EXPERIENCE 132 | Tales of a High-Growth Beer Journey - including the Juicy Bits! - with Colin Jones, Co-Founder and Former CEO of Weldwerks Brewing Company

Colin Jones and partner Neil Fisher founded Well Works Brewing Company in 2014 in a long vacant property just off Highway 85 in Greeley. They were supported by family and friends and other local investors and a market for craft beer that was growing at a rapid pace. Neil had been a talented home brewer for years and Colin was the Director of Technology at Flood and Peterson Insurance prior to the founding. Soon, both were full time and more at Weldworks and they buckled up for a high growth journey from there, growing production and revenues at an average rate of over 100 percent per year. And early focus on systems and processes. Built the foundation for that growth and represents well Colin's special sauce throughout his career. Colin's entrepreneurial journey started early with a computer sales and service company called PC Pros in Wichita, Kansas, while he was still in college. After a three year run, the market had changed, Dell had arisen as a powerful force in the industry, and Colin exited the business and moved into his professional career as a systems administrator for IMA Insurance in Denver, and later to Flood Peterson in northern Colorado. As a director in the firm, Colin was at the table for all the technology decisions, and also came to understand the entire client journey and built a comprehensive understanding of the business model. He applied those skills and learned many more at Weldworks and has transitioned out of the company and is investigating his next adventure. If you love beer, business, and people, then you'll love this episode, and I hope you'll tune in for my conversation with Colin Jones and share it with your beer loving friends. Welcome back to the Loco Experience podcast. My guest today is Colin Jones. Colin's the co founder and former CEO of Weldworks Brewing. And uh, Colin, former CEO, what have you been doing? Thanks for having me on, Kurt. Um, right now, just, uh, enjoying life. I mean, truly, um, you know, I've learned, uh, just being knee deep in business and working, uh, the, the extensive hours that it takes to build a successful business, uh, just how valuable time is. And so I'm, I feel like I'm just kind of catching them back up on life. Yeah, yeah. I got a lot of things in motion with my family, uh, kiddos starting college, moving, uh, all that sort of good stuff. Yeah, yeah, sure. So I've been really able to, uh, uh, really handheld them through, uh, all of the process and really devote a lot of time to them. So that's been cool. How old were your kids when Weldworks first started? OG's first started, uh, let's see, uh, 17, uh, my daughter was 17 and then, uh, my boy was, uh, 13. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So they were already teenagers by that time. Yep. So they didn't mind it when dad brought home beer all the time. Yeah. Just kidding. I'm sorry. You know, it's a, we, that kind of stuff was always just not kind of open and on the table. Um, and nobody really ever, none of the kids really went for it, never stole it, never did anything like that. So they just kind of gradually grew up with it and learned to appreciate it and not. Overdo it. Uh, I got very lucky with the both of them that they're not, uh, uh, astray in any way in that regard. So it's been nice. Well, we'll talk more about the family, uh, here soon. So are you like actively thinking about doing other ventures or things like that? I'm really excited to do something else, but, uh, and we can talk about it, uh, in, in depth a little bit later, but it's just, uh, it's weird times. Uh, I'm just kind of getting, I feel like I'm just now getting back on my feet and able to, uh, pursue opportunities, uh, whether that's, uh, something I start myself. Uh, uh, partnerships or just simply going to work somewhere. Investor slash consultant with people. Exactly right. Uh, so I'm, I'm wide open. I have a lot of, uh, uh, good ideas, good experience, um, but, um, it's, it's just odd times in the marketplace as well. Yeah. So it's just kind of hard to put a pin, a finger on what's a good avenue to pursue. And you got. Presumably a pretty good chunk of money, but probably not FU money. Not like, I'm never gonna have to work again money. True that. That's not right. That takes a lot, especially if you have, uh, Motorcycles and things like that that you'd like to spend money on. Exactly right. No, I'm very privileged and I've bought myself a lot of time, uh, with that, uh, Uh, with the sale of my, uh, investment in Moldworks. And so, uh, it's a very comfortable place, but it's also a little bit nerve racking because there's always that voice in the back of my head, like, you need to be doing, you need to Yeah, fair enough. Um, I think that, uh, you know, hearing the journey of the launch and the founding and ultimately even the departure, uh, is going to... Best play out if we can if we can hear the whole story. So yeah, uh, jump in the time machine. Yeah First grade first grade. Let's see. So when we started that first grade for me or first grade for first grade for you Oh boy. Yeah. No, we're all the way back. Oh, man My childhood was I was pretty crazy My dad was in the service. So we moved about every year and a half. Oh, well, which service Uh, Air Force. Okay. Uh, so that went as far as even graduating high school from, uh, Japan. Wow. Uh, so I spent, uh, about eight, nine months, uh, in Japan, uh, finishing up senior year, but also, uh, left home, uh, very early, um, because of those moves, I, I just got really tired of it. Yeah. And, uh, my, uh, dad was sent over to Japan when I was, uh, uh, just about to turn 16 and, um, I left. Oh, really? Yeah. My poor mom. But no, I took off and just kind of struck out on my own. And then later reconnected for the last year of high school? Yeah, you know, I've been so fortunate with great relationships with my mom and my stepdad, who's definitely my dad. And, uh, just even throughout all that, uh, uh, tumultuous time, uh, we always maintain a great relationship. Still communicating. I'm just, I'm going to do this thing. But she was like, Hey, you made this choice. Like, you're not getting me any money. So I had no support or anything. Yeah. Yeah. It was pretty lean times. So I didn't realize that, that, that much movement was part of it. I thought you'd be kind of at an airbase for three to five years or something and go somewhere else or whatever. It was a little bit complicated, uh, because, uh, my, uh, mom was divorced from my, uh, bio dad, uh, ever since I was, like, three. And, uh, so there was some movement also back into his house and out of his house, uh, here and there as well that kind of, uh, added some, uh, Was there custody fights or just you could go where you wanted to be and you didn't know which one you wanted? Nope, sure as shit. I, I had that, uh, classic, uh, I'm, I'm 10 or 11 years old and, uh, who do you want to live with in the court? Right. You know, that. Really sucks. Was it just you or did you have siblings? It was just me at that point. My siblings were quite a bit older than me and so they had a little bit more knowledge to pick and choose and make a decision in that regard. But they were still in the household and stuff. Uh, they, they left to go to Biodad, um, for a little while before I did. And then I joined them about a year, uh, two years later. Wow. Interesting. So, yeah. Super tight with my sisters. I love them so much. Yeah. Um, well, it, you know, it certainly gave you adaptability, resilience. Oh, man. Uh, you know, sounds like, you know, you setting off on your own at 16, you must have felt like you had some things to... To accomplish, you know, you had some merits to, to do, did you live with friends or did you Yeah, yeah. I basically just got a couch. Couch. I bought a couch for I think 60 bucks a month, and, uh, stepped over people to go to high school in the morning. And just walked to sit and thankfully is near, near my high school and just walked to school and walked back and walked to my job and everything else. Wow. So, so what kind of a, a student were you? Was this Oh, I was, I'm, I'm, I hate school. really hate school. I love learning, uh, self. self learning. Um, I'm constantly in search of knowledge and, uh, and further education, but, uh, I, I was an okay student. Um, you know, just average. Well, you had a lot of chaos going on all around. Yeah, yeah. It was probably tough to bring. And nothing ever stuck out to me either. You know, I never really, I never got into one thing that was just like, man, I like that one thing. Yeah. Um, kind of a master of none in that regard. No sports involvement? Sports, yeah, uh, basketball. I got the opportunity to, uh, to, uh, play with the basketball team, uh, in Japan. Oh, uh, couldn't make the U S uh, teams by any means. You were a tall guy over there. I had a, I had a kill shot, uh, but that's, uh, that's about it. I didn't grow up, uh, playing league or anything like that. So I just didn't know how to operate on a team very well, but over there I could. Um, not, not any, uh, great starter or anything like that, but it did afford me the opportunity to travel the northern part of Honshu, the main island of Japan, and, uh, kind of see different villages. We mostly played the Japanese, which is hilarious, and no, they are very much taller than us, and they kicked our asses every single time. Also played soccer too, and for some reason we always beat them in soccer, but they beat us in basketball. Huh. Oh, well, fair enough. How much time did you spend in Japan in total? Uh, eight, nine months. And have you ever been back? No, no, I cannot wait to go back though. Is that right? Yeah. It's, uh, my daughter's, like, definitely, like, uh, big time vacation, vacation of a lifetime. Bucket list y thing. Kind of a bucket list kind of a thing. So we're definitely going to make that trip, uh, before the ages get too much longer. Yeah, yeah. So you... Finish high school? You go to work? Are you college bound? Yeah, no, finish high school. I was very much set on going to college. So, um, I was going to try to start KU back in Kansas early, but ended up enjoying my time in Japan and not being on my own and having to work. Uh, pay bills and like take all this responsibility. Right. It's just nice to be a kid for a little bit. So that was really cool and I took advantage of that. And, uh, just started KU, uh, immediately after high school in the normal fall semester. And, uh, did that for about three years. Okay. Yeah. Pursuing? I thought I was gonna be a veterinarian. Okay. And then I interned at a vet, uh, friend's vet clinic, uh, over the summer after my first year of college. And, uh, decided that is definitely not for me. What, what was it? That decided you? Uh, putting down a lot of greyhounds and expressing anal glands. Yeah, yeah. So that's a pretty big turn off pretty quick. And that's the high volume work. Yep. Sounds terrible. It's so terrible. Did you have a racetrack nearby or something too? Yeah, back in those days. All that kind of stuff existed. And I don't think you can find those anymore, thank goodness. Yeah, yeah, interesting. Um, and so Shift, or depart, or you said you want to spend about three years at KU, but then... Uh, yeah, so knocked up my girlfriend. Oh, okay. Yeah. It happens. Yeah. It happens. And, uh, so, uh, uh, we got pregnant and, uh, it's like, um, oh, oh shit. And I was really kind of getting burned out with school, quite honestly. Yeah. Um, I really just wanted to get to work and just, just figured if I can get my foot in the door anywhere that, um, I, I would, I would be okay. Um, so I wasn't scared about it, uh, or anything like that. I'd already been on my own. I knew what it took to, to work and, uh, I knew what it would take to support a family. As young as I was at that time. Yeah, you were like 21, I suppose. Uh, yeah, when my daughter was born I was 21. Uh, we got pregnant when I was 20. And, uh, but yeah, we just went back home to, uh, to Wichita, that's where all the friends and family are and everything like that. It's a really good support system. And, uh, just kind of nestled in there. Um, yeah, I started a, uh, uh, computer, uh, building company with my best friend from high school, uh, called MCES, microcomputer started with? That's what we started with. Oh, wow. Yeah, I did that. Uh, he was the brains of that. I'm going to have a baby. Might as well start a business. Might as well start a business. Now's the time, right? Um, but, uh, yeah, microcomputer systems. And back in that day, you know, Dell wasn't, uh, quite the name that it, uh, that it is today. And uh, so we were able to do some pretty decent business around town building servers and workstations for people. I mean, back then, if you got a whole setup with a monitor and a printer, I mean, that's 4, 000, 5, 000. Right. And our margins... And probably 25 percent margin if you build it yourself or more. We were a little bit over 30. Wow. We were a little bit over 30, so unfortunately Dell was a big name about one year later. Right. And our margins dropped considerably. Yeah. But the PC world was also changing quite a bit too. I mean, that was back in the days of like... Uh, uh, Windows 95, uh, had just launched and that was a big improvement, but still so many blue screens, so many different drivers. I mean, there was a Cyrix, uh, CPU processors that were just buggy as all hell. I mean, it was just, it was a nightmare trying to support that stuff. So did you make money supporting it too? Well, it was kind of like. We'll sell it and then we'll support it. Yeah, Dell came and ate our lunch and so we quickly, uh, backpedaled out of that business and rebranded as PC Pros, uh, in Wichita and, uh, really just focused on commercial service. So mostly accountants, uh, lawyers, just setting up networks, maintaining systems. Okay. All that sort of good stuff. Yeah, not quite the... the big chunks of capital, like from those computer sales, you sell 10, a 10 pack of computers and you're like, we're going out for steaks, but here it's, you know, steady, steady work. Yeah, yeah. Probably put them on plans and stuff like that. Or was it more contract stuff? Back then it was just per hours, just project based on the subscription model really hadn't really come, come around. Honestly, I didn't even think about that. I don't think anybody probably would have taken us up on it anyway at that point in time. So new. Yeah, um, but no, uh, so we did that, uh, and that was going okay, uh, but, uh, it was, uh, coming into the, the dot com boom. And, uh, uh, employers were aggressively hiring, uh, tech and, and my partner and, uh, best friend, he, uh, uh, graduated with his, uh, electrical engineer degree and, uh, LSI here in, uh, Fort Collins actually poached him, uh, pretty quick and just gave him a sweetheart deal and it's like, dude, you need to take that. Uh, so he moved, uh, to Fort Collins with LSI, uh, and I tried to go for another year and, uh, hired some, uh, Uh, some decent employees and, um, but it, it just, it just was, it, we kind of plateaued and it was just getting really hard and the family was starting to suffer with no benefits and stuff like that. We were just on a shoestring and so, uh, just put my foot out there in the, in the corporate world and just see what, uh, what bit and I did. I got that great foot in the door, uh, for, uh, a well regarded, uh, commercial insurance firm, uh, based out in Wichita. Uh, IMA, their, their headquarters, I think, is, uh, down in Denver. Well, they acquired, uh, one of our facilitators, Brandon Avery, so Colorado Insurance Advisors are merged into IMA a couple, three years ago now. Yeah. Fantastic company. And I just had wonderful experiences with them. And back then, you know, I started out at headquarters in Wichita, and Denver was coming up and up and up. And, uh, no less than a year into my, uh, work at, uh, Wichita, they said, Hey, do you want to move out to, uh, to Denver? To the Denver office, and yes, I do Uh, so had you been out west before? No, not at all. And so that was kind of the first time out and, uh, uh, I came out initially, uh, scoped a different location, settled on Longmont, and, uh, brought the wife out and made sure she was, uh, uh, good with it. And yeah, we kind of, uh, put our, uh, flag down in Longmont for about a year and a half. And I just commuted, uh, down into Denver. Yeah, yeah. It was cool. It was really cool. Yeah, I bet. I bet. It was probably right downtown even. I mean, if it's like a traditional finance or insurance. Yeah. You got the cool digs right downtown. Yeah, we were in the Curtis Towers. And then I was also fortunate to be with them when they did their, uh, new building, uh, in expansion on the, uh, Wynkoop. 17th and Wynkoop. Oh, yeah. I was very involved with those, uh. I just saw that building the other day when we were down there. It's pretty cool. So they still own that deal. The Millennium Group does. Um, some of the owners are IMA people, but, uh, it was very involved. Uh, had a great, uh, mentor, a couple of great mentors at IMA that really, uh, helped me, uh, just kind of just opened my eyes into bigger things and gave me a lot of responsibility in that build out and just, you know, Even down to the n I U into the basement, really working with contractors. So were you working in operations for I M A or were you selling insurance? Insurance? Just tech. Just tech. Oh, okay. So gotcha. The techy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Computer monkey. I used to call him. I was a computer monkey. Absolutely. Some people have told me that's not very honoring, but, oh, I think it's perfect. Great. Well, we'll get along just fine then. Mm-hmm. So, um, well that's interesting. I mean, that, that, that opportunity, that, that. business you started because you were on the front end. It really made you acquire the skills and knowledge that it, that it took to be very useful in the next phase. Oh, big time. I mean, it's a very deep dive into project management and um, uh, just coordinating contractors and vendors. Uh, you know, communicating with the staff, just letting people know what's up. And then, uh, yeah, we just did the move over in one weekend and I fell asleep on the floor. Like somebody came in Monday morning to start work and I was asleep underneath their desk with like hands on life. They're like, dude, wake up. Probably should just go home. We got this. Well, you take your job seriously at least. Yeah. And then, uh, shortly after that, um, uh, Flood and Peterson up in, uh, Greeley poached me off of, uh, IMA and, uh, uh, was with them for about a year, uh, commuting from Longmont and then decided to make the move to Greeley. So was there a benefit? Like, do they just need any old computer monkey or was the fact that you had experience in the insurance industry and those kinds of systems made you especially attractive to Flood and Peterson? Oh, definitely the experience. Yep, for sure. Yeah. You know, I'm coming from a big shop that's, uh, pretty high, uh, highly regarded. Right. And, uh. Yep. There were. Flood and Pete wanted to be, so how do they do it? Exactly right. And so, uh, my, my journey with IMA was, uh, was so, uh, high and so fast, uh, really, really absorbed just a ton of knowledge in a short amount of time. And so, really came to Flood and Pete, uh, with a, with a pretty good basket of, uh, knowledge and experience. Yeah. Yeah, because they'd been kind of fledgling along with some variety of people, uh, good, good cats. Uh, they, they knew what they were doing, but, uh, uh, things had changed so much from when I started with the F and P back, I think it was like 2000 and I was with them for a little over 15 years. Oh, really? Wow. That was, that was quite a journey with them. Yeah. So who's the, is Brett is the. Yeah. Lost man down there. Yep. He seems like a pretty good cat. Yeah. He's one of the, uh, the good cats down there. I loved working with him. I just think he's, uh, I think the world of him. I, uh, my first co worker in banking when I came to Fort Collins was Aaron Eide. You probably know him too. Oh, I love Aaron Eide. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Another great guy. He was a year behind me in the Community First Bank training program. And then he, he jumped pretty quick over to the insurance industry instead of banking. Yeah. You know, just not smart enough. Just kidding. Aaron, in case you listen to this. I think Aaron's doing just fine. He's doing fine. He's doing way better than if he was a banker, honestly. But those guys definitely deserve all the success, for sure. So, um, so you had a long career there. Just kind of stable after that early entrepreneurship. Did you have an itch? It was, uh, I really didn't. I was having such a good time with them. Uh, they weren't growing wildly, but, uh, they were, we were just, uh, really kind of, uh, defining practices, process procedure, uh, workflows, upgrading systems, getting a little bit more remote work oriented, and, uh, a little bit more... It sounds like you're computer monkey plus at this point. Kind of in the strategy of the operations that. Yeah, I was, I was super plugged into operations at that point. Um... And, uh, really leading the charge with any sort of, uh, uh, large scale implementations. I mean, at the end of the day, any, any tech person worth their salt, I, I think, uh, at, at the end of the day, the people have to use the technology, that's your, the tech is easy. It's just next, next finish. And, uh, you code it, uh, whatever you connect it, um, uh, you program it, make it do whatever it needs to do. And then that's. just how it works, but people have to use it. People have to adopt it. People have to learn the workflow tips and tricks that, uh, that really improve process and communication and, um, uh, client, uh, service and the whole nine yards. I, uh, I worked briefly with Thrivent Financial after shutting my food trailer down and before Loco could give me a regular paycheck. And, uh, they had, they use Salesforce as their, as their CRM and they had modified it. So much of it had all these categories and whatever, and half their agents weren't hardly using it at all because it was like too much of a pain in the ass. And so they, they actually stripped it down, like they turned it from like 65 fields into like 14 and made it like, Hey, We're going to make this simpler for you, but now you have to use it. Right. And I don't know if that worked or not. I was leaving about the same time. Yeah. But, but it was an interesting thing. You know, I, I always say, um, don't ask technology to fix a people problem. You know? Right. And, uh, and many times in sales, it's a, it's a people problem. Not, not demeaning salespeople. I'm just saying you, these are basically independent remote, um, uh, field agents. Right. If you will, that are just, uh, their job is to, to sell and they just want to sell. Right. They don't want that relationship. And each one had their own system of, I calendar this, I to do list this, I actually use a CRM, it's my own thing, it, it was all over the map and, um, that's fine, you know, there, there's not a problem with that. I think a, a tech can come in and try to figure out how to, Uh, automate the, the discrepancies between all the field agents or whatnot. But, you know, management came in, uh, constantly and was just like, this is a system that we're going to do and it's going to be great. And it's like, it's, it's not, it's not, it's really not. And so, you know, I was, I kind of pooh poohed a lot of stuff. And so I wasn't super popular with the sales manager because I was just, I was a realist. I just didn't want, I didn't feel like it was worth anybody's time or investment to, uh, really launch into this project full force. And. and come up with nobody using it anyway, or a third of people or something, right? So, you know, we just didn't have that all to say, you just didn't have that mentality then of all of everybody's marching in the same direction. And these are the requirements that a system has to have, and they just couldn't define any of it. So there just really wasn't a point. I'm sure they're past that process. I'm sure they're Uh, adopting something at this point. If you want your commissions, you have to use this system. Yeah. That would work. Exactly. That'll work real quick. You might chase a bunch of agents off and they bring all their business over to somebody else. Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting industry, insurance. I mean, not totally different from banking that I'm familiar with, but what, uh, what do you miss the most of, uh, From those days, probably the, the enterprise architecture aspect of it, uh, is one of the top ones that I miss, um, just working very, very, uh, in depth on these very, very high level, uh, programs, VMware, Citrix, the world of Microsoft and all that. And, uh, but the, the biggest joy was, uh, just really getting in with, uh, with operations. Uh, where the rubber met the road and really, really understanding the commercial insurance process, the financial services process, uh, the products. Um, I'm, I'm very well versed in them. I spent Interesting. With that in my MA, I mean, that's a 18, 19 year career. So I know all the lingo. I can walk the walk, uh, or at least talk the talk, uh, with everybody. Were you ever tempted to sell? You see, you're a pretty personable guy, and you knew all the lingo, and they don't always pay the computer monkeys the most. I was, and I took a step in that direction, and I was initially supported, and then they came back and said, If you stay put, we'll give you a buku bucks, and so I said, okay. You're like, yeah, we'd rather... 80 good agents. We only have one really smart computer monkey. Right. That's probably a little bit of it. And I, you know, honestly, I'm, I'm, I don't know, I guess I'm, you know, back to, I'm a master of none, and, and, uh, I think I would have done, uh, well, but, uh, everything works out. Well, that seems like your personality is kind of a, a systemic integrator type. That's the way my brain works. Like, see the whole picture and want to... put the puzzle together in a way that works most efficiently. Yeah. Acknowledges people's failings and strengths and whatever. Yeah, when I got into it, uh, it was, it, that, that became the kind of the bright, uh, uh, light to me that, uh, that, hey, here's something that you are good at that most people aren't. You can see a huge wide field of just scattered debris and understand how it needs to be organized and how it needs to fit. I was very, very good at that. Yeah. Yeah. Very good. Unusual talent. Actually, Alma, Sue, who... Uh, our producer here is that kind of thinker as well, very systemic. And I didn't know I was like that. And, you know, I kind of grew up a little bit of OCD. I was the kid whose room was mostly nice when I was a teenager. And then into college, I mean, my room is just perfect. And those tendencies have been fighting those tendencies because I don't like them. But I'm very just kind of detail oriented in general. But to understand that I could see that bigger picture was like, Ooh, that's pretty neat. Yeah. Yeah. Did you discover that or did other people like through there? reviews of your performance in the role and different things like that. Like, how did that play out? I think I saw that because, uh, you know, in, in, uh, networking with peers in the same, in the same job, in the same industry, uh, just meeting kind of the best of breed people of who's out there and kind of comparing notes and comparing shops and everything like that. Like everybody kept looking at me like, damn dude, that's, that's sharp shit what you built there. You know, everything documented, everything fine tuned, everything just working very, very well. And it takes time to build it that way. Very much. I imagine that was probably your special sauce as it contributed to WellWorks too, right? Yeah, for sure. I definitely brought that business aspect to it. My partner didn't really have any business experience but had the beer side nailed down. He was a home brewer or whatever. Yeah. Okay. Are we getting close to that transition? Yeah. I mean, uh, you know, after the long stint with F& P. Uh, I, I started spinning up, uh, Weldworks on the side. The, the whole intent, so we were, you know, the initial, uh, launch of Weldworks was, uh, we were gonna be closed Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, uh, and just be open Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Uh, so it was pretty low key. We were gonna have people staff the taproom. One or two people staff the taproom. the current location there? Yeah, we've always been in that location and, uh, we were going to keep our, my partner and I were going to keep our jobs and just kind of do this, uh, when we could and everything like that. And what was he doing and what was the circumstances? Were you guys buddies that also drank beer together and decided to start this thing or? I got introduced into his home brewing, uh, club. And who is this? Can we talk about? Yeah, sure. Uh, my, uh, old partner, Neil Fisher. Neil. Yeah. Hi Neil, if you're listening. Hi Neil. So you guys like. You're, you're brewing, you're hanging out, you're doing this stuff, and then you're like, let's... Did you have enough money to start a brewery? Did you borrow some money? Um, I, I had a, a pretty good cushion that, uh, that could have gone towards it. You were tucking away a little bit? Yeah, uh, he had worked, uh, uh, pretty much his whole professional life, which was... Not very long in the world of non profits and so he didn't have a pile. He did not. And so we just did a quick little round out to family and friends. Okay. And that's a fun story too if we want to get into it. I would like to because a lot of people that I meet with that like the Small Business Development Center and stuff, they're like, how do I find investors? Right. You know and things and I'm like well Usually you have to at least have revenues and growth and, or some amazing product or something. But if you're just trying to start a pizza restaurant, your, your investors are like family and friends mostly. Yep. Yep. Like there aren't random people that are going to invest in startups at your small scale. Yep. Exactly right. Uh, we had been homebrewing, uh, in the garage for, I, I had been homebrewing with his club for about a year. Uh, and then after that, uh, uh, uh, just went up to him, uh, and just said, you know, if you're ever interested in looking at doing this, you know, like for, for realsies, because you saw talent in him. Yeah. Yeah. His, he was a fantastic homebrewer. And, uh, and a fantastic commercial brewer, um, and so, uh, kind of think it was like a week or two later. He was like, let's look at it. Cause I was just like, let's look at it, you know, we can just, uh, let's just do a business plan and see if it even makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I guess they had circuit me here, by the way. This is like 2004 or six, I don't know, two, three, 2014. 14, okay, so yeah. 2014, yeah, 2014. Yeah, yeah, okay. And, uh, uh, so we started in on the business plan. I think we started in, uh, like mid December on that. We wrapped that up in, uh, uh, late January, early February, uh, the, the next, uh, 2015. And, um, We, uh, had our funding, uh, secured basically one month later. We opened, uh, eight months later. Wow. So it was pretty boom, boom, boom. Yeah. Uh, uh, wild progress. Um, I didn't, I didn't, uh, kind of got a little bit, uh, uh, Too cocky or too self assured in terms of like what it takes to do a business or, you know, as we're trying to spin up other locations of Waldricks and everything else. It's like, man, why didn't this go the way that Greeley did? Because it was business plan to doors opening in 11 months. I mean, it was just wild. Right. It was super wild. But, uh, back, back to the, the, the, the plan, the investors and everything like that. We, um, we're both, uh, uh, very adept at Excel and formulas and everything like that. And our business plan was, was just great. We had enough relationships in the industry. Uh, thank goodness to get some, uh, real honest data from everybody around us. Just what were your, uh, what were your key sales, uh, you know, total sales in year one? Thank you. year two, year three, year four, year five, because the stats that are generally available are just like what people are producing today. Right, right. And what they produced a year one is rarely on the record books. Yeah, yeah. And so that, uh, that really helped to form a baseline average of what we could expect within our area. As long as you can underspend that revenue. Exactly right. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, we launched with the intent of, um, uh, really just brewing, you know, hopefully by year three, we're going to brew 600 barrels of beer. And we'll hit our targets, and it's not like a huge money maker, but it pays for itself, and we can kind of keep going. Did you start as a, uh, strictly through the handles, or were you selling kegs and six packs and stuff right away? Well, back to, like, my first company, uh, PC Pros and MCS. That was, uh, one of, uh, uh, one of my rookie mistakes there. We, uh, got, uh, it wasn't like a, a nice shopping, uh, mall, but, uh, we had a storefront and just thought we open up the storefront, people just come in, right? For sure. Yeah. Uh, and we quickly found out that that is not the case. And I knew, uh, being from Greeley, uh, that we would have to, uh, expand out like that's how we were going to get. Uh, recognized, uh, that was gonna help, uh, sales quite a bit, sticking just to Greeley Taproom just wasn't gonna fill, fill, fill the bill. There's no place famous enough in Greeley to have enough traction for that. No, there really wasn't. And so, and, uh, quite honestly, Greeley was one of the toughest markets to, to craft. For sure, man. As a crafter. So. Well, and I think Coopersmith's crew, like, tried to do a brewery over there years and years before, ten years before, and failed mightily. That's exactly right. Yep, yep. And, uh, talked to those cats way back when, too. And, uh, yeah, kind of did a couple circles around Greeley and had some, uh, a couple great initial accounts. Uh, Coyote's, uh, uh, being one of them is, like, the first one that I had, like, a permanent handle with in Greeley. Pretty much packed it in then and just went straight to Fort Collins. And that's where I really struck gold and really started, uh, building confidence. You're going to sell it, sell it to those restaurants. And yeah, I just had a cooler, cooler full of growlers and you'd just see me pulling the cooler up and down college and old town. And, uh, you know, I'm a big foodie too. And so, um, uh, new, uh, some people have writ jacks and, uh, Uh, some people over at, uh, back then, what was the kitchen, uh, Tap and Handle was one of my favorite barbers. Sure, yeah, yeah, they were great. Well, and probably Choice City Deli would have carried you. Yeah, yeah, Choice City came along a little bit later, um, much later than I wanted to. It's just hard to get in there. It's good stuff. Yeah, they got a lot of competition for their handles. Yeah, Russ did a really good job over there. But, uh, Tap and Handle was kind of the first on Tron's to... uh, to the market. And then, then that kind of led me to go over to Jack's and said like, Hey, I'm over at Tap and Handle. And they're like, well, if you're there, like you can come here. Right. And then I went over to the kitchen and I said, Hey, I'm at Jackson Tap and Handle, and they're like, well, if you're there, you can come here. Um, so yeah, that was, uh, that quickly built the confidence. Did you have a theme, if you will, or were you kind of broad scope, like, like now there's some breweries that are like more sours or more of this or more of that or whatever it was. WellWorks kind of a. Broad base, or did you have certain flagships right from the launch? No, we, um, we had flagships, but unfortunately they were so limited, you know, I mean we had a, we had a Coffee Stout, we had an IPA, we had a Red Ale, and then we had our Hefeweizen, and that was it, we just had the four beers, and the IPA was, uh, Uh, kind of an updated version of the West Coast IPA at that point, uh, a little bit more were kind of Odell Trinity with, uh, with their flagship IPA, um, and that, that truly was it. And so that we were kind of living in that world of, of four and could kind of experiment here and there and everything. But it wasn't until our first anniversary, uh, that uh, juicy Bits came on along with, uh, median Oche. Our barrel aged, uh, stout was juicy. Bits a hit right off the bat then It really wasn't. It took a lot of iterations. Okay. We had a lot of difficulty in brewing it. Why is it so damn expensive? I just bought a four pack and it was like, it's, it's tough man.'cause it's,'cause it's hard to make. It's like, you know. Yeah. And, and we wanna keep to a particular, uh, margin. Competition's fierce. Everybody's underselling. Um, it's tough times in, in the brew space right now. That's for sure. Yeah. I mean, sales are down. So, especially for your flagships that people actually want, you better hold your mind. Right. Right. I think the craft segment's down almost 7%, uh, year over year. Interesting. Uh, to the most recent year. And that includes, um, uh, you know, off premise sales. So, cans and... Do you remember the name of your, like, marketing gal in that first year or two? So the first, uh, marketing person that we got was actually who I sold to at the kitchen. Oh, is that right? Yeah. So, uh, wheeled in there and he was, uh, the, uh, had just, uh, uh, been made beer buyer, uh, for the bar and, uh, got an appointment with him and we just sat down and drank through and he was like, Blown away by the IPA and he's like, I want that IPA and, uh, just a real great guy, uh, Jake and, uh, uh, we just hit it off, uh, pretty quick and, and man, it wasn't shortly after that is maybe six months after that. I was like, Hey, do you want to join me and try to do this sales thing? I'm trying to remember. Um, well, maybe sales or marketing when I was food trucking right when you guys were opening and I remember being contacted by somebody in your operation about bringing my food trailer over from Fort Collins and talking about it. And I was like, Well, I don't really have a Greeley. I don't have a Weld County license and stuff. And should I even do that? And I never ended up doing it, but I was flattered by the outreach. Probably would have been, uh, Kristen. So she was, uh, yep, yep. Uh, she was our, our first, uh, first hire and. Uh, my right hand person, uh, and really... Christian, if you listen to this, uh, I remember being charmed by your first voicemail. Absolutely. I was like, oh, they want me over in Greeley with my little food truck. Right. And, you know, and a lot of that, um, we just took everything to heart, so, and we just tried to make... Greely kind of catch up with the state of things. And so, you know, part of that, uh, uh, your, your difficulty with that and licensing and whatever, uh, really kind of, uh, pushed us to really talk to the city and work with them on a licensing process and what was, uh, palatable and, uh, what was, uh, a good fix for everybody. And, uh, Greely really, the city really listened to us and really, uh, they implemented based on our, on our feedback. For like, you guys to be able to do food and stuff? For anybody to, but, you know, we, that is something that we could talk to. We just want to make it easier for people to do this. Yeah, interesting. Yeah. So, um, so Juicy Bits comes out on your one year anniversary. Yeah, yeah, we kind of nailed it down, uh, coming into the, the one year anniversary. And, um, it was great. kind of the real and the media no shame, uh, the barrel aged stout. That was the big draw to the anniversary. And I remember pulling up and there was just a line of like 300 people, dude, it was crazy. It was a barrel release besides. Yeah. You know, there's all these beer trading forums on Facebook and everything else. And, uh, that kind of markets dried up, uh, quite a bit. But, um, you know, back then, like nobody hesitated to wait in line and, you know, Camp out the day before kind of stuff so they could get their hands on this limited and release kind of thing And I'm silly almost tonight. It's pretty crazy as you can always make more. Yeah. Yeah So juicy bits really wasn't out in the wild so much on that first anniversary But the line from for Media Noche and people see juicy bits and tried it And it really just kind of blew up pretty fast pretty quick. Yeah Yep. And it was, uh, and it is, it's a very expensive beer. I mean, we came out with the price point of, uh, shit, I think it was 2. 20, uh, for, for a keg. Right. When everything else was 1. 40 or something. Yeah, 50. Yeah. And, uh, you know, those are, those are tough sales, uh, but, but we, we made it. Yeah. What, uh, Like, I suspect that that became a significant part of your volume, because if you were on one handle at a restaurant, it was probably Juicy Bits. Yeah. Um, we, you know, there's, you, you can't handcuff, uh, in Colorado. You can't say, well, if you want Juicy Bits, you need to order this and this. There's ways you can say it and propose it that, uh, is still legal. Are quite illegal. But we never, you know, we never did that. Uh, but no, um, quite candidly, I, I personally had a philosophy of, uh, capping Juicy Bits at 30 percent of a total volume. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just because right at that point, we're also on the heels of the decline of, of Avery, uh, in terms of, uh, barrel production and white rascal, uh, trending down year over year, that tire was the other big example in our rear view mirror. Just like, Hey, this used to be a flagship. This was well, well, no, we can't attach our whole fortunes to this. thing. Right. Because if you do and that market dries up, then what? And so I really thought that capping that at 30%, at least at that stage, uh, was really going to inspire, uh, further creativity and further development of, uh, of other styles. Yeah. Figure out what else to fill. That's exactly right. So. In transitioning, I mean, we introduced you as former CEO and, and statements like that sound a lot like CEO kind of decisions and whatnot. Did you have mentors or other business peers or like, where were you picking up the real skills? Was your CPA like? talking into your ear and stuff? Not really. I mean, from an operational standpoint, I really felt like we were kind of blazing a new trail, and it was based on all of the things that I had learned in my years of commercial insurance and being deeply integrated with operations, understanding the importance of... So you already knew finance and stuff like that a little bit? Well, that shit's the easy part. It's communication... It's counting what actually happened. and workflows and chains and who rolls up to who and how do these people talk? Like, how do you just resolve a conflict? How do you... Uh, uh, really nail down strategy and find a, a way forward when two people are thinking different things. Yeah. Really just trying to get the, everybody on the boat and going in the same direction. Uh, very, very difficult because we went from zero employees to, I mean, when I left, uh, we were about 65 employees. Wow. So, I mean, we, we had a tremendous, I think the average growth rate, uh, during my tenure was like 190%. What? Um, so it's, it was just kind of like, oh shit, hold on. In revenue or employees? Uh, just, uh, in revenue. Whoa. But that number is probably true in employees too. Wow. I mean, it was just a. tremendous growth and because, you know, and at the beginning everybody felt it was a little bit, uh, uh, overwrought, the things that I was doing, the systems I was putting. Right. A little too much for this small brewery. The detail. We got all this level. The structure and everything. And I was just like, this is going to set the stage for the next stage. Because if, if you're in the midst of that high growth pattern, that's not the time to implement. And. structure in systems. And you know, you, you want to be smooth. You're going to interrupt that. You're going to potential growth by slamming on the brakes. Almost learn all these new systems and processes so we can keep growing. Exactly right. It's the unfortunate, you know, and I feel like the United States also operates this way as well, but it's the unfortunate kind of dichotomy in the world of business that, uh, when things are going well, nobody really thinks that that is the time to really change things and rethink things. Things and re-implement and fine tune, most people wait till they're in the trash can. Right. Then try to re and having trouble, and then trying to do that. And you just don't have the employee morale. Nobody's just, you know, everybody's doubting. Yeah. You can't hire good people anymore. Yeah. Because your culture is in the Mies. That's exactly right. So were you, like, did you have a building that you could expand into as far as your production capacity? Yeah. Right from the start, you know, and, and huge shout out to, uh, uh, to the, uh, the. The leaders over in Grayley, uh, uh, Travis Gilmore and, um, and others, uh, over at GTC, uh, who, uh, really had a lot of, uh, downtown, uh, businesses and they had that spot for us. It had been vacant for seven years. Um, God, what was the other big guy's name? I just, it's just, uh, Tip, Tip, Tip, Tipton, Tipton, Phelps, oh, Phelps, yeah, Toynton. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Toynton. I know he's got a big part of that. Yeah. God, man, he's just a, he's just a, a dream. Uh, I'm going to come back to, to those two row, uh, after we're done with this, uh, uh, quick, uh, sentence here, but, uh, they had the building. It really, unfortunately was the only building that was going to work for us. And we had some difficulty. We hit it a little bit of a speed bump as we were getting towards the end of our, uh, getting. to the point of actually signing the lease, um, and it was kind of an oh shit moment that, uh, we might not get the space. And we really tried to... Then what do we do? Yeah. And it probably just wouldn't have ever, ever happened. Yeah. You know, it was the, it was the grace of, uh, Bob and Travis and, and a, a beautiful rent, uh, set up, um, that really just was an investment in Greeley, really. Allowed you to kind of grow into the... the value of the rent that you should have been paying from the start. So, you know, and, and, uh, uh, other brewers had looked at that location as well and passed on it because they said it was too big. And that's what everybody said to us when we first moved in. You just head off way more. And, uh, I mean, just years later, you know, one year later, we're knocking down more walls, we're expanding, we're expanding. And so, I mean, the main facility, uh, out there on the eighth and, um, Meet the main a lot down there. Uh, I think it was like 15, 000 square feet. I mean, it's just yeah It used to be really needed 3, 000 to begin with. Yeah, truly truly and that was the size of the tap room It was maybe 5, 000 6, 000 whatever was production and whatnot. Yeah So it was, it was right around that. And, um, interesting. So yeah, we were fortunate. Yeah. What a blessing. Like it was, it was kind of the curse of that huge space and, and prohibitively high rent is what kept other people from grabbing it. Yeah. You know, and so being able to negotiate that, and for them, those guys, like they're leasing it more and more. Base probably raising your rent as you have opportunities and they recognize you're making a lot of money now. Yep, exactly They even invested were they some of the investors too? So that that was our first go was was meeting with with Bob and Travis We presented our business plan and here's what we got and they're just sitting there just in silence. Just looking through it and they're basically like Cool. We're in because we, the, the whole proposal was a, was a 5 percent chunk and we're like, how much do you want? And we had, uh, we'd sold a 40 percent of the business or we're aiming to sell a 40 percent of the business. And I said, we'll, we'll take the whole thing. Oh, well, that was easy. And it was like, Oh, wow. Okay. That's awesome. Sweet. And, uh, they had some writers that they put on it that, uh, you know, we had to. Uh, step back and just say, we'll think this isn't a no, but, uh, we'll think about it. Right. But man, we walked out of the building like, okay, two of the, the utmost wonderful business acumen business leaders just signed off on this deal. Right. And they really want you to succeed. Right. Like that's, that's really cool because that's like almost like the old days where, you know, an entrepreneur would come up with a plan and the community would rally around it. And in the old days, the banker that would make it alone. It was always his money, so they didn't have all these regulations and stuff. He was betting his money, even if some of it was his depositor's money, but it was his, his judgment, his choice. Like, like Bob's here. Yep. Yep. And the rest of his crew. Yeah. Cool. And then, yeah, that, uh, you know, that graduated to us, uh, purchasing the, the whole damn block in 2018. Hmm. So we bought, uh, our bill, our main facility. And then two other buildings, uh, plus the huge, uh, parking lot out there, so. Wow. Wow. Okay. What, were you and Neil equal on your ownership? And you sold the other chunk kind of thing? Yeah, sold the other chunk. And so, very quickly, you know, we walked out of that meeting with, uh, with Bob and Travis and just felt, uh, again, there's all the confidence in the world. Uh, just so appreciative, uh, to, to that thumbs up because we just, we, we were ready to go at that point. We really had the mojo and, uh, it took maybe two weeks and we resold, uh, the, the investment. We wanted a wider variety of people. We wanted multiple people. And, uh, so we parceled, we mostly got people in those 5%, uh, percent chunks. Neil's parents signed on for 15 percent and yeah, that kind of rounded everything out. Yeah. Nice. Nice. Well, it's fun to have a, uh, a committee of sorts. I mean, sometimes it's fun. Sometimes it's annoying. I'm sure there was dynamics at play there too, but, but Wellworks was like rocking when you say 190 percent growth rate, that's like average. Like if you do a half a million, a hundred percent growth rate would be a million. So 200 percent growth rate is. A million and a half, right? So you're going from a half million to a million and a half, and then from a million and a half to like four million, and then to like twelve, or something. I don't know. I don't know what the actual numbers are, but that's, uh, You know, we had, we had a handful of employees, and, uh, we hit, uh, uh, five hundred and fifty barrels, somewhere around there, uh, uh, after year one. And then, uh, I mean, we blink and a couple years later, it's sixty five employees and fifteen thousand barrels. Heh heh. Yeah, pretty awesome. Um, what were some of the highlights in the next phase? So you bought the building in 18. Yeah. So that really allowed us to, to, to really go full steam into the investment of the, of the property. Um, you know, it's brewing is, is really a, a manufacturing process. Yeah. So I really see, uh, and you're always somewhat reluctant to put. Millions of dollars of equipment in somebody else's real estate. That's exactly right. In case stuff goes weird. There's huge plant investments to be made. Right. To make it palatable for brewing. Um, and we were just seeing those dollars just go right outside, you know, right out the back door on what we were doing. And so that really gave us some calmness and peace in that investment and really make it even better. Uh, and that is what we did. You know, I didn't take a paycheck for two and a half years. Uh, Neil didn't take one for, uh, about a year and a half, uh, something like that. And we just poured the money right back into the business. We never did a cash call, but we never did a, a distribution either, uh, except a tax distribution to cover people's taxes. Well, it's amazing how much... Yeah. Big time. Yeah. Big time. I mean, even when you've got, when you're selling beer at margin and et cetera, et cetera. But yeah. If your payroll is increasing by 10 percent every month. Right. You know, that's cash. That's all profit that's got to cover that. Truly. And we just, uh, had a minimal little equipment loan that, uh, just cause financing was, was there and is like, well, why not? Keep some cash back. Right. Yeah. Uh, we were, we were not indebted at all and we were just, uh, we were just making profit and just plowing it right back in and hiring people and paying Uncle Sam and all that sort of good stuff. And that, that really propelled that, uh, that, that growth for sure. Wow. Put you in a position to, to be able to buy that building and stuff too. That's exactly right, man. So, um, when did... Like things start getting sideways with, with you and Neil, or was it you and Neil that had Yeah, it's your classic business power struggle for sure. You know? Um, I don't want to ask you to, to No. Whatever. Honestly, and, and, you know, you know, I have talked to before a little bit about business and I just, um, You know, I, I've been on some of these, uh, some of these podcasts, not yours. I love your podcast, but, and I listened to a lot of business podcasts, but a lot of them are just, uh, just rosy. You know, it's about that. Um, how I, how I built this with guy, sometimes he gets into the weeds, a little bit of difficulties and things like that. But the truth is, is that these business measures are, are. talked with landmines left and right. And it's a, you know, it's, it's rare for a marriage to somebody who you're romantically interested to work, let alone a business relationship where you're not in bed with each other, you know? Um, so it was the classic, uh, uh, power, uh, struggle. And he was the brewery felt like it was his brews that were responsible for your success and you're just the. Dude and vice versa. You're like, well, no, actually all these systems I set up in the very beginning That's why we're actually able to grow this. Yeah stuff like that. Yeah, you know, he knew I hadn't brewed after about a Business we had a brew crew. We had a whole right and everything cuz that's hard work Exactly right. And so I kind of kept him at bay. I mean, uh, transparently, I kind of kept him at bay. Um, just cause I didn't feel that he had the, uh, the experience or, or the knowledge to lead these teams or, um, things along those lines, but didn't seem like he was very interested in, in understanding, uh, the process of why we did it or how we did it or anything else. Just kind of, uh, jump in and, and, um, Yeah. Uh, kind of talk out of turn and just some, some little things like that, I think he's learned over the years and I don't think that's a problem anymore. But um, yeah, I guess I, I, I kind of elbowed him out or kept him at, at bay and so just I kept him from disrupting too much and everything else and you know, in hindsight I should have included him more. I probably should have been. little bit more affable to investors who, quite frankly, I just didn't give a shit about. You think he was, he had his feelings kind of hurt by that in some ways? I think he was ready to take the reins. He wanted to take the reins and unfortunately all the friends and family investors are his friends. Yeah. Yeah. It's a pretty, pretty easy to see how, who lost on that one. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. So how did that shake down? Or is that something you share? It was quick and ugly, man. It, it really sucked and it just, uh, it crushed my heart. But yeah, basically I just got in ceremoniously. There was a board meeting or whatever. And I got ceremoniously fired and I was just out. Your 30 percent were 65%. Bob's on my side. Yep. Phone call. Yeah. And that, and that sucked. You know, that hurt. That's, it's, when you, you, within a business, and I think this is a weakness of, uh, uh, being a business owner as well, you have so much pride and ego, uh, and it's just so much connection. It's your little baby. Right. Right. You know, we, we had a little baby together and, uh, unfortunately, yeah, he got custody. Uh, but, um, but I, but I think that pride and ego, uh, blinds you, uh, quite a bit into, uh, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, what's going right and what's going wrong or, uh, probably more importantly, what risks to take or, or being risky, you know, I think, uh, I think about, uh, a mom and pop, uh, shop brewery, you know, let's say they're a couple, uh, they're, they're, they just work the brewery full time. Intersect brewing. Right, right. And they have a Not saying that this is them. Uh, but, uh, let the, and then they have a house, they have a mortgage, they have kids. Yeah. An SBA loan they use to finance the equipment. And things are going decently at the brewery. It's not crazy, but to take the next step, they got to really make these big bold moves. Right. And if they just stay as they are right now, the mortgage is covered, they have benefits, they have employees. The world is just fine, you know, and I think that, that, uh, that, that we never had that mentality at world works. It was like, let, this is the house's money or let it hang out, blow it out and just see what drops. And so we truly had no fear in that regard. If we lost it, at least me, did you run it lean or do you keep the, the working capital decent and stuff like that? Very lean, very lean, always just growing sometimes a little tweaky about the payroll, but we got a lot of credit in case we need it. Yeah. I mean, it was pretty crazy, you know, I'm, I'm not a. Uh, fortune teller or anything like that. But the year before COVID just kind of felt something was going to happen. I thought it was going to be economic. I mean, COVID was a, uh, yeah, certainly was, but I was just like, it's just, it had been a long time since there was a recession. Right, right. And we had been, uh, experiencing wonderful growth rates and everything else. And I was like, you know, this is probably the time where we just need to just Let's focus on, uh, service and support. Uh, let's really build out, uh, uh, that, that real high end touch within our sales staff and really invest in those defensive positions within the business. Cause we just had to be, you know, we were just all on offense the whole time. Before we go there too much, tell me about this growth, like where does this growth, I mean are people just calling Weldworks being like I want Juicy Bits and something else on my handle and it's all over Denver and it's all over this and that, like how do you sustain that kind of growth and what are the actual sales and customers and elements to Even just bringing that much on, I know you can brew it if you got the orders, but selling it is different. Right. I mean, and truly it's a, it's, it's grassroots. It's from the, it's from the ground up and it's one keg at a time. You know, I was actually driving kegs up in my Jeep, uh, every week and delivering to tap and handle and everything. And I was delivering them myself. I was, I fell down the stairs at Tony's. Oh man, that sucked. I hate those stairs at Tony's. Tony's, fix your stairs. Um, but, uh, had several mishaps in that regard. And, um, oh man, the, the Jeep would bottom out from the keg weight and just like cut grooves in my back tires. And so you were, you were a significant rainmaker still, even though you're wearing a CEO hat. Me and the, my buddy from the kitchen who came on board, uh, Jake, uh, we, we really rounded out and then we started going into Denver. And, uh, and it was shortly after the one year anniversary. And so our name really started hitting buzz on, on social media, uh, within the trading forums and everything else. So the super niche, uh, crafty people were really seeking us out in that regard. And, uh, but we also wouldn't sell to anything that we couldn't, uh, support. If we couldn't make it viable or ensure that the product was going to be stored, uh, to, to our, uh, liking, we just would say no, you know. Uh, I would tell people all the time, we want their business. We don't need their business. That's the mentality. Um, feel free to walk away from something if somebody is a jerk or just not looking like they're going to be a good partner and making them reasonable demands, just walk away and we'll be, we'll be fine. Uh, but yeah, that, uh, that, you know, after Fort Collins going straight into Denver. And then, uh, a couple years after that, uh, reaching down into the Colorado Springs market and other, uh, Mountain West and, uh, over to, uh, Aurora as well. So, kind of a little diamond pattern, uh, along the front range. So, diamond in the, in the front range area, and, and we're pretty lucky with Colorado that, uh, you know, Most of the front range and population can fit in this little area. That's a size of our pinky on the size of a map. You know, it's a huge, big state, but most of the population is just here big time. And so that really allowed us to, you know, in terms of, uh, you know, routes and vans and everything else, it just kind of self distributed. We're still, as far as I know, they're still self distributed. So, you know, we ended up with pretty much 80 percent of the sales being wholesale sales. That's how far we built that up. Built that up to about 7, 8 million a year. Wow. A whole fleet of vans. When you say wholesale sales, is that both? Kegs and like six packs and stuff. Yep. That's exactly right. And, uh, definitely before, uh, we got our canning line, I mean, obviously all kegs, uh, but we were also selling crawlers back then. I mean, we would do, we were selling crazy crawler numbers. It was like 1500 a week. Really? Yeah. Oh my goodness. Oh, that's crazy. And we started selling crawlers in stores as well, and that really helped kind of our quality process to see who could really keep things fresh and turn it fast enough. And so when we did get our canning line, we know who, who to go to right away, like we're coming to you guys first, cause you guys can move it. And you know, we were the first, one of the first to do 16 ounces, um, for that. Well, and that margin probably made a big difference on the self distribution, even though it. It's a pain in the ass to have all this truck stuff, but I mean, 20, what, 21%? Something like that is what a distributorship charges you or? Yeah, a little bit more usually. More than that, 25. Yeah, the, the industry standards, the 30 percent mark. 30%. But if you're good, you know, you can get that down to 20, 25. Right. But, you know, more importantly for us though, it was the ability to, to handle our sales and really define the, the service. And kind of manage demand a little bit. Yep, exactly right. So we just felt like we went a little bit. above and beyond for everybody. And you know, when you're in a big portfolio with a distributor, you're just one of many. And then what's your, what are your special offers to the, for the sales incentives that time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All of our salespeople were just salaried employees. Yeah. It didn't matter how much they sold because it's almost like an agent versus a brokerage on the insurance stuff. Exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. And so, you know, in it, in. Production had paced, uh, to the point where, you know, we were, we, it was rare when we could open up a new territory or really go bonkers with, with new accounts. You know, once we had kind of set the floor with what our system could handle, um, uh, without major investment. It was really slow. And then you said a new floor. Yeah, exactly. Right. And then we could buy some more bright tanks and whatever. Exactly. Right. Interesting. Yep. And then we could round it out that way. And we always had a wishlist of, okay, well, next time we want to be here. Next time we want to be there. Yeah. So we just run those out. So, and, uh, you settled, uh, whatever you separated properly, like you were kind of in stasis for a while, like you were out of a job and you were still an owner, but. Yeah, I got kind of cut down to a co CEO with, uh, with Neil, um, and that, uh... Oh, so you worked together for a while. Yeah, tried. Yeah. You know, I wouldn't call it work. Um, he, he really wanted to give the keys, uh, over to the, the leadership group. Um, uh, most of who, I mean, I hired 95 percent of everybody in that building. Yeah. Um, and most of them are, are servers, bartenders. It's like nobody... You know, and we, but we built that up, you know, that's a, what we always concentrated on at the leadership level was, uh, here's who we are. This is how we operate. This is how you need to be to your staff. Uh, this is how we're going to treat them. This is how we talk. Um, and really drilled that in and, but taking that, uh, and trying to do strategy and, and forward planning and working together. And, uh, sometimes the, the parts don't align, right. And you need somebody, you need one person to sit above and go like, That's the director. Yeah. Somebody's got to be the decider, ultimately. And, uh, also that's, uh, not a very popular position to be in, too. It's very easy to be, uh, uh, uh, spin on or, or throw, uh, darts, uh, at the back end. It's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking. Yeah. Exactly right. You know. Uh huh. So that didn't last very long, and then, kind of since then, you've been semi retired? Yeah. So yeah, that didn't last very long. And, uh, uh, Neil, uh, basically, uh, I believe, uh, after he cut me coming out, uh, completely, uh, from the company, just, uh, just trying to be that CEO. So I'm not quite sure. It's unfortunate too, because, uh, I don't know if it's young staff or what, or if I just pissed everybody off or what, I have no idea. Uh, but I just, uh, I haven't heard from really anybody over there. So I don't, there's just a lot of lack of closure, but that's okay. It is, is what it is. You know, I, I, I love myself. So are you a pariah of some sort? You feel like, like, they poisoned your reputation after you're gone, kind of thing? I don't know. It just doesn't matter too much to me. If you're listening to this, uh, Weldwork employees and you actually like Colin, uh, drop him a note and tell him. Right. Ha ha. You know, it, uh, after being so, uh, you know, involved, uh, to the degree that I was, um, in hand holding every single person over there, it, uh, it was a, it was a sharp, sharp exit. Yeah. Yeah. And it, it took a, it took a long time. It took a good year to really work through the emotions of that. Yeah. Um, you know, I grew up the way I grew up and everything else. I'm not a, I'm not a secure, confident, just self assured. person. I'm very empathetic. I feel a lot. I have a very high energy, very high emotion. Um, I, I, I'm brash. Um, hopefully not brash to a point that it's a detriment, but, um, I'm just honest as well. I think we, we learned just as much from the, the pain and the, and the, in the herd in the darkness than we do the light. You wouldn't take it back, even, even though... I wouldn't. I think this is, I think it's the right time. I think it's, um, time for me to, I think it was time for me to move on. I just, that pride and ego, if I, if I was really tuned into that and really keeping myself in check, I would have realized I should have gone out on my own accord about a year earlier. Yeah, yeah, interesting. If I was just paying attention to myself. Yeah, yeah. Maybe you weren't feeling it as much either. Yeah. In some ways, in that. Well, so it goes, um, for those that like, have never been like in a brewery behind the curtain and stuff. Can you, can you give a, a, a three minute overview of how do you make beer and especially how do you make it really good? Yeah. Yeah. Uh, super quick. I mean, you just use, use some sort of malt, uh, wheat, um, barley, barley malt. You can use corn, you know, on some Mexican loggers. So whatever grain. that you want to use, uh, you're basically going to make sugar water with that grain. So depending on how much grain that you use, that's going to give you your, your gravity, which is basically just kind of a, a sweetness level. Yeah, how much... You know, a density. How much grain you use equals how much sugar you get, which equals how much alcohol you can make it. Exactly. So if you have one big bucket, you know, you can fill the bucket up a quarter of the way and make a nice light, uh, corn Mexican lager. Okay. Or you can fill it up all the way and make a very heady 15 percent imperial stout. Okay. Uh, so very quickly like that, that's that, uh, but yeah, depending on the grains. The dark stuff is cause they toast it kind of first. Exactly right. So you're going to get toasted barley and some of that rye and all that sort of good stuff to give it that flavor profile. Um, and then, uh, so you make your sugar water. And then you, uh, boil that, uh, down to whatever level that you need it to be to, to, to hit your efficiency and your, your gravities, your ABVs, uh, and then that gets transferred over into a conical fermenter. So it has a conical base so that, uh, and then you pitch, pitch in your yeast. Uh, so you pitch in the yeast and that conical, uh, vessel, uh, will basically just help that yeast chew through all that sugar water. That conical thing is part of the help of that, because it concentrates it at the bottom of some sort or something? Yep. And it also deals with the way that ports are designed and the valves and everything else and how you can re circ and do some other things there as well. Rinses and stuff. Mm hmm. And so, uh, yeah, you pitch in your yeast and, again, it all depends on the kind of beer that you're making. And the yeast eats the sugar and turns it, poops out alcohol. Yep, you're exactly right. Yep. Okay. And then, uh, so, in, in, kind of when you're done with that fermentation process, you, you basically just poop out the, the yeast, uh, trub at the bottom of the conical vessel. Again, that's why it's conical as well. It's just to kind of get all this trub out. Uh, but then you can also do, uh, dry hopping techniques at that point as well. Mm hmm. Um, and depending on the beer, you know, yeast can take, uh, one week to work its magic and you can be done. So again, think about light. Bud light. Exactly right. Or something. One week turnaround. Old eggy we'll say. Man, you can just like pump that thing out. IPA is usually 21 days, I mean some of these headier stouts can get into a month, a month and a half. Okay. For that yeast to chew all the way through and hit your targets. And then when you make like a, a double IPA or an imperial or something, is that the, the same thing just longer or is it double like a. Twice around the cycle thing, somehow? So that bucket of grain analogy that I was doing? Yeah, yeah. So you fill that bucket up with more grain. But you would also add more hops. Oh. So you're using more grain, so you have a higher concentration of sugar water. Yeah, yeah. Uh, higher, you know, that higher, uh, gravity. And then you're gonna hit that 9%, 10%. Uh, but, you need the body of the beer to be there, hence the added malt. Uh, but you also might mix in some different kind of malts to make it a little bit more sturdy. Maybe less sweet. Yeah. Depending on what you're trying to do with the hops and everything else. But you also need double the hops as well. To kind of balance out that heavier base. Okay. And how about those huge beers, the 15s and 18s and like, those are wild. How do you make that happen? I mean, those are, uh, those are weekend boils. I mean, that shit starts boiling on Friday and we're not done boiling until, so you're just capturing all the sugars. So it just gets so condensed. It's like syrup. It's just insane. It's wild. Uh, but yeah, that's it. Yeah. You just have to boil it down to that strike target and then that fermentation, you have to get used that can survive that. Yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah. I remember that from some book. But after fermentation in the conical vessel, you'll go into a, to a brite, which has a, the flatter base, uh, looks more like a Tylenol pill, uh, and that's where you will brighten your, your beer. So you clarify, uh, you give it some resting time, you give it its carbonation and everything, and then it's ready for packaging either in, uh, kegs or, or cans, wherever you need to send it. So it's like your storage and transfer tank. Yep. That's exactly right. Settling. So kind of like chill out a little bit, give you some time to, so even the barrel aged stout, uh, uh, aged in barrels for some, you know, minimum was kind of 18 months. Some of them would be three years. Yeah. Um, but even those beers go through the bright tank first and then go into barrels and get set back into the storage unit. And then it comes right out of the barrel into the. cans and stuff? Or do you put it back in a Bright Tank for distribution then? Put it back, into a Tank necessarily but, a transfer tank? Yeah exactly right. And we build some custom tanks too for flavor infusions, for toasted coconut and uh, some of these adjuncts that we're really well known for. Oh yeah, your toasted coconut one was a really popular one too. Oh that from the pooter Something fest the put river Fest so dang good. Everybody was in that line. Yeah. Basically like a another pill, kind of a, a Tylenol pill vessel with, uh, different, uh, mesh layers in between. So you could just really stack the, the ingredients in there and really get that real fusion of flavor within the whole vessel, almost like a's some real stuff. Yeah. Interesting. Um, what else? Like on topic of beer and weld works and brewing. Yeah. Is there other things? What business in general, like what. What would you say people would say was your special sauce like we've talked about your kind of integrators mentality and stuff But I hear you're talking a lot about people and hiring and culture and systems. Yeah, I would just say the ability to And it's probably the way I grew up, you know, moving around all the time and I just, I just had to make, I don't have best friends from grade school, middle school, a little bit from high school, but mostly college. But, uh, I can get into a group and really understand who's who pretty quick and figure out how to fit in, uh, quite well. But that, uh, picking up on people's personality and also my, my career in corporate IT as well. You just kind of understand. Adopting technology change didn't, wasn't age based. I'd have people young that were just as disagreeable. Right. And I'd have some people that were old that were so just want to learn this as fast as they can. Yeah. So I don't buy into a whole lot of generational, uh, differences, age differences. I mean, at, at the root, I think people are, are people. You have to meet them where they're at. But I think meeting people and seeing if they have the mojo. I've said no a lot, but I also said yes a lot to, to, to, uh, new employees or, uh, new people. Uh, people I was, uh, hunting after and just, uh, taking them from a job that, uh, they're so unfamiliar with and making them, uh, a superstar within that, within that realm. So I, I liked one of the things I've said about myself in the past was my special talent is identifying special talent. There we go. Absolutely. But I also think I had the experience and the knowledge and was, was also regarded as a, uh, leader within that, that business acumen space and. I was very well trusted, um, which I would need to, to build up these careers and make big investments in them and everything else. But, uh, just super proud of the, the, the team I built and, uh, the, the level that they, that they achieved. I mean, it's, it's pretty crazy. It's unusual for any company to have that kind of sustained growth for that much time. So yeah. Good on you. Yeah, it makes me want to start a brewery again. I really do. But, uh, you know, and then in the back of my mind, I'm like, but you're chasing what you used to, well, if you're out there listening to this and you have a brewery that you don't really want anymore, maybe you should sell it to call it. You can blow it up. Reminds me, I need to update my LinkedIn profile. I haven't looked at that thing in like two years. It's totally out of date. Um, on any social media. Well, I like to, uh, we like to go into the closing segments here. so as you know, uh, faith, family, politics are always topics of your podcast. It's fun. You have some real great guests on, man. I love it. Well, thank you. Thank you. for continuing that actually, it's, uh, it's, it's an honor to me to be able to spend this much time with interesting people. Your voice is so soothing. Thank you. Go to sleep. Exactly. Focus on your feet. I'm just kidding. Should do an ASMR. Right. I've thought about like contacting some of those, like, uh, uh, not podcasts, but whatever those things are, the calm apps or something like that. Be like, if you give me a good script, I'll read that for you. Exactly. Right. But anyway, uh, where do you want to start? Uh, let's start, uh. What was it again? Faith, family, politics. Let's do family. That's fun. Yeah. We've talked a little bit about your daughter and your son. Yeah. Yeah. My daughter's, uh, uh, 20, uh, 26 and starting at, uh, or going to transferring over to CSU full time and lives in Fort Collins here with me just minutes away from my home. Awesome. And then, uh, my boy is, uh, 21 and, uh, lives out in West Loveland and pursuing EMT and firefighting. So. Okay. They're off to great starts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's going on? Um, it's, you just got. engaged to be married recently. Uh, so somewhere along the way I guess you and their mom split up. Where was that in this? Yeah, that was about five, six years ago. Okay. Uh, we split up and uh, uh, thankfully it was a very amicable uh, split, but uh, definitely one that was very, very hard on the kids. We were married 20 years. Wow. That's a, it's a very long time for, for knocking up your college girlfriend. Um, and we were, we were a great fit. Until we weren't. You know, and what a miracle for us to last that long being as young and inexperienced as we, as we were so thankful for the, the, the time that we did have. Was it all the, like the, the growth and chaos and attention to weld works that challenged it? Was it, I mean, I don't want to ask you to describe it, but people want to know why. Um, I just got, I just celebrated 20 years. Yeah, you know, I think, I think a lot of it, um, uh, was the, the aspect of not having a life. An individual life, growing up yourself before jumping into family. And, uh, my ex wife had made so many sacrifices over the years, uh, for the family and for the, the children. And, um, the kids were old enough, they didn't need mom anymore. And it just happens, you know, the kids start to break up with mom and dad. Yeah, my mom was freaking out when I was leaving for col after college. They start their independence and, uh, it's a hard transition. Yeah, the fiance's, uh, kids are kind of in that stage right now and, you know, I'm, so I'm, again, I'm seeing it just right at hand, just like, Ooh, it's hard to let go. It's real hard. Fair enough. Uh, but no, we split, uh, very amicably and it was, uh, it couldn't have gone any better. The split up, you know, the, the end was, was, uh, yeah, it's always difficult. Um, but, uh, once that, uh, Well, if you can have warm feelings toward one another. After the fact. Yes. That's, I think that's the important thing. Both for, for the people and the kids involved. Yeah. The, the, the, the settlements and everything else and, and how we worked with the kids and talked to the kids was just, it couldn't have gone any better. Cool. Very, very lucky in that regard. We always do, uh, one word descriptions of the children. Would you, uh, care to, uh, remind us of names and ages and, uh, then do the one word thing before expanding? Absolutely. Um, I would start with, uh, my fiancé's kids, uh, who are, uh, 15 and, or sorry, 16 and 17 now. Like, uh, Sophia and Maya. Um, it's hard to pin them down because kids at this age are changing all the time. It's wild. It's like every two months it's a little something new. Um, but they're both just firecrackers and they're just, uh, settling into, uh, just a wonderful high school career. What school are they going to? Uh, they go over to Rocky. Okay. Yep, so just right down the street from us and they've been going there for, for years and everything. And, uh, uh, both cheerleaders and so there's a lot of games and practice and all that sort of good stuff and learning how to drive and, uh, all that. Uh, but they're just, uh, smart little cookies and, uh, Uh, they got a very, very bright future in, in front of them. Are they best friends? They are, they're very good friends. Um, you know, one was, uh, uh, doing the other's eyebrows when I, uh, rolled in, uh, to home today. Uh, just hilarious. So, you know, it's typical sisters. They get along, and then sometimes, sometimes they don't. But they usually do. And that's just such a, such a joy to see. Yeah, yeah. Yep. And, uh, how about you? Uh, my kids, my daughter, again, uh, 20, uh, 26, um, I would say benevolent. Hmm. You know, she is just, uh, just so... Pretty charming. For a 26 year old especially. Yes. I mean, just, uh, just such a pure heart and just so giving and... And what's her name? Uh, kind. Emma. Emma. Hi, Emma. Yep. Uh, yeah, and just... She definitely gives the gruff to me. So I'm not in this category, but to everyone else, she is just a delight. Well, I'm sure she'll come back around to thinking the same for you. That's right. We're getting there. We're getting there. Uh, and for my boy, uh, Eli 21, I would say, uh, philosophile. Um, you know, he is just super into, uh, religion and morals and, the human body and the human tradition is exercise. Yes. Um, Wim Hof and just like breathing and ice baths and weird exercise routines that he or movements that he can do with a lot of weight. Wow. What a thoughtful test. A certain muscle in his body. It's just, it's like, you're gonna break your ass, dude. Like, be careful. Well, and what remind me what he's doing. So he's, uh, over at, uh, Ames, uh, and, uh, in their, uh, fire. Oh yeah. EMT program, which really fits him just so well. He's, uh, again, just, uh, with, with the way that he is with how he tries to treat his, his body and mind as a, as a temple, um, and be, uh, subservient to, to, uh, his, his God and his religion and his values and ideals. Um, he's, he's just such a, a wonderful, he's not a true empath though. It's, it's, it is what's weird, but he's just got that mentality. Yeah, yeah, no, I, I know that like you and I have a lot. I don't have as much kind of systemic thinker, but, you know, when we first spent time together, I think we spent a couple hours together and then I remember distinctly we closed our conversation and I was like, Oh, you ride motorcycles. And then we basically have the same two motorcycles, different brands and whatever, but, and you live like a block away. Yeah, fair. So, uh, but it's funny how we. Like what you're describing in your son is like a lot of the same attributes you have and his own kind of perspective on it. Yeah. Almost more of a objective. Yeah. of it. One of my guests, I remember talking about the religion section. He was like, well, I'd looked around and like all the most successful farmers and business people in the town and the people who had long term marriages were all Christians. So I was like, well, I'll just be a Christian then. It wasn't really a faith thing for him. It was more of a, Well, duh. Right. Anyway, I digress. Yeah. Um, let's talk about your fiancé. Yes. My, my wonderful, uh, my wonderful fiancé, Janine. Uh, yeah, we've been, uh, we've been together for, uh, over, over two years, about two and a half years. And, um, yeah, over the summer, just, uh, we'd, we're, we're both kind of coming from the same, uh, position of, uh, being married for 20 years. And about five, six years ago, divorced. Wow. to kids and kind of the whole nine yards. Which is probably a special demographic. There's not that many people with long term marriages. Right. There's really not. And I, and I mean, candidly, I just had difficulty with, uh, with girlfriends and what not, uh, after my ex wife of, just, they didn't have kids or they just didn't have these kind of life experiences and, and I just didn't, that was such a big part of what I was feeling and, uh, having to go through at that time that I just really didn't understand how I could have a connection with somebody that. Kind of what didn't go through that same journey to some extent, but, uh, man, she, uh, exited that and, and remade herself into, uh, uh, a wonderful, uh, school counselor, uh, here within the district and just helping kids on the, on the daily. And it's just, it's wild what's going on in, in schools and, um. Uh, you know, that is something that's definitely generational. I think our kids, uh, today definitely have it, uh, in a lot of ways, a lot harder. Uh, there's just a lot of mental health issues just everywhere. It's like the easier things get, the harder that challenge gets when there's no... Yeah. Struggle, I guess. I don't know. And I don't know, you know, I'm sure the pandemic was a contributing factor. I mean, I, I truly think that. And then, uh, I just also think that we're getting much better at diagnosing as well. So I think there's a lot of people that are kind of mid tier that maybe get the label that, uh, maybe shouldn't get the label. That will either maybe mature out of it or find a routine of exercise or health or wellness, medicine, whatever that kind of gets that balance back in them. Um, but they're not the, the, the, the really hardcore ones, which are really the ones that, that need, you know, the, not the main focus, but it definitely a priority, uh, within everywhere. And these are, these are the suicidal kids, these are the deep depression kids. Um, and it's, that seems to be a little bit more prevalent. Uh, today than it was when I was a kid, maybe, but they also put those kids on the other side of the building and locked them away when I was a kid. It was, it's fucked up, man. The way that all that kind of special lead and special needs, how that was treated even back when I was a kid, that's not that long ago. So I just think what a wonderful world of care that we have now. Are there some societal issues and maybe some different things that we can talk about? Or programs that we can implement, like you said, building a world of maybe a little bit of iron sharpens iron experience. Maybe have to suffer a little bit of hardness to find your ways or whatever. Yeah, it's funny, right? Pull you up by your bootstraps is too cruel. Yeah, and the nanny state is too easy true And you know and so somewhere along where you're like, I'm gonna help you for a while and then yeah I don't know I mean I think of my journey in thinking and I remember the whole pull yourself up by this bootstraps Um, and that was that was a Credo that I really felt was true for such a long time for me because I didn't come from nothing because my parents, my parents were poor at first, but I think by the time I had gotten out of Japan, you know, they were lower middle class. And so I didn't grow up in, in extreme poverty or anything like that. I, after, similar to myself after I moved out, you know, and when I was couch surfing, I definitely saw some dark shit and lived in some dark places, ate some pizza that never should have been eaten. That's for sure. And so I think thought maybe I was kind of worldly in that regard. And then as you get a little bit softer, older, hopefully a little bit wiser, um, just realizing the, the immense privilege that really you're, you're born with as, as, as a white male. That's definitely a thing, um, because we just don't know. As white males, what that other experience is, we just can't ever live that. I mean, we can read about it, we can try to study it, we can try to understand it, but it's never going to be like a, like a, a one on one understanding of And so I just think a lot of the things that we do, uh, in, in even politics and is built this way. I mean, when, when schools are built, you know, we have these, these, these national tests, uh, uh, that make you perform in a certain way. And if you don't, you're a failing school when you can almost map that on an overlay in terms of income level, that's messed up. And so, what's, you know, what's systemic and what's true about a person? Yeah. You know, it's, it's Well, I think school freedom should be part of Yes. Every politician's platform. But on top of that, you know, wouldn't it be great to see some sort of busing transit system that rides over that? Because so many times in these, in these areas, sometimes you don't even have a car. Yeah. Maybe you have one car between two people and subways and stuff. Very true. Very true. So where the problem is the worst, it's manageable at least a little bit. I think about Greeley even. I think Greeley would need some sort of transit infrastructure to make school choice truly a choice for everybody. Or at least extended stays on the front and back of schools so that parents could drop off early and pick up late. Yeah. That kind of thing. Some sort of welfare. Um, which could also be. Supportive and, uh, uh, Language support, right? Like you could have, uh, yeah, no, I'm, I'm, I'm all about innovative ways. I just, uh, I feel like the government does a good job of, like, all the governments of the world can't, haven't solved homelessness in San Francisco. Right. With their best ideas. Right. So... It's been interesting reading about... And they sure spend a lot of money trying. Exactly. Right. Um, but it's, it's, I mean, cities are still trying... And it's, it's the perverse incentive, honestly. Yeah. It's the perverse incentive. There's, in San Francisco, there's probably... A thousand people or more making 100, 000 a year or more salary serving the homeless. Right, right. Well, they don't have any real strong incentive to get rid of the problem. You know, and, and, and I think too, uh, those nonprofits get in, in the tricky areas. Uh, I've been part of, uh, some in just in terms of, uh, help or, or volunteering or, or whatnot. But you do get it, you do wonder about how the, the, the existence of these nonprofits, like what's the, I mean, they have to sustain, but then they also are always looking to grow too. I mean, they're building out an infrastructure too. And I just feel like everything should just be reset every five years, just every five years, just restart your business, restart your nonprofit, just wipe the slate clean, reinvent or stay put, but then wipe everything else and just start a new. Think you just get settled in and get into, um, we definitely get in grooves. Yeah. And you just have a hard time, uh, understanding efficiencies or I, you know, how to improve impacts or, uh, numbers. Um, just because things are so, you know, sedentary. Well, we sure wandered far afoot. Yeah. So my fiance to mean is awesome because she has like you cheetah piss. That's pretty sure that was a cheetah piss. Yeah. She, you know, she is in this world of, of humankind and uh, and she does such a great job and, and. Just appreciating the nuances of, of everybody, but, but really bringing a true knowledge base to these kids and giving them tools to, to improve. It's cool to see. Yeah, yeah. Well, it can make a big difference. Huge difference. So, so wonderful to see. Cool. Uh, do you have a... We have no idea, dude. Not yet. A whole other podcast would be spent on what I've been doing in the to coincide it with a trip to, to France. And supposedly the time to go to France is, and I've been to France twice, but I think, uh, late September, early October. For France and hopefully that's the honeymoon. It's probably not this year. Maybe next year. No this year this year already. Why not? Oh, yeah, let's go like it. Let's just go. Hey Just say I do and it's done. Hey, right Easy part. Yeah, especially second time around you already done it once exactly. We're very pragmatic about it this time Um, anything else you want to say on the family front, especially maybe about your mom or your dad, your stepdad? Yeah, yeah, I mean, all my family's back in Wichita. It's crazy. We go back and even, again, just another funny coincidence, my fiancé's family is 45 minutes west of Wichita. That's hilarious. In a little town called Little River. Um, you know, what a small world, right? Um, so we go back to Kansas and it's just an insane fest, seeing friends, family from both sides and just trying to fit it all in, uh, but, uh, it's such a, it's fun to go back and see my side because my mom and my sisters are basically in the same neighborhood. My one sister is just two doors down from my mom. So life really stabilized after. Yes. And then my other sister is like 500 feet down to go into this one little neighborhood and you just never leave. That's awesome. But you get a lot of time with everybody, but, you know, um, yeah, it's been, it's everybody just, uh, uh, has had such a long tumultuous journey, just getting to adulthood in my family. It feels like, I mean, um, my mom, we just, we just, uh. Lost my dad to ALS. Well, that's a hard thing to watch. Um, it was a while, it was a couple years ago, so it's like, not super fresh, but Just sucks. Oh, there's just a lot of suffering. Disease sucks. How many years, uh, It's been 12 years. Wow. Like, 11 years. Oh, man. It's crazy. My, my, my good friend had one of his, like, best friends go down over, That kind of season. Right. I hung out with him three or four times along the way. Yeah. So like the average life expectancy is like two years and that dude went for forever. Um, but it was, it was hard to watch. Was it slow or was it like rapid and then slow? It was slow until it wasn't. Yeah. And we got 10 years. Oh, well, which is awesome. That's great. But point being. Like my mom is just. Yeah, there's a reset for her. Kind of blank canvas. Big time reset for her. So, you know, she's retired out there back in Kansas But she's just making the most of life. Yeah, and she just we just soldier on just don't let the bastards get you down. Yeah Yeah. Well, and she's probably having, does she have grandkids and stuff now too? Yeah. Everywhere. I mean, grandkids make a lot of things better. I'm sure she misses your dad and all that. But also, uh, she's probably having some of the freshest, newest experiences of her life. Yeah. Yeah. And she, you know, we all, we all have our hard days. We all, my dad's birthday was five days ago. And those, those dates really hit her pretty hard. Yeah. Um, they don't, Hit me as hard as much, but, um, uh, but those are, those are tough times and she really kind of relives a lot of that and really suffers a lot, but, uh, on the daily she just, uh, has that great mental fortitude and hopefully some of that trickled down to me. Yeah, well, seems like it. From my observations. Sorry for crying on your show. Thanks for being there for me. I miss my dad. I've got a tissue for you there, even on your ankle. Thank you. And the camera's off now, so nobody's gonna see this. No, my dad was a good dude, man. I mean, I had a shitty bio dad, and so having that dude. Changed your trajectory. Yup. Big time. Faith or politics? Ooh, either. I love, I love both subjects. I truly do. Um, faith is easy because I'm not. Yeah. Um, but I'm still spiritual so I get to have it both ways, you know. So I just believe in the human connection and I believe in spirit. Uh. Is there a creator being? A god? Maybe not the Christian God, maybe not the Jewish God, maybe not the Hindu God, but... I think all of those are possibilities, just as much as I think aliens, um, seeded this earth and made little human beings, or screwed monkeys, and made us. Well, what created the universe, though? Maybe... You know, Men in Black, that cat with the little, uh, charm? Like the universe is in that little cat's necklace. Like maybe we're just in the cat's neck. Maybe we are. So maybe it just all doesn't matter. Maybe, maybe. But, but, but to your point, I just think, you know, what, what gives me that spirituality is looking up in the sky, uh, and just being in awe. And I truly am in awe daily of just like mind. When you think about every, when you think about space, man. Right. Well, and I've been listening to some. some podcasts lately that talk this like the big it used to be like Big Bang or God right right like when we were in high school that was kind of like the question and now the question that is Seems to be fairly conclusive that there was a Big Bang either 13 or 26 Mm hmm Billy billion years ago the idea stays but the timeline has changed a little bit right and there's some discussion about that but But now it's like, there's a lot of people making the case that, well, based on the way that this thing just went pop and now here it is, basically it requires intelligent design. And then who was the intelligent designer? And then the Christians go, it was God, right? Right. And so Big Bang is starting to kind of encroach into becoming evidence of God rather than becoming evidence of not God. True that. True that. So anyway, I would encourage you to chase some of those rabbit trails sometimes because if there is a creator and a designer, then it changes kind of the way you approach how you interact with his creation. And where does that energy field come from? Where does that force come from? Well that would be one thing I would challenge you on actually is I think if there is a creator, if there's a God. And he is the one that gives the rights. I mean, that's, that's the thing that makes all people worth value. Right. If, if they're, if everybody's just a walking meat bag, well then if, if you cost me, uh, tax dollars to keep you alive as a homeless person, why don't I just stab you? Harsh. Yes. Right. But if, I mean, if we're just walking meat bags. True. Or does he have, he or she have inalienable human value? That's that's worthy, right? Right. And I don't know I would say the latter to me. Yeah I mean we obviously we come out of the the womb with some sort of Intelligence in terms of emotions. Yeah, we have value right at that moment for others and well and the challenge you're probably Pro abortion, I suspect, maybe. Um, I, I say, Let ladies choose. I say, if you say don't tread on me, you should really say don't tread on me. Yeah, fair. But there's value in that little critter in there. For sure. For sure. Just, you know, similarly to after it's delivered. Yeah. Yeah. Some people, you know, and I, I don't think, is there any, is there even any value to, to debating that anymore? You know, when it's, when so much of our, our battles are, um, so, so lopsided like that, there's, there's very, I don't see anybody with a whole lot of middle ground on the issue is what I'm trying to say. You know, it's such a, such a polarizing thing. You're almost kind of either here or there. Well, but not really. I think most people are, exactly in the middle, where they're like, we don't think all abortions should be banned. Yeah. Do you think, do you think there's an opportunity in the future for the right policy model to be implemented? I think 50 different states having 50 different choices is actually an ideal situation. I think so too. I think the hard part is, is when you think the way that I think is when you think about that interstate or when you think about somebody that wants that service that doesn't. Live in a state that allows it. Yeah, they can travel, they can do some other things, but again, you're talking about underprivileged people that sometimes have a lot of time, hard time just getting to the other side of town. Well, life is hard, you know, and there's choices you can make to not get pregnant. Right. Right, many different choices that you can make. Many. Yep. Yeah, but we're drifting into politics already out of religion, but uh, but you know, but really yeah, and not to this isn't even a counterpoint, but You know when when that is kind of when the numbers are the issue and the numbers aren't changing, right? We're probably no matter what we do the number is probably not going to change and so we're just really talking about how Yeah. It's already gonna happen. Oh, totally. You know, it's like, it's like the drug war. The, the drug war is going, the drugs are going to come. Maybe we should just create a market for it. Maybe we should. Like, instead of killing these babies, we should just buy them. That, you know. Yeah. And give them to people that want babies. Exactly. You know, um. It sounds like an awkward marketplace, but. I don't know a whole lot about adoption, but, um, the little that I do know and the people that I've talked to a little bit about it, um, it seems like a very difficult process to, to win. It's hard to compensate the mother in any fashion. And I also believe the same thing in illegal immigration, or immigration, that just, just make it easier. Make it easier to come here. Um, make it easier to... Well, make it both easier and tougher. Yeah. Like, tougher on the border, but let's, like, we want to be where the people, like... We should screen for criminal records. Well, certainly at least that. Certainly at least that. Or being from China, and, you know, a computer expert that's going to put bugs in all of our stuff, or whatever. Yup. Yup. Yup. Uh, but, but, and like it used to be a meritocracy of sorts because yes, you were poor, you're an Irish potato famine person, or you were, you know, a Hungarian or different waves of immigration that came to the U. S., but you had to be ambitious enough to pack your bags and go to a foreign land. Right. And I guess that's still true. But it's different now in that everybody's got an iPhone to go with and stuff, right? Yeah, and so, it's no, like, I think what we want is for the best and brightest of other countries to want to come here and have them pay for it. That's too hard. They don't even want to try. They go to Canada or some bullshit instead now. Well, it used to be Canada, but Canada's all fucked up now. Yeah, again, master of none, but I, I want to say there was some sort of policy that went down maybe eight or 10 years ago that really, that really made the, you know, that we want the doctor from India to come over here. Like it screwed something up with that. Engineers from Germany. Yes, you can come. Right. Yeah. No, it's a mess. We messed it up and they're having trouble coming over. Yeah. Well, and yeah, so immigration reform is definitely, and like, unless we have more babies. We're going to need more immigrants anyway, just to be sustainable, you know, if we're going to have the kind of social benefits we have, we better keep having some younger people otherwise it's going to be a mess. No doubt about that. Yeah. Everybody have sex. Yeah. Definitely. Without protection. Right. Unless you're not married or you're going to have an abortion, then don't do it. Just use a condom. Yeah. Hopefully an easy to find condom. Easily. They're free. Freely supplied. Go to the Mishawaka for a concert. You can fill your pockets full of condoms and also get one of those Narcan things. Exactly. Definitely. Just in case. Yeah. I think my overall philosophy is I just believe that people by and large are just, uh, good people trying to do the right thing. Yeah. Trying to, to do right by themselves and, and for their people. And I don't, I think by and large people, if man, if I lived south of the border, I'd be breaking, I'd be trying to get hired too. I'd be trying to get here for sure. I'd be following my iPhone map to, to get to Woodstock something. Yeah. I'd be downloading the. Immigrate. com app or whatever it is. I'd be strategic in my thinking and go someplace that's warm all the time but is not L. A. or you know, coastals. Go, go to the Midwest. Cost of living is too high. People in the Midwest are very nice. Go to North Dakota. They need workers up there. Go to 20 bucks an hour working at the Domino's Pizza. Exactly. Um. There you go. But, uh, I don't think most people getting an abortion want to get an abortion. No, no. You know, and I, you know. You know, I just, uh, so, which is a weird way to be politically, because if you saw my vote sheet, uh, it'd be some Democrat, it'd be some Republican, and it'd be some no votes, like, if I don't know, if I don't know anything about you, I'm not going to vote. Well, I heard you say, you know, having the states have differences is okay, and that's one of my big central philosophies is, if we want to have a union still in 50 years, Mm hmm. DC needs to hold it more loosely and let the states and the regions be more different. Like you can't mandate a 16 an hour minimum wage nationally when the average wage in Alabama is 14 or 17 an hour. Like you just create havoc. Right. You're just going to make it worse. I wonder what the, the correlation of student test rates would be to the budget of the federal department of education. So should we eliminate the federal department of education? I think we should. I think if, if you really break it down into, um, uh, school choice, really being able to impact your local school, it's, I mean, again, it's kind of fucked up that our schools are my neighborhood and if you live in a poor neighborhood, you're going to have a poor school and it's just going to be hard for, get teachers that care. And I mean, the whole thing, it's just difficult. Um, uh, where was it going with that? Um, school choice. School choice. Uh, but, but when you think about how your, your property tax dollars work and how the, the school funding works and how they, uh, tie that to testing standards and everything else. But your money is basically just getting washed. I mean, it's going to Washington only to be returned right back to you. I mean, why don't we just say no. Right. I mean, maybe there are some, some, some aspects of education that we could tackle. Utah was going to do that. They were going to collect the, uh, income tax as a state and then be like, we'll send it to you if you, whatever. Right. Thank you. I mean, yeah, that'd be interesting, but truly, for the budget, what do, what do they do for my school right there? They seem to just mess it up to me. Exactly right. and our standards, so what... Do we need a federal department of education for you had a will to make people dance? Yeah, Colorado can manage our, our, our own, uh, requirements on, uh, uh, testing and, and, uh, coursework and all that sort of stuff. We can run our own meal programs. We can run preschool pre K. We can, we can do it. We are doing it, but we got to wash our money up there and bring it back down. It makes no sense at all whatsoever. And we're spending enough per student that these systems should be, should work better. Maybe the schools aren't going to look like the most modern. Awesome glass building, uh, with supercomputers and everything else. Maybe architecture and building needs to... Maybe. chill out a little bit. Maybe. On campus, you know, all these places make a little bit more for them. Isn't it about, isn't it like 45 percent administrative staff though? A lot of which is to comply with all the freaking regulatory stuff and getting the money and different grants and different things and programs and this and that. So I don't know. I look at like my nephews, my, my step brothers, kids, they go to, they've kind of resurrection Christian mostly and they don't get any government funding. Right. And yeah, it costs quite a bit of money, but it's less than they pay per student. At the other schools, and they do a way better job, ultimately. Yep. I went through that with my daughter when she was going through elementary school. Yeah. And it was, and we paid a lot, and it was still less than what the property taxes, the school element should transfer with that. It's like, if you're doing a bad job, I should get to take my money with me when I go. Right, right. And you look at those schools that do that successfully, and you go, why can't we do that? Right. Everywhere. Because it's not a competitive marketplace at all. You're exactly right. Yeah. Um. Let's talk about other politics topics. Okay. I don't like it. Who's your, who's your favorite choice in the presidential election so far? Oh shit, absolutely nobody. They all suck ass. Nobody? No RFK? No Vivek? No Mike Pence? Are you not a Mike Pence guy? I am not. I believe every politician is the devil. I think that's the number one philosophy everybody should have first and foremost. Um, no, it's, it's, again, I'm a master of none, uh, I'm a, I love podcasts. I listen to them all the time. A lot of political, a lot of business and everything else. And so I know a little bit about everybody. I've been listening to a lot of, uh, RFK because he's been on, uh, uh, he's, he's been everywhere. He's been all the, the, the, the big ones. All the people that want to tell the traditional media to fuck off are inviting RFK onto their podcast. Exactly right. RFK, you're invited on my podcast too. If you want to come to Fort Collins, I totally have you on. You know, and Sam, do you know who Sam Harris is? Sure. So Sam Harris, you know, he gets pissed about all this sort of stuff and it's like, dude, you know, they're doing it to piss you off, right? They're just doing it to give a fuck you to be like, free speech, man. We just don't care because at the end of the day, yeah, you're just, you're just listening to somebody. What is, what is wrong with that? Um, I, I love listening to firebrands on both sides and I actually, most of my media, uh, in news comes from the left because I naturally just tilt right. Um, and so I subscribed to the New York times. Um, I mean, uh, CNN is a big, uh, page for me. Um, all that sort of stuff and, uh, uh, yeah, just, just soak it all in. Yeah. Yeah. I've been enjoying Twitter lately. Ooh, it sounds like it's been a fun ride lately. It has been interesting. I signed Buck only after Elon Musk came back in, in gear. I was like, yeah, I'll give you eight bucks a month, dude. Do you know a lot about the Barbie movie now? I do. I thought you might. I definitely, well, I listened to Ben Shapiro's podcast episode about the Barbie movie. If you haven't listened, it was good stuff. Did you go? I did. And, and. And what do you think? I'm a big movie buff. I watch movies every single night. I love them. They're my little calm thing that I like to do and even if I'm like going to bed with action like Ginny's looking over like how do you sleep to that? I'm like, oh, I'm in heaven. Aliens or something like that. I think it's the movie of the year. I think it was so good. I thought it was so funny, but I'm I'm with Rogan when he says dude, it's just a movie about dolls and it pokes fun at a lot of different things It's funny, just roll with it, let it ride, leave it there. If you want to use it as a platform for whatever, I guess, go ahead. But if you just take it on face value, I was just laughing so often. I was just at so many different points. I was just cracking. Well, it seems based on like, I've read a couple of reviews and listened to Ben. And it was like, it seems like a pretty. Well executed commentary on the relatively, like, we just went from like, Me Too, to Trans, to LGBTQ and, and, plus, uh, not to mention Black Lives Matter. Right. Like, that was a rapid, like, that was, what, 2015, 16, maybe, when Me Too became a big thing? Yep. And, and, so, there's a lot of societal, like, This is the way it is now stuff, right? Let's change in that time big time It's it's been hard and and I was who was I just talking to the other day about this Oh my good friend Tina. We were just trying we're talking about that that that issue and I mean, I, I screwed up the other day, uh, FedEx had run up to my house and dropped a package off and I was like, thanks, man. And it was, it was, uh, a woman and it's like, oh, dang it. And man just comes out, um, but I wouldn't, if I knew it was a woman with long hair, I wouldn't have gone. Hey, man, I wouldn't say that to a woman, um, but I've just, I got called out by my staff person for calling them the girls in a public environment. I was like, Oh, the girls will take care of that. Yeah. We're not the girls. I'm 42 years old. Yeah. I like trying to practice that, that change in thinking of, uh, you know, and I, and I was like, you're right. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah. I think back to, um, you know, when I was working taproom and everything, and I'd go up to a table like, Hey ladies, what's, what would you like today? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Uh, do my little spiel, and, and now it's like, how's everybody doing today? Right. You know, it's just, Oh, interesting, yeah. I just try to, you know, and that doesn't re, that doesn't change any, that's just changing the way that I, I speak. I mean, it's as simple as that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. can be, I'm, I'm cool with retraining yourself in there. When you say, Hey ladies, I immediately go to Beastie Boys. But yeah, it's an interesting, uh, environment and that even. Is, like, self censored speech? Yeah. Kinda. Well, um, how much of it is self censured speech or, or... Or is it just, well, it's all subscribing to societal convention, right? The new societal convention is this now. Or, just being a little bit more open and, and, uh, just trying. And it really, it honestly, like trying to put an effort into this, uh, hasn't changed the way I, anything. It's just a little bit of a reprogramming thing that for, for maybe, I mean, I heard something the other day that, uh, within the Gen Z sector, 21 percent identify obese GQ. Yeah. Um, and, and, I mean, that can include, uh, a lot of things. That'll raise hell with our birth rate in this country, though. Yeah, I mean, that, that, that can be like non binary from my understanding, and all that sort of, kind of like, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. And who knows, in three years. Yeah, but that's a high number. Yeah. I mean, that's a super high number. Well, if, if, if 10 or 20 or 50 percent of them, You look to get some kind of a procedure to change their whatever, right? That's even more concerning, right? So don't go back. So the way I read that is as I age I'm probably gonna fuck it unless I change I'm gonna fuck it up with 20 percent of the population That's one out of five interactions. Like let me just improve my odds and just do the simple kind of re Yeah, just as simple when I try I can actually Think about things before I say them. Like, usually I just say things before I think about it. But, if I try, I can think about it first. Yep. So. It's always good to be thoughtful. Learn a lesson there. Um, anything else you want to talk about in politics? Uh, local politics? Uh, minimum wage stuff has been in the news lately? Yeah, you know, I, um... I mean, I think by and large, I agree with you. I mean, even things like minimum wage laws, I mean, it should be different for Kansas than it should Colorado. I mean, that's pretty easy to let the diverse United States be a diverse United States. And, um, you know, I hope everybody appreciates from, from whatever political party you identify with or whatever, wherever you sit, I mean, hopefully you appreciate the, How the Fed works and how the expansion of powers have worked and how, you know, executive, um, uh, uh, authorities, authorities have expanded and it didn't start with a Democrat. It started with a Republican. Um, so we, we kind of painted that map and then they followed it and then we followed it better and then they followed us better. And, you know, off we go. You know, Trump comes into office and the deficit goes through the, the, the roof. And so, both parties are just, um, It's been a mess. They're talking a good game. For a long time. But nobody's really, really trying to do anything, uh, inventive or, or new. And, um, it's, but that's also, uh, uh, uh, shit you had, uh, Richard Fagerlund on, um, a while back. I don't know. Yeah, it was a year ago. But I went through his leadership, uh, program, uh, training, uh, with FMP. Uh, he is so great, dude. Uh, I love that guy. He taught me so much. Uh, changed my mind about all that. All that shit. I was such an unbeliever. Um, but, uh, one thing he always said was, uh, you're perfectly designed to get the results that you get. And it's like, our politics is perfectly designed to get the results that we get. It is supposed to be full of friction. It's supposed to be slow, glacier speed, um, I, and I'm just a firm believer in change comes from the people, change doesn't come from politics. So if you, if you want change, participate in change, believe in the change, enact the change, uh, within yourself, let's, let's not sit on our couches and just wait for politicians to enact the, the things that we want enacted, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, I, and I think our biggest impact is, uh, yeah, paying attention at the local level. Like, who are the people running for city council? And this is kind of new territory for me, because I'm a little bit new to Fort Collins, and so I'm trying to understand who's who. Hell no. You're in my district. You don't have enough work to do. You're like. Would a honest person who doesn't give a fuck be elected anymore? Like, you gotta be so slimy and shmurmy and you gotta just, I don't know, fuckin say one thing and do another. I don't, I can't do that. I, you know? That's why I want you in there. I'd be fine. Fired again. I don't want to be fired again. Was that your first time being fired? Well, actually no, uh, F& P let me go because they found out I was doing Weldworks. Oh yeah, that's right. We forgot to end that. Yeah, um. They're like, you're moonlighting, you're, they want to be gone anyway, they're so tired of me. Why? You were making too much money not working hard enough? You know, it's um, and it's not their fault, but uh, when you're a commercial insurance business, what are you focused on? You're focused on commercial insurance. Nobody... had to deal with tech because tech ran and ran well. And, but everybody hated the price tag of tech. Right. Um, and people wanted more control over tech, but didn't really know how to go about that. Um, so it just always put me in a. in a difficult position. And at the end of the day, I, I mean, obviously I have a problem with authority a little bit, a little bit, and so it's just kind of a, get out of my way. Let me do my thing. Uh, kind of a thing. Let me just build a success thing and just judge it on its numbers. Like, you know, uh, forget about me. Like, how does this, uh, lucky for you, you built a rapidly scaling brewery that Uh, took the world by storm with Juicy Bits, and uh, instead of like, having a little neighborhood thing that couldn't get enough people in there. No doubt about it. Uh, your loco experience, the craziest experience, craziest story, moment. Week month in your lifetime. I forgot about this one. Oh, I have so many crazy stories. I mean, I just saw Experienced the weirdest things growing up the just got myself into so much trouble all the time but Never crashed a motorcycle? I, thankfully, have not crashed a motorcycle. You're a pretty aggressive driver to have never crashed. Hey! I got this, uh, this tracking app, uh, that the family uses so we know kinda who's when and where. Uh, and, uh, Janine. Uh, my fiancee, she always gets these alerts like Colin's going 97 miles an hour. I'm like, babe, it is a straight, like, you got to understand this section. It opens right up there. It opens right up there and you just got to gun it. It's perfect. And I don't do it again. Yeah, your average speed is 35. I used my Strava app one time, uh, taking the loop over up to Stove Prairie and then over to Masonville and then back around, uh, just to see what kind of average speeds I can maintain on that. I don't remember, but it was pretty cool to see it. You knew it wasn't a bicycle, like I told it was. Nice. Go ahead. I, you know, weird experiences. I mean, I just, um, I remember hitting a field of deers with my partner that I started the computer companies with. We were just going through. The backwoods of, of Kansas and did a turn and just went and hit a herd and blend with a car or with her, with her car. And they were all jumping over and everything. And we just, I mean, it was 30 of them. It was crazy bumping into it all and everybody was fine. Everybody kind of went over the fence over there and. Really, you know, but they all waited there because there was one that was over inside of the ditch. And I mean, obviously like I know now that it was in shock and everything, but like I just gotta go and sit by it and just try to soothe it what I felt was soothing or whatever. I'm sure it was right. It like bumped off your finger or So yeah, it was the one that was hurt and everything. And so it took like 10 or 15 minutes and then that. And you're like sitting here stroking this deer. Yes, yes. And it's like right here. And it's like, oh my, this is. This is so crazy. So, um, yeah, I just, uh, I've had so many wonderful experiences within life. I'm just, I'm so privileged. I've traveled the world. I've just done, I've met so many cool people and done so many neat things. I mean, uh, I love governor polis. I think he's doing a great thing. I think he's doing a great job within our state. I thought Hickenlooper too. I like him. I got the opportunity to meet Polis. That was cool. I got the opportunity to hang out with coach Mike Malone for two hours at the brewery he was like when they dropped out of the The playoffs a couple years ago like what are you gonna do now that basketball's done? He's like, I'm gonna go up to Greeley and go get some juicy bits That's so cool we delivered some cases to his house for like a year after that hilarious But he just came up with his buddies and just like hung out. We didn't talk basketball one lick. We just That's awesome. It was super cool. A lot of opportunities. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of a neat thing. Like you've been a very visible, is there another business that's been more sexy than Weldworks in the last 10 years? So it's, you know, and it's, um, it's a problem that companies like commercial insurance companies are going to. Always have is, is how do you get passionate about that product? And after being in that field for 17, 18 years, it was like, I was bored with it. I was dying to get out, but I would have to take several steps back for myself and my family to, to make that happen. And I just wasn't willing to risk it like that. Um, But it, but it's boring, you know, and so when I started the brewery, it was like, you're handing somebody a beer over the bar and you're immediately seeing the reaction. Right. Good or bad. Right. You know, hopefully it's good. But what an immediate feedback it started to give me and I, and I just fell in love with it right away because it was like, You kind of got into that cycle. It's like, we have a product. And then you sell a keg to somebody and they're smiling next time you come back and they loved it. Mm hmm. Exactly right. And, you know, just, uh, doing hand sales or, um, festivals or anything like that. I mean, dude, I did festivals like in Copenhagen and the lines, 200 people long. And I'm just like me and my daughter, my daughter going to Copenhagen with me and serving beside me, boom, boom. We're trying to turn and burn these people. They're like, Vlottops, do you do this? I'm just like, dude, there are like, shit, somebody help me real quick. I got to go talk to this guy. Will you do a collab with me? Uh, all sorts of good stuff, but, uh, yeah, just meeting so many crazy people in so many crazy places and, uh, getting into so much crazy trouble with so many of them. Um, what a wild ride. Uh, it, it, it does. I mean, there's definitely, you know, we, we, we should do what we, what we know and we should try to do what we love. Um, I know commercial insurance, I know tech, and I know beer. Like, out of those three, beer sounds the most fun. You know, and, and I, uh, I'm privileged enough to, uh, be free in that choice. I don't have to work, I can work, I can work for this, I can work for that. I can work these hours, I can work those hours, I can start a business, I can buy a business. You could be a local facilitator. I could be a local facilitator. We can talk more about that. That could be a lot of fun. You probably know a lot of people in Greeley. I sure do. I very much do. We'll talk more about that later, maybe offline. Um, well, I don't have much else. Aliens, we haven't touched on aliens. You want to talk about aliens? We can talk about aliens. Okay, I'm game to talk about aliens. What do you think? So there's this um... Did something happen in Peru? I was gonna bring that one up. I just saw it on my Twitter this morning. Well, they're probably talking about the documentary that just came out. I forget what the name of it is. But it just came out. But it's um, I thought it was Brazil. Oh, maybe. Um, but I think this, I think that's right. I think it's on Netflix. There was an old sighting or an old situation where there was bodies and stuff in the 57 or 65 or something like that. Yeah, this is like back in the 60s in Brazil and this just came out and I really tried to watch it. Uh, and I, I heard Rogan talking to somebody about it, this one, that it was coming out the same one. We're talking. Yeah. So this one just came out. Yep. Okay. And you know, I want, I want to believe in alien. I do believe in aliens. I think it's ridiculous that, uh, out of all the universe, like there is no end of the universe. This isn't like even flat earth. Like you're not going to get to the end of the universe and like bonka. A door, like, frickin Truman Show, like, there's, it just keeps going, and like, there's somebody else out there, like, for sure, but, but in this show, like, where they lost me was, they did a drawing of the alien, um, and they, they basically, the villagers found this alien against this concrete wall, like, like this, and he look, he looks like a lizard with teeth, Big red eyes and he's like, okay, like 1950s, bad sci fi horror shit. And it's like, so you just don't buy it, like the shape of the lizard man or whatever, when you think about the, the, the evolution of a species and what you need to achieve singularity within a human verse, whether that's one or two planets. Closely connected and everybody, but everybody has to get to a point where we're working a little bit more together and combining resources and technology to achieve the the levels of interstellar space travel. Once the hybrid human, alien human hybrids start coming around, that's when we'll really be getting somewhere. Well, it's like where selective breeding for wheat has been. Like we get 100 bushel wheat now, we used to get 20. Right. Go GMO. Right. No, no. Wheat's not GMO. Oh. Wheat is only bred. They don't, uh, they don't GMO wheat. It's selected breeding. Interesting. Yeah. I did not know that. Yeah. Trace a Wikipedia thread on that sometime. You'll be entertained. But back to aliens. So, if you, my point being, like, if you achieve some sort of, uh, uh, aptitude to travel like the way that you need to travel to get around the, the universes, um, you're probably not going to send somebody. Yeah, you think they'll just send sensors or whatever. You send a drone. I guess, but it's not the same as being there. I would think it was space tourism is what we have as first people now. What are the odds that this green lizard thing with red eyes can like operate the controls with those weird, like... Well, I don't believe they have claws, probably, like, incomposable thumbs or... Something similar, but that it wouldn't I mean with a billion billion universes of a billion billion stars each assume They look like people maybe it's maybe on the aliens. It's one finger and four thumbs. Well, that would be the nicest sensation Same thing in a lot of ways. You with that. What would you do with four thumbs, do you think? I've got some ideas. At Loco we have the three thumbs up method for joining. Ah. Uh, you have to pass my smell test first and then the facilitator. So I could get them all in a chapter. I could get all four. Yeah. I could get And have, I have a thumbs spare? Four thumbs, not even three. I could get four thumbs and one one thumb. Um, you don't really care if anybody goes to your website or anything, but like, should they snoop you on LinkedIn or anything if somebody wants to give you a big, fat job? Yeah, I'll try to get out there and update that. Or opportunity. Like if you're, man, I, I also, if you an investor potentially, yes. I love boring business too. Like I, I think HVAC companies are great glass companies. Great. I mean, I think these are such. Uh, uh, steady income streams that many times are older established places that have lost kind of the service. Well, and it needs some technology. Why don't you just buy two or three old HVAC companies and just put them together and then sell it. Right. You can make a lot of money that way. You know, improve process, procedure, customer service, technology, uh, ordering, execution, project planning. There's a ton of boomers that own those businesses. Uh, yeah. And who are they going to sell to? You apparently because you got some money. There we go. Yeah, so I do I need to because I'm not on Facebook I'm not on any social media. I've been on social media for four years. Oh, well best decision I've ever made Yeah, but I'm just a news hound as a result. I still scroll my phone. I'm gonna do the New York Times crossword every day So yeah, I'm still phoning all the time. But yeah, I'll get I'll get LinkedIn updated and at least that'll be some way You can look up Colin Jones find your address and send you a letter That would be scary. It's the Lever County Assessor. Everybody's address is there. That is true. Don't do that. That's going to be weird. Um, alright, well thanks for being here. Dude, thanks for everything. I'm looking forward to our next ride together. Absolutely. Gotta get my tire fixed and off we go. Yeah, well I want to ride with the BMW. Is the BMW ready to rock? I need to replace the battery. I let it sit too long in Greeley. I got it up here now, though. It made the ride. I got it charging up enough to make the ride, but I just need to swap it out and we're off. Alright, sounds good. We can car some keys. We'll schedule something. I won't go 97, Ginny. Yes, you will. I promise. I promise you will.