Spring Into Progress: Sunlight, Serotonin & Seasonal Reset

Hey, can you feel that? It's not just warmer air. It's possibility. Spring is finally here. The days are longer, the birds are louder, and everything just feels a little more alive. And guess what? That includes you. In today's episode, we're all about embracing the energy of the season. From the science of why you're suddenly feeling more upbeat to giving your life a spring refresh inside and out. We're talking serotonin, sunshine, dirt under your nails, and letting go of what no longer serves you. So shake off the winter, open your windows and let spring into spring. I'm Joe, my pal over there in shorts and a sweatshirt. He's curved and. And we are dudes in progress. Hello, Kurt.

Hey, Joe. I feel so good with that. I got a little spring in my step from that intro.

Hello? Man, it feels like just three weeks ago we did a whole episode on winter.

I think winter was still in full winter time when we recorded that. And it's feeling a little bit more like spring now.

It was in all its violence. Right. Winter was just a few weeks ago, but wow, we have had some nice weather. I'll just speak with Cincinnati. We. It's cooled down a little bit over the past few days, but we've had some gorgeous weather and we are officially in spring right now. And I'm kind of digging it, man.

Yeah, I think it's one of my favorite times. Just as bad as winter is, spring just feels so awesome. As it starts to get a little warmer, get outside a little more. I liked your intro. I'm interested to hear what you're going to teach us this time.

Well, we'll see how it all shakes out. But the most important thing is we're in spring and everything is coming alive and we have a chance to breathe fresh air again instead of staying inside and breathing the air of our dirty furnace filters. Right, because we haven't changed them all winter long because we've forgotten. Right.

My wood stove always throws a little bit of smoke into the room every time I start it up.

The heater kicking on all that. Not to be a downer, but come August or so, we're going to think, boy, it's hot, but let's enjoy spring right where we are. Why does spring feel so good?

Well, like I said, I think winter feels so bad. And yeah, all those reasons. Getting outside, the birds chirping start feeling a little bit of warmth. Even in the morning time. The sunlight.

Ah, yeah.

I just love spring. I just feel so much better and I don't know why where do you.

Fall on daylight savings time when the clocks move up and move back?

Yeah, the last two cycles. I've never gave it much thought, maybe because it's in the news, being talked about a lot more, but I've hated it the last two. I have been out of sync. Now, when we moved the clocks, what was it? Back when winter started, I just couldn't get. I have such a great internal clock for getting up without an alarm, but I was all messed up. I was waking up at 4:00 in the morning every day for a while. And now, now I'm getting up late, Joe. I'm getting up later than normal. I don't know. I'm really messed up with this daylight savings.

I always say that the fall daylight savings move is my favorite day of the year because you get that extra hour of sleep and. But I don't. I find lately, past few years, several years maybe I'm not needing it, that extra hour of sleep. I'm just, I'm waking up when I wake up and it's always early in the morning. But if I were to choose between the two, and this is kind of an interesting discussion among a few friends of mine, but we've never talked about it. If I had to pick between one of the two, I would probably pick this daytime, this time of, this time where we spring forward. Now, it's not natural time because the natural time is before. Right now we're in daylight savings time. So this was, this was the legal change to our, to our time. And I can't, I can't remember why we did it. That would be an interesting fact to look up sometime. But if we have a listener out there that can tell us why we even did this, why we, why we decided to change the time, I would certainly love to hear that. But spring is the time that we spring forward, right? So we move, we move the clocks forward. We have that week or so where we're a little droggy because it's, our body is telling us it's earlier than what it is at 7:00, our body's telling us at 6:00 and that doesn't really affect me until mid afternoon and late evening and you realize, wow, it's, it's 8:00 already, or it's 9:00 already, the sun's still out and. Yeah, but I like spring, man. I really like spring. Like you, it's, it's a special time. It's a special time of year. It's that Season that everything comes alive. And we're lucky. Here in Cincinnati, we have. We have about an even amount of time of all four seasons. I know you're a little further up, more up north, Kurt, and you have a longer winter. Maybe winter starts a little earlier and goes a little longer, and you have a shortened spring and summer and fall. Because I think winter and fall are probably your two longest seasons. But you're not that far up north. You're still in North America, but there's definitely a difference. I watch the. The weather, and you. You get bad weather earlier than we get bad weather, and it seems to last longer.

Well, that's. I totally agree. And we don't trust March into April, even into April. We're. We're. We know we could get a real disappointing snowstorm. I remember one of my favorite times was to that told me it was spring was the opening of trout season. It was usually the third Saturday. And I think they've changed. I've been thinking about doing some trout fishing. I think they've changed some of the rules around it. But I remember going third week, third Saturday in April and having it snowing when I'm going out fishing.

Crazy.

So we don't trust it here until maybe we start feeling, you know, what is it? Memorial Day?

Yeah. That's kind of the unofficial start of summer, right? Memorial Day, the unofficial end of summer is. Is Labor Day.

That's when I go do my garden.

So why does spring feel so good? Like, let's think about this scientifically. Why does spring feel so good? Well, let's start off with the first thing. Sunlight. More daylight. We get more daylight. Not because we've pushed the clocks forward or sprung forward, but as seasons change and we go into summer, spring and summer, naturally we have more daylight. And that kicks in the production of serotonin. Daylight does that naturally. Our body produces more serotonin when we're. When we have more daylight. And that's the chemical that boosts your mood and makes you feel like dancing in the kitchen or for no reason, just you feel better. It's real, it's natural, and man, is it powerful. You've heard of sad, right? Season effectiveness disorder?

Yes.

Have you known anybody that has that?

I think we all got a little bit to some degree. And I've talked to family members that definitely feel that the wintertime is a serious downer. I was thinking not just the sunlight, but when you can ride in your car and it's a nice spring day and you got the windows open. I've got a sunroof and the breeze.

Blowing through, dude, I love it. Yes, Right. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Everything you can start seeing the budding of new flowers and new trees, and it's just, it's glorious, man. At the same time, though, as. As serotonin kicks in, your body starts dialing back on melatonin. That's the hormone that makes you sleepy. So you start feeling more alert, more energized, way less staying in your pajamas all day long. I don't care what they say, three days in flannel, you're going to be depressed. Not that there's anything wrong with pajamas, but still, you know, it's, it's. It's a chemical thing that's natural within our body. And it happens when the sun starts to come out, we produce more serotonin and our body starts dialing back on melatonin. And it's a. It's a. This beautiful balance, this beautiful dance that's going on within the chemicals of our body. And, you know, we need melatonin when winter comes and we need to rest and we need to kind of re. Refocus our lives in a. In a slower way. But spring is here, dude, and the serotonin's kicking in and the melatonin's dialing back, so all is well.

You're making me feel like some of the other mammals, like the bears that hibernate in the winter and the other animals that are underground staying away from the winter and their. How their bodies slow down and their metabolism is really a lot lower. And it's pretty magical how nature takes care of us during these seasons.

That's what spring is all about. It's a. It's about rejuvenating our body, rejuvenating our lives, rejuvenating our mind. Nature is rejuvenating. First, let's get outside. A huge mood booster, just being outside. A quick walk around the block. And we talked about walking a couple episodes back. Lower your stress, clear your head. Nature has this amazing way of making us feel grounded, right? Refreshed, like we're syncing up with this great season around us. So if you've been feeling a little down, a little low lately, let yourself experience spring and the way spring was meant to be. Experience experienced outside. Be more. You'll. You'll be more up, upbeat. You're not imagining it, man. You are more upbeat. It's. Your body is literally waking up with the world.

I like when the weather is warmer, like in the early Morning. You. I can get out on the deck. The sun comes up on that side of my house. Sit outside on my chair and feel the sun beating down on me. Now, it's not too hot yet, right? It's perfect. That's when you get these 70 degree days, which is the most perfect temperature.

Yeah.

Sun out, shining, sitting out on the deck. The snow is melted. Yeah. And things are starting to hum.

It.

I know it.

It's not humid yet, so it's just. It's just perfect. You know, we started about talking about getting outside. I have three things I'd like to talk about when it comes to spring. Let's talk about getting outside and reconnecting with nature. Let's talk about spring cleaning, right? Making it fun and renewing. And let's talk about reflecting and making personal progress. Let's talk about getting outside first. Kurt, it's time to get outside. We've talked about it a lot in this. In the short period of this episode so far. Spring is basically nature's big comeback tour, and, man, we are in the front row. Let's start by planning a long weekend. Nothing fancy, just a little escape, like hit the mountains, visit a lake, wander through a national park, even pitch a tent in your backyard. Did you ever do that when you were a little kid when the weather started to break?

Yes, absolutely.

I love that, man. I sure did that. We. We pitched a tent. We. I remember going down to the local ball field, right in the middle of the ball field at a. At a park and just pitched a tent right there when I was a little kid. Now, who would do that today, right? I might do it tomorrow. We'll see. And I know how you. I know how you like to take walks, Kurt. So it's time to walk your dog a little longer, Stand in the sun, just breathe. If you can't. If you can't get away completely, just get outside, man. Just get outside and walk around the block like I said. Sit on your porch, drink a cup of coffee, enjoy the spring weather. Enjoy the sunshine. Enjoy the sunshine that's coming out a little earlier and staying out a little later. But get outside and don't be afraid to get dirty, dude. This is something that I intend to do. Coming up. Gardening, planning, planning. Some. Maybe some trees in the backyard, some herbs, a little garden. I won't plant tomatoes because I hate tomatoes. I'll let somebody else grow tomatoes. But it's not just about getting the plants. It's not about getting. Making the garden. Our gardens are beautiful, but it's about getting your hands in the dirt and grounding. Right? Dirt is grounding. There's some. There's some science behind the concept of grounding, which we should probably talk about sometime, but there's some real interesting science and studies behind connecting with the dirt. Your skin, your toes, your hands, your feet on the dirt, on Earth. Literally on the Earth. It connects you in a way that I don't think we can even explain to reset your nervous system. There's some real interesting stuff behind this, Kurt. Again, we won't go deep into it now, but there's this con. Again, there's this concept called grounding that has some real benefits. Plus, if you're. If you're making a garden, if you're growing a garden, whatever it might be, isn't it just kind of magical to see that this little seed that you nurtured and watered and fed is now something beautiful, Something you can eat, something you can relish in the. In the beauty, Something you can enjoy 20 years later or your grandkids can enjoy 20 years later. But don't be afraid to get dirty, get outside, reconnect with nature.

I like that a lot. So, a couple of things. There's a couple of parks I like to go to. You're talking about going out for a walk. The only thing you're very careful with is it can be really muddy. If you're going outdoors, you're going into a park. I like to go around this pond called Burr Pond near me, and I can walk for two or three miles and circle the entire pond. That's a great spot. We've got this other one, Haystack Mountain, and you can go up to the top of this mountain. It's not really a hard hike, which you don't want in the wintertime after you've been inside and not doing a lot of walking. But it's perfect in that it's not that far to walk. But you get rewarded incredibly because you can see into New York State. It's just a beautiful view of. To get up on top. There's a. There's a tower up there that you can see for miles and miles. And it's. It's awesome. But you talk about planting. You probably know I love this. I love getting a garden. I've. I've grown some of the seeds in my house. Not had great success, but I'll go. I love going over to the garden stores and getting the things that I need. Maybe the tomato steaks I need, and I buy my tomatoes. I love putting in the tomatoes and I do cucumbers too. I seem to have really good success. I have a little garden up against my kitchen window that gets lots of sun. And the other thing I do is sunflowers. I like to grow sunflowers. Last year I had a really bad luck with them. Some critter was eating them. Joe. I'd buy them and they'd chop them in half on me every time I'd try to replace them and somebody was getting after him. I don't know who he is, but if I find that bugger, I don't know. I'm a little bit worried about doing my sunflowers this year. But I absolutely do. I like putting stuff on my deck, plants on my deck and. Yeah, it's something I get from my wife for Mother's Day. I'll get her some plants.

Yeah. Let's make sure we get into some real dirt, right? Some real dirt, connect it to the earth, get our hands dirty. And I've never had a time where I was playing in the dirt. I remember as a kid, as an adult, with your hands in the dirt, we're naturally connected to the earth. I've never had a time where you didn't feel good after that.

Well, you know, the thing is too, we working in offices or we sit down a lot, we're inside a lot. And I really enjoy. I shouldn't say that too loud. I like getting outside and doing the grass, doing the yard, a little bit of yard work and just feeling a little, little achy, Working the muscles a little bit. Yeah, I enjoy a full day on the weekends when I'm not out there doing my yard work. I take it slow too. I don't kill myself, but I enjoy that.

You don't have to. You don't have to do. You know what I love this time of year? You know what I love to do this time of year? And I think a lot of people do love to do it this time of year. I love to spring clean. I love to open up the windows, man, and let the fresh air in and start to get rid of all that stuff that you've collected over the wintertime at however you've collected it, right? Get rid of all that, get rid of all that stuff and, and really give your life a fresh start with your surroundings. It doesn't have to be all an all day affair. You can do it a little bit at a time. But it is like a seasonal refresh, man. Talking about decluttering. We don't have to go full minimalists here, right? We don't have to go crazy. We don't have to go full on. Marie Kondo or whatever her name is. Start with a drawer, a closet, one corner of your house. Just let it. Just clean it out. Declutter it. Get rid of all that junk. If you haven't used it in a year, get rid of it. Donate it. Somebody else might really need it. You're doing somebody else a favor. Plus, you'll free up space by freeing up space. You'll free up your mind by freeing up your mind. You'll free up your creativity and it. And it. It's not just your house. It's. It's the mental space that we live in. And we say this at the end of the show. The point isn't perfection. It's just movement, man. It's just clearing out those. Those areas of your life that need decluttered. And this spring is a perfect time to do that.

My wife opens the windows in the wintertime. I don't know if this. I don't know if this is from her German heritage or I know her parents did this, but I'll be like, I'll get up in the morning, the window's wide open in the winter, and it's freezing in the house. She likes getting that fresh air right away. I always think when you're talking about decluttering, definitely the garage, which is really cold in the wintertime. I don't like doing a lot in my garage, but I enjoy time in my garage, whether I'm working on a project. But decluttering the garage, it seems like I collect a lot of junk in the wintertime that I haven't touched. But then I can open up the garage doors, the back door, and let the air flow through. Got my music going. Yep, I'm playing. I don't know if you know. I've never had a neighbor complain to me about my music. I had someone say they like my music, but maybe they're just too shy to tell me. But I cranked the music and I got speakers all the way around the outside and in the garage. I got it going on.

Do you know what my odd. My odd cleaning pleasure is? And my kids love it because I. I always do it for them in the summer and springtime. I love the detail. Cars. I love to. Other than my own, but I love to take a car that is a little messy, maybe a lot of messy. And I get into it, man. I have a whole system. I have a whole vacuuming, cleaning, brushing, detailing system that I use. I have a couple bins with all the tools that I need to. To detail a car. And I love doing it. I put on some loud music like you do. It takes me a couple hours in the middle of the afternoon, but, boy, do I love that. That look when the car is. When the car is completely clean and I put some air freshener in there, some. Some Febreze, and then I give it back to my kid or my wife, and they're blown away by it. I just love that. I love it. And that's a. In springtime is a perfect time to start thinking about those things. Opening up, opening up your garage, your windows in your house, and just start decluttering. It's perfect time to do that.

I like that idea. I want. Yeah. Washing your car. Got the short sleeves on. Yeah.

Yeah.

I could spend a few hours doing that, too. Well, I wouldn't mind getting it detailed. So if I drive out to Cincinnati, I'll take you up on that.

I'm here for you, brother. Sponge in hand. Right.

Wow. Have a good old time.

It's. It's weird, I know, but my kids will do it over the summer, and in the spring, they'll. They'll bring their car over and say, hey, dad, what are you doing Saturday? And I jump into action, Right.

My daughter asked me to do her car all the time.

You know, spring isn't just about cleaning your house or your car or your garage. It's not just about decluttering. It's about checking in with yourself, too. It's about checking in to see how you're doing. How is life going? I mean, really, how is life going so far this year? Are you where you want to be? Are you doing the things that make you feel most like you? Are you being the best version of yourself? If you've set some goals in the beginning of year of the year, and I know we've. We talk about goals and how I feel about goals, but if you've set some goals or some values way back in January and you're a little off now, don't sweat it, man. It's the perfect time to pause, breathe, reassess, reset. You don't need to start over completely, just realign.

I think I was thinking of patience being the thing this year, so it's a good time to realign with that. I'm doing okay. How about lose some weight before bathing suit time comes?

That's coming.

Shake off that winter fat. But yeah, I like that idea.

You're either going to shake off that winter fat right now or you're going to jiggle it in the summertime. Something's going on, right? But yeah, it's a good time to touch base. Maybe get back on that scale and say, okay, maybe I won't. Maybe I won't get into the bikini Speedo this year. Maybe my kids will be glad I don't get into the Speedo this year, but I can take off a few pounds and I can reset. And that's a good point. Just pick one area of your life and ask yourself, what. What small shift can I make right now? Maybe it's getting back into focus on your morning routine or journaling or moving more like you said. Or just what are the things that you've brought into your life that you need to declutter in your mind? What are the things you need to say no to? What activities or mindsets have you brought into your life over the wintertime? Have you allowed yourself to be depressed or to get down if you've not done those habits that. That. That could help those things? Spring is a perfect time to readjust and realign. Again, say no to those things that you don't need in your life if it's draining your life. Springtime is a good time to put that stuff aside and reassess.

I never have thought of it this way, but it does feel that way. I was thinking of Easter. Isn't Easter fun when everything seems like coming alive, the dead of winter is gone and the rebirth is coming for Easter? Yeah, I like that idea to reassess. It's always a good time to do that.

And hey, whatever you do, wherever you are right now in your life and your year, don't forget to celebrate, man. Don't forget to count your blessings. Don't forget to look up, look at those victories and those wins in your life and the progress you've already made. Seriously, look back over the past few months, you're going to find that you've made some progress so you can celebrate those wins. And springtime is a good time to celebrate. You've probably grown more than you think. Little wins count. They count a lot. And it's time to take a look at those wins and to see how you can move forward.

I'll tell you, I'm thinking as you're going through this again. I'm cautious right now as we're speaking. I don't want to get my hopes up here in Connecticut, but I'm excited for spring. Joe, I'm glad you bringing this. I am too Topic.

I'm into it right now, man. I just love spring. I love what it's going to bring. I love the mindset that, the mindset shift that I'm feeling. It's going to be awesome. So as we wrap up this part, here's our spring to do list. I guess we could say soak up some sun, man, Open up your windows, clear out your space a little bit, breathe some fresh air, dig in the dirt and take time to reflect and move forward.

Great topic, Joe. I'm really excited for this. I was just thinking too. Another thing I, I love about spring is baseball. One of my favorite sports. When that spring season from the, the teams coming back from Florida and sometimes they gotta play in the cold up here up in New York. But yeah, having those first few games starting up, you know spring is here when, when the baseball season has started.

Yep. I love spring baseball, man. I love spring baseball. Go see the red sitting out there in the, on the bleachers. And we have a great ballpark here to watch baseball. It's a hitters ballpark and I, I do love watching the Reds. Reds have been terrible the past several years, but I don't care, man. I love going to a Reds game and I cannot wait for opening. Opening day is like a holiday here in Cincinnati. People take off work, a lot of people, a lot of businesses will give their employees the day off and they go down, go downtown and there's this huge parade downtown, tens of thousands of people and lining the streets of downtown Cincinnati. And there's this big parade and the big celebration and we all gather on Fountain Square if you're not going to the game. And they have a big jumbotron up on Fountain Square which is kind of the city center of Cincinnati. And it's spring, man. And that's what it's all about. Opening day baseball, digging in the dirt, breathing fresh air, clearing up your space. Let's bring it on, man. Let's bring on spring.

I didn't know you guys celebrated opening a baseball season that much. It doesn't really surprise me. It's probably goes back to that amazing Reds team from the 70s. We just lost Pete Rose, didn't we, recently?

Yeah, yeah, but those teams, that those.

Teams probably really ignited Cincinnati into the baseball love of the game.

Well, for the, for the longest time, up until maybe 10 years or so.

Ago.

The first opening day game was always the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds at home was always the first game of the season throughout all of Major League Baseball. And the Cincinnati Reds were the first professional baseball team. I don't know if you knew that or not, but yeah, the Cincinnati Reds were the first professional baseball team. And it's in our, it's in our DNA. It's. It's who we are. It's in our heritage. I granted we don't have as many wins, World Series wins as the Yankees, and I accept that. But still, we love baseball. I love spring. I'm ready for it. Bring it on. Bring on the sun. Bring on the car wash. Bring on the to do list. Bring on the decluttering. Bring on the dirt. Bring it all on, man. I'm ready for spring.

I love it. Thanks for getting me excited. Great topic.

Yeah, very cool. How about your win for the week?

Yeah, I had a surprise. I got a hundred dollar gift card reward at work and I was looking at my email, the way the subject was showing, it looked like I won a $10 award. And I saw the person who gave it to me. The work that I did, I thought was probably around the $10 reward, but when I opened it up, it was $100. Joe, I couldn't believe it.

That's awesome. Seems like you get one of those a month, man. You're getting those all the time.

That's probably about accurate. It's a nice program our company does and I was thinking of you because you had mentioned something that would look good in my office. And as I was thinking of something to get, I mean, $100 is a nice reward and I did find something. You know what it is and I'll tell you what it is during my resource tip or hack. But it was kind of fun to spend that [email protected] right after I got that and I thanked the woman who gave it to me. She, she was very appreciative of the work I did with her and I'm following up and doing some more work with her. But yeah, that was really nice. I always get excited for those.

Awesome. Congratulations, man. My win for the week. And I don't know if I've mentioned this or not, but I, I have my second meeting with them tomorrow night. My win for the week is I am helping my niece plan her wedding and she's asked for my help to do that. She's asking my help for not only to plan the wedding, but to also officiate it. So I'm heavily involved in that. And as I was thinking about counting my blessings and the things. I'm appreciative for her reaching out to her Uncle Joe for this kind of help. Is heartwarming. Right. And I just couldn't be more pleased to be part of her plans and to be a part of this new start to her life. So I'm pretty pumped about this.

I'm kind of surprised and not surprised because I know you do this. I didn't know you had another niece. What was the last one you did, Joe? Because I know you've done.

I did my nephew.

It was a nephew. Okay.

Yeah. I kind of do this on the side. I dig it. And it's. It's fun.

It's kind of interesting.

Weddings. Yeah.

That you do that. And I'm sure they. They really appreciate it because planning a wedding, I don't envy her. And it's not one of the things I enjoy doing.

Well, I have a knack for taking people's plans and helping them flesh it out and then boiling it down to actionable steps. It's what I do in my coaching business. It's what I do in my work, my primary income producing work. I have a real knack for that. And it's been fun helping her.

Awesome. When's she getting married?

June. Oh. So it's coming up.

Wow.

Yeah.

You better get other mind planning. You got to get doing.

Yeah, well, she's doing.

She's almost done.

We're just. Yeah. Yeah.

Good.

It's pretty awesome.

Where are they having it at?

His. His family. Her fiance's family has a huge piece of land out east of Cincinnati, and they're. They're. They're having it there.

Nice. Oh, I like that.

Right next to a lake. So it'll be cool outdoors, beautiful.

Like we're talking about June. Hopefully it won't be too hot. Everyone can enjoy it.

It's going to be hot, but it is what it is.

My wife and I had our. We got married in the church that she grew up in, but we had a nice place where it was owned by a bunch of teachers that did it kind of in their summertime or when they weren't teaching. And it was a nice kind of farm setting that they had a lot of. It was a event pavilion kind of place, but they had horses on the property and. Yeah. Nice pools. We did that. It was a great place to have a wedding.

Very cool. Awesome. Awesome. So how about your resource for the week?

I think I put a sign scrolling here behind me for Joe. Joe said to me, I've got the closet that I cleared out a few months ago, I think it was. And Joe said to me, you know that empty space there? You should Put something there. I think you said a sign.

I did, I did.

You were probably thinking of like an.

On air stat on air sign or do not disturb or something like that. Right. But I see it there in your background.

Can you read it?

Just to describe. Says Dudes on air. Dudes on air. And there's a scroll across the whole. The whole screen. Dudes on air. How cool is that, man? And I guess you can change it to whatever message you. You want it to say. You can. You can do a lot with it. I know you talked about this earlier. So tell us about this cool little toy you have.

Yeah, so I found it on Amazon. It's by a company called Rayhome. It's a scrolling, huge, bright advertising LED sign. I think they advertise it as putting it in the car. Like if you had Uber or Lyft or on your van, that kind of thing. It's. You roll it out. It's. It's a very flexible material, but it's LEDs. You put it in your storefront. You might see it there, you know, I did a video of this and posted it in my. My other podcast group and my friend Glenn Kessler's. I thought he was teasing me about it, but I said, don't you want one? Aren't you jealous that I got one? And you don't? Because he's got a art studio and he said he's serious. He's going to get himself one, too. But this one is 27 inches long by 5 inches. Cost me. It was on sale for 79.99. And, yeah, I'm excited because it's got an app that goes with it. You can put in any kind of text you want. It's got some icons that you can use and some other fancy stuff to do with it. But, yeah, I can change it. I've got a bunch of them. I can just change it anytime I want. But I'll use it during my podcasts and I'll say, welcome to the guests that I'm having on that kind of thing, too.

It looks really cool. Man, what fun.

I was so excited.

Really cool.

So I got the award on a Friday, and I wanted to have it ready for Saturday when Joe and I meet with Clay. So they did deliver it the same day. I was like, so Friday night, I'm like, get. Trying to figure out how to use the app so I could have it ready for you. And. And you were very serious when we started out that call. And you. I was like, he's not even A notice. I got this thing going. He's. I think I said, I love Joe on the scrolling and he just. So, I don't know, you were so into whatever you were talking about that you didn't notice it right away. And I'm like dying here waiting for you to say something.

Oh, I noticed it. It took me a minute, but I noticed it. It was, it's great, man. I really, I'm really tempted, man. I got this, I got a nice spot on the back of my wall that as soon as I paint it, I can, I can get, I can get that. That would look, that would look neat, man. That would look neat.

So if you come on my podcast or a guest with us, you'll see this scrolling, huge bright advertising LED sign on back of my wall.

How cool. Mine's not really a resource, but it is a new purchase that I made and there's a little bit of a story behind this. We both do some podcast editing and I do that for clients and I do that for this show and other shows that I'm participating in. But I purchased a, and this was that. That part of it is kind of my justification. But I purchased a 49 inch curved monitor and it is a beast, man. And what happened is, it's really interesting. I've been, I've been looking at the prices because I, I'm not a, I'm not an early, an early adopter for most electronics. I'm usually about three or four years behind on electronics. Now, I was an earlier early adopter to two things that I know of. One of them was online streaming movies like Netflix and Roku. That device, I was really early to that and I was early to using chat GPT. But this is a monitor that's a, it's a few years old. And what happened is I've been watching prices, I've been looking on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace and Amazon. And I was about to buy one off of Amazon, no, excuse me, off of, off of Amazon. But indirectly, there's a whole story behind that. And I was on, I looked at Facebook Marketplace and there was one advertised for just a couple hundred dollars. And this is a big, this is a big monitor. And I'm like, wow, that's a heck of a deal. And then I realized that he's 10 minutes down the road. And so I, I, I texted him, I messaged him through Facebook and he didn't respond right away. And I'm at church and I texted him as I left church and I said, hey, I'M driving right by your house in five minutes. And he didn't, he didn't respond right away. And as I was, I didn't know exactly where he lived, but I knew he lived within five or 10 minutes of where I was. Right. Because of the little town that he said he was in. It's Amelia, just east of, just east of Cincinnati. And he sent me a, he sent me a message back and he said, hey, I just changed the, I just changed the description. I'm getting a ton of calls about this. First, first person with cash can come pick it up. And I looked at the description and yep, that's what he said. And I said, where do you live? And he gave me his address. And I was literally one minute away. And I rolled up into his driveway, had cash on me, gave him the, gave him the cash. And when all said and done, it was about 15 minutes because I asked him to plug it in to make sure it worked and all that good stuff. But it's one of those purchases that don't necessarily fall into the minimalist mindset, but it, it does. It will be more, it will help me be more efficient. It will help me kind of organize my, my desk a little bit. And the way I have it set up even, even as we're doing our show and my notes right in front of me, I can see right now that it's, it's very, very helpful. Is it necessary? No, no. But not everything in life is necessary. This is a nice little thing as a 49 inch curved monitor. So I, I can say it's a resource by saying this. If you use two monitors right now and you can find a good deal to. And room on your desk for a 49 inch curved monitor, go for it. Because I can tell you right now, just after a week or so using it, it's awesome.

I've used two monitors for a long time in my work, and when I came home to work from home, I had one. I was using like my laptop and another monitor as the two monitors. That's a horrible experience. I have two monitors now, so I don't know if I would justify the way. I've got, I've got them kind of angled, so I'm probably got as much real estate as you have with 227.

You definitely do. Yeah, you definitely do. What this does is it kind of gets rid of the seam. I can put, I can for sure, I can put something in the middle of it where you would normally put it in the seam between the two so you can have one, one long window, one long thing open. It helps with a couple things. If I'm editing a podcast and I have my digital audio workstation or my DAW right in front of me, I use reaper and I can stretch out that, that wav file, that audio file, and I can see where I'm editing and the spots I need to edit, where I have edited and get up, really get up granular. If I need to get up granular that. And I've done it a couple times. That has been really nice. But just how it's decluttered my desk a bit, gave myself more room. It's definitely going to be effective and something I'm excited about. So if you get a chance to find a really good deal on Facebook Marketplace for a 49 inch curved monitor, I say go for it.

How much were the new ones you were looking at?

Well, the brand new ones, high end, with new technology, they're in the, you know, 15, $1600 range, maybe even more than that. But most of them that I was looking at were in the 5 to $700 range. So when I saw this pop up, I'm like dag gone, man. And it was one of those situations where he upgraded and he just wanted to get rid of it.

A gamer, you told me.

Yeah. Oh, he's definitely a gamer. He's definitely. You should see this guy set up. It's crazy. Unbelievable.

I believe this is neat.

Yeah, it's pretty neat.

Well, I love gear, I love electronics and.

Me too.

Yeah. I could you make me want to justify it.

Well, I couldn't justify. The reason I was waiting is I couldn't justify 5 or $600.

Yeah.

For a, for a low end monitor that's not as good as this one. This one is. So this one is new. It's. Excuse me, this one is used. But he had all the original boxing, all the original packing, all the original styrofoam. He didn't have the, the manual, but you do, you know when you buy a monitor and has that little plastic protective stuff around the edge, it still has all that on there. You know, he still has all that on the backing where he didn't peel it off back and, and so it still has all that on there. So I'm pretty daggone pleased.

I like it.

It's neat. It's neat. Really neat.

I had a similar experience with Facebook Marketplace when I got a subwoofer. Not something I absolutely had to have, but I found a good deal like that and the same thing happened. He said, we're getting, I'm getting a bunch of calls and somebody, I think somebody didn't show up. But I said, hey, it was like a Saturday. I was out in my garage doing stuff on a nice spring day and I had, I was texting them, I said, I'll be over there in five minutes. I know where you are. And I got it for like 70 bucks or something. Nice awesome subwoofer for my stereo here.

Very cool.

Yeah.

So enough about big monitors, great big purchases and scrolling, scrolling signs behind US and a 49 inch real estate right in front of us. Let's end up with our quotes.

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant. And Bradstreet.

Wow, what a perspective. That is so right. We wouldn't appreciate spring so much if we didn't have to go through winter.

Yeah. That's what makes spring so great. You like? Oh, I'm so glad winter is over. This feels so good. You appreciate it so much more. Yeah.

Good. Good job. Anne Bradstreet. I don't know who you are, but good thought. I do like this a lot. If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant. And that's a, that's a lesson for life in general.

Yeah.

That if you're going through winter, spring is coming.

Yeah. Don't you.

And as our pal Winston Churchill said, and I brought up this quote a couple times, if you're going through hell, keep going.

That's right. You really, you really appreciate things if you've been through some tough times. I, I was having a nice conversation with a young lady. She was asking me some advice, getting into IT work. And I told her the struggles that I went through. And boy, I appreciated it. It took me about 10 years to get into an IT department. From the day I started working out of college till I finally was officially working in an IT job, you know, that was officially working for that department. And she was going through. I said, it took me 10 years. Now I don't want to depress you. Maybe I think you can do better than I did. But I didn't do it the easy way. But I really appreciated it. I appreciate it now. She made me feel even better thinking way back when I started. Yeah, nice.

My quote comes from somebody that I've admired for a long time. And even though he's not with us, I admire him kind of even more. And what a tragic loss he was to this world. But I love what he says here. Spring is nature's way of saying, let's party. Robin Williams.

Oh, that is such a great quote. And like you said, it's a little bit sad because we know, unfortunately, tragically, what happened to Robin Williams. We both appreciate him so much. You told me about that movie, Good Will Hunting.

Oh, yeah.

That I had never seen before. What is that from like 1999?

It's a long time ago. It's. It's Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, the other act. Matt Damon's first movie.

That's right. I wrote it.

Their first movie. Yeah, they wrote it, direct it, produced it.

Whatever made them famous.

It's their movie. It's made them famous.

Yeah, it is.

So I think it's Robin Williams first Oscar.

He is so good in that movie.

Oh, boy.

Nobody could have played that part. That was probably pretty early in his career of acting, I would think.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll never forget when he did his stand up in hbo, back when HBO was the place to do your stand up special and just incredible off the cuff ad libbing.

What was the, what was the charity thing that he did, like?

Oh, that was a comedy.

It was a comedy. All the, all the comics got together and to raise money. Very important.

Yes, very important.

It was him and Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg.

That's right.

When Whoopi Goldberg was funny and. Yeah, it was just a. It was neat. He was a special person. Man. This, this world is less without Robin Williams. And I. I do believe that we lost one of the real joy bringers in this world. So spring is nature's way of saying, let's party. Thanks, Robin.

Party on, Garth.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. How about we wrap up right there, pal?

Sounds good. Well done.

Our website is dudesinprogress.com. dudesinprogress.com if you want to reach out to us, you can reach out to us through dudesudesinprogress.com we would love to hear from you. Remember, spring is here, man. It's time to make progress. You don't. When you get out there in the sun, when you start cleaning your house, when you're digging a garden, whatever it is, you don't have to be. You don't have to be perfect. It's just about making progress, man. It's about jumping into spring, jumping in the new life and moving life forward. So you just gotta keep moving.

I'm with Robin Williams. Let's party, dude.

Let's do this. See ya, pal.