Brandon has been reading. Collin has been busy.

The economy is fake
Midwest fall festivals enthusiasts
So they don’t fall down
Most caboosey part of the caboose
Brandon’s Fall reading

Robert Louis Stevenson
Markheim is when Robert reads Crime and Punishment

Survived conferences
Collin haiku

Steam and hoof once sang,
Westward dreams and driven herds—
Now the whistle sleeps

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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

PROVIDED BY OTTER.AI

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

workload, busy season, economy, travel, festivals, sports events, social outings, hiring, training, railroad history, steam locomotive, caboose, restoration project, mental health, professional development

SPEAKERS

Collin, Brandon

Collin 00:04

Collin, welcome to Oh brother, a podcast where we try to figure it all out with your hosts, Brandon and Collin on the freak show most caboosy part of the caboose, ahoy. Ahoy.

00:21

What's going on? Are you? I'm I am.

Collin 00:26

Well, this is, I don't know how to describe exactly like the season that we're in, but it's

00:37

some say

Collin 00:40

it's a bit, like, overwhelming, like, there's the, there's the, like, the season, season of like, oh, the weather and stuff. Like, it's fall, it's raining. I'm here for that. But like, I am a little, I'm just gonna say I'm a little scared for how busy the rest of the year is going to be for me?

Speaker 2 01:01

Oh, I knew, yes.

Collin 01:05

I'll just put it this way. Ever since June, I've been saying it, don't worry, guys, it's gonna slow down. It's September, August, September, October. They're never busy. Don't worry, everything's going to be okay, and then it doesn't slow down, doesn't continues to not do that slow down thingy that I've been hoping for. So that's where I'm a little like, what, what, what is going to be unleashed in November and December for us,

Brandon 01:49

because I'm very, very worried that's very confusing. Like, like, what, what? That's very, I'm very confused by all of this, right? Like, What a strange this is just more proof that the economy is not real and everything is made up because, like, everything is, like, mega expensive, like, nobody has any money. And then all these people are like, Yeah, I'm not gonna be at home. I need a pet sitter. Like, what is going on?

02:25

Oh, no, yeah,

Brandon 02:29

yeah, I know. Just perplexing.

Collin 02:33

I I'm the same I'm the same way. I'm like, I'm like, everybody is saying, like, everything is slowing down. It's getting harder. Everyone's talking about, like, living paycheck to paycheck and all of these issues and stuff.

Brandon 02:47

And I'm going,

Collin 02:50

but like, not that I'm wishing a slowdown or wishing for no, like, no. It's just I, I'm not seeing that. And typically, what I guess is that maybe there'll be, like, a delay. Um, I mean, maybe, but, like, I don't know. That's very odd. I know I'm so it again. I'm I'm like, Okay, well, surely it will be a slowdown. Because who travels in September and October? Like,

03:20

that's also true. Where are you going in

Brandon 03:22

September? Where? Why? Right? Like, yes, I know. I know now, like, like, unless you're maybe, maybe Collin, maybe your clients are secretly, like, Midwest Fall Festival enthusiast, and they're just traveling. They're like, I have got to go Toad Suck days, right? I just have to go to was the Ozark one like, sucker days in Ozark, I gotta go over to Apple Fest in Seymour. Just have to go get that apple cider and Seymour. You know what's up? Like, I don't know if they still do that in Seymour, but I have very strong memories of going to Seymour, specifically apple cider. So I don't know if that's, I don't know if that still happens, but, like, maybe that's where they're going, because those start in those that's the only thing that I know that happens in September and October, is it's is small town fall festivals? Yeah? This is, this is what I am, this is what I don't know. Maybe they're going to baseball games, yeah, this is like the hot time of baseball, right? Yeah, so that's like the baseball season's hotting up. The Football season is starting. Maybe they're all maybe all of your clients are sports enthusiasts. This sounds more likely than small town festival enthusiasts, but you never know. There could be some over. Overlap, you know, could be, yeah, this

Collin 05:04

is because this is, this is true. Like, right now we're doing this. Like, on a Wednesday, we'll have like nine visits, okay, and then on a Friday, there will be like 50 visits.

Brandon 05:24

This lines up with festival and or sporting events. Yes, yes, although baseball games do just happen on Wednesday. So, like, you know, I don't know, but

Collin 05:34

it doesn't make any sense to me. And so I really am, like, it's so bizarre. I so this is, this is where I get a little again, worried, because I'm like, well, all this is just, I don't know, gonna be insane, so I'll try and figure out what to do. But now, now I'm like, like, time of going, because usually I go, Okay, well then, like, I'm banking on, like, November, December to be insane. Like, that's to be expected, but yeah,

Brandon 06:10

I I can't really

Collin 06:16

go up anymore from where we are, like, we're hitting some levels of like that are around, like, yeah, like, summertime levels right now, summertime levels

Brandon 06:26

for the end of October, the where are people going? Everybody wanted to go to carthage, Maple Leaf fest. That's where they all went. They all wanted to go see, yep, yep.

Collin 06:40

So that's, that's where we are right now. And, yeah, I just, it's been, it's been so bizarre. And, and on top of that, it's, it's also like, Oh, we're also trying to do some, like, social outings and stuff, because we're like, Okay, well, we scheduled all of this stuff because we're going, Okay, we're we're not going to be that busy. So we've got time to schedule like all these pup cup events and all these other stuff that we Oh, yeah. Now I'm like, I don't have any time to do any of that. Yeah.

07:34

Fair, good grief. And so

Collin 07:42

I'm trying to fit all of that into the schedule and around. And I'm like, actually, no. Like, I'm, I really have no more time. No more time.

Brandon 07:55

I mean, yeah. Like, that's yeah, if you're already, if you were okay, words is hard if you were already planning on doing other things to fill the empty time that you have, but then all of a sudden don't have empty time, then we have a big problem, because things were scheduled for an empty time that does not exist.

Collin 08:25

Yes, this is, this is, therein lies the problem, because it's exactly what happened. I went. There'll be plenty of time for all of this stuff to do. I'll schedule things back to back and multiple things on the same day, and what could possibly go Oh, no. Oh, because I'm also like trying to hire people and get them trained in the free time that I thought I was going to have, but now I don't anymore.

Brandon 08:58

So well, well, this is, this is a problem.

Brandon 09:11

Drat, well, hopefully you can navigate this in some fashion and try to figure out how to do all this, this mysterious, mysterious month of many travels.

Collin 09:32

I know I thought surely, whatever, whatever it's, you know, it's one of those things of like, okay, well, we're, we're busy, so that's good. But like I and, yeah, I do. I guess I need to start. I want to start asking my clients, like, where are you going, where are you, where you head off to Right?

Brandon 09:49

Like, just interested. I just want to know, like, where are you going? Maybe they're all work conferencing too. Maybe that's just, like, maybe a lot of. Businesses are like, oh, we'll do conferences now before holiday time. So maybe you have people that are doing that kind of stuff. Yeah, I don't really know. I'm just grasping at straws here now, trying to figure out where people are going in October,

Collin 10:15

because it's not like most of the people who are going, they're not leaving for like, a week at a time, right? So it's not that it genuinely is like, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That's where the bulk of things are happening, and so they're not going a fur piece away, but it's like, but also, I don't know, like every weekend, like everybody's traveling every weekend.

Brandon 10:41

Okay, okay, whatever. Yeah, maybe they're just doing, like, little I have no idea. It's very strange. I don't know. It's not a time of year that you would just normally think, like, oh, yeah, we have a place to go. Like, where are you going in October? Like, it hasn't even end. You can't be like, Oh, they're gonna go look at foliage, because there's not, as I haven't been. It just turned fall like yesterday. So there's not any leaves to change color. You know, that's not a thing either.

Collin 11:16

We did get to spend a little bit of time in a bit of our town's history. Oh, so our town was a cattle town, as most towns were back then, but it was also a major, major hub for cows, like it was on a major rail line, and everything funneled to our town before it went up to, like, Chicago. So, like, we were all meeting, okay, pretty major, yes. Like, things came from, like, Colorado, Wyoming police case. Places came from a cattle were drip, did the drive from Oklahoma and Texas, and, like, everybody converged and then moved on. So it was a it was a booming place, and so much so that, like there was, I know, I don't know what these words mean, but I did okay. So I'm gonna say this. Somebody's gonna be impressed. So much so that, up until the 1980s there were two class one rail yards.

Brandon 12:21

Yeah. Silence

Speaker 2 12:23

is appropriate, yeah. I'm not sure that sounds impressive, though. And

Collin 12:27

like, and people like, that was what people did. That was their career. They were mechanics. They were engineers for these they worked the rail yards. That was a big thing that the city town lost when the last one closed in 1985 and just disappeared, then was taken down completely, and they don't that's just gone.

Brandon 12:48

But thanks Reagan.

12:52

That's probably anyway. That's probably right. Like, okay,

Brandon 12:57

probably accurate, right. I have no basis for this, but, like, towns losing jobs in the mid 80s. Yeah, that's Ronald Reagan's fault.

Collin 13:05

Yeah. So anyway. Oh, so anyway. So we, we the city we moved there on the edge of the fairgrounds is this place called the trails end monument. And what it is is it is a period piece of a steam locomotive pulling a cattle car from the late 1800s and a caboose. And it's got this beautiful display. They're these big bronze cows out front that are like, 25% larger than what, yeah, like, they're huge. And there's like a cat cowboy. And then on the other piece, they have the Native American on on his horse, kind of walking in front of this. And it's just a very powerful piece. It's beautiful. And now I knew nothing about and so they, turns out it has been there for 10 years. And so for their 10 year anniversary, they were having a come by and like, step into these structures, and like, walk on top of these things. And like, get around them and, like, touch and feel stuff, because you normally can't do that. It's just like, it's kind of up. So we went here and they got all these people in old timey garb that are gathered around. At first, I'm like, Okay, it's kind of weird. And I'm I do my thing where I just turn to the person who's dressed like a cowboy, and I say, so what's your connection here? And the first person I talked to said, Well, I helped source the wood that we use to rebuild the cattle car. Oh, and I went, nice. Oh, what? And. We're walking around and we're seeing stuff, and this the steam engine is just gorgeous, okay? And then, like, you get to come up, they have a little tiny, like boiler, whatever, inside it that they're working right now, it's running off a little car battery so that you can use the actual whistle and stuff is kind of Oh yeah, coming off. I climb up there, and there's a guy dressed in like old timey conductor or engineer, whatever gone. And I'm like, What's your connection here? And he looked at me, he goes, I welded every piece of this. And I went, God, what? And I said, Are you kidding? He said, No, so this engine is, actually, is what they would have used here. But so they found this in New Jersey, in like a ditch, and they had a company that a local company that does shipping and transport, they went up and got it and brought it back, and this guy's said, like, Hey, I his whole thing was that his granddad worked in the rail yard there in town. His dad worked in the rail yard there in town. And this guy was graduating high school in 1980 he was going to go work in the rail yard. And then they closed it down in 1985 Oh, man. And so he went on to be a general mechanic in the area and worked in construction and was in like, you know, like, that kind of stuff. But one of his hobbies was to peruse online stuff for trains, because he loved training. Like, of course, Yeah, apparently there is a site that you can go to that's, like, the for sale site if you have, like, full size train

Brandon 16:48

stuff. I mean, who doesn't want to go there?

Collin 16:52

And so one night, he's scrolling, and he sees a help wanted ad, Help Wanted restoring full locomotive in this town, and, and he looks at the town right? And he goes, Well, I live there. What? And he clicks on it. It was for our town. It was for my town. I know he clicks on it, and it's one of the it's these organizers who got together, and we're like, well, we've got this broken down locomotive, but we don't know how to fix it. So to fix it, so we'll ask for help. This guy, literally born for this steps up to the plate. They like, dump off all walks across the street, yeah. Literally walk like, they dump this massive cargo chip container thing full of pieces. And he's like, I'm on it, and he, like, he starts putting the whole thing together and constructing it and, like, doing other stuff, doing research to get the period pieces. The thing that I realized that I did not know that this is, this thing is so accurate, like, when they needed a bolt, okay, what? What were the shape of bolts in the 1800s

Brandon 18:00

Oh, I don't know the answer to this. Were they even bolts? Were they just rivets?

Collin 18:05

Well, they were rivets. There were some bolts that they were square, right? So these squares, oh, yeah, okay, you can't go to Lowe's to get square bolts. You have

18:12

to make them, don't you?

Collin 18:13

So they found a local company that manufactured them square bolts, whoa. And I'm like, a holy moly. And he's like, yeah. And the local, Sherwin Williams, donated all of the paint for this entire project, and they matched it to the period piece of the paint colors that we could find to make sure that all this was, was, was okay, and working, you've got what? Oh, and the wheels, this thing didn't come with wheels. And so they're like, well, because they were rotted out or whatever, and lost salvage. And so they were like, What are we going to do? So they're like, well, we can get some replicate ones, or maybe, can we kind of make them out of wood and make them look metal? And then they're just talking to this guy, like, Wiseman construction or whatever. And he was like, Well, I got this metal allergy machinery back here that I haven't my dad got, but I haven't used it in like, 20 years. I wonder if we could use it to make those wheels. And they did. They made, they found old schematics of how of these wheels for what they were manufacturing, and he made them. And I'm just like, like, my mind is just blown of hearing this guy talk like people are starting to stack up. So I'm like, Okay, I gotta go anyway. I'll be fine. So we go down and we see the cattle car. And the cattle car was obviously like wood and rotting. So they went out and found oak that they would have used to build the cattle cars and made the cattle car not with two by fours that you can get from the store. No, they went and chewed and cut their own. They build their own to make this. They rebuilt the suspension and everything underneath it, and then they painted it again, period piece yellow, to make sure that it matched everything. And then they I'm going back, and I'm just like, this is a little insane, like what I'm hearing, and I go into the back, and I get up into the caboose, and we step up into the caboose. And I learned that during the cattle drives, they had to, every now and then, get the cattle out to go water the cows along the way. Well, how did you do that? We had to have horses. Where'd the horses go?

Brandon 20:37

In the caboose? Interesting. They didn't just have, like, a horse car, no?

Collin 20:42

Well, they did. It was called a caboose. I mean, like, a special one. I thought that they just, you know, tack another cattle car in there and put the No, no, the horses got to be in the caboose and have their own, like, special stalls in the caboose that

Brandon 20:58

I'm walking, yeah, because horses need, like, like, when you transport a horse, from what I understand about who they need to be like in a very tight area, so they don't like fall over, because they'll just like, fall down, yeah, well, and they just like, fall down, like they just, from what I understand again, am I a horse expert? No, but they will just sort of, like, fall over. So they need to be like, they're always, like, smushed in there. But they like it that way. They lay down. Yes, yes. You always

Collin 21:29

see, like, the small, like the tight, constricted nature of, like horse trailers. And you're like, Oh, that's so but no, they like it. And they No, no, so they don't fall down. I mean, there it also, this is where the stove is so it

Brandon 21:41

keeps us warm. I've been in a caboose before. That doesn't we're gonna put a horse in there. That's what I want

Collin 21:46

to know. The front part of it is where they go. Because here's the other thing, the caboose is way up high, and so there's actually these sliding barn doors on either side that you slide open, and they would pull up to a platform, and the horses would leap out with the riders, with cowboys and get ready. Somebody else would come around and open all the doors for the cows. They'd run out. They'd get watered, they bring them back in, and the horses would jump up on the platform and come inside. And the caboose also had a big Lookout Tower, so that's why they have little cupola, so they can look and look and see for like, fires or sparks, or, you know, issues or things going on, and then they show us the bunk beds and all this stuff. And I'm talking to this lady, and she's 84 and I said, So what's your involvement with this? And she said, Well, this whole thing was kind of my idea. And I'm like, Okay. And she said, so she's 84 she said, 15 years ago, they went to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and at the time for vacation, and at the time Steamboat Springs in the newspapers and everything was trying to put together this exact same thing to honor their heritage and their link to the American railroad and their history is cattle and whatever. And she went, well, our town's like that too. We should have one. So she came back home, talked to three people, and they were like, oh, yeah, we should have that. And that's what started the whole thing.

Brandon 23:16

So they got a better one than Colorado. Take that, Colorado.

Collin 23:20

Here's the thing, Steamboat Springs, Colorado still doesn't have

Brandon 23:24

one. Oh, yeah, good job. Random lady,

Collin 23:28

random lady, like, random, like, like, multi generational farmer in the area, you know, they, they're one of those. They own like, 6000 acres in the area, that kind of stuff. And, like, they were just like, well, well, that, well, how do we do this? And so they just started to ask their network. And the reason this worked was because they didn't look to an outside contractor to come in and do this project. They did it all themselves,

Brandon 23:53

yeah? And they just talked to like, random dude. Well, yeah, cuz random dude across the street was like, I got all the train knowledge you could ever

Collin 24:01

need, random guy, right? Like, so she's 70, and she is hand, she's painting all of this stuff, and she's, she's, she's finishing windows and refitting them and redoing the trim and this thing, and resealing the floor and all this stuff. And like all of them would do that, they would meet one day a week out at her farm, and they had this massive barn, as farms do, where all the pieces were laid out one thing at a time, and they'd grill hot dogs and hamburgers, and they just spend the night doing it, and that's what they did for and from start to finish, it took them three years, like Wow, from

Brandon 24:40

nothing that that sounds like an incredibly short amount of time to undertake this whole entire project, right? That sounds not long enough.

Collin 24:49

This is no it doesn't from like there was no idea you have, not you have. You have figured out what you want. You have. Sourced it. You have be like, very frank here people, like, fully restored these items and got it on display in three years. I'm just like,

Collin 25:15

crazy. I am in awe. At this point. My mouth is on the floor, and then she's like, Yeah. And you know, the funny thing is, is we found this Caboose, and we found the cattle trailer out in Oklahoma, and we sent the shipping company out there to get them again, the local company. Like, what they do? They do trash and shipping. That's all they do. They're local, and they're like, we'll donate the time. We'll donate that. That's what our contribution to this project is going to, this project is going to getting these things to you, because it's

Collin 25:43

kind of our forte. Well, they go out and they pick up, pick up the the caboose is on one flatbed, and the cattle cars on the other flatbed. And they're, they're, they're told they're, none of the bridges are tall enough for you to go under for the next whatever 20 miles did you have to get off and go around?

Collin Funkhouser 26:10

The first driver who had the caboose was on the road for seven minutes, and he slammed into an overpass. Oh, oh, sheared off the top of the caboose. Oh no, all the way down. Oh

Brandon 26:29

no.

Collin 26:30

I 40. Interstate 40 in Oklahoma shut down. Oh God, both lanes.

Brandon 26:40

Holy cow. What in the world?

Collin 26:42

Oklahoma, like, like, this was multiple, this is like a day, like a day or more the Oklahoma dot people, okay, dot people. Whatever came out. They're like, You've damaged the bridge, you've done XYZ. You're gonna have to pay for this. We're shutting all this down. Blah, blah, blah. And they sent this again. These people went, huh, I don't want to pay for a bridge because I don't have that money. Fair. Well, they reached out to their own network. Turns out they know some bridge experts and bridge builders sent them out there, did their own inspection, convinced, OK, dot that there was actually no damage, because there wasn't, there was some misinterpretation on what the state of the bridge was before the impact versus after, and send it on their way. So not only did they have to restore a cup boost, but one that had been very badly damaged by Overpass, yeah, and piece it back, rebuild the

27:37

top of the caboose,

Brandon 27:40

dang it, yeah. Like, most caboosy part of the caboose, like, that's the

Collin 27:45

Yeah, without, without the cupola, or whatever, it's kind of not,

Brandon 27:50

doesn't look very Caboose II, right? Like you got, it's like, the, like, the the profile that you need to have for someone to be like, Oh, Caboose, right? Like, without that, they're like, boxcar, I don't know,

Collin 28:06

yep, so you know, and I'm talking with her, and inside the thing they have, they went and found and got donated period piece saddles from the late

Brandon 28:18

1900s good. Who on earth has that just sitting around, like, where do you get a 200 year old saddle?

Collin 28:27

And it's literally just sitting there, and you're like, how, right? And it's got, like, the original hay stall thing, like, from anyway, it's just like, and I'm like, why? Like, why was this important to you? Like, why? Why? Like, this? Like, why? And she said, she said, well, because it's such an important part of the town's history, and because

Brandon 28:51

we got to be better than steamboats.

Collin 28:55

And she said, she said, I we couldn't stand to see it law. And I'm like,

Brandon 29:01

dang, right, dang that hurts even more knowing that all I got was a eagle on a grain silo.

29:12

You got some cool strawberry stuff

Brandon 29:13

later. Like, that's fine. I know. I know we talked about last week. Yeah, I forgot to go look. I didn't go downtown to look at the fire hydrant. Update, but you're right. Took a long time to get more mural action.

Collin 29:25

And I'm like, and I'm looking around, and I'm and I'm now I'm actually, like, seeing all these people, and everyone who's there, who's dressed up, who's part of this, you know, they're, they're all in their mid to late 70s, early 80s they're all wearing.

Brandon 29:42

Were any of them wearing the railroad hat the

Collin 29:48

engineer guy did up at the front like he had his and nice just looking at this, just amazed. And I talked to another lady. She's 82 and she. Is sitting in front of this big chuck wagon. And I'm like, so like, now I'm like, I have to know everything about every single one of you people. And of course, my family has moved on, and they're like, We need to go eat dinner. And I'm like, I haven't done an oral history of all 23

Brandon 30:13

people here. They've all walked home by now. There's a whatever See you later. And I'm talking

Collin 30:17

to this lady. She's in front of this chuck wagon. And I'm like, what? And she's like, Yeah, it was me. And whatever the lady was who I forget her name up. That's gonna bother me, like it was her idea, and she looped me in first, and my family came here on the railroad and blah, blah, and we, you know, that's what we did when we were raising money. We obviously didn't have money for Anne Caboose or and anything. So we didn't know what to do as far as, like, what do we go? What we need to show people something to get them on board with this dream. And so, okay, yeah, right. So they found an old covered wagon from the mid 1800s or whatever, in Arkansas, fully restored it to period, stocked it. And that's what they traveled around with, to fairgrounds, to meeting places, presentations to be like, like, that was their talking point for and it's kind of cool, like, look, we restored the covered wagon, and it came before the railroad. And we've got dreams for an for a railroad part of this, and that's how they raised. They had no like, this wasn't a city thing. This wasn't a fairgrounds thing. There was no state money. This was all local people in businesses. They raised over $2 million for this project. Whoa. And there it is, and it's just there.

Brandon 31:48

And I'm like, holy smokes,

Collin 31:52

and I'm talking to the railroad guy up at the front in the engine, and he's like, the first trains to come through here weren't coal powered, they were wood powered. And I'm like, oh yeah. He's like, that's another reason why there weren't so many trees around the prairies for a while. And oh. And then he said, How far can a wood powered steam locomotive go?

Brandon 32:21

On like one.

Collin 32:23

And I went, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. And

Brandon 32:27

he said, I just know that they can't get up to 88 miles an hour by themselves. No, they can't. You have to throw the special logs. Yeah, right. You got to put the Yeah, exactly. Yes. I know that wood doesn't burn hot enough. I know that. I know

Collin 32:43

yes, he said. He said they can go 28 miles before they run out of water, before they run out of water, before all of this holy cow water is consumed, they run out of water. And I went, and so he was like, that's why the water towers were so important in the Midwest, in the West, and that's why the tech, and that's actually how the technology of the windmill expanded. It wasn't for farmers and ranchers. It was for the railroads, for pulling water, for the water up out of the Ogallala Aquifer, out of the Ogallala Aquifer to store the water towers so they could refill every 28 miles. And that is

Brandon 33:30

extraordinarily inefficient, right? Like that is, that

Collin 33:38

is 28 miles at a time, from Texas to Central Missouri,

Brandon 33:45

Chicago, and then, yeah, then on to Chicago. That is not what you would call an efficient route, right? I mean, I guess this is why they drove the cattle so far to the rail yard. Can't go any further, so just gonna walk them most of the way there, yeah, Missouri, and then go from there, right, like, because otherwise they would have never made it. They would still be going,

Collin 34:16

yeah, they would still be stopping for water

Brandon 34:19

every what that is that is horribly inefficient. Like, I did not know. I didn't realize. I always figured, right? Because on the like, on media and like books you read about this time period, like fiction, things, whatever, it's always the coal for the wood, that's the problem, right? Because you don't think about the boiler actually, just boiling out of water. But if you're only going 28 miles, potentially less, if you have faster, yeah, right. Like, that's a horrid one.

Collin 34:56

And I'm like, as if he goes, he goes. So how far is it from our town to the next town over? And I went, if you tell me 28 miles, I'm going to be he goes, it's 26 miles. And I was like, Oh

Brandon 35:12

my gosh, yeah. And then I don't want to run

Speaker 2 35:16

all the way to 28 No, you can't max it out. Bus out the Atlas. You like the

Brandon 35:21

compass, right the and just like start,

Collin 35:26

if you, if you go from Kansas City all the way to St Louis, you can find a town basically somewhere between like 24 and 30 miles all along there that are kind of like larger ish, all straight across the that's what they did. I'm like, holy, just like we talked about infrastructure for like towns these days, but like these chat like that. It really just like, made in my brain the impact of a railroad in any region. It wasn't like, oh, it brings with it supplies. No, the town must exist to support the train. That's why they were so important. Like it wasn't, it wasn't the other way around. It wasn't like, oh, the train comes through. So we have a town. No, no. Without the town, there's no training system working like, and then, and then, obviously, as the technology advanced, you didn't need so many little towns. So that was another reason why they kind of died out of of, well, I don't need to stop every 28 miles. I can go 60 miles, and then I can go 120 miles, and then, like 300 miles, like the 100 miles like that, all of a sudden changes the economy of what's going on there. And all of this is flooding into my brain as I'm standing next to a replica of a water tower and an original windmill that's over here to my right that they that the wind, like the metal part is from 1887 and then they built the wood up around it, and like, it's spinning over here, and it's just like, I very unreal for very Long time.

Brandon 37:17

That is kind of nuts, like that emotional also slightly reeling from this realization,

Collin 37:29

and it's just sitting there, right? That's the That's yeah. Anyway, so that was I spent a little bit of last week, one of the days doing that talking, and apparently we weren't able to stay. But they were going to go, after they were done showing showcasing this, they were going to go to the farm, and they were going to host people with hamburgers and hot dogs, and they were going to show a little documentary. And I need to get a hold of this documentary and watch this that was put together clearly, clearly. So I do know one of the people that was a big part of this, and so like, I do need to just

Brandon 38:11

ask him, Hey, can you I

Collin 38:17

do need to desperately see this oral history

Brandon 38:21

and link somewhere

38:22

YouTube.

Collin 38:26

So, yeah, it was mind blown, and I'm still like, I'm ready to go back and look at it again. But they only, that's the other thing. Oh yeah, they don't open it up for tours all of the time. Oh, yeah no,

Brandon 38:43

because they have to have the people there, yeah, for it, right? Like,

Collin 38:46

because otherwise it's lost. You're just Yeah. Like, the The important part here is to talk to the context. Yeah, who's the context? And that's the other part that I just got so sad about, because some of these. Like, the youngest of these people is 68 you know, like, that's the youngest person that's part of this group. And anyway, it's just like that slipping through that last connection to this because many of them had direct connections to the railroad in very meaningful ways, and this was their last attempt, and successfully of building this monument really is what it is like. It's, it's, it's a restored history, but it is a monument and testament to the importance of it and the people of that town, and just think, just thinking of of all of the people who will for generations afterwards, just know it as that train thing, you know, like, I get a little, I get a little sad at that, yeah, of not having that connection anymore.

Brandon 39:56

That is true. So they do need to put their little thing on YouTube so that. You can, yeah, and I will just be the one who watches

Collin 40:03

it all the time. And so anyway, that was, that was my big thing this week. That is pretty that's pretty epic. I'm not gonna lie. Oh,

Speaker 2 40:20

oh, well, I didn't do anything near that exciting this week, but I did. I updated my fall reading list.

Brandon 40:31

So I just I remembered that on my bookshelf, I do have a short story collection from your boy, Robert, Louis Stevenson. Oh, hey, Ryan and so I was reading this. This is the some sort of extremely old Barnes Noble hardback edition. But it's like, love it. I know right back when they were This one says $7 which is the appropriate price for this. Anyway, this is like Robert Louis Stevenson writes Gothic Horror, yeah, so like to varying degrees of success, right? So, of course, the one of them is The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, right, which is like, when you read it, like it's real weird. It's a very odd story. And I think this is not necessarily a hot take, but like, this is a adaptation that a lot of media does not get correct, right? Like this. This is a lot of people have an idea of what Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is, and then, if you read it, oh, this is, they all have the incorrect idea of what is happening here, right? Like it is not right. But basically, they like media would have you believe that, like Dr Jekyll becomes split into two different distinct people, like the good and noble Dr Jekyll and then like the evil, Mr. Hyde, right? But like when he is describing it in the letter at the end, he's talking about like he always had, he always struggled with these like thoughts of like villainy, right? And so he's always had this part of inside himself, right? But he's, like, suppressed it in order to attain his station as like the good Dr Jekyll, which is in good standing and in high regard, right? But he's just like repressed this side of his personality, so the little potion mixture thing really just changes the way that he looks, which allows him to be as nefarious as he wants without any repercussions whatsoever. And so there really is no Mr. Hyde. It's just also Dr Jekyll doing things right? So this is not what things like Bugs Bunny, would have you believe is the case, right? Like Looney Tunes, not necessarily have this adaptation, correct? I know I know shocking, but it's

Brandon 43:38

very, very odd, just all together. So that was that I read that one. And so it's a it's okay, right? It's a bit weirdly paced, but it's pretty good, right? And it's definitely weird. After reading Treasure Island, to read this. I've read this before, but it hasn't been it was like 20 years ago. So, like, I don't remember, really, but like, the language is much different. Like, the way that he writes his book is, like, way different than the way that he was writing Treasure Island. It's very different. It's like, much more elevated. Is a lot more like flowery language in there, right? Much more interesting. So it's a much more like cerebral story and like, we have this like, very like, we don't necessarily know who this narrator is. It's just sort of this, like, omniscient thing happening, right? So I read that one. I read the Body Snatchers, ooh, which is, like,

Collin 44:51

I always forget that he wrote that book. Like that is, yeah,

Brandon 44:55

that was very short, and it's kind of based, it's kind of like i. Based off of, like, the the thing that was happening in Scotland at the time where, like, the was the Burke and whatever, can't remember the guy's name, like they were, like, basically selling. They were either selling, like, digging up recently dead people and selling them to the medical universities. Birkin hair, yes, or they were just like, straight up murdering people and bringing them and selling them to the universities, being like, oh, yeah, totally, totally, totally, just died of natural causes Anyway, give them money. So they like, show up in the middle of the night and like, with just like a body in a sack, and be like, Yep, here you go. Don't ask any questions. Bye, which, you know, fun. So it's kind of based on that. And the story is basically like a guy, he like, he was at a university doing this. He was involved in this situation. He, like, runs into his accomplice, like, years later in this, like, small town, and it sort of recounts the story. But again, like the end is kind of like, what, like, what, sure, is this like. I mean, I guess in like, the late 1800s this was, this would pass for horrifying, but like, it's, you know, it's kind of like creepy, a little bit, but it's definitely not like scary. So the ending is just kind of weird, like, all of a sudden they're just like, Oh no, it's this thing. Like, yeah, what? Okay. It's kind of intense, I guess, but whatever. And then I just read today, I finished the it's one called markheim, and this, this is markheim. Is what happens when Robert Louis Stevenson has read Crime and Punishment. Oh,

Brandon 47:14

but, but Robert Louis Stevenson is a good religious boy, and Josh, if he does not care, he's got other things to talk about. So we so it's like it is literally the same beginning, right? Guy goes to pawn shop dealer guy who he has a history of selling things to to make money, right? Okay? He says, Oh, I'm not here to, you know, sell. I've got, I'm gonna buy something this time. And then they stabs him in the face, oh, to steal all the money. That's the this is, this is pretty much the crime part of crime and punishment, right? This is, this, is it, right? But then, but then, because I think Robert Louis Stevenson may have also read Charles Dickens. This happens on Christmas morning. Okay? And whilst he is ransacking the house, this markheim fellow encounters a spirit of some kind. Oh, and we don't know if this spirit is benign or malevolent, if it's like, devilish or angelic in nature, right? It's ambiguous, but he talks to the spirit, and he talks about his life choices and all of the decisions that have led him to hear and he's the Spirit's like, Oh, I'll give you the money. I'll tell you where it is. And he's like, Yeah, because this is I'll get it and this time, I'll put it in the stock market, and everything will go right this time. And the Spirit's like, Yeah, except for it's not going to do though. And he's like, Well, I'm gonna save half of it. He's like, Yeah, it doesn't matter. You'll lose that too. Oh, and, and he's like, What if I do this? He's like, Yeah, it doesn't matter, because you just keep doing nefarious things. I've seen your life history, and you just get more and more nefarious as you get older. And he's like, but I will never do that. I will blah, blah. And he was like, I and then there he has an epiphany, statement, something along the lines of, I may not believe in my ability to do good anymore, but I renounce my evil ways. And then the Spirit is sort of like contented by this. And this like goes away. And then, instead of the second crime and crime and punishment, where the lady come, the other lady comes home, and that dude kills her. This. Guy says you should call the police because I have killed this other guy. Boom, story end, and you're just like, okay, okay, all right. So this is like, if, yeah, this is a weird cross between a Christmas carol and crime and punishment. Yeah. So that's a story. Also, I don't really know how I feel about this story. It's interesting, I guess.

50:29

Yeah, that is interesting.

Brandon 50:33

Yeah, there you go. I was trying not to give spoilers, but then I just gave you a whole plot already, so my bad.

50:39

I mean, yeah, alert for, yeah, it was written,

Brandon 50:42

yeah, when I guess I'll do that with the Body Snatchers one too. I was trying to keep the end vague, but like they go, so back to the Body Snatchers. Rewind a minute here. So like they go to like, the story that they're recounting is they like, he like, it gets, getting worse and worse. Like he's, he doesn't really question where these people show up, where they come from, until one day he like, they bring him a lady, and he knows who it is. And he's like, I talked to her yesterday. And they're like, don't worry about it. It's fine. No, you didn't like, okay. So now he's now he's starting to question the fact that these are not like recently dead people. They are being, you know, murdered. And so then he goes to dinner with his like accomplice guy, and this other dude named, like, gray or whatever. And gray is like a jerk, and he like orders all this food and then makes the other dude pay for it. And then, like, two nights later, his accomplice guy shows up with a dead body, and it's the dude, it's that gray guy, and he's like, now he knows for sure that an affair, his deeds are afoot, right? Yeah. And then so the end twist is they go on this thing to this graveyard, and they dig up a lady, right? And it's all like spooky Dookie, and it's like raining and thundering and the lantern breaks and all this stuff. And day day like this is like weeks and weeks later, by the way. And so they're, you know, it's all gone wrong, and they finally get the did they put her in the cart? And it's like, they get this, like, super creepy vibe all of a sudden, and it's like, Jocelyn round, and like, lands on them, and they're, like, really freaked out. And they stop because they're just have this, like, terrible feeling. And they rip open the body bag, and it's gray inside the bag, and not the lady. Oh, and then that's the end of story. They just like, they like, flee. So it's probably their conscience. But, like, I don't, it's very vague, like, you know, whatever, sure. So, so yes, this is, this is Robert Louis Stevenson writes gothic horror novels or short stories, not novels. Yeah. So that's what I've been reading this week, just to see how it goes, because I forgot I had it on the shelf over here. That's kind of like fall. It's now that actually is fall, right? I thought, hey, I'll bust out some of these, because I like a short story, you know, because you just bust me, you just bust one of these out. And, like, of course, no time. So short stories are nice for that. So you go updated fall Reading List of

Collin 53:27

Robert Louis Stevenson, yeah, we're just, it's great. It's good. Yeah, again, I always forget that,

Brandon 53:36

yeah, it's not bad. But it's like, it's definitely not. I think Trey Jones is just overall a better story. Sure, it's more coherent and it likes makes more sense. I think he does a better job riding his gym than he does as, like, random, omniscient guy, I don't really know, like, the voice is a bit odd sometimes, but it's not bad. It's pretty good overall. So there you go. That's, that's what. There you go. Update, breathing more Robert, Louis Stevenson, just like intermittently, there you go. Perfect case you needed more listeners. I mean, there it is.

Brandon 54:19

That's awesome. Well, good, yeah, that's all I've been up to. So, I mean, that's a lot. Yeah, I did survive. We did have our marathon, ridiculously long parent teacher conference yesterday, and I was pretty much correct in the first several hours, between one and I was from one to seven for reasons that are still unknown to me, but from one to 330 which is when the conferences normally start, we had five people. So. Yeah, right. There was actually six, but one of them works there. So that's, you know, I'm not really counting that one. No, like, unofficially, you know, we have one or two more, but they work in the building. So, like, you know, so we had, like five come in that five or six, I can't remember in that, in those two and a half hours, okay? And then everybody came from like 537 which is when they always come, because this is when people are off of work and can come, of course, where, like, what is this? It makes sense, yes. So the thing that I predicted pretty much exactly happened like I thought. So that's but, yeah, so it was like, really doing nothing for an exceptionally long amount of time, and then every single person showed up in a two hour span. Why was I there for six hours? I don't know to be available, right? Just sitting there, wow, like, I mean, chatting it up with my teacher friends, like, you know, which is fine, I was good. But like, why bonding experience? There you go. I mean, I guess. But like, what was the point? There was no reason for this. So, yay. And then, so yeah, we were off today, so I was hanging out with nothing new. And then Monday, we have an in service, which, according to the emails, looks like it may be also like all day. So I'll let you know about that. The email that I got used the words working lunch

Collin 57:03

and so, oh, I don't like that. I don't like that at all. No, working lunches are they're only okay. Like, I don't even like them when conferences do them, because it just means that, like, poor planning took place. If they're like, yeah, like, no, no, you keep eating. We're gonna talk over here on the over doing this stuff, though, yeah, why? No, still, like,

Brandon 57:30

I'm, I'm of two minds. I don't know yet how to feel about this, because it is about like, it's like, it's a mint. It's what's it called. It's called Mental Health First Aid. So it's like, for, like, students and stuff, right? So that's good. It's good that we're actually doing something about this. Yeah, okay, so I'm happy about that. But if this is a dude presenting for all day long from, you know, like eight to three, and I don't even get a break to eat lunch in peace. I'm not going to be pleased about this. Yeah, right, no. Answer is no, right? Like that, and I saw I had to do some pre training thing, right? Like, the best part about this, okay, are you ready? I had to log in to this thing, right? So they sent me. They like, signed me up for it. They signed us all up, like, obviously. And then you, they like, gave you the password, and you had to log in, and then, like, change your password, and, like, fill out the login thing, right? Yeah, you know. So I had to fill out all this login stuff and do all this thing. And then I get to the modules, right? And you have to do the first three before you start the course. It's like pre homework stuff, right? And the Module One is a manual about how to register the thing that I had to do before I got to module,

Brandon 59:13

NO to NO and and our favorite, our favorite reoccurring theme, like reared Its head here the UI on this is awful. Like, no idea what. There was no direction. It was just like, log in and do the thing. But like, what buttons do I push for this? Where do I go? What am I supposed to, like, navigate this, like, very unintuitive menu to, like, figure out that I'm already pre signed up, and then I have to go over here and, like, you know what I mean? Like, oh, and then, so then part of it was like a pre test, right? Just like, questions about some of the Mental Health things we're gonna talk about, okay? But then the second half was like a survey about, like, how did you find out about this? Like, mandatory, I don't know what like, why are you interested in taking this course again, mandatory, I don't know what you want. Tell us your would you like further email updates? Absolutely not. No. Like, tell us your age, nine, nine. Boom. Got him, like, like, did they I don't know what this is for, but there was a bunch of stuff. Like, these are optional. And so they were, like, some of these questions are optional, and you don't have to fill them out if you don't want to. I thought these would be, like, sensitive questions, like, about, like, past history with, like, your own, like, mental, like, stuff, right? Like, or like trauma in your life, you know? Because sometimes it's about like trauma. When you do like the trauma informed thing, they're like, oh, have you? You know, because if you have had these things happen before, like, hearing about them and talking about them can be difficult for you, you know, fair, this is true, right? But it's like, how old are you? Like, what? What is your thing? I was like, bro, what? This is not even relevant information. I'm not giving you any of this just on principle, like, I don't really care, but, like, it's irrelevant to anything that has to happen, so I'm not gonna do it. Then the other one was, like, another survey thing, and it was like, completely not useful. As far as I could tell. It was like, What do you? How do you, how strongly do you agree about these statements? And then, and then it was like that for like, five questions, and then the other rest of the 15 was just like other random junk. Like the first one was like, this is pretty bad guys. Like, what that is, who wrote this? I do not underline weird.

Collin 1:01:46

It's almost like they, like, bought that from another, like, it's like, like, somebody took, I don't know, like somebody took that training. They didn't, like, yeah, and they were like, Oh, this is awesome. And they didn't change any change

Brandon 1:02:01

the homework, guys, come on. They got changed some of the answers. Yeah, wow. But in the opening survey thing, it was like, Would you like to receive email updates about what was like? All right, bro, no, we've gone too far here. We've like, only half of the questions were like, actually about the content that we were going to be talking about, sure, and then the rest of them. So it was only like six to seven questions, and then the rest of it was just like baloney. I was like, What is this all? Are we only talking about those things? And you this could take eight hours, like, Guys, no, no, I don't know what's happening. So I'm a little distressed about how this information is going to be given to me. I don't disagree with the fact that I'm getting some of this information, sure, because this is a very I think it's good that we've never had something like this before. This is like a missing spot that we've talked about, like, I've talked about this for like, ages. Like, this is a gap that we have, right? Like, we have people that know how to do this, but like, you know, I just always have to be like, Hey, I'm gonna email the counselor now, like, because I don't know what to do about anything, right? So, like, these are, I'm not poo pooing the information that I'm going to be given yet anyway, we'll see what it actually is, but it the methodology of delivery here is potentially going to be problematic. So we'll see how I make it on Monday with this, I don't know. I don't know updates to come.

Collin 1:03:54

Well, yeah, this is the unfortunate, yeah, I mean, it's, the, it's that, like, like you said, like, it's a good step, but like you said, like, the implementation part, and I know like, we, like, I fall into that too, of, like, Ah, I just watched a cool video on dog body language and behavior. I need to send that to my team. But like, I don't, yeah, sometimes I don't either, like, prep well enough. I just like, shoot this thing out. I'm like, This is awesome, but to make it, like, mandatory, yeah, like, yeah, that's,

Brandon 1:04:31

well, I mean, there's gonna be, I think there's gonna be like a presenter. So I don't think it's gonna be like, any of our people just like, going over the stuff, because that would be, I would be very distressed by that, because be like, Oh no, this will be good, but so there is like a outside percentages coming good to do it. But I don't know, like, if it's there was a guy that came at the beginning of the year and talked to us about some of this stuff a little bit, and if it's him again, I. I don't know those guys are like,

Speaker 2 1:05:07

like, he tries really hard to make like, funny jokes in his presentation. He doesn't just like go with it like. He really like forces it in there in an awkward way. I didn't particularly enjoy his big, long talk that he gave already at the beginning of the year. So I don't know if it's him, because I don't remember that guy's name. He's coming back.

Speaker 3 1:05:32

Well, it'll be he'll be in anticipation. I'll be in a chair

Speaker 2 1:05:39

for potentially an exceptionally long amount of time and sad. So we'll see, we'll see, I don't know, so that's, that's the only other thing I have happening. So I survived conferences, and now I have to survive professional being, professionally developed again. More, yeah, Ah,

Speaker 3 1:06:02

okay, yeah. So there you go. Very good. Well,

Speaker 2 1:06:06

I'm eager to see how things Yeah. Well, you know, it makes one of us

Collin 1:06:15

so well, I have a I have a haiku to Oh yeah, I do to send us off into the evening. Okay, lovely, steam and hoof once sang westward dreams and driven herds now the whistle sleeps.

Speaker 2 1:06:47

Yeah, I like that. Hey, go. I like that one a lot.

Collin 1:06:54

Oh, I'm ready to go back. Nice, get hold that video. It's on my list to do this week.

Speaker 2 1:07:03

Oh yeah, let's go. Good luck. Good looking for video. Well, much anticipatory for the next time. Yes, let me do this again. Okay, all right, love you. Love you too. Bye, bye. You you.