how do roads work

Collin was in a wood. Brandon is doing state testing. We bring poetry and shenanigans.

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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

PROVIDED BY OTTER.AI

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

roads, governmental structure, city responsibility, county roads, headshots, AI-generated images, conference preparation, LinkedIn, urban exploration, alleyways, historic buildings, mural restoration, courtroom dramas, top five list, haiku

SPEAKERS

Collin, Brandon

00:04

Music. Welcome to Oh brother,

Collin  00:06

a podcast where we try to figure things all out with your hosts, Brandon and Collin on this week's show, how do roads work? Ahoy. Ahoy.

00:19

How's it going?

00:21

Pretty good. How are you?

Collin  00:23

Um, man,

00:24

doing very well. Doing very

Collin  00:25

well. I'm I'm happy for the weather. And although my allergies aren't, it's that time of year where all the oak stamens are everywhere, and so I'm constantly sweeping things. It's also that time of year where people are fully out of hibernation from the winters, so they start to really complain about the roads in our area. Yes, I love this, because this immediately tells me their level of understanding of responsibility for various, uh, things like, like, Why can't the city fix

Brandon  01:08

Listen, first of all, you, you already lost them when you said oak stamen, all right, they that was lost.

01:16

Okay, I

Collin  01:18

see him. I see I just, I literally was just on Facebook scrolling, and we're part of, we're part of all the gossip Facebook groups, because, you know, we need to be good citizens. And

Brandon  01:30

I don't know if cheese may really make

Brandon  01:33

you a good citizen. That's a real question we gotta ask for right now, is that really, what's up? Look, it's a

Collin  01:39

modern education. Voter has to know who they between the county clerk and the other person. It's so, oh, yeah. No. Somebody was like, look, look at this. US Highway right over here. The city needs to fix this bridge.

Brandon  02:00

So let's talk about governmental structure and how roads work. How do all roads are not

02:12

created by the same group of people?

Collin  02:15

And here's the here's the problem our city, yes, does it? Has some some potholes that are just monsters. Okay, so they, they, they need to own that. But the rage is now like spreading out to basically look at this interstate over here, like, what?

Brandon  02:32

Yes, because the city works on, I think, I think the answer is in the name,

Brandon  02:39

right inter state? Right, meaning, between the states, huh? I wonder what level of government is responsible for taking care of things that cross

02:54

multiple states, right? Oh, it must be the city. Yeah,

02:57

that's probably it. Oh, yep. It

Collin  03:00

goes the other way too, all the way down to like, Ah, this culvert on this county road needs to be fixed. Why isn't the city involved in that like that?

03:13

Because there's two. Number one, it's not in the city, city

Collin  03:18

county. You said it, it's the county,

03:23

County Road, yes, county

Collin  03:25

road. They just don't care. They don't care about us. I don't understand. It's all those people only don't.

03:32

But also,

Collin  03:35

yeah, do any politicians care about any one of you or us? No, answers, no, but we just, I sorry listeners, to burst your bubble. They don't nobody. They don't care. They don't the people that you want to be running for politics actually don't actively run for politics. The Oh, it's only the people you don't want. And are the worst people fit for politics or running for politics, because it takes, known, it takes a special, twisted kind of person

Brandon  04:03

to you have to have read that. What is the 48 Laws of Power? Right? You have to have read that book. And as we know, nothing good comes from reading that book. So like, which is why it will not be featured on over the reads, right? It's not the that's not what we're doing here. Scratch. Well, that goes that number right, number three on my summer reading list. I know that. Listen, that's, that's, that would be more of a winter reading list anyway, but I'm gonna go ahead and my official move here is all John Steinbeck must come before that, right? I feel like that's, wow,

04:36

yeah, that's, that's how,

Brandon  04:37

that's how much winter reading I'd rather, I would rather read some Steinbeck, right? I'm not saying that Steinbeck is not an excellent writer. I'm saying it's not happy or pleasant a lot of time. So this is what I say.

Collin  04:49

I'm I'm saving all of Steinbeck for my for my eventual stay in prison, right? I have to have something to keep me on your winter reading list, like I. Of

Brandon  05:01

nothing screams the depths of January like John Steinbeck,

Collin  05:06

well, yeah,

05:09

yeah, that's,

Collin  05:10

yeah, that's, it's, well, we'll see. We'll see what else comes up. Yeah, I know our summer reading list is right around the corner. It's true. Kind of got to get cracked on. I do. We do do because usually by the time we get get fired up, it's like, well, it's fall,

05:24

but yeah, that's true. I promise to all my nominations will be

Brandon  05:30

shorter this year. I didn't realize what a long book that was. My bad. I go, that's okay. It's okay. Yeah, it was good and accidentally, somewhat topical, but accident, see, long, Yeah, unfortunately, somewhat topical, actually a bit a bit long in the tooth, right? A bit it's a bit long. So, yeah, anyway, so yeah, we get on that things to do here.

Collin  05:59

Yeah, yeah. Besides, besides that, though I am, oh, I need to send you. I need to send you my latest creation, so I am going to do conferences this year. Oh, boy. And difference time, it is trifle. This is a tri fold. Is that what's happening right now? No, no, no, no, it's even better. It's also even better, because what if you were going to fold if you Yeah, man, if you were going to be a speaker or, like an MC at a conference, what's something that the organizers would ask from you,

Brandon  06:37

well, as a person who has never been a speaker at an NC or conference, I don't know, but I'm imagining they want presentation notes or, like, speaking notes or something, yeah, from you, they want to know what you're going to be doing.

Collin  06:51

Obviously, they need that. They also want stuff to help promote, right? And they're so for, like, headshots. Oh, okay,

07:04

mall, right?

Collin  07:07

Pretty much is where I need to go with this. But here's the thing, okay, I don't have this time. I don't have the time. I don't have time for this. So somebody says to me, they says, it says, Collin, you should use technology to help you with your headshots. There's a new dangerous where all you do you feed an existing headshot into AI, and AI will generate an unlimited number of headshots for you that you can use

Brandon  07:39

the power draw to that would power Luxembourg for six hours? Yes, you can. Would

Collin  07:47

you like to see what that power gets you?

Brandon  07:49

Oh, I don't. I'm afraid of this. I am really afraid about what I'm about to look at. All right, ladies gentlemen, I'm gonna

Collin  07:59

hit send on this so you can see what this let me know what this comes through. I should probably you'll,

Brandon  08:08

oh, you'll know Okay, when I have a allowed eruption here, yes, and this was,

Collin  08:18

this was a quite a discussion that I had when the when I was working on this, as far as, like, why one would do this process, and what, oh, man, is this going to send? Oh, okay, there

Brandon  08:31

you think it's all there, okay, it was, ah, no, what is this? Who is this person? Who is this man who is trying to sell me a old BMW, right? What is going this? This man? Why does this make you look like way older, like, what is Ha? Who is this? Like future you, right? Like this, AI has accidentally aged you, like, 20 years here, right? For real, like, this dude is over 50, working in a used BMW lot. Oh,

Collin  09:11

he has the sweatiest hands. His hands are so sweaty, awful.

Brandon  09:14

What is his hair? I know. What is going on. Wait, this is cursed. I'm I can't list that anymore. That is a curse. That is a curse. If this person looks nothing like Larry Bird, what is going on?

09:32

I don't know why a hair is real bad. Also, the hair is 100% the wrong color. That's fun. It's

Collin  09:42

Oh my gosh, I got this back in a business suit in the middle of a wood, yes,

Brandon  09:49

a copse of trees, yes, in a business suit, you know, like you do watering you. It. Why are you in wood, gray flannel? What's happening? I know. So I can, I can even give you a good looking tie, like what is the

Collin  10:14

most boring? That's never a tie like this, so bland. It's a brown wood, in wood, in a wood, yep.

10:29

And listeners also, the best part about this, again,

Brandon  10:32

it has aged him way too much, a bit unkindly, also, yeah, a bit unkindly.

10:39

But this is 100%

Brandon  10:43

the wrong hair color, right? Historically, the blondest human ever

Collin  10:48

I know, like the Auburn brown hair. What if you had dark brown hair? What if you have, like,

10:56

dark brown like, what like?

Collin  11:00

So, what I'm like, what I get this back, go, well, photographers, your your job is very safe. Nobody, God, nobody would take this and and feed it into it. And I wonder if maybe I had, like, I didn't feed it a professional photo. It was like a selfie version of me. No, no, I don't know I, I don't know I was wearing, like a brown vest. So maybe it was like, oh, woodsman. Woodsman. I see

11:38

the Midwest, I have a brown vest. What? What I it's what we do.

Collin  11:41

But I have, I was like, Okay, if I had, like, high end professional headshots that were, like, meticulously done and like, and I was wearing a suit,

11:54

maybe it

Collin  11:55

would work if it put me in like, another suit or, like, maybe the elements are just so I don't know, but like, this is, this is her business. And I just, I died laughing. What Because? Because I was like, Well, I've been getting, I've been getting emails from them for a while now where they're like, Hey, can't wait for you to be here. By the way. Have you bought your airplane tickets and your hotel? Also, we need headshots. And I'm like, I have done one of those, and not the two that you think, so I and it's not the two that I still anyway, it's not the ones you think, and it's not the tickets. One, tickets. I have a hotel room. I don't Hey, getting there.

Brandon  12:34

That is step one. That's an important that's a good step, right? That's a good first step, right?

Collin  12:39

I guess it'd be bad if I had sent them all my headshots first before booking, I don't know anyway, that's true. I weird, but, yeah, I told me. I was like, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna sit down tonight. I'm gonna work on this. I'm gonna get this done. I'm just gonna send it off. I'm gonna, because everyone's saying, use this and and I'm, you know, blah blah, and I sent that

Brandon  12:55

off. I'm, I'm just going to get a tripod out tomorrow and take my own Yes, in my right, no, you should go to a wood, all right. I should actually go, you should go to a wood, right? Yeah. You should find a copse of trees. And you should tripod, bring a tripod, and do do some of those shots. I think you should wear a flannel shirt and your vest, I think, no, okay, no, no. High visibility jacket, high vis, high vis and sunglasses, they go. But obviously, obviously, right, that's professional. LinkedIn would promote that post like crazy, right? Be like, Oh my gosh, look how professional this person is i right?

Collin  13:41

Yeah, I can clearly see him and what he's doing, yeah? So yeah, obviously he is. He's visible, visible, yeah. Professionals, visible, visible, obviously, I, I just, I was like, Yes, I, I, I burned through enough enough energy to power our town for the next year, and I deforested something the size of, I guess, sorry, Botswana for all the damage I just did for this photo that is just ridiculous.

Brandon  14:26

Is terrible. It's bad at least. I guess the positive here is you have to pay for

Brandon  14:33

this, right? With like, actual money. Yeah, nothing, environmental detriments, right? But no money was exchanged because that was beat. That's awful. It's not good. So, yeah, you need to go find a wood, right, maybe some lovely spring flowers, you know, to frolic in while you do it. I.

Collin  15:01

Yes, much, much fun. Looking much, yes, much gait happening here.

Brandon  15:09

But so that'd be great. Yeah, I want to see the actual one. I'll figure it out to compare sounding right, compare the real one, the real one. So I'm gonna

Collin  15:19

keep this one in my back pocket, like a real desperate or if somebody wants me to attend that I don't want to go to, I'm going to send them this head. Oh yeah,

Brandon  15:27

no, because then you like, if you go you don't want that up on stage behind you, that curse thing that's just wrong, that screams like that doesn't it's okay. So this is a deep cut joke that I don't think any listeners will get, but it screams integrity, right? That's what it screams, right? That's what it is. I watched this video one time, and it's like a he was a guitar channel guy, and he was like, modding. It's like a really meme thing to like mod those Hello Kitty guitars right into like and to make them like shred metal guitars, right and then play like extreme metal on a Hello Kitty pink guitar. It's like a meme on the internet, whatever, okay, but, or one that he bought came from some Chinese factory, and the sticker, he said, crafted with high integrity parts. And so that is his like channel. Meme thing is, like, it's the high integrity. Gotcha, yeah, high integrity. It's again, love it.

Collin  16:32

Oh my goodness.

Brandon  16:34

So weird. Agua fish reference joke on there, on the show, for all listeners who know, which is, like, probably none of you, but that's gay. There you go. That's a good adding to the shots.

Collin  16:49

Yeah, you go. Turns out, when you search mod, Hello Kitty guitar, yeah,

Brandon  16:57

first person, yeah, it's a thing. The thing happens, yeah, that's weird place. That's

Brandon  17:04

alright. So anyway, what are you supposed to be going to this conference for, if not selling

Brandon  17:11

use BMWs of questionable origin? What are what are you actually going

Collin  17:16

for? Yeah, this guy definitely sold Top Gear, those BMWs. When they did the BMW three,

17:25

where they were in like Albania, right? That's when he's car,

Collin  17:30

yeah, yes, oh

17:33

yeah.

Collin  17:35

Car salesman is what this is, import and export is absolutely this is just the sleazy I just,

Brandon  17:45

no, I didn't do that to me, so I don't know. It's very rude. It's very meaty.

Collin  17:51

I'm not doing

Brandon  17:53

that. I Ah, but so, but I'm not these car salesman do this train on that's real question. How bad are headshots on LinkedIn? This is what it gave you. I know

Collin  18:09

it's like, this is what, this is what it thought would be good. Like, this was the answer. Like, this is a service that people, people actually use to promote themselves.

18:19

This is the level that we're at, yeah, why are so many people's headshots in a wood? Why?

Collin  18:27

Why? You know what? There's gonna be a whole lot more now,

Brandon  18:31

true. If I ever have to have a headshot, I'm going to a wood. I'll tell you that right now. I think, think it's mandated, yeah, just gonna go to the trees right over here in my field by my house, and

Collin  18:43

that's see, and they'll, nobody will ever know.

18:46

They'll be changing my LinkedIn profile right now.

Collin  18:49

You know what? I should I've had the same LinkedIn profile for

Brandon  18:54

10 years. I think mine is just a letter, because I haven't ever put a picture on there, because I couldn't be bothered, because I don't actually care. I just had to make it for like a thing, like it was required for me to do. Remember this and I did it. I don't actually use it. The only person I follow in there is you. Spoilers. So I guess no, but now that, like, it always sends me messages about things in it, things I want to see. For some reason, even though I never interact with it, it's always like, oh, this person posted, like, who, what? I don't care. Well, it will tell me when Missouri State does things because, for some reason, because I think it's, it's my, it's on my thing is alumni, right? So it does that. But like, I don't know what else it's for. I don't know why it's there. Oh, but now I need to go find a wood to shoot a headshot.

Collin  19:45

Yes, I think it's absolutely necessary. I

Brandon  19:49

have just on. I need to, how do I unfollow people?

Collin  19:55

I need to remove power. I have no idea. Oh, no, no. I need to not be doing this. What's going on? Okay? Yeah, so wood is definitely necessary. Um, no, I'm LinkedIn is a hellscape.

20:09

I It's kind of a disaster. Yeah, I don't.

Collin  20:14

Cannot abide this. Okay, I'm backing out. I clicked the wrong button and I'm Yeah, it's all a mess.

Brandon  20:20

Yeah, you would think a platform developed for business people would have a better UI that made sense. But no, it doesn't. No, it's, it's 100%

Collin  20:35

inscrutable.

Brandon  20:38

I do not it's not very navigable. No, which is great, really unintuitive. Good job, guys. Yes. Which tells me, which tells me a lot. This tells

Brandon  20:53

you all you really need to know about this site is because that that means that I imagine a lot of people are using it from their desktop.

Collin  20:59

This is, this is exactly what I was about to say, that this is, this was, this was very clearly a desktop focused, essential, first platform that did not make the transition to, yeah,

Brandon  21:17

yeah, yeah. The mobile version is not great. I mean, I don't have, like, the official app, because, if there is one, because you gross, but, like, even the mobile experience is poor, which is weird for it's a weird thing to say in 2025 being like, Oh, the Desktop version is where it's at. Guys, like, what

Collin  21:42

Megan has to remind me whenever I'm making edits to our website, where I'm like, look, it looks perfect, and she'll be like, but how does it look on mobile? I go, Well, I didn't mind. Oh, look, it doesn't work. That's great. I gotta

Brandon  21:57

fix this. Oh, that's a thing that our city does, like the opposite of, right? They have a we have, like this electronic

Brandon  22:04

billboard thing right at, like an intersection, and it puts up, like, it's like the main the intersection of the highway, right? And so it, like displays information. It has like upcoming events are on there, and, you know, ads, whatever, but like the it's one of those things where this ad was clearly designed to be viewed on, like a small screen, and then it's on this digital billboard thing. Sometimes you can't read it at all. Oh no, because, again, they just use the same thing for, like Facebook and like a Instagram post or whatever, and this sign so it's like, that doesn't really work. That's not good graphic design, right? If you like one size does not fit all a signage, right?

Collin  23:00

This was not, yeah. Can you take a second pass at this overview?

23:04

Can we get one just for the

Brandon  23:05

big sign with that clearly visible red letters? Can we stop using red background with black font, please? Who the can we make that not allowed because, like,

Collin  23:16

What is this place? Glad the Impaler has moved in.

Brandon  23:21

Well, just sometimes it's just like the font that they use, like the color they use in whatever they did, right? But the last like, food truck day thing, like part of it was red, right, but they use black font over it, and it's like, from 60 yards away, can't read that, right? That's not even a great color combo in a classroom from like, feet away to look at a presentation, but like, from 60 yards away, what am I going to do with that? I can't write, yeah, no, I am

Collin  23:53

a firm believer in the your your smallest font on your presentation should be the highest age of the person in the in the room that you're giving a presentation to. There you go, which always, which means, make it bigger, right? I'm not saying this literally. You always have to, oh, what if there's 102% no, it must be bigger than you expect, yeah, must be and when it's not, this is where you run into problems. When I have so much information that I gotta cram in there exactly have.

Brandon  24:30

Here's what you do, four slides. Boom, got it. One bullet point per slide, right? Just click through. Cut, bam, cut, bam, cut, bam, come bamka, and then you can have a slide at the end, has all of it on there if you want the summary slide. But that's really not necessary, no, because you won't do that. You want to read off the slides anyway. That's boring. Nobody wants that. Don't read your slideshows. People. I can read that's okay.

Collin  24:58

We are we're. Working on that with the kids. They are giving their,

Brandon  25:02

oh, it's a long process my kids struggle with. I know, I know this

Collin  25:07

is like, this is the they're very, very new and into this. And they're, they're seven and nine, right? So it's like, this isn't, not the big deal. But I am trying to just say, like, in the beginning, like we're getting in the groove of this we're next going to be talking about, like, tell me one thing that's just not on your poster, just one thing that you don't have written down. What's one thing that you want me to know

25:30

that is

Collin  25:33

where you make that step, where you start going? Well, there's more here. This is just one of the general points that I need to make away. But I could talk around it in some capacity. So yeah, it is a man and presentations decided that she's like, she's like, Yeah, I gotta tell jokes, because that's what dad does. And I'm like, Yeah, wait a minute. I don't.

25:57

Okay, fine. First of all, they're more like punk Second of all, right, yeah, it's not actual jokes. That's why I tell I tell my I think I know I've mentioned this that many times, but I tell my kids at the beginning every year like, there

Brandon  26:12

will be jokes, they're probably gonna be good, but there will be jokes it will be bad. I make no promise as to the quality

Collin  26:21

of the joke, but they will exist. So that's a book, and you will have to deal with it. Yeah, you'll like it, dang it. That's what you'll do. You'll like it. Yes, ah, I expect at least a a weak chortle. Yeah, right. Anyway, speak. Presentations, back to my original

26:43

question from 10 minutes ago. Oh, what are you going to do? Oh,

26:47

yes, sure, sorry. Oh, bad. No, it's fine. Um, so

Collin  26:54

what am I? What am I supposed to do? Wait, What? What? Wait, what?

Brandon  26:57

What's going to present? What are you doing? You're going to present a thing somewhere? Yeah, we don't know where. We know that you have a hotel, but no headshot and no planes, so I'm assuming you're not driving. So I'm not driving here. One is in Houston and one is in North Carolina, somewhere. Okay,

Brandon  27:16

so that way you don't have a ticket, because you don't know where exactly I know where it is. I just,

Collin  27:25

I look, it's the paralysis of options and opportunity. Oh yeah, I'm just like, I'm just staring at this void. And the reality is that there's no one right answer. It's all horrible. I just need to make a decision and go with it. I think ultimately I am going to be going to flying in to a location that's further away from the conference place, because and then driving the rest of the way in, driving like an hour or so in, I think that's going to be best for cost. And it turns out that that weekend they are, it's like a big whatever, like some the university there is having this big whatever, like, get together. So like, 10s of 1000s of people are going to be there. And so there are no more hotel rooms. And so I booked the hotel that I need, but it didn't quite capture enough to accommodate the plane tickets that I thought I could get that I didn't. And so the conference starts at like 10 in the morning on a Friday, and the closest plane ride that I can get in will have me landing at 11 that day, like there's just nothing around it, so I have to fly in the day before. Anyway, it's a big deal. I know it's terrible. One conference, one conference. I am my talk was accepted to present on the pitfalls of productivity and how to keep your sanity as a business owner. So I'll be doing and they were very kind. They put me as the keynote opener to Let's go. So I'm like, Okay, well, that's not what I Okay, cool, cool, cool. So I have a very rough outline. Now I do presentations where I don't I it's not just like four slides. It's like 1000 slides, and I go through them real fast, like it's they're not like chunked full with information. It's just like this photo is only meant to be on screen for a 10th of a second, and then I need to move on, because I have to make this point like, that's what I so I'm roughing all that in now. The other one in North Carolina, I am actually the MC for that conference, so I I don't know what I'm doing or. Really what that job entails, but

Brandon  30:03

let's give it up for blank clapping. Don't clap into the microphone. Okay, clap. No,

Collin  30:11

no. You have to just encourage people to clap. You don't really clap yourself and introducing people and filling dead air and all that good stuff, puns, yes, gotta start working. I gotta start materials. I have, I just, I just christened a new composition notebook, and I am ready to go. Oh, yeah, I'm ready to start filling this out. Yeah. So that's, that's my, that's my September. It's all, all of both of those happened in September. I'm gone for one week. Oh, home for six days. It's July, and then I leave for another week. So I'm out here. I'm not looking forward to that. I'm not even gonna just live out a suitcase for an entire month. It'll be fine. Yeah,

Brandon  30:58

you should. You should watch it when you don't know. Well, sure, fine. Just sprinkle

Collin  31:03

some deodorizer in there and it'll

Brandon  31:04

be good. Yeah, pack a dryer sheet in there and it'll be okay. It'll be fine.

Collin  31:18

Oh my goodness, so that is

Brandon  31:23

use me what we've got going on here, unfortunately. So, yeah, yeah, we'll see exciting or something, right? Well, no, well, no, we don't know, but you know, be fine. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm I'm ready. I'm ready, so, but, yeah, other than that, what about

Collin  31:43

you? What have you been what have you been up to? You're winding down the year, right?

Brandon  31:46

You're, yeah, we're doing state testing next week. Whoo. We're Easter break. Spoilers. Listeners. Easter, happy. Easter, what's up? Easter, break. This for this Friday and Monday, right? And then testing next week, really, that's kind of it. That's the focus for next week, right? We're trying to get some stuff done, like, to a stopping point, right? So we're not, like, in the middle of some stuff, right? We've been guys kind of talking to them about it, like, making sure they know what's going on, like telling them, like, we will be this coming. Not like to be like, Yo, you got it, but just like, hey, remember, don't, you know, but don't come to school, like, freak out, like, Oh my gosh. Have this big, Yeah, same, no big deal, right? We, we test all the time anyway, so like, you'll be fine. Chunk it up. We're kind of just sort of explaining it to them, like the plan, so that they kind of have a good grasp about what's going on. So they're just like, okay, yeah, we'll boom, sit down, do it, right? Kind of take the nerves out a little bit, right? Because it's, you know, big state tests. So they're kind of like, they got freaked them. Some people, like, freak themselves out about it, like, Oh my gosh. It's so, like, it's fine, right? We do it in chunks. We don't have to sit down, do the whole thing all at once, right? That would suck. We know that. That's

33:02

why we're not making you do that like we get it took a little

Brandon  33:05

bit. Yeah, so just kind of explain to how it's going to happen. Here's what you can expect to happen next week. So, so that's pretty much it, right? Just trying to get ready, and then just trying to figure out how much course material I need to, like, Excuse me, like, have for the rest of the year. Like, what? Like, how long is this really going to take, right? So it's like, it's just kind of like, where am I going? Like, I am not giving any more tests, probably, right, especially for science, right? I'm not really gonna give any more tests, right? I kind of told them like, yeah, this last one was your last test. Really, we're not gonna do anymore, because we'll do, like, some, like, informal assessment things, but like, no, like, big official test, because it, you know, I never know, like, how much the year is gonna get away from us. The end of the year is always like, schedule disaster. So I don't really have a good, like, every year is different about how far we go. Into my last unit, which is my, like, streams and stuff unit, right? Sure my streams are water quality stuff. Like, I don't exactly know how far I need to make that last every year, because it's always different. So, like, I have things, I just need to know how many of those things we have to go through, right? Like, how many of those things are we going to need? Like, do I need this thing, or do I need this thing, right? Because this thing is, like, really long and big, and this thing is like, shorter and just a couple things. So which one of those things do I need to have, right? Like, which one are we going to throw in there? What are we going to do about this, right? Do I need a new thing? Like, I don't know. So that's just. Of where we're at trying to figure out what to do. We are going to make stream. We're going to make like river course maps, nice, yeah, so like they have, we've been talking about, like the parts of river, like major parts, like the headwaters down river, flood, plain, mouth, that kind of stuff. And then we've been talking about, like, other river course features like meanders and oxbows and waterfalls and blah, blah. So their group project is they have to make a map from headwaters to mouth and include all of the stuff in there somewhere. Ooh, right. And they can make it look how everything wants. Kind of they can do art project that can, like, decorate it and, like, add stuff needs to be appropriate. I'm joking, like, if you want to draw your friend in a boat on the river, do it right, go for it. Love it, right? But that's kind of what they're kind of doing that and then mapping it out and making sure they get the appropriate features in appropriate areas right, so no ox bows in the headwaters. Ah, no, no, yes. So that's our big project that we're going to start at the end of next week, after testing, we're going to Monday. We're going to do a little bit of wrap up stuff, like make sure we have all the stuff in there. Oli vocab and our we've been drawing little diagrams in our notes to help us know what these things are and where they go. So then they're going to be unleashed in a group format to make their big river system. That's our project we're going to do. So we see how long that goes, and then go from there, see what other things we need in here. But that's our that's our next thing. It's kind of fun to do that. I didn't get to do this one year. I don't know if it was last year or the year before, that we didn't really have enough time to like do it, so we like did it a little bit, and it was kind of like meh. And then we ran out of time, so got a little bit more time this year just because of scheduling things, you know, whatever. So try to make it some time to get it in there. Make it really nice, so you can see, though. So that's the plan for next we after testing next Friday, question mark, that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna start on it. I've already told them what they're going to be doing, right? I tried to make sure, like, okay, like, the reason we're doing all this, and the reason I need you to continue writing all of these notes in your binder, even though I told you we're not doing a test anymore, is because you need it for this project. Like, you must have this information.

Collin  37:35

Is not a test, but it is a project that we need to do, yeah, it's

Brandon  37:41

kind of like an assessment, because I need to know that you know what these things are and where they go and yeah, work kind of right. Like, so just kind of how they fit together, right? Like, if your point bars and cut banks aren't in the right spot, I'll know that all of our stuff was knowing we could go over enough, right? You know what I mean? Like, you know you know, you got nothing go opposite, right? They gotta go here, right? So that's the biggest it's our next project that we're gonna be working on. Is that so, pretty much it, uh, went this afternoon, right? Took a bit of a journey, right? Just randomly, Susan was, like, getting a massage downtown, this new, like place, great because, you know, into your stress or whatever. And so sure she went in there, but, like, through a series of events, right? And the we so we were trying to do grocery order pickup today, because we do grocery order pickup for, like, some groceries, like, for things that, like flour and like, Sure, they're just stuff like that. Like, we don't do it for all the groceries because we still want to go pick out, like the apples, because we don't want to get, like, trash, drinking apples and stuff like that. But like, for some of the stuff, like, your your shelf stable goods seem like, oh, yeah, I need this blah, blah. Anyway, we tried to do that before. But like, I guess Walmart had, like, a internet outage, and their computer systems were all down, oh, oh, in the whole store. So they couldn't do anything. So it was just like showing up when the thing is delayed. So like, okay, whatever. So I had to take her to the thing, right? So I kept her phone just in case, because we didn't know this at the time, the lady told us when we got there, so I had her phone, and so she went off to the thing, and she obviously, we had to pretend, to pretend like it was 1997 and we're like, meet here at this time. Go. I'll fight that was it. That's all you can say. Right, yeah, last communication. Hope it works, yeah, right. So be back here at around this time, like, okay, so I came home and did some dishes and did some cleaning, and then I just kind of went back because I didn't know exactly like, because she never been put forth. So she didn't know exactly, like, what, because you always had to fill out, like, paperwork. So she didn't know exactly what time it was gonna be over, because it was kind of a fluid situation, I guess. So I'm I just decided to go walk about downtown, right? But this time, I was walking around all the blocks, and I was like, I'm gonna walk through the alleyways this time. Still dark. It was still light outside, so no missed screens about right? I don't know if there's many mystery I don't think there's many Miss greens anyway, but there was none. So I was walking through the alleyways of downtown, which was an interesting experience to see the backside of all of these old buildings. So our we have the historic downtown area, as many Midwestern cities do, very small Midwestern cities, we have the big historic downtown Boulevard thing. So I was walking in the alleyway, like right behind it, right a place I have never been before. Well, why would you go there? Yes, let me Yeah, because you would drive down it. Well, sure, because it's just, like, a little narrow thing, like some people do, because they're, like, interested in businesses and stuff. So, like, you know, but like, normally not the street traffic. So you go, so it's like half, it's cutting the block in half, basically. So I'm walking down this alleyway. It's very interesting experience to see the back of some of these buildings and how the front side is looking pretty good on some of them, and then the back, oh, not so much. But like, in a cool way, right? Because I do like where there's something very like esthetically pleasing about some light to moderate, like, Urban Decay, right? Like old buildings. It's esthetic, yeah, yeah. Not like, not like, completely, like, running ramshack, sure, right? But like, it's, I think it's because it's like, older buildings, right, kind of showcasing their age. You can kind of see the history lines in the building, stuff like that. You can kind of see different there's just a different perspective on everything when you see it from the back, because the back does never get, like, fixed up, really, they like repainted sometimes,

Collin  42:39

right? So, like, throw some more plaster on some cracks. Yeah,

42:42

it's but it's like, there's a lot more,

Brandon  42:44

like, a lot more showing the age. Like the front, all the windows have been fixed. You know, the not all, but like, a large majority of the windows have been fixed. So they have new or repainted window frames and window sills and stuff like that. The back does not have that, right? So you just get a different kind of viewpoint of a lot of buildings. And so I was just enjoying my time like walking. I walked a couple blocks through the alleyway, right? That was just an interesting thing. It was really cool to just kind of walk the busted alley, look at the backside of these historic buildings and see, kind of the age and the patina and the building. And some of them are, like, some of the buildings are like, they have apartments, like, at the top, so, like, some a couple of the backs, there's like, one part that's like nicer, which is, like the entrance way. Think, like this part is okay, because people are living in this building, but not this one, right? You know, it's still kind of patina out and stuff. And there's like, just some random, like, there's an old, I walked through this old, like, drive through thing for, like, I guess it's old bank. It's, like, really close to where the old police station used to be, right? Like, a long time ago, the building is gone. But then there's like, this little drive through thing through one of the buildings. I don't really know what that was before. I don't know if it was a bank or, like, a pharmacy or what, but like, there's like this little drive through pavilion, but they're, like, redoing it. So there's just a bunch of brick stacked in there. They walk through there. I saw some. I saw a raccoon, just like, meandering across. Okay, I thought that was really funny. I walk into the alleyway, his raccoon just sort of toddling about like he was probably checking out the dumpsters, you know, saying what's over here? Wood that's around, wandering around that was really he was very adorable, right? Huge coddling along. Didn't even pay any attention to me, just what the

44:53

urban Raku. Exciting, very exciting, right?

Collin  45:00

Uh, that's it there. It's always so jarring, I don't know, because you you just never really see them, especially in those settings, like, yes, they live there and they are there. We know that. I know that when you see one walking down the street, you it is a little you go, huh? What? What is that? Why? Why are you here?

Brandon  45:20

And he was just completely unbothered, right? That was the funniest part. Like, it was so funny. So, yeah, that was, that's what I did. I just walked about, and then I came and sat on the bench. They have some benches outside, but as far as I could tell, on Main Street, there's, well, whatever the main drag there, there's like, all these benches. As far as I can tell, I'm the only person that's ever sat on one. So they all look very painted, and nobody else was out sitting upon them. So I hung out on the bench for a little while. Did you showed up? But yeah, that's what I did today, is meandered through the back alley.

Collin  46:01

Good. I like seeing familiar places from a different angle. I think, yeah, I think it's very important to do we I do there's a I walked to our library today to do some work there, and you can walk along the sidewalk one way, and then there is an alley that actually is much faster to go through. Now, it's also a little bit sketchier, but it's kind

Brandon  46:25

of, I mean, I did check out the before I walked out, blindly walk down

46:31

outside,

Collin  46:34

right? I and it, it's, it's fun because, again, you to be in an in a familiar place, but from an unfamiliar angle. It tickles a bit of my brain. I think it makes it kind of fun.

Brandon  46:50

Yeah, it's a little urban exploration light. You know what? I mean? Like, I wasn't trying to, like, sneak up on top of the buildings, like, or any of those dudes online, right? Not like my Bucha, not trying to climb up on random buildings or nothing like that, right? Although I did see a ladder back there, just saying I'm didn't go up it, though, right?

Collin  47:11

Good. Good call, good call. Did you test any doors? Did you see any doors that were there? I do

47:15

not, right? This is a part of my brain

Brandon  47:17

that, like, I have to fight really hard against, right? Because there's a lot of times if I see a door like that, I'm just like, Is it open? Right? Like, I do it all the time, like in office buildings, right? I was like, why? I'll be like, there's like, push on the handle, just see what happens. Like, because I want no one's in there, right? Even if it's like a closet, like, I don't care, I don't know behind the door, absolutely like you. This is part of my brain that I have sometimes, like, no, Brendan, don't do that. So it did not jiggle in the doors in the alleyway, right? Although there was a couple that I'm pretty sure they were open, right? But I didn't press my luck right? Nice. I didn't do that, but, yeah, that's what I did today. I strolled through, stroll through an alleyway. Yeah, there we go. Fun. I think that's good. I like this very much. But that's the other reason I like the, like, the downtown pavilion thing that we have. It's on the other side, right? And so you get to see there's you can see all of the bit you from over there. You can see all the buildings behind right? Because the pavilion is behind it, and there's, like, nothing back there. So it's kind of cool to walk back there also, because there's a street between the the railroad, and there's like the rail yard, and then the road, and then the pavilion, and then there's like a thing, and then, like the building backsides are right over there on the inside, like a fence. So when you walk back, when you walk around over there, you can also see, not as close as I was, right, because there's a fence there, but you can still see the backs of other buildings. I just think it's really interesting, right? Like you said, it's, it's cool to see the different perspective, right? You can kind of see more original architecture sometimes that way. Yes, they, they do the front, but like the back, they just kind of, like, paint it, and it's fine. Although they are, are downtown, they are restoring a lot. So, like, they are, like, actively making it look more like it used to, which I really like, it looks cool, like, I don't know if I

49:43

told you, but there's one building, like, there was one building down there that was still covered

Brandon  49:47

in concrete slabs, right? It was a bank really long time, and they are in the process of removing all of those to the original brick and stonework and, like, cleaning up that building, right? So instead of, like. It's just a concrete box. It like fits in with the rest of the buildings now,

50:05

and they've repainted some of them. They've added some more murals to the

Brandon  50:08

building, and there's a couple that are great. Is way better than American flag on a rail silo, okay? Way better than that. They've put like they look like vintage advertising signs from like, businesses that were in town. That's cool, right? And so it's, it's, they've kind of faux, like, done the thing where it's like, you know, the plaster is coming off and you can see the thing, the wording, or whatever under there. Yeah, they've kind of like, imitated that esthetic, right? But with like, more of the like, the local businesses that were there, so it's kind of cool. It does make it look a little bit, I can't decide if it's like makes it look more rundown or less rundown. That it looks like that, sure, right? Because you do juxtapose that with actual old business signs of just around in a couple storefronts that there's nothing in. So that's weird. But like, it does give kind of a cool vibe to some of the roads where you kind of see this mural, and it's kind of like signs for old businesses that used to be there, right? So that's kind of neat. I appreciate that detail anyway. Like, these are things that have been there before, you know. And have strawberry references, which is good, because that was big. It was big thing. Yes, the strawberry agriculture, which is still mind boggling to me, that that existed, but yes, now there you go. So, yeah, it doesn't anymore. They have, like, a mural there about that, which is way better. This is what I wanted from the silo. This is the attention to detail that I was craving. Nope, the eagle or the flag giant. Bam, done. Yeah,

Collin  51:48

we have. They came in, they put a a mural that was, that is in the style of old, old murals to market products and stuff. So it's, it's got that I can't, oh, yeah, right, what it looks like. But you know, if you see, like, a catalog from the 1920s artwork, that's cool. Yes, they came in and had to put a few of those downtown on old buildings and stuff. I like finding those. Those are cool. But that's, yeah, I think that that kind of, but that's, that's leaning into the heritage of the area, right? That's, I think, that is, that is done, done well, it enhances the history, as opposed to kind of mocking it, or turning it into something that it's just not kind of this fake Americana or whatever, you know?

Brandon  52:41

Yeah, it's like, representing actual history, and not just, like, trying to be, like, generic history. You know what? I mean? Yes, again, like, rah, rah, like, so I think it's cooler. So yeah, so I did when exploring a little bit, I didn't go super far because, like, I didn't know what time she's gonna be done, so I wanted to get back around to the front side of the block. Side of the block. She came outside. Was like, Where the heck are you? Otherwise I would have kept going. So sorry, maybe, maybe sometimes, yes, it's, it'll still be there. Yeah, hopefully, but yeah, so yeah, that's basically that was my exciting mission today, strolling down the back alleyway. I

Collin  53:23

like it. That's do it more. It's good new stuff. There you go. Yeah. Right. Well, I have a little bit of sad news to kind of as we're wrapping up here. No, not. It's not super sad news. So I got onto the most state fair grandstand. Awesome. More like disappointing news. Disappointing news, yeah, that's, yeah, that's, there you go. That'll lift us up a notch. So I in between, I texted you that Oliver Anthony is going to be performing. So that slot was removed. Not any of our amazing picks, yeah, which left was which left only three spots remaining. Okay, hey, the last so the last night, August 17, has been filled and didn't see this one coming. Honestly,

Brandon  54:12

they clearly, we didn't get it right. Clearly, they filled

Collin  54:17

it with the powery 410, sprint cars, b mod modifieds and Super Stock races.

Brandon  54:25

Oh, well, so, yeah,

54:29

that's a little expected.

Collin  54:30

So there's only two. There's only two, which is fine.

Brandon  54:35

I do the last night that feels might Yes, I feels a bit wrong for the last night, right? You know, close the fair with a spring car. Easy. I mean, you know. But

Collin  54:50

anyway, so we're down to two. We're down to two, dang it. We'll see. We'll see if we get any hits this year. I'm still waiting. Right?

Brandon  54:59

Me, I learned my wife is a secret Colin Ray fan. That's what I learned. Also, after last week. That's what I learned after that. She was like, Oh my gosh. Like, I did not know you liked that guy. She was like, actually, it was a combination of secret Colin Ray fan combined with she kind of forgot about Collin rain.

Collin  55:24

Look, I'm just going to go ahead and go on a limb here and say that there are a lot that's a that describes a lot of people. That's he has a lot of man that have forgotten about him. And no offense Mr. Ray,

Brandon  55:37

but it's that's what I that's what I learned. My wife has been hiding this for me, she is a Collin Ray fan, unintentionally hiding it, because she hid it from herself, partly. So she's

Brandon  55:49

really good at this deception stuff. She's very sneaky. That one I was just very she sneaks here for herself. She

55:57

didn't Oh, my gosh.

Collin  56:00

Oh, just for fun, I'm gonna throw in a YouTube channel, a YouTube video that is the Colin Ray super hits. Oh yeah, there we go. Show Notes. Yeah.

Brandon  56:11

Enjoy. So all of you new Colin Ray fans that have just appeared, right? You have a place to go as

Collin  56:17

we get you can just go and

Brandon  56:20

figure that out, I guess, yeah, hasn't won by you. Oh, right. I have no tie in for this whatsoever. Oh, I have no crafty Oh, oh, no reason why I'm about to present this to you. No, like tie in whatsoever, but I did have a thought. I am sitting down about a good right? Have a potential candidate for the next patented Oh brother. Top five list, right? Okay, yeah, okay. Top five movie list, right. Top five movies, yeah,

Brandon  57:10

movies I want to know. I wonder if you're interested in ranking your top five

Brandon  57:15

favorite courtroom dramas. Oh, okay, yes, I really have no tie in other than I do watch old line order episodes quite a bit.

Brandon  57:27

So, like, that's really all I got. But, oh man, like, this is a very good movie genre that we haven't talked about, and there's a couple good ones that I could think of. I want to know your thoughts on this, and would this be something you're

Collin  57:40

interested in, that this will also cause good conversations between Megan and I, because, oh, Megan, if, if there is a camera in a courtroom, she has seen it, and she has opinions. So I'm gonna, are we gonna get the bonus Megan list? I think I'm gonna get the bonus Megan. I will, I will work on i i definitely think this. We can work on this. You want to do it in for next episode? You want to have that ready to go? Or you, oh,

Brandon  58:09

I don't ask you. I don't know when you want to do this. I don't know if you want to do it next week, or if you want to wait two weeks. I'll leave that up to you. You're the busy one. So like this week, my next week is gonna be real boring. So,

Collin  58:24

no, I think that should be fine to do for next week. Okay, cool. Yeah, that way we can do that, right? Okay, so I will, I will start and her eyes, her eyes are going to gleam and listen from Yes, and she's gonna rock back and forth, and she's gonna be ready

Brandon  58:38

go. There we go. Finally, she's, I'm glad she's I'm glad she's gonna finally approve of one of my ideas. This is gonna be great. There's a milestone here exactly. So I remember even there was, what was it over? Was it Christmas? Maybe I was like, Oh yeah, I've been watching, uh, when I was randomly watching old dragnet episode, she's like, I love dragnet. I This is what I'm

Collin  59:06

saying. How weird. I was not expecting that, to be honest, but oh, here we go. Seriously, she's all about Yeah, yeah, that was Clance, yeah, she's Yeah, she's there, she's right in there. So yeah, this is good one I have, all right, immediately come to mind,

Brandon  59:23

yeah, I have at least one already, uh, potentially two, but, uh, some. Have to do some digging and think about it, but, man, yeah, there's a lot of good ones, right? It's a good like drama e1 right? So I feel like could be good. Okay, okay, I'm gonna do this. Yeah, all right, it's good, yeah, okay, there we go. Well, if there's no other business, then I will present my Haiku.

Collin  59:51

We have the business of Haiku, actually, yeah, there we go. We got here. I always can

Brandon  59:56

never remember where my notes app is. You think after all this time? I'm keeping like, is it? No, where is it? Oh, okay, all right, neglected facade echoes of a vibrant past crumbling out of sight.

Collin  1:00:23

Well, that

1:00:25

did I write this while I was sitting on the bench? Yes, yes, I did.

Collin  1:00:30

Absolutely. Did capture at that moment?

Brandon  1:00:35

That's what the Haiku is all about, capturing the moment right on the bench, apparently. There they go. Hey, first, first time I've written a haiku from a bench. Well, another

Collin  1:00:48

milestone. Did you put on calendar? Or I'm

Brandon  1:00:50

going to, right, put in the show notes, first haiku on a bench from me. There we go. That's it.

Collin  1:00:57

On bench. Okay? And outside. Oh, right, wow. There's so many firsts here, I know, starting to turn into the we're the number one business, with 13 left handed people that service the east side down like, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Brandon  1:01:16

Essentially, this is the, this is, as far as I'm aware, this is the world's number one haiku focus podcast. All right, so I'm just saying some,

Collin  1:01:26

some may say it's just shenanigans, but actually, it's about, actually

Brandon  1:01:29

there are, there's both there are. It's not just shenanigans. There's shenanigans and poetry. Okay, two things, right? Not just

Collin  1:01:41

look at that and that that is valuable. Yes, that is value, what we provide, poetry. Oh, man, well, so we will, we will prepare more shenanigans and poetry for next time. And yes, come with a top five list of movies, of courtroom dramas, and we will see where we fall out on that. All right, I'm excited about this. I am too. Okay, okay, I'm gonna actually

Brandon  1:02:16

start as soon as we get off so I don't forget, because who knows what's gonna happen. But that is true. That is also the tagline, who knows what will happen. There we go. It's on the shirt. It's on the shirt. It's

1:02:32

legit. It is

1:02:40

I think you