EXPERIENCE 142 | NoCo Real Estate & Water Update; Free Speech, X.com; and Video Essays from @loanly_hipster with Aaron Everitt

Today we welcomed Aaron Everett back to the Loco Experience Studios for our Northern Colorado Real Estate and Water Update, and as usual we got into all kinds of additional topics. Aaron had recently been part of a historical tour of sorts, and we had some discussion about the history of Fort Collins and the many subdivisions that his family enterprise built throughout the last 50 plus years. And we spent a lot of time talking about water, rising costs, declining liquidity, so to speak, and the impacts of new home inventory and pricing in various markets. From there, we get a business update from InMotion and discuss a new LLC Aaron has recently formed. Best Craft, which handles distribution chores for several enterprises, along with craft distillers, and even a soon to come THC water product. We jump from there into some discussions around the Israel Hamas situation, and into our usual liberty topics. Aaron has been releasing a series of video essays on X. com recently, written essays transformed into storyboard type videos, and he's been getting a lot of traction and engagement with titles such as Inflation and The Grievances and What If We Are the Bad Guys. Thanks for watching! Look for him at Lonely Hipster on X. com. As usual, it's a No Topics, Off Limits kind of conversation, and as always, I learn some new things and so will you. So please join me for my most recent conversation with Aaron Everett on the Loco Experience. Welcome back to the local experience Cheers, my friend. Good to see you So today we have Aaron Everett back in the office. We're drinking bubble water this time instead of bourbon I thought you might bring me some new interesting bourbon that you guys are distributing. Well, um, I didn't I should have brought you the non alcoholic stuff We've been doing. Oh, yeah, it's been really cool. That would have been even better That's been a really interesting thing to have happen and get into that space. So a virgin Manhattan that doesn't taste like crap Yeah, that's actually really good. It's a good company out of Connecticut that's doing spirits. And we just talked to a, a beer company out of, uh, uh, Minnesota that's doing some really cool NA stuff and then, uh, also doing THC water, which is kind of an interesting deal too. In Minnesota? They're in Minnesota. Oh, so I guess marijuana is fully legal there too. Well, so interestingly, there's a, there's a federal law about. Hemp and THC in hemp and the quantity that's available in that to travel across straight, the state line. Okay. And they use a dose small enough based on their volume that they're able to do this. THC hemp water that is according to them and their attorneys. I'm not an attorney and I don't play one on TV. Uh, they basically, it's low enough, low enough that they can ship it across, but you still get it some, some effects that are THC oriented in it. So it's a seltzer water. So like drinking one, three, two beer, basically. Maybe even less. I don't know. I'm not a marijuana consumer, so I don't know exactly what the pound it. It's like the old PBRs, I guess. Yeah. Anyway. Well, you can bring me one of those next time. Yeah. Very cool stuff. Really interesting things that are kind of adding to the overall local delivery. Yeah. So any, uh, any other categories served in motion has been growing quite a bit, right? Yeah. We've got quite a bit of things going on. So yeah, we kind of, um, we've got a lot of things happening in terms of the real estate space. Um, more and more folks are, this is the time of year where everybody kind of. Um, parts ways and goes different directions and shifts brokerages and things like that. So some of that, we've been able to pick up more real estate stuff out of that. Um, and just continue to try to find more customers. Light center pit. We picked those guys up as somebody that we're helping out. Um, yeah, it seems to be, seems to be helpful and something that's like, if they sell a lighting package to. a commercial customer or also just for residential? Somebody can. Or like a builder that needs their, they have a light package, but one got, it was way late or something like that. They would run it out to them. Yeah, one got damaged during transport. You can run them over there. Yeah. So there, there's a bit of that. And, um, just, I think they, they, it's a convenience issue too, right? They need it. They don't want to have their guy running around doing it. So, um, yeah, Jennifer called and we put it together, the local connection of, of life here. So it's good. For sure. So, um. And you formed a new entity, so it's not just in motion, it's also craft. Yeah, Best Craft. Best Craft. So it's, uh, kind of help, helping and partnering with, um, some folks that have been in the microbrew space. Yep. for a while, and they, they're associated with Berthoud Brewing and Grimm Brothers and some other things and Trying to help them kind of figure out logistics in relationship to how do we get this stuff? We brew to someplace else and that's been pretty cool. Oh, is that just serving that group then? Yeah, and your other distilled spirits and THC water and stuff all goes through in motion Yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of two separate deals, but they're, they're basically, InMotion does the, the actual driving and the logistics port, portion of it, and then there's actually a liquor distribution license associated with Best Craft, so that we can, uh, and they both kind of have reciprocating DBAs. So InMotion can kind of, uh, work as a contractor for Best Craft, because Best Craft carries that, because your partners in, in Motion were like, Yeah, exactly. What about this booze stuff? So, yeah, so it's pretty, uh, it's actually been really good. So that's been kind of where all of that other spirit stuff and the non alcoholic stuff is all falling into the Best Craft category. And then we continue to try to grow just local business stuff in InMotion. Indemnification. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There you go. As a banker, we always try to pierce the veil of indemnification. Try to find your way through it. No, I, it's been fun to see it go. I mean, I continue to just feel like it's so important. Um, to see local business survive and thrive and I don't know, you know, the market gets harder and harder for them to do it. There's, there's between regulatory framework, um, or just competition, Walmart, Amazon, everything else, uh, local business. They have the hardest road ahead. Um, and I think that that will be the case, you know, we just, we're just a consolidating society in so many ways. Yeah. And so. Yeah. You just keep seeing more and more amalgamation of the same, you know, farming's all kind of growing into one place. Right. Medicine's all going into one place, and it's just, just the pile on to get everything as centralized as possible. And, um, I don't Well, I think Local Think Tank is kind of, I decided one of our values, uh, and we talked about this the other week, but Yeah. To really be local and try to be a champion of localized economy instead of Globalized economy. Yeah. Like, in my banking career I went to smaller and smaller organizations all the time because I could see that's where the employees were happier and where the customers were happier. Absolutely. Well, I was talking this morning, um, I, I've do, I've been kind of given some history tours of Fort Collins to real estate agents so that they can get a little bit more understanding. You charge for this? No, I just, a cup of coffee, I guess. Okay. Take them around in the morning, a couple hours, and we go through all the Everett neighborhoods. Oh. So we kind of start where. Uh, we start at the old lumber yard downtown and then move our way through partnerships that we did with builders over like in Miller Brothers Farms next to the campus and then We go over to Indian Hills where we started and and then just work our way down sort of down LeMay Which is kind of where we focused and did things and then finish at Fossil Lake Ranch Um, but I was talking to them this morning and and you know, it's almost hard for people to grasp That how the, how the market used to work in the fifties and sixties, which was that you had a local banker, that local banker wasn't necessarily tied to J. P. Morgan. He wasn't, he wasn't, or it was just a, you know, like the Bailey savings and loan was a thing they had in that movie. That's a real thing. And they didn't have anybody to fall back on Colorado, especially didn't have branch banking until like the mid eighties or so. So really interesting that you, you used a local bank and then you. You know, I was telling them, like, we were partners with some builders who are buying lumber from us, and we were partners with them on the purchase of the farm, and then we had a track record that we could finally take to the bank at Indian Hills when we did that neighborhood and say, we'd like to do it ourselves, and here's why. We've proven all of this, and the bankers were willing to jump into that relationship. Use logic and making decisions and they knew the guy sitting across the table, right? And so it's really interesting to hear as you as I explained that stuff To explain that there really wasn't a regulatory framework, you know, we talked about in the tour I talked about you know we used to give away land to churches and we used to give away land to schools because we felt like that was the Best thing for the community and you know, somebody asked me this morning. Well, so is that Was it, did the city make you do that? And I was like, no, there was no such thing. There was a city, there's a town manager and maybe an engineer, maybe a surveyor that would review a survey, but that was it. There wasn't this comprehensive plan with all these things. And that, that development was much later in, in life. Um, yeah, well, that reminds me, actually, I talked to Les Kaplan some, gosh, about a year ago about being on the podcast. And he said, yes. And then I totally spaced. following up with less, but our very first city planner, right? Yeah. Was less. Yeah. Land and he did the land development guidance system, which is a son of a bitch. Fantastic. Actually, that was a fantastic way to do land planning and organization. If you, if you really wanted to be cooperative and it was a very cooperative system, the problem became that that system was. It was seen as unequitable amongst people because somebody would come with a plan and they'd say, Oh, well, you have a reputation of doing this, that, or the other thing. And this is, this is good. We'll trust you to do this. And then the next guy that would come in wouldn't get necessarily, or wouldn't be treated the same. And so at least that was the perception. And so then they had to make it into a code. And as soon as you do that, it just turns into this kind of. You know, regulatory, right. I was saying this morning, it kind of says the relationships don't really matter and reputations and character and stuff just follow the, follow the letter of the code and, and you should be fine except for the fact that the interpreters of the code and the people that actually like they become the deciders, you know, uh, Doug Wilson said the other day, you know, If blasphemy is blamed, then only those who decide what is blasphemy have the right to blaspheme. Yeah, right. And that's exactly right. And, and really, I said this morning in this tour, you know, the regulatory piece, you cannot regulate your way to an outcome. It's, it's not... It's not possible. So you can regulate to what you think might be the outcome, but you'll never know what the market does. You'll never know how economics work. You never know the influences of new ideas, new technologies. So whatever regulation you write down is retroactive. So you're only responding to something that happened once and you can't necessarily go back and. Regulate towards your future vision, but that's how city plans all are. It doesn't matter if you're here or Severance or Walla Wallu or whatever. I mean, they're all the same. They write these regulations with a desired outcome. They get some, you know, expert class person to come in, talk about what they want their vision to be about the city, you know, and so you talk about that and then they give you all this codified framework about how to get to that vision. Well, maybe that works. but not likely. The reality is probably more that something changes in the middle of it. There's new adaptation. The market crashes, market goes very robust. All of those dynamic forces that are actually on how people want to live, um, can't have been guessed ahead of time in the regulation. And so That was very interesting to go through. And I said, you know, the, the truth of this deal with the thing is like all the things, you know, every neighborhood we'd go to, like, Oh, I love this neighborhood. This is a great neighborhood. Oh, this is a wonderful neighborhood. So I get to the end of the tour and I say, well, not one of these neighborhoods could actually be built in Fort Collins today. In fact, none of the houses you've seen could be built in the city of Fort Collins today because of all of their regulations about garage doors and front porches and. And slot sizes and, and everything else, none of these things. So we just drove through, I don't know, 10, 000 lots and not one of them could be built today. And I, I just think that's, uh, all the things to some degree that you love about Fort Collins would never materialize in today's society. Yeah, no, I think that's, uh, you know, and, and Mayor Troxell has been a, uh, guest on the podcast a couple of times. And like, that's. His kind of soapbox, if he's got one, is, you know, having that long term vision, but I don't know what the long term vision is of The current regulatory framework, you know what, like, I was just reading a little bit about the land use code changes impending and I'm, I'm sure that's going to get petitioned and kicked back to a popular vote thing because they didn't really change anything from the first episode, but do they think people are? Like there's just going to have this explosion of accessory dwelling units and everybody's going to be, be hunky dory. Like it's, it's, I wonder what they want the outcome to be in some ways. Yeah, well I Cheaper housing. Cheaper housing is certainly a piece of this. Um, you know, things get more and more expensive. It's a very interesting real estate market right now. Yeah. You have very low supply, still a relatively reasonable demand, but interest rates are triple what they were two years ago. Um, you know, eight and a quarter was yesterday's rate. Wow. So for a 30 year fixed. Wow. That's a lot of money. How about for like a 15 year or something, you know, they're a little lower, but not much, but not much prime is driving all of this. And there's such a, oh boy, there's just such a wrong way of like the federal reserve system is just truly, they have two levers. They can stop spending money in government. Or they can raise interest rates. That's it. Right. Those are all the bullets they have. Except they can't seem to stop spending money on government ever. There's no appetite to stop spending money. It never goes slower even. There's, I'm, I'm already against next, tomorrow's war. Whatever it is. Because it's, it'll be out there. That deal is, that's just true. I mean, it's just a cycle. They're in this cycle of spend money, it doesn't matter. You know, to hear the treasury secretary say, Of course we can afford, afford two wars. Right. Of course we can. Duh. You know, that's just nonsense. It's all theater and just garbage. So then the strongest military of any military that's ever existed in the history of history. Yeah. And we're the brokest nation of all time. Nobody's ever been broker. No one's ever been. So you have that, and then you have this other lever that they can do. And the realists live in the interest rate world and they do what they can to try to content control money through that interest rate. So the supply of money through interest rates. Well, if you just keep it printing it. And then you try to have to put some kind of filter and regulatory, you know, stop to it. Interest rates have nowhere to go, but up, right? So I'm not one of those real estate agents that would say, well, just buy it now and we'll refinance later. I don't know. I don't know. It might be 5 or 10 years before we're back down into that 5 percent rate world again, if ever. It will take a dramatic shift like happened in 08 or 01. You know, one of those just catastrophic things to happen for them to be able to lower interest rates. Well, and every time you print more money. Every time you print more money, you kind of automatically bake inflation into the economy, and that's what the raising of interest rates is for. Yeah, and both of them are just a tax on the poor, no matter what. Right. So, interest rates raising harm the poor. Proportionately to the wealthy and so does inflation. And it just, it's just a sad reality of the moment we're in. I think that's partially what's driving the land use code stuff and the changes that are there after in town. Although whether or not that's the solution I have You know, I don't know that that's real. I'm just not sure, like, they take all these powers away from all the HOAs. That's probably the biggest thing I don't like, because it's like, oh, you, all you different HOAs with your own personality based on the neighborhoods that you built out and formed the HOA board. None of that matters anymore. Yeah. At least in regards to this. Yeah, and it's a centralizing, right? Yes, authoritarianism, all the business. Right. Um, so, yeah, I don't know. The code is... Uh, we'll see what happens with it. I think Fort Collins is just not going to be interested in doing anything that is related to what the market actually might demand. They'll be very interested in doing apartments and high density stuff and people will buy them and they will live in them. But with a level of dissatisfaction compared to what they might have been able to have otherwise. And really market supply, there's nothing, I don't see anything new from a development standpoint that's going to come online, that's going to relieve any of the pressures of that. So, what is here is going to get more expensive, um, and I think, Probably more complicated to buy in terms of all sorts of things. And you just have all sorts of things happening. You've got rent issues and renter issues at the state level in terms of regulatory framework on how much you can actually raise your rents each year. Oh, really? Yeah. So there's, there's just a lot actually happening in relationship to property. And some of that is just going to be more and more complicated and it will be, it will favor the people who already have property or who are wealthy. It always does. Um, I'm not a disparager of the wealthy at all, but the reality is, is the wealthy are the kind of people who can hire CPAs and attorneys and do things outside of, you know, they can get around the things they need to get around because they They know the rules. They wrote them. So, uh, it, it's complicated. This is another one that's, that's challenging because I think it's, our community is, is a better place when there are more voices at the table. It just, I think that's true of anything. I just think that's true of anything. Well, I think that's one thing that Fort Collins historically has done very well is not really had, like we've always had the poor and the wealthy, just like every other region, but there hasn't really been... A striation of that, like everybody's got, should have an equal voice and respect from one another. Yeah. And it isn't really about how many zeros are on your balance sheet. Well, we, again, was in this tour today and we were talking about. Uh, so we drove through Indian Hills and right next to it is, is South College Heights. Both of our, our, our neighborhoods, both of our neighborhoods that we did. And they're two different, totally different products. Indian Hills, like they were the luxury houses of the time. Wealthy folks lived in Indian Hills. Um, And South College Heights was affordable housing. Yeah, right off College Avenue because it's kind of noisy there, right? And so, and here, here comes the question again this morning, you know, well, so did the city make you do affordable housing? Right. No, we saw the need. The market. The market saw the need and we saw that that was a better use for that farm, for its location, for all sorts of reasons. That was a better choice. Yeah. For the use of that farm than... high end luxury housing. Nobody made us do it. We just did it because we thought the community would be better if we did that. We always thought that community would be better if we gave away land for churches and schools and parks. And that was just our, that was just our operating style. It wasn't, it wasn't because of anything. That somebody made us do. It was like, well, our customer made us do it. Probably your guys fault. The city doesn't have any money to maintain all these parks. Yeah. We'll take a hold of their time. We'll take the blame. It's all of this stuff. Like nobody really thinks through the consequences of any of that stuff. But it all sounds so nice. Or something of the cost of creating a park is it costs that to maintain it. Well, yeah, it goes on each year ever, right? The park doesn't go away, right? Like, oh, well, that's so nice of you to dedicate the land for the park and all the stuff for it. That's wonderful. Who's going to mow it? Exactly. It's like, actually, I just donated that. So I don't have to keep mowing that low spot. Well, and you're forced to in order to try some compromise in the city plan that will allow you to get to what you need in terms of density and the rest of it. It's a It's complicated, makes this place harder and harder to do business, uh, if you're going to be a developer and it will dumb down the product. It will become, it will just become who has the money to do it, which means it's a national builder, which means that it's just, there's just, it's all just going to turn into like standard fair stuff. Remember there was a season and it's kind of changed now, thank God, but for a while there. Brinkman every new project and it was different sizes of the same basic, uh, visual project. Yeah. Cause that was just what got through the city pretty easily and stamp, stamp, stamp, uh, you know. Yeah. I know those guys are quality guys. VFL architecture. They weren't exactly, they weren't, they weren't necessarily interested in that, but the time becomes so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was no criticism. That was like, that was what was getting through quickly and easily. They would say the same thing. You're like, yeah, that was the easy way. That was the easy button. Right. It would cost us the least amount of money. So it was like. And it's functional. And you know. Frank could come in and be like, I'll sign it. I'll sign it. I'll sign it. It looks like the same one we did last time. Only it's four stories. You know? So I, I think. That deal is, uh, it's, it is really kind of one of those things that I think will need to be either assessed or people are just going to be satisfied with what it is and it will be just really expensive here. Right. And if you really want to live in something cool. Or live in a house that most people want to live in, you just better have a million bucks. It sucks, but it's kind of true. How was the, what's going on with water? Uh, we had talked about kind of restrictions on new permits and stuff in parts of Weld County. Yeah, still there. Still there. Still there. Still no real sign. I'm going to the North Weld board on next Monday. I think it is. Um, just to find out what's actually happening there. Not a lot of movement, although there is rumblings that they're getting some of this fixed. I know Elko and Northweld have come to terms on a partnership for a supply line, um, which I think is really good. That's a big 42 inch line that's necessary to kind of carry water out that way. Um, and so that will be good. That'll help when it'll be done. I don't know. And what that'll end up doing for them. I think water just remains. It's not about the water. It's more about getting the water where it needs to be. Well, it's a both and for sure. Yeah. There's a storage capacity issue, but also, um, once you have it and you can use it, how do you get it from point A to point B? There's enough demand on that system that the infrastructure has actually got a, got an issue in it too. So it's, it's really both things are happening. You've got the price of water continues to be really expensive. Um, shares are hard to come by, harder to come by. You can still get them, but they're harder to come by. And I think. Just overall people have, uh, you know, they've, we've lived in such a kind of abundance system. It's we've always had more than we needed kind of thing. And so I think people are finding that edge. It's like, well, I do, I have this water, but why would I, we might. We might need to be thinking about that a little bit more. I think Thornton's pipeline and some of the changes and news that have happened over the last 20 years, that will have an impact on us. I mean, that there's no way around that. Thornton now owns the lion's share of water supply and storage. Um, if they're not the majority, I know they're the majority holder and I just, I don't know their percentage, but the biggest holder might be over half. Yeah, I think so, for sure. So, they have a, they have a lot. Um, and water supply, one, I just... And we should go back to city states. We just told those guys where to go. Yeah. They'd be willing to charge into battle with shields and swords. The, uh, interestingly, water supply and storage, I just was talking to somebody the other day about what it was worth, and they were looking to sell their share for about four million for one share. Uh? Yeah. So, um, for one share of water supply and storage. Oh, wow. So it's, uh, it's expensive money. It's getting more and more expensive due development. Cause you have to have that water. Right. Um, and working on a particular project that is a farm that has water supply and storage on it. We may not end up buying that, but if we do something else with it, then what we'll end up having to do is bring CBT, but we'll have to do a dry up covenant on that, sell that water supply and storage back to them so that they can Thornton or whoever, um, they, if they don't buy, um, if the, if it's, if the people that are under contract on the water don't buy it, which is another, it's all sorts of different things happening out there, but it is interesting that, um, those, those things are out there and water supply gets more and more valuable and they really, that sets the, it, it has the best yield. And it's the first water on the ditch. So it really is the best, right. And so it's like bitcoins compared to Ethereum or a little bit. I mean, it's definitely, definitely different value valuations there. And I think, um, it, it sets the market for everything else that happens from there for CBT and all of the rest of it. It'll all spin off. It's one share. The same amount of water between ACBT and a water? No, no, no. Not at all. Yeah. Um, that's what I thought.'cause CBT water is what, like 80, 80 or a hundred. Okay. 80. Um, and there's just, it's all about how the allocation actually works in terms of the acre, acre foot and what, and how, how low on the totem pole you are. Yeah. That kind of thing. Yeah. So. Really lots of different conversions between whether it's Larimer and Well, or whether it's CBT or whether it's water supply and storage what how those all end up playing ten or twenty times as much water. Yeah and Right, you're right. Yes, it'll always be there. Yeah kind of thing. Okay, so that's all interesting I think that's something that's and it's having an impact on pricing of houses you we are seeing There's certainly a slowing in the market Uh, overall, but it's in a weird, it's in a weird pocket. It's only related to the people who have to use interest rates to do something. So the, the folks that are buying lower priced houses, they'll always sort of have a demand in there because there's more people that can afford those houses than there is anything else. Right. So under 500, let's say it's still very robust market, lots of people, multiple offers, still seeing that happen over and over and over again, in that lower price range, expensive houses, million and a half and up. You're seeing a lot of activity there. A lot of them are cash buyers, cash buyers or small mortgages, or they're taking their something from something else. And they sold their California house or their Florida house, or probably not Florida, nobody moves here from Florida, do they? I don't know. I don't know those allocations there. But then that gap between let's say 500 and a million bucks, that's where mortgages are going to be used the most. And that they've been disproportionately affected. And most of that's new construction too. So a lot of new construction builders fall in that five to million category. There are lots of incentives around that. There's a lot of, uh, enticements get people to. They're trying to buy down interest rates or different things to trigger your yard and your, you know, there's some builders in Windsor that are, uh, I just got a list the other day and they're They're offering 30, 000 off the, like your lending package. Plus they'll put your fence in and a yard. It's like 60, 000 worth of stuff. Um, now they're probably pricing their higher, you know, their house higher than that, but they are offering that discount in order to try to stimulate people to see them as competitive along with resale. So, so those are the canary, that new construction is a canary in the coal mine to me about what's actually coming, coming, um, and it's getting louder. Right. That particular segment is getting louder. So I don't, I don't know. I don't have a bright hope that somewhere around the corner is this like killer real estate market again. Man, I sure, like I remember when I was first buying my first. Home. It was like, you know, for 180, 000, we couldn't really get shit for like 200. You could get something quite a bit better than 180, you know? And for two 40, you get a lot better still. It feels like a market might develop that. Like if you're, if you're able to stretch from 500 to 600. Yeah. Just jump over the first time homebuyer outfit and get a really nice house. Yeah. And you'll probably start to see some of that, like where the, those will sit a little longer on the market. You know, the problem has been people haven't been able, by the time they've saved up enough money for their down payment, the price has out, the price has gone up and so has interest rate. And so now it's like, well, it's set to get 5 percent down. Now it's a different number than it was just two years ago, type of thing. So that. That will slow down, which will give people a little bit more opportunity to sneak into some things that are going to sit on the market a little longer. So, it's a have to market. If you're going to sell, it's probably because you have to. You don't, you're not, you're not doing it because you want to give up your 3 percent interest rate to go pay aid. Um, or you're just life change, you know, divorce or young kid, new kids, kids need a different school, whatever. Those are, those are the things that are out there that are happening and I, I think that's one of the things that is going to continue to happen. You just always have half two things in the market, um, but it will, it'll have an impact on how that actually, well, yeah, and the new build. Sellers like you're talking about half two sellers and new build sellers is basically supply, right? Yeah, and the new build sellers are like Getting kind of tired of putting yards and pools and fences in for free for these, uh, units. So, like, they'll likely build fewer of them, which is, you know, that goes in the other direction. Doesn't help us, doesn't help us. Doesn't help us stabilize, yeah. Yeah, that's all there. I think the, the, the new construction stuff as that starts to get squishier and squishier, which probably will just continue to happen. They want to stay in business, so they're going to continue to try to build houses. But if nobody's there to buy those houses, then their company gets outside upside down pretty quick, right? So there might be some things that are happening there too. So, you know, it's it's not an easy thing Real estate is never as easy as any right? You're gonna start skinning up your operation If you're gonna start selling half as many houses Yeah You better have half as many employees to and then you don't have the warranty guy and then you don't have the you know So there's just these things that are kind of, they're just headwinds out there that I think are important to pay attention to. I think they, you know, I don't think it impacts anybody that's, if you own a house on mountain Avenue, you'll still be able to sell your house for a lot of money. Um, just maybe not as much as you did two years ago and you won't have. You know, 80 people writing you an offer for 20 percent over your price. Probably won't have that, but you'll be able to still sell your house quickly for what you want. If you ever want to leave. Yeah. You know, then that just begs the question. Why would I leave? So fair. Yep. That's kind of a never ending cycle for the best located real estate, right? Yep. Um, real estate update sufficient there. I feel anything. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think it's super interesting times. It's not. Yeah. I've never seen the market. A market like it. So, in all the years I've done this, I haven't seen something like this, where you have what feels like heavy headwinds. But nothing's, the, the thing that usually gives is price and, and I'm not seeing that. Yeah, I can't. Right? There's no margin left otherwise. Yeah. So. Yeah. Between all that, the new construction will continue to be oppressed by codes and it'll just be. Continue to supply some constraint. Yeah. Basically, right? Yeah. And they'll, that'll get harder and harder to build a house. It'll get, the codes will get more, they'll ask for more green building, more energy efficiency, less gas stoves, everything else that they're going to do. Yeah. And all of that will turn into more and more expense for the end user. So new construction will just. Start to dwindle and squish and get weird and have to sell at margins that they don't want to be at in order to stay in business. Right. And then we just all have to live in apartments. You'll own nothing and like it. Eat bugs. Or whatever. Eat sons of bitches. Should we talk about, uh, global geopolitics? When we're, uh, what, two weeks removed from... Uh, Hamas, three weeks, maybe three now, at least. Yeah. So, uh, how like there's, what's been shocking to me is the groundswell of popular support for Hamas, uh, in cities all around the world. And many of them are, you know, Syrians or. Other displaced peoples and but also but half of them aren't right and the lack of assimilation Yeah in Europe like I don't know. What's the I am having a hard time figuring out what a win win win Situation is over there sort of and this isn't very popular But West Bank just needs or Gaza it just needs to go right like those people just need to go somewhere else in the world It's strange deal I Here, there's a couple of things I'd say about it. One is, I don't know why we as Americans feel this incessant need to be injecting ourselves in every damn thing that happens around the world. Fair. Um, I get. You know, it's so interesting to, to watch what developed, you know, you have the Ukraine stuff and that becomes a politicized thing in which there's all of the sudden, the, the hawks on the right who my whole life have been wanting war for anything that moves, you know, there isn't a country Lindsey Graham doesn't want boots on the ground for. You watch the Hawks on that side of things go, Hey, the Ukrainian war is not beneficial. It's not American. It's not in American's interests. We shouldn't be there. We shouldn't be spending money on this thing. And then all of a sudden this happens over in Israel and it's like, blow everybody up. It's just so, it's such a strange duplicity in your thinking. There's no consistency in logic in relationship to it. And it's classic Americanism, which is I have 1 percent of the information and I have 99 percent of the voice and it's really unfortunate because I, you know, whatever we get out of media is going to be propagandized no matter what, don't matter who it is, won't matter where it's coming from. It's going to have an event. It always does. Media always has a bent to it. And so you're going to get some information and then. For whatever reason, we just feel like we have to interject ourselves into it. I, I don't know that there's a great solution to it. I, I went to Israel a couple of times, this is early in the 2000s. And it was the first time I was there, Netanyahu was. He was Prime Minister on his, like first round of 14 or whatever he's on now. Right. And then the second time I was there, Barak Ehud was the Prime Minister. Mm-Hmm. And the second time around, there was much more sort of violence and frustration and there was a higher level of sort of, you know, pal palpitation, palpable agitation. Um, I, when I was there, I, I, I've, I had vivid memories of thinking the Palestinians. These people are stuck, right? Like in a really bad way. No one's really letting them in anywhere else. So it's not like the, it's open to Egypt or Right. Lebanon. Or if they even wanted to flee. Oh yeah. Nobody, nobody wants them go there. Like nobody wants them, least of all. Refugees, do countries want the Palestinians? Well, because they've been radicalized so heavily at this point. Yeah, because when you keep squishing the cauldron, it's gonna get weirder and weirder. Right, right. You see your mother die by a bomb, you turn radical. Like, it just happens. It's no excuse for it. War is terrible. It's awful in all cases. Well, that's why I think they have to go somewhere. Yeah, I just, and that's a hard thing to do. Like, how do you displace somebody that that's really where they are? All of that stuff is really complicated. I haven't liked... I haven't liked anyone's response to it at all, in terms of, here's the best solution. Because I actually don't know that there is one. And I think that's okay to say. You know... It's gonna shake down like it shakes down and... Yeah, this has been happening for a long time. And it's not just, you know, this isn't... There's the weird conflation amongst evangelicals between Israel and the Israel of the Bible. This isn't the same thing. That Israel is a state. It's a government that oppresses its people and oppresses others. So is Hamas. It's a state. It's a government. It oppresses its people. The war is about the governments. The war is not about the people. And I think that's the tragedy of it all. It's always the tragedy of war, is that it's, War is the only thing that government creates. It just, it, it sucks everything else out of everybody else's life. But war creates... War is created by government, and that's the only place that it ever is created. So that's the only thing they are good at. And so, well, that's a good reason why we should, we should have less of it. I think so. I mean, I've never understood the. The kind of press for small government by, by people on the right, that the local government, the federal government, the state government, everything should be smaller, but when it comes time to go overseas, blow everybody up, you know, and have the largest government possible. That doesn't make any sense to me. It's not a consistent, it's not a consistent train. Well, it's that way we can manipulate like, yeah, by them having a large government that we fund a big chunk of their, Okay. We grow a dependence upon them, and they do what we tell them to do. Well, and there is a reality to the military industrial complex. It's just a thing. Oh yeah, for sure. There is, that is a real thing, and if you don't want to believe that, then there's a bridge for sale in Brooklyn. It really is a thing, and we really do, we are the, we are the quintessential Believers in the broken window fallacy as a country. It's all we ever do is go around and smash everything up and then go spend money to fix it. And it's just, it's an untenable way forward. We can't, we can't continue. Has to change. That was my, uh, my second blog I wrote back in, gosh, that would have been fall of 13. Actually, just coming right up here for Veterans Day. Yeah. Uh, I wrote, uh, war. America's grossest national product. Yeah, it is. We measure it the same, like, dropping a handful of bombs is measured the same as building a handful of schools. In terms of impact to GDP. Yep. If you were born in 2001, you haven't spent a single day of your life outside of the United States at war. There hasn't been a single day. So my children have never known peace around the world. They've only been at war. I was born in 1975, 42 percent of my life has been at war. That's ridiculous. It's, it's awful. We are, we have no business being these people that smash everybody around the world. Right. We have no business doing it. Or threaten to smash you if you don't do what we say. And the argument that Well, and people are starting to do a lot more of not what we say. Oh, of course they are. You know, especially since Bricks and everything else. Post Afghanistan and whatever. Yes. People are like, screw these guys. What do they have to say? Right. So, Well, and Putin's catching on to that too. Like, if you hear him talk, he's like, Yeah. What gives America the moral authority that they have a totally compromised press that's attacking a former president and they have this and that and that and this and an oligopoly like, just like ours. Yeah. So I've, and I, I, yeah, I have, uh, the words, you know, the word smithing of, of politics is, is a challenge on a lot of levels, but one of them that I've always found kind of contradictory, or at least hard to understand is peace through strength. I absolutely believe that you protect your own country and your national interests associated with that. But when you're. out, like saying you're going to love democracy at the point of a gun. I'm just not sure that that's got the impact that we think it does. And I think it's exactly the opposite of what we want it to be. Well, it's a lot like evangelizing with, uh, starting with turn and burn. Yes, it is. It does. I don't know. It doesn't work. There's no there's no compassion and peace through strength to me. And I don't think I actually just don't think we're I just don't think we're aware enough. As, as a society to be like, do we really understand everything that's happening in, in Palestine or Israel or Ukraine or Russia for us to be involved? I understand almost nothing. Exactly. Of it. But I guarantee you that every American has an opinion. Oh, for sure. Which is just so surreal to me. Why, why would we do that? Why would we want to interject ourselves? Can't we at least have the temperance to say, I, you know, I don't know. I'm really okay with not knowing right and in fact if they've got a if they've got a regional dispute about land and Borders and language and this that or the other thing a fear of NATO, which again, why are we there? Why do we have NATO? It's over. What do we need NATO for? It doesn't make any sense We're pressing and poking at the bear and then we wonder why this all happens. I just we're we're a We're not a serious empire. Which do you think is the more useless organization, um, the United Nations or NATO? Counterproductive. Which one is more counterproductive to the humanity? Well, they're both bad, but currently NATO's worse. It seems like it to me. NATO's, NATO's definitely making major issues around geopolitics to me that are more serious. The poking of Russia. Like is why this is all happening. There's Russia and Iran and all of them are they're much more interested in their national interests, right? And Then and Turkey. Yeah, like Turkey's like can't we just we've been in the middle of this stupid thing since the beginning, right? You know, I just like since the 93 Well, they were involved in the Cuban missile crisis. I mean, they've been in this, stuck in this deal from the whole deal. I don't know. I, I just, it's really interesting. I mean, if you look at a map of our military bases around Iran, it's like there's a hundred around Iran through Iraq and Pakistan and everything else. What would we feel like if that was at our, if, what would we do? I mean. Would we not have some rational sense that this is like I don't want this you're the good guys. Yeah How are you the good guys? Seriously, then that get that chorus gets a little louder every time. Are we really the good guys, right? I don't know Well, I read your essay. What if we are the bad guys? Yeah You know I think that there's a real question to be asked around that and everybody listening by the way should if you haven't Listened to the old skit. What if we are the baddies? Yeah from who? Uh, I don't remember. Monty, Monty. Oh, Monty Python. Monty Python. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So look up that. And read Aaron's blog, and, and essay rather, uh, and a number of essays on Twitter. You've been. Yeah. Posting, I think that was number 14 or something. Yep. That was number 14. Is this your. America recreated series or what's because I know you've written more than 14 essays overall It was there like an overarching thing or is this gonna be a book or something or I don't know what it is Okay, I actually don't have any vision behind it in terms of what I want to do with it. I Um, I got really interested in Twitter's stuff, um, when Musk purchased it. I thought it was a really, um, unique thing that was going on. And weirdly, like, the due diligence that he was allowed was so poor that... Twitter's valuation was astronomically bad, and he, but he paid it anyway, sort of in a shotgun wedding after, you know, everything that happened and all the SEC regulations and et cetera, et cetera. But when he bought it, I was fascinated by what was going on and his sense that this, the world needs a place to talk. And I thought that's really good, um, and it isn't going to be at face, on Facebook and it isn't going to be on Instagram and, and there are other also rands gab and some other things that are out there, rumble, whatever, they're all fine. Twitter was the platform that was most friendly, more users than any other ones. Right. Yeah. And it's, it's a place that things happen instantly and, and are really, you know, it's, it's, it's a great tool, honestly. So then that happened. And then I started watching people do creation stuff on. Once he rebranded it as X and then he started rewarding people for being a creator on X and creating their own content. So it was kind of, and the money isn't the issue for me, but it was an interesting thought. Like, okay, well, I have been writing for other places throughout my career. I've written for free the people and I've written for Mises Institute and other things along the way, other blogs and other places where I've done kind of op ed stuff or freelance stuff paid for some of that t shirts typically, uh, I like that. I like to write. It's just something we've talked about before. We shared that. Yeah. It's fun. It's fun to do. It's a good place to do it. So anyway, there's no gatekeepers. It was like, okay, well. I'll write whatever I want. I'll write whatever. And it really came down to, um, this is no criticism of it, but I, I wrote an article about RFK for free the people and sort of this, and it was all right when he was sort of announcing, but it took a couple of weeks for it to actually get through their cycle. And so then I'm like, well, this isn't. Right. Now it's old. Now it's old. And now we're going to try to resurrect this conversation around this deal. And, and so I started to just say, well, without any gatekeepers, what could I do? And I also realized like anytime I posted a photo or, you know, something on X, it got way more. Notices and video, like you'd see the engagement was way higher. So I just started doing these video essays and I just started with one. I was driving down to Denver and I just started talking to my phone and I just sort of wrote in my head what I wanted to write, edited it when I got home. Wow. And then I just put it together through a little app on my phone. That was a video app type of thing. Yeah. I started doing that and got some good response to it. So try another one, try another one, try another one. So that I've got 14 of them working on the 15th one now. So you actually, do you speak the essay and then you transcribe it? Well, so I, it's kind of a both. I might sit down and type it, or I might, if I'm driving, like the one I did for 15, I, I just started talking to my phone and having it. You know, like put it together, at least organize, and then I can go back in and edit it the way that I want it and say the things I actually want to say. But all the ideas are there. Yeah. And so, um, it's kind of a combination of both. And then it takes me, it takes me a couple of hours to put the video stuff together, but it's like, I'm laying in bed at night, but can't sleep or whatever. Get up early and have a cup of coffee. And I've had a lot of fun with it. So there are 14 going on 15 and they are just a myriad of topics. So it's stuff like money. Yeah. It's stuff about, uh, it's stuff about war, it's stuff about the current issues in Palestine. Presidential candidates. Candidates. Yeah. It's, it's about a lot of different things. You put stuff in the rock tumbler as well, right? Like you'll get a topic in mind and. Yeah, I don't know quite know yet what I think about it. I'm still thinking about it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I've got one I've been working on for weeks on food, right? But I don't I don't have it done and I don't have what I want to say about it. Yeah Formulated and a lot of things have happened that have like superseded that I get more passionate about maybe writing about the conflict in Israel So that just kind of leapfrogs what I'm doing right easier to write So it's kind of what's come into topic and then it just, I have this great place to be able to push it out and then see what happens, you know, and it's been interesting to see people engage with it. Um, cause I try to write the headline in such a way that they have to watch the video. It's sort of like, well, I don't, you can't just get everything from my little 60 characters. It's, you got to watch the video and they're long. I mean, some of them are like 12, 13 minutes long and so they're, they're an adventure to watch, but I talked about. Under representation in one of them. You know, that was one of them. There's, so, those are... And you and I talked about that probably two to three years ago. Yeah. The first time. Yeah. So, like, that's, it's just been fun to do. I've enjoyed it. I think it's been really cool. I've gotten some interesting feedback from it. Have you made any money yet? No. No. I think I posted them on Rumble. I got five cents. That's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. A little bit. Well, it's worth three today because of inflation. Well, um, and like, I think it's partly like exercising that free speech. We both watched, I didn't quite finish the Elon Musk on Joe Rogan, uh, episode yesterday. Um, I think it came out maybe on Monday even. Yeah. But, uh, but a lot of. Like, it's interesting to me, Elon Musk is such a special individual, but, you know, he did not buy Twitter to maximize profit on his money and resources. Not at all. Um, and he, he said that very clearly yesterday, like almost in a sighing matter, you know, Rogan's like, what do you think it's worth? And he's like, ugh. And then his answer was great. He said, priceless. Because I think that's true. When you look at what actually happened, if you, if you read, and I, I would just, You know, people get into silos pretty quick. So, you know, Musk was, became a villain pretty quick when he wanted to buy Twitter.'cause he was starting to talk about things that were against the narrative. Things that they still not talk about. Yeah. Against the narrative. Right. And whether it was the last episode of the pandemic or whatever, he was talking about those things and people, he just started to move out of their silo of. Yeah. Heroism into villain. Right. And. That one, early on in that conversation, he's like, can you believe I was Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2020? Yeah. It's just a really, you know, I remember going skiing and went down to buy a bottle of wine or something from, for while we were staying there and, and went down to the liquor store and some guy was like enamored by SpaceX thing where he's going up to space or whatever. He's like, man, I just, Musk is amazing. He's da da da da. Like, yeah, he's pretty, he's kinda like the Walt Disney of our time. You know, he is a really interesting guy. He's like, man, he's way better than Walt Disney. But I know that if I went back and found that same guy at the liquor store today, oh yeah. He'd be like, Musk sucks. You know? So it is strange how that I was indifferent and now I'm a big fan. Yeah. Uh, but yeah. Yeah. So, and I, I had issues. I have issues with Musks sort of. He's as collusional as anyone in terms of where he got his money. He got a lot of government contracts and there's a lot of taxpayer, taxpayer funded things in SpaceX. Oh, for sure. So... Well, and that's why, one of the things that's fascinating to me right now is... Like, the SEC has been harassing Musk for a bunch of things, and now, like, he's getting sued by the Department of Labor for not entertaining foreign employees, when it's illegal for SpaceX to hire non US citizens as employees, and so it's just the, the obvious attack of him kind of switching from an insider to an outsider, and, like, The USA has got nobody else to put their satellites up into the space and take stuff to the space station except for Russia and stuff, so he's kind of like, got leverage on him. Like, he's got hand. Yeah, he does. Right? And, and so, he's kind of like, here, let me show you what I can do with my hand when you come after me with these Department of Labor things and stuff. Well, and I think, you know, he's a, he's an interesting character in our time. I do think X is really cool for... what he's trying to do. I don't know that he's ever going to make any money on it. I don't think he is actually. I think it'll just be kind of a loss. Um, but as long as You know, the news divisions of the old media never made money either. Right. They always cost, that was the most expensive part of their stuff, and everything else sort of supplied that revenue. And that means something similar may happen. Or they may strap features and benefits onto the X platform that people really want, and really want to pay for. Yeah. And, and it sounds like he's doing that. I mean, he's got, he's got, Oh yeah. He comes up with new shit all the time. Phone stuff is now going to be able to talk through Twitter payments. So I, I think it's cool. I, that's why I started doing it. I thought it was fun to do it. It's a great place to just be able to get real time things out within a couple of days without a gatekeeper. And I, I think it's an awesome platform. So how, like when. When Joe and, and Musk talk about the importance of free speech and the critical nature of that in the world and, you know, the obvious, Uh, government intrusion into really the other Facebook, Instagram, et cetera, for the most part and whatever. Like how significant is that to you? Like it's, it's the only thing we, I mean, I think they wrote those things in matter of importance. So like your ability to speak out against the government is the most important thing you have. Your ability to speak out against the things that are tyrannical, uh, is the only, like, when everything else fails, you still have your mind. Yeah. If they take your guns, if they take your, if they search and seize your house, if they do, you know, if, if there's this long litany... style of... Yeah. Is that the right character? Where, you know, he lost... Everything. Yeah. Everybody still had his mind. Yeah. And so that's like what you have. That's the most important thing. And so speaking is, is important. And I, um, yeah, I had a really interesting... So via X, I had this interesting interaction with somebody who was from the BBC who wanted to interview me this morning about my sort of seeming support for RFK Jr. Okay. And so I had this interview with her this morning. Oh. And, um... It was just super fascinating because you could just hear the narrative in their head. And so when I said, like, I'm not buying your narrative. And she's like, well, what narrative do you mean? And I said, the one you're saying. I mean, you are saying exactly what you want. This to look like you want me, you want to frame me into some kind of corner so that you can tell everybody how crazy we all are, and I'm not buying it and and I'm telling you that that's the most important thing about his candidacy is that being able to speak out against. What everyone says you have to think is the most important thing that we have left. Yeah. You could be dead wrong about it all, but you have to have the ability to say it. Yeah. And you have to be able to say it so that the, the, the idea can be distilled. And if it's a bad idea, it will get relegated to where it belongs. Yeah. And if it's a good idea, it will get sharpened. And all of that will become, this is great. Line when he was testifying in front of Congress about, you know, that our democracy is annealed, which is this great term that I didn't know before. Um, before I heard it, I had to look it up. We, that's what speech does is it is the furnace that anneals and clarifies glass. And so it's really, it's this really important aspect of our society. And if we don't. Go there. If we're not willing to do it, we really, we are a lost people and a lost civilization. I don't think we, we won't be serious any longer and it won't matter what anybody, you know, governments will just do what they do and we will be surf and take people out when they choose to will be the surf's open their mouth. And it'll just be this stranger version of an old communist deal. No government has ever had the power that they have with technology. Yeah. That we have right none of them ever have they can pretty much track any of us to the place where we are right now And everything that we think about most things and yep We literally walk around with an ankle monitor every day so that we keep in our pockets I uh, I unfollowed somebody that I previously had a lot of respect for on Twitter the other day Can you guess who it might have been? I don't know who Alex Berenson. Ah, yes Have you been seeing what he I mean, I I haven't I don't follow him. So I don't know he's got AJDS, Alex Jones Derangement Syndrome, and he basically wants to cancel Ramaswamy for having Alex Jones on his podcast and now he's like talking about Alex Jones fanboys and this and that. And I'm not an Alex Jones fanboy, but, and, Like, I've seen a lot of footage of him being right on things five years, and three years, and seven years before shit came out. And so, I don't think we should ban Alex Jones and Alex Berenson. You suck. Sorry you're not relevant anymore. You did some good work on the COVID reporting and things like that. And now, like, who got under your skirt and flipped you? Well, it's, it's a... This is the thing that's so important about what's happening on it. Is that you actually get to watch in real time people become duplicitous in their thinking. They're incongruent in their thinking. And if they don't have the principles around it, then you can see it. And you can, you can track it. You can see where they become incongruent with what they once thought. That's really important because the principle matters or it doesn't. So it's either going to be free speech all the time, or it isn't speed. It isn't ever free speech. You can't have a, you can't sort of split the baby, right? You can't, the self censorship is already a huge dynamic. The only thing that changes someone's sort of influence is the marketplace. So if somebody becomes too lunatic and too fringy, They get dismissed. Right. Because their ideas don't hold water. My pillow guy. Yeah. To some people. Yeah. I'm just somebody, well. But not to others. Yeah, and yet, and yet, I think the more of the things that happen, the more things that go on, the more people realize, like, you have to watch someone's Words over time. That is, that is what we are distilling as a society to advance. Ramaswamy has this post that circulates on Twitter and it's, uh, you know, the, the LGBTQ movement of the past, uh, was like, you know, your gender or your attraction is set at birth. Yeah. And the other one is, well, it's fluid. And number three, you're a bigot if you don't believe both of these things at the same time. And it's so precise. I do think that, I do think that that sort of ability to, to, to take, to take an idea and distill it and see it, see it for its principles, right? One of the first ones I did on the essays was about Trump. And actually all the things that, what I struggled with him for was not all the things that other people necessarily struggled with. His bombastic nature and some of that stuff, some of that's just sort of funny and it's a character, right? He plays a character. For sure. And so while that's mean and awful and all those things, that was never what drove me nuts about him. When he was running in 2015. Yeah, there were tons of pundit pundits on the right that were like, this guy's gonna win. And I actually did think he was going to win in 2016 too. I thought he was because he, there was just enough around him that was like, okay, he's kind of celebrity. He's saying the right stuff. He's doing this. One of the best lines was, I can't remember who was, it was on a radio show or maybe a podcast. I can't remember what it was, but somebody said Trump isn't an ideologue, but he has great instincts and he has great instincts for America. And that's why we should. Elect him. It's not, you know, his, his, he may not have be right on all the principles, but his instincts are right. Okay. Well, fast forward to 2020 and in walks Anthony Fauci. And if your instinct tells you at any point that that guy should be involved in any of this, then you've, you're lost and your instincts can fail you. Right. Your instincts can be self serving. Your principles don't can be outside of that. Yeah. And he, right. He didn't have the principles around what do you do in a pandemic? What are the, what are the important things that you do? A hundred percent. He didn't have it. And so I think that's where speech becomes really important because if you can't say out loud, you're not doing the right thing. You're actually not following a principle. You're only doing a self serving thing. But that was all shut off. Well, and I think. He feared that if he didn't take it seriously enough, he'd never get reelected. Well, they knew exactly where his failure point would be totally they knew his ego. They knew what he was So you think it was a plandemic? Is that what i'm hearing? You're not gonna say Um, I don't think it was what it was what I did appreciate about him was Um, that he let the states have a lot of variability in their approach. That was, but, but I do, I also criticize, um, yeah. But he was hard on DeSantis when Florida was state open. He was hard on Kemp in Georgia. You're right. He was the founder of Operation Warp Speed. Right, right. And bragged that all up and still holds to that. Yeah, that's fair. So it's, it's a, it's not a principled position. Yeah, agrees. It's a very. It's an instinct position. He thinks that's the right way to win the election. Right. And he, you know, this whole thing is going to be totally bananas. I mean, to, to think Joe Biden can't make it through a sentence and Donald Trump, isn't going to make it, he'll be behind bars. Yeah. At any point, he won't make it on several ballots at least. Colorado's trying to get him off. Right. Using the 14th amendment, which is used for everything under the sun. It's leave ins. So I, we've been talking about politics for a while now, I need to get some whiskey. Um, and so let's take a short break and we'll come back with whiskey. We were talking about free speech, national politics. Yeah. So, what do you think, my sense, actually, it's kind of built off of that kind of notion that Trump didn't have a principled... Reaction to the 2020 situation, but instead of a that a self serving well, it's it's yeah, that's his nature Yeah, right like he can't not be kind of narcissistic self serving dude. That's his principle, right? That's his founding principle Kennedy going independent instead of trying to run for the Democratic nomination. My sense is that probably hurts Trump quite a bit more than it hurts Biden. I don't know. Do you have a sense of that? Uh, there's a poll released today. Um, and actually it shows, in this particular poll, it shows Kennedy with the most votes. So he's at 33 percent, Biden's at 30, and Trump is at 27. What? Yeah. By who? Uh, Quinnipiac. Really? Yeah. Or Rasmussen. I can't remember. One was Quinnipiac and one was Rasmussen, but that was today's. As an independent. It was just as a three way race. Wow. Nobody else in the mix. Wow. So, I actually have seen a number of polls that seem like he polls pretty equally from both places, actually. Yeah. Um, maybe a little heavier on some of the Republican side of things. Um, I think he would capture more people like me, which I'd probably, if I were to... You vote Republican more than you vote Democrat. Yeah, probably. Probably. Yeah. So, um, I would say that I, I, he pulls more folks probably like me that are libertarian ish, I suppose, or whatever. That was an interesting piece of that conversation this morning with the BBC lady. She's like, well, what bucket do you put yourself in? I'm like, well, you guys are the worst, right? Yeah. You can't help yourself. You just want to silo everybody into these things. Like why can't we just look and assess something on its face and decide. Locally focused, Christian, libertarian, leaning. Yeah. Conservative with, uh, bent toward history and pragmatic policy. So why do we, yeah, anyway, so I think, I think he pull, I think he's an interesting add to the mix. I mean, I, I, my, the first election I was involved in was 92. Ross Perot was running. Same. Ross was the boss, right? He was, and I actually really liked him. He was, I remember very vividly in my political science class in 1992. This was, I mean, we were, that was the hot and heavy topic. And I was at Rocky mountain high school when Al Gore came to town and there was a bomb and there was this whole thing that happened. And I was actually, our political science class were the people that were doing the like security, the security for the deal. So I got, Questioned by the secret service and all sorts of crazy stuff, crazy story from my life. Um, a guy had put a firework underneath. Maybe we should save that for your local experience. Anyway, that was part of my deal. So I was super interested in politics. Then I remember it was, I was kind of all this, I started really 92. Cause it was the first thing I was going to be involved in. And so, uh, Ross Perot was running and, uh, so maybe, yeah, I can't remember exactly the timing of the whole thing. I think I thought I was a little older than you. I think you are. Yeah. But you, were you an eligible voter yet in 92? Yeah. I was going to say, I cast my first vote for Ross Perot, but I was like two months into my voting age. So you would have been too young. So I was too young. So I was just, but I was paying attention to what was going on. Right, right. The dates are a little fuzzy because it's been so long ago, but really ultimately what was happening, I remember telling my political science teacher about like, have you heard of this Ross Perot guy? Okay. And no, I haven't heard of Ross Perot or whatever. I Anyway, this whole kind of whirlwind of stuff ended up happening. And, um, and, and so it must, it must've been 92. So it was, it was right, right around, right around then. Yep. I graduated in May of 92 and then went to college in August of 92. Okay. Voted in November of 92. So I was, I was one year behind. I was graduated in 93. So anyway, uh, Ross Perot was super interesting to me. He was a third party candidate. He was in and he was out and then he was in again. And, but he had a real shot, honestly, I mean, he ended up with nationally 19 percent of the vote, which was a lot. And, you know, at the time everybody said, well, that just all, it was stolen from Bush and Bush and Bush and Clinton. Clinton. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So arguably Clinton got in because of Ross Perot's influence. Cause he pretty. He stole a lot more from Bush than he did from Bush. Yeah, well, he was the voice of Pat Buchanan, who had really disrupted the Bush campaign earlier in that election cycle. Buchanan had won the New Hampshire primary, and Bush was on the ropes, and it was like, after the Gulf War, I mean, it was a really very precipitous decline for Bush at that point, at the end of that deal. But Perrault became the voice of the Buchananites and he was the one that was saying, look, NAFTA is a giant sucking sound and there's all these things that were happening and all these jobs leaving. And he ultimately was right. Well, he would get up on the whiteboard and do simple math and graphs and charts. I loved Ross Perrault. I thought he was like such an interesting character. So I started this kind of world around them. But at the same time, you know. All of these things were happening in 92, 93, so you had Rush Limbaugh gets on the radio and he starts to become this very loud and dominating voice that's funny and fun to listen to and he's got his own take on how everything is going and you have all this kind of growth of conservative radio and Fox News is out and all these things start to happen right around that same time and I just, I just think, um, It's been really interesting to watch that get clamped down to the point at which it's only two people, two parties are the deciders now, and it's almost impossible to get on every ballot in every state because of all sorts of rules and regulations. And it's, you know, there's sort of loser laws and there's all sorts of things that are like, they just make it really challenging. So do you think that there are two distinct parties that are legitimately uh, In a contest for America's votes, or do you think that's an illusion and it's a, the uniparty that a lot of people would talk about? Yeah, it's monolithic. Yeah. It's a, it's a varying degree about how we solve the same outcome. You know, I mean, it's, this, if you're really going to sit down and talk, talk about this, The nuance of a capital gains cut or a it's all nonsense, right? It doesn't it's not anything that matters to anybody But they both that's what it is. It's a big war over something. That's inconsequential The outcome of the deal is always marching forward to more government more solutions that are at the government level more solutions that are centralized Our war war more authoritarianism more more more of them Yeah. More bureaucracy, more, more influence on their part. And I, that's the piece to me that it won't matter. We both been voting about the same amount of time. I've watched the Republicans have a revolution. I've watched the Democrats have revolutions. I've had the Republicans come back and have a tea party. I've had, and it all doesn't matter. They go there and the outcome is the same. It's driving in the same direction, which is less of us and more of them. As far as power goes. Yeah. Fair enough. Um. Should we go on to less... Yeah, we can be less spicy. Uh, topics. Sure, we can be less spicy. Um, should we bring it to local? Topics, um, like, uh, I guess either from a local politics level, uh, we talked about land use stuff a little bit and whatnot, but is there other things going on in the, or just Colorado? Well, Colorado do it using the 14th amendment to try to keep Trump off the ballot is intriguing from a constitutional standpoint, but maybe we've been dancing around that too much already. Yeah, no, I locally is interesting. I think it's an interesting deal that's going on. I think the communities here are changing pretty significantly. Yeah. A lot of imports, of course, from other places around the world. It's a lovely place to live. Some people have come here and that is changing the dynamic of the community in a way that, uh, you know, I, I don't know if I can say it's good or bad yet, but it's certainly not what I'm used to. Does it feel like. Loveland is almost conservatizing. Um, there's, in response to Fort Collins, progressive izing, there is some aspect of that, although I think most of that to me is happening a little bit east of here. I, yeah, I feel like, well, Greeley is definitely that Greeley Weld County, definitely more and more of that is happening over there. I don't know that the new district, uh, is it eight, I think is now. Basically swings down from, through Greeley, Windsor, and Loveland. Oh. And that's that new congressional district that's eight. Okay. That's probably a really accurate district, actually. So you have this kind of, like, neat. Mix of people that live there that are probably a little bit more conservative than they are liberal Loveland has Loveland's more pro business for certainly interested in seeing business thrive I don't know that Fort Collins is I it's hard to be disparaging of Fort Collins because it's been such a blessing place to us over the years, but I I just don't There's not a lot that's very compelling about it any longer to me in terms of just how to do business there, how to be involved with the community here. It gets harder and harder to do those things now. Um, and it's just, it's moving towards. More consumerism as a community, generally speaking, I mean, the, the things we send ourselves around or eating out or, um, you know, we're not really, what, what are we shopping locally? Beers, bikes, and this and that. Yeah. So, I don't know. I mean, I, I would like to see more. I do think there are small businesses that are starting to, that are still seeing six steps success for sure, but they're, they're fewer and far between. And I think it gets harder to do business here. That's a general speaking business is getting harder to do everywhere that we businesses, uh, strangely like the entrepreneur in America is the hero figure, but nobody. Um, and I've already heard like maybe six to eight horror stories where a new employee or a relatively new employee, You know, hurt their thumb or something, you know, or legit was sick and maybe it was legit sick before they even took the job interview, um, and then gets 12 weeks off where you can't hire the replacement and then they leave and they get paid this whole time and, and for a business like mine, that would like, like, that would be like a, a cannonball to the side of the. No. You don't have to pay somebody that much money without being able to get their services and then have them leave. Yeah. Well it's, it's really, really fascinating to me. I've been working with a young guy in real estate and he's, you know, the younger you are, the more skeptical you are of the whole thing. The whole story is certainly skeptics. There's a high level of skepticism. They, you know, they, they probably won't be afforded the same things we were buying a house and living in a cool place. I mean, I just don't know if you're 30 years old in Fort Collins, where will you make your money? It'll be. I don't know. I, I, I don't see that window. I mean, it's just a really odd window to try to sneak your way through. Anyway, he's 30 years old and, um, somebody mutual thing kind of knew somebody. And we have people like Ty Fulcher. Yeah. That was just a restaurant dude working in a bar and like, worked his way and figured out how to build a partnership and find partners and buy these restaurants. Yeah. There'll always be ambitious people. Right. I just think the average person that comes out of that institution over there that thinks that they're going to get a job and afford a house in Fort Collins is gravely mistaken. The average run of the mill person is probably going to be in that situation. That 70, 000 income earner. Yeah. That doesn't have a nest egg, doesn't have family wealth, etc. Yeah. It'll be harder. Yeah, yeah. For sure. Better find you a woman that doesn't have any kids already and has a good job. Anyway, we had this mutual conversation about somebody that we both, that we both knew. And, uh, you know, they got a new job. And immediately, they were a ski bum. And they just, they had a new knee they needed, and a new hip, and a new ankle, and a new left toe, and a new... Right. And they were gone more than they were ever there. And everybody's like, why isn't this guy at work? Right. This young guy's like, are you all that dumb? Like, the whole thing got set up so he could do this. Right. Like, that's what he did. Then, you know, it's a real thing. So I, I don't know. I feel like, um, it will. On one level, like we have a broken system in so many ways that I understand that people then have are left with nothing except to cheat the system because they get so desperate because there's no real. solution other than to cheat it, right? Like that's why people don't cheat normally out of like, just for fun. There are those people, but most people that are in that position are just like, I can't walk and I need help. And this is an opportunity. Kind of hikers back to that Hamas conversation, right? Like you can't. live in that kind of situation without having terrible things boil out. Something happened, right? Right. So I, I think that's part of it. I think, but it is really hard on business. I mean, and so that side of the coin is, is definitely taking the abuse in our. Right. Yeah. Is that that side of the coin is getting just smashed. In a, in a response to something that is probably should have been addressed earlier with a much more stretched out and, you know, equitable type of balance between both parties. Now it's just flipped the other side and now this is the only way to do it. That's the radicalization of our state. It's what's happened. It's part of what's gone on over the years and that's, you know, California had it so we should have it too. Are you going to stay? All right. Bye. Like, 10 years from now, will your primary residency still be in Northern Colorado, or? I don't know. I don't know. I don't, I tell, I tell Anna a lot of times. There's a bunch of things that go on for me in this conversation. One is, I, and we've talked about it before, I'm pretty tired of chasing ghosts around here in terms of, um, my life being sort of, Um, always assessed in relationship to other people. An echo of, of granddad Everett's or whatever. Yeah. And, you know, my granddad moved here in 1954 or 55 or whatever it was and, you know, nothing that happened then would ever happen to me now. Right. It was a town of 10, 000 people. He was here and he said it the whole time. He was in the right place at the right time. And felt lucky about that. That isn't necessarily what's happening for me. So I kind of live off this weird residualism of knowing everything about this place. Having walked through it, worked on it, been in it, know the players, know the stuff. So I live in this kind of awkward space around that. Um, but it feels very much like I'm hunting ghosts in terms of, um, I'll never be as successful as those folks in terms of the money or the, or the number of houses, whatever that like, whatever measuring stick you want to push it up against, I'll never be in that space. And so there are moments when I just, uh, and I'll, you know, just, I'll tell Anna, like, we got to get out of here, you know, cause I can't do it. Some of that is related to what's happened here. It's just not in the same place It was right and it doesn't feel as opportunistic as it used to it doesn't feel as As exciting and invigorating as it once did it feels very monolithic getting pretty monolithic comparatively To what I knew to certainly what I grew up with And that's, you know, that's the person who's been here as long as I have is lament, right? It's not the same as it was. A lot of great things have happened since. A lot of good things have gone on since that time. But I also lament a little bit the loss to that. And, and sort of having to always have that comparative, world that surrounds me, in terms of what, what will I be able to accomplish. Right, well that twelve years, well, and that's, you know, too bad, so sad. You know, sorry you've had such successful people in your family tree. Yeah, no, yeah, it's, it's, I guess sad. I mean, it's like this really, you don't even say it out loud, cause it's just so mean. Yeah, yeah. Well, but, and, Like, what else do you do instead, right? Like, I know you love Sheridan, spent some time up there. I, we stayed in your place up there, me and my motorcycle friends last summer. It's awesome. Yeah, great little town, you know, love Glenwood Springs. Yeah, yeah, so, um, but it's, it's in Colorado. So that's a challenge. It is. Jill and I, or Jill was talking to me a while, not too many weeks ago, and she was like, you know, if we were gonna, like, Move somewhere else like this country seems like we're potentially headed for a real shit show Like where would could we move to and I'm like, well, there isn't really a place No, like there's no place where you can move to that like takes like de risks the United States imploding situation There's very few, no, no place survives the implosion in the United States. It's why we're still like allowed to be the drunken sailor at the bar, buying everybody, every, every round possible. It's why we're still allowed to be here because everybody couldn't tolerate the collapse. And that's the truth. I mean, we are, the tab is so large and we owe so many people money that at this point they're like, If you call the note, we're f'ed. And if you call the note, we're f'ed. And so, I just think... There's, that's why it survives is, you know, we're still somehow weirdly allowed to buy another round at the, where the, where the, an alcoholic at the bar buying rounds for everybody and our credit cards are maxed to the absolute top of the deal. And somebody is like, here's mine. You can use it. Right. You know, we like the free rounds. Uh, it's just a weird deal, but I also think, what are you going to go do? I mean, I, I suppose El Salvador is super interesting to me. with their sort of move to Bitcoin, crypto eligible economy, kind of thing, volcano energy power. And I mean, crazy stuff, but also like, good for that guy, right? Super interesting. I think Argentina's election is going to be really fascinating to watch. Um, what happens surprised that It wasn't nearly as strong a showing from the, do you think that? Oh, you're surprised that the central bankers didn't like the libertarian guy? Well, it's weird that they wouldn't let him win. I'm just so shocked. I'm shocked at the WF guy. Endorsed candidate. Like it turns out they use dominion voting machines too. Right. Just kidding. Don't sue me. No, no, no. Don't sue me. I know nothing about that. Yeah. I don't know. I think he's a really interesting character. For sure. For sure. I, he's arg Argentina is loaded, right? Like Argentina's got so many natural resources compared to Yeah. And so much less. I guess, um, you know, Brazil is a pretty awesome nation and stuff, and it's certainly the power of South America, but they've got some problems that are kind of not too much different from, like, India. Like, there's a castiness around Brazil that is not healthy, and maybe Argentina's got some of that too, but it doesn't seem quite as... Argentina's problem is... Is about the number of people that actually work for the government versus the private sector. That's their biggest issue. More than 60 percent of the people work for the government. Oh my god. So, the private sector, and then there's like 25 percent unemployment. So you're talking about like 15 percent of the people are lifting the whole thing. Oh my gosh. And so that's the, I think that's really the main issue in Argentina. If that, and you know, if you watch, well I can't, I never remember his name. What is, I can see his wild hair. Oh yeah. Well, you see him kind of talking Antonio Banderas. It's not him, but that's, you know, you see that kind of going on and he's, you know, the ministry of this don't need it. Don't need it. Don't need it. Don't need it. Don't need it. That's a threat to a lot of people, but, but it also requires like, you can't, Load the system up to where everyone has a stable job and I hope that the 15 percent of the people could still pay that bill. It doesn't work. And everything becomes way too confiscatory. It comes too punitive to the people that want to do anything. The rich will get out of it anyway because they find, you know, they can find their top marginal rate and live there comfortably because it's all in trusts and everything else. The rest of that, that middle class gets squeezed out and pushed out and that upper wealthy, like the upper middle class. Then the bottom half of the wealthy pay the most proportionate disproportionate in taxes in almost every society how like you've studied economies and people and stuff for a long time, like what are the outside of transfers and reparations and different things like that, like things that are to me, obviously opposed to natural law and kind of spirits of liberty and stuff like that. Like, how could we reactivate a middle class? And, and, and help people even in, you know, poverty or lower class, uh, flourish. I think there's two things that really, I mean, it comes back to real estate, land is a big deal. So there's two things that I think would be really amazing that could happen in the world and in the future from a futurist standpoint. One would be a secure title that's on the blockchain. So if you had secure title to a property and you could do that always held. Outside of the government power, that it was a decentralized way to hold your title to your property. That would be the most effective way for somebody to use leverage. And leverage, actually, the bank, as much as I disparage it from time to time, is a necessary entity in most cases. Property is the security that allows you to leverage. And that's why the United States is as profitable and as powerful as it is, is that our people can, for the most part, own a home, own property, leverage against that property, and do things. That I think that's the premise of why we see ourselves or what actually is on the ground reality. We're a more prosperous nation. We have secure title and we have no threat to that title by the government. And we have from abroad or from abroad. Yep. And, and we have, uh, the ability that because of that security banks are willing to lend against that title and they're willing to do something with it. So if there was a way economically in the future to get secure title on the blockchain, that was. Totally decentralized. Right. No banana republic government. That's not like one world government stuff you're talking about. But it would be ideal if it was, if most countries would sign up for it voluntarily. Well, I don't even know if the country needs to be involved in it. If you own it. Oh, right. If you owned it. Right. It's your property. If there's a title to it, if there's a title available, that title should be on the blockchain and it should be yours. Interesting. And if you could do that, then that's decentralized to the point at which no one has the influence against it. Right. That would allow them to take it. That's always the threat in the third world country, is that your title to that property that you own is not yours because the government can change. Right. And the government can take that property away. Right. Now. There's still that threat of force. Well, even a regulatory thing, right? Like, where there's a, like, with this property zoning change thing, there was a taking of my property's value potentially that didn't happen. Knock on wood. But I think some of that stuff, that will be, if people are willing to fight for a decentralized world in some of those spaces, then that's how you can solve many, many of the issues around the world. Um, so I'd start there. If I were, if I were king of the world, right, that's where I would start. Um, secondarily to that, I do think that some of the stuff in relationship to how you do. How do you solve poverty for somebody that is, you know, in generational poverty in the South or, you know, even in cities? Reparations is a conversation that's out there that's certainly a part of something that somebody says, well, why don't you just give money? Well, but that's only really for sons and daughters of slaves, right? Like, there's a bunch of other poor people that are Hispanics or whatever. Just find yourself at the Crow Agency in Montana and you'll know that you do not want to give away money in that way because it destroys the people. Totally. And those people should be cautious about what that does to themselves as a group. Agreed. But I think there are ways in which we can be a responsible society to the people that are less privileged than others. And we can do that by, you know, we've always been a charitable country. We've always been a country that looks and sees issues and says we will, we will do these things. I mean, Tocqueville talked about it in the 1800s. That's really what was the distinctive difference? That was the distinctive difference, is that there were organizations, there weren't ministries for it. There were organizations for it. There were people that were willing to do it. There were churches, there were these other things that were part of that. We should be incentivizing those groups to do those kinds of things. If you could, if you could turn around and say that if you gave to the. If you gave to an organization that helped the poor, that should be a dollar for dollar deduction out of your, out of your taxes. It should not be some kind of magical widget that they have now that gives you, you know, some goofy thing, right? If you're going to help somebody that should come straight off if you pay your neighbor's mortgage Or some portion of that neighbor's mortgage because they need help you should get a one for one to tax deduction without them having to be You know, in a 501c3. Right, I like that. Some of those things I think would help us feel like we can do it. Right now, what stops most people from being charitable is that they can't get the tax deduction. Yeah, totally. They need some benefit from it. 000. Yeah. You know, whatever. You need some benefit from it, right? like, what a gross way to think about how to do things. And again, it's centralizing all of your charitable gifts and your giving and your thoughtfulness and your kindness through the federal government. Right. Which is a bogus principle to me. It's a bogus premise that you should be trying to centralize all your stuff. So why not allow people to say, well, like, Hey, I, we actually came into something this month. I can help you. Uh, you know, I'm I'll pay it directly to the bank. I'll mark it as such. You write me a letter that says that I did it and we get. The bank to sign off, whatever, you know, somebody needs to make it happen and make it feel like it's legitimate, you know. Oh man, there would be people scamming that system all the time. Of course they would, but also there'd be a lot more help. I think there would be people, good natured people would be there. Well, and if you, if that, like, if it was a accounting style thing, if, if, if I get to deduct it from my taxes for don't, for covering your mortgage payment, well then it should go on as income. for you. Sure. Um, but your tax bracket is way lower than mine. Yeah. You know, and, and that would be like part of the condition of accepting this help is yep. I'll take care of that part, you know, or whatever. And you know what, if the IRS got ripped off, what would I care? You know, I, it's, it's just like these, I don't know. There's, there's certain ways we, we speak about things that are, it's been interesting to do these history tours because the way we speak about things in our modern world are all based upon them. Premises that are just conceded right, you know, like I was gonna have the IRS Aaron, right? We have this premise that now we have to do things in order to keep people from being from cheating on their taxes Well, why don't you just make it so that no one wants to cheat on their taxes, right? Like it doesn't do us any good to have a bunch of people cheat on their taxes Well, the only reason people cheat on their taxes because it's so damn hard And it's such a, it's inappropriate, it's confiscatory, it's all these things, it's punitive to do anything. So people cheat on them because that's why it's there. If you made it so that it didn't feel like you were cheating, Well, or the, have you ever studied the fair tax? Yeah, flat, exactly. Consumption tax? Yes. Right, we want less consumption of the resources of the world. Yeah. So let's tax consumption of those. Tax those things. Right. If you want to buy a yacht, you should pay a yacht tax, right? That's how that should be. It should, it should be either national sales tax, but it has to be with the abolishment of the income tax. For sure. Not just an extra tax. It's not an extra tax. Agreed. You got to get rid of it. But if you do some of those things, I think that's how you can actually lift people out of this particular situation. You give, incentivize people to help their neighbor. Yeah. It's not a bad thing. Agreed. Agreed. Um. I think, uh, let's hear about this bomb threat thing, uh, as your loco experience for this episode, unless there's other things you want to cover. No, no, that's good. This is, this is good. Okay, so, it is 99, 1992. Clinton was Colorado's pretty red state at the time, right? Because of everything that was happening, Colorado was looking like it was a swing state at the time. It was the beginning of our because, because Perot was running a little bit and stuff. So, um, they sent a campaign, part of the campaign for the Clinton. administration, Clinton campaign, Clinton organization. Like it's some kind of mafia. We'll talk about that. Not yet. At that time, not yet. I think obviously do kill Jeffrey Epstein. Uh, Ziff Luke. Um, so the. He sent Al Gore here in 1992 on his trip, uh, on a campaign stop. Some friends of mine, actually from high school, their parents were kind of diehard Democrats from the college. Okay. She was a great friend, really nice person, great, I mean, I have no, it wasn't. Politics wasn't an issue or a conversation. It was much more civil at that time. It seems like, Oh yeah, if you had neighbor Democrats, he was like, whatever. Right. You know, he's still a good guy. I remember. And in fact, I think they lived like right next door to Bob Schaefer, who was like this sort of radical white guy. They were friends. Right. So, um, anyway. He arranged for Al Gore to come here to Fort Collins to do a campaign rally, and they picked Rocky Mountain High School because his daughter went to Rocky Mountain High School. They picked Rocky Mountain High School as the site of the deal. Wow. And I was in Mr. List's, uh, political science class. Cool. And he offered extra credit if we would sort of come to this rally and, I don't know, play door security and check tickets and whatever, wadadadada. So, we did. We signed up for it. A couple of us signed up for it. Like, yeah, whatever, we'll take the extra credit. And it's kind of a once in a lifetime thing, right? Here comes the presidential candidate coming to town. Um, so we go in, we get kind of ready in the place, get it all decorated. Then we all decide that we're going to go to subway and get. Lunch for the afternoon before the rally starts so we go to Subway buddy of ours worked at Subway And we always got the steak and cheese for the hookup, right? So we went to Subway got that done, you know Get our sandwiches and we come back and the whole place is like suddenly crawling with Secret Service people Okay, and we start to walk back in and they're like, where are you going? Like Well, we were part of the high school team that was setting this up. And we're just going back in with, you'll need to come with us. So for like two hours or my friends and I were all sequestered by the IR, by the, by the secret service, like, cause you might've had something to do with what was going on ultimately, what ended up happening is a guy and he was trying to, I think he just trying to pull a prank. He was, he put a fireworks box underneath the bleachers. That was like a bunch of smoke bombs. Okay. And at certain, some point during the deal, it's like it had a clock on the outside. Oh shit. Yes. Yeah, they don't think that's funny. No, not at all. It wasn't funny at all, except it was really funny. Right. But, it was supposed to go off and do red, white, and blue smoke during the rally. Oh, gosh. At a certain time, but he had like, put it up underneath there as this kind of thing. So, they called him Was it a Like an adult guy that was one of my classmates. Oh, no shit. Yeah. He was one of my classmates. It seems like a fairly complex, you know, clock to smoke bomb and whatever. He was kind of a funny kid. I felt bad for him actually. He ended up being expelled. Like it was a big, big deal. Right. He got in a lot of trouble. I mean, he was felony and all sorts of shit, like assassination attempts. And it was all thrown at him. Wow. You know, this is a really bad, so I feel really actually, it was a really bad deal. I can't remember his name. He committed suicide a couple years later and was fine. I don't think so. I'm just kidding, sorry. It's terrible. Oh my word. I say things that other people don't think are appropriate. So anyway, we ended up being sequestered by the Secret Service for a couple of hours, and it was all that you thought it was. The guy with the thing in his ear, and the sunglasses, and the A. V. Did the event still go on? No. Okay. I didn't think so. So then, so then that all moved everything around and it was, they ended up, he flew into the Fort Collins Loveland airport and that's where everybody gathered and he came off the plane and gave a speech and a wave and took off and left again for the next place. So yeah, that's what. That's what, uh, my local experience, uh, growing up here. And, uh, I was part of the Rocky mountain. You can look it up. It's online. You can look it up. The Rocky mountain high school, Al Gore bomb threat. I will look it up. It's a real thing. I was no reason to doubt you. I was there with my steak and cheese sandwich. Thank you, Jeff Sterner. Bye Jeff. If you're listening, Aaron, thanks for being here today. That was great. Always fun. Have you next time. Yep. All right. Cheers for now. See ya.