Insulation, Custom Hats and Watermelon Pickles

This is episode 255 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to bring you the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Craig Williams. Welcome to the show. We're so glad you guys could join us tonight. Uh, back in the studio, sans Kevin. So some of you might be excited about that. But we have some really cool guests in the house, some familiar faces and some new faces. We got Steve Spoon from Victory Insulation, and we got— I want to make sure, do I say your name right? Tara Daley?

That's correct.

All right, Tara Daley from Design Works. How you guys doing?

Good, good.

Yeah? Anything new going on in the world for you?

Man, you know, we are just in our prime season, right? So Why everybody sweating at home?

That's right.

My good season.

Right? That's right. You're making igloos for people. Absolutely.

That— but, but, and again, I wanna say thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Because there's nothing better than waking up one morning and you open up Facebook and the first thing it says is Steve was right.

Yeah.

I mean, that is the best. I mean, that's just like, you know, icing on the cake.

Well, yeah. I mean, well, and that's, that is part of the show. I mean, like, a lot of people don't realize that, like, stuff like that comes up organically all the time because people ask us, Even, even, like, on the show, people who don't know, like, say, about insulation or air conditioning or plumbing or real estate agents or brokers or, you know, whatever it is, like, they'll, they'll ask us about that kind of stuff all the time, and we'll be like, well, this is what my friend told me about that.

Right.

So for, for people that haven't met you before, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start here, and then we'll come over here. People that haven't met you before, tell them a little about who you are and what you do.

So, Steve Spoon, I am a I guess insulation guru. No, I'm not a guru. Um, but I'd rather that—

You got the beard for it though.

I hate the expert word. I hate that word. Um, but we've been doing all types of insulation for going on almost 8 years now. Um, and we specialize in what other people find hard to do, right? Um, I, I've kind of found that niche, right? And, and, uh, I'm starting to get that recognition a little bit. And, and we do foam, fiberglass, wet, dry cellulose, uh, bat-blown fiberglass. So we do a lot of, lot of that. But we do get like calls like Kevin had— his mom had that barndominium built, right? Right. Yeah. And, you know, he asked me all kinds of different questions and everything, and then the builder gave him a sweetheart deal. And I'm like, Kevin, go do the deal. You know, you're not hurting my feelings. What's best for you and your family is what's right to do.

And then later he calls me, he goes, okay, why can't we cool it down?

Right?

So I get a lot of those phone calls now. And, you know, there are some great people out there doing this industry. And then there's, you know, well, I always say like, what, the top 10%?

Right.

And then there's 30 feet of crap, right?

Yeah.

you start to get a reputation of how to fix, how to understand what's going on. And, and that's kinda what we do in a nutshell. And I think I enjoy that part of the job a lot more than I do just, yeah, you need 3 inches of insulation. You need this, that, and the other thing.

Rather than, than just like the, the minutia of it. Yeah. Exactly. Like, like the relationship part of it.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Alright, Terry. So, like, tell us a little bit about what you, who you are and what you do. I feel like Arnold Schwarzenegger in that kindergarten comedy. Who is your daddy and what does he do? The best. That's a whole nother show.

The best at what she does. Let's just put that out there front.

So, um, I'm Tara. I'm the owner of Design Works, and, uh, next month will be 21 years doing this industry. It's really weird to say that.

Did you start at 11?

I did. I absolutely did. Yeah, just blows my mind. I was a prodigy.

Yep.

So we do everything from custom graphics to to whatever you can put that on. So whether it's embroidery, screen printing, engraving, large format printing, pad printing, sublimation, DTG, uh, you said a word that I don't know, which is sublimation.

What, what is sublimation?

It's dyeing fabric.

Oh.

Yeah, so instead of, uh, printing a design on something, you actually dye it into the fabric itself.

Okay, so like, what's, what's the difference between that? What's, what's the difference between that and like printing it?

So printing is typically used with plastisol ink, and screens are burned for screen printing, and you push that ink through the screen onto—

So you see the guys running the stuff over there?

Exactly.

Okay.

Yeah, and so that's layered on top of your substrate, right? And then it has to cure at a certain temperature, and then that's a typical screen printed shirt.

Hence the heat press, right? Gotcha.

Yeah. Okay. So screen printing, if the ink's not heated to like a certain temperature, it will literally stay wet forever. It will 100% never dry.

The ink won't?

Correct.

That's crazy.

So like if you've ever bought a shirt before and you washed it and half of the design like washed off, it was because it wasn't cured.

That's crazy. So what's, what's the perfect temperature for curing ink?

It depends on the ink really. I mean, it could be— okay, because there's different types of ink for what you're printing on, but yeah.

Huh, interesting.

It's $300 and something, but I don't know what it is.

Do you not like have a printer that prints on top of cloth now?

Yeah, so that's called a direct-to-garment, I think is what you're referring to. It looks like a big giant printer, like a desktop printer, and they just feed a shirt through and it'll print like a photograph.

But you don't use that like on a mass production? Somebody doesn't come in like with my logo and do 30 shirts like that.

Oh yeah, no, absolutely not. It would be— it would not be cost efficient whatsoever.

I see.

Screen printing would be the way to go for that.

I gotcha.

Okay, and so do you, do you like own like the machines and all this? That's got, that's got to be like a massive operation.

It's not small.

I've never seen the actual operation, but I've been to her home and all the overflow work is in the machines in her house.

Okay.

I mean, I mean, I started in my living room. Yeah, my formal dining room.

Okay.

Is where I started. And, uh, that's kind of why we're uniquely set up to cater to large and small orders. Kind of what Steve said, like stuff will overflow to my house where our shop has all the large automated equipment.

Okay.

The multi-head embroidery machines, the big automatic carousel, you know, for printing. Um, at the house, I'll have, I have 2 individual embroidery machines. I have a heat press. I have a manual printer in the garage. I have a vinyl cutter. I have a laser. Yep. So I can do smaller orders at the house. Or if, and sometimes too, if there's like a rush and I just need to take some stuff out of the shop and just get it done at 8 o'clock at night, which stinks, but it happens. You know, there's seasons that, you know, you know, are going to be, you're not going to get any sleep. And that's typically baseball season.

So let me just put, accolades where they belong. Um, we did coats when I first started.

Okay.

Because the first cold season we went through, I wanted to put everybody in coats, right? So they'd show up, have the logo, they'd look right, right?

Yeah.

And so I asked all the family members, do you want a coat? And I asked my son at the time, his girlfriend, um, do you think she'd like a coat? And he's like, no, no, no, not her gig, right? So I gave everybody coats. And she's the only one to get one. And she's like, those are really cool. And I'm looking at my son and my son's looking at me and he's like, uh, and I'm looking at him like—

He pooched that one, huh?

I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna beat you. So I look at my wife, my wife is like walmart.com, right? She's, she's looking for a coat, right? So we get a coat. I call Tara and I'm like, Tara, I know, I am so sorry. You know, and, and when I'm generally God bless your soul. I love you so much. You know that. She's probably one of my dearest friends. But when I call her, I'm like, Tara, I love you. I love you. And she's like, what do you want?

What do you need? I got you.

We dropped the coat off. Walmart delivers the coat because it kind of matches what we had. We bring the coat over, and within an hour, my wife is driving back home, and Tara calls me, done. Come get it. I'm like, you don't get that type of service from anybody in this industry that I've ever found. No, except for Kara. I met Tara. I mean, she has just been great for me. I'm to the point now where I just call her up like, I want hats. Yeah. And I hang up and then she calls me back. She's like, no, you don't get off that easy. What do you want? I'm like, I don't know, you dress me.

Just give me something. I need colors. I need numbers. How many? What are we doing?

Well, we were, we were talking before the show. I mean, like, you ought to get some of those Leather Patch ones.

I got to Those are the trend right now.

They're super, they're super cool. Yeah, my guys all love them.

Well, here's the deal. Let's do this. I don't know if this has ever been done on the home show before, but I'm gonna do 2 sleeves of hats, and I want metal koozies engraved, and I want cups.

It's done.

All right.

I'll send you invoice tomorrow. Okay. All right.

I mean, that's— I mean, that's literally how our conversations go. I call her up and I'm like, I need to do something. What do you think? And she just, you're amazing. And the knowledge of product knowledge is just, it just dumbfounds me. I'm like, I need to give giveaways. And she's like, I don't know, what do you think? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And she's like, what do you want to spend? True story, right?

It is true story.

True story.

I mean, because at the end of the day, and at the end of the day, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, at the end of the day, that's for you.

Kev.

Well, I consult with clients all the time too, especially like, um, you know, service industry where you have a lot of employees.

You—

your logo is your logo. Um, you know, you're constantly thinking of things to not only just outfit your, your crew and your staff, but things that you want to, uh, give away that's going to represent your brand. Uh, if you go to home shows or any kind of vendor event where you need to have things that are You know, you want to represent— You want it represented well, something that makes sense for the industry that you're in, and something that's going to be relevant, that someone's not going to just pick up off a table and throw it right in the trash on their way out the door. Yeah, because I mean, that's your budget. So we, you know, at the end of the day, we're

spending your money.

We all have to, like—

and that's kind of like, it's a good— that's a big responsibility, right? Yeah, I know. I had this one client a year ago. I met her and she had had so many things done for her business over the years and has spent hundreds and thousands of dollars on merch. And she was never ever happy with it. It just never turned out the way that in her mind's eye it should look.

Right.

And then I just thought that was the worst thing. And as a small business owner too, I hated hearing that. You know, because everyone's budget conscious no matter what industry you're in.

Yeah, when you spend your money, you want it like, especially in a small business, it needs to count.

Exactly.

You can't just be guessing about what it is that you're spending your money on.

Right, and if this is your company, like you want to be proud to be wearing your name, your logo, your brand. You want to showcase that, and she just never was. And what it all boiled down to it was her previous company, like, they just didn't do the processes correctly. They didn't, like, digitize the logo to stitch a certain way to make it more optimal, you know, to be appeared correctly, or the right shade of colors. Like, that just blows my mind.

Well, one of the things that I, I really love about working with you is that you, you help tease the idea out.

Right?

You're, you're creative to the point where, like, I will say something to the nature, like, I want to do X, Y, and Z, right? Like your logo. Yeah, your logo is very linear, right? And, and if you don't do that right, it doesn't— it, it, it—

the proportion doesn't look right, right?

You know what I'm trying to say, right?

Oh yeah, distorted. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And, and I think that that's what's so great about you know, working with you is you, you tease out in a conversation what that person is trying to accomplish, right? And, and then you take it, you know, and, and you put that finished touch on it, right? And that's—

I mean, look, it's not about the money grab. Like, any companies will take your money and they'll give you, you know, whatever. But I want— like, there's no surprises in anything that we do. We provide proofs on everything that we do.

Yeah.

And you wanna build that relationship. Like, you want them just to come back, you know? And that one client I was talking about from a year ago, when I did her very first order, like, she had tears in her eyes. And I know that sounds really cheesy, but after she spent thousands of dollars over the past however many years and we got it right and she just loved it.

That's awesome. Well, you know, the thing of it is, is like, you've talked me out of shirts. You know, I've come up with thought processes. Like, you know, one of my funny things that I put on the back of my shirt is, are thermal technicians, right? But I've come up with some non-winners on that chain too, right? And, and she's like, no, no, no. So I mean, you know, that— I think that is always a nice thing is, is when I bring you an idea, it's not like looked down upon. I mean, you, you, you, you foster that idea, right? And, and sometimes you're like, no, not the mark. What if? Or what about? And, and that— I think that's what I love about you, is it's, is a creative process of all times, right? I mean, I mean, look at your background.

I mean, what did you go to school for?

Microbiology.

That totally makes sense, right?

Yeah, naturally, this is what I would do.

That's a natural progression for that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Funny story, we're sitting at a networking meeting And this guy comes in. Look at her. Look at her. And this guy is talking about doing blood tests, and he can tell if you have mold in your blood and all this kind of stuff, right? And I'm like, what? Now, dumb old retired cop.

I'm like, that doesn't sound right.

That doesn't sound right, right? I'm sniffing this up, and all I had to do is go, and she's going, bullshit. That's bull. Bull.

Bull.

Bull. Now, and I look at her. She goes. Oh, don't even get me started.

No, no, no.

And I'm like, well, and she goes, I have a degree from A&M microbiology. That's bull. And I'm like, that's bull, you know?

Yeah.

But, you know, I mean, she is so creative. I mean, some of the stuff, like, I didn't come up— I did not come up with a logo. And a mutual friend of ours, um, from, uh, Seinville. Seinville came up with the logo and I wanted it embroidered. And that's how I, I I was introduced to her.

Okay.

And man, we were like thick as thieves.

Instant.

Yeah. I mean, and I think that we both have same value core and I think that's what drew us to each other. But I mean, we've been fast friends for the last, what, 4 or 5 years, something like that. And everything that I've ever dreamed up or thought about branding for my company, you know, she's, she's been very, very, very quick to be able to tell me, yeah, you're on the right path, or whoa, you're going down, you know.

Yeah, who's it for?

What's it for? What's your budget?

Very— and the process is extremely simple for, for most people. And, and I, and I, I, I have friends that I've sent that have walked out and were like, that's the deal right there, because she she gets it, right? And you do everything from create a logo to whatever you want.

To imprinting it.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, from start to finish. Yeah, there's no— you don't— if you want 10 different things, you don't make 10 different phone calls, you just make one.

Yeah. Well, let me ask you this, because this is actually something we've dealt with in our business.

Um, when—

so like most of my guys have a pretty standard look. I mean, we wear like black and gray shirts. And we kind of have like a cowboy look going for most of our guys, but sometimes we have projects where it's like that's not the best attire for something. And so some of my guys have asked me about these long sleeve wicking—

The moisture wicking?

Yeah.

Especially here in Texas.

Yeah.

Good God.

Especially when we're doing like installs and different things like that where they have to be outside for extended periods of time. They're just cooler shirts.

Yes.

and cooler by like temperature-wise. And I've asked a guy that's done some stuff for us in the past and I'm like, hey, what do I do about this? And he's like, well, just find the shirts and bring them to me and then I'll print the thing on them. And I'm like, no, I don't want to find the shirt.

Like, we actually prefer not to do it that way simply because that's when Murphy's Law is going to take over, right? So you provide me the shirts, I have no idea where you got them from, what you paid for them, and that's going to be the moment the heating element goes out or, you know, like something like something, you know. So don't prefer that. Will we do that? Sure, with a disclaimer of, this may not work. If the ceiling falls in the shop on top of your order, we're not responsible type of thing. But no, we would definitely rather provide them.

Okay, so then my question is, how do you go about finding the best material for that client?

Well, for something like that, I order from so many different suppliers. My vendor list is ridiculous, but Over the years, you whittle that down to product and availability and location. So if there's a supplier here in Houston, obviously that's going to be a little bit more desirable because I'll get it the next day. There's no lead time and transit from materials and whatnot. But it's just over time you learn what brands just perform better.

Mm-hmm.

And that's what I will suggest every time.

One of the things that my question would be is, do you kind of like understand your customer to the point with, I think this will work better for you because of what you do?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So perfect example, you know, it's a service industry and they wanted long sleeve shirts for their guys who are working outside, much like what we're talking about here. And they were getting cotton. And I actually talked them into the moisture-wicking shirts because literally they were like a dollar or 2 more. They weren't astronomically more than what they were going to spend anyway. And, um, well, in our— I was just elated.

Those, those kinds of shirts are going to last longer than cotton too, aren't they?

They should. I mean, they're— yeah, I mean, depending on what you're doing, sure. I mean, the cotton shirts are gonna really lose their shape over time.

They're not gonna stand up in a knife fight, obviously.

Yeah. Or a foam, you know, they, they don't last very long.

Everything sticks together.

Nothing really lasts with foam.

I know, right? That's why when I call her home, I need t-shirts. She's like, for workers or for you? Uh, workers. Okay. Yeah, I got you.

Or even if you're talking about like a higher-end brand of material, like if it's Yeti or Adidas or branded Bills, you know, like, you start asking the questions. Okay, so is, is the brand important or is the performance important? How far do you want that to go? Like, does it matter if you're gonna get a Polar Camel instead of a Yeti? If it doesn't, then why spend the money? If you want that and that's the type of clientele that you're giving it to, then yeah, we're gonna go the other direction.

Yeah, but yeah, yeah, like for, for Christmas this year, we got all of our, all of our staff new Pearl Snap shirts with the logo on them, and we bought Wrangler because like, it's Wrangler.

Wrangler.

Like, everyone— I mean, like, it's Texas. People tend to like Wrangler. Like, they tend to be pretty durable, although I have some complaints about some of their newer jeans. Um, the, the, like, the vintage jeans that they have now, have you guys, like, seen? Like, they're like $60 a pair. And are you wearing them right now? I'm wearing them right now. Yeah, that— okay, so here's, here's my issue with them. They are not as durable as the cheaper ones because Are they softer? Oh yeah.

That's why.

And they stretch.

Yeah.

Well, okay, some, some of them stretch.

Right. Well, the ones that I got on do. Yeah. Yeah. But they will like, you will have the proverbial blowout when you don't need one.

Of course.

And it's for, for me, it's been the belt loops. Like the belt loops just come off all the time. And I'm like, what, what the heck, Wrangler? Like I have, I have pairs of my dad's jeans from the '70s that are Wranglers still intact.

But those aren't Wranglers. Those are dungarees.

No, no, no, they're Wranglers. They're Wranglers.

Do you know the difference?

I do.

Okay, well, I threw that out there waiting for you to jump in, right? Instead of just chuckling at me. Chuckle at me all the time.

And here's how I know they're Wranglers is my dad has this really odd habit that he always— he has a, what do you call it? It's like a stitch seam ripper. And he always takes the leather patch off the back of the Wranglers. It's like I have— like, you can see where the—

Where it was.

Where it was. But that's his thing is he doesn't want the leather patch on. Part of that was he was a bulldogger and like that patch could sometimes get hung on the saddle and things like that. But anyway, yeah, I digress. So you had asked me earlier about this thing that I have sitting on the table. I wanted to make sure we get to bring this up. And this is— I'm gonna pull this up to the camera so people can see the— okay, does that show up? Let's see. I'm gonna turn it that way. Nope. There it is. Old South pickled watermelon rind. And you guys have never had this, right?

I've never even heard of it.

Yeah, so this, this is a Southern delicacy. And part of the reason, part of the reason I want to bring this in, I bought a case of these. Yeah, go ahead. And I bought a case of them because you— it used to be you could buy these in grocery stores on a pretty regular basis. It was usually like on the top shelf of like the pickle aisle.

Mm-hmm.

But you just can't find them anymore. So I have to buy them by the case on Amazon, and it usually takes like a week to get them in. The company is still in business, but they're just not selling like in Southern Texas anymore. But my— so my 93-year-old grandmother just passed away 2 weeks ago. And, uh, this was something that she taught me to make as an hors d'oeuvre for when I have guests over. It's a— it's an old Southern recipe and it's super simple, and I wanted to share it with people in honor of her. Um, so what you do is you, you take one of those and you wrap it in bacon and then you cook it.

Well, everything starts out great with bacon.

So, but, but here's— okay, so like what, what people don't realize is, is it says pickled it's super, super sweet. It's like candy. And so you use thin bacon so that it cooks really quickly, but the sugar in the pickle caramelizes around the bacon and it creates like just this nugget of just deliciousness. We used to, when we had the catering company, we had a chuckwagon catering company and there was a restaurant in downtown Houston that used to hire us for rodeo week. They would bring the chuck wagon down and we'd do like cowboy biscuits and stuff, and they always wanted us to make these because they knew that we were the ones that brought this recipe to them. And Chef Colin, who's actually with Wolf Appliances now,

was always telling me, he's like, man, we really need to figure out like a more intricate dish to do with this kind of thing. He goes, but like, I don't know how to make it any better than it already is.

It's—

he goes, it's, it's just the best thing you've ever put in your mouth. And it really is. If you've never had it, it is the most delicious thing. Like, and if you make it and you set it out, don't tell anybody what it is, and they walk in and they see it, they'll see the bacon and, and, and they'll be like, what is that? I was like, I, I'll tell you after you try it. And then they try it and they go, what is that? It's amazing. It's like watermelon rind. It'll blow their mind. Every time. And I actually did a bit on a— I was on a cooking show.

I'm thinking about wrapping a quail in that.

Oh, it's—

Like coating a quail with that and then wrapping it with bacon and then putting a hot pepper in it.

Yeah.

That just sounds like all kinds of numminess.

I did that exact thing. I did that exact thing with dove.

That's what I just said, a dove.

You said quail.

Oh, well, quail.

I'm sorry.

But I'm thinking the same, you know, same concept. Same line, right?

Oh yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Can you imagine?

I'm hungry right now.

Yeah, it's so good. So, so, so good. So I wanted everyone— it's such a simple recipe. I will tell you one of the tricks to do it to get the bacon to stay is just to cook it. What you do is you take a bowl of water and you soak toothpicks in the water, and then you put the toothpicks through the bacon and the watermelon rind. That way the toothpick doesn't catch on fire in the oven.

That makes sense.

So you can— or you can put it on the grill, but you just got to soak them in water for like 10 minutes. Um, and it'll— but anyway, that was, that was a recipe she taught me when I was a kid, and it's to this day, it's one of my family's absolute favorites. So—

That's amazing.

Hope everybody, uh, can try that one out. Although, like, good luck, because like, I think for— I think I bought 4, 4, 4 of these cost me like $30. Yeah, I mean, like, they're, they're hard to find. But like, I'm telling you, it's worth it.

So how long is that case going to last you?

But at the end of the day, does it really make a difference?

I guess not.

Oh, there you go.

Kevin, if you're out there, we're playing a drinking game with you at the end of the day. So cheers, Steve. Which, by the way, you never got her her bottle of water. He's going to—

Thanks, Steve.

That's right.

So we also talked before the show. Steve was trying to pick a fight between us about appliances.

Yes.

And you had some thoughts. I know you actually haven't listened to the debate, so I don't want you to come in cold. So would it be helpful to you Because I know we were talking about this before. Would it be helpful to you if I read the definition?

No.

No?

Okay.

Is that the—

No, and I'm going to say no just because I already have a preconceived—

Is this the designer or the microbiologist?

I don't— I think it's just the stubbornness.

The stubbornness of it?

I think it's just the opinionated side coming out.

You have no idea. Here we go.

Okay, so, so, so, so give it to me. Like, because you, you already know where my position is, and my position is, is, is really just, does it fall underneath the definition? And if so, then I'm fine with it being an appliance. You're not okay with that?

No, I, I honestly would look at it at a case-by-case basis. So are we talking about— let's go back to the sinks. Like, we were talking about sinks earlier, whether a sink was an appliance.

This is why I asked if you wanted to know the definition.

Yeah, no.

Because that's my position, is I'm just gonna fall back to the definition.

I don't care about the definition, 'cause I already have a definition up here.

See, and this is my problem. This is my exact problem with Kevin. He's like, I don't care about the definition. I'm like, okay, definitions matter, right? I mean, as a microbiologist, that has to mean something to you.

It does.

Right?

Yeah.

So why not— why don't you wanna know the definition?

Folks, this is 2 Aggies having it out.

Okay, so this is my— okay, a sink. Sure, a kitchen sink with a garbage disposal attached to it, that's an appliance.

This is what I hear every time.

Because it's working, right? Like, it's doing— it's working for you. A bathroom sink doesn't have anything attached to it. It is just a sink. But it is a tool. It's a tool.

But it doesn't work for you. It's a tool. That's not what I asked.

But that's my answer.

Does it drain water?

It's a tool. Yeah, it's all working for you, but it's a tool.

So the definition is?

Well, so, okay, so let's, let's, let's use, let's use your logic here. It's a tool. Okay, so, so a sink and a hammer are essentially the same thing?

Yes.

How so? I can't pick up a sink and whack anything with it. No, but it doesn't, it doesn't actually do anything.

But it does.

Okay, so what does it do?

Well, it retains water. It drains water. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. So does my dishwasher, and so does my washing machine.

Your washing machine is hooked up to electricity. It has an agitator. Okay.

But this is my problem. Everybody always falls back on electricity. Why? That, that's, that's my problem with it, is like, why does everybody fall back to electricity?

Is it because when appliances were created that they were created with electricity?

But they weren't. That's okay. This, this is my exact example. There were washing machines that were hand-cranked. That's an appliance. Even though it was hand-cranked, it was still considered a modern, convenient appliance for the home. You hand-cranked that washing machine and it washed the clothes for you.

Did they call them appliance?

Yeah. Okay.

I wasn't in.

I mean, I mean, you weren't around in 1912.

The evolution went from hand crank to gasoline.

Right.

Well, yeah, that's true. Okay, so like in like ice cream makers, I mean, like the big evolution of ice cream makers that has got an electric motor rather than a hand crank motor. Oh yeah, it's still an ice cream maker. I— but this, this is— but again, this is why I think definition— but like, this, this is also like the fight that we're having in our culture, right? Like, what, what, what is a man? What is a woman? That was like the biggest documentary of 2021.

Oh dear God.

And, and like, but like, that's, that's the whole point is like—

Well, here's, here's the thing of it, and, and I, and I know I exactly what both of you are saying is the fact that as society progresses People want to change the definition, right?

Right.

Scoot up so people can hear you a little bit.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, you're good.

Well, I moved.

I got her. No, you got her water. Thank you.

Apologize. I think that's—

at the end of the day, it was a really nice thing to do.

Indeed.

Damn, you're killing me, Stahl. You're gonna have to hire me an Uber by the time I get out of here. Drink. Oh, thank you. Yep. So You know, and, and I agree, but, but I think that that is the problem, is as society has evolved, they want to change the definition of what things are, right? And, and I think that that goes back to everything, right?

Yes.

To what an appliance is and/or to what a man, woman, or child is, right? Right. So I, I think, I think that the default here is in the beginning it was whatever did something for you, created a service for you. Like, it drains water, it holds water, therefore it does something.

Right?

So the original definition is this is an appliance.

Well, okay. So it's, it's a device or piece of equipment designed to perform a specific task, typically a domestic one.

Well, I mean, now society has evolved. So now the thought process is, is if you, if you have an appliance, is something powered or empowered to create convenience for you.

Yeah.

Right? So that's where she went immediately, electricity, right?

Yeah.

Because that's the base, right?

Well, how about this? How about like, uh, back when people used to have ice boxes, like a literal just block of ice that wasn't plugged into anything?

Yeah, it was a cooler basically.

Exactly. Yeah, it wasn't an appliance back then.

Yes, it was.

Was it though?

Did it do a service?

Kept food cool. That's right.

That's what I'm saying. Like, so how do you go from like having a block of ice in a box to now it being like a refrigerator freezer?

Because it's run by electricity instead of the deal. But the difference is it's, it's still doing the—

on par.

Yeah, on par.

Maybe we need to look up the definition of a tool because I keep going back to that. Like, things are just—

I know a lot of people who are tools, but that's not—

you know, we might see some pictures of people is the problem.

Every day.

Well, all right, so at the end of the day, right? Okay, so, so this, this actually makes a very, a very clear distinction, I think. Um, so the, uh, anyway, the definition of a tool is a device or implement, especially one held in the hand, used to carry out a particular function. So I think I think the distinction there is that tool is generally held in the hand. I'm just gonna put the camera on you because I like the face that you're making right now.

I'm just— what's the second line of that definition? I just feel like there's more to it, you know what I mean?

But the second definition is a distinct design in the tooling of a book.

Yeah, that's not where I was going.

It's not helpful, but like, that is tooling, you know, like in leatherwork and different things.

Absolutely.

That makes a lot of sense to me. Um, anyway, I don't know.

Nathan tells me all the time that I, I make up my own words.

Oh, I thought he— that's not where I thought where it was going. I was like, holy mackerel, poor Nathan.

He's like, is that even a word? I'm like, yeah. I don't think so.

Like, one of the very smartest guys you ever want to meet, by the way.

Oh yeah?

Oh yeah.

You want to build a rock crawler from nothing? Your guy.

I love building stuff from nothing.

He's like my own personal in-house Tech support, like literally he could if he cannot fix it. It's just it's it's dead.

It's done.

It's gone.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's scrap.

What you you you're in a rush deal and and somebody has to set up the the laser printer or the engraver, right? You know, poor Nathan come walking in the door and he's like, okay, I'll do it.

You know, he's an engineer for heavy lift and transport company.

Okay.

And so oh.

I'm telling you, dude is sharper than a tack. It's scary smart.

When he comes home, I'm like, can you help me with this?

Can you say the name of the company?

Is it— Sarens.

Sarens. Okay. Like, what kind of stuff do they transport?

So they build like levee crossings, move bridges.

Oh, wow.

Like big, big stuff.

Yes. Yeah.

Wow.

Like the amount of weight that they hand— I can't even— I have no concept of it. I just can't even wrap my head around that.

Yeah. So like, I had a, I had a client over by the airport, uh, a few years back, and it was this massive warehouse. I think the ceiling in the, in the thing was probably 50, 70 feet, and the whole business was building custom I-beams. And like, he, you know, he usually had like 50, 60 guys on the floor.

Yep.

And in the front office, supporting everything that was going on in the warehouse. And I talked to him one day, I was like, dude, you're just building I-beams. How are you operating? Because I saw their inventory, it wasn't much.

Right.

And I was like, how does this work? And he goes, listen, man, a custom I-beam, like a custom I-beam, because there's standard ones apparently, and then there's custom ones. And he's like, usually they run for about $1 million. I was like, holy crap.

Yeah.

Like, yeah, I can understand how you run a business like this. You, you need to move like 4 I-beams this year in order to operate this business, like, to break even.

And, you know, the 5th one's just icing on the cake.

That's right.

And, like, because he, because he was telling me, he's like, that's the minimum.

Wow.

You know, for a custom one. And I, I'm sitting there watching, like, I'm— he, he, he had me out there because he was infested with black widow spiders just like all over the place.

Oh Lord.

Um, and yeah, yeah, I, I don't do the creepy crawly stuff either.

No.

Well, you know, everybody knows who the man is when the flying cockroach and you start to go get the .45. Yeah, I'm just saying, you know.

You know, spiders, they don't bother me if I know they're there. They're fine. But when I think about like what you're saying, just infested with all these spiders, it just took me back to the days of like with my horse and walking through the barn and becoming an in— like instant ninja. Just the moment you walk into a cobweb, because you don't know where— what kind of spider it was or where it is. Is it in my hair?

I know that feeling. Yeah, about every other day crawling through the attic and all of a sudden, oh yeah, there's something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So here's, here's what I know is like when people say that they're not bothered by spiders there is a threshold for where that is true, right? Because like, if the spider is like this big, like most people are gonna be like, I can step on that. When the spider's this big, like it becomes a whole different sport.

So, so let me, let me ask you a question.

Uh-huh.

The bigger the spider, right, doesn't mean the more dangerous the spider.

No, correct? Not at all.

Actually, it's the opposite, correct?

Well, it can be. That can be the case. So—

Oh, you're just now gonna like really bust my bubble, and now I'm gonna be like every spider I see that's like the size of my hand, I'm gonna be like, you know.

What? Okay, so like it's just here, yes, that's probably true.

Okay.

So, and I— the only reason I say probably true is because we have these, you know, people who trade in exotics, you know, that bring in species from outside of our country, because some of the most dangerous spiders in the world are from Australia and they're massive.

Because everything there wants to kill you.

Everything. Yeah, that is absolutely true.

Well, that's why most Australians are like half crazy, right?

Because you'd have to live there. Yeah.

I mean, even their alcohol's much stronger than what ours is.

True story.

Because you have to live there.

Yeah.

And you've been there, haven't you?

Nathan has. I haven't been to Australia.

I mean, name a country. Ask her. Name a country and she's probably been there.

Yeah. Like Eastern Europe? Like, which, which one's in Eastern? Because I've been to the Ukraine.

Well, I mean, I just got back from Budapest a couple months ago. That's my favorite.

That's okay. So that's my favorite city in Eastern Europe.

Is it really?

Absolutely.

It's beautiful.

Like cobblestone streets still.

So the Buda side is— it's incredibly different. Like, Buda's on one side of the river, Pest's on the other side, and they're 100% different. It's unbelievable.

Okay, so have you heard about some of the political stuff happening?

Yes.

there. It is—

They will not talk about it either.

Really?

It's still like, it goes back to, I mean, of just centuries of them being taken over, right? Like, Hungary literally has never won a battle. Like, whoever wanted to come in and invade and take over did. And, well, okay, so I mean, you were persecuted and killed for talking about political situations at all. And so even though, like, I don't think it's that dire now, But I mean, they're part of the UN, and in order to be part of the UN, you have to be a democracy. And some of the things that are, that are happening over there are not the definition of a democracy. And if you ask someone that, you know, a local, about what's going on, that's the end of the conversation.

Yeah. Well, so like when I, when I went, one of the big things that everyone wanted to show us was there's a memorial Across the bridge, and I forget which bridge it was, but we're like the one time they staved off the communists from taking Budapest.

Yeah.

Right. And so like there's a memorial over there, and it's across the bridge. They're like, yeah, go check it out over there. So but what I was talking about is they have some crazy tax incentives.

Yeah. What?

Sorry, what'd you say?

The one time.

Just the one. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, no, it is.

It's true.

It's kind of like Poland.

And they're the nicest people.

Or, or, or the, the, the standing joke with most Canadians is, is, you know, if, if you want a, a French gun, it's only been used— it's only been dropped once. Sorry.

So, but, but one of the things they're doing in, in Hungary right now is they're offering tax incentives for grandparents who provide childcare. For families.

Nice.

Yeah, and yeah, right? And so what the better people would take care of children? Yeah.

No, I mean honestly, right?

I mean, I grew up with my grandparents.

That's what's wrong with you.

Jeez. You say that like it's the only thing.

Well, at the end of the day, at the end of the day.

This is a dangerous game, Steve.

Oh, I know. Um, you came up with it.

No, but like, so one of the things, one of the, one of the stats that they're seeing across the board, like worldwide, uh, particularly like in, in China, is a decline in the birth rate. And, and so like they're actually seeing a population decrease happen because people are having less and less and less children. Um, and it's, it's looking to be like a real problem because we're not going to have the workforce to You know, to supply the world with the food that they need with the aging population that still exists because people are living longer.

Ba ba ba ba ba.

Why would you have children if you have a girl? They want you to dispose of it. I mean, what what what?

Yeah, in China, I mean.

Yeah yeah absolutely. Yeah yeah. So anything about anyway, because you're hungry.

What they're doing in Hungary is they're providing additional tax incentives even for people that move into the country. to provide for kids. And, and so they're going like, we're going to give tax incentives to the parents, and we're also going to give tax incentives to the direct grandparents because we know that they're probably retired or potentially soon to be retired and going to be helping out with the kids. And if they can show that they're helping out with the kids, we're going to provide them with a tax incentive to do so because we want to encourage families to have more and more and more kids. So it's kind of an interesting thing that they're doing.

It is.

Um, that no other country has tried out before. And it seems to be working really, really well. Like, people are like, oh, like, I actually have a financial incentive to have children. Why wouldn't I have children?

And, and the great thing about it is, is, is it's not just incentivizing mom and dad, right? Right. I mean, because, I mean, what do we do here in the United States? What, they freeze your property taxes at 65?

Yeah.

That's— they tax your Social Security. I mean, what are we doing here, folks? Right?

Yeah.

I mean, and, and what drives me crazy is the minute that your kids graduate high school, you're still stuck paying what, school taxes? So I'm paying for a $4 million— I'm just picking a number.

Sure.

I'm just being sarcastic, but, you know, football field and, and athletic center. I don't have any kids that benefit from that. Why am I still paying for that? Right? But that's pretty progressive thinking on Hungary's part, right? By investing back into the family itself. I mean, we should see more of that in the United States. I mean, truly.

Yeah.

No, really, we should.

I agree. I mean, we claim that we're leaders, but are we?

In a lot of things, we are not.

I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. And don't get me wrong, I love this country. That's not what I'm saying. I think that that's a fault that we have is for many, many, many years, I think that we've seen that decline across the board.

Yeah. I mean, when it comes to, like, our country, one of the— I think one of the best statements I've ever heard about this kind of stuff is, like, we have the absolute worst system in the world except for everybody else's.

Yes and no. Right? Yes and no.

Well, I mean, there's things we can learn from other people for sure. I mean, but, like, in general, we have things pretty good.

Oh, absolutely. You know, you turn—

Go to my best far as like, you know, giving back to families like what Hungary's doing.

Yeah.

I mean, there's so many different fronts that we could do better here. Like maternity leave, for example. We have the shortest maternity leave in the world.

You know, healthcare, everybody claims, oh, let's look at Canada. Look how great Canada is. Canada, Canada, Canada, right? But why is it that people that have like bad knees, or a bad back or bad shoulder that needed absolute surgery, and the country says, no, no, you can wait 3 or 4 or 5 years.

Yeah.

They come to the United States and lo and behold, they fall down and they have to have emergency surgery so they can bill Canada.

Yeah. Right?

Because they can't get in to get help, right? Because they don't deem it necessary enough. So I mean, everybody's got their fault, right? I mean, in, in realistic thought processes. But in all in all, there— I don't think that there's another country that you can riverboat gamble a stupid little insulation company or, or design works because you wanted what, more freedom? Yeah, I mean, tell me how you started yours.

Um, so when I graduated from A&M, my first job actually took me to The Woodlands because I was I worked for a cardiopulmonary device company and I was their microbiologist. So I would travel about 50% of my time making sure that our devices didn't kill you on the operating table.

It's helpful.

Good thing.

Yeah.

But the problem with that is that when I moved to The Woodlands, my daughter, she was an infant and traveling half the time was not very conducive to family life at all. So I grew up an hour on the other side of town in Clear Lake. I would drive an hour to go drop her off with my grandmother just so I could hop on a plane, be gone for a week.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

No tax incentives, just to say.

No tax incentives.

So at the end of the day, at the end of the day.

And then, um, you know, when I was in town and, and working at the office and she would stay with a sitter, you know, during the day, um, by the time I picked her up, had time for dinner, bath, and bed, and that was it. And I would take her to the sitter the next day in her jammies with her backpack, you know. So it was just, um, it was just time I was never gonna get back. And when we moved to The Woodlands, I was the youngest of all of my friends that moved here. There was— I mean, the mall was literally the only thing up here at the time. This was in 2000.

Yeah, no, I remember that.

There was nothing to do for someone in your early 20s up here in The Woodlands. You were driving somewhere else.

That mall was a big deal too.

And I don't even like the mall.

Same. I hate the mall.

It was not an attractive thing for me to do. But anyway, our idea of entertainment on the weekends, we'd go and watch our friend's son's Little League game because there was literally nothing else to do. And we're sitting at this game. And I'm looking around and they have little Johnny's team logo, his name, his number on everything— his gear, his bag, the parents' shirts, hats, socks. Like, it was everywhere. And just talking with the parents in the stands, and, and they were talking about how, um, they had to delay team pictures again because the uniforms they had ordered months ago still weren't in on time.

Oh my gosh.

And so I just, it was like an evolution of thought really. And as I'm sitting there and I'm starting the mental calculator of how much they are spending on all this stuff and it's just one team, one age group, one town.

Yeah.

I was just like, I could do this better. And so about 6 to 9 months later, because you're always trying to think of like, okay, what industry is never going to be obsolete? You don't want the flash in the pan.

Yeah, absolutely.

especially if you're going to quit your career and go out on your own. I mean, that's scary enough. You want something that's going to be pretty sustainable. And I'll never forget when I finally got my whole thought process down, got a business plan for Design Works. This is what I'm going to do. Presented it to my mom, who was a school teacher my whole life. And when it was all said and done, the only thing that she heard out of the whole spiel was embroidery. And she goes, you mean to tell me you went to A&M so you can sew? I started laughing. I was like, I can't sew. I cannot sew. I was like, but I'm good with computers and the computer sews.

Yeah. Tell the computer what to do.

Yeah.

I was like, you think about it. You have these high school kids running these embroidery machines in a little kiosk in the middle of the mall. I think we're going to figure this out.

Absolutely.

How many t-shirts do you think you do a year?

I can't even. I have no idea.

Million?

Probably. Yeah.

2?

Maybe.

She hasn't counted.

I've been in her living room where I've had to step over stacks, and I'm like, I know that company, I know that company, I know that company. And it's just, they're everywhere, right? And that's— it's amazing So, um, was it last year? My daughter. So my daughter's a schoolteacher.

Oh, yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Oh my God.

What, what, what'd you say?

The fun run.

The fun run.

Okay.

At the school, which was not fun for us. Just, I'm just saying, right?

Yeah. So my daughter advertising.

Yeah. Well, my, my daughter calls, you know, um, at the umph hour, right? I mean, it was, it was bad.

It was crunch time.

Yeah, yeah.

And seriously, and she's like, my son-in-law is a process engineer and very intelligent young man, but he's going off Walmart dollars. So they've got this outrageous figure. What was it, like $9,000 or something? It was crazy, right? Because he's thinking, you know, you go to Walmart, you buy 300 t-shirts at, you know, whatever, right?

Yeah.

And then you have them printed. And I'm like, no, no, no, that's not the way this works, right? So I finally convinced him to call Tara. And then after, once Ashlyn kept calling me and then I'd have to call Tara, and then we go around and I'm finally, I'm like, would you two just talk? Leave, get me out of this, right? And, and, uh, then it was like, well, who's paying for all this? And of course, um, Matt Tucker, Freedom Plumbing, awesome gentleman. Um, I, I contacted him, like, like I said, it was like the zero hour, right?

I'm like, dude, We need a sponsor.

Yeah, would you split this with me? Because I, I really don't want to eat this by myself. And he did, and, and God bless him. Thank you so much, Matt. Um, but he did come to the deal, and, and she did all of it. And she managed all the teachers, all the principals, all the chaos. She handled all of it. And, and I, I just— you do that on a daily basis though.

Yeah.

And I don't know how you do it. Is it alcohol? I'm just saying, you know.

At the end of the day.

Yeah, at the end of the day. If I had any more, I'd take a drink.

Yeah.

And honestly, like, I would say like 7 out of 10 orders are going to be those rush situations. It's just the nature of the beast. We know it's coming. Yeah. We set realistic expectations on what can and cannot be done. You know, it's like, do you want it or do you want it done right? You know, because otherwise we're not going to do it.

What is a reasonable turnaround time? Because I know there's a lot of people listening to this. They're like, okay, I need that for my Little League team. I need that for my company. I need that for, you know, fundraiser that we're doing. What's a reasonable turnaround time for like t-shirts?

So our standard turnaround time that we tell everyone is 7 to 10 business days.

Okay.

That's from start to finish. From the time we have the order placed, the artwork is approved. you know, payment, everything. Like it's, um, but of course it also depends on, on what you're ordering as well, because when you offer literally everything under the sun, basically, yeah, like some things are going to take longer than others, you know. Um, so I mean, we're talking outside of like polos and t-shirts and stuff. We're talking like, you know, um, plastic water bottles, notebooks. I mean, the list goes on and on and on.

Well, and as you, as you make things more complicated, like if you on a t-shirt, like if you're talking like multiple colors, Huh?

The time it takes to print 5 colors as opposed to 1, it's minuscule.

So, but like, what about if you're doing like, you know, front, back, sleeve, you know, kind of a deal? Is it the same kind of deal or?

No, I mean, I mean, it doesn't really affect the timeline if that's what you're asking.

Yeah, that's what I'm asking.

Yeah, no, no, not at all. I mean, obviously we have to run it through 3 times instead of twice or once or whatever.

Once you're in the queue, you're in the queue.

Yes. Yeah. And if they're— and if an order is ready early, then great. Like, everyone's even happier, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

So if your order is ready in 3 to 5 days instead of 7 to 10, well, yeah, we turn it out. But, you know, we have a production manager, and you look at the calendar and you know how much time things are going to take, you know, to produce certain things. And when someone calls and says, I waited till the last minute— it's exactly how I met Nathan. Because he did the exact same thing.

Well, good things come from that.

That's right. That's right. Exactly. So, yeah. So when things like that happen where it's the last minute and we can plug it into the schedule, we do. We will work with anybody at any time if it's feasible. If it's not, we're not going to overpromise and underdeliver. Yeah.

Yeah.

But I will say though, like, especially with like the schools, like the The number one hurdle for every single order is artwork.

Ooh.

Every time.

Oh Lord.

Every time.

So when you say artwork, you mean people getting you usable artwork?

Correct.

Yeah, I would imagine so.

I can't tell you how many times I get a screenshot of an image online from someone's phone and they send that to me and say, can you print that? And I'm like, print what? Because that's not artwork.

Yeah, so the, the real world word here is vector file.

Yes.

And if it's not in vector, it's not a file.

Which a vector file is like the original file that was created when it was drawn.

Is that typically like a PNG? Is that—

No, I mean, it could be turned into a PNG. The only thing about that is like we use— we have to use the PNG to do like a direct-to-garment print because that's what the printer software requires, right? But a PNG file itself, I can't change the properties of it. It's called like a flat file, like a JPEG or it's a bitmap. Like I can't, if you gave me a PNG and it's in red, but you want it printed in white, I couldn't do that. It's gonna print red.

You want the editable file.

Yeah, where I can pick the layers apart.

Right, yeah, I got you, okay.

Yeah. And so what I've learned over all the years that she's edumacated me, Is it like if you give her a, um, a typical JPEG, if you blow it up 10,000 times, that straight line is blocks, right?

Yeah, it's pixelated.

Yeah. And so the vector file will be a perfect line, right?

No matter how much you magnify it, right? Right.

So you, you have the clean, right? Yeah, it's nice, the crisp look that you're looking for.

See, and if you put 2 next to each other, like if you had something printed with the wrong file type and then one that's printed with the correct one, you will— you can tell the difference.

One's kind of a little bit more fuzzy, right?

Does it make a— does it make a difference with the embroidery?

Not at all.

Okay, I didn't think so.

Yeah, because embroidery, you have to assign stitches over an image. So it doesn't matter what kind of quality that is, you just have to know how to digitize it. Yeah.

So the cool thing about it is, is like, you, you see me walk around my notebook, right?

Yeah.

So she can take and use a laser and make a brand. So like your leather hats that have that, that brand look. Yeah, that's what she does.

Okay.

So it, it's, it, the, the, the thought process is, is to go to Tara and say I would like to do that, and then she'll tell you how to do it. Okay, am I not right? You're correct, because I'm down to the point now where I just call you up and say, I want this done, and I just hang up because the rest of it is minutia to me. Yeah, right, because she starts talking in vector files and this and that, and I'm like, don't care, just please. Yeah, I, I you know, she's— but, but that's the, the creative side of you coming out, right? And attention to detail. Holy mackerel.

So some of our mutual friends, Rob and Christy with RWB Electric, just did an order for them. And they have a, a 2-color logo, but they have it on 3 different sides: front, back, and the sleeve, right?

Okay, yeah.

And the very first time she wanted to place an order, I think it was to be like 18 pieces. And I said, okay, so realistically, how many shirts do you order per year? And she gave me a number. And I said, all right, I said, how about we do this? Because if you get to a certain number, like your quantity, then there's no setup. So if she was going to do a setup for just 18 shirts, I mean, she was going to spend like a couple hundred dollars just on setup, right? So I was like, if you're gonna do multiple shirts throughout the year, same design, we're not changing anything, like it's going to be the same shirts every single time. I was like,

why don't we just go ahead and print 75 prints? Just print them. Like, I will run your 18 shirts and then I'll just keep printing on paper instead of a shirt, right?

Right.

I'm just gonna print on paper and I'm gonna just print your logos and keep them on file. So the next time you order, you can order 6 shirts and you've already paid for the prints and you're gonna get 75-piece pricing as opposed to 18 piece pricing with a ridiculous setup fee. Who doesn't like that? We do that. But I mean, that's— again, instead of just taking their money, which any company would have done, yeah, like you have to think about budgets, right? Like what's all— what's going to be best for your customer in the long run too. So here we are, we did those 18 shirts. She just emailed me today, she's like, I got

a new employee, I need 6 shirts. Well, now she's only paying for the shirt, right? We have the prints and we just grab the prints done and they're going to be ready in like 2 days.

So the, the burning question I've been wanting to ask all night, and I've kind of held this toward the end, is what is your biggest pet peeve?

Oh gosh, how am I going to narrow that down?

In your industry, what is your biggest pet peeve?

With the industry or with Customers, customers, but their lack of planning being my emergency.

Yeah.

You know what I thought it was going to be?

What?

What?

Let us.

I mean, honestly, it was going to be seriously. So, um, I really thought it was going to be the fact that you sign off on the artwork. Oh, you you go through all the hoops. You come to the mutual agreement, and then when it's done. they don't like it and they claim it's something totally different. Yeah, because in their mind they had X, Y, and Z, and it might have been, you know.

So ironically, even though I've been doing this for 21 years, you would think that that would happen quite often. I can count on one hand how many times that has happened in 21 years. And the reason I can is because since we do artwork proofs and people sign off on it, if anybody says boo about it, I'm like, Look, like, you— yeah, this was your opportunity to change anything.

It's only the people I hear about then.

I think you're speaking of one in particular, but yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah, okay. I, I thought that that would happen more often, and that's why I asked.

It doesn't.

Yeah, really?

Yeah.

All right, so I got, I got one more thing I want us, I want us to talk about before we, we wrap up because we're just over the hour mark. And I don't want to.

That went fast.

Yeah, right. So I came across this this account on Instagram today, and it is the okay. What they claim is that we have created the only building system that's compatible with scalable factory mass production, and it is the the name of the where where is it? Uh, it's called Boxabl, but it's B-O-X-A-B-L, and it is a home that you can set up in an hour. And it— you— they ship it to you and then you unfold it.

Is it like a tiny home?

It is like a tiny home, but they're modular, so you can stack them and then put them together. And so like, you guys can look like—

You can have a 3-story tiny home?

You could.

Technically, starting to sound like Tetris.

It is kind of like Tetris.

I'm just saying.

And like, they're not, they're not horrible looking. And they're all flat-roofed. And then you can add a roof.

We're going backwards in time. You know that, right? You know, the, you know, a lot of these, these Victorian houses that we see were bought from Sears and Roebuck.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The kit homes. Yeah, no. And they were like $15,000 or something like that.

Yeah, and they were sold in the magazines. Yeah, and we're talking like the, the plantation wraparound porch.

I mean, it's not like a box, right?

I mean, they were really nice houses, and that's what I'm saying. It— this feels like we're going back in time.

Yeah, well, I mean, so here's the thing.

No, no, let me guess, you're going to tell me that they were all done by a, um, what kind of printer is that?

3D printer? 3D printer? No, I don't think they were 3D printed. I mean, like, they're, they're made, they're made in a warehouse. I've seen pictures of like their, their factory where they're making these things. I don't know what kind of insulation they're putting in them, and I know you'd probably ask me that question. Um, but I, for— I mean, like, at the end of the day, they—

Damn it, you're driving home.

They, they seem to be pretty functional and cool looking. I don't know what the price is. My, my thing with, with it is I've seen this for the last 3 or 4 years where people are like, do you know you can buy a house on Amazon? And I always like, I'm always interested in it, so I follow the link to see what it is, and the links never work. Like, they've shut down production or that product's gone away. These guys seem to have figured it out. I went to like, they have close, they have like close to like 700,000 followers on Instagram.

I wonder how much shipping is.

I would—

that just— does it cost to ship your house?

Well, you can turn right around and you can, you can put something on an 18-wheeler and ship it from here to the Midwest for anywhere between $300 to $500. Because freight, freight delivery, right?

Right.

They're not going to just ship one thing. Right. Put multiple things on that trailer. Yeah. So, you know, in the long run, shipping probably is not horrific.

Yeah.

No. And they come, they come in like a pretty small package considering it's a house. Yeah. It's Tetris, right? Well, like, and I, I wish, okay. I wish, I wish we had a bigger budget here, though. I'd put it up on the, on the flat screen so we could see.

Yeah.

But, like, when you watch it, like, unfold, it's the craziest looking thing. And, like, it literally just sets up in, like, an hour. And I'm like, how, like, for, for some of these tiny home communities, which are still a thing, even though more and more people are moving away from them post-COVID, because I think people that got stuck in tiny homes were like, this is way too small.

I can't get away from you.

That's right.

So, I mean, my wife and I had this conversation and we were in full agreeance that the minimum is a 3-bedroom house because she needs to get away from me and I definitely need to get away from her. And we agree that we both need our own space, right? So how people live within like, you know, 200 square feet is beyond me.

Yeah.

Sorry, I'm gonna have it— I'm gonna have to move this. I just lost her camera, so— oh, trying to make some adjustments here. Yeah, yeah. So which means we probably need to wrap things up. So why is this not? I don't know what's going on. Oh, it's because that one's that one's the one that's working. This one's the one that died.

He's from A&M. Hey, saying true story.

There we go. There we go. Okay, so yeah, no, I think go Cougs.

Stop.

I can I can deedle her.

Is that like is that like U of H? Is that what he's is that what he's doing? Yeah.

like he has a dog in that fight at all.

I think they're like in a Little League conference.

Did you?

Yes, I did.

Oh, I didn't know that.

University of Criminal Law.

Go Cougar High!

101.

What conference are they in now? Is that like Southwest Little League? Is that—

do any of us really follow any of that anymore?

Yeah.

I mean, Saban's gonna win pretty much 99% of it all anyway, so do we even care?

When I was genuinely curious, because I know— I didn't know if U of H got brought over to the Big 12.

They did.

Did they really? Yeah. Good for them.

So along A&M, UT, TCU, Oklahoma, one of their biggest places they all recruit from is Houston.

Oh yeah, like you're talking about the city?

Yeah. So there's been basically an unwritten rule that you can't get in the Big 12 or Big 8 because you would take their recruits away from them. Yeah, that's why U of H has struggled forever and ever and ever.

Yeah, so they've had a couple of good teams over the years.

Oh, absolutely.

Is there— Conference USA, is that what they were in before?

Yeah, and Conference USA has some really good talent. It's just like you have 1 or 2 in this side of the conference and 1 or 2 on this side of the conference. They just— right, not, you know, like the Big 8, Big 12. Yeah, Big Ten.

All right, so before you— I lose another camera. Yeah, uh, let everybody know where they can get a hold of you.

Um, Victory Installation, uh, www.victoryinstallation.com. Um, you can contact us for all your needs for home insulation and ventilation.

And Tara, where can people find you?

Yeah, Tara, where can you find you?

designworksii.com. Okay.

And, uh, I mean, contact phone number is 281-419-4610. Uh, you can shoot us an email, send us— give us a call. I mean, we're on Facebook, Instagram.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Easy to get a hold of.

Very.

Awesome.

Yes.

Awesome. Well, I'm gonna wrap it up. Uh, everybody, thank you so much for, for joining us for another episode here of The Homeowner Show. I know it was so much better because Kevin and his giant red beard weren't here saying his favorite catchphrase that got Steve a little tipsy. Um, go ahead, say it. If you haven't yet, hit the subscribe button, follow us, uh, go watch the live feed over on YouTube and Facebook. We appreciate everything you guys do to support the show. Uh, until then, in the next episode, we'll see you later.