Latest / Inside Integration / Episode 123: Another Trade Show and a Couple of Old Tools

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Episode 123: Another Trade Show and a Couple of Old Tools · Inside Integration

• 0:00
  Welcome to Inside Integration Podcast.
• 0:02
  My name is Chris. I am joined, as usual, by my
• 0:04
  partner Jason. What is up, everybody?
• 0:08
  And the big news of this week, are we really going to go into
• 0:12
  four weeks in a row talking about trade shows this this very
• 0:17
  weird, very strange, very incestuous industry?
• 0:21
  And the answer is yes, briefly, if you're, if you're, if you're
• 0:25
  not aware of the news of VIXA and Pro Source, who we, we know
• 0:31
  somebody who works there and that and HTSA they all, they all
• 0:37
  came together and announced the reside show, which is going to
• 0:42
  be in conjunction with Infocom with Let a Palooza out in
• 0:46
  Orlando next year. So now we have 2 competing AV
• 0:52
  integrator shows which is which is super interesting.
• 0:56
  Or residential. For residential, right well,
• 0:59
  considering that, you know, CD Expo brought in like they were
• 1:02
  the, you know, they had a commercial integrator Expo part
• 1:05
  of it last year, which I don't even know if that was a thing.
• 1:08
  I don't remember running into any commercial integrators out
• 1:11
  at CD last year. But but now, you know, we've
• 1:14
  basically got two shows that do the same thing at different, you
• 1:18
  know, on on different coasts until next year when they're
• 1:21
  both in the same place. And this is going to be this is
• 1:23
  going to get super interesting. But you know, I, Jason, I would
• 1:28
  ask your thoughts on it, but. No comment, much too close to
• 1:33
  the best for me. All right.
• 1:36
  But what what I will say is, yeah, I I think more options are
• 1:41
  better. And I think for the opportunity
• 1:46
  to reflect kind of what the business is doing right now as
• 1:50
  people's interests. And I know opportunities shift
• 1:54
  away from just solely residential and we start looking
• 1:56
  at more commercial and all of that.
• 1:59
  Having a lighting show and a residential AV show and a, you
• 2:05
  know, commercial integration show kind of all in the same
• 2:08
  space doesn't not make sense. No, I mean it almost makes too
• 2:14
  much sense. Right.
• 2:15
  It's kind of like ISC model or you know, the, the, you know,
• 2:19
  Integrated Systems Europe show it looks kind of a lot like that
• 2:22
  kind of so well. And I think that's, I think
• 2:25
  that's a good model, right? Like we talked about ISC and we
• 2:27
  kind of Pooh poohed it and like, it's not really.
• 2:30
  It's not. Really.
• 2:31
  Everybody just, you know, uses it a trip to go to Europe or
• 2:33
  reason, right? A reason to write off a trip to
• 2:36
  Europe? Excuse me?
• 2:37
  Well, I mean, we rightly shat on it for that reason I I think.
• 2:41
  Out of jealousy more more than anything else, 'cause I didn't
• 2:43
  get to go and. But that is, you know, the, the
• 2:46
  more people you talk to like that, that is an amazing show
• 2:48
  like that is that's a good model to follow.
• 2:51
  And if we can bring that here and, you know, make one or both
• 2:55
  of our our two industry shows match that more more closely,
• 2:59
  then OK, yeah, maybe that's maybe that's a good thing.
• 3:02
  But yeah, there's no, we're not. You know, we're talking a year
• 3:05
  from now before this reside show gets off the ground.
• 3:08
  Yeah, it's, it's interesting to think that it is earlier in the
• 3:12
  show season, right? So now you're going to have, you
• 3:14
  know, you're going to have Infocomm in Orlando with Avixa
• 3:18
  and Reside and Light a Palooza. It's going to be, you know, in
• 3:22
  June. And you know, then CD Expo is
• 3:25
  still going to be in September, which you know, how that who
• 3:29
  knows, right? Like how is that going to work
• 3:31
  out? So now we're kind of jumping the
• 3:32
  line a little bit in the show season and it's a good time of
• 3:37
  year. You know, June is probably a
• 3:38
  good time of the year to do it, right.
• 3:40
  Like, you know, your kids are out of school, you know, you can
• 3:43
  do trips. There's not a whole ton that's
• 3:45
  on the calendar for for that frim time.
• 3:48
  You're not fighting the back to school slog.
• 3:51
  You're not fighting Labor Day weekend, right.
• 3:53
  Like all of those things. Like again, I'm, I'm, I'm, you
• 3:58
  know, I'm not the spokesperson for, for any of this.
• 4:01
  And some of it is close to home. I have 0 information other than.
• 4:04
  I know that. I'm just trying to slide that
• 4:06
  envelope further. You know, I see.
• 4:08
  How uncomfortable we can make. And really, well, it needs to be
• 4:11
  a lot more full. I'll just say right now it's
• 4:15
  just full of air. So, but it is, it is fun to,
• 4:22
  it's fun to think about what, what a new, you know, a new
• 4:26
  opportunity, a new show can actually be, you know, and to
• 4:29
  actually have those focus areas where, hey, you know, I'm, I
• 4:33
  don't know, maybe I'm the guy that doesn't give a damn about
• 4:36
  AV. All I want to look at is
• 4:37
  lighting or all I care about is my commercial stuff.
• 4:40
  Cool. Well, I've got some extra time.
• 4:42
  Maybe I should go look at this other market, you know, maybe
• 4:45
  some, you know, some chocolate will get dipped in some peanut
• 4:48
  butter along the way or, you know, some, some pollination
• 4:51
  will happen. You know, I think, I think that
• 4:52
  opportunity is, is is exciting. Yeah.
• 4:55
  So. Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:57
  And and you know what I mean, there's something to be said
• 4:59
  for, you know, it being, you know, Infocom typically being
• 5:03
  commercial focused and they're being a big focus on, you know,
• 5:05
  commercial stuff, right, like huddle rooms and, you know,
• 5:09
  enterprise, you know, enterprise networking and that kind of
• 5:12
  thing, right. And that's more, you know, that
• 5:14
  may be more the angle, you know, of, of the shows traditionally
• 5:19
  right now, we've got this reside thing that is pretty good,
• 5:22
  right? Because if you're an integrator,
• 5:23
  you need to be in networking. You need to know that these
• 5:25
  other things exist and to be able to wander, you know, from
• 5:28
  your, your little purview over to this little purview.
• 5:32
  That's something that you probably haven't been able to do
• 5:34
  with CDA, right? Like you're not really able to
• 5:36
  go it like Polycom does not have a booth at CDA Expo, right?
• 5:39
  And you know, maybe you're seeing more Polycom stuff now.
• 5:43
  On the other hand, in the last couple years, CDA Expo has
• 5:46
  gotten that right. Like we've, you know, we had a
• 5:49
  pretty huge ubiquity booth, right?
• 5:51
  Like there's like that was kind of a weird thing to be at, you
• 5:56
  know, at at CDA Expo. But it makes sense, you know,
• 6:00
  and you know, more and more and you see, you know, a lot of this
• 6:03
  bleed over or whatever. Now, my opinion on things is
• 6:07
  that I don't think 2 shows can survive.
• 6:09
  I, you know, I frankly, and, and this is just my opinion and no
• 6:12
  one else's. I don't see both of these shows
• 6:17
  being around unless one or both of them change in very profound
• 6:21
  ways, right? Like, I don't, I don't see that.
• 6:23
  I think you're going to have dealers that are every single
• 6:25
  year they're going to pick one or the other.
• 6:27
  I think manufacturers are going to pick one or the other.
• 6:30
  You know, now it's kind of been put in front of a manufacturer
• 6:33
  to say like, OK, do you want to spend your, you know, whatever,
• 6:36
  you know, whatever amount for your space, do you want to spend
• 6:40
  it on this show or on that show Is 1 crazy expensive and one is,
• 6:45
  you know, less expensive? Is that, you know, maybe that
• 6:47
  factors in What's the food traffic going to be like?
• 6:49
  I think, you know, I think it's going to be really hard for both
• 6:53
  of these two entities to survive and, and, and keep going.
• 6:57
  You know, at at least, you know, maybe maybe we have one, maybe
• 7:00
  we have one year with both shows.
• 7:02
  And then after that, I think everything kind of gets
• 7:03
  scattered to the wind and we see how this goes, right?
• 7:05
  So it's either it's either a failed experiment on one side or
• 7:08
  it's the end of the road for the other side.
• 7:10
  Who knows? My personal take is that you're
• 7:13
  not going to get integrators who are going to both every year.
• 7:16
  And I think that's going to, you know, I think that's kind of
• 7:18
  going to mold what the next step is.
• 7:20
  And, you know, with manufacturers as well.
• 7:22
  I think it'll be, you know, personally for me, and again, I,
• 7:26
  I don't, I don't have any skin in this game whatsoever other
• 7:29
  than, you know, being a CD member for Jesus, almost three,
• 7:32
  you know, almost 3 decades now. And, you know, having that be
• 7:35
  the organization that I kind of came up in.
• 7:38
  I mean, I don't, you know, I, I just, I, I can't see it as I
• 7:44
  would rather me personally, I think I would rather go to
• 7:46
  Infocom just because it's something new, right?
• 7:48
  Like this is, this is a new thing.
• 7:50
  Let me see what these guys have to offer at least in the first
• 7:53
  year as a trial balloon. Let me see how this goes.
• 7:56
  And I think that's how it's going to work this year.
• 7:57
  I think you're going to have a lot of guys who go to the show,
• 8:01
  a lot of integrator guys who go to the show and I think they're
• 8:03
  going to pass CDA in, you know, in order to do it.
• 8:06
  I think you're going to say I'm going to go away in June and I'm
• 8:09
  not going to go away in September.
• 8:10
  And I think manufacturers are going to pick up on that.
• 8:13
  And I think you're going to see a a different CD, a show.
• 8:17
  Yeah, that's. My take, I mean, it's all I mean
• 8:21
  for me, I just look at it, I guess it's it's all owned by the
• 8:24
  same thing the the show part of it is anyway, right?
• 8:27
  The exhibition is so they're not going to compete against
• 8:31
  themselves and they're going to know pretty quickly what the
• 8:34
  what the attrition or what the fall off is going to be like
• 8:36
  between the two. And if the vendors are all
• 8:39
  shifting to one or the other, at least they've got it all in
• 8:42
  house. So it's not going to be a
• 8:43
  surprise to anybody. You know, CD of the organization
• 8:47
  versus CD of the show. I think there's some key
• 8:49
  differentiation to make there. And I think the organization, if
• 8:54
  they know if what if what Daryl put up on on his social media
• 9:00
  and stuff, you know, rings true, then they're going to be
• 9:03
  positioned to succeed going forward.
• 9:05
  And with engagement and still, you know, with international
• 9:09
  accreditation and all that stuff, right?
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  Like there, there's still, there's still a lot of room for
• 9:14
  for all that kind of stuff, but. There is, there is 100% a
• 9:17
  position of advocacy that that CDA represents there right?
• 9:22
  Like there's definitely, you know, trade, you know, getting,
• 9:25
  we've talked about it on a show, you know, all the good works
• 9:27
  that they do and and, you know, trying to get a a trade
• 9:30
  degradation for what we do and and that kind of thing.
• 9:34
  Yeah, it'd be very interesting to see how this goes.
• 9:37
  So maybe there isn't a trade show anymore, or maybe it
• 9:39
  doesn't, you know, you know, maybe we end up with CEDIA and
• 9:44
  custom electronics in as part of the, you know, National Kitchen
• 9:48
  of Bath show. You know, maybe, you know, maybe
• 9:51
  that's where this ends up, right?
• 9:52
  I mean, let's all go to Orlando in May.
• 9:55
  It's such a good time of year to be there and that's what we did.
• 9:59
  The home builders show there. It's they build a, they build a
• 10:02
  house inside the Convention Center in like 72 hours.
• 10:05
  It's the whole thing. It's.
• 10:06
  Crazy that is. That is pretty dope dude.
• 10:08
  It's for. Level 5 finishes and you know,
• 10:11
  on on the last day, you're like, OK, sure, that's, that's what
• 10:14
  we're doing here. But yeah, I mean, again, I'm not
• 10:18
  a spokesperson for for anybody at at my employer and all I can
• 10:22
  do is certainly look at the field and make my same comments
• 10:25
  as well. But you know, I, I, I think I
• 10:29
  tend to agree with you. I don't know how much room on
• 10:31
  the calendar calendar there is for two big mega, you know, all
• 10:35
  out blow out shows, but you know, maybe they're not the same
• 10:38
  show. Like I think there's, you know,
• 10:40
  I think there's a lot of time still yet to click by on the
• 10:44
  clock before we know what that's all going to look like.
• 10:47
  And you know, maybe CDA has a different partnership.
• 10:50
  Maybe they take it in a you know, maybe they're the guys
• 10:52
  that are in the the green show with the outdoor landscape guys
• 10:56
  and the whatever. I mean, who who knows, right,
• 10:58
  and what we can keep and we continue to keep lumping the
• 11:02
  show in with the organization. And I think that's, you know,
• 11:05
  I'm guilty certainly of that, but I, I think it's.
• 11:08
  Just the, it's the most physical part of it, right?
• 11:11
  Like it's, it's very much the most visible part of, you know,
• 11:14
  of the thing. And I think they've, they've
• 11:16
  worked on making that not the case with a lot more, you know,
• 11:19
  pressure releases about things that they're working on behind
• 11:21
  the scenes and, and that kind of thing.
• 11:22
  And I think that's great. But yeah, show wise, you know
• 11:25
  like 90% of integrators if they even know what CD is.
• 11:29
  Yeah, there's so much like awareness projected on the
• 11:32
  people that don't deserve it. Yeah, and it's not their we're.
• 11:37
  Just we're zealots. That's why we keep talking
• 11:39
  about. Yeah, it's all we have to do in
• 11:40
  our lives. Nobody else loves us.
• 11:42
  I think this is the way we're We're stuck in this abusive
• 11:46
  relationship and we can't get out.
• 11:48
  It's true. So with that said, tools that
• 11:54
  have impacted your. But don't bump.
• 11:59
  Yeah, you're impacted anyway. So, yeah.
• 12:04
  So, so our, our regularly scheduled programming was going
• 12:07
  to be, you know, talking about different tools throughout your
• 12:09
  career that that have made an impact on you.
• 12:12
  And I, I know I'm catching you completely flat on this,
• 12:15
  however, not at all. You know, these are these are
• 12:18
  all things I think that just kind of, you know, there was
• 12:21
  that thing a couple months ago about like, you know, how often
• 12:23
  do you think of the Roman Empire?
• 12:25
  Right, right, right. So, yeah, yeah, a few times as a
• 12:30
  matter of fact, for for whatever God awful reason.
• 12:34
  But I think that this is one of those things, right?
• 12:36
  Like there it is. It is an area day goes by that I
• 12:39
  don't think of, you know. Oh yeah, I remember that time I
• 12:42
  was using a flex bit and did this or, you know, or did that
• 12:45
  or whatever. All right, so let's let's let's
• 12:48
  get into that a little bit. These are these are tools that
• 12:52
  you know, basically you figured out and changed your life
• 12:55
  throughout the course of your career.
• 12:58
  So what do you got? You want to go first.
• 13:00
  Sure. Yeah, I think, I mean for me I
• 13:03
  would have to say the one that really blew my mind the most
• 13:07
  seeing it work was the drop chain.
• 13:10
  And I don't know why that simple idea is was so profound, but
• 13:15
  I've never seen it done. So like I'm on I'm in an attic
• 13:18
  with my Co worker Alberto, you know, God bless you shout out to
• 13:22
  Alberto man. We we, we did he's.
• 13:25
  Sort of. He's sort of a minor celebrity.
• 13:27
  Yeah, he kind of is Roberto Pinero, man, God, God bless that
• 13:31
  guy. So one of one of the O GS in in
• 13:34
  my career, that's for sure. But yeah, we are.
• 13:37
  We're, you know, we're in an attic of some, you know,
• 13:40
  sweating our brains out some, you know, whatever upstairs
• 13:45
  attic trying to figure out how we're going to get a wire down.
• 13:47
  And I was watching him work and like he drilled like two holes
• 13:51
  in the top plate, dropped the chain down and was like looking
• 13:54
  with a light down on the other one.
• 13:55
  And I've never seen it done before.
• 13:57
  I just, you know, I, I knew that that's how wires got done and
• 14:01
  all of that, but I just never seen it actually happen.
• 14:03
  He's like, all right, man, if you go downstairs and cut, you
• 14:07
  know, next to here where we marked, you're going to see the
• 14:10
  chain. And I remember cutting open the
• 14:12
  wall using my favorite tool, my, my second whatever, my second
• 14:18
  favorite tool, which was that mud ring template with a little
• 14:22
  level on it. I got it all levelled out.
• 14:24
  I'm cutting out my hole. And I remember cutting the
• 14:27
  drywall open and seeing that chain like just dangling inside
• 14:30
  the inside the wall cavity and pulling it out or ripping wire
• 14:34
  through there. So yeah, for me, the first tool
• 14:38
  that really kind of changed the game for me, and one after I saw
• 14:41
  how it was done properly is is the drop chain.
• 14:44
  It's amazing. Yeah, I, I mean, I would, I
• 14:47
  would definitely say that that seems like a bit of magic when
• 14:49
  you're, when you first experience it and, you know,
• 14:51
  it's some, some older guy. I mean, I'll, I'm going to go
• 14:54
  even further back than that. And, you know, when I was super
• 14:57
  green, you know, seeing a senior tech use a toner was blew my
• 15:03
  mind, right? Like, OK, here's, you know,
• 15:05
  here's this head end. All right, dude, run, you know,
• 15:06
  run upstairs, plug this thing into the wall and then, you
• 15:10
  know, use this thing to to try and find it and.
• 15:12
  Figure out amplifier. Yeah, I mean that thing your
• 15:16
  old, your old tempo toner, right.
• 15:18
  It was, you know, it was the first Gen. was like red and grey
• 15:21
  and then the second Gen. was like blue and grey.
• 15:23
  And I mean, I, I still have that's you want to talk about a
• 15:28
  tool that blows, you know, filthy casuals minds.
• 15:31
  If you're working in their home and they're like watching you
• 15:33
  work, like try clip this thing on and then, you know, find a
• 15:37
  wire in a rat's nest and then put the two wires together to
• 15:41
  make sure it's the right one and the tone stops and then, you
• 15:43
  know, open it up and the tone is different now, right?
• 15:45
  Like that absolutely blows homeowners minds right.
• 15:49
  Like that. You want to talk about some dumb
• 15:51
  thing that makes them think in their head like, oh wow, it's
• 15:55
  good that I paid a professional because.
• 15:57
  Right. Oh yeah.
• 15:58
  Right, like that, that is a little bit of magic, that thing
• 16:02
  and you know, being able to being able to see it and do it
• 16:05
  and whatever. And even, you know, even in the
• 16:07
  days of like, you know, doing phone lines, which we don't do
• 16:11
  phone lines in homes anymore. Ten punch down block.
• 16:13
  Yeah, on your 110, right. Being able to shove that thing
• 16:15
  in there and seeing where there's voltage indicating dial
• 16:18
  tone. That was nice, right?
• 16:20
  Because you've got it's one tool you don't have to deal with your
• 16:23
  butt set and all your other whatever or you're, you know,
• 16:25
  white Princess phone that you've cut the wires off at the end of
• 16:28
  to, you know, to use for the same purpose.
• 16:32
  I had a Garfield phone, thank you.
• 16:36
  I worked with a guy who had a football phone like that shit.
• 16:39
  Was great, like the best. Yeah, I had the Garfield phone,
• 16:42
  so, you know, I was pretty happy about that.
• 16:45
  The one that the eyes opened on when you picked up the.
• 16:47
  Receiver. No, I that was the one that I
• 16:49
  coveted. I just had the one that was just
• 16:51
  orange with I think Garfield painted on it.
• 16:54
  But anyways. Outstanding, outstanding.
• 16:57
  But yeah, man, for me, for me, that's the toner.
• 16:59
  Like that's definitely something in this industry that like, you
• 17:01
  can, you know, yeah, you can go into a rat's nest.
• 17:04
  It doesn't matter who terminated everything or whatever.
• 17:06
  And you can figure out where each one of these wires are in
• 17:09
  this big ass bundle. And yeah, that's, that's, that
• 17:13
  was, that's a pretty cool 1. And you know, not for nothing,
• 17:15
  if you worked with somebody who was old enough that, you know,
• 17:18
  on a ride home, that thing was a really good way to hold your
• 17:22
  joint without burning your fingers especially.
• 17:27
  You're employed by or who you're employed with or, you know, if
• 17:30
  you're taking, taking a ride with your best friend Bavano.
• 17:33
  I mean, what are you doing here? Yeah, I I mean, I think about
• 17:39
  some of the tools that blow my blew my mind.
• 17:41
  I mean, anything, of course, to physically move wire.
• 17:43
  So like glow rods, of course, drop chain those, those are big
• 17:47
  ones. Glow rods.
• 17:48
  Glow rods are their own thing, right?
• 17:50
  Like once. They're kind of their own.
• 17:51
  They're kind of their own category because just randomly
• 17:54
  you see a, you know, like either like a carpet poking up or you
• 18:00
  see, you know, a coil of neon yellow something that's
• 18:05
  somebody. Some a moving lump in the
• 18:07
  insulation in the attic. 13 glow rods into a donut or into a
• 18:11
  pretzel in an attic. I've certainly seen that a
• 18:14
  couple of times. Man, I've got the whole kid up
• 18:16
  there. I'm like dude, 10 foot ceiling.
• 18:19
  What do you mean you can't see it up there?
• 18:21
  It's. It's now curved over and went
• 18:22
  down another hole in the middle room, right.
• 18:25
  It's totally parked over the entire attic of the house to the
• 18:27
  drive to the garage. It's it's, it's fine.
• 18:32
  But actually when you were talking about toners and butt
• 18:35
  sets and stuff like that, it made me think about the
• 18:37
  validator. And the very first time I was
• 18:40
  able to run a scan on a house and do all the twisted wire
• 18:44
  repair testing and map all that stuff out.
• 18:47
  Holy crap, what a game changer. Holy shit.
• 18:52
  Like, I mean, nothing beats a sharpie, right?
• 18:56
  Like except for a pair of diagonal cutters.
• 19:01
  I'm saying right, yes, Sharpie, you know, make sure.
• 19:05
  You can. You can undo a lot of hard work
• 19:08
  by, you know, just a simple chop.
• 19:12
  So having lived through that excitement a few times in my
• 19:16
  life and having burned so much shoe leather rolling around in
• 19:21
  somebody's house trying to track a wire down or trying to figure
• 19:23
  out what's going on with it or why this doesn't work.
• 19:26
  One of the guys that I worked for bought a validator as and
• 19:30
  was actually selling the the mapping of of home networks as a
• 19:35
  as a service like. See that's that's a good way
• 19:38
  pay. For tools, this was in 2007.
• 19:41
  So you know, hats off to Dave Wilson.
• 19:43
  He was thinking, he was thinking ahead of the he was thinking
• 19:45
  ahead of the curve. We were ahead of the curve on
• 19:48
  the Kaleidoscape. We were ahead of the curve on on
• 19:50
  a lot of things right out there. But yeah, having that, having
• 19:54
  that system and being able to plug in all those ice cubes into
• 19:57
  the back of the, you know, the Molex jacks on the walls and all
• 20:01
  that stuff, and then walk into that room and plug each one into
• 20:04
  the validator and be able to map it out and know where it is.
• 20:07
  And yeah, kids, kids today take these kinds of things for
• 20:11
  granted, I think. Yeah, 2007, that was that was
• 20:16
  pretty big pimping. I'll, I'll, I'll go.
• 20:20
  I mean, we're, we're definitely talking like terminations and
• 20:23
  and pre wires and that kind of thing.
• 20:25
  And and I'll go, you know, to the next phase of the install,
• 20:27
  which is the trim out. And the first time I ever used a
• 20:30
  Jack rapid, I don't know if that was a thing that you guys had
• 20:33
  there. So there was this tool that was
• 20:36
  basically like, you know, you would use your four wall jacks,
• 20:40
  right? You'd have your cat wall jacks,
• 20:42
  OK, and you'd put them in and you know, we used Leviton.
• 20:45
  That was our that was our brand. And you put the connector or I'm
• 20:49
  sorry, you put the, the, the the insert into this Jack rapid
• 20:53
  thing. You get all your wires done and
• 20:54
  you squeeze it and it punched down and cut every single wire
• 20:58
  that was inside this thing and going from putting the Jack in
• 21:04
  in your hand or in a piece of cardboard and then manually
• 21:07
  hitting it with a you know, and I'm and I'm making this motion
• 21:10
  like people can actually see it just.
• 21:12
  Punch next to the microphone. Yeah, pretty, pretty much,
• 21:14
  right. You know, you're, you're
• 21:16
  punching these things down one at a time, right?
• 21:18
  Like you're, you know, you're, you're the, the palm of your
• 21:20
  hand is getting all messed up, which with the sound effect, I
• 21:24
  don't know if that's really translating.
• 21:26
  Across, but that's fine. No, but this this jackrapid
• 21:30
  thing was was dope, right? Like you put the connector in,
• 21:32
  you put your wires in place and then you squeezed it once and it
• 21:34
  was your, your Jack was terminated.
• 21:36
  You, you know, clip the little black piece on, snap it into the
• 21:39
  wall plate, put it into the wall and you're done.
• 21:41
  And man, when, when God, when I was, I was the first, I, I was a
• 21:47
  junior tech and I was lazy. So I was usually the one who
• 21:50
  found all these dumb things that like Home Depot and brought them
• 21:52
  to work and then started using them.
• 21:54
  And then suddenly, like, you know, the company's buying them
• 21:56
  for everybody because it was, I mean, we, we would blow through.
• 22:01
  We did a lot of track homes when I was first starting out at.
• 22:04
  Different time. Yeah, You know, like you're,
• 22:06
  you're doing like a network package and it's, you know, you
• 22:08
  probably have 20, you know, 20 wall jacks or whatever.
• 22:12
  And to just be able to blow through this thing like in an
• 22:15
  hour versus, you know, 3 hours or whatever, like it was, it was
• 22:19
  pretty. Cool day walking around in the
• 22:20
  house, going room by room, putting wall plates and stuff
• 22:23
  together. Oh my God.
• 22:24
  Yeah. So it was, yeah, Harris, it was
• 22:25
  the Harris Jackrapid that made it.
• 22:27
  It's still around. I think Fluke owns now or
• 22:29
  something like that. And these things still exist.
• 22:31
  You know, I've, I've still seen these things and they were, they
• 22:34
  were so great, man. I mean, just just so many hours
• 22:38
  saved of of punching down Jack's manually versus this thing.
• 22:43
  It was awesome. I wish.
• 22:45
  I mean that must have been after I graduated 'cause I don't
• 22:47
  remember any tools like that. I think most of the most of the
• 22:52
  tools stuff that I remember was always like any of those gimmick
• 22:56
  things were always shit on by integrators, right?
• 22:59
  Like no, you got. What you got?
• 23:00
  Like what? Let's go.
• 23:01
  What are we? What are we talking here?
• 23:03
  Like something like the like the rash, like the those first snap
• 23:08
  on speaker connectors, like the the very first ones were not
• 23:12
  were not great, you know? No, no, like you're talking
• 23:16
  about like the WIGO. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 23:19
  And then the. First ones were terrible and
• 23:21
  they're good now. But or the, you know, force it
• 23:24
  on yourself RG6 connector where you just had to trim, trim the
• 23:29
  end off. So you had a stub of, of the
• 23:32
  center copper lead sticking out, but everything else was just
• 23:35
  flush with the top. And then you push this thing on
• 23:37
  and then squeeze this other thing and hey, it's perfect.
• 23:40
  Yeah, Fuck no. It's not like it's not.
• 23:45
  So yeah, I was, I was a hardcore Thomas and Bets guy.
• 23:49
  Like that was, that was my fucking jam.
• 23:51
  Thomas and Bets. They got a lot of my money.
• 23:54
  I think I'd probably still have brand new RG6 Thomas and Betts
• 23:57
  connectors in a box in my garage right now.
• 24:00
  Well. I mean, I remember, I remember
• 24:03
  switching over from crimp on F connectors to compression F
• 24:06
  connectors. And what a, what a.
• 24:07
  What a game changer. That was right.
• 24:09
  Like, you know, you strip the wire and you'd have to manually
• 24:12
  fold it back, and every once in a while you'd get a Stinger
• 24:15
  underneath your fingernail and that hurt for a week.
• 24:17
  Yeah, Do all this stuff right. And then, like, compression came
• 24:21
  along and it was, it was a lot easier and it was a better
• 24:24
  connector and you didn't have to, you know, you don't have to
• 24:26
  jerk around with this other thing and, and whatever.
• 24:29
  And that was like it, it seemed like overnight, like the
• 24:31
  industry changed over and like you'd go into an old job and
• 24:34
  it's like, wow, these are all crimped.
• 24:35
  Like, cool. Yeah, Savage did this.
• 24:37
  Yeah. Well, yeah, who, who this.
• 24:39
  This looks all really nice. Yeah, I remember too.
• 24:41
  Like, I mean, again, this goes back to satellite television
• 24:44
  days and putting those things up.
• 24:46
  But again, Dave Wilson buying the site, buying the satellite
• 24:51
  cider. Oh yeah, bro.
• 24:53
  Oh yeah. That was a fucking game changer.
• 24:57
  You. Mean you mean that was you mean
• 24:58
  that was better than walking up there with like your Boy Scout
• 25:00
  compass, figuring out where? Yeah.
• 25:02
  Well, where 75° was and then opening up a second floor window
• 25:06
  to hear the beep coming from the DIRECTV box.
• 25:09
  Not really. That's a better way.
• 25:10
  Yeah, I know it's hard to hard to imagine, but and I don't even
• 25:13
  remember where that tool came from.
• 25:15
  I know it was like a like an echo star or like a weird thing
• 25:20
  but it. That must have been Channel
• 25:22
  Vision or Channel Plus. It it came.
• 25:23
  From those boxes they made all that stuff man Wyand and like
• 25:28
  all the, you know, spawn cascading satellite switch.
• 25:31
  Right. But I've never had like this
• 25:32
  little deal. You put it on a pole and you set
• 25:34
  it in the ground and you put up against the box and plug in the
• 25:37
  box with the cable on it. It spin around, spin around
• 25:40
  inside that little in the in the top of the wand.
• 25:43
  And then it would tell you, OK, you got to be pointed in on this
• 25:46
  direction, this direction, this direction.
• 25:48
  And then you can take that off and plug in your satellite dish
• 25:52
  and tell you, hey, knucklehead, you're in the wrong side of the
• 25:54
  house. I know, I know there's people
• 25:58
  that are out there that are still doing satellite dishes,
• 25:59
  but that seems so quaint to me now, right?
• 26:01
  Like when you can, you know, when you can just slap a
• 26:04
  Starlink terminal like anywhere outside and the thing aims
• 26:07
  itself, right? Like to be, you know, to be up
• 26:10
  on a slate roof in like drizzle and like lining up a dish.
• 26:16
  And again, like listening for that beep or whatever.
• 26:18
  And you know, having having a two way radio inside the house
• 26:22
  with the with the key takedown so that you could hear it up
• 26:25
  there, right? Like 101?
• 26:26
  Yeah, 101 is 98 to 98% stop. Yep, that's it.
• 26:32
  Stop turning it. Yeah, stop.
• 26:33
  Turning it. Oh fuck, you went too far.
• 26:36
  Yeah, I mean. As as the junior tech, I always
• 26:38
  ended up on a roof that was always me and I was always up
• 26:41
  there and for whatever reason, probably about half of the time
• 26:44
  I didn't have the right size socket to lock the thing down.
• 26:48
  So. Yeah, get back down.
• 26:50
  God, or have somebody throw the thing up to you 4 times because,
• 26:53
  you know, missed you and went down the gutter and I had to
• 26:57
  retrieve it. Yeah, no, I've never.
• 26:59
  Thrown like 10mm at my head multiple times.
• 27:02
  Yeah, whip it at my skull and I catch it.
• 27:06
  Oh, those, those were the bays, brother.
• 27:07
  Yeah. I'm just trying to think if
• 27:09
  there's any other tools. I mean, certainly, you know, the
• 27:12
  the impact, you know, guns we to make that joke that anything
• 27:16
  that you can use to bust your concrete with and stuff like
• 27:19
  that. I mean, I have a nice Milwaukee
• 27:21
  downstairs that I mean, that thing blast through a foundation
• 27:25
  and and a heartbeat. You know, I'm sure that tool's
• 27:27
  worth 1500 bucks and we'll ever use it again.
• 27:31
  Hopefully not, no. It just sits.
• 27:33
  It just sits in a place of honor in my in my collection.
• 27:36
  For sure it's got blood and bones and all, all my sweat and
• 27:39
  tears all over. It so all in a all in a one inch
• 27:43
  masonry bits that you bought one time for one project and yeah
• 27:49
  they're in my tool bag I'll never use these again there's.
• 27:51
  There's a lot of Evergreen here. I think maybe we need to like
• 27:53
  categorize like some of these tools between like drill bits.
• 27:56
  I mean, you've got the step bit, you've got the masonry bit,
• 27:59
  you've got the, you know, I mean, I mean, we were talking
• 28:03
  before about the lowly wall jacks.
• 28:05
  Do you remember like the first nose plate that you saw for
• 28:08
  Decorah where you're like, Oh my God, what a brilliant idea.
• 28:11
  There's a through where wire comes out and it just doesn't do
• 28:14
  a Decorah plate. Voila.
• 28:18
  It's clean. It's yeah, no, no problem.
• 28:21
  I can I can put cable snake on this thing and make it look real
• 28:24
  nice. Absolutely bro, that's those
• 28:26
  those were the days. I mean, I, I would say I would
• 28:30
  throw anything from. I mean, you remember like
• 28:33
  looking through the labor saving devices catalog, right And like.
• 28:36
  It's every C, Yeah. He's like cutting screws in half
• 28:39
  and feeling a tomato with the same before.
• 28:44
  Cutco there was later savings, there has.
• 28:46
  Always been late LSD. I always thought that was a
• 28:49
  strange. I mean, whatever, it's just the
• 28:51
  drug references, yeah. But like, yeah, racketeers from
• 28:57
  those guys, remember that. You remember the, the, I mean,
• 28:59
  every van had a set of racketeers that was in there
• 29:02
  and, and that took the place of, you know, using a broomstick and
• 29:06
  an A-frame ladder, right? Like those remember, remember
• 29:09
  that. Like you know, I had various
• 29:11
  pieces of copper pipe for. Those that don't know what we're
• 29:13
  talking about, when you're pre wiring a house and you've got a
• 29:15
  bunch of cable leads set up at the same time you want to pull
• 29:18
  wire all together in the dark ages, we'll say there would be
• 29:24
  well. Before when when everything came
• 29:26
  on a spool. Right you frame.
• 29:27
  Not a lot came in boxes you. Frame Either frame up some 2 by
• 29:32
  fours that you stole from the job site somewhere into
• 29:35
  triangular some things, or you take a couple of ladders and.
• 29:40
  We were all engineers back then. Yeah, duct tape, a broom handle
• 29:44
  as as Chris was referring to, between the two of them to get a
• 29:48
  bunch of spools of wire going at the same time.
• 29:50
  Totally safe, of course. Absolutely.
• 29:54
  But yeah. Yeah, you'd be in the attic
• 29:56
  pulling wire off and like, you know, it would stop and then
• 29:59
  you'd go downstairs and you'd find out that like 1 spool ended
• 30:02
  up grabbing the other one and now there's this pile of, you
• 30:04
  know. Right.
• 30:07
  Two ladders stuck to the ceiling.
• 30:10
  They're wrapped. That was always, that was always
• 30:15
  the thing with the like the early boxed cable, right?
• 30:17
  Like you'd be pulling this thing and it would snag inside the box
• 30:20
  and then like you were too far away and you're just, you're,
• 30:22
  you're pulling on this thing with all your weight.
• 30:24
  You're ruining the certification of your cat.
• 30:26
  That's just pulling it. There's a prime example of a of
• 30:29
  a tool that blew your mind the first time you had a box.
• 30:31
  It was actually worth a fuck. Exactly with the reels inside of
• 30:35
  it. You know those may.
• 30:35
  Tangle. Yeah, Craft.
• 30:37
  Got it. Got to throw it out there, man.
• 30:39
  They were heavy as shit on those wooden rule, on those wooden
• 30:43
  reels, on those boxes. But dude, they weren't.
• 30:46
  I was happy, happy, happy to be pulling that wire in my Dick.
• 30:49
  You could set up, I mean, you could set up eight of those
• 30:51
  things, label them, pull them all through the same chase and
• 30:54
  nothing. You know, they wouldn't tangle.
• 30:55
  They wouldn't do anything. Yeah, those were great.
• 30:57
  With Sailing Brother. But yeah, I mean, you, you
• 31:00
  definitely remember the day of, you know, being solo on a job
• 31:03
  and pulling that thing and all of a sudden, like you pull it
• 31:05
  and just go, you hear this thump from the other side of the room
• 31:09
  and it's the box hitting the ceiling because it can't pull
• 31:13
  anymore. And, and now you've made this
• 31:15
  like this Gordian knot inside of it.
• 31:18
  Yeah. You're, you're Scrooge, right?
• 31:21
  You're going to cut that off. You're going to give that to the
• 31:23
  the job site addict to go sell it for copper and call it a day.
• 31:27
  Man, that's crazy. I mean, my install career at the
• 31:30
  very end of it was right when the copper boom was taking off.
• 31:35
  That's right when all these miners started getting out there
• 31:38
  and doing, you know, mission quests for.
• 31:41
  For. You know, metals and gold or
• 31:43
  whatever. However, like I remember doing
• 31:45
  a, a job for a friend of mine on his house right before they're
• 31:47
  doing drywall. And I went back over to the
• 31:49
  house and I was like, hey, I'm pretty sure all the copper in
• 31:53
  your house is gone. It's like, what do you mean?
• 31:55
  I was like, well, because there's no wires in this house.
• 31:57
  Remember that thing when I came out here and put all the wires
• 32:00
  in? They're not here anymore.
• 32:02
  None of your electricals in the house either.
• 32:05
  He's like, what? So yeah, my, my dates, my days
• 32:09
  of the install world are think just kind of faded out right as
• 32:13
  the the copper boom was kicking off.
• 32:14
  Well, I mean, Florida was definitely on the leading edge
• 32:16
  of that. Oh yeah, sure.
• 32:19
  Copper theft for, for definite, but I mean, everybody worked
• 32:23
  with somebody who had a pile of scraps in their garage that they
• 32:26
  were collecting and it was like their retirement plan.
• 32:28
  And you know, like every job you went to, it's like, what are you
• 32:31
  guys doing with this demo? And they would just load up the
• 32:34
  van with it and take it away. And, you know, they would spend
• 32:37
  their weekend stripping it. Yup, That was, it's, it's the
• 32:40
  same, you know, there's the old joke of like, hey, that person
• 32:43
  that seems like the kind of person who knows what the going
• 32:45
  rate for a catalytic converter is.
• 32:47
  It was the same guy that like knew the value of dirty copper
• 32:50
  versus clean copper could tell you the difference.
• 32:53
  He could tell you that price at a moment's notice what it is
• 32:56
  currently, right? It's the same character.
• 32:58
  He knew the spot price just on instinct.
• 33:01
  He didn't even reference anything.
• 33:03
  Right. Right.
• 33:05
  Do the math in his head. Oh, that's 2000 lbs of copper.
• 33:07
  Yeah. OK, that's cool.
• 33:08
  That's beer money for six weeks. Got it.
• 33:10
  All right. Fair enough.
• 33:13
  Those are today's brother. Not not that that's, I mean I'm
• 33:17
  I'm kind of distance from the field now.
• 33:19
  I would imagine that that sort of chicanery still goes on for
• 33:21
  for for definite there. I mean substance.
• 33:24
  I mean, obviously. People, people are still
• 33:26
  addicted to. Shit, yeah, people are totally
• 33:28
  still addicted to shit, no question about that.
• 33:30
  Whether it's video games, whether it's booze, whether it's
• 33:33
  drugs, whether it's whatever it is, you know, there's, I think
• 33:38
  now more than ever, you know, we could, we should probably do a
• 33:41
  separate show about mental health to, to.
• 33:45
  Every show we do is about health, OK?
• 33:48
  It is it's catharsis just for you and I, but that really is
• 33:51
  that's a whole, that's a whole other story.
• 33:55
  But yeah, it's it's crazy to think how, you know, how some of
• 34:02
  these silly little things have have made such an impact.
• 34:05
  You know, whether it's a tool, whether it's a, you know, a, a
• 34:09
  labor saving device, you know, whether it's just a, a, a, a way
• 34:13
  to get stuff done quicker and how those, you know how those
• 34:16
  things stick to you. You know, like how much you love
• 34:19
  a glow rod now because you're able to run a a wire under a
• 34:23
  carpet or something with one. Right.
• 34:25
  Yeah, those, yeah, those those days.
• 34:27
  And you know, it, there's, there's definitely, you know,
• 34:31
  there's some, there's some business lessons to to this as
• 34:33
  well where, you know, different ways that we've done things
• 34:36
  where when you look at it, it, it makes a lot of sense where,
• 34:40
  you know, at at some point, and I'm sure we haven't thought
• 34:43
  about this before, but like at at some point you were putting
• 34:46
  in in ceiling speakers, probably with cardboard stretched across
• 34:50
  the Bay with the wire sticking through the middle of it, right,
• 34:52
  So that they could just drywall right over it and call it a day.
• 34:55
  And then as an industry, we sort of progressed into, all right,
• 34:57
  we're going to put pre mount, you know, we're going to put pre
• 34:59
  mount rings up and we're going to line all these things up
• 35:01
  ahead of time. Before that, you know, you had
• 35:05
  you had your Bay with, you had your wire sticking out of it
• 35:08
  wherever the drywall guy decided to stick it out regardless.
• 35:11
  If he decided to stick it out. Right, regardless of what he did
• 35:14
  and some, you know, some people do like zigzags in the Bay so
• 35:17
  that you've got all that space open to you and whatever.
• 35:19
  But, you know, lining up speakers before drywall went up,
• 35:23
  that was that was kind of a a a step that we took as an industry
• 35:27
  that that was pretty quick. You know, like that's we we
• 35:31
  finally got smart and it seems obvious now, you know, like all
• 35:34
  the electricians are lining up their high hat cans.
• 35:36
  Why can't we just line up our speakers?
• 35:37
  And then, you know, pre mount rings became a thing and it
• 35:40
  became a lot easier to, you know, you'd go out to trim out
• 35:42
  of house before and like you were going to be covered in
• 35:45
  sheetrock and, you know, you were cutting this thing out.
• 35:49
  Whereas, you know, after we all started using rings, it got a
• 35:52
  lot easier. You know, you could put a
• 35:54
  speaker up, somebody ahead of you figured it out and, you
• 35:57
  know, maybe, yeah, maybe you had to move it or, or whatever.
• 35:59
  You know, more likely like, you know, the sprinkler guy came in
• 36:02
  and, you know, put a put a sprinkler line right where your
• 36:06
  speaker needed to go and it wasn't deep enough.
• 36:08
  Oh, sorry. Yeah, well, all your stuff needs
• 36:11
  to. It's got to go here.
• 36:12
  The fire sprinkler needs to go there.
• 36:14
  Well, right. Right.
• 36:16
  The the fire sprinkler guy, the the last guy on the job site who
• 36:20
  would just, I mean, that guy would that guy would go through
• 36:23
  dots. That guy would go through
• 36:25
  transmission cables. That guy didn't care.
• 36:28
  He was. I'm here.
• 36:30
  I'm here to put fires. I'm not here to.
• 36:32
  I'm not here to solve the world's problems other than just
• 36:34
  put out a fire. That's all.
• 36:35
  I don't. Need to work on any of the
• 36:36
  trades. They need to work with me, even
• 36:38
  though they've been done for two months.
• 36:39
  Yeah, that's that guy. Oh, my God.
• 36:42
  Yeah. Now you're bringing back
• 36:44
  memories. That that guy and the guy who
• 36:45
  put the duct, you know, puts the duct behind where the the
• 36:49
  speaker is and then you're in there smashing that duct with a
• 36:52
  hammer to get enough to get enough clearance to get your
• 36:55
  ceiling speaker into place. Not even thinking about this
• 36:59
  thing going to vibrate against dust and hear it in every single
• 37:01
  room. Nope, I just need to beat the
• 37:03
  piss out of this thing. And get your Chris problem.
• 37:08
  I'm going to clock out at 4:15 and call it a day.
• 37:11
  I've got heaters in the truck. Let's go.
• 37:13
  Let's go. Let's.
• 37:15
  Go love it. Well, it's fun how talking about
• 37:18
  tools brings us back to all of the trauma that we have to deal
• 37:22
  with as integrators over the years.
• 37:25
  It takes us right back to that place of, you know, under the
• 37:27
  house with the drill bit broken or, you know, trying to, you
• 37:32
  know, trying to fix some BS problem that you created for
• 37:35
  yourself for no apparent reason other than it's Friday at 3:00
• 37:39
  in the afternoon. I wasn't thinking clearly when I
• 37:42
  planned this, right? And this has been a glaring
• 37:45
  issue all day long. You just ignored it until right
• 37:48
  this second. Down the road, baby.
• 37:50
  That's fine. Oh, now we're here.
• 37:51
  That's right. Shit.
• 37:52
  Oh no, there's literally nothing else left on this list for me to
• 37:56
  do and I need to do this now. And.
• 37:57
  I can see it from their house, damn it.
• 38:02
  Shit. Well, I can.
• 38:03
  Get. This done so anyways, there's
• 38:06
  there's a little tool talk little little.
• 38:08
  Catharsis. We need to.
• 38:09
  I think we need to plan that out better.
• 38:12
  Maybe next time put some more tools to die on with the hills
• 38:16
  that we live on or whatever. We've had some, we've had some
• 38:19
  fun topics of conversation. Still working on getting
• 38:23
  together with Julie. My schedule has been hectic, as
• 38:26
  has yours, as has hers. So, but we'll, we'll get that.
• 38:30
  We'll get that one on the books. Seems like it it's chomping it.
• 38:33
  Seems like there's a lull like Midsummer that we're we should
• 38:36
  have some some time to to actually do something good for
• 38:40
  sure. Yeah, I agree.
• 38:42
  Awesome. Well, that's Yeah, man.
• 38:45
  We started, you know, started an Asyxia and ended up in something
• 38:48
  useful. So did you.
• 38:49
  Say asphyxia. Asperger's.
• 38:53
  No, I'm always there. No, But yeah, you know, hey, if
• 38:58
  if you've got some tools that, that have helped you and you
• 39:01
  know, you want to, you want to get it out there, Yeah.
• 39:03
  Chime in, for God's sake. Jeez, just don't make it just
• 39:06
  two weird dudes screaming at each other over the Internet.
• 39:09
  You know, you could be that third dude.
• 39:12
  Hit us up on or do that there's women that know how to use tools
• 39:16
  out there. My, the way I use Dude is
• 39:17
  inclusive. OK?
• 39:19
  It's an inclusive Dude. Hey, Dude.
• 39:21
  And yeah, hit us up inside.integration@gmail.com.
• 39:25
  Check us out on the Instagram inside under score integration.
• 39:28
  And thanks for joining us, folks.
• 39:31
  Take care everybody. Bye bye.