunch of benches and a bunch of weight. And they, like, they went so far as to they my logo into the rack upgrades. That's, like, the most absurd pipe thing. The rack has my name on it. It's crazy because everyone's like, oh, that must have cost a pretty penny, and it was rid. Cheaper. It was it's about 60% of the cost of if I were to buy Oh, gosh. Just from, like, a company. That's wild to me. Rid It is wild. I think it was very interesting. So I had bought like, I imported my stickers from China before, and, rid a couple I've done patches from China. I've done, like, several, like, smaller stuff, rid Including some upcoming syntax swag, which you should be stoked about.

Yeah. But I had never done what's called, like, a freight. Rid. So they put it on a ship. It took, like, 45 days to get here. And then just 1 random day, some guy pulled up in the driveway with 3 pallets of equipment.

And,

it it just for 1 rack and weights in a

that's Yeah. That was it's pretty cool. So, like, I'm I'm pretty stoked about it. Now we I got it all set up, and then summer came into the cottage. So, like, we're going back next week, and I am rid. Very excited to I've done a couple workouts in there, and I was like, this is so nice to be able to have all of those equipment In one space, and I'm gonna get my sort of fitness game back on point, lose a couple pounds and Yeah. Hopefully get that, like,

You know, all that back in shape. Yeah. That's okay. So this is a big hack for anybody who is looking to, you know, level up their fitness game.

Getting a rack in your home is like the single piece of equipment, even if it's like a half rack or you know, I got 1 at at Dick's Sporting Goods that we used forever, for, like, $150.

And, like or you can find them used, you know, those types of things too. If you can get a rack in your basement, in your garage, somewhere like that, rid. You spend 30 minutes, 40 40 minutes, and I spend, like, an hour. But, like, if if you work your way up to, like, an hour a day of rid 4 days a week on that thing. You can transform yourself in a year. You can transform yourself in no time. You can see, like, major changes very soon, especially if you haven't been doing lifting before.

People think it's obviously really hard, and, sure, it's hard to find that time. But if you build it into your schedule And just, like, make it a thing, and you can just really, really see some major changes really quick. Unreal how,

rid Like, how nice it is to be able to have it at home, the piece of equipment that you want and, look rid Look like an idiot trying to figure out how it works, and then you have to, like, ask some meathead, hey. Like, that's what I always did at the gym. I would find the person that, like, looked the fittest. I'm like, can you show me how to do this? Rid. And they're always, like, willing to to help because, obviously, they they know what they're talking about. You know? Someone asked me how about web development. I'll talk I'll talk all day about that.

Yeah. You know what? And I like too. We we put a like, the TV that I bought in college, we put that in our gym. So it's like, I rid. I can put anything I want on the TV while I'm working out. You know, I could turn up the music. I don't have to be wearing headphones and, you know, doing all that stuff, or Courtney and I can work out at the same time, all all those things. If you have a if you have any sort of gym equipment in your home, it's so much easier to to stick to it and to use it. The the amount of excuses go out the window because it's now it's like, no. I don't have to drive. I don't have to walk to the gym. It's like, just walk down to the basement, knock out. I can knock out 30 minutes a day. I can do that. No biggie.

You know, it it just makes such a huge impact. I've been doing, you know, I I've been lifting weights now since, like, 2012.

So I've been doing it for a long time, and I'm trying to get in my Cardio game up now. We got a Peloton on Black Friday because the deals were really good. So if you're out there and you're on Peloton, my, username is s rid. Just like it is everywhere.

But hit me up. Follow me on that. I I've I've been trying to do it. But right before For my vacation, I was doing a normal ride. I'm riding the bike. It feels fine. I get off the bike.

I you know? Rid. A couple hours later, my knee starts swelling up like crazy, and I don't know what it is. It's, like, below my kneecap. It's It must've just been, like, some sort of a stress injury or something like that. And it's still you know, about a month later, I'm I'm still unable to get back on my full riding cardio schedule. So I'm, like, really kind of bumming about that, but, I've been sticking with that. I've done over, like, a 100 rides on that so far since Black Friday. Rid. When I when I have, like, fitness goals, I think I'm really good about sticking to them and and, you know, making that part of my life, and I think it helps that both Courtney and I do it. So we can Say, alright. When are you working out? I'm working out here. We can swap the time with the kids, and, everybody's feeling, you know, happy about that.

One thing I've been doing now that my knee's feeling really wonky is that we, I have an under the desk treadmill that I use about an hour a day or at least I try to. And I put some 2 by fours underneath the front of it, and now I have an incline under the desk treadmill because I heard that, You know, walking on an incline is way better for you for a lot of reasons. So I started doing that, and it's like the easiest hack ever with this little $200 under the desk treadmill, Put it on an incline, and now I can, while I'm coding or whatever, you know, get get that extra little bit of cardio. And rid I've been doing the whole calorie counting thing, and, honestly, it's just that, my eating habits, have always been supported by the fact that I do a crazy amount of cardio via dance or working out. Yeah.

So it's like my eating habits have always but now that I, You know, I'm getting older. It's like, shoot. I can't do as much, and I'm having to now, like, really get my rid. Meals in order in terms of, like, what I'm eating, how much and stuff. Because Courtney makes really nice, like, really healthy food, but

I just eat a lot. You know? Rid Yeah. Yeah. That so you recommended the Macro Factor app a couple episodes ago, and I had rid. Been using the, like, daily burn one for many years, and I was like, I'm gonna try this out. And, man, It's literally a 1000 times better than the daily burn app. Like, the UI, the onboarding, rid The only thing is that it was like they did that, like like, sort of sort of strong-arm.

It's free for 3 weeks, rid. But, yeah, like, you have to pay for it now, and you're gonna totally forget about it.

But, like, man, that It's a good app. A good call. Yeah.

Experts in their field and were like, well, all of the apps you know, a lot of those guys, they they either train competitors or they were training for competition.

Rid. They're like, all of the apps don't fit what actual professionals want to use and want to have, and so that's why they made it. They really know what they're talking about, so I think that that certainly helps. Sorry. Dog barking. Hey, Lucy. I'm gonna need you to stop barking, please. Hello. Yeah. Another fitness goal of mine, Wes. I've decided that, You know, my, Courtney's not gonna be happy hearing this, but I've decided to learn head spins to a degree where, you know, I can actually do them. You know, I've I I've spun on my head for some time now. Like, I could hit what are called head spin drills. It's where you just do a quick little head spin, and I can get, like, 3 rotations, have it look cool, be like something impressive.

But I've never had what are called continuous headspins where you're just, you know, the type you see where they're just, like, gliding on their head forever. Yeah. And I I've always been kinda close. So I have a helmet in my office, and I've decided I'm going to do, I don't know, 10 minutes of head spins a day and see How far I can get over the course of a year? So I've been only during workdays.

I've been doing about 10 minutes of spitting on my head In the middle of my work day to get the blood moving in my office. And I gotta say after 2 weeks of doing this, I'm noticing, like, really good progress, which is ridiculous.

So, I'm gonna I'm putting this in the ground. I would really love in about a year from now to just be able to Just just, like, cruise on my head like a, you know, a head spinner. That'd be sweet. That is bonkers that you can do that. Well, I I Here's what here's actually here's the intersection with tech. I've been looking at how can I build something that helps me learn them better because my balance point is certainly a problem? So, like, how can I get a flatter, flat spot? I'm wearing a helmet when I'm doing this, by the way, because I don't wanna lose my hair, at my age. So I'm wearing a helmet. It's a comb. It's like, how can I get that helmet flatter on the top? So I was, like, looking at into, like, what types of plastics would be best suited for that, that I could put, like, a little flat piece on top of the helmet or something to help me help me glide or maybe, like, 3 d print. And And then I was like, well, you know what you need?

What do I need? A piece of, like, Teflon.

Like, you can buy Mhmm.

You can buy, like, an actual hunk of Exactly what I was looking up. Really? Oh, or HDPE, maybe like a cutting board? Yeah. A cutting board was one of the things that you know what? This is funny because I got a lot of these ideas that you're telling me from chat GPT. I asked it. I said, listen. I'm building a helmet to help me spin on my head. What are some good flat hard pieces of plastic that will spin really well? And they told me you could use a cutting board. I don't even know how it came up with that idea, But, I thought that was really a pretty sweet idea, but I was thinking, actually, maybe you could just take a, a sander and sand a flatter spot on top of an old Skateboarding helmet, and maybe that will do it. Yeah.

It might. And you'll you'll go through it pretty quick, I think. Yeah.

Yeah. You're right. You will. Oh, yes. Yeah.

Rid. If it's an old helmet, maybe worth worth trying on. Either way. Put, like, a motor in a helmet or something like that and then just, like, stand on your head and, like, do a 1,000,000 of them. People are like, oh, this guy is incredible.

Just feel the balance.

Yeah. But, yeah, you could probably buy, like, a hunk of Teflon. I know people of You can buy them on Amazon. You could buy hunks of that stuff on Amazon, though Can you really? That are, like, actually in the shape of, like, a small cutting board. Yeah. I I've actually gone down this road.

Look at all of those. That's cool. I'm working on my wife's office, which is just across from my office in our basement. So we just bought her a rid. Industrial sewing machine. So she has like a one of these sewing machines that will it's a really nice one. Like, I think it's Brother, rid And it does where it, like, sews letters.

Oh, embroidery?

Embroidery. So it does embroidery, but, like, rid She we were at this yard sale out near the cottage down, like, a dusty old road.

And sometimes these yard sales are a little bit sad because rid. You can tell that the husband has passed away and the wife is trying to sell all the stuff. And I'll often buy tools or like buckets of bolts Or like like, I have this 1 bucket of bolts from this man that had passed away, and I've used it probably 20 times. And I think, like You're here, boss. I bet this man is smiling down on me from heaven right now being like, I know I saved those bolts for some reason. You know? Like, every time I use, like, a old man's tool that passed away, I feel like, like, he He probably feels good about this right now. Anyway, so we this lady had, like, a massive sewing Oh. Stash, and she She said, hey. Like, if you want, I'm selling my industrial sewing machine.

And my wife is like, yeah.

So She went into into the house and looked at it, and and she's like, I'm gonna buy this. And it's like it's probably, like, £400 or, I don't know, 4, maybe maybe £200. It's rid. It's very extremely heavy.

So we bought this crazy sewing machine, brought it home, and then I was like, I bet It's got this motor on it that Oh my gosh. The motor itself is probably a £100 and it's like an old clutch motor, meaning that like it's rid. Spinning constantly. And when you push the pedal to turn the like, just to start sewing, it engages the clutch and it goes like as rid Fast as hell and has tons of torque. But I was like, I bet you could, like, hook hook, like, a modern motor up to this. And turns out, like, that is the thing. There's just, like, You can buy aftermarket motors for sewing machines and for lathes that are, like, more modern.

Rid. They start on demand. They are indexed, so you can you can tell it to always stop the motor when the when the sewing head is down and not up, which apparently is a thing in sewing.

So, like, I'm doing, like, a retrofit Yeah. On this old sewing machine, in a couple weeks after we had we had to build our office first, but, like, rid. So cool, like, that you can bring all this old stuff back to life with these modern things. And it's like like £4 For this motor that is way better than the one that is a £100. Are you getting into, like, forums, or or, like, how are you finding information on this stuff? Are you rid Diving deep into the web. So, like, I had posted it on Instagram, and I had a couple people that said I showed my mom or I showed my grandma, and they said, rid. Yeah. That's a good machine, especially if it has a servo motor.

And I was like, what's a servo motor? You know? And, like, I, like, rid Googled that. And then a servo motor is a motor that has a set number of indexes, meaning, like, open or closed. Right? So there's sewing machine motors that have maybe rid Thirty indexes, and that's how it knows where to stop. So I I didn't have to go into I I went down, like, a couple YouTube videos of, like, Sewing people and and whatnot and looked up a couple of reviews for different motors that you can add on to it and retrofit it, but seems like a pretty rid. Standard thing. And it's just belts. Like, I probably have to go to the auto parts store and find a properly sized belt to drive the thing, but

Other than that. Nice. That's sick. Looks pretty straightforward. I'm excited to get it going. What a project. That's such a that's such a cool like, obviously, it's like a u type of project. You're replacing the motor something. Who knows what it is? But Yeah. I took sewing in college. I had to take a a fibers class.

Oh, yep.

I sewed an impossible pillow, and I got an a on it Because my teachers were like, I don't know how you did this. You know? Pillows, you sew them, and then you flip them inside out. But my pillow was a cube with a hole in every face, so You could think of it as like a cube with the vertical you know, with a kind of like an interior whatever. And my my professors were like, how How the hell did you do this? What what what do you even like, I don't even know how I did that. Yeah. I just I was like, I I think this will work. Who knows? It's the coolest thing I ever made. It's a good skill to have. It is. Yeah. I use it all the time. In fact, I'm the I'm the sower of the family. I also anything. I'm I'm sewing arms back on the stuffed animals all the time here. Oh, yeah? I got Some projects going on. We have some none of the things that I'm doing myself necessarily. I guess some of them are there. We have some skylights that are leaking. Of course, if you have a skylight, It'll probably leak at some point. Right? I think that's what we've been told.

This is our 1st time with with a house with skylights in it. So, Yeah. We got we got those to take care of. We have this wool carpet throughout the whole house, which, we didn't put in, but it's like fancy wool carpet. So it's not like something you wanna rip out because it's, like, expensive carpet.

But, man, I gotta tell you, cleaning that stuff is a giant pain. So I just ordered a, like, a a stand like a Vacuum cleaner standy uppy steamer for the the whole house to, like, try to be able to maintain it better because I feel like rid. It is just getting nasty, especially in, like, the living room where we don't have, like, a mudroom. So if you come out from the rid. Outside, you're basically going right onto that wool carpet. And, sure, we have an area rug there or whatever, but, like, it just it just gets grimy. Yeah.

So we're we gotta figure that out. I we might even rip that out and do wood floors in that room, but still do the wool carpet in the rest of the house. But let me tell you, Wes, I gotta I gotta say, I'm so angry at Amazon and Google. Like, when did all of the search engines become awful? So I I watch I watch a YouTube video, and they say, to clean wool carpet, you need something that's labeled as wool safe carpet cleaner. Okay. Wools wool safe. It needs to be labeled as wool safe. Fine. I'm happy with that. Go to Amazon. Wool safe carpet cleaner. There's, like, 5 pages of results, And not a single one of them are wool safe, and and you don't like, why don't they even put the word in the search term if you're not even gonna give me a single one that's wool safe? Okay. And then, get this. I go to, like, one of them that is supposed to be wool safe. I click on it. I'm going to Amazon thing, and it's like, here's your questions and answers. The question is, is this wool safe? And there's like it's got 10 answers on them thinking great. I'm gonna finally get to the bottom of the is this 1 wool safe or not? It doesn't say it anywhere, But it's supposed to be Amazon answers to the way. Let me tell you. There's, like, 2 people who have been like, I use this on wool. Fine.

And then 8 answers or so where people respond with, I don't know. Bro, you don't have to answer that question. Why would you That's because you got on your way. Your question about the emails you and says, can you answer this question about the product?

And, like, like, who's sitting there being, like, I'm gonna type, Like, obviously, Amazon's asking me a question.

I need to type in the car. I don't know why. Let me

and then there's, like, 1 answer at the very bottom that doesn't even have any thumbs up as being helpful from the manufacturer. No. You can't use this on wool carpet. And I'm just like at that point, I'm like, I'm I'm so done. I went to, I was browsing all these YouTube videos In all of these, like, small blogs about carpet cleaning, and they're like, you'll need to use, a certified wool safe carpet cleaner, Of which, you know, we're not going to tell you a single option. And I I to this day, I'm like, I spend so much time looking at these stupid carpet cleaners. I gotta go into a physical store And talk to somebody and be like, alright. Which which one of these is not going to ruin my carpet, please? I I agree with you that

Google search has gotten rid. Awful. Awful. Lately. Awful. Because you search anything, and it's all these, like like, I just searched how to clean wool carpet, and you get like this, How do you clean wool carpet? Pros and cons. How do you do it? Like, it's all this is never ending garbage SEO rid. Juiced. And then, obviously, it's it's posted by some wool carpet cleaning company where they don't provide any, like, good info. Like, I just like I'm like rid.

Like, this is all garbage content. What were you like? These blogs, half of them rid Half of them feel like they have been written by, like, AI, which I'm probably sure is true.

And I find myself rid Just skipping the Google search and going straight to I I go straight for TikTok and and watch Six or 7 of those, and then I'll look on YouTube for maybe something's a little longer. But, yeah, that's the whole SEO thing has kind of ruined rid Actually helpful

content. Everybody's figured out how to game it. And, you know, people have been figuring out how to game SEO since the birth of, you know, any any sort of search engine itself. But, like, I, yeah, I feel like half the time now or even, like I I feel like I am not ever finding the results that I'm looking for.

Oh, on a a more positive thing, hey. I'm I'm working on a, A backyard projector setup that's been going really well. Yeah. So we've been doing a we we have this little, like, you know, soffit area where you have, like, a decent amount of space. It's rid. It's over got an overhang.

So alright. What I'm gonna do is I I I'm getting a A mechanical, like, a 120 inch projector screen that will come down there. And right now, we've just been using what's essentially, like, a $15, rid. Essentially, a white sheet that I ordered off of Amazon via projector screen. Yeah. And so that's coming this weekend, and I'm really excited about it. I got this little laser projector, that we talked about in one of the episodes. And then I'm using a Google Home speaker and a Chromecast. So the little rid. The little rig, the little projector is tiny. It's about like a foot by a foot and a half. Then you have the Google Home, and then you connect to Bluetooth. And it's like this nice little Mobile setup, then now the projector screen's not going to be mobile, obviously, but it it's, like, been the most pleasant thing ever to have a little projector And a little computer setup outside you can, you know, put on a movie or something and hang out outside in the evenings, and and we've just been loving that. That's awesome. Does it I've always thought about that, but the

Getting dark enough early enough is never like like, right now, and we're sitting in August 15th, and it's Starting to get a little darker earlier, but, like, I would work outside until, like, 9:15, and then then it would be dark enough to watch it. And then, like, As soon you get into September, October, it starts getting dark at, like, 5:30, but then it's too cold to be outside. Do you does it get darker?

The projector's pretty good lumen, so it's it's pretty bright. And it's like a laser projector, and we keep it pretty close to the thing.

It doesn't have to be pitch dark by any means, and it it's like we can start watching at maybe, like, 8 o'clock, which is good. The kids go down at 7, rid. 30. And then from 7:30 to 8, it's, like, kind of a nonstop of the kids coming downstairs and needing something and whatever. So by the time that we're even able to watch something, rid. It's fine. And we thought about getting a TV for out there because it's like, oh, that'd be nice to watch a college football or something out there, and, it just had no place to store it. You know, our our neighbors, like, had one that they could, like, fold up. Like, you see sometimes these, like, people rig up TVs. They can fold up in an under air. Our our it's just, like, no room for that. And we had a window right there too, so it's not like I could do a permanent install. If there is no window, it would have been, like, the perfect place for a permanent install, but, that's why we want projector screen. And I think the new screen's gonna make a big difference too because the, thinness of the sheet is really a bummer right now. We also I'm working on a treehouse too for the kids. There's like a half finished treehouse. I gotta, I gotta dig a hole for the post, and I gotta concrete it. That's, like, my big locker right now. I have the post. I know what I wanna do for it, and it's like, alright. Now I just gotta find the time to dig a hole and do the concreting post thing. Or we did, like, pea gravel For Post it out, the deck that we built, it worked really well instead of concrete.

So maybe I'll do pea gravel just to avoid Have the concrete. Seen the,

like, the foam, rid stuff? So No. What a lot of people are doing now for for fence posts and and things like that is they dig the hole, And then you put the post in, and then you get this bag of, like, 2 p 2 parts. And you break the bag, swoosh it around, rid And then pour it in, and it foams out. And, like, apparently, it's, like, rock solid after a couple hours or something like that. And, like, for For something like a treehouse Woah. Like, who who knows? Like, this product's only been around for probably 5 years. So who knows what it's gonna be like in rid In 50 years and for a fence, I probably would care. But for a treehouse, like, that foam's gonna outlast your

Kids using a tree house. Yeah. That's actually this looks like a really neat option. I've never seen this before. Yeah. And and it it's only like it would be the the The 4th post because we already have the the other 3 posts dug and concreted into the ground. I mean so it's just for 1 post here. So even if it's not, like, perfect, that's not a huge deal.

I was even considering not concreting it. I was like, I can't wanna cheap out on it. So Plus, Like, you then you don't have, like, a if you ever do wanna take it out, you don't have this, like, big concrete puck in the ground that you you can't move. Right? Like, you rid Probably chip it away. I guess that's where the pea gravel would be useful to. I kind of wish that I so I went down this route doing the deck rid At our beach, which is, I was like, okay. I can either pour concrete.

And I forgot about this foam stuff. And I end up using this thing called screw piles, and they screw 4 feet into the ground below the frost level because in Canada you have to worry about Going deep enough. Otherwise, it just heaves up when the ground freezes.

I mean, they worked really well. Like, I you put a mat you put a by 4 on it as like a big lever, and you basically just screw this thing into the ground. Oh, I was wondering how you got it into the ground.

Yeah. It was it was nuts. Like, it It was pretty tricky, but luckily, like, we're on sand. So it was not as hard as some people. I think a lot of people hit roots or rocks.

Oh, yeah. So I probably wouldn't Wouldn't try that if you have a rocky area, but it's all sand here. It's gonna be root city. Our entire backyard is roots. We have, like, we have, like,

7 30 plus foot trees on our property, which is, like, not large, mind you. It's a a a house in a city, so we just, You know, our entire our entire lot is filled with these massive old trees. We're in a a super old neighborhood in in Denver, and this is like It's it's gonna be a nightmare for roots, but, the good news is that we had enough trees that I was able to do a Ninja Warrior course where we did, like, a Black line between 2 trees, and it's like 50 feet long. And the kids have been loving it. And so far, it's been really good. I have not Or I have I've been the only one to complete the course, which, which is my my son is not happy about that because he really wants to complete it, but he gets stuck on one spot each time. Although for me, it's hard because I weigh so much that I pull it down too far. So I have to, like,

rid Be like a total monkey upside down on this thing, but, yeah, it it's been a lot of fun for the whole family. We'll just say that. That, rid Man, that looks so good. I my kids have been asking about it. We went to a friend's house and they had it, and we've got the trees in our backyard that we could put it on. And,

I've been thinking about it for for quite a while now. It looks really fun. We got ours at Costco. It's basically just a slack line with loops in it, and then the loops have these different obstacles, and you can buy and expand it. We're gonna get some more because the kids have been liking us. So it's like now they have, like, a full like, we don't have Room for a playground in the backyard, so now we have, essentially, like, something they can hang on and do gymnastics on or whatever, and it's, Yeah. It's pretty sweet. That's cool. I didn't realize maybe Costco had them. I was just looking on on Amazon for them

to check out our local Costco.

Yeah. Ours is from Costco, and, it was it was a good price on Costco.

And you you'll see them all over

Neighborhoods in here, any house that has kids, a lot of people have them because there's a lot of trees here. Beauty. I did a little bit of Internet work here up at the cottage, which is kind of fun. So I have rid A Unify Dream Machine up here, and I have a PoE switch rid And a little cloud key, which will run security cameras and and whatnot.

And I had always had an outdoor access point, rid that I brought near my office, which is kinda like not towards the water.

And it it worked great, but I was like, rid I I don't have the best Internet of Starlink. It's it's way better than it was, but I need every little drop of juice I can from the Internet. So I rid I ran a just an Ethernet line across the snow in the winter, and then I, like, tacked it up rid recently, and then I was like, I'm going to do this properly.

So I ran a I put that access point on the front of the house so that the When you're down at the dock, you can get Internet and not because, like, oh, you have to be Instagramming when you're looking at the lake, but because rid If you want to be able to like like, I'll use my Apple Watch, and I'll, like, I'll do the walkie talkie to my wife or the sprinkler controller. That was the big one is The sprinkler controller would go in and out of Wi Fi range, and then I couldn't always access it when I wasn't there.

So that was kind of annoying. So I, like, I I moved in, put it to the front of the cottage, and I'm not lying. Like, I paddled, like, probably, I I don't know. Three quarters of a kilometer out into the lake, and I could still get Wi Fi out there.

So I was like, That is awesome. The lake might even be able to get share Wi Fi with me now, which is which is really cool.

So I did that, and then I also ran, 2 hardwired Ethernet, like cat 6 direct burial rated.

Rid I I ran them in all the way to my office, and now I have properly wired Internet that I I ran too because How deep do you have to dig? There's low voltage has no code around that type of thing.

So it's really Like when I did the sprinkler system, there's no code around that either, but they always said like 18 inches or something. But with this, I just went rid I think maybe you want a foot down. I also put it in some irrigation tube. It's rated for literally direct burial, meaning you can rid You can leave it outside. You can put it in the in the ground. But we have a couple times I've had Ethernet cables just laying out here, and a chipmunk will come chew through it. Rid. So and I know that for I know there's chipmunks living under my office.

So I I put it in like a irrigation tube, And I I ran that in the ground, and then I ran the the wires through that. So it's kind of like double double backup. How do you trench that kind of thing? Do you just

rid You do it by hand? You just take a shovel and and go go nuts? Yeah. When I did the sprinklers, I rented,

like, a rid French digger from Home Depot.

Massive thing, and it is amazing because we have tons of roots out there as well. Just chewed through them. Rid. But I was like I I hadn't I left it for, like, 2 weeks. I was like, I don't feel like digging a a trench. That's like one of the worst things ever. But I just I put my watch on. I was like, I bet I can do it in 10 minutes. I did it in 6 minutes because, again, the the soil here is so sandy. Wow. And it's just

rid. It just the shovel goes in like butter. At home, it's awful. Like, like planting a tree. I we did the the little the little circuit set that I got off of Amazon, we talked about in one of our sick picks. Our kids made our their very 1st circuit, the electronics kit, And, we we got our kids making their very 1st circuit. They were, like, really, really stoked on it. Brooklyn made a bracelet out of some of the jumper cables, which is sweet. Well, some of the patch cables. But, yeah, these these little electronic kits, if you go to Amazon and and you look up, like, electronic kits or something like that, rid. Man, like a little breadboard and some LEDs and stuff, it was well worth it. If you have kids and you're looking for, like, a fun little experiment project, our kids went nuts rid. The moment that we plugged it in and the lights that they put in to the breadboard, like, lit up, they were just, like, so stoked.

We got a buzzer working that worked when you push a button. We got, like, you know, a dimmer, knob with an attenuator and stuff, and, they

rid. They just had so much fun. That's really cool because I was wondering, like, what can you do with that kit? But that makes sense is that it's you turn lights on and off. It's buttons, dimmers, knobs,

and you'd basically just pipe in and out. It let me say, it got old after, like Okay. 30 minutes. But least they understand how it works. Yeah. You you just plug it in USB, and then we were talking the whole time about the flow of it and everything like that. And it was like, alright. We got the the these following things. The kids were being able to put stuff in the breadboard themselves, but, like, rid. The moment that we had kind of exhausted the the 2 or 3 things that we were doing with it, they were, like, rid. Kind of ready to check out. You know how kids are, but, but they had they had a great time with it while we were experimenting. It's hard to get kids,

rid like, excited about that type of stuff. So, like, like, you wanna, like, hey, do this. Like, it's really exciting, but sometimes they're not all that excited. So I always just, like, try to, like, rid Show them. Like, my daughter bought an alarm clock at a yard sale, and the radio wasn't working.

And it, like, tells stories. Like, it's like Beauty and the Beast that tells stories. So was like, alright. Well, look, let's let's crack it open and see what's going on, you know. And and, we opened it up and and we we got another speaker out of an old pair of headphones, and we we rid. Put the 2 wires to the the points on the headphones, and, like, I was like, oh, okay. Like, at least you're understanding how this works. And she was invested in it because rid She wanted her freaking alarm clock to work. Right? So those are always good moments when they actually care about Yeah. The stuff that you're doing. Did you see this Linus tech tips video where they got called out recently on,

like, making a massive amount of mistakes? I put it in the show notes for this episode. I thought this was like an interesting thing. I saw it on Reddit last night,

and I it's funny because I was listening to the Linus I was listening to their podcast At the exact same time as they were talking about their ethics and how they don't do react videos. And then this popped up where

Someone was criticizing the ethics, but I didn't watch it. What what's it all about? Well, you know what? I I, at first, almost didn't even wanna watch it because I was like, you know, I kinda hate drama stuff, And, this this guy was kind of I thought he was being a bit, you know, a bit picky with some of their mistakes, But then as it goes on, they make some pretty significant mistakes. Not only that, but they did did some, like, really bad things. Like, somebody had given them, like, a prototype to test, And then they used, like, a a completely ill fitting, GPU, or it might have been a GPU. I forget what it was. It was like a cooler for something and probably a rid and they use, like, the wrong one on it, and then one that wasn't meant to be used on it Oh, shit. And then gave this thing a negative review because of it Being and saying, oh, it didn't work. Well, it didn't work because it wasn't even the right one. And then they had this essentially, this this prototype of somebody somebody's That is yet to hit market Yeah. That they didn't test correctly in the 1st place, and they said, do not buy this thing, like, very boldly.

And then they sold They auctioned off the prototype even though the person who'd made the prototype had asked for it back several times, and it was in their contract saying that they would get it back. So now they they sold these people's, like, only prototype of the thing they had, and it was like, such a, you know, I I hate drama like this, but, like, man, rid. Yeah. They it's they need to they need to get their quality control in check. I bet that

is really tricky running such a massive YouTube company because you're you're at the whims of the algorithm, and you have to constantly crank out content.

Like a new video every single day, you know, and at some point, something's got to break, you know? Yeah. Totally. I have to watch this.

That's a shame. It was disappointing because I I was really, like, halfway through the video. I was like, I you know, I don't I don't you know, I think some of these things could be Attributed to, you know, just small mistakes. And then once you start to get, like, really the negligent stuff, you're like,

I wish they didn't I wish they didn't do that. Yeah. Rid. Yeah. That's that's a tricky thing. I I like, I find that sometimes too about, like, reviewers and sometimes even us. We're like, we get to talk about rid A hosting provider or, like, some service that we used. And, like, obviously, we can say what we think about it and and whatnot, but, like, rid. There's, like, people that worked hard on it, and maybe you are not totally understanding.

Maybe you're holding it wrong. You know? Yeah. Yeah. That's I I don't I don't I don't know if I would wanna be in that space full time and just reviewing stuff. You know? What else is going on? I rewired a kid's ATV, Which is wild.

I a couple like about a year and a half ago, I saw like, I'm a bit of a Facebook Marketplace junkie.

And there's like there's like little a 110 cc ATV, which is it's it's pretty fast. 110 cc is pretty fast, but it's just like a kid's ATV. Right? And they were selling it for, like, $50 because one of their kids had taken scissors and cut every single wire On the entire ATV. And, like, it was a little bit older. The tires are starting to go on it. And the guy was just like like basket case. I'm just get this thing out of here, you know. So I was like, alright. I'll I'll do it because most of these tiny little ATVs are all Running on the exact same platform, and you can go. I went on AliExpress, and I bought an entire wiring harness, keys, Safeties, spark plugs, stator, all of the computers that come along with it, rid Voltage regulator on like, for $32 shipped to my door.

So I just swapped the whole thing.

Rid And the thing I'm not lying. The thing fired right up. And I was like, oh my gosh.

Amazing. Like, this is so cool. I was ripping around the yard on it. It's tiny. Like, I look like I'm playing Mario Kart. It's really fun. So, like, we started taking the plastics off. We're gonna paint it. And then, like, I I was ripping around on it some more, and rid I blew the stator out on, and I think so now I I had to spend an entire evening debugging why there was no spark, and I gotta fix that. Yeah. But it it was a pretty fun little project as well. I love that. I love seeing your your projects like that. That's so amazing.

Rid I the small engine stuff is such a love hate for me because small engines are especially the, like, pieces of clapped out crap I'm buying, rid They're always broken. You know, there's always something going on with it, and it's it's very fun when you can fix them. But it's also very frustrating, like, rid having to debug something an entire evening and getting

absolutely nowhere. Yeah. Right? Well, hey. I think we both know a little bit something about debugging something all evening and getting Absolutely nowhere.

That's Yeah. Part of our, part of the whole gig here we got going on.

What, are you rid. What are you watching on, on the, you know, movies, TV, anything like that? Yeah. We my wife and I

just finished Two really good documentary series. 1 on tennis

and 1 on golf. Yeah. The tennis one was great. Okay. We didn't do the golf one, but the tennis one was great. Yeah.

It's so good. Like, I I I don't care all about sports, let alone tennis.

But, like, it was so, like, nicely put and, like, I got really hooked on it and into all the different characters and And whatnot. So Yeah. That one was was fantastic. I was kinda sad when it was over.

And then we watched the golf one, which is called full swing.

And this was really cool because they went through every episode. They kind of featured a different player.

Rid and, like, I was surprised at how, like, cool these players were. And and just, like, they all rent a house and, like, rid It's like they play from Thursday to Sunday sometimes, and then they have to, like, work out and, like And then there was this other thing where there's this LivGulf from,

UAE. Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia,

coming in, and then, like, We watched that, and then, like, a week later, my dad's like, oh, they merged with PGA Tour. And I was like, this is wild that like, it's crazy that this, like, new rid. Thing came in and, like, this old boys club of PGA Tour, which I think makes a lot of money, was like, Alright. We'll just start paying people 1,000,000 of dollars more and and whatnot. It it was such a good

such a good series. Okay. So I want rid. You to take that knowledge that you liked both of those and apply it to I was telling you to watch, before Drive to Survive, the Formula 1, The race car driving, show. So the reason why those 2 shows exist are because of the success of Drive to Survive. Really? So they did Drive to Survive.

That production team, the same production team that did Drive to Survive then did those other 2. So if you like those 2, Drive to Survive is the best one of the 3, and I don't care or I did not care about rid Formula 1 before watching this, and now I actually do care about Formula 1. But in the same way, you get so wrapped up in the people.

The people are all fascinating. The locations, they're going to all these ritzy events, and, it's like big time time people and, just man, Drive to Survive is is the the pinnacle of that style of show by those same people, and it's it's very, very good. So if you like those 2, man, put on drivers for 5 even if you don't care about racing. It's the same type of deal.

We can't bring ourselves to watch the golf one just because I really sincerely don't care about golf that much. Oh, man. Me neither. But it's so good. Tennis one was great.

Yeah. Like, I don't care about any sports at all, like 0, and I was rid. So pinned to both of them. Well, then you will like Drive to Survive because it's the best of best of that style. The thing is, like, I I like, I'll watch anything that looks weird rid on Netflix, but my wife will be like, no.

No.

No. You know? Like and only rid. Will she watch something weird once Scott has recommended it? So, I'm coming back strapped with this information because Scott has has, like, a 100% track record in our house of recommending good shows.

So

I I have a good taste. I gotta tell you, man. I got good taste. Rid. And and, I I watched the 1st season of Drive to Survive by myself.

And then when I started watching the 2nd season, it was just on around the house, and then Courtney kinda got like, she had no interest in it. And then in, like, the glimpses of it that she had, She's like, oh, no. Wait. I actually really like this, and then she ended up watching the whole 1st season on her own by herself, and and then we've been hooked ever since. So, It's it's it's really super good. I I'm in a similar situation where I'm always trying to get Courtney to watch something. I have, like, I I have, like, a big list of movies that I wanna see. And, unfortunately, like, most of them are going to be, like, Violent or horror movies are just too, too not, not friendly, not anything she wants to watch. So it's like anytime we get into the situation, What do we what do we wanna watch? I was like, well, I have this big old list of movies that are available on our streaming service, but, unfortunately, I don't think you're gonna wanna see a literal single one of them. So I've been having to to slowly get through that on my own, which is fine.

Rid but yeah. No. The those are all great. You know? I feel like we've just been watching a lot of, like, yeah, whatever pops up. We watch the There's a Johnny Manziel untold Johnny Manziel. He was, like, a college football guy. That was pretty decent, but, you know, some of these things are It just we've been getting to a state more often than not where we are, like, looking to find something to watch and can't find anything. We don't wanna start in, like, We don't watch a lot of sitcoms or stuff like that. You know? So it's not like we're we're not gonna sit down and watch the the same show every week or something like. Rid But, yeah, I've I've been finding the, media choices to be a little sparse these days. Me too. Like, we find ourselves not watching

ready. TV most nights. Like, usually in the evening, my wife will read a book, work on some sewing stuff. I'll rid. Be tinkering on some sort of project around the house. And then usually, like, Thursday or Friday night, we'll we'll watch a couple things while we rid Have some dinner. I I I it's so funny. Like, you literally have everything. I I just think back to when I went to somebody's house and they had rid satellite TV and thinking, wow, literally so much to watch. And, like, now we probably have 10 times that amount of content on demand ready. Whenever you want. And there's literally nothing like we were really into the, like, like drug rid Smuggling documentaries for a while, but I I feel like I've watched, like, 9 of those. I I think I've seen it. Coking Cowboys and Yeah. That was, like, the best one. Coking Cowboys was the Very best one. Yeah. We're in 2. Hear you about that. Amazing Race Canada is something we watch every single time, which is it's really funny because it's like rid Like the Walmart version of Amazing Race where they just go to Winnipeg, and they're all on the same flight. There's only 1 flight to Winnipeg. You know?

Rid. It's it's good. We really like it. We, we've been just watching I mean, we always watch just the the competition reality show, so, like, MasterChef and, the top the not not top model, whatever the designer one the fashion designer one is Oh, yeah. Yeah. On Bravo. Yeah.

Rid Yeah. We watch all those in Top Chef, and and and that's still our our bread and butter. We do our little competition game, which I I've been considering building a little app for you know, do I wanna build a little app for our reality TV watching competition game that Courtney and I play? But I put it in a spreadsheet, and it has burned me now a few times because I made the spreadsheet because she was always saying, I know my memories better than yours.

Therefore, like, when we're revisiting who won previous season, she was always like, that person was my pick, and they won. And I would say, no. They're not. That person was my pick, And and they won. Yes. I know.

And, we've now had to go check the we've had to check the back records now twice.

And both times, she has been completely a 100% correct, and I've been totally wrong. And now I'm, like, just, like, oh, man, a a month is my is my memory really that bad? I can't Even recall something from last year. It's great.

So move into some sick picks now? Yeah. Let's let's, let's get into it. Sick picks. This is the part of the show where we talk about things that we find to be sick, things that we are, just really into. And by the way, if this is your 1st episode, we are usually talking about Computer programming.

Sometimes it's just interesting to get into, you know, what else is going on in our lives because we're all multifaceted people. Rid. Wes, do you have a sick pick for us today? I do. Do you remember if I sick picked the steam cleaner? I I don't think you have. Okay. But But I'm interested in hearing about your steam cleaner sick pick given my situation.

We got a steam cleaner rid for our house, which is amazing. So it plugs into the wall, and then you put water in it. Rid. Out the other end comes just this, like, super high pressure steam that has a bunch of different nozzles, and you can clean some stuff. So, like, we bought it because, rid like, at the cottage, when we open it up after the summer, you get, like like, flies, sometimes. And, like, the flies rid. Poop on the window sills and leave these little, like, black marks.

I don't know if you've ever seen that, but that's just something that happens in the country or we get ladybugs in here. So, like, you always rid scrub that off. And, the track to the to the sliding door gets sand in it from people's sandy feet, and we're like, You know what? Let's get Yeah. A steam cleaner. And we've got the steam cleaner, and, man, this thing cleans literally everything. Like, if you've ever had, Like, baked on anything or, like, a really dirty windowsill or the other thing, unfortunately, I found is I tried it on a little bit of grout, And we realized we have white grout in our kitchen and not Bro. Very dark grout.

So now, unfortunately tell you about that. Yeah. I at our at our last house, our kitchen had, like, really thick really wide grout, And we lived there for a while, and I same thing. I never knew it was bright white. I always just figured it was this, like, off white color, And then I did baking soda out with, like, one of the, you know, the attached to the drill brushes, and it was, like, the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. I was like, Holy cow. This is not what I thought it was. And, I yeah. I would, like man, that is a a rude awakening when you're, like, oh, wait. This is actually just very dirty.

Rid Yeah.

And when we bought our our first house, they had just they literally painted over the grout to make it look white. And we had to spend hours chipping off the paint to get back the regular growth. It's like it was clearly just a slap on job. But this so this little Steam cleaner thing is is fantastic for getting into hard to reach places, but also like stuff that just doesn't come off with soap and water or and you can't get a you can't necessarily get a pressure wash pressure washer in the house. You know? Yeah.

We got a pressure washer recently and, for outside, like a big electric one. Oh, yeah. One of the re Ryobi one that you can get at Costco, I think. And, yeah, that rules. I've been pressure washing everything. I've been totally obsessed with it. I was pressure washing my shoes. I was pressure washing,

just Anything I could possibly win. Doing your shoes is is such a good a good trick. Like, I have pressure washed my shoes many times, and it's way better than Throwing it in the washing machine.

Oh, yeah. Such a picture. My, like, lawn mowing shoes that are all green and nasty, and it's like I pressure washed them, and they looked rid Brand new. The soles were bright white. The the suede on them was incredible, blue and whatever. I was just like, these these things have been totally revised.

Rid. I'm gonna sick pick a book, a kid's book, and, you know, there's a band I really liked for a long time. They broke up a while ago called The Matches. Have you heard of the matches, Wes? No. They're like straight punk, pop punk.

You know, would have been that of that era. I I saw the matches open up for a band called Zebrahead, And it was, like, one of their 1st tours, and it was, like, really, really super dope.

And I've seen them in concert a whole ton of times, but they broke up a long time ago at this point. Either way, the singer is, like, the most interesting dude on the planet where he just is always doing different things.

And he recently got into writing kids' books, And he had done a couple of kid the here's actually the best part. His kids are about the same age as our kids, so the age of the books that he's writing for kids, It's, like, perfect.

Every book he releases is, like, the perfect age for my kids because he's writing it essentially for his own kids.

And so he did A couple of, you know, those bigger books that are good for little kids that we had gotten.

And more recently, he did a It's like a a chapter comic book, a a chapter visual novel, and it's, like, perfect for you know, our son is six 6 to 9 maybe is the, the age range for this thing, maybe even up to 11. I thought this was really interesting. My son can't really read it yet even though he is pretty good at reading, But it's called The 1st Cat in Space Ate Pizza. If you've ever heard of the matches and you were a fan, rid. Just go and buy this book. It's cheap. It's $12 in a hardcover on Amazon, and, it it's very good. My son loves it. We read A couple chapters of it every night, and it's it's a visual novel. It's about a cat in space. And there's a a part 2 coming out in October, and it's long too. It's, you know, rid. A a decent decent chapter book, 320 pages.

But it's a a visual novel about a cat in space with pizza. And, it's a lot of fun. So if you have kids, you think they might like this, give this book a a a try. I think it was a a really good pick. And, you know, this is one of those guys that I I've just like his work so much that I'll support anything he does.

So yeah. Yeah. Check it out. Beautiful. Rid Alright. Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. Hopefully, you enjoyed this. Let us know. Tweet us at syntaxfm, and we will catch you later.

Peace.

Peace. Head on over to syntax.fm for a full archive of all of our shows, rid. And don't forget to subscribe in your podcast player or drop a review if you like this show.