Barn Talk - Wild Adventures, Life Lessons, and Mastering a Trade: Aaron's Journey from Military to Welding

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

Welcome to Barn Talk What happens at the barn, Stays in the barn, But not today! We’re letting it all out! Today, we have a special guest, Aaron Hoffert, joining us to share his journey in the welding trade. Aaron reflects on his current situation and the long-term progression of his work. He shares some stories of joining the military and his time welding on the pipeline, and his stories working with Tork.  Get Farm Fresh Pork From Our Farm ➱ https://farmergrade.com Barn Talk Merch! 👇🏻 https://www.thislldo.co/  SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱ https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR   SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c  SUBSCRIBE TO BARN TALK CLIPS ➱ https://bit.ly/3BlZnqq   LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY  ITUNES ➱ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barn-talk/id1574395049 Follow Behind The Scenes👇🏻 ● This’ll Do Farm Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/30KPBNk   ● Barn Talk TikTok ➱ https://bit.ly/3qciekS   ● Sawyer’s Instagram  ➱ https://bit.ly/3BtX0n4   ● Tork’s Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3LGZJxS    ------------------------------- ***PLEASE NOTE*** Barn Talk is a significant break from the typical content viewers have come to expect from This’ll Do Farm. Please be advised that we will be exploring a wide variety of topics (some adult-themed) and our younger viewers (and their parents) should be advised that some topics will be for mature audiences only. ⚠NO FINANCIAL ADVICE / DISCLAIMER⚠  The Information discussed and shared on Barn Talk is provided for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only, without any express or implied warranty of any kind, including warranties of accuracy, completeness, or success for any particular purpose. The Information contained in or provided from or through this podcast is not intended to be and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, trading advice, or any other advice. The Information on this podcast and provided from or through our content is general in nature and is not specific to you, the user or anyone else. You should not make any decision, financial, investment, trading or otherwise, based on any of the information presented on this podcast without undertaking independent due diligence and consultation with a professional, professional broker or financial advisory. Understand that you are using any and all Information available on or through this website at your own risk. RISK STATEMENT– The trading of Bitcoins, alternative cryptocurrencies, NFTs, individual stocks, etc. has potential rewards, and it also has potential risks involved. Trading may not be suitable for all people. Anyone wishing to invest should seek his or her own independent financial or professional advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms. Farms are different in type, in size, and even in name. Before we dive in today's episode, I want to thank you for tuning in and supporting the brand. Over the last few years, I spent a lot of time creating Farmer Grade. We offer meat that you and your family can trust by strictly sourcing our product from farmers who share their story online through social media. We provide high-quality beef and pork that has 100%. born, raised, and harvested in the United States. Our latest meat drop just went live yesterday.

So if you guys are interested in buying some American meat that you can trust, we got five special curated boxes. Two beef, free pork. The beef are ground beef box courtesy of sunny farms, ground beef slash steak box courtesy of sunny farms. Then we got an all-American rib box from our farm, a breakfast box with some bacon and sausage from our farm. and a all around 10 to 12 pound pork box that's from our farm.

If you guys are interested and knowing where your meat comes from, supporting your American family farm, and you like meat, go over to pharmagrade.com right now and go get yourself a box. We really appreciate all your guys to support, and let's get in the episode. Welcome to Barn Talk. What happens at the barn stays in the barn, but not today. We're going to let it all out for you guys. Today is going to be a guest episode.

Got a special guest coming on. We're almost finished up with Harvest here. And we are finding time to do podcasts. And we finally got some time today because it started raining. So we're going to get to the nitty gritty here in a bit. But before we do, you guys know the drill. Pay the fee. If you get any value from the show, share it out with anyone you know.

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our Q&A episodes at barn talk show at gmail.com as well. So thank you guys so much for all the support. We've grown a lot in the last few months. We're up, we're up to 210,000 on TikTok, $150,000 on YouTube. Our audio's grown tremendously, and we can't thank you guys enough. So we really do, really, really do appreciate it. We made it. I think we're hanging out about number 30 on Spotify's top, I don't know, top 50 business podcast because we're, we're business moguls. It's kind of hard when you're making a podcast. They don't give you many categories to choose from. And I think when you first start, they don't let you choose multiple categories. So I feel like that there wasn't a farming, there wasn't a farming category.

So I was no, there was no category for farm business badassery. That wasn't one. So we just, we're kind of making that inside the business category. So we're getting there. Absolutely. Yes, we are. Are you good? Are you good?

You got it all? I got it all, I think. Okay, well, I'll tell you what. We today, this, this is a good one. This is not, we're not going to, we're not going to tell you how to make it in life and we're not going to answer a lot of questions. In fact, when we're done today, you might have more questions than when you started. But I've really been looking forward to this podcast because today's guest is a dear friend of mine. We go way back. He's a veteran,

served in Afghanistan, or served in Iraq, I'm sorry, worked with him. Clearback when I started doing construction, when I got it, had to get a real job off the farm when I quit Farrow and pigs. One of the guys that I worked with, and he and I have, we have seen a lot of, we've had a lot of good times together, a few bad times too, but anyway, he is a pipeline welder by trade and has been for the last, oh, I don't know how many years, but he's done a lot of living in his 40-some years of life and we're going to have him we're going to team up here in a minute and it's going to be probably a different kind of show but a lot of good old stories and a lot of reminiscent and probably a few probably a few that you can take and use for yourself so uh let's get started

Aaron Hoffert welcome to Barn Talk great to be here all right so for for any of you that are any long-time listeners to the show, you'll know that I have a checkered background and I kind of got my start when I couldn't make any money raising pigs. I went to work for a guy building hog buildings. And Aaron was one of the inaugural crew members of the Pork and Moore team. And we went around southeast Iowa building a few sheds back in the day. And what made us unique was that outside of the concrete, which we did do a little concrete, but fortunately we did such a poor job that they decided we shouldn't do anymore. But other than that, we would frame the building, we would wire the building, which is kind of scary in amongst itself, and put all

the equipment in, we pretty much did everything. And we had a four-man crew, and then we had a four and a half man crew, uh, with big, big wef. And then we got, well, I don't know, at the most we might have had at one point, I think we had maybe eight people one summer, but it was always a revolving door except for the, the core. Yeah. But that is where I met Aaron Hoffert. And, uh, Aaron is one of those guys that as soon as you meet him, you are not going to forget him. he has a personality that is infectious and he also is the guy that if you have kind of a crazy idea on a Friday afternoon and you're looking for someone to second that or to take that idea and make it even grander he is he is the person for that he is the person and so he is all the

away from so where are you living now? Stanley North Dakota. So he is a pipeline man and he has made the he's made the trek back down home to see family and I've only tried to get him on here like every time he's ever coming back but his dance card is he's pretty popular. So it's hard to get him but anyway we got him down here and it's a rainy day in southeast Iowa. So we got him in the barn. So we're going to talk about a little of the past and a little of the present and We'll even ask Sawyer what the hell he thinks once in a while. Is there anything you want to say before you get started? I am here just to listen to all the great stories because when Junior, that's his nickname, Junior, Aaron's nickname's Jr.

When he and Dad were running around, I was like a toddler. I was a kid. And Junior used to call me Wildman because I used to talk like a Nazi because I couldn't talk when I was a kid. I was just learning to talk. And so they'd get me all jacked up, but I wasn't there to see any of the stories. So I'm going to do a lot of listen to today, I think. But I think the best thing to do is just kind of start off and just tell people kind of how you met dad and kind of where you went from there and what you're doing today.

Well, first, I know and I thought about it last night. I kind of been up early and I went to, it was probably about 3 o'clock. I went to bed this morning and I was just kind of thinking about everything. I just want to tell everybody all the service members and everybody, thank you for your service and just everybody being patriotic there's a flag in front of me and as long as I've known tort I remember 9-11 I was leaning on his blue Chevy yep hovel's barn yeah that's putting curtains up and then after that then I went and signed up went into the military and it was just crazy after that went in told Craig hey I'm giving my two weeks actually I didn't even give him two

weeks because I had to go to basic training before that. But anyways, got to no torque and then helped him on some projects. Lawrence, his dad, I was looking around the backside of the barn and I said, I remember carrying a lot of slats into that place. And I remember a few times there some pigs are swimming in there. And we were knee deep in hog shit and getting hogs out of that place and hauling them in on wagons, the slats and all that stuff. And then talking to Lawrence.

and then actually putting hay up in this I made I'm outed hay up here yeah one of the last times that we did it yeah so Hoffer talks about wheeling slats our our old finisher here had singles in it and the only one that was wheeling the slats was torque Aaron being Aaron would just walk out to the pile and pick a slat up and put it on his shoulder and carry it like it was a knapsack and just walk into the barn like uh-da-da-da-da-da while I would me and somebody else would put a couple on a little wagon. A little L hooks underneath that and carry him down there. But the wagon, we pulled more time and maintenance on that wagon than it was, so he might as well just carry a slide in at a time. Yeah, the wheels were not. It was overcapacity.

It was an overcapacity little wagon, so. No, it was an awesome time. I learned a lot from Torque, and you know what? When he was talking about, it was always a pleasure to go to work, and I had a blast, and there's stuff you can't even make up that we, Yeah, we've forgotten as much as we can probably remember, but it was, it was, it was, it was just, we kind of just made it up as we went. When you work with a bunch of guys from, very different backgrounds and very different places in, so I was the old guy, because I would have been, what, 30 years old, probably? 70, 81 and 90, so I don't know. Yeah, I would have been like 30 years old.

And I was 23, 24, because I turned 25 in basic training. Yeah. And we had, yeah, we just had a really good bunch of guys. But so that reminds me. So 9-11 happens and you join the guard. Tell me the story again. You were so excited to get this going. Because, Like everything you did, when you decided that that's what you were going to do, oh, you were all about it. And that was all you could think of. So you had to join up at the, at the.

Well, first thing, the worst thing is when I signed up, I was doing the paperwork. And I remember the recruiter bought over two 30 packs of beer over to my place. And I won't name his name. But next thing you know, you could see, you got to sign about, oh, inch and a half worth of paperwork. Well, my name looked really good, all my signatures, but by the last page, you couldn't even tell what my name was. Because we're like, you're still going. Well, I wake up the next morning, and my buddy's like, how's it feel? And so I called that recruiter, and I said, hey, don't leave me hanging.

Get me out of here in a couple weeks because I said, I am not going. I said, I had too much time to think about it. Well, then next day he's like, you're going to Fort Still, Oklahoma. You're out of here. I said, all right. Well, then next day I know, I called up my buddies. and I said, hey, and I just thought after 9-11, we're going straight to hand-to-hand combat, bayonets, we're going to war, it's going to be over. I'm never coming back. When I leave, I'm never coming back. So I had a party at my house, the blue note, shout out to the blue note.

And I gave everything away, all my jackets, all my clothes, everything I had. And I said, boys, we ain't come back. Well, then I went to basic training. I left out of there. And I had to go that week. It was a guard week. It was a drill weekend that weekend. And they said, hey, here's your orders, but you got to take a PT test before you go. Well, I didn't know how to take a PT test that day. Well, then I got in there, and they said, yeah, you got to take a PT test. We're getting ready to do it.

And they're like, why don't you go get dressed? And I said, well, I don't, I'll just do it. I'm dressed. I'm dressed. I'll just do it like this. So I had a pair of wranglers on and a pair of Wolverine lace up roper boots. And then they're like, you're, that. actually getting a row. Well, I just got done with my pushups and my set-ups doing it.

Well, then everybody's out there in PT clothes stretching and doing all that stuff. Getting ready to run. And I just showed up in the middle of it. And I was like, where's Waldo? But I was that one guy in the middle of that whole scene. And next thing, they're like, what are you doing? They just thought I was lost. I had head mites and I just wandered into their crowd or something. So then I get over there and I'm like, no, I got to run this two miles and then I got to go to work, but I'm leaving for basic training here next week. They're like, you're running? Well, then next day I took off. And I came in, in the top three, I came in, and there was a colonel there, and he went over to Mount Pleasant, and he says, hey, if any of you guys

got profiles or are going to struggle with this PT test, I just watched a kid in Wranglers and cowboy boots take the whole PT test, and half of you guys are going to lay down the rest this afternoon around here and not do nothing. He said, that kid told me at the end of it when I shook his hand. Sorry, sir, but I got to go to work. And I'm not pat myself on the back. I'm just saying that's how much salt and vinegar I got my system. And you did have. And my dad and my family bred that into me. So that's where it came from. Yeah, if there was one thing that you could always count on Hoffer was he was never going to abandon you when you got dealt some shit sandwich because we did have a few of those

in what we did and some of the jobs that we got into. And Aaron was always, he was always like, you were always like a little ray of sunshine because you were like, well, boys, you might as well get your salt and pepper out and season this to taste because we're eating this sandwich no matter how it goes. Here's the deal.

There's a different levels of shit sandwich. A runny ones, that's the worst one. But if you get a stiff one, then that's better than the runny one. So you just got to think about the positive stuff. And don't be so negative. It could always be worse. Oh, geez.

Okay. Help me with the timeline on this because you went to the guard. What year was that? I went to, I signed up on my papers. We looked at this a while back, my wife and I. And it was, I signed up the day after 9-11. In two weeks, then I went, and then I did Fort So, Oklahoma, and then I went to Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland, and then I got back from that, and then I was fortunate enough to get a slot at the FMS shop in Fairfield, field maintenance shop. And as a tech, it was a WG9, and then I went to WG10 doing heavy equipment work, dozers and all that, and I would accept any school, because if at the guard, if for some reason,

somebody in that company falls out and can't make the test or can't make it there well it looks bad on your company or it looks back on so what I do is they just call the shop and they said Hoffer can pass a PT test he can do all this stuff so I'm like we're going to send him so next thing they say hey you're leaving tomorrow and you're going to go to Louisiana or you're leaving tomorrow and you're going to go over here so it was awesome

and I just they always said hey when you're in the military just shut up don't ever say nothing and don't volunteer for anything well I did totally polar opposite of that And I just absorbed every single thing was knowledge of, and I learned a lot a lot of my old sergeants and my friends. I still carry it on through even to this day. Yeah.

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Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. So, when you left the shop, when you got out, is that when you started your welding business? No, I got deployed to Iraq. Yes, that's right. So I got deployed direct, and then when I got deployed direct, uh, that kind of shut some stuff down and I was working for the shop then and then when I got back

from Iraq from that tour then one of my good friends got called because they reestablished that so we went from engineers to such and such so once they reestablish that then you reset your tour date to where you can go back normally have like I don't know a year I can't remember what it was but it was less than a year and they gave him the message hey you're going back over Well, that was my battle buddy. I live with him the whole time over there. Well, then next day I know, I volunteered to go back. I told First Sergeant, I said, hey, he's going.

I said, I got to go. I said, I still got the mindset for it. I still got that, all that. And then I went back. And then in the middle of that tour, I got stop lost. I couldn't come back. So I did nine years instead of my eight years. And when I got overseas, I made the decision to part ways with it.

Well, then a good friend of mine that I was talking about, he helped me do a business plan and start my Southeast Iowa portable welding business. So I started SIPWAF. And I don't think I slept for a month after I got back trying to put all that together because I was trying to make the Whalen Parade with all that stuff on that truck and everything. And then put all that tools and everything I needed. and I picked all that stuff up in there, gas in Verdefield, put it all on my truck in the garage there at the farm,

and went to work, and my dumb ass put 24-hour service on it, and believe it or not, people will call you 24-7 for welding. 100%. Even if they don't need it, even if they need somebody just to BS with and drink beer with, they'll call you to weld on their stuff

and their shop and drink beer with you. 100%. Okay. So, but you're as far, and you're weld. today. I mean, you have welded, but you got your start really doing, being able to fix stuff is just like that runs in your family. My dad was a mechanical engineer. He worked out in the oil field or out in the offshore oil industry. And then I was homeschooled. And so Myron

taught me how to weld. The welder still sitting down in Lockridge in a shop, the same welder. And dad taught me, he's like, I want to just weld stuff together. Dad's like, no, you got to weld a straight line. You're going too fast. You're going to do. And he bought me my first box of rod. He said, I'm going to set you up with this. So he bought me a box of 6010.

And then he said, after that, don't waste it. But he said, I'll get you it going. Well, then that created a monster, and I was into it. And then I went to work at Modine here in town. And I worked with a bunch of old guys. And I was just a new, I was just a little, I was. so wet behind the ears and these guys just blasted me the whole tight and i still run into a lot of these old welders i used to work with there and they taught me a lot of stuff and then uh

then when i went to the military i signed up for a 44 bravo because i wanted to see what the military had to offer as far as a welding program so then it just went to uh aberdeen proofing grounds or no i went to uh yeah abernine proved grounds Maryland yeah i went out there uh awesome awesome program and it was good and they showed up. I went there, Fort Sail, Oklahoma was so strict. It was Alpha First of the 22nd. Those drill starts just eat you up for every little thing.

And so then I'll never forget. I got to Aberdeen Proofing Grounds, Maryland, and they had $5 pizzas, and this guy had this little Toyota Tricel or something, and it was stacked to the brim with $5 pizzas. Well, I was sitting in there in, in position in the admin room and talking to drill sergeant, whatever, and they're like, you can go out and get pizza.

You don't just have to sit here. I was like, am I allowed to have pizza? I was like, well, heck, yeah, well, a $5 pizza. You can't go wrong. So I ate $5 pizzas for, I don't know, a couple weeks straight just because that was something I wasn't allowed to do in Fort's the Oklahoma. So we did it. But anyway, so I got out of there, graduated from that, got back.

and then I just got into welding and then went my second tour I was done with that and I was like I'm just done with the military which was great it was awesome it taught me a lot as far as my day to day living and living dress right dress and decision making and adapt and overcome and you know be proactive instead of react it was it was everything and so I still enforce that in my daily life even into the pipeline industry oil filled industry and industry and it just worked out great. We had a technical issue. It is cooler weather season and Tork and his infinite wisdom. I turned the heater on and we got one of the cameras a little too hot. So Sawyer is going to be conspicuously absent from the rest of this because we lost his camera. And let's face it, with Aaron and I going, he probably ain't going to get a word in edgewise anyway. So we're just going to let it roll. But when we kicked off there, you were talking about the time that you spent in the military and I was trying to get the I was trying to get the

time frame the time frame because you know our time that we were at Porcamo was kind of split in half because your decision to go to the military that happened at 9-11 but then when you got back you came back and worked one summer at Porkmore and that a lot of great content I would say con if we were met If we were making a movie, that was the summer that dreams were made of because there's one story that I was thinking about. Do you remember the time that I'm not sure whose building that was? I think it was one of Robinson's buildings where we pulled all the wire. We pulled all the wire and you were in the attic.

You were putting blocking in the attic, I think. only it was going really slow. And I got up in the attic to check on it. Oh, is I sitting there with the screw bucket full of beer? Yeah, and you had a five-gallon bucket with beer and ice. And you were just sitting up there putting blocking in. And it was a hot, son of a good. It was hot.

And actually, I was putting in propane holes for the piping for the propane. And I was like, we're doing a beer hole. So this kid that was helping me, I was like, we're going to just do a beer hole. So we had a little screw bucket full of beer that came out. I was like, what are they going to do, fire us? So we just sit there and drilled those holes. And Stoltz was the foreman, and he was like, go check on to Hoffer because so there, you know, there's three heaters to a room. And it was a 2,400.

So that's six holes. Plus the drops in the middle where it comes down. And he's like, I don't know what's taking them so long. They've been up there like all morning. I'll go check on them. I was up there sweating my cooond dog ass off. but I was drinking a beer per hole with that kid that was up there and Stolt stuck his head through there and acted like, he never done.

No wrong. No. What are you doing? We're working. I said, yeah, we're working. We're doing beer hole. You can't be doing that. I said, well, fine.

So I loaded up and I left. Remember? I forgot about that. I loaded up. I said, well, if we can't do this, I'm gone. I'm out of here. So then that's when I went and applied over at that other mill and got that guy up. That's right. That was the end of it.

Well, do you remember the one where we were wiring this shed up and we were pulling the wire? And I was at the end where all the spools were. And Stoltz was in the attic all the way at the end. And we were trying to get one wire too many into a three-quarter inch conduit. So we probably had, I don't know if we had 20 wires in there or 21 wires in there. It was one extra. It was one too many, and it was pulling really hard. And we were just about there.

We were just about to the last, to the last TA where you branch off to go to all the tunnel fans. And so, Hoffert's, you're somewhere because I think I was trying to relay, Stoltz was trying to relay back from where he was, what, you know, where things were. and when we got to when he got to where it needed to be I was going to cut all the wires off the spool and then back feed him into the wire lay and everything sounded like Charlie Brown Christmas

it was like I was like what I'm like did he say cut it and I thought I really thought that I heard very distinctly and I'm like all right so I cut it the only problem was we were one drop

away from the end. So then I cut it and I take the end and I feed it back through the short piece of conduit to the wire lay where the control is and the breaker box and I'm all good. So then we were putting on, we were wiring up the fans at the other room. And so I'm like, all good. So I just walked down to the other end of the building, 400 foot building. And once again, about 10 minutes later, what sounds like Charlie Brown again. It's like, it wasn't. It was Stoltz because he finally got that wire pulled. But when he did, he came back to the other end.

There was no wire there because it had been pulled up into the conduit because torque cut it too short. And he, I think that was the nearest I probably ever came of him wanting to do bodily harm. Hey, remember, you're talking about that. They're just like, remember in then days. But we would, remember when we'd smurf somebody? Oh, yeah. So what you do is you take your stainless steel T-bolts and be like, hey, put that up through there.

I'm like, oh, hey, close your eyes because I'm going to knock some dirt down on you. And you'd take the marking chalk, the purple marking chalk, and you would spray it down through the slats on their face. And they would smurf them. Oh, my goodness. They'd come out of the pit and they'd just be blue because you'd take a whole big jug of chalk line. chalk and just smurf them. And yeah, there was all kinds of ritualistic hazing deals that went on. That's probably why there wasn't too many that stayed working there.

But anyway. Do you remember when Jeff came to work with us and he had that car he was driving and the headlight was full of water? And did this happen? Did this happen or did I dream it that the idea was somebody was going to go to Walmart and get a goldfish and put it into his headlight. I'm sure that came up. I can't remember if it actually happened or we just talked about it. I don't think a fish ever got in there, but I'm sure we talked about it. Oh my gosh. Just say no to crack. Just say no to crack.

Oh my God. We had a guy that worked on a crew that had a hard time keeping his pants up. And Hoffert would enlighten him and be like, God damn it, Jeff. You just got to say no to crack now. Kids, it was always butt crack everywhere. Everywhere we went. So that summer, when you transitioned, that was the same. So that had to be the summer of like 2000, 2001, because it was right at the end of my tenure when I left to go to precision. But anyway, so you, you buy a welding truck. You decide that when you get out of...

I paid 500 bucks from Iraq. I was in Iraq. And I sent that guy, Capital Motors, of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. And I, you, and then you drove it back from out there, didn't you? So anyway, so what happened was you only get 15 minutes for a phone call back then. And so my 15 minutes was I call this guy in Salt Lake City at Capitol Motors. And I said, hey, that black FL 70 freight line or low pro, I said, I'm interested in, I'll take it. But I said, it's going to be a little hot minute before I get there. He's like, that's fine. Just send me 500 bucks. I was like,

good. I said, uh, the check will be coming from Iraq. And he's a what? I said, yeah, I'm in Iraq, I rack buying this truck right now. He's like, okay. And I said, just hold it. I said, I'll pay you when I get there. Well, then I go there. When I get back from overseas and I get back and it's a bummer, I go to, uh, air gas over in Fairfield. Yep. And I give them a list of every single thing that I thought I needed. And so then I get a rent-a-car, and me and one of my buddies, we drive out to Utah. Don't take, but two flicks of lambs tail, and we get to Utah. Next A&O, I go pick up that FL70 that next morning.

Get in it, start taking off and start heading up out of there, and it falls on his face in the limp mode. And I'm driving 40 miles an hour, 30 miles an hour, 20 miles an hour. it took me 40 plus hours to get from Salt Lake City, nonstop to get from Salt Lake City, Utah, back to Washington, Iowa. And I stopped at a freight, come to find out, I stop at a place, freightliner shop, and he says, I'll throw it on there.

He said, well, you got 500 and some odd codes of low oil pressure. He's like, your sensor's out. He said, it's going to go into Lent mode. I said, do you got one? He said, no, the closest one such such. I can't remember. So anyways, me and my buddy that had a CDL supposedly, well, and he didn't drive at all. He just slept pretty much the whole way.

And so anyways, so I get to this Freightliner shop that had my part, and I said, I'm not asking you. I'm begging you. Can I borrow a couple tools? I'll buy that part. I'll pay you whatever. And I said, I'm going to go back of your shop. And I said, I'm going to replace that. And they're like, if you can do it, go ahead, whatever.

I did it. And then I drove 90 mile an hour all the way back to Whalen, Whaling. Iowa. How far had you gotten by the time you got the part? We were probably eight hours away from Wayland, Iowa by that time. So you'd spent 32 hours. Oh, in that day. And so there was a, there's a half sleeper on it. I said, I'll never use a half sleeper, but whatever. I use that half sleeper a little bit for 15 minutes, 20 minutes here, there on the way back. But I'll never forget it. It took over 40 hours to get back from Solie. And that was Noss. That truck never shut off, except for when I replaced that. And when I got back,

Then all, I went and picked up pallets of all my tools. I remember. And I sat there for days and night because I was trying to meet the Wayland Fourth of July parade so I could put that thing in there and get a little bit of business. And so it was a terrible thing happened. You got all kinds of business. And then I got all kinds of business. And that half sleeper I'd never thought I'd ever used.

I used it in the spring and in the fall because I would get some dumbass put 24-hour service on there. And I was getting, I'd just sleep in a farmer's field until the next farmer broke something and call me in and I go ahead over to his place. You know, it's funny. My wife and I were headed to Wisconsin last week, and we were driving up north of Cascade. Yep.

And I drove past 12-mile road, which goes, do you remember that guy that had a brand new 2,400 head finisher, and it had tube feeders in it? Yep. And he froze it. And you drove clear the hell up there. This is when I was selling buildings for PSI

and weld it. It split every, I don't know if it split every, one. I welded that daggum auger. And they're like, you cannot do that. And I was like, we'll get her. Don't you worry.

Yep, that's right. And it held. Yep, it did. Yeah, that's right. Crazy. You told me, well, that stuff has got so much spring to it. It's kind of a son of a gun to do it. And then if you get it too hot, then that's a weak point.

It's your sheer pin of the whole setup. But anyways, we got her. You're like, hey, I told you, I said, I'll get it. High speed. High speed? All the time. Low drag. So you had a welding shop and you did that.

How many years you do that? See, I got done and no. I probably did that for two years there in Wayland. Yeah. And it was good. The clientele was awesome. It was just, I just kind of wanted something. And it was kind of random because a good friend of mine works for Lincoln Electric.

And there was a guy that worked on the pipeline and some pipe fell off. some skids and cones and rolled on him and broke his pelvic well he wanted to start a shop similar to what I had in a 24 hour service a portable welding and all that stuff well he knew all that how to do all that so then I got a hold of Kurt Goldson I was talking to him he's like hey I got this guy he stoved up at home whatever he wants to start he's done with the oil fill he's done with pipeline he wants to just have a fab shop and portable welding he wants to know the type of tools that you got the stuff that you do what do you run into what do you encounter all right well i talked to him and i said hey you don't happen to know anybody in the oil field because i said i'm thinking about

unassed my place and heading out there go see what's going on i didn't i didn't think i'd go there for very long and i just wanted to go try it you know i always wanted a weld pipeline so he's like yeah my brother-in-law has got a test for low and bro the company i worked for yeah and he's like you got one up there he's like maybe you can go be his welder's helper well i knew how to weld and i can weld anything except for buck cracks and broken hearts that i can weld everything else but anyways uh so i went out there and they're just like hey you you weld and i's like yeah i just but i want to see what it's like i want to start at the base of this whole thing to see what it's like and well it's not like if i show up out here and tell sawyer i'm like hey i want to run your combine today

well no you got to work your way up you know you just go jumping and dagum online. So I started at the bottom because I knew that's where I was going to go. And I knew what the money was. It was it wasn't nothing. It wasn't a drop in the bucket. What year was this? It was August

15th, 2010. I left Iowa, Copic Iowa because the Eagles nest was about ready to float away. It was flooding. High water. High water. Hazel said it's free

rain for everybody just whatever and so they came and picked me up on the highway with the boat and drove me up there and it was so high you could go to the back deck and the boat you'd step off the boat onto the deck well I figured that was the last time I'd ever see the eagle's nest and I said well I got to be in North Dakota and I didn't know how far that was but I said I got to be in North Dakota on Monday so I pulled out of there they took me back to the highway drop me off my truck and I started making my track up there. God, up there, and I slept in the parking lot because you couldn't find a place to live up there for nothing.

It was full. It was honor. It was crazy. So then you get up there, and I slept in the parking lot. And so then a friend of my, good friend of mine still to this day, he's like, oh, boy, look at this deal. Well, I had my welder in the back of that. I had everything.

He said, boy, here's a tool. and he's in there like way to go you hired this guy well that was their first job in north Dakota and it was a seven miles of 12 inch well then we get down to this plant and in order to haul stuff out of some of these gas plants you have to have everything dress right dress permits whatever so they had to have a driver with a class a CDL to haul everything out of there you had to have a crane operator you had to out of us well I had all that stuff well I had all that stuff. Well, then next A&O, this

guy comes up, Cody was his name, and he comes up, he says, hey, we're shutting her down. We don't have anybody with a CDL. We don't have a crane operator permit. I was like, hey, I tell you what, I said, I've got it. I said, we can load pipe, and I said, I can drive that truck.

I'm giving you a $2 an hour raise jumping that truck and let's start hauling pipe. Because we're a stringing, stringing pipe. Well, I wanted to be a welder helper. He said, I said, hey, I want to be a welder helper he's like no no no just you just hauling pipe hauling pipe hauling pipe and you're going to run equipment haul pipe run equipment and so the only time i'd ever get to really do a welder helper stuff is when all the pipe was hauled they would just shut down for the day because it's too much i mean straight up and

down whatever it's like hey it's too slick but we're going to do some tie-ins well i just volunteer i was like what else am i do i'm a thousand twelve hundred miles away from the house what else am i going to do go hang out the motel room so or in my truck because i lived in my truck too and so anyways did that and then uh got into we got that job done that was good and so i got into run they would let me run equipment and side booms with blades on it and i can run equipment from here every farm kid can and uh so next ain't oh this good friend of mine ryan and this other good friend of mine harold i still work with Harold to this day, but I've known him since then. And they're like, hey, kid, we're going to take off and we're going to head down to Kildare, North Dakota, and go look at a job.

I was like, all right, well, they're like, just backfill, do all this. I was like, all right, sound good. So I was back, filling, do all this stuff. Well, then I seen him. Then that night, and they said, kid, don't leave. Don't go nowhere. If you ever going to pipeline, you'll never, ever see this in your life ever again. And we went through the badlands, through the brakes, and did a forebearers job over there for Bridger. And it was the most extreme stuff I ever been into in my life. And it was aggressive. And it was just, it was awesome. But anyway, so I got into that. Finish that job up. And then my boss, Donnie Gillette, gave me an opportunity. He says, hey, kid, you worked your ass off over here. Why don't you run down and run into this old boy

name steve i won't say his last name he's on real cuss but anyways he was an old welder from way back in the day and he's like go down there for a couple days and just do the weld test with him see what you got and then i went down to bismarck to eti and uh loan broans it now but went over there and took a weld test and i made my first weld test well then i don't i hope donnie hears this podcast but anyway so donnie he's like hey kid i can't pay you welder's wages because you just made that but you don't have all the tools and stuff. Well, I called a buddy of mine from here in Iowa. And I said, hey, do you got one of them beveling machines?

I said, I need a beveling machine. I need a few tools. I said, can you overnight it to me? Yeah, he's like, why? I said, he's telling me, I just made my weld test, and he won't let me have regular welders wages because I don't have all that stuff. So I had it overnight it, and I went in the next morning

and opened that box on his desk. It was overnight. And I said, here you go. He's like, all right, kid, I'm sick and tired of fighting with you. I'll give you welders wages, whatever, just go do it. So it is. So his son is one of my main bosses now, and I get welders wages for whatever. If I'm operating, whatever, I get welders wages now because he's like,

it's just easier to give you welders wages than deal with you. There's something else here now. Something new. From exclusively on Paramount Plus, it's the series Stephen King calls Scarious Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-Fi Vision. calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules.

Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. From Binge All Episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. So when you went there, when you got there, because I've talked to you off and on, you know, through this whole journey you've been on. But you told me a story about, how it really was like when you got up there and you first started it was like the wild wild west

that you were staying at a hotel the the group that you were with you were staying a hotel and you left and you had to go do a job somewhere and by the time you came back all your all your shit was sitting in the lobby is that right are you the one told me that so so what happened was uh I was living in the Painted Pony Motel and Stanley, and then they had the pub, draft horse below that. And so you'd spend $2,300 a month for your room is what that cost. Holy shit. And then you spend $2,300 a month.

In the pub, eating, drinking, drink, do whatever you do. Having salads. Doing whatever pipelines do. Yeah, salads are expensive over there. They are. And so anyways, so. they said hey this place is up for sale i was like all right whatever and uh i'm trying to think of where i was at because um i wanted to back it up a little bit because before that before i got the

camper oh okay so that's when i stayed in in my uh truck was they pretty much just booted us out they're like hey you're done i was like well you just told me yesterday i had a place you're like no you're done well then i lived in my welding rig for four months in the winter. That ain't no word of a lie. So what I would do is I had two totes. I had a tote for my good clothes and I had a tote for my work clothes and then I had a bed roll. And so what I do is I would set my totes on the back of the rig at night and I'd lay my clothes out and I'd throw my bedroll down and I would sleep. I'd put my truck up next to my buddy's camper and then I would put that on high idle and then I had a little DVD player and I'd have a 12 pack of beer and I'd sit back there

and just hang out well the next ain't no alarm would go off 4 o'clock or whatever time was and this is winter so I dust off my toats in the back roll up my bed roll up pee out the side of the door on my knees I'd just be standing on my knees pee out the side of the door roll a bed roll up grab my toots throw my toots in and then I go to work and nobody knew no different. They're like, boy, he's always here. And so the next year, like, why, you got all that stuff in there? I said, well, I've been living in. So I put in to go live in the Painted Pony Motel. And that was four months it took me to get in there. Finally, the lady calls me from the front desk. I was working on the pipeline. And she calls me, she's like, Aaron, I just want to let you know, we have a

room open for you. I jumped up and down. I hung out. I said, I'm heading there right now. And I went and I told my boss, I said, you can fire me, you can run me off, do whatever, but I'm heading to the house, and I'm going to go take a shower in my own dag-gam room, and I ain't going to walk around across gravel parking lots and go do that, and I said, I'm going to unpack my rig and get all my tool. He's like, yeah, it sounds like pretty adamant about it. You just go ahead and get out of here. We'll see in the morning. And man, the first thing I did is I went to that shower, and I was like, oh, my God, this was awesome. And it was expensive, but I was so happy to have a dad-gum place of my own. That was the craziest thing.

well then a buddy of mine was needing a place and I was like well shoot come on in I said you can sleep in the bed for a week and I'll sleep on the bed for a week so we just he'd sleep on the floor and I'd sleep in the bed so we just swap out well then if we had a rain day like this and this would be the worst case of scenario for having a motel when you got the uh painted pony and the draft horse because all your buddies are a rain day going to have some drinks well then next I know they ain't going back to their campers because they lost power or whatever. They're going up to your motel room. Well, you might walk in there and there's 15 people laying around. Just everybody's sleeping and passed out watching TV, do, whatever, because they ain't going to where to go. It's rain day. Yeah.

So anyways, it was wild. It was wild west, man. I'm telling you. It was crazy. So at that time, like when you started, there was more work than could be done. You could go. So check this out. This is how it worked.

When I got up there in August 2010, there is a bar called the five spot. You don't look in the papers for work. You don't fill out applications for work. You don't do any of that. You go to the bar. You sit there and wait until somebody starts yapping. Well, we're looking for welders over here. We're looking for hands over here.

Like, okay, sign on. Well, then you go work for them in the morning. You don't like them. You're done by 10 o'clock. Next day, I know you go to the bar at 10 o'clock because they're open. somebody's like, I want to need hands. Oh, we need hands. Well, guess what?

Tomorrow morning. We'll see in the morning at 10. We'll see you in the morning first thing. You can get three jobs in a day back then. It was nuts. And you could tell everybody get bent and guess what? They were kissing your ass. It was the craziest thing I ever seen in my life.

And I thrived on it because I was with a good company. Yep. And the other thing is they took care of you. And even nowadays, you go up there. It's still wild wild west. So there was a story, and it wasn't my camper, but it was in the camping spots that some of my buddies had. It was so busy that some people couldn't find a place to stay

that some of these people opened up the skirting in the wintertime underneath the camper where they had the heat lamp. Running to keep their water from freezing. Well, their water froze, and they're like, why is our water freezing? Well, they went down, looked underneath. and there was three people sleeping next to their heat lamp underneath their camper. That was, so then you go to Williston, North Dakota.

People was pulling in with campers and just dumping the sewage and everything all there. Well, then they started just putting pipe down so you couldn't get certain, you could have to have certain size of vehicles to get in there. People are just living in there. It was nuts. It still is. Yeah. So that was something I asked you yesterday was, you know, the, the, the,

that whole area just exploded when the tar sands spread into the United States and the whole fracking deal started up there. Well, they found a couple different veins of it, the bachan, and then they went down to the three forks, and then they keep finding different veins. Yeah. But then it just went nuts. But it's still going today is the thing.

Oh, yeah. It's, it's, so there, the infrastructure is in now. Oh, so Stanley was such a small town back in the day. And now all the, you know, they paid, you know, all the oil fields paid all that stuff. It's a great town.

There's a lot of people there. We got Ace hardware. We got pretty much everything that you want, cash wise foods, whatever. You didn't have that back in the day. Now we got all that stuff. But finding housing, you can't rent. in a place. There's just, there's nothing. There's so many people. As fast as it's built, somebody's taking it. Exactly. So where is the, today, what is most of the, like, so what are you

doing now mostly? Now, I would say the main line, there's still some main line going on. You'll, you'll still do that. We did a year of it last year. And then the majority of it is, slow lines, well connects. You're going to take one well pad tied in the next well pad, tied in the next well pad with tanks so that it's easier to haul out of there so they can haul it. Yep, so after the drilling rig come in, drill those wells, they frack it, everything's ready to go. It's ready to produce. They'll have wellheads on it and the old fab pipe from the wellheads into the ground,

over to the tanks, over the secondary containment, into the tanks, and then through the metering system and all that stuff. but that's pretty much what it is. And then a lot of anomalies, you know, some people, somebody trenches through something like, hey, we're going to put cables over here. Well, then they trench through a pipe because it wasn't located back in the day. They're due really good at that now. But it's a lot of anomaly, rework, replacing pipe from the 50s, 60s.

Revisions, a lot of revisions, because they're like, hey, this used to work really good with this lack unit. The lack unit's pretty much like a gas pump. It tells you like how much coming in. Who gets the money from this? Who gets the money from this? That's what's coming in. And it meters it for you. And you'll tie in a lot of lack units.

You'll do a lot of fab into that stuff. But that's pretty much where it's at is flow lines and well connects. So how's the oil getting out of there today? Because did we get the, we started to build this pipeline. Well, so some of it will go like the billings. Some of it go out to Montana. some of its truck to the rail stations. They're huge rail load out.

So they come in, they can load those rail cars in no time. But there's a vessel that holds all that, then they pump it straight into those rail cars. They load all that stuff and it's gone. Warren Buffett was very much against the pipeline, and everybody wondered why. It's because he owns a huge chunk of Burlington Northern Santa Fe. Or is it Union Pacific?

It's so interesting because anytime, I feel like that the pipeline was a great, that's like a teachable moment in American politics because there was this big uproar about it. But if you look at the money behind for it and against it, it's like we say all the time, if you follow the money on anything, you'll figure out why somebody has the opinion they do.

And like you said, Warren Buffett was, he donated a shitload of money to the Sierra Club and to all these groups that were against the pipeline. Well, the reason is because his railroad falls a shitload of that oil and they were going to lose a lot of that if that pipeline got built. But I'm going to tell you right now, and when we in, I'm not going to get into politics, but the years of Obama, the years of Biden, we made way more money. than the years of Trump. It's crazy how it all works. But somebody sets it in motion. Yep. And a good president would help with all that stuff.

But the thing is, these guys with Warren Buffett or whatever, it's got to come out of their summit. They're producing so much. Right. And you have an anomaly on a pipeline. They're like, oh, 100 barrels of salt water spilled over here. It's like, well, look at how many dagam tubes of grease and all this oil leaks all the way down. You can walk down or a set of railroad.

and you'll see all kinds of other stuff. There's a lot of stuff that goes on there too. But I guess it's who you know or what you know. But it's not shut down. It's going full for it. The main line's not there. But then the facility work with the rail cars and all that. I mean, you can tell when it's booming because we,

it's a figure eight of rail cars that they got set. Yeah, coming and going. Coming and go. You'll see grain cars. And then when you see the oil cars, you're like, oh boy something's going on now because they're moving a lot of it what is the biggest what is the biggest change that you've seen in the time that you've been there as far as work or as far as well what i'm asking is like so you still have a demand for people yep and there's

still jobs to do that always be there yep can you find enough people to do the work no they want to stand rigs up and drill right now and they can't even find find people to set up. There's drilling rig. Everybody's like, well, this president's in, so there's nothing going on. And I'm not a pot. Everybody listen to this. I'm not no politician.

I'm not into any of that stuff. But I just know what I hear, and I don't really watch the news. But it's not shut down. When I can, I'm a terrible golfer, but I can almost hit a golf ball to the nearest drilling rig outside of town, drilling. And it's crazy. But they can't find people to stand them up. Right.

And then you got your workover rigs. So your workover rigs are pretty much the ones that do the maintenance on the rigs that are all the, the wells that are already there. They can't find help. And you can pay them. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Yeah. They're over it.

They're done. And I don't know where everybody's went. And I struggle just even finding a helper to help me for, and it's good money. Yeah. And it's just. And then if you get somebody, you got to train them. And it's a whole process. And I'm not against training anybody.

But they don't train anymore like they used to. You know, 10, 15, 20 years ago, you could train somebody. Nowadays, the YouTube trains them, you know. Gosh. So do you think as you've seen people come, is there a generation of people? is there another generation of people like you coming? So if you went from 100%, there's 5% of them that are coming in hot.

And they are just dead set in their ways that it doesn't matter if it's negative 30. We're going to work. If it's rain, snow, sleet, hail, they're going to work. The rest of them, we're going to figure out somewhere to go. I mean, we'll work in the summer, we'll work in the spring or whatever. It's just, it just, the generation blows, they're just not, it's not coming.

You won't see it. And the crazy thing is, I just talked to some of my family and three of them, three of them are into welding. And I said, you don't have to go weld, but I said, it's coming to where you need a skilled labor, carpenter, doing concrete. That doesn't sound like skilled labor, but that is something. If everything went broke right now, some. somebody's going to need something done.

And it's just in the oil field, they are going to need people so bad because unless you can just ride around in a pickup, nobody wants to do it. Right. But they still want the money. Right. Well, there isn't enough mechanics. There's not enough wellness. There's not enough plumbers.

And I've got some of my good buddies that are mechanics. And they're some of the best mechanics. And their kids don't want to do it. It's a comfort zone. They're comfortable. and you got comfort until and just, you know, I've got an older son that's coming up and stepson, and it's a comfort zone. And then unless you know, Sawyer, you know, when you get stuck out there and your pants are down by your ankles and the wind's blowing, you figure it all out.

But until you're in that position, you won't. And the comfort zone now for the kids, we never had a comfort zone. No. Our comfort zone was hopefully that ain't around the corner are going to whip our ass because we mess something up. I was just going to say there isn't enough kids that drive around with a willow branch on the dash.

Or had a good ass whipping. Yeah. No, that's 100% right. I mean, it's, I hate to say this, and I've said this on here before, but I think it is just, you can boil it all down, and I can't take credit for this.

this. I stole it off of a Joe Rogan podcast, and he actually stole it from the guy that coined this. But, you know, soft times make soft men. And soft men make hard times. Hard times make hard men. That in turn, make soft times. And I'm not taking anything away from any kid nowadays. But the thing is, just like, with Sawyer or just like with you and you as growing up when I grew up or just like even my niece, my nephews, you know, they're young, five, six, and they're five, six years old. They need to absorb something. And if they can absorb it and if you can feed it to them the right way, then that's the only thing we got because I'm not worried about myself anymore in this day and age with what's

going on. I'm more worried about the younger kids what's going on because they're not going to be able to enjoy life like we did or like we do, or like we do even to this. Just a, in 10 years, you and I sit right here, we'll be like, oh, boy, I can't even imagine what happened this last 10 years. Yeah. That's what's, I think that's the thing that I, I spend a lot of time thinking about this. I probably spend too much time thinking about this. But we live in a time today that we are like at the end.

Well, I feel like we're at the end because Sawyer is a sixth generation to live on this farm. Yep. And the generation that came here, like they lived out the back of a wagon and they built a sod hut to live in until the house kit they bought from Sears and Roebuck got delivered to the rail station in Washington, you know, and then you build it from that. And you ate from the garden and you probably shot the meat you had. because you didn't want to kill the cow that you had to have. And each generation got easier. Oh, yeah, definitely. And when I think about, I'm a little bit unique.

And you are too, because your dad, your dad's older. How old are you? 53. Okay. So I'm 46, but we're cut from the same cloth. Yeah. Because Lawrence was the same way. Yeah. Myron's the same way.

Right. And they've seen it and they've lived it. Right. And if they saw a two bottom plow, they thought that was big time equipment. And we got a tractor to pull that. And oh, my goodness, it's crazy. We didn't have to do it behind a horse. And they are also of the generation that just because somebody made a four bottom plow,

we didn't buy it. Yeah. Because we didn't need it. And the one we had wasn't broke. And guess what? There's still more hours in the daylight. So you can go around there a couple more times. Right.

and not worry about a forebottom. But we, you know, everything kept getting easier. And what I feel like was unique in that was each generation that came, it did get easier, but they didn't lose the drive to go out and make their own way. Yep. And they saw that, they saw that innovation, they saw that technology. and that was something they could leverage to give their kids a better start than they had. But now we're at a point where you have a whole generation that for whatever reason,

that drive, like, I feel like there's this level of hopelessness within young people today, that they look at everything that their parents have or their grandparents have and because of the cost, the inflation, you name it, all of the things that are kind of stacked against them. They don't know it right now. They look at that like, how am I ever going to be able to have a family like my parents have? How am I ever going to be able to afford a house like my parents have? And I feel like they just kind of given up.

And they're like, well, I'm just going to sit here and watch. I'm just going to play my game or do whatever or get government. I don't know. Do you ever remember when you was 13 and you're going to hit 14 and get your permit? You're like, man, I'm going to get my permit. I'm going to drive. And then when you hit 15 and at 16, you could get your driver's license and I'm going to drive. And I have my own car.

And that's what I, it's like, kids, they'd rather Uber. Yeah. Or Lyft. I don't want it. I don't want the maintenance. It's like, so a kid can't, don't know how to do the oil change. It don't know how to change the tires. All it knows how to do is on my app, bam, hit that.

And I use Uber. I use Lyft, whatever. I'm not bashing either. It's good to have. But I say, these kids, and unless they totally think it's going to be a step up for them to go in the direction they want to go in, they're not going to go out of their way to do anything. And I'm not bashing kids nowadays, and I hope whoever hears this stuff,

I hope some kid, I just like the grit. And when I see some kid on the pipeline that comes out, and if he picks up, if I say, hey, go over there and pick up that post driver and bring it over here,

but there's no post over here. I'd hope he'd pick up a post out of that pile and bring it with the post driver. But if I can get that, if I can call him in to picking up a post and a post, driver and actually then they know how to drive a post it's amazing i come home and i just brag about that kid i'm like man there's a good kid that knew how to drive that post today and somebody didn't try to do it in a traco and bend the post and tear it all up you know what i mean's it or say what's a post

or what's a post or why are we putting this up well because there's cows there and we just tore a fence down so we we got to do this but anyways i'm not bashed but it's uh it's rough probably my highlight out there Was you asking me about my highlight or whatever? Yeah. My highlight was when I went out there, uh, uh, work,

I love being surrounded by work. And I love a, a formula of hard work, um, figuring stuff out. Everything out there. Well, it's just like farming.

I'm sure. You know, I've never farmed, but it was, uh, I acted like I did a lot, but I never really did. But it was,

uh, everything like I think about it at night I think about it during the day and I can go out there and if you can figure out how to actually run a tape major laser levels fab stuff uh figure out a situation in a heated situation to where it's like oh my goodness this could go south and you can make it go north quick and put comfort on oil people or the company then I take that to my military about background and the way I was raised, I'm like, hey, that was, I'm glad I had that because it's few and far between anymore. Yeah. So, you've been doing this for a while now. 13 years in North Dakota. So what, like what's next? So there's a few things, there's a few people

that's got bets on me. I think I might be one of these people. And it's, uh, there's a thing. There's a thing called CWI for certified well inspector or whatever you go take the classes and all that stuff and I've got a few people betting on me and against me of what I want to do and I said I'm just not that type person just to watch somebody I'm I just want to jump in and do it you know and I should delegate more authority and but I like to get in there especially if somebody wants to learn I like to show them that stuff I like to teach him probably what's next is um I'm going to give her a whirl till I'm 50. My main thing is my stepson, Morgan, good dude,

and he's got his own direction and what he wants to do, get him set in the right direction, and then figure out what my wife and I want to do. The good thing is we've got the welding rig, and I can weld and do whatever, and I love doing that stuff. Whether it's have a fab shop for myself or whether it's just do portable or travel a little bit.

I think probably will go towards more of inspection. You'll be that grumpy old bastard that'll say... I will. Weld it all the way around. There is no person, and these guys, if anybody hears this podcast, these buddies in mind that weld out there, I said,

if any of you guys take a weld test, you're welding it all the way out. Because I had to do it, and you're going to have to do it. do it. And I'm going to cut straps from all the way around that dagging thing. But anyways, it's treated me good. And, well, you know, shoot, when I left out of here, we kept in touch and everything. And you know what? I'm a better man today. Yep. We all are. Thank goodness. I met my wife out there. We were married 10 years in April.

It'd be awesome coming up. And I'm a better man today. And I'm just enjoy what I do. and I like, I just wish, if anybody hears this podcast and you guys want to work out here, come out in North Dakota. If you want to absorb this stuff, come out, because I would love teaching people to do this stuff, but bring extra layers. Because it gets cold. Yes. Yeah, I remember one of the first pictures that you sent to me was it was middle of winter,

and it was you, you sent it to me about 2 o'clock in the morning, and it was just this line. of welding rigs down this street and every one of them is running and the steam's just rolling because you don't shut your truck off like you just let her run yep let her right so instead of changing my oil by the miles we do it I take the hours by the hours yep and so a friend of mine he was he said hey I just spun my engine out on my uh what truck do you got I said oh mine's a I think mine's 15 and he's at a 14 or whatever and I said well when do you change oil he says when it tells me to I said no no no I said you got to do it by the hours and so we do it by the hours of the miles but

it doesn't take long especially in the winter time I think in baker I was changing oil like every other week and then I changed the oil the same time as my welder because my welder's 250 hours also and it runs so I've got a I got to try a plug so when I plug the rig in in the morning and then I go start. I always let my rig run for an hour before I leave. But then when I get done plug in the rig in and I start it, then I plug my welder in and it's got a tri-plug that goes to, I got a heater underneath the tank to keep it from jilling. And then I've got the frost plug one. And then it'll pop off and then I just let it run the whole day with that rig and I'll plug them in the Yeah. So when you guys are out going, when you start for the day, you leave it run. And if it's,

and if it's cold enough, you just let it. If you're not where you can, you're, can plug it in you just let it run oh yeah oh in the evenings well we've let it we've let the rig run for a week it never shut it down i just drive it over fuel it up bring it back leave it set there 50 below crazy and then you go over you go to work and you work they're like we just get i get done what we can get done we know what's cool whatever and i said when i get out of the truck I'm going to work out here until I can't. Because if I get in the rig, I can't get back now. Yeah, you're done.

It's dumb. And you waste so much time. Yep. So I was like, if you absolutely have to do something, we'll go do it. Yeah. But if not, let me leave the truck just set there. Yep. Amen to that.

Yeah. And I'll never forget my dad, I went up there to go take my first weld test, and I had a 305D, Lincoln. and I started it in Stanley, and by the time I got to almost to Bismarck, it jelled up and died. It was that cold in the back of the rig. Oh, no shit.

So then I tried everything, and I called that, and I said, what in the world would you do? He's like, well, how big a tank is it? I said, well, I think it's a 10-gallon tank. He's like, don't do this often, but he said, you're allowed to put one gallon of gas in that tank of D. So I changed the filters out and I put one gallon of gas in that 10 gallon tank of it and it popped off

And it ran. He said, don't get accustomed to it. But he said, I can't even imagine it being that cold. He said, that's cold if I got to tell you to do that. But he did it. And I put a gallon of gasoline in that. And it worked. That's a good thing.

And I made that, and I made that weld test. I went over there. I was like, they were like, well, everybody else is all jelled up. And I said, well, I call my dad. I said, I wish mine was jelled up. I wouldn't even had to take the test. Because it's so dagging him cold, but he's like, hey, the good thing is take a weld test on a really cold day because they don't want to come out and look at it much. So it's like, all they want your straps and the heated shop.

So do whatever you got to do. I'll be damn. Visit betmgm casino and check out the newest exclusive. The price is right fortune pick. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Well, we could probably sit here for hours. And we probably will after this. And we probably will. But I just appreciate you coming and it's been damn good to see you. And I think I love giving people a different perspective because

there's not very many people that know shit about what goes on in the pipeline, how that works, and I was thankful that you're willing to stop and share it with us. Well, it's kind of like that Sawyer Brown song. I think it's a Sawyer Brown song. Well, outside of town, it just drops off. Everybody thinks it's just flat. Yeah. It's a little hilly outside of town. Yeah. And I love being here. And it's not the podcast, but my main thing is you've talked to me for years,

be like, hey, come on, let's do this. And I've been thinking about this since about four this morning. Oh, there's all kinds of things that we missed. I just thought about, I'm not going to talk about what this, what this evening was about. But do you remember the evening that we started out?

We went on a journey. We went several places that night, but we started out in the little town of Columbus Junction, and we met a buddy of yours, and we were going to go to the bar. and this guy and I didn't I never met him is this when we were taking we had this thing about taking pictures of people when they're passed out or what uh no that was a different night that was a different night but we we went well it was bloomer and he was like he's like hang on boys

i got to stop at the car wash oh yeah so we stop at this car wash and here's this guy that i just met five minutes before this and we're walking on quarters about six inches thick Yep, and we just go into the office of the car wash and we pick up a bucket. And there's multiple sizes of buckets. There's big buckets. There's smaller buckets. And then there's little buckets. He just reached into the damn cash can and grab the cash can.

He's like, I don't deal with quarters. Anyway, we left there. And he, so he treated this car wash as his personal piggy bank. And we just grabbed, did we grab cash or grab a bucket? I can't remember. He's like, I'm sick and tired. We filled up a couple buckets because he always. stacked him in the corner because we couldn't get the door open.

But then he just reached in the cash machine. He's like, hey, we're going to OASIS to go drink a few beers. Yep. And so we just got some petty cash out of the car wash and then we went to OASIS. And that was the start of our evening. And I don't remember, I honestly don't even remember how that evening ended, but it was a damn good time. Hey, but we got home.

I don't know how we got home, but we did get home. We did get home. And I'll tell you one more story. I came to pork and more on a on a Friday morning, I think. And usually Aaron was there by the time I got there. He would be in there drinking coffee. However, I pulled in and he had the, he was living at this little, we called it the blue note that was right next to the warehouse.

The drive in there. And he had, you had your Dodge Ram, the White one, the White one. And on the back of it had the Rodney Carrington. Staker said, come on, sing you bastards. Yep. Only that morning when I pulled in, there was orange snow fence. All over a purple dodge. It wasn't mine.

Oh, it wasn't yours. That was scowls. So what happened? I'll tell you the whole dagum story. So what happened is I come home and my roommate, Robert. He says, hey, I just paid off my truck. Let's get a case of beer and go celebrate. break. I was like, all right, well, we'll go do it.

So we get a case of beer, we start driving. Well, then after a case of beer, we stop and get another case. Well, then next to know, he starts just diving off in the ditch. And we're just going up around and all that stuff. Laughing and joking and whatever. He's like, it's paid off. I finally got it paid off. It was a V8, it was a V8 Dodge Dakota.

You remember the old round V8 Dodge Dakota. So is he, so he's like going through the DECD, ditches and we're laughing. Well, then next, I know, uh, what's that one that goes to, uh, Ains where is that G36? So that's when G36 was shut down because they're re-paving that. Well, I lived at the blue note. Well, they had some, uh, road closed signs set up where the Walmart is now to tell you, hey, turn around or go hit gravel, go by A, some more, whatever. Well, next A&O, he's like, he, he, he, always mess with me that he was going to go in between those two road clothes signs with that

orange net well that night he didn't mess with me he went straight slam through it and he went straight slam through it and he thought somebody must have had some extra heavy duty zip ties because the road closed signs went with us and then we drove over the road closed signs and then the net so he had so i'll wake up the next morning and i go out there and look and we got orange net down the side of his paid off pickup. It's paid off now. And then three flat tires because he drove over the road signs. And he drugged them home. And I'm like, good luck with that, bud. I got to go to work. I was like, why I didn't go to work? I was like, good luck with that, bud. There was so many good, um, good ideas, good ideas that were hashed at Porcimore. One of my favorites,

it reminded me of you living at the blue note. One of my favorites was a day that we got off work and Hoffert's like, oh man, you got to see the saw I bought. You got to see this saw. Oh, boy. There's a lot of money be made cutting firewood. And man, I got this badass steel saw. And we're, oh, man, that thing's nice.

So I got a story behind that. So Geek Kill and Tears and I got one that'll beat you on this one. So we go over there. We go over there and here is, how big was the bar on that? Uh, 36 inch. It's a hot, it's way cute. So we're living. You don't need, I needed some, something for like trimming limbs, but I was like, I was trimming trunks with this one.

So I had a farm boss, oh, two nine, you know, regular saw. Aaron has this saw that, to me, it looked like he was ready to go. Oh, I was going to competition. I was going to be in a still show for the hot saw competition. And so I'm like, what are you going to do with this? And he's like, well, I'm going to cut anything I want to cut with it. Oh, this was a, go ahead. This was a deal.

So I don't think that much about it. Well, then we started a bonfire. Yep. So then, you know, afterwards. We called that our living room. But that tree was right where this table's at. So the next thing you know, Torque's like, you don't have a hair on your ass.

it knocked that fucking tree down. And I was like, all right. So I go get my hot saw and I knock that fucker down. What? Now, this is fine. It's whatever. You cut down a tree. The only problem with this whole deal was this was a rental.

Aaron was renting this place. And it didn't have a lot of amenities. Probably one of the best value adds to the property was it did have this one nice tree on it. And so then you tell about your landlord. The next morning, I wake up and I'm like, oh shit. My room, I was like, hey, you got a little firewood to put up today. And this is a bigin. Well, then I go over to Bill Benz and then they'll probably hear this one.

She's still, oh, man, she'll probably kick my ass too. But anyways, so I'm over there building Benz with Stoner Steve. And next I know this guy shows up, he's like, what happened last night I said do you see that storm holy smokes that came in hot man I was worried about the house it was gonna cave in I was like we had to get rid of it

it was like going over it and I said I just whacked her down said go that way instead of go into it and he's like my wife loves that tree I don't know how I'm explaining he's like you can't make decisions like this oh my god what I'm going to do

that was a bad decision on my part and I told him I said I really apologize for that and I said I don't know how I can make it up to you. He's like don't make it up to me make it up to my wife. So I seen that lady probably about 15 years after that and she's like you're the one that is like George Washington Cherry Tree. She's like you cut my tree down. I was like, hmm. She's like your life's can be hell for a little bit because that was my favorite tree. And I had to deal with it for a little bit, but I think we made amends on it. but I had a lot of firewood after that.

But guess what? The living room was wide open and we burned a lot. He knows all my buttons from back in the day. He knows all my buttons. He'd be like, boy, I really like to see something. You instigated it. Hey, Jr. Oh, yeah.

I bet you can't do this. I'll bet you, I'll bet you have a hair on your ass to go over there. I bet you a 12-pack, a bushline. You can't. Oh, really? I'll take a six-pack, but I'm going to go do it. Yep. And we do it.

What did I say? Okay. What did I say when we had Jared Holmes on here? I said, if there is a person that it's a damn good thing that you and Jared Holmes were not the same age and met at the same time. Because it would have been like a rampage. Because the stories that he can tell, I'm like, holy shit, that sounds a lot like somebody else I know. If you ever met a guy named Aaron Hoffert, I'm like, holy mother. All right, if you want a good story, I got one about the pipeline.

I'll tell you this one. I was just thinking of it because I've got some honorary ones. We've messed with each other before, like, playing. We always call it Punis Manios in Españo. Okay. Punas Manu. Anyway, so I lived up in Kenmere. Como?

Oh, all right. So I lived up in Kenmere, North Dakota for a few years, whatever. Just about 30, 40 minutes from Canada. So I had one of the engineers that would always drink beer with me. His name was Wes, and I hope Wes West Gamp hears this. But anyway, so Wes, Eddie talks back and he back his truck in to the motel. Well, it was a little courtyard there.

Well, there's all plastic chairs all through that courtyard. Well, if you ever lay polypipe, you can't detect a polypipe. You have to put tracer wire in there with copper to go find it. Well, he had a whole boatload of that in the back of his truck. So I told him, I said, I got him. him pretty lit. I said, hey, I bet I'll beat you to work in the morning. You ain't beat me to work in the morning. I said, all right, sounds good. Well, after I put him to bed, because young has got to go to bed a little bit. So I laced all those chairs together through that whole courierard with that

tracer wire. And I said, I'm beating you. I'm out of here. Next day, he jumps in his truck, wamp, takes off through that courtyard. 30 dagum plastic chairs are behind him. And I was like, I'll see you later. I just took off with bite truck. Oh, that's bad. Friends like you. Hey, you don't need enemies. I got something that dad told me, and this is a military story, but he said that you had to go out into the desert and fix something.

Fix something. I can't remember. And you had dealt, you said that you might have seen Delta Force. No, you told me the story that these guys. Oh, man. a long time ago. Like somebody came to your fob and said, hey, we need a welder

to fix whatever. And you took off, and you didn't have any idea where the hell you were going, but when you got there, you were either welding on like, they were either like side by sides or some.

I think it was EOD. It was an EOD deal. Okay. It was the EOD deal, I think. And we really didn't, I didn't really do much welding. They just needed it up and going. Yeah, but they were like, they just came in there like, they didn't know. But no, those guys would come in, beard.

They looked like, it looked like Duck Dynasty came in and they're eating. They got eggs in their beard, beer oil in there. And they're like, what the heck are these guys, random dudes? all the cars that they just got from wherever they got. And they pretty much just had a free, like get out of jail card. Hey, we need you to do this. Come here. Whatever. And I think that was Crigador. Cregador, because if you ever go to Ramadi, if you look Ramadi up on the internet, we were over in like Blue Diamond area. But then if you go to Ramadi Iraq, on the east side of Ramadi was Crigador. And that was Route Michigan that took you to.

Habanilla. The 17 miles like on-earst stuff you ever seen. But anyways, that's where it was at. And so you would stop at Corrigador because you didn't want, you'd stop there to refit before you took back off.

But you only had to go through town to get there. But once you got through town, it might take you 30 minutes to get to town or it might take you three days to get through town. Depend on how much shit was going on in that area. And it wasn't diners, drive-ins, and dives stop in there and get something to eat. It was other stuff, but it was like, it was on.

I remember that Constitino, the dagam, is this thing on? Yeah, yeah. Anyways, but it was, it wasn't really any, it was. No place that you wanted to spend time unless you had to be there. You, you, I'll, so I'll tell you a story. This is no word of light. This was one of the craziest ones.

So I was in, take that mic over a little. I was downtown. Ramadi and it was late at night and it was a tense situation and we were sitting there and I had my I was in a him at wrecker that night with the guy and he's like hey skipper what do you think I was like it ain't good but I got pissed and I said well I ain't got a piss in here and I said I need to walk around a little bit I said I'll be all right well I jump out and it's dark and it's we got Anglico, we got Ariel over us, and there's a whole mission going on. And I was like, I got to get out here.

I'm stressed out. I got to get out here. I was like, I'll just, whatever I get out of here, I'll just get out of here. But I'm just, so I walk around. And next day, you know, I slammed the door and started taking a piss. I'm like, well, the door didn't slam very good. It was dark. All weird, it's all night vision.

Well, I slammed the door again. Well, then next day, the whole convoy takes off. He thought I got back in. and next end it was like what? And I'm What the fuck It's like a Tommy boy episode

Where he's like Trying to go behind the car So I'm running Clear through this thing And the middle of the night My fucking NVGs on And my dagging weapon Is inside the vehicle

And I'm chasing this whole convoy And the guy that's driving Like Hey How are you doing buddy? Whatever? Hey, where are you? He's like, this is going to be pretty crazy, huh?

Skipper? Skipper? Skipper? Because they call me Skip in the military and there's a junior out. Skipper? Skipper. Hey, we don't have a skipper. So he called, I'm running down the road and I get in.

He's like, I can see it was freaking dark as I'll get out. All I had seen his white eyes. He's like, sorry, Skipper. I'm like, you motherfucker. Oh, my God. I said, you shoot me, don't let them motherfuckers shoot me. Oh, gosh. Were you like, so were you at the back or were you in the middle of a convoy?

So what they'll do on that is you'll have your, you'll have two Humvees in the front. And then you'll have a Mirr Cat, which a Mirat is just a self-propelled metal detector to pick up. Mirat or a Husky is what they would call it. And they've got the wide tires for weight distribution so that you can run over a mine and you don't have to get to. But what they'll do is it's made to blow up. It's the craziest thing. And those poor bastards that would get in that, I'm like, you fuckers, they give my V. As soon as you get in it, they give them IV and just hang it.

It gets so hot. But they button you up. and then next ANO it's the shear pins that all the bolts were sheer pins and they call it a red pack we would haul a red pack behind us because the red pack was

once that went into red mode and it blew apart it was just like a whole capsule that would freaking blow up well then you would take it and we'd pick it up with our record and just start shoving bolts in it and put everything back together

and leave the rest of it there so you'd always carry an extra drive train for it but the capsule was there. So that dude would be sitting in that thing hanging out while you're just bolting it together and he's in there going and the only way in and out of it was through the top. Then you don't unlast the top. You bold it on. Somebody locks you in. So that's your demise is in that thing. And so as a grunt and as a ground powner, when you, when they lock you in there, you just,

you just hope that the good Lord loves you. That's all. you got and then piss you piss on the floor and it goes out the fucking hole in the bottom you never you don't get out of that thing until you're through until the mission's done you got to get a you have to get into a positive situation because they will not unask you you're the main one that finds all the shit finds all of it and then if you find it you're sitting right over it and you just detected it well then the buffalo you pull forward that the buffalo has come in and dig it so you're sitting there and you could be over a secondary IED. You might have

found that initial one, but you might be sitting over the secondary. So you're sitting there a whole time shitting razor blades and it was waiting for something. So what you would do is you would send out of like a 112 APC, anti-personnel carrier, a small

tracked vehicle. Those would go out or then they call a, you would do a Humvees, but you would set up a cordon of the situation. so you'd have 360 of everything. Well, we would be in the back and we'd have cordon in the back. But if something happened, we'd have to move up front to go get him.

So you would move through there. And there was a few times where they're like, hey, you don't have to go in there. Like, well, that's what else we're going to do? You go back and watch TV. We might as well just get these guys out of here. And they would, they was a train wreck a few times. But we'd go get them. come out of there and load it up the craziest way you could and get him out of there and it was

nuts yep absolutely hell of a deal anyways the good lord's been good to us yeah made it back here and uh i learned a lot from that oh yeah i bet you did i bet you did well thank you for your service yes sir i tell you what i don't know if you when you segment this out make sure that you let all the veterans know that, hey, we're, that's huge. I enjoy it. And it's a crazy world that we live in. And for somebody to be patriotic, it's almost like being, there's a human, this person, that person, whatever.

But, you know, even being patriotic, like, well, you're Baptist. Oh, shit. People shun certain things anymore. And I hate to see it. But I am proud to be an American. And, you know what? Torque, Sawyer. barn talk everything it's awesome i appreciate it and thank you guys for doing everything you do well we appreciate

you back in the day holy smokes man and thanks for all the good stories tort yep well i think the only way to end this is take control is to take control and just know that one drink would taste pretty good right now one i wasn't going to but it's a little after lunch so i might think about one yeah maybe just one. And so in Espanio we always call it Salute de Nero Yadermore. So it's cheers, love, and money. See is Verdad.

See as Verdaude. Okay. I haven't heard that for years. I way, cavern. I think we're going to wrap it up, guys. So thank you for tuning in. Pay the fee. If you get any value, share it out. And we'll see you

back here next week for another episode. Thank you.