Episode 165: Utah Adventures and Teamwork Triumphs

Music. What's up, JFW family? Welcome back to the Channel 23 podcast.

The purpose of this podcast is to reach out and touch the fleet, to engage and inform everyone with all things JFW. Man, we're at episode 165. Woo-hoo! In the studio today, Jim White, Brother Dave White, and Super Dave Welding. Good morning, men. Morning, everybody. Morning, Jim. Morning, top of the day. In our usual fashion, we're going to kick it off like a couple patriots and start off with the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Father God, we thank you for the opportunity to go out and do some trucking today. We pray for the safety of our fleet, all of their families, and all the other families and individuals we come across on the road today.

We pray for patience in making good, safe decisions. We pray to be accident-free and that we all make it back to the comforts of our homes this evening. We pray for healing and 100% recovery for all of our family members that are ill. No matter what, we trust you, God, and it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Episode 164, 272 downloads. That's down a little bit, but coming back after a two-week break to be expected. We are at 87.2 thousand total downloads.

We are currently at 668 followers. So that number keeps growing. Nice. Yeah, that's heading into 2025. And you're right, we're not full bore yet. Still missing some days, not everybody here. So still had a lot of listens, that's good, or downloads. I like it. Do you guys want to go over the Spotify stats now? Sure. All right. 2024 Spotify final stats. This doesn't include Podbean or Apple. This is just Spotify. We were up 9% listeners and 9% streams.

We're up 68% followers and episode 127, shake the winner off. It's time to go to work. Episode was a top episode. oh wow we gotta look to see how many it had but that was the number one episode and we were streamed in nine different countries what wow worldwide it's pretty cool if you ask me yeah especially if you do the the 65 jam i mean we you know if you just look that we had a 50 percent uptick right and we're at 65 i mean 50 is a lot i think so you know absolutely yeah.

So remember I was telling you guys I did that orientation a couple weeks ago. So I was asking one of the new guys if he's going to join the 401k. And he got real nervous and he started sweating a little bit.

I was like, you all right? He's like, yeah, I'll do it. But I've never ran that far. I knew you were leading into that. I didn't bite that time, Jim. Usually I do, but not that long. I think I had Jim there for a second. Do you know what Spartacus thought when the lion ate his wife? No. Gladiator. Oh, yeah, gladiator. That's what it was. Oh, man. I think I ran across that one, Jim. Couldn't even think of it, though. So funny.

Time for the dad joke challenge, guys. Right. Well, I was enjoying my cup of coffee this morning. I was like, what about coffee jokes? What kind of coffee jokes are there? So what do you call gossiping coffee pots? Dooming Java or something. Percolator or something, huh? Spilling the beans. Oh, awesome. Oh, and what did the coffee say to their date? Perk up. Hey there, hot stuff. And my last one. Is what do coffee beans say to their Valentines?

Boy, Valentine's Day is coming up, huh? Right? Right. I thought about that. That's when I threw it in there. Yep. Yep. Yep. You keep me grounded. That's too funny. Yeah, we got a couple people requested Friday the 14th off. I'm like, oh, you romantic. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. That's so sweet. Yeah. I ran across two of them. Well, the one I just really liked, and I'm pretty sure we've done it before, or probably I've done it before.

But this other one, I had Jim in mind. Even though it's the dead of winter, it's a golf joke.

But it says this man visited his doctor and the doctor checked him over and before commenting he says it looks like you get a bit a fair bit of exercise and the man replied oh yeah in fact just the other day I walked five miles over rugged terrain I climbed over rocks and trees I also waded along the edges of lake and pushing my way through tall thistles I even slid down sandy slopes while getting sand in my eyes the doctor was quite impressed he says well you are certainly

a dedicated outdoor enthusiast and the man replied not really doctor i'm just a really bad golfer and then like i say i've i'm pretty sure i've done this one before but i don't know it still just gives me a chuckle an elderly man owned a large farm for several years and he had a large pond at the far end of his property it was.

Properly shaped for swimming so he fixed it up nice with picnic tables horseshoe courts and some apples and peach trees one evening the old farmer decided to go down to the pond since he hadn't been there for a while he grabbed a big white bucket to bring back some fruit before starting a long walk to the remote area as he neared the pond he heard voices shouting and laughing with glee as he came closer he saw it was several young women skinny skinny dipping in his pond

he made the women aware of his presence they all went to the deep end one of the women shouted to him we're not coming out until you leave the old man frowned i didn't come down here to watch you ladies swim naked or get out of the pond naked holding the bucket up he said i'm here to feed the crocodile i don't think i've heard that one really i've done that i've definitely read it before huh funny good stuff well i've got a kid in our neighborhood and it's very very cute,

Jackie and I go on walks around the neighborhood and then up around Wanaka Lake up there. And they have a chalkboard hanging from the bottom of their mailbox. And as you walk by their house, you see the riddle on one side, and then you walk past their mailbox. You got to turn around and you read the answer on the other side. That's so cool. And every week we go, every weekend, it's different.

Oh, wow. So a kid, maybe more than one, I don't know. I doubt it's the parents or the adults that live there. It's a new riddle. And I just love this one so much. Who was the fattest knight on King Arthur's round table? Fattest knight. Surround a lot. Pretty good guess, Jim. Circumference. That is good. Yeah. That's awesome. I played the beginning of last week for Bella. She likes hearing her dad jokes and just smiles. Bye.

All right, new employees. We got Neil Yarbrough, Francisco Rodriguez, Ontario McKellen, and Manuel De La Torre. Welcome, everybody. Yeah, welcome. Glad to have you guys. Welcome, everybody. Welcome to the fleet, man. Celebrations, anniversaries. I missed a couple last week. Alberto Gordillo hit one year on the eighth. Holly White, 14 years on the ninth. Rob White, four years on the 11th. And Jose Barraza, five years, on the 13th. Congratulations, everybody.

Grace Stutz had a birthday on the 12th. Jose Barraza and his birthday and anniversary is the same day every year, the 13th. That's awesome. And Randy Alvarez was the 15th, and Georgie Lalashvile was on the 17th. Happy birthday, everybody. Happy birthday, buddy.

Family celebrations, family birthday celebrations, Nairobi Gomez, that's Nikki's daughter turned four yesterday Landon Romero Dustin's son 10 today Andre's wife Alexis has a birthdays has a birthday today and then Alan Carballo's significant other Belin has a birthday today as well happy birthday family. Shout out. I'm going to start off with a letter we received from the Children's Hospital. Susie Yeager wrote it. She's a senior vice president and a chief patient experience and access officer.

Dear JFW Corporation, thank you for your recent gift to the Children's Hospital Colorado. I'm so grateful for the many ways you and other donors help to make Children's Colorado a special place for kids and their families. From piggy banks full of coins to carloads of holiday gifts and everything in between, our generous community makes it support for our patients and their families felt. I want to personally thank you for the generous gift of toys,

games, books, and clothes. We so appreciate your generosity and your kindness. And here's a quote. There are those who see the need and respond. Beloved Children's Television host Fred Rogers once observed, I consider those people my heroes. He could be describing you and a myriad of other donors, volunteers, and advocates who support Children's Colorado. Like countless threads in a beautiful fabric, you are a vital part of the strong net of support that not just sustains us but lifts us higher.

On behalf of Children's Colorado leadership, caregivers, and most importantly, the children, we are privileged to serve. Thank you. Our community is rich because of you.

With gratitude, Susie. Ah, that's great. That's great. Isn't that a nice letter, Jim? I know I gave it to you to read because it was well done, well thought out, you know, and stuff like that. But I know we talked about it on the one podcast, but just cruise in there and they brought big buckets, you know, big. Like containers containers trash can kind of things you know not for trash but you know had marked on it for the kids and all that kind of stuff and that was just.

It just made you feel good. And then we asked how it worked, which I know I said in the podcast, but to be able to have the parents come and shop for their kids, they're probably or maybe too sick to even make it down or go where the toys are and have them shop. So thank you, everybody. You guys, everybody here at JFW was amazing for all the gifts they brought in and stuff.

So thank you. I thought that was a cool part too because even if the parents could afford the toys, maybe they're just so distraught and in the hospital, they don't have the time to be able to just go down and pick some gifts out for their kids. I mean, that's a blessing.

Yeah, absolutely, Jam, because if you have somebody that's sick, you're not thinking about going to Walmart or whatever to go shopping or making that point, you know, and yeah, good, great point, Jam, just to be able to, you know, I assume downstairs they had them all sit out and grab something. So yeah, it's, thank you, everybody. Good, good job. Good teamwork. work. Absolutely.

It makes you appreciate those things. You know, the, I hadn't heard of the one gift there, a piggy bank full of coins. Yeah. And I, I, that's never crossed my mind. I, you know, I, I'm actually kind of wrapping my head around how do you do that? Do you, you go buy a new piggy bank and then you put, put money in it? Is that. That's how you would do it. I would assume. I mean, it could be, it could be a piggy bank you have at your house, Dave.

I mean, we could take that piggy bank right there on the table. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, no, I just have, that's never crossed my mind. I think it's a great gift. What if those coins, one of them was a gold coin from $15.25, pirate treasure worth a million dollars, right? What if it was a JFW challenge coin? Yeah. Good stuff. I would say if it was one of those, Jim, somebody would be paying at the next Jane Committee meeting. I still owe $5. I'm just so cash poor.

I just don't ever have cash on me is what I mean by that. Right. Jr it was about 25 if there was like a venmo qr code on there i could.

Belly even asked me the day dad how come you don't have cash i'm like i just don't use cash yeah it was so funny jam i mean when we you know we went to see sam swim this weekend and when we got on the bus we take the little chair ride back to usa parking and it's the first time i've ever seen it the driver had a qr code on the front where you walked on and loaded and then it was on both sides of the back window of the bus so you

could just scan his qr code and give him a tip venmo that's how you get on and off the trams and stuff in europe you just you just take your phone and just scan the qr code and it bills you essentially wow yeah that's how you get into costco now they won't let you in without isn't that crazy yeah yeah. I guess don't hold up the wine, I guess, is the point of that. Right? Yeah. It's nuts in there.

Somehow they're stopping the back end bottleneck of checking out that you slipped through the front end and started shopping without being a member is my guess, right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. All right. I want to give a shout out to Ann and Joanne for all their hard work trying to find different payroll solutions. I know it's probably a pretty frustrating process for them, and we ended up sticking around with Paycom. But the hard work didn't go unnoticed, that's for sure. Right.

No, no, I think we've all tried that. Maybe this year we can look a little bit for it. But it's so frustrating that we can't find one system that can just do it all. It's just so, I guess each piece of it is so complicated. You know, whether you're a payroll company and then whether you're a general ledger kind of company where you're just doing, you know, devits and credits, you know.

And then we tried so hard with QuickBooks. And man, QuickBooks is just, they've just simplified it really for the small business, you know, and that seems to be their core group of people that they're looking for. And then yet you get other robust systems like Paycom and they're so robust, they're over our heads almost. Yeah. You know, and. Too complicated. Yeah, too complicated, too robust.

And, you know, I know everybody gets a little frustrated, you know, JFW uses all these apps and the different stuff. And I know Toro is not a true app, but you're, you know, you work, you do your tickets in Toro, you sign in and pay com and, you know, we're, we're about to talk about it here, but, you know, we, we try to do things better and different.

And if you're not trying the new stuff that's out there, you're basically behind, you know, and it's like updating your phone, you know, what's the, what's the latest, greatest phones out there. So, yeah, thank you, Anne and Joanne, and for all your hard work. And Colleen, we brought in a person, we hired a person that was going to help us, thought she could pull it off. And man, did she get frustrated talking to QuickBook.

And I mean, listening to the conversations, you're like, you don't do that. Right. I mean, it's like bookkeeping 101. Right. And I wouldn't even attempt. Right. Yeah.

I want to give a shout out for Scooby for cleaning up that pro spill the other day. Did he end up there by himself? I think he ended up. He did. I mean, I'm pretty sure Andrick was up there. Oh, giving him a little bit of help. Shout out to Andrick as well. I mean, I know if Andrick was up there, he was helping. So if Andrick was up there, thank you, Andrick, because I know you helped. Absolutely. 100%. Yeah, I think he was up there.

Yeah, I felt bad because I was like, oh, let me know when you head up. Got the text on my way. I'm like, yep, I'm going to aviation. Yeah, because Scooby had to load the grain into Andrick, I'm pretty sure. Yes, there was a truck there. Yeah, so yeah, Andrick definitely helped. Yeah. Yeah, there's part of an advancement in technology because Linda, not to blame Linda at all because she already felt bad, but she thought somebody

was at a different. Actually, she just mixed up the two phone numbers. So Andrick called and said he was there. Jesse. Yeah, it was Jesse. Yeah, and Andrick hadn't got there. Anyway, Jesse called and they opened the- Jesse was at Oscar Blues and we called pros to open up. And said, we're here. Yeah. And they opened up. Yep. Dumped her right on the ground. I don't know if that technology is that good or not. Yeah. Yeah. Think there'd at least be a video camera. Yeah. Right.

Camera. Something. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you're really not there. Yeah. Verify. Well, I don't see anybody. I'm not going to push that button. Exactly. Nope. I'm going to push that button. You called. But I went right back to bed. Right? Yeah. A shout out for Edward for bringing in donuts for the office yesterday. Not only the office, but the shop and whoever was around, they got a donut.

Yeah. Thank you, Edward. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I wasn't dying and I would have had some more than the amount that I had. You only had the ones ending in Y, right? Right? Blueberry, strawberry. Yes, those two. Exactly. Tony Martinez wants to give a shout out, says, good morning, Jam. Want to give a shout out to following drivers, Jimmy V, Ghost, Jose, Jesse, and John Jordan.

These guys have been running Utah with me for about three months now and have been solid with communication, chaining up and down, and all the other good bullshit. Great team to run with. Keep the rubber down, shiny side up. Bam, bam. Nice. Awesome. Yeah, thanks, Tony. I know I've ran across and I don't know who's originally is maybe you, you know, Jim, but it was Jimmy V on TikTok and he put music to the snow and chaining up and the JFW truck sitting there and it was really well done.

So Jimmy, if you were the initiator of that, great job. Thank you. That looked, you know, not thank you, but it was cool. You know, he didn't do it for us. It was just a cool TikTok little post. So yeah, thank you. CC wants to give a shout out, says good morning. Hope this makes this before the podcast. I would like to thank John Jordan, Zach, Todd, and Ray Ray for all their help on my first Utah run. There we go. Yeah, CeCe knew that's the first time she went. She got it done. It was awesome.

Anybody's welcome to run it. You know, we're going to, again, we're going to, you know, teach you and school you and stuff about the ELD and the other stuff. But yeah, if you want to, you know, in that case, CeCe just slip seated, but we have trucks. You can take it. You know, we can get it done. You can run it. I know we got, what, 1,000 tons to go to Greeley, and they added 50 more tons the end of this week or something. Yeah, I think we knocked out Greeley already, Jim.

Did we? Yeah, we're stockpiling, and I'm thinking there's another order that came in on top of the stockpiling. Yeah, so we got to work. That's what this was for, is to give everybody some hours and run it, and we can put extra trucks on it. Yeah, think about it, too. CeCe's a super dump driver doing local asphalt jobs, you know, like on Colfax or on Federal or whatever. She stretched her legs and said she had the best time. The windshield time, running through the desert out there. Yeah.

Really, really enjoyed it. I mean, if you like to drive, that's a, I mean, I know the guys have fought just like Tony just said about the chaining up and the video that Jimmy made. You know, it was, I seen them chained. I seen the snow. It was cold. The road was shitty, but man, they knocked that out. And then the rest of the run was just fine. Right. You know, and I don't know how many days we've had where they're just running it. There's no chaining. There's no weather.

There's no nothing. you know and and and it's a it's a neat run to go like you said stretch your legs this might sound weird you guys but you get a really good feeling of accomplishment when you do that you get your truck chained up you drive through some really nasty oh yeah you see other trucks skidded into the ditch and cars in the ditch and i mean when i was running fuel over leveling pass you felt really good when you got on the other side of that pass, you're like,

all right, in my back pocket, I'm done. Let's take these chains off and roll, you know? And I know it's just, it's uncomfortable if you're cold or whatever, but it's, it is a feeling of accomplishment. It's what, I don't know what even the percentage was, but most people can't do, Dave. Most drivers won't even do it. You know, I can't, or I won't, or, you know, I'm too old or I'm too cold or, Or, you know, there's an excuse and, and these guys are getting it done, Dave.

And that's, you know, still, still jumping out there. Right. The old saying, all in a day's work. All in a day's work. Boom. Yep. I think you have to be willing to take on a new adventure. Yeah. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? And I, I think we've, I think a lot of people, they almost kind of pigeonhole themselves because they're like, oh, I can't do that. Yeah. It's, it's the attitude up front. Right. You know, it's the.

Yeah. And it's, they've pigeonholed themselves and it's like, oh, okay, I guess you can't, if you say you can't do that, you probably can't do that. If you say you can do that, you can probably do that. Yep. You know, and, and the thing is to step out and just go do it. There's, there's, there's the ones getting it done. So it's pretty cool. It's been, it's been really neat to watch.

Yeah. And it's, I mean, it goes to back to so many sayings and so much what we talk about and all that kind of stuff, you know, I mean, like Michael Jordan, you know, if he never took a shot, he would have never made one. And then he tells you, you know, you know how many I missed to make the shots I did make, but he stepped out there and made the shot. Go, go, go make your shot. Go, go do it. I mean, it's that simple. Got to take that shot to make it.

Yeah. Everything everything we talk about yeah i mean here's a here's the thing is our top earners are flexible yeah oh yeah oh yeah yeah absolutely if they're if they were just no no no they wouldn't make the money they made so yep keep in mind too we we love the local work you know but there's not a whole lot of that right now and we got out of town work yeah so yeah and uh you know we've we've tried to, you know, incorporate that jam with the, you know, we don't have sleepers.

So you, at least you get a, hopefully it's a pretty nice room. You know, you got a shower, you spend the night, you get going. It's not. It's not like over the road. Yeah. It's not, you're not stuck in that sleeper and what a great filler for, for the winter here, you know, compared to what we've had in the last few winters. I mean, listen, I love the fact we don't have a sleeper because we're not pulling at the other 365 days a year, losing that thousand pounds.

Yeah. Absolutely, Dave. Of capacity we're hauling. And I tell you what, if I had a hotel room I could stay in versus a sleeper, I'm hoteling up every single time, right? I've got my own bed. I've got my own bathroom. I've got my own shower. Yep. You know? Yeah. Even if I'm sharing it with someone, I don't care. Yeah. You know what I mean? I've still got my own bed. I've still got my own bathroom. I'm just asking, are you going or am I going?

Someone's going if they need to go. You know what I mean? Number one's only. Yeah. It's no different than home. Bring matches. Right? So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I just, I love the fact I can get up, take a shower and go to work. That's just a win-win. Sleep better. Yeah. Although I used to sleep pretty well with the reefer running, but that's neither here nor there. I'm a sneak one more shout out in before, shout out in before James Coger's.

Shout out, shout out, shout outs. And this is from Jimmy V. Shout out to the drivers going to Utah. I've been going out there for about four weeks now. And just to hear the chain of communication with drivers going to and from Utah, giving heads up on weather and road conditions. Shout out to Ghost and John Jordan, keeping us posted on them roads up there. Also to Potter for always answering my calls when I have questions and need help.

Shout out to Jose and Tony helping me and each other chaining up on that morning storm we went through on Saturday took us a while to back to get back but we got it done also shout out to Tony for the Friday morning incident and I-70 by the Utah border I'm sure you guys will talk about it on the podcast I truly believe Tony's actions saved the day from a really bad tragedy and maybe even save the life. Way to go, Tony.

So what they're talking about is Tony was headed to Utah, you know, past Fruita before the Utah border, and he started creeping up on a FedEx truck and the back trailer brakes were on fire. So he had a trailer fire. Turns out the guy was pulling triples. He had no idea that there was a fire behind him.

Tony pretty much, you know, corralled them off to the side of the road and they got that trailer disconnected and it burnt down on the ground wow yep did it really jam it yeah oh yeah i got i got pictures of the trailer on fire disconnected yeah wow tony sent some pictures after they separated and pulled away that trailer was just burning down and he was he was coming eastbound correct no they were going westbound westbound oh they were going westbound okay good good good because

i had some stuff i'd bought from California that was being FedExed in. Was it hazmat? Was it hazmat? Because this guy had hazmat on to make it even better. Well, I mean, a six-pack of spray paint, Ken, makes that a hazmat. Oh, yeah. That's hazmat. So here's... Here's that back trailer. You can kind of see. Yeah. I mean, I did see that. Yeah. Didn't know it burnt the rest of the way. Yeah. When I say down on the ground, I mean.

Unless somebody shows up, that's where it's headed. Yeah. It's pretty much, well, here's another photo. I mean, that looks like it's getting burned down. Right? That's how it's smoking. Yeah. Yeah. I can't confirm that the metal was just ashes. I was funny how that fire melts all that stuff. Isn't it though? When you do see truck fires and, you know, that fiberglass and how it, what temperature it must burn at and yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's not much left and if they were knowing that road,

who knows, fire department might have been 30 minutes and getting there. Oh yeah. That truck or trailer probably was all done by the time somebody showed up.

Exactly. I wonder how, I'm just curious how FedEx looks at that is that, you know, I know Tony helped the driver disconnect from it, but you know, would they have wanted you to stay connected because instead of unhooking from the trailer and letting other things burn or what's their, wonder what their thing is on that, that how they look at it. Pretty sure they want you to unhook. Right. And get the, if it's just a single trailer, get the power unit away.

But in this case. Well, in that case, get the other two trailers. Yeah. Especially if it's hazmat on the other ones, right, you guys? I mean. Saved a lot of merchandise there. Yeah.

Yeah. Cause I understand, I don't know if it's true or not, but like, you know, there's a lot of trash trucks that caught catch on fire because of what they've loaded and different stuff like that batteries are the number one fire starter trash trucks yeah but they're supposed to dump the load uh-huh instead of letting the truck burn yeah you know or fuel or tires and all that i i saw that one day i was headed to the pits and he he dumped his whole load right at 74th on i-76 and i

was lucky i got around it but i think he shut the highway down gives all new meaning to a burning pile of shit yeah it was burning too yeah uh one more shout out i want to give a shout out to james coger he is not an employee here but this guy is engaged he writes in once in a while he sent me an instagram post and it was a video of a end up getting stuck in between two piles dumping oh funny yeah not one of ours not one of all thank goodness yeah no yeah there

was a rock tub and you know it's all the way up and the load's not out and he cannot go forward anymore yeah it was pretty cool and then he wished us a happy podcast day so here's a guy i mean he knows today's podcast day and we just appreciate you reaching out yeah absolutely yeah yeah happy podcast day back to you james yeah you guys have any shout outs.

Yeah, I have one, I was talking with Big Country yesterday, he stopped in the office and I was chatting him up and I just said, geez, man, it looks like you've definitely lost more weight. He's on this weight loss journey that he started back in November and he's down 70 pounds so far since November. So shout out Big Country, I love your success story and keep up the good work, you know, there's, there's truly no reason he can't get to a buck 80 if he wants. Yeah.

Yeah. That's just, I mean, it's really just got to be good. I mean, he's pretty tall. I'd shoot for maybe 205. I'm just saying we all have the same skeletal frame. Some are bigger than others. Right. Not a hundred extra pounds worth. I don't know. Yeah. Congratulations, big country. That's a, you know, I'm always talking about the weight loss journey or doing some kind of stuff, but to take that kind of weight off, that's just got to be good for your body, your knees.

Your, you know, your blood pressure, your heart, all of that stuff. Yeah. Oh, I bet he does, Dave. That's what the, that's always just my battle is how good, you know, you feel, how good you get to feeling. And yet you still go back and can creep those pounds back on. Cause that, you know, the gratification of the sugar or the taste or whatever. And to have a, the mindset that you just don't need the shit is, is.

You just made it sound so good though. Right? I can't tell you that those donuts weren't good yesterday. I had two. But what a gift to himself. Like, think about it. That is like the best thing you can do. Making yourself healthier is the best thing. Yeah. One of the best things. Yeah, you're truly paying homage to yourself. Yes. You know, you're celebrating yourself. And I guess, you know, Dave told me about Big Country, and I had it on my notes to give him a shout out.

And Dave's already got it down there. But that's the reason we want to give him a shout out. That's spectacular. that somebody's caring about himself. And if you're taking care of yourself, you can take care of others. Yeah. He's got a pretty good inside little hookup that I'm not going to dive into. I love how he's going about it and using some friends here at work and getting it done. You know what I mean? So I think that's really cool. But that's one of those ways he found a way. Yeah.

You know, he's just not- Off the island. I'm fat. I'm fat. You know, you're not just sitting there, but you don't walk, you don't do anything. You know, you're not helping yourself and he, he found a way to, a way to do it. Yeah. You know, congratulations. Any other shout outs, man? I have one today. Oh. Yeah. Wow. Mention that, huh? Imagine Dave. So my oldest granddaughter is a cheerleader for Douglas County High School, and she broke her hand doing a tumbling run about two months ago, right?

Had to have a pin, a couple of pins and screws and all kinds of things in her hand, right? Wow. Well, she went through all that and came back. And last weekend, she was just fresh back to being, working out and being on the team. And down there in Castle Rock, Douglas County High School, won first place in state. Ah, very cool. Fantastic. Congratulations, Lexi. I'm really, really proud of you. Nice. Congratulations.

Definitely shout out worthy. Yep. Definitely a young person overcoming something. Yep. Because that. Yep. You know, breaking your hand could have just set you back. You can just sit there and woe me. Right. So funny, you know, at Christmas time, we're like, Lexi, Lexi, how's your hand? How's your hand? Let me see it. And she's like, it's fine. She's like, it's fine. Dave, I'm proud of you. Your kids are raising their kids to be lions. Yeah. You know what I mean?

It's good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Outstanding.

All right. Let's get into the discussion. So we already went over the Spotify funnel stats, but we got some good Samsara stats. And this is all directed with directly related to safety and mileage and what we did as a fleet. What is Samsara again? Samsara is our proactive coaching and camera system. Oh, yeah. That's awesome. Everybody has it. Everybody does have it, don't they? Every truck that we have on the road has it. Yes. Doesn't every driver at orientation get a login for that?

I don't know. I got done early that day. I think I got done early that day. Maybe your group doesn't have that. They do. Yeah. It goes over, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's part of the PowerPoint. Or you did when you filled in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't give them a login. So no, we weren't giving Samsara logins in orientation. We go over Samsara, but now things are changing because of the settings in Samsara. Everybody will have a QR code. So Samsara does identify them as a driver.

So that would be your login. So that is a change coming up. In 2024, JFW fleet traveled over 8,498,568 miles. That's almost 8.5 million miles, which is 341 times around the globe. How many times? 341. Wow. Wow. Yep. That is basically a quarter million hours is how many hours we drove. Hmm. 701 miles was the longest trip traveled by one truck. That's not good, Jim. What did I say yesterday, Jim? It's about, uh, nobody will pay attention to that.

That was too far. Yeah, that's 101 miles to live too far. Oh, man. Just kidding, D.O.T.

Just trying to see if you're paying attention. let's let's hope it was all in utah at 80 miles an hour and we done we did it under hours there you go if it's possible it's true yeah i was taught to run a logbook it's possible it's true yep too funny 72 021 miles was the average distance traveled per asset and just speaking with brother dave yesterday that number could be a little skewed because we have trucks that do 30 miles in a

day and then trucks that theoretically could do 700 miles in a day but the average was 72,000 in a year so and then we had 269,102 total trips traveled by the fleet. And with great safety comes great videos. There was 15,937 videos uploaded from Samsara with over 38,776 minutes of footage. Wow. That's a lot. And those 15,000 videos are what, Jim? They could be videos uploaded. So I'm not really sure, honestly, when I think about that.

Well, I think it's number one, alerts, safety alerts that we check out. But a lot of the drivers say, hey, man, can you, I just had this car do a rollover right in front of me and then we download the video. Yeah. But that's not an alert, Dave. I know. I know. So there's many different kinds of reasons, I guess. I guess anything. Well, uploads isn't downloads. We're downloading videos. Right. Uploads would be an alert to the best of my knowledge. Gotcha.

So that's what we were kind of talking about yesterday. We briefly touched on it. That should be, and I'm making it up. You got in and you're traveling, you don't have your seatbelt on or you're following too close or you're speeding excessively or you had a distracted driving or you had a hard stop. Rolling stop sign. Exactly. Look drowsy. Yeah. I mean, all of those good things that, that Sam Sarr is alerting us on that we can contact the driver and go, Hey, are you okay?

Is right. You know? So, but that being said with this next stat, this explains a little bit. So out of that, out of all those events, right, out of all those videos, there was 3,178 events reviewed. Okay. So out of the almost 16,000 videos, 3,178 were reviewed and 1,220 were coached. So. Out of all that stuff that was uploaded, not everything's an actual event, and then not everything needed to be coached.

Sure. Sometimes we look and it's like, oh, the camera's not calibrated, or that wasn't an issue or stuff like that. Right. But that tells you our safety team has looked at and reviewed over 3,000 alerts. Yes. Right? And dismissed how many of them, Jim? Well, 1220 was coached. Coached. So the balance- Almost half. Yeah. Yeah. The balance was probably dismissed because we do get a lot of, you know, bogus, I don't want to say bogus. False alerts.

Yeah. False alerts. Right. You will get an alert that says you weren't wearing your seatbelt. Well, you were wearing your seatbelt, but you have it so slack, right? That it's not tight. It's not across your chest. It's lower than that. So it's, it's warning us that you don't have your seatbelt on. Or you got a red hoodie on with a red seatbelt or. Right. Yeah. Or you're in the pit, you know. Yeah. Without your seatbelt. JR said a lot in the pit. And then also hopefully the QR code,

because I know you guys dismiss a lot for the wrong person and the wrong drug. Yes. So. So can we lower that? We can. The 15,000 uploads? So there were, so yeah. But let me tell you this next stat. There were 12,064 safety events detected. Ah, that's the one I'm looking for. Yes. Yep. 12,000 safety events. Yep. Wow. Do you guys want to guess a fleet's overall safety score? You can't guess. I have to take myself out because I know it. You asked?

He showed me this stuff yesterday. Oh, oh. And he would have printed it for all of us, but it's like all on. Black. It's like a whole page of black. Gosh, Jim, if we're looking back and all the discussions we've had in the last few weeks, the fleet, right? The average of the fleet? Safety. Safety? Of the fleet. Safety score of the fleet. And I think coaching and all that kind of stuff we've been doing and as involved we are, I mean, I can't pick a number, but I think we're above 90.

Okay. What do you think? I think I've heard JR mention we have a fleet average of 92. Son of a. Tag, man. 92. Yeah. So above 90. Well, super David is historic data. Yep. So, yeah, of course, brother Dave, he sees us yesterday. And he's like, all right, well, what's our goal? Yeah. Right. So I was like, I don't know, 10,000 is like, that's too high. I was like half. He's like, let's get half. So. Yeah. I mean, when you really think about that, Jim, 12,000 safety events.

And here's what I'm relating it to, right? We went around the earth 341 times. That's what I was just going to bring up. So I'm backing up. How many times do you think United Airlines has went around the earth? 342. I bet more. I'm going with 3,042 and I bet when their safety department looks at their stats, And they had the same stats and they're like, we had 12,000 safety alerts. There has to be this panic go off in their heads. You know what I mean?

So I guess I'm just seeing 12,000 safety alerts. Man, it just doesn't feel good. United Airlines uses Samsara? I'm looking at it as well. But hold on a second, right? Back up the truck. But hold on a second. Let's talk about this. What's your perspective? I'm looking at it different and I, and I get, can we be better? Absolutely. We're going to, we're going to always try to be better. Right. I think we can do that, but you're telling me 12,000 videos, right? Events. Events.

In 8 million miles. Eight and a half million. I mean, divide, divide, divide that video into 8 million miles. I'm doing it. Traveled. You know, I just, I don't think that's a whole lot. Well. And a, and a safety score 92 jam. And the safety score. And a lot of the events are auto-dismissed. Something we got to think about. So here's how we reduce it to the ridiculous. 12,064 safety events. Out of the 12,000, 3,178 were reviewed. So what happened to the other 9,000? Right?

Were they auto-dismissed? And out of the 3,178 reviewed, we decided 1,220 needed to be coached. Yeah, half of them were coachable. Yeah. So that's what is 12, 20, 10% of 12,000. Am I doing the math right? Yeah, I think so. Pretty close, yeah. So it's 10%, yeah. If you do the math, 8.5 million divided by 12,000 is every 708 miles we're having an event. Okay. As a fleet, for one truck, that's outstanding, right? I mean, you could almost say that's one every day in a quarter.

Day and a half, yeah. Day and a half, right? as a fleet that's i mean we'll go 700 miles the first round as a fleet yeah right so.

Okay i gotta check okay i'd check you back but honestly it goes back to what you say a lot jim that we you know we go through that gate a hundred times in a day and and we get it once it's it's the same kind of statistic you know yeah yeah exactly dave yep what'd you come up with jim what's your math yeah yeah the the statue said matches the 0.33 right the well i just did i just took the the 780 000 780 miles dave oh

so just quickly or whatever you said yeah back back the other way yeah the thing is divide that 12 000 by 365 day actually divide it by the what are what's working days 22 days a month how many is that a year to 60 is that what that comes up to Here's what I think we need to do, though. Divide the 8.5 million by 1,220, because that's how many events were coached. That's how many events we thought we needed to coach a driver. Yeah, that lowers it, Jim. Yeah, by 10%. Sure.

Sure. So that would be roughly, if you're doing it that way, 78 miles. I mean, no, it would up it. 7,800 miles. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if, I guess I'd have to try and do the math a different way, but if there's 260, on average, 264 working days a year and we had 12,000 events, don't you divide 264 by 12,000, right? To get a percentage? Well, you divide 12,000 by 264. To get how many you're getting? Just to get how many events. Per day. Per day, I'm showing 0.02.

We're having an event so it's every what would 0.02 be of a day of a 24 hour dance, every two hours we're having an event i guess but what i'm asking is why are we looking at that 12 000 number yeah that's the that's the question because a lot of those were dismissed, some of them were bogus some of them were auto dismissed but we coached 1220 yeah out of all of those we only found 1200 that were coachable right so it was a real violation i mean otherwise we're not coaching the other 12 000

the other the other 1100 yeah videos that's what that's what we need to get to the bottom of that yeah because the number of reasons i think if you use the 1220 which is the ones that we coach and we deemed the worst unsafe unsafe yeah because we coach every event we think's unsafe. Yeah. I mean, we're- Or if it's just true, following to, yeah. We're religious about that. Yeah. You get an alert, you're following too close.

We look, oh, that jarve only has, you know, five seconds following distance. We dismiss that, you know, but it's not going to get coached. Oh, he's got 1.5 seconds. We're going to coach that. So that 12,000 number, I don't feel is a real- Well, how does that work? Because it says here, we reviewed 3,000. Right. And out of the 3,000, 1220 were... I mean, yeah, those numbers, I mean, there's 12,000. 3,000 of them were reviewed, and we only found 1,200 of them that we needed

to coach on. Right. I mean, yeah, where is that? What are the other, like you asked, Jim, the 9,000 videos? Yeah, why were only 3,000 of the 12 reviewed? Right. I think some are auto-dismissed a lot. Interesting. Yeah. We'll dig a little more into that. Yeah. Pretty cool stat here. We have a tie for the safest driver in 2024. Ooh. Does anybody want to take a guess at that? What was that? It's supposed to be a drum roll. It was just pretty bad. It sounds like a sick cat purring, huh? Yeah.

We need to call a vet. Better edit that. I saw a good dad joke earlier. I saw a bumper sticker. It says, I'm a veterinarian, so I could drive like an animal. So the guy's like there must be a lot of proctologists out there. So anyway potter and jesse rodabaugh tied for first place as safest drivers in 2024 oh congratulations you guys yeah that's awesome both had a score of 100 both had a score of 100 yep perfect congratulations you guys yeah, All right. There's an example of two different. Yes.

People or not people hauling. Yeah. One rock tub, one long haul. Yeah. So to speak. Yep. Yeah. Possible in either one. Yep. Doesn't matter. Yep. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter the job or the truck or anything like that or the dispatch or anything. It's how you drive. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. Good stuff. Very good point. All on your shoulders. Love it. Yeah, absolutely. Any other comments on the Samsara stats? I don't think so, Jim. Yeah. Okay. No, it's going to be interesting to dive in.

I know we're going to, we're planning on starting to use that more this year. So it'll be, it'll become a big part of our program. Oh yeah.

Speaking of our program with us looking to leave Paycom, we started looking at other platforms for communication.

We feel one of the missing links in our program is good communication with our drivers and employees not just the drivers this includes the wash pay the shop admin, anybody that works here we need to communicate better valentino belly he had suggested slack a while back and this program is very similar it's called connect team and we do feel that this is gonna make everybody more engaged uh you know something's you know if we make an announcement You're able to comment on the announcement.

You could group chat, you know, people, you know, if you're going to Redmond, you could start a group chat with the guys you're going the night before, not while you're driving, right? But like the night before, like, hey guys, you know, let's roll out at this time and you know, pre- That way you can chat on the phone all the way out there. Yeah, exactly. Not. Yeah. It's got some really good course features where we could put courses up and videos and yeah, it's going to be really cool.

There's just a lot of great things about this app and we plan on rolling it out here pretty quick. I'm working on... Getting everybody uploaded into the system. One of the things that I'm going through now is getting everything segmented by department and team because there's smart groups. From my admin point of view, we could be like, oh, we need to talk to all the bulkers and there'll be a smart group called the bulkers.

Or we need to just contact the wash bay and tell them it's too cold tonight. There'll be a smart group called wash bay, just stuff like that.

So it's got real, it's got real no washing monday night everybody it's going to be 10 below there you go yep yeah yeah i'm hoping to have this thing up by monday night too so you'll be able to tell them that you know nice uh yeah it's just going to be really cool it's got some great things it is another app i know you know some people embrace that and other people don't i was telling valentino yesterday hey we didn't go with slack we

went with connect team his response i can't wait to start using it you You know, that's the attitude. That's awesome. Yeah, so it'll just be nice. There'll be, you know, more frequent announcements probably just because Paycom's so hard to make announcements. This is kind of, the whole platform is more like a social media platform. That's what I was going to mention. Yeah, it's just easy to use and it's fine and, you know, we'll all be able to communicate better.

I mean, it's still a, it's a connect team. It's something, you know, we purchased and everything like that.

But it's truly going to be like jfw's only own facebook it's like our own app yeah yeah it's really set up that way and you know you can give out you can give a like these shout outs you know jimmy or or uh tony could have got on that and give a shout out to all those guys and the whole company see that yeah or just that group of guys see that yeah you know post videos i know you can still do you know smiley faces and all that kind of stuff i mean i opened it up jam was testing it I opened

it up for J.R.'s birthday. It announced the birthday on his birthday with a bunch of confetti. It was just nice to see that stuff and easy to do and be more involved. Another thing I'm excited about is Saturday coverages. So you hear it on the radio all the time, all right, I'll contact Jam. And usually I'll make these guys make a group text. Nobody has each other's phone number. A lot of people don't,

especially the newer people. Well, on this app, your phone numbers are going to be hidden, but you could group text me and that other person just through the app. You know, like if you know his name or her name, you'll be able to contact us in a group. And it's just going to streamline a lot of things. Yeah. And I did notice too, for everybody going through the tutorials on it, that, you know, Jam saying that, you know, it sounds like you get somebody's phone number, but it does stay hidden.

But once you leave JFW, we delete that and all that information is gone. Right. You don't, you won't retain that in the app. So it, it does privatize it for just JFW. You have to be part of the family. Yeah, exactly.

Good good so i'm excited about it too jammed to you know mess with it it's definitely it does definitely feel you guys mentioned it has a social media feel and it definitely does but you know so be fun yeah all right super dave this next one was yours you mentioned it yesterday you want to take it about getting on the scale well it's not the first time we've talked about it and it probably won't be the last.

We've seen, had several alerts recently of people talking on the CB at the same time that they're pulling onto the scale. When I was driving all the time, I would have, I didn't usually anyway, have my mic on a zippy cord, you know what I mean? On a a gear keeper thing. I like to have it in my hand, you know, and there was a couple of these guys that were holding their mic and I thought, Oh, okay, well that's not too bad. They're just holding it.

But then they get about half of the truck on the scale and then they raise it up to their mouth and announce themselves while they're driving on the scale. You guys, we just can't do that. We have to just leave the mic alone, either stop before you pull on the scale and announce yourself at that time and then drive on the scale or drive all the way on the scale and stop and then announce yourself, who you are, what you've got and where you're going and.

I think a lot of people are like, well, what the heck? You know, I'm just pulling on the scale. Well, that's not, it doesn't work that way because we've hit the scale dozens of times. Dozens and dozens, Dave. Many different pits. So it's not that type of scale or the turn you're taking. Some of the scales we've hit, it's a complete straight drive on scale. We just have to pay attention to what we're doing in the moment and just do that one thing.

That's the thing, one thing, Dave. Yeah, you can't multitask, you're asking for trouble. We're men, we don't multitask. We can't. Well, I know I can't. The scale has proven it. Right? Yeah, that's the thing with both your comments and your whole announcement there, Dave, is we've fallen off, we've drove off the corner, we've hit it, we've done everything. We do it all the time. We're not making things up not to use your CB and to

stop before you pull on a scale. So your one job is to pull on a scale and not hit anything. Yeah. And we've proven we can't do it. And it's not my story of hitting the fence post once. We hit them a lot. Yeah. I mean, we hit that gate dozens of times. It just happens to be mounted right on the side of the scale. And the repairs of these things are not easy or cheap. Oh, yeah. You personally have had to straighten railing on the Saturday that you worked and then remount it.

You know, I mean, we've hit the scale at Morton, at Fry, at Young's Ranch, at Fairplay, and they're all different scales, you know, with different entrance, you know, turns and or straightaways and whatnot. So it is not a one time thing. It's a many time thing and we've got to get better at it. That is an area we need improvement as a fleet. Absolutely. My question is, were you trained like that? And that's a big no. I know these guys are always trained to not talk in the CB.

You know, line yourself up, stand up in your seat if you have to, look out the window you have to, get yourself lined up straight, and then pull on the scale. Yeah. It's just imperative. I mean, it just makes no sense. You've changed how we've taught you to do it. And what do we know is the best way? JFW way. Right. I mean, it just works. The one thing I don't know if I heard you mention, Soup, and if you did, I apologize, but it could be repeated anyway.

Stop. Stop before we get on the scale. Yeah, and it used to drive me nuts at Morton. That scale lady no longer works there. I would pull up and stop and then announce myself because I was stopped and I wasn't doing anything.

Then I'd drive on the scale and I'd be on there waiting and then she'd yell, who's on my scale?

It would drive me nuts. but that's okay you know just don't even if you're pulling on don't answer that scale lady until you've stopped i was just waiting for you to finish dave i was trying to like i was so excited to jump in there and go don't answer until you stop yeah yeah they can wait the 12 seconds it takes you to pull on that scale can't be anything yeah waiting and i can't emphasize don't pull on that scale in third gear fourth gear at five six miles an hour

you need to come to a stop you need to shift it to first gear and pull on in first gear. Why do we want to go slow? Because if you do strike something, at least hopefully you'll hear it, you'll stop, you'll get out, you'll assess what's going on and decide whether you need to pull forward or back up or call someone so you don't do more damage and it just eliminates the amount of damage. Yes. You know, we've had trucks pull on there at like six miles an hour and man, when they hook something.

It's over. They hook that step and they pull it back into the def and they hit the tank and i mean it it goes from a thousand dollars to i mean we've had we've lost a dpf box we've lost a fuel tank we've lost i don't know how much shit by just a high speed strike and you weren't trained like that you weren't taught like that is it what do you think eight grand once you hit into the dpf oh at least fuel tank yeah the fuel tank alone is what $3,500.

I mean, and we're, we're running fuel tanks that are jacked up. We don't, if they're not leaking, we can't really, that's not an easy fix. We at least get to fixing the boxes, but the rest, it just looks like a damaged truck. Yeah. You know, somebody. Yeah, it looks like a POS going down the road. Yeah, exactly. And it could be a brand new truck. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and that truck's, that truck's easily moving 80,000 pounds around.

And it, it, when it, when it, like you guys are saying in that gear, in at that speed, the steel, the posts, all of that mean nothing to that truck, it's just going to keep doing damage. You know, I think, in fact, I don't want to get off the subject as important as the scale is. But Jam, you posted that or sent it to us of the guy having the seizure on the truck. And that guy's barely moving and he's having a complete seizure, has an inward facing camera and it drives.

And I don't know, it looks like he's going one mile an hour, right, Jam? Right. Over the median. Yeah. And that truck just over the median, over the fire hydrant, and then finally smacks a tree. And stops. Just to be able to stop it. Right. And, and people are, it's slow enough people coming the other way. Cause he's going into onward traffic. They're just stopping. They're like, holy shit. You know, I got plenty of time, which so fortunate that nobody hit him.

Right. The people could recognize that. And then I know the visit, the video ends with a woman getting up in the cab. Looks like she's trying to help. Yeah. And then the last I watched is she was waving to people like this guy needs help. Right. You know, she was a little bit of a hero. Yeah. Right. She had a big amygdala. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she was in there. She was on it. Say that again? She had a big amygdala. But I'm just back to the point of what power those trucks have.

Yeah. I was talking to Erica and trying to teach her that at the going, I think she moved a truck for you, Jam. And she was discussing with me that she was nervous and the way it jumped forward and all that kind of stuff. And I said, I asked her, did you have it in first? And she's like, oh yeah, Jam told me to do that. She goes, but I didn't expect it to move like that. And I said, well, the other thing you have to realize is the new trucks are so badass at 900 RPM.

You're at 1850 foot pounds of torque. You have the full torque of that truck. I mean, it moves 80,000 pounds. What else can it move? Yeah, I thought she was popping the clutch in there. I was like, is that an agency? Yeah, she had. I think you explained it to her. She goes, I had no clue to feather the gas or the brake. I just let off the brake. And she goes, it moved. That's quite an urge, isn't it? Yeah. Sure enough for next time. Yep. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, this is to jump to another topic, but the same reason behind it, even though we're talking about pulling on scales, but backing, it's the same thing. Back slowly because if you do happen to hit a post or a concrete bin, if you hit it and you're only going a half a mile an hour, it's going to do a whole lot less damage than if you're going. But that's the same thing. That truck's not going to recognize that concrete wall. Oh no.

You know, it's not going to feel it. It's not going to do any of that, Dave. Yep. Make sure you got your windows now. Yeah. Yeah. Listening and feeling. At some point, I can't wait, you know, all the new cars for years now, the, the top end or the higher end ones have what's called bird's eye view. Yeah. Right. They have a camera in the front and they have two cameras on the sides and the camera in the back. And it, it shows everything around you on the ground.

Yeah. The computer picks it up and makes a visual. I cannot freaking wait for the day they do that on the trucks. Yeah. I mean, that way it would eliminate our scale strikes, you know, the, the stuff when you, you know, we just had one yesterday. You know, we just drove right up and smashed into a concrete block at, I think, plant three, brand new truck. Why are we putting ourselves in harm's way? Why are we doing that? Why put that truck within a foot of something that could cause damage to it?

And you know you're that close. When you have all the room in the world not to. Right. That's my thing. Right. Right? It's almost like when you have a really nice car and you go to King Soopers and you park way out in the back 40 by yourself. Right. There's not another car around for 20 spots. You come out and some dipshits park next to you. Don't you hate that? Yes. Yeah, I'm like, oh my God. It's a Jeep thing. Yeah, it's a sheep thing. Yeah, a sheep thing you have right.

Yeah, but yeah, I mean, we have to think through every move we make. We talk about this. You have to think through every move you make in those trucks. I think it's overconfidence. You know, it's that person saying, you know, why do I have to be careful? I drive 500 miles a day. I don't have a problem with any of it until it happens, right? Hey, back to the what if, Dave. Yeah. I mean, it's just, what does it lead to? Yeah.

I was talking to a driver candidate yesterday, 27-year-old guy, and he's just moving quicker, you know, and I said, I get it. When I was 26, 27, you do everything quicker. Move quicker, yep. We were coming down 53rd here, and there was two people that had crossed the road and another guy that was coming out of Dr. Deb's place, and he was going to cross the road to go over to the truck stop. But I thought, oh, my God, this guy is going to walk right out in front of us.

And me being 60-something years old, I'm always thinking about that what if, right, Jim? That comes with wisdom and age. And I'm pushing my brake on the passenger side. I thought, he's going to jump out. And he didn't. He saw us and stopped and picked up. I mean, he was looking at his phone, you know. But I said to the kid, I'm like, well, that's what you have to anticipate, that that guy is going to cross the road.

You know, so you need to start slowing down before, like the minute you see him, expecting them to cross the road.

And same thing if you're pulling on the scale. you know expect that you know you might hit the side and you might damage the truck or that you're too close to that block so don't pull over that way you know i run into that a lot when i'm having people back into 00 36 37 38 spots on a test drive they pull up right next to our parking blocks like really close you know like six feet away from the parking blocks and then and then And when they go to turn the steering wheel to the left to get the

trailer to go in that direction –. They think, oh my gosh, I'm close to the block. And I ask them, I'm like, why didn't you just pull out right into the middle of the yard? Yeah, no threats. Yeah, 50 yards of space there. I didn't think about that, you know? And that's stuff that we have to think about when we're maneuvering at these plants. You know, plant two, a perfect example, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We talk about it all the time. Yeah.

All the time. Just one quick thing, won't even really talk about it too much. I think this week, beginning of this week, maybe the last week, the truck stop put a gate across the one gate here on 53rd. At the truck wash. At the truck wash. And it created a lot of truck traffic in front of our building in the mornings because the guys are coming down thinking they can turn in the truck wash and can't. So just be extra careful. Yeah, they're turning into our yard, Jim.

Yeah, Dave, yeah. The one guy, we watched him go down the road twice yesterday morning and you could tell he was just frustrated, you know, but you don't know the, especially if you ran here before, you'd be able to come down the street and turn in the truck wash and you can't. So just quick note on that. Yeah. They're redoing the entrance like they did on the entrance of Quebec. I think they're putting up a card reader or something because I think they're

going to charge you. Oh, gotcha. When you come in. Yeah. Yeah. But that won't back traffic out into the, into the street. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Should be interesting to say the least. Yeah. Well, have we beat up the scale enough? I hope so. Literally. Speaking of beating up. Exactly. That was my segue word. Yeah. It's weird. We don't talk about this a lot, but just every couple of years somebody does this. It's weird. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's the, no different than me taking a hammer and walking out to their cars or their pickups or something like that and,

you know, beating down the side of their vehicle with a hammer. Yeah. It's the same. What we're talking about is do not take a hammer to the outside of your trailer or the inside. Yeah. For that fact on aluminum trailer. And it, when I say to the outside, the rock trailers or the aluminum trailers, do not take a hammer and hit the outside of that trailer. We just had a driver last week, right? That no longer works here because he took a hammer to the trailer.

He had some material frozen to the inside of it, And literally beat the snot out of that trailer. And the thing, that can't be repaired. You can't. Not on the aluminum. You can't fix the dent. You can't fix that. I mean, it literally lowered the value of that trailer, $10,000. I mean, it's absolutely ridiculous. So I can't emphasize enough. And on the rock trailers, you guys can say, well, it's not leaving a dent. It may not be leaving a dent, but that trailer's painted.

It just takes the paint right off. And in one winter, you have nothing but all these rust spots now developing where the paint used to be. So don't take a hammer to any trailer. Those hammers are meant to hit tires. Bump your tires. That's the only use, really. Right? Yep. Right? Yeah. I mean, yeah, Jim, it's so unimaginable to me. I guess maybe I could see one time. One time. That's what I was going to say. You hit it once and go, holy shit.

Yep. I just dented the trailer. Yeah. I need to tell somebody about this. Exactly. Not, I'm just hammering the shit out of it. I, it just, it is absolutely mind boggling to me. And that's just, yeah, it's just unacceptable. Aluminum is a soft, very light metal. Steel is hard and you're hitting it with a two and a half pound steel sledgehammer. Yeah. And it doesn't, and it doesn't, I don't know the understanding. It doesn't reach the inside.

No. Right. It doesn't touch the inside. It doesn't go through the liner. It doesn't do any of that. The, the whole thought process that hitting the outside of the trailer is going to help Unload the load. And again, you, you weren't trained that way. And I don't care if it was in the middle of the summer, you know, and we don't have to hit the trailers. Nobody's out hitting the trailer. I mean, if it was okay to hit the trailer,

you just do it in the summer too and knock the stuff out of the nose. Right.

You know, you just bang on the side of the trailer and shit fall out of the nose. It doesn't work that way. You were never showed that. Don't, don't do stuff you weren't shown, you know. Yeah. It's a, you know, like Dave said, when we, when we go to sell it, somebody come over and look at it and go, well, oh, somebody just took a hammer and beat the shit out of the trailer. What's that?

Yep. You know, I mean, I know, I know Cliff that we buy the trailers for when we were buying directly from Vantage, he had some panels show up that were dented. They got stacked or something, had a board under it and he built the trailers for us and then he seen the trailers and he's like, you know, what the heck is that? And just as him being the owner of the company and his product, he discounted the trailers for us.

He took money off. He said, I can't have my trailer out there looking like that. I can't expect you guys to buy that when it's a piece of shit like that. So, you know, it meant that much to the owner and the builder of the trailer. You know, it means that much to all of us. And it's just embarrassing. Yeah. It is just embarrassing to see our equipment go down the road like that.

It's, I can't explain it. It just puts a pit in my stomach that we actually have someone works here that thought that was okay. And seriously, it is no different than me taking a hammer and walking down your personal vehicle. Yep. I mean, there is no difference in that, you guys. That's sad. Guys, got anything else for the discussion before I get into some Colorado gun politics? I didn't see it on here and I want to mention it and I don't know when we're going to drill on it.

But if you're one of the people running the Redmond run, you guys have to check your trucks out. You have to inspect it. I know we're bragging about how you get some windshield time and stuff, but Utah pulled us over and we had with a truck with 50,000 miles on it.

So it's a brand new truck. they the lines airlines to the trailer rubbed on something i assumed from the picture it was the deck plate dave did you guys ever figure it out it doesn't matter it looked like where where the two hoses were tied together oh they were chafing and it looks like they separated them and looked oh so i i need to dive more into it before you know we say they were i don't think they were dragging the deck plate i think

they were tied together okay perfect perfect but no matter what You guys got to inspect your trucks. You got to, you can't, oh, I'm going to just drive for 12 hours and nobody's going to bother me. No, Utah and Colorado, the port, they're going to look for stuff like that. You guys, there's no, there's no different rules. And, and under doing that stuff, you've changed from an in-town driver to an over the road driver.

You're under more of a spy glass than, than anything, you know, and especially the stuff we got written up with the airlines.

They're simple shouldn't happen and the other stuff was not putting your bill of lading in your eld and you're assigned that bill of lading in your toro when you leave that's your that's your ticket number that's going to be on your ticket your pickup number so put it in your eld you guys you know i know the driver said oh i hadn't put it in yet well that's still a violation, and we can't we can't have that you guys we're better than that you're sitting

there waiting to load take the opportunity and put it in yep that's part of your job yep you're getting loaded with the load that you have the number for yeah. I mean, it's just, yeah. Should we talk about the window tint too? We should. Yeah. Because it's a big, bright, screaming light. Yeah. I mean, probably the cop pulled you over because your windows were tinted. Most likely.

Most likely. It just gives him something to stop you for. I don't think he knew your airlines were chafing by driving behind you, beside you, or passing you. He knew your windows were tinted just looking at you. Yep. And, you know, the end dumps, I'm sorry, you guys. we have a cowboy attitude. We have a cowboy reputation, not JFW in dumps. The straight stacks, the tip-down visors, all the other stuff, running over hours, running over weight.

You've seen the commercials for lawyers. We have that vision. That's what we've tried to break up all these years of what our brethren act like out on the road. We can't act like that. And so realistically, you guys, I know we've, you know, we've accepted the tent, but I would take the tent off. I just don't, I just, in fact, I don't know. We're, we're on the edge of making it because this is our third ticket for the window tent and it counts. Yeah. So this driver got assigned a truck.

He didn't put the window tent on. Nope. And then he goes to Utah and gets a ticket for it. So I feel bad for the driver. And that day he came back into town. He came to me and said, where can I get a razor blade? And I said, talk to Teddy, and I'm sure he's got a handle and everything. And he, he peeled that right off ASAP. But here's the deal, everybody here in Colorado, we have a reputation. JFW is a high-profile trucking company here in our neighborhood in Denver along

the Front Range. We have a darn good reputation. They will wave us by and get the POS behind us. Out in Utah or even in Grand Junction or on the West Slope, we don't have a reputation. We're just like everybody else. We are just as equal as a trucking company from New York or who knows where because we aren't out there. Well, now we are, we're out there, we're hauling 40 to 50 loads a week through Utah and that's a lot of trucks and they're, they're noticing us.

We're building a reputation, but not a good one at this point. And now they're noticing us and we have to be better now. Yep. Yep. We have to, we have to do it like the over the road trucks, you know, and you know, so many of the over the road trucks have the sleepers on it and that gives your cab a dark look, you know, over our, over our day cabs. And that's, you know, so yeah, I think if I was running that,

I would, I would take the tint off you guys. I know, I know a lot of you've paid for it. We've okayed it if you paid for it and I, just to get that ticket or just to get pulled over is just not worth it. You guys, you know, and I've told everybody over and over, you can order the little sun shade that clips in your window and pulls it down for, I think $13 off of Amazon goes, rolls back up and the way you go. Yep. You know, it just, it just is, it's better and I'm.

I feel sorry, you know, or, or apologize. It's not, I feel sorry. I want to apologize. We all like you, no, Kent. Yeah, Dave. I mean, I. Private cars. Yeah. And it helps keep the interior cooler. Yeah. Jim and I just watched an undercover cop over here in Commerce City stop a guy. You know, he kind of came out of nowhere. We don't even know if he passed us or he was sitting there or what, but stopped a car that was behind us. And I mean, his, his, the cop car was all blacked out.

Yeah. So. Well, that's okay, Dave. Right. You know that. Right. Right. That's where it's just infuriating. Yeah. Because those guys have to make decisions in those cars and their visibility needs to be good. Yeah. And if they're saying our visibility is lowered, what's theirs lower to? That's the, that's the dual. Yeah. Double standard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's frustrating.

Not good. But yeah, we're, cause, cause I, you know, so far we've done a good job for, I want to say A1 chip seal, sorry, from, for EnviroTech. And they're going to ask us continue to do this. This is something that works for them. And we may haul it into the summer. If we get a wet spring and build their stockpile, they're going to ask us to continue to haul. So this isn't going away. This easily could lead to a two or three year contract, you guys.

And we have to get through that by doing it right. And if this is something we can continue to do, I would take the tent off. I would, I would look at a different, different way. Like I said, the little visor pull down or something like that, you know? I agree. This, this trooper even had his tint meter on. Yeah. I mean, he whipped out his tint meter and stuck it on the glass and checked and. Yeah. And just, just so you guys know, so there's no controversy of that.

Any tint, any tint you add to our trucks will make it illegal because our windows are already tinted from the factory. So there's no tint made low enough unless you go clear. They do make a clear tint that guards you from skin cancer. The UV. Yeah, it's a UV. Yeah, it's like an SPF kind of deal, but it's clear. It doesn't change the tint of your windows. Yes. Our trucks are ordered at a factory tint, a legal factory tint. So you add anything to it, it's not right. And you can come and argue.

We've, we've, we've went around here with a. I have, I have a tent meter in my desk. I'll pull it out and show it to you. Cause I've done it before. Doesn't work. You guys. In the tool room on the toolbox right now. I saw it yesterday sitting right on top. The tent meter. That's kind of scary. Oh man. Yeah. It says, it's got a white paint marker on it. this is JFW tent meter. And I'm like, what's that doing out here? Somebody else might have, must have it. I guess. Huh? Yeah. Well,

come see me. I had one in my desk. Yeah. It doesn't matter. You don't need it. Yeah. Yeah, you can. You tint it, you guys. It doesn't, doesn't pass. It's just always mind boggling, right? Jim, you, you take in, you roll up the window and you look through the window and, and just above it where it's clear and tint, right?

Yeah. And you're like, that's not a tinted glass. And then you put that meter up there and you're like, oh my God, that's. Tinted glass. That is tinted glass. Yep. So, yeah, I get it. Yeah. So the other day, you good? Yeah. Okay. Jim, what about, what about being assaulted? Assaulted. So the other day, just talking to brother Dave about some new gun laws they're trying to pass.

He's like, you need to talk about that on the podcast. So I'm going to get on my gun soapbox here for a minute, but Colorado state senators, specifically the democratic ones are trying to pass a new assault weapons ban called SB 25 dash zero zero three. And you know, there's some sneaky hidden language in here and stuff like that, but here's what the bill is about. and I'll post this on the show notes.

There's a little button where you can email the senators. It'll take you right to the email address. You could just write, I oppose this. You know, just let them know that you're against it. And here's some things to know about the bill. What the bill bans, SB25-003 is an extreme ban that targets any semi-automatic rifle or shotgun that can accept a detachable magazine as well as a semi-autic pistol that operates with a gas reloading system and can accept a detachable magazine.

Due to the bill's contradictory language, specifically around pistols, it could ban far more than gas-operated platforms. So what's a gas-operated pistol? Right away you think of an AR pistol or an AK pistol because they have a gas block and a piston and stuff like that.

But the language is kind of vague right so it could end up excluding more they're going after these pistols but it's it's just very vague and it could include a lot more things that could be decided later i mean it sounds like they could easily get rid of like a nine millimeter that's a detachable cartridge or magazine yes that runs off the recoil spring runs off the gas of the cartridge, there is an exclusion in there for that, but the wording.

Yeah. Gas, the gas is working this spring. Yes. Yeah. There is some wording that needs to be cleared up. Yeah. Also includes in the bill the vague definition of rapid-fire devices, which classifies as dangerous weapons banning bump stocks and anything that can increase the rate of fire of a semi-autic firearm.

Make no mistake, this is a sweeping ban that eliminates access to most modern semi-autic weapons every day, excuse me, for everyday civilians by banning the sale, purchase, transfer, and manufacturer. Law enforcement is exempt. Again, just like the window tip. They could do that. I wonder if law enforcement is exempt on their private time jam. If I'm a cop and I'm off duty, can I have that? Can you have an AR pistol? Yeah. Interesting. This bill is worse than any other state bills to date.

A magazine banned spin is being pushed by the sponsors. They're trying to say this is more about the magazines than the guns themselves, but it's not. Yeah.

Colorado's a test state for the experimental legislation. there's a lot of safety concerns it's an accident waiting to happen because if you had a fixed magazine on a pistol well how do you unload it you know if you know you're increasing the chances of a negligent discharge yep you either got to shoot all your ammo or take the gun apart to unload it uh let's see there's going to be an already is blowback panic buying which is increasing gun sales and there's no proof of effectiveness

in crime reduction The FBI has all the stats. And none of these bills actually have reduced crime. Over the last 12 legislative sessions, the legislature passed 23 gun control laws, with 20 of them passed in the last five years. And none of it's made an impact in any crime. So why pass it? That's where it gets down to. Every inch is a mile when they continue taking our rights. Exactly. You know what I mean? They take a little bit here, a little bit here,

a little bit here, a little bit here. and pretty soon they've taken a mile. Well, it goes back to our forefathers. They're doing it so we can't defend ourselves. Right. That's, we have no right, because we're the legal law-abiding citizens. Right. You know, that does nothing for what they're really after, except for disarming the public. Yeah, and let me ask you guys, the deal on New Year's Eve, the attack down in Louisiana, was a gun used?

Didn't they, no, it was a bomb, wasn't it? No, it was a car. No, a freaking car drove off into a crowd. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they had threats of bombs, and I don't know, So rumor was they found one or found some or something that didn't go off. Then they had a car explosion, you know, that was set up. When there's whack jobs out there, they're going to find a way. You know, how many people were killed and maimed at the Boston Marathon?

Not one gun was used, right? I mean, they used a pressure cooker and it just, God dang, man, it pisses me off. Cause I mean, it goes back, we should all just get shirts that if guns kill people, forks make you fat, pens misspell words. Right. You know what I mean? Like, when are we responsible for ourselves? We're not responsible. No, that's the problem with today. And man, we need to vote legislators and stuff in that, that.

Have some common sense. Yeah, the thing is, is there's been a few attempts at these assault weapons bans in Colorado, and they keep being, you know, they don't go through. But if we start sleeping, they will go through. Yes. You know, and this is the one that a lot of people are worried about just because, oh, I won't go through, I won't go through. But man, the people that are pushing this, they already have like 18 votes or something, which is enough, I think.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. you know when it gets to the supreme court level does it get shot down but yeah it's just ridiculous it seems like a constant fight you know it's an attack on our freedoms and the small business here in colorado too my buddy ryan owns bighorn firearms he's losing sleep over this i bet you know i bet he's already you know stopped doing concealed carry classes because of the new laws It's not, doesn't really fit his model anymore.

And now, you know, if he can't sell handguns with detachable magazines, what does that do to his business? Right. You know? Yep. So. Yeah. Not, be involved. Don't, don't, don't be a sheep. Don't be sleeping. Right. Be involved. Like I said, I'll throw the link up on our page, on our, on the show notes and just click. It says email senators. Now you click on that and boom, you'll email like 20 Democrats. Ha, ha, ha.

Well hopefully it it emails all of them jam yeah you know what i mean not just 20 well the like the sponsors and the ones that are voting yes yeah yeah all right what's next.

Our holiday party is this friday the 17th party oh yeah i'm excited you guys know why i'm excited because there's barbecue barbecue i thought because there was gonna be alcohol frank's coming in i don't really drink maybe i would though here well that's good because there's not gonna be any alcohol i know where to find it still a work day right it is still a work day dave yeah it's gonna come in a little bit early on friday you know and it'll be fun to see

everybody have everybody in one space celebrate break some bread together all that kind of stuff you know we're gonna give out yeah give out the awards for the calendars and i think i mentioned This year's calendar, I think, is the best ever, and I have no idea why, because every year you're like, oh, those are great photos. Those are great photos. So yeah, we've got, we added a couple categories, or actually Anne took it upon herself and added some categories.

So give out a little bit more money for the calendars. You know what's great, Jim? I've been on the phone with several drivers over the past couple of days. I'm like, all right, well, we'll talk to you later. See ya. And they're like, yeah, I'll see you Friday. Right. And I'm like, that's right. Yeah. Cool. Big country couldn't wait to see when I was chatting with him about his weight loss journey yesterday. He's like, I can't wait for that party Friday. Did the bulkers,

did any bulkers make it in the calendar? I was like, I can't give it away, man. I have the list in front of me right now, right now. And to answer your question, I don't know. I'm not spilling the beans. Right. Yeah, I'm not spilling the beans. It's like, I don't know. How many good pictures did you take and send in? Exactly. Right? Exactly. You know, that's the thing. We need, we need some great photos. And I encourage the shop, the wash bay, the mechanics.

Yeah, we've won. I mean, even the safety guys. I mean, we included every picture that got Santana. If we get a photo, it's worthy. Yep. And we put it on the table. And didn't Dustin Jr. Get in there before he was a driver? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we're excited. If I sent in a picture of the old black 009, Dave, if it's picture worthy, Dave, we'd have to look at it. I got a lot of pictures of 009, Jim. I got a good picture of the road, Rebel Road 30. I'll send that in.

You know, you know what we could do though, because Ann could make it from a black truck to a red truck. We did that to some of those blue trucks, didn't we? Right. The Warner trucks. Yep. They all turned red at the end. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So looking forward to seeing everybody and, you know, obviously we're going to talk about 2025 and what's new and coming up and we've got some exciting changes going to happen. And, you know, we've been talking about it.

The building's going to be, you know, break ground next year and all that stuff. So that should make next year's calendar. Yes. Yeah. Some, some of the pictures there. Yes. Yep. Yeah. We're, we're, we're excited. I mean, it's, it's just good stuff and it's all, it's all due to you guys. You know, we call it the Christmas party or we've, you know, the annual party, but it's just a thank you to you guys. I don't, you know, you don't have to be Christmas orientated.

It's just, it's just a thank you. We want, we want to see. Yeah. the holiday, end of the year, all that kind of stuff. End of the year, beginning of this year. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Just a chance to see everybody and discuss what's going on for 2025. Yep. Yep. We also have a Martin Luther King Jr. Day coming up this Monday, the 20th. So good day to remember him and also remember your pay will be delayed. Yes. Until Tuesday. It's a bank holiday.

And then Silent Warrior Luncheon is scheduled in February. If you haven't heard about that, we recognize some drivers here that do an outstanding job and they do it quietly. So that's always a good time there. That's an exciting jam. And I don't know if it's the final count because we go through and we kind of scrutinize everybody and make sure everybody's met the criteria. But the last time I looked or when Ann sent it out, I think there was 35 new Warriors.

I don't know if that list will hold, but it was a bunch. We'll have to go through it. Not sure. We got to go through it. I've got some names highlighted on that list, unfortunately. But that's what makes it so special if you make that list. Right. Criteria is a bitch. Yeah. Yeah. I think the original list is like people that just haven't had an accident. Yes. And then we start whittling down from there. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

And then uh last but certainly not least i got written down brother dave asked me what what does this mean yeah couriers are slinging gscs well that means dustin courier and his family are slinging or selling oh girl scout cookies so keep your ears open for the announcement of when they'll be at the yard awesome awesome, Speaking of wake loss, that doesn't help. Right. They got the gluten-free, sugar-free Girl Scouts cookies.

What good are those? I don't know. I've never had one. Kidding me, gluten's all that's holding me together. That's awesome. Safety topic of the week. Use your tailgate to put things in and take things out of your trailer. Do not climb the ladder with these items.

So we just recently had another person fall off the ladder of his trailer. Part of the problem was he was trying to take, he went into his trailer doing a good job, sprayed it with some release agent, but he was trying to get out of the trailer with the bottle of release agent. Spray bottle. Yeah, with the spray bottle, which caused some difficulties. This friend ended up getting caught and he took a little spill.

Luckily, this driver was back to work the same day with no restrictions, but a little bit scary in the beginning hit his head so yeah that tailgate you pop your tailgate open you are able to put things in and out or call somebody to hand it up to you once you climb in your trailer you cannot have a three point of contact with one thing in your hand because when you're not using your other hand that leaves you with two points of contacts your feet and

it's a very easy way to lose your balance climbing down a ladder and and and please you guys i mean we're more concerned about you but don't just drop the the sprayer or your shovel or your broom from standing you know inside the trailer drop it to the ground it just breaks the shit so don't throw it in either don't throw the backpives you know i i guess that's okay because it cuts about four feet off the drop right yeah and you know and i have to emphasize be very careful

when you're putting it in out of the trailer yeah you don't with your hands well with what you have if you have something blocking the gate open and you accidentally put a little pressure and and open the gate you know and you weren't positioned to hold the gate open it's a pinch point yeah yeah so i you know.

Heck it's it's almost like pick a buddy it should almost be the buddy system hey i'm gonna i'm gonna spray my trainer can you give me a hand and i'll give you a hand with yours or whatever the case may be i mean it's it yeah the slip and falls are about out of control yeah it was like and another one. Right. Hey, what was funny though is, so this is the first time I've been inside an aviation, It's actually a pretty nice office. Like the inside, I don't know.

I just figured it's part of Sap Brothers. It's just like some little- That is so funny. It's on the same street, that's it. So I just figured it'd be like kind of dirty, a little smelly, you know. Sell some fried chicken. You know, some that's here, here, there, you know what I mean? But it's actually a really nice office.

And you know we pull up and as i pull up i see these two guys you know and they're like you know it looks like they're talking smack a little bit and then the driver that was injured he's like does that guy have a jfw hat on and i look i'm like sure does look like one and it was one of the camouflage ones anyway we get inside and he's got a pair of brandon overalls on you know and i don't know who the guy he was talking to but you know finally like we keep making eye contact because

you know i'm like hey i like your hat he's like yeah so do i and i was like hey i'm jam by the way and yeah the one guy goes way back to owens brothers he said oh wow he's like i know janet and yeah i forget i forget their names but funny but it's pretty cool that they were you know supporting jfw you know with some swag yeah just they're like yeah we've seen you pull up and we were pointing at you and i'm thinking like yeah i thought we were going to fight,

so that's awesome but anyway yeah aviation is nice not fried chicken not that you would want to go there yeah it's not a place you want to find out yes yes. But i was just so funny i thought it was like sap brothers, Where are we sending our poor people? Now I could be like, hey. This really nice place apparently next to Sap Brothers. If they make it out of there, we'll pay their claim. There you go. It's actually a little kiosk in Sap Brothers. Yeah.

You just go to the fuel desk. What's your injury? Check in at the fuel desk. You get a free shower if you're injured. All right, soup.

Jam's got jokes today man i felt a little off all morning i'm glad my sense of humor is still here, jeez soup you want to hit us with that high road on all righty i'll do no joking day so this is definitely on the serious side uh-oh but it it is really really good i i been thinking about this high road for a few weeks and you know you pull up something on your computer and you leave it open so every time you're like looking at paycom

or something there's this tab that's open and you're like oh shoot you know i gotta get busy with that but um is it about the broncos no there is a football quote at the end though oh really yeah been somebody no, so i think everybody has heard of this quote but it's just great anyway teamwork makes the DreamWork by John C. Maxwell in one of his books. And he's one of the motivational speakers and authors

that we use a lot with our Together program that we sat down and read his books. He's just outstanding. Here at JFW Trucking, we say together we can, and together we are JFW. After all, there is no I in team, and together we can get it done. As a country, the United States has a history of coming together to achieve a goal. At our very beginning, the colonies without money or centralized military came together and whipped the mightiest military on the planet, that would be the British.

When we were drawn into World War II, we fought two wars at the same time, one in the Pacific and one in Europe. The only reason we came out on top is everyone came together to fight. The servicemen on the front lines and the people at home. People had to ration everything from food to fuel. Housewives went to work in the factories because their men were off to war. People collected metal, rubber, paper, even kitchen waste to help the effort.

Civilian operations like the USO set up at train stations and ports, staffed by volunteers to hand out coffee, donuts, and sandwiches to the troops that were in transit headed overseas. Anything anyone could do to possibly help. The United States was the ultimate team. A team is a group of individuals working together who collaborate on tasks to achieve their common goal. Creating an environment where teamwork can thrive is the key to a great team.

During World War II, there was a threat to the free world and the American way of life, but that threat was on a global scale. Here at JFW, our team is much smaller and not focused on the deadliest conflict in human history. Our focus is on the collaboration of our teammates to be the best truckers in the business. Now, this is a broad statement, right? No, not really. When you get up in the morning, do you sit on your bedside and say, I think I'll suck today?

No. Every person, every day, when they start their day, they look forward to having a winning day. Even when an individual doesn't have such a fine day, who picks them up, dusts them off, and pats them on the butt and says, get back in there? Their teammates do. There was no I in team. We can only be our best by working together, by seeing, understanding, and then acting. As you know, I like to call that being an everyday leader.

And anyone can be a great everyday leader to help their team. Think contribution. How can I contribute to the situation in a positive way? Also, communication. No team can work without communication. Positive communication. How we can, not how we can't. Effective teamwork is essential to personal and professional success. We can achieve better problem-solving, opportunities for growth, and innovation.

Also, happy people, a better work environment, higher productivity, which means higher earnings, and allows us to work smarter, not harder. Life is impossible alone. We need each other. In a culture where hustling is the expectation and ego often takes over, let's challenge each other to prioritize the we over me. This doesn't mean we have to set aside our own dreams. In fact, it's often the opposite. By embracing the power of teamwork, we can achieve even bigger dreams together.

And the quote this week by Coach Bill Cowher, he once said, your strengths get you to the playoffs, your weaknesses get you eliminated. Oh, Ooh, boom. There you go. I think teamwork is so important and we talk about teamwork a lot. It makes everything easier, better, and a whole heck of a lot more fun. Absolutely, Super Dave. It's so crazy, Dave, when they go back and compare things to World War II and what America took on and turned the tide of that war.

They're still making movies about. They're still telling stories about. They're still, and that was 85 years ago. And it's still being. Never been done before. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, it's unimaginable. It's for me, it is. And as I've gotten older, the appreciation for those that sacrificed for us, it's just unimaginable to me. I am so thankful and grateful to those human beings that sacrificed. It's just, it blows me away. I'm so grateful.

Yeah, I want to, because I've seen it advertised again, Dave, and I watched it a long time ago, but talking about the sacrifices, I think one of the best movies to, that takes you on the journey, it's called Taking Chance. And I, I beg everybody to watch that movie. You need to watch that movie one time just to get the realization of what the, the, the men and women give up, you know, to, to fight in the service or what they, what they sign on for and what the families go through.

And it's just, it is a phenomenal movie to watch. It's, it's great. So yeah, people. Kevin Bacon does a great job in that. Yeah, yeah, but they got some good actors in it too, Dave. Yeah, there's just other people. I'll tell you what, if you don't shed a tear in them. Oh my God, yeah, I love that. I don't know what your heart is, but I don't think it's beaten inside your body. Nope. I don't care how big, bad, tough you are. Yep, yeah. It's a great. It gives you goosebumps.

Yeah. You know, that's absolutely. Final thoughts, guys? What is it, the thing with Kevin Bacon, the seven something, this. How we're all related, Dave. Yeah, seventh degree or something like that. Yeah, Kevin Bacon gets you back to knowing Kevin Bacon. Yeah. Yeah. Because it is funny how many people you know or you run into somebody in the relationship you have with them. You're like, oh my gosh, I guess we all are somewhat related. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy.

I'll have to watch that movie though, Jim. I wrote it down, Taking Chance. Taking Chance, Dave. It's, yeah, grab your Kleenex box, buddy. I cried pretty easy, Jim. But it's so realistic. I mean, it is, what a journey. It is. It's wonderful, Dave. Let me see if it's on Netflix. You and Jackie will enjoy it. I would hope it is, Jim. Yeah, I don't, I don't know that. Could you, I haven't looked at it. Amazon Prime or. Yeah.

And it's not, it's not a new movie. No, no, no, no. I mean, it's been out probably 10 years. 10 years, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the, yeah, the realism of it is amazing. So. Netflix, got it. Amazon Prime, got it. Apple TV, got it. But it probably won't be on any of those now that I brag about it. You better watch it this weekend. Get it? So I'm going to go, I wanted to watch it. Evermount, got it. Couldn't find it or it cost $19 to watch. Yeah. You know, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

My final thought, Jam, is just always looking for things to reach people, you know, reach myself, you know, the high road hauling. We've got some stuff for the Christmas party or the, you know, our party to go over. And we talk about different stuff. We talk about being sheep and we talk about being, you know, wolves and, you know, just all the different stuff. And, and this one guy I found, he was going over stuff and he asked the question, do you want to be a thermometer or a thermostat?

And I'm like, what the hell is that? A thermometer or a thermostat? You know what? Now what? You know, and listen to the deal. And I'm like, oh my God, this guy is absolutely right. What a, what a, a parody, I guess, is if that's the proper word of it. But, so the thermometer tells you the temperature of the room. We've all walked up to the thermometer and looked, oh, it's, you know, 70 degrees in here, 69 degrees in here. But the thermostat sets the temperature of the room.

So do you want to just be the temperature of the room? Or when you walk in a room, do you want to set the temperature of the room? And I challenge you guys, everybody there to be, you know, to be a thermostat. You want to set the temperature of the room that like, you know. Tony gave that shout out to that group of guys that have helped him and made that trip and they're setting the temperature.

They're setting the temperature. Every one of them is a thermostat. They're just not the, they're just not the temperature of the room and that's makes a big difference. I just, I don't know, just a really different way to look at things again. And I liked it. So I like that. Yeah. I challenge everybody to be a thermostat, not, not a thermometer.

I have a very similar one, Jim, and you can tell we've been working on some leadership stuff because i was going to read erica's wolf and sheep yeah yeah analogy because it's a it's great it's a good business leader thing but i have an analogy that's very similar to yours and i'm just going to go off the top of my head and it was this woman and we had talked about this before but her daughter had gotten a job and she kept coming home and and jim has talked about this on the podcast it was

one of his closing thoughts about bringing home feathers or bringing home books and bricks sorry bricks and and feathers you know what's weighing you down and stuff and the reason i say this is more of an analogy or similar to what you just explained about being the thermostat or being the temperature in the room this is kind of the same thing and the mom takes the daughter over because she started this new job like i say very very

similar to the feathers and and brick story but she's always complaining about you know this at the job and that at the job and she's like listen everybody faces things in a different way and And she's like, no, they don't. We're all faced with the same thing. And she goes, well, let me show you how different people react. And she put three pots of boiling water on the stove. And she put a potato in one, an egg in the other, and coffee beans in the third one.

And she let them all cook for 20 minutes. And she took a sifter and pulled the potato out. And she says, okay, the potato faced something hard to overcome. And it just fell apart. It just mushed. It's done. Right? She took the egg out. And the egg had gotten hardened. But it still failed. It didn't do anything. You know what I mean? It was still, you could still crack it and break it. and it was done.

And then she took the coffee beans out and the coffee beans didn't really change much, but what they did was change the water. It took and made this aromatic. Beautiful, great tasting cup of coffee, right? So the beans themselves didn't have to change. They changed like what Jim's saying, the room, right? So a good way to look at things, You know, do you, do you just want to go along, right? Or do you don't want to, do you want to change the circumstances?

So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can do, I mean, yeah, that's what we do such great analogies. There's so much, if you just slow down, stop and think of a few, you know, like you're saying, the hot water was the same 20 minutes, same hot water, same thing. It was water. You know, look at, look at chaining the truck up, you know, all the, it's snowing, you need to chain, you know, you got four of them you need to put on.

Somehow, you know, it's all the same, but you know, are you going to change and make the, you know, make the water wonderful coffee or are you just going to fall to mush? Oh, I can't do, I can't even do this run because I don't want to change, change. I don't want, or I can't change. And all you got to do is learn. Human beings, it's proof, human beings thrive when they're faced with change. Yep. It's the only way to thrive. Or challenge. Or challenge or change. Yep.

Yeah, because Erica's story about the wolves and the sheep, you need them both, but you have to have a little of each to help each other and make society work. Do you want to start a wolf debate? A wolf debate? Yeah. To have only wolves, Jam? No, the Colorado wolf debate. Oh, yeah, my gosh. They just released them this weekend in time for calving season? No, I didn't see that. Yeah, they just captured a bunch in Canada and brought them down. Well, I saw they were looking for them in Canada.

They did an undisclosed shipment because there's so much controversy about it, and they haven't let anyone know where they released them in Western Colorado. I thought they released them in Westminster, not Western Colorado. I wish we could shoot them here. Be like, there's a rabid dog out there. It's a big sumbitch. Get your gun. Yeah, that whole thing is a debacle. Yeah. Well, my final thought is let's just be engaged. I think that's one thing we're going to be really focusing on this year.

I think if we're engaged, everything else will follow suit. If we're engaged with the safety program, we'll be safe there. If we're engaged with, you know, being better and giving 100%, we can only grow. So just be engaged, be intentional. It'd be my final thought for the day. Also, Super Dave, did you have anything?

Teamwork makes the dream work. Amen. There you go. Don't forget to like and subscribe to the Channel 23 podcast. Hit that follow button. Also, don't forget to go back and listen to episode 72 to help find Amber's mom. Links to her story will be in today's show notes as well. Say the creed and get on out. Sounds great. Together we face and overcome all that stand before us. Together we are excited and free. Together we joyfully create honest value for those we serve.

Together we celebrate our differences and respect those with whom we work together we are accountable for our words and our actions together we are the jfw family all right everybody we'll see you all friday at the party yeah great week everybody yeah be safe. Music. Or two, three, anybody got a copy?