What Happens In Arizona…Ends in Orlando

This is episode number 322 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We are so glad that you could join us for another live episode here in The Homeowner Show.

Oh, that's me.

Sorry.

That's totally you.

It was, it was the delay. Sorry, I had it on my phone. I apologize.

It is what it is.

It is what it is.

Well, let's do this because we got lots to talk about. Let's go ahead and get our sponsors talked about.

Let's do it.

And we could talk about—

We have some beautiful sponsors.

We got all kinds of things that we want to talk about today, uh, but we're gonna go and talk about our sponsors. First off, because they're awesome, we're gonna start off with Lone Star Appliance Repair. Let me tell you guys, if, uh, you've got a situation where you're considering getting new appliances, don't. Just think of again, like, take a deep breath, like, take a step back for a minute and go, okay, if my appliance worked, would I be okay keeping it? And most of the time, uh, I, I think the answer would be yes, because there's a lot of hassle that goes into looking for new appliances. So look, call Lone Star Appliance Repair. They're great people. They will take care of you. They will tell you if you need to repair it or if you need to get a new one.

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Beautifully said, my friend. Thank you. Next, we also got True Texas Solar and Roofing.

That's it.

That's right, because you don't want a solar company that doesn't understand how your roof needs to be repaired, replaced, or installed upon.

Upon.

Upon. That's right. Getting all formal up in here. Guys, listen. One of the reasons that we partner with a solar company and a roofing company like True Texas is because we believe in things like integrity and honesty. honesty. And we've spent a lot of time with Josh, who's the CEO over there. And we, like, I've known Josh for years now, and I really believe that he genuinely cares about giving everybody the honest approach to solar and roofing. Yeah. You know, and, like, like, let's be honest. Like, it feels like a scammy industry.

Oh, yeah.

Because there's a lot of charlatans out there that are trying to get your money rather than provide you with a good, honest service. And True Texas Solar is the opposite of that. They are out there debunking all of the scam artists and the charlatans in the industry and providing you with the most honest and upfront estimates for your commercial and residential solar needs. They got a lot of commercial projects going on right now. And listen, for whatever reason, a lot of the incentives are still hanging around. Why? Trump's too focused on tariffs.

Yeah.

You know, he hadn't rolled back any of the incentives on solar yet. So take advantage while you can and do it with an honest company that's gonna give you the best options. And not only can they give you solar, but they can give you energy independence options for your home. You can't get off the grid, but you can have a whole home battery. You can have a generator installed and all of that to supplement the solar energy that you're pulling in your home. So you may not even need to tap into the grid. You can just have a home that's provided with its own energy via its own solar panels, its own generators, and its own home

battery.

And we're coming into a time and we've already had some storms.

Storm season is upon us, my friends.

Yeah, we've already had some storms. storms have knocked out power for people and hurricane season is coming. If you're considering it, now's the time to get in it because it takes time to install it. So yeah, and to figure out what you need, all that kind of stuff. So now's the time.

And I imagine financing is available.

Sure it is. Yeah, absolutely.

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The number is 936-286-8325.

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With 2 Ks.

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And listen, this is a product that Kevin and I both believe in. Why? Because we both have it in our homes, and they've been stealing Kevin's son's allowance money.

Yeah.

For months now.

For months. And he is not happy about it.

He's not happy about it.

Because the truth is he doesn't have to clean the toilet anymore.

Yeah.

Like, and, and like, that's a, that's a job that nobody really likes.

Right.

But if you're—

if you're gonna do it, you gotta get some money.

That's right. And, and the other thing is, if you're gonna do it, like, make it be some work. You know what I mean? But right now, the way, the way it is at my house, we've got 2 toilets in our house, and both of them have the Crazy Clean in it, which is zero chemicals. It is zero of that blue or green colored water that you're gonna get. It's just gonna take whatever, uh, hardening agent or, you know, minerals and all the stuff that's in your water, neutralize those things so that it doesn't cause scaling on your, uh, your toilet bowl. And so now, literally, if you need to clean your toilet, you can even just take a little rag and

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Right.

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out. Let us know if you have any questions about it, but Krazy Klean with a K. Awesome. All right, man.

What we got going on today, man? Dude, I guess, I mean, like, I'm asking that knowing exactly what we're gonna be talking about.

Well, sure. I, I'll tell you this though, because you asked, um, is life crazy for you right now or is it just me? I mean, so, so here's the thing.

My, my, so my crazy season Like, it was crazy for about 3 weeks.

Okay.

We were out of town for about 3 weeks.

Okay. Which we're gonna talk about.

Yeah. So, and we're gonna talk about where we were and what we did and all that kind of fun stuff. Um, so, but like, it, this is, this is my problem with going out of town is you, you think that you're gonna go rest and relax, but you're always like, I'm just always worried about what's waiting for me when I get back home.

Yeah.

And I feel like I'm always playing catch up.

Mhmm.

Now, like, you guys can, like, criticize me all you want, but, like, it's just the nature of the beast, man. I've got 3 kids. I've, I've got a family. I've got a business. I've the podcast. We've got other things that we're involved with, and all those things require somewhat of my attention. And so, like, when I try and travel and, you know, vacation, Mhmm. I try and relax and not do those kinds of things. Well, like, I end up working while I'm there anyway. And then when I get back, I still have as much going on as I did when I was left. And so, like, I'm left playing catch up.

Yep.

With, you know, and my dumb butt bought a horse before I went out of town.

So, so not only, not only, I mean, now it's a new animal introduced into your, your home.

Right.

Now you got to take some, take care of it.

Well, yeah, thank you.

And then you got to come back and remind it that it, that it likes you.

I mean, you know, when we were out of, out of town for the first trip, my, my kids were here and they were taking care of all our animals.

Oh, that's helpful.

You know, and I didn't feel like it would be safe, you know, even though like I had a lot of confidence in this horse that I bought, I didn't feel like it was a good idea to leave my kids at home with a brand new horse. It had only been here like 3 days.

Sure.

With the other horse. And, and so my dad graciously agreed to take care of it while— so I took it over to his place and he took care of the horse. Um, got a little attached to it.

Of course.

You know, of course. Um, and And my mom's called a couple of times. She's like, well, is the other horse being nice? If he's not being nice, just bring him back.

No.

I'm like, so you all like him now?

Right.

Well, just come over for dinner. Right.

It's fine.

Yes. But anyway, so that was part of it. Okay.

That makes sense.

Well, and anytime you have animals and you go out of town and you don't take those animals with you, you're trusting somebody else that doesn't normally coexist with them.

Right.

to like step in and take care of them.

Yeah.

This is stressful.

It is. You know, I totally get it.

It's, it's the downside to, to, to having animals, you know, like, I, I, I don't, I don't really know how to resolve that. I mean, I think there's a lot of people that take 'em with 'em.

Yeah.

I don't know how to take my horses with me.

No, that's a lot of work.

Um, I mean, I do know how to take them with me. I won't take them with me. No. Because it's a big pain in the butt.

Yeah, of course.

Um, But it, like, it's, it's the price for the life that I've chosen.

Sure.

And I'm not complaining about that. No, I, I wouldn't unchoose it.

No, of course not. Um, well, I, I'll just tell you, man, like, things have been, things have been crazy.

Like, the, the good thing though, this is, this is like your busiest time of the year.

What is in, in general? It's my busiest time of the year. Like, my summers are ridiculous, right? I'm, I'm gone a lot and I've got a lot of obligations during the summer. And on top of that, like, pretty excited about this, but also I'm like, ugh, my son made the All-Star team.

Right.

With baseball. And I don't think I told you, but, um, between the time that his regular season ended and the begin— the tournament, the first tournament, Um, which is roughly a month of time. He's practicing 6 days a week for 2 to 4 hours a day.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah. And this next week, which is really when my, my summertime truly kicks off and some of the busiest things that I do happen, is the weeks that they're getting into every single day. It's 4 hours a day.

Mm-hmm.

Monday through Saturday. So like, it's just, it's a lot. It's a lot. And we'll see. I mean, you know, hopefully it pays off and, you know, they, they win their tournament, but, you know, if they win their tournament, then they go to another tournament and that would be outta town. Mm-hmm. If they win that, then they go to state and that's, you know, in Austin. So like, it's just, it's one of those deals where you go, man, what an awesome thing. Like super excited. really, really happy for him. I love baseball. Most people know that. Um, so I'm, I'm having a blast, but it, it's, it's a lot.

Yeah.

That's a lot. So anyway, things are, things are busy, but, um, man, I'm, I'm interested to hear, cuz we haven't talked about your trips a lot, so I'm gonna kind of hear firsthand how some of these things went. Uh, but You started off with a trip to Arizona, correct?

Correct. Okay. Well, I mean, yeah, so we went, we flew into Phoenix.

Okay.

But we spent most of our time in Scottsdale.

All right. Still Arizona.

Yeah, yeah, still Arizona. And as always, most of our trips are centered around food because we love to check out the local cuisine.

Why not?

Yeah, of course. Um, but we were, we were actually there for a Grant Cardone event. Uh, so he, uh, and Brandon, uh, what's Brandon's last name? Dadgummit. Dawson. Oh, Brandon Dawson.

Okay.

Um, Brandon is, uh, is his new partner in I forget what they're even calling it, but they're— the conference that we went to was targeted at, uh, small businesses that are in the service industry. Meaning, meaning like home services.

Sure.

Electricians, plumbers, pest control.

Sure.

AC, construction, remodeling, all that, all that kind of stuff.

Right.

And right, right off the bat, let me tell you, they have built an incredible facility there. They've built a theater downstairs, and I think that theater seats somewhere between 300 and 400 people.

Wow.

And the entire stage from end to end is a screen, and it's a long stage.

Wow.

So wraparound screens. I will say this. The sound quality wasn't great.

Okay.

Interesting. It was difficult to hear some of the speakers from time to time.

Interesting.

Probably, like, my only complaint about the space. Because the backside of the space was sliding glass doors that could open up outside.

All right.

I love that. To a big patio. And so every day, if you weren't one of, like, the VIPs, they brought in food trucks. for you to have lunch, but there was also a number of surrounding restaurants in the, uh, complex that you could go to. Uh, a lot of different restaurants, honestly.

Okay.

And, um, it was good. Like, the, the event itself was good. Um, we learned a lot. Uh, most of it is how to scale your business.

Okay.

You know, how to take your business from— and, and like, their goal if you get into their program is they want, you know, they wanna scale you up to $100 million.

Okay.

You know, which I—

that's a nice goal.

It is a nice goal. I think that sounds appealing to a lot of people.

Yeah.

That does not appeal to me.

That's a lot of work.

It's a lot of work.

Yeah.

And I, I'm not afraid of work, but that's just not the kind of work I necessarily wanna be doing.

Well, I mean, you, you gotta look at it this way and go, the, the route that it takes for your business at, at the price point that your business is. And what I mean by that is the people that pay you, right, to come do pest control services at their house, to get to $100 million worth of that type of, right, service.

I'm, I'm gonna be in multiple cities.

Right.

You know, um, which I'm, I'm not opposed to. I'm not opposed to being in multiple cities. I mean, I think I can manage that. It, it's just like at, at some point it's getting to $100 million just to get to $100 million.

Sure.

You know what I mean?

Yeah. And, and, and you really have to ask yourself, like, am I able to provide the same level of service that I, that I'm currently able to provide?

Right.

In that capacity.

Right.

And the answer is, the answer, who knows?

Maybe.

Maybe it's possible.

I don't know. Never been there before.

Right.

Um, but like, I, I'd much rather And I don't wanna micromanage, but, like, I wanna keep my thumb on the scale.

Sure.

You know, I wanna be involved in the business to a certain degree. Sure.

You're no longer a small business at $100 million.

No.

That's the thing too.

No.

No. No. No. No. Yeah.

And I'm, I'm, I'm happy to stay a small business.

Yeah.

And, like, a small business, and most people don't realize this, man. Like, a small business is defined as a company with less than 50 employees.

Sure. So, I mean, you, it, it does not have anything to do with the dollar amount.

Right. If, and if I'm, if I'm at, 40 employees, man. We're a multimillion-dollar operation.

Right.

And so, like, in order to get to, like, $100 million, I mean, you're talking about, like, hundreds of people.

Oh, sure.

You know, which at that point, I know hardly any of them.

Right.

Which that doesn't— I mean, that's just not how I operate.

Yeah. You're definitely hands-off of a lot of things at that point.

Yeah. Look, but, like, here's the thing is this is a conversation my wife and I have all the time is We want to have that option available to our kids. You know, should they decide to, to step in and, and be part of the business, you know, should they have the option to take the business to that level? 100%. We wanna make it that easy for them or, or as easier than it was for us to do that.

Sure.

So basically, they give you the math on, on how, what, what your numbers should look like should you want to scale above and beyond where you're currently at.

Okay.

Um, and it's actually not hard math. And it makes sense once they explain it to you, like where, where your profitability should be, like where your employees, like net bringing into the company, like, and then they, then, then they walk you through like, okay, these are the, this is how you weed out the good people versus the people who are just going to cost you a lot of money. Um, so they give you a lot of good tools and information while you're there. They don't give you everything. Okay. And this is what I, what I think people need to understand is, like, you can, you can pay, and it, it's not terribly expensive to go to this

conference.

Sure.

It's just not.

Sure.

I mean, like, I think in total it cost us, like, $3,500 to go to this conference. And, and what I mean by, like, is flight, hotel, food, tickets to the event. Yeah. Like, all that.

Yeah.

It's about $3,500.

Okay.

Not, not terribly expensive.

Reasonable.

Sorry if that offends you, but, like, it's just not a whole bunch of money.

It's reasonable. It's reasonable whenever you're going all the way to another state, you're having to fly, all that. Yeah.

And here, here's what I'll say about that. People that think that that's a lot of money spent, you know, almost 9 times that to get your college degree.

Right.

Right. Right? And I probably learned in 4 days more than you learned in 2 years at your college degree. Like, pay for good education.

Sure.

Right?

Right.

Um, and again, I'm not saying that like Cardone and Brandon Dawson are the best educators in the world. They probably wouldn't even say that.

Yeah.

Um, well, maybe they would. They're pretty arrogant.

Yeah.

Um, confident. Let's say confident.

Okay.

Yeah, sure. We wanna be friends at the end of this episode. Um, no, no, like, I, I, I really, I really do think that they're doing some, some interesting and good stuff. I'm, I'm interested to see what happens long-term. Um, because I did meet I met a lot of guys from Texas while I was there.

Okay.

That, and, and not just guys from Texas. I met guys from like around the country that were interested in what they were doing. They're running businesses like mine. Um, and some of them are already in their program.

All right.

You know, and so they, they, and part of being in their program is you're allowed to attend any of their events across the country.

Right.

And, and these are valuable events. One, because like, for the very reason that I'm saying right now, I got to meet these guys.

Yeah. Yep.

And network with them.

Networking is huge.

And, you know, that was worth the price of admission. Yeah. I met, I met a guy in College Station while I was in Arizona. And for those of you that don't know, we're in Conroe. College Station is less than an hour down the road.

It's close.

And this guy's in a very similar business as me. Okay. And he hates my competition in his town.

Oh, really?

And now he knows my name.

Interesting.

You know what I mean?

Yes, I do.

And, and he's you know, 5, 6 times the size of my business. And I'm like, let's go, bro.

Let's do this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, it's, it's connections like that that I'm like, okay, I understand the value.

Yeah.

Um, but here's the problem. And it's not, it's not a problem. Um, but for most people it's off-putting.

Okay.

To get into their program, what do you think it costs?

Oh, see, this is, This is the thing is like, my guess is it's, it's a, it's a, it's almost like a subscription probably. It's probably a per year type of thing. And I'm guessing it's upward of $20 grand.

Okay.

That's my guess.

It's $40,000.

Okay.

That's at the discount.

Yeah. Okay. I mean, is that, is that like lifetime or is that like—

No, no, no. That's for the year.

Per year. So again, I'm coming back to, I, I'm not shocked Yeah. I, I, I may, you know, I'm, I'm not shocked that it's a lot of money and that it's a per year type of thing.

Right.

And it's not just like a one-time thing. Yeah. But again, you said something just a minute ago that's, yes, it's off-putting because of how much money it is. And yet me—

Even, even if you're successful, man, like, right.

If you're— That's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. But I will also say there's a lot of people that spend more than that every single year to go to college. Yep. So, I mean, you kind of gotta weigh some things every once in a while.

You gotta, you gotta weigh it and, and like, what are they bringing? And so here's the thing. This is, this is why I think their, their system is kind of brilliant. One, there's a lot of sharks in the water.

Yeah.

Like, if, if you, here, here's what I'll tell business owners. If you want to How do I put this? If you wanna understand what matters in making the right hire for your company and for your business, it's worthwhile to go to this conference just to watch how their staff behave and operate.

Okay.

These guys are aggressive. Charming, smart. They have a lot of endurance.

Okay.

And they are trained to do their thing. Like I met two or three guys, and they just came up and introduced themselves. They don't know who I am from Adam.

Right.

I mean, like immediately, they've been trained to. figure out what my business is like quickly, who I am, where I'm coming from. Yep.

And, and they probably are trying to figure that out in the first 5 minutes.

Oh yeah.

If not sooner.

You know what one of the first questions they ask?

Uh, tell me.

How long you been in business?

Uh, yeah, because if it's less than a year, if it's less than 3 years, it probably, if it's less than 5 years, they're going, all right, dude, I was chum in the fricking water. Oh, I bet.

You know why?

Because you've been in business for a long time.

The minute I said 40 years, they said, holy hell. Right. And they're every— Like they, they lit, some of them started salivating.

Yeah.

But they don't realize that like, it's like we've just maintained the business as it is for a long time at the level that it is.

Sure.

Um, you know, and so like when they, and then it's like 40 years, what are you doing annually? Like, like they have no shame.

No.

Like you don't ask me that.

Right. No, they do.

How dare you?

Yeah. But, but here's the thing. And this is the thing that you and I've talked about this before. When it comes to business, money doesn't matter. No, no. Money—

like, I have learned that. I'm jesting to a certain degree. Like, it didn't bother me. Like, I told them. I told them exactly what I was doing.

Yeah, because it's one of those deals that money doesn't matter at that point.

And that changed the conversation immediately.

Of course it did. Of course it did.

They're like, 40 years, you're doing what?

Yeah. Why? What are you not doing? We can help.

Can I help you?

Yeah, we can help. I know we can help.

Of course.

Yeah.

So, but like, it, like, it was good. And like, even then, even then, before I left the facility, I had a text message.

Wow.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like there was, and, and then when I saw them the next day, hey Craig, how you doing, bud?

Oh, they remembered your name.

Oh, they were good.

Yeah.

They were good.

Yeah.

Um, you know, and, you know, and they're, they're working commission.

I get it. Sure. Of course.

Like it's, Look, it's sales.

It is.

It's sales.

Yep.

But you watch, you know, like we got invited up to like a cocktail hour after one of the, the sessions. Sure. And it was us and it was like, hey, if you're in these 3 industries, we want you to come upstairs. We've got wine, we've got cocktails, we've got snacks. We, we wanna meet you.

Yeah.

You know, so we went up.

Yeah.

I ended up meeting 2 good guys while I was there. Well, 3 good guys. One of them was like an Italian-Russian guy. Um, he's doing fencing up in Dallas.

Okay.

I met this guy in Ohio. He's been doing roofing for years and years and years. And I meet this guy in College Station. He's like in air conditioning and electrical and all this kind of stuff. So I meet some good guys while, while I'm up there. But like what they do is they put you in the room with guys who are already in the program.

Mm-hmm.

So that you have the opportunity to be like, Hey, how long you been doing this with them?

Yeah.

Has it been a good thing for you?

Yeah.

And like everyone that you talk to, that's like, dude, the best thing I've ever done. They changed my business.

Yeah. Changed my business and changed my life.

And I, I think, I think part of it is they have smartly figured out, and smartly is not a word. Uh, they have—

it is tonight.

They have intelligently figured out how to create connections between businesses, you know, and how to leverage those connections because you'll, you'll see them doing it when you're in the room with them. There'll be like, And you can tell who the guys are by the different lanyards that they have on. They'll go and grab a guy with, like, a red lanyard, and they'll be like, hey, so-and-so's here. I really need you to come meet him. Like, you really need to come talk to him. And it's like, they're making connections that are changing people's businesses. I also heard some really crazy stuff about data centers while I was there.

Oh.

Yeah. So one of the things that they do is they bring in guest speakers towards the end of the day, and it's, Is it a 4-day thing? I think it's a 4-day thing.

Okay.

Um, so you'll potentially hear like 3 different speakers while you're there. And, um, one of them is this guy that builds nothing but data centers.

Um, for what?

Uh, for everybody. Microsoft, Amazon.

Okay.

I mean, you name it.

All right.

He's building data centers.

Okay.

Left and right. Guys, I'm multi-hundred millionaire. I mean, like, he's— he just found his, his niche.

Yeah.

And he's— I mean, he's the guy.

Sure.

Um, and he was probably one of the most interesting. Like, we had like a special forces, like, former Delta guy there. We weren't like allowed to like tweet about him or say his name. I don't even remember it, to be honest. Um, so I couldn't like divulge that information even if I wanted to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, But, uh, this, this one guy that was building the data centers, what he said was really intriguing to me. And I, I think our audience should be really interested in it because what he's talking about, do you remember, do you remember the story that we, we talked about where the guy was spoofing Enron?

Oh yeah.

About the egg?

Yes.

You remember that?

Yes.

So, and, and that was a joke.

It was.

It was a joke. Um, and, and like, because he was bringing back Enron, Enron was launching this egg and it was like this wireless generator, nuclear reactor for people's house. Yeah.

Yeah.

So what this guy is saying is they're starting to build these data centers in remote areas. And you, you gotta start thinking like North Dakota, South Dakota, um, Idaho, Wyoming.

Okay.

Montana, parts, parts of, you know, places like that.

Sure.

Um, even probably Alaska.

Okay.

Um, but one of the things that they already have are these micronuclear reactors. And he says these data centers require so much power that they've miniaturized nuclear reactors and they're burying them 50 meters below the ground in order to power these data centers.

Like exclusive power?

Sort of.

Okay.

I'll get there.

Okay.

Because this is, this is why I think it's pertinent to our, to our audience. They're burying these micronuclear reactors 50 meters below the ground. Well, the micronuclear reactors, even though they're micro, are still producing way more electricity and power than these data centers need.

Sure.

And so what they're thinking that they're going to do is develop communities around these data centers in remote, in remote places. And the incentivization to get people to move there is free power.

Oh, wow.

And so the, the, the data centers are going to be paying for the, the reactor. Sure. But all these homes that get built around the data center, they're going to be like, hey, move here, free power for life.

Wow. That's interesting.

Because they can do it.

Sure.

You know, and so not only are they going to be getting free power, but those data centers are going to have access to an employee pool.

I was going to say, yeah.

It's brilliant, man.

Yeah.

It's brilliant. And this guy's explaining it and he's the one building them.

Oh, wow.

He's building all the data centers and he's telling us, he's like, look, it's coming. Just pay attention. Like, if you're a home builder, figure out how you can get in these markets. If you're an electrician, figure out how you can get an office there. If you're a plumber, figure out how you can get there. Like that, he's, he's not saying that out loud.

Yeah.

But it's, but like, he's signaling like, hey, there's gonna be a lot of homes built in, in and around these data centers when we start burying these reactors. And they're able to get away with it because they're not big nuclear plants that are above ground. They're below ground 50 meters. If anything ever happens to them, it's down there. Right.

You know, and, and by the way, nothing ever happens to those nuclear reactors.

Pretty much. I mean, I mean, we've, we've kind of perfected it.

Yeah.

And I don't want to be arrogant about it. Well, but we're not going to have a Chernobyl in the United States.

And, and, and oh, by the way, I was talking to a friend of ours, uh, today at tonight at dinner, and we were talking about Chernobyl. And, and the thing that, that most people are unaware of about Chernobyl, it's weird that we were talking about this tonight, um, is that they had 7 safety, like, protocols. Mm-hmm. That, uh, would keep— any one of them would've kept the Chernobyl problem from happening.

Right.

And they turned all of them off to do some testing. And then Like a, like a bright red alarm started going off saying we're overheating and they ignored it. Yep.

So we should, we should also mention Chernobyl is in—

Not the United States.

It's in the Ukraine.

Yeah. Not anywhere close to here. And it's in the Ukraine. And like the thing that, by the way, there are multiple other nuclear, uh, plants right next to them. Like, and they were all fine. So like, we're, we're talking about a, a, something that most people don't understand because we've seen like crazy things that have happened. Right. And then we just automatically associate. If people knew how many nuclear plants still existed and nothing has ever happened to them, they'd go, oh.

It's like the safest, most efficient form of electrical production in the United States.

It's so safe. It is so like, if we would do more of it, our power grid would be way more stable. It would be way more safe. You would be— it's so much cheaper than the other options.

Well, I think, I think what this guy was talking about is this is the end around.

Yeah, I can see that.

Yeah.

It makes sense.

It, it makes a lot of sense.

I mean, and because you're, you're doing, again, you're doing something that, that people feel weird about because you hear nuclear and all of a sudden they think of like these television shows, like crazy things that happen. But now you're going, okay, look, we're not gonna make that big one. We're gonna make this little tiny one and we're gonna bury it far enough that if anything did happen, you might not even feel it.

Look, I, you know, I, dude, I met a lot of Chernobyl kids.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Um, and what I mean by Chernobyl kids is the, the offspring of the parents who were alive when Chernobyl happened.

Right.

Um, and like, it wasn't great.

No. Goodness, no.

I met kids and like, what you see is minor mutations.

Okay.

Meaning I met kids. I spent a fair amount of time in the Ukraine.

Okay.

When my wife and I first got married, we did a lot of camps and stuff. I mean, like, we were in Kyiv.

Okay.

Which, I mean, like, I'm happy we got to see it because it's not— it doesn't exist anymore. We have friends from there and they're like, it's just gone.

Wow.

But, uh, we met kids that had like one blue eye and one brown eye.

Okay.

Um, we met kids that had freckles, that the freckles weren't dark, they were bright white.

Oh.

And it was stuff like that.

Yeah.

Like, like things that were like, you, you see them and you notice it and it's like, it's like a little off.

But it's not.

But for the most part, they're like a normal, healthy kid.

Sure.

Now, like, were there other kids that had like Problems? Yeah, 100%.

Of course.

I'm not trying to like downplay it, right, at all. Like, obviously these kids were affected in the second generation of exposure.

Of course.

Um, but like, from what I've heard and the friends that I know that live there and have been living there for decades since, after the second generation, not really a whole lot of effect. Yeah. Um, so you can do with that, that, and then like, that's, but that's like just my observations from having been there.

Sure.

And the people that I know that live there and have experienced it.

Sure.

Um, so, but all that getting back to Scottsdale. Um, interesting town. Uh, not my favorite town.

Okay.

I, there's so many people that I talk to, like, I love Scottsdale. And just about everybody that loves Scottsdale plays golf. I was gonna say, if they're a golfer, then they They love it. Yeah. And I, that makes sense to me. There are gobs of golf courses and the golf courses are beautiful.

Yeah, of course.

Everything else is butt ugly.

Yeah.

Oh, well, I believe that, you know, and it's just sand and rocks and it's a desert now. There are beautiful cacti everywhere.

Okay.

And, and like, like the, the, the two-armed ones, you know?

Oh, nice.

Like, but like really tall though. And those are super cool. Yeah. But they're everywhere.

Really?

All over. And like huge. Okay. Huge, huge, huge. Um, so just things I didn't know about like Phoenix, Scottsdale area, which I, I mean, like when you talk about Scottsdale, it's like, it is Phoenix.

Yeah. It's, but how far away is it?

It, it, but like, that's the thing is like Scottsdale is like maybe like 10, 15 minutes.

It's there.

Like it's, it, it's like Spring.

Okay. Like going from Spring to Conroe.

Spring, Spring to Houston. Oh, it's Spring to Houston.

Yeah. It's like that. It's right there.

Um, but like, it doesn't have the ability to, because like, once you're in Houston, you go to Spring and then you can go like Conroe.

Right.

Or Kingwood.

There's nothing past Scottsdale.

There's nothing. Well, because there's a, there's a national forest.

Right.

And you can't, like, you can't bump up against that. So we went to the Tonto National Forest.

Okay.

Um, and we did like an oasis hike into a waterfall. Um, which I mean, I was just blown away that that even existed once we got there. I mean, because it's just nothing but rocks and sand.

I bet. Every—

the whole way there.

Yeah.

Um, but it was fun.

Yeah.

And it was— and like, it is like this weird oasis. Like, once water starts flowing, like, plants—

yeah—

are sprung up all over the place.

How about that?

And the water like flows to a certain point and then it just goes underground.

Oh yeah.

You know, and it's like, where does it go? Well, like, that's the aquifer.

That's it. You know, and it goes back, it feeds itself.

Yeah. And like they say, like if you come after a big rain, you can see a much bigger waterfall, which that makes sense.

Yeah, sure.

So it was cool.

So once every 7 years. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

And then there were, so we did that and it was like a, I mean, in and out, it was probably like a 3.5-mile hike.

Okay.

And then we went to some ruins. Um, that were around, I think they said those were like 3,000 to 4,000 years old.

Okay.

Um, and it was a tribe that had built a fortress on top of a hill.

Oh, interesting.

And like parts of, parts of that were still there. And there had been people there that had been like restoring and preserving. And it was really cool to see like all the structures that had been there at one time. So we did that. Um, but while we— so we stopped at the ranger station to kind of like make sure we knew where we were going, make sure we went to the place that we wanted to go. It's the Tonto National Forest, by the way.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and, and so one of the places when we stopped, she was like, hey, go do this hike and then go do— make sure you go do this hike. But when you come out, make sure and go to Raven's View because it's like the only restaurant nearby and it's, it's super cool place. And so we did. And Raven's View is just this restaurant. It sits outside of a neighborhood that overlooks the golf course, and it's a wine bar.

Oh.

Um, but like, and it's, it's real, real small, but like super cool place to go.

Yeah.

And it was like our first introduction to like food.

Okay.

In Arizona.

Interesting.

Like, and like, it wasn't anything special, but the wine was good. They had a, we ordered a charcuterie board.

It was delicious.

And you could kind of tell that like, It was the local kind of dive.

Okay.

For really, really rich dudes that thought they could still play golf in their 70s. Yeah. You know what I mean?

There's a lot of those. Yeah.

And they were all there like having lunch and then all of their ex-wives were like on a schedule to come in and have lunch after them. Sure. Um, but like super cool place.

Okay.

And you could kind of tell like the owner knew most of the regulars and, and the bartender knew all the, and it's like the, The park ranger really pointed us in a good direction. Like it was, it was a fun place and they have like an outdoor bar that kind of looks on into the inside. So you're kind of getting like that AC hitting you because let me tell you something, man. Like when people say like there's a difference between the dry heat and like Houston heat, they ain't lying.

No, it's, it's for real.

It was super hot there, but like, we were like, why aren't we sweating?

No, you don't.

No, I mean, I grew up, this is weird.

I grew up in West Texas. It's, it's similar. I mean, there's, yeah, it can be, it can be literally be 95, 100 degrees outside and you just don't sweat.

If you're not moving around doing stuff.

I mean, like, it's not, I'm like, and, and, and you can walk in, be 83 degrees outside here and be like, I'm, I need a shower.

Yeah.

All I did was go get the mail.

You know, you get swampy in the nether regions.

That is not wrong. Not wrong.

Um, so, um, and, and so kind of staying on a food theme, um, there is, there's a lot of Mexican food in—

Interesting.

There.

Yeah.

Um, but they don't call it Mex— I forget what they call it. It's like a—

Baja.

Like, well, like we call it like Tex-Mex and there's like a word for it that they blend with like Mexican and Native American.

Oh. Um, interesting.

Uh, maybe I'll, I'll look it up here in a minute. Um, because like they're famous for like fry bread.

Fry bread? Yeah. Yeah. I don't even know what that is.

Um, hang on.

Okay. I, I don't, um, do they call it Sonoran style?

Yes. Okay. Sonoran, Sonoran food. So like, that's, that's very similar to like what we call Tex-Mex.

Okay. Interesting.

It's almost exactly the same thing.

Really?

Yeah, except they incorporate fry bread.

What is fry bread?

It's fried bread.

Oh.

Literally, it's like take bread dough, fry it, and use it like a taco shell.

Interesting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not every place does it. Most places are like, they'll stick with like a tortilla.

Okay.

But like fry bread's a big thing in Phoenix.

I'm looking it up right now because, oh, that's very interesting. Apparently, like, it almost looks like a sopapilla.

It does kind of look like a sopapilla.

Okay.

And I think it actually shows up in, like, Indian cuisine from time to time.

Okay.

Anyway, all that to say, we ended up at a place in Phoenix called the Taco Guild, which was in a Methodist church.

I saw pictures of this.

Yes. And the Methodist Church was actually older than the state of Arizona.

What?

So, like, this place had, like, taken over this Methodist Church that was older than the state of Arizona and preserved it.

Okay.

But now turned it into a restaurant called the Taco Guild.

Interesting.

It was so freaking good.

It looked good.

And they, they had all the old stained glass.

Okay.

And all the, like, the, the, like, the church bulletin station. And you and I probably grew up with, like, them putting, like, the, the song track where they have one of those.

Oh, no. Yeah.

The, the songbook numbers and stuff like that. They had that. Really? Yeah.

Yeah.

But, like, just a cool concept, man.

Yeah. Very, very cool.

But, like, All that to say, we went, you know, we Ravensview Taco Guild, incredible. We had a lot of good food while we were there.

Yeah.

What we were blown away with is Phoenix is an incredible pizza town.

Come on now. Tell me more.

Um, and like, what's the name of the, uh, hang on.

I, look, you, you'd say pizza and I'm there. That is my love language. Pizza. So you, like, when you say they've got a lot of, like, what kind of pizza are we talking here? Like, there, there's a lot of different styles of pizza, a lot of different ways to do pizza. Um, are we talking like brick oven type stuff? Are we talking wood oven type stuff? Are we talking like Neapolitan type?

Almost everything that I found there was a wood-fired oven.

Okay.

I'm down. And, um, let me tell you, that's my favorite kind of pizza.

Oh, me too.

Um, so there's this guy named Chris Bianco.

Mm-hmm.

Um, Bianco Pizzerias. I think he's got 3 or 4 restaurants in Phoenix now. Okay. He got really well known for like his pizzerias and I think everybody else is kind of like on his coattails copying.

Oh, okay.

What he's done.

Sure.

Because like so many places like just have a wood-fired oven and they're like, mm-hmm, we make the best pizza.

Best pizza.

And most of 'em are right.

They're all good.

Like everywhere we went, man, there was like a pizzeria. And like, like, like when I say pizza, like when I, from here, I'm like, okay, like you're talking about like a Domino's, you're talking about like Papa John's. And I'm like, no, it's like independent pizzerias. Like, like when you and I grew up, like there was always like a Pizza Hut. Of course. You went and sat down. Yeah. You had like a buffet.

Yeah.

You know, and it's not like that.

Okay.

But it's like a restaurant.

Okay.

And what they do is pizza.

And they do it well.

Yes, man. But like, but like artisan pizza.

Is it like, do they have like, please tell me they have like red and white checkered like tablecloths.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not like that. Okay. But like almost, almost every single one of them has some version of arugula, fig, balsamic, goat cheese pizza.

Interesting.

Like that. Okay. That kind of pizza.

So it's, yeah, so it's very, it's, it's very out of the ordinary.

But they have the standard stuff.

Sure.

But like almost that, that was the thing that I noticed is like almost every single one of them had that like arugula.

Interesting.

Goat cheese, fig, balsamic, or some combination therein of that pizza, which is one of my favorite kind of pizzas. Sure. Um, there.

Interesting.

You know, and then they had other ones like that.

Okay.

Um, as well as like your traditional, like, pepperoni, margherita, like all that kind of stuff. But like all of them had like their own little like versions of artisan pizza.

Okay.

And there were like big restaurants that have it and there were like little hole in the walls and there was just pizza everywhere, man.

Yum.

And I don't— I was like, I was blown away by it. I was like, I don't understand why. It's Phoenix.

Yeah.

Like what makes this a pizza town?

Doesn't matter.

Maybe like, maybe because of their elevation, the crust. It's like crispier or—

Well, I would think that it would get crispier just with the low humidity.

Maybe.

You think?

Yeah, you would think.

Well, what kind of wood are they cooking with?

I have like no idea.

Because I mean, they don't— Are they importing this wood? Where does it come from?

I was there for like 4 days, man. I did not have time to investigate.

I'm just thinking like they don't have like a lot of like, one of the things that you think about whenever you think about like Texas brisket and Texas like smoked meats. is everyone will tell you, yeah, you might like this type of wood or that type of wood, but use the wood where you got.

Sure.

So like in West Texas, you're gonna get—

Unless it's pine.

Sure. Well, yeah. But like in West Texas, you're gonna get mesquite. In Central Texas, you're gonna get— yeah, you're gonna get post oak in Central Texas. Like, also fantastic.

Yep.

But like, that's one of the things is you kind of use the flavors of where you live. What? They don't have flavors of trees there. You know, it's a desert. I don't know. Maybe they, maybe they fly this wood in. Maybe. Who knows?

Who knows? I don't know. I mean, like, I mean, they do have trees there, but they're not huge.

No, they're not. Yeah. Well, sounds like it doesn't matter.

Look, whatever they're doing, they're doing it right.

Do more.

Like, it was weird, man. Like, we would go places thinking, like, not the Taco Guild. That was like the one exception. But like pretty much everywhere else we went, they're like, Hey, have you tried our pizza? It's like, what is going on?

Why? Why are you asking me?

It's because it's so good.

So good.

Everyone like, and like, we did not have a bad pizza while we were there.

Oh, wow.

And that's, look, we like, we misbehaved ourselves.

Yeah.

We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and ate some pizza.

Yeah.

And it was all good.

Interesting.

All of it was good.

Because I mean, look, not all pizza is good.

No.

I mean, I, I, and I'm like, I'm kind of particular. Yeah. I mean, look, I will tell you the worst pizza I ever had was fantastic, but, um, I still, there's still a scale.

Look, man, it must've been a long time ago that you ate at CeCe's.

Oh, I hate CeCe's.

See?

But I'll eat it because I love pizza.

I won't.

I love it so much. But the thing, but here's the thing.

This is the point in my life that I'm at. Is if I'm going to expend bad calories, uh, yeah, okay, on— it's not going to be CeCe's.

It's not gonna be there.

I'm not gonna waste it on that, right? Like, if I'm gonna ruin everything, uh-huh, it's gonna be on something good.

Yeah, let's go to Grimaldi's, right?

Let's go, let's go to Grimaldi's.

Even Pizza Shack, man.

Or Crust, man. Let's go to Crust.

Crust is great.

Crust is killing it. It is like they have some good pizza.

They really do. I agree.

You know, so like, I'm not gonna waste it on CeCe's.

No, I hear you.

Like, like, look, you need to feed like 20 10-year-olds. Uh, let's go.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not eating.

No.

Right, right, right. Yeah.

But like, y'all knock yourselves out.

Right.

And then you—

the problem— here's the problem.

Sit on the toilet for the next—

I make really good pizza. That's the problem. Uh-huh. Is my kids would tell you that their favorite pizza is daddy's pizza.

Uh-huh.

So, and, and let me tell you. We eat a lot of pizza in my house, not just because I make it, but like when we go places, we eat pizza a lot because we all love pizza so much. Right. Uh, my kids get lots of good pizza. Right. They still like mine. So I don't think I've ever made it for you.

I don't think you have.

That needs to happen.

Honestly, it's kind of an insult.

Well, uh, consider yourself insulted then.

Right back at you, Kevin.

Here's the thing. Yeah.

I got a finger for you under this table.

Well, um, here, here's the thing. It's getting late. We've been going for 50 minutes already. So here's a question. What else do we need to talk about?

Well, I went to Orlando.

Oh, you did?

Yes.

Yes.

Um, and I officiated my cousin's wedding.

Cool. Yep.

We were at the Dr. Phillips house.

Dr. Phillips. Yep. I don't know who that is.

Neither did I till I went there.

Okay.

Apparently he's the one that gave money to everyone in Orlando.

Really?

Yes.

Like he was like the, the broker, like, of the area?

So like we were— the wedding was at his old house.

Okay.

Which is in the middle of downtown Orlando.

Oh.

And like less than 2 blocks away is the Dr. Phillips Civic Center.

Ah.

Which is a massive theater.

Okay.

And there's a whole city called Dr. Phillips.

What?

Where he owned an orange orchard. And like, there's just like—

Never heard of it.

Here's the thing, it's like when you, when you decide you want to buy a white car and then all you see on the road is white cars. White cars. Yeah. Like when I started looking for the Dr.

Phillips house, everything, everything became Dr. Phillips.

Interesting. And, and so like my cousin, who's a little bit of a historian, was kind of telling me like, look, he was this massive philanthropist for the city of Orlando that, like, sort of helped with, like, desegregation and all kinds of things. Apparently, like, he's just like this, you know, incredible person that just did a lot for the city of Orlando, kind of set it up for what it is.

Okay.

But my, my cousin decided to have his wedding at his house.

Interesting.

Which, that's what it is now. It's like a—

It's a venue. It's a venue. Yeah.

And it's a— usually operates as a hotel.

Oh, okay.

And it's got like 6 rooms.

Like a bed and breakfast type place?

Kind of like a bed and breakfast kind of thing. Okay. The whole upstairs is like bedrooms.

Okay.

And I got to explore it a little bit. Nice. And like every bedroom has like its own massive clawfoot tub.

Oh, wow.

Like in the room with the bed.

Just in his house?

Yeah.

Ah, cool. Yeah.

And, uh, was one of the first houses I'd been in in a long time that had like its own wine cellar. 'Cause that's where I went and hung out with all the groomsmen and drank a little Blanton's before the service.

Hello.

Yeah, dude. Like, okay. Yeah. You want to have me like in a good mood to do a wedding? Serve me some Blanton's.

Yeah, please.

Um, so the wedding was fun. Um, and it was gorgeous. Like his, his wife came down a spiral staircase on the outside to this courtyard. It was, it was a beautiful wedding. I was so honored to be a part of it. Uh, he's, he's serving our country in the Air Force in the, uh, Las Vegas right now. Okay. I think he's about to be transferred, hopefully someplace he enjoys. Um, but it was, it was really, it was the youngest of my cousins. Uh, that's awesome. And I've gotten to marry most of them off.

That's great.

So that was, it was super cool to be a part of that. Um, I'm just, I'm not saying their names because like, I don't know how much I know he listens to the show and I don't like, I don't want to like, yeah, out him or anything like that. But like, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, you want to protect people's privacy.

Of course.

So, but I love you, cuz. Thank you for letting me be part of your wedding. Um, that's awesome. Yeah, but like the Dr. Phillips house was, was super cool, man. Like my kids, we at one point during the night, like my wife ended up in tears because we thought we lost our children.

Uh-oh.

Like I'm, I, I literally was outside like harassing homeless people going, have you seen like, uh, have you seen a boy and a girl? Have you seen a boy and a girl? Have you seen a boy and a girl?

What?

And what happened was, um, they had hired an ice cream truck. Oh, to be on the property for the wedding.

Okay.

For the reception.

Sure.

That was there. And my kids both know that, like, you, you can have, like, when we're at an event, like, you can have, like, a dessert. Sure. And then you're done.

Right.

Well, they found out that the ice cream truck will just give them whatever they wanted.

Ah.

And yeah, and so they paid for, so they convinced a bunch of kids to all get ice cream and then go hide in the wine cellar to eat said ice cream.

Oh, that doesn't sound like your kids at all.

And so like, I'm, that's how I got to find out what the upstairs of that place was like. Because I am wandering the place like, are you up here?

Are you in here?

Are you in here?

Are you in here?

I'm looking for my kids. And then I start going out in the street and there's like homeless people and like, hey, have you seen like, and I'm, I'm looking for like which one to kill. Uh, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah. And, and then all of a sudden someone comes and says, we found them. We found them. They're in the wine cellar.

They're in the wine cellar. Don't worry.

They're down there eating ice cream.

Nothing to worry about.

And I'm like, it's not a—

now, now I'm going to kill them.

That's, that's, that's like the weird conundrum you find yourself in as a parent. It's like, I want to kill them, but I'm so happy they're alive.