Episode 208
Decks, Daughters, and Dumb Decisions
We break away from our usual educational episodes to talk about what's actually going on in our lives. Steve's daughter is graduating, Brad's rebuilding a trailer, and the roasting begins immediately starting with Steve's 40 yards of concrete project that never happened.
Our conversation bounces from home improvement disasters to paint color debates (chartreuse with zebra stripes, anyone?) to what summer looks like when we're not recording podcast episodes. Brad's golfing in 31-degree weather. Steve refuses to shingle his own roof despite knowing how. We argue about whether Cookie Monster blue or lime green with pink LEDs makes more sense for a trailer.
We wrap the episode with what's next for the show. We're thinking about an in-person event late 2026 or 2027, somewhere between Detroit and Milwaukee. We want to know what would get you to show up. What would make it worth your time?
Highlights:
- We ditch the usual format for a conversation about summer plans and roasting each other.
- Steve's daughter graduates and heads to college.
- Brad debates trailer paint colors while Steve deals with deck repairs and roof quotes.
- What's next for the show: a potential in-person event if you want one.
Let us know. Would you attend an event? If so what would make it a "Hell Yes" to attend? Email us your ideas. We appreciate you being here.
Get in touch with us:
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Brad Herda:
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Transcript
Welcome back to this episode of Blue Coward BS, Mr. Doyle. How you doing?
Doyle (:I didn't even realize you hit record. I'm just off of my own little planet right now. Just staring around the room. And I just saw the screen flicker and I'm like, wait a minute. He just hit record. All right. Let's go.
Brad Herda (:I did hit record. I am your cohost Brad, along with the award winning cohost. There you go.
Doyle (:Steve. Clearly not paying attention.
Brad Herda (:no, that was on purpose. I hit the button on purpose right there because, this is just going to be a fun little episode, right? It's been a, it's today. It's what Friday, March 27th. It's winter 3.5. it rained all day yesterday. It's now cold again. It's going to be 20s tonight. supposed to golf tomorrow at 9 a.m. It's supposed to be 31 degrees at tee off time.
Doyle (:Nice.
Brad Herda (:probably in a frost delay. It's going to be awesome. But that's my problem. It's my problem. That is not your problem. let's just have some fun here. Let's just go through some stuff. Let's just make it. Let's just make this show a little bit about us to get people to know us or not that they don't know who we are already from. I mean, this is freaking episode 208. I mean, if they haven't figured it out by now, then that's their problem. But, un, dur, un, dur,
Doyle (:That's fantastic. That's right. That sounds fantastic. Nope. Not my life.
Doyle (:okay.
Doyle (:Well, well, I mean, I guess you're going to go there less. We can drop some beats.
Brad Herda (:OOTER OOTER A. OOTER OOTER A.
Brad Herda (:Do
Doyle (:Anyways, anywho.
Brad Herda (:Anyways
So how is preparing for one departure happening? How's that going for life?
Doyle (:You know, we don't really it's it's one of those things. So for most people, if you don't know, my daughter is in her late stages of her senior year of high school, getting ready to fly the coop, get out of the nest, be out on her own. We haven't really talked about it a whole lot between Shannon and I. You know, it's just kind of she's kind of.
Brad Herda (:Episode one, if you want to get to know episode 158 was her episode was Kayla's episode June of twenty twenty five.
Doyle (:Yeah, was Kayla's episode. Yep.
Mm hmm. And yeah, she's I will say she right now. I mean, she does. She goes to school. She works. You know, part.
Brad Herda (:So you still have the same job she had in 25 or she get another job since then?
Doyle (:No, still same one. Same one she well, because with the school she's going to be a teacher. Sure, I mean it's one of those. mean God bless her. Cause nope, I'm out hard pass.
Brad Herda (:because well she's had you as her father so therefore she knows how to she knows what you know let's just be honest she knows what stupid looks like
Doyle (:She knows. Well, I mean, I mean, there is that. So we've done all we've done our whole.
Brad Herda (:The guy that was going to put 40 yards of concrete underneath his window.
Doyle (:Listen, Linda, listen, it would have worked. Just would have caused it. Would have worked great. Just a lot of concrete.
Brad Herda (:Oh yes, it would have worked.
Brad Herda (:Right, you'd be backing up the old Home Depot truck with pallets of pallets of bags of quickcrete.
Doyle (:I would have. you know what? I was prepared to do that. But you know, we, we, we, after we got some, some common sense talking to from the Mr. BH, we kind of went with a scaled down approach.
Brad Herda (:who is just a question. Just a question. How much, hang on, what?
Doyle (:Right, but yeah, no, she's still same job. But with high school with her with her, what she wants to do, she gets out of two hours of her out of her day to go work at the daycare school place where she's currently working. And then in the summer, once she graduates, she's only got about a month left of high school. Once that happens, she's going well.
Yeah, she'll be like an assistant teacher there. Yeah, so she that's she were gearing up for that and honestly we haven't really thought we haven't talked about it a whole lot of her kind of leaving. She's going to go to school. It's about an hour away so. It's kind of a it'll be kind of interesting because you know the daily tornado of her getting home and you know. Thought word vomiting everything that's happened during the day won't happen.
the excitement around whatever the daily issue is just won't be there.
Brad Herda (:So are you trying to say she elevates things that are going on? That's not going to translate well in a teacher role.
Doyle (:I would never say that.
I will never say that. You know. So, yeah, that's.
Brad Herda (:We might need to get her back on before she departs just to have a little life lesson.
Doyle (:We could have a little life lesson conversation with her. She'd be down for that.
Brad Herda (:Say, look, there's no need to accelerate all this stuff up the ladder of things, right? These kids are gonna treat you like crap and they're not going to care. So figure out how to get that kitten and just, or emotional support dog or whatever you're gonna have because you're gonna need it.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Doyle (:Yep.
Yeah. So yeah, so that's kind of, know, that's what's going on. Or not going on. It's just pretty much we work, do our thing. Yeah, so we'll kind of see.
Brad Herda (:All right, so this shows, let's see, June 5th, looks like this show is airing based on what I see in our calendar release.
Doyle (:Yeah, so that's she'll be graduated and we're prepping for her open house.
Brad Herda (:nice open invite to all our guests over and our tens of listeners no no don't do that don't do that no no no don't say that
Doyle (:Oh yeah, sure. Show on up. Show on up. Yeah, just showing up. You can find it. It's open. There's going to be plenty of barbecue. Oh, the inter what it's all it's inside. It's enter it's enter it's it's inside. It's OK.
Brad Herda (:Steve, there's this thing called the internet.
Brad Herda (:Right.
Brad Herda (:That's intra, intra, not inter. Intrastates, right?
Doyle (:yeah. Well, it's interesting, but not entering.
Brad Herda (:So other than that, any big summer projects for the year or no?
Doyle (:No, no, that's going to be just all the home prep around that.
Yeah, I mean we've we've gone through the do we build a deck? Do we rebuild the deck? Tear the deck down, put concrete in, you know all of those fun things. Right, so that's that's already led to the delivery of decking material to repair the deck.
Brad Herda (:Composite or 5-4 just treated lumber
Doyle (:it's all treated lumber. She nixed every every idea was nixed. The only idea that was approved was you do the work. That was the only thing that was approved.
Mm hmm. Yep, I'm trying to get out of redoing the roof. I am not shingling the roof.
Brad Herda (:No, they have people who do that for a living.
Doyle (:No, I'm well aware and we've gotten quotes and I'm well prepared for her to go. Yeah, no. And I'm going to be like, yeah, no. Yeah, no. Yeah, no, that's a hard pass. That's a hard pass.
Brad Herda (:Unless you're doing it, honey.
Yeah, no. No, no, no, thank you. I'll do both my sheds. Not a problem, right? Not a big deal. They're 12 by 12s. Fine, whatever. Decent pitch to them, but I can put a ladder up on top and not have to worry about it. I'm not walking on top of them for the most part, but yeah, I'm not too in my house. No way. No way. No, thank you.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Come on. You know how to do it. Just because you know how to do it doesn't mean you should do it.
Brad Herda (:correct that's why I got LH Krieger and Son to do our roof and our flat roof and our rubber roof that we got over there on the screen and porch said okay guys you tear this off and do this and put in the new wood and do all the things and put over the boots and get all the valley stuff done and all the flashing and all the all the things all moisture barrier all that I don't want any of that
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Come on.
Brad Herda (:No, thank you. You have people. You got people. You got a network, right?
Doyle (:Come on, no thank you?
Doyle (:I do, Evan. I mean, sure. Pun intended. I got you. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We did just talk about this. Two weeks ago, pun intended. Okay, I understand what you're throwing down. Mm-hmm. You can read between the lines.
Brad Herda (:We just talked about this two weeks ago.
Brad Herda (:Right. Maybe you should call your insurance agent or your real estate agent and say, Hey, do know a roofer?
Doyle (:Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I did get some quotes, so I'm literally looking at them right now. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Brad Herda (:OK. Because how old is your roof?
Doyle (:Which part?
Brad Herda (:Fair enough. are you looking at the roof because your homeowner's insurance said, hey, we might not be insuring this because your roof is too old or no?
Doyle (:No, no, no, no, I've been up on the roof several times. It's time for the part that's not been replaced. Like the year before we bought it, it needs to be replaced. So basically it's a it's a complete I do tear offs. I don't I do not I'm not on board with the hey, let's shingle over the existing stuff. No, you're just shingling over existing problems. Not doing that.
Brad Herda (:their problems.
Doyle (:You know, I don't need there to be problems and I don't need to find out. Yeah, yeah. So I do not need to be getting involved in that. I just need stuff to.
Brad Herda (:Alright, fair enough. You are an engineer, so...
Brad Herda (:Get on the roof, Mr. Doyle on the roof. Who's on the roof? Steve's on the roof.
Doyle (:Yes, exactly. No.
Doyle (:No.
Doyle (:So so what? Out of this this what Steve doing role? What's Brad got planned for the summer?
Brad Herda (:Let's see, what do we got planned for the summer? Hopefully a bunch of golf. We got a vacation in September. Going to Croatia, so that'll be interesting. That's the trip this year that we're gonna go do.
Doyle (:Nice.
Brad Herda (:That's kind of hanging out. Wife's going to see our youngest son in Florida in April, which would have already happened by now. So she's back now, safe. Not going to would. Predictive. Predictive index says there's a 100 % chance she should be home safely by the time this airs. Not really a lot of yard projects. I get to rebuild a trailer.
Doyle (:Thanks.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Doyle (:now that, what are we doing?
Brad Herda (:So I acquired a old Chilton trailer from my father-in-law. Actually, my mother-in-law from my father-in-law passed because I was the only one that was using it. the wood is, the tree lumber is all rotted out, right? mean, it's spongy wet. It's good stuff. It's termite stuff. It's like, here's all the Anson things that could live. And it's a tilt bed trailer.
Doyle (:Okay.
Doyle (:Yeah.
Doyle (:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ooh, that's some good stuff.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
even better. Love that.
Brad Herda (:you know, just a standard solid axle trailer. So I gotta get, I'm going to get some lumber for it. I may be, may be able to find some leftover decking from some of my customers that may have some leftover decking material, composite decking to use for the sideboards and things instead of
Doyle (:Doyle (12:51.085)
Mm.
Doyle (:Okay, yep, that would be good.
Brad Herda (:Instead of the treated lumber, just get the treated for two by fours for the posts and decking down.
Doyle (:Mmm.
Doyle (:See, if you happen to know of anybody in the marine area, marine grade is a whole lot better than just the treated stuff. So get you some marine grade.
Brad Herda (:I could but that tree lumber that's sitting on that trailer right now is probably 30 years old and it's been just fine
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Doyle (:Hmm, you know
Brad Herda (:I am nearing the end of the useful trailer life here. For me, no, no, for me, as the useful end of my trailer, trailering days to go to and from the, you know, yard waste and collection area or to the Menards or Home Depot or whatever to pick up bags. I am going to be nearing the end of that phase of my life.
Doyle (:Is it rusted out? Is it rusting? for you.
Hmm.
Doyle (:Doyle (13:57.682)
come on now. Come on, man.
Brad Herda (:So we're going to, we got to rewood it. We're going to pull the wheels off, do all the things. I got a light kit for it for Christmas. I got the extra wheel adapter thingy, the lifter upper on the tongue. Got a new one of those to put on and manual. It's a crank, just turn it.
Doyle (:Doyle (14:19.008)
Manual battery operated. come on. Hook that into the battery. you'll save it'll be like enjoy like. Like little angels going off.
Brad Herda (:I don't need to know what you're doing with your batteries and going zzzz with little angels going off, okay?
Doyle (:Yeah, it's like little angles going off that you don't have to sit there and crank that thing. Just crank that thing. That's right. That's right. To the beat. Yeah, never mind.
Brad Herda (:Crank that thing. Crank it. Crank it. That's what she said. Never mind. So, and then we also have, I take off the, that'll be the most challenging part is taking off the tongue part of the trailer, because it's all just jacked up after 30 some years and they have it.
Doyle (:A
Brad Herda (:I can't tell if they have it just riveted down and I just got to drill it out or if it's actually welded down and I got to try to do something that I so that'll be the interesting part because I just got a bolt on tongue to it piece of it that I can replace it with. So do that straighten out the fenders, get the disc grinder out, clean it all up, get the rust off of it, repaint it, put the new wood on it. So the question I have is
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Doyle (:Yeah?
Brad Herda (:We got a new light kit for it too and battery and light and wiring. The question I have is what color should I paint it?
Doyle (:Ugh, I mean, seriously? Lime green suits you.
Doyle (:Big lime green, big green.
Brad Herda (:I am green or should I go with the, you know, you know, the pink colors.
Doyle (:chartreuse chartreuse yeah i'm thinking chartreuse maybe
Brad Herda (:Because I can't just paint it gloss black again.
Doyle (:Correct. That's not you. That doesn't fit you.
Brad Herda (:Right, and then I'm going to I can take all the musky sticker. that's got some musky fishing to do this summer. Hopefully to knock on wood and take all the stickers from all the places and put those on the trail right on the along the trailer different things. But yeah, my intent is to go through that trailer top to bottom and just kind of rebuild the trailer this spring.
Doyle (:nice.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Doyle (:I mean, you could also go Cookie Monster Blue.
Doyle (:Nah, see? You're kind of already himmin' and hawin'. I'm thinkin' a little chartreuse with a couple splashes of lime green. Maybe zebra-stripe that thing out?
Doyle (:I mean, they do have some lime green pinstripe paint.
Like tape paint, you could. Yep.
It would be even better if it was like reflective. Little glow in the dark UV action.
Doyle (:Right? Run some, you know what? Even better. What you could do. Paint that sucker green, put on some running LEDs underneath that are pink. I mean, like lights out, let's go. Take, you know, I have a little.
Brad Herda (:Wow, I haven't bought Pinsripe tape in a really long time. It's, wow, holy crap. No, not even close to what I.
Doyle (:huh.
Not what you thought. Yeah, not what you thought.
I mean, you know what? By the time you're all of this talk, you could just vehicle. You could just wrap that thing. Just some vinyl and wrap that suck up. You could. Yeah, I heard you know I heard you know somebody that does vinyl wrapping. I'm you know what? I think you know a guy.
Brad Herda (:Good friend.
Brad Herda (:Are they in my network?
Brad Herda (:I do, I know a couple folks. They're in my network. What about your network?
Doyle (:huh.
You know what? I do. I actually do know two people that do vinyl wrapping.
Brad Herda (:I could probably get some cool graphics made up for the top of the fenders too.
Doyle (:Right. That's what I'm saying. You know, we know some sticker people. mean, let's go.
Brad Herda (:we could go off no I would go like the right get the go to the like the the true auto graphics folks not just stickers and here we go oh oh we could we could podcast logo this baby up
Doyle (:Yes.
yes. What are we thinking?
Doyle (:We could podcast logo this sucker. Yeah. You know what? I'm just I got this this thing I used to watch. I it was like pimp my ride. I'm just thinking we pimp your trailer. Put some 42s on that trailer will be all set.
Brad Herda (:42. Yeah. Need a reverse trailer hitch to go up 17 feet.
Doyle (:You're towing above the roof of your car.
Brad Herda (:Right. Yeah. Hey, how come you're towing that upright freezer and it hit the bridge?
Brad Herda (:I'm gonna need oversized load permits just to go... Yeah... Yeah...
Doyle (:You'd like that get it road ready
Brad Herda (:You are a hoot, but yes we have and we've got 4th July, Brother-in-law's 4th July party at our house as per usual. just getting everything ready for that. Hope you know just all the things got some tree trimming to do.
Doyle (:Nice.
Brad Herda (:probably cut down some trees in the back that the deer ate. We planted some pine trees along the backside of the yard and deer ate the middle of the trees. And guess what? When deer eat the middle of the tree, the middle of the tree doesn't grow back.
Doyle (:No, no, I've got a couple of abro- abro- abrovaties like that.
Brad Herda (:And so there's a tree. It's growing, but the middle of it is barren. No, it's not dead. It's gone.
Doyle (:is dead. Yeah.
Yeah. Right. Just nothing there.
Brad Herda (:from where their deer decided to eat it. So we're thinking, I've got to figure out what I'm going to do there from a privacy screen perspective, because that's what the trees were there for, to keep the neighbors and the dogs and stuff away from just being stupid.
Brad Herda (:So I'm thinking about either using, so one of my supplier customers, do metal building construction. Maybe I could do some, maybe I could put a couple 35 foot insulated metal wall panels horizontal and stack up a bunch of them, like three of them or four of them and just do a whole wall like that, you know, with a few supports and a few braces, screw those babies down and.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Just a little.
Brad Herda (:And then, I know this is the towards the tail end of the show, our listening audience, and hopefully I haven't gotten completely bored, but here's a question for our audience. What would, what, and that we'd love to get some feedback and messaging from our audience on LinkedIn or wherever. we have tossed around a blue collar, yes. Podcasts, trade show symposium.
Doyle (:Mmm.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:in-person events, something along those lines. Audience, what would you like to see for an event like that? I mean, a lot of our guests have said, yes, absolutely, they'll be here. They'll come. They'll do whatever, wherever we decide to put this. What would be some of the things that would attract our listeners to show up and participate? Please leave us some notes. Drop us, email us.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Doyle (:Okay.
Doyle (:Hmm.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Tell us, because we'd like to do that for either a late 26 or next year about this time to put something together, whether it's in Detroit or here in Milwaukee or somewhere in between or whatever. Send us what you think would make a great opportunity.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Doyle (:somewhere.
Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:So if we don't ask, we don't know. And also, if anybody happens to know Tim Allen and can get him on the show without us paying a gazillions of dollars, that'd be awesome too.
Doyle (:That's right.
Doyle (:I mean, you know, and if you can't get if you don't know Tim, but you know, Mike, yeah, we'll take Mike. Yeah, yeah.
Brad Herda (:Yeah, it might grow too. We'll take you up to. Without having to pay gazillions of dollars, we'd appreciate that.
Doyle (:Hey, you gotta put it out there. You gotta forecast that.
Manifestation.
Right.
Brad Herda (:So all right, so that's our June 5th Really our rap. Oomph, oomph. Right. I, I, I.
Doyle (:Hmm.
Doyle (:Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-
Brad Herda (:Have a good week, sir.
Doyle (:Later.
