Episode 186 - Unlocking Secrets, Army Truckin & Downhill Thrills with Marcus Lopez.

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. Good morning, Jim White, Brother Dave White, and Super Dave Weldon. Hi, everybody. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, everybody. It's nice to have Jim, Super Dave here, because they were not going to be here this morning, and now they are. Yeah, we had to cancel our guests. JR was ready to fill in and we had to cancel him at the last second. JR, you're out.

Sorry, JR. I wondered if we just set up the extra microphone for him and have him here anyway. We asked last night and he didn't seem to be, I told him I'd share a chair or whatever. Yeah. He'll be on again. Yeah. As a regular co-host. Our backup. Yeah. All right. I think Brother Dave, you're smelling pretty froggy this morning and patriotic as usual. I say you kick off the pledge. Always. Absolutely. Let's do it.

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. And that is good. This is so good. Before we get into the truck of prayer, I want you to keep two people in mind.

The first person is Dwayne Sand He is in the hospital right now Going through a tough time But I'll tell you what about Dwayne He is tough as nails He's been through a lot of stuff And I've never heard Dwayne complain, Not a single time Absolutely About anything except somebody driving his truck And leaving it dirty. No, he just usually fills you in, doesn't he, Jim? Never complain, you know What's going on, Dwayne? He's got this or that Yeah, just, hey, this is what's going on and just text

him back and forth with his wife yesterday. I mentioned, wow, you know, I've never heard Dwayne complain, and she says he never has and he never will. Wow. Boy, he doesn't even complain to her, because a lot of times he won't complain to us or outsiders, but at home, yeah. But the wife or the husband will get the brunt of it, yeah. Yep. And then the other person we need to keep in our prayers is John Currier. That's Dustin Currier's dad.

He was scheduled to have a surgery in July where they are going to drain and put a coil over his brain aneurysm. So not sure what that looks like, but it looks like they got a plan and, Yeah, anything to do with the brain, but you see those shows or you hear about it where they just do this like a car accident where you get that hematoma and you get all that pressure on the brain and they have to drain that. That just sounds brutal.

Yeah. Yeah. I had a buddy, he had to have a skull flap where they cut a section of his skull off. Sometimes I'll put it in people's abdomens to keep it fresh and good. Other times I'll put it in a freezer or something. Wow. You were talking about the part of the skull. Yeah. Yeah. They can't take part of the brain. But there's a show on, I believe it's Netflix or maybe it's Prime, but it's Neurosurgery Hospital in New York City. And they do all sorts of crazy brain surgeries. It's just wild.

I mean, it must not be that difficult because they did it on Yellowstone. I don't mean to dumb that down. That was just a joke. We got to have a sense of humor. But the, but the start of that, that was literally the start of that kind of stuff, you know, from the, from the war and all that kind of stuff and trying to take care of that. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Medicine is pretty amazing. Right. It's also, yeah.

It does a lot of BS with it. Right. And you gotta be able to advocate for yourself, but the things that are possible with medicine are amazing. Yeah. It's just how. Sorry, Jim. There's two different versions of medicine though. I mean, we're talking about like, you know, repair, like from an accident, right? That's surgery to me. Right. You know what I mean? Medicine where they're treating symptoms and things like that. Oh my God, do you have to be an advocate for yourself? Cause there's,

there's a lot of bad stuff out there that. Absolutely. Yeah. I was just thinking that what we've learned are modern medicine, the atrocities that we've pulled things out of is, is where I was going with the comment, like war, like we learned, you know, the, the bombing of, of Japan, all the radiation, they've got so much research. That's the reason we radiate things now because of that. And I mean, it just, you know, that's what saved my eye. Yeah.

Yeah. A radiation plaque. Right. And you, you think of the atrocities that, that Hitler did and the science that came out of all of that. There's just, there's just some crazy stuff. Yeah. Yeah, the little bit of good that came out of that, I still don't think was worth the bad thing that was caused. How many lives do you have to save to make up for that? Right, Jim? Yeah, you're spot on. I mean, they talk about the wild dogs right now that are living in Chernobyl.

I read it out there for years and years, and they're like these super dogs. Yeah, they have different chromosomes and genetics. Yeah, they're like thriving. Interesting. They were pretty much just pets that were left behind is what the article I read. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Wow. Because people had to evacuate quickly. Oh, yeah. They were. I mean, that whole city is vacant. It's crazy. And you know, I looked at, when I read the article, I looked it up on Google Maps.

Chernobyl is, I want to say, within 50 miles of Kiev or Kiev, Ukraine. Wow. Chernobyl's in Ukraine. Wow. Yeah. But the wind, I guess, the radiation went towards Belarus and Finland and Sweden. It went north interesting west I guess I'm assuming Putin doesn't want that part back. I think he does well guys it took us four minutes to get off into the weeds nice we're off so we do the prayer I love it it's so awesome you think we do the prayer we should.

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 in a row today we pray for patience and in making good, safe decisions. We pray to be accident-free, and that we all make it back to the comfort 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. The other thing I wanted to mention about Dwayne, he's not really looking at his phone right now, but if you have his number and you're his buddy or you just have his number, man, send him a get well soon text. I mean, I think it would be great when he does come out of this that his phone's just been blown up by all the people that love him.

Yeah, I think there's that, you know, for Dwayne and not to interrupt, but I know I want to mention, and Dave's talked to him, but Stingray's going through it. You got Dwayne going through it, you know, and some of these guys want their privacy, but also, I mean, I like to invade people's privacies when it comes to this, because you're going through a tough time. Potter, yeah, he's injured with the softball. And, you know, just to mention, and a text, they don't even have to answer back,

but just a text, that's not an invasion. That's just a, you know, we're thinking of you kind of thing. So yeah, and definitely prayers to these guys. Absolutely. As a reminder, anything you hear on today's podcast is not the opinion of our employer, JFW. Who is the employer? It was just our super powerful. We were sitting right here. Thank you, Dave. I love our disclaimer. You got no opinions, Dave. It's just our express opinion.

Episode 185 had 275 downloads. We were at 96.2 thousand downloads, and we held steady at 762 followers. Nice. That is fantastic. Well, it's time for the dad joke challenge and I'm not able to trick you on this one. I need to actually look at my library. So somebody wants to get started. Do you guys want to hear a joke about paper? Absolutely. It's terrible. That's good. There you go. Yeah. Have we done that one? I just know it. Yeah. Yeah. I'll get it.

It's terrible. About paper? Yeah. You want to hear a joke about pizza? Sure. Nevermind. It's cheesy. You want to hear a joke about paper? Never mind. That's terrible. That's terrible. That's what dad jokes are supposed to be. Oh my gosh. That's funny. Well, shocker, but I have some political jokes. I hope they'll take a long time. All about Congress. Yeah, I can drag them out a little bit. I have more than one. Are they terrible? They're awful.

Yes, yes. So the opposite of pro is con. So the opposite of progress is Congress. Oh, I like that. That's a good one, I think. How many congressmen does it take to change a light bulb? Isn't there like 450 of them? It only takes two, one to change the bulb and one to change it back again. Do you guys know the secret to making Congress more efficient? No. It's to replace all the people with horses. Sure, every vote would end in nays, but hey, at least the housing market would be stable.

Oh my gosh. Do you guys know what the difference is between death and taxes? They're both guaranteed. Don't know the difference. Freedom? Well, I mean, you are kind of spot on, Jam, but what they have here is Congress doesn't meet every year to make death worse. Wow. This one's kind of funny. So Republicans and Democrats came together in Congress to allow medicinal marijuana for the purpose of relieving arthritis pain. So let me get this straight.

There's joint support for joints for joint support. Did you guys know I had a brother two years ago that ran for Congress? Yeah. Do you know what he does now? No. Nothing. He got elected. Oh, damn. All right. Did you find a joke, Jim? I did. Okay. You better save me. So I got a what's the difference joke since you're doing what's the difference. Oh, nice. Yeah. What's the difference between the black eyed peas and chickpeas?

Oh, one has green edibles and the other one has Fergie in it or something. I don't know. You're on the marijuana thing. Black eyed peas can sing us a song chickpeas can hummus one oh hummus i like hummus, there is there's what i'm gonna go off of the weeds because i know hummus and hummus it's two different things but there's a lot of flavors of hummus there is hummus is like a weird thing to me. Chickpea mush. Yeah. With flavors.

I'm not a big, I mean, I like it. I just, it's not something I buy regularly. Yeah. Just some just really, I mean, it kind of like potato chip dip. I mean, that's what it is, but you just, it's got so many different flavors. We have it with these pita chips that Jackie gets. It's pretty good. Yeah. It's good. No, I like it. Mediterranean cuisine. Yeah. Or snack. So you want to go Jim or you want me to hit it up here. Dave. I've already went. It's terrible. Where did you go?

I guess I was searching for a joke on my phone. I had you turned out. That's terrible. Hey, Dave. It is terrible. You go ahead and go. I'll go. So what kind of music do bubbles hate? Pop. Bublé's. You're right. You're right. Pop music. All right. What do solicitors wear to work?

Oh. Signs. Lawsuits. And why can't a toe be 12 inches long it would be my foot and then it would be your foot yeah guys are on it you're sharp sharp a lot sharper than me so that's it all right i keep reading i got a whole list over there no let's go to the new employees none not not applicable this week But to make up for that, we have a lot of celebrations. That's awesome. Happy 30th wedding anniversary to Jim and Holly. Their wedding anniversary was yesterday.

And happy 39th wedding anniversary for Esty and Jackie. And that's coming up this weekend. Yeah. Congratulations. Yeah. Congratulations. Yep. Thank you. Yep. And Holly, I know you'll listen to this next week, I think. So thank you for a wonderful 30 years. Oh man. That's beautiful. Anniversaries, work anniversaries that is. Hugh Lee, he hits three years on this Friday the 20th. Right on Hugh. Yeah, way to go Hugh. Birthdays, Angel Hernandez, he has a birthday this Saturday,

the 21st. Happy birthday. And then family birthday celebration. We got Rudy Ovale's wife, Jacqueline, has a birthday today. And then Angus Gordon, which is Andre's son and Axel's brother, has a birthday tomorrow. Happy birthday. Shout outs. I want to give a shout out to Luis Cantino, Tinoco. He had a clean level one the other day. Oh, fantastic. You got to get that man paid. Yeah, congratulations. Who should he come see for the cash? I don't know. He usually ends up on my

desk sooner or later. I haven't seen anything. I thought we actually were having him turn him in. Well, I have it. Oh, okay. Yeah. I put it into his file and sent it off and... Nice. That's what we're doing now, I guess, is making the arrangements for the money. Nice. Andrew Berger wants to give a shout out to Shady Sadie. He didn't know who drove his truck, but she drove it last Thursday, and she rinsed his floor mats off at the end of the day. Very cool. Awesome.

I want to give a shout out to the whole safety team, plus Coleman, plus OCL. We had a little bit of a pee gravel problem over at Wilbur Vault yesterday.

And it was amazing i mean the the problem wasn't amazing but the fix i mean there was so many like if you take one shovel of pea gravel it's like nothing's really happening but when you got five, shovels all going at the same time it was just like i explained that it was like a, school of piranhas attacking a piece of meat getting it down to the bone it was like next thing you know the job was done i'll tell you what i'll take a spill at wilbur vault. Over a spill, a grain spill, any day.

I was going to tell you, Jim, that is the ideal spill location when you have that volume of people. Yes, and they're just shoveling it. Yeah, like you've got a square shovel. It's on concrete. It doesn't hit anything. You only have to shovel it over a two-and-a-half-foot-tall wall. You know what I mean? It is the ideal place to make a mess and clean up. Yeah, not into an agent. Which sucks still. Don't get me wrong. I'm just saying.

None the rest. nonetheless the teamwork was it was fun but it is amazing how much you can really move with a group of people yes right and that's that's the thing when you attack it you're just like wow we're done what do they say super dave many hands make easy work is that that is yeah that is the saying yeah yeah yeah hey just a little thing about that though unless you're gonna say it no heavy loads into wilbur vault they the ben can't hold yeah the bin yeah 30 tons i was No salaries.

No surprise you got that into the bin. I think the picture made it look.

Worse well i think shoveling it you can do it dave because they filled every little corner yeah and humped up yeah and they were using it as we were doing it you know so they're drawing it out thank goodness that's yeah i lucked out now the sand you know because ocel had a fat one too but it went in the bin i mean there was a little bit of shoveling just probably normal for where we were at yeah sure clean up yeah but yeah i try to keep it i think i think the guys that ran

it over there, it was like Casey and J.R. And Kendrick and they were like, you know, 27, 28 tons max over here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but if you got to get on the interstate to get there, nothing over 80, nothing over 80,000, right? Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. Did we tell you, Jam, that when we first picked that contract up and man, that's been a while then, cause it was, it was Bill Schell in that group. Oh my God, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, we hauled road base in there and that was the order.

Wasn't, wasn't our screw up. It was supposed to be like pea gravel and somehow it came across a road base. We dumped a whole load of road base in that bin. And then, so we had to go inside with the, with our, our backhoe and they ran it through the plant and loaded the backhoe bucket. We brought the backhoe bucket back out and dumped it in a trailer. Oh my gosh. So we hauled the whole load off. Very, very first time we hauled that. Eight hours of work.

I, it was a little less than that, but it was a pain in the ass, Jam, filling the bucket of the backhoe and driving it back out and loading the truck. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Crazy. We've screwed up there a few times. Right. It's got a reputation. One thing's for sure, when you go to dump your load and all you get is a tiny little pile on top of the curb that you can just scoot in with. Yeah, that's the book. You're like, man, that was perfect. What a perfect dump. I'm a good driver.

And shout out to OCL too, because he was behind Coleman. You know, we got Coleman cleaned up. He left and then OCL had a, you know, back in there and do everything with, you know, four safety supervisors standing there watching them. And man, he did a great job. Oh, good. Good deal. I want to give a shout out to John Jordan for taking the high road when the loader at his location was being difficult two times in a row.

John Jordan usually doesn't like to put up with those type of things, but he said, Jam, you'd be proud of me. I just sat there and took it and dumped my load and left. Yeah. That's the way to do it. Armando DelVal wants to give a shout out to 0028 Escalante, that would be Enrique, for warning me on the power line at Colorado Springs two weeks ago. And then also shout out to Jimmy V for helping me with my tarp issue.

He stayed with me and connected his tarp plug into mine so that I can close and open my tarp this past weekend. Man, that's awesome. Teamwork there. Yep. Dustin Currier wants to give a shout out to his daughter, Kim Currier, who won a softball championship in Gillette, Wyoming. I asked Dustin, can she strike you out? He said, guaranteed. Nice. That's awesome. I think that's the fourth or fifth championship her team won this year.

They're out there doing it. That's fantastic. That sounds like some college money happening right here pretty soon. They should go into the portal. Yeah. They just had the World Series of Women's Softball College. Yeah. I mean, man, that was, they, I mean, those teams were going at it. I just seen some pilots. Yeah, was Tennessee in at the Vols? Yeah, I think Texas ended up winning it though. Yeah. Yeah. Because as far as I know, that pitcher for the Lady Vols, that's world record fastest.

Yeah, she's, and she's broke her own world record once or twice. Yeah. Was it like 76 or something like that? Uh, damn, I hate to say a number because I don't, I don't know. I think it was. I've seen it. And then they converted, Jam. Yeah, because ML, Major League Baseball, the mound is further away. So they compared it to like, it's like a hundred mile and a half. Yeah, that's exactly it. Cause at the side, the baseball in the distance and then they convert it. It's underhand, isn't it?

Yeah. That's what I thought. Yeah. It's about as awkward as awkward could be. Yeah. I'm going to jump right off in the weeds here. I just saw a comedian and he was talking about, you know, and I'm, well, maybe I shouldn't jump off in the weeds here because it's, yeah. We better skip this part. We'll just keep going on what's next. We could pause. No, it's all good. It's all good. Tell us later. Don't want to offend anybody. So I should probably just skip

it. Well, you probably shouldn't be here if you don't want to offend anyone. Jokes, jokes, jokes, jokes. I heard from Big John, I think, last night. I saw the text this morning. Hello, Jam. I wanted to do a shout-out on the podcast. Thanking all the JFW family members for reaching out to me during my rehab for my knee replacement surgeries. It has really meant a lot to me. Thank you all. Sincerely, Big John. When's he scheduled to come back?

I wondered that myself. Yeah, and I mean, I'm just guessing, but probably a couple weeks. I mean, I thought we talked about that last time. I'll just text him and ask because I know he's doing really well. Okay. Then Fabio says, good morning, Space Jam. I wanted to send some shout outs. First for Fabian in 0092 for stopping and helping me with the tarp of Fort Lupton. And then Greg on Night Course for helping me with Mile High Dairy and the whole preloaded grain.

Then 0070 for helping me with my mud flaps. And then I helped him changing his mud flap. This is the JFW family way to go. I appreciate you guys. It's a good shout out. I like that. It's good stuff. Yeah. Remember the flaps, you guys. That's, we should never lose a flap. I don't know. I was thankful those two helped each other. Yeah. Those two are veterans. Yeah. Neither of them should need nut mud flaps.

I mean, I think some of the veterans, and I'm just kind of sticking up for them, Dave, I think people get caught up in fill-in drivers or new drivers or training drivers. Their stuff gets torn up. Yeah, the trailer or the truck just gets caught. Or they were off that day and somebody else drove. Yeah, that's what I, yeah. As you, I mean, a veteran should never tear a flap and even a new, a new person, you should learn, you just flaps shouldn't come off. Yeah.

Rule number one, set your trailer brake before you bring the trailer down. Yeah. And don't back up too close to that pile before you dump in the first place. Right, David. I mean, that's the hiccup right there, David. I would tell you that's 99%. Driving through the pile. Especially because I think you get in the habit of looking in one mirror and the other, the other mirror is the pile you drive up on.

Mm-hmm. I think that's a. Yeah. Yeah. I also believe just being too close to the pile and building all that pressure on that mud flap, if it doesn't, if the trailer doesn't have enough room fast enough to come forward, it just, yeah, that's a lot of weight. I got one more shout out from Marcus Lopez, 0031. Hey, good morning, Jim. I want to give a shout out to Mike Bortz in 0024. He drove my truck on Saturday and left it better than he found it.

I came in on Monday to clean floor mats and even a brand new seatbelt. Wow, Mike changed his seatbelt for him. I almost threw my arm out when I buckled it because of how freely it moved compared to the old one. Thanks, Mike. Oh, I can see that now. You're used to really pulling on it because it doesn't work right and then just like, whoa. You know what's so cool is Mike Bortz cleaned some floor mats and you could

tell he trains his trainees like that. I was going to say. Yeah, because Sadie did it. Because Shady did the same thing. By the way, her CB handle is Shady.

Oh, nice. instead of Sadie here. Yeah. Isn't it funny how just the smallest... Gesture just means the most yeah you know it just it doesn't have to be a lot oh this is my favorite part of the show does anybody else have any shout outs.

One just popped into my mind with greg right here because we had to deal with the crossing guard yeah at coors shout out and when i saw that video it just warmed my heart because he did everything right he came up to that intersection slowly he stopped for like a long time it wasn't like he just gave it the quick one thousand and then started to go and so he gave it a bit he i mean he was chill he was cool on his stool he started to cross the

railroad tracks and the arms came down still came down yeah yeah but uh you know to show that to coors proves that we're we're doing things right over there right yeah hopefully we'll see it that way a good job great right but it is nice when we look at a video and we're like wow yeah great job we couldn't have done it any.

Better it couldn't have stopped longer yeah that was just awesome yeah yeah and it's so you know another case of that video you know you're just like here you go here's the proof we've we've done there's no question it's not like it's a he said she said that yeah because they definitely reached out yesterday like we want our crossing arm fixed yeah yeah we want it paid for right yes yeah exactly jim yeah that was that was definitely the lead of how they interesting yeah they love

they love to blame yeah never take responsibility they're perfect oh yeah what would it cost to fix the whole side of that trailer yeah yeah right absolutely a lot more than that crossing arm yeah yep yeah and funny you should ask jim yes i do have a shout out awesome i'm glad i asked yeah I want to give a shout out to Sam. Sam White? Yeah, my son, Sam White.

With him being back on the swim team and stuff, he mentioned, you know, we just, I feel like we've been talking a little more than our once a week, just a quick call here or there or whatever, something pops up. And anyway, this was on our Sunday talk. He told us about his practice on Saturday and he said, yeah, we were leaving. And he said, uh, the coach was like, grabbed everybody and says, Hey, I want to have just a quick team meeting.

And Sam was like, Oh, that's, you know, different. We haven't ever done that. And, you know, this is the coach's third season, right? The first year Sam was there was his first year. And there were some changes because the other coach was, you know, had been there so long. I can't remember. I want to say he'd been there like 42 of 46 years or something like that. And anyway, the coach leads off and he's reading this book about, you know, how do we change? How do we become better?

How do we do all this? And he took like a chapter and read an excerpt out of it to the team. And then he had the team break off in groups. And, you know, it's so many things that we've discussed in here. That's about, you know, the coach, we need better results. And he goes, everyone wants to finish the season better. But the last two years they finished eighth in the conference and that's not good enough for them. They want to do better.

And he said, but if we don't change what we're doing and we expect different results, we're. That's just ludicrous, right? I mean, it's, it's crazy. So they break off and they, they, they talk about these things, how they want to hold each other accountable and, you know, how they want to, to, when I say after hours, like if they're at a party on a weekend, you know, in the past, it was like, I don't want to talk about swimming. I'm tired of swimming. I'm sick of swimming.

And the lead up was, no, we want to talk about swimming. This is, this is why we're here along with getting an education what we do it's what we do we need to talk about it you know and i i just i i guess i connected on such a level that like we do hear.

What what the swim team at purdue is trying to do right and i guess i was just really excited about it and so was sam you know and i guess he was he was pretty amped up and and you know they they had a couple people that were seniors that aren't on the team anymore they just graduated that sam said they were kind of baggage as as such as bringing the team down like oh this practice sucked oh that sucked that you know what i mean very negative and sam was like you know basically

he he said our quick meeting was an hour and a half and he goes it was great right it was such positivity such good stuff and he goes i talked to him last night and he said you can feel the energy in the pool. That hour and a half meeting has made a change.

And he said, what they're really excited about is when, cause right now they're, I'm going to say half, what, half team or whatever, because so many kids are gone for the summer, you know, that, that went back home or they have a job or, you know, an internship where they're, they're swimming wherever they're at doing the best they can, but they have an internship or, you know, they can't be there right now.

And so I don't know if they're 50%, 75%, but they're excited for when the new guys show up, not the ones coming back, but the new guys coming in. They're only going to know what we give them. You know, they're not going to have the baggage of the other guys. And he was pretty pumped about that. So, yeah, shout out to you, Sam, for just continuing to grind and try and work and, you know, do the best you can and be the best you can be. So I'm pretty proud of that. Thank you. Love that. Yeah.

What about you there? I do. Awesome. This is, the floor is yours. It's more of a blanket thank you across the board. And the reason I'm making it a blanket one is because as we deal with the pack car product and we have breakdowns and the, you know, the 33 trucks from last year, they have, you know, warranty and stuff like that. But I've just noticed that most everybody, you know, is working together really well to get trucks over to Kenworth, get them to Peterbilt.

You know, the drivers are having to switch trucks for a couple of days. I know, I think Tony's just went down this week and, and had some work done on it. And Chris Beams, I think went in and, you know, the, it's just, it's just kind of nice to see everybody working together and getting this done. And it's a pain in the butt. It shouldn't be part of our business, but it is.

So thanks everybody for, for making it happen. Appreciate the, the patience, getting the trucks over there, you know, putting up somewhat with driving somebody else's truck. And then when you do making it better than when you found it, we have a lot of those that happen in here. So thanks everybody. That's a good one, Jim. I appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. That's a good one.

You know, you guys have been holding your heads high too because we started this journey, well, five years ago to upgrade the fleet because of all the breakdowns and parts that we spent on the older trucks, the Beelman trucks and that. And man, these are, I know they're all under warranty, but oh my gosh, you know, they're spending more time in the shop than the old ones did. Yeah, we look at it, Dave, because you look at the bills and I don't want to get too far off in the weeds.

You know, I guess, what do you think we, if you put a figure on it. Dave, we, we expanded the fleet by 30%, 40, maybe 40%. Five years ago? Five years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Because we, our goal was super Dave, what I'm leading up to is you look at the newer stuff and you look at the parts bills and what we were spending on parts, you're buying new equipments. You expect your part bill to come down, right?

Well, it didn't. Right. Okay. It kind of moved just across the board, but we, we have to step, you have to step back and go, okay, we did a 30% increase in the trucks we were running. So the, so the amount of trucks ate up the discount or, you know, the discount, not the discount, the lowering of the parts bill that I thought we would get, or me and Dave thought we'd get. but now you're so far down the line. Okay. This is the same amount of trucks we're running. We bought 33 of them last year.

So whatever that math turns out in, you know, you're looking at a, at least a 30%, 25% decrease. And then there was, was there a savings on fuel? Are we using less fuel? There was, there was that, that showed up, but now you're, now you're running the same group jam for, for a lot of years. So you're. The, the movements you make in the bills and stuff doesn't show, you know, I mean, we, we, we made this big leap, got all the,

got all the fuel savings jam, just like you said, well, we've had that for four years now. Right. Yeah. What's the next step? Where do you, can we get seven to whatever, you know, that's the reason. It'd be great to lower the tow bill. Yeah. But yeah, there's other stuff we can, we can, we can jump off the cliff and bitch about Pat Carl. I mean, A lot. Yeah. When our tow bill is a line item on our P&L sheet, it's an effing problem. Yeah, right. Yeah.

Yeah. That, yeah, to me, and a lot of times, sometimes they pay for the tow bills, but, you know, all this warranty, we pay to tow them there. Yeah. Could be more than the warranty work. And then you got the downtime and all that. Yeah. It's a snowball of effects, but, you know, I think that's the reason, you know, you guys don't, some people don't see quite the excitement. Excitement like in the bonus program.

And, you know, I know fuel efficiency is driver efficiency, but fuel came with the braking, the anticipation, the following distances, all that. That's our next steps of being better because we can't do it with the equipment anymore. It needs to be a human process. We need to make ourselves better. We just, we can't make the equipment better. It's it's as good as it's going to get. And you know, Jim, I touch on that in every single interview now.

I say, listen, you know, with this safety program, we're going to reduce tire wear. We're going to increase fuel economy. We're hopefully going to reduce accidents. And Jim and Dave or JFW is willing to give those savings back to the drivers. And I mean, it's great. It's, it hits a home run every time I bring it up. Yeah. And it's, I mean, we just, I mean, we, we just finished, we closed out May for the year. So five months.

So we're really close to, you know, obviously half a year, you know, and, uh, you know, there's definitely a wage increase across the board for the drivers. And when we talk to the CPA and it's the same things you mentioned, Dave, it may be a while. well, we, we've, we've outlaid this money monthly in the bonuses, but it could be a year. Yeah. I was like, like the tire super Dave, like I think there will be a tire savings, but we won't see that just like brother Dave said. Sure.

A year and a half maybe because. Because tires wear a long time. Exactly, Dave. So we were getting 90 or a hundred thousand. But when we get a 150, we won't notice it till we get to the 150. Yes. True. And that's, that's the savings. Yep. You know, that's the big difference. Same with breaks. You know, maybe we were doing them at 80,000. Well, we extended them to 110,000. Well, we don't see that till the 110 mark.

It's definitely going to become more critical as we continue to retrieve the data to see where our minimum thresholds are. And we need to be sure that everyone is meeting them. Yeah. That's what's going to be. That's the. That's the game changer. Well, that's the next step of being a team. You know, and that's where the, that's where the, the goals and, and, you know, just like you mentioned with Sam, Dave, that what's, what's, what are we going to do together as a team?

And you, you know, for the swim team, you have these, these outliers in a team, they, they, they, they eliminate themselves. I mean, they just do. We... Eliminate them. We, we, we, we eliminate them jam or they, they eliminate themselves eventually, but there's something we deal with for a longer than, than like a Superbowl team. You know what I mean? If you, if you, if you know what I mean, it's a. I feel like people have more of a chance to improve here. Yeah.

You know, versus if you're on a professional college level sports team and you're not making it, they're not going to jump. Yeah. You're cut. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the. First you're benched. And then you're cut. Yeah. Yeah. There's no, yeah. And it's all due with your performance. Well, that's what Dave's talking about now.

We're, we're to the performance item, you know, and we, I know we, we've parted ways, you know, with some other drivers this year, but you look at their performance on our high road hauling list. You're like, well, you're, you're not helping you and you're not helping us. It doesn't, it doesn't work. So you like it. Yeah. I love the fact that we have a bar. Because we can look at it. You know, before it was like, well, do we know anything about this?

Do we know what's this? What's this? What's this? Now we're like, what's their efficiency? What's their safety score? What are we looking at? Yeah. I mean, it happened yesterday. We had a driver where you, you questioned like, wow, what, what is this guy doing out here? What's his, where, where's the data? And he had pretty good data. So now we kind of could not relax a little bit, but you know, maybe we don't have somebody that's completely unengaged and doesn't care.

It seems like he's doing a good job. We just need to coach him up. Right, right. And that all comes down to the willingness of that individual to improve, right? Are they really just not doing well and they're trying or maybe they're not trying. We need to get them to try harder. But the person that has no will to improve is like, you're done, bud, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. And I think we, we take the, that old story that Mick told us, you know, our life coach there where you, you send somebody out and hey, go mow my lawn. You know, that story, they, they go and mow the lawn and you go back and the lawn was mowed, but oh my God, what a terrible job. Right. It looked like Stevie wonders. I did that once when I was a kid, I was mowing my, my mom and dad's front lawn and I just did like this big design and then I parked it and took off with my buddies.

Did I catch hell that night? Uh. You know, but the, the, the story goes that the, you know, the dad came back and you know, you're like, wow, that's how, how did my son know how the lawn needed to be mowed if I never showed him? Right.

You know, how to, how does, how do, how do they, how does he know what exceptional is, unless you're, you showed, and we've, you know, I told you last week on the podcast and, and Dave's brought it up several times, and I know Jam, you're involved in it too, is who's making these people better?

And it's back to that. They, you can take your son out and show them how to make, how to, you know, truly edge and trim and mow the lawn and, you know, all that kind of stuff, you know, and cleaning the lawnmower at the end, making sure the blades are sharp, bagging all the grass, all the little details, but who's showing people that? Right. You know? Or are they trying to figure it out on their own? You know, cause you have the ones that have the care to figure it out on their

own. And there's the others. I need to clean the mower? Yeah. And I. Need to sharpen the blade? You know what I mean? Like, but I, but I think that's what, and I know Jim, you were going to make a comment. I think that's what we try to eliminate here because we know how long it takes to learn those things.

And that's the, that's the shortcut we offer is here's a truly proven way because, you know, like you're saying, Dave, when I, when I mow my lawn, I'm like, wow, that just doesn't look very good. Or the grass looks like the blades look torn, you know, or, or, you know, it's not cutting. I got a streak in there and like, well, what do I need to do? How do I fix that? Well, my blades are like shit. You know, they're so off. They're leaving, you know, a two inch space between

them underneath the mower. The mower deck's packed with sod. It can't mulch anything as it cuts. Your boat wheels are set at two inches and the pack wheels are set at three inches. Right, Super Dave? But how long does it take you on your own to learn that? Isn't that the fall cut position? That's an inside joke, everybody.

Oh. Dave. Oh. Do you remember what you were going to say, Jim? Yeah. Are you finished? I'm good. Okay. Yeah. So I want to skip to the last item on the discussion because I feel like this all kind of blends in together and then we could go back up to the top of the discussion. but I went to a men's night. I don't know. It's probably three or four weeks ago now at Flatirons Church. I haven't been there in probably 10 years, but anyway, there was a guest speaker there. His name's Jefferson Bethke.

He's not a YouTube pastor. He's an actual pastor, but he's got some things on YouTube, but anyway, he started talking about this Bible verse. I'm going to read it, and then I want to kind of show you how it can convert. Into like the secular world, but The verse is from 2 Timothy 2.4, and it says, No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. Okay? Now, I know we're not soldiers here. Well, we are, but we're not,

right? We're not Roman soldiers. We're not part of the Legion Roman soldiers here. And that's what they're talking about in that verse is these Roman soldiers, they had to make a 20-year commitment to be a Roman soldier. Wow. 20 years, right? And in those 20 years, you couldn't practice husbandry. You'd have to leave your home. You couldn't have another job and all these things to make sure that they're not being less effective as Roman soldiers.

Nothing else in their life. You are a Roman soldier and you are dedicated to that. Obviously, in the scripture, we're dedicated to God and living this life, right? If you believe what I'm talking about, right? I'm not trying to convert anybody here, but if you want to, let me know.

So, you know, so, you know, maybe, you know, on a religious, we'll call it platform, you know, where I see something that I used to do, I may say, you know what, I'm not going to entangue myself in that because that's going to make me less effective as a Christian man, right? But then let's bring it back to what we do here at JFW. What are we doing to make us more effective? And what are we doing that distracts us from being the most effective at work?

For me, I know things that make me more effective, I think, is just my motivation to give my very best and do a good job. Consistency, stuff like that. I would say procrastination. And I was just telling brother Dave earlier, like I'm sleeping really well. Like I sleep through the night every night now, which is great. I just don't do that enough. Like I'm still, I need more sleep to be more effective. And I feel like that's kind of watering me down a little bit.

And it's something I work on. Like I got to fix my sleep. So I ask you, you know, not just the men in this room, but drivers out there, like what can you do to be more effective at work? And what do you think is distracting you from giving your very best here. For me, it pops into my head, Jim, and I think those are different times, but you picture the goal and the Roman soldiers in that verse or what you're talking about, they've eliminated any other distraction.

So what pops in my head right off the bat is life-work balance. There was no balance because that was their life. Yeah, I got to go back and touch on that because I'm a bit of a historian. That's all the Romans did was try to conquer other civilizations. Yeah, but that was the goal, Dave. And they took out all other, you know, you're not having sex, you're not married, you don't have a kid. You don't have, you're just, you got one thing, right?

But I do believe when they were done with that 20 years, they got land. Yes, there was other stuff. They were paid off if they lived. They were kind of like royal. Yeah, they lived. Yeah, they survived. Yeah, go conquering. you know, seven, seven, seven. What does it call the empire? Right. Yeah, the Roman empire. Yeah. That's right. I join when I'm 18. So 38, I'm retired. I get land. And back then you only lived to 35. Right. And the social security kicks in at, oh, wait a minute.

Yeah. So that's the, that's the trigger for that is the, the work-life balance. Yeah. But just because it's, it's so, it is so straightforward to make the goal. And, you know, you think about the, the guy, the sport people that are really good, you know, they've, they've taken so many extra hours to study and, and, you know, hit so many balls, done all that kind of stuff. And I think, I think we're on there when, when Dave talks about the proudness of Sam and that he could relate to it.

That's how I feel JFW is. We're trying really hard, but there's still that portion over here that's the rest of our life right right that you that you yeah you just can't ignore but one thing you can do is we all have and we seem like we have a lot of life going on especially right now right we always say there's a lot of life happens at jfw good and bad.

When you let the things when you get here five in the morning right it's time to focus on work that's that's how i feel yeah people deal with things differently and not everybody has a switch where they could be like oh you know i'm gonna forget about my divorce i'm gonna forget about you know my sick kid or i'm gonna forget about my goals and aspirations outside of work like it's hard to just turn those things off but you got to remember well we're

not a roman soldier but we are we do have a goal here and that's to be safe deliver loads make it home to our families every day. So we need to be focused on that, at least.

When you're here. That switch needs to be switched. A little bit off the subject, but I had a. Discussion with a couple of friends last night and they were talking about stressful jobs or being stressed. And I, I, I challenged them both. I'm like, why are you stressed? What is the stress? And, and they talked about their jobs and I'm like, all I hear is that you care. Right. That's the stress. It's not, it's not what, what's, I mean,

I looked at him, I said, stress for me would be if Holly came down with, with cancer. Right. That, that, that's a stressor, but they're like, oh, I was stressed out at work. I'm like, cause you, cause you care. There's a meme out there. It says easiest way not to be stressed. Quit giving a shit.

And that's what, that's exactly, that's what I told him. I said, at some point, do you just go, I don't give a shit. And, but you care. So then that's a stress. You, you wear that. Right. You know, and the one guy was, you know, well, it's Rick from, that used to be our salesman from MHC. And he was just talking about the safety position he was in. And they said, had a set of wheels come off a Loprino truck. And the state patrolman, he said, most state patrolmans I really like.

And this guy just ripped my ass. Like, do you know how many people you could have killed? You almost killed somebody today. What kind of safety program you got going? And Rick said, that just set on me. He said, that was a stressful day. Sure. And I said, Rick, because you care. Right. You know, none of us want to hurt somebody, but I don't think we concentrate on that sometimes. Right. Like in that case, when you get off of work and you punch out, you got to realize, well, nobody died. Yep.

Yep. I'm good. I'm going to focus on my family now. Right. You know, so there is a way to have that balance and have multiple goals and be effective at everything you do. It's hard. It's hard to be effective at everything, you know, but that is, that is a goal, I would think. Yeah. And the whole work life balance thing, I mean, that is so tough as it is. I mean, we're asking you to work 12 hours a day, you know, five and a half days a week. Half days. Right.

We joke about that. Right. And I mean, a lot of people are like, how do you have balance like that? And there's a lot of positions that you could work in an hour a day and make a fraction of what you're making. There's a lot of that work available, you know, and, and there's, there's work-life balance and there's work-life survival and there's work-life financial and there's work-life, you know, everything. Right. And you just, you got to do the best you can to make it all work.

You got to blend it all together. It depends what you want to. I think it's David Goggins. He, he's like work-life balance. That's for other people. Yeah. Yeah. The one guy, I can't think of his name, but we all talked about him with the ponytail and he's usually in a suit. and somebody said they mentioned work-life balance to him. He's like, fuck that. There's no work-life balance. You work. That's what you do is you work, you know? And I just was having another conversation.

Somebody's taken a new job that I know and they went ahead and took the job and they were like, but it's good benefits and I'm really going to like what I do, but I'm taking a cut in pay. And then they mentioned this overtime to me. And I'm like, so if you get a little bit an overtime? Is it a cut in pay? Oh no. You know, in my mind, because, because this is what I've done all this time. Okay. I get something I like to do.

I am, I am better benefits. Right. And I need to put in a couple more hours to make it the same thing. Right. In my world of like, done, done, perfect. Great. You know, and it was, it was just looked upon at a different, different view. Yeah. That person didn't want to do the overtime. So they're taking a pay cut. Take it a pay cut. Yeah. Yeah. But here's the, here's, here's what's available. Right. But this is what it is. I mean, I think that's, that's in every situation. Yeah.

I think to be effective here, you need to partake in all of our programs. You need to listen to the podcast. You need a good efficiency score. You need a good safety score. You need to be careful, be safe. You need to do all the things that we offer benefits-wise, 401k. If you partake in everything we have to offer, you're going to be effective here. Agreed. All right, moving on to the number one line item here in the discussion.

What is the difference between a lift axle bag and a load bag? I've been thinking about this ever since I saw it on there, Jam. You want to take that for a minute? I will. Was that a question from the audience by chance? Part of the discussion. So I'm going to go with two words, horizontal or vertical. And if I gave you guys those two words, could you answer which bag is which? I mean, I could throw it out there too. Another difference is size, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a size between them, but yeah, Dave, you're, you're vertical and it's, it's easy for me because the vertical bag can only lift things. You can't lift something going horizontal as such, but we're lifting the hack. I was going to say, I just didn't want to interrupt you. That's the same because it's a lift axle, right? Because it's going horizontal.

All things are lifting. Yeah. Yeah. But I guess maybe the load, you can't lift the load as such, Dave, being, you know, horizontal versus, you know. I mean, I'm going to go just so everybody understands what I'm talking about. And this is just my version. We can come up with other versions. We can do whatever. But the load bag, all of our trucks and trailers have them with the exception of, you know, like the super dumps and the rock trailers. Otherwise, I think everything else has airbags.

Your load bag is what is attached to the axle and it's vertical. And what I mean by that is it just goes up and down. It inflates and raises up. It deflates and goes down. The lift axle bag is horizontal, like the horizon, right? So it lays sideways in the lift axle apparatus, I guess you could call it, and it pushes against an arm that lifts the axle, the front lift axle on the trailer. So, you know, that's kind of the difference between a lift axle bag and a load

bag. That's, that's my version. If you guys have a different version that, you know, is easier to understand or something like that, I just, you know, I think one of the things we could ask on the radio is, hey, is that bag vertical? Does it go up and down or does it go, is it horizontal and it goes in and, you know, expands out to the right and to the left or, or up and down? That might be a little better way to ask, I guess. I don't know. Yeah. Does that sound legible? Yeah. Yeah.

Understandable? I mean, the thing, thing is, is what we're asking about is not the bags that are on your truck and trailer. These are bags are only on your trailer. Yeah. That's what we're, that's what we're looking for. Yeah. You know. Yeah. And I would also say that their job is different, right? Their position is different, but the, the, the, Load bags lift the trailer, and the lift axle bags, all they do is lift that front axle of the trailer. Just to lift the axle. That's it, yeah.

Actually, yeah, when they're inflated, they lift the axle up, right? Mm-hmm. That's all right. Yeah, they push it back, yeah. Yep. Cool. All right. Casey asks, please use slower speeds on the Arcosa service road where we load shell. By slowing up, it would help keep the road maintained. And shout out to Casey. He went out there this last Saturday and fixed the road at Arcosa. So he's asking for people to just slow down to make it last longer.

The other thing is bringing that up. When you're loading out of Arcosa for C-Mex, a couple of drivers, we've had, you know, some heavy loads coming out of there.

Talking to the drivers, they all mentioned the rough terrain where they're getting loaded. So they're not able to get accurate readings on their load gauges, you know, And then we have a new loader operator up there who's not used to loading, as Dale was, who's doing it this whole time. Shout out to Marcus, though. I think he's doing a great job. Yeah. Yeah.

The thing is, is your load gauges, no matter how new Marcus is, no matter how uneven the terrain is, when you get out on that freshly fixed road that Casey just made, stop and check your gauges. Right. Right. If you're heavy, just back up and trim right there. Yep. So. Yeah, and we should be able to call. Marcus should be able to back drag and level. When I say level, no bumps or humps, it might be uphill or downhill, which there's a little adjustment there.

You know what I mean? Like you need to set your tractor and, and release the brakes on the trailer. So those airbags are reading correctly because you're, the way they're loading, they're facing uphill and that puts some weight on those bags, some additional weight. My understanding is some of the trucks are kind of like in a V when they're getting loaded. Oh, I hadn't heard that, Jeff. That's kind of interesting. So they're not. Huh.

Guess I'll have to go up there and look. Potentially. Yeah. So. All right, Tracy Halleray wanted to mention with the summer temps being 90s and triple digits by the weekend, make sure we're staying hydrated. Good call, Big Papa. Yep. Sure is. You couldn't tell with the weather last night. Oh. No, for calling for 100 this weekend. Yeah. Cool. 73 yesterday, the hail, the lightning, the thunder. I mean, that thunder yesterday morning, I'm like, man, that's some heavenly

shit right there. It was kind of cool though. Oh, that's what I mean. It's heavenly. It's a rumble and then it's not quite light out and the lightning and yeah, nature is cool. I know it was heavenly sleeping weather last night. I came in like a new man today. There you do. Oh, it's great.

This is for me, seven days notice for all time off requests.

We are at the point now where I just can't do it you know coming out of the winter where we're a little slow and then you know there's a lot of things that make me more flexible about when I approve time off but if you put in there for tomorrow, the answer is no also dispatch could use a break sometimes by them you know you put in sometimes I get a time off request for the same day I mean that's not fair to JFW so you know blackout dates I mean,

you could ask if there was room, but the answer is probably going to be no. And then if you don't give us enough notice, it's not going to work out. And then if you don't give us enough notice and that date's blocked out, I mean, it's pretty much unapproved time off. We understand you are adults. And if you got something that's going to keep you coming from work that's super important to you, we understand you're not going to be here.

But I'm just not going to approve it. So sorry. I hate saying that. I love hitting the approve button. And I love it a little too much where we all got to jump through some hoops to get you off and get you to do what you need to do. But we need some reciprocation here. And that is not directed at any one person. I've talked to about three people this week, so I don't want any of you to feel like that was directed towards you. But that's just the point is you have what you need to do.

Well, Brother Dave has what he needs to do and Jim needs to do this and Super Dave needs to do that. We all have these things, but that's why we have an attendance policy and a PTO program and a time-off request policy. So I hope that seems fair to everybody.

We're also still struggling with dumping in the wrong piles please please please stay focused and pay attention and we'll follow that up into tips and tricks from armando the sergeant del lal but i mean just dumping in the wrong pile is just pure not paying attention yeah it's a dumb move it's not a whole lot to say about it it takes a fraction of a second to double check something like that yeah yeah yeah yeah just i'll tell you about a little experience i had i you know

ran a load of pea gravel the other day down to plant two and i don't know where the pea gravel goes and i get there and there's all sorts of aggregate everywhere and i see a load of parked i think that's load operator you know what i mean so i think he's upstairs and i got out and i walked over to a pile that looked like pea gravel and here comes the load operator and he wasn't mad and he wasn't yelling at me, and he didn't treat me badly.

You know, he was like, hey, if you got pee gravel, we'll go and dump it over here. Great, you know, so, you know. But I bet if I just went and started dumping there without asking, he might've been like, who told you to dump there? Right. Uh, let's see. We already talked about loading out of a Cosa and we've already talked about being effective. Do you guys have anything else you want to discuss? And also have you been thinking about who we want to call this week?

Oh no. I forget about that piece. We've done, we've done really well calling people. Yeah. I meant to ask you guys this morning and it kind of slipped my mind. So let's call Marcus, Marcus Lopez. Okay. He's a prior service guy. Guys down? Yeah. All right. Let's see if he answers. Having technical difficulties. Uh-oh. Oh, here we go. Do we need the do, do, do? Do, do. That's what we do need, yeah. Do, do, do, do. It's ringing. City morgue, you stab and we slapping. Yeah.

What was that one ringy dingy? Hello, may I speak with Marcus Lopez? This is Marcus Lopez. What's up, Marcus Lopez? You are live on the Channel 23 podcast. You have just won a million dollars. Marcus, I know you're listening to the podcast. You know what this is all about. We got some questions for you. Yeah. Cool. How long have you been driving for, Marcus? I've been driving since I was 21, so about seven years now. Okay. And now you were prior service. Thank you for your service, by the way.

I believe army, is that correct? And were you designated into the, whatever they call it over there in army? Were you a driver in the army? Did you drive? Okay. What was I was in the 88 Mike motor transport operators. Okay. Did you drive some pretty cool vehicles? Yeah, we drove these really cool trucks called LHSs and PLSs that have like a big hook arm, kind of like, have you ever seen like the big roll-off dumpsters? Yeah, I know what you saw. They were just like that. It's that we have like

these flatbeds and you strap, you know, anything and everything to those flatbeds. Awesome. My platoon hauled ammo and fuel and parts and supplies and water and everything for you guys. Gotcha. Are you able to turn the radio off? I know we always tell you not to, but can you? How dare you? Have you ever had any... A Marcus dispatch is calling you. Have you had any scary situations driving in the Army? Yeah, there's actually no hours of service regulations in the Army.

So me and my NCO, I guess my superior at the time, he went on a 47-hour mission. Him and I were driving 47 hours straight delivering ammo. And it was pretty intense. You know, and you couldn't even really, as a passenger, you couldn't even really sleep because we're on these crazy bumpy dirt roads. And so you just, you couldn't get any rest at all. So somehow we did it. We survived. And I don't have to do that anymore. That sounds miserable. So these,

you know, 10 to 12 hour days here are pretty easy for you. Oh yeah. Yeah. I've been working long days for a long time. What's your favorite thing about driving, Marcus? You know, I like the skill that it takes. I've had a couple of family members and friends ride along with me and, you know, they don't, they don't realize all that goes into driving a truck. And it's, it's cool to be able to show them that side of it.

Cause you know, as a car on the road, you just, you see a truck and you don't think anything of it. And so I guess I, I admire the skill that it takes, you know, all of us here, you know, we're truck drivers, so we obviously know, but I don't think it's a general sort of thing that the general population knows. So I, I, I, that's what I like about it. There's a lot of heads nodding in here. Marcus, you are spot on. What's your least favorite thing about driving?

Least favorite thing? You know, I don't like when a car gets in front of you and then just kind of, It's on their brakes. Not, not, not, not like not a brake check, but it's kind of get in front of you and slow down. Like, huh? That was kind of unnecessary. Yeah, I agree. I don't, I don't even care. If somebody cuts me off, that doesn't really bother me as long as they keep going and get out of the way. Yeah. The sheep thing. They like get over and then they're not going anywhere.

Yeah. No doubt. What do you, what do you like to do on your free time, Marcus?

I like to downhill mountain bike, which I don't know if you know what that is, but the ski resorts during the summertime you uh you take your bike up the ski list and they have trails that go all the way down through the mountain and it sounds super easy but it's it's a full-body workout you know yeah do you get going pretty good do you bomb down the hill or are you careful, no i bomb down the hill i um yeah i got pretty good i haven't been able to do

it for the last four years since i've been in el paso there's not really you know a ton of mountains there but um, but downhill season actually starts this weekend in winter park so that's where i'm going to be you on sunday nice nice are you uh are you on our insurance policy ah yes i am.

Yeah i got the full face helmet on pads everything so yeah that helps but sure what uh go ahead do you ever ride i call it the dump up in erie yeah colorado there's a there's a downhill bike it's not a well i guess it is a downhill downhill bike trail in erie marcus where's that have you ever yeah i don't know if you can hear that brother dave and jim are asking if you ever did the downhill course in erie it's called the dump no i call it because

it's on the dump it's at the landfill it's at the landfill so brother dave calls it the dump we'll get you the information on that marcus what is your number one thing on your unbucket list so something that you've done that you say i will never do that again.

Um sign a contract for employment yeah you know i you know i did the army and i had i had a this expectation going into it they you know the youtube commercials they they got me you know i'll put it that way and you know i i don't regret it but it just it wasn't what i thought it was going to be it wasn't as fulfilling as i imagined so okay went did it proud that i did it, but I don't think I would do that again. Okay. And were you in for four years?

Yeah. Yeah. I was in four years in El Paso. Gotcha. Well, be proud of what you did, Marcus, even though it wasn't all that you thought it would be. We are super proud that you did that and grateful and thankful and man, great job on this little mini interview. You're very well spoken and we enjoyed what you had to say. Hey, one more thing. Hey Marcus, if you can hear me, it's called the Erie single track trails. Sounds good. Erie single track. Yeah. There's, it looks like there's three of them.

Uh, beginner, intermediate and modified, I guess. Then I'll have one for army. Oh, there is one. Get us to be all you can be. Oh, there you go. Right on Marcus. Have a good safety out there. Thanks for answering. Thanks guys. Have a good day. Thanks Marcus. Hey, look at his connect team picture. That's awesome. That's awesome good stuff so on that bike trail is there like broken baby dolls on the side and.

That's creepy man what are you envisioning that's a dump right it's just on the back of the hill yeah you know what i mean created by the dung yeah those are big hills up there yeah when you go by people people fly you know where me and you and holly stopped the one day after we got done shooting burritos no it's we were we were we turned down steady erie parkway we turned down and went south jam we stopped for something to look at the guns or do something in that

little dirt lot just after we anyway that's where the the bike trails right down from there okay it's between there and and like where you go and shoot okay yeah cool you can get to haul in the mail on it yeah i mean because it i mean you don't really pedal i mean you pedal but it downhill like like Marcus is saying it's downhill. But if he's doing the ski resorts. Yeah. Yeah. It's the same thing. Yeah. We did Breckenridge one year with Sam and a buddy of his, and Jana and I, and it was,

You ride the lift up, don't you? Yeah. Yeah. Dave, it's kind of cool. It was funny. The first time I did it, I had like a bike I've had for 10 years and like these kids load the bike. Right. Right. Like they grab them from you and put them in the, and they're like, they're picking everybody's bike. You laugh. And I get to my bike and it was like, oh, like I can barely pick it up and like drag it in. And I'm like, this thing goes downhill fast because it's so heavy, especially with me on it.

That's hilarious. Hey, guys, guess what's next? What's next? Juneteenth. It's this Thursday. Sweet. What is Juneteenth? Juneteenth is the end of state. It's a holiday. It's a holiday. It's a holiday. It's actually a national holiday now, isn't it? I think they did make it. Biden signed it in two years ago. I'm actually good with that. I like it. Yeah. Yeah, totally. We don't get the day off.

Oh, we don't. It's a government holiday, so yeah. Yeah, so Juneteenth was June 19th in 1865 was the end of slavery. And then the next day is Friday the 20th. What is that? That's the first day of summer. Yes, sir. I felt like the first day of summer was like the one day. Well, I tell you. Felt like summer. Yeah. I'm going to go celebrate that day at Stonehenge. That's what they do every year in England there because all those big blocks are set to shine the light through on the summer solstice.

And I mean, it was a big religious thing 4,000 years ago or whatever. And you're going? Yeah, I think I'm going to go. Yeah. I have to look it up, Dave, because there's a spot in Arizona, and I don't know if it has to do with the solstice or just a certain time, but that the light shines through this monument in Arizona, and it lights up something to do with the service members. Yeah? But it's only at like five o'clock or something like that.

So it's a modern monument. It is, Dave, and it's supposed to be just cool. Got to see it. There's a lot of ancient monuments. Oh, yeah, based on that. Yeah, like pyramids down in Mexico. And some of that stuff gets creepy because they, you know... I'm making it up. It's not creepy, but there's a tunnel in South Dakota where you look through and you can only see Mount Rushmore. They built a tunnel, so when you drive through it, you can only see Mount Rushmore as you're driving through it.

Like Stonehenge, they've never figured out what that was for. They really do believe it was built for religious purposes. Yeah. But I do agree with you, Dave. There are certain things there with the summer solstice and the winter solstice and the shadows and like who placed it and just, yeah. I mean, tons of crazy, crazy stuff. Yeah. The better version of Stonehenge that I like is Carhenge in Nebraska. It's an exact replica out of Cadillacs. You know, back in those ancient times,

there was no TikTok. So what the hell else are you supposed to do? Right? Yeah. Right. Let's bury some big shit. Let's build a pyramid. Right. Make this little hole right at the top. I looked it up right quick here, you guys. So the Anthem Veterans Memorial in Anthem, Arizona, was precisely engineered so that every year on November 11th at 11.11 a.m. Mountain Standard Time, the sun's rays pass through the five marble pillars, each representing a branch of the U.S.

Armed Forces, and perfectly illuminate the Great Seal of the United States. Wow. When did they build that? This is from May of 2025, Dave, and I know it wasn't built this year, but it's, I've just heard about it. And I'm like, every time I'm down there and I don't even know where, where the Anthem Arizona is, but I'm like, but you're not there in November. You know what I mean? But it's just something I think would be so cool to see.

That would be cool. Is that some kind of anniversary of our armed forces or something? I guess I'd have to look all that up. Yeah. Cause it's 11, 11, 11. Dave is AM. But, you know, I know, I know here, but there's a quick photo of the, how it shines through. It's a, it's a little one there, Dave, but anybody want to look it up? So that is cool. Right? Yeah. I mean, I didn't know... The sun would always be in the same location on the same day every year.

I mean, because like the summer solstice and the winter solstice aren't on the same exact day. Changes, yeah. You know, I mean, they're, they're in this window of, of days, but. Don't know. I mean, that's a shocker that that at 11, 11 on the 11th of what day did you say. Yeah, November, Dave. Yeah, I mean. Mountain standard time. Isn't that seem off? Like, how's that possible? I don't know what happens if it's a leap year. Well, if it's a leap year, they still have the 11. Oh, okay.

We got off track. Yep. Getting the weeds again. Never happens here. We should have thistles way up our socks. There you go. It's a little bumpy. You know what the saddest thing about that date, Friday? You mentioned it, Dave, the other day. After that, the days start getting shorter and we're working our way towards winter again. Downhill. Downhill. We were talking to JR this morning and he's like, it's, you know, 5.30 and it feels like 6 a.m. because it's so light out. It's so bright.

Same when you go to bed. I mean, it's like 8.45, 9 o'clock. Yeah. Sun's in the window. The sun is still out. Yep. Yeah. It's a special time of year right now, isn't it? Yeah. I don't start worrying about winter till after hunting. So I'm good with the days getting a little shorter and I was kind of creeping into, you know, the fall. Yeah. Get ready to go home. So. Building up to that, huh, Jim? Yep. Safety topic of the week.

I know I don't have anything written down, but I would like to talk about iLead time. Make sure you are looking plenty of distance ahead, especially for stop traffic. We had an incident this morning where we just about pie holed the car and that would have been a bad one. It was. It wouldn't have been one. Yeah. He was 60 plus miles an hour. 65 when I first looked. Yeah. Yep. You drive into a car doing 65, we all have a big problem here. Yeah. Yeah. It could be the end.

So pay attention, everybody. You know, things like that always happen. And every little deal, doesn't matter whether you're talking about a car wreck or anything, but anything that pops up is going to happen when you least expect it. So be on your guard, right? Be alert. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, it was so close to driving. I had to hit the median. Yeah. Ran over a delineator. Yeah. You know, like he had to get off-road to avoid the accident. Right, right.

And thank goodness he did. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, bad to me in that situation, but good for avoiding the accident. Yeah. Created that position, but handled it well? Yeah. Is that fair to say? Got himself out of trouble. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Tips and tricks from Armando, the Sergeant Duvall.

Number nine, attention to detail. Good morning, JFW family, and welcome back to another week of tips and tricks. Please remember that the purpose of these tips and tricks are just ways for us to be helpful, better, and safer drivers on the road. Let's be JFW professionals. Every morning, we should all be looking at our dispatch. Remember that we're going to start being really, really busy.

Pits and materials are going to start changing. We got to know what's grabbing, what we're grabbing, and delivering it to, and where to put it. Here are a few things that I do that can be helpful. First thing I do before I leave the yard is check and see where I'm going. Even though we get our dispatch the night before, be aware that it can change to the next morning. Read your Toro.

Sometimes there will be important notes for you to read. A lot of drivers don't read that, and I know because when going to A1 chip seal, dispatch puts important info in the notes and your pickup number. Your order number is not your pickup number. or in your Toro where it says reference, that will usually be your pickup number.

Look at the material you're picking up. Remember that pits get switched up a lot, so don't get in the habit of always going to the same place to get sand to 3 quarter inch rock. If you're not 100% sure that you're at the right place, always look at your Toro before you get loaded and then double check. Also, look at your XBE and make sure that it's showing your assigned truck for that day and the pit material matches your Toro.

If your XBE shows you a different pit of material than your Toro, 90% of the time, that's wrong, and you want to go what's based on your Toro. Definitely worth a call to dispatch. I was just going to say that. Yep. Please check. Make sure you're putting the correct ticket number on your Toro and XBE. There's going to be times that you're going to go to different pits and plants throughout the day. Also, check your ticket whenever you are on the outbound scale.

Always remember, before you move your truck, make sure that the ticket shows your truck number for that day, the correct material, the destination, and your correct weight. Those four things is what you should check always before leaving the scale. If you're over 85,000 pounds, remember you cannot take any interstates, for the record, 80,000. If you have any questions on the materials, where the materials are located

at pits, please ask one of the drivers and we can help you. but know that the loader from the pit will help you. Always ask for help if needed. Now arriving at plants, same thing. Ask for help from the other drivers of the loader if you don't know where to drop material. The last thing you want to do is contaminate a full material because you throw a pea gravel with three-quarter inch washrock. Please know that whenever you get assigned to an asphalt plant, they will never get washrock.

Are there any exceptions to that, guys? No? So 62nd, I-76 plant, which is right next to the central plant, and Rock Creek are all asphalt plants, and you will never take wash rock to those plants. Don't always assume that the pits and plants will be the same. We have to pay attention to our Toro. Read the notes that Dispatch leaves us on Toro. They're there for a reason.

Call Dispatch if you're confused or have any questions. And remember that contaminating the load can disqualify you from your safety bonus. It's also very costly to JFW. Please let me know on Connect Team what you thought about this week's tips and tricks. And thank you all again for listening and the positive feedback. Let's start doing things the JFW way. Until next week, Armando, the Sergeant Del Val, 0073. Together, we can be better. I love that. Together, we can be better. Yep.

Thanks, Armando. I will throw a disclaimer out there that I do think the asphalt plants can take River Rock. Oh. I think we've actually delivered river rock. Not come. Washed rock. Gotcha. To a plant. I think they've got some mixes with it. I don't think it's that much, but I think they do. Okay. So. It is a good rule of thumb to remember though. The concrete plants use washed rock. The asphalt plants use just dry screen. Yeah. It's rule of thumb. Right. Just not 100%. Yeah.

Yeah. If it's the opposite, it should raise an eyebrow and it's worth making a call. Yeah. Exactly. That's what it should do. Yeah, you should be checking. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, because chances are if you go to Central and you got Wash Rock, but you're in the asphalt plant, which is located the same place. Right. You got it wrong. Right, yeah. And I mean, you know, you got to learn some of that stuff. It's kind of funny because that same piece of property, that same location, all of that that Brandon

owns right there at the corner, they call Central Plant, Central Plant or Plant, is that? Fort. 55? Well, I don't know. Shoot. No, I think 55 is union for some reason. You're right. I think you're right. Anyway, it has a number, right, associated with it. Right. But then the asphalt plant is called 76. You know, and you're like. It isn't pit 14 right there? It is. On the other side, you do. Right. I guess that's what I'm getting at. You know, and the asphalt plants

all have numbers. I saw that on the, on an XBE and I'm, I'm not even familiar with them. I mean, we've never used their numbers. Right. So yeah, many, many things that you definitely, you have to have clarity on where you're going. Sure. You know, it's just like plant three and also what are they, I don't even want to call it the pit. But when we haul salt and squeegee, what's, what is that called? Yeah. Pit. I don't even know what pit is. It's called boral. Right?

Right? Yeah. I mean, it's just, yeah. That's ancient history, isn't it? Everything has gotten convoluted, complicated, and it takes a little bit of extra effort when you don't know. But yet it could be so easy. Yes. Yes. Yep. You're paying attention and you're being effective. Yep. Amount.

Yep. Exactly. Super Dave, what do you think? Want to hit us with that High Road Holland? Right. This is High Road Holland, and it's kind of like a lifetime moral told through an old story, which is actually a true story, which makes it even cooler. But a long time ago, there was a farmer who lived in Africa, and he was weary of toiling in the field. Which? He spent very long days doing backbreaking work, and he was tired of it.

So one day, a friend stopped by to visit and told the farmer about a discovery of diamonds in Africa and how many people were going to the diamond fields to strike it rich. And, I mean, just off the record, Africa is like the world capital of diamonds. You know that, right? Yep. So, well, when this farmer got tremendously excited, he started making plans right away to chase his fortune. He just knew he could travel to an area where the discoveries have been made and surely make millions.

The farmer needed to get some money so he could travel to the diamond fields and to hold him over until he made his fortune, which surely would not take long. He decided to sell his farm. After all, he was never going to need to be a farmer again. He was going to get rich. After selling his farm, the farmer went to the diamond mine and looked and dug and dug and dug. But he only found two very small diamonds.

But he did not get discouraged, and he wandered all over the continent as the years slipped by, constantly looking for diamonds, which he never found. Eventually, he went completely broke and threw himself into a river and drowned. Boom. End of story. No. Meanwhile, the new owner of his farm picked up an unusual-looking rock about the size of a country egg. And I guess that's just a chicken egg. I don't know. But he put it on his mantle as a sort of curiosity.

A visitor stopped by, and in viewing the rock, practically went into terminal convulsions. He told the new owner of the farm that that funny-looking rock on his mantle was about the biggest diamond he had ever found. The new owner of the farm said, heck, this whole farm is covered with them. And sure enough, it was. The farm turned out to be the Kimberly Diamond Mine, the richest the world has ever known. The original farmer was literally standing on acres of diamonds till he sold his farm.

The story of the farmer is a true story and is continually told to this day to teach its moral. Each of us is right in the middle of our own acre of diamonds. If only we would realize it and develop the ground we are standing on before charging off in search of greener pastures. Opportunity does not just come along. It's there all the time. We just have to see it. Isn't that a good story? I love it.

And the quote this week is whatever you want in life other people are going to want it too believe in yourself enough to accept that idea and that you have an equal right to it and that was spoken by diane sawyer i did google the uh kimberly diamond mine saw some pictures of that it's pretty cool yeah yeah it's huge i bet it is a ginormous hole in the ground isn't it Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are they, I mean, obviously I've watched too many movies,

but I know in gold, it's a process, right? And they pull it. You know, like when you watch Gold Rush, they're obviously washing it through a sleuth to gather it in the carpets and stuff because it's heavy and falls to the ground. I mean, I just envision people picking it, picking aggregate in Africa because of the movies, right, which is probably pretty stupid when it's all automated.

I mean, they've got trucks and haul trucks and these massive mines that are, you know, millions of tons deep in the ground. Right. But what's the process? How do they pull it out of the ore? How do they pull the diamond out of the ore? What's the- Well, I think gold falls to the ground. Yeah. I think diamonds are pretty much separate from rock. Like they, they probably crush the rock up and then sift it to, you know, pick the diamonds out. And I really think they pick them out.

They, they pick them out. But gold is something that has to be chemically or mechanically separated from the ore. Like gold is, gold is very found or very much found in association with quartz.

They would look they would go down walk along and if they saw some quartz rock they would start digging there thinking okay maybe we'll find gold around yeah yeah i totally agree but cool yeah that's the reason they're so the the ones like i'll say in utah and stuff like that nevada they're i don't want to say they're detrimental to the environment but a lot of chemical leaching yeah that process right here in colorado too

yeah yeah right dave yeah you go to leadville and look at those icky looking reservoirs. Right. And that's from trying to separate the silver back in the day. Yep, yep, silver and gold. Guys, you know what I missed is this week's episode of Drivers Doing It Right. Oh, yeah. Sure. I circled that because I said, oh, we missed that, and then I never didn't remind you. Yeah, we got, well. Dammit, Jam. Aren't you glad we helped you out? Wow.

Start doing some push-ups, buddy. I feel attacked. How many? 50. Okay. How's that challenge going? Are you still doing that challenge? I mean, I do push-ups, but we're not challenged anymore. He killed everybody. He blew us all out of the water. Son of a- That came and went within two days. Let's have a push-up challenge. Great. Two days out of it, we're not doing it. I like that diet, right? Week-long challenge. I won. So this week, doing it right. Drivers doing it right. Driving,

dumping, pulling on the scale. no phone use and wearing your PPE. Marcus Lopez, who we just spoke to. Rudy Ovali, great as they hear he's doing it right. And Jesus Farella. Thank you, man. Congratulations. Good job. Appreciate you making us look good and being safe. Yep. That's awesome. All right. Final thoughts, everybody? Yeah. I got, again, I always liked the way the Dave's High Road hauling and things just turn out to...

Matchup yeah mirror each other stuff like that i ran across an article on on steve jobs and it's kind of funny when i picture steve jobs i feel you know and i don't know that much about him except for apple and all that kind of stuff but that he's a programmer and you know that kind of stuff developed that apple and pixar yeah yeah i mean just what what a genius that way but he's talking that there was this old guy when he was little that lived

up the street from where he where he grew up and he said he was kind of a creepy old man he said actually he was kind of scary and he said I mowed his lawn a couple of times and one time I was there and he said hey come here he said let me let me show you this and took him in he said uh let me show you this this rock polisher and he said they go outside and they grab a bunch of rocks out of the driveway and the old guy puts it in this can and it had like a motor

and just like a belt around it and the guy put the rocks in the can and then added some grit in it and added some water. And the old guy was like, just come back the next day and visit me. And Steve said he came back the next day and he said, here's all these beautiful rocks, just from a little bit of bumping each other, grinding each other, a little bit of grit, and all these beautiful stones showed up.

And Steve said in this interview that that's the way he always looked at his business and his teams and stuff when you're asked to invent anything was that here's this teams and they may fight, they may argue, they may bump into each other, they may have a lot of grit, they have these arguments. There's always friction going on, but they always came up with these beautiful stones at the end of their process.

And he said, I think we have to look at all teams that way or all businesses that way of what we start with is here's just this plain old rock, but what can we turn it into? You know, when you, when you talked about diamonds, Dave, me and you didn't talk about it and they take this stone and turn it into what we believe we put a value on it as humans is, you know, something beautiful.

And I, I think we have to, you know, you, you mentioned Sam too, Dave, we have to step back and look at what we're, what we're trying to build and what we have to work with. And no matter what you have to work with, whether it's just some plain old rock, you can, you can polish it into something that's probably pretty beautiful. That's what's friction. Yeah. Friction. Friction. Yeah. There's this, the, yeah, Jim spot on.

That reminds me, you know, we always talk about diverse iron sharpens iron and we've talked about that, but that also takes clashing. The iron is clashing against each other to actually put an edge on it. Yeah. You know what I mean? That, I mean that, that whole process when you, when you think about that and you watch one of those shows, you're in your, your spot on Jim, You're taking all these metals, different times, types of metal, like to make a Damascus or anything like that.

And you're under tremendous heat, you're smashing it and everything else. And then to bring it to a certain hardness, you're cooling it, you know, from that, from that heat. And then you're, then you're down to sharpening it and, you know, all that, that it takes. And then to get that sharpness, you got to polish it. And yeah, it's a process, but the, the whole meaning of the process has some depth to it.

So when you look at your circle, right, iron sharpens iron, but that's you holding your friends or your people in your circle accountable. And sometimes it hurts a little bit, you know what I mean? But at the end, it just makes you stronger and sharper. Yeah. Good final thought, Jim. Yeah. That is a good one, Jim. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Uh-oh. Yeah, I'm debating whether I should even do this one. You should.

Okay. You talked me into it. Thanks. Is your arm okay? I just, I say set a good example for people. You know, be for your friends and your family and your wife and whoever and whatnot, who you want them to be. You know, you can't ask something of someone else that you're not going to be. And I guess, you know, do the best you can for yourself. It's not always easy. It's a challenge for yourself every day to be who you want to be or how you want to be.

And yeah, I think it's important. I like it. Good final thought. You have anything else too? I'd just like to touch on the moral of that High Road Hall. And it's so important that the opportunity is always there. You just have to see it. That's good, Dave. So many times people overlook it and it's right in front of their noses. Well, my final thought is about perspective. I was talking to a driver yesterday and this driver's had some life happen to him recently.

And I've had some, some life, some tough life changes in the recently, you know, nothing, nothing life threatening.

Right. but you know talking to the driver we shared some stories and then later that evening i got a text message from him saying hey you know it was really great talking to you we're both going through a lot right now keep your chin up or something like that and he and i was just like what do you say we both oh things aren't going our way right now but keep your chin up and i had to think about that because i don't i don't feel like things are

not going my way you know what i mean i feel like Like, you know, I told him, I was like, hey, listen, like, you know, I appreciate that. And this isn't a shot at him because it's, you know, what he's going. He was being kind. He was being kind. And, you know, he's, his feelings are valid, but they're just not the same as mine because I feel like I'm blessed. I feel like I'm favored by God.

You know what I mean? And I do feel like even with everything that's going on, I don't ever know that I felt like, wow, things really aren't going my way. It's, you know, life, life is life, you know? And it just really depends on how you deal with things. And I'm not saying to be callous towards your feelings or to compartmentalize, but it's all how you look at it. So that's my final thought for the day. Also, don't forget to like and subscribe to the Channel 23 podcast. Hit that follow button.

And 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. say the creed get on out let's do it together we face and overcome all that stands before us together we are accident 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. Thanks for listening. I hope you were entertained and I hope you learned something. And we'll see you next week. Love. Everybody be safe. Great day, everybody. Take care. Music.