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The Big Tex Ordnance Podcast
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The Big Tex Ordnance Podcast
Aaron Cowan Part 2 - Sage Dynamics - An Author's Journey
What if the future isn't just about starships and laser battles, but also about confronting the ethical complexities of artificial intelligence and interstellar governance? Inspired by sci-fi classics like Star Trek, we delve into these questions and more.
Aaron talks about his journey as an author and discusses his novels including the latest Sci-Fi series.
Find out more about Big Tex Ordnance at bigtexordnance.com
Torpedoes have a max-det range, so if they don't hit nothing, eventually they blow themselves up and the bullets do too. So even in an Earth conflict they can set their duty rifles to self-det or command-det so they can put four or five rounds in a guy and then command-det those rounds. That's awesome. I just have a lot of fun writing and I read this quote years ago. It was like this unknown quote. It was like the person who doesn't write is cursed to live with his words in his head forever. And I'm like that's so true.
Speaker 1:My handwriting sucks. I need a computer.
Speaker 3:So type it all up and were you always into before you started writing. I know you started writing early, but since you were younger were you always into sci-fi, like sci-fi books and movies and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:My grandfather, my dad's dad, was a Star Trek guy. Okay, cool, and that's why it cracks me up, because I've been watching Star Trek my whole life. Yeah, and it's gotten better, but it's gotten worse. My favorite is the Next Generation because if you watch the series, it's very methodic, it's very episodic. There aren't a lot of big arcs, but they're mostly. They're mostly addressing moral issues in almost every episode.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They're addressing human rights issues. They're addressing, like, like what people today call woke, yeah, and issues they're addressing like like what people today call woke. And I'm like, bro, star Trek has always been been doing that. Yeah, um, first major black cast member, yeah, first transracial or transracial kiss, like Star Trek has been doing it for a long time. Um, interracial standards, um, they, I mean they, they, they attack, because all all Roddenberry did was he took history and put it in the future and he's like what's, how would this go? And that's kind of like something I tackle in sci-fi as well. Is is my concept is the natural rights of artificial intelligence, and like people are like well, we made it. And I'm like, yeah, but it's smart, you made your kids. Do you run their lives forever? Yeah, well, I. But, and I'm like, and let's consider the fact that the artificial intelligence is well smarter than you, yeah, so how do you keep it as property? Well, cause, we made it. Okay, now we're going to have to have a war over this because we're getting into this argument.
Speaker 1:So the book follows one kid who gets evicted from earth because and there'll be some, there'll be three books that take place later on that tell you how that happened, like what happened on earth that caused the situation. But basically he grows up in Atlanta and when he turned 17, he gets an eviction slip random and he's got to go. He can't stay here. This planet has a population cap because we got to keep the environment safe and we got to make sure everybody has enough to eat and we got to make sure we keep the water blue and the streets clean, and this is a perfect paradise. But you can't live here. So he gets evicted. Well, he gets evicted. The only place to go is like the moon. He could go to Mars, but in order to go to Mars, you've got to become a citizen. In order to be a citizen on Mars, you've got to do all this other stuff. So he goes to the United Colonies, which is like way out there and there's like 40 light year circle, well, sphere really, of all these different planets, and they'll make you a citizen if you serve five years in the military. So he's like well, I guess that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:And his whole life growing up he was fascinated by the Navy. Yeah, united Nations Navy. They got a space Navy that just guards earth, and like Saul, uh, because Mars is its own thing. So he's got all the models and, like his, his room is full of them. And um, he realizes he has astrophobia, so he's terrified of vacuum. So he can't, he can't, he's not going to join the Navy, he's terrified of it. So he joins the army and he gets you follow him through basic training. You start to see how big the world is going to get, and then he gets assigned to an army destroyer, cause you know, the one thing I've always it makes sense but it doesn't is why are we treating space like the ocean? So you always have navies in space and I'm like no, space is just territory.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So in my world they're still Marines, because, of course. But the army in space does the same thing the army does on Earth it's mainly for long-term real estate control. So the Marine Corps, those are your supposed to be your invasion forces. And then you have the Army. That has special. So the Army in my universe has destroyers and each destroyer has basically an adjudicator on it, a judge like a legal corps. So it's the Army legal corps and he a judge like a legal core. So it's the army legal core and he's a judge.
Speaker 1:And what that ship does in peacetime is it goes to these different systems that are either commonwealths or under control, or they're just fringes of the government, and he shows up and he's a magistrate and he's like all right, what do y'all got? And he's like well, we've had three murderers, 14 thefts, because in order to have, like, you need to pull a local jury for that. You can't have a guy murder a dude on this one planet and then ship him to another planet to have him stand trial, because that's not his peers, that's not a jury of your peers. Like you need the local population, but you got to bring a judge to these mining colonies and things like that and you start to see how messed up things are when, like, certain parts of capitalism just run rampant, so, like because of the eviction thing, these companies will be like, hey, if you don't want to join the military, you don't have to, we'll make you, we'll get you to be a citizen. You just got to work for us for five years, so you have indentured servitude makes a comeback, yeah, um, and then you have like, uh, religious deferments and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:But he ends up doing the army thing and then realizes like some things weren't just chance, like it's possible that he got evicted on purpose, because someone manipulated the system, because they need not necessarily him but they're looking for his mother. So he lived with his dad, his mother left and his mother not giving away too much of the first book. She's basically in charge of an army, oh, that is attempting to destroy all artificial life. And he's got a brother that is infamous inside the united colonies. Like, as soon as people find out that this, like you're Sam Gray's brother, you must be a piece of shit too, because his brother was the first mutineer in the United, in the United colonies Navy At least that's how the story goes. So his brother mutinied a ship and they never found him, or the crew, which starts like a little separate mystery where you're like what, what? Yeah, so like his, like one of his first days in the army, he gets interrogated by military police Like hey, we let you in, we got some questions. When's the last time you talked to your brother? And he's like 12 years ago, when I was 12.
Speaker 1:Um, so I I think I did a better job with Carson of making his world bigger, faster. Yeah, so he's not doing all this crazy stuff. He's not that. He's like. He's literally the first book. He's just a private, and the first quarter of the first book is him going through training and then he starts to learn bigger things. But by the end of the book you're like this kid's got a rough life and then you got to introduce other characters and see how they connect, because basically he gets befriended by, like the. There's a custodial AI called Monitor and Monitor monitors all the soldiers and does a bunch of other stuff too. But Monitor starts talking to him like just to be his friend, and then he finds out that Monitor's talking to a few other people he knows too, and then it gets revealed throughout the next books, like why Monitor starts choosing, and I like working in threes.
Speaker 1:So I've got three main characters. Carson is the main character, but I've also got Rones and I've got another character is the main character, but I've also got Rones, uh, and I've got uh another character, um, and they all have real world conflict. They're not always going to get along just because they're friends. So like they end up like it's like that, that old saying like it just cause someone's in your life doesn't mean they're in your life forever. So like I was like let me explore that concept, especially because I know people I was friends with in my early 20s that I don't talk to anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's unfortunate, but it happens. People grow apart. So I was like well, that's got to happen in books too. It's got to happen with characters. It just makes it to me a more believable story. And you also see past moral differences. I look at something a certain way, you look at something a certain way and we can't get past it. And that happens like that's why the divorce rates fill 50%. Like you know, people eventually may run into a problem that they can't get past and I think that makes again if I can walk away from the problem.
Speaker 1:It's very difficult for me to read a book where the character can walk away from the problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it makes sense to me. Yeah, that's a really interesting storyline.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm ready, I want to.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm ready to read it.
Speaker 1:It's, and that's. The thing is like some people don't like sci-fi for whatever reason, but the book it takes place in the future. Yeah, that's the sci-fi, the rest of the book and there's obviously AI.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But the rest of the book is really tackling, like the issues of coming of age, of service, of, of natural rights, um, and what are you willing to sacrifice? To, to, to, to basically say this is my moral stance, because people don't share the same value systems. And then you start to see, like all these other sides, and you get to. You get an idea of like how governments would develop if they had unlimited resources, cause if we can get out into space and we can start zipping around like the resource problem is over. But that doesn't mean that it's going to be utopia, because in my future I think about what would it be like if Halliburton could get to the moon first. I guarantee you, if Halliburton could get to Mars, they'd be like it's ours, yeah, whole planet, yep, yep. So in my future you have, like there's this company called Parsons and they sell planets, that's their whole thing. They get there first and they have the. Basically, the laws in the parliament were written a certain way where they they have to meet these certain criteria and then the whole planet is theirs. So then they're like we've got this planet fixer upper, yeah, but here's, here's like all the great neighborhoods, so you've got. You've got uncontrolled strip mining and you've got. You've got mass manufacturing problems. You've got planets that are literally just military machines and all the planet does is produce weapons, and don't they need a lot of ice, like in this world? Well, if you think about, like when we colonize our solar system, we're going to need a lot of ice Because there's no ready-made planets except for this one. So if we live on Mars and technically terraforming it might be possible, but it's 70, 90 years In my future on Mars it has been terraformed, but I went a different way with my Mars, because it seems like every sci-fi that has a Martian population, they're always like a badass military. In mine, it's the Mars Technological Collective. They're just a bunch of fucking scientists, but scientists built badass shit. It's the mars technological collective. They're just a bunch of fucking scientists, but scientists built badass shit. So they're like throw a nuke at us and we'll just swat that shit out of the air. Nice, we have a bunch of. So they have a bunch of defensive networks and you learn as you go through the books. You start to learn that they have the most comprehensive network of spies. Yeah, so they're very defensive in nature, so, but yeah, you need a lot of ice.
Speaker 1:And I talk a lot about that in the first book because it's like the how I just think about how would the army really be? Well, united colonies got kicked off earth. They started the country. Well, they probably would start. They would have some kind of training near earth because that's where most, because everyone came from earth. There are no other like 2,400 years in the future. Everyone could probably still trace their lineage back to earth, cause every human came from earth at some point. So they do all the training on Titan.
Speaker 1:So Titan is a moon. You got to have biomes. There's gravity differences. You got to have water filtration and air filtration and and and deal in things like that. But the colony, like once he goes to, like the Capitol the Capitol's basically the Portuguese word for paradise, because it is, it's a beautiful place and it's about the same mass as earth, so it's got similar gravity.
Speaker 1:So some of the planets in the colonies are ready-made, like you can just move in. But you got to deal with local wildlife and shit and I've come up with some pretty interesting kind of predatory type creatures in certain places, some pretty interesting kind of predatory type creatures in certain places. So you think about how long it took America to become east to west? That's only going to be able to be magnified in the future with greater technology. So it took us, you know, 250 years to get to where we're at right now. How long would it take a population to grow on a planet? So you've already got ready, even 400 years. You've already got ready even 400 years. You've already got ready-made cities, you've got established. You've got some places that have been there 300 years. They've already got lore, they've already got tradition, they've got churches. They've got their own little idiosyncrasies.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite thing to do is I've got pirates in my book and they have their own patois. They have their own, they have their own dialect. They have their own words for things. And you start to learn like how they got mashed up. The only mistake I think I made because I try to be specific is I've got this other dialect, that's a, that's a mashup between Mandarin and Russian, and those languages couldn't be further apart. I was going to say like an impossible language to learn. Basically, just going to a portmandeu generator and I'm putting in the Russian word and the Chinese word, I'm basically just going to a portmandeau generator and I'm putting in the Russian word and the Chinese word and I'm like fuck it Because, and like you can't make them work together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought it would be interesting if you had these people, if you really did take a bunch of Chinese immigrants and a bunch of Russian immigrants and put them on the same moon together and you left them there for 300 years. What the hell would you see when you got back? Everyone would look different. Yeah, their language would be crazy too. Yes, it would. You know, cause it's, it's that's the only way that you can really do. That is, we can't do it on earth anymore. So you don't get to see languages develop like that. So I try not to come up with crazy slang words, cause who knows, I try not to be like the hip hop culture of the future.
Speaker 2:What's that going to be?
Speaker 1:like, yeah, it people may be into, like you know, like Halloween polka, at that point you never know what's going to happen. So I try to keep the languages more realistic, to where things are and like in the pirate community, um, like, if you don't speak like us, we look down on you. So anybody can join it, cause they're they're basically libertarians, the free fleets, and it's basically works like a pirate ship. The captain the free fleets, and it's basically works like a pirate ship. The captain is voted for, the crew's got to vote for what we're doing very democratic but also very libertarian. Oh, you want to fucking destroy a whole planet? Go ahead, I don't give a shit. Yeah, um, but you don't talk like us, you must not be one of us. Um, and piracy doesn't like being on the dirt.
Speaker 1:So, as pirate, like pirates that try to be like, hey, let's take over a planet and other pirates will look down on them, cause they're like, why do I want to plant it? Yeah, what would I do on a planet? I can't pirate on a planet. So they're like I don't want to be a farmer. So my, my, my, my pirates are kind of cling on. And then, in regards that, like, the military side of things is more well-respected, um, and the ships of legend. So you've got and you're jumping into it where there's already a lot of history. So, you, you hear about pirates of the past. There's one pirate that you'll hear about constantly, called Nytal, and Nytal was the one of the first pirates to basically bring the United Colonies Navy to its knees. Like, she was a brilliant tactician and they eventually murdered her. Um, and there's little Easter eggs that are spread out throughout the book about that. But then, like you, you, you meet her daughter later on and, like, you, see how different her daughter is from how she was, cause she ended up being raised in a certain situation because of what her mother did.
Speaker 1:Um, so you've got all the big character types that you could have in like modern thrillers. You can still put them in sci-fi. It's just going to be on a ship versus a boat. Yeah, yeah, yeah, um, you've got your drug dealers. You've got your CIA spooks. You got your spies. You got your hardcore, grizzled mercenaries. You got your former, you know special forces guys that just want to be fucking retired Leave me. And you've got your, you know 18, 19 year old privates in the army. That that you know they. They mean well, but they don't know what's going on. And I had. I had a lot of fun with that writing the whole basic training series, cause I actually write it twice. He goes through basic training in the first book and he goes through basically SFAS and then, o course, in the third book. It's cause he becomes special forces, cause he doesn't know what else to do. It's like, yeah, I'll do this, whatever. Yeah, um, cause you got to do five years, so whatever. But I get to like characterize people that I served with.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask you, I was going to say like do you?
Speaker 1:I don't do any main characters, but I will do it with supporting characters and it's not like a carbon copy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're just like kind of influenced by that, yeah but there's one and I had one of, one of the most that one of the most popular characters from the first book is powder, who is a who basically is a screw gunner, which is like the futuristic saw. So he's a saw gunner. I served with a guy that we called powder and he was this pale, five foot six, just ball of fucking anger from arkansas, and he was this pale, five foot six, just ball of fucking anger from Arkansas, and he was just angry at everything and I'm like that's a good character right there. So he ends up well, spoiler alert he ends up, like you know, dying. But I kind of borrowed from Powder. I borrowed the name obviously because this was back in 99, when the movie was still relevant. So that's why he got borrowed from Powder. I borrowed the name obviously, and this was back in 99, when the movie was still relevant. So that's why he got the nickname Powder, because the movie had been recent. If I said that today, people are like what are you? It's the movie about the albino guy with the lightning.
Speaker 1:But I enjoyed writing that character because there are people like that all over the military that are just no matter what. They're always angry when they have to do stuff. Like, oh, you're going to make me work. I'm like what did you think we do here? So I have a lot of fun with developing characters and I love Easter eggs. So if you read my books, any ship name is probably an Easter egg, and sometimes people catch it and sometimes they don't, and sometimes I'll turn it into a bit. In the first book there's this where they're waiting, they're going to get, they're going to use one of the wormhole gates because that's like how future travel happens wormholes and they're behind a ship called the Bob O'Reilly. Well, if you're familiar with the song Bob O'Reilly, it takes fucking forever to get going, it's just all. It's like 45 seconds of run up and then the lyrics start. So, like the, the, the, the captain is like what, what are we waiting on? She's like well, the Bob O'Reilly is going first, and they always take a while to get going.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So far I've had like two people catch that. I think it's an old Doors song or it may have been the who. I think it's the who, but there's a preamble of just instrumentals there for like 45 seconds. And then there's a Jeremy Jam. There's a cargo ship named the Jeremy Jam from Parks and Rec.
Speaker 2:Oh, he's a hilarious character.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, any kind of like side. Any kind of like side. Any time they mention like oh, you know what's on the sensors or whatever, I'm always like I've got a list of character like Easter egg ships that I still want to put in there. Oh man, I have a lot of fun with that. The guys that wrote the Expanse did that too, and that's kind of where I got the idea. I was like that's, have some fun with it and see who actually catches it. Oh, that's, that's great. And anytime I can work it into a bit, um, I'm definitely going to do it. I like, I like hiding little things like that in books.
Speaker 3:Did you ever do any where you thought no one will ever get this one and somebody kind of figured it out.
Speaker 1:I honestly didn't know if anybody would get the context of the Baba O'Reilly one yeah, of the Baba O'Reilly one, yeah, yeah. And I had a couple people message me, I think one guy commented on one of the reviews where he thought that was pretty funny, that's awesome Because it's so specific. You like, not only do you have to make the connection, but you also think like, yeah, that song does take a while to get going.
Speaker 2:You're on Amazon, right? Is that where all the books are sold?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's self-publishing through Kindle. So there's the Rushing Winter books. There's seven of those about to be eight, and then the Carson Gray series, the Exodus Universe. There's three books so far and there'll be nine total, so another nine. So I'm going to write that story for nine.
Speaker 1:But there's also going to be three books that talk about this guy named Ark Vassar, and Ark Vassar gets mentioned a lot in the future, but by the time the future happens, they know him as Asmuth because he's like and this is this is going to be kind of I like being able to do this, cause it's not like just a cheap flashback for more money, like you start to learn, like how certain things happen, like how did the eviction start, how did the colony start. So this book will go back and follow Ark Vassar's life from birth to death or birth to Exodus, because he becomes like the first human hyper intelligence. He basically creates artificial life and in so doing, creates artificial DNA, like sentient, the ability. They call it ethels. So that's what? Yeah, that's like the species. Some people call them signs, machina, machina, signs, machina, and then they prefer the term ethel because it's different language, different translation.
Speaker 1:So he grows up, his dad works in like computer science. His mom is a quantum physicist and, long story short, he goes from being Arik Vassar to being this, this hyper-intelligent hybrid name that everybody calls Asmuth, and he leaves earth and earth tries to stop him from leaving. So there's a fucking war that takes place where they basically nuke half of fucking Australia, because that's where he lived creates a sovereign nation. He basically he's like this is my, this is mine, and there's a bunch of other stuff going on on earth at the same time that makes this possible, like it becomes a world government. And he develops this ability through his personal modification of himself. He creates this, this neuro lattice that was originally intended to just modify natural abilities, but in creating artificial life he starts to learn about like quantum entanglement and it doesn't give him like magical powers, but it lets him tap into entanglement and he starts to learn over the period of 74 years, like what he can do, and eventually he starts to scare people because he stops being human. He starts being something else, but he's able to manipulate electronics, he's able to manipulate quantum fields, he's able to manipulate magnetic fields, and no one really knows how he's doing it. So they try to kill him a bunch of times and that never goes well and he eventually like, just out of out of like a self-defense type situation, he figures out that he can kill people, like this guy tries to shoot him and without like a reflexive response, was he just stopped the neuron communication and the actions of brainstem? Wow, just killed him. Just like that he did, and he calls it a reach.
Speaker 1:And then later on, cause I've already written two of the three books, of course, cause I wanted, I wanted my Simarillion, yeah, I wanted to be able to have that lore done before I went any further, cause I should, I could have already written the fourth Carson Gray book, cause I already know basically what's what I'm working on.
Speaker 1:But I wanted to go back and have my lore write my three books that take place, you know, in between 2080 and 2154. So that way, 400 years, 350, 400 years in the future, I can always go back and make sure that the continuity is correct. Yeah, because Azmuth and his effects, even 350 years later, are still being felt, because he created the first true sentient artificial life, so he's like the father of it and in so doing created a religion on accident. But that religion is a major military power in the future and that starts to become part of the story and there's a little bit of mysticism involved. I'm having a lot of fun with those books because they're not as sci-fi, they take place just in the future, yeah they're not too distant.
Speaker 1:So you talk about electric cars and like flying and flying super cool VTOL aircraft, but like there's a little bit of space travel, here and there there's some, you know there's eventually there's some orbital weapons, but it's not really we're out in space. It's like this guy just basically said this part of Australia is mine, try to take it back. You weren't using it. Long story short, he negotiates his way through a bunch of situations and that book is really political. Those three books are going to be very political because they talk about how it'd be completely feasible for this to happen. They keep pushing this kid. So it was interesting for me because the first book of that I'm going to write it from, most of it's going to be written from the father's perspective. His arc is still like one, two, three years old, but it sees like how his whole life gets influenced by good intentions, bad intentions, indifference and just the outside world, feeling like, well, you're smart. But this guy, we need to make sure we have an equitable situation. And he's like equal outcomes can't be guaranteed. And they're like, well, we are going to try. So you think about how, like some of today's political opinions are, well, everybody deserves an equal outcome. It's not realistic. Everybody deserves an equal opportunity, but even then, let's be realistic Should you let a five foot two guy try out for the NBA, I mean, if there's time? But he's not going to get an equal outcome. So those books are going to be basically kind of shape, the core of the technology, because I had one guy ask me he's like why don't more of your ships have like laser guns and stuff? He's like you're still using like ballistic weapons and chain guns and like well, in the future we're going to have all kinds of different stuff. It's like I don't know, man, the 1950s thought we were going to have some cool shit. Yeah right, man, the 1950s thought we were going to have some cool shit that we don't. Yeah Right. I was like there's a reason for that, but I can't tell you because I have to write these books first. And basically the reason is like once you start using artificial intelligence to do certain things for you, you don't want to give it too big of a gun, just in case. So like lasers would be super dangerous in space battle because it just keeps going, yeah yeah. And if you get into a battle and orbital situation, like where's that laser going to go.
Speaker 1:So they create, they use, you know, torpedoes, and the torpedoes have a max debt range. So if they don't hit nothing, eventually they just blow themselves up, and the bullets do too. So even on, even in like an earth conflict, they can. They can set their, their, their, their, uh duty rifles to self-debt or command debt, so they can put four or five rounds in a guy and then command debt. Those rounds, that's awesome. Or they can have the um, um, mean distance, uh, it's like I have an acronym for it. But basically the, the, the bullets are self-sharpening. They're similar to like depleted uranium. So on board a ship they can set them um to basically harden, so they're almost like ball ammo so they don't over penetrate. Uh, so they're not like like they won't go through a guy, guy and the outside of the ship and create a vacuum situation. But sometimes they punch holes in the ship on purpose.
Speaker 1:The funnest thing I've had from because I try to write is I try to write my battles as authentically as possible, my fights as authentically as possible. But you got to think of three dimensions, because in my future there is no magical gravity on the ships. They work up to thrust gravity. Have you seen the Expanse? So a TV show called the Expanse and it's hard science fiction. So they deal with thrust gravity. So they didn't. Just the authors didn't want to create a magical like dampening field or something like that. So in my books, like for high G maneuvers, they use basically a golden ratio liquid which is similar to the density of water but it's breathable. So these, the fighters, if they use fighters or the little pods that the bridge crew is in, and some ships fill the whole cabin, some don't. They just basically go on air, they breathe through it and they fill this cabin with this water-dense material so they can handle more geese, but out of geese or out of the fluid, like if you're fighting on a ship.
Speaker 1:The ships have to be built for thrust but they're also built for landing on planets, so sometimes the room you're in is sideways, so that has I've had to draw a lot of stuff like it's coming in here, yeah, it'd look like that. And I use the program blender for 3d modeling and I will actually 3d render all my ships. That's awesome, which is sometimes it's like oh, I only got to know what it looks like on the outside. But I've literally gotten into crew compartments and I'm like how would this look and would this make sense and is this feasible? Going back, it would have been way easier to be like thank God for the gravity device, but I just feel like that's taking it. We're probably never going to create in any lifetime, anytime soon, create a device that generates gravity. So I guess you make the ship spin a lot. There you go, but then the ship would have to be really big, otherwise people are getting really sick.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's just such a cool. Your approach to writing and sci-fi in general is so cool, Because I didn't grow up into sci-fi, I've never really been into it, but the way that you write and explain it and go about it it makes me like maybe I do like sci-fi.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I think some people have just watched bad sci-fi, yeah, and I think that's the case with people and that's possible. There's some things that are out there that are like really good sci-fi but they don't have a good like reputation or not a good reputation but they're not well-known. Yeah, like there's been some great shows that weren't like sci-fi was just like the environment it took place in, but the show was like Firefly Great show. It's a space Western, it's not even sci-fi, it's just cowboys in space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's a pretty interesting approach. And there's other, like I wasn't really big into like fantasy horror, but then I got into supernatural and I burned through 15 seasons like that Right Same here, same here what are my boys doing today?
Speaker 1:And I've gone like they were on. That show was on the air forever. Yeah, we don't get shows like that anymore. Now we're like, hey to every two years, we're going to give you eight episodes. Yeah, exactly, you're going to like it. Yeah, so you're going to pay for it. I like to go back and watch that, but I think, yeah, sometimes people just haven't given. Given sci-fi, modern sci-fi that bugs me a little bit. Yeah, the last episode of Star Trek Discovery, I'm like this is, it's a hat on a hat. You already have the perfect vehicle to tell stories. You can just create mirror images of modern events and don't, but you don't have to point at it. Yeah, so sometimes, when they're like pointing at it, I'm like man, this, this is like 32nd century. I think the trans rights issue would have been settled by now. I don't feel like you would still be addressing this in the 32nd century. Yeah, yeah, I feel like that's just. That's more unbelievable than this guy teleporting into the room.
Speaker 1:I feel, like we would have handled that by now we can teleport but we can't.
Speaker 1:Once we have different species. Like oh, his genitals are in his knees, I think that issue is going to be dead anyway. Yeah, it's like can we breed? I'd like to try. Looks like it might be fun. Yeah, the future of sexual relations. That's going to ruin the military. That could be a whole book series Like hey, we're going to deploy you to these guys' planet, but you cannot sleep with the natives. Like why? Because you don't want us to? Or no, because they'll eat you. Ah, they'd still go find out.
Speaker 1:Somebody's going to be like they ain't going to eat me. You just get to have way. I think more interesting stories like that, but sometimes it it does. It does turn you off a little bit. There have been some shows where I, I, they started off really strong, or some books that I read and started off really strong and then it just got repetitive or it just got too too fucking political. Yeah, not everything has to be about like the lotus, the latest social justice issue. Yeah, sometimes I'm, I'm here to escape that. Just show it. That's why I always like Terry Pratchett, because he would touch on social issues but he didn't beat you over the head with them. You'd be sitting there and be like that book was an allegory for being poor. You realize this 15 years down the road. Okay, cool, he got. Okay cool, he got me. Yeah, totally got me. Um, instead of them, you know them slapping you in the face with it.
Speaker 3:So which is nice.
Speaker 1:It makes you think a little bit more so like, if you want, really entertaining hard sci-fi. The expanse series is really good. It's written by sa cory, which is two different guys, and they create one name. I don't know why they did. I couldn't write a book another person, that'd be weird, yeah, uh, but these guys did guys and they create one name. I don't know why they did. I couldn't write a book with another person, that'd be weird. Yeah, but these guys did it and they wrote nine books and they're fantastic books. The show was on Amazon, okay, and the show. I think the show's only, I want to say, like four seasons or five seasons. The show is amazing and the coolest thing about the show is I'd already started reading the books when the show came out and they got the casting perfect, nice, like the characters in the book. You're like that's Amos Burton, that's exactly how that guy would look. I thought that was pretty cool.
Speaker 3:Would you ever do something like that with your oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:But I would want to maintain usually writers don't get creative control. That's why you see like, if you've read a book and then you saw the movie, it's like what? Yeah, it doesn't make any, I would want to maintain I would try to negotiate for some kind of creative control. Yeah, or I just be like.
Speaker 1:Well, this happens to every other writer, so just can I get my check yeah, yeah because if, like this, they're like no, we never give that, I'm like, well, tap another zero on that, I guess, and I'm out the door. Like you can, you can have it. But yeah, I would absolutely love to be able to see that, because some things, like there are certain things that you can't put on a screen. Like Blood Meridian is a book and they've tried to turn it into a movie multiple times and it's just, it's one of the they say it's impossible to do. Eventually someone's going to do it, but it's going to be the most violent first 15 minutes you've ever seen of any movie and it's probably going to be rated NC 17. That's why they haven't been able to do it. But you can't have the whole book without what takes place throughout the book, so you got to be careful what you cut up.
Speaker 1:I think about that, I'm like, but there's certain things that you can.
Speaker 1:You can do in a show, you can't do in a book, cause I'd love to be able to show the ships and armor and and the way that, like the interactions happen between the humans and the ai and like the it's not an astral plane but it's like a quantum entanglement kind of things, like how they're able to communicate with each other and how there's like a, there's a like a visceral emotional reaction to that.
Speaker 1:I use colors in the books to represent it. Like you can kind of figure out what an athel is thinking if you can see them and like their lattice, which is basically like a, you know, kind of like picture of the brain, but like made of like infinite angles, like colors will trace through it and like eventually you start to learn what the colors mean and you have an idea, because they they have emotions, but they're higher order than ours. So they still feel hate and anger and love, but they're also constantly objectively thinking and they're constantly going through recursion, so they're constantly trying to self-improve. Um, but yeah, long answer, no, yeah, I think being able to show that stuff, yeah, a tv show would probably be the best, because you're not the movie, you'd have to cut so much stuff out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Well, if you ever write a sci-fi book and you need, an actor has face tattoo. Yeah, I'm in.
Speaker 1:No, tattoos are a very prominent part of my books. In fact, there's one whole sect of of of uh characters in my books that have like biomedical tattoos that are. They. They're reactive to certain environments or they provide certain advantages, and they're basically like a status symbol.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my maces too. I just don't tell anybody that Exactly it's future yeah.
Speaker 1:That's pretty hardcore getting a mace on your head, though. I saw that yesterday at the store and I'm like sometimes I I have not liked anything enough to get tattooed on my head. My wife just got got her hands done. Yeah, I don't like anything enough to put it on my put my wedding. I was gonna say yes, yeah, yeah, wedding ring yeah, which is always a hilarious conversation with some fud at like like I got a chick tennessee volunteers that way.
Speaker 1:This guy. I was at chick-fil-a and I usually don't go in, but I did and there was this older guy and I just assumed he was a boomer. He was old enough to be one, yeah. But then he, he opened his mouth and removed all that he's like, and I was wearing a suit and I would. Just where I was, I was holding the bar, he couldn't see that. Yeah, so he did. He just assumed that was like the only tattoo I had and I'm like, wait till I check my watch, bro. Yeah, but he's like, that's a damn shame, you know them. Things are permanent. I was like, bro, that's my wedding ring. I think those are supposed to be permanent too, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then I like looked at the time and he was like yeah, yeah, tattoos are fun yeah. I've been, I've been working on it for a while and I you know, initially they all had meaning and now I'm like yep, let me get a little ghost. Uh-huh Says, well, shit, yep, that's how it goes, man, that's how it goes. Eventually you run out of meaning. Yeah, you just got to get started. You start getting shit. You think looks cool. Yeah, like I got a. I got thought lichens were cool. Yeah, rip it, man.
Speaker 3:I was like, let me fucking. I am deathly afraid of like tattoos. But I found out.
Speaker 1:I did it at a tattoo convention and we did it two days in a row and he put me he entered the tattoo in the best work of show.
Speaker 3:Oh shit, I didn't get anything. Yeah, you never get anything. You get a tattoo, the tattooer gets money, a trophy. I got nothing.
Speaker 1:I was like so wait a minute, I could be at home right now. I've been waiting here just for this and I don't even get a soda, Thanks. And I don't even get a soda, Thanks, dude. Yeah. And I was like why don't you guys have a category for best healed? And I'll be back next year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, seriously, I haven't been to a tattoo convention Dude.
Speaker 1:I sat for two days, 12 hours total. While I'm sitting, my wife is disappearing for an hour, two, three hours at a time, coming back with more tattoos. In the period that I got one, I think she got like five, oh wow, because she's mostly finished, like her legs are almost done, so she's just filling in those little spaces you end up with. So she's like get a little Pikachu. And then she went and got like one of the ghost nurses from Mario, because she's the same thing. She's like I got all my meeting pieces done. Now I'm just getting shit I like. And I'm kind of at the same point.
Speaker 1:If I could go back and do it over again, I probably would have put more all the lore on one arm and something else on the other one. Yeah, like I didn't start getting color until I got up here. Yeah, and I got one side of my ribs done. Ooh, the ribs done. Ooh, the worst. I don't think I will ever get the other side done, because I remember what that feels like. Nope, and I it was the only time I'd ever had to purposely stop a tattoo because it hurts so bad. I was like I'm good. Now they got all these creams. No, that's off limits.
Speaker 3:No, you can't do that, no, man.
Speaker 1:I put my time in. Yeah, next time I get work done, I am, you're doing it. It should have numbed up for that. Yeah, I put I, I got, I've got, I've got hundreds of hours of work? Yeah, just raw dogging it. Yeah, I'm gonna go back and get another tattoo without being like I'm gonna get some nummy. Yeah, I'm gonna pre-apply yeah when I get in there. You can.
Speaker 3:There's guys that like put the cream on and saran wrap it before a few hours before they go. So then when?
Speaker 1:they get there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you do that with laser hair removal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was this tattooer out in California that, like he'll put you under.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they do that now If you're getting a full like piece or something.
Speaker 1:They'll do your whole body at once. Oh wow, hey, I got a tattoo today. What'd you? Yeah, which is like but I mean it costs. Oh yeah, you got to be super rich but one and there's like five artists working on you yeah, time. Oh wow, thanks, but you're just done. Like they'll just do your whole body. Yeah, like I can only imagine you wake up and you're like oh god, this, like your whole body would be like.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it'd be like a sunburn basically, it's kind of how it feels. My dad just got his, uh, entire back, his entire back blasted, and he said that was he's head to toe I don't know if I'll ever get my back and he said it was by far the worst.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wonder how that heals, you know, because like be careful with it, yeah my wife, she, she did her.
Speaker 1:Not all of her back is done, but she's got a like a big core of it finished and, um, I was the one having to do that after care because she can't get to it. Yeah, and I'm like I like well, I can't even see it, so why do I care? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know if I'll ever get my back done. I'm trying to, I'm still trying to finish my legs, but every time I try I have to be careful getting tattoos because I'm on the road all the time. Yeah, and like I'll get a tattoo and then, like I immediately taught two days on the range in the summer and they never showed up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I, even with sunblock, like it just it cooked, it cooked the ink right out of them. Oh, wow, so I had them went over with with that ink and I just kind of cause the white ink. I wanted to. You can only notice it if you're paying attention, but whatever, um, I worry about that. Yeah, cause now, if I get my leg done and then I go teach, a class in June, like is sweat going to be a problem?
Speaker 3:And like aftercare and all that. I've gotten pretty lucky. I used to be a structural welder so when I got my hands and my head and stuff done it was like back to welding the next day.
Speaker 1:And it was like see what happens. What I'm trying to do is like, let me get the tattoos in, like the fall and winter yeah, it's easier to protect them. Definitely, so, definitely.
Speaker 3:Got that going for me, I guess. Yeah, yeah, I'm scared to start my legs. Man, I got little ones, but for some reason my thighs are almost done. I haven't started on the calves yet, yeah, the thighs dude. Oh man, I've waited so long since my last one, where it's been like a year and a half since them. You kind of forget what it feels like Exactly, and I'm like the only tattoo I remember is the ribs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like, if you're like, hey, did it hurt there? I'm like, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, maybe I need to get a tattoo my wife's going to do behind my ear. Nice, I'm going to be the only head tattoo I ever get.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Cause I'll just get the little muted mic behind my ear.
Speaker 3:That's. That's a good one. It's a good idea? I think so, yeah, and I think people will get it. That's a real good idea.
Speaker 1:The other side. Yeah, the hearing on my right side is not good. Yeah, no-transcript. Now at the new house we have much more normal ceiling heights and I don't have to wear the headphones anymore. But you know, sometimes there'll be places and someone would be talking and their, their vote, their voice is like just the right pitch that I can't hear. So they're talking to me but because of the ambient noise I can't hear them and I'm like, can you put some bass in your voice? Say it with your chest or speak, and I'm like I'm sorry, I feel bad for having hearing damage, especially when it's like the third time you've asked somebody what.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly Like this guy does not care about what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, time you've asked somebody what. Yeah, exactly like this guy does not care about what I'm saying. Yeah, you know my wife, she'll talk to me from the other room and I said you know, all I can hear is vowels. Right, like I have no idea what you just said. I just hear like, text me, text me. So she'll actually do that. She'll text me from upstairs because she knows if she yells like I'll know she's talking to me.
Speaker 2:But I hope you can hear noises, but that's about it, yeah, yeah I'm sure, I'm sure they can probably work together sometimes though. So what's your website?
Speaker 1:SageDynamicsorg. The website's mainly just informational for classes, so you can get an idea of what classes are, their calendar's on there, and then you know basic information, background, bio, all that kind of stuff. There's nothing really interactive in there. I used there for for gear. I need to bring that back. It's just hard to do. Merchandising yeah, I've, I've had terrible luck with it. I had for a while I had someone else doing my t-shirts for me and it went great and then it fell apart and then I moved it to somebody else had the same problem, moved to somebody else had this problem. So, um, I'm going to figure out how to do it myself, but I need somebody else to do fulfillment because I don't have time to be shipping stuff and things like that. And then I'm on Instagram Sage Dynamics. I'm more active these days on Twitter at Sage Dynamics, so it's pretty easy.
Speaker 1:I'm at Sage Dynamics. So you'll find me I'm not on Tumblr and your Patreon is doing pretty good too. Huh, yeah, I'm also on Patreon. So for Patreon there's there's like a Patreon curious category. You pay two, 50 a month. You get two videos. So two videos randomly you'll have access to Um. Then I have a $5, which is like that's the basic level. You get all the videos. Um, pretty much the only video you don't get at a, at $5 level, is you don't get the learning level stuff. Uh, so you're going to get all the reviews, any kind of commentary videos.
Speaker 1:You get to participate in the monthly challenges, stuff like that. And then at $15, you get at least one video a month. It's like learning based, like let's talk about this technique or that technique or this concept or that principle, and those are usually pretty comprehensive. I try to do at least one a month of those. But yeah, I think Patreon is good. It's more, it's more signal, less noise. So even in the comment section, like everybody's pretty chill, yeah, they're paying to be there. Exactly, you know, and I, you know I still do the YouTube thing. You know I'm on YouTube at Sage Dynamics, but everybody YouTube thing.
Speaker 1:You know I'm on YouTube at Sage Dynamics Um but everybody's just so angry about not getting things for free, like that is basically what YouTube, the gun culture on YouTube, turned into. And if you say anything favorable about anything, you must be a shill. Yeah, and I'm like I am tired of people using that word wrong. I am tired of it Also. I stay legally compliant. Wrong, I am tired of it. Also, I stay legally compliant.
Speaker 1:If I get it for free, I'm going to tell you I did, because I have to. Um, if I didn't, I'm not going to bring that up because it should be it's implied that I paid for it. Since I didn't tell you I didn't pay for it, um, but, like, the cool thing about the Patreon is is like, like, at the $10 and above level, you can be like hey, would you review this? And if it gets enough likes, oh yeah, okay, and I'll get on Gum Broker and buy it and I'll go ahead and run it through. And then, with the challenge thing I've had fun with that I basically, at the beginning of every month, I do an update video Like, hey guys, here's what drill, whoever does best get something.
Speaker 1:And it started out I'd give away patches and t-shirts and a couple of classes and then I started giving away like really good stuff. So like all this year I've been giving away guns. Um, I've done an agency arms Glock. I've done a son's Liberty rifle, I've done a Langdon Beretta, I've done a Glock 34, sig P365. I've done an FN 510, an FN Edge CC Beretta A300.
Speaker 2:Like just 12 months of guns. I'm just doing some mental math here. That's some big figures.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, patreon pays for it. You know these guys are paying into it, so why shouldn't they be able to benefit from that? So, if you pay, so so. The thing about it is, though, it's the same five guys that keep winning, not not like strictly, but there's five guys in there that have their own ranges, or they have. They're able to shoot on their property, so they're able to jump in on them drills. Yeah, like James Barron. I don't know if you know who that is. He's one of my alumni. He's a dentist in Georgia, but he's also an amazing shooter. He won like three times in a row, and I'm like I'm not going to tell him he can't do that, yeah, but I'm almost like, hey, bro, can you let somebody?
Speaker 3:else win for a minute.
Speaker 2:Come on, tom Brady, let somebody else have a shot.
Speaker 1:Can you just chill out Because it sucks, like it would be crazy expensive to do first, second, third. Yeah, so going into next year I might not do as many, I'm not going to do a gun every month next year, but I'm going to try to do first, second, first, second, third. So there's some more stuff. But also it's like it kind of is like hey, up your game, like this guy, he's not magic, he just shoot, he just practices so he's able to do the drill. And I also try to come up with drills that in, in theory, everyone can do. But sometimes, like next month's drill is going to be a double bill six rifle, handgun, oh that. Have you ever done a double drill? No, for seconds. Four seconds, four seconds, oh shit. Six and six, damn From seven yards.
Speaker 1:So it's an actual drill that you do with the rifle. You start from a low ready One, two, three, four, five, six. Transition Handgun One, two, three, four, five, six. If you think about it, you have enough time. Yeah, because low ready, that's Like you'll be able to get the rifle up way faster than you can draw a gun and most people do a build drill in two seconds with a handgun, right. So four seconds just seems perfectly reasonable to me. Yeah, the problem with it is it's getting the rifle out of the way. I was going to say the transition is going to be where it's at and I shoot my bills on the target I use for my classes. So it's a 4x6A zone.
Speaker 3:So for me to get a bill drill on a four by six box from seven yards, that's that's.
Speaker 1:That's harder, yeah, than your standard ipsyx or uspsa or whatever you're shooting it on. I've seen some people I like those targets, by the way, I was looking at them. Yeah, yeah, thank you. Um, mostly my design. Yeah, so that drill, um, I'll drop it on them. I'm like, hey guys, this is a drill for january and it's a double bill because I haven't done a transition drill before. So I'm kind of eager to throw that at them and see what they think about it. Um, but I've, I shoot it. I always shoot it to show like, hey guys, here's the drill, now watch me do it.
Speaker 1:And my best run I shot a. I shot a three nine and I got um. So it's four seconds. So I was 0.10 under right, but I got 11 out of 12. And I'm like, nah, that's good enough, I'll show it to them, you know, because I'm like I'm not going to stand out here until I get it perfect. Yeah, so I'll show them like three runs. And I'm like here, failed it, failed it, failed it. Or I mean it all depends on how you score it, because the is going to be the guy who gets the best score If I have a bunch of people submit and no one actually got 12 out of 12 clean. All right guys, no prize this month. That'd be fucked up. I'm telling everybody best time under par or best shot group under par wins. If you're sub four and you've shot really well, then you're in. You win Nice. I'm going to try to do first, second, third as often as I can. That's an interesting drill. It's dude, it's tough.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I threw it in my head, I've done a lot of tough drills.
Speaker 1:There have been some drills that I've done this year that guys are like did have you ever shot a speed bull? No, what's that? So speed bull is? It's a B8. Okay, you go back to 25 and you shoot 10 rounds. But what's the traditional time limit for a B8? 10 seconds or 20 seconds, right From the holster? 20 seconds, 10 rounds that's a B8. A speed bull is the same, but 10 seconds, okay. So you come out of the holster and you have 10 seconds to fire 10 rounds at 25 yards. So you're not going to do great. Yeah, because you know you only got 10. There's enough time, but there's only enough time.
Speaker 1:I do a drill called Speed Bull Plus 2. Oh man, now the difference is you start from a sight picture but you have to fire 10, reload and fire two more. Ooh, have to fire 10, reload and fire two more. It's just mean. Yeah, it's mean, but it's possible. Yeah, baron did it and he shot a. I think he shot like an 80-something. Oh, wow, nice, but he probably did it until he couldn't not do it. Yeah, because he's like I got Dennis money and I got nothing to do today. Yeah, so I'm going to go out there and shoot this drill a thousand times. Yeah, I think what this month's drill was.
Speaker 1:I've done some grip confirmation drills where guys got to same thing on a Speed Bull 25. And I made them do it. It's like it's got to be a micro nine. It's got to be like a 365 XL or a reflex or something like that. It can't be a macro. It can't be a macro. It can't be a fuse, it's got to be a compact gun. Yeah, and I had them coming out of the holster on on a B8 doing one, two and then one two and I think I was doing like a one five par on that, um, and then I've had them do the Eleanor drill and then and some other stuff, um, and some of the drills are just stuff that I don't even. I don't even know what the name of it is.
Speaker 3:It's just something I've been shooting forever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like the, the, the, the bill drill, the double bill. Yeah, uh, we had a. I had a SWAT instructor that would have us do that all the time. And we do six, transition six, and that was before I even came up with a round count. And then, when I got introduced to the bill drill the first time in a class, I'm like, oh, I'm going to call this the double bill and I got a fatigue drill. That's it's, uh, it's supposed to be 15 reload 15. Um, but you can also do it as 10 reload 10. So you play with the par par, you start from a site pitcher, 10 yards, 15 reload, 15, 10 seconds. It's doable, but most people will successfully complete that drill between nine and par. Yeah, it's going to be nine.
Speaker 1:I've had some guys shoot it in like seven, five, oh damn yeah that's blazing, yeah, and the whole purpose of the drill is it's an intermediate handgun distance, cause 10 yards is not close, but it's not far away either and it kind of lets you know how quickly you can go through how much ammo you carry. Yeah, so you have to do. Basically, I averaged. I was like most people are carrying guns that have at least 15 rounds in them, so you do 15 and then you go to your second mag. Yeah, and I'm now out of ammo. Yeah, but I like that drill a lot and I've had guys do it. If you do it from the holster, you almost never make par. Yeah, but if you start from a sight pitcher because so many drills start from the holster yeah, I like to start from sight pitchers. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm down with that. Thanks for coming down Absolutely Teaching the class the past couple days and then sit down with us. No, it's nice man.
Speaker 1:It's a nice change of pace to be able to sit down and just have a conversation. Yeah, and I've always got a lot to say because I talk for a living. Yeah, and then I'll immediately go back into introvert mode as soon as I get out the door and I'll scurry back to my hotel room and get Uber Eats and nobody will see me again until I have to drive to the airport at like four in the morning.
Speaker 2:Go write a couple pages, yeah Right.
Speaker 1:It's already in my head. I, I got, I got, I got. I try to keep my chapters to about eight pages. I made. I knocked out five pages last night, so I want to finish that chapter out cause I'm eager to get my Simarillion done so I can get back to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, umdle, yeah, he's like my, he's my muse sounding board guy because he's a huge sci-fi guy. So, uh, he was into the rushing winning, he was into rushing winner, but not like hardcore. But when I start writing sci-fi like this dude will, he will text me you got any chapters for me? Because he's like he gets to read everything before people, yeah, forgets that sometimes. So he'll be talking to somebody about the book and they're like wait, what? They're like, what are you talking? He's like oh shit, yeah, that's next year. Yeah, and I'm like tyler, you gotta stop doing that, bro, like this stuff. Spoilers, it's not copyrighted until I publish it. Yeah, you gotta um, but yeah, I try to try to get you know if I can.
Speaker 1:If I could write eight pages a day, seven days a week, that could be my job, but that's never going to happen, at least I. I don't think it is. It'd be nice if it did, cause I'll tell you what it I love teaching I really do. But if I could write for a living I just do that it's way more fulfilling for me. I'd probably still teach, but not not at the pace I teach at now. No, but I definitely appreciate you guys bringing me down. I'm I'm certainly going to come back next year, do something again.
Speaker 1:Um, maybe doing the podcast, and I guess we're not doing shooter symposium this year. Yeah, I don't know. Uh, it would have to be scheduled by now. I haven't heard it. Yeah, if it's going to be in April, it's gotta be. Yeah, cause I already have classes scheduled in April. So, if, if, if he, if he hits me up, like tomorrow. I was like, hey, we got you. I'm like, no, bro, you waited too long. Yeah, there's not happening. Yeah, I'll have to come back out here, do another podcast in the future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll get you on the calendar for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we should definitely do something Right now. Well, you got indoor so I could come out here in August Like ain't no thing, right? Yeah, I got to be careful where I go in the summer. Oh, yeah, no, you don't want to be stuck. Well, one year I let Hilton Yam drag me down to Florida to teach. Oh no, I taught in July, ooh, and I got to be honest, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be.
Speaker 3:See, I think Florida's worse.
Speaker 1:I went down there. It's just as humid where you're at. The hottest class I had last year was Port Huron, michigan. Yeah, now, granted summer I think it was late June Hottest class of the year Miserable, I could throw a rock and hit a Canadian.
Speaker 1:It should not be this hot. I'm literally like hey, everybody, he's right across the street and here's Canada, and I just see them bobbing around over there Drinking their Tim Hortons or whatever the fuck they do, and I'm like I could just how. Why is it this hot here? Yeah, cause I have a cousin, um, she's lived in Canada 30 years and she never once has she said anything about it being hot. Yeah, so I just assumed Canada was always freezing or kind of nice. That's what I always assumed. I didn't know it even got hot in Canada.
Speaker 1:So I'm in Michigan, like 30 yards away from Canada, and it's just blazing hot. I think it was like it got it. The first range day it was like 104. And then the second range day it was like one. It got up to 110 towards the end of the day and I'm like how is this? Is? We are way too far north? No, that's horrible. It had something to do with some kind of like jet stream thing or something like that, and I'm like, okay, but of all, like I expect heat like that in certain places. Yeah, you can find that in texas, you can find that in arizona, you can find that in california, but michigan- come on dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's wild. I never would have guessed that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, me neither I had my first summer here this summer and they told me it was actually pretty mild. It wasn't that?
Speaker 2:bad. It wasn't as bad as we've had in the past, but I was like I.
Speaker 1:I've taught here in the summer before um, out at eagle lake. Oh yeah, so similar, basically the same climate it's not terrible, terrible, but still hot. Um, like I won't go to arizona, like even I won't even teach a night class in arizona in the summer, because arizona doesn't cool off when it gets dark. Right, yeah, which is bananas. The first time I ever went to Arizona I'm like, oh, it's almost dark, it'll cool off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, why is it not? Why is the wind hot?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I grew up in a desert but, I grew up in a high desert, so when the sun went down, it got cold, yeah, super cold. And I grew up in a high desert, so when the sun went down, it got cold, yeah, super cold. And our wind was never hot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just uncomfortable, it just feels wrong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess the opposite would be living somewhere super cold where you're like why do I live somewhere where the wind hurts my face?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's why I got out of Pennsylvania. I mean I couldn't take the winter anymore, yeah.
Speaker 1:Pennsylvania, winters can be pretty rough and depending on where you live in Pennsylvania, you live in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3:Exactly, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:But some places about Pennsylvania. I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So key takeaways from this podcast. Go check out his books. They sound pretty cool. The Carson Grace series is really nice. I've been enjoying that one. The Fortunate Son yeah.
Speaker 1:This first book in there. And then the other takeaway is fuck, michigan in July. That's right. Apparently gets hot as hell. Entry to this, but yeah, don't go to. I'm not going to Michigan in July. It's too humid, too hot, unless you're going to throw rocks and again that could have just been some freak occurrence.
Speaker 1:You know, I think I got a class coming up in Michigan again. Next year it's probably not going to be like that, but we're going to find out. Yeah, report back. Well, cool, thanks for coming down. Yeah, absolutely, I had a blast. Good talking to you guys, good questions. I'll talk to you too. I'll go in-depth on stuff I like. You started asking me about boring stuff. I probably wouldn't have had much to say.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you all for watching. Thank you for sticking around and checking us out Like. Well, thank you all for watching. Thank you for sticking around and checking us out Like, subscribe, comment, all that stuff. I'm not really sure what to say, but just share it, do it all. Do it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do the social media. Y'all know what to do, Y'all are smart. But yeah, thanks for watching. We will, I guess, see you next time.