K-Wal Cast
Interview podcast with the people in my life. We'll have some fun, dig deeper, and have some good conversations.
K-Wal Cast
Michael Mouser: Firefightin' Hockey Dad
Michael Mouser grew up in a big family in a small town in bourbon country . In this episode, he shares his journey from rural Kentucky, where he first learned firefighting, to his life as a hockey parent up north. We discuss the emotional weight of first response responsibilities, but also where to find the best cheap grub around the region and which bands do politics the best.
Thanks for listening! Please visit the pod's website at https://kwalcast.buzzsprout.com for more information.
Welcome to the KWALCast. My name is Nick Kowalski and this is a podcast where we get to have some fun conversations with fun people. This week we have Michael Mauser. Michael is another guest who came from down south in Kentucky. Michael is another guest who came from down south in Kentucky. We talk about growing up in small-town bourbon country, along with his experience as a volunteer firefighter and building cabins and cars. We also talk about what it's like in the world of youth hockey, our favorite cheap eats in northern Kentucky and around the region and some of our favorite music. As a heads up, there are some descriptions of medical rescue in this episode that are not for the faint of heart. Please meet Michael Mauser. Okay, michael Mauser, welcome to the pod.
Michael:Thank you for having me.
Nick:All right, I am very excited to have you on the show, because I have to start off with something A thank you to you for giving me a gift when we first met, like what? Like? Three, four years ago.
Michael:No, three years ago through the Hoffmans. Yeah.
Nick:Yeah, through mutual friends, you helped to settle a debate between me and my wife, katie, and you resolved it in my favor. Favor, which is one of the few times I've won a debate with katie and I don't know if you remember what it was I don't, honestly I don't okay, so you see my house.
Nick:My house is about like a 1600 square foot cape cod kind of house, like it's not very big, and at the time we were having a debate about whether or not to get a rope ladder to put in our second story bedroom in case we ever had a fire and we need to escape.
Nick:My argument at the time was that our house is so small that, like it seems extraordinarily rare, like so rare that the $20 or so to get the rope ladder doesn't even seem justified, even though that's a small amount of money. Yeah. It just seemed like there's no way. We heard we have fire alarms everywhere. Small house Like I just cannot imagine getting like trapped.
Michael:Well, it's only as good as if you can deploy it quickly.
Nick:Yeah, and in a panic of a fire.
Michael:Granted, it would have some advantage. Are you going to remember to deploy it? Are you going to remember to deploy it? Are? You going to be? In the room to deploy it. It's just, I've not, in the years I've been a firefighter, ever have seen someone deploy a rope to get out of the house a rope ladder.
Nick:So I'm glad you won your argument and I remember you told us that and we haven't talked about it since.
Michael:So good, my answer is still the same after three years.
Nick:Yeah, I'm glad you didn't come back down. You're like well, actually studies have shown that you know the chances of yeah, so you are a firefighter? Yeah, you mentioned that you've been a firefighter since you were 17 years old.
Michael:Yeah, so I'm currently a volunteer firefighter. Let's just get that out in the open. I do have a career in finance, but I joined the fire department when I was 17 years old and when I moved up here to the region I was looking. We didn't know anybody, you know, and I knew I wanted to keep my certification and join the local department. So when my wife and I picked Villa Hills to move in, they had a Crescent Springs Villa Hills was still a volunteer firefight fire department, which it sort of is now. It's really a hybrid. It's moving more towards full because of the population growth but it allowed me to join the fire department and meet people and continue being a firefighter.
Michael:So I've winded down my career, it's safe to say, since COVID. I'm getting older. There's younger guys, more hotheads not disrespecting anybody but more gung-ho younger people out there. I'm winding it down now. My kids take up more of my time, my job, my wife for building a cabin, so life kind of got gotten away. But I still want to keep my certification and still remain a firefighter for as long as I'm physically able to yeah, like what's what's?
Nick:how old do firefighters usually get? Is there like a certain age that they tend to? I mean?
Michael:it's a on a full-time department. It's you do 20 and 20 years on and then you can get I think you can get full pension. I think that's the way it is. I've not ever been a full-time firefighter at all, but, uh, for volunteer it's more. How long can you do it physically? Um, you may transition to engineer, which is the guy who does the pumps and everything. You don't do anything physical. Uh, myself, if I can't do physical stuff, I'm, I don't want to do it, I don't want to be a hindrance or in the way, and I'm one of those like an athlete, like an old athlete, until I I'm fumbling around the field like Aaron Rogers. I don't want to, you know, I want to continue to do it until that happens.
Michael:So, I think physically I still have the power to do it, Time-wise not so much.
Nick:Yeah, no, I hear what you say. I mean to the physical part. You run races in full fire gear, right, that's correct.
Michael:Once a year I do it. It's the Tunnel to Towers 5K. It's a great organization. It came out of 9-11. There was a firefighter Stephen Seiler was his name. He noticed the towers were on fire after the terrorist attack and he got all his gear geared up and ran through. I think it was, I can't remember it was a Holland Tunnel or whatever. That tunnel was next to the Twin Towers and he was tragically killed in the fire.
Michael:But to honor him, every year they have races around the country and raise funds for military veterans, for firefighters, for building homes and stuff like that. And part of that 5k, which there is one in Crescent Springs, it's usually in September, right around 9-11. Some of the firefighters will gear up and they'll wear the full turnout gear, which is, you know, the boots, the hat or the coat, the helmet, and then some will wear all of that plus the air pack. I do the air pack along with it. So I physically still can do it. My time is slowly slipping but I can still do it and that tells me that I'm physically able to continue to be a firefighter.
Nick:Yeah, no, totally, that's a great measure for can I keep? Doing this? How heavy is that? Is there a certain pound?
Michael:45 pounds is the pack, so you're looking maybe 60 pounds worth of gear. I don't run in the boot like the boots you see the firefighters. Where I do not, I put on sneakers. I did it one year in boots and my feet just like blisters and yeah it's hard to run in it and but uh yeah, it's not that bad. The worst part, I think, is my shoulders.
Nick:The gear pulls your shoulders down, so yeah, are you just like boiling, though are, are you like super hot? It depends on the weather.
Michael:I was boiling after this one, uh. So as soon as I get to the finish line, I just started throwing gear off and trying to cool myself down, but yeah.
Nick:Yeah, yeah, that sounds. That sounds pretty intense. So what? What drew you to firefighting? What's that Like what? What originally got you to be a firefighter?
Michael:Uh, so now we go back to when I was 17 years old. I grew up in a town called New Haven, which, if anybody is familiar with bourbon Bargetown it is a small dot on a map about 10 minutes from Bargetown, kentucky. That's where, like Jim Beam, maker's Mark and all them are near my house. Everybody else plays sports. I wasn't good coordinated. I had the physicality for it.
Michael:I worked across the street from the fire department at my uncle's hardware store the firefighters one of the guys I worked with was a firefighter. Some of the contractors that would come into my uncle's hardware store were also firefighters. I was just looking to fill some time, just something that I could call my own hobby. I had a job I was still in high school at the time that I could call my own hobby. I had a job I was still in high school at the time so the chief invited me over to come train and luckily I had two really close friends and also co-workers that were the same age as me. The three of us joined at the same time, so that's what got me into it. I was 17, which at 17, you really can't do much because legal problems. So I was a grunt. I rolled hoses, I switched out air packs when we had fires, I cleaned gear. I couldn't physically fight fires, I was not allowed to. But when I turned 18, that all changed.
Nick:Oh wow. So then, all of a sudden, you were able to do everything.
Michael:I was able to do everything and I'll say I joined in 95. The first three years really, you know, threw me in the deep end of the pool. Uh, there was a lot of stuff that went on down there, um, tragically, uh, enjoyably. So it was a really I don't want to say I peaked at my fire service those first three years, but I sort of did, yeah, like experience wise, and when I got here it was, it was an entirely different experience yeah.
Nick:So I mean, like what was it about that time? Like what kind of experiences were you having? Are you talking about like structure fires, car fires, yeah uh well, so, um, unlike the cincinnati region, we're in park hills.
Michael:Right now I'm in villa hills as a firefighter, since it were to me this is you guys are. This is a cincinnati suburb. This is a Cincinnati suburb. This is what this is. Yeah, I grew up in the country farmland. The population of my hometown was 700 people, roughly give or take. So if something, runs were few and far between. I mean, we only had like 50 runs per year.
Nick:Okay, wow.
Michael:Compared to a few thousand up here, lower density populated, so when something happened, chances are you're going to know who that is. So you know you saw that or like a fire. Our district was huge. So we're we're in Villa Hills and we have a fire. Chances are it's a two minute drive, immediate notification. Two minute drive out there. It could be a 20 or 30 minute drive to get to the scene and when a fire starts in 30 minutes it's gone. Yeah.
Michael:So, um, but as for, like the experiences, I mean, this is where we're probably going to get deep. Uh, we talked about this earlier. Before we went on right, when I was 18 years old, we were, um, we were, we had field parties. Where I grew up, you'd go to a field beer, alcohol bands. It was a great time. One night I went there and I was a designated driver. I was 18. I was in high school. Mom, if you're listening, I was a designated driver.
Michael:I literally had a 12 pack of RC Colas in my cooler. Got home, tones went off. We say tones went off, that's when they call you to the fire. Okay, and we got called in for a recovery. Uh, so got, got my drove to the firehouse, got my gear on, drove to the scene with the chief and he goes it's a recovery, not a rescue. So I go. What does that mean? I've only been on the department here. What does that mean? He goes, it means someone, someone's dead michael.
Michael:Oh man, so I was like Lord. So I get to the scene. He pulls me back and says just wait right here for a second. Car's ripped in half, girl down, face down on the pavement. It was a girl from my high school. Never met her, saw her outside my class every day, thought she was cute. They turned her over. It was her. The guy I never met knew him, we had mutual friends was folded under the seat. I had to help pull him out. Oh man, so 18 years old, senior in high school, and it psychologically damaged me for a while. I couldn't drive at night, lost a ton of weight, um, but it taught me, you know, drinking and driving is bad get a a designated driver, which I was that night, and it also taught me that you know, uh, life is fragile.
Michael:Uh, you never know what's going to happen. Um. So, you know, take care of yourself and take care of other people. So yeah, it was yeah it was. It was rough. And the kicker, the kicker to all this, I had this 86 grand am. I probably had like a four thousand dollar radio system in it. I got back to my car that night, got in the car turned. I remember I had bush cd the cd uh 16 stone 16, 16 stone yeah, reached down to turn it on and my hand went right to the dashboard.
Michael:Somebody had stolen everything out of my car every single piece of stereo equipment and right there was like three in the morning. I of stereo equipment and right there it was like 3 in the morning. I am just bawling my eyes out because it was like it was the icing on the cake that just broke everything for me. Yeah.
Michael:And I was just, I was shook. So you know that was my senior year and then I had to go to high school. You know we had this tragedy Two of our students had passed away, tragic, in the car wreck school. You know we had this tragedy two of our students had passed away, tragic, in the car wreck. And you know, people come up to you. They found out that I was there. What did you see? I'm like I don't want to talk about it don't want to talk about.
Michael:The guidance council called me and he goes hey, listen, they want to bring a wrecked car up here to talk about the dangers of dui. I'm not going to do unless you approve it. I was like if you pull a car up here wrecked, I'm not coming to school. So the psychological aspect of it was damaging and, granted, my parents were great, you know they were. Uh, they understood what I went through. My dad thought I should quit. I wasn't going to quit the department. Um, I just plugged on and you know it took a while. Probably to the top of the top left for college is when it started. Right in the Shortly after that I had, I think in 97, the guy I had mentioned earlier, that three of us joined together, one of the guys on my department. I went to college, he went to the Marines and he was training down at Parris Island and they did like a boxing drill. He took a hit in the head, burst a blood vessel and killed him.
Nick:Oh my gosh, Just a fluke kind of thing.
Michael:Fluke Complete fluke and I had seen him like a month or so before. We had a massive fire in New Haven, one that about killed me. It was 97. It was like a really bad winter storm. It was like ice and snow and everything else, and we had gone to this fire. It was a garage fire, innocent enough. So we drive there in the truck, I jump off, I'm running with the hooves and I get tackled. Somebody tackles me right in the middle of the yard, just lays me out and I pop up. I go what the hell? There's some guy. I was like what the hell are you doing, man? He goes there's a propane truck in that garage right now. I was working on it and about that time the entire building exploded.
Michael:No way, cinder blocks everywhere. The roof blew off. What had happened was if you've ever seen those propane trucks that drive with two relief valves. In case of a fire, one of them malfunctions. If the other one malfunctioned, it would have blew us all to smithereens, but the other one blew up as it was supposed to and blew up the entire building.
Nick:So it's like a smaller explosion as opposed to something bigger. Yeah, it's like a relief valve.
Michael:It just recognizes something's a fire or something like that and it just bleeds off the propane, but it bleeds.
Michael:It was like a jet engine, yeah, but it built up inside of garage. It exploded the garage. So we fought this fire and it was like wet and rainy and everything else. And michael and michael cecil was his name, uh, he was with me and him and I were covered in water and we froze. All our gear was frozen. So we're in the back of this truck like banging on the, banging on the banging the gear on the truck to try to get the thaw out. Oh my gosh.
Michael:A friend of mine took a picture of him. He's like I'm going to get a picture of you guys. This is really cool looking. I was like I don't want to be in it. You take it.
Michael:I took a picture of Michael and then two months later he was gone, he had passed away and they developed this picture. It was back when we had to develop pictures. It reflection in the background and a Bible and then Michael in this frozen gear and that's kind of what winded up being passed around amongst the funeral. There's actually a picture of it in my locker at the firehouse. It's always been with me but, yes, it was like a mix nuts and I told his mom his mom was the mayor of the town. I grew up in New Haven and I can recall being at the funeral just crying over him and I go, I'm quitting. I can't continue on the fire department without him, and she's like he wouldn't want you to do that. She's like he would want you to stay on. So to this day, I still stay on, to this day, his picture's in my locker. To this day, I write his number on my. We played softball together too. I write his number on my cleats anytime I play ball, so carry his memory as much as I can.
Nick:How, almost 30 years later, so how hard is it going to be? Like you mentioned earlier about, like you want to go as long as you're physically able to like with his memory in mind, is that going to make it even more difficult to?
Michael:I always take a quote from I think it's shakespeare actually was in star trek. I've in Star Trek. I've done enough for King and Country. I mean my gosh. I want to brag and I know if any firefighter is listening to this. Firefighters are always armchair quarterback Other firefighters hey, you haven't done much, you haven't done anything. Or he thinks he's a hot. I'm not that guy. I don't have an ego to stroke, but I've done a lot and there's some things I've not done that I don't want it, like I've never had a child die on me.
Michael:I don't ever want to see that. I don't think there's no recovering for me and you're playing roulette with that right now. Uh, if, if I were to quit or finally hang it up and again, I'm rarely doing it now, but I still am certified If I were to quit now I can look back and say I did it, I did it long enough, I did it enough. I've given CPR to people and brought them back. I've attempted to pull people out of a fire. I've had a couple fatalities. I've cut people out of cars. So I've done everything I can and I have no regrets. And even if I walk away, I think I've had a damn good career for a volunteer firefighter. Yeah what, I've had a damn good career for a volunteer firefighter.
Nick:Yeah, what kind of like support services are there available for you?
Michael:So the support services, that's a good question. They're a lot more prevalent now. So, like anytime we have a bad run, you know our chief will send out a message like, hey, and I've not ever experienced any of this. You know, here's a number you can call psychological help, stuff like that. In the 90s, when all this went down with me, it didn't exist. This is pre-9-11. This is pre-less mental health care, so you just really had your family to lean on. It wasn't a thing you talked about. Nowadays I'm able to again. We talked about this here. I don't know a lot. I mean densely populated. I get to run. I'm able to again. You know we talked about this here. I don't know a lot. I mean densely populated. I get a run. I'm not going to know that person. You still. It still affects you. You still carry it with you. But for the time that you do it, you mentally check out, you just your mind goes somewhere else. You do the job, you go home. Yeah.
Michael:When you get home. That really bothers you, and I've had those yeah.
Nick:I've heard similar kind of experiences with police and EMS kind of services which I know EMS is kind of part of your drill too.
Michael:Yeah, we do run EMS out of Crescent Springs. I tried it in Jefferson County. I didn't like it.
Nick:Yeah, mm-hmm. What didn't you like about it?
Michael:I don't want to say people make me, people are gross or people are uh, I just didn't like like being a firefighter and you're still a first responder. You occasionally assist the EMS worker, so, but you don't know when that's going to happen. That could be. You know. Most of the time you're working a fire you're doing something else that you might have to help out, but being EMT, you have to expect that's going to happen every day and to me.
Michael:I just I wouldn't want to do that every single day. I think my first run was like a nine-year-old lady bleeding from her privates. I was in Jefferson County and they're like you got it, rookie. And I'm like, oh my.
Nick:God.
Michael:I was like this is just awful, the pay wasn't good enough and I walked away from it and I do not regret it one bit. Emts and paramedics that's a different animal and I can never do that. I can help them, I can assist them when I need to, but to do it on a day-to-day basis, absolutely not.
Nick:Yeah, I have huge respect for people in the medical field, whether it's EMS or doctors, nurses, all that kind of thing. Oddly enough, when I was grade school at least I can at least through third grade, I thought I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up and then I cut myself in third grade and I bled like a stuck pig and I found out at that point like I couldn't handle blood even to this day, like I've passed out from blood draws and stuff yeah, yeah, that doesn't bother the blood, doesn't bother me, but I think I'll explain it like this the expectation
Michael:like if I was a doctor, or if I had to deal with that every day draw blood or something every day, I would dwell on it in my head. Monday I got to go in the office and operate on. Not to say I'd ever be smart enough to be a doctor in the first place, but the knowing that I would have to do that With the fire department. You don't know. You don't know what you're gonna get day to day, so you can't dwell on anything because you don't know what you're gonna expect.
Michael:You might have fossil art runs all day today. Tomorrow you might have a uh you know a car flip over on the expressway or a house on fire yeah, so it's the not knowing it and the suddenness of it, that that makes it easier for me, if that makes sense no, that totally makes sense.
Nick:um, I can think of you know, I would get like almost like a performance anxiety when I did any kind of organized soccer, like I played soccer growing up Same way. Yeah, and it's like if I knew I have a game coming up, like I would get the butterflies which you know, back then it was called butterflies. I guess you still call it that way. Really what it was Stress. Yeah, it was anxiety and stress. But I could do like pickup games, like no problem.
Michael:Yeah.
Nick:The other thing, the other example, like I'll kind of give from like my own personal experience. You know, being a lawyer, I represent I've represented clients before For me to screw up on something that affects just myself, I can handle that. I can handle that every day of the week, but to screw up something that would like affect someone else, like very negatively, I mean you're talking about like life or death kind of stuff. I'm thinking just like people getting evicted.
Michael:If you put it in that manner, which is absolutely true, but it's not expected. You don't know when it's going to happen and I think I'll operate better on a fly, like when it immediately happens, as opposed to next week. You got to be the lieutenant over this structure fire and make sure nobody gets hurt. I would dwell on that. The stress would destroy me. But at the drop of a hat I'm sitting at home having dinner and 10 minutes later I'm on a scene of a fire. It doesn't bother, that doesn't bother me.
Nick:Yeah, it's weird, I can see that. I can see that Cause, like I think you like click into like a different mode.
Michael:Yeah, you mainly check out and you click into this emergency mode of of, it's almost like a. You're managing a large project on the fly and making adjustments as quickly as possible. I mean, there's a short. You know when a when a house catches fire or someone's in a car wreck, you're under the clock. You got to if you, if you hesitate, if you don't adjust quickly, the house is going to burn to the ground or someone's going to die. Um, so it's. It's a trial, a quick, quick trial and you have a short window to figure everything out.
Nick:Yeah, are there any like certain, like I'll call it run because I don't know the terminology, right? Is there something like you're like look forward to? You're like, oh yeah, like a cat in a tree, you know.
Michael:I've gotten ducks out of a sewer drain once, but never a cat out of a tree. The the fires are, you know, they're fun. Uh, I'm not gonna lie, I'm sorry. People lose their property and everything abandoned houses or barns, you know um, but the excitement of the excitement's all front loaded. It's putting it out, it's, you know, driving on scene, riding in the truck with the emergency lights on and then you got to clean up afterwards, which is all crap. Uh, auto accidents are like a puzzle.
Michael:Um they've always been. Cause, you don't know, you're trying to cut somebody out of the car. Let's say we're using the jaws of life, you're cutting somebody out of the car. Or my gosh, they're down on a river road hanging off the side of the hill. You know, it's like a it's immediate puzzle, right, what do we do All? Yeah, it's, that's the large thing. The structure fires in the car, wrecks are the large things. You don't look forward to them. They're tragic events, but they do keep. I want to say keep the excitement, albeit maybe negative excitement, but it's still excitement nonetheless. If I was doing alarm drops every day, it'd get kind of boring.
Nick:Wait, what's an alarm drop?
Michael:Just your smoke alarm's going off and the fire department comes and says and they're like oh, we burned some popcorn in the microwave, but we're going to show up to make sure nothing bad happened.
Nick:Yeah, to kind of go back to what you kind of said before, I bet you have a very strong sense of meaning when you do these, when you're responding to a real structure fire or a car wreck or something like that, you're like man, I made a difference today.
Michael:I never thought of it that way. It's just more of you know. We did that. You know, or we may appear you make the news a lot more, but back when I was a teenager doing it, it did it to me it was like, wow, you know, I'm 18 years old and I did that. You know I wasn't an athlete. I grew up around athletes football players, basketball players, all the guys in high school and they're like yeah, I called touching last night. I'm like I cut some out of a car.
Nick:I was like okay, you know, we both have our thing. Yeah, no, totally. And then? So what was it like growing up in a small town compared to like? So now you know what suburban life is like outside of a major city.
Michael:How different was it growing up than what it is like up here? It's a uh, it's a different world. Um, again, I grew up in New Haven, so population 700, surrounded by farms. My dad, uh, he has three farms right now. Uh, it's a different lifestyle down there. It's it's a slower pace. Um, you know my, my parents still live in the same house I grew up in. A lot of people down there live, it's just, it hasn't changed. I'm 46 years old. I could drive through and expect to see who I want to see, who has always been there. The place doesn't change. Um, I knew my dad was one of 16 kids.
Nick:Oh my gosh.
Michael:So my last name's Mouser. There's there's 16 Mousers down there, um, and then I had like 30, I want to say 30 to 45 cousins, and a lot of them were in that area. I grew up next to my grandma. Mouser still alive 101. That's awesome.
Michael:Yeah, so my grandpa had the liquor stores, mouser liquors. My uncle guy had a hardware store that was across the street from the firehouse, guys building supplies. I'm named after him. My first name is guy Um.
Michael:So that family cast a big shadow in such a small, small town that I knew I didn't want to, I didn't want to stay there. My parents, my parents, were great. They are great, they're, they're still around. They were amazing. Bringing me up, uh, the Mouser family. You know all, all 16 of them, all the cousins. They were amazing. The town was amazing, it's. I love, and still love everything about New Haven, but to live there day to day, it just didn't fit me. I went to University of Louisville that was my first step out of it and then I got transferred up here for a job and I knew I wanted to live in the city. I love being busy, I love that there's a store down the street or a restaurant or a bar to go down the street, there's ball games to go to. You know Bengals and the city life. I love everything about it, which is the complete opposite of what my parents are. So it's very, very different.
Nick:Yeah, that's really funny, like to hear your experiences like that because it reminds me of at one point in law school. So law school, instead of being freshman, sophomore or junior, it's you know first year, second year, third year, because there's only three years, or they might say 1L, 2l, 3ls. I was on a in my second year. I was part of like a little not advisory, but kind of like a class advisor for like the class that came in below us and I remember like one of the very first times we got together talking about just Cincinnati in general for people who weren't from around there.
Nick:And I remember at that time for me I had been looking to move to Chicago, so my eyes had always been on Chicago and I always looked at Cincinnati as this like little small Midwestern city. It doesn't have a whole lot going to it. And I kind of talked like that. I was like, yeah, cincinnati is all right, you know it's got some stuff, you want to do it. And there was some guys that were from like the country and somewhere. They're like are you, are you crazy?
Michael:this place is like huge, like you got everything, and it kind of like really kind of put things in perspective for me it's funny when you meet people up here, you know there's guys up here that think they're like uh, they're the woods guys, red necks, the big trucks and everything else, I'm like you're not yeah you're not.
Michael:You live in, you're living a subdivision and you know there's a Chipotle down the street from you. I could take you somewhere and probably make you cry, drop you in the middle of the woods, you know, in a tobacco field. Um, you know it's, it's, it's an. It's an entirely different world and it's only two hours away. Which? Two hours away I say that. But there's farmland, what? 30, 40 minutes from here. But, like the kids I went to high school with, they're still you know, there's a lot of them still down there. They still run with the same crowd.
Michael:Not saying that's anything wrong with that, but I know that if I go visit I can go hang out with them and we could pick up. Like you know, nothing ever happened.
Nick:Yeah, If you were, Were there been an expectation that you had a certain occupation, like work on the farm. You know my dad again.
Michael:My dad has three farms. My uncle had the, he had the. I said he had the hardware he passed away earlier this year. Someone else was running it. I don't know what I would have done down there. None of it fit me. I worked at the hardware store, which was great. I loved every minute. I delivered lumber, I drove a forklift and then for a summer I did. I worked at a factory folding cards American.
Nick:Greetings. Oh really, I fed them into a machine it folded them yeah.
Michael:I worked building barns one year. The manual labor just didn't fit me. I knew I'd be better off in an office. I don't think I not once ever saw myself living there as an adult at all as a kid I knew I didn't fit in as an.
Michael:I had friends down there but I really didn't fit in with the crowd. Down in New Haven I had a cousin who I ran around with quite a bit and we were kind of in the same ballpark so we migrated to each other. Bardstown was the big city. It wasn't a big city but it was a big city and that's where we migrate. We kind of went there and then we went to college at Louisville and it exploded from there.
Nick:Yeah, so you mentioned that you're building a cabin. It sounds like you are probably pretty good with building stuff, or like good with your hands. Would that be accurate? I?
Michael:mean I learned a lot from my dad from building barns too with the construction company I worked for. And I learned a lot from my uncle Guy, who again sadly left us this year, and I was always good at tearing stuff down. My dad would have the foresight to. He would tear down old buildings like historic homes. He tore down an old bourbon factory and saved the lumber and I would help him do that quite a bit. So I learned quite a lot through that DIY do it myself.
Michael:And then my wife, angela, who you've met, is creative as hell. She can build anything. We remodeled our kitchen at our house. We did the kitchen at our last house. We did our bathroom. We did it all ourselves. No-transcript. We are building a cabin. It's Nolan Lake, which is down about roughly halfway between Nashville and Louisville. It's her family's area where they have a cabin. Her family's just as large as mine 15 kids. Her dad has 15 under his family. It's unfortunate we can't build it because it's too far away, so we've hired out for it, but her and I are going to do the finishing work ourselves.
Michael:So we'll put in the cabinets, we'll put in the fixtures, we'll put in the flooring. It's relaxing to us to do stuff like that, and I know when we're done at our house, when we were done remodeling, it was like, okay, okay, what do we do next? Like what's, what are we doing? What's next, what do you want to build next? Yeah, and then we found this little plot of land and we're like, let's build a cabin there, and so that's kind of been the project for us in 2024.
Nick:That's awesome. So if it was closer, let's say within a half hour or an hour, do you think you would have like built, built the whole thing yourself?
Michael:I think I would have probably contracted out a little bit of it, but for the most part we probably built it ourselves Like have someone put it in the foundation and then that's right.
Nick:Yeah, I can frame it. Yeah, could you do the rest of it?
Michael:Yeah, okay, I have a cousin, a cousin who I worked with at the hardware store. He built a house two. I think it's two years ago. He did it and I'm like this is incredible, that's awesome. So I'm like he's feeding me. So I'm like what else do I need to do? Tell me what I need to do. Yeah, I would love to do it.
Nick:Yeah.
Michael:But I'm getting older and it's too far away.
Nick:Yeah, my father-in-law just built his own pole barn and he did it right before he retired, actually very handy. Yeah, he's always been very good with that kind of thing building things. But between just having like that general knowledge and YouTube like YouTube can walk you through I think it walked him basically through step by step how to do every step of the way and it was everything. I mean it was drilling holes, it was. He didn't, he didn't pour concrete. It doesn't have like a foundation to it. But I mean everything else is it's awesome, it's great, it's fun.
Michael:I bought, like when I bought my first house, I bought an electric book and learned how to do electric. I'm not certified but I always get it inspected but I can do my own electric work and that's pretty big. And I think we have our mutual friends, the Hoffmans. They called me one day and they're like hey, we priced out getting a toilet installed and it was like $. Hey, we priced out getting a toilet installed and it was like it was like $1,000. And I was like go buy some toilets, give me a six pack of beer, I'll have them installed by the end of the night. And I just walked down there and put them in. They were like, wow, we were going to pay like this much money for it. I'm like this is one of the easiest jobs ever. I learned from a former prisoner how to install toilets.
Nick:Yeah, nice, that's awesome. Yeah, I. I like doing that kind of stuff around the house and like at least taking a shot at it more times yeah, exactly but like I am not handy, so like my the, when I'm most comfortable is when something is broken and I can't break it anymore. I'm like I've done that with like a couple of different appliances where I'm like, well, this dryer isn't going to get yeah we're broken.
Nick:So yeah, I'll take a shot at it. And I remember like I've like taken stuff apart, like what am I doing? But hey, knock on wood.
Michael:It's like there's certain things that like a dry, I won't touch that the appliances. Our dryer broke earlier this year. My wife youtube video and it ran for a couple weeks and she was proud of herself and then it went kaput. But I'm like, hey, you know to your point, yeah, you gave it an effort. What's worse you can do? We're gonna buy a new one. Anyway, our end point was to buy a new one if we can't get this one fixed.
Nick:And you tried yeah, it also depends on, like, the price of the part. That could be the problem, like in the case of this, this dryer. I think I like to pay like ten dollars and like, for I needed one fuse, like it was a two pack, so I had to pay ten dollars for a two pack and I was like, yeah, I'll take a shot at that. But I've had other things, like I had like a stand mixer that we inherited from my mother-in-law and it was like a good one. It was like the professional grade, which would have been $600 or $700 new, and it didn't work and I think I know what the problem was. But just for that part was going to be like $100. And like, just to take a shot, I'm like you know spend a hundred dollars just for the shot at it, in case it works.
Nick:I'm like I can get another one for 300. That's not professional grade, but serves my needs.
Michael:It saves a lot of time and I've slowly in the last five or six years, started trying to work. I have classic vehicles. I've started working on those myself as much as I can, and I have a mechanic that I know, who's a friend of mine, and I'm like okay, I tried this, it ain't working, I'm gonna tell it to you now you figure it out.
Nick:Oh, it is really nice having someone you know who is, like, actually an expert in things this guy saved me so many times.
Michael:Yeah, saved me so much money.
Nick:I mean that's how people like used to learn before YouTube. I mean, like we still learn that way in a lot of situations, but like, yeah, if we before YouTube like that was the first that's how electric.
Michael:I learned electric from a book.
Nick:I have a book.
Michael:I still have the book. The book taught me everything and it's so dated, but I still use the book all the time as reference point.
Nick:Yeah, that's great. What kind of cars are you working on?
Michael:I have a uh 65 Mustang, uh 72 Ford F 100. And I actually drove here today the 85 Dodge Ram which is in front of your house right now.
Nick:That's awesome.
Michael:Where do you find them? Years ago my wife was like we need a truck for the house to haul mulch and two-by-fours and stuff. So I bought a classic and then had it restored and I'm like, all right, we got a truck but you can't haul stuff in it. It's a classic. And then my midlife crisis I found a Mustang out of Florence and I bought it and the Dodge was. My dad had bought the Dodge for my now oldest son as a gift when he was eight. So I restored the interior, using you too. I restored the interior myself and it drives like a top, but my son chooses to drive his SUV now.
Nick:Yeah, oh, really. Yeah, oh, really.
Michael:Yeah, yeah, but they're great and they're easy to work on. I have it at maximum. It's my day-to-day and I can't work on that thing. It's too much computers.
Nick:That's what I've heard. I've heard a lot of mechanics talk about it that way. They're like, yeah, nowadays, and even if you go Like you're having a problem going to like the dealership, they're like, yeah, we might as well just replace the whole thing. Like, yeah, you have a couple of wires that are I've had like squirrels chew through wires on my car and they're like and I want to say like the solution was like yeah, all right, we'll get, we'll replace the whole. I don't even remember what it was called, but it was like everything that the wires were attached to.
Michael:And it's under a hood so tight now like, uh, my kids sam's suv. He does a pathfinder. The light, the headlight went out and I had like pulled the battery out to get to even to the light where the pickup truck. I just unscrewed a couple things and popped right into a new bulb. So yeah but you know those cars, they are what they are.
Nick:They run so much more efficiently that the other three are gas guzzlers from the yeah, from an earlier time which is funny because there I, there is a, a company I can't remember the name of it, of course, but they basically have classic cars. They have like a VW bus, they have an old Bronco, a few others that we would know, but they've made them EVs. I've seen that, yeah, and the problem is they're like $250,000. But I love the idea.
Michael:I love the idea of like. Yeah, I would love to drive like, because my first truck was my first classic was the f100 and they put out a f100 70, the same model as mine that was an ev and I'm like that thing is. And, of course, everybody online, all the tough guys were like, yeah, I like my gas. Like my gas, I'm like I take this in a heartbeat oh, totally, yeah, yeah.
Nick:And like I wonder if they'll get to a point right right now.
Michael:That's probably like a kind of like a luxury item, like a conversion.
Nick:Yeah, well, yeah, I wonder if, at some point, like that will be the way things go. And so, yeah, you're not paying an ungodly amount of money for something. Be like, hey, I just want a cool car, but it's not like Like the Mr Fusion on Back to the Future.
Nick:Yeah, and you know what? That's a classic, so I've been meaning to show that one to the kids. Um, so, yeah, um, maybe, yeah, we'll get there one day, you would. That also reminds me of um. My dad's first gps was a magellan. It was like a thousand bucks. Oh yeah, just for the gps.
Michael:But now, you know, now we all have we had the magellan, then you would have the uh. Of course, in high school and college I had the uh. Remember the radar detector, yeah it beeped you had that, of course we talked about. I had the cd player with the five disc changer and which all got ripped off. Yeah, um, you know the boom boxes, even speakers. You know, like that you've gone from the big bazooka tube bases to these tiny sono speakers that are just incredible sound that comes out of them.
Nick:Yeah, it's amazing how like technology is and like TVs now are actually pretty cheap when you think about like what you get.
Michael:Cheap and light. Yeah, they're basically monitors at this point they're just computer monitors, is all they are. They don't have all that stuff that needs to be inside them because it's all streaming everything.
Nick:Yeah, they don't have all that stuff that needs to be inside them because it's all. It's streaming everything. Yeah, I remember I had one aunt and uncle and then one friend growing up that had a big screen tv, but they were behemoths they were like they were basically as big as like the refrigerator oh yeah, and they waited time yeah, they waited time. I'm really. I would like to go back and like find out like what that kind of stuff cost back then.
Michael:Oh, it's insane, I have a plasma tv in my garage, right garage. Right now it hangs in my garage, it's like my just turned sports on while I'm tinkering around. It's the Plasma TV. I bought it in like 2007, and I think that thing was $2,000, and it weighs a ton. Yeah. I told my wife I'm like I need to put this in the garbage.
Nick:She's like it works, I'm like, but it no. What happened to you?
Michael:Well, I got crushed by my TV, Crushed by a Panasonic Plasma TV Like it fell on top of me.
Nick:Yeah, so you mentioned earlier that nowadays it's very busy having kids. Hard to have the free time to do a lot of stuff. So you have kids that are in hockey, which, for those who aren't from this area, hockey is around northern Kentucky, Cincinnati, but we don't have like an NHL team. It's not. We are not Northern Ohio, we're not Michigan or Canada, suffice it to say so. It's like it is around here, but it's not a huge, huge sport. How did you all get into it?
Michael:Stupidly just stumbled into it, if you've ever. So we have the Cyclones Cincinnati Cyclones, which is an ECHL, I think, and I think they're affiliated with Toronto Maple Leaves or something like that. Oh are they but?
Michael:that's neither here nor there. My wife played softball for Auburn, so she's quite the athlete Me not the athlete. But in northern Kentucky we have an ice rink, the northern Kentucky ice rink. It's down in Crescent Springs, so it's literally a mile from my house. Sam, who is my oldest now, he's 16.
Michael:When he was five we were just sitting around one night and bored and you know we like to expose him to different things we were like, well, let's just take him ice skating. They have a public skate, let's go down there and skate. And literally I've skated twice before that, like on a date in high school and I think another time. So we took him down there, and if you go to Northern Kentucky I think they still have it, they. So we took him down there. And if you go to Northern Kentucky I think they still have it they would like stack five-gallon buckets up. That's what the kids could lean on. And so we put Sam out there in these rental skates and buckets, and Angel and I got out there too and we kind of skated around and you know I've got pictures of it. The fear in his eyes is just palpable. It's there. He had been playing little league t-ball soccer. We tried and he was just bored with those you could. You could see he was kicking the rocks, picking grass. Um, sam needs, he wants that stimulation and to be involved the entire time.
Michael:So after he had skated we were just walking around the rink and they had a sign up that said you know, uh, learn to skate, learn ice skate. And I'm like, hey, buddy, you want to learn ice skate? He's like, yeah sure, signed him up, he started skating fast forward and they progress you through, like the skating you learn to basically. Basically you learn to fall, first fall and get back up and then you learn to skate backwards and you know all kinds of stuff. So it was progressing and and I guess there's an EKU Eastern Kentucky University club team that was up here for some reason Maybe they were playing UC or something and they were at the rink during one of those learn to skates and they were just out there shooting around and they skated over and let the kids take the hockey sticks and the pucks and shoot around. We actually have a picture of Sam in a winter coat with his first time, holding a hockey stick and a puck, and he came off the ice at night and he's like I want to play hockey.
Michael:That's awesome and I was like all right, we'll sign you up there. They had like an instructional program, so we signed him up and he it shot off from there. 11 years later we're still at it and he's gotten really good. We're proud of him. And my little guy, henry who's 10, came up in the ice rink because of that. So he got involved. As soon as he could walk he was on the ice. He's smaller, you know, he's not as tall as everybody else, but he's tough because he takes shots from Sam. He's learned from Sam.
Michael:But yeah, we are hockey parents now, which is unique.
Nick:Yeah, like, what's the hockey culture like?
Michael:It's wild. I'm not much of a sports parent, don't get me wrong. I love watching my kids play hockey. I love seeing the joy in their face. Hockey is nonstop excitement, from start to finish. No disrespect to any other sport basketball, baseball, football those have down times. Basketball is a little quicker, but baseball is just it's a slow plotting game, especially at a youth level. Football same thing timeout, first down, offense, defense. Hockey is just it's balls to the wall. I don't know if you want to end it.
Nick:Dad, no, you're good.
Michael:Start to finish. But you have these parents who think their kid destined for the nhl. They're not gonna make it, yeah, uh. You have these dads who will stand at the ice with their arms crossed wearing boston bruins gear hat on backwards um screaming parents, bloody murder. You know it's. It's the typical sports parent. I'm sure everybody gets it from any event. But the hockey is a different culture. I am the complete opposite. I'll sit there and watch Other parents will watch practices the entire time. I'll read a book or go for a run. I love again, I love the sport, but I don't buy into being the sport parent. It's just, it's too extreme for me.
Nick:Yeah, my sister did select soccer growing up and it was very time-consuming, very time-consuming, but they would travel around the country. It was mostly around the region, but eventually they did do some tournaments outside the region. I remember going to Orlando one time around. Christmas time and my parents. They got to know the other families so well. They made legit friends from it.
Michael:We've done the same. I mean there's close, close friends of ours now as who they came up through within the hockey organization. The president of the North Kentucky Hockey Association is a close friend of mine. My wife has two people who are two ladies, two moms, who she talks to on a daily basis. So we've made great friends and if we just it's, it's a matter of vetting out who the crazy person is versus who somebody that kind of fits you.
Michael:Um, both teams, both of my kids' teams, the parents are nice. There's a few exceptions that you know you're like what are you doing? You know you're screaming at your kid like that, that's not, you shouldn't be doing that. Or you're screaming at the ref. He's, the ref is 15 years old, relax. No, absolutely. Your kid's not going to the atl. They're angry because their kid's not getting enough playing time. I just want my kids to be happy and to play. That. Is it getting beat? I don't care. As we speak, you know you talk about travel as we speak. Right now, my 10 year olds in chicago at the world invites playing, uh, which it blows my mind. It was a big deal for us and playing baseball as little kids to go to the neighboring town and my kids are playing in buffalo, new york, pittsburgh, michigan uh, we've been all over the northeast yeah, do you have any favorite cities that you went to?
Nick:any what any favorite cities that you've gone to?
Michael:I really you know I'd never gone or had any reason to go to pittsburgh early. I liked it there. I like the food is great, the people are super nice. I'm not a bingles fan, so I had that going for me they really suck.
Michael:Yeah, I don't care uh and um, I really liked buffalo. I'd always, I'd always wanted to go to buffalo in the first place and it was a cool city. And to cross over in canada was cool. To take the kids to canada because, again you made the point, canada is hockey, so the kids are like we want to go to Canada. Just to say we went and so we drove into Canada. But yeah. Pittsburgh. I had low expectations for Pittsburgh and man they were a great city.
Nick:I would love to go to Pittsburgh. That's been on my list. You've never been. I've never been there, my gosh.
Michael:And that's another thing. When we travel to cities like that, pittsburgh, cleveland which this always struck me as odd like the parents would organize dinners. They're like okay, we're all meeting at Applebee's. I'm like Applebee's. Yeah, I'm in Pittsburgh I'm going to Primanti Brothers.
Nick:Is that the big house? What about they ask you Like what is? I know the sandwiches with the slaw, the French fries, the slaw and the.
Michael:French fries. I'm going to Permani's Brothers and getting a sandwich. And I'm not going to Permani Brothers it's like a chain. I'm going to the actual Permani Brothers downtown. That would be awesome. I was always the parent who broke away from the group to explore. I wanted to explore the city. Yeah.
Michael:I didn't want to go sit in, want to see the city. I want to see stuff that I've not seen. I didn't travel much as a kid, so I want to go explore the city and I want to taste whatever culinary offerings they have, and that's one of my things. I always research. My wife said you should start like a page for parents for restaurants.
Nick:Yeah, no, that'd be awesome. I mean, that's like the first thing I look up if I ever go to a different town. And the funny thing is it's like now it's. I don't actually don't go to like Yelp or TripAdvisor or anything like that, I'll just use Reddit, you know.
Michael:Oh right, okay, I'll do. I'll like Google like best smash burger in Cleveland.
Nick:Yeah, go, yeah, like it's like that. I did that for San Francisco and great, I was looking like San Francisco cheap eats you know I was looking for because I know they have like a really great, like high end cuisine. But I was there with my family and I found like this Brazilian coffee shop and it was amazing and they had all kinds of baked baked goods that I've never heard of, but they were all amazing.
Michael:Diamonds in the Rough, yeah and yeah dive places that they're known. It's incredible and it's one of the like now when I visit I'm going back to Pittsburgh in a couple weeks I'm like know where.
Nick:I'm going, we're going right back to Permani Brothers.
Michael:Yeah, so what's the claim to fame? Permani Brothers? You know it's a a deli meats, or whatever they griddle them, it's on like sliced bread. And then they'll take a handful of coleslaw and shove it on there, and then a handful of french fries and shove it on there and smash it and you got like a six inch sandwich that you're trying to eat that's amazing and the restaurant is like I can't remember the area, but it's almost like close to downtown but like they have the wall.
Michael:Of celebrities have have been there. It's a really good sandwich. I know it's a touristy spot, I get that but I'd never had it before. It's like if we hit Skyline like a centralized I don't know if there's one, is there one, a centralized Skyline where it came out of? That's what this place is. It's like a bar that served these sandwiches and then blossomed from there.
Nick:They now have franchises across Pittsburgh area yeah, it's funny with Skyline to go on like that example. There is like the original location over on the west side, it's not a tourist attraction. No yeah, like people like don't go out of their way to go to it you know, so it's, yeah, it's not the same.
Nick:Yeah, for me, like you know, I've never been to Philadelphia, I've never been to, I've never been to Pittsburgh. Like I can think of places that are known for having, like, certain staples. At this point, to your point, they are like touristy now, like Detroit has. There's a certain Detroit pizza place, for example. Even though they're touristy and I like actually hate doing touristy stuff, I would do it for the food. Same way, all the food stuff.
Michael:Yeah, I'm down for Well, that's when you run into cities that are that aren't known like. I was in indianapolis, uh, two weeks ago for hockey and I'm like man, indianapolis is not known for anything like what's their food. I don't even know I, so I, there I go, tacos, pizza, burgers. I'm looking for, like basically looking for the best out of that.
Michael:That's a, that's a dive, um so yeah, it's some of those cities that you just gotta go, not their touristy food, but the staples of pizza, burger or fries. And what's the best burger in Cleveland? What's? The best pizza up in Detroit. Obviously, it has their Detroit-style pizza, but just what's their best version of food that you currently like.
Nick:Yeah, for sure. Yeah, just go for the basics, like the staple food, like a hot dog in Chicago would be another example. We've done that. We did the Chicago trip. Hot dog in Chicago would be like another example, we've done that.
Michael:We did the hot dog, we did Chicago trip Hot dog in Chicago and we did the beef dip thing.
Nick:Oh, the yeah, okay, Like a French dip.
Michael:Exactly, it was incredible.
Nick:What is the top?
Michael:hot dog for Chicago the beef dip place had. We went to this beef dip place and my nine-year-old he was nine at the time he's like I don't want one of those. I was like all right, chicago dog, they serve those he's like I have a Chicago dog and he eats hot dog, eats ketchup, and so they give him a Chicago dog and it's got the dill pickle on it, it's got the celery saw, it's got mustard, it's got onions and he destroyed it. He goes. That was the best hot dog I ever had.
Nick:I'm Chicago. Have you heard the origin story of the Chicago dog?
Michael:No.
Nick:It's I mean.
Michael:Grandma drunk in the kitchen. No.
Nick:I'll let I should. This is like one of those things where, like, I'm going to say it, even though, like I kind of now want to go fact check myself, but I'm pretty sure it came out of the depression. It was like back in the day. It's like they didn't have a whole lot of food. They were working these like labor intensive jobs, so basically what they would do is like they already had hot dogs.
Nick:They would just like throw their entire meal on the hot dog bun and then they go out there like they scarf it down.
Michael:It's good, I mean it's tasty. I enjoy it.
Nick:Yeah, oh, I love them. I could eat, I could crush them all day.
Michael:Yeah.
Nick:Which is funny, cause, like nowadays, I'm like, oh, normally I won't reach for a hot dog, yeah it's got to be right, it's got to be done right. Yeah, were you a big fan when gourmet hot dogs were a big thing? I would say within the last 10 years or so To me.
Michael:There's certain foods that should never be gourmet. Yeah, and Pam gourmet is silly.
Nick:Hot dogs being one of them, I think.
Michael:Mexican food's up there as well, like a nice, super nice sit-down Mexican restaurant. When you're just overdoing it, mexican it's, you're just overdoing it, it's Mexican food's always good. A nice, super nice pizza place Is that necessary I? Mean granted, Camp Rose is incredible, but a super nice pizza place. Nah, there's some stuff that doesn't need to be gourmet.
Nick:Yeah, we're getting to the point where, like street tacos are six bucks a piece.
Michael:It's like what. Hold on.
Nick:No, that defeats the whole point, you know, yeah, like I love, just real basic Food does not need to be expensive to be good, and like good food does not need to be, it should be accessible to everyone.
Michael:Yeah, I agree, and dive places are my favorite. Like, a dive place is my favorite Dive places are awesome.
Nick:Big, huge, huge, huge fan. Like we've talked about Fort Wright Family Restaurant, which is like Phenomenal. Yeah, which is a very inconspicuous place.
Michael:Like most people, like the tourists, are not going to find that place. I don't want them to know about it.
Nick:Yeah, and the big argument that I know we just talked about this not too long ago that for my wife in particular, like we love going to like different breakfast places. However, we always come back to Fort Wright and like this seems silly, but the differentiator for them is the way they do home fries, Like a lot of places do it frozen and it's crappy. Fresh potatoes.
Nick:Which is funny because, like, potatoes are like the cheapest thing they probably serve and like, yeah, it's going to take a little more time to cook them, but they're still cheap and you can make them so much better than what they are.
Michael:Well, and we talked about this too. I grew up in the country and it is hard to find country ham up here Country ham which is a very salted cured ham. I buy it every time I go visit my family. Kramer's in Crescent Springs actually sell is the only place I know local that sells it. But Fort Washington or Fort what's the name of the diner?
Nick:Oh yeah, fort Wright, fort Wright.
Michael:Diner serves a slab of country ham, and that's where I go. Fried eggs and country ham that's that was my breakfast every day when I grew up in this small town new haven fried eggs and country ham and fresh potatoes yeah, and that probably filled you up for like most of the day it did and that's the food I quite often seek out is whatever.
Michael:You know, I was trying to get out of my hometown but the hometown food that I was fed which was always home, home, it was almost like home cook, like the lady that ran our place called it was called town cafe would serve food like that and she was like a grandma serving fresh food. It wasn't you know, under a heat lamp or anything. It was fresh, made to order and I valued that. As a kid I'd go there with my dad every morning before, like deer hunting or something or working on the farm, and I knew I was going to get a slamming breakfast that I could enjoy.
Nick:Yeah, that's amazing. What are your favorite dives around Cincinnati, northern Kentucky?
Michael:It's getting pretty popular with Bard's Burgers oh.
Nick:Bard's is amazing, bard's is phenomenal.
Michael:Angela and I have started going to Wonder Bar quite a bit.
Nick:Oh yeah, Love it there.
Michael:It's a dive bar. I say it's not ever crowded. Please, let's keep it that way I like not low crowds.
Michael:um, at fort right restaurant, we're there quite a bit, uh, and we tend to stay around. A lot of times we're around crests, but we just want to drive very far and I'm like, let's go, we're gonna walk. We're friends with the owners of that. Um, it's just, we go from place to place, but we do have our favorites and I think that's what I've named them. Ola's Tacos is phenomenal. Oh yeah, they're great and they're getting very, very popular and that's it pains me. I'm like, ah, it's bittersweet. They're doing so good and they're getting so popular and it's getting more crowded. Ah, damn it.
Nick:Yeah, you're going to be like Yogi Berra, you're going to be like yeah, no one goes there anymore, it's too crowded.
Michael:Exactly.
Nick:Yeah, yeah, ala's great. I love that. Do you ever do Anchor Grill in Covington? No?
Michael:We tried to do it one night and to say I was three sheets of the wind and maybe threw up out of a car window on the way there, and then we got in there.
Nick:But I think they allow smoking inside. Yeah, they used to.
Michael:At least I can't handle that, and we got up and walked out.
Nick:Yeah, I want to say they're one of the holdouts. They might still allow smoking to this day. I was there within the last month for the first time since before COVID and they said carpet.
Michael:They said carpet in there. Ihuh, I don't remember it just seems like the place absorbs grease yeah, it could use a wipe down.
Nick:I'll put it that way. Yeah, I mean, it's very, it's very basic, though. The one thing that I was hilarious if you look at their menu, they do have a vegetable section. It used to be only potatoes for, but I think the last time I was there they have like some off-menu side items. That day, like they did have stewed tomatoes and stuff like that. But I'm like I'm gonna pass, I draw it.
Michael:No, thanks, yeah, I'm sure they're great, but and people love it you, you guys have some weird quirks up here that I just can't get with anchor grills. One of them, get as the other one you don't like getta no god, no what, no what.
Nick:Why not?
Michael:Getta to me is imagine a butcher shop that's grinding and sawing the meat all day. Yeah. And they have sawdust to absorb the blood. I think at the end of the day, they're squeezing all that up into a patty and making getta. No offense to the getta people. It's not good, I love it, and anybody outside of this area doesn't know get a yeah, I mean get a.
Nick:there's a funny one. I like it's something I always try to introduce the people who aren't from around here If they come here, why it's see, the thing is it's like I think it's one of those things you grew up with and you like it, but it's it's, I wouldn't.
Nick:how do I Like I yeah, I do, I do really like it, but what I and I do prefer it personally over most other forms of breakfast meat, but I don't think that, yeah, if you don't grow up with it, I don't know if many other people are going to adopt that opinion.
Michael:Oh yeah, and that's the same thing about skyline chili. You know a lot of people it's a Cincinnati thing, but I I love skyline chili. It's one she hates get. She doesn't like any of the regional foods up here oh man we're in my heart, yeah, yeah so well, but that's okay.
Nick:Um, so how about we do? We're approaching the one hour mark okay how about we end with a lightning round? Fire away how's that sound? Yeah, what's on your bucket list?
Michael:oh man, my bucket list. I'd like to travel. I've never tried internationally. Uh, I hate. I don't like flying, but I'm like damn it. I really want to say I at least left this continent. Iceland's been on my list and I'd like to go to Sweden, so I guess the bucket list is to travel abroad. I wish I did it this year. It was my 20th anniversary, but life got in the way.
Nick:Yeah, that happens. What about taking a boat to europe? Is that a thing I?
Michael:wonder how I don't do good on boats seasickness oh man, you're in trouble yeah, I'm like you'd have to. I'm gonna have to get like mr. Remember mr t, they would knock him out to fly oh they would. Yeah, you're younger than me uh yeah, mr t and uh in the old a team show he hated to fly, so they would knock him out somehow and stick him on a plane or a helicopter and fly in there. I think I'd probably do the same thing when I go international.
Nick:That's hilarious. What is an unpopular opinion you have? Getta. Getta doesn't count, although that is unpopular in these parts. I think I heard you.
Michael:I listened to one of your shows the other day and somebody was talking about the Beatles and I'm sorry, I don't get it. I'm sure they were popular, I'm sure they were big, but their music does nothing for me. I respect what they did, I know they were popular as hell, but I'm not putting on a Beatles Spotify playlist at all.
Nick:I'm sorry, this interview is over. I'm sorry.
Michael:I like to think I have really good taste in music but they're good songs, but the way people rave about them, yeah, okay.
Nick:Sure, oh man, see, I love the Beatles, but um, I think what one of the things I think is funny about music is no one ever lines up perfectly on music.
Michael:No.
Nick:And it's. It is amazing that some people can listen to something like like this is actually a great example. Like, yeah, I do, I love the Beatles. I would argue that they're the best band ever. But then, like you're like no, absolutely not. But I think about like there's so much music out there that's like that. Like I hate hair metal, but like 80s hair metal.
Michael:Oh my God, I love hair metal yeah.
Nick:So you're like, yeah, great, yeah, see, exactly. And some people are like, yeah, you put on ronnie milsap or uh alabama, or willie nelson love it. Yeah, you know, it's funny, I, I am not a big country fan but I like older country like johnny cash.
Nick:That's what it used to be like folkier, and what actually made me get that transition is like I like irish music. Irish music is very folky, like I would listen to that. And then I remember listening to johnny cash. I'm like holy crap, this kind of this isn't that we talked about working on houses or doing construction projects and stuff earlier. And again.
Michael:I worked with my dad on the farm growing up and he always had that country music station on and to this day, if I'm going to work on a large project, I'm putting on the same style of country music. So 80s country music as I work and it helps drive me faster and my wife can't stand it. I'm like you bite your tongue, wife. That's Tracy Lawrence singing.
Nick:Time Marches On. Yeah, I used to be really into rock and roll, just in general 90s rock, in particular 90s and 60s. But I really like Bob Dylan. That was another one I really liked back then. But I like to listen to music when I work. A lot of times it depends what you're working on, but a lot of times I'll listen to music. I can't listen to lyrics, though, or any kind of significant lyrics, so suffice it to say Bob Dylan is out the window. Oh yeah he's a poet.
Michael:I've gotten really into electronic music like dance music, which I never thought I would have been into. Are you going?
Nick:I would, but the thing is I wouldn't dance. I would go to a rave and just sit in the corner and listen to the beat.
Michael:It's just glow sticks yeah.
Nick:I'd be like this is nice.
Michael:It's cool. I'm big on the stuff I came up with which I loved hair metal.
Nick:Guns.
Michael:N' Roses did it for me. Green Day is one of my favorites.
Nick:Green Day is great.
Michael:My wife loves Foo Fighters. I'm a huge Grace Potter fan.
Nick:Actually, we're in a Grace Potter hoodie right now If anybody knows me, they know that I love Grace Potter.
Michael:Yeah, so I could throw on Green Day Dookie in the garage and have a beer and enjoy myself the entire night like the full album.
Michael:Yeah, dookie was great, that's probably my favorite of the Green Day albums. Yeah, we saw them at Great American Ballpark earlier this year. How were they? It was the anniversary of Dookie. It's the 30th anniversary. Oh, it's 30. It makes me feel old as hell, but they played the entire album. Yeah, I'm like. You know, it's the deep. I call it deep cuts. It wasn't a deep cut to me, but you're like, yes, I've never seen them play this live no-transcript political.
Nick:When the fight and this is kind of somewhat, I guess I suppose, ironic is my politics did line up with a lot of these bands, like a lot of punk bands did as well, but I did not like it when they went political.
Michael:I thought it was just kind of superficial and dumb I thought american media was great, one of the probably one of the greatest albums ever. Yeah, yeah it's political, but to me music's always been political. Bob dylan was political, creedens clearwater revival was political. They were all politically people who gripe and complain that bands are getting political not you, but I'm saying like people who are extremely political, like they shouldn't have an opinion on politics. Music should be music, and I'm like where were you in the last 60, 70 years?
Nick:yeah, all music's political, yeah well, the thing is like bands, like rage against the machine, didn't bother me in that regard, like I think what bothered me is like I'm thinking, thinking of punk in particular, like no effects or something like that.
Michael:Yeah.
Nick:That it felt very superficial, like it was. It wasn't like a deep political meeting, whereas, like Bob Dylan would like write songs about, you know, black men being lynched in Mississippi, like I mean he had never heard. Like the hurricane was about Ruben Carter, you know, and going to jail for is a much deeper level than like, oh, george Bush is a fascist and I'm like that's lame.
Michael:Well, I mean whatever inspires them to write music, as long as they're putting something out. I know Green. Day put out an album following that. I can't remember the name of it.
Nick:It was political as well, but it just did not resonate like American Idiot did Okay, or I'll do one more lightning round question what brings you joy?
Michael:My kids and my wife. My family, kids and wife, seeing my kids do things that I would never have done at their age their confidence, their swagger, just everything about them, from the hockey to their academics, to their sense of humor. When I sit down and dwell on who they've become, who they are and who I was at that age, I think that was all in me.
Michael:I just didn't have the confidence to do to be vocal, to be athletic, to do what they've done, and it's just a joy. And then my wife. You know for her to put up with my shenanigans. For 20, over 20 years she's just been an incredible partner and a better best friend and I can't imagine a life without her. So they've just been. My family is just incredible. A lot of them.
Nick:Dude, that's awesome, I love it, thanks. Well, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast.
Michael:Oh, no problem, I hope it turns out okay. I really appreciate you letting me vent and talk about things. Your show's great. I've listened to quite a few episodes and you know I really appreciate you having me.
Nick:Thanks, man, thank, thank you. We'll have to do it again sometime. Absolutely, see ya Bye. Thank you, michael, for coming on to the cast. Funny thing we actually got an escape ladder for Christmas. Now we just need to learn how to quickly deploy it. Thank you to everyone for tuning in. I appreciate you all. Keep the feedback coming. For an easy way to send feedback, check out the show notes for this episode. There is a link that lets you send a text. Until next time, take care.
