A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE

Provided by otter.ai

0:16

Are you back?

0:17

Yeah, I'm here. Can you hear me?

0:20

Yep.

0:21

Okay, that was weird.

0:23

Yeah.

0:24

Hmm.

0:26

We'll how does that open your end?

0:29

Okay, I guess that sounds good. Actually.

0:34

Fortunate,

0:35

I know, was a sound like to you.

0:37

You sound pretty good.

0:39

Okay.

0:40

Yeah. Yeah.

0:43

But definitely not user friendly title right now. Good Bry bunch of baloney. I don't even know.

0:52

Yeah, no, it's not. It's not there's so many steps to this.

0:56

Yeah. And I like I said, I don't know why even bother, download That application because it just takes me to the Microsoft Store.

1:06

Really? Thanks. Yeah. So I'm using the web one right now. Because the thing I downloaded literally that thing I sent you, yeah, make sure it's just like, Microsoft Store. Like, no, no, no, I

1:19

don't want that.

1:21

Go away. Okay, yeah, that doesn't make any sense why? It's just like not doing anything. So I don't really understand what it's doing. why it exists. It's pretty useless. Yes.

1:34

So, some the web thing, so I guess I'll just delete that other thing.

1:40

My land in my ways. That's gonna work you know, whatever. Yeah, my luck. I delete it. And then it's like, oh, no, okay, fine. Sure, right. Just wait for that. Yeah, that'll that'll happen. Because that's my luck, obviously. But yeah.

1:58

Oh, no.

2:00

Jeez.

2:03

Well, okay, well, like I said, I'm recording this. And so I'll see what I get back on the other side, because I'm not 100% sure what I get. That's fair. If it's just me, or if it's just you, or what, that would definitely be weird who's just one of us? Right?

2:25

So what that would mean is, I guess like, you would also have to record your end and then we'd have to swap files so I like to sinking nightmare though I don't think yeah, we don't we don't have to clap at the beginning. Oh, no. I should align everything. be awful. And then every 20 minutes we have to pause and snap our fingers to make sure well, no, that wouldn't work because you way Guess what, because you would have to go 321 go like Yeah, but that's terrible.

2:57

Yeah,

3:00

Okay, cool.

3:02

UL. Have you heard from Aaron? No, just the he didn't like my corn joke. I don't think well, he's I think he's a little stressed out and didn't appreciate my humor.

3:28

Well, I

3:31

found out that I don't know if I told you but the department is going through a massive reward as far as how we're structured.

3:41

You mentioned that at one point, yes. Well, we got the first of the rollouts

3:47

Tuesday.

3:53

Right like where this is going. So currently, the department has five ish divisions.

4:00

It's like fisheries. What is that fisheries, fisheries division, forestry division. There's a wildlife division. There's HR. There's resource science and private lands.

4:18

Right. So that's it. Sure. Yeah.

4:21

And then like, was it at the administration? So there's like seven, seven, but not five, though, you know, nothing. And right now, all of those are centralized in Jeff city. And they send out from their decrees on high out for the regions to implement.

4:38

Very futile, I think. Yeah. But what it does mean is that there are like, very clear boundaries, and there's a very clear like,

4:48

mucky, mucks that say, do this, don't do this. Yeah. But clear, like power structured for lack of

4:56

an organizational structure, but it also means that like

5:00

Like fisheries has their own program to get federal funding. That program looks very different than the program to get sometimes the same federal funding that forestry has in place, or that wildlife has in place. So each division has its own systems to do accomplish the same task many times.

5:19

So,

5:21

so they rolled out something and it looks totally, like totally different. Totally different. This structure. First off this structure of means, like they're still the central office and where the directors offices, but they have pushed almost all of the decision making out to the regions. So each region gets a little because our littles are over with Kansas City region.

5:53

And then under each region, they have divisions under them. But what

6:00

They have done is they have taken fisheries division, forestry division and wildlife division and combine those into one division

6:08

and called it resource management. Oh.

6:12

6:15

what this means well not as a funding but what this means is that fisheries had a division chief forestry head DIVISION CHIEF wildlife had a division chief, no more division chiefs. So where do those three people go? It also means that we all pull it out to different regions. There's one yet to go like, you are now the regional advisor of like Southeast Missouri. So that's the that's the question. Do they get the opportunity to get that regionals our position or can regional managers because we have regional Magnolia we already already have regional or you have regional managers, but their position is also going away to make room for this other structures.

6:55

bureaucratic and strange like I don't really know.

6:59

I would be

7:00

Worried about would you say fisheries, wildlife and what?

7:03

All together? Yeah, so my biggest concern would be if fisheries and wildlife and forestry all were receiving separate funding. Yeah, but now they're one department. Yes. Now they're just going to receive a fund? Probably

7:19

not, they're not going to account. I imagined for the fact that it's actually three separate entities and just say, Oh, no, no, look how much money we're going to save. Because now we can get all these departments this much money. Yeah. So. So their budget is just shrunk dramatically, I would imagine.

7:39

Yeah. And so and the other part about this as too is they since they've pushed out to the regions, if if Kansas City region wants to implement

7:50

a fishing Derby, or a program like they want it right now, the division chief goes, every body, everybody in history

8:00

has to have this fishing program Yeah. in that in that and they can hold people accountable but right now with it put put to regional regionals are can go you know what

8:13

we don't need that fishing think program that we do at all so

8:18

we don't need anybody to run it so we don't need that position anymore. So since you're no longer doing that, how about you go help out the forester or how would you do something?

8:29

And this so we watched this unroll on Tuesday down in Springfield. And it was a two hour long thing. And at the end of it, I was just sitting there and I was like, Oh, no,

8:45

he's not just not just for like,

8:48

because the big thing here is, I don't know how this is going to affect my job. I don't think anybody knows really that's good.

8:58

So some people is pretty

9:00

straightforward, like if you're listening Yeah, but if you're like the top person, then you go in person tomorrow? Well, no, I mean, if you are in hatcheries if you are a hatchery technician, your jobs are going to change because of this because you are still going

9:14

to restock. Yeah, my position is what's called a statewide. So I am I'm a technical support staff for statewide needs. So a fisheries management biologist in northwest needs stream technical advice. I can go right now states we have right now we just within our unit we say you can cover Northwest we've broken it up amongst ourselves, but technically I am state.

9:44

Yeah. And we've divvied up the the

9:48

demands with the I guess more efficient. So but but if you remember how the structure was that I just laid out, is it region based? Yes. So where do what

10:00

Do you get parsed to write what happens to a statewide? Yeah. So you either go to the top

10:08

right, or, or to like some random region, I guess I'm trying to read. Or they get rid of us because there's no longer they're no longer doing statewide programs. What? It's

10:24

here's the thing like I part of it makes sense. Right? Like, I understand that

10:33

you need to departmental eyes because the needs of just again, the needs of Southwest Missouri

10:43

are not the same as the needs of North East Missouri. Or Yeah, or like St. Louis region. Yeah, should not be managed in the same as the Ozark region. No, she said, Thank you, but

10:59

I know

11:00

I'm just a short term. I'm sorry, but Yeah, I agree. So like St. Louis and and like down here in the four state zone. Like it's not.

11:09

It doesn't need games, because population and all that all that stuff, the agriculture production, but

11:16

like,

11:17

so that makes sense. But the thing that it sounds like it already wasn't being managed the same. Right? Like, like, because the people in charge of that region were like, Yeah, I know. Come on 100 so

11:34

so now when they're like, Oh no, we're going to make it official now. Like, that's kind of like, unnecessary.

11:41

The only term that's coming to mind right now is balkanization, right? Of

11:47

the power structure, where it's like, No, no, I, I'm in St. Louis. I cannot be in a room with someone from Kansas City. Yeah, look at them. It's like it's just

12:00

Just I mean not just like, obviously, but it's very like Bosnian in Serbian, like, right? So, like, Oh no, you're from South East Missouri. Oh no, I cannot associate with you so I'm going to parse you off your own doctor and not have anything to do with you at all.

12:20

12:23

top oversight which is odd

12:27

there's a lot less oversight but not less tight. Like there's still going to be a grand Pooh bah. Well, yes. that oversees this stuff but but it's not like

12:40

yeah, there's a lot other nuance in the org chart that's not really come across but like, I but I'm focusing on this because that's like, what affects me because it affects you the most obviously, so yeah. So like, so like we afterwards I our entire unit was down in Springfield to have a unit meeting and when I say entire, like we were one of the smaller

13:00

units in the department is our entire unit seven, right? Like, yeah, it's bad. But so in streaming unit is weird because we have stream technical. That's what I'm in. We do the the the support service and technical advice to in house and interagency

13:21

people. And then it's all we are also under are also with stream team. So the people who do the water quality monitoring the volunteer stuff. Well, we look at our stream, we look at our unit chief Sherry, and we go, Sherry, what does this mean for us? And she basically was like, well, one, if you will notice, in the org chart, there's no such thing as a unit chief anymore. So her job got taken away immediately. So she's technically without job.

13:54

And so, I mean, basically what they did is they didn't change the number of they're not going to change

14:00

The number of total positions available within the department. Okay? But that doesn't mean like so there's still going to be 1500 some odd

14:10

chairs. But what they are going to do is they're going to go Okay, we took away the unit chief level position so now we can put those positions somewhere else in the department. Yeah. And probably somewhere lower paying you probably cuz that's that's why people restructure this way right that's like, just because you do that you go, Oh, no, we're doing we're doing with this. And we're doing away with all this like mid level management because pay people less money we can make our our budgets go down to go we don't have to lay out as much stuff. exactly what's happened here. And so what they've also so so she said that and all of a sudden I was like, Oh shit, and then

14:57

we started she said,

15:00

That stream unit has been the thorn in this entire process aside, because they don't know what to do with us. Oh, because it's the best obby Yeah. Yeah. For like, yeah, it wouldn't number one.

15:20

Well, that makes sense. Because if you are the streams unit, right, that means all of the streams in Missouri. So if they want to balkanized the state of Missouri, and set it up into regions, then you have to have you have to now have at least I mean, technically Missouri is what eight nine? Yeah, yeah, everything is geographic regions. But you can Well, it depends on how you split it right? geographically. There's but the region is MBC regions, it's a 24688 regions. It's got to be eight or nine just based on how it works northeast

16:00

Northwest Kansas City central St. Louis. Southeast Southwest poser.

16:06

Yeah. Cuz that's like the South Central ish, right? Yeah. So Central and all that. So yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. And so we were like, Okay, well, what do you mean? And she goes, Well, here's the thing. The person who got placed in charge of Fisheries for some wildlife division, those divisions are now called resource management. His name is Brian, he was the former fisheries Division Chief. division chiefs no longer exist. And so they all come to the op ed and he got it. He wants a

16:36

stream unit to stay under him However, he wants. He is also a kind of slimy sleazy political politician guy. So he'll do whatever is going to win him the most political points down the road, obviously, like you, like you do. And so we're very concerned about being under him because of he's not gonna have our back secondarily.

17:00

secondarily,

17:02

here's the other weird part is that he is now.

17:07

This was only a partial rollout. They basically, they basically rolled out who was in the director's office today. They haven't they've given themselves down the chart, right. They've given themselves until December to go down the entire chart, then, and then they'll be finessing and going back and forth. And then next, and then July of 2020

17:28

is the official rollout where we will be implementing this organization structure. So we have now until July, however, Brian is already functioning as the resource management Chief, which means that there was a fisheries chief position open that they want to fill. Yeah. So our unit Chief, I know that this makes sense. Sherry was like, I'm going to see if I'm going to apply for that job. However, she's competing against this other guy.

18:00

Who has for years been campaigning to do away with entirely the stream unit to make it disappear?

18:12

And so but Sherry's not much of a politician because she doesn't suck up to people then yeah, doesn't travel the guy she's competing it's totally his and his sleep and those kinds of people when these positions Yeah, we we are very concerned what happens if he gets up so yeah,

18:34

yeah, yeah so he gets in power and he goes you know what stream unit still call yourself streaming it whatever you want. You're on CMT and feral hog detail. Congratulations. Yay

18:48

I just completely changed our direction, the other the other plate so we were like we do not want to stay. We do not want to be in that chain of command. We don't want no The other option

19:00

is for us to go over to resource science and be part of the research side.

19:05

They're a little more understanding of what we do, and kind of the nuances of how we work.

19:13

But if we go over there at naturally, they're going to go, hey, that's great that you work with landowners. That's great that you do education. That's great that you work on these interagency policy making panels. We don't do that very much over here in resource science. So could you not do as much outreach and education and go measure this water temperature by this damn and let us know what it is?

19:43

And we would turn into more of a streams research program. Yeah.

19:53

Yeah.

19:58

And so because they're moving

20:00

These deck chairs around, they keep saying, they're actually going to be creating a lot of positions that didn't exist before. We have it there. They're like, they're gonna be like trail manager position I like.

20:15

Also one of the things that you do when you restructure company like, we're just going to use the company or metaphor here. When you restructure them, kind of what you're hoping to do is you're hoping people quick, so you can get new people in there and make the end so you don't have to fight the battle. Right? Yes, you don't have to fight the battle against all the people that are worked have worked there before. And like, want things to be a certain way and you're trying to like fight it and make it some new entity. That's all weird. So when you drastically change it, you're kind of hoping people will just go away and you can get new people that you can get them to do whatever you want. Yes, I like that's, that's the other strategy at play here. A

20:59

little court

21:00

Britain's assassination basically like, Hey, we're gonna just make you quit. We're going to make you so mad that you just go somewhere else. Yeah.

21:09

Like, yeah, we can get, we can get people that we know. will just listen to us.

21:17

And that's it right. That's exactly what they're

21:22

what's what's happening? There are people that have been there like, one year, two years away from retirement. Yeah, the department is kind of nudging being like, hey,

21:34

yeah, you'll see that you'll see the,

21:37

the, like, increased like, bonus package like, hey, if you go ahead and retire early will give you these bonuses to get out, right? That's going to come out. You'll see the email coming around. You'll see some like incentive packages or like, Oh, hey, like,

21:55

it's, you know,

21:58

blah or if you want to keep working

22:00

But maybe you don't want to work so hard. You could work at this position this lower position for a year or two, and then retire with your full benefits that you would have had any way. Yes. And just so you can, you know, you can get out, it'll be worded like, Oh, you can take it easy because you're right. It'll be like that kind of thing. Just get out of the way. Yeah, yeah, there's, there's one His name is his name is Paul. And he's currently a unit chief. So one below Division Chief, and he oversees the entire he's like Mississippi sec, Missouri River DIVISION CHIEF or whatever. And he's been there for years and years, two years away. And basically what the department is going to do for him is he lives here in Sedalia drives every day to Jeff city. So what they're going to do is they're going to they are going to create kind of like a a keeper of Sedalia. Yeah, you see me I

22:56

and and in his paint, you know for him.

23:00

The pain is going to stay the same. Right for exactly because it's only one year for one year. He's not in any policy decision making. He's not any. he's not. He's not supervising anybody. He's just kind of our grandpa for a year. Yeah. And you're, you're like, wow, yeah, well, that that's the thing. Like, we're just gonna, I'm just gonna estimate numbers here. Okay, this is just I have no knowledge of how much anybody in Missouri Department conservation gets paid. So look it up online. That's good. Yeah. didn't do that with mine too, but you'll be disappointed.

23:33

So let's just say high level head guy is making like, I don't know $80,000 or whatever, doesn't matter. They can afford to pay that for one more year because the person they're going to hire to replace him. They're going to pay that person like 50.

23:52

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You can have all this and it'll be that big empowerment is dead. And so they're like, Oh, I can we can buy this

24:00

After one more year because it doesn't matter, because when you quit, we're going to be saving $30,000 like that.

24:07

Yeah. And, and you know, so they start somebody brand new at a lower pay and they'll it'll go up from there but you have high and won't go as high as that was. That's how it always works, right? You it'll go up, but it'll go to like

24:23

24:25

you know?

24:26

Oh, wow. Yeah, you, right? That's kind of like, that's like the teaching pay schedule. They're like, Oh, look how much your salary is gone up. It's gone up. 1000 more dollars. like Wow, thanks. As even what you've done is put me in a higher tax bracket and now my actual paycheck is less less.

24:47

Yeah.

24:50

Sorry, side rant. No, no, I

25:02

Yeah, no, I get it. And so, you know, I, I'm sitting there and I'm still like, okay, but how does this affect like, what genuinely what is like day to day differences? And, and I sat so I sat in my boss's office today and we were we talked and it was

25:23

oh my gosh, she was like, Well, you know,

25:29

we it we don't know

25:33

because

25:35

you have to

25:38

part of it is not just who we were what what quote unquote division we get moved into but also who who gets appointed to those or who gets hired for those manager gets in charge. Yeah, that's the and then you start playing the political game of like, well, this person, like if Bruce gets that position, we're done for ya.

26:00

Nobody will have her back. If and then if we are in that system, and if they lump us into the Kansas City region and just a for for accounting sake, you are Kansas City. Angie was like, there are seven people that I think would take that regional Kansas City regional bizarre position, that would not give us the time of day. And so that means, here's what that means, though. positive spin.

26:27

That means they also don't care what you're doing. Well,

26:34

nobody tells you to stop.

26:37

Just keep doing it. Right. Well, she

26:40

said, she said specifically, there are two of them, that would actively go after us.

26:48

And so, okay, you know, ignore you. That's like the best case scenario you can whatever you want.

26:55

Here. Nobody painted. Should you just keep a low profile. Do you think

27:00

And then

27:02

totally, totally understand.

27:07

And so she was like, Collin, I'm just gonna be perfectly honest. I updated my resume today. I was like, Yeah, I mean, like,

27:20

well, because she doesn't know. Again, if she needed her position needed, she has no idea. Just know it's all going to depend on where we end up. And also, she may decide that it's not worth it to try and maintain to try and stay in her role if she's not doing the work that she wants to do. Well.

27:42

here's here's the big kicker

27:45

is that they are actively working will not be here and we all this is big kicker, but

27:50

there cannot be a bigger kicker though.

27:54

But here's another thing is that so they are working towards filling out the

28:01

org chart with getting names and all those places by the end of the year.

28:07

As they do that they are going to be new positions created and needed. As that time comes. Yeah, like mystery positions to history, history position, they are going to be posting those positions as they create them for opening. Okay. So so if I know if the final is not posted until December, but a position is opened in a month and a half. Oh, yeah. How do you know do I like to take it? Yeah.

28:37

Then you get screwed because at the end, December the one that actually the one you want comes up, DY. But then, of course, if you're like me, and you have my luck, then you're just like, I'm gonna hold out and then the one you want, like, doesn't show up, but he's like, well, exactly. Or if I'm like, You know what? I heard from a birdie that we're going to go to resource science.

29:00

We're going to get the dream position and we're going to have a lot of doors open for us. And that's why I'm not gonna look at any of the jobs. And then that.

29:09

Yeah, because of reasons. And I'm like, Well, I would have applied for that job a month ago.

29:16

But now, so well, right like, Oh, man.

29:21

Mm hmm.

29:24

So that is the fun. Fun.

29:29

Yeah, that's just such a great signing.

29:33

day you had.

29:36

Oh,

29:37

yeah. My name is bad. I was just dealing with sixth grade girl drama. I never mind. No, no, I would. I would rather I would. Yeah, no, I would rather Oh.

29:48

Yeah. You don't want that. You don't want any part of that girl drama.

29:55

It's basically the same thing just with smaller people. Like

30:06

Oh, man

30:11

30:13

yeah,

30:15

that's yeah and then so we did that. And then

30:20

30:25

see here we stayed overnight in Springfield and then yesterday we got up

30:33

in toured a stream channel

30:38

restoration project in Springfield. It's right off a sunset right along the Greenway trail. Yeah. Okay. So they took that used to be just a three sided concrete ditch. trapezoidal shape, right Yep. Yep. trapezoidal

30:55

storm was

30:57

flying across the top it would be trapped. Yeah, no, yeah.

31:00

As dominate got range, I don't think right? Yeah, they ripped all of that out and put in natural stream channel design. It's, it was like, it's like a $1.1 million project. And they've got all sorts of crazy rock weirs and submerge logs and things to create ripples and to control gradient changes so it doesn't send a head cut back up. them. They even went up through the side channels were

31:34

more stormwater runoff coming in, they created wetlands on the upside of those to help little retention basin with the flooding to when it rains off the planet. natural vegetation and all sorts of stuff in here. We go ahead. Yeah, we got to talk with the the horticulturalist that is in charge of that project and the maintenance supervisor and how they deal with all that stuff. And it was really

32:00

Really cool. I I could have I could have stayed there for a long time talking. That's really sweet. Yeah. Yeah.

32:10

And

32:14

but

32:16

then we went and we floated to lower portion of the James River.

32:22

Yes

32:24

to town. I've never been there before. I've never gone below the lake Springfield. Yeah, so we were like way below lakes like Springfield, and we, I forget where you put in. But we took this place called Luton Town and not yet another town in Missouri, that I had no idea existed until today.

32:49

Very frequently to me.

32:52

Literally every time there's like a storm, they say a name of a town and I've lived here forever and I'm like wire one

33:01

So who Eatontown new one? Okay. Yep. And that was fine. Gas Station post office by town county much pretty much yeah.

33:13

And

33:18

it was it was it was fine there. I don't

33:24

know. I mean, it was it was fine i i just

33:29

i it's it's tough because obviously everybody has different experience levels and I am by no means an experienced experienced

33:39

I can newer, but you are. Go ahead.

33:45

No, I don't tell you is not sure there.

33:48

I know how much floating you done. Okay, very. It's way above average.

33:54

It might have been a while. It's definitely more than your average bear. as it were. Okay.

34:01

Thank you.

34:03

It's just

34:05

so whenever somebody's like, have you ever floated and then it's like, No I've never floated no i canoed, sucka.

34:15

They, they typically get stuck with somebody who is a little more confident in the boat because they don't want to

34:23

you know, the group leader will say okay, since you've never put them up right like they did with me and those little kids on that 150 miler where I got like, little children my boat can't paddle right? They say they say okay, you go with this person, so you are not going to be dead the entire time. Like

34:41

so you got to be the experience one was and she was she was very nice. She's very nice. But like, you know how whenever you use a canoe paddle you

34:54

familiar with, ok, ok. So visualize, you know, you like, you hold it up, right. And you go

35:00

Straight down into the water and straight back. This is so that your boat continues to move forward. Yeah, it needs to be Nicholas to us in any deviation from this or any angles added to the paddle will will push the canoe from side to side. Once again, Isaac Newton. I know

35:19

he's onto something there.

35:21

So why just using it like a boat or? Yes.

35:26

Okay, and she's at the front of the boat, because

35:30

you're following the design? Yes, yes. Because I know, in these cases, I don't trust them to steer because you still know right now. So I'm staring I don't care who I'm getting the boat. I'm in the back. You stay up at the front. And I will stay at the back and I will I might let you in the back. That's

35:49

part of that is like okay, because the other part is,

35:52

you know, continuing to do your best to try to try and always row on the same side so that you can be consistent and you

36:00

can steer and, you know, whatever. If you if you start switching back and forth that makes it very difficult on me because you're right, and I have to switch sides and it's hard to both switch sides and then steer at the same time or exalt a rudder which just increases your drag way down and I hate murdering but so she was taking these sheets because I'm lazy Well, it's needed sometimes and I don't mind if you're on a lazy if you're on a if you're on a river that's moving faster rather the crap out of that don't worry about it. But if you're in a slow moving

36:35

lower James River the lower James River turns out to be you don't can't do that. She was James River is also like that I don't know if you remember

36:46

it there are park there good bad parts, whatever. So they're not great. In these like, very shallow less it rains then oh, Lord, hold on. Oh, yeah. So she's taking these very

37:00

shallow wide, sweeping off to the side. Oh, no, continually pushing the front of the boat to the right. Oh no. So I'm in the back having to take huge sweeping corrective Jays turn or dfj strokes or these just these big side battles to get us back into place. So my structure less effective so because you know, it's not as efficient to do that. And so it just kept fighting her constantly have like a go over here and I'm like, Hey, could you just like stay on that side? that's working out really well right now. Not paddle at all. Sit there, but you know, but she's like, I go kayaking with my dad all the time. And so at first I was like, great, and then she was like, but I've never been in a canoe and I was like, Who knew? Well, that doesn't

37:47

wait.

37:49

That doesn't that's how kayaks work either.

37:53

So I I don't not

37:57

Lake kayaks like the big one.

38:00

But like the open top ones, it's not really a kayak. It's just like a log that floats. So it's a little, it's a little more forgiving to just do those really shallow dips and just kind of casually go along.

38:13

Like as opposed to needing to, like when you're in a river, you have to, you can't. The river, you have to make sure that you are working with the river and in control at all times. And not just just being a candy past you're not floating here, right? You've got to

38:30

I mean, there's those are the two schools of thought, right? floating, quote, unquote, floating. I don't know why I'm making air quotes. You can't see me for the gesticulation that I'm doing my hands every time you were doing it.

38:51

Like that, to me conjures up the image of I'm going to sit in my boat. There will be a cooler

38:59

yeah

39:00

Another canoe will possibly be last to the side of most disturbing we're in

39:06

the back. Yes. And you're just be like, spinning lazy down some river like probably the Elk River down here in Macedonia. Yeah.

39:16

canoeing, which is what normal people do, or the me pastime that I am familiar with involves, like actively trying not to crash into things in the river. That's Yes. So I understand Yeah, in playing and trying to find the foul wag and trying to make sure the river is pushing you, but also, you know, and writing down the rapids in a fun way and playing in at ease and just enjoying the whole active.

39:44

And so and, and, you know, in order to do that you have to be engaged. You have to have good strokes, you have to know which one to use. And, you know, I look up there we are just barely over halfway. We just did lunch and she's up there and

40:00

She's holding the paddle with both hands touching in the middle of the shaft. Not even one on the big handle at the top but just in the middle of the tea grip.

40:13

Is that for like cooking branches? Yes, you can hook things and break broke the other boat.

40:19

No know. The other part is is that they were looking for since we're taking a group of

40:27

1413 people 13 people the everybody in our stream unit 13 people out with us.

40:35

They we've got coolers and stuff. Well my boss is phenomenal canoes. And so she takes she does a solo canoe with two coolers and her in hers. And they need somebody they need another cooler to go somewhere. So I put it in ours but ours just happens to be the drink cooler. So we're also the ones that people going Hey, wait up or Hey, bring one over here or so we're

41:00

Like a drink, like, Hey,

41:03

get up here, paddle back and so weird, not just not only needing to be active

41:10

in the river, but I'm also having to be extremely conscious, conscientious of the fact that it's like if we tip all of this is going to go into the river, and that's bad. And I'm needing to making sure that I need to be making sure that we are able to help others and do all of that stuff. And

41:29

I hope you didn't have any sprite in your cooler because we did a science experiment and we found out that sprite will sink because it's way too dense. Oh, we had a last. How about Mountain View?

41:41

We didn't have Mountain Dew it did not does not have that in our school vending machine. But

41:48

Diet Coke will float.

41:50

Okay, but sprite sinks. It went into the water. We had a couple. It was like we measured it density was like one point

42:00

Oh, eight, something like that simply by MO.

42:08

I've been thrown in a bucket and it's

42:10

okay.

42:14

That's good. That's good. So, I mean the float. It was a beautiful day. It was kind of hot. yesterday. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yes. It was pretty nice. Get a good day. I would really wish we were out today.

42:31

Yeah 74 was more that. No, I want someone to January. Can you Wait, where's that?

42:38

Was? That was fun stuff. Yes, I was people. They were asking me if I had done much cold water stuff like cold cold weather early. And I was like, Well,

42:51

my brother got a boat stuck an ice one time. Yeah. It was kind of fun.

42:57

They're like, You can't be serious. I'm like, yeah, so we

43:00

Going My younger brother's birthday January 1

43:04

time, nobody there

43:09

is very, very relaxing. January the river is not just like going right it's usually pretty subdued. So yeah, not as much. Right not many rain events in no knowledge of rain in late December so

43:25

yeah, so

43:27

Portage had the men

43:30

yeah