EH Nation on the Road: Conference Season Stories, AI in Food Safety & the World’s Greatest Mustache

In this special Fourth of July week episode of the Beyond Data Management Podcast, Cameron Garrison is joined by HS GovTech’s own Adam Smith for a fun, behind-the-scenes look at spring environmental health conference season.

From Idaho to California, Montana, West Virginia, North Dakota, and AFDO in Columbus, this episode takes EH Nation on the road for a recap of the conferences, conversations, travel chaos, red-eye flights, strange airport food, client meetups, AI discussions, and unforgettable moments that happened along the way.

Cameron and Adam talk about environmental health conferences across the country, the importance of showing up in person, what HS GovTech is seeing from agencies nationwide, the upcoming NEHA conference, the AFDO AI workshop series, live podcast recordings from the road, and why public health communication, trust, and technology are becoming more important than ever.

And yes — we also discuss the legend of Adam’s mustache, a White Castle vending machine disaster, a surprisingly luxurious airport bathroom, rubber duck souvenirs, blackjack in North Dakota, and what happens when conference season pushes sleep deprivation to the limit.

Topics covered include:

Environmental health conference season
HS GovTech on the road
NEHA, AFDO, CUPA, SEHA, Montana, Idaho, West Virginia, North Dakota and more
AI in food safety and public health
Public health communication and trust
Live podcast recordings from upcoming conferences
Behind-the-scenes stories from the Beyond Data Management Podcast
Travel chaos, red-eye flights, road stories, and EH Nation community moments

If you work in environmental health, public health, food safety, regulatory programs, or government technology, this episode is a lighter but meaningful look at the people, places, and conversations shaping the EH community across the country.

Powered by HS GovTech.

Please remember to like and subscribe - and reach out to us with your stories and show ideas Beyond@hscloudsuite.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

This is the Beyond Data Management Podcast powered by HS GovTech.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Now here's your host, Cameron Garrison. Welcome back all across EH Nation. Hope you guys are having a good one. And uh it is we usually don't say this, but as you know, we have kind of started in the first um year and change of the show doing something a little bit more fun around the holidays. And so we'll actually we'll link to this episode of the Christmas special that we did, as well as the Halloween one where we did haunted inspection stories. But so we're here at uh the July 4th holiday, right in front of us here. A lot of you are probably taking extra days off around it. If you are, hope you're having a nice, relaxing time. And so what we thought we would do here today is, you know, as you get to the end of dog days of summer are here. And as a school year ends, I think we all remember this universally. You would um start to not have the ability to really focus or learn anything too serious as it was time coming up for break. Same thing around Christmas, holiday break, winter break, whatever you called it, your jurisdiction. And so what we thought we'd do today, there's two big chunks of travel, a grind that happen here uh every spring and fall as we go out around the country to the environmental health conferences. It truly is uh uh an honor and a lot of fun, but also ironic things happen because it's a lot of time on the road. Um, and so we're going to do a sort of an overview of all of the conferences that we attended in the spring and uh have a few surprises there. So to have this conversation, so we have with us today the man himself, uh really needs an introduction for a lot of you, especially those of you that work with HS GovTech, Adam Smith, who is uh does the he's the marketing wizard uh here at HS. He's the one that keeps you guys up to date on everything from if you're a client, your uh code releases, uh events, uh updates, new features, uh, and a lot of it you see, but it doesn't have his signature on it. So, Adam, welcome, man. How are you? I've been wanting to do this for a long time, as you know.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

It's been a long time coming, and and uh happy to be here. So, yeah, just like our friend in the studio, David, I'm the man behind the scenes pulling all the strings and levers and making the unseen scene.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

And speaking of, we actually have the studio cam, first time it or it's control room. I'm the studio cam. Uh the control room cam there, David Styles there, pushing all the buttons. So, first of all, David, while we've got that up, you you that's your permanent seat right there, but you don't sit static. So the glass, for those of you all uh just watching this at home, is the glass sits off to my left, and I can stand here and look at David. And a lot of times he's running back and forth because you see that other board just cut off there in the shot. He's got to work both of them.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah, it's almost like I need a third arm or something, and and then it's we're really spread out. There's a lot of real estate here for me to cover, but uh, we make it work. It's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

But but this is not a network budget show. So David makes do and uses his legs. But Adam, I do have to say, first of all, what you're wearing there, what is that? I've never I have a lot of HS GovTech gear collected in my closet. I've got a little envy, never seen that before.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

This is brand new for this year. So all of uh as part of our you know refreshing of both of our brand, as you can see by our background, we're also refreshing all of the HS gear that both our uh you know executive and C-suite leadership wear, as well as the sales team on the floor. So uh, you know, just a nice blue embroidered pullover. There's also some collared shirts that are also branded as well. So all of that will really be formally unveiled at Niha this year.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

I can't wait. That's actually that's really nice. Um it's funny, it's either hit or miss with uh swag or branded gear. It's either the cheapest stuff off of the lowest end line in Indonesia or China or somewhere, or it's like Brooks Brothers quality. So fingers crossed on this one. You've never ordered anything bad though.

SPEAKER_03 4:15

I can assure you, the uh that is the same brand of shirts that you will be receiving in a few weeks.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

Wonderful. Now, if we have time later, we will talk a little bit about a couple of swag items, but we'll see if we have time. So, as a lot of you now are looking ahead, probably having conversations if you haven't already. What are we gonna do? Where are we gonna go this summer? Are we gonna get to the beach, the mountains, a theme park? Um with all the conference travel, uh, a lot of times when that conversation starts up in my household, it's like, how y'all feel about a staycation? You know, I've already done 50,000 miles and and three red eyes, so maybe we stay home. I always end up losing that, but and I do love going. It is different traveling for leisure with your family than it is work. But I really love it. I'm not complaining because the that getting out to the conferences, if you have not been active in your conferences, whether that be the national ones like Niha, AFTO, or your state's conference, if you haven't do it, it's it you'll be surprised. And we're gonna talk about a couple of the speakers here that they had uh that were really significant, not me, um, but really significant speakers, and um, some of them are gonna come on the show. So why don't we get started? So what I tried to do, Adam, is we as we were traveling, is I tried to be mindful of you always observe ironic antidotes when you're on the road and you know, things you tell stories when you're drinking with people later on or chatting. I tried to remember to take some pictures this time. So uh that you know it's always better with pictures. If it's not a picture, maybe it didn't even happen. So the very, very, very first conference back at the beginning of March was in the state of Idaho, and they combined it with their wastewater um folks there in Idaho. So it was a wastewater slash EH conference all combined into one. And uh Bonnie, who's been on the show several times, uh uh a couple of times that is, Bonnie has uh up there in Idaho. Walderson has really done a great job with that conference. And uh there's the HS GovTech booth, I think, coming up here in the uh so conferences are all shapes and sizes. You can be in a let's call it an older hotel, um, and just sort of in a corner of a room there, and and then you can be in a convention center that you need uh an app to get around in. It really sort of just depends on the region and the geography. But that there's the HS GovTech booth back there in the corner. And I loved it what they did there. They put our booth in the room where all of the speaking events were happening. And so it's always tough for me if if people are like, hey, I'm gonna stop by the booth, want to chat with you about something. I feel I need to stay there, but then I can't go in and see the sessions. So hat tip to them for doing that. Uh really that was great because we got to see them all. And then over to the left there, we might have a zoom, a tight zoom shot of it as well, is a photo contest. And so a lot of the inspectors there in Idaho submitted, and I think the next one, David, might be uh a close-up of that. Yep. Um there were some great pictures there, and um, we have got them all downloaded, and we will post them or put a link to where you can see the photo contest pictures in the description of this episode. Uh Niha does it every year nationally. Uh Idaho really was thrilled to see them do it, and I would love to see more of our folks do this. You know, Adam, we get pictures from time to time. Um and we've actually done episodes for Ask the Inspector, where we put those pictures up and ask him to respond. Um, but if I think if more I think if more states had a photo contest, inspectors would think about taking pictures more and selfishly, we'd have a lot more to share with the audience um from a visual perspective.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Well, you know, back to you know making the unseen scene. A lot of times our EH folk are kind of the unseen saviors of the community. Taking pictures of some of the wild stuff that they encounter is always engaging.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

It is. You remember Graham from uh the from the UK, he had that picture of that mouse that had been baked into a loaf of bread, and then the bread had been cut. So there was there was a uh, I guess some people smith uh put liver on toast and other things. This was uh a convenience item. The mouse protein was baked into every slice. So from there, so I this was the first red eye. So uh there's a lot of red eyes uh that come with the conference season, especially if you are leaving one and then one day later you need to be on a plane to another one. Some of them are back to back. So Idaho, that was the case. And the other thing that you don't really think about, but when you travel a lot like that and you I love talking to you all at the conferences, so this is not a complaint. I I love it when the conference you have so many people that want to sit around and chat or pick your brain that you literally go all the way up to the end of the conference, help your team pack the booth stuff up and have to head to the airport, and you hadn't had time to eat. Well, that was the case in Idaho, and I was I had a red eye in front of me, and I thought, yeah, I'll grab something at the airport. Well, the Boise Airport is not I would not say that it has a thriving foodie scene. Um I got there and it was like Mentos and you know, MMs in a very small little kind of pop-up kiosk shop. And then I eyed this. That is a White Castle franchise in a vending machine.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

And hard pass.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Hard pass. I desperate times call for desperate measures, and I thought I was in cattle class, back of the plane, so I know I'm not gonna get anything except try to hopefully get a little sleep. So I had to. I had no choice. You're a starving man and all. Yeah, it's not quite to the level of we're on a boat, we've been stranded at sea for 12 days, and we start drawing lots to or rolling dice to see which one of us is dinner first. Not quite that desperate, but this was the machine. So I gave it, I think, $12, which in and of itself is a completely different topic.

SPEAKER_03 10:26

For White Cat for White Castle?

SPEAKER_00 10:28

For something that vaguely resembles White Castle. So you put your money in, the machine runs, and I don't know whether they've just got a microwave that's belt fed or what, but eventually then, and I think we have a picture of it, there's this little door. Uh yeah, this little door there on the left of the screen pops open, and first of all, it's impossible to handle that thing. I it the temperatures on that are intense, but look at the condensation as I open to reveal the burgers. It's just so if you ever had soggy. It was like the consistency of a French onion soup.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

That's appetizing. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Let that sink in for a moment.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

I'm almost wondering if it's like MRE level where you just it's dehydrated, the water hits it, it does its thing, and then it pops out. It's like it grew in the package.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

So this isn't like uh crispy cream where you can actually see the donuts being made.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

It's no no you press a button and there is no window into the guts of the machine. You like and it kind of it was so soggy, they ended up in the trash can. Um and you didn't try it? Oh, I did try it, yes. I did I had to, I'm starving, and it was just it disintegrated, like you had to be really fast when you picked one of them up because it started like melting on its way to your mouth, and it's a consistency problem uh for starters. Um and so that was insane. Um, but that was a attempt at dinner, and I I just uh they were also just overly hot. Like I had a a burn on my hand from the steam hitting me from just trying to open it there. But um, but hey, it's enabled, no tips, no fees. If that is the number one thing that you're pitching is the value of that machine, no tips, no fees, you are fighting a losing battle.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

So the question question that I have, hot hotness-wise, is it hot pocket level or is this like molten just hamburger level hot?

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Like did as if it had a small platoon plutonium core inside the machine that they passed the burgers by to heat them up. It was next level hot. And I don't know if either of you ever had a uh burger from the freezer case like in a grocery store. Any anybody ever been at that point in their life?

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Yeah, I mean, but you're kind of in control at that point. Like you're you're putting it in the microwave yourself. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

You can I don't know what tech they were using for this because this is like three generations prior from a taste and product perspective to just going to the grocery store, picking them up and microwaving them yourself.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

So it's they Was it like a microwave lasagna where it's like it's hot everywhere else except for the center, it's still stone cold?

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Oh no, they that is that is a huge problem, actually, with things like but no, it was it was literally lava all the way through.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

And it's there's nobody back there wrapping it in a moist towel either to kind of to kind of help it out, right? Like this is is this machine AI? It's just like water burger, here's your product.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

That's true. I actually the paper towel helps, it actually really does. It keeps it a little bit softer. So got moving from Idaho, and I think the next conference we went to, they they literally can run together. Um, well, as the red eye. Um, and so I get to the airport, and one before this, I think, David, unless I the kid with the backpack. Okay, maybe not. Okay, oh, you know what? That host problem, you go back, ignore me. All right, that's a nice bathroom, isn't it, Adam?

SPEAKER_03 14:16

That is way nicer than mine.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

And yeah, even the tile work, like it looks like something that might be in a large house. I took a picture of it. I take pictures of weird things, so I thought today we'd let you in a little peek of the weird phone uh album. That is the family restroom in Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. It's a nice room. It is. Yeah, like on the zoomed in there, it had a shower, it had more than one head. So it's like you know those ones that the water like is all inclusive. It was amazing. And then over there in front of it, I guess is a bed. Um or changing station. And I actually did, it felt pretty soft, felt kind of like memory foam, but I'm like, I don't know if I'd ever be tired enough to lay down on that because you've got I don't think you want to know what may have transpired in a bathroom that nice with a bed in it in an airport.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

No, absolutely not. Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

That's like a that's like a dark Reddit thread kind of uh thing, I think is what happens in those.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

It kind of reminds me of the bathroom um in my previous life at HS GovTech as the portfolio manager when we did the training in San Luis at Abisbo, the hotel we stayed at, the bathrooms in all the rooms were exceptionally bougie. And the three of us that were out there after the first night were all down for breakfast, and we had a 20-minute discussion about just the bathtub. Because it took each of us individually 30 minutes plus to figure out how the bathtub worked because there was no visible faucet anywhere. You just had knobs on the wall, and you didn't know what they did.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Was it where was where was the water coming from? Did you ever find out eventually? Yeah. The stinkiest, the stinkiest training crew ever rolled up. We couldn't figure out the faucets.

SPEAKER_03 16:03

We we all bathed, I assure you, we were all bathed because we eventually figured it out. But yeah, you turn the knobs and there's a stream of water comes down from the ceiling, which I love everywhere, but it looked really nice. I'll give them that.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

I love those. I think my favorite shower, we're down the rabbit hole, but was the Skylofts in Las Vegas, which is the 29th and 30th floor of the MGM Grand. And it literally has multiple ports in the ceiling, multiple ports all down the wall and from the side. It's almost like you could almost remind you almost of driving your car. Yes, it's almost like driving into a car wash, except it's just for you. And oh, it is the rollers. Well, yeah, I and and no of that big dryer that gives you hurricane force winds to dry you off afterwards.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

Um they need to up their game.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

You said that was in San Luis Obispo. That is a uniquely beautiful spot in the country, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 17:04

Yeah, oh, it is. It was what was amazing is I mean, we're in the Uber, we're heading out there, and the Uber driver was, you know, they always, you know, they like to talk about their town, and they said, like, oh yeah, we don't even need air conditioning or heat. I'm like, what do you mean? Like, it's consistently somewhere between 65 and 75 degrees all year round. You might turn your air conditioning on once. And they were right, it was beautiful while we were there.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

It's I I would live there, I would live in San Diego as well. Um, because yeah, you just literally, it's even in San Diego, you only need your air conditioner, maybe some in July and August. Like it's just beautiful. Um, and also there's just a picturesque quality to San Luis Obispo. It almost feels like stepping back in time a little bit. And uh shout out and hello to all the great team there, Catherine who helped lead that project on their side, and there's a lot of others. Um, but and also they've done something pretty innovative. Um we'll work in some tech stuff here real quick, uh, and integrating some really cool um uh cross-connect. I don't know why my tongue tied tied on that, but they really took their cross-connect program to the next level. And um the departments are gonna be hearing more about the ability to do that as well because it's EH has does so much stuff. Like you all out there every day, you know, one day you're a child care facility expert, one day you're a pool expert, one day you're a food. And also a lot of your departments they have to do cross-connect, which actually never gets any ink or talk, but it's a whole workflow that needs to be managed, and they've really done some forward-thinking stuff out there.

SPEAKER_03 18:40

They really did, they really did. Obviously, a lot of RDD went into it, but once it was all up and running, it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

So came back from Idaho uh on a red eye, and that was I believe that was a Friday night arriving Saturday morning. Uh they start to run together, and then the following Sunday needed to be speaking of San Diego, a perfect segue. Um, I believe the next stop that we had to go to um, well, the red eye. Speaking of the red eye, David, I think we have one picture there. So I don't know if any of y'all who fly much do this. Uh Steve and I talk about things like this, Steve Manderdack from Afto, because when you fly a lot, little things can just mess up your vibe. And I'm boarding in Phoenix after a luxurious visit to that huge palatial bathroom, boarding for the red-eye home. And this dude in front of me, that's a big backpack. And so I, you know, it's almost like Adam, the um you know, the uh beat the parents. I'm watching you. So I I had eyes on this guy praying that he doesn't sit beside me because somehow I just knew he was going to try to cram that thing under the seat. And he did. Thankfully he wasn't next to me, but he ended up getting yelled at by the flight attendant, and it was taken from him, and he got to pick it up in whatever his final destination was. But it you you fly a lot, you've been around in so many departments. Have you noticed that people are getting more and more just not only grumpy, but just entitled about what they're gonna keep with them? Size just doesn't seem to even be a factor anymore.

SPEAKER_03 20:19

I have noticed that over the last couple of years. It's actually shocking to me because I mean I'm I'm always really stringent about my packing. Well, you you when we were at uh where were we Orlando earlier this year, I had a regular carry-on case, you know, typically standard size, and I'm rather adept at packing, and I had four different full suits in one suitcase, which is crazy, but I'm refused to be that guy with the massive duffel bag strapped to his back.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

So maybe this will end up being a helpful short for somebody. Um okay, so I can get a week's worth of suits, sports jackets, and it's uh uh and you don't forget the underwear and t-shirts, etc., uh, into a carry-on. But I always have imposter syndrome because there's always somebody who packs it better. How do you do it? How how do you maximize carry-on space with um suits and things take up a lot of a lot of room?

SPEAKER_03 21:17

They do take up a lot of room. Um it the it's really just about efficient layering of everything. So, you know, you got your when you split it open. If you've got the retractable handles in it, you've got those grooves in the bottom. I put all my ties and socks and stuff in there, and then I'm really efficient at folding everything so that it lays as flat as possible. So I usually have all of like socks, ties, shirts, and pants on one side, and the other side is reserved just for the jackets, which I can fold them in a way in which they don't get exceptionally wrinkly or anything like that. So, usually when I get to my destination, just hold them up, run the shower for a little bit, you know, get it nice and steamy, and and then they just iron themselves back out.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Okay, so maybe I'm not doing So bad. I'm a all jackets on one side too. And I also use the shower as the iron. I nothing bugs me more than having to get an iron out. And it's not that it's hard, but kind of is. Um, and the shower just works great. And if you don't feel like a long shower, you can just let the shower keep running and do your thing. So all right.

SPEAKER_03 22:22

We've all we've all been there and ruined a shirt using a hotel iron as well, because it's they're either they either never get hot enough or they just get scorched earth and they just destroy the shirt.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Another inquiring of eyes wants to know how often do you dry clean your jackets?

SPEAKER_03 22:37

Uh twice a year. Okay, good. I don't have to wear I don't have to wear them too often. So, you know, I get a lot of mileage out of them before it's like, okay, this seemed better days.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Yeah, because some of my jackets will make an appearance at two or three conferences, especially when they're close together before they do it. But I always make a point before I eat anything that could be messy to take them off. Because if I've got a one-day turn, I know I can't afford to lose any of the jackets. So and I'm a messy eater. I really am. Um there's I'm just a slob.

SPEAKER_03 23:05

So you and I, you and I both pick at our food.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

We do, we are slow eaters, and I'm gonna blow your mind later with a food story that I actually broke the curve. And if it would have been a uh uh a prediction market bet on it, everybody would have lost majorly. So came back, got a one-day weekend, went got on the flight to San Diego. Beautiful San Diego. Um no, Long Beach. It wasn't San Diego, Long Beach. So general region, but Long Beach for Siha. And I knew things were looking up. So hotels, and again, this is not this is just the diversity of the country. I've noticed that the hotels in like Montana, Idaho, etc., are very different from the ones in those huge metro areas like Long Beach or LA. And they're they they have a lot of old West charm to them. Like they're the ones this year were older, but were almost like being at a lodge. Um but Long Beach we got urban, and I got an I I started getting really lucky from here in conference season. I got an upgrade on my room at the Hilton and Long Beach, and so uh I think we have a picture of that. Um it kind of was demotivating for me to not to to I was like, do I really want to go down and spend as much time downstairs because I could sit here and chill and watch people um swim. Oh, I got way ahead of myself. Okay, so Adam, I uh uh David, I apologize. We're gonna come back to that one. This was Cha. I went to you see go back to the sleep score one, David. Um this is why this is hard for me to accurately remember in order. So they're three hours and 46 minutes. That was the night of going back to Idaho. So by the time you get ready to go one day later, you're you're just kind of running on adrenaline and autopilot. We went to San Diego next, and that was the Coupa Conference. The Coupa Conference is sort of different because Coupa is your hazardous waste. Adam, you know all about Coupa. Why don't you for the people who aren't in California? Apologies if you're in California because you're gonna say, well, you didn't cover it deeply enough, and you also already know. But for everybody else, it's the Hazmat program in California, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:24

Yep, yep, it is, it is. It's the uh it's statewide, whereas in other states it might be managed county by county or city by city across the state of California. It's all managed across the board uniformly. And yet they still somehow have their own little quirks and things as you you know work with each county.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Well, you know, you've every health department has to put their own wrinkle on it to a degree. Coupa is a big program, a complex program that all the California agencies do. So that sleep, we can go back to the sleep score one, uh, David, because I I let this actually unfold in order. So uh the here's this was actually uh the morning that the conference uh in in San Diego started for Coupa. I was supposed to get in at 9:30 p.m., nonstop from Charlotte, San Diego, everything's good. But we sat on the tarmac for a couple hours. And by the time I got there and ordered Taco Bell from Uber Eats, something you can do in a bigger city, um we I literally got three hours and 46 minutes of sleep, and they scheduled me for an 8 a.m. presentation session. Uh and so I rolled into that, and for any of you that were in it, and if you're hearing this, now you know why maybe it wasn't as good as it could have been. Because we rolled in there at 8 a.m. I think I went to sleep at like three, got up at 6 45, and was down there at 8 to get started.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

Seeing your uh the three hours and 46 minutes of sleep at brings a question to mind. Um, what's the longest you've actually been awake consecutively within because I know myself, like I can't sleep on a plane. And so there's been times where you and I have been out in California and we travel back. By the time I actually make it back home, I've been up for like 36, 40 hours straight.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Yes, I've done roughly around 48, I think, is the all-time record. Actually, we're going to be looking at here soon. I challenged that record during the spring conference season. And it was a confluence of unforeseeable travel glitches and an already tight schedule. Um, and we'll actually do the math hour when we get up to actually Cha. Maybe I was maybe that was the scar that was reminding me, let's go to the California one in uh Long Beach, because that one started with a red eye and ended two days later uh with a seven-hour drive, and there was not a bed in between. And we've got the evidence of it here coming back up. So the Coupa Conference was a lot of fun. It was great to chat with a lot of you, but the Coupa Conference is when, and you're gonna recognize this, Adam. So that is a fabulous mustache, um, as you know. And so I learned at the Coupa Conference that it was probably one of the more recognizable, valuable assets that HS GovTech as an organization had because I was talking to people. In fact, Craig Weatherby, shout out to him, wonderful guy, great director. They're so good. Lake County, right? You've worked with Lake County. And they needed some, they were trying to work through uh tweaking some reports because they now have the ability to actually take some collection action against people who just don't pay their bills. And so I met with him and three or four of his team uh on the sidelines of that conference, and we connected them up with Lisa Peterson, who's great at HS, and she got them all set. But I said something about is that did you send is this something that you sent or mentioned to Adam? And he Craig turns around and he looks at one of his team members, and they're like, Is that the dude with the great stash? And he's like, Yes, that's the guy. He's like, then yes, I gave it to Adam. Um and multiple people mentioned your mustache at multiple conferences, but it started at Coupa. So I was like, I was like mulling it. I was like, that is remarkable. Like, so I went back and with the assistance of AI, uh, I was like, you know what, we need to lean into that asset. So here was the ad that I came up with from my hotel room bed in San Diego on my laptop, um, home of the world's greatest stash. And I won't bore everybody with reading the whole thing, but actually, let's do, let's do. While other GovTech companies are busy crunching data and streamlining bureaucracy, we've been growing something far more important. The single greatest mustache the world has ever seen, legendary, government approved, certified world class, from permitting to procurement, from compliance to citizen services, every solution we deliver comes with a size of unmatched mustache swagger. There you go. HSGov Tech, because when your tech is this good, it deserves facial hair this epic, governing the world, twirling the legend the legend. So I have to ask you, man, uh can we get a twirl of the legend live? That that mustache is sorry, I uh about dropped my water bottle, so just jumped off of my seat there. Sorry about that, y'all. So okay, so this is something though, that this is a burden you have to carry, right? Like, heavy is the head that wears the crown, heavy is the face that carries that stash. Um I'll never forget you and I, it was a fun trip to Sacramento. You remember it was Christmas season of the year before they went live. And we were going in there that Jania and Rob and that team just it's a great run department, but also they implemented really smartly. And so they asked, would you guys be willing to maybe come out? We do a year-in party with our team every year before the holiday, and we would like to give them an exciting preview of what is going to be one of the biggest things that happens next year. So we went out there, and Adam, like we weren't even in the room 60 seconds. This is a true story. And people start to form around Adam and he starts getting peppered with questions like from paparazzi, how long does it take to make it look that way in the morning? And then one lady comes up and she goes, Is it real? Can I please touch it? Now, she asked permission as she literally reached out and touched your face. Do you remember that?

SPEAKER_03 31:45

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. The the thing that's kind of sad is I vividly remember that moment, but it happens everywhere, everywhere. Just you know, going to the to Walmart, you know, there's always someone that's just they're coming in from the side, and I see hands coming this way, which it's it's jarring. It's jarring.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

But how do you deal with that? Like, because that's that's the ultimate invasion of personal space, but you are kind of advertising.

SPEAKER_03 32:11

Exactly. You kind of go numb to it after a little while. You can't you just sort of you get used to it. I mean, my my wife and I, we've been, it it's crazy. We'll have been uh you know officially together 10 years this year, and for the first four or five years we were together, you she would get uncomfortable with people coming up to me, asking questions, talking, whatever. And after a few, and you know, eventually she gets used to it. She goes, Oh yeah, that's just kind of what happens. I just let him do his thing, he'll talk to them, and then he'll walk off.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

What what is the does something stick out as the all-time just most insane interaction you had as a result of it?

SPEAKER_03 32:49

I had a guy that um oddly enough, I was with my wife, and she was buying a car a few years ago, and he asked if he could sit in my lap and touch it. And I was I was like no and oh yeah, and but being the uh you know the the salesman that I am, I was like, well, that depends. You can do that if that means she gets 20% off the cost of this car. This guy worked for the car dealership? He was oh yeah, he was the salesman. And so he was he's I'm not joking, he got up, he said, Let me see what I can do, and he walked out of the room. Needless to say, at the end, he did not wind up sitting in my lap. She got a discount, but not 20%. I tried. I tried.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

He really, really wanted to sit in your lap, man. Oh, really, really bad.

unknown 33:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

And not in a Santa Claus way, because that's not a Santa Claus look. No, no, no, no, no. This is this is this is like um what is it fat life or I I'm not as hip on all the places the kids go, but um, yeah, that's something different. I think you were dealing with it.

SPEAKER_03 34:01

That was that was the one time it was uh it was uncomfortable. I was able to you know play it off and keep it moving, but that time got weird.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

It's a burden to be famous like that. Oh I don't want to call it famous.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

David, I was gonna ask, is it three musketeers, the pirate, like a pirate? Like what what inspired the look, really? It's a good idea.

SPEAKER_03 34:22

Honestly, it's it started as a dare years ago between a group of friends and I. You know, they do the uh what's it called? Uh you know, no shave November.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:32

And for years I couldn't grow facial hair at all. And so we'd try it every year and I would fail miserably. And one year finally something started growing in and it kind of naturally curl curled. And so I just kind of leaned into it and then cut to however many years later. It's just it just kind of naturally formed this way. But I mean, I'm a nerd at heart and I go to you know the Renaissance festival every year. And of course, I dress up as a pirate because you can't not with this, but it's not three musketeers, it's closer to the pirate thing.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

So wait a minute. Is you're telling me it kind of naturally goes that way. So when you get up in the morning, it just wakes up and curls?

SPEAKER_03 35:11

Yeah.

unknown 35:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:12

The hairs are the hairs are trained. And I've also been it is trained. I've been styling it long enough where it it will it naturally holds that shape. So you know, after I shower, I just put some product in it.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

So this is a no-shape November dare. It wasn't November when it is a family show, so I'm gonna be very careful here. If you know, you know. Um, it wasn't November by chance that you were um uh buying the car, was it? Because I think there's he's probably trying to help you lose another kind of bet.

SPEAKER_03 35:39

No. No, no, it was well before that. Okay. We're not gonna talk about the early stages of this. It was rather a pathetic one.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

So so then so then this leads into you know, you're you're talking about product that you put in it. How long does it take you to style that mustache?

SPEAKER_02 35:56

Good question.

SPEAKER_03 35:57

Um a good day, five to ten minutes. Bad day, fifteen to twenty, depending on how cooperative it wants to be. Most days, five to ten minutes.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

So, how do you set your alarm to plan? Do you set it for the 15 or like because you're actually investing sleep time into this?

SPEAKER_03 36:15

It's not that big of a deal, really. You get so used to doing it that I'm I know how long it takes me to generally speak and get ready in the morning. So it just, you know, I can do that while I'm getting dressed and doing other things so I can just multitask.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

Okay, final question here about mustache. You guys were talking earlier about uh about the way you eat. Does this mustache pose any kind of problem with that? Because you know, I know that if you grow your mustache out really big, it's really hard for you to eat soup. So is there anything that's hard for you to eat with that mustache?

SPEAKER_00 36:49

And if I can tack on specifically, you said you're a Renaissance fair man. That mustache doesn't seem to go long. Yes, the turkey leg. The turkey leg. That the ergonomics don't work.

SPEAKER_03 36:59

It's if I'm eating anything like the turkey leg that's kind of larger than my mouth, yeah, you get the you run the risk of getting sauce or whatever else like up in here, but I purposefully trim the hairs here shorter so that they don't go down into my lip and you know into my mouth while I'm eating. So I can I'm more efficient that way. Because I'm so slow at eating, I need I need everything in my favor going for me.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

And one thing we can learn, hygiene is important.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

So here you go. I and I assume your lovely wife, you have a really lovely wife, Lauren. I assume she likes it, right? Because you'd be stashless if she didn't.

SPEAKER_03 37:36

Oh, she's it's it is a uh she she likes to poke fun at me. She'll bring up old pictures of me before I had any of it. And she's like, you are never allowed to go back to having a baby face ever again. Because if I shave all this off, I look like I'm 18. It's so she's like, it can't ever go away.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

That is a blessing, man. Like, I I can't point my finger to when it happened, but I used to have a baby face. And in through my 30s, and and people always be like, Oh, you've done so much, you're so young. And like, it wasn't really true. I was older, but now I don't know, man. And maybe it's the red eyes that that and all the travel, but I feel like it's caught up to me. Um dust off my old testament stories here. Do you feel like it would be like a Samson scenario if somebody shaved it off to where like you would lose your magical powers and your strength?

SPEAKER_03 38:24

I would. Oh, yeah. If I lost the facial hair and the rest of the hair, it would be I'd be done. I would just be in a puddle somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

All right. So a lot of you all have asked him questions in person. You've asked me about them. Now you know a little bit more about the legend of the stash.

SPEAKER_03 38:41

Shout out to all of my friends in California that are such fans.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

So we will let's go back then to the deck. So we San Diego, let's see if I can remember off of the top of my head. I think Montana was next, right? Uh, I love going up to Montana. It really, it's just a beautiful, wide open space, and uh the people are just so friendly. So we went up to the Montana Environmental Health Conference, and there we are. So they had to suffer through an opening keynote and remarks from from that guy. And uh you see what I mean? Look how old I look. Look at that widow's peak. Like maybe I should take some Donald Trump combover lessons or something. Please don't. Please don't. That is a joke. Don't don't nobody get triggered. There was a really, it was an honor to address that conference. It was a uh record attendance for them and uh really, really great conference.

SPEAKER_03 39:32

And one of the They did a really good job at that one.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

They they they did. Um, and HS GovTech had, I think we've got some other pictures here. I um HS GovTech had a VIP room. This one right here. So this lady is actually going to be coming on the podcast later this summer. Fascinating person, Adam, with a great career. So she used to work for years, I think since the 80s, she worked at the ad council. Now we've all seen them, right? In fact, this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs, all of those. You know, if if you were from my generation, Saturday morning TV was about a quarter of the commercial availabilities with ad council ads trying to keep us kids off drugs and things, but she is responsible for 30 years of the Smokey the Bear ad campaign. You know, Smokey is kind of an institution. Only you can prevent forest fires. That is iconic. She brought Smokey to life. And she also did all the ad council ads during the pandemic, their vax campaign. And then she just kind of got tired of it. The Madison Avenue kind of the marketing part, and she ended up getting with some philanthropists and putting together a public health communications and trust building organization that is funded. And as you saw in that picture that we showed of her, she it was about introducing something called Calms Companion. And um don't know if that's a working title or if that's what it is in the app store, but they actually are providing free of charge to all public health agencies around the country a app to help you with communication strategy when a crisis comes up and you need to be talking to the public. The AI is actually purpose built to help you communicate better and hopefully rebuild trust that they feel as well was lost during the pandemic. It's it's just that's brilliant. It right? Um, and I I don't know that a lot of people know about it yet. So she agreed to come on, and it's just a great conversation because you know, Smokey the Bear, and she's been part of Americana that way, but she's really dedicated now towards public health, having effective communications with their with their constituents and with citizens. So Montana, that that's a speaker you would expect to see at a niha or an afto. And that was the morning keynote in Montana on on one of their days. So it was, and let me tell you, she was far more interesting than anything I had to say.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

My the the the tech nerd inside of me is real I'm gonna be on pins and needles waiting for that episode to come out because I want to see how it actually works and what it does. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

Yeah, I'm really excited to do it, and I think there'd be some opportunities for agencies that are interested in this to collaborate with this group because they they're they really do. They have a mission and they're very, very serious about it. So that was at the Montana conference. Uh, do we have a couple others from that one, David?

SPEAKER_01 42:24

I wanted yeah, so I wanted to prime the pump a little bit because growing up in western North Carolina, the Smokey the Bear thing is a big deal because you you gotta prevent forest fires. So that campaign started on August 9th of 1944. So Smokey the Bear's been around a long time. It's also the same day that Sam Elliott was born, and he was the voice of Smokey the Bear from 2008 to 2023.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

That's right. And so, David, with your Google Foo masterful production skills, if you actually find at some point online, there is the Smokey the Bear 80th anniversary ad. It's actually really cool. She did that, and so uh I I know we're on the fly, so if we find it, we can come back and show it. But uh there, yeah, Smokey Turn, I believe it was the 80th, and that was sort of one of their biggest spins to kind of do the nostalgia. It's a very nostalgic ad. And I watched Adam, you're a creative guy, right? You're the marketing man. I uh you watch an ad like that and you're like, well done. Well done. Oh yeah. Uh oh yeah. So that was a lot of fun. Um that Montana conference, we also, Adam, we had a VIP room. So in your role, you are like largely responsible for helping get those things to happen. Uh, talk a little bit about what we did in Montana, and I think we're gonna replicate it at other conferences in the future, where you have a lot of agencies in the state that use HSGovTech as their platform. And I think your original concept was let's take advantage of everybody spending their travel budget to be in one place. Let's Let's HS lean in a little bit more and set up sort of some secondary infrastructure to be able to allow them to take advantage of some of that time to work with their vendor or or dig in about any questions they have about their system.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

Absolutely. And I mean, in this age of, you know, we all work virtually and we're spread out across the country. So it's uh to your point, it's not that often we actually get to spend, you know, one-on-one in-person time with our clients. So a conference is the prime opportunity to have something like a VIP room where you know anyone that's attended a conference knows full well that you know you've got your educational sessions that you go to, those last hour, hour and a half, and then you have a 20, 30 minute break to grab a cup of coffee, go to the bathroom, and you know, go to see all the vendors and stuff like that. And so it's always there's that time crunch. So if we have that secluded space where we can actually carve out time with uh, you know, anybody really within that region that wants to, you know, have maybe a one-on-one demo or ask some questions, or you know, hey, I'm having this issue with this thing. Can I pick your brain about something? That's entirely what that room is for, so that we can actually spend meaningful time together with our clients. So yeah, we'll be replicating that same thing at a couple of the conferences in the back half of the year.

SPEAKER_00 45:11

It was really well done. And I'll tell so selfishly, and you know what this is like. You've been at conferences, you still have emails to respond to and work to do. And I always I don't know about other people, but I feel really awkward doing that sitting at a booth because when you're at the booth, your attention is supposed to be there to have conversations and help the folks at the conference. And I love the VIP room because it was a place I could slink off to and open up my laptop without being judged and and try to keep up with my workload.

SPEAKER_03 45:44

Well, you know, I wasn't gonna air out that part of the purpose of the room, but yes, that's it's entirely part of it as well for HS staff that are attending, because you know, we still have day jobs that we have to do. So yeah, carve out an hour or two, go off to slink off to the room, like you said, get some work done, then go back to the booth.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

And what was also, you know, if some of the there were people that were appreciative that it was there because they got time, because you also arranged to have our chief customer officer, chief revenue officer, and project management on site there, because there's a lot of agencies implementing. And they really appreciated it. But you know what? They appreciated the reason I said that about the email, they appreciated that for that too. So during times where no one had a meeting or was meeting with any of the team from HS, the room still magically kept getting full because people were using it for the same purpose that we did in a break is to uh a private, almost like an airport lounge, to be able to go into, grab a free snack, and um just catch up on what what you've missed while you were underwater the last four hours at sessions.

SPEAKER_03 46:48

That's fantastic. I love that it's uh you know it's cross-functional that way, that both ourselves and our clients can take advantage of it. Because that's really the entire purpose.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

And we had two, two, just one slide, two pictures leaving Montana. So this is the funny, funny part about spring conference season is that you will sometimes experience the harshest of summer and winter on the same trip. So on the day we left Montana, the picture there on the left of your screen, that is um Billings, Montana's airport. And the that is that so yeah, Billings. I got that wanted to make sure I got that airport right. It was Billings. That was a snowstorm. Now, I I think it blew over in a couple of hours, but when I got to the gate, it was snowing heavier than you ever see in North Carolina, and it was below freezing, and this is late April. And so then a layover in Dallas, so freezing temperatures and a snow, snow blowing everywhere in Montana. Two hours later in Dallas, 90 something degrees, and there I am finally getting to go home, and that is Cowboy Stadium down there. Uh, we I I again I'm a nerd. I take lots of pictures from planes because if you fly a lot, statistically, you're going to end up over some getting aerial views of things that are kind of iconic. And so that is the retractable roof that Jerry Jones says is open so God can see his team. Um I think there's a lot of uh giants and red skin, uh, redskins, sorry, commanders fans that would uh take exception to that. But uh yeah, 90 90 plus degrees in Dallas and just two hours before we were in the mountains of Montana with snow. Um, actually on sports. So, Adam, you've sports guy really at all? Any any sports that you casually follow? So we just congratulations, first of all, to the Carolina Hurricanes um for bringing the Stanley Cup to North Carolina. Uh, that is a really good team. And uh I saw a headline because the Knicks also the day before, first time in 53 years, congrats to the New York Knicks for an NBA chip. But New York celebrated really hard. I saw a funny headline the day after the Canes won. They're like, no school buses burned, no people assaulted, canes still are the champions. But I just want to get this off my chest. This is not really apropos to anything like super topical, but I've always watched the NBA, and there's iconic pictures. David, you you watch NBA some too. Uh iconic pictures of uh Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird winning a title and they're spraying champagne at each other. And you know, you get to pop the champagne. Well, the Knicks win first time in 53 years, more to celebrate than a lot of teams that have won it. I don't know. Did anybody catch any of the video of the post-game celebration uh after the Knicks won? Okay. I it's been bugging me because they opened bottles of Michelob Ultra and threw beer on each other. Swear. Go to YouTube, look at the clips. And the NBA has more revenue than they've ever had in history. So when I saw that, here's what I thought. I'm like, that looks like a rec league celebration. Yeah, boys, we're gonna win the rec league title and we'll we'll uh get all oiled up and spray Mickelobe on each other. That that's what that is for. Not anyway, sorry. I just needed to get it off my chest because beer? I wonder if that's what they requested. Well, money played with it because Micelobe Ultra sponsored the celebration. Yeah, there you go. So it was easy enough to figure out, but it's like, okay, if you're gonna be a sellout, then at least go sell out to a champagne brand. Like I I just yeah, it was offensive. Raising the eternal question does anybody actually love champagne? No. I yeah, I don't think so. I I drink a champagne toast, but you kind of hold your nose and bear it. It's not an enjoyable drink.

SPEAKER_03 50:58

I'm not a fan.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

But anyway, yeah, the NBA is just that's how you know the world's coming apart. We're throwing beer on each other. Um but that was really a great team, and you know, Jalen Brunson and those guys, it was a lot of fun. So anyway, let's get back to the topics at hand. I'll stop venting. Um, David, which conference did we go to next? Uh, we just finished with Montana. Oh, there we go. The one I tried to go to a couple of months, a couple of uh slots early. That is right there in Long Beach. Long Beach is beautiful. And uh I had I don't know, I stuck so I started now. We're getting to the part, Adam, where you asked how long I've ever been up before. We're getting to the part where I challenged that record, um, but I also got some phenomenal luck on upgrades. So that was an upgraded room, and the balcony was big enough for me to stand. And if I had my six-year-old with me, he could have fit out there. Definitely not something you sat there with a two full-grown adults and smoke a cigar, but it was a beautiful view uh and beautiful weather is always there. And uh Seahaw was a lot of fun. It was really busy this year, and uh it was a great time with the team, with clients of HS GovTech, and also just connecting and talking with people that aren't, that just are contributing to the community. And um, and then so this was the team. Uh, don't want to make it all about just you and I, Adam. This was the team out there. So it's Stacy, you know, that fat guy there, sort of in the middle, the great Robin Lochran. A lot of people know Robin. She's very special. And Lisa, who is a newer, Lisa Lascal, she's a newer addition to the team. She's amazing. Uh I I've heard from so many of you all that have uh interacted with her about things out there, and she really, really has a heart for the agencies and is really doing a great job taking care of them. What we're in front of, though, so if you are if you are thinking of going to the Long Beach, California area for a vacation this summer, um, the the Hilton Long Beach is nice, nice hotel, but I've never seen this before. So, Adam, that is a carousel. This isn't moving video, but there's a waterfall there, and the rubber ducky thing around it is a carousel fully stocked of all assorted and asundry rubber duckies. And guests are free to peruse and take the rubber ducks. So my little guy is really into Minecraft, and so they had two Minecraft ducks there, and it actually really was wonderful because I usually he always will ask me when I come back from traveling, Did you get me anything? Did you get me a souvenir? So I set a bad precedent, and I was so thrilled because I was able to check off the souvenir from the trip, and it didn't cost me a nickel.

SPEAKER_03 53:35

There you go. So I was gonna ask, are there were they all uh Minecraft theme with a squareness, or were they all individual, just different?

SPEAKER_00 53:42

They were all different. I should have taken more pictures. I wasn't a very good documentarian on it, but there was like uh Paw Patrol. I I I don't watch little kids television, but I think it was a Paw Patrol theme. They had all sorts of franchises, video games and cartoons and things with the characters represented as little rubber ducks. It was really cool.

SPEAKER_03 54:02

So it's kind of like it's kind of like that uh oh, the thing that Jeep owners do where they put all those ducks across the dashboard of their Jeep. Yes. But I never really understood.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

I I didn't either. There's a subculture though for everything. And I learn about new ones every day.

SPEAKER_03 54:16

I'm not gonna throw my mom under the bus, but she has a Jeep and she does that, and still to this day I don't understand why she does it.

SPEAKER_00 54:22

She's got the rubber duckies on her Jeep dash? Oh yeah. Um, are there any? So this is when the next question is one of the ones on the diagnosis chart of if you might need to seek help. No, no assortment family of pink flamingos on the lawn yet, right? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think if you put that into Chat GPT, they say to be safe, please dial 911. And to our friends in rural, the rural south, which I'm from, like we're just playing around. So, okay, so one of the things, Adam, you and I, we are foodies to a degree, right? Oh, I love food. One of the nice parts about traveling is that if you're lucky, you can experience some really good restaurants. You remember those crab legs that we destroyed in uh Honolulu?

SPEAKER_03 55:11

Oh, that was they were so good. The a more fond memory is um, I believe it was Joe who was sitting either next to me or next to you, I forget, but he had never eaten crab before in his life, so he didn't know how to crack them, and you and I are just tearing through them. There's a method, right? You there's there's a method to it.

SPEAKER_00 55:28

You line it up, you get sort of in the middle, and you snap quickly, like you were breaking a pencil, and then you can slide it out. I shocked, I scared you in that meeting. I'm not known for cleaning my plate. Do you remember I I ate tons, five or six pounds, piles, and I was spraying like I was cracking with such zesto that I'm slinging crab juice over onto the other people at the table. But as a foodie, folks try to stick together on the road. And frequent guest on this channel, Steve Mandernack uh from Afdo, we bump into each other a lot on the road and we try to help each other with tips, right? Hey, I tried this steakhouse. We're always a sucker for a steakhouse. And Long Beach was the gift that kept giving. The very first night, the pictures where he had all the action going on on the show floor, Steve comes up, he's like, Hey, got a hot tip for you on a steakhouse. And it was 555 Maine, I believe it was. And Adam, Steve recommended, never doubt a Steve Mandernack steakhouse recommendation. That, my friend, is Japanese Wagyu. And you can see the blood coming off. It was perfect. That was not just Japanese Wagyu, that was an eight-ounce chunk of Japanese wagyu. And then the picture on the right was that stuff with bird seeds on top of it. So I'm a foodie, but I'm also still a kind of redneck. So I describe it as bird seeds. And that was peanut, butter, chocolate, mousse, and the white layer on top was homemade whipped cream.

SPEAKER_03 57:05

Oh, you'd have to roll me out of there. So it might take me four hours to eat it, but you'd have to roll me out of there.

SPEAKER_00 57:10

How many times have you seen me leave food on the plate or take a to-go box that everybody at the table knows is never going to be opened again and housekeeping's going to throw it away? It's pretty it's more common than not, right?

SPEAKER_03 57:22

Exactly every almost every single time.

SPEAKER_00 57:24

I also ordered the loaded, fully loaded baked potato and ask Robin, ask so it was a great dinner with the team. Ask Robin or Lisa. I ate every bite, not just of that eight-ounce steak. I ate the eight out uh entire baked potato down to the skin, and I wiped out that bowl of mousse as well. No doggy box.

SPEAKER_03 57:43

That's why that's why you were able to challenge your lack of sleep record because you had all the nutrients inside your system.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

This turned out to be protein loading for a very grueling next stop. So we'll we could go back to the pictures. So we knew up front, I knew from the beginning, I was gonna have to take a red eye from LA to Washington Dulles International because I had agreed Bob Custard, who's been a uh one of the highest viewed episodes on the channel, Bob Custard had asked him to come speak and and and join their conference. And the problem was it started the very next day, and I was in Long Beach. So I knew up front it was going to be a red eye. Um so I David, I think uh the car, yeah. All right, so why do I have a picture of myself in a suit driving a car? I had bad luck and good luck at the same time. Bad luck as you learn on schedule and sleep, but very good luck in that I got this upgraded to me for free when I picked this up in Long Beach. That's a BMW X7 fully loaded. And that's fantastic. Off to my right, which is the next picture. Um, did you did do you know this? Did you know the story about the Goodyear Blimp and how it literally that is its home? The Goodyear Blimp is at home right there, right alongside the 405 in Long Beach. And it is, it deploys from there to any sporting event or anything, but it always returns home and lives right there. And you can, as you can tell, see it when it's home very vividly, uh, right while driving down the 405. Uh the BMW. So for those of you that are like, I deserve the traffic infraction, possibly, but that car also had self-driving on it. And so I figured out how to activate that, and then I was able to focus on what matters, which was a picture of the Goodyear blimp.

SPEAKER_03 59:33

Speaking of self-driving, the last year at Niha was in Phoenix, and that's where they have those Waymos there. And that was the first time I'd ever encountered one. And my wife traveled with me to that conference, and as soon as we saw it, I was like, We're taking one of those back to the airport when this is all said and done. It was a fantastic experience. It's very in the car. Oh, it's so worth it.

SPEAKER_00 59:56

Because didn't they have them? Uh, where was Niha last? I think it was Niha, wasn't it? And people, uh, we had like 20 people there, and they were all talking about taking the Waymo's. Um was it wasn't scary at all? Like it drives good, and like what was the what's the experience of getting in a car that has no head behind the wheel?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:18

Objectively, it was I mean, it was a smooth, safe drive. I mean, I they advertise it as you know the safest driver ever, and it I mean it kind of is because it will never speed, it's always it's it's so efficient, it doesn't care anything about birds. I'll give it that. I I mean it's anything else that might step out off the sidewalk, it'll come to a dead halt. But a bird, nope, it's just gonna go right through a pile of birds like they're not there, but it's super safe. And once you get over the anxiety of being in it for the first you know five or ten minutes because you're in the back seat and there is no driver, but the wheels turning and it's doing all the things that it would do if it was a human driving it. After a while you settle in and you're like, this is kind of better than an Uber.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:03

Because you don't have to, you don't have to talk. So I'm a I'm a guy. I love to I one of my flaws in life or assets, probably both at the same time, is I like to talk. I'll conversate with anybody. And I've had some profoundly good conversations with Uber drivers, but for every one of those, I get the guy who I think it was in 2020, yes, before the election. Or 20, yeah, it was 20 early 2020. I was with an Uber driver from the San Francisco Health Department to the airport uh SFO. This guy needed to be institutionalized. He literally was telling me about his campaign for the presidency, and he believed that he was a serious candidate. He really truly did. And he literally bent my ear on his platform, and then he gives me we get to the airport, and I'm just like okay, I'm with a crazy person. So everything is really measured, polite. Like, I don't want to bust this poor guy's bubble while he's driving down the interstate with me in the back. We get to the airport, and he writes, he pulls out a scrap of paper and he writes his name. He's like, that's my mobile number. When I get inaugurated, you call me. I'm gonna remember you. I'll show you the Oval Office and give you a tour of the White House.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:21

That guy's taking guerrilla marketing to a new level. That's how he's gonna spread his campaign one override at a time.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:27

Do you think that maybe that's a game that he's playing? Like where he's like, let's see. Like, let's see how off the rail I can get and make this as uncomfortable for the passenger as possible.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

Okay, so we've got three creative guys familiar with media here. Just an idea. That would be a phenomenal YouTube show.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:51

Did you keep the number? Like we could suss this out, like we're just calling.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:54

I I so you want to know what's so goofy? It I kept the number. Because I'm like, there's no way this guy's gonna be president, but I'm like, maybe I'm the mentally ill one and I I get to go to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. So, but guys, one of us signs up to be an Uber driver. My record is clean, thank you, lawyers. I mean, nothing serious. I'd never know DUI, anything like that. Nothing ugly, but I I've had a lead foot from time to time. So if I can't get approved, one of you all could, and that could be it. You wire up the car with hidden cameras, you act a fool, you get a camera that catches their reaction in the back, and then of course, at the end, when you get them there and you turn the cameras off, you need them to sign a release, but you could offer a little money for that. I just I don't know. I think that would be a show people would actually pull tune in off their timeline.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:49

Oh, I'd watch that. I'd watch that.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

Mental note, mental note, AI that does the transcript, flag this for us. Now we talk to the robots because they're the ones that do all the transcribing. Um, all right, so um we are heading now. So I got into LAX. There was no time to eat. So I I I also think it'd be amazing if you could actually be a fly on the wall of people's Google or AI chats or um AI questions. You know, the things we just ask the phone as if it's not recorded. I actually took a screenshot of it because I knew I was going to be screwed. So I get to LA, I had not had time to eat. I was working the conference up at the end, got in the car, rushed to LA, go through security, and the time was so tight, there wasn't time to grab something on the fly. And I also made the assumption that I had gotten bumped up to first class. And I'm like, oh, they'll feed me. That's the LA to Washington route. That'll probably be good food. So we I go into Google and I'm like, do you always get a meal? Yeah, kind of a weird question as much as I fly, but do you always get a meal in first class on American Airlines? And I got screwed by this little line. Flights outside of traditional mill windows will receive a light snack. So I did get a more comfortable seat, but I looked that up like an idiot as I was in line to board. And so I hadn't eaten all day. Got on the plane, all they had was peanuts. I didn't feel like peanuts. So maybe as my mom would tell me back in the day, well, then you're not really hungry. Um, but fly all the way in and then land in Washington at 6 41, I think it was, a.m. And the rental car, I didn't sleep. I can't sleep on planes. I think you're the same way, Adam, right? Like I so I ended up getting my laptop out because I'm like, I'm at least going to make this productive. And I land in Washington, Dallas, uh, just before seven. The sun's coming up, and I go from an X seven that I dropped off before to a Mercedes Coupe. And so I pick up my Mercedes coupe and I'm driving out to Canaan Resort in really, truly middle of nowhere, West Virginia. And so I had a two and a half hour drive. I haven't slept, but I get in that car. I'm like, the Mercedes will keep me straight and awake. And so I fly over there, and the the scenery was amazing. Like there's not anything out there and multiple hillsides like this to where there's like those were goats, I believe. And there's goats and cattle just on hillsides. And so I I slowed down a couple of times to get pictures just because there was so much beauty heading there out in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia. Adam, I think if you go back there, um, Adam, I think when I originally took this picture, you you saw something I didn't.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:46

There's a not so subtle Confederate flag atop of that hill.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:49

And I had not noticed it either. But yep, the colors are flying just of the losing side from what almost 200 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:57

They're persistent.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:58

It is um, but that's you know, it's one of the things, though. And you see it every day, right? You work with agencies in well, I think we're technically in 41 states where we have agencies doing it. Those other nine call us. Um but uh the culture changes. And and and one day you're out in a part of the culture where uh it's just so completely different that you would, and probably um a lot of people would argue rightfully so, like you wouldn't bust out a Confederate flag if your life depended on it. And then the next day you're in a place where it's part of the culture. It is it's just a super interesting part about the huge country that this is and and all the different uh subcultures that live within it and always have. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So I was getting lost though. I spent 20 minutes, I used three GPS, Waze, Apple, and Google, and for some reason couldn't find my turn to the Canaan Resort. So Jory Watts, who was already there, uh was kind enough to drop me a pen, and uh I was able to keep going. But Canaan was beautiful. Uh, this was a snapshot. So by the way, if you're in uh along the mid-Atlantic or the eastern seaboard, and you are looking to kind of get back to nature and disconnect a little bit, the Canaan Resort is amazing. It really, really is. There were multiple points driving down the road to get to where the lodge is, where like the deer are just sitting there. Now, I had stopped there, full confession. I I um I like to interact with the animals, Adam. Um, bet you didn't know that about me. Um the probably the dumbest thing I've ever done, at least others say, is when I was driving the Coca Hala Highway in British Columbia, and there was a black bear right on the side of the road, just like those deer. Oh no. And it was a little guy lucky, Cameron. I did. No, and poor guy. So I pull off because I wanted to see a bear in real life, and I get out and then I start growling at him. And I didn't have my camera on, and I wish I had, because this bear looks at me like, Are you okay? And then just saunters off into the forest. But I stopped. It made me think of that as a deer. I stopped and started talking to them, and I thought they would run, but as you can see, that one deer just popped its head up, looks at me like, What's up, and then just keeps eating after that.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:25

My parents vacate, they go on uh a trip to Gatlinburg at least once or twice a year, and they always send me pictures just like that of uh, and sometimes a black bear, of right next to their car as they're driving down these winding roads. And every time I text my mom, like, do not be that woman that gets out of the car and is trying to feed the bear, the bear. Please don't do that. Stay in the car.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:50

Well, you met one of them. Uh so so yeah, so at this point, Adam, so I got up, I did track this because I knew it was gonna be a red eye. I got up at um 6 30 a.m. Pacific uh in Long Beach. So let's do the conversion here. Um, I got up then, so that's 9 30 Eastern, right? Because I end up back in Eastern. Yep. So 9 30 a.m. And that was on a, I believe it was a Wednesday. And I get to uh the Canaan Valley Resort, which again, check that out. If you like nature, it's really great. So my master plan was I had a room at the Canaan Valley Resort. My only conference-related activities were the day I arrived, and I was going to spend the night, get charged up with some sleep, and drive back the next morning. And I was really looking forward to it because of the Mercedes. I get to the Canaan Valley Resort and go to check in, and they're like, Your new room's not ready yet. I'm like, okay. I was hoping to get a shower before I had to speak. And so we did speak there, and I'll tell you, I don't know, David, if we I think we have a picture of that. And there's Bob and uh there's the show. So, as people that have been at these keynotes and these conferences know, I do always slip in a shameless plug slide for the podcast uh before we start talking about the topic at hand. There is a video of this, but I can't tell you one word I uttered if my life depended on it. I spoke at the lunch, so by the time we got to that lunch on Thursday, I spoke about 1245. So we're at 27 hours and 15 minutes uh up. Uh everybody seemed to be nice afterwards, so I guess I I guess they couldn't tell. Um, and I so right I go up to the desk after I speak, and I'm like, hey, can I Garrison check into my room? I prepaid for it. It's not ready still. Check with us at two. We don't guarantee it before three. So I went back and visited with so many of the lovely folks at in West Virginia and for at all the conferences. For those of you that come up and talk about the podcast or or say, hey, I appreciate it, or we watch it, or want to talk about one of your um one of the guests that you really enjoyed listening to. Thank you so much. You know, you never know sometimes if you're screaming into the void. And so it was I really, really appreciate it. So I was visiting with the folks there, and you know, I never occurred to me that my room wouldn't be available by three o'clock. I go up there at 3 30. It's not available yet. We have housekeeping issues. I'm like, like, do we have a time frame? Because by about 4 30, I was gonna be wrapped up with anything I had to do. And she goes, I could be this evening sometime. So I went back to Jory. I'm like, I'm exhausted. I'm probably an idiot, but I just can't sit in a lobby for three hours, maybe having a room. I haven't slept. I'm just gonna go home. So we I put it in the GPS, and I think we have pick uh, yep, six hours and 14 minutes back to Harrisburg, which is just as the crow flies, just about a mile from where we're sitting right now. And beautiful drive. Look at like the sky, it looks like a painting. Uh the uh I crossed the again, I'm a nerd. I take these pictures even if we weren't doing the podcast. I've got pictures of me crossing the Continental Divide in Colorado. Um, like so I saw some things, pulled off a couple of times and looked, and um then away we go, driving back to Charlotte. I think that might have been all the pictures from the drive, David, or was the crane in there? I I cannot remember. No, it was not. Okay, cool. So anyway, Adam, I did finally arrive home just about 11:30 p.m. on Thursday. So I got up at 9:30 a.m. Eastern converted on that Wednesday, and then went to bed or was done um the following day. So we're at now almost 48. You're good with math? Oh my gosh. No, not 48, about 37. So uh 36, 37, 38 hours and 30 minutes was the record for this conference season with not taking your shoes off, not hitting a bed, and uh speaking twice in that interim. So now they know why maybe it left them cold and it sucked so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:13

Very interesting, right around that 30-hour mark, at least for me, I hit get this like I don't know if it's my second or third wind, but it I it must be just a sheer adrenaline kicking in that's just keeping me awake at that point. That usually lasts for about eight hours.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:27

It is, and honestly, you get to a point caffeine doesn't really move the needle one way or the other either, at least for me. Um, it's it just doesn't do that. So we were talking about how it's great to meet so many of you all that listen. So do need to do the quick, shameless plug. The one thing that, and Adam, you you you see the numbers and you're involved that the the channel's clearly growing and it's very humbling, but not a huge percentage of the people that watch each episode aren't subscribed. So if you could do us a favor and just click a like and subscribe down there, as all the kids say on TikTok and all these other platforms. It really does help though, right? Because Adam, you put together every week a sort of a uh a summary of the episode and things like that. And if you're subscribed, it's just gonna automatically show up as an alert and you'll be made aware of it, and you and then you won't realize, oh, I haven't listened to it for four weeks, and then you're binging or or just not not listening. So, and Adam, while we're on that, the housekeeping as we get ready to wrap up, uh the some exciting stuff that you're working on for we're working on it for the show, right? Um, I think we're going on the road, is it three times coming up here this summer where we'll do live recordings from the road and talk to all of you all? Um, which are the three that we're doing?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:47

So we got Niha, that's the biggest one. And then uh shortly after that, there will be the Georgia Conference, and then the back half of the year is the the the WAFTO mega conference, where they're combining uh you know the Colorado Conference, the WAFTO conference, and then one other one that's slipping my mind. So, yeah, three times this year is uh we'll be doing live recordings.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:10

And and on that point, for those of you that are watching and with us still, we uh can't do all three of those asked, and uh Adam and and the team uh do work really hard to make that happen. So in the future, just keep in mind that if you're looking for something a little bit different at your conference, um we we we can do a limited number of uh on the road, take the show live to you all. And it's great because it also gives us a chance to let people that might not have been on the list to be booked for this show just drop by and have a conversation. Uh and so really looking forward to all three of those. Niha, uh, which is like end of uh last day or so of July and first week of August, and then uh WAFTO in Denver and uh Georgia. When are the Georgia dates, Adam? Because the Georgia one's gonna be fun. We're doing a two-day setup there.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:00

That is August 26th through the 28th. That's the Georgia conference, and then WAFTO is September 21st through the 24th.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:12

Yes, so in August and September, you're gonna get three chances at different conferences to join the show or see it as it's done, and uh really looking forward to those opportunities. The last conference that we went to, I believe, uh just a couple pictures on that there. So again, now we're on Cinco de Mayo, May 5th, North Dakota. By the way, thank great thanks and commend all of the folks in North Dakota. It was their first year of a conference like this. And it is so we participated in the inaugural. It went very, very well, but it was very disorienting because spring and early summer had kind of sprung temperature-wise everywhere. But when we landed in Bismarck, um, it was legit 34 degrees, and the wind was insane. Wind chill was 21, and I had not packed for that. Um, it it was really brutal wind, but it really was a great conference, and also congrats to the state and all of their locals there as they're getting ready to onboard the HS GovTech Solution and sort of move their department forward from the legacy platform. So it was a great time. And um the next picture, so we do have fun on the road, or we try, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:25

There's always we always have fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:27

And you know that I am never against a casual game of blackjack. I was stunned when I got to Bismarck that pretty much every bar or restaurant had a quote unquote casino in it. And so I'm amazed, and I'm Googling, and some of the reviews are very shady, don't go here, you know, they'll rob you, like, you know, Yelp stuff. So I asked the I asked a total of actually three Uber drivers over the course of that week. Is that is that blackjack for real? Is it legit? And where would you recommend going? They all recommended the Red Eye Casino. And so I busted up there, they opened the table at about 7 p.m. I got there about five till because I thought, wow, it's gonna be a crowd. It was just me by myself with the young lady you can see there in the distance under the casino sign on the right called Destiny. And the table minimum bet was 50 cents, and the highest you could bet was $20. So you're not there to like really take risk and lose, you're just there to have a drink and and uh decompress. And it ended up though, playing till 1 a.m. when they closed, and uh I ended up 50 bucks up in my pocket, but that you can't make the stuff up that happens on the road. So Destiny, the dealer that was in that picture, let slip a couple shoes into playing. That I I always I asked the dealer, I'm like, Do you want me to just give you a tip or do you want me to bet it? She's like, Bet it. I've I have a big amount of money I need to get together. And of course, I that begged a follow-up, right? Oh, yeah. And so I'm like, Well, why? What you what you doing? You trying to get college money or what she's like, no, I need to get money to bail my boyfriend out of jail. And I'm like, okay. So it turns out she's 24, so she's my daughter's age. And I don't want to pry and be rude, but I have so many questions. So as we're playing, it turns out that yeah, he he isn't eligible for traditional bond because of the nature of his crime. It has to be all cash, and she needs $22,000.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:44

Kudos to her. She's standing by her man. I'll give her that, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:47

Oh, yeah. And so we're playing along. And so I start betting, you know, a dollar very consistently for her on the tip, and we were doing really well. She ended up with $700 of the $22,000 she needed, and it wasn't $700 out of my pocket. Just for those of you that are like, be honest with your math, I got $200 out of the ATM machine. She had seven of it at the end. I had $50. But hey, at least the the house didn't get it. Um, the the the interesting thing though is I I start like, I'm like, okay, we're warming up. And so I'm asking her, I'm like, so what what did he do? I can't remember how I asked. I was trying to find a clever way to ask what did he do without saying it. And it was so sad. I had to spend the the last two hours explaining to her that you're worth more than that. You realize it because he he assaulted her as part of his crime.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:38

And then he's paying it, she's paying his bond?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:40

Yes. She's trying to bless her heart. She's saving money to pay his bond. He assaulted her and then got in a chase running from the cops. And those two crimes, I guess, together make him ineligible for a bail bondsman. Um, and that that lady is dealing her fingers to the bone to try to earn the money to bail out the person that's in jail for coming at her. I it was just, it was really, it was kind of it was sad, but uh she cares about him that much as I have five hours of proof that she really cares.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:11

Well, this is the you know, the shameless plug for destiny, and hopefully she'll spin up a GoFundMe and we'll get the rest of that 2100 bucks.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:19

I I think I think we need like a TV series about this or something. Like just about you on the road, Cameron. Just the things you're running into, like the White Castle burgers or Destiny at the blackjack table. Like this could be like sitcom worthy adventures.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:37

You know, that is it's a really it's it's a fair point because the stories are fun. I find a lot of people just don't keep their eyes open.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:46

Yeah, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:48

Like if you are out in the world, if you actually keep your eyes open, you are gonna see amazing things. Um and but too often, the device that's living there in my pocket, too often we're going through life like this, right? And we're just in the phone, and you just miss the most colorful, amazing people. Uh that when I was going from uh the North Dakota conference to the airport, the Uber driver was regaling me about how the world was about to end, uh, and and about all of the preps that she does. Like you just meet fancy, really interesting, uh, all sorts of thinking.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:29

One of the trips I was on, I forget which conference it was, it was a year or two ago. We were walking back from dinner, and there was this dark little alleyway, and a coworker just happened to be like, hey, let's go down there. Uh, all right, sure, I'm game, you know. And there was this tiny little speakeasy in the corner. He just having to your point of having your eyes open, he just happened to catch the sign and was and was like, Oh, that's bound to be good. Had the best drinks I've ever had in my life in this tiny little speakeasy in a back alley somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:02

It was it is true that sometimes the local places you never go from the pictures actually will just shock you. Because I I often I often wonder what HR and the accountants think about me. So, how do you eat on the road, Adam? So I will tell the audience that we don't charge charge enough to eat wagyu every night. That's very rare rare. Um, and matter of fact, with our per diem policies, because I was there for uh HS business, I I bought that stick out of my pocket. Um but I I most of the time I'm by myself, and I do have a thing. Yep, I don't like sitting by myself in a nice restaurant for some reason. I mean, I I'll do it, but it just feels that part of the experience is missing. Um and it's depressing. It is. So I do a lot of Uber Eats in DoorDash to the room. And, you know, Taco Bell, Chick-fil-A, McDonald's, you know, it's like a classic playlist on repeat. Um yeah. And um, I'll probably pay for that at some point in my arteries. But um, all right. So the last show that we can talk about that we were at today, Adam, you did a killer job. I is it fair to say that there's two shows that take more of your time every year, or the most would be Afto and Nih. Is that is that a fair characterization?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:24

Correct. Yeah, they're the the most amount of orchestration goes into those two big shows.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:28

And much bigger booths and a fancier setup. And so Columbus, Ohio uh at AFTO that just happened uh a few weeks ago, and um uh a plug for something to look out for on this channel. So I was really thrilled to participate in a, as you see other pictures here, uh AI for food safety. Uh Nihon did a separate full day 9 to 4 p.m. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. workshop on it. And uh there's just a candidate there of me with the speakers. There were some great speakers there, and we were cutting up, having a great time, getting to know some other great tech leaders that are doing things with AI. Uh, did a keynote there. Every one of those speakers did a keynote presentation, and then there was panel sessions where we actually took questions and did that. So it was a lot of fun. Thank you to Nihon uh Afto, apologies, Afto, for setting that up. And um we are going to have a separate playlist on the channel here in the next couple of weeks that is the Afto AI workshop series. And every one of the keynotes that you heard or that we you would have heard if you had been there in the room will be its own video on the channel, and we'll also do the panel QA session on the channel as well, so that you can hear what different agencies were asking and how the different members of the panel answered those questions. Um, it's really exciting, right, Adam? Because there's a lot of things that are coming up that we're gonna do with the channel that beyond just a well beyond what what are the odds? Uh beyond just a you know one interview a week. Um, and and it's it's gonna be a lot of fun. But um AFTO was really great this year, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:27:15

It was it was a fantastic show. Everyone on on the conference side were you know fantastic to work with. It was a unique experience for me because I'm based out of Dayton, Ohio, so hour-ish away, which is where we also store all of our you know conference gear and our swag and everything like that. So I drove everything up for the conference and set everything up there with the help of Laura. She helped me set up and tear down. But yeah, it was a fantastic show, and the team had a great time there.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:46

Yeah, Steve, Jennifer, I uh so many people I'm leaving out when I say that, but all of y'all at AFTO, thank you so much. And um, we're working um to potentially bring you some additional things in partnership with AFTO, uh, potentially here in The future. And um their AI Wiley, which we've exclude featured here a lot on this channel, is actually it's a really great initiative, and it's just really great to see the organization standing up. So, Adam, as we wrap up, you know, this is pretty uh characteristic of our conversations, right? Um, we'll we'll exchange a text or something and say, hey, you want to catch up for 10 minutes, and then an hour and a half later, um, we've done the 10-minute conversation. Um, but in closing, as you look ahead to Niha, you're doing some really um you're you're gonna do some really fun stuff here coming up at Niha, right? A couple of really unique things that we haven't done in years past.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:39

There's gonna be some really fun stuff this year. I don't want to give everything away just yet, but there'll be uh some very unique things rolled out for this show that we haven't done in years past.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:50

And I and I hear that. I I hear there might be. It depends on how everything is put together, it might even be a little AI surprise uh this year potentially, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:28:59

I might be working on something.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:01

But I did say maybe. I said I have a lot of time left, so I didn't box you in. Um and uh we will uh we'll keep you abreast of this though, because there's gonna be some fun stuff. And then we're going to be doing a uh presentation uh on the stage for the conference about some uh some new tech and just generally how uh we're evolving. Uh the HS side of things is evolving. And so if you're you're not signed up for Niha yet, definitely uh register. Uh and we also look forward to a lot of you there. And there are also going to be some folks there, right, Adam, who can actually split out from the official conference and uh and work with agencies that are um either implementing or or are users of the product, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:29:45

Exactly. Yeah, we have um both from a footprint standpoint, we'll have you know our traditional sales booth, but we'll also have the EH appreciation lounge, which I mean it's traditionally a non-sales area, but if you know someone wants to carve out and have a more intimate conversation over there or wherever the case may be, the team will be equipped to do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:03

And you're right, you actually you said non-sales environment. I I I want to reiterate to folks, you know, a lot of times you're scared to go up to a vendor because you're like, oh man, you're gonna call me every week. And and government does not move on a weekly calendar, it takes a lot longer. Uh it's not a timeshare pitch. Um, literally, you can look at a demo, and if you don't ever do anything, that's fine. Uh so uh I I I think you would too, right? I would encourage everybody. I I I met some lovely people from Carson City, Nevada at AFTO. And they used that theory. Hey, we just want to know what the fuss is about or or what what other people are doing. And they said afterwards, I'm so glad we did that. Um, when can we talk again? Um, so we we we we do not press. Um, but there's some tools right now that are going to change the way things work for the next 20 years uh that are that are coming into existence. And so definitely, if you're at a conference and HS is there, please stop by and um you can reach out to me. If somebody is really pushy with you, you reach out to me because that's just not the way it it's done. And and and we and we think you test us on it, and it'll turn out to be exactly as we said it would be. So, Adam, as we wrap up, and you've got busy, busy life, you're getting ready for Nihon things, but with the fourth coming up here, um, technically the holiday is uh this coming Friday. Uh, you got any plans for the fourth? You guys doing anything with the you and your your family?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:34

Well, we're gonna try to see if we can sneak off to get some uh for my our firstborn daughter so we can sneak off and have her see fireworks for the first time, but it might be too late for her bedtime. But other than that, no. Uh just you know adapting to that uh you know new parent life.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:50

Yes. How do you like it? How's the sleep?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:54

Really good, actually. She sleeps fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:57

Oh, that's great. You're you're you guys are fortunate.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:00

We finally yeah, we got over that uh the six months you know sleep regression, and she sleeps like a baby, as they say.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:08

Is the personality started to come in? It's so fun to watch the traits start to roll in, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:32:13

She she's got this um when she's really focused on something or wants to figure something out, she makes this concentration face that for me it's like looking in the mirror because it's the exact same face I make when I'm focusing on something, and it's scary every now and then. I'm like, oh, you are gonna be just like me or just like your mother in some aspect. So yeah, the personality is coming out. She's a very bubbly little girl, loves everybody.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:37

That is awesome. It's it's the most important thing you'll do. My my uh little granddaughter personality is coming in, and she's decided that I guess she doesn't like hairbows. The first time you think it's an accident, but if her mom puts a hairbow and she looks at her like, and who who do you think you are? And then literally while looking at her, reaches up and flicks it out of her hair. And I'm like, oh boy, you got the worst traits of me. Um well, I hope you get some rest and some time off. Have a really good Fourth of July holiday. We should do this again, actually, because fall conference season uh is coming up, and so you will we'll we'll do this uh from time to time. But thanks for making the time to do it, buddy. And um, I guess I'll see you probably next, actually, at Niha, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:33:21

Mm-hmm. Yep, that's the next time you will see me in person.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:25

All righty, David. Any other wisdom or insights?

SPEAKER_01 1:33:28

No, I got uh let me turn to the camera. I got my girl dad hat on, so yeah, I'm I'm right there with y'all.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:34

So you do. Um, and uh, did we get the smoky ad? Probably not, because that was a stream of conscience. Yeah, no, we will link that though in the comments, and then uh she's gonna be coming on the program. So stay tuned. We're getting through these dog days of summer here, but there will be a lot of really unique content coming out soon on the channel for all of us here at the Beyond Data Management Podcast, powered as it is every Tuesday by HSgovTech. I'm Cameron Garrison. Special thanks to David Stiles in the control room, Adam Smith, marketing genius extraordinaire. We'll see you all back after the fourth. Have a great, safe holiday. Don't get crazy with the firecrackers. We'll see you next time.