It’s hunting season here in Nebraska and Mike is at it again. This year, we are pulling for a big score! He talks about some hunting tech that will help him this year, both in visualizing what is out there, as well as a better way to map things out! Jim brings a hands on review of the Amazon Echo Flex and some Kasa Wifi plugs. We wrap it with some special thanks to all our veterans out there! All that and more!

Full show notes, transcriptions, audio and video at http://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg468

Join Jim Collison / @jcollison and Mike Wieger / @WiegerTech for show #468 of Home Gadget Geeks brought to you by the Average Guy Network.

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Podcast, Home Gadget Geeks, Hunting, Hunter, game cameras, bucks, Spypoint, onX, Amazon, Echo Flex, Kasa, Wifi plugs

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[1:42] Big thanks to Erin Lawrence of https://techgadgetscanada.com for being on the show last week.

[2:16] Thanks for Hover and supporting Home Gadget Geeks. Visit https://theAverageGuy.tv/hover and get $2 off your first domain!

[2:50] Thanks to Maple Grove Partners for site support. Visit https://maplegrovepartners.com and start a site for as little as $10

[3:17] HGG Grill, BBQ and Smoker Meatup Recap

[6:26] Beer pick of the week – Lost Forty – Day Drinker – https://untappd.com/b/lost-forty-brewing-day-drinker-belgian-blonde/997436

[10:23] Hunting Tech

[13:44] Spypoint – https://www.spypoint.com/en

[22:30] onX Hunting App – https://www.onxmaps.com/hunt-app

[33:23] Amazon Echo Flex – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MLY3JKV

[42:54] Kasa Smart Plug by TP-Link – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S57PQSM

[49:42] Christmas Advent Calendars – https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B085B24B72

[1:00:20] Thanks you to all our veterans!  

Jim Collison  [0:00] 
This is The Average Guy Network and you have found Home Gadget Geeks show number 468 recorded on November 12 2020.

Here on Home Gadget Geeks we cover all your favorite tech gadgets that find their way into your home news reviews, product updates and conversation, all for the average tech guy. I’m your host, Jim Collison broadcasting live from http://theAverageGuy.TV Studios here in a wintery…Mike I think we were talking last week how the weather was shifting, not so shifting this week right i think it’s gonna I think winters arrived

Mike Wieger  [0:44] 
a little bit. Yeah, I think we’re gonna have a little bit of a spike again on Saturday. But you’re right, it’s been getting down the 30s and finally getting a little bit colder

Jim Collison  [0:51] 
Hunting? Good for hunting bad for hunting your your hunting seasons coming up.

Mike Wieger  [0:55] 
Yeah, hunting season is and so it’s you want it to get cold. So it’s not good. This warm weather because down at least even just now have South here. They’re supposed to be 65 degrees on Saturday. So the cold snap coming late means the deer move late. So we’ll see. We’ll see. You know, so it’s that stuff always is just kind of hit or miss anyway, but you do want to call drowning, which is good.

Jim Collison  [1:15] 
All right. Well, it’s not chilly down here in the basement, because I’m running some things and so it’s been nice and toasty down here. So much. So we’ve been put a fan at the bottom of the stairwell to try and push some of the heat. Like Okay, get go heat rises, right so should just go up there. It’s not. It’s not at all down there with you. Hmm, nice and toasty down. Of course. We’ll post the show some show notes tonight out http://theaverageguy.tv.

Big thanks to Erin Lawrence who joined us last week Mike always a treat to have Erin on she’s, she’s great!

Mike Wieger  [1:48] 
yeah, so much fun. She reviews the coolest stuff, too.

Jim Collison  [1:50] 
She does. She’s really in a groove. I mentioned this last week, but she’s in a groove where she’s got a lot of great stuff, a lot of great gadgets. That’s kind of like her her reviews and Home Gadget Geeks? I mean there this is kind of lockstep if you’re not following her on YouTube you should be because she’s just doing everything we’re talking about. So if you haven’t done that yet, https://techgadgetscanada.com and you can get to you can get all those get updated on her YouTube videos as well.

Also Big thanks for hover and hover for kind of supporting us over here at the average guy TV. If you go to https://theAverageGuy.tv/hover and buy your first domain get $2 off your domain we make two bucks as well. So pretty great way to end it doesn’t take many domains for that to cover my annual cost for the year. So if you’re going to buy a new domain anyways, or you’re looking for something better than everybody else, head out and start a new account and hover https://theAverageGuy.tv/hover Make sure you use that and you’ll see the $2 off your first domain just the first and just one but we appreciate over there

While you’re thinking of it if you need a new sites you know and why don’t you head out to Maple Grove Partners just https://maplegrovepartners.com and of course Christian will set out their plans start as little as $10 a month and you get some of the best hosting that’s known to man, so two great tastes that go great together https://theAverageGuy.tv/hover why I haven’t made one that’s the average guy TV slash Maple Grove Partners. Probably because that’s a super long one. https://maplegrovepartners.com will get you there as well.

Big thanks this week also we’re doing we’re doing week three of the beers that Joe sent over and Joe thanks for doing that Joe’s not feeling well I think Joe got the COVID So Joe helped me out a bunch too by the way help me out on the the barbecue meetup Mike so you are out But Joe and I got together stream the barbecues live I think a lot of folks will try it again in the spring and see if we can pick up a few more folks to get it done but there’s a video out there on the on the live channel of our grills smoking away and to the chicken was we did a whole chicken do like

Mike Wieger  [3:58] 
an all day cook.

Jim Collison  [4:00] 
I kind of did because I ran out of gas, so I went out there I started at nine right and and so we did a meet up at eight Joe and I and I dry rub the chicken and he had a he had a pork butt. So he had gotten that ready and already on because he knew it’s gonna be a long day. Right? So then at nine we put it on I went to do the Ask the podcast coach till 11 and when I came back out after asked the podcast coach, it was cold like oh, I ran out of gas. So I had to run out of menards and I got to two new gas you know, barrels whatever. gas cans that we call What do we call those things

Mike Wieger  [4:37] 
propane tank a

Jim Collison  [4:40] 
So um, and so I picked up some new fire to backup and got the temperature back up and it went till maybe two or three and I thought I thought it’d be a problem going cold and then coming back and then it being on a fire for six or seven hours. Wrap that thing like Mark tells me wrapped it in tin foil. Put The towels around it putting the cooler let it sit till star was ready to grab it. I think she grabbed it a five she said it was still hot in the center. When she grabbed it, we made chicken salad out of it. And it was delicious.

Mike Wieger  [5:11] 
That’s good because you know the one time if it gets cold that affects like the bark on stuff because that has happened to me. My smoker has run out of pellets and I in the middle of the night and the bark gets really weird on like a pork butt if it gets cold and it like gardens back up, but I mean doesn’t affect the taste too much but good to know it and

Jim Collison  [5:31] 
yeah, it worked. It worked and I didn’t I if I

Mike Wieger  [5:34] 
caught it pretty early. It probably didn’t get like super cold. I

Jim Collison  [5:37] 
think so. Yeah. It wasn’t a bad day. I mean, we were outside and I was outside shorts on Saturday so yep, um Mark talked to me into that roaster that that turn the chicken roaster that’s got the little beer cap and you fill out the inside that I use that this time didn’t cover it didn’t have a drip pan just put it on there. Oh man 225 to 230, somewhere in there kind of was the temperature and had the smoke tube going

Joe’s was billowing smoke I mean he is it was just billowing smoke it was it was impressive. He was on the Weber did a great job. So we had a good time on the the grill meetup. The I got together with ad Jim Miller who’s a listener of both cigar authority and the show. And we got together for the cigar meetup at three so we’ll do it all again thanks to the to those guys for doing it.

But Big thanks to Joe also he sent us this week we’re looking at Day Drinker, Mike, you had some advanced tasting of this already.

Mike Wieger  [6:35] 
Much advanced tasting delicious. That was my favorite one of the lot. blondel Yep. And I enjoyed those the other night and they were really really good. Probably.

Jim Collison  [6:47] 
I should have done a little slower on the poor but that’s okay, those it’ll catch up. Yeah, blonde ale. So you know a lot like what would you remember the tastes on that there was it?

Mike Wieger  [6:56] 
I can’t remember being really smooth like de drinker really fits the name because you could drink those all day. We’re like, you know, some other beers like holiday cheer from Shiner, for example, not a beer you can drink all day. You can have like one or two of those. They’re really like, you know, can I take this beer is just so smooth and then a little bit lighter. You can probably drink it all day. Yeah, it looks good. Nice little little look. There looks like color wise to me. I was like a blue moon almost. A little bit.

Jim Collison  [7:25] 
Yeah, and not not too sweet. No. No, actually even kind of little a little. It’s not advertised that way. And it’s and it’s an ale, but it’s a little more hoppy than least right? That was the flavors I got. just spilled it on myself. That wasn’t very good. She’s having that kind of night. If you want to. If you want to send us your beers, send me an email Jim@theaverageguy.tv.

Eric, Eric did that Eric Janofsky did that he sent us he actually sent us some some some Hop Cloud.

Mike Wieger  [8:01] 
While I love hoppy beers to some exciting IPA.

Jim Collison  [8:05] 
I got three of these waiting for you, Mike when they come over. And so Eric, thanks for sending those over as well. That’ll be in two weeks, or maybe three because I think there’s a holiday in their somewhere.

I was down here. I was doing something else. What’s Oh, I remember. So I had, I had a Gallup shirt on and I was these beers came in the mail. And so in a box, and Eric had wrapped them in Bubble Bubble Wrap so they would be protected. So I don’t know why I could have just pushed the beers out through the bottom of the bubble wrap you know, cuz Yeah. That’s taken a knife and Pokemon to chunk and right. I went right into the beer with the knife. I don’t know what I was doing.

Mike Wieger  [8:50] 
And did you just start shotgunning right away just like chugging.

Jim Collison  [8:55] 
Yeah, so of course it’s sprayed all over the front of me. And so I quick took it in a third in the box. Took the other beers out of the box, put it in the boxes, foaming everywhere. ran the box out to the to the outside. And there it sits. I haven’t I haven’t even it’s still sitting out of the back patio. So man down is what you say when you when you do that to be your man down. And unfortunately the man is still out there on the deck. I need to go clean him up. So I have three I’m gonna keep to Eric, thanks for sending those over. It was not his fault. Totally mine. Totally. I totally spirit a can but again, if you want to send us if you want to send us a beer to taste or check send that send me an email first Jim@theaverageguy.TV.

Listen, it’s not cheap to do that. And I just Eric, Joe, I just appreciate you guys being willing to i mean it’s it’s probably more expensive in shipping than it is the cost of the beer just to be 100% honest, but I I appreciate you guys doing that we have certainly enjoyed those and, and always appreciate it. We can’t get these these Arkansas beers up here. So delicious. I was really thirsty. Ooh, that’s even better with it as it sets for a few minutes. Little lemony, kind of like that. We’ll talk about it here at the end of the show.

Mike, I mentioned it earlier. hunting. Yeah, I think you’ve either come up with some new hunting tech or the or this is stuff you’ve used before. But talk a little bit about the subject going in this year,

Mike Wieger  [10:37] 
there is and you know, technology and hunting is kind of a weird topic. And so here in Nebraska, the two seasons I like to have a lot of guys are duck hunters around here. But the two that I like to do are Turkey and deer. And so I like to get up to those seasons. And so November for us is really the entire month is hunting, because last weekend, right before because rifle is only one week. And so you get one weekend to a weekend, which is actually this coming weekend in two days. So we’re getting really pumped for it. So you go down and you set everything up. And you know, hunting is one of those things where you know, you can spend your whole life setting up for this stuff, right, you need to perfect, you want the field to be set up just right, you want to grow some CRP, you want to set up food plots you want to, you can just go crazy. And when you start talking about technology, a lot of people start saying, Yeah, take it like hunting is like the pure outdoorsman. Don’t bring tech into this, if you bring your phone into the field, it’s really just for emergencies.

And snapping that picture with your buck in the end, like, you know, you can’t use it for too much more. But there is some technology that I think is doesn’t affect the in the field experience because I’m when I go to the field, I mean, I’m, I’m in front of a computer, 24 seven for work, I’m inundated with screens, I love being outdoors. And so for me, it’s it’s more like even if I didn’t see anything, I’m fine because I have to go sit in a tree for eight hours straight one day with no distractions. That to me is like bliss. And so the technologies I wanted to start using where one’s okay, how do I prep for when I get out in the stand? Well, how can I use technology to help and, and both of these things I’m going to talk about are new by any means.

But there’s reasons to if you if you’re a hunter, and you haven’t looked at either of these, there are a few reasons now in the past probably a year to two years that you may want to start looking at again. So the first one is cellular trail cameras. So every hunter has used a game camera, right, you take a game camera, they’re outdoor, they’re rugged, you put an SD card in it, you load up with batteries, and you go strap it to a tree around where you’re hunting, to then you go out and you monitor, you know it is their movement of whatever you’re hunting deer, turkey, whatever.

And, you know, the thing about deer cameras, though, traditionally, is well you got to go hike back out into your field, wherever you’re hunting and some of the you know, your hunting spot could be miles away from the road, right you sometimes these guys hike in pretty far, you got to go in there. Number one, you’re putting human sent back where you’re hunting, you want to not disturb that as much as possible. But you also on the reverse side that you want to be checking your game cameras right up to hunting time to know, hey, what are the best times today to start, you know, when the deer coming by my stand? So there’s kind of like that balance of like, shoot, well, I want to check my camera, but I mean, they need to go out there, pull the SD card, look at it, and then come back. So cellular cameras have been around for a little bit. But there’s a few reasons why I think this year might be the year if you haven’t thought about them. And number one is price. So actually, Jim, if you want to pull up spy point spy poi empty there is, you know, the price on these cameras has really come down.

Now, of course, like with anything, you can go crazy, and you can spend a lot of money on a cellular camera. But if this is something you just want to try and get into the brand that my brother in law, my brother and I got into this year is spypoint cameras. So their cheapest one, it’s called the link micro it’s actually right there. That’s the cell link. So that’s actually this is an adapter you can plug into any of your existing cameras. So let’s say you’ve already got a bunch of cameras that are really high quality, maybe $400 cameras, but they’re not cellular, you can actually get this device and it makes those old cameras cellular doesn’t even have to be spypoint brand, which is pretty cool. But their link micro is $150 camera.

And actually I wait because every single year and I did this this year to Dick’s Sporting Goods has put this on sale for 100 and Cabela’s price matches because dicks will sell out they won’t have any. And not many people know that Cabela’s price matches so I go to Cabela’s. I show them the ad, and I’ll get this thing for 100 bucks and for 100 bucks, you have never been able to get a cell camera of this quality, which I think this is like I’d call it medium quality, right? It’s not fantastic. It doesn’t do video, but the pictures are clear enough and good enough for exactly what I need. I am not trying to make I’m not a videographer. Like if you’re a YouTuber that makes YouTube videos about hunting and you want You want the video footage and so that probably not for you, right. But all I want to know is I want a clear picture, I want to be able to count the Bucks rack, how many points is it. So I get a nice clear picture, I need good nighttime performance because most deer come at night, I need good range on the motion detection, I need motion detection that’s not too sensitive, not under sensitive and not over sensitive. And this camera has really fit the bill for us.

And like I said, for 100 150 bucks, you’ve just never seen this before. And the connectivity is great because you get to pick other whether you want they call it nationwide, which is at&t, in our area where we have at&t is non existent. So we go with the Verizon model. So we have a Verizon model too. So the other reason, you know, LTE coverage is getting really good now, like most places have LTE coverage. Now, of course, if you’re hunting in, you know, the beautiful Colorado mountains or Montana or Idaho someplace, you might not have service. But for the most part, lt has gotten good enough in these rural areas that these cameras actually work really, really well. And the thing I love about it is kind of like what I mentioned earlier, you know, our hunting grounds an hour and a half south of here. So it’s at my wife’s farm, that’s a long drive. And you know, my father in law, it’s actually not too big of a hunter. So I’m not going to ask him, Hey, can you go pull my SD cards and see if we got anything. So it has been fantastic. So we moved them all around this past weekend, we set them up and all week. To save some battery life, we set ours to every four hours, uploaded every photos you took in the last four hours. So I mean, you can set these things to as soon as it gets a picture to send it to you. But just like a cell phone, anytime it connects to the tower that’s using a lot of power. So if you want to save some battery power, you can change the schedule a little bit. But every four hours, I get those notifications to my phone, in Omaha. And it’s been awesome.

So me and my brother large because he has one too, we both have him down on the field in different spots. We’re sending each other the pictures from our cameras like Dude, okay, five point over here, eight point over here. And it really helps you start to plan out where you’re going to hunt. Because down at our farm, we have six or seven different stands we can sit at, depending on where we think the deer are going to be. And so on opening day, which is Saturday, we’ve been really trying to figure out, Okay, okay, maybe in the morning, we have this spot because the deer have been right through here at this exact time. And you know, maybe we’ll hunt a different field for the nighttime on the evening set, it’s been really cool to kind of have that instant connectivity. And because even before even if I was down the farm, the week before opening day, you really don’t want to be in the field at all, you want to not be disturbing that. But then now It also means you didn’t check your cameras, and you have no idea where these deer at. So these sonar cameras are really cool. The second piece that I really like, I think the reason that people are really starting to get into these is kind of the a little bit of it’s not great, but it’s a little bit of AI built into their web app. So like I said, all these photos are being uploaded, and you’re accessing them from an app on your phone. Well, the app is really cool. And I don’t think my camera is not gonna do a good job picking it up.

So I won’t even try and show you guys. But essentially, all your photos come in. And if you guys have ever had game cameras, you know that sometimes like a blowing tree can be the death of you, if your camera can see a tree branch, it’s gonna trigger a lot. So sometimes there’s, I found that between two and 330, I get like 30 to 40 just pictures of the field. So I get for some reason. But you can go in and this app allows you to filter by species. So you can actually say, hey, just show me all the buck pictures that just came in, show me all the turkey Show me. And it knows that the software in the background is smart enough. And like I said, for those of you who have used deer cams before, what do you traditionally do, you pull the SD card out, you put it in your computer, and you’re constantly just clicking through clicking through we open I see a deer and you’re kind of like, you’re just clicking really fast trying to see if you can find it. Well, this just makes it super easy. I just click Hey, show me all the pictures of bucks in them. And there they are. And they’re all they’re showing the pictures with Turkey in them. And it’s almost like Google Photos. It’s like, yeah, excite how free it is exact exactly what it is. And so it makes it super easy to kind of filter through. So the back end technology from them. And the price really kind of tells me, it’s probably time for you guys to think about looking at cellular cameras. If you haven’t before some people utilize these things actually for security. If you don’t need a constant stream, let’s say you live in a place that’s real remote.

And Jim, you want to run something like sighthound. But you don’t have you know Wi Fi where that is, you could use one of these and they actually you can get an attachment with a solar panel for it’s a tiny little solar panel. And and spypoint actually makes their $200 model has a solar panel built into it right on the top. So that technically could run 24 seven, you would never you would never have to touch it to replace batteries. You’d never obviously I mean, you might have to go out and grab the SD card if you fill it up. But you can also delete those from the app. So you could really just set that thing up almost as a security camera. So pretty cool. I’ve been really liking the seller cameras that really changed the game for us this year. And I know there’s probably a lot of hundreds out there like Dude, these things have been around for a long time. Yeah, but they haven’t been this affordable and the LT hasn’t been as good. So I’ve been been really happy with that, that addition to our hunting repertoire?

Jim Collison  [20:04] 
Yeah. No, it feels like you know, as you’re describing that I was just thinking, you know, I’ve got a, you know, I’ve got a camera that goes to say, down out the backyard. So a couple things that apply on this. I have a tree that blows in the backyard. I have 1000 videos of my backyard, that are just the trees waving and and one squirrel, you know, one squirrel moving across. Yep, we had a we had a deer go across this morning, the front yard and of course, both the ring doorbell and the package cam, which is on sighthound. You know, saw that and started recording and let me know. But yeah, I know, right on that the blowing tree, even in those situations can be the death of you. Just or or or you stop trusting your alerts. Right? Yes. And then all of a sudden, you’re like, why am I even following this? If I’m not, if I’m not trusting the alerts, you know, I saw I I just downloaded their that their app, and they have a 3d. You know, they have a 3d map.

Mike Wieger  [21:11] 
On to the next one that we’re gonna talk about. Oh, I

Jim Collison  [21:12] 
thought you were I thought you were sorry. Hold on. We’ll go back. So I thought that’s what you’re talking now yet? Nope. Good, good. Well, it’s all it’s all cute as

Mike Wieger  [21:21] 
a separate one.

Jim Collison  [21:22] 
Um, the other, the other bit then to about the, the pictures that it discovering kind of, Okay, here’s bought by animal. That’s another I mean, again, that’s another thing sighthound has been doing and, and I’ve also noticed on the ring side, you know, they I think there were six new options that came out on ring last couple weeks, or at least that I saw. That allowed you to kind of have bigger targets for where you want to watch to only record if it’s human, there’s a there’s a species cam right idea thinking like, okay, only turn on if it’s a human. Oh, it was the other one. Of course, they’re partnering with the garage door opener. So in Amazon, so now you can, you know, they can come up, put the package in the garage, open the door, because you gotta you have a control, you know, you have a garage door controlled, that they got the code to, they can open it, put the package in the garage, close it, and then ring records the whole thing. So you have it all recorded. So super cool. Talk a little bit about the app

Mike Wieger  [22:30] 
that goes, Yeah, sort of pair up with that, again, this follows the theme of I wanted to use technology to prepare to hunt. And this next one is an app for your phone. Or I think they might actually sell their own hardware, too. I haven’t checked into it, but the app on the phone works great. And it’s called onX. So it’s onX, it’s a hunting app. And there’s a few reasons why you would use onX and one is kind of for prep. And the other is for actually while you’re hunting, especially if you’re hunting an area where you don’t know where you’re at. But the my favorite feature of onX, and I’ve actually sometimes even used it more for this at home not hunting related anything else is as soon as you pop it up, the app is all about knowing the land around you.

That’s really the best way I can describe it. And a lot of it revolves around land ownership. So when I pop up the app, even in my neighborhood, it tells me who owns the different houses all around me. So on my house, it would say my name, you can go around different houses, you know, it really just shows who owns the property anywhere you’re at. And that’s a big deal for hunters, especially because when you’re hunting in a lot of different areas, you don’t know if maybe you’ve crossed over a boundary and now you’re hunting on land that you don’t have permission to hunt. So down these farms, a lot of times there are a lot of fences, but those you know, you’re crossing fences that are on the same farmer’s land, he’s got you know, cows in one part of his field, not in the other. So you’ve crossed that fence, and that’s okay. But all sudden you hop one more fence and you’re now on the neighbor’s property. So when you get on exit, there’s there is a subscription model to it. And so let’s see, there you go, Jim. So as you’re scrolling in here, it’s going to show the name on every single property and who owns it. Wow.

Jim Collison  [24:05] 
Yeah, so it just creep fill right here. Hold it.

Mike Wieger  [24:07] 
It’s a little bit like a super, it’s a much easier way than doing your county assessor, like most people do. The county assessor have to figure out who owns stuff. I will tell you, it’s great for that one neighbor who can never remember their name. I have literally been across the street like she What’s his neighbor’s name? And I’ve opened up the app and like, Oh, yeah, it’s Dave. Okay, got it. And I remember his name. Okay.

Jim Collison  [24:29] 
Now I got to see what what, what what it says for me on there.

Mike Wieger  [24:33] 
Yeah. And so so, you know, property names is huge. The other reason property names are really big is because a lot of hunters, you know, especially down in rural Nebraska, but this thing is everywhere. You know, if you generally know people are nice, you can go knock on a door and ask, you know, if you can hold their land, so knowing who owns it, you know, there’s always that word of mouth of Oh, you know that the Smith Smith throw is super nice to hunters. You can go ask well, now I’m scrolling around. I’m like who Hey, actually this parcel because down on my wife’s farm is the parcels are all owned by very different people.

And sometimes they’re not the actual farmer that farms them. A lot of times it’s a landowner who then leases out the land to be farmed. So it’s really hard to tell who owns the land. But this that makes it super easy. The app also allows you to see if you I think I don’t know what part of this is subscription and what’s not. I think I pay $30 for a year, and you get access to one state, and you get all the quote layers, they call it. So I picked Nebraska. And that shows me all the public hunting ground, any ground that’s open for fishing, and Nebraska is kind of different ways that they do public hunting, they have like state owned, they have private owned where it’s called an open field, open stream, or open field, open water, something like that, where a private landowner has said that their land is available for hunting.

So you can turn all these little toggles on and off and kind of look around and it’s been fantastic. And then you obviously you add little waypoints. So I have our entire hunting ground marked with where our tree stands are, you can draw measurement lines, which is really nice for measuring your shot. So when I have all my deer stands plugged in, and then I have lines to different parts of the field that I would typically be looking at taking a shot. And you know, I don’t have a rangefinder, I probably should get one, I don’t have one. But now I know hey, okay, and I’ve looked at the app before, that’s a 200 yard shot, that’s a 300 yard shot. And I know what I’m gonna have to be shooting. So the measurement, the waypoints, all the different layers. And then what’s really cool is you can actually save these to your phone, just like Google Maps, you can save an offline version. So in the chance that you don’t have cell connectivity, you go to a place where you don’t have connectivity for your cell phone, you can download offline, and still have access to all the information you had before you still have it even when you’re not connected, which is true. The red

Jim Collison  [26:48] 
ones off limits.

Mike Wieger  [26:50] 
Depends There’s loads what you’re looking at there.

Jim Collison  [26:53] 
So this is fontanelle forest, and he, I’m assuming that read these, or they just know that

Mike Wieger  [27:00] 
that’s property lines. So all the red lines are property lines. And then the different layers you’re going to have are going to show you and here I can actually can I Oh, you can flip on layers.

Jim Collison  [27:13] 
Yeah. Which was what do you want turned on?

Mike Wieger  [27:15] 
Um, there should be like open land Nebraska public open fields here. Yeah.

Jim Collison  [27:22] 
Probably need to pull out a little bit here. And yeah, if you’ve been in Omaha is not a good place. Cuz obviously it’s so now let’s go a little bit farther south. See if we can find so this looks like yes, there’s an air. Okay, riveting audio? We Yeah. Well, if you’re isn’t the audio, you want to come up with a video to see the maps. But there are some options to go in there. It just kind of turns on. I think all the hunting specific. So you stay out of trouble. Right? You can find yourself, okay, I get what this is. Because I know for some people, it’s easy to get out in the fields, it’s easy to get lost.

Mike Wieger  [28:02] 
It’s extremely easy. This was actually this app was how I found out I was talking that I had misunderstood my soul. Ham, my wife’s uncle, who was one of the properties we hunt, I misunderstood him about where his property line ran. And I had actually been all day turkey hunting in the timber of someone else’s property. Luckily, that person doesn’t hunt. And I wasn’t. But I that’s how I found out I opened the app when I got back. And I was like, I had literally been, I hadn’t crossed a fence or anything. So I’d gone through a creek and hadn’t realized that I was already over in their property. It’s super easy. You never know unless you have a GPS on you. Or if you grew up, you knew the land really well. It’s hard to tell. So a fantastic app for knowing all that sort of stuff.

Jim Collison  [28:43] 
pricing. It’s only 30 bucks a year. Yeah, for a single state. Exactly. Not all states. $15 a month.

Mike Wieger  [28:51] 
Yeah. So for the guys who travel around a hunt a lot, that’s probably wouldn’t be really useful because you’re hunting in places you don’t know at all. It would be fantastic for doing that kind of hunting, even just for one state and even just the free version. Like I said, it’s almost like a free county assessor. on a website. They’re kind of nice. You can scroll down and see least who owns what property.

Jim Collison  [29:11] 
Yeah, no, it’s really cool. I I’m a big geography fan. I love looking at maps and stuff when people are talking about stuff. And you know, Google Maps are great, but man, this adds an extra layer. Totally does that, hey, here’s a here’s a good example of that. And let’s see, where am I? Oh, let’s let’s just drill in and take a look. I think we’re in the village of union This is the the village of union. And you can kind of get a feel for you know, what’s down there and the property lines and who owns what and what you know, it’s just it’s super interesting. Yeah, I imagine they have railroad right away is and all those other things.

Mike Wieger  [29:53] 
Yep. Yeah, you really start to see all of it. I love to kind of explore. It’s so funny to see you can kind of get an idea of how Different parts of the state treat their agriculture and their you know, resource such as like animals and stuff like that because like western Nebraska has so much great public hunting. Iowa has fantastic public hunting, eastern Nebraska, not so much at all. It’s a you’re you’re hard pressed to find good, good, solid, large areas of public hunting, where when you don’t get more than three people, you’re gonna be over hunting it. Whereas I was in western Nebraska have really good public hunting.

Jim Collison  [30:30] 
Tony says they get people on the time on Northwoods law for hunting on private lands, I should use this app up there. So this is so funny. Tony,

Mike Wieger  [30:40] 
I just three days ago got addicted to Northwoods law and Lone Star law. I added them to YouTube TV. And those are both on Animal Planet i think i think that’s where Northwoods law is. But I know Lone Star laws and yeah, it’s the game wardens going in forcing all this stuff. And I’ve been like, it’s Jim. It’s like when your YouTube rabbit holes, I went down the rabbit hole of watching Game Warden videos, and then busting like hunters for doing all the bad stuff. And, and my wife’s like, you’re the only one who has to find this interesting like me. Oh, but there is a show about it. So no, definitely not.

Jim Collison  [31:14] 
If he made it on TV. Yeah, there’s other people.

Mike Wieger  [31:18] 
Exactly. So yeah, I mean, technology and hunting. It’s one of those that you know, there’s not a lot that I’m going to use. And there’s so much you could talk about in terms of like scent control a little blower machines, they can put above you and all of that, but, but really, for me it was planning. So yeah, so their cameras that Onix app have been really good additions this year.

Jim Collison  [31:37] 
Those are actually the two best gadgets you’ve brought the hunting gadgets you’ve brought yet. And the times we’ve been talking about this, those are those are big, big gadgets. When you think about I watched him YouTubers that have the game cameras that have the SD cards, and they got to go out every couple days and check them and you know some of those kinds of things. And it’s kind of a pain. You know, they’re gonna live out there. They want to see what kind of animals are coming through their property at night and such and so I’ve often thought of putting some wheat you know, we get raccoons and deer and your garden variety. You know, animals the deer in Bellevue are so tame because they you know, nobody hunts a man.

Mike Wieger  [32:16] 
That’s gonna say they’re all smart. Like, hey, we’re gonna head up to Bellevue for the season. I

Jim Collison  [32:20] 
know. I know. That’s where they go to retire. That’s they come up here to this is like the Florida for dears.

Mike Wieger  [32:25] 
Do you ever see a buck or although?

Jim Collison  [32:27] 
Mostly doe?

Mike Wieger  [32:28] 
Yeah, Bucks probably too.

Jim Collison  [32:30] 
Yeah.

Mike Wieger  [32:31] 
I don’t want to be in that

Jim Collison  [32:33] 
much. And they just walk through, they don’t care. They’re like, I mean, my backyard is just a big buffet for them. They just come in and crunch on everything. Now, we’ve gotten a few dogs over the last couple years. And that slows them down. They don’t like to. They don’t like to go in there. But no, super cool. Anything else on that?

Mike Wieger  [32:50] 
No, not really, um, except we’ll see if it actually works. Like I said, opening opening days this weekend. So if you guys are follow me on Instagram, you’ll for sure hopefully, see a nice big buck show up Saturday, Sunday or Monday. We’re actually I’m taking Monday off. When you Monday to? I’m gonna

Jim Collison  [33:05] 
consider you a failure. If you don’t come back with one you Well, I’ve been invited back to the show had the

Mike Wieger  [33:09] 
goose egg the last two years so I it’s time for me to redeem myself.

Jim Collison  [33:13] 
Come on. Wieger don’t come back. Don’t show up.

Mike Wieger  [33:16] 
Yeah. I got things. I’m gonna bring you some jerky too, if I get with them. So be good.

Jim Collison  [33:23] 
Yeah, I’d be really good. At some jerky in a cigar. That’d be pretty good. Okay. Erin, last week tipped me off when we were talking about lighting and we’re talking about the Amazon Echo. And so I did pick up the Echo Flex a that that evening I ordered and it came in. Amazon actually sent me two. So I was like, really?

Mike Wieger  [33:47] 
Yeah, for like 10 bucks right there. 10.

Jim Collison  [33:49] 
How much? Yeah, it’s 10 bucks. Like, it’s not even worth anybody’s time to even worry about it. But I thought well, good. This will give me a chance to unbox it on the show. Because I’d already unboxed the other one and put it in and then this one came the next day. The The cool thing about these little flecks if you look at them online, and we look at them last week on the show, they look a lot bigger. Like you see them and you’re like oh man, that’s that’s you know, I kind of thought it was maybe as wide as the outlet big as the outlet itself. And you get this little tiny box right and so it

Mike Wieger  [34:24] 
kind of like an apple brick.

Jim Collison  [34:26] 
Size wise it’s so you think bigger? Yeah, it gives you gives you some perspective on inside the inside the box. Yeah, it’s still got a little bit of size to it. You know, and so you know, there it is pretty small as far as the size. It’s got the plug on the bottom, they got a little I think it’s proprietary, little proprietary plug. They’ve got some accessories you can plug into the bottom of this thing, a light and some other stuff to get it done.

There’s a little you know, Speaker comes out there you want to play music on this thing there and called it You just you don’t want to do that. Because it doesn’t have great speaker in there. microphones are up in top and it’s got the standard push to activate kind of the Activate button and then it’s got a mute button on it. So plug it in, in the ceiling in the garage had fully planned to activate the light. And we’ll come back to that it was a disaster. let’s just, let’s just say that okay was a disaster, I’ll come back guy here and plug it in, go to the Alexa app. Add, find a there’s, there’s a flex option to pick. parent, you’re done.

Like it’s just there’s no, yeah, it’s there’s no I mean, it was, it was like, it was easy. And then you can do all the things you can talk to and commands, it’ll turn on lights and stuff for you, whatever, whatever you want to do whatever you normally do, to have it. So the the setup. So like Aaron said on the flex, if you need an off to find a spot for this, if you have a spot where you don’t want to full Echo, and you’re not gonna listen to music, you just want to have voice commands, it has to have Wi Fi has to be able to connect to your Wi Fi. But it goes just about anywhere. And it doesn’t require a grounded, this is the great thing. It doesn’t Oh, yeah, a grounded plug. So you don’t have to do put an adapter on it. If you’re going to put it somewhere, it just works. Just like number one,

Mike Wieger  [36:30] 
garage is a good place. But a garage, you might want to spare to like a hallway be a really good spot to put it like where you’re in passing where you’re not yet in range of one of your room echoes. But you still may need one to turn on the bathroom lights or something like that. And the other so I would probably put one I know one place in the hallway that we’re kind of in a dead zone of echoes hearing us but we often time, you know, actually the latest example was I wanted to set a timeout timer for my son as I’m dragging him to his room.

And I couldn’t reach either echo yet. But until we got into his room, the other spot for me like I’m on my patio, you know, I don’t want a speaker like can get really ruined and a $10 thing that even if it got a little wet. You know I’m not really too worried about it but have been able to activate on my patio lights outside with the voice could actually be a pretty good option. I might actually get one of those from my in laws because they have that exact setup. They have a smart like a TP link smart plug for all their out exterior lights, and rothen sitting outside and someone’s got to run it and hit the switch or get on their phone or do whatever. Now that’d be a good option. Yeah,

Jim Collison  [37:33] 
we don’t actually have one in the TV room. So this will probably go on the wall. Yeah, TV room just available there, then you don’t have to have a screen you don’t have to have a camera doesn’t it doesn’t have to be a device you can it can be something to control things that way. So the idea had, okay, so yeah, the idea was I was gonna plug this thing in, then I was gonna install those neutral, not required switches downstairs are in. Alright, yeah, let’s Yeah. So I didn’t really, I thought this can be easy. And I didn’t really think too much about the wiring setup. So I, I. So I go take the light apart and realized those switches also have a capacitor that needs to be stalled on the light side of things.

And so like you have to really, yeah, yeah, for whatever reason, it needs to store up some power on the other end of it. Because that’s what the capacitor does, right? It stores up power. For whatever reason, I think that keep the light switch on, I don’t know, I don’t know all the physics of the lighting. It’s not important in the story. So it kinda is, but it’s not. So I pulled the light down. And it’s an old ceramic light fixture that’s still got the old pull down thing and I’m like, and I start undoing some things and it’s falls apart in my hands, it’s sold some crap. Alright, so go to Menards and pick up a new one. This one does not have the pull chain on it, it’s just going to be a light switch. I go in, plug that in and get the capacitor thing installed, put that in

Mike Wieger  [39:07] 
and come with a capacitor you had to go figure it out. Ain’t

Jim Collison  [39:09] 
no came with one came with guns. So then I so that I can plug it into that, or that I unwire this switch and I put this thing and I plug it into the switch thing. And the way it is there’s a big fat box on the back end and there’s the screws on the side of it and you just unscrew it and then push the wire and screw back in super easy. Yeah, they’re right on the edge and it’s a big fat box like I mean it barely fit in the side of that metal box. That’s going to be important here in just a second in a metal box. See,

Mike Wieger  [39:47] 
okay, guess where this is going. So,

Jim Collison  [39:50] 
I go back in I get it all wired. I go back in and hit the breaker. Everything’s good. I go out I hit the switch and it’s just enough to push that right up against The metal box lets the genie out of the lamp thinking, alright, well there’s one down, shoot, I just fried it, it’s gone, right? I just Yeah, I just short circuited so then I take a second one, I’m like, Okay, I’m not going to put it back in, I find my electrical tape, I’m going to tape up the edges, right? If it’s gonna go back into this metal box, because it’s in the garage. So it’s gonna be I’m gonna need to tape it. So I leave it out of the box to test it. And I realize all they’ve really done is set. They haven’t this hasn’t been it wasn’t really wired right for what I was trying to do. And I don’t to be honest with you. I didn’t. I was like, how would you wire this differently?

Like I couldn’t at the end of the day, I could not. I was looking at it, I got super frustrated with it. Because it just wouldn’t, it wouldn’t really do what it needed to do. And I was worried too, I had, you know, was touching the side. And so I ended up like, okay, I’ll figure this out another day. I am not gonna, you know, I’ve already It was getting dark out there, you know, Crystal, you have the lights off. So I’ve have a little flashlight here that I’ve got in my mouth, you know, trying to trying to do things. So I end up going to menards and just buying one of those luminous, regular switches, right, just a regular switch that flips on and off that but when you

Mike Wieger  [41:24] 
wire it

Jim Collison  [41:25] 
around, I just need just need hot and hot and the white and the weather, whatever. Yeah, black and white as what was in there. And so, now I have a so you still can’t I still can’t sound so I have this thing. Here’s the funny part. She’s still in here. She left. So she goes so the next day, Sarah, that’s she goes. Okay, so what’s the right thing to say in the garage? That was exactly as like no, I told you, I didn’t get it. I didn’t get the the smart switch in. It doesn’t work, you just the the wake word is flip, flip, and the light comes on. So what I think I’m going to do is they make a Wi Fi enabled socket that goes in between the light and the in the screw in socket itself. So yeah, super simple. They’re like 20 bucks. In it, it means I don’t have to mess with wiring. Again, like I just just one of those kinds of things like, ah, I should know more. I’m always in a hurry when I’m doing those kinds of things. Um, so I think eventually here, I just haven’t done it yet. I’m going to pick up one of those go betweens, the problem has been is there’s no like I wanted to I didn’t want a brand new app for these.

Mike Wieger  [42:53] 
Exactly,

Jim Collison  [42:54] 
I had bought the Casa smart Wi Fi plug light the other day. So of those, the overhead By the way, I can’t I can’t recommend these fast enough light till they’re on sale everywhere. So you can I think I got a three pack for $21. And I needed one because we the overhead light at a TP link h 100. That just kind of quit working like it didn’t I tried to reset, it didn’t work, the phone didn’t work. You know, I’m like, I’m just gonna get some sebata three pack in. And one of those is to go up there. But you know, again, packaging is important. So literally, this is all this is all you get. There’s a box and the device now it does have the ground on there. So I’m in, I took it out of the box, plugged the light into it, plugged it in, the light in the corner comes on and starts flashing. You open the Casa app, you go add, find, find it in the Wi Fi hit it, it’s done. Like that, again, I’ve been doing this now for I don’t know five or six years. Every year just gets a little bit easier on these things. It was super easy to set up. This you know Wi Fi enabled if you needed. It’s got a little switch on the end if you need to manually turn it on and off. I didn’t even have to it was in a pairing mode. The second it came out of the box which is super smart, right? Yep. So I bought three one. Replace the light I can now tell the lady to turn on off the overhead light. This will be the Christmas tree because I took the old Christmas tree light from years ago. installed it somewhere else in the house right so so before the Christmas tree this year and then I have an extra one. Just in case. We have a need that comes up we want to put another light on there. But these Casa they’re everywhere. You do not need to look far and wide. Super easy to set up. super cheap.

Mike Wieger  [44:56] 
We’re pray with a lady in Google. Yep, those are the ones I use when I was talking On my Ham Radio where I have the RFID devices, they are causing RFI. Each of the devices that are offenders are plugged into one of those, I just and I group them in a lady in the app. And then I just say turn off the Wi Fi devices. And she turns off those three switches together. So here’s one question though, did you think about and actually, Andrew brought this up in the chat, just using a Wi Fi bulb for that up for that garage.

Jim Collison  [45:26] 
So I’d had a go v light in there that was motion sensitive. But that’s the one ad talked me into buying that led I showed it last week, it’s the LED that’s got the fans, right? Because

Mike Wieger  [45:38] 
you want a really good led

Jim Collison  [45:40] 
a really bright light in there. It’s it’s, it’s it’s sun brightness in there now.

turned it on, it was like, Whoa, like that was Sarah’s response to the light.

The rest the neighborhood goes dark

Like, oh, that’s bright, like, yeah, you could you could actually work in here. I mean, it makes a good bright, working workshop kind of light. I think it was 20 or $25 or something like that. I think it was 30. And there was a $10 coupon or something. pretty inexpensive. So yeah. Yeah, I just I need to find the right. The right adapter. I if if Casa made if Casa made one of those. I just bought it because i but i don’t i don’t want another app. This is the thing like I don’t.

Mike Wieger  [46:26] 
But really, I’ve never even I have like so many apps, but you never have to use them as long as you tie them all together with

Jim Collison  [46:32] 
Yeah, we’ve got an ad on the app once. Yeah, usually. Yeah, yeah. Yep. That’s the app that the the one I was looking at had a weird Chinese app associated with it. I was just like,

Mike Wieger  [46:44] 
no, yeah, you’re right, those

a little fun.

Jim Collison  [46:46] 
I don’t know those plugs are those switches did as well, they were the same company that kind of freaked me out a little bit too. Just to be honest, I think I’m not gonna put switches in there. They’re the same Chinese company that you know, so just kind of like so I think that’s the route I’m going on. I’m going to do for that is get that adapter make it work that way. I’ve got the plugs covered, which is super cool. And then Mike, one more thing, because it’s, it’s Christmas time. Well, not really. But it’s getting close. We celebrate Christmas. I alluded to this last week with Aaron.

Mike Wieger  [47:21] 
Real quick. Okay, well, one more thing about the lights we never mentioned is cost, you know, so I just realized when we moved in, we had done a lot of LED except for in our kitchen. In our kitchen. We have nine canned lights. Well, so those are 65 watt floods, and they’re all running through one switch and I’ve noticed that switch the dimmer gets super hot on the wall. Well, I did the math, that’s 585 watts when my kitchen lights run, which is a because that’s nine times 65 right, I think I’m doing the math right 65 watt light bulb. That’s a lot of power and kitchen lights are something that are on a lot in our house because it’s the main like our house is very open concept. So the kitchen lights are on quite a bit. Why just swapped all those out for 65 watt equivalent LEDs which only pulled 10 watts. So instead of paying 585 watts in the kitchen, it’s only pulling 90 now that light switch is cool and crisp now but I’m excited to see my power bill I hope I see a dip because I mean that’s good 585 watts running continuously around here except for at night compared to 90 hope I see a pretty good dip there. So I want to mention, we always skip over kind of the cost savings because everyone we all kind of take it for granted but in a spot where you have a lot of incandescence like a chandelier or a kitchen. Wherever you have those it can be a pink costsaver

Jim Collison  [48:40] 
I’m not sure I have a incandescent left in the house. Maybe in some of the maybe the chandelier or two here now. Yeah,

Mike Wieger  [48:48] 
I think that was where my last. My last ones like everything else for me. We in our guests bathroom actually we have because it’s that old style where they all face photo they kind of look weird and the LEDs in there.

Jim Collison  [48:59] 
We had some old ceiling fans that had incandescent lights in them that I just replaced. I replaced all the ceiling fans in the house this summer and went completely I didn’t go Wi Fi but I did go every every one of them has a remote and they’re all LED. And they’re all super efficient. And I think I got rid of I think I got rid of as I look around I think I got rid of the last of the incandescent lights. So I have a few fluorescence the studio lights are fluorescent those I’m just waiting for them to go out. There’s no sense in changing those now at this point. The only deal give me some ability to change their colors a little bit if I want to do it that way. But right now they work for now. So pretty cool.

Mike is a kid we had and I think this is a perfect like, gadget geek thing. As a kid. We had this thing during Christmas time called an advent calendar. Are you familiar? Have you ever done an ad? Oh, we

Mike Wieger  [49:54] 
do. Yes, we’re big. boys love them.

Jim Collison  [49:58] 
And when I was a kid, you’d buy Am I and I forget they’d have little tiny things and I’m right.

Mike Wieger  [50:03] 
Usually we’re ours like a little child you open a piece of candy or something can you be

Jim Collison  [50:07] 
here but, but somehow, like the perfect mix of nerdery and, and movies have all come together and now you can buy lego star wars, which is really Disney advent calendars and it for the last couple years we’ve been trying to get our hands on these and usually it’s been a little late. I’ve been late and getting them and of course they’re all sold out. They only make so many because they don’t want to get caught.

Mike Wieger  [50:33] 
Or they already sold out.

Jim Collison  [50:35] 
I don’t know. You want to check I bought mine on Amazon. So this is this isn’t the Disney Store. But I definitely there 39 or 40 bucks so not cheap. No, not at Disney. I got mine for 29 on Amazon. So you might want to you might want to check that out if if you want to do it, but I thought it’d be fun this year. We like I said we’ve done this with Lego in the past. But I just thought man, gosh, this would be sure fun to have these I both my kids home during the you know my brain centers home my daughter will be home during the month of December. And I just thought it’d be fun to kind of mix all that stuff together. My son then as soon as this came in, he said he went out and bought the Harry Potter version. There’s a Harry Potter’s got one of these as well, that you could buy so we actually have two in the house this year. So just find it on Amazon. I did. I did.

Mike Wieger  [51:25] 
I’m looking at him right now. Yeah, that Harry Potter. Let’s see kind of what the Lego City

Jim Collison  [51:32] 
still available. Yeah, yeah. Because I think it starts December free shipping. You open them. I think you start opening on December 1. We had all kinds of versions that the kids would use and I think they were Lego even back in the day. They have little Lego characters. And we Santa and this one’s got a it’s got Darth Vader wearing a Christmas sweater. Which is super cool. You get the Millennium Falcon you get a red colored Stormtrooper.

Mike Wieger  [52:03] 
Well, you got a good deal because the the one you’re talking about Star Wars one is $62. I now know on Amazon Really? 29 for Harry Potter. Wow fee for all the other ones.

Jim Collison  [52:15] 
Well then you want to head over to Yeah, then I must have I must have gotten them right on time because I I pay let’s look let’s go to the Amazon app and see orders

Mike Wieger  [52:25] 
to get this for my wife. Yeah, she loves Harry Potter. Well, don’t tell everyone. Okay,

Jim Collison  [52:31] 
yeah. Yeah, 2997 is what I paid your

Mike Wieger  [52:37] 
that’s how much the Harry Harry Potter one is. But all the other ones are 60 bucks.

Jim Collison  [52:42] 
What are you one? Only one left? in stock order soon is what it tells me. That’s

Mike Wieger  [52:49] 
what it tells me to unlegal

Jim Collison  [52:52] 
Yeah, yeah, you got to kind of you got to get the sweet spot on these. I think first of November is the time Yeah, you kind of start looking for him there we’ll bring these back up on screen. That’s it on on a 311 pieces. They’re little tiny pieces. But we we have a good time. For us. That’s just such a good. It’s such a good Christmas tradition. To to have that kind of mixes it all together. When you’re the kids, the kids love to get Legos for a lot of years. And then they would spend all Christmas Day putting those, you know kind of putting those Legos together. And so having the Lego advent calendars was kind of fun. And then they would make they would take all the things we got in the Ivan calendar and make something make a one big thing out of it. One year I think Phil made Santa riding like a speeder and he had like a knife and a gun. And like a flame thrower and Lego creativity

Mike Wieger  [53:53] 
my boys are super into Legos right now. I

love it. I love watching them Well the thing is they make

Jim Collison  [53:59] 
murderous Santa’s out there so good times. You what’s your tradition? So if you’re listening on YouTube, leave those in the comments below. I’d love to have what do you guys do? If you’re listening in chat? Put them in there right now. It’s good opportunity. Mike, do you guys have any other any Have you established like Christmas traditions that you do around the holidays?

Mike Wieger  [54:21] 
No, not yet. We

do the advent calendar that boys love that. The hard part with two boys 14 months a party just you know four and three essentially, you need to double up you need to you can’t just have them share one thing out there. It’s not gonna work. So that’s why I was like, Ooh, this lady with your cool but 100 bucks would be a lot for two advent calendars.

Jim Collison  [54:42] 
40s even if it would have been 40 I’d have been telling Yeah. But

Mike Wieger  [54:48] 
no, we you know, we love to spend we usually try and hit every family this year. It’s gonna be really difficult. I don’t think we will we’ll probably see our direct you know, our parents that’s about it. Obviously not going to get all And last together anything like that, so yeah, but we love the holidays. It’s my wife’s favorite time of the year. she absolutely loves it.

Jim Collison  [55:09] 
Sherwin in the chat room says just bought the

Mike Wieger  [55:13] 
other Bugatti

Jim Collison  [55:14] 
guy got set from Amazon this morning. I think that’s these. Is that two they get it right. Oh, that looks cool. These these cars? Yeah.

Mike Wieger  [55:27] 
Oh, they’re pricey.

Jim Collison  [55:28] 
Well, that one. This one’s not but this is the small one. I think the Lego version. Yeah, let’s see if we get so for 40 bucks. I clicked on it twice. I said my internet connection must be a little slow. It’s trying to fake me out. Yeah. 340 on that. But you imagine taking a while. He says large one to keep an ill friend occupied in the hospital. Hope he likes it. Sweet. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Wieger  [55:58] 
Good idea for someone who’s in the hospital. It’s a perfect idea.

Jim Collison  [56:01] 
Yeah, years ago. Now my son we were. We were out skiing, my son ran into a tree and and took a broke his helmet and broke his head. And so we spent about two weeks in Denver. While he was in surgical ICU. We weren’t sure. You know, he had sprain swelling. And so we weren’t sure if he’s gonna have brain damage. And so they had work had put Gallup, my friends at work had put together some care packages and actually brought two big boxes. Sara brought these back of magazines, we thought we were going to be in Denver for like three months. It was so bad. So magazines and comics, and they put some Legos in there, which were super helpful.

And so he enjoyed the weekend, though one weekend he spent in, in physical Nazi, yeah, he gone, you know, he, he, they didn’t have to do surgery, which was great. And then he went, he was in recovery for three or four days. And then he went into he went into the physical therapy. And they thought, Okay, this will be three weeks. And by Monday, he was there. Like, I think he could go home pretty quick here. He just healed so fast. It was such a miracle. But that he did Legos all weekend. And so it’s great. That’s one of those great things that you can, you can take, I think for especially for kids, that kind of stuff keeps them keeps them active. I definitely am. And my kids love them. They love doing them. We we started at CES actually at the average guy TV, we of course grill, you know, for last 10 years for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, we’ve grilled turkeys. And that that recipe has evolved over the years, you know, used to just do a bacon wrap.

Now we do a bacon weave. I think after the last couple chickens that I’ve done on the grill, instead of wrapping them, I would wrap them in tin foil and cook them that way. And they were great. Don’t get me wrong, they were great. It’s never crisp up on the on the outside that way. This year, I think I’m gonna leave it open in the pan, keep it at 225 let it go for eight or nine hours. I might start that one overnight, you know, and that way it’s done in the morning, kind of check it once I’m up. I’m up, you know, go to the bathroom anyway a couple times a night. So, you know, just check it when I get up kind of thing and have it ready for for Thanksgiving morning. Then wrap it put it in the cooler, it’s ready, then. I don’t have to be worried about that bird on Thanksgiving Day. So those have been some of our traditions. Just over the years. It changes where the tree goes where we put it. It was fun the year we started using where you could say Hey, lady turn on the Christmas tree. That was fantastic. We do the same thing with the same blog too. Yeah, yeah, that was that was fantastic. That was actually one of the very first plugs, Wi Fi enabled plugs that I owned as I bought two. I think I spent 35 or 40 bucks on it when it when those were first met what’s running right now?

Mike Wieger  [59:08] 
He says them. Yeah, crazy.

Jim Collison  [59:11] 
I think if you can get them for five. You’re you’re in pretty good. You’re in pretty good shape. Yeah, the it can get a little expensive. Some of these some of those. I think that car I was just showing 500 in Australia where we were giving Aaron a hard time last week about the Canadian tax. Justin says yeah, gotta love the Australia tax. That’s true. So hopefully you are getting ready getting ready for Christmas. Don’t buy too many things for yourself. Like I know you’re listening to this. And I don’t know about you, Mike. But it’s just, you know, it’s too easy to just. We have a family spreadsheet that we use that’s like Christmas lists. So everybody has their own tab and we use Google sheets for that. And everybody has their own tab and I started today I was filling it out. I’m like, I don’t really need anything.

Mike Wieger  [1:00:08] 
I’m the same way. I’m so bad because I just like if I needed during the year, I just buy it. And it’s it. Yeah, makes my wife magically I never went to get you, you just by yourself whatever you need and like,

Jim Collison  [1:00:20] 
well, it was veterans day this week. And I’m kind of wearing the veterans gear from the NFL. My, my wife got me this for last year in the green one, the dark green one as well from cancer chiefs, but we want to say thank you to all the veterans who have served and who our listeners if you’ve served in any of the any of the Armed Forces, and you know what, Mike, let’s just make this global, cuz like, you know, a, that’s a big deal here in the United States. But you know, we know, military service is a difficult thing to do. Mm hmm.

And I know that because I got to say, we got thank you to Jim spent five and a half years doing that I have a son of two brothers, my dad, who was a who was a combat veteran, couple purple hearts in the process, which means he was wounded in combat. And then all kinds of nieces and nephews that have done that as well. But if you’re, if you’ve served in any type of armed forces, you know, let’s just add, and there’s probably other times for this.

But if you’re a first responder or you’re part of the, in some kind of police, that’s also that’s been an area that’s kind of taken it on the chin, during the pandemic that’s definitely taken on the chin and all the things that have gone on, we appreciate your service, and all the things that you do, whether that’s here in the United States or around the world. Thanks for all that you do. And of course, thanks for listening to Home Gadget Geeks, Mike, I think with anything else you want to throw in there. Before we wrap it.

Mike Wieger  [1:01:46] 
It’s a great episode. No,

Jim Collison  [1:01:47] 
sir had a couple of reminders before we go one. Don’t forget, if you need a website, head out to http://theaverageguy.tv/hover, get your process started there. $2 off your first domain, great domain hosting, and just really easy to use their site, http://theaverageguy.tv/hover while you’re at it, head out to http://MapleGrovePartners.com sign up for one of Christians plan, he’ll get you set up. This is one of those things that even if you’re paying $10 or less today, you should just migrate it. So you should get a hold of Christian and be like, hey, it’s 10 bucks, migrate what you have, because it’s just so much better. Over there in Maple Grove Partners. So get secure, rely secure, reliable high speed hosting from people that you know and you trust. Of course, that’s Christian http://MapleGrovePartners.com / http://theaverageguy.TV/hover, get that done today. And I don’t think like I besides hellofresh that’s that’s a lock. That’s a lead pipe lock for me. And so get that done and see if there anything else I need to if you’re interested in giving us some feedback, you got some things you want us to cover or talk about on the show.

Send me an email Jim@theaverageguy.tv and then don’t forget December 3, Thursday, December 3, big party 10 year anniversary. We’re gonna we’re gonna have a fun show. Andrew Morris is coming back. Christian Johnson is coming on Mike will be here. I’ll be here. spend a little time talking about 10 years of Home Gadget Geeks. And remember when the whole show won’t be that. But we’ll just have some fun fun together talking about some current news and some things that are going on around Christmas. So join us December 10. No, that’s not the right December 3. Beer start getting started. Get to me now. And we’d love to have you out for the show. We are live every Thursday 8pm Central nine Eastern out here at https://theaverageguy.TV/live. I appreciate your listening. Appreciate you veterans. We will be back next week. I think Chris Nessie is with us, we’ll get a little bit update on what’s going on in his world with education and COVID and all those. Maybe another check in I thought Michael when we checked in with the guys earlier, or at the end of the summer, you know, things had kind of settled in a little bit and since then, things have started spiking again. So I think we’ll have some it feels a little different though. dotnet like this spike doesn’t quite feel like the first spike.

Mike Wieger  [1:04:11] 
Well and, I’ve been I’ve been careful to say this because I don’t want to get people thinking this way but I think a lot of it at least in the Midwest has been before a lot of us didn’t know anyone who had had it. And I think there is some there’s a lot of death happening which is so sad but I think a lot of us the people we know at the lab will know people who are all asymptomatic you know all the people I know I’m blessed I don’t know anyone who has passed away from this combination and I think that gets people in the wrong mindset of Oh like it’s not that bad. Like Yeah, all my friends I know it’s a big spike and no you know all my friends have been okay. I think it’s kind of a dangerous mindset but I think that might have led to the cause of a lot of the partying going on to like it Sally you drive around you see bars that are packed and no one wearing masks. And I think it just kind of people got into a weird mindset with it.

Jim Collison  [1:05:05] 
Yeah. Well, history will tell. We’ll tell it last last Wednesday when we’re doing the show. We didn’t know who’s gonna be our president. I’m not sure we still know.

Mike Wieger  [1:05:14] 
I mean, I don’t know. But I think we know. Yes. All right.

Well, we’ll see how that goes. Hey, before I forget, it will mention this starting next week a little bit more, but, but if you made it this far, you’re the most engaged listener and you have the best opportunity to actually do this for me. For the 10 Year Anniversary Show, I’d love to call in and leave a message. Just tell me a little bit about what what how Home Gadget Geeks has worked for you. How do you listen to it? What’s been helpful? What have you enjoyed the most those kinds of things in a made a really easy way for you to do it? Okay, so go to http://HomeGadgetGeeks.com. In the bottom right hand corner, this is the little microphone button. Click it and leave a 30 message. Oh, that’s all you’re gonna get. It’s only 30 seconds. It’s not hard. doesn’t go on forever. It’s just 30 seconds. And love to hear from you. Yeah, it’s kind of cool. Mike the pod page does that for us. And it never built in. Cool. So http://HomeGadgetGeeks.com. Page Batarang. Corner, leave us a message. Love to hear how you’re listening Home Gadget Geeks, or what you’ve appreciated about it. We’ll play those live during the 10 year anniversary party and I’d appreciate you guys doing that. We are live every Thursday at 8pm Central nine Eastern out here at http://theaverageguy.TV/live Chris next week. Sammy is we’re on Friday. Don’t forget, it’s Thanksgiving here in the United States. So Sammy will be on with me Friday. We’re going to talk about what it’s like to be in a college newsroom during a major election. So like straight from her. And it was stressful. Now they cover both they don’t cover much national so it’s a lot of local. But you better believe their eyes run the national news is all that stuff has happened.

She had to be there for like a week. Yeah. To get any results. you’re stressed.

Jim Collison  [1:07:00] 
I bet she was stressed. When she came home on Friday. She was pretty stressed out so she’ll be coming. The Friday we’re not live that Thursday because that’s Thanksgiving Friday afterwards same time 8pm Central Samuel be here shut up out of school for the semester because Mike they’re getting out. after Thanksgiving. They’re not going back. Yeah, COVID right. They’re just like Yeah, why why send everybody home to get all COVID up.

Mike Wieger  [1:07:23] 
Exactly. Bring

Jim Collison  [1:07:24] 
them all back and then mix them all up again and then send them all home again. So I think that’s going to be some that’s probably gonna stick around for a while. If you’re in the if you’re listening live. Thanks for coming. Appreciate you guys appreciate you staying through the whole show. If you’ve never joined us live you should http://theaverageguy.TV/live 8pm Central on Thursday. love to have you join so that will say goodbye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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