Latest / Life According to Brian and Jason / #53 - From Sawdust to Sales: Building a Woodworking Business in a Garage

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#53 - From Sawdust to Sales: Building a Woodworking Business in a Garage · Life According to Brian and Jason

• 0:11
  All right, friends, welcome to another episode of Life
• 0:15
  According to Brian and Jason. Hey, Jason.
• 0:18
  Hey, it's another week, man, and it's November. So what's new,
• 0:23
  dude? I was out after teaching school playing
• 0:26
  disc, sending a picture to my buddy And what
• 0:30
  does he send me back? A garage full of sawdust.
• 0:34
  What are you doing? You're like creating something in your garage.
• 0:38
  What's going on? Yeah, I, you know,
• 0:41
  I'm retired now and I'm not a person
• 0:45
  that can just sit. And so, yeah, I started a
• 0:49
  woodworking business a couple of years ago and it's called Berg Workshop
• 0:54
  and I do have an Etsy store and hey,
• 0:57
  it's the holidays, man. I got a craft fair coming up, so I
• 1:01
  am last minute in the throes of
• 1:05
  making things I think people want to buy. That's always the
• 1:09
  thing. Now wait a minute here for the, for the readers. I think I have
• 1:11
  talked maybe before. You made me a beautiful game table
• 1:15
  out of dark walnut and nice Arkansas
• 1:20
  woods. Great job. And then you started down a path of
• 1:24
  doing, you know, some YouTube stuff here and there,
• 1:27
  this channel and some others. What made you decide to pull the trigger though,
• 1:32
  have a deadline and do a craft fair?
• 1:35
  What was the impetus of that?
• 1:38
  Well, let me kind of back up a
• 1:42
  little bit. I mean, obviously I love building the table.
• 1:47
  I had here, I live in the land of hardwoods,
• 1:50
  you know, like out west, it's all pine,
• 1:54
  you know, and here I'm like, ooh. So I just started
• 1:58
  going to sawmills, you know, checking stuff out.
• 2:02
  And then after dad passed away, I inherited some of his
• 2:05
  tools and I have some knowledge. I mean, I worked in construction for
• 2:09
  a few years. I should say for a lot of years, you know, while I
• 2:13
  was, teacher. And, uh, also, uh, yeah, it's just
• 2:18
  kind of put this way, um, hey, can we make a
• 2:21
  Murphy bed? Sure, so make one for the house. And just one thing leads
• 2:25
  to another. And Tanis is always like, hey, can you
• 2:29
  build this to solve this problem? And that's really kind
• 2:33
  of how the whole workshop started. And so the last couple years have
• 2:36
  just been making stuff for friends and family And
• 2:40
  then I'm like, this is an expensive hobby. I got to get some
• 2:44
  income going. You know, saw blades
• 2:48
  and glue are not cheap and wood. And so,
• 2:51
  uh, yeah, I just started making odd,
• 2:54
  weird things that, uh, solve problems in our
• 2:58
  house. And I figured if it's an issue in our house,
• 3:02
  someone else might want it. Well, tell us
• 3:05
  again what woods you're working with, you know, because none of us are from Arkansas
• 3:08
  or know the hardwoods from the softwoods from Right.
• 3:12
  What are you— well, what do you enjoy working with?
• 3:16
  Well, I love walnut. Here it's called black walnut.
• 3:20
  And it's just a super rich looking,
• 3:26
  kind of a medium density hardwood. And so that's what
• 3:30
  your game table is made out of.
• 3:34
  Jason has a 4 by 4 game table that he said, hey, I need this
• 3:37
  size to play dominoes.
• 3:40
  That particular table I found kind of pre-cut.
• 3:46
  There's, there's a lot of woodworking factories in Northwest Arkansas,
• 3:49
  and so someone had a whole bunch of cutoffs that were
• 3:53
  a certain— I think they're like a 3 by 5 rectangle,
• 3:59
  about an inch thick or so. And so
• 4:03
  I was able to do a herringbone pattern on that, and so that really
• 4:07
  got me working with the hardwoods, and then You also have cherry on that
• 4:10
  table. So cherry is another hardwood around here.
• 4:14
  The, the big one out here besides the walnut is white
• 4:17
  oak, red oak. Those are harder than
• 4:22
  the walnut. So I work
• 4:26
  with those somewhat. I've worked with—
• 4:30
  there's a couple other things out here.
• 4:34
  There's like spalted versions of wood and they're kind of spotty looking.
• 4:38
  They're a little softer, but yeah, mainly I'm here
• 4:42
  for the oaks and the walnuts.
• 4:45
  Those are just spectacular. And what are
• 4:49
  you, what are you making with those woods?
• 4:53
  I make floating shelves.
• 4:56
  Typically black walnut works great for floating shelves
• 4:59
  and So right now I have a whole bunch of—
• 5:04
  they're small floating shelves because they're for like
• 5:08
  display books. Like, Tanis has all these travel books she's made
• 5:12
  from all of our travels around the world. She'll get on— I forget
• 5:16
  the website, um, you know, where you upload
• 5:20
  your pictures and you can make books and crafts and calendars and all
• 5:24
  that kind of stuff. And So she has all these travel books. So she goes,
• 5:28
  can you make me shelves that display all this? So I can make these miniature
• 5:33
  floating shelves that hold books.
• 5:36
  My brother found out I was making them and he's a vinyl record
• 5:40
  guy. And so I sent him a few and he uses
• 5:44
  them to display either pictures or vinyl above
• 5:48
  his record player. And so I got that.
• 5:52
  My bestseller out of Etsy is
• 5:56
  a sunglass holder or eyeglass holder. You know, as you age,
• 6:00
  Jason, I don't know if you know this, you wind up with a lot of
• 6:03
  pair of glasses, right? And so as
• 6:07
  you walk into like our house, Tammy's like,
• 6:10
  can we just have something that hangs them all from inside the frame and
• 6:15
  the hinge? And so I make eyeglass
• 6:21
  holder, I guess, with a brass rod, and they're about a
• 6:25
  foot wide. And so it's black
• 6:28
  walnut on both sides, and I make the ends different. Some are triangles,
• 6:32
  some are rectangles, some are parallelograms,
• 6:36
  things like that. And yeah, people love them. They kind of have
• 6:39
  a classic retro kind of vibe.
• 6:42
  I, I labeled them as if Frank Lloyd Wright designed these items,
• 6:46
  he would do this. So You know,
• 6:50
  I like that era, that mid-century modern kind
• 6:54
  of architectural style. So I try to put that
• 6:58
  into my designs. Like today, when I sent you that picture,
• 7:03
  those coasters had that cool little triangular stand.
• 7:08
  You know, most coasters you put in just like a little box. I'm like,
• 7:11
  that's boring. So I made like the little triangular stand.
• 7:15
  Kind of what I would think would be mid-century kind
• 7:20
  of version of that. And yeah, it looks pretty cool. So it's creative
• 7:24
  work. That's why I like it. Have I made any money? No, you know.
• 7:28
  No, but you know what you did though? You made
• 7:32
  your workshop garage very versatile. When you sent
• 7:36
  me that picture of you making what you were making, you had,
• 7:40
  you know, everything on wheels and was all moved around. What made you think
• 7:44
  ahead for that? Because most would just kind of have stuff where it is,
• 7:48
  right? Um, you know, we have a full-size truck
• 7:52
  and a 2-car garage, so we have a Toyota Tundra and
• 7:56
  it's big. You know, those things are 18.5 feet long and
• 8:00
  it's a 20-foot garage, and so it just barely fits in there.
• 8:04
  And since both of us are retired, we don't
• 8:07
  have a second vehicle. And so the truck gets to hog
• 8:12
  the garage, and which is perfect because I'm like,
• 8:15
  sweet, I'm gonna make a workshop. And so
• 8:19
  I love bikes, I love woodworking, and so that's the garage. And I'm like,
• 8:23
  okay, how can I do all this work but still clean
• 8:27
  up the garage? And so I had to make it modular. And what
• 8:31
  I mean by that is my big workstation, it's a 4 by 8
• 8:35
  It's got a table saw built into it. It's got pull-out
• 8:40
  drawers that are meant to hold a lot of weight, so they've
• 8:44
  got heavy ball bearing hinges. It's got an air compressor integrated
• 8:48
  to it, and then it holds all my other big tools— my miter saw,
• 8:54
  my planer, and just tons of
• 8:57
  hand tools. So they're all on that big cart.
• 9:00
  And I just push that off into the corner of the garage and
• 9:05
  the truck can pull in and then pull the truck out and I
• 9:09
  wheel it out. I got a dust collecting system that sits on the other
• 9:13
  side of the garage. I'll wheel that out. Of course, I got a big bandsaw
• 9:17
  that's on wheels up against the wall. And then I got a big bike rack,
• 9:21
  you know, so we gotta have the 6 or 7 bikes in the garage at
• 9:24
  all times. 'Cause of course you need 6 or 7 bikes. Yeah, I know.
• 9:28
  Well, you got one here, buddy. So that's part of the problem is I have
• 9:31
  bikes for friends.
• 9:35
  And, you know, Tance and I are outdoor
• 9:38
  enthusiasts. You know, we have a rooftop tent in that garage.
• 9:43
  Kayaks. Kayaks. We got 3 different versions of kayaks.
• 9:47
  We got big shelves for all of our, you know, we're from Colorado, so life
• 9:51
  is outdoors. And even here in North Little Arkansas, it's a very outdoor
• 9:55
  culture. And a lot of mountain biking and boating here.
• 9:59
  And yeah, so it took me, it took me a good
• 10:03
  year to kind of solve all my problems. Uh, built different
• 10:07
  benches for different things, morphed it. On one
• 10:12
  wall I have all my tools, like hand tools and stuff. I did a cleat
• 10:15
  system up on the wall, so I hand cut— well,
• 10:19
  I used a table saw, but I cut all these channels that you hang on
• 10:23
  the wall and then you make custom tool mounts that
• 10:27
  allows you to hang different things all over the
• 10:32
  garage wall. Like I have a charging station
• 10:35
  and if I don't like it where it's at, I can pick it
• 10:40
  up, slide it out of its slot, move it 2 feet over, lock it down.
• 10:43
  Now it's there. Um, and like
• 10:46
  working on bikes, all my wrenches are on magnetic strips. And so
• 10:51
  if I need, you know, 15mm, it's right there on the wall,
• 10:54
  pop it off. If I need T-handle Allen head
• 10:58
  wrenches, I created a little slot system for
• 11:02
  those so I can grab those real easy. I've got a small workbench over
• 11:05
  there. Yeah, you know, when you live out in
• 11:09
  the garage, you've got to make things usable so that,
• 11:12
  you know, when Tannis comes out, it's not a mess. It's a mess now tonight
• 11:16
  because I'm in the middle of a lot of drying projects. But most of the
• 11:20
  time I keep it very organized, and so the truck can pull in and out,
• 11:23
  it's not hitting anything. And that's how I
• 11:27
  figured out in life, if I really want to get things done, I want to
• 11:30
  be able to fix bikes, build bikes, or build
• 11:34
  anything in the shop, or woodworking,
• 11:38
  yeah, it's got to be organized. So YouTube,
• 11:41
  still a lot of ideas off YouTube. Well, and also You
• 11:45
  know, for a while you didn't have a garage at all. So I think
• 11:49
  you maybe missed it or you're like, you know what,
• 11:52
  I have a garage now. Yeah. And you, you kind of—
• 11:57
  I know, creative because you've had garages before, you know. Okay,
• 12:00
  I just have my stuff here. But yeah,
• 12:03
  your garage is definitely more tightly organized because of
• 12:07
  necessity, but also it's enabling you to You
• 12:11
  know, make— create something creative. You have the time to be
• 12:15
  creative. Yeah. Listening to sport radio now real quick.
• 12:19
  What, what, what are you— when you're not listening to your podcast, what sports
• 12:24
  teams are you listening to when you can get them? And is it XM?
• 12:28
  What is it? What's going on? Well, in a woodshop,
• 12:32
  you got to have hearing protection. And so before, I would just have regular
• 12:38
  like hearing protection earmuffs or earplugs.
• 12:42
  Well, I upgraded, Jason. I got wireless
• 12:48
  safety headphones that I can stream anything into my
• 12:52
  headphone, take calls, and it still protects my hearing. So they're like,
• 12:57
  they're like an upgrade over like say a regular, you know, ear headphone.
• 13:02
  Because they've got a, you know, table saws are loud.
• 13:06
  My table saw, my router table are super
• 13:11
  loud tools. And so I have that
• 13:15
  on most of the day and I stream a little bit of everything.
• 13:18
  Baseball's over, so that's not being streamed. I would,
• 13:22
  SiriusXM is the best for that because,
• 13:27
  you know, if there's a hockey game on or if there's
• 13:31
  baseball, baseball at least played during the day when I'm the shop, it's during the
• 13:35
  day. So that was the one sport I could listen to except for on the
• 13:38
  weekends. Yeah, you get college football, you can
• 13:41
  get, you know, NFL on Sunday. So yeah, if I'm out there and
• 13:45
  there's a game I'm listening to, like we follow Michigan,
• 13:48
  you know, because Pam's from Michigan and I follow my Arizona State.
• 13:52
  So I'll listen a little bit here and there. I do
• 13:55
  have to be careful because some things are full concentration.
• 14:00
  I have a goal each and every day I go out to the shop is
• 14:03
  at the end of the day, I still need to
• 14:07
  have 10 fingers. And so it's a good goal in
• 14:11
  life, right? Yes. And so sometimes I have to put it on pause.
• 14:14
  So I'm just, you know, I'm not rocking out
• 14:18
  or I'm listening to a bad call, you know, like, come on,
• 14:21
  rep, you know, that kind of thing.
• 14:24
  But yeah, yeah, I have to say, you know, Modern life is sweet,
• 14:28
  even though woodworking is just, you know, it's dusty, it's kind
• 14:33
  of, it's kind of a grind. But the end product, especially with the wood
• 14:37
  here in Arkansas, I really enjoy. So, you know,
• 14:41
  who knows how long it'll last, Jason. I've had big garages before.
• 14:44
  This is a pretty small garage. I've had, I had a 4-car
• 14:49
  garage in one house in my life, and, you know, and that was more of
• 14:53
  a auto shop. At that time, I was more into Corvettes,
• 14:58
  you know, storing stuff like that. And then the rest was all parking and
• 15:03
  things like that. So, and then I went through a period of life
• 15:06
  where, you know, when I was divorced, I just rented places,
• 15:10
  had no garages. And then Tannis and I got together
• 15:13
  and we lived in a real small place. And then we traveled for a couple
• 15:16
  of years and lived out of a tent.
• 15:20
  I have, I have aspirations to be as organized
• 15:23
  and productive in my garage, but you've seen my garage.
• 15:27
  It is not that. It's a work in progress. I am storing quite
• 15:31
  a few things of other friends. I am. Um, yes, you do.
• 15:35
  It's good. And I— you're an inspiration. So that's
• 15:39
  why I'm like, well, I was there this summer. You had it pretty organized,
• 15:41
  I have to say. Pretty organized. Yeah, but I just got to
• 15:46
  get my tools organized and Even a little bit more. So I got
• 15:50
  to, you know, after I read the
• 15:55
  book Atomic Habits. Yes. Great book. Great book.
• 15:59
  Great book. The biggest thing is,
• 16:02
  are you organized enough to where
• 16:07
  it's available? Proximity is king, right? So like
• 16:11
  Atomic Habits, that author's like, okay, if you want to get up and run in
• 16:15
  the morning, where do you put your running shoes? You put them right there next
• 16:17
  to the bed. And your clothes. There's no excuse. Get out of bed,
• 16:21
  it's right there. Go for a run or a walk right there. Same thing
• 16:24
  in the garage. The minute I walk out to the garage, I could work on
• 16:28
  something super fast. It could be anything, you know, bike,
• 16:32
  you know, something that broke in the house, or, you know,
• 16:35
  in 5 minutes I can have my workshop just wheeled out,
• 16:39
  off I go. And so there's no excuse. I took away all the excuses not
• 16:43
  to do something. 'Cause I tell you what, man, when you're retired,
• 16:47
  it is really easy to go, I think I'm just gonna Netflix today.
• 16:51
  Hmm. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna watch some YouTube videos
• 16:55
  on woodworking in 8 hours. Blink,
• 16:58
  blink. All right.
• 17:01
  So yeah, I just tried
• 17:05
  to, if you're gonna do a hobby or you're
• 17:09
  gonna start a business, actually the woodworking is a business. You know, I actually
• 17:13
  have an LLC here, you call it, or in Arkansas.
• 17:17
  And so it kind of does 2 things for me.
• 17:21
  I have 2 separate businesses that run under that one LLC.
• 17:25
  And yeah, and then, you know, that's what's fun
• 17:29
  is, okay, now it's serious because I'm paying the government
• 17:33
  money every year to keep my license, you know. And so
• 17:38
  yeah, so it really does make me roll up the sleeves and,
• 17:42
  and work on it while I can, you know, because who knows,
• 17:46
  you know, if we decide to move and go somewhere else, I'll decide,
• 17:49
  okay, how much is this coming with me? Or, or I sell off what
• 17:53
  I didn't like. And then wherever we land next, I can build
• 17:58
  a better beast. Right. Yeah.
• 18:02
  So, so yeah, man, that's my world. That's the world
• 18:06
  I live in. Well, that's a good one. And you have next Sunday
• 18:11
  is your deadline, so after that you're gonna be like, oh yeah, yeah,
• 18:14
  take a little break from the shop. Or, or has it been
• 18:18
  good? No, I love it. I, I'm a little,
• 18:21
  a little bit under pressure here. I got back from Croatia, and our
• 18:27
  2 podcasts ago I was kind of coughing and hacking, and I
• 18:31
  learned I had strep and it had been unchecked
• 18:36
  for a while. And so strep turns into scarlet
• 18:40
  fever and causes all kinds of internal organ problems
• 18:43
  if left untreated with antibiotics,
• 18:47
  bacterial infection. So I didn't know I had it. As a
• 18:51
  disclaimer, I had one day of sore throat and I never ran a fever,
• 18:55
  2 symptoms of, you know, strap,
• 18:59
  but I wasn't getting any better and I kept kind of getting worse
• 19:03
  every day. So I went in a little late, doctor chewed my butt,
• 19:07
  and so lesson learned. But yeah, and that put me
• 19:11
  down for almost 2 weeks. So I lost 2 weeks of work on
• 19:15
  that. But you still put money down. Money was down on
• 19:19
  the craft fair. Yeah, the craft fair. I rented my table already, and so I'm
• 19:24
  I'll get enough. It won't be quite what I envisioned,
• 19:28
  but I need to have 10 products. And I try to scale
• 19:31
  them to where I got $10 items
• 19:35
  that people come by and go, oh, hey, I need one of those for stocking
• 19:39
  stuffers or something. So those are going to be like phone
• 19:42
  holders. I've developed
• 19:47
  a small version of an eyeglass holder that's much
• 19:51
  cheaper to make and just sticks on the wall with a double-sided removable sticky tape.
• 19:56
  Looks very cool. A lot of cedar, that one.
• 19:59
  And cedar is nice too. The cedar here
• 20:03
  is pretty good. I don't think it's as good as the cedar out of Pacific
• 20:07
  Northwest, but anyway, that's a different topic. Um,
• 20:11
  all the way up to, um, I make custom cutting
• 20:16
  rack holders for all your cutting boards. So,
• 20:20
  so like in my house we have like 4 cutting boards, maybe 5. And so
• 20:24
  Tana's like, can you solve this problem? So I made these kind
• 20:29
  of racks out of brass, walnut, and epoxy.
• 20:34
  So I mixed colored epoxies. The one we have in the house is green
• 20:38
  with the walnut. And so just, you slide your cutting
• 20:42
  board in from the side and it organizes them all. It's got slots.
• 20:46
  So They're very cool. So I got those. So those are going to be my
• 20:50
  higher, higher-end piece. Floating shelves, eyeglass holders,
• 20:55
  probably a lot of coasters because that's pretty
• 20:58
  easy to slam out on a short timeline and they look cool.
• 21:03
  And then I'm working on, uh,
• 21:06
  kind of some various things like candle holders. It's the
• 21:09
  holidays, right? So, yep, votive candle holders.
• 21:14
  Last year for gifts I made card holders
• 21:18
  out of black walnut. So like all your holiday cards,
• 21:21
  get like a set of different sized
• 21:25
  holders, and so you kind of put out a display and put all your Christmas
• 21:29
  cards in these little slots. And so I'll have those, and the list
• 21:32
  goes on. We'll see, let's see, let's see if
• 21:36
  I can, if I can do it. You also had planters. Too bad you don't
• 21:40
  have one of those left to kind of bring out. Yeah, that's a seasonal thing,
• 21:44
  so In the summer or spring, I make cedar planter
• 21:48
  boxes, custom planter boxes. You're all over, man. That table is money you made.
• 21:52
  Yeah. It's awesome, man. It works really good. So you've learned
• 21:56
  also, what's one tip would you tell the listeners here
• 22:00
  if you wanted to, one,
• 22:04
  start a mini business there, and two, how to stay
• 22:08
  with it? What have you learned? With that, would you
• 22:12
  say? You know, what's interesting is I've worked in a lot of businesses.
• 22:16
  Like way back in the day in college,
• 22:20
  I worked in a family business. I worked for a few friends
• 22:24
  in high school in their personal businesses. But then after
• 22:28
  that, I worked in government. You know, I always worked for somebody else my whole
• 22:31
  career. Starting a business is no joke.
• 22:35
  You don't make money for a while. That's rule number one is
• 22:38
  you don't, it's rare to ever
• 22:42
  make money month one of any kind of business.
• 22:45
  Plus I kind of learned, I mean, woodworking is a saturated
• 22:49
  market, especially here, all the cool woods. So you gotta
• 22:53
  be unique. You know, what are you gonna make that's your own? There's a lot
• 22:57
  of just trial and error in the creative space. If you wanna make any
• 23:02
  kind of money in the business side in creativity, like YouTube.
• 23:06
  I tried YouTube videos. Obviously you and I do podcasts.
• 23:11
  I had 2 different channels on YouTube. All of
• 23:16
  it just, you got to pick a focus and that's where you got to spend
• 23:19
  your time and your time you're giving away until you
• 23:24
  figure out your focus in your market. You make no money.
• 23:28
  So yeah. So yeah.
• 23:32
  That's what I've learned. Okay, so but what, what's one thing it gives
• 23:35
  you that gets you through the, the time?
• 23:40
  What is it giving you right now? Maybe more since
• 23:43
  you're retired or not. What is it different now that you're not worried? Like,
• 23:46
  could you work a full day with, with kids and stuff and go,
• 23:49
  go back and, you know, start making coasters when you get
• 23:53
  home? Or would you— I, I guess if
• 23:57
  I could, uh, you know, it's a different time of life, right?
• 24:01
  I wouldn't have done that probably when I was younger
• 24:05
  and had kids. One thing that I do do is
• 24:10
  I've always had an eBay store and I
• 24:14
  have a lot of leftover bike parts and I actually sell the bike parts to
• 24:17
  make money to buy woodworking
• 24:21
  parts and tools. So I actually have another side
• 24:25
  hustle that is actually more profitable than woodworking.
• 24:30
  So that I can be more creative on woodworking. Flipping parts,
• 24:33
  it's not very creative. It's good business,
• 24:37
  but it's not super creative. And so yeah,
• 24:40
  I like the creative work because I get to do my own thing. I don't
• 24:44
  have a boss, you know. So if I make something that's crap, well, I guess
• 24:48
  it's on me. You know, I've got no one to blame. And that's pretty
• 24:53
  empowering, I have to say. Jason, you're a creative guy. You're a cartoonist.
• 24:57
  You do many other things that are super creative. And yeah,
• 25:02
  I thought, well, I have the time. Let's see if I can make a run
• 25:05
  at it. I'm not looking to make $100K. I'm just looking
• 25:09
  to where I build certain things
• 25:12
  that people like and then I can scale those things,
• 25:16
  you know, and then evolve it. Like, how can I add
• 25:19
  more personalization? That's the next venture is
• 25:23
  I'm working with my son on laser engravers and
• 25:27
  how to laser engrave some of the products I make that
• 25:31
  people would then buy because it's more personal.
• 25:35
  And that seems to be the future. Everybody can buy anything on
• 25:39
  Amazon, but when you go to Etsy or the other places
• 25:43
  and go, oh, but I can put my grandpa's
• 25:47
  name on it, that's more meaningful. Not every product needs that,
• 25:51
  but you need to offer it if you're going to be
• 25:55
  in that landscape. So yeah, that's kind of— I've
• 25:59
  just, I've tried on a lot of hats since I retired 4
• 26:03
  years ago. It's like, how many different hats can I put on and try?
• 26:07
  4 years ago, that's crazy. I don't know. That is crazy.
• 26:11
  I know. But I tell you what, I could have spent it doing other things.
• 26:16
  Um, or I could spend it doing— when
• 26:21
  you go, oh, I got all this freedom, it's pretty daunting. I was
• 26:25
  a little overwhelmed. I didn't really know who I was. And so I had
• 26:30
  to kind of sit down and go, okay, what did I really
• 26:33
  like way back when? And I loved,
• 26:36
  loved bikes. And so that's why I have— I build bikes,
• 26:40
  volunteer at a bike program, and I,
• 26:44
  and I flip parts online. So that's one aspect of life.
• 26:47
  What's the other thing? Oh, I like sketching. And then
• 26:51
  so I sketch, uh, what I make in the wood shop. Why?
• 26:54
  Because in my own garage I have the tools. That's the stuff I
• 26:58
  can make with what I have. And I think that's the biggest rule is what
• 27:02
  do you have? It's real easy to go out and say, oh,
• 27:05
  I want to be a YouTuber, and you can buy $5,000
• 27:08
  worth camera equipment, you know, and, and get nowhere,
• 27:13
  um, if you don't have a vision and a plan. Versus mine,
• 27:16
  it's just all junk, secondhand tools, you know.
• 27:20
  I think I bought one thing in there that's new, and that's a spindle sander.
• 27:24
  Other than that, I've just— everything is used and secondhand.
• 27:28
  I got more money in it, or given to me, right,
• 27:31
  inherited, you know. And so I'm like, this is what I have.
• 27:35
  This is what I know I can do because I was pretty crafty with
• 27:40
  it when I worked construction. And I'm like, now I can refine it and
• 27:45
  sketch it out, plan it. And so it's learning to do with what you
• 27:48
  already have versus investing in the dollars
• 27:52
  and letting it evolve as I go.
• 27:55
  I kind of learned that when I did the YouTube thing too, but I wasn't
• 27:59
  as inspired to sit there and edit videos all day
• 28:03
  versus I can stand in the workshop all day and the day will just disappear.
• 28:08
  Yeah, that's good. Yeah, because I'm a
• 28:12
  stress eater and this is one thing I know about myself. So if I'm making
• 28:15
  videos, I'll be like, I'm gonna go get some chips, I'm back.
• 28:19
  I'm gonna go get some peanuts, I'll be back, you know. And,
• 28:22
  um, first when I'm in the shop, I just, I lose all sense of time
• 28:27
  and I'm like Oh, it's like 3 o'clock and I haven't eaten at all today.
• 28:30
  Didn't even have breakfast, but I'm out here. So that tells
• 28:34
  you something. You're eating sawdust. That's what you're eating, buddy.
• 28:38
  Yeah. And you're liking it. It's nutritious. So yeah,
• 28:41
  that's, that's, you know how that happens. You just lose yourself.
• 28:45
  Yeah, you get caught in a project. Well, that means you're in the flow,
• 28:48
  man. In the flow. Flow state. Yeah. You did it. That's good.
• 28:52
  Okay, well, before we go, I got one more thing. The labor and salary cap
• 28:55
  proposal. Major League Baseball proposed delaying the league salary cap until
• 29:00
  2028 and shifted cap projections in an ongoing effort to
• 29:03
  win over the players union amid free agency. Is it
• 29:07
  going to work? Before we leave, Brian, is that going to do anything? I don't
• 29:12
  even know what you said there. I don't even know what all that means.
• 29:14
  Are they going— they said, hey everyone, instead of next year
• 29:19
  dealing with this, let's put it off a year. Oh,
• 29:22
  so instead of, let's, you know, let's just kind of keep
• 29:26
  it maybe how it is. Yeah. Whoa. You know,
• 29:30
  we'll talk about the salary cap and funding issues.
• 29:34
  And then, of course, the players don't like how it is. They think they're not
• 29:37
  making right what they need to make. So do you think— do you think
• 29:41
  they will budge in our last minute here? Do you think they're going to go,
• 29:45
  you know what, you're right? Let's wait.
• 29:48
  Or have they found the gauge and it's not a popular move if they strike?
• 29:52
  That is not going to be good. I think the players are going to strike
• 29:56
  regardless. Yep. Yeah. That's the bottom line.
• 30:02
  I think it runs in cycles. I think,
• 30:05
  you know, you and I come from education. There's always unions in education and
• 30:10
  there was always cycles. Like things are good for 6, 7 years.
• 30:14
  Not that things are terrible, but it just feels like it's time to strike,
• 30:19
  right? Let's make this issue an issue.
• 30:22
  And I kind of feel Major League Baseball's in that.
• 30:26
  They just love to do that. And that's
• 30:31
  kind of how they keep the balance of power, maybe. Now you're dealing with billionaire
• 30:35
  owners. So I think they're going to
• 30:39
  strike regardless. And the reason why, whether they gain any
• 30:43
  more ground, is to send a message to the owners.
• 30:46
  Don't need to keep thinking about us. You know?
• 30:50
  Yes. Right. Yeah. I agree. I think
• 30:54
  they're going to say, hey, we tried everyone. We're not the bad guys.
• 30:57
  And right. You know, the players are just, you know,
• 31:01
  so yeah, I think so. Yeah.
• 31:04
  Yeah. I think they'll
• 31:07
  come up with something. Who knows? It all depends on how far
• 31:11
  they dig their feet in. And, you know,
• 31:15
  if the economy slows, that's not good for the players.
• 31:19
  If the economy is still fairly strong in 2027,
• 31:24
  you know, that gives them some more leverage.
• 31:27
  But yeah, it's hard to strike when fans are
• 31:31
  losing jobs and don't have money. You know. Oh yeah,
• 31:35
  because then that place— yeah, then that's good. That's a tough look
• 31:39
  saying, oh man, I'm mad because I'm not, I'm not getting $300 million
• 31:44
  in a contract. You know, people can't afford
• 31:47
  gas. It's a bad look. Yeah, it is a bad look. Oh, these ticket
• 31:51
  prices. Yeah, it's already a bad look. But yeah,
• 31:55
  even if the economy falters a little bit more,
• 31:59
  I think it's even a worse look for him because You and I
• 32:02
  have said it in prior podcasts, uh, Major League's
• 32:06
  too expensive for our income now. We've almost been priced out in Middle America.
• 32:11
  I know. It's like, so now to
• 32:16
  go to a ball game is like, oh, I got to save for like you
• 32:18
  save for vacation. That just seems silly. Seems silly.
• 32:23
  So that's why I like AA ball. It's like $12.
• 32:28
  There you go. Yep. But anyway,
• 32:32
  no matter what, what's your— what's your thought? Oh yeah,
• 32:36
  no, they're gonna— they're gonna push it because they think they can do it.
• 32:40
  Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And I
• 32:44
  think it's gonna be a bad look and— but they're gonna just go
• 32:48
  for it anyway. Yep, I agree. Yeah. Hey,
• 32:52
  but won't it be fun to find out, right, Jason? Well,
• 32:55
  we'll know here. In a couple of months. So that's
• 32:59
  right, man. Well, hey, guess what?
• 33:03
  What? Hey, our time is up, man. And hey,
• 33:06
  thanks for asking me about my sawdust,
• 33:09
  dude. We've been in the workshop and time just flew. I know.
• 33:13
  One of our longer podcasts. What is it? You know, we're going on
• 33:17
  35 minutes easy because you're in the woodshop. I know.
• 33:23
  Hey, don't expect any woodworking gifts this year.
• 33:27
  Okay, okay. Because, you know, now I'm trying to sell them for profit.
• 33:31
  Yeah, your free days are over, buddy.
• 33:34
  Hey, hey friends, thanks for joining us on this episode of
• 33:38
  Life According to Brian and Jason. And yeah,
• 33:42
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• 33:45
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• 33:49
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• 34:40
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