[00:00:00] Speaker A: Learn more about fun local events and interesting people throughout the heart of middle Tennessee. With a dash of everyday tech talk thrown in for good measure. The local click starts now.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the local click. The December edition of the local Click. I'm Nick Noakes and this is Justin Malden. Justin, thank you for joining us again this month.
[00:00:22] Speaker C: Pleasure to be back again.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Are you excited about Christmas time?
[00:00:27] Speaker C: Listen, it's the holiday season, holiday spirit. We're going to be spreading Christmas cheer with DTC with some things that we're going to be doing that I know you'll talk about later. And I think this is the most wonderful time of the year.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: It's my favorite as well. I love it. I love it. And you can definitely tell it's almost Christmas time because it's gotten colder since we last met.
[00:00:46] Speaker C: It has been very chilly. The high today, I think, is only going to get to 40 degrees. And I know one of our guests later is going to talk about heating and cooling. And he probably really enjoys this time of the year because it's probably really good for business.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: I think it's very good for business. I think that's a good point for sure. As far as coming up in just a moment, I know that you'll be talking to us a little bit about some of your tech tips. You always have a lot of great information on that, as well as the Tech News Roundup. We'll have Jared Bradshaw here with us momentarily with his Ask the Expert segment, which will be a lot of fun. We'll have. What's up, DTC? Where we talk about some of the different things going on in DTC land for the month of December. And we've got a couple of great interviews for today as well. We'll have Virginia and Susan with Rockabilla Coffee out of Carthage, Tennessee. And coming up now, though, we've got an interview with someone you kind of alluded to just a moment ago. And that's Randy Lamberson with Randy's Heating and Air.
Welcome back to the show. And today with me for this segment, I have Randy Lamberson with Randy's Heating and Air. Hello, Randy. How are you?
[00:01:57] Speaker D: How are you doing today?
[00:01:57] Speaker B: I'm great. How are you?
[00:01:58] Speaker D: Doing? Great.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: I appreciate you being with us and coming over to Woodbury. I don't know, you guys probably do a little work here and there.
[00:02:05] Speaker D: We do a little bit of work over here. We love the weather outside. It's starting to get cold. That's true business.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: That's that's right. Right? Now, speaking of business, when did you guys start? What's the history of how you got started in this?
[00:02:16] Speaker D: I actually started out with a pickup truck and a bag of tools. So really no house to live in. Yes, it's part of life, and it's worked up to evolve to be a lot bigger than I ever imagined. But you take care of the customers and they will take care of you.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: And you know, that's the secret to running a good business anyway, isn't it?
[00:02:33] Speaker D: It is.
But your hours sometimes are not guaranteed. You don't know when you're going to be working. Sometimes you have to get up and go when you don't expect to.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Anybody that works for themselves the way that you do and the way the business started, there's really no time clock to punch out.
[00:02:51] Speaker D: There is not. There is not. I was getting ready to go to church Sunday morning and I ended up only up in Carthage.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: You didn't plan it, but that's where you plan it.
[00:03:00] Speaker D: But that's where we ended up.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: So how did you get started in this industry as far as did you go to some kind of technical or trade?
[00:03:06] Speaker D: I did. I went to a technical trade school. We grew up on a dairy farm. I'll give you a little history and there used to be two or three men, they owned a little TV shop there in Watertown and they used to come out all the time. And one of them, I called it, drove an old Scooby Doo van. And anyway, he had this big diamond. I asked him, I said, how'd you get that? He said, if you ever get a trade under your belt, said you'll never want for anything, but you've got to work to earn that. So I said, well I'm going to try that. So anyway, when I got out of school, I started technical trade school over in Murfreesboro. Montelove State Community College.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:03:36] Speaker D: Then I went to working part time with an advanced commercial refrigeration, a commercial outfit in Murfreesboro. And I would go to school till twelve and then work till twelve or 01:00 in the morning, get up and milk cows, be back at school at 730. I did that for a year and I couldn't.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:03:54] Speaker D: Anyway, it all turned out for the best. All turned out really well.
[00:03:58] Speaker B: I think hard work is in your DNA.
[00:04:00] Speaker D: Sounds like it is. We grew up and we graduated out of the milkshed.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: So have you lived in Watertown for a long time?
[00:04:07] Speaker D: All my life. Yeah, all my life.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: So you graduated from watertown?
[00:04:10] Speaker D: Well, graduated 1985.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:04:13] Speaker D: Watertown High School.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: There you go. You're a huge supporter of different events throughout the Watertown community. Athletics and that sort of thing.
[00:04:19] Speaker D: We do, we support that. Ball fields, basketball teams, softball, soccer, wrestling, I mean, about all of them. You name it, you name it, we do it.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:04:29] Speaker D: Yeah. But if you support the community, they will support you. That's true.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: That's true. So how big has the company grown to today?
[00:04:36] Speaker D: Started out just me and then my brother came along and he wanted just said, can we make it? And I said, I think we can make it. And now it's evolved a lot more than that. We take care of people. And I work around 15 to 16 people, and then I've got sub crews, and most days we're working anywhere from 15 to 16 to 20 to 25.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:04:57] Speaker D: Anyway and you just go out and take care of the customers. Like I said, they'll take care of you.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: You've got to be one of the larger employers in Watertown. Maybe the largest.
[00:05:05] Speaker D: I don't know. Not the largest, but I'm up yeah, in the top there's one or two that's quite a few more, but Watertown's.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: Not that big of a but we've.
[00:05:14] Speaker D: Had a little bit of industry grow up out in industrial park out there, and it's evolved a lot out there. So they've got a few out there that's employing quite a few employees.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: As far as the brands that you typically sell, when you're recommending a unit for someone, if they're in the market, there are certain ones you kind of steer towards most of the time.
[00:05:32] Speaker D: We do a lot of ream product. We do a lot of American Standard product and some Yorker product.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:05:39] Speaker D: And we'll go up to about 30 tons. And Diane, we do a lot of light commercial, small industrial, but 30 tons is about as big as I want to go. We take care of a lot of churches, so there's any given Sunday you may be at a church somewhere.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: That's true. What kind of services do you provide? I know you do installs for new units. Do you also do repairs?
[00:06:02] Speaker D: We do repairs. I run four service trucks every day, and if we need another one to run service, I mean, we'll run five. And if they can't handle it, I'll jump in there and go help them. So, I mean, that's no problem whatsoever. But we work on a lot of units every day.
Most days it'll vary on service calls. You'll do anywhere from ten up to 40 a day. It just depends on how the work is, how the weather is. And if you do 40 a day, there's not a lot wrong with a lot that you've seen.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:06:31] Speaker D: They were quicker, but most of the time you'll end up to 2010 to 20 or better that you do a day.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: Do you see the workload shifting dramatically with the changing seasons and weather and that sort of thing? I guess, put in stress and things.
[00:06:44] Speaker D: There's a lot more repairs right now due to the economy the way it is as well.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: That's true, too.
[00:06:49] Speaker D: There's a lot more and supply and demand has got the parts where they're hard to get compared to some are and some are not. Some of them we're getting in a timely manner, and some of them are not so timely. Yeah, we waited on some commercial units for some commercial buildings for over twelve months. Eleven months we're having to wait. They've gone back down to seven months now on some of them.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: So some of this, I guess, is probably due to the COVID It is.
[00:07:17] Speaker D: Where they have to build them.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: So how do you know, as a typical house owner, if you're having some issues with your unit, how do you know when it's time to repair versus replace? Is there some tips that you can give us for that?
[00:07:30] Speaker D: Whenever you get into the repair versus replacement? Right there you got a unit that's got several years of age on it and it's going to cost a third or better to repair it versus replacement. And the unit is probably eight years old or nine years old or better. Got you. You have to start looking at that point where's my dollar going to be the best spin at. Am I going to save enough money by going with a higher sear? Because there is different sear ratings on these units and a sear rating, to put it in all terms, is like putting a larger radiator on the same size engine to make that engine run cooler or more efficient.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:08:03] Speaker D: Which lowers the utility bill, but it does cost you more up front. But the higher your sear, the lower your utility bill.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: I got you. So really it's a trade off and you pay a little more at the beginning of the purchase process for a higher sear unit, but you really save.
[00:08:17] Speaker D: It on you're saving money, you're saving on the back end a lot of money.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. I've always wondered what sear meant and how that kind of went together with packaged units or separate units.
[00:08:28] Speaker D: Like your packaged units, you can go up to a 16 sear on the packaged units and on your split systems, you can go up to a 20 sear, 17 to 20, depending on the product.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: So for those that may not know, what's the difference between a packaged unit?
[00:08:42] Speaker D: The packaged unit is a self contained unit that sits outside. All the unit sets outside.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:08:48] Speaker D: Split systems actually like cutting that unit in half. You got a half of it in the attic. You got your evaporator fan motor, you got your Evaporator coil and your electric heat kit up in there and you have a copper line set and drain lines coming from point A to point B.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:09:03] Speaker D: And another thing that a lot of people don't do, and they wait because that unit is working great. There's no sense in paying nobody to come and look at it till they get a water coming through their ceiling. Or we got the units off and it's Saturday afternoon at 05:00 and it is good to have a general service done once or twice a year and clean them drains out, check your coils. And they say, well, they didn't do nothing while they was here, but you might find something very small that saves you thousands.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: You can catch it early enough, you can catch a lot of money, right?
[00:09:34] Speaker D: Yes, sir. We open up a lot of units where they have a lot of ants or ladybugs inside the condensers or around the contactors poles that could pretty much destroy your unit in the right application right there.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: That's one of the things I kind of wanted to talk to you a little bit about today as far as maybe giving our viewers and listeners some tips maintenance wise, on what they need to do to keep their unit running well.
[00:09:57] Speaker D: Change your filters every time you get your light bill is a good way to say it. Change your filter.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:10:03] Speaker D: Put a new filter in because Airflow is the proper airflow on the newer product versus the older product. If your Airflow is not right, it's going to cost you.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: So you're paying higher in energy costs. Yes, sir. If you don't have a good filter.
[00:10:17] Speaker D: In there because a lot of your new ones, all you can buy is your pleated filters in some like Walmart or places like that. And whenever it sucks, it in. And you can put a basketball or a soccer ball in between your grill and your filter, that filter is restricted too much and you're not getting enough airflow out of it.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: That's a good tip.
[00:10:33] Speaker D: We run into it on a very daily basis right there. And it's actually costing you more to operate it. The thinner filter, and this is just an old school term, take Pam cooking oil and spray that thinner filter and catch the dirt. And that's going to do the same thing as your thicker three M filter.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:10:50] Speaker D: And what it's actually going to do is save you money because you're actually getting enough airflow back through the system to let that unit operate properly like it's supposed to. Because you get so much air, whatever comes through that grille has to go out your supply grills. I had other people kind of ask me, explain to me how that actually works. So I'll get the filter and actually put it up there, get them to hold their hand over to the grill, then I'll take the filter off and they actually see the airflow difference between not having it and having it in the grill.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: That's interesting.
[00:11:23] Speaker D: And that give you a better understanding about how it actually operates.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: What's your thoughts on I don't want to say it's controversial topic, but everybody's got their opinion, right?
[00:11:33] Speaker D: Yes, correct.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: What's your opinion on electric versus gas when it comes to trying? If you were building a new home, for instance, and you have both available, do you?
[00:11:42] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Are there some tips or advice you might give us as far as making that selection?
[00:11:47] Speaker D: It depends on what you've been used to in the past, what you was raised up with. The hotter heat or some people like the hotter heat gas is going to give you an instant hotter heat, a heat pump, a higher efficiency heat pump, even a low series unit on a new construction house that's insulated properly.
You'll be fine with a heat pump. I mean, it'll be awesome.
[00:12:08] Speaker B: So some of that's just what you're used to, what you would like.
[00:12:10] Speaker D: Yes. What you grew up with. But also another thing on your new construction, a lot of people are foaming the whole house or whatnot? And what we're running into, a lot of times they are making the houses so tight and not putting any outside air coming in through the units themselves that they're getting a smell or something coming from the units.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:12:31] Speaker D: In other words, it needs a little bit of outside air to come in to help that unit out. The house is built so tight it can't breathe.
[00:12:37] Speaker B: So air quality is a big deal.
[00:12:39] Speaker D: Newer, very big deal. Yes, sir.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: If they're built correctly, it's a big deal.
[00:12:43] Speaker D: I've got one right now. Well, two actually, that I'm working on. That the house. We didn't do the houses, but that's something that we're going back in and trying to help the homeowners with.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: So if I find myself in that situation where, let's say I give you guys a call, my unit, it fits that criteria where it's time to replace, but maybe I don't have all the funds together to purchase. That huge.
[00:13:06] Speaker D: We've got financing plans available through TVA.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:10] Speaker D: And we can go through TVA and do that. We've also got Wells Fargo, which is another means of financing.
Give you five years, same as cash. TVA will put you up on a ten year note. It's at 8% interest right now.
Both of them are good plans to give you a means of payment.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:28] Speaker D: That way you don't have to come up with it all out of pocket.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's good to know because sometimes you don't expect that. Sometimes they have you don't have anything.
[00:13:34] Speaker D: Out of pocket at that point. So at either way right there, what's.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: Your main service areas that you kind of do business in?
[00:13:41] Speaker D: Just wherever I try to keep it within 45 minutes to an hour.
We do a lot of work in Carthage. We do a lot of work in Smithville.
We've got quite a few jobs in Sparta back in Lebanon. We live in Lebdenon. Pretty much every, you know, just the surrounding counties right here. Hartsville. We do a little over that way too. Pleasant shade defeated. A little salt lick.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: A little bit everywhere.
[00:14:05] Speaker D: A little bit of everywhere. Yes, sir. A little bit of everywhere.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: Have you noticed a big change in technology with all of these new thermostats and connected devices and all that smart homes and stuff like that?
[00:14:17] Speaker D: Yes, there is a lot of stuff out there. A lot of different thermostats. We do a lot of thermostats where they're actually connected to your phone, your iPhone, and you can operate them from wherever you're at. I think that's really temperatures, you can have them come on and off at any given time.
A lot of our commercial facilities, we use a lot of honeywell where they actually can operate them off their phones or they got them coming on 3 hours before service or 4 hours before service. Or if they're say they were having a funeral, they can set at work and actually turn the thermostat on without them even being at the place.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: We've come a long way.
[00:14:53] Speaker D: Yeah, we've come a long way. We've come a long way.
[00:14:56] Speaker B: I think of those really old timey thermostats that we saw as kids that would not die. So they've probably been on the wall for 30 years.
[00:15:03] Speaker D: There's a lot of them that's still there.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: Oh, I bet there is. Probably. There's probably a lot of old units that might be sticking around too.
[00:15:09] Speaker D: We run into a few. We've run into quite a few. That's 30 year old or so wow.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Is a different set of knowledge that you have to have to be able to operate on such a wide variety of units. But I'm sure the technology inside those has changed a lot over the years.
[00:15:25] Speaker D: Pretty much. It's going to computers. Everything is pretty much computers now compared to what it used to be.
[00:15:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:30] Speaker D: And the Freon is another whole story. We was at R 22 at 410 A and now we're going to two or three other blends in 2025. So it's going to get very interesting as we go along.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: I bet that can also change your decision on whether or not you can repair replace based on the cost of some of these different refrigerants, the availability.
[00:15:52] Speaker D: Yeah. The refrigerants has got quite a bit more expensive.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:55] Speaker D: Used to we would keep a lot and now whenever you start buying that much, it's like buying a new car, new house, you know what I mean?
[00:16:01] Speaker B: When you buy something, it's an investment. Right.
[00:16:03] Speaker D: It's a very big investment. Pressures on all the freons has changed to a higher pressures and you've got to know what you're doing when you're working on them because if you don't, you could get hurt very badly.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good point too. If you're not sure, don't be inside.
[00:16:17] Speaker D: That don't be inside that unit. Messing with could get in trouble in a hurry.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Yeah. As far as maybe some of the services that DTC helps you with, I know you advertise a lot on some of our sports programming and that sort of thing and we appreciate that. We've enjoyed they've got a great ship.
[00:16:35] Speaker D: They got good phone service.
The internet service has been awesome because we've got that at my house. Also got it at the office.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:16:43] Speaker D: And whenever we call for service, it don't take very long at all.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: It'd be hard to do a business of any type almost in this day and age without reliable internet. It's become almost not really an option anymore.
[00:16:55] Speaker D: You have to have it.
[00:16:56] Speaker B: You have to have it.
[00:16:56] Speaker D: You have to have it. Yeah. Whenever it goes down, I'm usually on the phone and I've learned how to work on a lot of it myself, but if I can't get it going, you all have a truck there within in 30 minutes to an hour.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm glad there's people like you that can think on the fly and adapt and overcome as needed. Because you know what? It's a big deal if your unit goes out, especially in certain climates. If it's nice in April or October and it's 68 outside, it's not that bad. But when it's 20 degrees outside in the winter, or if it's 101 last Christmas was rough. Yeah.
[00:17:27] Speaker D: Last Christmas, I spent more time in my truck and my service man did than they did at home. Christmas with their families.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:17:33] Speaker D: We had over 200 calls within one day right there. And we had one city right down there that the gas guy cut off over half the city. And I mean, we had like twelve or 15 calls on the same streets and didn't realize what was going on, but we would pull in on a service call and they was having continuous blackouts. And when we'd pull in, the lights would go out. So we'd have to back out of that driveway with four wheel drive and go to another driveway. You know what I mean?
[00:17:59] Speaker B: That's another thing I didn't think about, too. You've got to be able to, in all types of weather, get to the customer, right?
[00:18:03] Speaker D: Yes, correct.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: That's a big deal, too.
[00:18:05] Speaker D: Yeah. Snow. I mean, you got to be safe about doing it, so but if they're out there and they're elderly or whatnot, and they need help, I'm thankful that.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: You guys are there. And it's more than just a service of convenience. It's a service of safety. It is to have the proper climate in your home, especially if you're a younger person, you might can put up with a little heat in your house for a few hours while you're waiting or whatever, but if you have a medical condition or if you're an older.
[00:18:36] Speaker D: Person, you have to have it real.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: It's not an option, is it?
[00:18:39] Speaker D: It's not an option at all. No.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: I'm glad there's smart people like you out there, Randy, that are doing smart.
[00:18:44] Speaker D: But we can make it where you're doing something right.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: So, hey, I appreciate you being on our show today, and we wish you all the best of luck in your business.
[00:18:51] Speaker D: We appreciate y'all for what y'all do for us.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: Thank you. Well, the feeling is mutual. And keep doing what you're doing. You're obviously doing something right.
[00:18:58] Speaker D: It's all working anyway.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: There you go. Thanks, Randy.
[00:19:00] Speaker D: All right. Thank you.
[00:19:01] Speaker B: Hey, we'll be right back in just a moment with more of the local click.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: Stay with us here's normal Internet speed. Here's the gig difference.
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[00:19:39] Speaker B: Welcome back to the local Click for December. And I'm here with Justin. And Justin's going to help us out with something he does each and every month that we like to call Justin's Tech Tips. So Justin, take it away.
[00:19:53] Speaker C: Well, you know, I always like to start with questions. And so thing I've got to ask you, when we were setting up to record the podcast today, we booted everything up. Everything worked just perfect. Didn't bit of an we had a little bit of a technology issue with the setup as we were recording today. And you know what, sometimes that's going to happen. But when we were trying to resolve it, number one in Troubleshooting 101 is what? What do you always do first?
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Honestly, the number one thing I do.
[00:20:26] Speaker C: Is reboot, reboot your device. And so that's what we did. We rebooted the device, it booted back up, and it was functioning properly after we rebooted it. And so that's going to be the tech tip today. It's going to be reboot your devices. You may not think too much about it. You may think, oh, my device can run all the time. And most people think about it. When was the last time you restarted your cell phone? When did you power it off and just power it back on? Computers we do a little bit more, but for the most part, a lot of people, if you got a desktop, you probably don't reboot that thing very much at all. And there's several benefits to rebooting. First and foremost is troubleshooting. That's probably the most oftentime that people decide, dude, that I've got something going on. I'm stuck on this frozen screen. This app isn't working. This program stopped working. It's not responding. Maybe I'm having a connectivity issue with my WiFi, whatever it is. And so number one, go ahead and reboot that thing and oftentimes that will resolve it. But there's some other things too that help out performance wise. If your system's been running for a long time, you're going to have a lot of stuff running in the background. You're going to have programs eating up valuable system resources and eating into your Ram and other things. And that's going to cause your system to slow down. It's going to cause it to be bogged down. And by rebooting, it's going to refresh that. It's going to renew it. It's going to close those old programs down. Maybe you may have something running in the background that's been running there for a week that you didn't know about. Well, you reboot it. That program is not going to be running there. And if it is a program that has been running, maybe you have a background program. Well, it's going to have a clean slate as well. So it's going to speed your system up. You're going to see some performance improvements and you know I'm all about security, right? I like the security side.
I like to talk about security. There's also a security benefit to restarting. We've talked about updates as part of the process for tech tips before by restarting your system. If you do have any pending updates, usually your operating system will go ahead and install those as part of that process. But also from a security standpoint, there's some malware and other things that may infect your system that a reboot for certain types of malware will cause it to be ineffective because a reboot of it will break whatever mechanism it's using. It's a short term thing. It fishes and gets in your system. Sometimes reboots can fix that as well. So there's many, many benefits to rebooting your system. So if you're having an issue screen's frozen, it's slowing down. You think, what do I need to do? What's the first thing you should do?
[00:22:58] Speaker B: Reboot. Right.
[00:22:59] Speaker C: Reboot. Reboot it for a renewal of your system and you may just be surprised how much it benefits and helps you.
[00:23:06] Speaker B: I like that. And it's something that we forget about a lot, isn't it? What's your first reaction when you have a problem? A lot of times is to almost panic a little bit, right. And, oh no, what am I going to do? But sometimes it's just as simple as just restarting and rebooting a device and there you go.
[00:23:22] Speaker C: I know anytime you call a tech support for anything, for any company or any product, one of the first things they're going to do is say, reboot. I know this is what everybody always says to do, but the truth is probably half the time or more that actually fixes what the issue is. That's why it's recommended so much, because there's so much that it does by closing everything down and opening it back up that it resolves so many issues. But we're so used to devices are always on, devices are always connected and they always need to work. So sometimes maybe we just need to take a couple of minutes to relax, let everything be renewed a little bit.
[00:24:04] Speaker B: So take a deep breath, relax, and reboot.
With us during this segment of the local Click, we have Virginia and Susan with Rockabilly Coffee. Hello and thanks for being with us today.
[00:24:18] Speaker E: Thank you for having us.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: You guys have a shop in Carthage, Tennessee, is that right? Yes. Virginia, why don't you start with us?
[00:24:25] Speaker E: So my name is Virginia Alexander and I live in New Middleton. We have our coffee shop in Carthage. I was originally born in California. Mom and dad are well, Mom's from there, dad's from Pennsylvania. We lived there till I was about seven. And then they decided to move to Tennessee. And we lived in Smith County from that point on.
And like most people who live in a small town, I had moved off and planned to never come back. So as. Far as I could get was Murfreesboro for college. But then I had big plans to leave the state of Tennessee after that.
And then just I missed the small aspect of a community and kind of that it's great that everybody knows everybody and it's kind of also bad that everybody knows everybody. I definitely missed that living in Murfreesboro, it was growing. It was a huge community and I had a small community of people, but it wasn't the same as a small town where everybody knew who you were and what was going on and if something went wrong with your family, they were there for you. It can be lonely in a bigger city. So I had missed that aspect of it and decided to move home. I went to MTSU for photography and communications and then graduated in the recession, so that was part of it too. I took just whatever job I could get, ended up working at Jozora Coffee shop in Murfreesboro for three years and fell in love with coffee and the experience and the restaurant aspect of it, which I'd worked in restaurants before, but that really taught me the love of coffee and I had always wanted to do that. Eventually it was on my bucket list to have a coffee shop one day.
So that was kind of what always had in the back of my mind that I would work toward.
But then I moved home in 2012 and went to grad school at Tennessee Tech. Because when you can't find a job, why not go back to school?
[00:26:17] Speaker B: I understand.
[00:26:19] Speaker E: And so I did that. I was actually thinking about being a high school English teacher and in the midst of that was volunteering a lot with the Smith County Chamber of Commerce and fell in love with just community projects and working on things like the Carthage Junction Depot. We did River City Ball, a couple of other projects in town, just events in general for the town of Carthage through the chamber. And I fell in love with that and then was able to find that I could get paid to do that stuff through the development district. So I was working with all 14 counties in the Upper Cumberland doing community projects and grants and things like that. And so I did that for about seven years and then COVID hit. And that's when I had a lot more time at home to actually put a business plan together. And I told my husband that I needed to figure it out and put it on paper. Was like, I've dreamt about this. If anybody knows me, they'd know that I want to start a coffee shop. And I thought, I need to get this on paper. If it's going to work, it's going to work. If not, I can put that dream to bed and move on. And so it worked out where just the numbers were working and the hotel had recently been purchased at the time with a new owner, and he was willing to do some more renovations and wanted to see businesses go in. And so just a lot of things started lining up for us, and then that's kind of how the coffee shop started.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: Wow. Life is like that as far as circumstance, a lot of times will dictate your path, it seems like, right? Circumstances that really kind of are beyond our control.
[00:27:38] Speaker E: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: At the end of the day, you look back and you go, I'm so glad things worked out the way they did because I really like where I am.
[00:27:45] Speaker E: Oh, yeah. There were so many times that I was like, why didn't this happen? Or I would look for a new job or look for a promotion, and it was like, things are not working out. I don't understand why that person's moving forward in this. And, you know, it was all like, to place me where I needed to know, because if I had taken a job with the state of Tennessee, I wouldn't be doing this right now, and this is what I've wanted to do my whole life. So it's kind of cool how all that lines up and just push the.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: Timeline further a little faster than you planned, but still, it actually worked out really great. That's awesome. I always like to see when people get to live their dreams out and get to do them quicker than they originally planned on.
[00:28:22] Speaker E: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
[00:28:23] Speaker B: And how about you, Susan, as far as what's your background?
[00:28:26] Speaker F: Well, I was born in a small town in Northern California and in an old house that eventually became a bed and breakfast, I think. But I have four siblings, and my parents actually started off in Oklahoma and Arkansas, moved out to California when they were younger and found a place in Northern California and built their house there. And we moved in when I was about two, so I lived there all my life. And then I thought I wanted to live in the big city of San Francisco. I got a job there and got down there and did not like it because coming from that small of a town into being thrown into a huge city like that was that's a big shock for me. So I didn't last long there. And I met my husband there. He was in the Navy, and so he went back to Pennsylvania, where he's from, and we communicated by mail and phone calls and got married the next year and tried living in Pennsylvania and didn't really care for that either. Went back to California and we stayed there and had our kids there. And then we got to talking to our friends that he's actually from here and decided that this might be a good place to come try out. So we moved out here. I came out here sight unseen.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:29:46] Speaker F: And at that time, it was in the early ninety s and we pulled off the interstate and there were two old gas stations. And I said, is this it? And my husband said, no, there is a town, but we found a place to live and raised our kids there. And they all went to Gordonsville and I went to work at Rackley Roofing and stayed there for 25 years. But I had always told Virginia, if you ever start a coffee shop, I will be your baker. Of course, in my mind I'm thinking, that's a long shot. And then she called me one day during COVID and said, okay, we're doing it.
[00:30:24] Speaker B: You're like, we have to do it now.
[00:30:26] Speaker F: I told her, I said, well, you could have done it when I was a little younger, but we'll go for it. I've told people I felt like God just moved his hand over the whole situation of this is happening and this is how it's going to happen.
[00:30:40] Speaker B: Right. So tell me what it's like to work with your mom each day and that family connection, getting to be together so much.
[00:30:47] Speaker E: Yeah, we love it. I would say if we'd done it ten years ago, it would not have been as easy. Just like anybody, I thought I knew everything and that my parents knew nothing.
[00:30:58] Speaker B: We never think that.
[00:30:59] Speaker E: Right, exactly.
And I got through my twenty s and realized throughout that how often my parents were right and how much they had done for me and they've been such an inspiration to me. And I was nervous because I knew mom had had a desk job for a long time and I had worked in and out of restaurants and of course in a coffee shop. And so I knew that she was kind of nervous about moving into something like that. And I've talked to other people too, and business partnerships can be iffy and with family. Sometimes it can be good, sometimes it can be bad. But mom and I have such a strong relationship that we've really nurtured over the last five to ten years, and so I wasn't nervous so much about that part of it. But it's been such a blessing for both me and her. And then to also see my dad involved in it as well, because he recently retired. And so we always joke, like, he comes in and opens the front door and waves to everybody that's in there and talks and goes and sees all the customers and he'll come help with the dishes. And some of the girls at the shop have laughed because it's like, well, we just leave the dishes till Jerry, he's going to get here and we'll let them pile up because we're like, he's coming in to do dishes. We don't have to do that. And mom kind of handles all the baking and I handle the coffee and the management side of things. So it's been a really good balance to have each other and back each other up.
She takes care of me. I'm always going to be her daughter. And now we're also transitioning into that time of life where I'm taking and noticing the things that my parents might need.
So it's helped me notice too. Like, okay, she needs a day off. We're going to get her off the schedule for a couple of days, and she does the same thing, making sure that I don't overextend myself too much.
[00:32:39] Speaker F: Sure.
[00:32:40] Speaker E: So I think it's a really good balance for us. And because we're family, because we're mother daughter, I think we have a different type of care toward each other and toward the business in general.
[00:32:49] Speaker B: Right.
[00:32:50] Speaker F: At first, I'll admit it was a rough start because it was just the two of us with a little family help, but we thought we could just handle it all. And she said, oh, mom, you're going to be able to go shopping and go out to lunch with your friends. And I was like, Where'd that go? Because thankfully we were busy. But somebody told me, oh, you shouldn't go into business with your daughter. You're going to hate each other.
But because she does the coffee and I bake and we don't tell each other what to do, that makes a huge difference. If I was trying to get in her coffee stuff and tell her how to make things, it might not go over as well.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: That's a good point, though. You both kind of have your own lane, don't you?
[00:33:29] Speaker F: In the business, she might suggest something for a holiday or something, but for the most part, we have cinnamon rolls every day. That's our main pastry.
[00:33:38] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:33:39] Speaker F: And then we just kind of go from there. And I've got a couple of the girls baking for me when I'm off.
But it's been a really good experience.
It was scary for me to go from a desk job to thinking, are people really going to buy my food and what am I going to bake and how much to bake and what kind of customers are we going to have? And it's just all just been a great experience.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:34:04] Speaker E: I remember my friends when I was younger, always talking about they'd come over to our house, and mom always had baked goods. She'd have a cake plate with something on it or brownies or cookies going.
And I always tell people, my mom's always been there's always room at the table. And I was like, she didn't necessarily invite them, I did. But she was always like, okay.
Exactly. She'd always put another plate down, and she'd always let people in, and she always had food to give to people who would come to our house or if she knew somebody, a family at the funeral home or whatever. And she always served with food and loved with food. And so it's really cool to see the community see that too, because we've seen some of our customers that are going through a hard time and it's like they just come in because they're like, I need coffee in one of Mom's cinnamon rolls. And they just want that comfort food. She's always looking at different recipes. Like we were just on vacation and she was googling recipes the whole time as we tried food. So it's really cool to see her because it's a passion that she's had and a passion that she can share with people. And so it's really cool to see that because she's a more like quiet, behind the scenes kind of person. And it's really cool to see her kind of come into her own and really own the baking part of it, but then also blossoming into a business.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: To see that side.
[00:35:17] Speaker E: It's really cool.
[00:35:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about your menu, the kind of coffees and pastries and desserts.
[00:35:23] Speaker F: Well, like I said, our cinnamon rolls are our main. We have those every day, and then some days it's just like whatever. I feel like baking or what's on hand to make.
We have some oat bars that we put a jam filling in between. Those are kind of a staple. And then muffins. And of course, we also have bagels and scones and just kind of whatever I feel like making. I try to do some holiday things during the season if I can come up with something.
[00:35:52] Speaker B: That's always fun, isn't it?
[00:35:53] Speaker F: At first I couldn't think beyond I was making eight pans of cinnamon rolls a day and muffins, and I couldn't think beyond that. So now that we have extra help, it's nice to kind of take recipes.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: We can be more creative.
[00:36:07] Speaker F: Yes. Instead of just the same thing all the time. Because my husband would say at night he'd tell my son she's out because I'd be so tired. And now I have more time to explore.
[00:36:20] Speaker B: What about some of the drinks? The coffee drinks or other drinks? You may guess.
[00:36:23] Speaker E: Oh, yeah. So we have what we call our classic menu, which has just the basics of like a late and cappuccino, white chocolate mocha, dark chocolate mocha, that type of thing. And we have a couple of tea drinks, like hot teas and stuff like that. Then we have our specialty drinks, which we've always had fun naming. So, like, one of our most popular is The Last Minute. It's our caramel macchiato, but we've named it after my father in law because it's his favorite drink. And so he does Diesel truck pooling during the summertime, and his truck is called The Last Minute, and it makes sense.
[00:36:56] Speaker B: So you're paying homage to him a little bit.
[00:36:58] Speaker E: And we have a couple. One of them is named after one of my dogs.
So it's been fun to kind of name the drinks that way. And then we have, like I said, our classic stuff. And then every season we add different flavors. So some advice that was given to me when we started was to keep things simple. Don't have peppermint all year long. Don't have pumpkin spice all year long. Give people options during the seasons, but don't overwhelm yourself with 30 different flavors at all times. And that's really helped us, and it's made it fun, because we've kind of come up with our own creations, and then we get to come up with really cute, fun names. Like, we have a gingerbread late right now called not my gum drop buttons. And it's just something silly, but it gets and, like, people want to work through the different menu items and stuff every season that we have, we but we use our roaster for our coffee beans is out of Franklin in Nashville. They're called honest coffee, and we established a really great relationship with them in the beginning because we knew we wanted a small roaster. I didn't want to just buy bulk coffee from anybody, and I found them, and we set up a tasting, and they were actually the only ones that got back to us. And at that point, it didn't matter anyways, because we fell in love with them the minute we sat down with them. Like we went down on a really rainy Sunday to the old factory in Franklin, where their original roasting facility was, and they did a whole cupping with us, which is kind of like a wine tasting. And they grind all the beans for you, and you go through different stages of smelling the beans and tasting the beans, and they went through how they do it, and then the different blends. And then what really spoke to us was they have really close relationships with their farmers in south America, and papua new guinea is one of the roasters or the farms that we work with, and they have great relationships with them. They're small, they're ethical, and that matters a lot to us. And then they look at their coffee as a craft, and it's not just, here's your beans, and let's just move through this and have a million customers. They really take pride in what they're doing, and anytime they've had a change in a farmer or change in something going on, they've been so great to call us and just be like, hey, we've got to switch this up. Is this going to be okay? And they've been so open with us about everything that they're doing, and that makes us feel really good about the coffee that we're selling, and it's really good coffee, too.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: That's one of the questions I wanted to ask today, because as a society, americans drink a ton of coffee. They really do in general. But what's the difference between a good cup of coffee that you might just have from the store and a great cup of coffee? Does it start there at the beans?
[00:39:29] Speaker E: Yes, I think so. I think the farming practices are really important, which, I mean, everything is better when you know you're contributing to good, which I think is it helps when we know we might be spending a little bit more on a cup of coffee at our coffee shop versus at a diner or something. But we know that the coffee came from a good source. And then we also have we fresh grind every day, so they send us the beans that are freshly roasted. Within a week of us getting the shipment, we will use most of that coffee, and so it's super fresh. And also we fresh grind. So we have, like as we do our lattes, we do a double shot for every drink. It's freshly ground, and when we do a fresh pot of coffee, it's freshly ground coffee. And that really makes a difference. And we do have a water filtration system, which does help as far as the flavor goes. It's just going to make it keeps the taste out from like, I don't know, water pollution and that type of thing, and it just makes the coffee smoother.
[00:40:30] Speaker B: But that's something I wouldn't think about. You don't think about the quality of the water that goes into a cup of coffee. But I'm sure that's a really big deal.
[00:40:36] Speaker E: Oh, yeah. And the temperature is a big deal. We're right under boiling for most of for our hot coffee, and then also for the espresso machine, it stays around 200 degrees, and that's the scientific part of it. But I think as far as making a good coffee versus a great coffee is, I think, the people behind it and the experience. And that was what working at Josora's in Murfreesboro taught me. Know, I remember my boss telling me, like, well, you look out in the dining room and you see there's men and they drink their coffee with their arm up, and it's business, and they're just drinking their coffee, and they're on with their day. And she's like and you look out there and you see most women, and they're like, cuddled up with their coffee. And they're talking to their friend, and they're journaling. And it's an experience for them, which has been cool too, seeing the very diverse group of customers that we do have, but the experience behind it. And they're excited about who's making their coffee. They know us by name. We know them by name. And then it's a good cup of coffee, but it just like I don't know, there's the experience of it behind it.
I think that's what makes it a great cup of coffee is like, that environment and the experience of getting it with your friends or just it's more.
[00:41:40] Speaker B: Than just a cup of coffee. It's almost like a relationship. And I bet you have a lot of the same people that come in as customers on a routine basis, right? You get to know them, get to know their names, their families, and we.
[00:41:50] Speaker F: Blended our own coffee, we set up our own blend, which was kind of scary in a way because it's like you are going to choose what you like. And it was neat to watch people take a drink and say, boy, this is a good cup of coffee.
[00:42:04] Speaker B: Are there any house favorites or the coffees that seem to be the most popular?
[00:42:09] Speaker E: What would be your opinion on those sorts, General? I think the last minute is probably our most popular, which is our caramel macchiato. So we use a caramel sauce and vanilla syrup in that one and then a double shot of espresso and steamed milk. And that's probably our most popular like all the time.
Right now for our Christmas menu, we have two drinks, the Fireside Chat, which is a boiled custard late, and then the Christmas vacation which is an eggnog late.
Yes. And they're different, they're sweeter because I mean, eggnog is pretty sweet within itself. But we steam that. And then with the Fireside Chat, it's really cool because it's kind of like a creme brulee flavor to it. And we've added butterscotch and then we actually torch the top of it with sugar so it's got that little like sugar.
[00:42:51] Speaker B: You get to see that while it's being made and everything. Wow. It's great too. That's fun.
[00:42:55] Speaker E: Yeah. So those would probably be our two most popular right now with the Christmas menu. But I mean, peppermint, everybody's obsessed with it as well.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: Can't go wrong there, right?
[00:43:03] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:43:04] Speaker B: What about some of the pastries? I know you mentioned the cinnamon rolls.
[00:43:06] Speaker F: That's probably the staple like those. But if she posts, hey, mom made muffins today. Here they come in.
[00:43:15] Speaker E: Social media was so fun. She's like, these are never going to sell. And I was like, just watch. And I would post something on social media and she's like, they sold out. And I was like, yeah, I told you.
[00:43:22] Speaker F: And there are certain people that like a certain today one guy told me, he said, I haven't seen chocolate muffins in forever. Where are they? So there are certain people that like different types of things and they'll ask me when I'm going to make something.
[00:43:36] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome.
[00:43:37] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:43:37] Speaker B: It's funny how you can take that and then transition into technology and how that changes how you approach your business on a day to day basis. How does technology such as high speed Internet or some of the services DTC probably provides to your business there affect how you do business day to day?
[00:43:55] Speaker E: It's great in the sense of we provide Internet at the shop for our customers. It makes everything super seamless. We have online ordering. Our point of sale system, like I said, is set up through Square, but it's connected to our WiFi and our receipt paper prints out just connected to the register as well. So the orders come out very easily for us to move through things. So it's a very cool way in doing it. Especially when you think back to I mean, I've kind of worked in restaurants for a long time, so I've known when it was all handwritten and you just typed in dollar amounts and not even that you would just tally up the paper and there was not even a credit card machine. Like, I remember the credit card machines coming out when I was working at Timberwolf.
[00:44:34] Speaker B: We don't tell our age, right?
[00:44:35] Speaker E: Yeah, exactly. And so it's been really cool to see how seamless it is with things. And if we have a new menu item, like, we added something today, and it's like, oh, I just add it in and it's done.
I don't have to call anybody. I don't have to do, like, a whole menu reset. Everything is just right there. And it's super easy for us to use and very intuitive. And it's fun to see how technology works in that sense of like, they kind of know what we're thinking and how it will work better for us. So it's scary in one way, but also very easy and great for business when we're trying to change things up.
[00:45:11] Speaker B: And you have to adapt with technology because if you don't, you really do get left behind in some ways because there's always someone down the road maybe doing something similar that may be using that as a competitive advantage and that sort of thing. Well, I know I'm sold personally, and I'm ready to go visit because there's a lot of things I want to try now, and I want to take my wife and the boys over, too, and just we may try to get one of each of several of these things. So the name of the business again is Rockabilly Coffee. And you're in Carthage, Tennessee. What's your address?
[00:45:40] Speaker E: 310 Main Street North.
[00:45:41] Speaker B: Okay, so you're right downtown. Okay, and what are your hours?
[00:45:45] Speaker E: We're open Monday through Friday, 06:00 A.m to 04:00 p.m.. And then Saturday from 08:00 A.m to 02:00 p.m..
[00:45:50] Speaker B: Awesome. And if people want to keep in touch with you on social media, they just need to go to is it Facebook?
[00:45:56] Speaker E: Yes, we are on Facebook and Instagram rockabilly Coffee, but it is spelled R-O-K-A-B-I-L-L-Y.
[00:46:03] Speaker B: Well, Virginia and Susan, thank you so much for being with us today. I've really enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to coming to visit, so don't be surprised when I walk through the door here in a few days. And go ahead and warm up the cinnamon rolls for me so I'm sure I'll be ready. But thank you guys for being with us here in Woodbury, and we'll see you again soon, hopefully.
[00:46:19] Speaker E: Thank you for having us.
[00:46:20] Speaker B: Hey, no problem. That's going to do it for this segment of the local click. Stay tuned. We've got more coming up in just a moment. You know that DTC provides great products and services to Your home. And you can get the same great value for your business with DTC Business Solutions. Whether you're making sales over the phone or online to customers around the world, we deliver the reliable business solutions you need at a competitive price. And we do it all with uncompromising service.
Let's talk about what matters to your business. Call DTC Business Solutions today.
And it's time for our final segment and one of my favorite parts of the show, because again, we bring in the expert, mr. Jared Breadshaw. So he's going to start us off with Ask the experts. What do you got for us this month, Jared?
[00:47:11] Speaker G: This month we are talking about the Command IQ app. So with the command IQ app, that's what you're going to get whenever you have your service installed. Or if you go pick up a know and do yourself install. So with the command IQ app, you will be given a piece of paper from your installer or it will be in the box that you pick up from the office. Okay, starting off with It, you have to have a smartphone or some kind of smart device, tablet, whatever. To download the app.
You just go to your App store or Google Play store and you're going to look up Command IQ. All one word. You're going to select sign up towards the bottom of the screen. It'll Come up with a login screen, but just go to the bottom. It'll say sign up.
[00:47:52] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:47:52] Speaker G: You're Going to enter in your personal information. It'll be the first name, last name, email address, and then a password for the app. Not a password for The WiFi quite yet. After you do that, the QR code that is given to you on Your router or on this piece of paper, when the install is done, you Will Scan this QR code.
[00:48:11] Speaker B: And where is that code at? If somebody wanted to know, it'll be on top of the router, on the very top.
[00:48:15] Speaker G: Or if there's no sticker on top of the router. If you look on the bottom, there is a QR code down there you could scan as well.
[00:48:21] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:48:22] Speaker G: But once you scan that, it'll Bring You Up with it'll have the Mac address and everything, and you hit next. Once that comes up, it'll Have The default WiFi name and password. You'll go ahead and clear out the WiFi name and put it for whatever you want. The password will be the 16 digit password that comes on every router we have. You can cancel that out and put something it has to be eight characters, nothing special.
[00:48:44] Speaker B: So you can make up your own if you Want to.
[00:48:46] Speaker G: Absolutely. Instead of typing in that long password to every device, you can set it to an eight character password to where it's just 1234-5678, whatever your dog's name.
[00:48:56] Speaker B: Grant something easier to remember exactly.
[00:48:58] Speaker G: And then once you do that, you're set up to go. The cool thing about this app is you can set limitations on it. Like with kids, devices. Say you want your kid to get off their iPad at like 08:00. You can set a time frame WiFi cut off on this device at 08:00, comes back on at 08:00 in the morning, stuff like that. But it's really nice to have you can check your speeds through the app. It'll tell you exact speeds.
You can also take and check who's connected to your stuff. So if somebody connects to it and you don't know what the device is, you can kick them off. So it's kind of nice to have.
[00:49:35] Speaker B: Kind of like a turns you into like a manager of your own home security for your Internet.
[00:49:41] Speaker G: Correct?
[00:49:42] Speaker B: That's a lot of power. My kids will love that.
[00:49:45] Speaker G: No, kids hate it just because of.
[00:49:47] Speaker B: The whole limit thing.
But it's very well needed. I mean, it's nice to be able to enforce some rules like that.
I don't know how you would say it. Non authoritative way. I guess as a know, you can always tell your kids, hey, you need to be off that iPad at 09:00 at night.
[00:50:06] Speaker G: It's not always going to work.
[00:50:07] Speaker B: It doesn't always happen.
[00:50:08] Speaker G: I used to wake up in the middle of the night and be like, I can turn my PlayStation back on.
[00:50:14] Speaker B: Not anymore. No, not anymore. Well, that's awesome. Good job. Thanks, Jared. I appreciate it, man. All right, and now it's time for our Tech News Roundup, and Justin is going to share some of the latest tech news out for this month. And what do you have for us.
[00:50:28] Speaker C: Today coming off of some more AI news? AI is probably going to be something that we're going to continue to talk about each month. Several things going on in the agriculture space, and I know that we've had some farmers on here before and some other people who have talked about how they're incorporating AI into their business.
Japan and Canada and the US are really ramping up some different segments in different areas from harvesting to production. And it's pretty interesting seeing the things that are going on. And so we're probably going to continue to see some more exciting things come from that. But in the AI space too, there was almost a shakeup in the AI space recently. And so OpenAI, who is probably the leader in AI technology right now across the world, that's who has chat GPT and who owns that and who are the ones who are the programmers behind that. Their board of directors actually ousted their CEO and their CEO temporarily went to Microsoft to lead their AI research team for a few days before the board at OpenAI completely changed. And Sam Aldman, who is the CEO, returned back to OpenAI. And so there was a lot of people watching that because of what OpenAI does. And then he hopped over to Microsoft and almost every employee threatened to also go with him.
[00:51:49] Speaker B: Oh, there you go.
[00:51:50] Speaker C: Showing how much loyalty there was. And as we continue to watch that space, that's pretty interesting to see. Also had the second launch of SpaceX's Starship. It was a failure technically, but to them, it was productive and it did what they thought it would do. It actually reached the outer edge of space before exploding. So most people may look at that and say, well, it didn't do what it was supposed to. No, it did what they wanted it to do. It actually got further than they anticipated. For a lot of people watching that and paying attention to that, they have a contract with NASA and they're still on their projected path to take individuals back to the Moon by late 2025.
[00:52:29] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:52:30] Speaker C: And so that's interesting to see. Space exploration, seeing putting more people out there in space and also the transport of goods and services and the International Space Station and stuff is also affected by that. So there's a lot going on in the different segments, whether it's here terrestrial here on Earth, or whether it's out there in space and beyond this world. We've got a lot of things to consider and talk about.
[00:52:54] Speaker B: Well, I appreciate it, Justin. Thank you very much. And I'm sure you'll kind of keep your eyes to the tech Internet roundup area so that if anything changes in that realm, you can give us some more updates. Maybe next month.
[00:53:06] Speaker C: I do have a question for y'all. Y'all buy anything Black Friday or Cyber Monday?
[00:53:12] Speaker B: How about you, Jared?
[00:53:13] Speaker G: I bought a table saw.
[00:53:15] Speaker B: Nice. Nice. Yep.
[00:53:17] Speaker G: That was the only thing I wanted.
[00:53:18] Speaker B: So now you get to do more work. Yeah. Great. Good job.
[00:53:23] Speaker C: You get to be productive.
[00:53:25] Speaker B: That is a good thing.
[00:53:26] Speaker C: The reason I asked that is Cyber Monday. The numbers are already rolling in. Over $12 billion was spent just on Cyber Monday through Ecommerce. So people from the luxury of their homes using their technology, using their Internet without going anywhere, spent over $12 billion in the US.
[00:53:46] Speaker B: And all time it's hard to even imagine that kind of money. And now we're going to get into the next part of the show, which is called What's Up, DTC? And What's Up, DTC is where we kind of talk about some of the places that we're going to be and some of the things going on. And we're going to start that off with some of the DTC Three broadcast schedule of events that are going on. High school basketball season is in full force, and you can catch a lot of that kind of content on DTC Three throughout the basketball season. So make sure you tune into Channel Three or 303 on your Dtctv service and you can get the complete schedule of the games that we'll be recording for later broadcast at DTC Three TV. And also as far as broadcast coming up on Channel three. The local area Christmas parades will be happening throughout the month, and there'll be seven different ones of those that we'll have for you. So make sure you also check our website for information on when those will be airing. Or you can follow us on social media as well.
The DTC Christmas elves will be reappearing this year. I don't know if you guys are familiar with Jingle and Jangle. Jared, are you familiar with Jingle and Jangle?
[00:54:57] Speaker G: I am.
[00:54:58] Speaker B: Okay. Are you excited they'll be back, I guess. Of course you are. Of course you are. That's what he meant to say. He's very excited. He can barely contain it. But anyway, they'll both be back visiting local schools very soon and you'll want to basically kind of keep in touch with us through social media, especially Facebook, I think would probably be the best place to see where Jingle and Django will be appearing throughout a lot of the schools here in our service area. And that'll be coming up here throughout the month of December. So you want to check for that then? As far as some of the holiday closures for our offices, I do want to kind of share some of that information. If you want to stop by and pay your bill or do some business with DTC, there are a few days we won't be open because of the holidays. That will be, of course, on Christmas, December the 25th, and next Tuesday on the 26th and on New Year's Day, which is on Monday, January the first. So we will be closed on those days, and we're getting ready to call this show a wrap. But before we do, I have a little special thing that I wanted to do for Christmas. I have here what I like to call Russell Stover Note. Russell stover note. And what this is, is $1 billion in Santa cash, and it's actually chocolate, and it's better than cash because it's chocolate, right? So what I'm going to do when the show is over is I'm going to split this in half. Justin, you get 500 million in chocolate cash.
[00:56:33] Speaker F: Yes.
[00:56:34] Speaker B: And Jared, you will also get 500 million. Can I have his chocolate cash?
[00:56:38] Speaker C: Can I have yours, too?
[00:56:38] Speaker B: You'll have to negotiate with him.
[00:56:40] Speaker C: Christmas spirit.
[00:56:41] Speaker B: I don't know. He was eyeing that with a lot of excitement. I don't think he's going to give his away. But anyway, you guys don't fight for it. If you do, do it out in the parking lot when the show's over. Okay?
But anyway, Merry Christmas to you both, and I hope you and your families have a wonderful holiday season, and I hope Santa's really good to you and maybe even bring you some technology gifts and goodies.
[00:57:04] Speaker C: Well, I hope everybody that's here has a merry Christmas. I hope all of our listeners have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, too. That'll all be here before we know it.
[00:57:13] Speaker B: That's right. Time flies when you're having fun, right?
[00:57:16] Speaker G: That's right. Thank you guys for having me on the show again and hope you all have a Merry Christmas.
[00:57:20] Speaker B: Thank you. I appreciate it very much. So we'll call this one a wrap for this month and join us in January. I'm sure we'll have lots of great information technology News roundup and we'll have local guests and lots more. We always have a good time. You never know what we'll be doing. I doubt we'll have any Santa cash because it's kind of a Christmas kind of thing, but I'll see if I can come up with something. It probably won't be donuts, because I think there was a little contention there with you sharing some of the donuts. Last time I shared some, I've talked to some of the other employees who weren't real happy with your sharing abilities when it comes to those donuts shared.
[00:57:57] Speaker G: With my wife and myself and your.
[00:58:01] Speaker B: Son and yourself again. But anyway, we'll come up with something for January. I don't know, we'll do something fun. So anyway, thanks for all of our viewers and our listeners, and we hope that you'll join us again next month for The Local Click.
[00:58:13] Speaker A: Learn more about the show by visiting us
[email protected]. Also, be sure to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast or video platform so you won't miss our next episode of The Local Click. See you next month.
