After some listener feedback and requests, Sammie Collison is back on Home Gadget Geeks to talk about her experience during the pandemic. From her college experience early in the spring, to having to move home in early March and then figuring out how to navigate a summer home with her parents, she talks about her journey. I think you will find it very interesting.

Full show notes, transcriptions, audio and video at http://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg454

Join Jim Collison / @jcollison and Mike Wieger / @WiegerTech for show #454 of Home Gadget Geeks brought to you by the Average Guy Network.

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Jim Collison  [0:00] 
This is The Average Guy Network and you have found Home Gadget Geeks show number 454 recorded on July 30 2020.

Here on Home Gadget Geeks we cover all your favorite tech gadgets that find their way into your home sometimes, news reviews, product updates and conversation all for the average tech guy. I’m your host Jim Collison broadcasting live from the average guy TV Studios here no beautiful Bellevue Nebraska Mike, I know you are out. If you’re outside this afternoon, pretty nice day for afternoon party, you would just say,

Mike Wieger  [0:43] 
well, they can’t decide what the weather’s supposed to be like today was supposed to be you know, stormy and bad. And then we had Yeah, we had a work gathering outside and ended up being gorgeous and beautiful

Jim Collison  [0:55] 
It was great. I was outside a little bit Sammy. What is it like putting up with a dad who’s like a weather nerd all summer. I’m so excited to hear about this dance.

Sammie Collison  [1:03] 
You know, I have not checked my weather app all summer because I just have to ask dad, what’s it like outside? And he’ll tell you? Yeah.

Jim Collison  [1:14] 
I have my radar has been kind of my app of choice. All pandemic in a lot of stuff. We’re going to talk about tonight’s kind of pandemic really kind of relive the last couple months because it’s been it’s been fun to do that. But my my radar has been that and yeah, I do I track it ever. It’s worse, like being home all the time. You think you want me to check the weather in and I check it way too much. Well, another thing you should check is the show notes. By the way, that’s the average guy TV for this program. hgG 454. And you’ll get all the show notes, complete transcripts available for you out there as well. Don’t forget you can also listen live and stream it that’s the best way to do it. Well it’s it’s really it’s a way to do it. If you want to stream and head out to Home Gadget geeks.com you can download the app Android or iPhone and thank our Patreon subscribers. For doing that, if you want to be a Patreon subscriber, you can do that as well. The average guy TV slash Patreon and Big thanks to the 30 or so of you who are doing that, each and every week, and I guess each and every month that’s probably the right way to say, we appreciate you guys supporting the show. You’ve already heard from her my daughter. I call her Samantha everybody else calls her Sammy. We’ll call her Sammy for the program. Sammy, welcome back.

Sammie Collison  [2:23] 
Thanks for having me. As always,

Jim Collison  [2:25] 
yeah, good to have you. I was trying to remember we had you on I think was it last summer or did we do something?

Sammie Collison  [2:31] 
I feel like the last thing was the the Thanksgiving special. Okay. The night after Thanksgiving. Yeah.

Jim Collison  [2:37] 
2019 just you and me. Mike, are you here for that?

Mike Wieger  [2:40] 
Yep. No, I was just, yeah, just the two of you. I hit and she had been on just a few weeks prior with all three of us and she was on just YouTube right at Thanksgiving.

Jim Collison  [2:49] 
Yeah, you know that for that Friday. We had a couple listeners since then say they’d really like to hear semi back. In fact, Jim Shoemaker had written in during the feedback program that we did it myself. House that he’d love to see again. And so it’s always good to have you back on this, you know, you and I talked for a while this summer about like, what would we do with this show? And what can we share what kind of opportunities and I think just as we got closer to the, to the time I just kind of thought, you know, we’ve had so much fun this last you know March like it’s for for almost five months. We’ve just had so much fun and it’s been so different for than anything I think we’ll ever experience again like I just don’t know, you know, for a lot of people this was a time of bringing their kids home and homeschooling and no daycare, Mike right I mean, it’s been it’s about are things kind of back to normal for the most part are no

Mike Wieger  [3:47] 
as much as we try to be right but with a two and three year old it’s, it’s especially with our places. Where do they balance is it school rules is a daycare rules where they balance so it’s been crazy for us maybe a little more balanced for you. I think just

Jim Collison  [4:02] 
Yeah. Well, I think in and Sandra, you can jump in on this. I think just we’re going to do dive we got some details we’re going to kind of dive into here. But I think that kind of just categorize I think we have taken advantage of because we could, you know, one is we don’t have a bunch of small children around here. We didn’t have to homeschool anyone. We have a 21 year old, which is pretty great. So he turned 21 back in October. And, and so we’ve we’ve kind of, I mean, it’s just been adults, but it could have been Sammy, it could have been a summer of isolation in a lot of ways. That’s why it hasn’t I think back to last summer, we didn’t do as many things together. I was at work all the time. You went out for walks to the to the cemetery alone, right, almost every day. And I I think we really took advantage of the time that we had in it. weighs like, I don’t regret at all. I don’t there’s there’s nothing about this summer.

Sammie Collison  [5:06] 
And I was taking a summer class last summer. And so I was really in like a work mentality. But this summer, I didn’t have a summer class, I couldn’t work. I was stuck at home. And so I’m like, I’m going into my senior year of college. My life is never going to be like this ever again. I’m never going to have a summer off of school ever again, once I graduate and so it was like a time to just be to just come back to family and be like, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. might as well have fun with it. And like hang out with my parents in a way that I probably never will.

Jim Collison  [5:39] 
Yeah, and I have no regrets. I think there’s I’m glad we got that on on tape. We will play that again. In the future. I am sure whatever

Sammie Collison  [5:49] 
dad sad, lonely He’s like, you know what, Sam had no

Mike Wieger  [5:52] 
regrets. She had zero regrets and I got it on record. I don’t

Jim Collison  [5:56] 
have school wrap up just as we think back and that seems like 100 years ago. My

Sammie Collison  [6:00] 
gosh, it’s sucked

Jim Collison  [6:02] 
to talk a little bit about that. That’s cool wrap up for you.

Sammie Collison  [6:05] 
Yeah, so we went on spring break. And the virus was just starting to get to the States. And so we were like not knowing what was gonna happen with everybody going off to different parts of the country, potentially different parts of the world for spring break, and then potentially coming back to campus. And so like towards the Thursday of spring break, which is mid March, they were like, we’re taking another week, basically, of spring break with the potential of going online for classes for two weeks. And then later, they were like, we’re for sure, going online for classes for two weeks. And then a couple days later, they were like, rest of the semester. Everybody lives in the dorms, come back your stuff. And so it was like, really, it was a really weird Limbo period where we weren’t sure what was happening. It was like an extended spring break, and then we just suddenly had to pack up all of our stuff. And so my semester was cut in half, and I had to finish it online. It was really hard. I scraped through it. But like once that was done, it felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. And I was like, Oh, I don’t have to be exposed to people who could potentially get me sick. And I just get to stay home and chill, because I’m a very introverted person, and it’s nice to just be at home.

Jim Collison  [7:17] 
Yeah, that was nice. That was weird. That was weird for me to get used to is, as you’re growing up, is, I think, Tim, who our marine son comes back and lives with us here in five weeks, I think he’s back and so I’ll get to, I’m actually gonna get to repeat this again with him. It’s kind of cool. We’ll get you in school, get you settled in. Hopefully you’ll be there a while or you’ll be back one of the two. But then Tim comes home and and we’ll see how it goes. He’s a completely different animal than you are. But it um, it was an opportunity like as we as we looked at the spring, it was this opportunity to do things differently. And I think it’s I looked at as I kind of looked at you know, we’re talking mid March, Mike, think about Like then that seemed like 100 years ago now, like

Mike Wieger  [8:03] 
it does. It seems so long ago, it seems like well, especially when you’re in the work environment, you it doesn’t seem like that instrumental, it was huge, right? We’re like, either you’re from home or you’re in it from the office, but I would love to hear it from the, the students side of Hey, this was a really big deal for us. We were finishing up our educational career or we’re just starting or we’re in the middle and what impact that had a See I think it puts you behind.

Sammie Collison  [8:32] 
Um, I think so. I didn’t, and I, I, you know, the big thing about being a journalism student, is your classes, for sure matter, but nothing matters more than practicum working for student publications. And so having a quarter of your school year, not working and not being able to produce content for my portfolio, sucked in like I had a huge story that I had been working on for like half the school year that I I had to completely trash all of the work that I did on because there was, there was no, I couldn’t talk to people anymore. It didn’t really matter, because all that mattered was the Coronavirus. And so like that sucked. And it was kind of like a this summer has been like a reverse bell curve of emotion, that it was like really stressful at the very beginning because I was thinking about school and work. And eventually it tapered off. And now I’m getting back into that spot where I’m like, Oh, no, I got to ramp up again. And back to the uncertainty of like, not knowing what’s gonna happen, not knowing how long I’m going to be in Missouri, when I’m going to get back how long I’m going to work. We already have fewer papers planned for this semester, but we might have even fewer than that. So just it’s kind of the mindset I’m going into it with is trying to get as much done as I can, considering the circumstances and hoping that employers understand. Yeah,

Mike Wieger  [9:53] 
and was it more the viewership changed on who’s viewing the content or was it the actual content itself, that on what you need to be reporting on times,

Sammie Collison  [10:05] 
I was a campus news editor and there was no campus to write news about our entire last issue. We scrapped like three days before we went to print and rewrote an entire new issue about Coronavirus because all of the news that we had written before didn’t matter anymore. nothing mattered anymore except for the fact that school was cancelled because Coronavirus, it just took over all of our lives through the audience changed. I mean, who you’re writing for what you’re writing about. I mean, I imagine that everything changed for you in your own writing. Right? in the span of a week, the world tipped upside down.

Mike Wieger  [10:40] 
No kidding. And I can imagine that a lot of us from the outsider’s perspective, we’re looking for, hey, what’s the internal perspective? What are writers saying about the code experience during this time, and then the writers you chain you know, okay, well, we’re now no longer writing for just the college students. This has been viewed from a worldwide Wide perspective, that probably changed the way you’re writing right on how you’re reporting from. What’s happening inside is like, hey, it’s no longer just the students here. Everyone’s looking for us on what’s happening on the front lines. Because I mean, that’s what I was looking for. I was looking for, hey, what’s happening on these campuses? How are these college students coping with what’s happening? That’d be a huge change for you guys.

Sammie Collison  [11:22] 
Yeah, a big thing was normally, I mean, we already write campus and community, the surrounding city. But the big thing was parents because we shifted out of print into just our online sphere. And our main Facebook following is alumni and parents of students. And so they were the ones who were really looking for news from us to kind of funnel in all of the news that was coming into the university. So they would know what is happening with their kids. And is that a big shift from your normal, probably audience for who you’re writing for?

For sure.

I can impact it definitely went hard news, real fast.

Mike Wieger  [12:00] 
This is real right like this. This audience has changed to a writing for his changed. Man. That’s that’s gonna be a huge stressor on all the writers for the paper.

Jim Collison  [12:09] 
Yes. Range control says in the chat room he says exciting and polarizing time it’s like impossible to not have it again. Oh, right. Yeah. How do you how do you feel about all the events of the past year, especially when we think around a domestic policy.

Sammie Collison  [12:25] 
It’s really hard to keep up as a student journalist in a small town journalist. It’s hard to take the wide scope because I don’t work for the New York Times. I don’t work for The Washington Post. It’s not my job to tackle the big stories, but it’s hard to focus on your everyday life. Even if I wasn’t a journalism student. It’s so hard to focus on your everyday life when everything that’s happening around you feels like the most chaotic this country’s ever been, which may or may not be true, but that’s the way it feels. And so you’re trying to take that lens in, sharpen it down to the individual experience, and it feels absolutely impossible because everything is influenced by everything else. And everybody’s terrified. And it’s so hard to write anything that feels remotely hopeful

Jim Collison  [13:07] 
when we began to question everything, which is good and bad in some, some regards, I think the scrutiny on what is being written is good from the sense that we should know the source and we should like all those happen. But I think I think it’s made it a challenge is you think about launching into the world and doing this job that we call journalism. I couldn’t think of a crazier and yet maybe what they say in Top Gun a target rich environment. Right. You have to be a journalist. Indeed. How do you feel like just today? How do you feel about that?

Sammie Collison  [13:44] 
I think the biggest challenge is, it’s harder than ever to know where the line is between personal and unbiased journalism because, like I we’ve said Just before I’m an opinionated person, I have political opinions that I don’t share outside of my private, Facebook, social media. My Twitter, I keep pretty unbiased because it’s my work stuff. And then obviously, my, my political biases don’t bleed into my work, or at least I hope they don’t. But it’s hard to know when it comes to, like black lives matter. I perceive that is human rights and unbiased. So where do we draw the line when it comes to what is truly neutral? Like that’s so hard? Yeah, to know how to write unbiased, and whether representing an opposite side is actually doing a disservice to humanity? Like, these are questions that I did not accept, expect to grapple with at the age of 21. It’s absolutely terrifying.

Mike Wieger  [14:46] 
It’s a harder question than I think any of us had to deal with the age of 21. But for you, I mean, how do you deal with that? How do you grapple with, hey, the publication I’m writing for may have an interest in this and I have maybe either the equal to Or opposite interest. And what do I write about? I mean, how does that happen for a journalist? What do you decide? How do you how do you know what to write about?

Sammie Collison  [15:07] 
I think the most important thing is that newsrooms are a democracy, that newsrooms are one of the truest democracies that I’ve ever seen in my in my personal life, because everybody talks to each other, and everybody consults on stories. And when it comes to editorial content, like we literally get into a room and vote. And so whenever you’re uncertain, you just get to lean on your peers and your co workers. And it’s, honestly, it’s the reason why I don’t regret doing what I’m doing. Because I really care about the people that I’m working with. And they’re so smart. Like, whenever I feel dumb, everybody else is there to like help you work through your problems and talk about things. And it feels really good to have that support and those people your back. My coworkers, I trust with my life.

Mike Wieger  [15:52] 
Now, so go ahead. Go ahead. No, I was gonna say so is that, you know, when you’re working for a publication like that, is it important than I would guess if To vote amongst the people is important to work for a publication that shares the same values as you do to know that, hey, in the end, the vote will be in the direction that I hope it will be, or are you actually doing the opposite? Are you working for a publication where it’s maybe the opposite of where you believe so you try and sway the public persuasion on a certain issue.

Sammie Collison  [16:22] 
Ideally, we want diversity of voices in the newsroom, because we want to be able to throw every perspective at the wallet and hopefully come out with what our audience wants. So we want we want to have a diverse representation of what our audiences and when you’re working for a college. That’s huge diversity, like we have a huge chunk of international students. And so we want to try and have international voices in our table so that we can know what they feel and do get out amongst each other. And hopefully, the best ideas rise to the surface, or at least, like when we have really controversial ideas that we’re running on, say our opinion page, we’ll do a versus column where it’s one side versus the other. They’re equally represented. So that way our audience feels seen and feels heard and feels represented.

Mike Wieger  [17:06] 
I love that. So so both sides are getting hopefully an equal an equal say in the issue and the public gets to decide, hey, we’re representing one side of the issue here. You’re hearing both sides, and now you get to decide for your own. Yeah,

Sammie Collison  [17:21] 
my co editor this past year, Mike, so I was the campus news editor. And then my friend Kendrick was the community newsletter. We lean opposite ways on the political spectrum, but we’re like best friends. And like that was a really important thing for our news section. That whenever one of us felt like we were pushing an agenda and ideology too much, we kept each other in check. So like, as you write an article on that alone, and the public would love to hear it. I should text Kendrick about that after should you definitely

an op ed about being from opposite sides of the spectrum and working together

Jim Collison  [17:58] 
very well on on this show.

Sammie Collison  [18:00] 
Maybe they haven’t talked to Kendrick that much he was gonna visit and then he was working because he works at a hospital. So like, his job is important.

Mike Wieger  [18:07] 
Yeah, that’s gonna be such a hard conflict for you guys decide on what gets published because you guys are both, like you said on opposite sides of spectrum. You have one paper though one paper needs to be published, how do you decided what needs to go in? That’s gonna be a really tough decision.

Sammie Collison  [18:21] 
It’s not as tough because you have multiple stories and you have multiple pages to fill. It’s as hard as you think it is, especially when you agree on like humans being humans, stuff like that.

Mike Wieger  [18:32] 
Whereas Facebook Live is right.

Sammie Collison  [18:35] 
Yeah, it’s not like communists in like, in like libertarians. It’s like, people agreeing on a certain set of things and then like leaning one way or the other.

Extreme is kind of like, those were extremes on a spectrum. There’s many there’s many political extremes.

Jim Collison  [18:53] 
Well, the compromise. I think one of the, you know, one of the fallacies that we have is is this idea of you Have equalness like you’re going to create equal sides that are going to have the same weight. And I really think, you know, we got to get back to this more of a compromise like we all have is Mikey, you and I come from very similar backgrounds from very similar ideologies and yet see things a little differently. redo some spaces, right. And it allows us to have a conversation about it and then at the end go, alright, see, see you next week, like

Mike Wieger  [19:27] 
last week post show if everyone had been privy to that, I mean, you’re not Yeah, exactly. The very nobody heard was close person like, believes on things, and yet very different outcomes on how we think about certain issues. And but again, like you said, we were both able to walk away from the conversation like Yeah, I like that. I appreciate Jim’s, you know, thought I appreciated Mike’s thought on where we’re at on that.

Jim Collison  [19:52] 
See me You and I started a routine early where you had started walking last year you walked a lot to the cemetery and And I asked you early on, like, Can I go with you? Like, that’d be okay. And I didn’t.

Sammie Collison  [20:05] 
I said, Can you

Jim Collison  [20:06] 
make it up the hill? how weird it would be now, I had just I didn’t realize how serious that hill was. But I just come off Tracy tower to I was a little skinnier and a little a little better shape here at the pre pandemic. But this gave us an opportunity you and I, I think gave us an opportunity in the early stages. You know, it was cold out there. We had jackets on and think about

Sammie Collison  [20:32] 
how hot it is now seeing the pictures of us in jackets. We spent some

Jim Collison  [20:36] 
time we spent some time talking though. And early on. We talked a lot more early on then we did now we kind of go out and just just power through it when we do it. But I think that was one of those newsroom compromise compromise conversations that we would have constantly where you would throw out some new ideas and challenge me on them and I would change jus on, like, well, I don’t know, I don’t know if I think that way. Let’s talk through it. And we would have this conversation, this dialogue over the 45 minutes to an hour that we’d be out walking in. It would cause me to rethink some things on the way. I’m like, Yeah, okay, well, that’s interesting. And we never got his, you know, you never came in and slam the door in my face. You never right. We we would maybe pick up that conversation a couple days later how it was, how did you feel on the other side of that having these conversations with your dad? You know, on a walk? Yeah. Did you feel that?

Sammie Collison  [21:37] 
I feel super lucky that I have a dad that I can talk to who comes into a conversation with that measure of mutual respect. So we can have hard conversations, because a lot of people I know do not have that relationship with their dad. And like I do not get in arguments on social media 99% of the time because people go about it in a way They, they don’t, they don’t come at it with respect or understanding or an open mind. And so I’m like, I’m not wasting my energy on these people. But it’s nice to be able to have conversations with people, we’re, we’re both in it for the same thing. And we’re both in it with an open mind and with love and mutual respect. And so like, it doesn’t feel stressful, or terrifying to me at all. It doesn’t feel like a confrontation, it doesn’t feel like the angry emails I get. The one or two times I’ve written an op ed like it doesn’t. It’s not scary. It’s actually kind of a relief to be able to talk to another human as a human.

Jim Collison  [22:33] 
It was it was kind of fun for me. I mean, I think I learned a lot through it too. You know, we kind of followed a pattern where one of us or throw out a question and then it was kind of just back and forth. No, nobody necessarily had to get their drive their point in like, you know, you got a you got a nobody stormed, stormed off, Matt, you really couldn’t start off on the middle of the cemetery. I mean, I guess you could do that. But for me, it was it was It was really refreshing to to have some of those dialogues. I think, in a way I don’t even know if I’ve had with some of my co workers, just to be honest Now, that’s not totally true. Mike and I have similar conversations when it’s not the first time we don’t do that all the time, not like you and I. But it definitely lent itself to some interesting conversations throughout the summer to kind of work out some of those things. You know, just, it was for me, it was good to hear just how you felt about some of these things. There were things that we were never able to talk about when you were in high school. There were things that we were never able to talk about in school. There were times you just blurted it out. Ask right you have to ask any moments in there. In particular, if you think about the summer of cod or the it was I say the summer of but it’s really kind of spring and summer but any conversations in there that you’re that you remember that? that stand out.

Sammie Collison  [23:57] 
I can’t think of any industry. ticular I just think, Well, I mean, we might as well get personal because this is a very personal podcast. Um, so I came out as gay to my parents in senior high school. But like this, I felt like was the first summer that I was really open about it and comfortable talking about it. Because like, I’m a really private person, that’s part of my private life. It’s why I don’t talk about it a lot. But we actually got to, like, have honest conversations about it in when Supreme Court and done this decision that you can’t be fired strictly for being gay. Like, that was a big moment for me. And like, I got to, like, celebrate that as a person in a way that I didn’t in 2015 when the marriage, the gay marriage ruling came out, because I was still in the closet. And so like, it’s been a summer where I get to be comfortable in my identity with my parents. And it feels really good to just talk about things and like life and not be judged for it when a lot of people are. No,

Jim Collison  [24:50] 
no, I did not. Oh, go ahead.

Mike Wieger  [24:52] 
No, I was gonna say I think that’s, I mean, that story has been so cool. And you know, I’ve gotten to live through this with podcasting with Jim And Sam, you being on during this time? me though, okay, so I’m a parent, right? I’ve got two young kids, you know, what do you what do you say to the parents out there who? You know, just like your dad, right? Maybe he, you were about to have this conversation with them it was a very important conversation with for you especially. And who knows if he if he knew was coming if he didn’t know was coming. So talk to me, right? I’m a dad, you’re like, Okay, so. So you’re a parent coming forward, you know, what advice do you have for parents but having conversations, not just about this, right, you talked about, you know, coming out to your parents. That’s a that’s an amazing, you know, feet that you did in the conversation you had, but just any conversation like this, I love the conversation that you talked about that you had with your dad and your dad talked to me, when you’re not here about you guys. You have this amazing conversation. And I love how open it is and how honest it is. And you know, what’s your advice to a young parent about having conversations like this with their adult A child who’s about to, you know, who has opinions of their own, who maybe are different shocker than than the parent who raised them throughout their entire life. Just give me give me some advice from your perspective on what that’s like?

Sammie Collison  [26:16] 
Well, I think it’s hard to prepare in advance for hard conversations that you’re going to have with your kids, because they don’t know what’s coming either. They don’t anticipate having these conversations throughout their life, suddenly, it hits you, you’re like, crap, I have a hard conversation with my parents about this serious thing or like I really disagree with my parents about this. So both

Mike Wieger  [26:36] 
sides are fearing it’s not just the parents, okay. That’s a big relief for me.

Sammie Collison  [26:42] 
Man, my scary it is is afraid of you as you are of it. Or even more so. Like your kids are more afraid of you than you are of them. As much as you’re scared of them. I recognize that that’s a thing. But when hard conversations come, always reassure your kids that you Don’t love them any less, because of anything that they’ve said. That’s the first thing that you want to reassure them. And that it. For me in particular, when I came out the most like my lasting impression whenever people are like, how did your parents react? I always say that my dad’s reaction was, I don’t care who you date, as long as you stop dating musicians. Like it wasn’t, it wasn’t a big deal. And I didn’t want it to be a big deal. That’s another thing is reacting to your kids at the level that they presented to you. If they don’t want something big, big deal. Don’t make a big deal, especially if they’re a teenager, they want to play it low key, let them be insecure about a thing until they figure it out on their own. But if they if they want something to be celebrated, if you sense that from them, then react to that and celebrate it. But for the most part, teens are angsty, and they just want to keep their emotions in this little box. So like maybe let them keep it in their box for a little bit. And they will eventually come out of their box eventually.

Mike Wieger  [27:55] 
But the reaction I mean from what I’m getting from you is the reaction from the parents is very important how you react That is his as key as to what your opinions are on the matter of what they’re actually bringing up the reaction is, is big. So I’m getting.

Sammie Collison  [28:09] 
Yeah. And I think for the most part, as long as the reaction comes with a recognition that you still love them and still accept them, even if they’re going through a really hard time, or they said something that you really disagree with, or they’re going through something that’s really difficult, that you still love them and accept them. That’s the main linchpin. I think that’s what I just got from what you said was like, you know, your feelings and what you’re going through and what the teenager is going through is, is huge. And the parents reaction is not just their visceral reaction to what you’re saying, It’s, hey, this teenager, this child, this, you know, child versus going through something and there’s bringing something to and your reaction

Mike Wieger  [28:49] 
affects, I guess, how they are reacting to it almost right. Like your dad’s reaction to what you were saying probably affected your reaction to what you were saying. It’s like, how about How are my parents gonna react to this? How are they gonna see what I’m saying? It’s such a hard issue, let me tell you as a parent to tackle, and it’s so interesting to hear it from the side of, Hey, I’m telling my parents this. And this is what I’m telling them and this is their reaction. I love it. It’s, it’s very insightful. I’ll tell you that.

Sammie Collison  [29:21] 
Also, another thing is, pick. Your kids will not judge you if you are vulnerable with them. Like if you admit you don’t have all the answers, you don’t know how, what to say how to react. That is okay. And it’s okay to apologize to your kids if you mess up or get angry at them. Like they’re not looking for the answers. No. Often, like when I was going through mental health issues in high school, I was not looking to my parents for answers. Like I went to a therapist for that. But I just needed that comfort that like we’re here for you. No matter what, like we can’t fix it, but we’re here for you. And that’s all I really needed.

Jim Collison  [30:01] 
Wow, that’s a really hard Mike that’s a really hard thing as a parent to do in any relationship is to is to sit back and let it kind of let it happen. Right We think we need to fix it like we think we need to get her out looking for the answer is this was kind of getting as like we feel like as parents, you always have the answer for them. There was I mean, there was a lot of times I was very afraid with a with all the kids not just for Sammy, but with all the kids that you know, it’s like oh, I need to do more. And I didn’t know what to do. I fortunately when I don’t know what to do, I don’t do anything instead of trying to do something I don’t do anything. I think that actually played into my favorite standing I think for you and I began to change the relationship began to change and we started spending so much time together driving in between here in Maryville I was kind of you know, today you know, we haven’t given you a car you’re not driving yourself to and from school in and I’m kind of glad that that did that worked out the way it did, because it Davis if, if that had not been the case, if we went about all that, all that bass, like we set up a bunch of bass, in that time, we began talking two hours each way. There’s lots of time to chat in there. And there’s sometimes we talked a lot and sometimes we didn’t talk very much at all. But it built for us it built that relationship of trust there that when summer came along, when this summer came along, we decided, you know, I decided, I’m going to make sure I spent a bunch of time with her like as much as I can. And we would, you know, I’d catch up in the kitchen. In between, you know, we’re going a little bit here we’re going to talk about something I hear you’re quite the cook By the way, for the past few weeks that you are quite the cook in the kitchen. But it’s but it came when those decisions were made to just wait for the time to present itself. Like I think for both Sarah and I, we spend a lot of time just kind of waiting for those situations to arise when they present themselves. And then ask, Hey, can we do you want us? How? How involved you want us to be? How much? How much help do you need? Do you want? Do you want? Do you even want help? At this point? I, I don’t you know, and it’s not just me I think about an example with my oldest when he’s playing football and I said, Hey, do you want to go to the next level? There’s some things we need to change about who and where and what you do, do you want to play at the next level? And he was like, No, not really. I was like, okay, that’s, that makes it easy for me to not have to do those things. But it was his decision, not mine of you know, you’re going to be a great football player. He had some great potential in there, but that’s just not kind of what he wanted to do. So Sammy, we got I think we got a great opportunity this summer. And but those things don’t just happen I think have to be intentional. I mean, I think about all the times I came upstairs to say we’re going at three today. Or let’s do this thing you know, can we would move it around that hour that we’d have together we would move around kind of based on based on the schedule based on what was going on base base what was happening. But I think I think the biggest surprise for me, at least through the course of summer is just how much fun we had like

Yeah. It was it. Almost more fun than we then we should have had.

Sammie Collison  [33:28] 
You know what? No regrets. Again, no, I don’t know place to have fun, like your own house, college parties, overrated. Drinking your own house. If you have cool parents, like, that’s what life is about.

Jim Collison  [33:43] 
Yeah, I mean, so I mean, we, for both records for you this summer. We really spent a lot of time early getting you to know wine. This is one of the things we spent a little time Sarah enjoys wine. I enjoy wine. We wanted you to enjoy it. And so we spent some time kind of just teaching you Which was Hey, you don’t have to. Yes. It’s a little weird. If you’re a parent and you’re telling your kid like, we want to give you some alcohol, you don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to, like, you know, and Sammy at first. I don’t know. I don’t know. And then, and then slowly so we taught her some really good like, you know, just some good habits around it. And for the longest time, like I’ve been trying to get her to drink beer, and if there’s one accomplishment this summer

Sammie Collison  [34:27] 
it wasn’t even you though it was Yeah. Huh? It was Josh and Derek.

Jim Collison  [34:34] 
Oh, yeah. Well, it’s good though. But again, a lesson in this right is that we really like everybody in America. I can’t speak for the rest of the world but but for everybody in America, we really enjoyed those times together and spent time on the deck and spent time on side and you know, spent time

Sammie Collison  [34:51] 
on the floor in the kitchen.

Jim Collison  [34:53] 
We had a few dance parties when it was too cold outside. We had

Sammie Collison  [34:56] 
enough steam party in the kitchen. What do you think

Jim Collison  [34:59] 
what As you think about the future and you think about those memories, what do you think will stick the longest for you? What is what are those moments in there that you think you’ll? you’ll hold on to as we think about this summer of 2020?

Sammie Collison  [35:15] 
a scream singing you need to calm down by Taylor Swift in the kitchen. For sure.

Mike Wieger  [35:21] 
Was that I wouldn’t imagine Jim just totally getting down to that song. Is that what happened? Right song? Okay. Did I?

Sammie Collison  [35:29] 
Yeah.

Jim Collison  [35:31] 
Well, we invented what was called the drunk seat and

Sammie Collison  [35:34] 
yes, it’s one spot.

Jim Collison  [35:37] 
When you’ve when you’ve got

Sammie Collison  [35:39] 
the you sit down and you drink water until you’re chill. Yeah, what?

Jim Collison  [35:46] 
What else see me So besides that, as you think about the other things we did that you wouldn’t normally like we just went up normally happened. What else

Sammie Collison  [35:56] 
a lot together. Dad’s favorite brands that he wishes he was sponsored by hellofresh. Yeah,

Jim Collison  [36:07] 
very true. I think, Mike, one of the things is, you know, as your kids get older, one of the things I did right this summer was making sure. You know, we had situations Sarah worked a lot this summer. This is just a summer of work for her for both jobs that she’s been in, in, so it gave us an opportunity to be here. She’s always been here for us. When I was working a ton, and when I was, you know, coming home at 637 o’clock, and she was here this summer that flipped, and a lot of ways I was here, and it was, you know, we would go for a walk and like, okay, we need to get some meat out and we need to plan for dinner here. And when and just as the summer progressed, it kind of became you know, who’s the chef and who’s the suit, right, who’s the sous chef and that, who’s who’s going to be responsible for it that night, as well as just adding different things to at CMU. Think about all the different ways we’ve cooked some some and hellofresh is certainly Help. I mean, I’ve

Sammie Collison  [37:00] 
Yeah, we’ve gone off on our own now. We’re fast and loose playing off the rulebook.

Jim Collison  [37:08] 
Yeah, well we’ve basically I mean, Sarah just said the other night we were eating she was like, I am so glad that we forced ourselves onto some new recipes, you know, to get some different things in and we’ve spent a lot of time kind of honing and changing and tuning those but I think the times together cooking in the kitchen have been just as important the than the food as the food itself in the sense of the conversations we had or adjust to the teamwork that we did putting that together. Mike, you can’t I don’t know if you can always manufacture that it was a time I’m not sure she would have done this with me at 15 as an exam

Sammie Collison  [37:43] 
for sure not. I was

Mike Wieger  [37:46] 
a lot better. Okay, good.

Sammie Collison  [37:48] 
But I will be angsty, let them be angsty, you gotta be cool. Adults most likely be weird,

Jim Collison  [37:55] 
but we would play music and we would just spend time it was It was that evening time together of talking. And then Sarah really got over it because she gets to come home and dinner and be ready. We’d uncork a bottle of wine. And yeah,

Sammie Collison  [38:10] 
we for sure gotta let it empathy for what mom went through with us growing up with her cooking all the time. Yeah, just getting to come home and eat.

Mike Wieger  [38:18] 
Yeah, it seems to me though, like, it’s almost like the unscripted time is the time that means the most, you know, you guys are both gone through this. And Sam, you’ve probably spent an unprecedent amount of time at home that you didn’t expect to with your dad. And he’s been there and it seems to me like the time you guys didn’t plan to spend together is probably the most valuable is is that is there truth to that?

Sammie Collison  [38:41] 
I also think that like quality time is my number one love language. If anybody’s familiar with the five love languages, yeah, those are really important for knowing about the people that you want to spend time with. And like quality time is a huge thing for me. So that’s important when somebody Yeah, when my when my parents make an effort, hang out with me. Like I value that and like not every kid’s gonna be like that. So like no no your kid but that’s a huge thing for me and so like when somebody is like I want to hang out with you or will you help me with this? Or do you want to and that’ll always be like he’ll go out on the deck after dinner and he’ll be like if you want to come you can do you don’t have to now pressuring you know it’s like that’s the that’s the ideal situation is that like I can go out there and if I want to have company if I want to be by myself I can there’s no pressure

Mike Wieger  [39:27] 
and was that a constant for your did that change as you got older? Those the love language for you have you know, time being spent attention spent that change or was that constant?

Sammie Collison  [39:36] 
Yes, it changed because I used to be more of words of affirmation kind of person. And then like as I got older, I just enjoy more of the even if you’re not talking to each other, just being in the same space as somebody and like doing something together is fine with me like that. That is time well spent. So adaptation hopefully is a trait parents have learning, learning with our kids going through old kids like you You just said right? It’s hard for parents understand what are you? What are you? Where are you at right now? In your phase of life? Are you wanting me to pay attention? Are you wanting me to step away? Are you wanting me to, you know, ignore you talk to you, what do you want in

Mike Wieger  [40:14] 
childhood good about telling them? Or is it just something the parent you want them to pick up?

Sammie Collison  [40:19] 
Sometimes it’s hard to communicate. So I think just like leaving the door open, like dad does, where he’s like, you can come out and hang out with me if you want. You don’t have to. And so like that, so it’s like an option, that I know that he wants to hang out with me if I want to, if I don’t want to, I’m good. Doing it on my own. No pressure.

Jim Collison  [40:36] 
Sometimes the kids don’t know Mike, to be honest. They don’t know. Sometimes I don’t even know what I want. And I’m an adult. So he would, you would you’d say things like, Well, what do you what do you need to know? sammies? Actually, I mean, in the last in the last two or three years since we’ve had her in school, there’s been a few moments where I’ve been there and I said, you know, she’s been in a little bit of a crisis or it’s been really stressful and I said, Well, you can I do? Just I don’t know. It’s really hard to not want to try and fix something. But I think one of the things I’ve learned is okay, let’s just go eat. Like, if we don’t know, let’s go to everyone right?

Sammie Collison  [41:15] 
Food is therapy for the soul

Jim Collison  [41:17] 
food please go get let’s go shopping to get you food for the dorm room or let’s go out and get some you know, let’s go out to eat at Applebee’s or let’s just go I think the other thing I’ve learned through all this is there are times when you just don’t have to talk like you can eat together. We’ve had tons of time together this summer, where in an hour we’ve maybe said 10 words to each other you really yeah, I mean, it’s we’ll take off like hey, you want to go Yeah, and so put shoes on head out the door walk down man said a word maybe till we get to the Main Street cross it might say a few words walk up there and get to the cemetery. She does her thing I do mine we kind of a Pokemon Go and I

Mike Wieger  [41:58] 
was gonna say you collect your Pokemon. Go and she collects

Jim Collison  [42:02] 
Sammy talk because Jim, in his request Jim Shoemaker in his request, it said a little bit. What’s the drive for you for Pokemon Go? That seems you know, your your, you know, like, what that has been a daily constant cemetery it’s a thing for you What is it about Pokemon GO that that does something for you.

Sammie Collison  [42:22] 
It’s an incentive to get out of the house and like go and do something that’s like not sitting in a chair. That’s like fun, and like low pressure, like there’s no stakes. If I don’t go out and play Pokemon Go for a day, like nothing bad happens. But like, I get, I get a little a little Pokemon to put in my poker decks. If I go outside, like that’s, it’s it’s just enough of an incentive for me to do something that I enjoy doing anyway, but often need a little bit of incentive to do if that makes

Jim Collison  [42:52] 
sense. Yeah, Jim, Jim Shoemaker just joined he said, Good, perfect timing out there. So yeah, Jim, we’re talking a little bit about that. So if you have some questions, so Send me a sir the consistency of that game for you or it’s it’s something new, but it’s the same thing every day. Like, yeah, I remember we would go and you’d be mad at a certain team

Sammie Collison  [43:13] 
in the gym,

Jim Collison  [43:15] 
you were honestly getting frustrated with it. Yeah.

Sammie Collison  [43:17] 
I’ve gotten mad playing that game.

Jim Collison  [43:22] 
And I just was like, sorry. Like, there’s nothing I could do for you like, like that. It really gave you it kind of gave you some focus of some consistency, you know, in a world that had gotten really inconsistent. also share, you also share it right. We have a couple. We have a couple kids that play that too, right. Some of the

Sammie Collison  [43:43] 
yes from your Well, we have a we have a group chat with the family members. It’s called polka trash. Where we all play Pokemon Go and sometimes I’ll hang out with Josh and Sierra, my brother and his girlfriend. We will play together or like when there were community days back in the pre pandemic days, we’d all go to the old Mark Get and play together with Justin Sierra and john Yuka and it’s just like a fun it’s just a fun thing to just like be in the same space with somebody else. And like have a common goal but you don’t necessarily have to talk to each other about like your life. They don’t want to think about you know, yeah, no, I just want to catch some tiny animals.

Jim Collison  [44:18] 
Of course I gravitated towards Pokemon Go right I mean, I spent some time no that didn’t know you would think like okay through this you

Sammie Collison  [44:26] 
downloaded it it would consume your life. Like I’m a pretty I’m a pretty

Jim Collison  [44:32] 
Gemini

Sammie Collison  [44:34] 
you’re on the same level of like, hyper fixating on things. Yeah, it’s intense. It’s, it’s true. It’s a good thing you know, and your find your grave and not doing Pokemon Go. Let’s

Jim Collison  [44:44] 
let’s talk about that really quick. So I invented kind of my own Well, for the early pandemic, months, I was doing a lot of working out like I may have been in the best shape I’ve been in a long time. You know, I think even one day shot four or 500 pushups in a day. And so that was going really well. And then I started we started looking at the grace because we’re in this you know, it’s a cemetery right? And I was like I wonder who these people are so I started taking pictures and then trying to do some research on who these people are and through the research I found this Find a Grave calm and you can actually join the community and through the community you can get there’s requests people will put requests for pictures of gravestones and so I was like well this is my pokemon go Why would I not I’m here already Why would I not? So I think maybe in May right May and June probably consumed most of our time most of my time anyways, Sammy would stop play Pokemon Go and I would wander in the in the among the you know, the headstones. Looking lines. Yeah, walking in lines looking for these these very scrapes. We’ve gotten to even though this is how bad it is. I’ve gotten to know which sections are kind of when people were buried and where and what’s the tendency there’s a children’s area there and yeah, you know you start to know these areas in fact we got a request that came through the other day, beginning of the week I guess. And I found it on the first day and and so we took it always has a little go ahead go ahead What do we say when I’m out hunting graves grave

Sammie Collison  [46:19] 
Hunter Hunter in the grave so we have a little theme song a little jingle that I created because I’m a nerd.

Jim Collison  [46:27] 
Oh, so we love it it so what’s super interesting about it is so I found I found though this grave somebody lives doesn’t live here. took a picture of it with it the next day I got a really nice note back from them like, Hey, thank you for thanks for finding out these people were important to us. And you know, we never would have we never would have been able to see this if we hadn’t done it. And so that has been as we’ve been spending spending time in the in the I never like Never in a million years Samantha did I ever think I would be spending the summer with my daughter in a cemetery? Finding graves like you just we

Sammie Collison  [47:07] 
also like talk about death sometimes, which is weird. But like that’s one of the conversations striking back to earlier when I didn’t have an answer for the question that we do talk about, like, life and death in like our thoughts about life after death, stuff like that. And like, those are conversations that you don’t normally have with your parents. But like I was chill about,

Mike Wieger  [47:26] 
yes, please input when does this conversation happen? Like, please tell like when

Sammie Collison  [47:31] 
in the cemetery, like looking at headstones, and there’s like dead people everywhere, and you’re like, you’re just thinking about it, and you’re like, Well, how do I want to be buried? How do I want to be remembered? Like you think about that stuff when you’re looking at the legacy of 100 people. And so

Mike Wieger  [47:46] 
I just love that you guys have created the opportunity for you guys to be at the foot of headstones together. Yes, at this point in time. Like I honestly though, it’s really cool. I love how you guys have established a calendar a time, whatever you want to call Where you guys are spending this type of quality time together, where these type of conversations can come up, let me just inform you. That’s, that’s awesome. And that’s rare and a lot of parents and kids aren’t having those type of conversations because opportunities aren’t coming up to I asked what you know, what is causing you guys to have to integrate you guys who could just spend that type of time together? Okay, so Sammy asked you because you know, from your face different, like, why do you want to spend time with your parents? Like, what is what’s causing you to be like, I want to go do a grave walk with my dad, because well, let me just say that ahead of time, and I didn’t know how to get to that point. I have about 18 years of navigate it, so give me some leeway. But But how did how do you get to that point?

Sammie Collison  [48:43] 
Well, one I’m in a house with two people and I might as well hang out with them and make the most of it. But also okay, like, I recognize that I have cool parents because a lot of my friends do not have parents that like they do their best, obviously, but like they’re not the greatest,

Mike Wieger  [49:01] 
but maybe I’m looking for what makes him so what makes them cool? What makes them parents? Who are you? Are, they’re approachable that are you’re that you’re willing to spend time with and have conversations with. That’s, that’s cool. And that’s exactly what you hit on is exactly what I’m looking for.

Sammie Collison  [49:15] 
I don’t think I have like all of the answers because everything’s circumstantial. And I also have

Mike Wieger  [49:19] 
all the answers. You’re, you’re a young person in this age you have every answer

Sammie Collison  [49:22] 
is always it’s really funny that both my parents are listening to this conversation. But thing that has always stuck with me is that I don’t even know if they’ve said it explicitly in these words, but the thing that I always got from them throughout high school was your best is always good enough. They never expected me to be more than I was. And when I was beating myself up for being not what I expected myself to be. They were like, no, you’re good enough the way you are. We still love you. We still care about you. And like we’re happy that you’re doing what you want to be doing. Well, like that’s the just like stuff was hard for me. But like being home was never the hard part of my teenage years.

Mike Wieger  [50:00] 
Take a moment that would make I need to walk away for a second if I heard that from my own child, that’s

Jim Collison  [50:04] 
amazing. I mean, it’s it’s pretty great. I mean, we were we Sarah and I talk about this all the time, just how fortunate we are, especially here at the end. You know, now we’re going to get Tim back and like I said, I get I get kind of another opportunity with him. It’ll be very, very different. I cannot. I have to even with Samantha sorry, even with Sammy. Everybody calls her Sammy. I’m the only one that calls her. Samantha.

Sammie Collison  [50:30] 
Everybody calls me Samantha at work. It’s fine. It’s on my byline.

Jim Collison  [50:33] 
So um, we, I didn’t know the summer was going to go this way. We just took advantage like I I swung at the pitches that were that came my way. I didn’t know they weren’t all fastballs they weren’t all lops like, you know, sometimes you get a curve and sometimes you get been by the thing. And so, we kind of just, I just kind of took it as it as it happened and then took advantage of all the opportunities. You know, a difficult conversation we had, I think this summer, every Oh, probably once a week, I’d be like, so how are classes going? You know? And she’s like, Well, okay. I mean, you know, and and, you know, there wasn’t perfect this semester was not perfect. It could have been better for her. It was

Sammie Collison  [51:20] 
rough. I will admit, it was probably the roughest semester since my first.

Jim Collison  [51:25] 
And there’s not a lot I can, there’s not a lot of getting mad about that. And this is, by the way, this is something I’ve had to learn. Like, I’m not saying I came out of the womb like this. I had to learn like there’s some kind of things like Well, okay, she’s probably already punished herself enough.

Sammie Collison  [51:42] 
That’s for sure. Collison trait is like beating ourselves up. You don’t need to criticize us for things we’re doing because we’re already is

Jim Collison  [51:49] 
kind of like,

Mike Wieger  [51:50] 
okay, especially at that age, right? I mean, you’re an adult at that age, right? Like, what does that do having another adult be that mad at you for something that you know, you’re Already you’re upset with yourself

Jim Collison  [52:01] 
to talk down or be condescending or to be like, you know, you know, we talked about this before, you know, those kinds of things that, that I think I’ve done with the boys, just to be honest, I’m sure I’ve had all those conversations with the boys at times, that it just is the just it’s not worth it. And I’ve learned with Samantha that it’s not in those kinds of situations. She’s She’s already worked her way through it, and I just need to be there to support her. However, I mean, we had early on some very serious financial conversations that went like okay, here’s the deal. We don’t know where the US economy is going to go. And it’s looking scary. I you know, I took a pay cut during this and that required me to us to cut back on some things and I kind of had to say to her, here’s the budget plan, just to be 100% honest with you. We’ve got some money, you’ve got some money, we may get to a point where we need your money. Like, I want to be honest with you, this could be survival like you just enabled We didn’t know, right? We just didn’t still we still don’t know. To be honest, we still don’t know where the US economy is gonna go. And so, but Sammy is I was having those. I mean, there was a time maybe for a couple, two, three weeks, we talked about finances all the time did it? Did it did it? Was it better? Or did you like being in those conversations? So you knew was it beneficial for me to have those conversations with you? Or that stress? Yeah.

Sammie Collison  [53:28] 
I think it was necessary to get it out of my system, just all the worry about it. And just like get it all on the table. So it’s there. So it’s not just doing in my brain because that’s the kind of person I am. The only going I’m worrying about something and just Susan Susan Stewart until it explodes. So if I get it out of my system, I’m not thinking about it. Yeah, it’s that was necessary for me.

Jim Collison  [53:46] 
Well, I tell you what, it was very beneficial to me to have those conversations with you to know that you knew, like that was one of those things, you know, we would actually have those conversations with Sammy and then when Sarah would come home from work, we kind of have them again. You know, at the dinner table and you just, you know, it was just helpful to be able to kind of set that in. Again, I didn’t think I’d ever be in a situation where I’d be walking in a cemetery with my 21 year old talking about the budget. How are we going to? How are we going to get through this? I remember having some conversations while I like, I got a few thousand dollars here and I got some a few thousand dollars here and I got some money here and there’s always crypto. So. So you know, you’re like, Oh, okay. So, you know, just to bring it terabytes helped, right? Yeah, I can sell some hard drives. I guess. That’s the terabyte hard drive

Mike Wieger  [54:42] 
economy going right now. I didn’t mean to bring that up, Jim. It wasn’t my intention. Oh, you’re fine. But we’re having a conversation though. Right? That’s Yeah,

Jim Collison  [54:50] 
yeah. All right. So it was just good to. I think it was just good. It was good for me to have some of those very detailed. Held adult conversations that she needed to hear like, she didn’t know like this is not just because sometimes if you don’t talk about it, you think it’s not happening. And it’s definitely happening. Like we’re definitely we’re still, you know, we’re still not out of the woods yet. And and it’s important to know kind of like, here’s where things are at and and to have those very open, transparent kind of conversations. I think for the three of us to live together seeing each other every single day, we had to have some open and transparent conversations. They weren’t all pretty. Probably more so than not, I would think I don’t I don’t want to paint it like we hate each other all the time, but it was super good. See me on your phone. One of the funny things that that you kept track of over the summer is quotes.

Sammie Collison  [55:49] 
Yes. It actually started this. My sophomore year of college, I think in the newsroom where I had out of context quotes from the newsroom that like somebody said something that was funny and It’s like that is gonna be funny later, regardless of who said it or what the context was. And so this summer I started doing that both with our d&d group and Collison house, and the Collison ones are 90% things that dad has said that are freaking hilarious

Jim Collison  [56:15] 
so I want to I want to give you what are the odds they overlap and the

Mike Wieger  [56:19] 
the audience hears me like yes, he says those

Jim Collison  [56:22] 
all the time for sure.

Mike Wieger  [56:26] 
Read Neil all of them

Jim Collison  [56:27] 
now. Yeah, so Sammy, what why don’t you read a few Sam.

Sammie Collison  [56:30] 
So the unofficial Collison motto, anything worth doing is worth overdoing. This is the first one on the note and it’s less important and I do

Mike Wieger  [56:37] 
say that quite a bit to me. He says that to me all the time. Like I’m one of Jim’s kids. When he says that to me all the time. These are in

Sammie Collison  [56:43] 
orders. You can kind of see the reverse bell curve of drinking throughout the summer. Those are drinking vitamins referring to ibuprofen. I feel like food horny right now.

Jim Collison  [56:57] 
We are gonna we are going to keep the size of my home Dragon dragon laughing so hard over here. Early in the pandemic, we were eating some really great food,

Sammie Collison  [57:07] 
good food and your

food. Really good food.

I’m not going to come over and shark dad’s Jeff, because session in the house is old Jeff Hall Jeff which which Jeffersons

Jim Collison  [57:21] 
is what we call it old Jeff here at the Coliseum

Mike Wieger  [57:24] 
got it over here. I would agree after that bottle. I

Jim Collison  [57:27] 
guess it’s old. Jeff’s pretty good because he entered here. Yeah.

Sammie Collison  [57:31] 
It was Colonel Mustard in the cemetery with the pushup.

Jim Collison  [57:34] 
We were talking about clue and so I gave her my reference. I said, Oh, if I were gonna happen here, she thought that was pretty funny.

Sammie Collison  [57:42] 
Yes, it’s like a park with dead people.

Jim Collison  [57:45] 
So, like, we’re walking around a cemetery. It’s kind of like a park with dead people.

Sammie Collison  [57:52] 
Like park with dead people. is

like a Big Chill. Welcome. Welcome. It’s weird. That was me. Yeah, I don’t even remember. I strain most nights but we can strain for sure. Because it just absolutely makes no sense out of context about streaming pasta, but I love it.

Mike Wieger  [58:15] 
It’s almost better out of context. Like I haven’t heard any of these. And that’s great. I love it. Yeah.

Sammie Collison  [58:19] 
If you say sherbert I might put you in the face.

Jim Collison  [58:26] 
For a bit I say

Sammie Collison  [58:28] 
that word. And I will. That’s the hill I will

Jim Collison  [58:30] 
room is it sherbet or sherbert? Right.

Sherpas What is this sherbet craft and

Mike Wieger  [58:40] 
what do you say?

Sammie Collison  [58:41] 
Sure, but

Mike Wieger  [58:43] 
are there are there’s

Sammie Collison  [58:49] 
sure that no. Yeah.

We got Sorry, I’m smoking the label. Okay, yes.

Can’t get the label off the cigar smoking the label.

Jim Collison  [59:08] 
So pretty. It’s a moment pretty like I’d had a bunch of

Sammie Collison  [59:16] 
old fashions with old Jeff ocean it was

Mike Wieger  [59:21] 
you’re on the deck that might be hard Overwatch.

Sammie Collison  [59:26] 
That’s a gym for sure. Yeah, yes.

Yeah. Oh man chaos in the chat right now. Okay. Every so often the spirit of Tim Dunn possesses me. Tim Gunn, the host of Project Runway, whose signature line is make it work, which I say all the time. Oh, here’s an important one. Welcome to the world. Susan, your flower now your yeast. This was unofficially known as the summer of sourdough. sourdough starter. Her name is Susan and she is my child. She is the only grandchild that my parents are ever getting for me. Better become a family heirloom. That’s all I ask from this family. You will never have to babysit a human being. You only have to babysit

Jim Collison  [1:00:05] 
instructions on the fridge for Susan like how to take care of running

Sammie Collison  [1:00:09] 
at a cabinet door.

Mike Wieger  [1:00:12] 
Yeah, you gotta crack me up.

Jim Collison  [1:00:15] 
We cooked and I could hear during the day so one of the things Sammy would do during the day is is proof the bread. Yes, in the morning, noon ish. So I’d hear

Sammie Collison  [1:00:25] 
this laughing fold meeting the bread on the counter.

Jim Collison  [1:00:28] 
It’s right above me here. So I just think What is that sound? And eventually I came up there and she was you know, throwing the dough down. But man, was it great to have our own bread this summer? We didn’t need it. Technically,

Mike Wieger  [1:00:44] 
like a good one.

Sammie Collison  [1:00:51] 
Go ahead, Sammy. I like me a good fence.

Jim Collison  [1:00:54] 
Oh, so I don’t know about I don’t know about that West Mike. But everybody in Bellevue got new fences.

Sammie Collison  [1:00:59] 
New fences?

Jim Collison  [1:01:01] 
I don’t know but hearing insurance new fences

Mike Wieger  [1:01:06] 
not the case out here. We’re all stuck with their old fence.

Jim Collison  [1:01:09] 
Well, maybe because you already have new fences but it was this here in Bellevue. And so we’re walking by in this guy they had just put this fence up and I said, Man, like me new fans. Just thought that was the

Sammie Collison  [1:01:26] 
time. I sat down on the sidewalk.

Jim Collison  [1:01:30] 
Like new friends.

Sammie Collison  [1:01:32] 
I don’t even remember the context is when old people smell like Asian board games.

Jim Collison  [1:01:38] 
That was Josh. He’d gone in our he got in the class. And he’s like, yeah, that’s like old people in here.

Mike Wieger  [1:01:45] 
Like old people. Asian Games go. That’s good.

Jim Collison  [1:01:48] 
Yeah, not Asian but aging. We’re not racist. Oh.

Sammie Collison  [1:01:55] 
Agent agent at board games.

Jim Collison  [1:01:58] 
Okay. Makes me feel a lot better. One of the One of the things Sammy, I think, I think we’re good on those one of the things I appreciated about this list and this again, this was something things overheard in the newsroom, right? They had started this at, at, at the paper where she worked, or she had started at keeping track of these. And so during the, I think during the fall, she’d come home and read these things to us and we laugh and then during this time, I’d say something and I didn’t think it would be worthy of the Rishi go making the list out

Sammie Collison  [1:02:30] 
my phone and just start typing and people would know that I’m putting it on the list.

Jim Collison  [1:02:34] 
The dad joke made the list making a list. Well, what’s what’s so what’s interesting about this not and I told her when we did this, when we were going to talk about this on the show wouldn’t be really that funny for most people. It’s really funny to us in in, you know, there’s this biblical concept of what’s called an Ebenezer and Ebenezer is just a pile of rocks, the Israel’s were instructed to pile these rocks in certain areas to remember things by Like, what these rocks here, remember this moment because this moments important, whatever it was, whatever, whatever God did for them during those times. It’s called an Ebenezer. I remember that because that’s a funny name like

Sammie Collison  [1:03:10] 
every time you flexed on your Bible degree for the record.

Jim Collison  [1:03:13] 
That’s That’s it? Oh, that’s probably true. So and I’m not even sure I learned that in Bible school. But that being said, I think these things like this, like, again, we think they’re hilarious. They might like there’s a few of them, that would be funny to you. But it’s these little Ebenezer, these little family of uneasier is that we have that you come back to this list, Sam is not going to ever lose this list. It’s gonna be 10 years from now we’re going to pull this list down and be like, remember when we used to do that, remember the pandemic. And I think we get we sometimes we get busted on as a family because we spend a lot of time remembering those kinds of things. Like when we get together as a family, we have these moments. Remember when we laugh, and we think it’s the funniest thing. We have all these sayings that we do and stuff like that. But I think that’s been a key component. And then the way the kids get get along, and the way the kids get together, you know, I’m fortunate that all five of them still like each other at this point, right? They’re still talking to each other. They still want to be together. They’re missing Tim. You know, my marine is in California, they really miss him when he came home on leave. Just a couple weeks ago, everybody was fighting for Tim’s attention, like they wanted Tim at their place. And so I think those I think those moments are key I don’t think we do and dads, let me just talk to dads for a second and Mike, you know, you you fall into this category too. Don’t get so busy, like your job is to be busy. Certainly, there’s things for you to do. But you know, there’s, there’s those things to get done. But don’t miss those little opportunities that even with the little amount of time that you have to remember those things and not just remember him here, but to remind your children have them like to remind them over and over and over. As it’s funny. We’ve had Stuff cycle in and out of the of the family, you know, the what’s what’s funny to the family. But I think if there’s one thing we have a really good list of funny things for us to remember in this and and for us. Yeah, this was hard I have some hard moments in it but for us it was a it was a pandemic time to be together. And I think we took advantage of the time smartly. And we’re in to made the most out of it. They maybe I wouldn’t have done that five or 10 years ago, just to be honest. But the situation was right now, kind of get it done. So it’s a good summer. See me, um, you’re going back to school. Talk a little bit about the talk about a little bit how you feel about that.

Sammie Collison  [1:05:45] 
You see the fear in my eyes. Honestly, I’m absolutely terrified and absolutely uncertain of what’s going to happen. But that’s life. Like, I don’t know, I have a roommate, so I’m like, I don’t know if I’m gonna get to sick, I don’t know how long the semester is going to go if they’re gonna if there’s going to be a second wave of outbreaks and they’re going to call us all home again. I’m gonna have to move mid semester. I don’t know how many papers we’re going to produce, like there’s so many unknown factors and unknown quantities going into the semester. But such as, do it right.

Jim Collison  [1:06:21] 
We’re taking you back to school in two weeks. Yep. And dropping you off. And we’ll see how it goes. I definitely feel like you know, after summer like this, I this not your typical summer I kind of know, you know, I could kind of sense now the tension in you, in your apprehension about it. Thinking about like, she’s getting nervous. You know, you can kind of feel that kind of coming on. You know, you I think you mentioned that kind of the reverse bell curve of emotions for the summer and definitely You’re in for I’m going to feel it. I mean, I even said to you, like do I need to come back again. More often on weekends to make sure that you’re home, you know that you come back home more often, again, two hours, four hours out of my weekend to do that, but it’s I think it’s important that you have some options, and you feel safe. You know, hanging out at school this this this year, so it’s all it’s all unknown. Like, it’s crazy. We just don’t know, we don’t know what’s gonna happen and what’s gonna go on and how long it’s gonna last. I do feel prepared. Like I, I feel now that we’ve spent all this time together, I do feel like I’m way more prepared than, like, this semester could be even harder than your freshman year, which was really hard. Right? But I feel it I feel a million more times prepared for it. Because like, I know, like, I know you better now. And I kind of know what you’re thinking and how you’re thinking and, you know, some of those kinds of things. So I think we’ll be we’ll be fine. I mean, it may be chaos, but I think we’re going to be Maybe

Sammie Collison  [1:08:01] 
Yeah, I may get sick well yeah the reality that we face every day of our life

Jim Collison  [1:08:08] 
or you might not you know you might not you may you may get all the way through and we’ll let you know look back and go well we made it you know we made it through so this

Sammie Collison  [1:08:18] 
is your end of podcast PSA to wear a freaking mask

Jim Collison  [1:08:23] 
Yes,

Sammie Collison  [1:08:24] 
yes. Do you think you’re too good for a mask or not? Put it on your face.

Jim Collison  [1:08:28] 
Mike. Mike after sitting with us for an hour and some change any any impressions anything you take away from this time together?

Mike Wieger  [1:08:38] 
Just that I hope that you know when when my kids Sam or your age that we have the the open dialogue Do you guys have it’s inspiring. I like the you guys are able to even if you guys don’t necessarily agree, right? Sammy? The fact that you felt your dad was someone you could go and talk to is, is huge. I think that’s something a lot of us don’t have and even Those of us who come from a very loving and caring home, you might not feel the most inclined to talk to them about really hard topics. And that’s one thing I think that your Jim and I have had a lot of conversations about. And I’ve talked about with you know, one thing I hope that when my kids get older, that I’m older, you have fun with them when you guys do I see you guys have so much fun together. And that’s really what I hope for is that, you know, no matter no matter what it is, no matter what the politics are, no matter what the conversation is that when my kids come home, and they hang out with my boring wife and i that that they’re they have fun, and that they enjoy themselves that they want to come home and hang out with boring old mom and dad and still talk with us. I love seeing you know, what I see between you two is just pure love. And sure there’s there’s hard times I’m sure you guys don’t love each other all the time. It’s a very strange relationship like it is with any parent and child relationship. But man, I just, I love it. I think it’s so beautiful. And so I hope that we have the most A fun that you guys have you guys seem to have a lot of fun together that was that was the gist of what I got tonight. Like you guys just pokemon go drinking on the back patio coming up with fun sayings that you know Jim says or whoever says, You guys just have fun together. That seems to be the common trend. Like I like that. That’s cool. I love it.

Jim Collison  [1:10:18] 
I just don’t think we take ourselves very seriously. What do you mean?

Mike Wieger  [1:10:22] 
What is the ask you? Yeah

Just don’t take yourself seriously.

Jim Collison  [1:10:28] 
I think that is I think at the end of the day you know there’s a lot of moments where it’s Sammy get frustrated with me or or not a lot of me getting frustrated with her. There’s not a lot of things there she get frustrated me and Anna be like, Well, okay, well sorry. Like, I’m gonna that it’s just I’m gonna say it. The same is true by the way. You know, she says having a safe space to speak and in and be loved. The same is true for her and us. Because I think sometimes parents are afraid of saying the wrong thing. In alienating their kids, and it’s just as important that we know, it would be hard for me. I mean, I’ve we’ve had some hard conversations, some interesting dialogue. And it would be easy for me to say something wrong and her just to kind of write me off. Well, gosh, that’s you’re never gonna, you’re never really going to understand it. actually never really heard her say that to me, which is kind of great. You know, you just don’t understand. type deal. I’ve never heard her say that to me.

Sammie Collison  [1:11:27] 
Well, it’s also a challenge as a news writer, that if you don’t understand that, I haven’t said it. Right.

Jim Collison  [1:11:35] 
But But Sammy, I mean, I think it’s I think, and I think if Sarah was here, and she’s in the chat room, I think she would agree. I think we both feel like we can’t. The opposite is true for us. We can’t do or say anything that necessarily changes your relationship back to us. And so that gives us a lot of freedom that gives us the ability to kind of open up and be and kind of be transparent, you know, There’s, we talked about the generational gap. We talked about the way we see politics, we talk about the way we see things. There’s a lot of opportunities to get upset in there and to kind of storm off and or to argue in ways that are offensive or attacking in for whatever reasons. Both Sarah and I Sammy is really good to just allow us to have that open dialogue with her and say, Well, yeah, we don’t I don’t think we necessarily agree. But okay, you want some more wine? You know,

Sammie Collison  [1:12:30] 
parents or people to what am I right?

Jim Collison  [1:12:34] 
I think it goes. I think it really goes both ways. Like I think you have to, the kids have to be willing to and this is something like we needed to wait, I think maybe for her to be this age. for it to happen again. It’s probably not happening at 15. But we’re not sitting on the deck smoking cigars and enjoying it.

Mike Wieger  [1:12:51] 
It’s either true, but that’s way deeper. I think a lot of kids don’t realize that until they’re way too old to not appreciate it. That your parents are humans too. And A lot of times I think it comes too late in terms of like, now I have kids and I realized that oh man, my parents were, they were people to like, they struggle with this as much as I did, raising kids or whatever. So it’s the same thing. It’s huge. You see that with their parents, like, there are people too, and they’re gonna have their own opinions. I’m gonna have mine and, and it’s gonna be a conversation. And what I love about you guys is you guys have been open to each other’s conversation. And you haven’t let some tiny little disagreements get in the way of you guys having a very solid relationship, from an outsider’s perspective. Very cool. And I hope to do the same. Well, you got some years to do it. Get luckily because I am not ready for this yet. This is this is a lot. This is way heavier than I was ready for. Well, let me tell you,

Jim Collison  [1:13:42] 
my eldest son only three, it goes super fast, like all of a sudden, boom, they’re nine. They’re 19. Yeah, it just flies by and when you have

Mike Wieger  [1:13:54] 
a reserve in case I mess up the first two,

Jim Collison  [1:13:56] 
I think I think one of the things we did Sarah and I do Did early was not not wish for days gone by? In other words, Oh, I wish you were 10 again, like you were so cute when you were 10. Well, they’re not 10 they’re 15 and they’re ugly and smelly. And they’re saying dumb thing.

Mike Wieger  [1:14:14] 
Youngest, right. So you benefit from, like, sweet. They were perfect. They did Cali we’re

Sammie Collison  [1:14:19] 
not perfect, but they learned a few things. There you go. But I was also I was a 15 year old with a temper problem. Like every, every teenagers got their issues.

Mike Wieger  [1:14:31] 
of not not dwelling on that, right?

Jim Collison  [1:14:35] 
Yep. Um, Sarah says in the chat, she says the takeaway I had from my parents was them not being able to, to view their own shortcomings, right. We have tried to be open with our kids about our shortcomings, they at least know we’re trying. You know, we’ve we’ve often said and Sarah is actually way better at this than I am. And I’m getting better maybe as I get a little older, of just being like, Yeah, well, sorry. Later when you’re perfect, Jim. That’s just when you’re

Mike Wieger  [1:15:01] 
when you’re like I sorry, like, it’s hard to be as perfect. Isn’t that what we tell our kids are like, well, it’s hard to be as I am kid. So

Jim Collison  [1:15:10] 
you should try. Sometimes I think we have to have it right for them. Like in other words, we can’t be seen as wrong. Because we need to be right for them. Like they need that stability and actually not doing it for yourself. You’re literally trying to do it for them. And you realize you might be doing a disservice if you’re not, you know, if you’re pretending you’re perfect. I think the vulnerability aspect of being vulnerable and sincere or not, like we’re not and we don’t know, by the way, and and i think that’s actually provides more stability than saying, I know and you should do, and they know because they know they smell it. They’re like, Oh, no, you’re not

Sammie Collison  [1:15:47] 
like a predator. We smell that fear. Or, or they don’t,

Mike Wieger  [1:15:51] 
I’ll be I’ll be honest, guys, you know what my parents I think some of the most honest conversations we had were when there were vulnerable because I did view them as perfect. I’ve used my parents as having it all together until a very late age like, you know, I think they’ve, I mean, till now, I still think they’re pretty perfect like they it was, it was very eye opening and realistic with me when we were able to have those conversations in college of like, you know, it’s not perfect. There are things we need to talk about, there are things we need to do. And I think those conversations were some of the most eye opening and beneficial conversations as a young adult you can have is like, oh, okay, good, thank God. They weren’t purchased either. I mean, like, they must have been sorted I and and Huxley’s, that. That’s so good to know, because I thought I was just the only one messing things up.

Sammie Collison  [1:16:38] 
And I think the caveat that we haven’t said explicitly, but has been implied this whole time, is like owning your mistakes. And then talking about how you get over your shortcomings and how you deal with failures very well setting that example for your kids, then they know that if you mess up, it’s not the end of the world. Like when if if a parents in their marriage They fight but they, they work through it. And they demonstrate to their kids that you can work through disagreement, then they’re not going to see every relationship as a freeway, that’s super easy, and everything’s gonna be fine. Like you find your soulmate. Everything’s perfect. Like relationships are freaking hard. And like, you have to talk through things and you disagree with each other. But you have to know that like, there is another side of that if you work together, like that is that is the implied thing that like you own your shortcomings. And you talk about like, this is a weakness for me, and this is how I overcome it, or this is something that I was wrong about. Here’s how I corrected myself. Perfectly said,

Mike Wieger  [1:17:35] 
Yeah, my wife and I both do that every single day and it’s

Jim Collison  [1:17:38] 
tough. I agree. Sammy, well said, I am one of the summer projects I did that I’m still not quite 100% done. I have some painting to do and some other things. But as I replaced the hallway door, and that hallway door is an example of two really huge mistakes on my heart. By getting so angry in that door is really was it’s like Japanese hello it’s Sammy I was looking at a actually cardboard it’s kind of a good reminder

Sammie Collison  [1:18:08] 
and burns so fast

Jim Collison  [1:18:11] 
as we get rid of that door but replace it with a more solid door but it was a good reminder to me like you know those were mistakes made and the kids are still it’s still okay and I talked about that i don’t i don’t try to justify it or you know say well you made me really mad I’m like no, I lost my temper and i i you know i that door was an easy outlet to take it out on as a good thing that door wasn’t solid because I broke my hand to doing it and so you have to be I we lived in a 1901 house that had real studs like reality. I did not move in my fisted and under phys Really, really good. They’re really good. For me a really good example of like, this summer we replaced it. And I think there’s some, there’s some, you know, we’re able to kind of close that door using that metaphor, kind of on that time that that that we had with the kids. And that doesn’t mean it never happened. But it does mean that we’ve kind of put those times behind us. And we’re beginning. It’s not over though we just we had a family gathering the other day, and I picked one of them off pretty solidly, saying something that that I shouldn’t have been doing something that I probably should have just let lie, and I didn’t. And so we haven’t had a conversation around that. And that still happens, right? But we we did, we had a conversation, we worked it out. It’s gonna take some time to work through it some more, but you can do it as well. If you’re a longtime listener, Home Gadget Geeks, this is not or a short time listener, I should say. I mean, if you’re a longtime listener, you kind of know me. So you know, every once in a while we pull these out a drill. But for those who are just joining us, yeah, we don’t do this every week. And maybe you’re thinking man, maybe you should know Now maybe we shouldn’t we, Mike and I, Mike and I like to focus on the attack and we got some

Mike Wieger  [1:20:07] 
depends on how much whiskey we’ve gone. How much Jefferson’s model have we gone through then we can start to beat pretty

Jim Collison  [1:20:11] 
darn good. I definitely know what it gets you for Christmas from here on out. Oh. Oh,

Mike Wieger  [1:20:18] 
yes old Jeff what makes more than old Jeff old Jeff.

Jim Collison  [1:20:21] 
So how is that peanut butter whiskey Sammy.

Sammie Collison  [1:20:23] 
Super good as per usual,

Mike Wieger  [1:20:26] 
what kind of was it again? rebel or

Jim Collison  [1:20:30] 
rebel? Yeah it’s really here in here. Mike Baker’s we get I get it a baker’s screwballs 25 rebels 15 so it gets you can’t be that Yeah.

Sammie Collison  [1:20:42] 
But pretty good.

Jim Collison  [1:20:43] 
Yeah, okay. Yeah, not a sweet Sammy. I think it’s Yeah, actually, like it better. Peanut Butter whiskey or the screwball so smooth because it’s just super sweet. And

Mike Wieger  [1:20:52] 
do you put it with something or do you drink it straight word needs no family. You are neat family.

Jim Collison  [1:21:00] 
I’ve taught all my kids to drink meat. Savor learned well, right? Yeah, it’s pretty great. Well, so if you made it this far, thanks for listening all the way through. I hope you’ve appreciated it. Well, Sammy, we’ll catch up with you again in the winter when you’re coming back off break and, and come back and bring in Well, we won’t cover all the things we cover here but it’ll be more of a catch up with how did fall go and what’s news look like and some of those other things as we

Sammie Collison  [1:21:26] 
she was hoping the country has not collapsed by then.

Jim Collison  [1:21:29] 
Yeah, yeah. I’m all for that as well. I’m hoping Mike and I are still podcasting by then and or

Sammie Collison  [1:21:36] 
Yeah, now you guys would be podcasting for a bunker to want to

Mike Wieger  [1:21:41] 
buy a ham radio. If I can convince Jim to get

Sammie Collison  [1:21:43] 
license I’m sure wave shortwave.

Jim Collison  [1:21:46] 
Repeat me somehow. Could I do all that stuff? Oh, be great. I don’t

Sammie Collison  [1:21:51] 
want to be a little antenna sticking out the top. Yes. Kimmy Schmidt be great.

Jim Collison  [1:21:57] 
I can’t, I can’t get into him because I don’t need another? Like, you know, I get obsessive about these things. That’s

Mike Wieger  [1:22:04] 
the best part about him. It’s like a lifelong hobby. You’re done. It’s the last time you ever need

Jim Collison  [1:22:10] 
look at I don’t need another hobby. You really don’t that’s true. I’m just saying I don’t need another hobby. I can help you out with that one actually, I can’t help you with ham radio. Yeah, yeah. So Christian doesn’t listen to this. So for a wedding gift I got him some Byron’s which I tried to get you to smoke but got him some the really long the Churchill sighs Byron so I’m sending those to him for he just got married last weekend and then of course the care package came in so those

Sammie Collison  [1:22:39] 
were the ones I was like what is that in your hand? It’s from like caravan.

Jim Collison  [1:22:42] 
Look at this. I’ll just show it really quick. These are beautiful. I got I got a

Sammie Collison  [1:22:47] 
zipper pouch.

Jim Collison  [1:22:50] 
I was gonna say it’s a super great this is so two guys cigars. This is what they send everything in

Mike Wieger  [1:22:54] 
littles every week. There’s a weekly or monthly monthly

Jim Collison  [1:22:58] 
package and actually bought a Little humification pack to send with them when they go so Christian can store them and make sure they don’t get dry. Listen these are expensive cigars

Sammie Collison  [1:23:12] 
overdoing

Mike Wieger  [1:23:15] 
that is your perspective on

cigar looking

Jim Collison  [1:23:18] 
no look at that work of art it is beauty Christian doesn’t listen nobody tell Christian okay cuz don’t tell Christian I talked

Mike Wieger  [1:23:28] 
with him on his website so I won’t add that don’t don’t tell Christian me I showed you guys what I got wrong I am requesting a massive change so Maple Grove Partners is still a fantastic choice for web hosting.

Jim Collison  [1:23:42] 
Yeah, so I am I am the

Sammie Collison  [1:23:45] 
worst at promoting people that don’t pay you.

Mike Wieger  [1:23:48] 
Well, I pay him that’s the weird part.

Jim Collison  [1:23:53] 
That’s what we do. reminders before we go on, we want to thank our Patreon subscribers. For those of you that are doing Thanks for all that you do and being in the family and we appreciate that if you want to join us in on Patreon, you get nothing for it. But the average guy.tv but you help

Sammie Collison  [1:24:09] 
the average guy does the satisfaction of knowing that Jim knows your name. That’s it.

Jim Collison  [1:24:13] 
Yeah, maybe even not. So we appreciate appreciate you doing that as well. Many of you do. And thanks. Thanks for you. It actually does it does really help in doing what we do here. To keep things rolling if you were to join us in the discord group had a long conversation the other night on discord It was super fun bust out and in Justin Simmons was out there and jack pack we had a great conversation I haven’t had a conversation like that a discord in a while. I was on the patio I was on the deck Sammy would not come out and join me. So I jumped I took my laptop out to the deck grabbed a firecracker a pissed off Christoph and smoked a cigar and enjoy the guys conversation on Discord. If you want to join us there you could as well the average guy TV slash discord he sent me an email feed Back, Neal, great to hear from you. By the way, the other day, he sent me a nice note, if you’ve got some feedback on anything we’ve done on the show, Mike and I asked for some feedback on the Jim Shoemaker actually sent me some feedback as well, on scanning in the slides, Nathaniel sent me a note on Twitter with his company, Jim found the company he used on so I’m gonna kind of compare. That’s exactly what I’m looking for guys. So I appreciate you doing that. If you didn’t listen to 353 453 do that. Mike and I, at the end of the show, have got some things we need some help with. And so if you want to do that, let us know you can send me an email Jim at the average guy.tv and then we’ll do it right Sam, you just because you called us out on it. If you went secure, high speed hosting from people that you know and trust, of course, that’s Maple Grove Partners. That’s Christian. head out to Maple Grove. partners.com plans hosting plans start as low as $10 a month, email spy, you can get some great service out there. And we appreciate Christian for his support. Of course, he’s always hosted The Average Guy Network TV, and Christian we appreciate and congratulations Christian for getting married and it was fun. He streamed the wedding and so I got to watch it online. And it was super cool. So Christian, congratulations. We are live every Thursday 8pm Central nine Eastern if we’ve learned one thing this summer, start hellofresh. Okay. Our Hello, fresh. I’m just telling you, it hellofresh changed my life.

Sammie Collison  [1:26:25] 
And I approve this message.

Jim Collison  [1:26:27] 
I was gonna say, what are your thoughts? If you need? We’ve got codes. I have free codes. I get your free week. Hello from hellofresh Jimmy TheAverageGuy.TV. I’ll send that to you. We are live every Thursday pm Central nine Eastern out here at the average guy.tv forward slash live. love to have you join us as well. I think Mike, next week. I’m trying to think I think I have one more Thursday. Yeah, one more Thursday before we take a break. No, no, I’m gone next week. Yo, no show next week. I’ve gotten the following week. What are we going to do? I will figure something out. I think I read out. I think that’d be guestline lined up for that we’ll get McKay back in here to talk about fall lawn planning. By the way, my lawn looks fantastic. How

Sammie Collison  [1:27:06] 
many episodes have you done this summer?

Jim Collison  [1:27:12] 
We talked about it every week. Yeah. And hey, how many critical role episodes have you watched this summer? So

Sammie Collison  [1:27:17] 
not as many because they were on hiatus for

Mike Wieger  [1:27:20] 
the important articles have you written a lot? Right? So when you talk about lawn care a lot, it’s the important stuff. It’s what the people need to hear about. Okay, how long

Sammie Collison  [1:27:32] 
have you played that’s the real deal. dx.

Mike Wieger  [1:27:39] 
And yeah,

Jim Collison  [1:27:41] 
I don’t know if I can take the I’m just I’m just gonna say Mike, don’t you want to convince him? Let’s get to the post show. If you’re listening live. Thanks for coming out. With that. We’ll say goodbye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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