Welcome to Botches Off-Road. Join us as we talk about everything from gear reviews to
trail stories, tent camping to rock landing, and all things to do with the outdoors. Today's
episode is pretty special. I got the chance to go on Snail Trail and talk about a little bit of my
day job, a little bit of Meshtastic, a lot a bit about Meshtastic, and a little bit about the
botches and how we started. It was a great time getting to talk to Jimmy and Tyler and I'm really
glad to be able to share this episode with you. Go ahead and go over to theirs and at least give
them a download. Even if you listen to this one, at least give them a download for theirs. They're
pretty much the same, I'm sure. So yeah, I'll get right into it and I hope you enjoy it.
Welcome back, ladies, gentle ladies, kiddos, boys, girls, all the trail dogs out there.
This is a Monday episode, of course, which means we have a really fun topic with a really fun
individual here. Professional podcaster over here, man, getting him on the show. Finally,
he's called in a couple of times. We have Alex here from botches off road, man. How you doing,
bud? Hey, how's it going guys? I'm doing pretty good. Nice. We're doing pretty well as well.
And of course, we have Jimmy here as always. Hi. I was going to just skip right over. Thank you.
Yeah. What is it? What's his nickname this week? Jimbo Jimbo Jet.
That'll work. That's that's one of the better ones I've heard.
So, yeah, man, welcome to the show, Alex. I think it's gonna be a fun episode. I was wanting to just
dive right into radio talk, but Jimmy said that he wanted to be involved a little bit more. So,
yeah, he's got to push us back. Well, I mean, you guys are more than welcome to jump right into radio
talk. And if for all those people that are like me, you can just skip to like the 50th minute,
Mark, and then I'll join you guys again. After Jimmy's had four whiskies, Jimmy comes in all
sloppy. Are there did you leave any of those proofs here? No, I took him home and had him last night.
They're fantastic. I had a whiskey. So I'll keep sipping on my glass of water. There you go. That
looks like a giant jar of vodka. That's what that really. Yeah, we have our coffee. Our coffee's
over here. Yeah. As we are recording in the morning. Well, morning for us. Is it noon for you?
One o'clock. Yeah. OK. Yeah. Time travel is crazy. Yeah. Well, call me and we want to know a little
bit more about you. So you've been listening to us for a long time and you've called in and left
some messages on the snail mail a couple of times there, which kind of led us into a fun discussion
about mesh tastic versus APRS, which I think we're going to dive into a little bit here in the future.
For sure. But we want to know a little bit more about you botches off road,
maybe get into some turkey farming and and yeah, I don't know. I think it should be fun.
The first thing I want to know, though, is botches off road. You guys do an off road podcast,
you and two other guys. Tell us a little bit. What's your elevator speech for botches off road?
So I'll go right down to the beginning. So we started a few years ago. We had a group chat
called the the bitches and then we had to change the name of it and screwed up and named it the
botches. And then ever since then, our our little off road group was known as the botches.
That's pretty funny. So Jimmy was sitting over here writing down a notes on his little notebook
and I looked over and I was like, that looks like bitches. I read it as bitches off road at first.
And then I was like, oh no, he wrote it as botches. I was like, I wonder if that's where
that came from. Now I can't be. I wonder if something else. No, you got it. I got it.
I nailed it. First time you've done something right. So then we we kind of got into Toyotas.
I come from Jeeps. I had a TJ. I had a J for a seventy three J four thousand. I had a CJ
like that's where I J four thousand. I haven't heard of that alphabet yet.
It's an old pickup. Mine was one ton J forty eight hundred and then you could go down to
like a J two thousand, which after seventy three, I think seventy four is when they change the name
to J 10 and J 20. OK, OK. That makes I've heard of I know the J 10 and J 20. So I never knew that
they were four thousand and two thousand. Yeah, that's really what year did you say yours was
seventy three. Oh, cool. Nice. Yeah, that was my first quote unquote overland rig.
Dang. I used to throw I had a PVC frame I made and I throw a tarp over it and camp in the bed.
There you go. Yeah. I didn't I've done that, but I just put the tarp over the cab and shut it in
the doors and then angle it down and bungee it over the tailgate and down on like to the trailer
hitch. And that would be your shelter right there. It was perfect. I didn't have the PVC stuff.
That's cool. Mine looked like a covered wagon, which I mean, it was Arizona. So it made sense.
OK, so you had a Jeep and then a couple of Jeeps. Did you have other Jeeps than the TJ and the J four
as a CJ? My first car was an eighty three CJ seven. OK, OK. That's a long.
I sold my TJ back in seventeen, I think, seventeen or eighteen. And then I didn't have anything until
twenty twenty two and I was just like, you know what? I need a new car. I'm tired of just driving
a power stroke everywhere. So I went and bought a four runner. Nice choice. Third gen for runner.
So that's a good choice. Third gen best gen second and best. But
just got to change a lot of stuff on the second gen to make it the best gen. But you're changing
everything and taking it from a third gen and putting it in. Once you have a third gen engine,
a first gen drivetrain and Ford axles and Tundra diffs on it, it's second gen is the best.
I will say your second gen is the best second gen I've ever seen. It's there's a couple up
here in NorCal that give it a run for its money for sure. There's some cool builders up here that
like to do some fun things with second gen's. But over here in Michigan, they're all rotted out. So
I can believe that. Yeah. So you got it. Even my third gen, the frame looks like a quilt. So
that's sad. That's about we need to send you one. Yeah.
I'll just send it. Yeah. So we got into Toyotas. Mark bought a Tacoma not long after I bought my
third gen. He's got his first one was an 09 Tacoma and he rolled that about six months after he
bought it. Ouch. Just hit an icy spot on the road and she just kept going. Michigan stuff. So
Michigan stuff. So he replaced it with a new one. So that's a good choice.
Yeah. Michigan stuff. So he replaced it with a 14 Tacoma and we were just the two of us. We had
our little group botches off road and we do a lot of stuff with a Facebook group called Minton State
Tours. And another guy, we're from a really small town of about 700 people. And another guy from our
town happened to be in there, which is Gavin, and he drove an FJ and then we were out wheeling one
day and we're just like, you know what? We should start a podcast. Yeah. How hard can it be? Yeah.
Well, little did I know that famous last words, those idiots, Jimmy and Tyler figured it out and
we could probably figure it out. Yeah, that's cool, man. So were you guys just kind of like,
hey, we thought we love talking about off roading. So let's just start a podcast or.
Yeah, pretty much. Nice. Other people like listening to us. So why not? Yeah, there you go.
As long as people are listening, it makes it kind of fun, right? Yeah. So cool, man. What all do you
have done to the third gen forerunner? Then I've got right now it's kind of got a cheap lift. I've
got a freedom off road, adjustable shocks in the front set to three inches. And then I've got a
three inch eye box in the rear with currently rough country shocks in the rear, but I've got icons
sitting on my bench that I need to rebuild to put on it. I got them. I got a full set of fifth gen
icons, three fronts and three rears for two hundred dollars. And I'm like, whoa, even if I
don't like icon that much, it's worth the it's worth the two hundred dollars. Yeah. It's still
like a decent product. So yeah, they do. They seem all right. OK, well, cool. You said you to
rebuild shock. Do you have a lot of experience with rebuilding shocks or I will be learning?
OK, I do everything. I haven't taken my truck to a shop ever. So nice. Do you have a big
mechanical background or what's your what's your what's your background?
I mean, when I was in the army, I did radios and I just built a bunch of race cars and
Jeeps while I was down there. So it's always been a hobby and it's just it's cheaper to do it myself
than take it to someone. So I'll figure it out. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Cheaper. But we are
I was literally talking about this this morning. It's cheaper to do it yourself, but you're also
spending the time. So it's where's where's that balance? How does it work? Yeah. Yeah, that's
cool. All right. So I will. So you went from Arizona, it sounds like, out to was it Minnesota?
No. Michigan, Michigan, Michigan, Michigan. Yep. And then somewhere in the middle there was
the army. So did you grew up in Arizona originally? I grew up actually a mile down the road from where
I'm at right now. Oh, wow. I grew up, but I was stationed in Fort Wichita, Arizona. OK, years.
And that's where Arizona was for the army. Yep. Arizona was for the army. And that's where you're
building race cars. Yeah, I built a 96 Cobra and a 2004 Ram 1500. Wait, Ram 1500 race car?
Yep. How does that work? Enlighten us over here.
It was a single cab short bed Hemi. OK, good. So I slammed it, put a turbo on it, made it fast.
Yeah. And then blew it up.
Dodge problems. Yeah. All right. Well, that sounds fun. And then so after the sin in the army,
you found yourself coming back home. Yeah, just it made the most sense.
You know, I could stay at my dad's till I got stuff figured out and then I just kind of never left.
It happens. Yep. I'm, you know, living in the same house as my childhood house. So
I fully understand that. Nice. OK. And then in the military, you did radios, it sounds like. So
OK, that's where your affection for radios came from. Or was it before then?
I'd say that I did radios for the army because I like radios.
OK, so as radio, were radios already a big hobby of yours before you got in the army then?
I wouldn't say so much a big hobby. I was more into tech, but my dad's a ham. So it's always
just kind of been there. Yep. Is that kind of funny how that works out? Yeah.
Yeah, that's typically how like people end up getting into radios is somebody in their family
is a ham operator and you're just around it all the time. So it just kind of comes naturally then.
And I'm from a small town that used to not have very good cell service. So we all had C.B.'s anyway.
So. Yep. I never got my C.B. to work, so I never liked him. And then I met this guy and he's like,
you should try the ham radio. And I was like, wow, this actually works. This is great.
Yeah, I still do not have my ham license. So, yeah, you're one of those guys.
I just I keep putting it off. Yeah, it's I mean, it's not too bad, especially for you.
If you already know radio stuff, the tech license will be super easy for you. So
it's just a matter of finding a spot and doing it, I guess. A testing location.
The test I've taken multiple practice tests. They're pretty easy. So yeah,
it's yeah. Yeah. If you're familiar with radios, the tech is easy. I've had it's funny.
I've talked with people who are the test givers out at different testing locations and different clubs.
And every once in a while, they'll get together and take the three tests, the technician,
the general and extra. And they say that like usually most of them will pass the technician.
Every once in a while, there's like one person in the group that won't pass it for whatever reason.
And then like usually like 60 to 70 percent of the group will pass the general. And then like
only like 20 or 30 percent will pass the extra. And they're all extras, too. So it's just funny how
the the test changes over time and updates and they're they don't stay current with the updates,
but they already have their license or like, oh, whatever. Well, that's cool. OK, so I'm going to
avoid jumping into more radio talk. Yeah, let's go back to the podcast. Let's let's get back to
let's get back to off road podcast stuff. You went to the military for radio stuff.
You built cars all the time. So if you just pretty much always just kind of been building
stuff, I mean, it sounds like you grew up in this town of 700 people. So
not a whole lot of resources, I imagine, for repairing things, which is why you got
we've got quite a few mechanics in town. It just my family, we never really had money to go to them.
So we just always fixed our own stuff. Gotcha. OK, so what is the I mean, what is the is so
that I'm going to allude to turkey farming now? Is that is that a family business that you're
doing because you you do turkey farming now, right? Yeah, yeah, I know. I I applied for this job
because it was a mile from my dad's house. OK, and I had lots of poultry experience because when I
was a kid, I raised birds. So after a year of trying to get them to hire me, they hired me
and I've been managing a farm of about 40000 birds for five years now. Holy crap. 40000.
40000. Wow. But it's not even Thanksgiving. Yeah, we do more sandwich meat. We don't do
the Thanksgiving turkeys. OK, all right. So you told us, I think off air that they're primarily
Tom's, which is a boy turkey. And so boy turkeys is turkey meat for like sandwiches. Yeah. So a
Tom is usually bigger and tougher. So it makes better sandwich meat, whereas a hen is smaller
and more tender. And they make better Thanksgiving turkeys. Yeah. OK. What do the transgender
turkeys make? They don't exist. Christmas turkeys. That's your Christmas duck. I got the turducken.
Yeah, that's what's inside of the turkey. OK. Wow. 40000 fricking turkeys. That's a lot of birds.
That's at max capacity right now. I've probably got closer to like 36. That's still a lot.
That doesn't sound like any less to me. I have a hummingbird feeder, so you know.
I know I get like five hummingbirds that show up at mine.
Have to refill it like once a week. But yeah, that's gnarly. So being in your geographic location,
I'm assuming everything's pretty much inside. Oh, yeah. We've got I've got four barns,
one brooder coop and then three finisher barns. What does that mean? A birder coop and finishing
barns. So a brooder is a brooders where a bird goes when they're a baby. OK. And then a finisher
or a grow out barn is where they go to live the rest of their life. OK, got it. OK. So I didn't
that's interesting. So you move them from barn to barn throughout their life cycle. From one barn
to another barn one time. Yeah. How many turkeys are you moving at a time between barns? Between
nine and ten thousand. How do you move nine to ten thousand turkeys between two buildings?
So we've got the Stig almost I'd say it's probably a 20 foot long trailer with a conveyor belt on the
floor. So we heard a thousand of them onto the trailer and then go into the next barn and turn
the conveyor on and they just kind of fall off. That's good to say. Another covered wagon joke.
Wow. OK. And so what ratio is your brooders to the finishers?
I don't know exact. Yeah, but I know that the finishers like three hundred and fifty yards.
I think the finishers big. I don't know exact on that, but I know that the brooders two hundred
yards. OK. And so right now you said you have roughly thirty six thousand. But are they are
they all in the finisher at the moment or are they split up? You have some and some adults.
So I've got about nine thousand that are two weeks old today. I've got about eighty five hundred
that are 20 weeks tomorrow, but they leave tonight, so they'll never hit 20 weeks.
And then I've got where do they go?
They go to the sandwich shop.
Arriving at your local subway tomorrow. Actually, Subway is one of our customers.
All right. Sorry to interrupt. So you got and then over you got nine thousand that are six.
Nine thousand that are about two weeks old. OK. Eighty five hundred that are about 20 weeks old.
Probably seventy six hundred that are just now eight weeks or no, 12 weeks old.
And I've got some that are in between there somewhere. Right. OK. So you really are rotating
your your I want to say crops, but your inventory inventory, your livestock almost every six weeks.
Six. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, that's it. So every six weeks you're getting a new
flock in and a flock is leaving pretty close. Yeah. There's a couple of weeks for clean out time.
So I make sure the barns are clean, but that's crazy. Wow. That's yeah. It's just a thing I've
never thought about. Right. You know, it's just it's a different game, different different job.
Interesting. Very kind of wild. So you applied for this job. It took you a year to get it.
Did you why did they not want you? Why? Why did it take a year to get over?
So they had another manager here who they wanted gone, but he kept acting a little better.
So they held on to him for a year. Got it. OK. Yeah. And then did you walk in straight as the manager
or did you have to work your way up the ladder a little? No, I got I applied as a manager and got
hired in as a manager. Perfect. Do you have a lot of I mean, you said you were a manager.
Do you have a lot of I mean, you said you raised birds in your kid. What kind of birds were you
raising as a kid to get this experience to be a turkey farmer? Forty thousand birds.
I did for each I showed chickens and turkeys on average as a kid. I think we had about 300
birds on the farm at a time. Wow. Most of those were exhibition birds. So not so much your egg
layers, but like, you know, your fancy chickens or fancy turkeys. Yeah. Yeah. OK. See that's just a
different for each. Yeah. Out here, like a kid raises a pig. Yeah. Like, you know, like one only,
not 300. Yeah. Wow. OK. That's really I'm intrigued. I think it's really cool. I think it's a you know,
it's just a different side of America that, you know, a lot of people probably don't realize or
follow along with me. I mean, at least out here in California, you know, it does. I don't see it very
often. We see the cow farms occasionally when we drive down I-5. But yeah, it's just a different
world to me. It's every day. That's all I see is farms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I grew up in Tulare and
Visalia, which is like agriculture, central of the United States, pretty much. So like farming isn't
any kind of like new or unknown thing for me. But it was all it's all cow and dairy stuff. Right. So
but learning about bird farming, I'm like, what? That's just crazy. Yeah, that's like I think it's
us, Missouri or Minnesota are the two biggest places for bird farming. Wow. Wow. Why is that?
We do. I think it's a temperament, a temperature thing. It's easy to maintain a temperature in a
barn when it's cooler than when it's warm. Oh, okay. Because you can heat a barn for cheap,
but you can't cool a barn for cheap. Gotcha. Though we do have a listener. His name is screen
name is Magnolia Mayhem. And he manages or doesn't manage works at a chicken farm in Mississippi.
Oh, OK. So they're all over. They're all over. Yeah. Yeah. That's wild. Yeah. That's really kind
of farming. Yeah. I wonder. So this is something I wish I knew more about just in my my family's
background. My grandmother's father apparently like wrote the book on poultry farming. And so he was
he was a massive chicken professor, doctorate of chickens down at I think it was Cal Poly.
And so I've always kind of wondered like how big is this? I've always heard that he's like
wrote the book on poultry farming. Right. And so I'm like, what does that mean? How far is
this reach really out there? So, yeah, I want to I'm now I know that I know somebody in poultry
farming, bird farming. I kind of want to go and find some of the stuff that he did. He created
and see it, ask you about it and see if you've heard of them. So I would love to look at that.
Yeah. I'll see if I can look up more information about him. His plaque is still at Cal Poly as like
the the head of the poultry department for years and years. So, OK, well, that's good to know.
I'm going to have to hit you up about that later. Yeah. Well, now that you're bringing that up,
it made me remember that my my great grandfather on my father's side raised chickens in Texas.
Really? Yeah. They had a chicken farm and they actually ended up closing it
and then moved to California. And that's why that side of the family is here now.
I wonder if your great, great granddaddy knew my great granddaddy.
They probably went off roading together. Yeah.
As I'm over here, my great granddaddy was a funeral director and everyone else was a funeral
director. Yeah. Your great granddaddy probably met ours, but ours were passed away by then.
Yeah. Too funny. All right. So circling around, let's let's kind of close this off with podcasting
again. So do all the guys now have Toyotas? Are you going to just a Toyota based podcast
that just raises chickens or turkeys on the side? Like it's it's not necessarily Toyota based.
I mean, currently me, Mark and Gavin all drive Toyotas. We do have a Jeep build that we're
kind of working on in the background. OK. Why would you devalue your podcast like that?
We're putting a Jeep. We're putting a Jeep YJ tub on a third gen forerunner frame.
Oh, that could be interesting. Does the frame look like a quilt?
Yeah, no, no. This one's clean. So it's going to be a three, four powered Jeep YJ with long travel.
Yeah, it's going to be a really the YJ is a pretty short tub compared to a forerunner frame.
It is. How much are you chopping that frame down? So everything behind the last mount for the rear
axle is getting cut off. And then we're going to tub. We're going to tub the YJ because that's
going to put the rear axle right on the back of the YJ tub. And then it puts the front axle
right in the front of the YJ fenders. Oh, that's going to look goofy.
It's going to look like a stretched YJ. It's going to look like a super stretched YJ.
You're going to leave it I.F.S. Yeah. Long travel.
OK, OK. So three, four power to doing anything with the transmission and transfer case.
I'm trying to think what's on that frame right now around that build right now. I think so it's got
dual stick stock dual stick transfer case right now. Well, obviously dual stick isn't stock,
but it's a stock transfer case with dual stick. But I think that's going in our buddies forerunner.
So it's probably going to end up with a factory transfer case for now. OK. Those work great.
Yeah. We figure make it run and then we'll go from there. Yeah. Yeah. That's going to be really
interesting. How are you dealing with the electrical or is there a lot of electrical
from the YJ that you have to be concerned about? We ripped all of it out. We're going to rewire
all of it basically to be a Toyota. Yeah. So what about the dash? Are you going to
wire the Toyota stuff into the YJ YJ dash or are you going to put the Toyota dash in the YJ?
Well, we ripped the YJ dash out. We're going to make a flat just a flat like a CJ dash for it.
OK. And then we'll just put aftermarket gauges for GPS speedometers. We don't even have to
mess with ABS sensors and then everything else will just be hard plumbed. Nice. That sounds like
a fun build. It's going to be different and it's going to be unique and awesome. Are you going to
put a rooftop tent on it too? No, no. Oh, come on. We are going PVC pipes and a type. Me and Mark are
it's not that we're anti rooftop tents. It's just that they don't make sense in Michigan.
Why is that? What are the benefits of a rooftop tent? Get off of the cold ground.
Really? But then you've got air running directly underneath you cooling your tent off.
Kind of. Yeah, I mean, yes, you are right. But I think there's the foam insulating pad on the inside
that prevents a lot of intrusion of the cold weather as long as it's not memory foam because
that freezes here. Oh, interesting. And I hate memory foam. I don't sleep well on memory foam
at all. So, yeah, I don't have any of that. It's not that I'm against them. I just it's a lot of
money when I could just go buy a hundred dollar Walmart tent and set it up in two minutes. Yeah.
Yeah. Or get a military sleeping bag set up. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I sent you that picture of us
at Benji's. Yeah. He went to Benji's open house when he set up and is there set up.
Was that you and Mark? Was it? Yeah. Yeah. Me and Mark, both of them sleeping in like what looked
like Bibby sacks, which were there, the military system just out on the ground, no tent or anything.
That's how my grandfather did it. And I always did as a kid. If it was fair weather outside,
we just laid down a tarp, no tent or anything and put our sleeping bags on it and slept in the open
sky. So I mean, it got kind of cold that night, but with the our military bags, you really don't
feel the cold. Nice. Yeah. I supposedly I got invited to try a military bag when I go down to
King of the Hammers this year. Oh, nice. Nice. But I'm also kind of like, should I really try a military
bag sleeping in my rooftop tent like with my electric heated mattress pad like you might only
need this? You might only need the summer bag. Yeah, exactly. The winter bag. Maybe I'll just
sleep outside under like underneath the rooftop tent that night and put down a tarp. Yeah,
that could be fun. But yeah, that was pretty cool. How did you like Benji's
new celebration of him starting the off road, the shop? It was really cool. I think Benji put on a
really fun show. There are a lot of cool people there. It was a good chance for us to network
since, you know, Michigan, we don't have a whole lot of stuff going on up here, but
it was a lot of fun. That's cool. I really wish I could have gone. How long was the drive down
there for you? Eleven hours, 12 hours. Wow. Okay. In my third gen forerunner with no cruise control.
I had, you know, I have cruise control. I almost never use it. I don't know why I don't use it that
often. I at home, I don't use it, but man, on the expressway, it'd be nice to just set cruise and
let it go. Yeah. I will say dynamic cruise control. I use that all the time and the duly. That's nice.
I bet those are fun. You can just have it anywhere. You just leave it on everywhere and you just just
set it for 90 and it'll just adjust to traffic as you go. Yeah, I've never used one. No,
neither have I. The newest car, the newest car I've ever had was the 2004. So I like dynamic cruise
control because I'll just cut them off and they have to slow down. Exactly. You find somebody
that's running it. You troll them all day. Yeah. I wish they had it on the rear so I could push them.
Getting too close. This car needs to go faster. That would be very useful. Yeah. But unfortunately,
I think they're smarter than that. And they're like, we don't need it on the rear.
That's awesome. Cool. All right. So when does your podcast get released? And I guess when,
what general topics do you kind of cover? We usually we release one on, we just changed this
too. So I got to think now we released one on Monday night at 1130. That's just a 30 minute
episode. Right now we're playing the game radio chatter, which is okay. So we're going to be
playing the game radio chatter. What is that? Hold that back up. Okay. Is it a, like a, just a
question, a prompt of what's your, what's one of your favorite outdoor activities that you've ever
done or whatever? That might actually be a card. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So they're just general topics.
Yep. And it, it's pretty fun. We, the radio, the guy who started radio chatter is local to us. So
we figured it'd be kind of a fun thing to go through. Then on, I think it's Friday night now,
Friday night at 1130, we release an hour long episode. And that one could be anything from,
we went on a trip and we're going to talk about it to, we're bored and have no idea what to talk
about. It's just a mixed bag. And then once a month we read an article from Northology.
It's a virtual magazine started by Cindy Pope. So we read one of her articles and we kind of
talk about it. That's a really, really fun episode. We just started that this month, but it's probably
one of my favorite ones we've done. That'd be great. I've heard of Northology. I want to,
I've gotten ads to subscribe to Northology, but I've never looked into what Northology is.
So like what, what kind of content are they covering? Oh, that's a sweet. Hold on, hold your
arm back up. Trees. That's cool. Just a bunch of trying to show you the Jeep. All we noticed was
the trees. Yeah. Oh, I see it now. It's a negative space. Cool. That's sweet. Anyways, sorry, I got
distracted. Yeah. So what's Northology? What are, what do they have? What are they covering?
Mostly Overland content. Cindy Pope has, man, she's got Overland, the red,
and I'm trying to think of what her one in the UP is. It's in Q&A.
But yeah, they just do, you know, different Overland type content, all sorts of articles
about different things. It's core. That's the one in the, in Q&A. Okay. So Cindy Pope's a really
big part of the Overland community here in the Midwest and Northology just kind of like her,
her contribution to everybody. That's kind of cool. I've never heard of Cindy or what she does
there. So, I mean, is she just really involved with the communities? Does she run some businesses?
Is she in industry stuff or what is she really doing over there? Core is what really started Cindy
getting involved. Core is Overland Expo that happens in the Keweenaw Peninsula every year.
Okay. Then it's been so long since we interviewed Cindy. Yeah. We have an episode. I can send you
the link to it. And Benji has interviewed her too, right? I don't know if Benji has,
because when we talked to her, Benji had not interviewed her yet. Oh, really? Okay. And maybe
it was your guys's podcast that I saw it, but I could have sworn that either that or I think Benji
is going to start working with her or something like that. I'd hope so. Those two would be an
awesome duo. Okay. Well, that's cool. We'll put a link in the show notes to your episode with Cindy.
That'll be nice to have because I want to go listen to that now too. So,
okay. Well, cool, man. We're a little far along here. Shall we transition into
Meshtastic and talking about- I'm up for it. Okay. All right. Now,
nice talking to you guys. Have a good rest of your day. Jimmy out. All right. So this
originally came up. You called in or wrote in or something asking about comparisons of Meshtastic
to APRS. And I didn't know, I haven't heard of Meshtastic or know how it works or anything,
but I know how APRS works and how those, those, those things work. And I'm going to go ahead and
talk about how it works and how those, that network is all kind of runs. And you, sounds like you know
quite a bit about Meshtastic and how their networks work and run. So what is Meshtastic?
Cause I tried to guess as to what it was. You weren't too far off. Okay. Go ahead and describe
what it is then and how it works and what are kind of some of the benefits of it. So Meshtastic is an
APR mesh communications network. So if you've got, let's say you're in a group of six guys out on a
trail, if each of you have a Meshtastic node in your truck, it has GPS connectivity, the ability
to send small packets of data and text messaging. So, I mean, this is, this is what my pocket
Meshtastic node looks like. Okay. So that's about the size of a credit card, but then maybe an
a three quarters of an inch thick. Maybe half of a credit card and then about three quarters of an
inch thick. Okay. But then they can get really big. Like my keyboard standalone one here. Oh,
it's like a Blackberry. Yeah. It's a Blackberry keyboard. And so they can talk to, you know,
let's say truck number one can only see truck one through three, but then truck three can see truck
four through six. So then because it's a mesh network, truck one can see everybody and it'll
send your location onto a map, which we use ATAC, which is the, the arm, well, not the military
released the software behind the blue force tracker, which is just a way to keep track of where
everyone on the battlefield is. Okay. So with ATAC, we're able to put in all the trail maps that
we're using and then we can see where on the trails everyone in our group is as long as they're
connected to the mesh network. That's pretty rad. It's, it's APRS on steroids on cocaine. Really.
And I mean, it's license free. The farthest connection I've made was like 130 miles. Someone
was flying overhead. Nice. And how to mesh tastic on. They're everywhere, man. Out by you,
out by you guys. So California has like 400 some nodes that are on our, our MQTT network,
which is the online network. Okay. I don't know how many non-connected nodes there are,
but I know there's like 400 some connected nodes. So just for comparison, like how many
connected nodes does Michigan have? I think like 10. Oh, okay. Yeah. California I found with,
you know, silicone Valley and all the nerdy people out here, any kind of like radio communication
stuff, it seems like they're just, it's a high density here in California. That makes sense.
Okay. Here, here in my hometown, me and my dad have six or seven nodes, like, you know,
stationary nodes, repeaters, basically. We've got one on each of our house. Well, one second.
We would have one on each of our houses if I could go up and put this on the roof, but
it's a snowy and cold up there. So I put that off. That's probably smart, but we've got one on each
roof, one in one of the barns at my dad's house. And we've got one on the church steeple. Okay.
Um, and that gives us, usually we can connect to them, the network up to about 10 miles from
our little area. Okay. Um, and then Mark's got one, he lives 30 or 40 miles away and he's got
one on his roof and every once in a while we'll be able to see each other, but interesting. So
you're like 10 mile range. How much power are those putting out then? What's your ERP?
Uh, that's a good question. Very little. I was going to say that sounds like very little
cause with APRS here in California, I can be up at the Rubicon and hit DigiPeters and iGates over
in San Francisco. And that's 150, 200 miles as the crow flies. Um, and that's on, I guess my radio
and my rig, I'd be pumping an APRS signal about 30 Watts, 35 Watts. Um, so I don't know. I don't,
I don't even know if these are pushing a watt to be honest. Yeah. I would, I would guess half a
watt to a quarter watt, something like that. That sounds pretty accurate. Yeah. Interesting.
And they don't need much power. Um, like I said, they can transmit, you know, 130 miles or more
if they have clear range, but yeah. Okay. Um, are, are they, what frequency range are they working on?
915. Okay. So up in the, the getting close to gigahertz. Um, so yeah, you pretty much have to
have pretty good line of sight with them, like flat areas or like you said, depending on the mesh
network of a bunch of rigs traveling together. Um, are they easy to hack and maybe bump up the
power or are they very limited legally by the FCC and quote unquote, what you're allowed to do there?
It would be easy to hack them because it's open source, but we try to stay in the legal range
for them. Usually. Um, I do know that there is a setting cause they connect to a phone. That's how
you interact with them is through your phone, Bluetooth. Okay. Um, so there's an app, an app
interface for these. The mesh task app. Cool. And I know that there's a setting for you to turn on
if you're a ham and then you can bump up the power from there. Ooh. So are they operating within the
900 megahertz ham range then as well? I have no idea. I'm not a ham. I've never played with it.
That would make sense. Okay. Um, I'm interested. I want to be getting on and playing around these
now. Um, are the, the nodes each individual node, is that like a ready buy thing or is it pretty much
like a kit you put together each time? Uh, you have to buy, I use Heltech boards. Uh, this one's a
Heltech that's my portable. And then I've got this, which is a rack whiz block and they're just little
production boards that you buy and then you flash the software onto them. Okay. And then there's
3d printed cases galore for them. I mean, everyone's got a case for these things. Oh, wow. Yeah. I'm,
I'm surprised I've never heard of mesh tastic before and it sounds like it's a pretty big thing.
So I was really surprised you'd never heard of it. It sounds super usable too. I mean, how big of a
text message, how many characters can you send with the, the mesh texting? You know, I've never
hit the limit and I've sent some pretty long ones. So let's see if it even 200, 200 characters. Yeah.
I mean, APRs, I want to say APRs is limited to 50 or 60 characters, 45 even maybe. Um, so that's a
good spot there. Um, you can, and then, so within the mesh tastic app, can you run, uh, the map
mapping overlays there for, so you, if you have the Atec app, there's a mesh tastic plugin. Okay.
And then a tack handles all the mapping. You can even a T a C, a T a K, a T a K. I haven't heard of
that either. Okay. So then I'm pretty sure it's a T a K. Let me double check that.
I don't have it on this phone. Yeah. I think it's, I think it's a T a K, but, uh, yeah. So a tech
does all the mapping and then you can even mark on, yeah, it's a T a K. You can even mark on the
map. Like, you know, there's a down tree here and that will get sent across the mesh. So everyone
running a tech in your group will see that there's a down tree across the trail. So it'll put like a
flag on the map or something. Yeah. Cool. It's ways. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's ways, but for the trail.
Yeah, exactly. Uh, that's pretty cool. Um, what other, so if there's, there's repeaters and
connected, so you've got non-connected and connected nodes, right. Or repeaters, um,
which is very similar to APRS. You've got DigiPeters, which are non-connected repeaters,
and then you have iGates, which are connected repeaters, right? So if your signal can make it
into a connected repeater, then that then goes online and that data from your signal goes online
from your packet. So that, depending on how that, uh, that note is set up, cause there's different
channels, uh, within the mesh task, cause it's encrypted, which you can't do with your amateur
radio. Um, so depending on what channel the note is set up on, it goes to a group, uh, like, uh,
a large lobby basically is where your message would go. Okay. Like a, uh,
can't even think of what they're called, a chat room from when we were kids, you know?
So it goes to an AOL chat. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. So we've got one here in Michigan
called, uh, Michigan Longfast. So every connected node in Michigan, if you're connected to it and
message to Longfast, it gets sent to the Michigan Longfast connected chat room. Okay. Gotcha. And
then, so once it's in that quote unquote connected chat room, um, I'm assuming people have servers or
bots set up to troll the data incoming and any particular protocol or particular use that posts
it does something with it or can you do that or I think they can do that, but usually it's just
anyone on the mesh in that area. So if I'm on the mesh and grant, um, someone on the mesh in Detroit
would see my message. Oh, okay. So that's it's okay. Got it. It's a chat room. It's literally
an internet chat room. And so if, if I want to, if I was in, uh, Detroit looking for you out in grant,
um, what could I search it and be like, Hey, what's, uh, you know, Alex up to and
so if pop it up, if our notes had seen each other in the past, so let's say me and you had been within
you know, 10 miles of each other at some point and our notes had seen each other,
then you could private message me over that net internet network as well.
Okay. That's pretty nice. And you don't need any kind of user license or anything. Cause it's all
open source. It's all open source and it doesn't require any ham license or anything. Gotcha.
Cause that's one of the things I really like about APRS is that I can be out on a trail somewhere.
Um, and essentially send a text message back to my significant other at home to let them know,
Hey, I'm going to be an extra day. I broke something or Hey, everything's going great.
I'll be home at my normal time, et cetera, like that. But the problem with it is that my significant
other needs to have her ham radio call sign in order to reply and respond. Whereas this sounds
like you don't need any of that. It works very similarly now in that, for that use,
the downside to mesh task. It is that it's not quite as built up as APRS. So there's no guarantee
that you'd be able to send her a message from wherever you're at. That's fair. Um, yeah.
Which just means you need more nodes. People just need to go set up more nodes around the country.
So, yeah. I mean, it's happening. Europe's really full of them. They actually had to change the way
that the mesh infrastructure works because Europe was overloading the mesh. Wow. Wow. That's cool.
I wonder if we can talk to the powers at B and have one put at one of the Rubicon stations.
Probably. I know that he, they use APRS quite a bit, but I don't know if they've heard of mesh
tastic and it's benefits. So yeah, that's where we're working on getting a lot of them put up
around here. Uh, the company I work for has some feed mills and I'm working on getting,
putting, putting some on the feed mills. So those are 400 feet tall. So that's a pretty good,
yeah. Yeah. Nice spot there. Good reach from that while you guys were nerdy now, um,
I'm going to go backwards a little bit, but while you guys were nerdy now, you talked about how
California has like 400 in Michigan has 10. Um, I did some math and looked some stuff up. So
California has a population of almost 38 million, 38.9 million. So almost 40 million and Michigan
has 10 million. Right. So four times four times, which is right around 10, you know, 10, uh, uh,
400 almost. Well, that's 40 times. That'd be 40 times. Dang it. My math wasn't as good.
But yeah, I think more long coverage you'd be looking at geographic size. Yeah. What's
the square mileage of California versus square mileage of Michigan? Yeah. You'd have to dive
in a little bit more than that though. You guys have mountains too, so you can get a little bit
farther than we can. Yeah. If we can, if we get nodes up on top of the, the passes or up high,
then it would cover down towards, you know, San Francisco and out towards the ocean really well.
You have me, you have my brain going now, Alex, which is a dangerous thing to be doing.
Yeah. Meshtastic is really cool and it's only like $30 to get into. So that's how many nodes
can you have? Like what is the, the bandwidth for Meshtastic? Like how many concurrent connections
you said, for instance, Europe is overloading their bandwidth. They're overloading the network
right now. So they're having to redo how it all structures. I know with APRS, each packet in APRS
is a second and a half or something like that. So like two seconds along something like that. So,
I mean, you can only have so many signals concurrently going within an APRS network
before you overload the bandwidth. And it's really not that many signals if you start thinking about
it. So what is Europe's problems started when they got to like 400 nodes per square. Well,
for us per square mile, then what per square kilometer, 400 per square kilometer. There's
lots of them. Holy shit. And then when they started doing it for all of California,
and then when they started doing the internet connected thing, which there, there, a lot of
them did the MQTT and that just overwhelmed the mesh to a point where you could send a message,
but it probably wasn't going to actually send. Wow. Interesting. Well, I'm also thinking of
Meshtastic for racing applications for ultra four. Yeah. And a bunch of the races that we have around
here for like Vora, ultra four, Baja. So I think there's a lot of uses that the off-road industry
could really use of it. Ultra four. If you had a good repeater up, you could, I mean, almost anybody
could just get on and be able to talk to whoever's in their area. That's cause the big issue with
ultra four and the trackers they put on the cars is that they're all satellite based. So they,
they have to communicate up to a satellite and then that signal has to come back down to the
control bay, the control room, right? Right. Whereas with mesh tastic, every single car
on the race course is its own node. Yep. Which means your whole network is just wherever the
cars are, which is typically by lap three, which is where you're trying to find all the cars.
They're everywhere. So the whole Valley is just absolutely blanketed with coverage.
Yeah, that I hadn't even thought about you. We don't do a lot of racing, so I'd never even thought
about it in that aspect, but that worked really well. Yeah. So when you would in like this race
application, if somebody wanted to get in contact with a car that's not reachable directly within
the mesh network, but it would, could be reachable, you know, passing through some other vehicles.
If you send a message, does it show up on everybody's interface or does it just like,
can you send it like a direct message to one person? Direct to one person.
So each node has its own, it's each node has its unique ID. Oh, it has a blast as well. Yeah. Long
fast is our open chat room. Anyone within the mesh on long fast can message and respond to each other.
Oh, interesting. And then you can direct message. So, and if I want to talk to Jimmy, but I can't
see Jimmy, but I can see Tyler. If I send Jimmy a message, Tyler receives it. He can't read it,
but then he sends it out. Jimmy gets it. And then Jimmy can decrypt it and read it.
Cause it's all, it's all digital protocol as well, which means you can encrypt everything and
make it so that only specific user IDs can open a message. Yep. Correct. That would actually be
really good. Cause I know at KOH there's a, every year people don't understand. They don't know when
course goes cold and they're like, am I still racing or am I out recreating right now? Like what
is, and that's always a big thing. So like that could be another thing for the main control booth
to say, Hey, course is cold. If you're still on course and you're not past this point yet,
you are recreating for the rest of the night. Well, and there, yeah, there definitely could be
a lot of good reasons to be able to do a blast for everything. Like car fire or whatever.
Or you can be like, Hey, you individual, you know, you're, you're off course or whatever.
Get back on. Yeah. Yeah. We've been figuring map out. Yeah. We've been really messed or playing
with ATAC trying to make everything work perfect before we introduce it to the larger group around
us. And we've got it pretty fricking good right now. Nice. So it, it's a really powerful tool.
Do you know if there's any APIs that you can plug into for? There are a lot of them. Okay. Perfect.
That's all I can, I can, I know some people that are much better APIs than I am. So if you go to
meshtastic.org, all the information you could ever want is there. Sweet. Okay. I'm definitely picking
up a new hobby now. Thanks a lot, Alex. It definitely took over my hobbies pretty quick.
Oh man. Dude, everything application wise, search and rescue. There's so many,
so many applications for, I don't remember where the city is, but I know there's a city in the
U S that uses meshtastic as a secondary alert for firefighters. Oh, wow. So they've got one on,
you know, a note up on their water tower. And then when they send out the alert over their normal
radios, they'll send it out with meshtastic as well. Wow. Okay. Yeah, that's cool. Redundancy
in that case, which is very smart. Yep. Okay. Yeah, this is cool. So how does, you have that portable
one, the small one. Yeah. What does that run on battery wise? Just a tiny little lipo. Really?
And how long does it last? That's a good question. Have you ran out of batteries with it? It dies
every once in a while. Yeah. It's just a tiny little, I think it's like 1200 milliamp hours.
And I've had it die about three times, but I plug it in every night. So,
so it'll last a day. Yeah. It lasts, it probably would go over a day. I just never give it a chance
to. Okay. Got it. And then when you use that guy, do you usually take that out on trail with you?
Or is it like a, I'm just going to be walking around during the day. So this is the one I put
in my pocket and it's connected to my smartphone. And then I've got one in my truck that is connected
to my tablet that I run onyx and stuff on. So I usually have both with me and then sometimes
I'll carry around the one with the keyboard, but that one's kind of bulky. So. Right. Well,
and especially cause if there's the app, like you were saying, then is there's probably that
a typing feature within the app too. Yep. Yep. Speaking of onyx, I did have written down over
here. Is there any way to merge onyx and mesh tastic? Have you figured that out? Not yet.
Okay. I would love for onyx to do a mesh tasking plugin. I was talking with onyx for a while about
trying to integrate APRS. But I think they just didn't want to do it because of the ham license
need for it. So it wouldn't be a big enough user base that would actually be able to make use of it.
Whereas mesh tastic doesn't need a license. Exactly. Do you know if mesh tastic has commercial
licenses that you can use, or is it like APRS and they're like, no, it cannot be commercialized. You
have to, you cannot use it as any kind of commercial backbone for comms. It's open source
and it's in the open, you know, the free source license and even the free use frequency range. So
fair. Okay. Really you should be able to use it in a commercial side without any problem at all.
That's really cool. Okay. Well, maybe we'll, we have a connection at onyx.
Maybe we'll see if we can combine forces there and see if we can get that going.
I'm glad you brought it up because I was going to bring that up anyway. Yeah. Okay.
Because it's a feature I really want. Yeah. It's something we've been asking for
years ever since I started getting into APRS, you know, whatever mapping software we're working with.
And we've had, I've had extensive talks with a couple of people at onyx about integrating something
like APRS and they are always wanting to, and they said that they've had people investigating
and trying to find a way to do it. They just haven't found a good solution yet. So well,
now we might have another alternative that might be able to work, which would be pretty cool.
Cause it would be rad to have this, an awesome mapping software that you can follow along on
the trail. You know where you're at, but also now you can follow, have your friends or people in
your group following along with you. And you will always know where everybody is at. Yep. And it
would be really cool to not have to run my screen split screen with ATAC on one side and onyx on
the other. Yeah. Yeah. That would be a bonus. Yeah. And it would be, you know, we've, we've always
talked that I don't, you don't really need to be in eyesight of anybody anymore. If you have good
radio communications, you know, if, if Tyler's because with his new, uh, four wheel underground
suspension is blasting down the trail and me on my leaf springs is going, you know, almost trail
tampon speed. Um, he can go that far, but if I get into trouble and I get, um, high centered or
turtled or whatever, and I'll be like, Hey man, I need a tug. He's got to come back to me, but I
can still get ahold of him. Yeah. And we're still see that he's not moving. Yeah. And if you, if
we're using mesh tastic and it was on onyx, then we could see that I'm like, he could radio and go,
Hey, Jimmy, why is your miles per hour zero? What are you doing? I'm already a buck setting up camp,
man. Yeah. Where are you? Yeah. Where are you? Why? What are you doing? And then I'd be like,
I'm turtle. I need help. You know, put pitch your 10 and get back here. Save our spot. Yeah. Um,
yeah, that'd be really cool. Um, cool to do. Um, maybe we'll just send them this audio clip,
right? It'd be like, Hey, you guys need to listen to this.
Listen to this 10 minutes. Yeah. Well that'd be rad. Um, and it would be a cool feature for
any of the off roaders out there to be able to keep track of everybody in their party, um, while
being on a map, um, in regards to that, how do you, uh, and not knowing the background of how it might
work on onyx and stuff, but how do you know who to follow on a tech? Like does it point the,
does it say these people are around you or do you just see every node in the general area?
So there's a couple of different ways to set that up. Um, we usually set up a party. So with
a tech, you can say, I want these devices on in my party. And then it only will show you those
devices. Cool. Um, and every device has a call sign so you can see who's in what vehicle. Okay.
Um, can you create your own call signs? Yeah, we create our own call signs.
Nice. Yeah. Perfect. My, uh, Mark's Mark, the one on Mark's roof is called trailer trash because
he lives in a trailer park. Okay. Nice. Yeah. I would, I was just running through ideas of what,
yeah, what kind of snail should I be? Yeah. But okay. That, well, that could be curious. What's,
what's your call sign then? And Gavin's call signs. Gavin doesn't, hasn't gotten into it.
We've tried so hard, but he's so, he's just like radios. Okay. He's got a GMRS radio.
Yeah. But he still wants to talk to you guys, right? Yeah. That's how I was. I just was like,
Tyler, hook me up with a radio so I can just communicate. He's like, I'm not going to do that
until you get your ham license. Like, damn it, Tyler. But I am eight five, six five. Cause that's
my username for like all my, uh, online presence. Okay. It was, it's the username the school gave
me when I was in high school. That was your number. Your school number. Five, six, five. Yeah. Yeah.
All right. Do you spell it out or do you just numbers? The numbers. Okay. Damn. What I just
saw on a good day, which is a news radio, uh, thing, um, out here in this general Sacramento area.
And, um, Auschwitz is having their 80th anniversary of the release date of the
Holocaust people. So I don't, your, uh, your numbers just reminded me of
the 80th anniversary that's happening. I did just finish watching masters of the air. So I'm right
in that head space. Okay. Yeah. So congratulations. That's funny. Yeah. All right. Well, this has been
awesome, man. Um, I'm definitely going to be doing a deep dive into mesh-tastic now. Um, we might,
it sounds great in theory and in application, everything. So we might end up seeing a node
pop up on the Rubicon here too, if I can convince the right people. Um, so it sounds great. Um,
I'll definitely looking into it. Um, it's been fun learning about turkey farming as well. Um,
I'll hit you back up after kind of, uh, do it, uh, some more background information on my granddad.
Um, yeah, for sure. But, uh, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. Thanks for sitting down and taking up.
I, it's been more time than I thought we were going to do, but it's been a lot of fun doing it.
So yeah, absolutely. Joy chatting with you. Thanks for all the feedback that you always
pass on to the snail mail episodes there and contacting us and giving us all the insights of,
uh, life, not in California and outside of California. So I have to say your snail mail
segment is one of my favorite thing any podcasters doing right now. Oh, cool. Yeah. That's definitely
one of our favorite things we're doing right now. So we, we enjoy that a lot and we couldn't do it
without listeners like you and the other ones out there that actually call in. And you know, we've,
we're fortunate enough that we have so many people that call into that episode that we
can't keep up. What are you up to right now? I don't know. We haven't looked at it. We haven't
looked yet, but we were at 19 last time and I think we got through seven and, uh, yeah, so we
always have this backlog and it's, it's fun. It's a blast. I wish we could be within a week
of a podcasting kind of coming out, but you know, to have so much wonderful feedback coming in,
it's, it's, you know, not a bad thing to have for sure. A little backlog like that,
but yeah, it's definitely one of our favorite episodes that we do as well.
Yeah. It's, it's a blast. You need to start a Google, a voice number and get on this.
We're, uh, we're working on it. I keep, we keep talking about it and I have to say,
I love hearing Zach from Oklahoma's updates. I feel like I know him and I don't, I've never even
seen his truck. Yeah. It's two wheel drive, second gen pick up. Actually, Zach should let us know. I
don't know if it's an extra cab or double cab. Oh, that's a, I have no idea. Yeah. And what color
is it? Zach? Yeah. Yeah. And I want to, we need an update on his camper shell. So yeah, the
extruded aluminum on here. That's going. Yeah. Oh yeah. I forgot he was doing that too. But no,
definitely. Yeah. Zach's that I've, yeah, we've never met him either. I mean, we did give him,
we gave him a little donation from snail trail four by five for that bike ride month, that thing
that he was doing. But yeah, that's the, besides him calling in, that's the only interaction that
we ever get. It's a weird one-sided relationship, podcasting. I'm sure you, you know, you're on
season two. I think this might be episode eight for you guys. Um, that you'll eventually, and maybe
it's even happened. People will come up to you and they'll know absolutely everything about you.
And you have no idea who they are or what they do or anything about them. It's, it's very bizarre.
Yeah. I'm, uh, I'm not sure I'm looking forward to that part. Yeah, it does. It does get a little
weird at times because you forget that you talk about some things on the podcast, some personal
life stuff. And then people are like, Oh yeah. How's this going back at home? And you're like,
yeah, how'd you know what I talked about that one? Exactly. How's the bathroom remodel going? Like
who are you? Yeah. Are you as cool as Benji's bathroom? No, I haven't been, she's got a really
cool bathroom. Yeah. I didn't know that's really cool. That is the new shop. He spent a lot of
time building a bathroom up. He probably spent more time on the bathroom than the rest of the shop.
And apparently he finally put a door on it. Oh, okay. Yeah. Cause I guess it was doorless forever.
Did he have a door in the Madonna in his bathroom or he's been in there? Oh yeah. That's a pretty
epic bathroom. That's an epic bathroom. Yeah. There's a hotel down in, um, central coast of
California called the Madonna in, and it's a pretty well, it's pretty well known to being just
every absolutely everything about it is way over the top. Yeah. And they have like themed rooms,
like the jungle, you can stay in the jungle room or the room is a different thing. Yeah. It's crazy.
Yeah. I've driven through California exactly once in my life from bottom to top and well twice,
if you count from top to bottom, but I don't know if I've driven through Michigan. So I think you
might have me there. Well, come out, man. It's beautiful. Everything's flat. There's no hard
obstacles and well, yeah, there's no hard obstacles cause they took out marble head.
I think I have been, my sister lives in Michigan and I still have yet to go visit her and to see
her place there since she moved to Michigan over a decade ago. So yeah, I've driven from Chicago
to Sandusky, Ohio. That doesn't quite count. That's very sad. I'm so sorry. Well, but I,
I don't think I went to Michigan. I think I just like went right underneath it. Well,
actually we drove from Chicago to, um, Quebec, Canada on that trip. Oh, but, um, so I went,
I was just pointing out that I went underneath Michigan. Yeah. So you went up into from Toledo,
probably. Yeah. When I went to Detroit, maybe, I don't know. I don't remember. It was a while ago.
We went to Quebec, Canada to see the international competition of fireworks.
Okay. That sounds fine. Actually, it was so random, but it was really cool.
Like you think like your general, you know, celebration, new years or fourth of July firework
thing. Cool. Well now try doing it on an international level where people are competing
against each other. There's fireworks everywhere. Floor, ground, like things in the sky to music,
you know, just, yeah, wild. Wow. All of my, uh, opinions of Quebec are from the show letter Kenny.
So, uh, I've never seen this show. Well, now you got another thing to do. That went to my list.
Yeah. No Quebec was, it was an interesting place. I mean, it's that that's the G the province of
Canada that speaks French, right? So it's like this really bizarre area. The rest of Canada is
fantastic. But anyways, Alex, this was fun. Great to finally put a face to the name and a voice to
the, to the face to the name and all the above. Uh, thanks for joining us on the podcast. This
was cool. Yep. How can people want to check out botches off road, see what you've been up to? How
can, what's the best way for people to do that? Where are you guys all located? Uh, well, you can
go to botches off road on face or on YouTube or Facebook or Instagram. Um, and then you could go
to four runner 98 on Instagram and that's F O R R U N N E R. Okay. Um, and is that you? Yep.
That's me. I, I could send you the RSS feed. We don't really have a website set up yet.
Okay. But you're on all the podcasting apps. You've got it all fed into all those,
all of them, except for apple and I heart interesting. Was that a conscious decision
or you just set it up yet? I heart requires me to have an I heart account and apple requires me to
have an apple account. And since I don't have either of them, we haven't gotten them on there
yet. Okay. Gotcha. No, the other gentlemen don't have an iPhone either. No, we're all Android users.
Oh boy. Good guys. We liked you guys. I, uh, I use a fancy imported fair phone.
Never even heard of that either. Dang. You're all techie. Yeah, that's kind of my thing.
It's fully repairable. Whoa. Battery removable screen tape has eight screws to take it off.
Wow. It's fantastic. And what OS does it run?
Androids. Okay. Just the standard Android, whatever. Well, it can mine runs EOS,
which is a private Android that doesn't have Google or anything on it.
You're like the Linux of Android phones. Got it. Um, I w I'm currently talking on a arch Linux install.
I, uh, I haven't touched a windows computer in a few years. Okay. Dang. Yeah. Like I said before,
you're the tech guy, huh? If anybody has any questions about how anything techie get a hold
of Alex here at what for runner nine 98 for runner. Yup. For under 98 F O U R F O E F O R F O R.
Like for the word for runner. Okay. Oh, okay. Every other variation was taken. Gotcha. F O R R U N N E R.
Got it. Awesome, man. Well, this has been awesome. A lot of fun. Um, like Jimmy said, it's great to
put a face to the name and everything. So, um, yeah, if everybody wants to know more about some
tech stuff, see how a YJ tub can go on a third gen for runner frame, um, and work with long travel.
Definitely check that out. Um, and any other fun things you guys got coming up?
Uh, that's about it. Other, I mean, our next trips all the way in June. So I guess pay attention to
our builds cause they're going to change a lot before we go to leatherwood in Kentucky.
Gotcha. Any chance you guys are going to make it out to cruise Moab in Utah? Not this year,
maybe 2026. Okay. Good. We'll meet you out there. Then if you guys have Moab as in our sites for 2026.
Cool. And Rubicon in 2028. So once you guys are ready for that one, let us know. We'll be there.
Yeah. All right. Well, awesome, dude. Uh, thanks for coming on, uh, Jimmy, any final words to wrap
it up? I thought this was a fantastic episode. We learned so much about the mesh tastic stuff. It's,
uh, was nice to hear from somebody that has experienced instead of somebody that was completely
making it up. It wasn't too far off, but we learned a lot and it's really cool. And I think that, uh,
it will be a good implement implement. What's the, it'd be great to implement an implementation, um,
on trails out here in California if, uh, people have not already started doing so. So we'll,
we're definitely gonna look into that. So thanks for sharing. Yeah. I, like I said, I haven't seen
it a lot in the off road sector, but I really think it's something we need to start looking into.
Yeah. It's a, it sounds like a really cool protocol and uses. So, uh, Alex, any final words
to send off everybody today? It was just nice to finally get to meet you guys.
Yes. Did Oh man. Well, cool. I guess with all that, my friends keep crawling.
Hey, Mark. Hey, what's up? I got one for you. Why did the Turkey bring a microphone? Why?
Why he was ready to roast.