David McCabe from Reset, Folding@Home and Tech for Families In Quarantine – HGG438
Dave McCabe joins us this week. Dave is the former host of Home Server Show and now has a podcast at https://reset.fm/. Jim also lets the community know that we are working on a team project for Folding at Home at https://stats.foldingathome.org/team/243306 and we would love to have you join us. We also spend some time talking about all the ways we are working through the current COVID 19 situation with our kids and families. I think you will enjoy the show.
Full show notes, transcriptions, audio and video at http://theAverageGuy.tv/hgg438
Join Jim Collison / @jcollison and Mike Wieger / @WiegerTech for show #438 of Home Gadget Geeks brought to you by the Average Guy Network.
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Podcast, Home Gadget Geeks, David McCabe, Dave McCabe, Folding at Home, Folding@Home, Reset Podcast, COVID – 19, COVID, Coronavirus
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Jim Collison [0:00]
Before we get started, I wanted to share a project that we’re working on as a community as kind of a podcast. At folding at home, many of you are aware of that if you go to folding@home.org, we did projects like this, or we’ve been doing projects like this maybe over the last 20 years. With the corona virus and all that’s going on with it folding at home is really kind of turned their processing engines on this problem for a solution. We thought it’d be fun to join in. So over at folding at home, we’ve created a Home Gadget Geeks team. If you join that team, I’ll show you the team there. Join that team, our number is 243306. And we get some folks that that have joined already. They already are the fastest supercomputer in the world right now. And are taking resources and your help if you want to join us. No pressure, but maybe you did some mining, maybe you got a GPU spare GPU that’s sitting around and you can help us out. We’d love to have you join us folding at home dot org. join Team 243306 and thanks for listening to Home Gadget Geeks. Here we go.
Jim Collison [1:08]
This is The Average Guy Network and you have found Home Gadget Geeks show number 438 recorded on March 26, 2020.
Jim Collison [1:31]
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 the average guy TV Studios, in a beautiful Bellevue, Nebraska – of course, Mike the world’s over so weather doesn’t matter,
Mike Wieger [1:45]
right. I haven’t been outside in a week. My security cameras are the only way that I have seen the outside world.
Jim Collison [1:52]
Dave Dave McCabe is with us. Dave Are you getting out in this, it during this emergency time
Dave McCabe [1:58]
it’s finally starting to get Nice and we’ve been just walking like crazy and I’m finally starting to work in the yard so I almost feel normal
Jim Collison [2:07]
You, on Reset, your your podcast, you’ve been talking about getting lawns temperature up are you really out there measuring the temperature if you
Dave McCabe [2:15]
don’t see might hear I think the meat thermometer shove it in the grass.
Jim Collison [2:22]
Oh, gotta get it because it’s your you’re measuring it to put down the you’re putting down some what do you what are you putting down?
Dave McCabe [2:29]
I mean for you guys. It’s pre emergent. That’s what it is.
Jim Collison [2:33]
Yeah, man. You’ve become a big lawn nerd.
Dave McCabe [2:36]
I’m super lawn nerd. I don’t it’s just it’s amazing what happens when someone overcharges you for a service and you’re like, wait a minute, I can do this.
Jim Collison [2:46]
Yeah, yeah. Are you Scots guy or do you do some of the goods? You buy your own chemicals and mix them you got big gloves that you’re putting?
Dave McCabe [2:52]
I do everything by the book. I do it all myself. So yes, and yes, I do have a stock of N95 masks. Oh nice for my PPE
Jim Collison [3:02]
Well, yeah, oh, but that’s just so you don’t inhale the chemicals graph the current pandemic that’s going on. Well, we’ll remind everyone to take advantage of the full of full show notes, world class show notes, as I like to say out there at the average guy TV, in this case, the average guy TV slash HGG. For eight now 438 almost gave us too many 438 we’ll get you there as well. Don’t forget, you can join us live on the mobile app every week if you’re traveling and who isn’t at this time. But if you happen to be someplace where you want to stream it, you can download the app stream, listen to Home Gadget Geeks on the road or even in the basement if you went to Home Gadget geeks.com Android and iPhone both available for you appreciate our Patreon subscribers, which this right now is super important. So Patreon. Thank you. Thank you everybody who donates to this. Thank you. I can’t tell you it’s it’s an interesting time and so we appreciate your sponsorship of the show. You heard from him in just a second ago But Dave McCabe from Reset the podcast. cast this here Dave welcome
Dave McCabe [4:02]
thanks for having me guys as you can tell if you’re watching the video I am built for radio now because you guys all look wonderful you’re well lit and I’m just like throwing lights on my wall trying to get things fixed and I can’t get it done But
Jim Collison [4:19]
Dave Do you ever miss live? I mean you just you come on with us twice a year and so that but you miss come in we did live together for so long. I
Dave McCabe [4:28]
I do and I don’t I like being on my own schedule and doing kind of doing my own thing when I want to do it when I can do it. But I do miss I do miss about a good back and forth, you know, with you guys with you know my old guys, Darren and john on surface geeks. I missed out a lot. So it’s it’s different.
Jim Collison [4:54]
I’ve watched you go through this experiment and you know i for a while I thought well, he’ll do that. For a while and then he’ll come fly in back to live. And so far know you’ve kind of locked in your your family situation really works better for you not to have the pressure I think of the weekly live everything that brings. You can kind of produce it when you want in your time. Right? Is that right?
Dave McCabe [5:19]
You know it is it’s one thing after another in I hate to sound like that broken record. But Jim, I mean, you told me I don’t remember what show it was, but he’s like, you know, you have two babies at home right now. It’s pretty easy. Feed them, put them to bed. Nothing easier than that. But when they get older, oh my god, chasing him around like crazy. I mean, it well Now, you know, I don’t have to look far for him. But it was sports, you know, different things going on. There’s birthdays or sleep overs. You know, one kid broke his foot and you know, it’s taking them to school picking them up and it’s it. Yeah, it’s a constant Madhouse with the kids. So you
Jim Collison [6:00]
And they need that attention. Mike here your kids are your five years five, six years behind Dave I think with your with your kids, maybe maybe even a little bit more. You’re in that same boat, right? I mean, it’s, this works for you just because you can show up, which is great works for me. Yeah, I need a regular co host. In what we’re doing. So let me ask both of you. And that’s, of course says this March 26. Recording or in the middle of this pandemic, right? It’s global pandemic that’s going on. In words here in the United States. We’re challenged where we’ve been home, most of us been home at least a week for us to debut in that I think you’re in that category, too. Right? We’re on week two, Mike, how’s it going? and other kids? What kind of tech are the kids? How are you using tech to keep the kids busy?
Mike Wieger [6:45]
I mean, Netflix is the babysitter right now. Luckily, Hannah’s had some days off in here where she’s been able to be home. But I mean, I’ve got to work from home and most of my days on conference calls, and she works at the hospital. So she wants to me she’s there. There’s really nothing we can Do those two boys, I have a three year old and a two year old. And both boys who love to wrestle and each other up and get into a bunch of trouble, like, you just can’t take your eyes off them for a second or else they’re doing something. And so I mean, I joke that they probably have watched more than they should. But the hard part is my kids are still too young to you know, you can’t put like a Nintendo Switch in front of you like here play the play video game, right? You can’t, I can’t send them out in the yard by themselves right you’d like go go play football or go go kick the bar and you can’t do that even so I feel like two and three is super difficult for a situation like this because they’re not they’re old enough to be running around causing chaos, but not old enough to go sit and do something and it will sit into a puzzle for a while until his younger brother comes and knocks on the ground. Right so um, but I am using my security cameras a lot more actually just upgraded one of my cameras because my front door camera went out. I learned the lesson. Don’t buy cheap cameras on Amazon, they might last for a year and then they will eventually go out so with an amcrest camera but you Those especially for when they’re outside and I do need to run back inside real quick I pop that up and at least I can have a live view all around the house of what they’re doing in the backyard. But other than that my kids are just almost too young to use tech on besides like monitoring and popping up a movie. for them. Plex has been a lifesaver having all their shows and movies just loaded up and they almost got it down to a science on how he can use it. He knows how to run the remote so he can usually pick the next episode of view and needs to so that’s been a total lifesaver.
Jim Collison [8:31]
Dave I know because I’ve been at your house I’ve I know your kids really well the the iPad has been a battle for you guys is now that their homes. This is weird, right? This is unprecedented times. This isn’t like summer. It’s not like a snow day.
Dave McCabe [8:45]
Yeah, we’re we’re currently in elearning. Okay, so the teachers are doing the best job that they can to provide work for these kids but you there. It’s not eight to three, right? When they’re At school, they’re captured. It’s 8 to 3. And they’re getting up at their normal time. These kids are done in one hour, maybe two hours time. And the rest of that is free. So, I mean, it’s it’s hard to keep them off the iPad, it’s hard to keep them off the Xbox. We try to go out and walk, do some exercise. We’re gonna hopefully start with you know, some yard games maybe and do some things it’s been really wet here too. So almost can’t even step on the grass without you know, messing yourself up. So yeah, it’s it’s it’s a crazy time and Mike I feel for you because those ages I mean, man, they’re, you know, yanking on a lamp cord at one One moment. And then the next moment, you know, they’re pulling the TV on their head. You got to watch them 24 seven, it’s it’s the little babies or you can just roll them on the floor and they don’t move though. That’s perfect. You know, exactly timeframe but Yeah those guys it’s it’s amazing how little boys don’t kill themselves you know? I don’t
Mike Wieger [10:05]
I’m shocked. I’m honestly shocked at this point to see in the stuff they do and the things they launch themselves off on like right now.
Dave McCabe [10:13]
In there don’t kill yourself.
Mike Wieger [10:14]
Yeah. And it’s my job to make sure they don’t well I’m also trying to be on a call. I did there was only been once this like from the past where I didn’t I thought I was on mute. I didn’t I told him to stop hitting the other one like oh boys fighting at home I go sorry. Yep. I’m with me,
Jim Collison [10:30]
Being on the other side, No kids there. Well, my 21 year old daughter’s here but she’s easy. She’s introverted.
Mike Wieger [10:35]
You’re telling her to stop biting things I might be
Jim Collison [10:38]
like, well, I come out of your room every once in a while. You know, that’s kind of what I say to her. But it is it’s you guys. You guys have your hands full the chat room does as well. Tim W says iPad for learning and Nintendo Switch for the win. And then Alex says yes kids have been using there’s a lot as well except trying to keep my son on task with doing his schoolwork. Right? This is where it’s really different than a snow day, like snow days. We just try it. We just kind of basically canceled school, right? You’re like, yeah, okay, you can play all day. We’re now the schools are really trying to make an attempt. Dave, you mentioned, you know, you’re trying to do some e learning with the kids. We was talking earlier, I think this weekend or another show about how, like we have prepared for this moment with where we work for the last three to five years and not everybody was ready, but I think more we’re ready than the not in this. Our schools are not, though like this. This is, I don’t know in the district. You’re in Dave, do you feel like they were ready to go full, full bore? elearning. Do you feel like that’s going well?
Dave McCabe [11:42]
Not a full day. I don’t know if anyone has any. You’d give me a school across the country that’s ready to do this across the board. You know, right. We’ve been going elearning two weeks. And the second week we finally gone into some zoom conferences. You know, they’re getting the conference call. going on, things are things are starting to ramping up. But we also moved from the first week we did five days of E learning. And now we’re doing Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Thursday of elearning. And they’re off right now. We do not go back to E learning until April 14.
Jim Collison [12:18]
Wow.
Jim Collison [12:19]
So is it kind of a spring break is that what they’re trying to get some
Dave McCabe [12:22]
mix of the governor has granted the state of Indiana some flex days that they can use, and there’s not count against that school year does not have to be made up and he’s also levied all of the standardized standardized testings, you know, done, you know, so we everybody’s kind of contemplating we may go out to you know, may one and this thing may be done. You know, I don’t I don’t know, but we got two weeks
Jim Collison [12:53]
Its going to go fast. It’s gonna go fast. April will be gone before you know it. Yeah. Well, maybe not. I mean, there’s
Dave McCabe [12:59]
I mean, I’m I’m kind of adhering to the rules and I know a lot of people aren’t in it and a lot of people aren’t being asked to. But you know, I haven’t left the house for 10 days. Yeah. Physically I, I mean, I have, I’ve walked I’ve been on the nature trail around the neighborhood and I’ve been outside. You know, today I worked for 334 hours straight. Which is is wonderful. We have the weather to do so. But you know, there’s you can’t go to places you can’t go to your church. You can’t. You can still go to the supermarket, but you know, that’s kind of a zoo. Yeah, I what I’m wondering, I just I need a Lowe’s run. If I could just go to Lowe’s. Oh, yeah. I might feel like a normal human being. I don’t, I think it can, right. I mean, I think I’m gonna try it here soon. Maybe I’ll I don’t know. It’s essential. That’s what the governor says it has to be essential. So I’m going to call that as
Jim Collison [14:02]
well. Do you have you have you moved to and Mike, I will asked you the same question. Have you? Have you moved to app usage more now? So today, I ordered on Tuesday, I ordered a bunch of groceries, and then I put it on the app and I said, I’ll be there Thursday at nine. That was the opening I had they had that I had to. So I pulled in the parking lot called them right said, Hey, I’m here and they’re like, well, we’ll be out in just a minute. And they came up and tapped on the car and I opened up the trunk and they put the bags in my car. We had a little pleasantry from six feet away, you know, right in the car and we shut it and and it drove off in I didn’t like I put my credit card in and advance it was all taken care of there was no signing anything right.
Jim Collison [14:45]
Amazon has gotten to two or three weeks behind now on non essentials, right? They’re they’re they’re they’re holding back so what I thought for a while so I’ll just do my Amazon stuff. Okay, not two or three weeks shipping. yet maybe not. Have you Dave, have you found that your app useful? Are you using any apps differently or more during this time?
Dave McCabe [15:04]
We, we are now we technically took the bull by the horns and started this maybe three, four weeks ago. Just knowing where this was headed. I don’t know if you could see the writing on the wall, but we could. So we started shopping remotely, Sam’s, if you’re Sam’s member, you get free shipping. And, I mean, we literally ordered a 50 pound bag of dog food. And it’s the same amount of money as if you went into Sam’s and and brought it home yourself and they drop it on your side porch. So the dogs can eat for a very long time. We have several of those, but we we kind of replenished normally. And then I don’t know there was it was two weeks ago I was tweeting from a store. Just being silly saying I’m you know, I’m stocking up on coffee and stuff. And it was normal back then. So we kind of stopped up early but what What we have been doing is using if the restaurants have an app, we use it. If they don’t we grub hub it. And those guys are good. We over tip and just try to, you know, try to shop local sounds kind of corny, but that’s what we’re doing.
Jim Collison [16:17]
I heard a restaurant owner say like, he was asked to or how are things and he goes, this is the best Thursday I’ve had, like in the last six months. And so their weekly tills are up. Alex has some advice for you, Dave. break something around the house, so you have to go oh, I don’t have to bring. Mike, you’ve been using us an Apps more Taco Bell app. Maybe Kapolei is free delivery right now.
Mike Wieger [16:43]
Oh, so if you use the Kapolei app, free delivery comes by a great idea. super smart. Because also like I saw that I’m like, Oh, so I’ve been defaulting Chipotle a lot. Yeah, we’ve been using grub hub, the triple A app. And Amazon I did notice was a few days behind. Like for example, the security key Camera came a few days later than it would. But other things haven’t been too bad. I was just joking that I was looking at a 1660 on Amazon now it says it’d be here Sunday
Mike Wieger [17:11]
tomorrow Yeah, this definitely is hit or miss.
Jim Collison [17:14]
I think it depends where the warehouse is. Yeah. To give you because I ordered a hygrometer because I had a necessity for to measure the humidity inside another cigar you know humidor. And I ordered that it was for two days later so that I thought oh, I because I ordered and I thought it takes a week. That’s fine. Not a big deal booms here two days. So some things are going fast. Some things are going slow. I think it’s kind of availability in the warehouse and what’s closest to you. I think we like so we’re using that Baker’s app you know, Baker’s is our grocery store here and we’re finding that super convenient. Walmart has also gone free shipping during this time on just about everything and so you can do that. The problem is some of the things like you know, toilet paper, which has been hard to find I finally found something Morning that seems to be coming back at least here in the United States or UK you guys are you guys are a week behind us in the UK. So you’re, you’re in for an interesting week as that goes, but I had I too have been finding as many places where I can just pick up right or better. Now, there are restaurants we got some local Dave I’m sure you guys have some local ones that never had an app they were dine in, they never had an app. Have you tried also just call in I mean, we old school called Roma’s, our favorite Italian place ordered in the owner brought it out to us have you done you’ve done anything where where you’ve gone to a typical dine in and gotten carry out? We did.
Dave McCabe [18:43]
We did in the beginning when the pizza places were shutting down and we just like oh, you know, we should
Dave McCabe [18:51]
we should had pizza last week. We should have
Jim Collison [18:53]
stockpiled pizza.
Dave McCabe [18:54]
So yeah, we went to went to a pizza place and it was a local you know, call it in It’s like, okay, we’ll have that ready for you. And just, it was the weirdest thing being the only person in the store. I mean, you know, the the tables, the lights are down and just the cashier and you hear someone in the kitchen clinking in the back. It’s just quiet. Like, wow, this is weird.
Mike Wieger [19:17]
Yeah, I was wondering, too, you know, how many years would we have to go back? Before this was a much bigger hassle for all of us than it is today? Because you just asked us kind of what apps and for me I started thinking of, well, there’s a lot of apps I use every day. I guess they’re more effective now. Right? Like, you know, Jimmy, John’s delivery. I’m thinking I’m thinking of even just communication apps, right, like, teams for work, things that are just like video conferencing is so natural now for work. grubhub right. Uber Eats all this stuff. free free delivery from just about anyone like how many years we have to go back before that was like, oh, man, this would have been a way bigger deal. had this big quarantine happened this many years ago. Right.
Dave McCabe [19:58]
Yeah. every decade. What have presented itself with new and individual problems. Oh for sure.
Mike Wieger [20:04]
I mean for sure a decade right like I mean if if this was 2009 2010 I mean video wasn’t great. Back then there was no great video conferencing apps that have been faxing. Yep. Right. And like ordering stuff because I mean my wife and I, we use hyvee aisles or whatever it’s called now the online delivery for IV same thing but we just use that normally in our everyday life and better now.
Jim Collison [20:28]
Well what’s been interesting it’s the grocery stores have started hiring the food service people to come in to fill orders for the for the grocery store. So when I went to Baker’s today there was a normally they send one person out with the order it was only four bags but she was training young gal, I’m sure it was somebody to come out of the food service that they’ve lost their job, but hopefully we can make that transition pretty quick and then make it back right eventually this will be this will be done and we’ll get back to some some I don’t know where it’s gonna go but some some normality to it. But it is interesting. I think we’ve got a journey here Dave you have if you listen to reset I know you’ve been monkeying around with a gaming build that you lost you lost control of but for folks who have kids home is it realistic to think maybe the kids didn’t have a gaming rig but now that they’re home and they want a game Mike you’re building you’ve done some budget builds is do we still live in a day you know we had we had the guys on we had Bob and Ryan on from you know they build these monster gaming rigs that are you know, 2000 bucks Yeah, can the average guy Dave still build a gaming rig for 500 bucks and get first kids or you know, what’s been your experience?
Dave McCabe [21:42]
I think so. Um, I definitely think so that there’s different stages of the gaming bills right it’s you know, the entry level, the the mid level and then just water cool at all and freak it out, right. But you can see still do some good budget parts, you can still get motherboards for 75 bucks, you can still get a CPU for 99 bucks, you can still get eight gigs of RAM for $40 and an SSD. You don’t need a one terabyte Samsung, you just need whatever’s on sale for 30 bucks and get it to 40 to 50 I think you posted a 500 gig on Twitter the other day that was 50 bucks maybe for Yeah, so yeah, it would have been it would have been a great second drive right? Right.
Mike Wieger [22:32]
Right. And on the PC get first of all I would suggestion is go console. These consoles are so cheap and to have a great I mean experience right now. I would wait actually that’s that’s hard because the new console the new pro consoles come out this holiday season. I’m super excited, by the way. But on the PC side, the only difference the only thing you’re going up in is resolution. Really at this point. I mean my three wouldn’t be decided it was 375 $400 build. Got a 1060 in there and I 737 seven 70 really old CPU, really old motherboard. This thing plays all the games. Yeah, only at 1080 p 60 frames per second. That is more than enough for me. Right? I do not need to be 4k Gaming. I don’t need super high frame rates. And neither do your kids like your your little kids to be perfectly honest, right? Like, by all means, if you want the better ones go for it and it will be a way better experience. But most people only have a 10 dP monitor anyway. So especially when you’re when you add up like the cost just to have a 4k gaming experience or even a 1440 P or 120 hertz, things like that. That’s where your price drastically goes up. But a 1060 graphics card is still fantastic for 10 ADP gaming. Very, very true.
Dave McCabe [23:44]
My young one has a 1063 gig. I mean, it’s just working grade level it works fine. He’s, I mean, how much does Roblox need or whatever, whatever exactly is right.
Mike Wieger [23:54]
Well, most the time all they want to do is be able to play the game their friends are playing, right and you can play fortnight you can play Apex Call of Duty on PC runs great. I run it all that I’ve been testing it playing it runs perfectly smooth. All they want to do is to be included. That’s what that’s what I found out about kids. It’s the way I was as a kid. And yeah, they might complain like, oh man, like it’s not 4k, whatever. They’ll get over that within two minutes when they’re on the headset gaming with
Dave McCabe [24:19]
4k is a one on exactly.
Mike Wieger [24:20]
So there’s no one going on buying $1,000 gaming PC, unless unless they are like a rule. I mean, this is their thing, right? We spend that much on sports for kids that are really into sport. So I mean, if it’s their thing, and they know it, and they’re getting really good, but yeah, you could definitely get away with a cheaper bill.
Dave McCabe [24:37]
Yeah, and I never thought my 10 year old. You know, my, my now teenager is an Xbox gamer and he loves it. And so the 10 year old gravitated towards the PC, and I had a PC just sitting on the side hooked up to an old credit monitor. And it had it’s got such old parts. It has memory Windows Home server 2011. Vale beta.
Dave McCabe [25:05]
So we’re talking.
Mike Wieger [25:06]
Yeah, really old, 10 years old, really old.
Dave McCabe [25:09]
You know, some of the USB ports don’t work. And it’s just an awful machine and it runs Steam games perfectly. And that’s all he needs his. He’s 10. He’s playing, you know, building train tracks, and he’s roebucks and he’s doing all kinds of little games, and I try to keep him in steam. And he’s got a Steam account, and we give him steam dollars. And he just goes to town. He finds something on YouTube that he really likes. And he builds these virtual worlds and he’s watching he watches it grow. And
Jim Collison [25:42]
so, yeah, so it’s pretty doable. You know? Do you Dave, you’re kind of the king of finding things. Mike, you do this as well. You finding things Facebook, in the Facebook marketplace? Is that still are you watching that right now? And is it changing with the The world changing at the moment. Is it getting better or getting worse? Have you noticed any difference? Oh, it’s definitely slowed down. I mean, my area has definitely slowed down. I have a couple of items out there that I need to just pull off and
Dave McCabe [26:11]
I’ve got some eBay items I need to just pull down.
Dave McCabe [26:16]
But yeah, I used to get notifications all the time about you know, new items that you when you go into Facebook, it gives you a low number there’s new of searches you have past search for and it’s really slowing down. But I mean, honestly, I’ve really slowed down looking myself for sure. I’m not gonna I’m not gonna have a how are you going to do it? I need a stranger and buy something just doesn’t work.
Jim Collison [26:40]
Yeah, no, no, Mike, have you have you tried doing anything? That way? You’re, you’re big on that.
Mike Wieger [26:47]
Yeah. eBay, right. That’s where my last two I sold were way in mainly because they were something that locally like ham radio. That was that ham radio. Right. That was a big one. And locally right there with me. People that are going to pay full price for that but there definitely was on eBay. Great market for that. I was actually really surprised for what it’s sold for locally though. No, I’ve pretty much swapped over. I’ve noticed no one’s even made like messages whereas Facebook Messenger or Facebook marketplace, I’m sorry has been my go to place in the past and there was just no interest, no comments, I was selling some monitors. You guys know as I was still getting rid of some of the monitors when I replaced this whole setup, like last week, week and a half ago, and I was super slow on Facebook.
Jim Collison [27:30]
Scoot over King of the Hill says he was looking at building an entry, entry gaming PC but someone has this what’s CL, Craigslist, Craigslist there for 500 bucks 960 CPU 99th Gen. Nvidia GTX 1666 gigs, 16 gigs of RAM 256 NVMe and a terabyte for five minutes. A
Mike Wieger [27:58]
doggie Will you go grab that Coming into local Craigslist. I wish that was here. I would go buy it today that’s a you could parse that out and sell it for 500.
Dave McCabe [28:06]
Well, I want 60 ti i pay 300 bucks for fellas.
Mike Wieger [28:09]
And right now I was just looking there to 29 right now for the cheapest, but they’re between 229 about 350. So 229 right there for the 1660. And that I guess not even the TI sorry, that’s probably more expensive. You probably are taking 300 for that. An NVMe drive, right and even just a ninth Gen Intel
Jim Collison [28:26]
CPU. Um, you always know the economy’s bad when the local jewelry store says we buy diamonds and gold, you know, that’s one of those. That’s one of those signs. I’m kind of wondering if we may see that in the tech space too, like Kevin is showing us here where you know, this is gonna This is causing some serious financial issues for folks and you wonder if there will be some of this equipment that gets dumped in the market. This is the problem is when you when when this kind of stuff happens you yourself are not in the most buying mood, right as you’re thinking like okay, maybe I should save a few bucks, you know, and not go dropping 500 bucks but i think i think if you’re in the market for it now I was. I’ve been talking about this for a year. This summer was a summer I was buying a new car. And I’m kind of wondering, I don’t know, this isn’t necessarily tech or gadget related, but we
Dave McCabe [29:15]
talked about that to Jim. Yeah, you know, and they’re in lowball a car dealer. Oh,
Jim Collison [29:21]
you got to kind of wonder
Dave McCabe [29:22]
I want to be mean, but
Jim Collison [29:24]
yeah. What are we doing? Well, in the last time we went through this Dave so 2008 there was a bunch of you know, they did cuz people stopped buying those things. And then it was still maybe a month or two or three from the car from the dealerships are really starting to feel this right now. Yet, and so those those things may come up, but there may be some, there may be some interesting deals coming ahead. Where if you just kind of wait and see what happens, I don’t know. Do you guys have you? What do you think from from a car buy? Are we gonna be back to where we were no eight where there’s huge incentives and they’re doing Basically everything they can to get that out for you.
Mike Wieger [30:03]
I think they can hold on a little bit longer, right, like cars are used to holding on to inventory until the end of the year. Right. We’ll see the October specials November, December and see really how much inventory. They have no incentive right now, I think to start pushing those off the light yet. Who knows?
Jim Collison [30:18]
Okay. Well, I’m gonna wait. Like, I want to make sure I have the income to pay for it. Before we just, you know, we take we take another, you know, another
Dave McCabe [30:28]
hour. We’re about to pull the trigger on a kitchen redo. Mm hmm. And I’m so glad we’re not in the middle of it. I mean, we literally could have been, you know, another two weeks could have been with no Island. No sink, no dishwasher, you know.
Dave McCabe [30:44]
So, we’re, we felt lucky in that regard.
Jim Collison [30:46]
Do you think it would have stopped if you would have started?
Dave McCabe [30:51]
I it’s a good question. And we’ve asked that many, many times. But the thing is, Jim is this it’s another thing that there’s You don’t know there’s some people that are stopping and there’s some that are not is that essential? those, those contractors leave your home and go where? and talk to who you don’t know, then they come back into your house. You know, How comfortable are you with that? Like, How comfortable are you when you have a kid with asthma? How comfortable are you? as myself? I’m a 50 year old. I mean, I’m just, I know, what would you rather do? Sit a month and mow your grass seven times a week? Or get something you know, have contractors come to your house?
Jim Collison [31:40]
I was thinking from the supply and demand standpoint, but ya know,
Dave McCabe [31:44]
that makes me feel I feel awful for some of these guys like yeah, House Cleaners, you know, some of these folks that they’re literally like, done, you know, they’ve got to just sit and wait it out. So
Jim Collison [31:59]
Well, I think has been Exit question and I think Dave, you might have put this at the on the bottom in the show notes, but I think it’s a good question to ask now. So you said like, Was this your family feud style? Did you?
Dave McCabe [32:09]
Yes, I was gonna say okay, we surveyed 100 people. Top Five answers are on the board. Give me the most popular answer. Name the top five things you would have done prior to going on? coronavirus lockdown. Now you guys in the chat? Come on. Let me have them. Let’s get the top five things you would have done before going on coronavirus lockdown my
Mike Wieger [32:34]
pro to move my mom into my house. Kids, right? Yeah. For my both my mom and dad, right like moving both up here. But uh, and we could all been or go down to their house in Kansas City, right? Like I’m working from home anyway. I didn’t have to go to the hospital. If I didn’t work at the hospital. We probably would have like all hung out somewhere. Right? had a bunch of just community of people to watch kids to hang out to help with stuff. Cook almost like a little like, Tommy in amongst your little family. Right?
Dave McCabe [33:05]
True. I would have done that too. Yeah, Joseph’s got it for me how I got a haircut. Oh my god what I’ve gotten here I got so lucky
Mike Wieger [33:12]
I got one because I was going on a trip. I was in California when this all happened and I got one right before mine was due yesterday or Tuesday last Tuesday this past week. So
Jim Collison [33:22]
yeah, Justin said more stock feed. He’s got that. Mark also talks about getting a haircut. Alex mentions a vacation. I David I’m trying to think like I the haircut makes sense. That seems pretty small. I think I you know, I can’t think of too many things for me right now. Like this has been a nice transition home.
Dave McCabe [33:47]
And I know some guys are just eating this up like I’m home. It’s pretty great. You know, I would have bought two more dishwashers, honestly. Oh, yeah. That’s all we have a houseguest. So we’re a family of five And when you’re doing three square, I mean the dishwasher is non stop. Yeah. And I’m the dishwasher.
Jim Collison [34:08]
Yeah. So how’s that coffee? How’s your coffee thing?
Dave McCabe [34:11]
I’m stuck. I’m pretty sorry. Yeah, I got some beans.
Jim Collison [34:14]
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Beans. Let me tell you being story really fast. So is I’m home the very first Monday. So last week, I might have told the story on the show, but also I’ll say it again. I I got up my PC. I was locked out of my account at work. And I went right to work trying to get it unlocked. And then I finally had to go into work. So by one o’clock, I had a ripping headache, and I couldn’t figure out why. And it’s because he drank any coffee. Right? The whole morning. I just gotten so busy and then drinking coffee. So the next Tuesday morning, I thought well, I got to get out the coffeemaker and so we have a little drip. And I was thinking, not drip. It’s a perk and only comes out of Christmas time per coffee is delicious. Like it’s my favorite kind of coffee. So it only comes out of Christmas. So I’m I guess I’m pulling out the perk machine. So I start going through the cabinets and like we don’t have any B he’s like we haven’t you know, it’s usually Christmas time. So I go down to the pantry and the beans that we had down there are from like 2019 that’s when they expired. So they were they were probably 18 or earlier. I mean if
Dave McCabe [35:18]
you’re desperate, you’re desperate. I just start to Yeah,
Jim Collison [35:22]
well first of all, I cheated on him back so right. Is it still okay, I still smells like coffee or the bag open, pour it in the grinder and just start you know, just are grinding coffee up. It’s been it has been to me it’s been a surprise. I’ve really enjoyed making a fresh pot of coffee because I drink a ton of coffee at work. I just go in there and you know, fill it up. I kind of enjoy the process of making, you know I make a latte for myself first. While the other pot is brewing. I’m drinking that one and then all morning I’m drinking that coffee and I kind of enjoyed the process of kind of discovering percolated coffee again. So
Dave McCabe [36:02]
I thought you guys are doing like a latte or cappuccino for you into work.
Jim Collison [36:07]
But I do have an espresso. So I still make that like so I make an espresso a good shot, make a latte.
Dave McCabe [36:14]
Maybe you’re waiting for the
Jim Collison [36:16]
Yeah, so I’m eating and drinking and I come down here and while it’s perkin I’m drinking that and then that usually takes you know about a half an hour to get through that that latte and then it’s game on just brewed coffee,
Mike Wieger [36:29]
but that’s just reso Okay, so what is it because even on a regular cup of coffee, the head that it has on that cup of coffee is so good and I don’t know what how it does that or what it does this minute.
Jim Collison [36:40]
They spin it inside.
Mike Wieger [36:43]
It’s so good. We I mean I’m addicted or Nespresso. Super addicted. Yeah, I got way too many pods because I don’t make a pot. I just have like two pod today, two or three pods a day those get expensive.
Jim Collison [36:54]
Yeah. Andrew wants to know, is that my pre coffee coffee and Yes, right. Is it
Mike Wieger [37:00]
free coffee? Coffee? Yeah,
Dave McCabe [37:03]
yeah, I have an Italian all in one in it, you know, it takes the beans, it grinds them it, it presses them and then injects the hot water the perfect temperature. Right. And it’s, it’s wonderful.
Jim Collison [37:15]
How many beans So would you stock up on how many? How many bags of beans? do you have? it? I don’t even know I prep
Dave McCabe [37:24]
enough for a while. And that’s the other thing is is we everybody went to the store thinking, you know, the end of the world is going to be April, and we have to stock up on everything because we cannot go out. Right. I think people have watched The Walking Dead and they’re just thinking, I need cans. And I don’t want to wipe my butt with lead. Right. Right. Zombies are coming. Mm hmm. So
Mike Wieger [37:48]
yeah, yeah, yeah, I was making fun of me, you know, getting squirrels in my backyard and learning how to cook them. But now who you know look who’s laughing Yeah,
Dave McCabe [37:58]
I can’t explain but it
Mike Wieger [38:00]
Yeah, I haven’t.
Jim Collison [38:04]
Exactly. Anything else that you would, as we think of pre if you could, if you could kind of go back and say what you do know what’s weird, right as you’re thinking about that. What’s weird is we now that you look back in, you know, hindsight is always 2020. But now you look back. The signs were all there. We just didn’t want to take him seriously
Dave McCabe [38:26]
for them. Oh, yeah. They were all there. Yeah, Jim. I was. I was even scared when I came back from CES and I told my family I was like, if I get sick, it might be this Chinese virus thing. I said, because I was just in Las Vegas with about 200,000 Chinese people. How do I not have this thing? Yeah, literally, how do I not have it and I still could. I might be.
Jim Collison [38:53]
Yeah, you might have. I was
Dave McCabe [38:55]
genuinely worried about that. And if you could just smack it. At that time and say, maybe you should get some, you know, cash out just a little bit of your savings out of stocks and put it in gold or you know, cash or something, just cash, just cash cash, pure cash
Jim Collison [39:15]
would have been a smart time anyways, the market had done so well, we were in a little bit of a bubble. So it would have been, it would have been a Spartan, no matter no matter how you did it, Mike, anything else you would have done free? If you’d have known you would have done before they close the borders. Ah,
Mike Wieger [39:31]
you know, no, not really. I mean, I’m pretty well set. I mean, I might have made one more run to the office. There’s a few things I forgot.
Jim Collison [39:39]
There’s the book that I forgot that I kept.
Mike Wieger [39:42]
I was actually in a meeting today. I’m like, I don’t have my notes from the meeting. It’s in a notebook in my desktop.
Jim Collison [39:46]
They’re like, don’t come in. I’ve been busier. Though, since I’ve been home. We have been at a breakneck pace. And so I’ve been actually busier at home than I was ever at work. And so it’s been it’s kind of been been crazy. That way. Just getting it done. Um, Dave, let me let me ask you this. We’ve been doing this a long time. You and me, like we knew each other through the last one. I mean, do you think we’ll see I think you’ll see this happen again. You and me?
Dave McCabe [40:21]
think we’ll see something like this again in the future. Or is this Mrs. Big? This is big is what we’ve tried to play down. This is a big this is a big deal. I think, well, I don’t think that people understand really how big it is Jenna. I mean, I have someone in the household that works in medicine. And that’s pretty much all I can all I can say right now, because it’s a it’s a mess. I mean, we’ve seen the tweets, and it depends on what side you land on. I mean, there’s some crazy people out there. And then there’s, you know, legitimate news sites and the doctors and whatnot. The thing is, is we’re all in our homes. We’re not in these hospitals. Last place. We want to be honest But you’re not there. So you don’t know what’s going on on the frontlines. All you know is you see pictures of nurses saying we’re here so you can stay home. You know, we see that. That’s all we see. Yeah, we don’t see. You know, we don’t see that the life and death decisions being made. And there are some and it’s happening every day. And yes, it’s it’s going to it’s going to get, it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. And my only fear Jim would be is we’re not ready to make the decision when it’s okay. Right. And we all get right back out there. And it’s, it’s, we think that we think we got this rash healed. And then we all get back out there because we’re just dying. I mean, where do you literally die And literally, games are canceled. Rugby games are canceled. Everything’s canceled. Hmm, we just want to get out there and be normal and we’re going to get out there and be normal. And I would, I don’t want it to reef flare. That’s my biggest worry. Yeah, that would be my biggest worry
Mike Wieger [42:11]
if it was something like the flu who could dip down in summertime? Right? It seemed like it’s okay. And then come right back in the fall wintertime,
Jim Collison [42:19]
just to make a good point, but 100 years since the last serious pandemic and that is true.
Dave McCabe [42:24]
He flared. It did look at the history books.
Jim Collison [42:27]
It bounced. Yeah. Yeah. Let me let me ask this. Let’s not be so dark with it. Okay. Let me ask you this. When we come out on the backside of this, who wins when we think about technology and gadgets? In in, you know, in that space? Who do you think if you can look ahead a year from now who wins on this thing? Because there will be winners. Like not everybody will lose. There’s always in these kinds of situation. There are always big winners. What do you think will be the big winners who will emerge out of this thing, just just screaming,
Dave McCabe [43:04]
you know, you know what I, what I hope, honestly, what I hope is that we start viewing the world differently, right? Because, man, this is not a political show. And the last thing you want to be is political and same with me. Never talk politics. I’ve never talked religion. It’s against my podcast creed. Yeah, we’ve never done that. We need to be better people. We need to recognize our frontline workers. We need to recognize mental health. We need to pay our teachers. We need to educate better. We’re behind on our education. I mean, we got good schools. But I think we take it for granted. I hope we come out knowing that our schools are great, and they can be better. And those teachers that are just busting their butts right now. Trying to corral all these children. Via zoom conference and emails and I mean, I can’t imagine what what they’re doing right now nurses, healthcare workers. I hope we I hope we become a better nation. That’s, that’s what I think. Yeah, it sounds pretty cliche, you know?
Jim Collison [44:18]
No, I think that’s a good kind. Yeah. I think it’s a good point. You know, any anytime in the three or four crisis’s that we’ve gone through it always there’s a period. We all come together. We all play nice for a while and then it degrades right degrades back kind of in that. Mike, you’re 30 years behind david i. Yeah. Like what do you what do you think? What are you coming out of the backside? You have a different perspective. You know, David and I are kind of coming in for landing. In a lot of ways. We’re thinking about like, Hey, 15 years away, like I mean, there’s there’s some things we’re starting to think about that you’re just you’re just ramping up your career. As you come out of this what what do you hope for what do you think who wins in this or how Do we win?
Mike Wieger [45:01]
A society? I hope wins. I mean, a lot of the things Dave says or said I’ll echo and there’s just you know, what I’ve really liked about quarantine honestly, is just how much family time I’ve had. It’s true my kids around, you know how many people I see walking in the neighborhood more than I ever did before. And you know how friendly everyone has been when you go outside. No one’s avoiding, like, when I go for a walk, there’s not been a single person who’s just been looking down waiting. Everyone wants that human interaction. Everyone’s waving. Hey, how’s it going? Good, good. How’s the you know, asking questions. I hope we all get off social media. I hope social media dies in a fire. I just, like didn’t know if I would do like ever I think I really hope that something changes on social media before my kids get on with the habit. Because I just think it’s, it’s, it’s awful. And it’s been the cause of a lot of mental issues with the kids. Yeah, right. And and Depression. And I mean, even with adult I shouldn’t just limited to kids. I mean, adults get addicted to stuff too. And then they started having mental issues because of this. So I hope we all just like, Can I come together and hope it’s like a gut check of like, what’s kind of really important to everyone? I know it has been for me, I think it has been for a lot of people, especially in the workplace to workplaces, I think I’ve started to look at the people as people, for profit some companies, my company is great and already doing that. But there’s a lot of companies I think that’s maybe the first time they’ve thought about their people as just like, under like, oh, shoot, when something happens like this, we got to take care of our people. And, and it might be the first time they’ve really they’ve always said, but maybe not actually thought of it that way. So again, I think it’s a social kind of reset time, like hit the reset button. Let’s let’s kind of come back out of this and think about how things change. I don’t there’s anyone who necessarily wins or loses. In this whole thing. I hope we all kind of do things differently. I’d much rather go in for a fist bump and handshake any day. So if we if that social norm changes, I’d be fine with that. I hope not. attorneys are going to break it into a few bankruptcy attorney friends who are you know, that’s the hard part I, here’s the thing, here’s what I’ve loved about this. There are a ton of businesses, certain industries that could totally capitalize on these events and just make a total killing by doing extra things. Now, there are companies who are gonna make a killing just by the circumstances by them not doing anything. But there are companies with a toy, take advantage of people right now. And take advantage of the situation. And I’ve seen the opposite. Like people are being extra nice, right? People are being extra kind people are saying, you know, hey, let’s let’s, we know they’re weak right now. Let’s not take advantage of that. Let’s help them through it. And then in the end, maybe they’ll come back to the customer like, man, instead of taking advantage of me. They really helped me out through a hard time. Like I haven’t been able to say that about a lot of times in history where it’s like, usually it’s like, oh, man, they saw you know, they saw a nail on the head with a hammer, right? Like, well, that’s opportunity, make some money. Let’s go get it. And so that’s been a nice little change to see as well.
Dave McCabe [48:00]
Yeah, it’s tough conversation.
Jim Collison [48:01]
No, it’s I think it’s a good one. Like I think this is a good as we think, because this this tool pass and I just kind of wonder, Mike, you mentioned you know, going outside like there’s, there’s people like I’m seeing this is like Pokemon GO the craze. But for everybody like every Yeah, yeah, we’re dying to get outside I made a joke the other night and everybody was mad when when the President said we got to get everybody back to work right you know and everybody got mad. And I said that was just a huge reverse psychology ploy because he’s like the dad and we’re like, you know the kids. And he’s like, could you guys stay inside and all we want to do is go outside. So he was like, Hey, you guys go outside and like, I’m not going outside. Huge reverse psychology on it. But Good, good. Good reason we are seeing that’s probably not true. But man, we are. That’s what I would have done if I was a dad. If I was the president. Fine. Go outside. Yeah. Fine, go congregate in fact congregate in July. crowds were all in all they had to do is put a tax on it and nobody would have gone so you know hey you can get angry and tax in crowds but it’s $500 a person Mike you’re right I’ve seen more and I’ve been outside more like I’ve walked everyday down this down to the cemetery with my daughter This is a Pokemons she does Pokemon Go and there’s a huge like cemeteries are where these you know where you can pick up these things and so she goes down I walk down with her I have spent a ton of time with her just walking around. Yeah, it’s been great. Like
Mike Wieger [49:35]
you know, you know another who really wins the environment. If you guys seen all the cool news stories about like, the fish and the clear water in like Italy, right, and the canals and everything like that and clean air from Nolan driving the environments get a nice little reset to Yeah, do you think we could
Jim Collison [49:53]
stick with that? Because it’s great. Like when you look at that you’re like, Oh, yeah, this is kind of great. But do you think like I just think as soon as we start things back up again everybody was back well
Mike Wieger [50:04]
yeah, he got a nice little reprieve
Jim Collison [50:06]
right down break, there’s no way you would you would love for people to look at and go, you know, this place could be better if we were just a little more moderate. Yeah, you know, but I don’t think we can do you think tech buying let’s talk about gadgets we all are addicted these gadgets and they’re a part of the problem like it is not great for the for the environment for every ring camera that’s built, those things are not right. All that stuff, all the gear we buy all that stuff is terrible for the environment, right? It’s tough to recycle. It’s hard to create pollutes when they make it does this so it’s easy for us to say Oh, yeah, the rivers are clean. But are we willing to buy less tech after this is over like or maybe just be more responsible about? Like I cleaned up some of the garbage I have back here the tech stuff. I have a man I got A lot of tech garbage that
Dave McCabe [51:02]
just don’t need to do and how do you convince someone? How do you convince me? Dave, that ring doorbell you just installed is the reason our rivers, you know,
Jim Collison [51:13]
jumped up, you know, at ours China’s but right there, you know.
Dave McCabe [51:18]
Yeah, it’s it’s a tough sell.
Mike Wieger [51:20]
It’s a tough sell. Yeah. No, I won’t. I won’t be stopping. Right, right. Yeah,
Jim Collison [51:25]
I think we’ve got some altruism sometimes in those areas where we’re like, oh, wouldn’t it be great, and then we have to look back at ourselves and go, actually, we’re a bigger part of the problem, then, yeah, than anything.
Mike Wieger [51:36]
I think there’s a lot bigger issues than the tech buying. And there’s a lot more of that tea stop buying the tech and people out of jobs. Right. So it’s like trading one. One thing for another, right. There’s a lot of industries that shut down if that goes down. So yeah,
Jim Collison [51:49]
yeah. Well, gosh, we’re right in the middle of this. It’s pretty nuts. Right now, if you’re listening to this two years from now, I don’t know why you would be but if you are, I think Nope, we made it. I hope I hope we did. Okay. And I hope I hope we make it past all of this. And I and I hope it makes us better. I think it will in the short term. The question is, I’ve seen four of these cycles. And, you know, we get three or four years in, and then it’s Guantanamo, you know, and so you just kind of go Yikes. So I hope we can be better for it. Dave talked a little bit let’s shift gears a little bit talk a little bit about reset because I there there may be some folks who aren’t listening. They’ve come over here. They’ve been listening to me for a while and haven’t make their they haven’t made it their back their way to reset. What have you learned by going solo? And what is that? What’s that done for you? You spent a lot of time working on trying to get your Wi Fi stuff set up trying to get your cameras set up trying to get the pool house set up? You know, but what have you learned
Dave McCabe [52:50]
through I said, I talk way too much about Wi Fi. And I don’t know why I can never be content. Why can I be content. I was just Thinking today because I’m on I have a ubiquity network. I have access points all over. I have a problem in the pool house, I think storing the pool chemicals and the chlorine is causing the contacts in the switches to corrode at a faster rate. And I didn’t know this until I saw an unprotected pair of like wire cutters sitting on the on the bench when I went out there, you know, because it’s been pretty much locked up. And they’re completely rusted. It’s completely rusted. And I started having an access point problems and a switch was starting to give me issues. And I’m like, I, you know, I pull my flashlight out and I look at the actual pins of the Ethernet switch, and they’re corroded. So there’s something chemically going On with the pool chemicals gassing off and causing the corrosion. It’s a chlorine thing. It’s a bleach thing, right? And I’m not a chemist, so I don’t know what the heck’s going on. But I can surmise, you know, that’s probably what’s doing it. So I may keep my pool sharks somewhere different. I may have to keep the chlorine somewhere, maybe in the garage because it’s in a very enclosed space. The problem is I have like a $600 Yamaha amplifier in there that runs the speakers and I’m really worried I just took two or three years off for the life of that thing. And I will probably have to pull it out. And you know, maybe do a chemical bath with it and just just see what’s going on. take the cover off, but reset. There you go. Justin Simon says the NEMA cabinet so I need to just cabinet this stuff up and it’ll be okay.
Jim Collison [54:58]
Bluetooth speakers now. That’s your answer. Just write Jerry those suckers out No,
Dave McCabe [55:02]
we, we, we invoke she who shall not be named. And we asked her to play a playlist and it’s the greatest thing in the world. Right on. I love going outside. And this is something that I think if I can get, if we can get a couple of 70 degree days, everything is going to be fine. Not the virus is not going to go away. At least I can be outside cleaning my pool. And I can throw out some, you know, some playlists, and I can feel normal. I think if we feel normal, we might, you know, it’ll help our psyche quite a bit. But reset going back to your question is, it’s just it’s a flighty podcast. It really is. It is whatever is on the top of my head. It’s whatever is tech at the moment. Right. So I came back from CES. I have all this audio sitting on an SD card and I haven’t played a single soundbite yet. I was like, I don’t want to. I don’t want to. Um, what I wanted to do is I listened to all these podcasts, and I people drop all these names and locations and things. And I was like, What if we don’t know what that is? What if someone doesn’t know what the sands is? What if someone doesn’t know that I can’t walk from the sands to the Las Vegas Convention Center? Well, what’s the Las Vegas Convention Center? Where’s that? You know? I don’t know. That’s what I did a show about where stuff is in Vegas and how to get there. And what it’s like being there at CES. So it was weird. It was a weird show. I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone even listened to it.
Jim Collison [56:46]
Well, I just, you know, I think it gives you the ability and you know, yeah, I did tell you years ago, like, Hey, I can get busy for you, you know, as we as we kind of wrapped up home server show, and said, yeah, this can get busy for you and you’re just asking Just a favor and I do. I do appreciate the fact that you still try. Yeah, I think a lot of folks just give up. And they’re like, yeah, I can’t do this and even as sporadic as it is at times, I still look forward to listening to it. Like it’s, it’s, it’s fun to, you know, one. It’s fun to do this again with you since we have such a long history, right.
Dave McCabe [57:21]
And I’m, and I’ll be honest with you, I’m dangerously close to pulling the plug. But there’s something. There’s something about sitting in your chair, starting your audacity and recording what you feel like is a good podcast. I’m not talking Pulitzer Prize winning journalism here. I’m talking about just you feeling good about what you’ve said. And you got your event. You nailed your intro, you nailed your outro you hear your own jingle, your music, you lay it out. You hit save. If it goes, you know, you put your artwork in your show notes went easy. And you click publish and you’re just like, you know what I’m proud of what I just did. I don’t care if three people may listen, but I enjoyed the process of what I just did. And I, I hope someone enjoys it. And every once in a while, you’ll get that email. You know, sometimes you you guys know what it is you get emails about, Hey, you, instead of doing that, what you did, you should have looked at this. Okay, okay, maybe next show. And sometimes someone will tell you just just off the cuff email. Hey, Dave, I listened to this show that you did like six months ago. And you know what? I went out and I tried that thing and it has literally changed our lives. This one little thing that you mentioned, and it’s something that you just mentioned off the cuff like, you know, humidifiers or something, you know, something weird. And someone comes back and just genuinely says, that made a difference. Me listening to that, that made a difference. And then just like, Oh, I’m gonna send him a sticker. You know? That’s, that’s great. That those little things right there is kind of what keeps you going. Yeah. And and the other thing is, is I don’t know why but they still go out to Patreon and help you pay the bills. Because the listeners don’t realize that you own a web server. You know, like myself, I have to have a beefy server a VPS server to run those forums. Yeah, yeah. And you pay for hosting. So you pay for that hosting, you also pay for the bandwidth to serve the show, right? And like when I was on WordPress, you know, I had to pay for backup software and all this other software and, you know, you’re paying for all these things. You don’t they don’t realize that before you know it, you’re at, you know, at least $100 a month is going out the door, just to keep it alive. Right? You stop paying that the back episodes go away. You know. So the Patreon thing helps so much and it’s
Dave McCabe [1:00:18]
I never feel like I do enough for them.
Dave McCabe [1:00:22]
Yet you tell me, I appreciate them. And I hear it on other podcasts too. Like, man, we so appreciate our patrons like, yeah, yeah, whatever. They don’t realize that is the golden truth. Like, no, it’s the best thing ever, because the advertising revenue is not where it used to be. It doesn’t pay the bills. It definitely does not send me to CES. I’m just a small time. Small time guy. I’m not The Verge, you know. So, yeah, reset is. It’s different. Yeah. It’s much different than anything I’ve ever done.
Jim Collison [1:00:56]
I like to struggle. Like I like listening To you work through this time in your life like it’s just as for me it’s super easy for me to do this I’ve still continued you know we’re in our 10th year here and continue to do what we’re doing but i’ve i’ve just really enjoyed listening to your life through it and hearing about the things that kids you know you tell stories you don’t mention kids names but I know who you’re talking about and and it’s just a ton of fun Mike you ever you ever look back at your time and miss it?
Mike Wieger [1:01:30]
Um, yeah, I do. I really because like, my problem is when I got rid of open mic night I’ve just been this transient can’t decide what medium he wants to use, but he has a creative niche that he needs to fill right. I make YouTube videos and I stopped for a while I stream on Twitch and then I stopped for a while and and then I go back to how I want to make YouTube videos then Hannah and I start a podcast we relaunch it three times it can never like stick with it because I just have to admit to myself my life I’m not in a good point my life right now with the kids they age. They are my career. My wife’s career to be doing something like that. So I’ve had to really come to terms with just being Dave kind of like you were I just kind of admit, like you said, like, it’s just kind of up in the air right now. And I just, there’s somebody I don’t want just like, for me, I’ve just found that Twitch is my way, hop on Play game every once in a while and stream it out there. Who cares if it’s zero viewers, because I’m just I’m really I’m just itching that creative side that I need to do every once in a while. And that’s all I need to do. And really the me setting up OBS Studio and getting everything to work was 90% of the fun for me, the streaming part like okay, that’s kind of cool, but it was it was the setting it up getting everything to work just getting that out there. But you know, Jim, you’re so right that you do and you do enjoy that story of like the struggle because if you think back you you had a blast when I was in law school, because we when we started podcasting I think I was halfway through law school maybe starting last I can’t remember how long you were
Jim Collison [1:02:51]
you’re a good way through it. Was that good way through it? I think you were I think second or maybe maybe one year ago, probably two years ago. Okay, cuz i think i mean started before I was Yeah, he never took it very seriously. So it’s like, I was always surprised. I was like, can you podcast tonight? You’re in law school, I always thought law school was the end of people’s lives, like, well, you emerge. And I thought, you know, that’s what I thought.
Mike Wieger [1:03:13]
And that’s a personality trait that I need to get rid of, because I will need to know because I have given people so this has happened with law school. This has happened with my work. I’m such a, you know, I don’t want to talk about how hard things are. I don’t like I want everything. You know, I’m kind of like, no, it’s fine. It’s good. Yeah, we’re like, the work I do is really hard, like law school, extremely hard. studying for the bar exam. extremely hard, right, like work. It just came up because my friend actually got a job at the firm I met, and I’m always told, like, Oh, yeah, my job’s Great. So awesome. Like, fantastic. And she’s like, I thought you did like nothing all day. Like,
Jim Collison [1:03:46]
I’m like, Well, I mean, I just naturally make it sound the way but people have said that to me, like you need to start being more honest about like how things are, but you’re right, like law school. You know, it was one of those. It was hard, right? You’re a smart kid and you You did really, really well for yourself and You handle law school just great. I just had this impression like medical school that I thought once you got what you you never came out like and so the fact that it asked you to podcast and yeah, I’ll be there
Mike Wieger [1:04:10]
there was a paper due and you like like oh why don’t you have a pet like
Mike Wieger [1:04:15]
yeah, was that morning? I already started
Mike Wieger [1:04:18]
No. Although tonight it is tonight Mike like tonight like it’s we’re wrapping up the podcast at 930 is gonna start on that now.
Jim Collison [1:04:25]
Yeah, no, I’ve enjoyed the human element of this. This has been maybe one of the things that we’ve done differently on Home Gadget Geeks that maybe is different from all the other tech podcasts that are doing reviews and you know, they’re trying to be super Pro. In Dave you kind of taught me this early on is that when you make it about the listener, like when you when you make it about the lives of the listener, our meetups were so great for this were ours listen to your meetups, they were yours. I just got to be a part of it. Get we really got to kind of live Together, right? We got to grow together, we got to kind of build things together and share this community. And every once in a while I get tempted to get back into that whole review tack, you know, thing and I’m like, Nah, that’s just not what Home Gadget Geeks is. We’re a community, right? We’re a community based on a bigger community that involves a lot of the things that we did on home server show that involves a lot, Mike, what an audience you had over there. open mic night, right? The communities that have come and stayed. Dave, I can’t tell you how many emails I get from people who say, I’ve listened to you since home server show. Like, you know, many of those have made their way back. Your kids. I love the real ones. Because your bandwidth gone. No, yeah. Yeah, you’ve gotten really blurry on estate. It’s not not a big deal. The kids are probably streaming. No, no, I
Mike Wieger [1:05:53]
wasn’t gonna say to what you just said.
Jim Collison [1:05:57]
human element, human element show. Oh,
Mike Wieger [1:06:00]
Yeah well I mean look at our chat room tonight the chat room tonight right now is more active it’s been the most accepted has like in the past and we’re not talking about tech tonight yeah right like as much we brought a little tech on that but our commute I love the community the they’re here to to hang out chat with all of us right to be to be a little fun community that’s what I’ve enjoyed to buy your you’ve you guys both have you’re really good at building community you guys it’s just it’s it’s your personality. It’s the way you respond to people treat people right respond to emails the way you do your shows. But I have so much fun like Jim I if I ever was able to hide to stop that podcast on this show. For some reason kids get old enough I’m doing whatever. Like I hope you don’t kick me out of the discord because I I love our discord community. There’s so much fun. They get in there and they talk all day. We’re talking about distributed computing, and we’re having so much fun. You guys both are really, really good that it’s a skill. It’s an art that’s not easy to master and I I think a lot of content creators, they’re really good content creators, but probably the not not the best at building a community, but the community is really what, you know, helps drive that show along. And really, Jim, I mean, it’s what keeps you podcasting. Yeah, for sure. Right. It’s what keeps you going. Dave, you want to add anything?
Dave McCabe [1:07:20]
Very well said.
Jim Collison [1:07:22]
Yeah. Okay. Well, it’s Dave fun to have you back. And to have these conversations, interesting times, interesting places, interesting things happening. You know, one of the things I have noticed about the podcast community, whatever that is, is during these times, there is a renewed interest in community. And you know, I’ve noticed just how things have picked up in Discord. I’m sure. Dave, you’ve probably seen a little uptick in, in the the reset forums of activity is getting busier, a little bit busier than it was before.
Dave McCabe [1:08:00]
There’s seems like there’s a lot of there’s a lot more questions coming in. Yeah, it seems to almost be the spoon doggy tech support forum. That’s what kind of it feels like, on these HP servers. But yeah, yeah,
Jim Collison [1:08:15]
yeah. Well, we’re, we’re, we’re I think we’re dragging a little bit behind with you. But Dave, thanks for taking the time tonight. It’s always good to hang out with you on a podcast always good to be back tonight and the pre show was so super funny. You are you asked me the question. Like you still have those janky lights that I gave you. Right? And at Christmas time I’ve done it where they’ve held up really, really well. cowboy studios, you know, there’s 75 bucks. You I remember that Christmas and I got this package and I was like, he sent me a Christmas gift I saw I open up its life. And I didn’t realize how bad it was like you hated it. And I just didn’t realize how bad it was until I put them up and then I’m like, Oh my God. This This is unbelievable. Like, and I never even would have thought to do that. That’s just just, you know, I just I enjoyed showing it. Right. Yeah, no, right on, right on and you taught me how to do that. And that, you know, that’s been the I think that’s what this these communities or This community has been about is helping people out. get stuff done. Right. Right. So, thanks for thanks for teaching me that. I mean, that’s been you kind of taught me that. So I appreciate it. We a couple reminders on our way out here. One, we did a cyber frontiers on Monday. So if you haven’t checked that out yet, Christian talks about this, this whole Corona virus from a data perspective. So if you’re really really I mean, if you just haven’t heard enough about it, you can catch cyber frontier 61. It’s out at the average guy.tv slash cF 061 if you want to go out to it. It’s available for you right now subscribe to cyber frontiers while you’re there. We kind of more on the reset model over there and cyber frontiers every 434 or five weeks. Kind of just depends when we feel like it and I think at Christians time, and so give cyber frontiers speaking of cyber frontiers appreciate Maple Grove partners and their sponsorship that they do here of course paying for all our bandwidth paying for all our hosting and media, media hosting. If you are looking for any kind of hosting any kind Christian can do just about anything check out Maple Grove partners.com really affordable plans sites cost as little as $10 a month. That’s pretty inexpensive for hosting so if you’re thinking about doing something cash is tight because it’s gonna be for the next year or so or whatever it turns out to be Maple Grove partners COMM And we appreciate Christian and his work on doing that big congratulations to him. He just closed on his first house so he is out and moved in. Yeah, yeah. So things are going good things are going well for him. Mike mentioned the discord. If you want to join On the discord, the average guy TV slash discord is the way to do that. Send me an email Jim at the average guy.tv You can find me on Twitter at Jay Collison, the guy on the other side on the other side of me over there at Wieger tech. Sorry, my voice is going. So let’s just end this thing. We are live every Thursday at 8pm Central nine Eastern out here at the average guy.tv slash live. We’ll do a little bit of post show. If you come out live, we always appreciate it when you’re here. With that, we’ll say goodbye, everybody.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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