In hour 2 for our Christmas Special we decided instead of a best of show or rerun we would do a special with a few of our friends, our Around the House family. This is not your typical home improvement show today as we are gathered to tell stories and celebrate a successful year for all of us. Guests include Nikki Krueger from Santa-Fe Dehumidifiers https://www.santa-fe-products.com/, Skip and Alison Bidell from Catch a Contractor and the Home Improvement Expert on Fox and Friends weekdays https://www.skipbedell.com/home/ , William White tile expert from Ardex America's https://www.ardexamericas.com/, and Russell Pope from Panasonic https://na.panasonic.com/us/industries/building-construction

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[00:00:22] Intro: and happy holidays.

[00:00:30] Caroline Blazovsky: chat. Welcome to our holiday party. Everyone. We want it to have a special holiday around the house. Get together with all of our friends that join us week after week to bring you the best information in home improvement.

[00:00:56] Skip Bidell: comes to remodeling and renovating your

[00:01:07] Eric Goranson: welcome to around the house with Eric G N Caroline B Merry Christmas, everybody. He Caroline

[00:01:16] Caroline Blazovsky: Oh, this has been so wonderful. I'm sharing our holiday cheer with everyone and I'm so excited. You guessed to

[00:01:29] Eric Goranson: Cause it's been a while. My friend. Yeah, it's

[00:01:34] Eric Goranson: Yeah, man, this is great. This is great. We've got the fire going, got a little cocktail going. Everything is good. And I see

[00:01:43] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah.

[00:01:46] Eric Goranson: you got on that ugly sweater, so I'm just trying to bake out of here.

[00:01:50] Caroline Blazovsky: this is my Christmas sweater. You guys, my hat.

[00:02:01] Caroline Blazovsky: just because you don't dress up,

[00:02:15] Intro: wait a minute. Do I see, I see

[00:02:24] Eric Goranson: I think we got Nikki Kruger walking up to the door. Hey

[00:02:28] Intro: come on in.

[00:02:37] Caroline Blazovsky: see Eric. You're not in the cool, that's all she's. She knows what to do.

[00:02:43] Intro: we got these Merry Christmas

[00:02:50] Eric Goranson: There we go. Look, you're just walking in the door behind him. Skip and Alison[00:03:00]

[00:03:01] Eric Goranson: Christmas, Merry Christmas. And then we got,

[00:03:14] William White: Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas

[00:03:23] Eric Goranson: You got it. We got some more people popping in here a little later as time goes, but uh, happy to see everybody, a little secret here, William and William White.

[00:03:37] William White: together. Christmases. Yeah, just a few Christmases

[00:03:57] William White: Yeah. Kind of cross paths again.[00:04:00]

[00:04:03] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Yeah. And then ran into each other in an industry event. And I'm like, I know you, but I didn't know where in. William's looking at me, like I'm fricking crazy. I had no clue.

[00:04:25] Eric Goranson: in trouble.

[00:04:32] Eric Goranson: So pretty cool. Oh yeah. So we have a non-proliferation treaty that neither one of us are going to tell stories because some of those stories were not insured entirely sure. When the, uh, you know, when the statute of limitations is over. So we just decided not to talk about this. We shall not incriminate

[00:04:54] Nikki Krueger: Uh, Cole and your stockings this Christmas

[00:04:58] Eric Goranson: but it does hit the [00:05:00] shop. So

[00:05:08] Eric Goranson: Oh yeah. We're going to get into those. We're going to get into those for sure. Let's go around the room real quick and give some introduction. So, so each one of you guys, and then, you know, our friends here with us, know who, who we're talking to today.

[00:05:22] Skip Bidell: Sure.

[00:05:23] Nikki Krueger: name's Nikki Kruger and I am the building science and marketing director for Santa Fe dehumidifiers. So we do hold. Dehumidifiers and, uh, basement and crawl space. And, uh, we just recently launched some air purifier systems as well.

[00:05:43] Nikki Krueger: quality. Yeah.

[00:05:50] Nikki Krueger: bright is perfect. Yeah. The portable HEPA units. Perfect. But in the indoor air quality industry, and I hate saying this, but it's probably been 20 years now, [00:06:00] so, well, I don't know where yeah. You look

[00:06:05] Caroline Blazovsky: None of us. We don't age doesn't affect us. There's no age here. Well, you

[00:06:11] Caroline Blazovsky: helps you look good. It makes your skin look glow.

[00:06:19] Nikki Krueger: We look super

[00:06:20] Eric Goranson: we go. There we go. Skip it. You guys are the world famous skip analysis

[00:06:41] Caroline Blazovsky: said, look, we got our ugly sweater.

[00:07:08] Eric Goranson: I see I'm out here working early on the.

[00:07:20] Skip Bidell: kid. It's been great. And they're great over there. I just, I love the Fox family and uh, you know, we, we enjoy what we're doing. You know, we get to talk about cool stuff and tools and home improvement and, you know, I mean, like could be better than that.

[00:07:36] Intro: Yeah,

[00:07:51] Nikki Krueger: you hear about this problem? And I'm like, skip, skip talks about

[00:07:54] Caroline Blazovsky: I said, I loved it. And so we purchased and every time we purchased, we put your name in. So we said, we heard about it [00:08:00] from a little FYI

[00:08:04] Eric Goranson: from us.

[00:08:14] Skip Bidell: You have a pet, you know, it's like, they're, they're a part of the family. So we take care of them. Just like to take care of our kids.

[00:08:30] William White: There you go. Yes. William White with Arctics engineered cements specifically on the Thailand stone installation division.

[00:08:39] Eric Goranson: them. Nice. You got it, man. He is the guy that makes me, when I started doing tile. I'm like, I've done tile a lot. Then I watch William do it. And I'm like, I am so not good at this compared to it's all

[00:08:57] William White: There's lots of muscle

[00:09:12] Eric Goranson: That was just a fun day of construction. Yeah. That was a blast. Makes the day go really easy, right? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:29] Skip Bidell: You know,

[00:09:31] William White: learn something down along the road.

[00:09:34] Skip Bidell: Eric walked me some real cool tricks, man. Listen, I've been the stolen kitchens for 20 years and I thought, well, you know, you never know at all, but I had a pretty good handle on it until Eric came over my house and he's like, nah, man, like not do it this way.

[00:10:12] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Well, and it,

[00:10:21] Eric Goranson: changing. Well, great example, William, you and I we're working. We're not gonna, we're not gonna say bad things because it's Christmas and we're not going to give any companies a hard time, but you and I were working on a project and we're following the material installation instructions unique.

[00:10:42] Skip Bidell: He's instruction manuals actually

[00:10:58] Skip Bidell: These people had never been on an [00:11:00] actual job site.

[00:11:03] William White: thing that came out of that is actually Eric was able to connect us with that particular manufacturer. And now they're leaning on us to help them rewrite their technical documents and

[00:11:26] Eric Goranson: So I'm very happy that that hundred and 20 pound piece of material is well adhered. Yeah.

[00:11:38] Eric Goranson: she's probably breaking up there. You got the, you got the whole dress thing going on over there. '

[00:11:50] Intro: another bottle of wine for me.

[00:11:54] Caroline Blazovsky: just got the

[00:11:57] Skip Bidell: on

[00:12:02] Intro: happy

[00:12:06] Skip Bidell: Hold on. Let me show you something. I don't know bourbon,

[00:12:26] Eric Goranson: you made it not a problem you made here in man.

[00:12:30] Nikki Krueger: buy the drinks. We didn't hear that. Sorry,

[00:12:34] Eric Goranson: Yep. So he snuck in and he just snuck in. So that's the good part. That's what friends do. They don't have the doorbell. So

[00:12:44] Intro: booze per presentation.

[00:12:46] Eric Goranson: look, bourbon, baby. Delicious. Got it. You got it, Russell. Welcome to the, welcome to the fireside chat today. Why don't you introduce yourself real quick now that you're here in the room, but on Roscoe

[00:13:00] Intro: likes,

[00:13:06] Eric Goranson: got him. What happened? We lost your audio there. Russell. Nobody lost you. There we go. Okay. He's good. He's good and bad for the last thing we heard was Panasonic.

[00:13:31] Russell Pope: You know, we can't give all of the details about which viruses that addresses because of all of the regulations and new testing requirements, but they claim a lot more than other kinds of cause for bacterias and

[00:13:47] Nikki Krueger: Isn't that? Isn't a fan or I'm sorry, is it a fan or is it some sort of

[00:13:56] Intro: device?

[00:14:03] Skip Bidell: is it a free-standing or is something like the mountain, the bathroom, or in your CLR? It would be mattered in the

[00:14:09] Russell Pope: So a lot like a recessed can light. So the, uh, the technology has existed for a while. It's a technology called a nano technology, hydroxy radicals, obviously the big concern, there is any kind of generation of ozone, but we did all the ozone testing and it's like, I think less than your microwave generates.

[00:14:30] Eric Goranson: amount of,

[00:14:41] Intro: you were

[00:14:50] Eric Goranson: I

[00:14:55] Nikki Krueger: I'd be

[00:15:06] Skip Bidell: got a lot of questions for you when it comes to air quality in our house because

[00:15:15] Intro: Russell has got the solution. Trust me. Hey,

[00:15:41] Intro: It sounds like it's odd. This is on her.

[00:16:03] Intro: hear a little hard. Oh my God.

[00:16:07] Caroline Blazovsky: want to ask my question. So in the first hour we interviewed, we have, this is our family. Okay. And so we've picked the people that we want, and you have been positioned in these positions for a reason to introduce you to each other, to help you connect and to get you all acquainted.

[00:16:30] Caroline Blazovsky: So let's just go around and I want to hear everybody's favorite Christmas or holiday traditions. So whether it's a drink, maybe it's a food that you make something you do. So we'll start with Nikki. Nikki is going to be my go-to so something.

[00:17:04] Nikki Krueger: Um, but it's always, even my, when my kids come, they're like, uh, we have, uh, are we having chili on Christmas Eve? And if I were to say, no, it would be devastating to that. So

[00:17:18] Nikki Krueger: our traditions

[00:17:27] Intro: That

[00:17:32] Eric Goranson: That is cool. William what's yours family, family tradition is

[00:17:55] William White: And, uh, and hopefully you didn't open the [00:18:00] family gift.

[00:18:30] Eric Goranson: the dog.

[00:18:34] Nikki Krueger: That's what my husband

[00:18:53] Nikki Krueger: finger pointed.

[00:18:57] Eric Goranson: That is, that is hilarious. Think [00:19:00] about how bad

[00:19:04] Eric Goranson: ours,

[00:19:27] Eric Goranson: and a dog. Russell you're right, because dogs can predict the earthquake about five to 10 seconds before they're looking at skip

[00:19:57] Eric Goranson: I knew the second hour is going to go off the trails. [00:20:00] And,

[00:20:09] Intro: I don't even want to know where we're going.

[00:20:18] Skip Bidell: go downhill

[00:20:30] Eric Goranson: So, anyway, William

[00:20:52] Eric Goranson: Christmas Eve.

[00:21:01] Nikki Krueger: Never, never would they let us, we had to wait

[00:21:07] Skip Bidell: at anybody like sneak downstairs and

[00:21:13] Skip Bidell: a wrapping paper and then push it

[00:21:28] Eric Goranson: And if you, if you crease the edge of the paper without tearing it. Oh man. Oh yeah, I'm happy. We didn't have cameras back then. Cause she'd had like lasers and sensors. I could've been like coming in from the ceiling on mission impossible and I couldn't deep set,

[00:21:49] Caroline Blazovsky: deep Sentinel and they would've come on with the security.

[00:21:52] Intro: What are you doing? Upset. No

[00:22:14] Nikki Krueger: And I was absolutely petrified to even like move the camera, managing kids with cell phones and everything. These days like Santa is busted. Yeah. There is no doubt. I was petrified. I couldn't do it. I could've did it, but I was too scared. Can you imagine that flash going? I never went

[00:22:36] Eric Goranson: Dan, you had a question over

[00:22:55] Dane Vawter: Oh

[00:22:58] Dane Vawter: And then. Christmas [00:23:00] morning and then still play with them before. So that ended up

[00:23:11] Nikki Krueger: socks and underwear underneath the tree on Christmas Eve because only Santa brought the good stuff. So

[00:23:20] Intro: good.

[00:23:27] Skip Bidell: the morning though. Right? It's like, you got to get up in the morning and like rip everything out

[00:23:34] Intro: Oh

[00:23:39] Eric Goranson: Skip. What was your childhood traditions and what do you guys still do?

[00:23:59] Skip Bidell: [00:24:00] And I think as I got a little bit older, Uh, my parents kind of figured me out, you know, so we could, we did something as symbol that they would, they would let me open, you know, at least like one or two the night before Christmas Eve. And then we would get up in the morning and always have like a big breakfast.

[00:24:48] Eric Goranson: it into the, you know, the.

[00:25:03] Eric Goranson: nine.

[00:25:12] Skip Bidell: I give him another rag knock. Don't worry about, he's got a

[00:25:22] Skip Bidell: One year, you know, my dad, we always used to have a Christmas party every year, too. In our family business, we had a marina and there was a lot of people in town that work at our marina. So he would throw this big Christmas party every year at our house. And again, he loved to cook. So one year he's making this ham and I guess the part I should have started with is my dad was a big dog guy.

[00:26:06] Skip Bidell: And he's actually taken sweet potatoes that were like, kind of like that golden color. And he had a spoon and he was like glaze in the ham. And evidently what had happened was he told me, he said he walked into the kitchen, getting ready to pick up the hair and bring it out to the table. And one of the Dobermans were standing on the table with the entire

[00:26:28] Eric Goranson: This is like a Christmas story.

[00:26:58] Eric Goranson: to that hand.

[00:27:14] Eric Goranson: is funny. Yeah, man, that is funny. What do you got over there for a story?

[00:27:51] Nikki Krueger: Um, rainbow colored little job, you know what I mean? Like dots on it, colors all it was every year we would have that. And [00:28:00] now I see them in the store that the Italian grocery stores it's like, it brings back memories cause nobody makes it a homemade anymore. You know? And like, I don't, I don't eat it except for back then, we have a new tradition over here in our house because, um, because we've been so busy in the last seven years with box and we have a small house it's really cozy.

[00:28:36] Intro: loaded

[00:28:39] Nikki Krueger: pots.

[00:28:53] Eric Goranson: ago

[00:29:11] Nikki Krueger: on Christmas trees on, uh, on Fox because it was a home Depot tree display. So we had the, one of them up in our, in our foyer and we had a big, beautiful

[00:29:27] Caroline Blazovsky: and it had a beautiful

[00:29:37] Nikki Krueger: had this beautiful blanket and then no sooner than like, you know, Christmas came and went and we still had boxed to crap all over the floor. Maybe two months later with when we got around to putting away the Christmas tree, because it's like, it's just too much. So I'm breaking everything down, taking the tree apart from the top down.

[00:30:04] Intro: gifts.

[00:30:18] Intro: at this point, there were like, like rocks.

[00:30:42] Skip Bidell: Russell hopeless down with this here,

[00:30:47] Skip Bidell: a Christmas ornament air filtration system.

[00:31:01] Intro: Exactly. Hey, now.

[00:31:11] Russell Pope: peeking under the

[00:31:14] Eric Goranson: We can work some trade gears. So

[00:31:27] Intro: smart.

[00:31:32] Russell Pope: Gadget Mo double oh seven, for sure. Two weeks before Christmas, looking

[00:31:38] Skip Bidell: you saw, the presidents were put out, like after you guys went to bed, Christmas Eve, was that what happened? But

[00:31:48] Russell Pope: I make pecan railings for the family. So I think they look,

[00:31:56] Russell Pope: it ruins it. If it's a rainy day, because you can't make them on a [00:32:00] rainy day

[00:32:04] Eric Goranson: Ah, we can't make them for four months here.

[00:32:22] Eric Goranson: You can work out some deals here.

[00:32:30] Eric Goranson: right. That's awesome. That's awesome.

[00:32:36] Eric Goranson: So yeah, a couple things. So yeah, I was a little bit of a peaker as a kid, but I couldn't get away with it.

[00:33:04] Eric Goranson: And it would be hidden out there. And of course he would have hidden the keys to the trunk. So I couldn't get into the trunk. That's an another present, which is, yeah. So we had all these other, you know, Charlie brown chairs of stuff. So there was like multiple layers of security to get through that. Um, so the older I got, the more he gave up on it.

[00:33:48] Eric Goranson: And then watch the, the Christmas stuff that's on TV. Maybe it's like the, the Boston pops or whatever it was as a kid. And then we'd, uh, open up a present. So we, you know, have [00:34:00] sandwiches and just kind of a buffet thing. So, but there are lots of cookies and, and all that stuff and, and hope that we all made it to bed before Santa came that the plant first bird, I probably,

[00:34:13] Skip Bidell: Most of you guys here, I don't want to give it away, but, uh, who all remember is like, uh, the couple of weeks leading up to Christmas on TB, there was like all those Claymation, like Christmas.

[00:34:30] Eric Goranson: This person here.

[00:34:41] Nikki Krueger: There was no, I mean, there was no going back to recording it or anything. If you didn't see it, when it's listed,

[00:34:57] Eric Goranson: marathon. The Christmas movies. No, there [00:35:00] was, there was back in my day when you missed it, you missed it. And it was,

[00:35:07] Caroline Blazovsky: friends would always tell you that you missed it too. They'd be like, oh yeah, it was on last night.

[00:35:15] Nikki Krueger: I mean, I look back at Caroline's, but I think we should talk about who's what your favorite ones was because Emmett on it.

[00:35:22] Intro: favorite. Oh,

[00:35:31] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah. I just watched that weight. It's a tradition in our house that we watch all the Christmas movies. So like as soon as day one hits. So December 1st hits every night, it's a Christmas movie and we've invested in some like new stuff that's out there.

[00:35:46] Eric Goranson: daddy's Justin Bieber, Christmas on hallmark, stuff

[00:35:51] watch

[00:36:08] Skip Bidell: cool. We're like all those specials roll, like animated, but they were like the Claymation, like, right. It

[00:36:17] Skip Bidell: yeah. Oh yeah. Can we, you know, they, you know, they got, you got all the high tech CG. We have like a clay masses, like.

[00:36:34] Eric Goranson: quality

[00:36:38] Eric Goranson: myself.

[00:36:50] Intro: yeah.

[00:37:05] Dane Vawter: said, we could kind of be a Christmas Eve where it kind of devolved into opening up everything, but I mean, in the morning we would have our Christmas presents and stockings and then just watching Christmas movies.

[00:37:31] Eric Goranson: Nice. What's your

[00:37:35] Caroline Blazovsky: What's your favorite Christmas movie?

[00:37:37] Dane Vawter: ask me that it's probably the most, uh, inappropriate

[00:37:49] Nikki Krueger: my husband.

[00:37:53] Eric Goranson: those movies like that. That's okay. I, I, uh, I shocked my wife the other night, cause it was on [00:38:00] television. I made her watch team America, world police.

[00:38:12] Caroline Blazovsky: Well tradition. We talked about the movies we watched, like, so starting December 1st, we watch a holiday movie every night up leading up to Christmas. But then I think the best memory I had was I had the super great godfather who was just like, amazing.

[00:38:43] Caroline Blazovsky: So they'd built the Barbie house. So he was the guy, but he dressed up as Santa and I thought that Santa would come to me special. I didn't know that Santa came later on, you know, so I came to the house, so I had a special visit from Santa every year. It was nice.

[00:38:56] Eric Goranson: that's cool. Was he like, yeah, built

[00:39:05] Intro: from New Jersey.

[00:39:15] Eric Goranson: then the kids like,

[00:39:30] Intro: best. Yeah.

[00:39:33] Caroline Blazovsky: What I'd like, what are the gifts you guys have put together? Like we've had to put together, um, foosball tables. We've had to go over and put together. Like, I mean, being pong

[00:39:45] Skip Bidell: um, we put together so many, we do a Christmas special. And especially like with some of the kids' toys this year, I was so happy.

[00:40:07] Skip Bidell: you know, the little cheap sick kids get

[00:40:13] Skip Bidell: peel off the decal headlights and

[00:40:23] Eric Goranson: a Jeep at saying, please torque the head bolts at this order. What I mean, it's just sparkling. It's, you know, it's like the

[00:40:42] Eric Goranson: seats in it,

[00:40:47] Skip Bidell: So it was like big enough for two. I dunno, maybe like what five-year-old kids to ride in it. And it had the front windshield than on a real cheap. The windshield's like full down, or it had this front windshield that [00:41:00] I snapped into place and I put it in the back of my pickup truck and we're driving over to my sister's house, Christmas Eve.

[00:41:32] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So

[00:41:38] Skip Bidell: my nephew didn't know any different, but the whole time

[00:41:42] Intro: ah,

[00:41:48] Skip Bidell: Figured the one court that blew off in the wind was the windshield.

[00:42:02] Russell Pope: thick. Most of mine came assembled already, um, with a couple of, uh, Chinese mark, four wheelers that I bought, and those were the biggest regret

[00:42:16] Russell Pope: of start it two days later and have to rebuild the carburetors.

[00:42:35] Intro: So I had

[00:42:49] Intro: says, Hey,

[00:42:54] William White: So the kids don't do the sneak and peek, right? She's like, can I drop a couple things

[00:43:01] William White: She shows up, she backs up, she opens the back of her Tahoe and she starts on load. And I'm like,

[00:43:11] Eric Goranson: And she's like, well, you know, you said, okay.

[00:43:16] William White: And as she's getting ready to leave, she gives me a kiss. And she's like,

[00:43:23] William White: maybe put those

[00:43:28] Eric Goranson: the trap at a

[00:43:33] Dane Vawter: guess I'm

[00:43:39] Intro: deep tick.

[00:43:45] William White: put it all together and showed it, packed it up, took it back

[00:43:51] Skip Bidell: how the wives have the ability to casually do this.

[00:43:59] Intro: [00:44:00] almost

[00:44:10] Skip Bidell: it's like Colombo. Hey, just one more thing.

[00:44:43] Skip Bidell: delivery, man. Everything

[00:44:49] Skip Bidell: Yeah. What are you going to say? You're not going to be like, no, I'm not kidding.

[00:45:17] Eric Goranson: bill. Right. Or who wrote these instructions?

[00:45:25] Skip Bidell: assembled one of these things actually was part of writing the instructions.

[00:45:43] Skip Bidell: 17 instruction manuals. And somewhere in there is English. And you like, you know, you flip through them all and you're like, oh, there it is.

[00:45:58] Eric Goranson: but here's a button. [00:46:00] That is the thing, though. It doesn't matter if you got a Christmas gift or a closet system, you rate mentally the project. I think the manual is just when it comes out and it's all English in it's about an eighth of an inch.

[00:46:29] Intro: I don't want her

[00:46:57] Skip Bidell: Use, look at me instruction. I looked [00:47:00] at a picture and if you don't do it just right, it's like the slew of side looks. She looks like the right side, but it's not,

[00:47:13] Nikki Krueger: that's every DIY project in our house. It's not done till it's.

[00:47:22] Nikki Krueger: you redo it.

[00:47:30] Skip Bidell: just swallow your pride and just start with one on the instruction.

[00:47:45] Intro: mean? Believe me three extra screws. Did they not count?

[00:47:52] Skip Bidell: give you the worst tools. They give you like a hex wrench, plug an Allen key between the bolt. And [00:48:00] like the stanchion is like, you can't spin the wrench around.

[00:48:05] Intro: goal. Like April return. They get out there. We can ease them a

[00:48:11] Eric Goranson: stop

[00:48:17] Eric Goranson: And they're not a normal size. You can't get the metric or the other one on your screen to put it in there. It just doesn't fit. I was just trying to

[00:48:39] Eric Goranson: I Kia. It's not right. Well, and the worst part is they'll say, lay it flat on the floor, and then you're literally upside down trying to do that flat on the floor, following the instructions as well. It's just no way. There's no crying

[00:48:55] Eric Goranson: All right, Nikki, what do you got over there? I'm sure you've got some crazy would still,

[00:49:00] Nikki Krueger: you know, definitely having a boy and a girl, um, there was a lot of things, but I think the biggest thing for me now is my daughter's 28.

[00:49:39] Intro: those soup

[00:49:46] Nikki Krueger: How old they are, no matter what I want them to experience unwrapping presence and not just opening boxes, um, from somewhere. So, um, that's, you know, and you always have the little things like those little chocolate oranges that [00:50:00] you get

[00:50:02] Eric Goranson: Yeah.

[00:50:08] Nikki Krueger: But. Yeah, it's nice. Keep things, no matter how old your kids are, right. You have just still means

[00:50:24] Dane Vawter: kind of asking the wrong person because for the last, I don't know, 15 years, as long as I've been working, I've worked holidays.

[00:50:52] Eric Goranson: So that's a to be

[00:50:56] Dane Vawter: Yeah, I don't have

[00:51:00] Skip Bidell: big wishes started a new holiday tradition for you guys over there at the station and how like the holiday battle of the beards tethered. Like

[00:51:17] Eric Goranson: Carolyn. You're turning 50 here pretty soon. Yep. Eric, where are the beard or no brother. That's a couple of years ago. I have them, there was a thought about doing the beard Orman's today. But with the microphone, I thought man, all year to hear his jingle bells and stuff, I'm like, this is not going to go well.

[00:51:40] Skip Bidell: number one, it's family guy. You ever see the episode where he raised it? A little, like a bunch of baby birds. He feared

[00:52:12] Skip Bidell: man,

[00:52:22] Skip Bidell: There are some products that you work with them, for those of you guys that are in construction, you know what I'm talking about? So one of them is spray foam, right? The other way, like roofing, tar, it is absolutely virtually impossible to work with these products without getting it all over you.

[00:52:49] Skip Bidell: not in your truck, you got on your truck seat and then some. The bottom of your boot and you walk in your house and the wound up on your hardwood floor. And by the time we pick your clothes [00:53:00] off, you basically have covered your entire life

[00:53:08] Eric Goranson: It's all good because you're like, oh, I'll get on the seat of the truck. Dang it. I got my clothes. Dang it it's the floor. When you get home that you're like, oh, I gotta get this quick.

[00:53:28] Skip Bidell: As soon as you start working with it that day, you're going to be covering.

[00:53:47] Skip Bidell: Hey, you can't work with

[00:53:52] Eric Goranson: Absolutely. I mean, it is what does that stuff? Why am I, I don't have it here in front of me, but that's your

[00:53:59] William White: Yeah. [00:54:00] Construction. And he said, and I say 20 parts together. Cause it's six. Anything

[00:54:11] William White: you get that on you, man.

[00:54:14] Eric Goranson: that on your height,

[00:54:21] Eric Goranson: with a wine doesn't wash off. It doesn't wash off. I won't help get all your. If you don't know what you're doing, you're in trouble. Skip with this stuff. It would glue the wire brush to you, then need to be

[00:54:36] Skip Bidell: kidding role work in the trades. They have no concept right now, but if you've ever even looked at this stuff, work with it, look at it. You're getting. Yeah.

[00:54:51] William White: who is using it and it's

[00:55:02] Eric Goranson: And then I'm like,

[00:55:04] Eric Goranson: wow. Okay. It's like nuclear material and I'm the Simpsons, you know?

[00:55:15] Nikki Krueger: I've got a Christmas concert to go to

[00:55:22] Nikki Krueger: Maybe you guys happy holidays.

[00:55:31] Caroline Blazovsky: Merry

[00:55:33] Eric Goranson: So my S I'll go with my story here. My craziest one that I had, I was sitting there.

[00:56:03] Eric Goranson: It's Christmas Eve, I'm two and a half hours into the site and my sweat and my father-in-law. Which is now my wave former father-in-law thankfully is standing there. Well, maybe you should do it like this. Maybe I've got the backseat drive all sidelines side, like a car yet. And you've got a backseat. Oh, I've got a backseat driver.

[00:56:44] Eric Goranson: And I just look at him and y'all not today, man, not today. You got, just cut him off. I'm like not the top of the time. I'm almost to the point of throwing Jeep wheels at this point. And I don't need your drama. And I'm like, [00:57:00] ah, no, this, this is a Maury Povich

[00:57:06] Skip Bidell: you seen me in like the last. Not a good timing. Good timing.

[00:57:22] Eric Goranson: take it apart again. A puppy could pick up.

[00:57:38] Intro: with both Lexi

[00:57:52] Intro: Oh,[00:58:00]

[00:58:09] Intro: Oh my God.

[00:58:23] Caroline Blazovsky: And that's what I'm saying. Foosball table. I've put together those semi arcade machines. Ping pong tables. What else? I mean the Barbie trailer homes, all that. Oh my God. It's insane. So that's what you get. So Christmas Eve, if you're looking for someone to put stuff together, you can be calling us. I guess our phones

[00:58:44] Eric Goranson: We always sit the

[00:58:47] Intro: oh yeah, not, oh, they're the best

[00:59:08] Caroline Blazovsky: So wait, what were your favorite toys as a kid? Like, so Russell, what was.

[00:59:14] Intro: had to be the red Ryder BB

[00:59:22] Eric Goranson: That was probably

[00:59:28] Eric Goranson: crash,

[00:59:38] Russell Pope: wrong crashed every time, you know, where it's supposed to Chris and cross, I had the left side of the ramp going to the high side of the rancher

[00:59:55] Eric Goranson: Yeah.

[01:00:08] Intro: I love my cattle,

[01:00:21] Skip Bidell: things, right? Like, like shooting targets, you know, like I think I got my first BB gun when I was like six, as you know,

[01:00:48] Eric Goranson: Oh, we fired it off in wood shop afterwards up at the football field right behind it. And we would go out there and we could take it to school and everything [01:01:00] else. I'm like, oh, it's a felony. Now

[01:01:28] Skip Bidell: and he's, you know, we're like ninja throw in the stars and those

[01:01:31] Intro: crazy. We

[01:01:42] Nikki Krueger: to do workshop the numbers for my house.

[01:01:48] Intro: yeah. Wood

[01:01:57] Eric Goranson: that had like,

[01:02:02] Eric Goranson: So Dana had wood shop except. I know the high school you went to, you had shop except they turned it into a computer lab.

[01:02:12] Dane Vawter: class while I was in high school. There was no wood man.

[01:02:21] Dane Vawter: And the

[01:02:23] Skip Bidell: shop shop and a body shop, we are working.

[01:02:31] Eric Goranson: ceramics. We, you doing ceramics? Yeah,

[01:02:50] Eric Goranson: The only the court out and, yep. And

[01:03:09] Dane Vawter: There's no exposure. And I hate that. And it's because schools are pushing college, you know, they don't,

[01:03:21] Skip Bidell: I think it's a tragedy that the kids don't have the, uh, access to that, to trade, uh, classes like

[01:03:31] Skip Bidell: How to, you know, just do basic things. You know, everybody, even if you don't choose that for an occupation for a career, everybody. Can benefit from using those skills. You know,

[01:03:44] Caroline Blazovsky: talking the prior hour before you guys came on and we had the other, the pre hour of the show. We were talking about that, like trades.

[01:04:12] Eric Goranson: William has done a lot of training of the trades. You've been a absolutely editor for a long time.

[01:04:32] William White: It's,

[01:04:35] Russell Pope: opportunity are huge. If you think of an 18 year old starting work now making 20 to $30 an hour, depending on what he's doing, not having to pay $120,000 in college loans, getting ahead, avid business, you know, the long term to age of retirement, those guys probably have 10 times the income opportunity as somebody that goes to college.

[01:05:02] Dane Vawter: it's not, it's just that it's not putting forth to kids as an option. They aren't even exposed to it. There is no one telling them that they can

[01:05:14] William White: we're, we're prepping.

[01:05:21] Caroline Blazovsky: That's always where are you going to up?

[01:05:39] Skip Bidell: You're going to find a job at a good paying job, but if you're even a little bit like entrepreneurial, you can start your own business. And there's always going to be a new. For plumbers, electricians, HPAC techs, uh, you know, it's just, it's never going to stop. Can't replace the, where are you going with that computer?[01:06:00]

[01:06:19] Skip Bidell: you know, I, I, I think it said though, you know, and even just like boiling it down to the most basic of it, when like with a wood shop and metal shop, these are things that should not be taken away from the curriculum of our, of our young people. You know, it's like they should at least be, have some basic exposure to these type of things, because right now, It's completely taken off the table.

[01:07:01] Skip Bidell: And, um, it's, it's, you know, our, our, our generation, I think is really, probably one of the last that we're really gonna see a big concentration of people in our age group. And beyond that, there's always just going to be a shortage and we're looking at a severe shortage in the trades. It's really unfortunate because these kids can make a great living without having, like you said, being buried in debt, you know, from day one at a school, that's going to be job placement and not just a job, good money.

[01:07:41] Skip Bidell: Yeah. I sent my son to university of Tampa, which is a great school. Um, you know, it's a university as opposed to a state school. I tried to get them to go to a SUNY school here in New York, but he had his mind fixed on going to Tampa.

[01:08:13] Skip Bidell: We were able to afford to send him to the school, but not everybody can do that. And even that would, that you come out, you have a four year degree. There's no jobs. He went almost two years without a job. He was actually delivering pizzas, uh, for close to two years out of school. And I spent nearly six figures on his education and where he could have gone to a trade school and come out and made great money.

[01:08:45] Eric Goranson: also a perception. Unfortunate. There's a perception.

[01:09:06] William White: They're looked at literally the same as a doctor or a professional where here in the U S if you say I work in construction, there's a perception that that's less than and so forth. You know, possible students coming out of high school that don't really have an opportunity. They think fast food is the only thing they can do.

[01:09:29] Skip Bidell: Yeah. We need to work on changing that collectively people who are in our industry and have some influence on a platform as influencers, we should really collectively try to change that perception.

[01:09:42] Caroline Blazovsky: Amen. Happy holidays. And the new year.

[01:09:46] Eric Goranson: So, Hey, real quick. Let's run around the room here real quick. And uh, so anybody who wants to track you down or find. The company you work with or worked for, or your own website, William, what's the best way for people to track down [01:10:00] our X stuff. Artists America's

[01:10:13] Eric Goranson: Cool, cool Russell pub, best way to people track you guys. I can give you my direct

[01:10:30] Russell Pope: Russell dot poop@us.panasonic.com.

[01:10:45] Nikki Krueger: Yeah. And you know what? You should really check it out because we did have that segment a few days ago with great Christmas ideas and lots of them have promo codes and even look at the old Christmas ideas segment pages, because we really always have the best gift [01:11:00] ideas for adults, men, women, kids, and

[01:11:03] Skip Bidell: Here's some cool stuff on there. You're stuck trying to find a cool original gift. Check it out. And then promo code, save you guys a bunch of money. Yeah.

[01:11:22] Intro: thanks to you guys for that,

[01:11:24] Eric Goranson: Thanks for coming in today. It's a pleasure. Thanks for helping us produce thing, brother. I'm Eric G

[01:11:35] Eric Goranson: everyone. I'm Eric G and you've been listening to.