What The Funk?

0:00 We are back live, Tim, I feel like we haven't recorded a podcast in a month. It's been two weeks as it turns out. But that one was the only one for then a few weeks. Yeah.

0:14 We're a little behind and a little stressed, because for those who have ever, well, no one should know what we're doing. But sometimes we've had a bank of four of these ready to go. So we've

0:23 always got a backlog, but for this one, we're going to record it It's going to be released pretty much right away. The first summer where we're sort of freed up after 2020 was definitely not

0:37 feeling free. I had a big East Coast trip planned. Your daughter got married and then one went off to school and I'm in Houston when you're not. I mean, things were just crazy, but we're back.

0:50 And really excited to have Bradford Remley from our truck out in West Texas We had a really good conversation. Um, probably about a month ago, maybe a little bit more. I was at a golf course,

1:06 getting my clubs, regrip, shout out, fun futures golf scramble coming up October 1st. Go buffs this weekend. No, no.

1:17 I wish you were covered up, but anyways, you're not, but, but I wanted to, um, was introduced to you via Jake Corley, um, and really enjoyed the conversation. I think there was a lot that you

1:27 could offer a lot of passion behind the business and the story to kind of how you got the business to where it is with our truck. So, um, you know, I'd like to learn a little bit more about your

1:37 background. Um, Texas kid, I think I heard you guys talking about before the show, but, but want to, um, kind of get your full background and what got you to, to where you're at in life and

1:46 career. Sure, man. Hey, thanks for having me and certainly enjoyed the time, uh, they're visiting that Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, while you were on the golf course I was sitting here in

1:55 this office. But, but no, I'm glad well we can be together today so tell you a little bit by myself it's kind of an odd story I am not a Texas Native I'm actually a colorado native but that's only

2:08 by way of the US Army so Yeah grow up in his army Brat dad Mom we moved all over the world all over the United States in about nineteen ninety four not looked at before that I guess seventh grade ish

2:24 would that be nineteen ninety one ninety two whatever dad got stationed in Fort Hood Texas so so since then I've been around Texas and then have found my Way out here in in Midland which has been by

2:40 far the best social and professional move contrary to what everybody says when they say oh don't go to Midland Man it Couldn't get any better and so really blessed but can give you a room or is there

2:55 Okay, I mean, I want to dig into that a little bit. We're definitely going to hit that. We're going to hit that for sure. You want to wait on that? Well, I want to hear the professional part

3:04 'cause let's do that. Yeah, so I'm going to totally bore you. So listen, I was always the nerd in doing the morning announcements in high school, right? On television. That's what I wanted to

3:19 do. Was never scared of getting in front of the entire student body, high school was about, I don't know, let's just put it this way, graduating class was about 360 kids. So a fairly decent

3:31 five-day high school back then. But I never - Which high school? Which high school? Copper's Cove High School. The Bulldog. Okay. So

3:41 just North Austin there, West of Colleen, Texas, which is where Fort Hood is. So anyways, always loved doing that, getting in front of people, the just the behind the scenes part of radio and

3:54 television. and decided that's what I was going to do for my profession. So Dan rather at the time was my idol, you know, I wanted to be like Dan Rather, and so I ended up going to Sam Houston

4:07 State, which is where he graduated from, and the rest is history. So did that for about three and a half years, and then met my wife and had this epiphany that, you know, they never talked about

4:20 how much, you know, beat reporters get paid in the hours they were, and I was like, man, so I get a buddy that gets a job doing it, right? And he comes back to the apartment, he says I, got a

4:32 job, I got a job, and we're like, Okay, how much are you getting paid?

4:37 And he said, well, he told me, he said, Free haircuts, gym membership, car allowance, and a three-year contract. And we're like, All right, keep talking, keep talking. And then he drops

4:50 the bomb, he goes, 27, 000 a year. And you're like, Oh!

4:55 Yeah, but today that would be worth at least like 38 so exactly you do it because you'll love it, right? And and and there was no there was no doubt that I absolutely loved it But you also have to

5:09 be a realistic about is that the challenge that you really want for your life? And so is that is that really what I wanted in my life and and so I thought really hard about it and I said, you know

5:21 Love being on air love talking I said, you know, let me do something completely 180 degrees and so I've lived in a very Traditional household where mom and dad still sit around the dinner table

5:34 every single night completely different than my house But but I remember having to have that conversation. I said to my pops. I was like, hey I think I might have made a mistake and he's like,

5:47 okay. Yeah, we'll talk to me, you know, and my dad's intimidating guy, right? He was a.

5:53 Pilot for 24 years, served all over the world. There we go. Yeah, I know it's what, right? I don't like that. You haven't even had any guy. And I said, you know, I don't know if the last

6:04 three and a half years are exactly what I want. He says, well, listen, I budgeted for five, what you do at the last year and a half is up to you. But when it's over, it's over. And so honestly,

6:15 man, I had a friend that was always complaining about how hard accounting was. Funny, right? I said, accounting's hard. I said, I wouldn't know, because I've been in radio television the last

6:26 three and a half

6:29 years. So I jumped into business school, and I took a couple of accounting courses. And lo and behold, it was basic math. You just have to know how to balance your checkbook. That's why I could

6:39 never be an engineer or some of these disciplines that require extensive math. I could balance the checkbook, though. Ended up being pretty good at it. And so from there - left school got an

6:50 internship with one of the big four at the time. You may remember that was right around the fall of Enron. And so right around, you know, 1999, year 2000, they put in place Sarbanes Oxley. And

7:04 so like I said, I'm born the heck out of you with the professional side, but listen, they were hiring anybody, including me, which is so funny. So anyways, I got on with a big four firm and man,

7:20 you know, decided like most young kids at 25. Listen, this is what I'm gonna be. I'm gonna live in Houston the rest of my life. So I might as well get in the energy business and ended up joining

7:31 one of the predecessor companies of what's today is our truck 15 years ago as an internal auditor. And I have been really blessed to have a ton of great mentors that have been willing to take a risk

7:45 on me and put me in positions that the resume It doesn't necessarily. suggest you might be decent at, but they took a shot on me and, you know, I've always been one that says, you know, we'll

7:57 worry about success later. Right now, I just need to add value. So I was always willing to take the risk of adding value, which means doing something new and different, which you could be a

8:07 colossal failure at, and was able to work my way to the position that I'm in now, which is, you know, I run the operation for our company out here in the Permian Basin, which is the largest part

8:18 of our business from a compression perspective, about 115 million horsepower, about, you know, 1, 100 units, 200 or so people. So really blessed and got a great team and a great business.

8:33 Tim, you know, you know, I got to ask, right? Oh, yeah. What? So there's people that listen to the show that aren't in the oil patch at all, friends, maybe family Start with the basics.

8:44 What is gas compression? Super simple. And this is this is my elevator pitch. I move money. This is simple as that. So when you drill a well, oil and gas are living in that well together.

8:57 Hopefully out here in the Permene, it's more liquids than gas. Oh, yeah. But nevertheless - Gas is creeping up. Gas is creeping up right now, though. Oh, yeah. Listen, if we can ever get

9:08 back to 2008 and1400 am, oh my gosh. Yeah, right. That will be the day. Oh, I don't know. Chuck Yates was saying some of that, Tim If you watched his, some of the short clips from Nape, he

9:21 was saying he's predicting125 oil in the next few years, nothing's gonna stop it. I get there, but I can squint my eyes and see how people come up with that. I just think there's so much drilling

9:34 capabilities that once it creeps up anywhere, it's gonna be the Wild West again. People just go, the money will follow them. Yeah, I mean, we've got enough.

9:45 We've got enough gas locked in the ground in places and we know where it is, we just have to have an incentive to go get it. I just, I can't see us getting to 14 for M, but I could see eight and I

9:57 could see, if we could sustain eight, I'd be pretty happy. Anyway, sorry to cut you off, but yeah, but yeah, I mean, I think it's valuable. So this is one thing, before we jump into full gas

10:07 compression, and maybe you could just break this down for me as, what would I say, an intermediate level, upstream oil and gas expert You know, I'm just, I'm curious, you have companies that

10:21 operate, say, in the Marcellus, and they are trying to produce natural gas, whereas in a place like the Permian in West Texas, you're trying to produce oil, but you also have the gas. Now, why

10:34 do some companies have a preference for, hey, we're gonna be here, we're gonna focus on gas, and effectively in West Texas, you're like, we want oil, gases, whatever, maybe it needs to be

10:43 worth more for us not to flare it. What is the byproduct of that? Is it takeaway capacity? Is it lifting cost? Like give me a basic understanding 'cause I've always been curious that natural gas

10:55 is valued so highly here and not nearly as much there. Sure. So there's a couple of things that go into that. The first and most obvious is that's the plot of land that they purchased, the leases

11:11 they got whenever they got them. So that's the land that they've got They've got to do something with it, right? And so you got to back your way into the problem a little bit, okay? If I'm in a

11:22 dry gas play, dry gas is actually pretty good because I don't have to spend a ton of money scrubbing it, sending to plants. But then again, I also don't have the revenue stream that those NGLs

11:33 produce, right? So then I go, okay, if I don't have the revenue stream but I have the acreage and I have a business, well now I've got to become a low cost operator, right? And so then that's

11:44 how they back into it to generate a margin.

11:48 So that's all the difference. Ultimately, the problem with gas is it's hard to move. If you don't have a pipeline to stick it in, you can't just out in the field stick it in a truck and drive it

12:01 somewhere like you can oil or some other commodity. So you have to be able to move it. And so until you've got a pipeline nearby to stick it in, well, it's awfully hard to justify You know, or,

12:14 you know, justify what to do with it. And so I think that's really just the ultimate answer, Jeremy, is there's no place to put it, but we want the oil, it's valuable enough that we'll put up

12:25 with doing something with the gas. Unless we've got a, we get convinced somebody to put enough pipeline in and we get connected to it and we get some compression to shove that gas into that pipeline.

12:38 Yeah, so a couple of things about the Marcellus, which I think you're hitting on the infrastructures there. And the other thing is, you have a captive audience, a huge portion of North America's

12:49 population is in the Northeast, right, which is fed by the Marcellus. So you have demand, you have the infrastructure, it's clean, dry gas, you're able to produce it. So then let's look at the

13:01 Hainsville. The beauty of the Hainsville is you don't have to have meat. The gas comes out of the ground at well above 2000 PSI, which is unbelievable So pressure just through the roof, right? So

13:15 you don't have the most costly part of LOE is my gas compressor. So when you're able to remove that from the equation, oh my gosh, all of a sudden there's more incremental operating cash there that

13:30 makes sense and you can generate a better margin.

13:35 Yeah, I mean, I just envision if you have the right plot of land and the right takeaway capacity, You could have an. oil well, right? You have natural gas as well coming off. You have Bitcoin

13:48 mining. Incidentally, you have solar panels. No, I'm not kidding. Like what's stopping an operator from doing all that and maximizing every possible stream of energy revenue they can capture with

13:59 that asset. Or is it just more cost conscious to try to get what you can out of the ground and your one means? Like I don't know, general questions. Like I have thoughts of what the answers are,

14:09 but you know, you guys are experts at this Well, I think the, I'm gonna go hit the Bitcoin thing because I think even Jake and

14:17 Colin had someone on about it, you know, basically people who don't have the takeaway capacity or taking container trucks, sticking them out on a well site, using the gas to generate electricity

14:29 and just run servers to mine Bitcoin. That's cool. You know, and it's just because, hey, we have the gas, let's generate some electricity and use it and power our servers. And that's really

14:38 cool, but they're not selling the gas, They're just using it. If they had a pipeline to stick that gas in and the right compression and the right dollars for getting the gas out, they'd probably

14:51 prefer just to send in the pipeline on down the road. Interesting, interesting. Unless you're just super bullish on Bitcoin or something. I don't know. So I'm gonna take you down another path.

15:00 So compression, let's talk a little bit about your business here. So

15:05 you are selling or leasing compressors. Are you guys monitoring the compressors? Is that part of your services? Are you really just trying to get the horsepower in the field? So we are strictly a

15:17 rental company. Okay. And then we set and service the compressor. The customer does the full hookup on the inlet and the discharge side. And that's kind of getting back to what we do when I said

15:30 we move money. We're the link between the sales line and the wheelhead. It's a really tight spot. I'm like an ATM, you know? Yeah ATM is supposed to spit dollar bills. point nine percent of the

15:43 time. And so when all of a sudden it's not, man, you talk about a high pressure situation. Literally. Are you selling or leasing them? Yeah, so it's all rentals, right? Yeah, it's all

15:56 rentals. Back in the day when we used to be exterior and we decided to split off completely because the business got so complicated with the fabrication side of the business where I would also sell

16:09 the units to end users. And then you had a rental business and then all these other associated oil field businesses, it got really confusing. And frankly, our shareholders didn't value all that we

16:20 brought to the table. So they're like, okay, you're rental, you're fab, but I'm still pricing you all the same. And so you could spin off and get more clarity on the rental compression side and

16:32 still retain that value from a shareholder perspective. And so it really cleaned things up, made it a lot easier for us, both from a Wall Street perspective. but it really focused our company on

16:43 serving our customers 'cause we had nothing else to pull away our attention, right? You had no competing priorities. And so what you see today is the majority of the large gas compression providers

16:58 only do one thing, provide rental compression. Everybody's kind of gone away from the model of, I'm the one-stop shop for all your gas compression needs.

17:07 So one other part of the compression from a technical side, and just so Jeremy can ask one more question. So is there a difference when you're placing, releasing a compressor, is it a different

17:21 compressor for putting it in a sales line versus maybe a gas lift kind of compressors? Is it no difference? Great question, great question. Yeah, just not to ask that. Yeah, so what are the

17:33 conditions that you have, right? Do you have really low well-head pressure, let's say 50 pounds, let's say the Permian, for example, A traditional Permian application is what we call it. stage

17:43 application. And so that basically goes through three stages of compression. You follow me? So let's say the first stage takes it from 50 pounds to 200. The next stage takes it from 200 to 800.

17:55 The final stage takes it from 800 to

17:59 1300. To get into a pipeline out here in West Texas, you need between 1, 100 and 1, 200 pounds to overtake the line pressure. And so over up in the Northeast, it's all two stage equipment,

18:12 right? Their lines run at, you know, 200 pounds of suction pressure to 800 pounds of discharge pressure. So we package all different types of stage compression to service our customers needs. But

18:27 predominantly out here in the Permian, it's three stage compressors all the way. So let's think again, 30 to 50, 1, 100 to 1, 300 discharge. So for a compressor that's going to go on to a gas

18:40 lift, So basically to enhance production, is that gonna be just more of a simple single stage compressor? I, as a matter of fact, no, because they need, most gas lift wells are sort of set at

18:53 about 1, 100, 1, 000 to 1, 100 pounds to open up. And so you need that discharge pressure. Anywhere, is that like, by basin, or is that just sort of like the number that it is from a

19:06 scientific perspective? Yeah, I am not a downhole guy, but that is the number that I see most right ago See, now he's in a cat, now he's in a cat and Tim, see, that's well done, I knew it was

19:14 gonna happen. I was gonna come back to the engine. So I'm trying to play a straight man to you a little bit, 'cause I am an engineer and have studied gas lift, and I'm trying not to jump in and

19:26 answer a bunch of questions. Yes, I mean, it really just depends on the well, and the pressure you've gotta overtake down whole. And for those who are laymen when it comes to things like gas lift,

19:37 what is it? You're effectively. injecting gas at a certain depth in the well bore to lighten the liquids so they to the gas and the liquids can now flow to the surface so rather than using a a

19:51 sucker rod pump to lift the lift the liquids out of the ground you're letting the gas go in and expand and push everything up bubble up and so I think of it capturing the gas recycling it back down in

20:05 the well so it just keeps going around and I was here when Luke Wallace was on the podcast him I'm not sure if you are also here that day but I was there that day Yeah now that that was a good good

20:15 description I really do very much appreciate appreciate that but not I mean there there's a lot of science that goes into it right so who do you sell to like you you do business with upstream oil and

20:27 gas companies ride companies that drill and produce oil and as well as the purchasers of product on the other side yacht MPs amid streamers are Our target Target audience

20:41 And so right now, we're seeing an absolute boom from a midstream perspective because of the, it's not because there's tremendous growth in demand. It's because regulations from a flaring

20:52 perspective are absolutely limiting the ENP's ability to flare that extra gas. So in the old days, what would happen is you would, you would gas lift in that loop that you were talking about and

21:06 then any excess gas that you didn't need in the loop, oftentimes you'd flare it. Now we've got to produce it. And so that need to produce is driving tremendous demand from a midstream perspective

21:18 to carry it out here.

21:22 And I think that's a good thing from an ESG perspective. I know we've been, we've talked about it a bunch and we know that that's coming. And so the pressure to reduce that, either voluntarily or

21:32 regulatory, it's there. And quite frankly, it needs to be done I don't think companies necessarily want to. want to flare, right? Like it's a, it's a, it's a sort of like a unfortunate

21:44 byproduct of if that is not the product that you're producing, you got nothing else to do with it. If there's nowhere to take it, right? So you burn it into the air. It's, it's, these are smart

21:53 guys. If they can sell it, they're going to sell it. I mean, that's just in that too. And it's their business guys. So yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, it's always been like, well, it's

22:01 unfortunate, but it's nice to see that there's, you know, like you said, more of a demand for some of that takeaway. And I don't know I mean, it's not going to last forever, right? We can't

22:10 just burn away all of the natural gas, right? If it is a finite resource, I don't know when that finite is, but it is finite. Right, Tim? Yeah, it's, well, I mean, it's finite, but as the

22:22 price goes up, we'll find more. I mean, there's never a, so it is truly infinite. Like if you were to say, how many billions of barrels of oil, trillions are available right now, and how long

22:37 will that last, even with the additional potential upticks, like a hundred years? You're asking me, okay, there is, all right, when you produce, I'm gonna, all right, now we're gonna get

22:49 technical. You asked me as a long question. Sorry. I gotta jump in, but, so when you produce an oil reservoir, let's take a West Texas reservoir, you start producing it, you expect to get 20,

23:00 25 of the oil that's in the ground out And then you might inject water and do a water flood, you might inject CO2, do a little CO2 flood. You know, and the most you can really expect to get, and,

23:13 45 know you of the oil that's in the ground. Okay. Okay, so there's 55 in there, and it's either locked in like it's attached to the rock itself, so it's not coming off or there's all kinds of

23:24 things. But if the price of oil were300 a barrel, we would figure out how to get that 55 I mean, that is so mean. There is a ton of oil left in the ground after we've produced that we can go after.

23:39 And likewise, gas gets stuck in there. You start producing it at some point. There's only so much compression you can put on the well to suck the gas out. So you're going to leave something behind.

23:48 But if gas were14

23:51 brims, yeah, we're going to figure some things out. I mean, it's just, you know, it's, so the, as, I mean, you remember Chuck was on our show. He said the cure for high oil prices is high

24:04 oil prices and the cure for lower prices, lower prices. Similarly, you get the price high enough, we're going to go figure out a way to get more of it. And, you know, and it might be that we

24:14 start, you know, go back to, if we still need oil in 50 years, we might be going, and it's whatever price, you know, the Exxon's algae experiment might pop up and we might just start producing

24:24 crude oil from algae again. Who knows? I got, I got one more technical question for Bradford. And then I want to talk about Midland being a fun, social place for a relatively young guy with a

24:36 family and all that stuff, right? So when did gas compression like start? You know what I mean? I know oil, you know, the first while I was drilled in 1860 in Pennsylvania, but when did gas

24:49 compression start? So I can't tell you the exact day, but I can't tell you that my company's been in business doing gas compression for the last 69 years. So at least goes back that far And then if

25:04 we did some research on when

25:08 aerial is, sort of the package that is most requested these days is a caterpillar engine married to an aerial frame. We could figure out the date because that guy invented the aerial frame in Mount

25:22 Vernon, Ohio. There's definitely a date on when that thing came off the first production line. But remember, it started out really, really small And that goes back to your question, Jim, about.

25:33 the stages of compression, right? You require more and more horsepower to move more flow. And so what we're seeing is, yeah. So back in the day, when gas lift first kind of hit the

25:46 market, you know, you were basically moving, I don't know, about 750, 000 through 200 horsepower machine. The most nobody's called a Caterpillar 3306TA, fits in the bed of your truck, small,

26:00 right? Then that was a single well machine. Then it moved to a three to five well machine, which demanded 380 horsepower because we could start doing punches and bunches and get that overall LOE

26:12 down by going with a bigger machine, right? And then it got to, it just kept graduating. And the beauty of the compressor businesses, everything is just a scaled up version of that very first

26:26 small one. And now, I mean, they are monstrous. you could say that about oil and gas drilling in general

26:35 the way that it started and then the the fundamental breakthroughs like now You've got me thinking what's next obviously like you know fracking was a big deal to be able to unlock additional reserves

26:46 what's next to get that forty five percent it's him says is still on the ground when you even leave it right so I think It'll be It'll be interesting and it's all about surfactants jeremy what

26:58 surfactants so Yeah I think he just said it's him though but you know demand drives technology right up if a problem exists in demand is high enough to solve that problem somebody's going to go out

27:11 there and unlock that value solve that problem and that's ultimately what's been done over a shoot out here in the delaware basin in the Midland Basin just in the last ten years the explosion that

27:22 we've seen in business all that is driven by demand price and to your point people finding reserve that they didn't know exactly was big and that healthy. Yeah. And it just keeps coming. Absolutely.

27:37 All right. So let's talk to Midland. How long you been out there, Brad? So I've been out here full time for the last four years, but kind of a funny story. The two years prior to that, I lived

27:50 in a hotel next to Sam's Club two on two off, split in time.

27:57 And yeah, I'll be honest with you guys When, so I was living in West Fort Worth, which is a lovely, lovely part of Fort Worth, beautiful town. Awesome part of Texas. Yeah. And, and so, you

28:10 know, I'd always seen the writing on the wall, right? I saw that the Barnett show was dying. Dry gas was going away. There really wasn't any demand for it. And, and oil was where it was at. So

28:20 you always knew on the outskirts, you're looking at that. You're going, okay, that's the Super Bowl. That's the future. And that's what I always kind of to refer to the Permian as it. It is the

28:28 Super Bowl. There's no bigger stage. uh, then what we got.

28:35 And so, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you're a Cowboys fan. I know those who are, those who are not watching, Jeremy is wearing a Patriots hat. And if someone mentions a Super Bowl, he can't help

28:47 showing his Patriots hat and six fingers for the six Super Bowl. But I also showed respect for the Cowboys, there we go. I love it. America's team The Patriots. But anyways, they do have a

29:00 football game tonight. So I mean, I can see that when you're going out and visiting West Texas, right? It's got to be a lot different than living there. It does seem like the people that live

29:13 there really truly love it and embrace it. So you're you got three kids, right? I got two kids, two boys, 15 and 12. Two boys. Oh, nice. Okay So, you know, very competitive sports wise, we

29:26 know Joe Norman came out here, Midland League Champion back what 20 years ago or something like that national champion. Yeah, we that's what he's claiming Look

29:41 they didn't play a game. They didn't play a game. It was just Well, I actually looked up after he came on like they dominated everyone They won every game by 40 plus points or something So I guess

29:54 if it's like well if you're in 5a and you beat everybody by 40 points Texas You are then officially the best team because no one in California did the same thing in the best division there or Florida

30:04 Right. Yeah, there was no IMG Academy back then. He's like how they used to give the national championship in college football Which made no sense. Yeah

30:19 A great place to raise kids. I mean, I mean there's not I mean while you've just planning to go dude the sports are crazy even as

30:31 I went out for one of my summer internships. I went out to Midland to work for Fina at the time out there, you know, a great summer internship. But I was really excited by, you know, we were

30:40 busy. We had so much to go do and have fun. And I don't know if it's still there, but is summer mommars still a big deal out? I absolutely went to it this season. It was great. Thankfully, I

30:52 was too broke long enough that we could go do it. Yeah, I'm gonna tell you that that was one of the coolest things. And when someone finally talked me into, I thought, oh, this is a noggin.

31:03 That sounds really hokey, but they wound up, I wound up volunteering every day a gum night that was open to work it because it was so much fun. This thing - What's it? What's it? Summer mommars.

31:14 It's a, all right, maybe you, since you're good elevator pitches, Brad, what is the elevator pitch on summer mommars? So what I will tell you is, if you've ever done the Rocky Horror Picture

31:23 Show in a theater where, but except it's a live performance, So the people are performing a skit, which is the beauty of it, is it's all about Midland related stuff. So they're making fun of

31:34 local politicians, local businesses, the local minor league sports teams. You know what I mean, football code. Yeah, exactly, that's what they're doing. And so the whole time you know - The

31:45 whole time you know the most stuff. Yeah, so they sell you these big giant beers, okay? And then they sell you these huge bags of popcorn and you buy them by the tray And the whole time you just

31:57 chunk popcorn and it's sad to say you yell obscenities and it's just a great time. Yeah, so the summer I was there, I volunteered to be like basically a pit boss and I got half-price beer and free

32:14 popcorn, right? And during the intermissions and this thing at the end where they're all dancing and doing kind of old West things, I was supposed to. Now I'm supposed to. throw popcorn at the

32:27 patrons and keep them from fighting, but throw popcorn, so they throw it back at me, they throw it at each other, and they go buy popcorn. And it was, it's just, and this is in Midland, Texas.

32:40 Now, you expect it maybe in some crazy, cool, you know, suburb of Houston or something, but you just don't expect it to be in Midland, but it's there. And it's, I always thought it was the

32:51 craziest thing. Here we are plugging summer murmurs, but sure, I found it amazing. But I think you're touching on something, right? There's a level of culture and there's a lot of cool things

33:03 that go on down here. Unless you live here, you don't necessarily get 'cause it doesn't have that cosmopolitan feel in a theater district that some of the larger cities have. But yeah, so plug in

33:15 summer murmurs, it's like it's put on in the Yucka theater that was built back in the early 1900s. So it's just super cool And there's a lot to it.

33:26 Yeah I mean I really liked Texas and I'd feel like I with with Permian or should I say the Permian area Midland like I probably need to to go out there again and have some people show me around right

33:40 because if experience is mainly based on just having drinks in the Doubletree

33:46 Hotel Bar with colleagues you know and and business meetings during the day I Miss an outright so I need to like get together with a bunch of the people that are there so I'm Gonna Count on you for

33:55 that they energy Tech night Energy Tech Night Midland Texas not be a terrible idea Yeah Yeah and they just built a phenomenal Convention Center downtown analysts so it is it is top notch the totally

34:12 new Age I mean it is a really nice place I got to go to A I went to a make a wish foundation sort of Swanky deal where you put on a Tuxedo and the wife wears a dress and you go out and do something

34:24 really nice And you're sitting there. You got that Midland? Absolutely, they have that Midland. And let me tell you, they built this big, you know, plaza with fountains and all of that. And

34:35 they're able to wall it off to put on private concerts and you're out there dancing in a beautiful climate. Most people don't understand that about Midland. It is super air-fed. It always cools

34:45 down because we're in the desert and you can go out in late September. It's, I always just say, come on, it's Southern California It's the exact same. Tim, I would argue that the weather is

34:59 better in Midland than Houston. I'm

35:03 not gonna counter that at all. I would agree wholeheartedly. And just if you, well, all you had to mention was humidity. Oh, can I'm, you have already agreed with your statement. So bad. Yeah.

35:17 So I mean, that's just crazy. Now, I would like to hit another thing. Sure, go ahead. I'm gonna pivot. We're talking, I know, finish your point on Midland because I'm pivoting you to another

35:26 topic. So, of course, and I can go down rabbit trails, which you guys can see. But the last thing that I'll say about Midland that makes it so awesome is the city's always riding high together.

35:36 And they're always riding low together. Because every one of us are in some part of the oil field stream. So no matter what, you got somebody to drink. No matter what. Yeah, I mean, the

35:47 bartender at the double tree is equally invested in the energy business as is Brad, you know, your dentist kid is, you know, production foreman. Yeah. So even if your business is different, you

36:01 know, your clientele is 87 oil field. Yeah, it's, it's amazing. All right, so I'm an Air Force brat, your army brat. And so, you know, I know what that means moving around. Of course, as a

36:13 matter of fact, your dad's a pilot, my dad's a pilot, so we can, we can do those. Nice. But, but one of the things I find interesting about, and this is the first time we met, but listen to

36:23 you talk. uh, when you're a military brat, you move around a lot. So you have two choices with every new station that you go to. I can be that guy that goes out and meets people and has a good

36:36 time and really enjoying a joiner, or I can be that guy that's just going to sit off in the corner and not do anything. And clearly you've chosen kind of the joiner mentality. I mean, so I mean,

36:49 comment, I'd like to understand the moving around from place to place. How has that impacted? I think your personality and your ability to go do what you're doing now. Sure. It's a it's a great

37:02 question. So two things.

37:06 The beauty of moving around constantly, you get really comfortable with yourself because you do spend a lot of time by yourself. It takes, as we all know, we're grown men now and it was was tough

37:20 when we were kids, it takes time to get in a circle of trust with anybody. right to acclimate. So you get really comfortable and self-sufficient, which I think is a great quality to have. You

37:34 just need yourself. I don't need anybody else to really give me that confidence or that, like you get what I'm saying. But the next thing is you also have to, 'cause I'm not that guy that is just

37:48 gonna sit in my room and stare at the wall, you get really comfortable at striking up conversations and having lots of acquaintances, very few friends. And even today, I have very few real friends

38:01 because you kept leaving them. And every time you left them, that hurt. So that is exactly the point I was gonna go to. It's easy to meet people, be friendly, but to develop that long-term

38:14 relationship. And you might be great friends for the two years you're there, but you know, all right, in six months, I'm leaving, he's leaving.

38:23 I'll just make another set over here. So it was very, I found it very interesting that I could jettison, it's gonna sound really negative, but I could jettison and recognize that this is a

38:34 temporary thing and detach and move on. And you know, and then being in the military, sometimes you run across a guy who's now stationed at the same base that you are and you reconnect and it's

38:46 like you never stopped. You pick right back up and that's the beauty of it. It is unbelievable. You pick up where you left off And that has really served me well, professionally and socially,

38:57 right? 'Cause you just kind of get back into the swing of things. But to your, Jeremy, you were just kind of saying that's kind of sad. It is sad, but it's part of the part of the job as an army

39:10 class. It's just perspective changing. Yeah, it's perspective changing. I mean, I could look back and say, you know, when I used to go to sleep waste summer camp, the last day I camp,

39:17 everybody would cry, right? And that was sad, but whatever. It is what it is Uh, for me. Like I, that my parents still live in the same house that I was born in that I grew up in. Like in

39:31 Eliana, my wife, her mom is still on that, her parents are divorced, but her mom is still in the house that she grew up in and went to high school, right? So for us, we wouldn't entertain

39:43 moving. You know what I mean? It's like we put our roots down here in Lafayette, Colorado, and we may move houses at some point, but we're here, right? And the friends are here, and hopefully

39:53 everybody stays here, 'cause I think that was the world that we grew up with. So it's really kind of eye-opening for me to hear that, that it kind of, you learn, you view the world differently,

40:03 right? You're more independent at a younger age. I'll tell you that my wife and I both, Karen and me, both were Air Force brats, and moved around. It's cool. So for us, the place means nothing.

40:15 So it terrifies my kids, 'cause we wound up just getting rooted and staying in one place, I told the kids that one time I had an opportunity to go work in Malaysia. And I said, yeah, I might take

40:24 it. The kids were horrified, terrified. And my wife and I just can't understand it. No, we'll just go to another place. We'll just live there for a few years. But, you know, so it's

40:33 interesting how that changes. But, but that's just, you know, to me, I don't see anything wrong with it because it's my perspective. So I can't comprehend your parents, Jeremy, staying in one

40:45 place. I just simply can't figure that out I mean, I can't comprehend why they chose there, but I can comprehend why that was kidding. I'm just kidding. Well, for me, and Tim, you probably

40:57 don't, the, it gave me a perspective even as adult right now that material things mean nothing because you always had to leave them behind. Life was always about the experience. And when you're in

41:07 the service, you get so many different opportunities to generate experiences that if you live in the same place for 30 years, which again, my wife has lived in the exact same house her entire life

41:18 as well. She married me and my oil field career, I moved more in the first 10 years of my oil field career than my dad did in the service. And so I was like, oh my gosh, here I have a lovely

41:31 officer's wife that is just, I'm so blessed that she's moving with me and not drawing a line in the sand. And I love it. I love it. We're all better for it. 'Cause she got to see so much more of

41:44 the world than you typically do if your life is just attached to that one zip code, your whole life So what's the most exotic place station that you guys were at when you were growing up? Oh,

41:57 Dassettuxes. No, I got to live in Korea during the 88 Olympics. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so that was super cool. That was really cool. Carl Lewis, like, was that one Ben Johnson cheated the steroids

42:12 thing? And then they threw out the, remember that?

42:18 The eighty eight or ninety two floater no ninety two is Atlanta no ninety six it was Barcelona Ninety Six Atlanta Man Look at your Eighty or the knowledge that we saw where we are now bro we're into

42:34 you We've wandered into his his strong point lead when asked about politics real Quick okay or let's talk about vaccines okay let me tell you what I know about vaccines now what would I do what I know

42:47 about things in general is I know a lot about oil and gas technology and I know a lot about random stupid sporting events that happened besides that I know nothing

42:59 what you're you're my source for a lot of things jeremy that you know when we start talking about Hazy IP A's I do go I want these guys to sponsor so this is not a hazy IP but as a hop tea so they are

43:12 now like putting like immense amount of hops in black tea, green tea, like different types of hops. Like, so I drink these during the day, it's awesome. So is that my father? So is that my

43:23 father? The bitter tea?

43:26 It's no, no, I mean, it's just got like, Flowers? Yeah, some are more floral, right? Some are more bitter. It also depends, I think, on the tea. I don't know, my buddy's been hyping him,

43:38 but hop tea, if you're listening. I've found the first part of his podcast My brother and my father love IPAs, and they sit there talking around about IPUs and all the time, you know? IPUs. Yeah,

43:50 yeah, yeah. But I found a coffee, I forget where, that's roasted with hops. Oh my god. So it was, it's the bitter on bitter, and the two of them, they loved it. We can't find it again, but

44:04 I'm sure someone's gonna figure that out and probably send us some. I mean, I'm imagining that this is fairly, fairly hot stuff. I mean, I even remember thinking years ago, Like, why doesn't

44:13 LaCroix just do a hot flavored one? You've got all kinds of people flocking to these breweries right and left for the hops. So yet again, we put another business idea out here and we haven't

44:23 protected it before we set it out loud, Jeremy. I got a lot of business ideas. Here's another one that's completely off the cuff. So you know what Cameo is?

44:34 No. Cameo, is that the video service? Yeah. So like, Tim, if you wanted to pay Mike Evans, right, to say happy birthday to your daughter, who's a huge fan, right? And you might pay Mike

44:47 Evans60 for a minute long clip or something. If you want to pay Tiger Woods, it might be600, right? Or whatever it is. I like the idea, people can steal this. I don't care. I'm not going to

44:52 execute on it. The

44:55 idea of like

45:01 a Cameo, but almost in real time. So like, if you are with a client that you want to impress, right, and you know that they're a big Oklahoma state fan, and you can book like during the day

45:12 Barry Sanders at this time I want him for100 for five minutes. just to come on and talk to the dude that said wow

45:22 that idea that just like cameo but scheduling it and having it available so if you're like a wealthy celebrity or whatever you just say hey this is my Price I'm Snoop dogg this is what you pay like

45:33 I'm available these hours on this day boom and he just boom boom boom boom see that's so you know that the old sales guy technique the old sales Guy comes into an office and looks around and sees the

45:44 big fish and sees the Tom Brady Poster behind Jeremy's head and you know all that that would be you go in once you figure out okay I'm going to get Tom Brady to to chat with this Guy for thirty

45:56 seconds you've Yeah there real quick before we leave the meeting Tom Yeah Yeah Tom would be Justin Bieber Justin Bieber Hey say Say

46:10 Yeah I think that's going to cost a little bit More I think that's where we probably cut this episode

46:16 This was a blast, Brad. I do want to see you when I head out to West Texas. I appreciate you being gregarious and also accommodating for this. I feel like we'd scheduled this months ago and made a

46:28 good work. It's all good work. I had my own deviation last week, Sono worries. And why don't you tell us where people can find your company website, wherever they can - Yeah, so just go to

46:39 wwwartrockcom. Everything you could ever

46:43 want to know about our organization is on there And man, I just really appreciate you guys' time.