That time we did a live show: part 1

This is a special edition of The Homeowner's Show. We are live at Thistle Draft Shop. Thistle Draft Shop. Yeah, Craig and I are, um, we're trying something new, man. We've never done this before. You've never done this before? Well, not a live show like this. You've never done it before on The Homeowner's Show either. I've never done a podcast live. Well, that's— yeah, you've done a lot of other stuff. I'm not a podcast. I tend to publicly embarrass myself on a consistent basis. I consider that a live show. Well, that is a live show for you. That's like, that's like normal, just life for you, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, right now, so by the time this show comes out, I think it'll be like the day before Christmas almost, right? Well,

it'll be Christmas Day. It'll be Christmas Day. Yeah, so Tuesday. Yeah, yeah, Christmas Day. So all the presents get to be brought out of the hiding places and into the open. Into the hide— from the hiding hole into the That's right. Yeah, yeah. So, um, are y'all done Christmas shopping? We're completely finished. What? Yes, we Amazoned it up this year. Oh, Amazon's awesome. There was no foot traffic in the Williams home. However, if you're going with Amazon, you've got to make sure to have the Ring doorbell, right? Absolutely. You don't want anybody thieving, thieving off the doorstep. So, uh, we gotta— we got a guest with us today. I know Facebook Live can't, uh, can't see our

guest. This is, uh, Charles. Hello, Charles. Hey guys, how y'all doing? We're good. Good, man. Um, uh, Charles is just here, uh, here at Thistle hanging out. And, uh, so what do you have tonight? Uh, I did a flight of 2 really sour beers and then 2, uh, blondes that I was not a fan of. Okay. And then I went with the safer option, which is more of a lager. There you go. Yeah. Okay. I can't complain. Going so good so far there? So far so good. Yeah, I've only sipped it. Which one is that? Um, do you remember? Great something. I don't know, something great, great something. It's somewhere in there. Okay. Somewhere it's great.

We were gonna give them a little press, but they don't deserve it. Yeah, I think it's Great Island, maybe. Great Island. Maybe they just need to catch your name. Yeah, maybe so. Maybe so. So, so do you have any good Christmas hiding spots in your house? Okay, so, so you hide the presents from your kids? Do you hide presents from your wife? I do hide presents from my wife. You can tell us that now because she's gonna be here in 30 minutes. Yeah, she won't find out until the day after. Yeah, she's gonna be here. Oh yeah, and she doesn't listen to our podcast. Anyway, um. Well, I can't even tell you because if she does go back and look, then she'll

know. If she does come back and listen, then she'll know. You want to keep these hiding places— Yes, that's why it's called a hiding place. Yeah, so, um, see, the cool thing about— So you have separate hiding places from your kids and your wife? Yeah, absolutely. Well, mainly— So just give me the kid ones. Well, that, that's so— so the problem with, with where our hiding place is, is it is in my wife's closet. So we have— my wife and I have separate, separate closets, his and hers. type deal. And, um, there's a lot of places up high that we can, uh, that we can put stuff. And my kids, I mean, my kids are young. I've got a, I've got a 4 and a 6-year-old.

Almost 4. He'll be 4 on Christmas Eve, actually. You could probably like hide them underneath their bed and they'd never know. That's exactly right. Yeah, so, um, I mean, they're not super creative places. That's just where they are. Yeah. Yeah. So what about y'all? Uh, you know, we have like this My oldest calls it the Harry Potter closet. Oh. 'Cause it's like one of those underneath the staircase. Oh yeah. That, I don't know if she's like afraid that we're gonna lock her in there or, that's what she calls it. Okay. And that tends to be the best spot because no one ever really tries to get in there. And it's like in a closet, in a closet. A closet in a closet. And so it's kind of scary for the kids to go in

there. So they're not going in there? No. 'Cause we just tell them there's a giant spider. And I probably got a few more years before that lie wears off. Yeah, they're gonna figure that out, aren't they? Yeah, although I will tell you, like, we— the, the house that my parents live in, when, when we first moved into that, which was a long time ago now, um, we went up in the attic, and apparently this was a thing that, like, people used to pull the insulation up and hide presents underneath the insulation because, like, I guess their kids were, like, really sneaky and suspicious and would always go hunting for the presents. Okay. And so, like, they would peel the insulation up and stick the toys underneath. Ah. And so When we moved in, we actually, we were, I

forget what we were doing. We were pulling some insulation up at one point and we found toys that they'd forgotten about from like 1974. What? And one of them that I still have, I've been waiting for like the right moment to sell it. It's in the packaging, a diecast Landspeeder from Episode IV of Star Wars. Oh my goodness. And so like, yeah. It's probably worth like $4 or $5 at least. It's something, it's in the neighborhood, yeah. So, but anyway, we've got Charles sitting down with us who has graciously agreed to sit down and have a, have a drink with us and talk about some, some home improvement stuff. But we are super honored because this guy is serving in the reserves

at the Coast Guard right now, right? Yes, sir. Yeah, and so you're stationed where? So my current unit is in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. I'm in a Coast Guard Port Security Unit. So the Coast Guard is basically divided into several different groups, right? Yeah. Some of the groups do search and rescue, and you've got the guys who jump out of helicopters, you've got the guys who do boat-type search and rescue work. Yeah. Um, and then you've got also, you will have, uh, the guys that do like, uh, the drug and migrant interdiction. And then you've got people who do like, um, maritime spill cleanup and stuff like that, right? So that's more of like a safety-related issue. And

then our unit specifically, we do military defense security zones. So we'll go out to an area where there's like a Navy ship or something tied up somewhere. Yeah. Um, typically we'll go overseas and we'll defend the Navy ships whenever they come in and out. Um, we'll go to like an offshore oil rig. Our unit, I didn't to go, but our unit has been out to Kuwait before, they've been to Bahrain before, they've been to— Pull that thing right out in front of you just a little bit. Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, cool. Maybe we'll hear you better. There you go. Okay, yeah, so they've been all over the place, and we're expected to go somewhere in the next couple of months.

Okay, okay. So are you out on the water quite a bit? Yeah, so basically what my job is, I am a— how do I put it— so it's like a defensive boat captain. Basically our small boats, we have 3 32-foot boats, and I'm a tactical assault driver. Basically, I drive a boat that has a .50 caliber machine gun on the bow, and then it's got 2 240s, which are like the— that's the improved version of the M60. It shoots the same round, basically. Um, so basically what we do is we provide, uh, waterborne and airborne defense resources to the Navy whenever they go out and they need protection. So as they're leaving harbor, you guys kind of protect them as they're going out wherever they're

heading? That's, that's part of it. Or whenever they're stuck in harbor and they're, they're waiting to take on fuel or food or whatever they happen to be doing. Yeah, yeah, then we'll hang out and we'll set up a defensive perimeter and make sure that they're kept safe. So how far out do you guys have to go with them? Um, traditionally, because we are the Coast Guard and we are in small boats, we're not in ships, right? We do have ships that go all over the world, but that's not what our unit does. So because we are a port security unit, we generally don't get much further than a couple of miles away from the port. Okay, and is that

kind of like the agreed-upon neutral area Without getting into like too many of the specifics, there are specifically like laid out nautical mile ranges. So they'll say like, you know, within 3 miles that means one thing, within 6 miles that means something else, within 15 miles, 26, whatever the case is. So the rules change? Yes. Okay. Correct, yeah. Gotcha. Wow, so y'all are like, y'all are the guys that protect the Navy. Yeah, so basically the way it is, is depending on what Navy people you ask, they'll just be like, oh well, you know, Well, whenever it benefits the Navy, the Coast Guard becomes the Navy. Okay, okay. That's what the Army says about the Marines too, so. I

wouldn't know. I don't know about that. Hey, we're not dogging on any of these guys. That's right. We love all of these guys. We're not dogging on them, but it is interesting to hear kind of the nuances of how each division of the military works with the other divisions, because I had no idea that the Coast Guard worked closely with the Navy. So, you know, I think really what the Coast Guard does, their strongest element really is that, uh, it is the, the small boat tactics, the small boat maneuvers. The Navy, obviously they're the ones who have the larger ships, and, uh, they, they are, are very obvious professionals and experts in large ship movements and tactics and strategies. And the Coast Guard, we, we have a much smaller platform

and we're, we're experts at it. So, okay, cool. How long you been doing this now? Uh, so I've been in the Coast Guard, uh, joined in September of 2000, and, uh, Wow. I graduated locally. I graduated from high school here in Houston. Okay. And then I left and joined the Coast Guard. And actually, I just got back here in Houston probably about 6 months ago. Okay. So I've been out. I've lived or worked in Cuba. I went to California, Miami, New York, Michigan, all over the East Coast, basically all over the place. Okay. And do they employ you or they want you? Yes. Okay. Yep. Cool. Typically with about 76 hours notice, you know. That's not very

much. Yeah. So tell us, when we were talking before, I mean, you mentioned you've done some home improvement stuff. What's some stuff that you've tackled around the house? So I used to have a house in Pennsylvania, and it was a bit too much house for myself and my ex-wife at the time. And one of the things we wanted to do was finish off a— it was like a walk-up attic. And whenever we initially moved into the house, the attic was totally bare, you know, it looked like regular bare frame. How old was this house? Relatively young, I think maybe 2006. Okay, so pretty new. It definitely was not an old house. Um, so my thought was is to put in, uh, insulation, finish off everything, put in fiberglass, and then also do

a false wall along the outsides that you could slide out and use for storage in those parts where the apex really goes down and sort of that angle becomes too acute and people can't put anything else. It becomes useless space, basically. Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, so probably a pretty good spot for like Christmas gifts or something similar, right? So basically I did the job sort of amateurishly because I didn't really know what I was doing. I got some books, I looked at a whole bunch of YouTube videos and tried to figure things out myself. And kind of a funny part of doing the job, I tried to get away with cutting a corner. And I was like, oh cool, I have all this insulation. I had more than enough insulation, so everything was gonna be great, right? So I

looked at this part where the wood up, you know, towards the ceiling started to get a little bit thin, and I thought, well, I don't really have to put insulation here. It's only like 6 inches wide, so I'm just gonna skip it. And it's towards the end of the wall where the ceiling met like the far end of the wall. Yeah. And I put insulation everywhere else as best I could. I worked with my ex-brother-in-law And we did all the fiberglass, painting, everything. And then on that part of the wall, which is where my desk was in the attic, I basically froze to death every single year because there was no insulation. It was horrible. Like, you know, it was like that instant karma,

sort of delayed, I guess. So was that like a project you started in the summertime and it's like, ah, it's never really gonna get cold up here? Yes. Okay, I got you. But you're in Pennsylvania. Yeah. Oh, it was cold. It's not like Houston. It was horrible. I did not think it through. No, absolutely not. I mean, because more than likely just a little bit more insulation was not gonna like cost you a ton of money, but it was just a matter of what it was gonna take to go get it and still just finish out the project. You're probably ready to be done at that point, right? Yeah, it was definitely laziness. Um, I looked at it and

I was like, okay, you know, I'm at this point where I think I finished everything I want to finish, so I can either start to work on some of those final steps or, uh, I could do a little bit more. And I was thinking in my head, I tried to weigh the pros and the cons, and that system did not work well for me. Your weighing system was off. Yeah. So was it something that just went unfinished? You just, you just never went back through it? Yeah. Yeah. So you sold that for the next person who bought the house. I apologize. Yeah. Mind the attic. It's a little drafty. Yeah. Careful up there. So like, do you consider yourself— you're up there doing

that project. I mean, most of the time when guys like, like us— I mean, we're not professional builders. When he says guys like us, he means Kevin. Yeah, me specifically. Me. Um, I mean, how, how advanced do you, do you feel you were in some of these projects? Do you feel like you, you know, you kind of knew what you were doing, or you really knew what you're doing, or maybe somewhere in between? He had YouTube, man. He was an expert. Yeah, YouTube gives you anything. Yeah, it does give you a little false sense of security, I think. Um, yeah, I would definitely agree with that. I would look at something and say, well, I can do this, I can make the

molding look like this, or I can, you know, I can get everything just right. And then if I would actually attempt it, I would notice that I've got like a whole history of trying to build like, like rolling cabinets and stuff. Okay. And they would look like something from like the Beetlejuice movie where everything is like topsy-turvy and like all the fun angles. So was the attic probably like the most ambitious thing you tried up until that point? So in all fairness, I wasn't the only person working on it. My brother-in-law at the time, he was very, very skills, and I think that he gave me projects and he was like, all right, you probably can't screw this up too bad. And then I met his challenge and

succeeded. I screwed it up way worse than he thought I could. Yeah, well, let me show you how bad I can screw this up. I'll do it. I'll do it. Oh yeah? Hold my beer. Yeah, watch this. Yeah, that's funny. Okay, well, uh, what about anything else? I mean, have you done any other projects, or maybe even have other people come in and do some projects for you? Either one. So, um, yeah, there was actually— yeah, I bought a sailboat. Nice. Anybody who knows anything about boats, I mean, it doesn't matter whether it's a small boat or a large boat. This boat was far too large for me. How big are we talking here? 28 feet. It was, it was about 6 tons.

That's a good-sized boat, man. It was past the point where I could tow it myself. If I wanted to move it somewhere, I had to get a rig and I had to pay a moving company to come in and have somebody bring it across. Was this ocean or freshwater? Ocean. Okay. Yeah, it was at the furthest tip of Long Island, New York. And, uh, I went in totally overzealous. And unfortunately, this was, this was pretty recently. This was not long enough ago where I can be like, oh, I was young and dumb. I went in and I was thinking, you know, I've been in the Coast Guard for 14 years, like, I know what I'm doing. You know what

you're doing. I know what I'm doing here. Yeah. I was in way over my head. I know nothing about sailing. Hmm. Wow. I'm rather efficient at wrecking sailboats. I've done that once. I'm rather efficient at wrecking sailboats. Oh, terrific. That's horrible. Yeah, yeah, no, I've done that once. It was terrifying. I bet it was. So, sorry, go ahead. No, no, no, it's fine. I can connect. We're good. Go ahead. Well, so yeah, the whole story is I didn't even know how to sail, and then I went out on like the maiden voyage of the sailboat, and we had literally— we had a Sailing for Dummies book. Were you like reading it as you were going out on the water? Yes, sir. Nice! Yes. So are we talking like

mainsail and jib? No, it was just a singular— we had one singular mast. Okay. That's it. So I was thinking this is gonna be relatively easy. I watched some videos on YouTube again, so of course I like to liken my knowledge to that of a doctorate, of course, in YouTube-watched videos, right? So it was, yeah, it was, it was pretty ridiculous. I was totally underprepared, and I brought out 2 of my other Coast Guard buddies with me, and it worked out well only because of teamwork and good communication and some other stuff that we had there. Yeah. Yeah, but basically that boat, I rewired things, I did a whole bunch of engine work, I did fire fiberglass work, like you— oh wow, so much

upkeep. Yeah, and I didn't know any of it, so you basically just look in books and, uh, you know, YouTube videos and all these other places. And I take it you don't still own the boat? No sir, absolutely not. So it's funny actually, um, the boat cost me, I think it was $1,500. Okay, that's what the cost was up front. The cost with, um, a tow and damage and Hardship, that would basically be unquantifiable, but if I was gonna put a price tag to it, it would be somewhere around the amount of about $14,000. Oh, man. Probably. Wow. So, yeah, it did not work out well for me. No, it doesn't sound like it, but I think

that, you know, there's plenty of money pits out there, right? Of course. I mean, they're all over the place. Yeah. You know, I've watched some of these, you know, these homeowner shows, you know, the DIY stuff on— Not like this one. No, no, the real ones. good ones. And, uh, and, uh, you know, like, I watch them on, on HGTV or whatever, and they get into this stuff and, you know, somehow they turn a profit on these just absolute dumps. And, but they've got like a professional crew that comes in here and works with them, and they're like, oh, we finished this in an hour. No, that took you 60 days, and you had a professional crew around you the whole time. That would have taken me 60 years, probably. Yeah. And it would not have turned a

profit. Right. But, uh, I, I do, I do sympathize with you whenever you're saying, you know, this like, I kind of know what I'm doing. I've got some ambition behind me, I've got a little bit of skill, and I know how to find YouTube. So with those 3 things at my side, I know that I can do something, and sometimes it works out, and other times not so much. That's it. Yeah, yeah, it's crazy. So you unloaded it? Yeah, so basically it was, it was a long process. I ended up donating it to BoatAngel.com. Okay. Christian charity. I was looking to find any way I could to get rid of it. Yeah, so they gave you a nice write-off for it. And yeah, it's, uh, goodness gracious, it was— there was so much

anxiety attached to that sailboat because afterwards I was like, okay, so now it's gonna take me all this time, I'm gonna have to do all this work. And between sanding and then having the hull redone and then having everything and doing all the wiring myself, like, I don't know that much about electronics, right? So that doesn't mean I'm gonna show I'm gonna— I'm gonna— so sure, yeah, give it the old college try. But yeah, yeah, it was, uh, it was a massive undertaking. No, no joke. I agree. Man, I don't even know how to, how to talk about that. I don't know anything about boats. I know how to wreck them. Yeah, obviously. Is there a story there? Are you gonna tell it, or you just— No, no,

I'm not gonna tell that at all. There's, there's litigation still pending. I would say the only thing that I can imagine, right, so, and I'm I'm just gauging from my previous sort of anxiety level, is imagine somebody who thinks, yeah, I can knock this wall out. I'm gonna open this room up and make this have like this really amazing open feel. And then they hit something that turns out to be a stud and there's wires attached to it. And then there's this massive horrible issue. They've destroyed all the wiring, taken out a stud, and ruined the wall all at once. And they're like, clearly somebody should not have trusted me with this hammer. I don't even know what people

were thinking letting me even buy a house. Yeah, and those are the times where they call the homeowner and they're like, this is gonna cost you $6,000, and I'm the one that told you to do it. Yeah, I told you it was gonna be no problem. I told you there'd be no problems, and suddenly it's a big problem. Right. Yeah. So, so you had a house in Pennsylvania? Yes, sir. And then did you have a house like in New York or any of these other places that you've been stationed? So no, I basically rented. I had a house in Pennsylvania. Um, my current wife and I have a house in Pennsylvania right now. Okay. And, uh, that house needs

some, some love, but it's, uh, I know better than to do it myself at this point. Well, so what would you say is like the biggest difference? Because I mean, Pennsylvania is, I guess it's technically the Northeast. Is that fair? Yeah, yeah, I would definitely say so. Yeah, I mean, it gets to, you know, 10 degrees below zero, so yeah, I would definitely say it's Northeast. Places my wife says that we could never live. So what would you say is like the biggest difference between houses there versus houses here? You kind of have a unique perspective there. You know, it's, it's unusual because there are a couple of things I could point out in terms of differences.

It seems like whenever people paint a house in the Northeast, they don't work on stripping down the old paint and sort of starting off and, you know, making sure the wall's prepared or anything. They just take and they'll sand it real quick and then slap down new paint on it. And I think that the idea is we want to make sure that we have as much insulation as humanly possible. That makes sense, yeah. You can go into even a very nice house that's really kept up well, and you can easily tell that there are layers upon layers upon layers of paint, probably 20 years of paint just stacked. And if you were to cut it off with a knife, you'd be able to count, kind of like on a tree, the years of like, oh, this

was painted once in '76. Wow. Yeah. All right, so is the outside composition, is it typically wood, brick, stone? What are we talking about? Um, from what I've seen, they were predominantly wood. Yeah, yeah, they were all stick-built houses. We did see a couple of log cabins where we were. We were up in the Pocono Mountain range area. Nice. So we had people from New York and New Jersey come and move out there. Yeah. Thinking, oh great, I'm gonna be able to shoot guns in my backyard and feed all the deer I want and everything else. And for the rest of us that lived there year-round, it was a little bit daunting because the backyards were only like a quarter mile to a half mile. So if people are shooting guns and you see

leaves blowing by your head, like, okay, somebody needs to rethink where they're shooting guns, please. Yes. Yeah, but I'd say that in terms of the way that the houses are constructed, they're constructed about the same way from what I can tell, and I'm not a professional, so. Are there no big basements in Pennsylvania? Is that like a big— There are basements. There are basements? That is a big deal, yeah. They definitely have basements in almost, I'd say almost every house either has either a basement or a crawl space. Okay. And the crawl space will have things like some plumbing and other stuff in it, stuff that may be considered an eyesore, you just don't want to put it anywhere else in the house. Sure. Do you

find a lot of like, 2 and 3-story homes, like that they're just built up rather than, you know, more landmass? So I would say that the average home there, from what I could see, was 1 story with a full basement. That would be kind of an average thing. So we would take that as a 1 story here. It's like, okay, that's, that's a 1 story. But there it's, it's almost like you need the extra space. And, um, I don't know, maybe there was some sort of psychological necessity to having that basement also. Like, if you're gonna have cabin fever and you can't leave your house for a week, why not have the extra floor that you

you completely need before you go crazy. That is so— makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah, so, um, you've done quite a few things yourself. I mean, that— I think a lot of us that feel like we've got any type of skill or, or brains decide at some point we can probably tackle this. But I heard you say that, you know, this, this new house that you own, um, you're, you're maybe— it still needs some work, but you're having other people do the work. Is that, is that accurate? Yeah, so I learned from my Eventually, right? So there are certain things that I know that I can do myself, and that's sort of easy work. Like, I poured concrete for a new step whenever the old one split. Okay. And I didn't even have to

watch a YouTube video. I literally got concrete right from one of those building stores, and I read the back of it like, oh look, if I'm gonna make a step, it says step 1 is do this, step 2 is do this. Pour this here, flatten it out, and it came out pretty good. It looks, it looks probably a little bit better than the step that was originally there, so. Perfect. Yeah, so what is your process? Now, we've talked about this a little bit on our show, is that there's a little bit of a daunting task to finding professionals to work on your house. I mean, you drive by the local heating and air conditioning store that you see, you don't know anything about them. You see a paint, you know, and you see someone else painting

someone else's house and you're like, oh, they obviously trusted those people to trust Dino to paint their house. Right. Do you have any type of system that you do any research, or do you have a group of friends that you talk to? How do you go about finding the right person to do some of this work for you? So I know that we looked quite a bit. We would go onto sites like Yelp and do like a Google search and some other stuff to try to see what we could do in terms of just locating some companies who would be able to do it. And I don't think that there's ever a shortage of companies who will do it,

or individuals who will do it. Right. But there does seem to be a shortage in the area of individuals that are trustworthy, that you want them to be able to do it right. Somebody— I mean, I certainly hope that if I'm paying money to someone, then they're gonna do a better job than I can do myself. Yeah. So if I see things are gonna go off on that path, then I'll probably look and be like, look, I don't think this is gonna work out, man, because I can do a better job than you, and I'm not even doing this task. Like, I'm not a professional in this. So I would say that primarily, especially in that area, it seems like it's a word-of-mouth thing.

And I think here, my wife and I I don't know if you've used the Nextdoor application on your phone. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So a lot of people will sort of vouch for other companies. Sure. And that seems to work really, really well. Have you used that? Yeah, oh yeah, quite a bit. What have you used that to find? We used it for a mechanic shop. Okay. And it didn't work out super well, but I felt more confident going into it because so many people had vouched for the mechanic shop. Sure. Right off the bat, so I don't know, maybe matters would have been worse going elsewhere, I'm not sure. I think one of the

ways that I've thought about trying to find people, because I've been in your situation too, you don't really know who to talk to. I think it's always fine, it's always good to find out if they're bonded, right? Sure. Because if they're bonded, then you know that at least if something goes south, that they've got some insurance, right? Sure. You know, licensing, you know, obviously we want them to be licensed, but the bonded issue I think is another deal that's really important. Absolutely. Anyway, that's my 2 cents. That's all I got. It's also because Kevin's kind of a litigious guy. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Are there any other tools that you've used other than Nextdoor? Like, you ever try like

Angie's List or something like that? So, you know, not in terms of regular tools other than just doing Google searches, but I'm definitely the kind of guy where if I get really good work done and I have like 100% amazing service, then I'll sing about it and I'll basically go on those same sites. I'll go on Yelp, I'll go on whoever, Better Business Bureau, I'll go wherever I can Yeah, we'll make sure that we sort of, um, we get the word out that a company did something right by us. Nice. So yeah, um, I think reviews are great. Oh yeah, I mean, that's how I usually find out a lot of information. Reviews, right? They're great. Yes. Yeah. Sorry, I couldn't hear all of a sudden. I was just saying that,

uh, the reviews are super helpful. Oh yeah. And you know, I kind of, I kind of try to shy away from the 5-star reviews and I kind of shy away from the 1-star reviews because obviously they're a little skewed, but like those, those 4-star reviews. That's where it's at. That's your sweet spot? That's my sweet spot. I want to know what the 4-star review says. I feel like that's how your wife picked you out. No, she was aiming low. She was aiming low and I was, uh— Those are the 2-star reviews? Is that the— Yeah, yeah, I was, I was at the top of my game and she was aiming low that night. And, um, when we met and— well, it's worked out for almost 14 years. There you go. Yeah.

Charles, you've been super gracious with your time. Is there anything else you want to tell people about, or— I don't know, I guess not. No, yeah, thank you very much for having me on. Dude, this has been an honor. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so, so our show is called The Homeowner Show, and in fact there's a, there's a sticker right there if you want to take it, if you're interested. One or 12? There's a bunch of them. Depends on how many you're gonna put on your car, man. Um, all right, so yeah, go check us out on— we'll take, take 2. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, just check us out on iTunes. Are we gonna do the Final Four with Charles here? Oh yeah, we should. We absolutely Absolutely, I wanna know. Okay. Yeah, so we have 4 questions that we ask all of our guests.

Okay, awesome. And Kevin asks them because he's the only one that can remember. Yeah, we were talking about it before the show, he's like, what are they again? He never remembers, he never remembers. Okay, so the first question is, what is the must-have tool that you won't leave the house without? So I'd say just about every day, even if I'm not carrying it on me, right, so I went and worked out today, so I'm not gonna have it on me right now, but it's definitely in the car. I carry a little multi-tool. Oh yeah. So I was issued one back in 2001 as part of my Coast Guard boat crew qualification package, and they basically said, don't ever lose this, you'll use it a million times and whatever. So I lost that one

promptly, I bought a new one, and I lost that one and bought several along the lines. So once I lose it, I continue to buy new ones because of how valuable they are to me. So you never know when you're gonna need pliers or Phillips or regular screwdriver or whatever. So are you like a Leatherman guy, or is there like a particular brand you use? You know what, honestly, it doesn't work unless— okay, no, it doesn't. If, if the item doesn't work whenever I grab something with it and say if I put some force behind and I twist it and anything on it bends, I'll throw it out and get something totally different. So, okay, it doesn't have to be a Leatherman, it doesn't have to be any name

brand. I've seen them at Walmart that were good. I've seen them at, you know, other stores that may or may not be good. Yeah. Um, and I've also been very disappointed in stuff that I've purchased from, from some stores that I paid a lot of money for. Sure. You know, so, um, yeah, it just, it just kind of depends on how it works out. Yeah. Okay, cool. Our second question is, um, so what's a job that you've walked away from? Not necessarily a professional career as much as, um, you know, maybe you've got a homeowner. I mean, you've, you've done other things. This might be your boat, I don't know. Um, but just a job that you decided to take on that you said, I'm done with this, I gotta walk away. So I would

I would say, uh, hey, it's definitely the boat. Yeah, definitely the boat. Um, and, uh, at one point I was messing around with the electrical work and I saw a spark and an immediate flame and I was like, okay, I'm in over my head. I'm out. I'm out. Check out of this bad boy right now. This is not worth my life. Yeah, no, I get that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, um, the, the third question is, uh, what's one of the best pieces of wisdom or advice that you've ever received? Um, I was thinking about this one. I actually, I think about this pretty often. I'm a supervisor now in the Coast Guard. I'm a chief in the Coast Guard, and whenever people come to me and they present a problem,

I'm immediately frustrated when there's no suggested solution. If somebody comes and they say, hey, we got this big problem, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do, please God help me out, you know? And I'm just thinking to myself, okay, first of all, you need to chill out a little bit because you're stressing me out. Yeah, yeah. With the way that you're stressing out. And I'm like, try to think of 2 suggestions to how to resolve it, and bring them back to me. Because I can't try to solve everybody's problems myself, right? Sure. So, um, I had a supervisor once tell me, never bring a problem to anyone else, whether it's a friend, or a family member, or a boss, or

anyone, without bringing up 2 suggested— Solutions. Resolutions, yeah. And the idea is basically that, uh, even if they're both terrible, at least you attempted to find a fix for it. And I mean, and I've had some really terrible solutions, and had a supervisor be like, okay, well, you know what, I think you're an idiot, so I'm not gonna ask you that question anymore. At least you tried. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. But I'd rather him just be like, I think you're an idiot, as opposed to, well, what do you want me to do about it? You know, and have somebody like really like roaring into your face. Yeah, because that just elevates the stress level of the situation. Yeah, that's great

advice. Yeah, I like it. Okay, so the last, uh, the last question is, how do you wind down after a long day? Um, I like to try to go as stagnant as I possibly can. Okay, right. So I play video games a lot in my off time. I have to work out for the job, and then I— for my regular civilian job, I do some physical activity here and there. And sometimes at the end of the day, between that and the sort of mental stress of the job, I like to do something where I don't have to think a lot about it. So my wife and I will typically open up a glass of wine or

beer, and we'll share it. She's actually more of a whiskey girl herself. I'm not. We'll open up a cigar, light it up, and we'll just hang out and chat. Or we'll break out a glass of wine, and put on Grand Theft Auto or some other video game, and we'll take turns, you know, trying to see how many— whatever, how many people we can blow up or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that's awesome. We'll do something to totally check out of reality for a minute. Yeah, that's fantastic. I think it's important. Yeah, absolutely. Very important. Love it. Well, cool, uh, you know, thanks for your time. Hey, thanks for having us. It's fantastic, man. Tell your friends about the show. I certainly will. This is gonna go up on Christmas Day, so, um, you know, go check it

out. You'll be live. Awesome. We're live now. We're live now. So you'll be, you'll be, you'll be available. You'll be mixed and mastered and sounding beautiful. Yeah, exactly. Well, cool. Well, thanks for your time. Thank you, Dylan. Appreciate it. All right, have a good one.