SPEAKER_01 0:00

What's going on, y'all? Welcome back to the Corpus Christi Originals Podcast. Today I got John with me here, running for District 5. How do you say your last name, John?

SPEAKER_06 0:06

Hanselik. John Hanslick.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

John Hanselik, you guys. You want to introduce yourself, John?

SPEAKER_06 0:10

Yeah, my name is John Hanslick. I uh owner of JH Industrial, and I am running for uh City Council District 5 this coming up election.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Yeah, yeah. So John and I, we know each other from high school, 99, 2000, right? I graduated 01. 01? Yeah, I dropped out for a minute and went back. I think I did 02.

SPEAKER_06 0:26

Were you supposed to graduate in 01?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 0:28

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

I went to and I graduated from Miller High School. Oh, you went to Miller? I didn't want to go back to Ray, bro, because like I don't know. I just didn't want to face all those people asking me, hey, what happened? Why'd you drop out? Did you play football in Miller? Nah, no. I was already too old by then.

SPEAKER_05 0:43

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

They didn't let me, they didn't let me. I tried, I was like, damn. Because I like to hit people, bro. You know, so so uh yeah, so we I had uh recently had a an episode with Rachel Caballero, and then I think you messaged me on YouTube, hey, you know, shout out or whatever. I guess that's one of the things that's on my mind at the moment. Um, I guess uh do you want to talk about that first? You want to talk about maybe about summer up about your background?

SPEAKER_06 1:06

Let's let's go right in.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Let's do it. Let's do it. So Rachel was talking about the mayor, obviously getting rid of the mayor and what else? Uh the the desalinization products. Inner harbor, yeah. Inner harbor, all that stuff, and which is a lot of it is like I was mentioning before, is new to me, even though I work in the industry, you know, I'm a truck driver. Um, and I've obviously those refiners use a lot of water. We need water, yada yada. So was there was some stuff that she that she was saying, or I mean, what do you want to touch on about that?

SPEAKER_06 1:33

Well, first of all, I mean, I guess let's go on to the mayor first, right? Uh full disclosure, I I didn't vote for Paulette Guardo, I voted for Michael Hunter, right? But at the end of the day, people did. Like she got elected, she got enough votes to win. I think it was 60 something thousand folks that that put her in office, right? So it's I think it's disingenuous and I think you know, slippery slope to uh discount all those votes, right? So three entities have looked into the um the ethics portion of it. CCPD looked into it, the FBI looked into it, the Texas Rangers looked into it and said, hey, there's no there there.

SPEAKER_07 2:04

Wow.

SPEAKER_06 2:05

You know, let's let's go everybody go about their business. And then with a um uh five-person memo, they were able to to basically counteract all all those investigations and say, hey, we know better.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

What?

SPEAKER_06 2:17

And uh and put her uh essentially on trial, like to to actually impeach her.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Oh, that's weird.

SPEAKER_06 2:23

Which is which is crazy. You know, that that's dangerous too. I mean, and that and that's the charter, right? They they always like to cite the city charter. Yes. Well, within the city charter, there's options, right? They could have sent it to the ethics commission and let it hand. That's what the ethics commission is for. They didn't necessarily need to take this course of action, right? Which is costing the you know, the citizens of corporate structure a lot of money. Yeah. And it's taking a lot of focus away from what the council could be doing.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Okay, yes. That's what I was we will mention that too, as far as it being political theater and stuff like that, which I and I and I mentioned it too. Like, am I the only one that sees this or think that this is why stuff like this happens?

SPEAKER_06 3:00

Yeah, yeah. There's other stuff they can be working on. You know what I mean? Yeah, like for sure.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Okay, so right right now, what's behind what's behind that? The mayor, other than the mayor getting kicked out or whatever, what what's stuff they should be working on right now?

SPEAKER_06 3:12

Well, for sure, water. I mean, if people aren't talking about water right now and and they're trying to run for city council, they're they're messing up. And and everyone is. Because water's important to everybody. You know, you got one side that's like industry takes all the water, they're greedy, they're greedy, they're greedy. The water's not for the residents. Well, without industry, there are no residents essentially. That's my opinion. Right. If you get rid of all the industry, there's gonna be a bunch of homes boarded up for sale with no one to buy them.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Homelessness, crime, like all kinds of bad.

SPEAKER_06 3:40

People are gonna move. People that can't afford to move will move. They'll leave. Wow. You know, they'll have to. You know, they have to they have to make a living. Yes, yes, for sure. And it's not just the industry folks, that's what people, you know, maybe sometimes don't realize. Not just your industrial folks, but your doctors, your lawyers, your nurses, your restaurants, all your associated talent around what what supports a community, they are going to uproot and they're gonna go to a community that that can support them and their wages.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Wow. I I don't, I mean, to be honest, I don't see industry leaving. Like, I mean, it it could it could happen. I don't know. I just feel like it's so rooted. I feel like it's so rooted here for so long, you know. I mean, why why now?

SPEAKER_06 4:21

Well, I mean, Valero invested a billion dollars to leave California. Oh, seriously. So it's not unprecedented, you know. Oh, okay. So they feel like that well, they're they're trying to make money, right? Their business and their goal is to make money. If and if they don't have water to make money, yeah, you know, but all that to say, I'm sure they'll figure it out. Yeah, they'll they'll probably find their own water sources, you know. But Valero, you know, I don't want to understate this. They they went and they secured their own effluent water.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 4:47

They're gonna get 8 million gallons a day from you know uh the the city's effluent water to reuse. But they're they're paying for the pipeline, they're gonna pay for the effluent, and they're gonna pay to maintain that water.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Okay, so they're basically paying for the water that they need to use.

SPEAKER_06 5:04

They are, they are, and they're paying to get it. They're paying the city of Corpus Cruise Corpus Christie water. Yeah, they're paying for the water, yes, they're paying for the line to get the water, and then they're gonna pay for the the maintenance on the plant. Like, who does that? You know, I mean, if that's not a pretty good partner and that's not a olive branch saying, hey, we're here to work together, I don't know what it is. Flynn Hill's doing the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Oh man, that's an interesting take. I haven't I haven't heard that before. Wow, that's that's amazing.

SPEAKER_06 5:27

People don't say that. I feel like that's you can't say it that loud enough. That's a pretty big deal, I think.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Oh, okay, yeah, for sure. Because we're thinking, oh, they need to pay, they need to find their own water, this, this, and that. Why do they got to use city water, all that stuff, right? Um, man, so that's very interesting. Do they so do they have to use city water? I mean, well, obviously they're in this city.

SPEAKER_06 5:46

We want them to use city water because if not, check this is what would happen. Let's for easy numbers, let's say it takes a million dollars a year. This is just easy numbers, right? Let's say it takes a million dollars a year to operate this facility and you sell to a thousand people, right? So that that price is gonna be broken up accordingly, right? Well, let's say you remove half those folks, now you need 500 people to pay for that million dollar infrastructure, right? So they essentially industry subsidizes what the residents pay.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Whoa.

SPEAKER_06 6:16

Like all that, all that to say our rate would double, triple, you know what I mean, if if they got their own water.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Wow, that's whoa, that's crazy, bro.

SPEAKER_06 6:22

Because the cost to make the water didn't get any less. You just don't have any anyone to sell it to.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

It's okay. So we can complain about uh raising water prices on our water bill. What's how how do we attack that?

SPEAKER_06 6:32

I mean, it's gonna go up. It's the council's already already uh approved and is spending uh a billion dollars for you know, like the Evangeline, uh the well projects. It they've already spent that money and it's not really coming to fruition. Evangeline's contested. They they've already bought and pipe, you know, they got material showing up every day. Okay, so they've invested some money, it's not showing up.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

So we so the city has already invested into getting us more water, therefore our taxes is going up. Well, not to pay for that, not a taxes. The rates, the water rates to pay for that. Wow.

SPEAKER_06 7:04

Yeah, and it's not producing the water they they said it was going to. You know, the this council likes to, you know, boast that hey, this council's done more than any previous council to bring on new water sources, but there's problems with each particular uh project they're bringing on. You know, there's roadblocks.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Roadblocks. So the project uh at at the moment is desalinization, whether to put it in Hillcrest. Is that is that is that the main thing that we're talking about, right? Because they I just recently heard they postponed it till September.

SPEAKER_06 7:34

Yeah, correct. Gil Hernandez made a motion to uh to suspend the vote to September 1st. Yeah, and essentially, you know, let's unpack that a little bit, right? So Inner Harbor's fully permitted, it's majority funded, probably three quarters of the way funded. Um and and funded to be clear, it's borrowed funds, but at a very good, you know, a favorable rate. Yeah. You know, so and it is permitted. The location is in the in in Hillcrest, so to speak. It's it's kind of an in an industrial area, it's right by the plants.

SPEAKER_07 8:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 8:08

You know, and and there's some there's some pushback on on where it is. And it's probably not the the most preferred location, but it's the location we've got. And it's and it's permitted.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 8:19

And then there was some environmental pushback, like, hey, if you dump 30 million gallons of brine in the in the inner harbor every day, it's gonna, you know, what are the effects?

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Affects sea life, all that other stuff.

SPEAKER_06 8:28

Right. So they they Eric can too, actually. He pushed for, he wanted a far field model, which, you know, you got a near field, which is the the effects right there, yeah, yeah. At the drops or the discharge. Far field, okay, let's extend that out. Let's see what it does to Nuasis Bay. Let's see what it what it does when it gets out into the oh sure to the other bays. And that study shows no effects. You know, Spheros did did a uh model. We had a a Farfield model committee, uh diverse committee made up of residents of Corpus Christi, and everybody had their input. It came back. I mean, it was quick, you know, they were on time craft. They they were they had to work hard because they were up against the deadline. Wow. And it and it shows little to no no difference as far as stratification goes.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Do you think so? A lot of people that go to the city council meetings, which I watch, and like I I call it a circus to be honest, because there's a lot of smoke and mirrors and stuff. Um, do you think a lot of those people that are commenting, public comment, know what they're talking about? Or do they feel like they just pick the side and just like we're gonna do this no matter what this says? You know what I mean? Like, what's your take on all that stuff?

SPEAKER_06 9:36

Well, that's a good question, but it that that's uh that's interesting, right? Because we don't know because I would love to have that conversation with them, right? It would it seems that side is not really willing to have a conversation. Like a community needs good, healthy debate. Like if someone disagrees with me, like wholeheartedly, like let's sit down, let's have some coffee, and let's let's bounce facts back and forth and let's see where we come to. But the shouting, the screaming, it's I love the passion, right? But you gotta kind of hone that in a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Yeah, have some actual civil, civil discourse.

SPEAKER_06 10:09

And you're not gonna sway anybody. That that's my other issue. If you go up there and you you start cussing at people, calling them out, you're not gonna sway them your way. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 10:17

You're just being disrespectful at that point.

SPEAKER_06 10:19

Like if I want someone to change their mind, I'm gonna come to them a certain way. I'm gonna kind of you know approach them calmly, coolly. Hey, let's let's this is what I got. What do you got? Yeah. And we'll have a debate back and forth, and you know, maybe we'll agree to disagree at the end of the day. Yeah. But we'll have a mutual respect for each other.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

For sure, man. That's awesome. Uh, yeah, so we get let's get that out of the way. Let's talk a little bit about your past, bro. Uh for the people that are watching, they're like, who is this guy? Um, so uh the roots uh tell us about uh your connection with Corpus Christi District 5. Uh what makes that specific part uh town home for you?

SPEAKER_06 10:51

Well, I I live in District 5. That just happens to be, and that's how the the city works, right? So you can only uh if you're gonna run for a district, you have to live in district. You gotta live in yeah, so we got five districts and three at-large uh seats. I chose to run uh in district five. This is home. I live off of Everhart and Cedar Pass.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Yeah, yeah, south side. South side. Well, I south side, right? It is, yeah. For sure. So yeah.

SPEAKER_06 11:13

This is the faster fastest growing district in corpus right now.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Nice. Yeah. So running for city council is a is a grueling process. It takes away uh from work, family, and daily life. Uh, what was the exact moment of uh or the specific issue that made you say, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna put my name on the ballot?

SPEAKER_06 11:30

Uh it would have to be the dysfunction on on the dais, actually. I mean, I'm passionate about water. Uh I work in industry. I'm passionate about the you know, our industrial partners here. I want to make sure that they have what they need to to thrive because if they do well, I do well. Yes. And in the thought processes, everyone in the community does. But just the way their lack of decision making, you know, I learned in business very very early on. I've been in business for six years now. Uh that the worst decision you can make is no decision at all, right? So, you know, make a decision, even if you make a bad decision, you know, and when you do make a bad decision, because not all mine have been been right, right? But when you make a bad one, you've done enough due diligence to where you don't make a catastrophic decision. No, sure. You make a bad one, you learn from it, but it's not so far out there that you can't recover from it. And you pivot and you learn and you're constantly assessing yourself and your decisions and your and your and your policies. And that's the same way with inner harbor. Everything, the science right now shows it's safe. But let's say it's five years down the road, three years down the road, whatever. It's built and it's actively working. But we're not just gonna set it and forget it. We're gonna be constantly monitoring the inner harbor, the bays, and if and if the experts see something, we're gonna pivot. There's things we can do. We're gonna adjust, we're gonna adapt, we're gonna, we're gonna engineer it to where it's completely safe for the environment.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Yeah, for sure. Uh we were we were talking about earlier about like the the topic of like people getting paid and money. I guess lobby you call them lobbyists or whatever. I guess, well, they're a little different from lobbyists, maybe. Lobbyists kind of go. Yeah, I don't know the terms, bro. I'm kind of like, but I'm thinking like, okay, somebody pays this person to talk about this or to side for this side of this. Like, I'm thinking uh compos saying that she's getting paid by the the port or something, or something like that. I don't know, I don't know too too much. Sorry, um Miss Compose if I'm misconstruing that or whatever. But is that do you think that stuff is present on the people people that are involved in the diets? Like, because I could ask that of you. I vote for you, you get up there, hey John, are they paying you, bro? You know what I mean? To say this, this, and that. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_07 13:34

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

So I feel like maybe, maybe, maybe saying, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_06 13:39

I I would hope not, Jesse, right? But you kind of hear the whispers, right? Yeah, but that's another reason why I kind of wanted to run for politics, right? Because when everyone's running, they always say the most perfect things, like, oh, that's amazing. That's what I want, that's what I want, that's what I want. And then they get there, and that's a 180. Like, what happens? Like, what truly happened? Because I I know my morals and I know my values, right? And I I strongly feel like I could not be swayed one way or another. Do I want the industry to win? Absolutely, because it is my position that everyone wins that way. Okay. I don't think there's anything that can happen where I get up there and and 180 from that. But I'm also uh for the people. Yeah, like I love people, I'm a people person.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Yeah, that's what's up.

SPEAKER_06 14:23

You know, I gotta at the at the end of the day, I gotta go to Stripes, I gotta go to HEB. I gotta go to the mall. You know what I mean? I want to have comfortable conversations.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

What's your favorite H E B, bro?

SPEAKER_06 14:31

Uh right here, H E B plus on Saratoga. Southside, yeah, yeah, Southside. My wife Jess, bless her heart, my beautiful wife has signed off to let me do this. But yeah, when she makes me go to HEB, I'm not a huge fan of grocery shopping.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Do curbside, bro. You don't do curbside?

SPEAKER_06 14:46

She does. Yeah, my wife does too, bro.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

She loves that curbside stuff.

SPEAKER_06 14:49

Yeah, I don't go. It's it's a it takes a lot of time.

SPEAKER_04 14:52

Yeah, it takes a lot of money to be a big the longer you're there, the more money you're spending. I love HEB, but it's not it's expensive to go there anywhere.

SPEAKER_07 15:01

You better go in with a list, that's for sure. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Yeah, I was thinking like get go curbside over there on edge of Saratoga, but I'll go curbside to get a flat screen. Don't they sell TVs? It's kind of like Walmart regular electronics there. That's cool.

SPEAKER_06 15:17

What's your HEB?

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Uh Texan by by Rachel. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_06 15:22

I haven't been to that one at all. My mom goes to Alameda and Robert. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess if I had to go, I'd prefer that. That one's casual. Okay, okay. In and out. You know what I mean? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Yeah, that's what's up, man. They had HEB's got their stake in here. No store does more, you know? Exactly, bro. Is that a scene or what? That's theirs. I'm back on that one. Yeah, so yeah, so we went to real high school together, man, bringing back a lot of memories and stuff like that. Uh hey, shout out to Coach Blaine. Coach Blaine, bro. I'm thinking about exactly thinking about him. I wonder, I wonder. I hope you're doing it right, Coach Blaine. You're still out there.

SPEAKER_04 15:53

Fair Fawcett, bro? Oh, yeah, that was this blame the fame. He dated Fair Fawcett back in the day.

SPEAKER_06 15:59

Hey, but we gave him we gave him a rough time, and I gotta shout out Gerber because that was my boy.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, did you ever get a Grand National?

SPEAKER_06 16:08

Heck nobody get a Grand National. And uh, what's what's that rapper? Lamar?

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Oh, yeah, Kendrick.

SPEAKER_06 16:14

Yeah, he kind of ruined my chances. That was super more popular than it ever was, right?

SPEAKER_07 16:20

So yeah, probably not. Yeah, yeah, he's uh black Grand National. Yeah, I was like, that's John, bro. That's all I can think about.

SPEAKER_06 16:28

I want I want one and I still do want one, but they're getting they're getting up there, dude.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

They are seriously, because they only made so many, right? Or something like that.

SPEAKER_06 16:34

Yeah, 547 GNX's were ever made.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

So that's what's up, bro.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Yeah, so so so I'm just interested because we've known each other and I'm like, damn, John's running for for district. That's pretty cool. And I was I was and then you reached out to me and I was like, man, what's uh what's the deal, man? Like, why do you want to do this? And then I saw your video, was it on Cable Triple I or something like that? Where you're talking about your where you work and what you do industry.

SPEAKER_06 16:57

It might have been, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

That's another question that I could ask, or people could ask, like, well, you're part of industry and you're running, you're running for a district. Is that gonna help you out? You know what I mean? Is that why you're running for district?

SPEAKER_06 17:07

It shouldn't. Like, I I hope it doesn't. It it it really should not. The whole the whole point is to not do because that's what the opposite of what you truly want. Right? The the whole point is not for me to run and make a ton of money by being up there. Being up there, yeah. My my business is supposed to do what my business is gonna do, whether I'm there or not, right? Right. So when I'm up there, you know, and I'm blessed. I got a I got a uh a gentleman that works for me. He takes care of everything I need him to take care of. So it kind of frees me up to do this. But cool. Like that would be the I don't do any work for the city, you know what I mean? So very, very few things that that I would make a decision on. Or if I do have to make a decision that would directly affect my potential business, I'd recuse myself from, which is what you should do. Oh, shoot. Like you you're supposed to take care of the like you represent constituents. People put a lot of faith in you to go in there and do their bidding. You're supposed to respect that and honor that. And and that's partly what we're not seeing in council right now is you gotta respect the office.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

So that's ethical, an ethical decision.

SPEAKER_06 18:06

For sure. Like you gotta be able to sleep at night, you know. That that goes back to going to the stripes, going to the malls. You know, I'm I'm everywhere in this town. Yeah, like I'm all over the place. Oh, yeah. Like, I don't want to be running from everybody, you know what I mean? Aside from that, I want to do the right thing. You know, my Lord and Savior wants me to do the right thing as well.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

That's what's up, bro. Uh, yeah, I was man, I was thinking about something there. Um, yeah, forgot what I was thinking about. I'll probably come back to it. So you're running for District 5. Um, let's see, seeing the mass there's just massive residential growth. Uh, how do you sustain the incredible growth without letting or the existing infrastructure uh like letting it go, I guess. Uh like street maintenance, localized drainage, and neighborhood parks, letting them without letting them crumble. What's your plan to ensure uh city hall prioritizes fixing what's already broken?

SPEAKER_06 18:51

Okay, that's a very good question. And that I think that goes hand in hand with actually getting past this mayor deal, making a decision on on Inner Harbor. Uh you have to get those, you have to make those decisions so you can move on and take care of the other streets have gotten better, but there's a lot more to do. And you really can't focus on that if you're if you're you know tied up on these other issues that are that are you know a huge time crunch or time suck that that that you're not focusing on the real deal? That city council meeting the other day, last Tuesday, I didn't get out of there, I went and watched it. I pretty much go to everyone. We got out at 238 in the morning. You know what I mean? So can you really focus on on roads and parks and drainage and infrastructure when you've got a meeting that goes to 2.38 in the morning? Wow. And that's another issue. Who would who would make that kind of decision after some of them were there at nine o'clock with the mayor, some of the council people there, and the mayor herself until nine o'clock in the morning, till two two thirty-eight in the morning. Wow. And then you make a huge decision like that. I think that's irresponsible as well. I think at some point, and I believe there is a mechanism in there to set it before, hey, we're gonna go till 10 p.m. That's it. And then we're gonna reconvene the next day, and then we'll make our decision. After after we got some rest, everybody got some coffee and some breakfast. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Some reset for your mind for sure.

SPEAKER_06 20:08

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

Yeah. Did you learn? So you uh we were talking earlier, you mentioned uh this class school that you went through. Was it CC uh Oh Leadership Corpus Christie? Yeah, CC Leadership Corpus Christie. You want to tell us some tell us more about that?

SPEAKER_06 20:20

For sure, for sure. I was in class 54 and uh 30 people get selected to that every year. It's a it's a program sponsored by the United Chamber. 30 people get selected. So it's a lottery or well, it there's a selection process, not really a lottery, yeah. Okay, okay. So you apply, you kind of put on there, you know, there's certain questions. Hey, what do you do here? What do you do there? And then they've got a panel that select the what they feel the the people, the 30 folks that fit the program the best. Cool. And then you go through a 10-month program. And I have met the most amazing people.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_06 20:52

Like we had just the most awesome. Every the thing is, every class says they're the best class ever. Well, if if any other LCC alumni are out there, class 54 truly is the best class ever. And most of the folks, in fact, all the people helped me with my team are our LCC alumni. That's cool. And you just learn a lot about your you learn a lot about your community. That's really what it's about. Is you know, leadership corpus christi. They teach you about your your servant leadership, parts of your city. I mean, we did we did all kinds of stuff. We did a uh uh city county thing. We were actually in uh city hall.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

That's when we did our yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's cool.

SPEAKER_06 21:29

So it was like kind of like a mock uh thing where you we did a we did a mock city council meeting at the at the very end, but other people came to speak to us, like Chief Markle came in, yeah, Sheriff Hooper came in.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_06 21:40

Sony, the assistant uh city manager spoke to us. So that's what they they bring in a bunch of speakers, and and it's really all about learning about your community.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Yeah, for sure. Man, what made you want to do that? Like, because not a first of all, people don't know about that, and then you actually took an interest in it. Like, what why did you decide to my basic question on my Podcast is like, why are you like this? You know what I mean? And I always want people to share like why they're like that. You know what I mean? Why why why did you decide to do that? I know you mentioned your your dad was a uh in in refinery worker or something like that.

SPEAKER_06 22:14

Yeah, he worked at Valero for for 30 some years, you know. So, but I I took a different road. I mean, yeah, we my we did, bro. I I have lived in every district in this town, right? So I have been all over the place.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:26

And you know, I guess I figured life out when I was about 25 years old when uh my my wife, well girlfriend at the time, but soon to be wife, she was pregnant. And that's when that's when me and uh had a come to Jesus meeting, I suppose you'd say. You know, and it was time to get things figured out. And I went to you know, I was going to welding school, became a welder, and and uh, you know, I you know, went through the progressions there, worked at Kiwit, worked at Bay, got a rig truck, started working for myself essentially with a welding rig. And then you know, I got blessed, I got an opportunity when steel dynamics came into town and uh started started my own company and been going ever since. And that's what's up, bro.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Yeah, it's it seems like for all of us, there's a certain time in our life where like dang like stuff just changes. And sometimes it'll change and then we won't notice it until somebody tells us, oh, won't you like this? And I'm like, I don't do that no more. You know what I mean? I'm like this now.

SPEAKER_06 23:18

That's about growing up and maturing. Yeah, and there again, I haven't always made the best decision, you know, in business or in life. But as long as you don't make the worst possible decision you can make, which hopefully you wouldn't because you put enough effort into not doing so, you know. Yeah, for sure. You learn and you grow. And that's what makes us who we are, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Nice, yeah, for sure. I definitely think like that has to that has some a part to play in it, especially if you're running for city council. If we don't know somebody like, because like I don't know who the mayor is, I don't follow the mayor, I don't follow any of the any of the people on that panel, bro. To be honest, a lot of us don't. Like, a lot of us just like we vote, we come out to vote, and then that's it.

SPEAKER_06 23:59

I wouldn't I would encourage more people to get involved because a lot of people will focus on on national news, maybe state level, and and they kind of forget about the the local level. But that's the form of government that touches your touches you personally the most. Yes. Because that's that's affects you every day. You can see it every day. As soon as you leave your house, you see local politics. Yeah, for sure. Whether it be in your road, whether it be in the drainage you're talking about. Oh, yeah, definitely. Whether you drive by the park that's not mowed. Yep. That's what you see. So that matters. So and I I think people are starting to wake up and realize, you know, it really does matter. And and we're they're also accessible. That's that's the the interesting thing about local politics, is you you can't call Greg Abbott right now. Right, right. You know what I mean? But you can if you want to, if you need to, you can call Gil Hernandez right now. You know, he may not answer, but you can shoot him a text. Yeah, he'll get back to you. That's for sure. He and he's out and about in the town. You can see him. If you have a major issue that that affecting you, you can get a hold of these folks. That's why it's important to put the right people in.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Oh, yeah, for sure. So having the right people in there will help them to make then you get into obviously the argument of like who's get the right people in to do what what they want for the city, but then how do we know like that what they want is right for the city and what like what I want is right for the city may not necessarily be what's right for the city in your eyes. Do you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_06 25:14

Like well, that's why people vote.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Do people vote? So okay, yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_06 25:17

Kind of the majority, the majority wins, you know. For sure. Let's say I want something real one off and odd as a constituent, you know, I'm probably not gonna get it. You know what I mean? Because it's gonna be, you know, the other folks that that come together and majority. Yeah, majority. We'd rather have this. And and that's the thing about voting, you kind of just have to deal with it. You know, as long as you showed up and you voted, you know, you've done what you can do.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

You did your part for sure. And I guess we can vote, we can vote them in and out as far as uh the next the next election go. How often does that happen? Like every two years?

SPEAKER_06 25:47

Every two years.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Every two years, right?

SPEAKER_06 25:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

So and yours is coming up in November or November, correct? November, every every two years, November.

SPEAKER_06 25:53

Which there's an there's an issue with that too. Like they really should be staggered. Like everybody is is up for election at the same time. Okay. So let's say, let's let's say something strange happens and every single person on that diet is new. That that's kind of an issue too. Oh, wow. There's gonna be no, you know, I'm not saying that's gonna happen. Yeah, no, no, no. But what if, right? Because it is a different political climate, you know, in local politics than it has been. You know, who's gonna learn? We there's no one to teach the the freshman coming in. Oh, because because Gil's termed out, Sylvia's not running, Everett's not running, Roland's gone, but he's termed out as well. So that's four people right there. So you got five seats that you know what I mean? Might be brand new.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Oh, shoot, and they're not re-run. They're are they running, are they rerunning? Uh yeah, yeah. Okay, of course. Some are, yeah. Some are for sure, for sure. Wow. And I wonder what it's like once you get there, like, because I'm trying to get some other city council members or members, if you guys want to come on the show. Like, once you get there, I wonder if they're what it's like as far as like uh something they didn't expect, you know what I mean? Like what it's like to be, oh, I didn't expect this. And now I have to change gears and figure out what to do, you know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. To to to be uh to be ready for for that. Uh if you win the seat for Dixie's District 5, uh day one on the job, what is the very first policy issue or project you are sinking your teeth into?

SPEAKER_06 27:19

Oh, that one that one's easy for me, water, because I don't believe we'd have a secured water uh solution in place by then.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Okay, yeah, like it seems like it's it's trendy now. Everybody's talking about the water, even though people might not even know what's going on with the water. You know what I mean? So I so obviously DSO is on the table, and then they've they've obviously voted it out, what like four times? How many times have they like voted no to it?

SPEAKER_06 27:44

Well it's it's changed, right? So they've they voted no to the Kiwit proposal. Okay. So they they you know, I guess the consensus there was it was too expensive. I think it was one point one point two or one point three billion, which is is a lot, right? But that I mean that's what that's what was proposed.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

So okay, so the so the city council wants to do a DSL project for sure.

SPEAKER_06 28:04

I've everyone I've asked said they they see zero chance that Corpus Christi doesn't have uh seawater diesel.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

So that's the solution. For sure. And so now it's like who's gonna build it?

SPEAKER_06 28:14

Which one, yeah. Okay, and the inner harbor, just just so folks know, the inner harbor, that would be a uh Corpus Christi, the city of Corpus Christi owned facility. Okay. They they would own it, someone would build it, someone would run it, but uh CCW would would own the asset. You've got some other ones um that are proposed. You got the the Harbor Island, that one would be uh owned by an outside, that would be a take or pay contract, right? Some someone else would build it and they would sell the city of Corpus Christi water. Okay. Uh another one is is uh Axe H2O. I don't know if you've seen that. They recently they they went to city council, they got on the agenda a little differently, a little more unconventional. Oh wow and they hadn't had a uh plan, a proposal sent into the city yet. They didn't have funding, they didn't have a site yet. They it's a uh some veterans, very, very smart generals. Wow, very, very, very smart, talented individuals that that can build it, they just didn't have everything set up yet, right? They had an idea. So and I'm sure I'm sure they can do it. You know, but there's some things you need to have in place first, like a site. They didn't have a site yet. It seems like now Barney Davis, the power plant and the bluff, okay, which is owned by CPS Energy in San Antonio. Yeah. It seems like they want to have a spot there. So that's a hundred MGD plant. Um you got CC polymers. I think if I'm not mistaken, that one's about 12 MGD a day. They're trying to get that going.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

So wow.

SPEAKER_06 29:43

So and I and I personally don't see a problem with all of them. Like, let's have them all. We'll have a water surplus, and then because Texas is dry. It's not the the drought's not a corpuscurity problem. That's a Texas problem.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

Oh wow. Wow. So you're saying like have them have them all, why not? Right?

SPEAKER_06 30:00

The more the better. And then you know, if we can be the first, you know, every anyone can see that if you're if you're the first one to to come up with it and really fine-tune things, that's a good place to be. Definitely. If you're the pioneers in a in a specific industry, that's that's nice.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Well, you do, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, so if you're trailblazing, right? Right. Do you make mistakes along the way?

SPEAKER_07 30:19

You sure everyone does.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

Everyone does. I feel like this is just my opinion. I feel like if we're that if our city is stuck in the old way of thinking, maybe they don't want to be the trailblazer to not be seen as making mistakes. Because you know, like our culture, bro, like we we make fun of people that make mistakes. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I'm I'm just I'm just thinking out loud here, like, why not be the trailblazer? Why not open, you know, why not be the first one to do it?

SPEAKER_06 30:47

Well, and well, that's why entrepreneurs, that's why they sign the front side of the check. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, because they were not scared to make a mistake. Thomas Edison, everyone knows that story. Yep. You know, he failed and failed and failed until he figured it out. You you gotta yeah, you gotta be able to persevere and and then pivot and adapt and overcome. For sure. Yeah, so we've got smart enough people here in corporates. We're not gonna, yeah, we're not gonna make a mistake that's just gonna be catastrophic. We're we're just not. We have some very, very talented people here.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

Damn, that's good to hear, bro. You hear that, guys? That's awesome, man. Uh, yeah, so do we so have everything so corpus have their actual own the D Cell plant as well? Saying that have that and then other D Cell plants to contribute to the water.

SPEAKER_06 31:25

Yeah, they would sell it would be a contract, like a take or pay contract.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

And if the city did own the D Cell, well, what does that mean for the city?

SPEAKER_06 31:32

Well, I I think that's you you can control the rate for sure. You know what I mean? That that's a uh a public uh asset. Yeah. Whereas the other ones, you'll sign a contract, you know what I mean, but they will go up. Water will continuously rise and rise and rise. Of course. And let's say demand, you know, you know how supply and demand works too. So there's I I guess my my worry is there's nothing to really keep rates in check if if uh an outside entity has it.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

Oh, yeah, yeah. There's that ethics thing again. For sure. Uh so so when you're out knocking on doors or doing campaign on the campaign trail, what is the number one misconception you think people have about local government and how do you want to change that perception?

SPEAKER_06 32:12

That's a that's a good question. Well, the first thing I'd like people to do is get engaged, right? So, like I say, I go to the city council meetings where where the decisions for our town, our city are made. And it's not just corpus that's affected. Like, oh yeah. Like this is a Noises County.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Well, is it Noises County? Yeah, we're in Nouisis County. Is that what you say that?

SPEAKER_06 32:30

But the art some of the policies we set affect San Pat, you know, Aranzas County. I mean, people uh outside folks are affected, you know. Okay. Just because we're the we're the big neighboring. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, so when I go to the city council meetings, there's not, I don't know, maybe 30 people there, and then you look on YouTube, maybe there's another 40 people watching. Well, this is a town of 330 plus thousand folks, you know. Yeah, and I know everybody can't dedicate all their time, you know, everybody's got jobs to do. But get involved somehow, maybe try to go re-watch some of that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 33:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:02

And I it's it's important to just get involved and understand what's going on. Some people, you know, I've talked to some people, they don't even know who their city council member is.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

No, well.

SPEAKER_06 33:11

Or what district they're in, right? Well, that's kind of hand in hand, but and I think that's a bit of an issue.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Oh, shoot. So if you know them, if you know them, obviously you're involved.

SPEAKER_06 33:20

Well, you gotta know who they are. Yeah, and some people don't, you know.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

So if they don't know who they are, what if we feel like they're not approachable? Like what if what if like they're not unapproachable?

SPEAKER_06 33:30

Well, what I'm saying is they can't even name who they are. Okay, okay, okay. You know what I mean? Some people don't actually know who represents them. Yeah. You know, so and I think people, you know, like we talked about earlier, people are starting to wake up and and and you need to know who you're putting in office. So I think it's gonna be a record turnout for a city council.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Oh, shoot, that's what's up, bro. What's up? I got one more. Uh, let's see, uh, for everyone watching or listening, uh, who wants to support your vision, uh, where can they go to connect with your campaign, learn more about your platform, and get involved?

SPEAKER_06 34:00

Well, I I don't, that's a good question. I don't have a website yet. I will. You know, I'm I'm more of a I build things. I, you know, I'm a fabricator, right? So I'm I'm catching up on the technology side. But I do have an email. It's John, the numeral four uh district, the numeral five at Gmail. And uh my phone number is 361-446-1579. Yeah, yeah. I'd love for people to call me. It's probably easier to text because I get I do field quite a bit of calls, but if you text me, I will uh I will respond. And I'd love to have these conversations because that's yes, that's how I'm gonna figure out what's important to the constituents, so that's gonna help me in my campaign as well. Yeah, that's true. But I'm not hard to find for sure. That's what's up. Find me on Facebook, John Hanslick, uh John Hanslick for District 5 as well. I got a Facebook page as well.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

Yeah, we'll leave some links down there in the description of the video. Is there anything else you want to share, John? Uh this this this is a lot good conversation about about our city, man.

SPEAKER_06 34:53

Uh I don't know. I'm I'm pretty what else you got? What do you what have you been doing? I I am curious what you do, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Uh well, okay. Yeah, I'm a podcaster. Uh and I also I drive a truck. I'm a truck driver. Um, damn, do you you know what? That brings up a question. Do you think that podcasts have an effect? Because you found my podcast on YouTube, right?

SPEAKER_06 35:10

Yeah, I'm I'm a podcast consumer, you could say.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Okay, yeah, yeah, for sure. It seems like that's the way to get information now. That's how I get information.

SPEAKER_06 35:17

I don't watch TV. Yeah, yeah. Like unless there's sports, which Ghostbirds go. Yeah. That's about the only TV I watch, but yeah, I'm a I'm a big podcast consumer, have been for a long time. I don't know about you, but I go through like phases of who I like lock into. You know what I mean? Like um, I used to PBD, I used to listen to PBD quite a bit. Do you know who Matthew Cox is? Uh no. He was like uh he he did a bunch of fraud, like mortgage fraud. Okay. And then he he went to uh prison, did a stint in prison, and then he came out and wow, and now he has a podcast, and he kind of he kind of uh interviews a bunch of criminals that got out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You should check him out.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

I listened to I think it's Ian, his name is Ian Ian Beck. Ian Beck? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Uh that other guy, Johnny, uh Johnny Mitchell. Have you seen his? I haven't seen him. Johnny Mitchell, dude, got some good interviews, like uh people from the Mexican Mafia from the cartel. It's really good stuff.

SPEAKER_06 36:13

You get some interesting stuff. Like you get the like them some CIA agents and stuff like that, like Bustamante. I'm sure you've seen Bustamante every year.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Maybe I'll check it out. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, I get into those types of podcasts. Uh I started stand-up comedy uh last year. So I'm like on open mic number 22 right now. Really? Yeah, yeah, man. I remember like, and I and I just I'm just like kind of digging back to my funny days, like when we were in high school, because I just forgot about that, bro. I just stopped being funny, just I had I got this whole journey, man, where I was just uh narcissistic abused from my mother and stuff like that, just stuff like that. And then after getting away from that, I'm having I'm having to like refine myself, like figure out what I liked, you know what I mean? Because it was a lot of just setting myself aside for years, and it just got to like like okay, I'm rediscovering this. Because I remember being funny in class with you, like, and I like being funny, and I like to make people laugh, you know what I mean? And so I was like, shoot, I want to try comedy, and I did, so I and I I got like a goal, maybe get so many open mics, and if I like it after that, then I'll just keep going.

SPEAKER_05 37:17

Hey, that takes uh kudos to you because that takes a lot of yes, a lot of stones to go do that.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Yeah, where do you go to do that? There's uh mesquite street downtown. Uh they have an open mic every Thursday. It's the longest standing open mic, it's actually an actual comedy club. Uh other other open mics they have at the Artisan on Tuesdays, and then uh let's see, what else? They have the annex one Wednesday a month. There's there's a few open mics out there. There's a whole scene involved.

SPEAKER_06 37:44

But you got a you got a skid already laid out?

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got ideas. Uh I'm driving all day. Most of the day I've I have ideas in my head, and I've just put them on my phone, like, oh, talk about this, this, and that, or whatever, whatever. And how does it go?

SPEAKER_06 37:56

Do you get a good little reaction?

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Like, like uh an opening bit that I use is uh my name is Ahmesus, but I'm not the kind that fixes things. And then like and I've said that a few times. I've said that a few times, and then after that, I was like, I usually say that, but I don't know where to go after that. And they'll laugh at they'll laugh at that. Um, I talk about my wife and I being like autistic and ADHD. We're always fighting for the dopamine hit. Uh, but then we just make up at the end of the day. Just different stuff. I'm learning different stuff. That's another thing I've been listening to. A lot of uh comedy podcasts like uh like learning the craft and punch lines and stuff like that. Yeah, Theo Von, if he doesn't really you you can learn stuff from him because he's more conversational, but there's actual podcasts dedicated to uh talking to actual comics, talk telling you the game, like sharing the game with you. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 38:46

Well, Jason Alexander, you know George Castanga. Sounds like he's got a podcast. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's pretty cool. And I'm I'm a Seinfeld fan. I don't know if you listen to it. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, Seinfeld's dope, bro. I'm a huge fan of that show.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

He's freaking clean. Like, he's clean. You go to a lot of these open mics, it's very dirty. Uh that that, yeah, it's very dirty, so like don't really take the kids out. I'm trying to, it'd be cool if I can start a clean open mic.

SPEAKER_06 39:08

Uh is the is the community large within Corbus Chrissy? Like, yo, is there a lot of comedians?

SPEAKER_01 39:14

There's a lot of comics. Uh, there's probably like I want to say like 20 plus. Like 20. It's pretty good. Yeah, it's just a decent size. Uh two of them actually they've been driving to Austin to Kill Tony every Monday to sign up. And they both made uh Kill Tony lap this past weekend. Who is it? Do you know? Uh Chris Longoria and uh Ronnie Fryer. Yeah, I've talked to them a few times. Chris has been on the podcast, my podcast. Um do you know do you know Jen Delafonte? Uh sounds familiar. Yeah, I know her in the city.

SPEAKER_06 39:44

She went to Ray with her. She went to Ray.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Oh, no kidding. Yeah, I've I've seen her. I've known her in passing, like I've seen her in like on Facebook and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_06 39:50

Uh I haven't I haven't seen her. I don't I don't go to comedy shows. I mean, not that I don't want to, it's just I haven't. Yeah. I think the last one I saw was uh what's that guy's name from Portland? He's from GP.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Oh, uh Steve Travino.

SPEAKER_06 40:02

Yeah, yeah. I saw him at Mercery. It was funny.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Yeah, he's funny, bro. He is funny.

SPEAKER_06 40:06

Does he come down and kind of support the locals?

SPEAKER_01 40:08

No, I haven't seen him around. Uh he's dude, he seems really busy. I actually sent him an email to try to get on my podcast. But you gotta like go through his booking and booking management and all this stuff. So he seems really like a really busy dude.

SPEAKER_06 40:21

I'm sure he's busy. He's done well for himself, but I think he would be willing to come down and yeah, that would be cool.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

That would be dope. It seems like like a lot of the the comedians that are like established, like from out here, like they don't do open mics. It's weird. I see it seems like the open mics is for like the newer cats that are trying to that need to go through that grind, you know what I mean, type of thing. But if he's out here, that would be cool to check him out. You know what I mean? Just come out to an open mic.

SPEAKER_06 40:47

Do we have any other famous comics from this area?

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Um Steve Jorvino, I know uh Javi Luna. He's he's kind of like like famous like down here, but he's been around the country and stuff. Uh Daryl Farrelsberg, he actually lives in East Texas, but he's from here. He was on my podcast recently. Uh he grew up in near Collier Pool. So we were talking about that on the episode. Um, yeah, no, I can't really think of it too. Uh John Stinger, John Stinger or Stinger, he came down recently, but he's from Corpus. He went to Mesquite Street Comedy Club. But they have comedy shows often uh that of people that come down. Ralph Balbosa is coming to Hillard Center, actually. But Nate Borgetsi, you're familiar with that? Nate Bargetsi, we're gonna go check it out.

SPEAKER_06 41:26

My webinar I've seen a little bit of the stand-up, but like for years when he did the like the the forefathers or that skit, that's the no skit.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

Dude, I was so thinking about it. About the yards and meters. Footballs? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, how many how many feet to a mile? Whatever, whatever.

SPEAKER_07 41:49

It's an easy number that everybody read it, but they'll never line up.

SPEAKER_04 41:58

That was that was a heck of a skit, dude. Yeah, I've showed a lot of people that skit.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

Yeah, it's funny. My wife doesn't, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:05

Yeah, we've been good though, man. Hey, so where do you find your talent to come on the on the pocket? Where can people find? Because I'm gonna share this too, right? So where do people find you?

SPEAKER_01 42:13

Yeah, Corpus Christie Originals, man. Uh I've got a website, Corpus Christie Originals.com. It's I'm everywhere. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, you can find me. And then I I clip the stuff up, and I just I I'll I'll tag you as a collaborator. Your people will see it, they'll see it like that, or they can find me on like that online.

SPEAKER_06 42:32

So you're looking for some other city politics. Oh, yeah, like people that that are in city politics right now. Definitely, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

And I like because you made the comment about Richard Caballero, right? Because she was on here. And I had her on because I I didn't know nothing about politics. I didn't know too many people about politics. She came across the feed. I was like, let me invite her on so she can talk about whatever's her side of the story. Sure, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:54

It's important.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

So she came on and then you reached out, you're like, Hey, she mentioned this and this and that. I was like, and I would like to be on the podcast, right? You said that. I was like, well, shoot, come on, dude. Uh yeah. Um, so yeah, definitely. I would like to have some city council members talk about stuff on here if they're open to it, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06 43:10

Yeah, I'd like to clear the air too with with Rachel if she sees this. Yeah, for sure. I would still love to have coffee or breakfast with her so me and her can have an actual civil conversation, you know? Yeah, definitely. I have nothing against her. It's just yeah, that would be dope. We have uh opposing views.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

Yeah, yeah. See, man, that's what that's what that's what's one thing that that really bothers me is that like we have opposing views, but it gets to the point for some people that they don't want to talk to people. They're automatically wrong because they don't believe what we believe. And I'm not saying that certain people are like this because I've I myself have been like that. And I I had to change that part of myself, you know, growing up with a narcissistic mother and all that stuff, to where I had to like get people no, if you don't believe this, you need to believe this, you need to believe this. But now it's just like let them believe it. What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_06 43:58

Like, like your mom, but she was just. Kind of manipulative.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

So she was manipulative. Uh a lot of it was like I couldn't do stuff unless she wanted me to do it. I want I had to do it the way she wanted me to do it. Oh, you know, you're supposed to do it like this. And and me, like, I didn't know my mom until I was a teenager, bro.

SPEAKER_06 44:16

Oh, you didn't raise it. I didn't know it.

SPEAKER_01 44:18

She didn't raise me. My stepmom and my dad raised me. I went to go live with my mom, about 16 years old, because uh she would let us do whatever we wanted to do. You know what I mean? That's why I dropped out when I was living with my mom. Right. I was going to I I might have been going to her house when I was going at Ray. We were in the same class. Um But anyways, like, so she wanted me to do that stuff. And then I learned that like you don't have to always try to convince somebody that your side is right. Or you don't have to always convince them to believe what you're believing. Because that's what I used to do. Like you believe in, like, I don't know, you believe in you know, you like green towels. You know what I mean? I'm like, no, you gotta use white towels, bro. And you're like, no, I don't care. I use green. I'm like, no, you gotta use white towels. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06 45:00

I would always tell you what differences it makes, right?

SPEAKER_01 45:02

Yeah, exactly. And I'd always like for and I would always be like, in every situation, the wanting to be the right one. Uh, and then like I said, once I had to break free of that type of way of thinking, which is what the what she had kind of portrayed upon me, I learned it along the way. I was I had to unlearn it. Like right now, we're having a conversation about this. I could be thinking something else, you know what I mean, and try to convince you about whatever. And um, that's another thing that makes my podcast the way it is. I let people talk, I let them share their story, like without prejudice or or or I mean I still have my own opinions, yes. But that doesn't mean I'm not gonna let you share what you think.

SPEAKER_06 45:42

But who knows? You might have a guest on that that'll you know spit something your way. That's hey, you know what? I didn't think about that, I didn't realize that. And vice versa, and that's that's really what healthy debate's all about.

SPEAKER_01 45:51

Yeah, I had a I had a lady on for running for District 34 TX, uh, Meyer Flotis. Oh, yeah, yeah. I had two.

SPEAKER_06 45:58

Oh, you had my buddy Luis. I didn't mean to interrupt. Oh, yeah, no.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

Luis Wendell, shout out.

SPEAKER_06 46:02

Awesome dude.

SPEAKER_01 46:03

Yeah, yeah. Well, she was on, right? And the guy that set up the interview, he he was kind of orchestrating it, and he was he was on the he was on the red side, I'll say it. He was on the red side, he knew you knew he was on the red side, and he was trying to make my platform a uh a political thing for the for them, for her talking point. And she came in and she was talking about the other guy that was running for TX34, the other Flotist guy, uh Eric Flotis. Yeah, and I was like, hold on, wait a minute, wait a minute. He's not here to defend himself. You're saying this stuff about him. I don't know about him. Let's just keep the topic to what you're to you.

SPEAKER_06 46:38

Show yourself, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

Yeah, you know what I mean? And I told her, I was like, I would do the same for for you. If he was in here talking about you, I would tell him the same thing. Right. You know, so it I'm like, I'm like that for my podcast. Um plus it helps my podcast grow. Yeah, your audience might be different from somebody else's audience. At least I reach that audience. I could talk to somebody from their audience and reach that part of the audience.

SPEAKER_06 47:01

That's what it's all about. Like, there's been plenty of times, you know, in in the podcast I consume, I'll see you get Ian Beck, for instance. I didn't know about him until I saw him on a on a podcast that I watched.

SPEAKER_02 47:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 47:12

And then, okay, he's got a podcast. So I go watch Ian Beck's, and I that's how it grows. You know what I mean? That's how it goes.

SPEAKER_01 47:18

Yeah. And that's what I'm trying to do. Like, uh I'm trying to get more views on the YouTube, on the Spotify for people to watch the long form. That way, at some point, if I if if I am able to be monetized, I can be like, hey, I've got this many viewers this a month. Do you know what it takes to do that download? Yeah, it probably takes more download than I than I have. Um, I'm really I'm really hot on social media like TikTok and and Facebook. Some honestly.

SPEAKER_06 47:44

What about YouTube? I don't have the TikTok.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

It's growing, it's growing. Um, YouTube is more of a uh like a national. It's weird because TikTok and Facebook, they push your content to to geo location, wherever you're at. Like if it's corpus christi, okay, they push it geo.

SPEAKER_06 48:01

Exactly, it'll pop up on their feed, kind of, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

Which is why on TikTok I clip portions of video where people are talking about corpus. The first the first three seconds it'll hook like if they're saying, Oh, corpus Christi, bam, bam, bam, first three seconds, it hooks the listener. They'll follow, share it with their friend. Because for TikTok, it's all about the geolocation, the area. And then if your video gets past corpus, it'll start going to neighboring 361. And then eventually Texas, that's how it goes viral.

SPEAKER_06 48:32

That's how it grows.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

You know what I mean? Like, so if if the more shares, the more impressions, likes, comments, I guess the most time more times people look at watch it, right?

SPEAKER_06 48:41

Like, let's say you had a clip that because I'll watch a clip three or four times, especially if that's 21, you know what I mean? Yeah, no, that's good to know. You know, so that that's kind of gets in that's how they get their information from the city. They call it the algorithm, they call it an algorithm.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

Yeah, exactly. So engagement is huge, views are huge, uh, and like just in like two weeks alone, like I grew like thousands of followers on Facebook because this one video, I actually that's another reason Rachel was on because she was talking a lot about Corpus. So a lot of her videos I posted them to reach people in Corpus. And people people might think, like, this one guy, he made he made a stupid comment. He's like, You should get some other lady on, other than Rachel, your baby doll, or whatever. I was like, bro, come on. So and people think that, like, people think that, and it's like, no, bro, I'm playing my own game. This is the podcast game, bro. This is what I gotta do to get views to to get people in. You know what I mean? That that's my that's what I'm trying to do. Um, but at the same time, I want to keep it on the ethics side too. And like, I don't just have anybody on that that wants to come on too. Like, I know you, you know what I mean? I was like, I gotta reach out to John. I know him, I really want him on the podcast. Some people I won't I won't respond back because I'll look at their social media and be like, I really don't think I'll vibe with this person.

SPEAKER_06 49:56

Well, yeah, you gotta be choosing it at the end of the day. It's your product you're putting out.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

Yes, for sure.

SPEAKER_06 49:59

You know what I mean? We're guests on your show, and that's your product you put out to the world. So most definitely. Yeah, that's fair. That makes sense. Yeah. So do you post them to YouTube though? Uh yes. Yep. All of them go on to YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 50:10

Everything goes to YouTube.

SPEAKER_06 50:11

That's that's where I watch you at it, is you? So I didn't know if uh I'm I'm always on YouTube. Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. I don't pay for it because you know I don't like how they censor some things, right? So I refuse to give them any of my money. But oh wow, I do uh sometimes I wish I I didn't have the commercials. It would be cool if you can close your phone and still have if you pay if you if you pay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:33

Well, because so we pay the premium. Uh we pay the premium. Yeah, I get to listen to it whenever it's off. Uh no commercials. I can't stand commercials, bro.

SPEAKER_06 50:41

I don't like them either. Yeah, but I don't like them either. But yeah, I just deal with it. They're not gonna get my 10 bucks. Well, heck, it's probably not even 10 bucks anymore. Yeah, I had read it was 10 bucks.

SPEAKER_01 50:51

Yeah, and if you have, you can add like uh like family, like family members. So like if your wife's got an a uh uh YouTube account, uh you can share it with them and then they don't have commercials either.

SPEAKER_05 51:01

Wow, it's got like that.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

Yeah, my wife, so my wife's connected to my account and then like she can watch it without uh commercials. My daughter, it's kind of like Spotify. Okay, Spotify's going into video on the show. Well, Spotify is free, right? It's free, it's free. They have commercials if you don't pay the premium. It's just like you everything's subscriptions, bro.

SPEAKER_06 51:20

I know like we canceled our cable because we were paying like I don't know, 350 bucks a month with DirecTV. So we're like, all right, let's get rid of it. So but now we got like $350 worth of subscriptions. Dude, we'll see, dude. Man, what's the difference?

SPEAKER_07 51:33

We got out of debt, bro. I don't know if really we got out of debt. Ramsey or no? Yeah, okay, exactly. You did the David Ramsey plan.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

We did the Dave Ramsey plan. We're on we're on the last three steps or whatever. We're college, uh 401k. Hey, congratulations, man. That's a big deal, man. Dude, it is a big deal, bro. Dang, for sure. It is a big deal, which is why we can get these subscriptions now, because we canceled all our subscriptions, bro. We went to we went so hamdo, we we got flip phones. Wow, we went to flip phones and not knowing that we can just we can get a cheap screen phone, you know what I mean? Because we were doing like Apple phones or you pay, you know, whatever. So anyway, anyway, we we went down that journey, uh, paid off our problems. The consumer debt combined like two years. We'll work in hand, bro. My my wife uh I was truck driving, my wife was uh paramedic, my mom was watching our kids, or my daughter, um, and we just freaking everything was going to it, bro. Everything. My student loans were the hugest. Uh we didn't have any car loans, we just had student loans and credit cards.

SPEAKER_07 52:36

You don't even have a mortgage anymore? No mortgage. The mortgage took us like how old are you? 42, 43? 43, no mortgage. No mortgage, bro.

SPEAKER_01 52:44

And well, I mean, it's not like we we live near we live near six points.

SPEAKER_06 52:47

Who cares? Paid for it's yours. That's what I'm talking about, bro. And Abbott's talking about no property taxes. Yeah. So we'll see how that goes.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

Please, yes, for sure, man.

SPEAKER_06 52:55

I seen that post the other day. I don't know if he'll ever get away with it, but I think once you own something, you should own it. Yes, exactly. It's yours. If nothing else, when you retire, like worst case scenario, if you retire, property taxes are gone. Is that the worst thing? You worked your whole life.

SPEAKER_02 53:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 53:10

You're you're you're in your elderly years, you want to travel, you own your place. It should be yours. Let you know, if anything, let the younger folks pay for the taxes. Let the ones with with good knees work. Like a worst case scenario, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. No, that's cool. So no car notes, no house, no like nothing, bro. I couldn't even imagine what that'd be like to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 53:35

Dude, it's it's freaking awesome, bro. It's dude, it's um it's lovely. Very lovely, bro. Uh, we we can eat steak whenever we want. I mean, we still got a budget. Don't get me wrong. We don't go willy-nilly and just spend whatever. We've, of course, we got our budget. We got we still have a butt. That's the main thing, bro, that people get discouraged about is the word budget. It's an ugly word. I know it's not sexy. Well, it's important, but that's the basis of our uh of our finances till this day.

SPEAKER_06 54:00

Everybody's got a budget. The city of Corps is about to work on their budget. Exactly. Every company in the world has a budget. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some are bigger than others, but it's still a budget, right? That's true.

SPEAKER_01 54:08

Yeah. So even now, like it's it's so freeing, bro. Like, you like because it's funny because and I drive an old school car, 2006 Honda, bro. I don't care.

SPEAKER_06 54:18

I saw the civic, it's nice.

SPEAKER_01 54:19

And I'm fine. I'm just like, I don't care. I really don't want a payment, bro. I don't want a payment. I don't want to be nervous at work, like, oh shit, I gotta pay, I gotta make the payment. Like, I can be at work and be like, if I don't got loads, cool. If it's slow this season, fine. Yeah, I can I can take the hit financially because I don't owe money. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06 54:37

I I won't be was that contagious on at your workplace? Like, did people see your success in your journey and be like, you know what I'm gonna do that too?

SPEAKER_01 54:44

Yeah, well, some people will wonder. Some people would think and be like, how come Sus doesn't want to get loads like everybody else? Like the dispatchers, I know they'll freak out on that.

SPEAKER_06 54:52

Well, no, but would they would they join in your journey? Like, hey, tell me more about this and they decide to do it as well.

SPEAKER_01 54:57

I really don't talk, I really don't talk a lot to a lot of people at work. There's this one guy, uh friend of mine, Ed, what's up? Chat up, Ed. Um, but he's on the other end of the spectrum of borrowing money and stuff like that. And he he called me a Dave Ramsey pure purist. He's like, I know you're a Dave Ramsey purist, but hear me out, bro.

SPEAKER_06 55:13

Yeah, I'm I'm probably that way too. Like, I I disagree with some of Dave Ramsey because I feel like you should I feel like it's better to use other people's money to make money, you know, if you can, you know. Yeah but as far as the the the truck notes and the mortgage and stuff, I'm sure that's pretty amazing to get a check and keep it. Hell yeah. Do you invest it? I mean, obviously a lot of goes in savings, but though the the goal is not just to amass this huge fortune in your savings, or is it?

SPEAKER_01 55:38

Uh okay, so we got emergency fund of three to six months. That's in case somebody loses their job or whatever. And then 15% of our income is going to retirement in uh Roth uh Roth IRA, which is basically like a 401k.

SPEAKER_06 55:54

Sure. We put it into But there's tax benefits to it to a Roth IRA, right?

SPEAKER_01 55:58

Tax benefits that take it out at 63 and a half or something like that. Um and we oh so Roth is basically you put it in after taxes is taken out, you put it in. And then when you take it out, it's not taxed because it's already been taxed. Uh so we got the Roth, 15% of our interim goes to that. It goes into growth stock mutual funds, like Dave Ramsey teaches. Basically, like index funds, like the SP 500, like that type of stuff. Where so the fund is they've got a group of companies like Procter and Gamble, which is the toilet paper company, Coca-Cola, Apple, all these different all these different industries into one fund, and that's what we invest in because the economy has grown like historically. It's grow, it goes down, but then it eventually goes up, goes down. You ride the roller coaster. Yeah, exactly. We do that. Um, we put so much, we don't do a percentage to kids' college fund, we just do like a hundred bucks every paycheck. 100 bucks goes to kids uh 529. 529 it's basically like a uh you can do like a Roth IRA type of thing where you put it into an index fund. That's what we're doing for kids. And if one kid doesn't want to use it for college or or trade, it can be used for any school, trade school, college, whatever. Sure. If that kid doesn't want to use it, you can roll it over to the next kid. That's cool. We own so we own my house and then we own the property next door. Nice. So we got income from that. That's paid for too. It's paid for too, bro.

SPEAKER_06 57:27

So wow, hey, that's that's impressive. Appreciate it. That's impressive to me. Yeah, no. Are y'all planning on doing more rental properties too? Real estate's where it's at, man.

SPEAKER_01 57:37

We I mean we plan on it, bro, but we just don't we've thought about like getting a loan, but we're just kind of iffy about getting a loan for the next the next property.

SPEAKER_06 57:46

What I what I if I had to do it over again, and I think about this all the time, like instead of buying, you know, the house we're in right now is pretty much was our dream house house, right? But if I could do it again, we were younger, I would probably buy a duplex, live in one side, yeah, yeah, rent the other side out. So I'm pretty much living there for free.

SPEAKER_02 58:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 58:02

And then when I figured that out enough, I'd go buy a triplex, do the same thing, you know what I mean? Just keep doing it that way if I had to do it over again.

SPEAKER_01 58:09

Well, she, I mean, I don't know how my wife would feel about that. You know what I mean? That's another thing, too. She's in the equation, so she's got it.

SPEAKER_06 58:16

She gotta sign off on it.

SPEAKER_01 58:16

Yeah, you gotta sign off. She's like, I don't know if I want all that sawdust, honey. She's a paramedic, you say? She's a paramedic, but dude, yeah, she's she's going out, she's going into a different field, which is you know how Dave Ramsey he talks about like whenever people get out of debt, that their income amount changes. It gets it increases because something happens to where they increase their income.

SPEAKER_06 58:41

Well, they can focus on other stuff instead of stressing out, exactly, bro. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 58:45

Yeah, so pyramid's cool. I mean, it's she saves lives. She saves lives. It's very stressful for her, too. Like, she's tell she she doesn't want she doesn't talk about like stuff that it's a dinner table or something.

SPEAKER_06 58:55

Yeah, for sure, bro.

SPEAKER_01 58:56

So she keeps it all, but she'll share it. And like if it's really something that she needs to share, she'll share it. She'll share it. But she she got out of the industry, she's she's going to electrician now. Okay. So she's so she's about like a year into her trade school electrician, working for SST at Tesla.

SPEAKER_06 59:16

Okay, so industrial. Tesla, bro.

SPEAKER_01 59:19

Uh yeah, and she's a hard worker, bro. She's ever since I known her, dude, she's free. She's a hard worker. Uh, and she she she gets it done, bro. And she's she's smart too, man. She's really smart. And it and like a lot of my a lot of our decisions, we make it together. Uh we have we have a combined bank account. That's something I talk about. People don't like to hear. We share everything, bro. Like, me and my wife have a shared bank account too. Share everything, bro. Why not? I mean, that you're that you're you're married. That that's your I don't even know what's in there.

SPEAKER_06 59:47

I wish I sometimes I wish I did. You know what I mean? Like, hey.

SPEAKER_01 59:51

Well, we were doing the budget together, I was like looking at all the bills. Now I don't even look at it. I'm like, babe, what comes out this week? You know what I mean? She's like, oh, this, this, and this.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:01

Hey, you know what's funny about Dave Ramsey with my buddy uh Eric Cummings.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:04

Maybe we call him Yank. Maybe he'll maybe he'll see this. But like he listened, he's a big Dave Ramsey guy. Yeah, he doesn't follow him. Oh, okay. You know what I mean? He wants to think he does. You know what I mean? But he he doesn't do it in practice. But we'll listen to his shows, right? Yeah. And then someone will call in and be like, oh yeah, we're debt free. We have 1.5 million in the bank. And oh, what do you do? Oh, my wife's a librarian.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:28

And like I sharpen colored pencils or something like that. And like, what is going on? Like, how do we not how do we not do this? You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:35

But we do like they do have some jobs, like that doesn't seem like yeah, it would, you know, and well, and how much did you inherit is a question he asks all the time, dude. Oh, not too bad. Only inheriting the city. Oh, the everyday miniatures, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:48

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Those uh they had the the debt-free screams that was helping us when we were getting out of debt. The what? They have the these debt-free screams. So people will go on and show, they'll talk about how much they paid off, how much they make, and then they pay off all their debt. They go on the show and then they go, We're debt free. They scream there, we're we're debt-free, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was helping us. Did you do that? No, no, I mean I tried signing up for it, but they never got back to me.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:13

Um, you should try it. That's a big deal. Yeah, I should try again. And you can understate that. That's pretty impressive.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:19

Yeah, yeah. And I dude, I I wish everybody was was here. I am trying to convince somebody that my way is the right way. But I really do think though. I really do think that like people would learn a lot if they owned their stuff and they didn't owe a lot of money. You know what I mean? Your mind changes, bro. It's weird, like it's okay to go to the park, bro, on the weekend. You don't have to go to the steakhouse. Go to the park, go to the pool. You know what I mean? Like to save money. To save money while you're getting out of it, doesn't have to be all the time. Once you get out of debt, then you can go freaking Texas Flame, bro. We love Texas Flame. Yeah, steak and shrimp dogs, shoot, all day, every day.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:56

People do spend uh a crazy amount of money on fast food. And me personally, or just eating out in general, I'd rather home cook meal anyways. Oh yeah. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:04

Yeah, man. So it's been a journey, bro. Definitely been a journey.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:08

Oh, that's that's cool, man. How long have you been debt-free?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:11

If you don't mind me, uh the mortgage, probably like like three years, and the consumer debt like longer than that, like eight years.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:22

What do you mean consumer that's credit cards? Consumer debt. Anything other than the mortgage. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:26

Yeah, yeah. It could be, I mean, I don't know if we don't have a business. I mean, I don't know if it's if if business is debt is involved in that, but yeah, credit cards, car loans, student loans, Regan Cons renter center, whatever.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:41

Yeah, I miss cars, dude. I like cars. Dude, I was a fan of cars. Oh, yeah. Yeah, heck yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:47

We got a bed, a TV, some stuff from that. Dude, we got so crazy we started selling some of our. We sold our, we sold, there was a TV like that we had, bro. Sell it, bro. Get the money, pay off, pay off one of the loans.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:59

Really?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:59

Yep. I had like Did you replace it with another TV or we got another TV, another smaller TV, you know what I mean? The thing is, when you when you focus on paying off debt, the the size of the TV, it doesn't matter anymore, bro. It's weird. Like, like I can go get one if I wanted to right now. But it's just like for what, right? Yeah, exactly. It's not as it doesn't become that like things, material things are fine. Don't get me wrong. I was able to pay for these mics, the camera, this, two paychecks, bro. So you won't finance anything.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:31

Nothing. Like if you can't buy it and if you can't pay for it in cash, you just don't get it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:34

I don't get it. It take it'll take if if it's a car, like, okay, my truck, I wrecked my truck. I hit a patch of ice uh and then on navigation, hit the rail, totaled it. Patch of ice navigation? Yeah, bro. That sounds funny, but yeah, yeah, bro. That's one of my bits. That's one of my bits, dog. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah, so I hit a patch of ice on navigation, hit the barrier, totaled my truck, and we only had the one vehicle, the Honda Civic you saw out there. So I I didn't want to get no note. I was taking the bus to and from work. Bro. Right there on Leopard, all the way to six points. Uh, Leopard near the Selena Museum, all the way to six points. I was like, I'm not gonna get any loan. So my wife, my wife was pissed, bro. She's like, you break everything. You freaking wrecked the truck. She was pissed. So I had to hear that while getting rides to Rug from her and take the bus home. Anyway, uh saved up a couple of checks, mine and hers. It took us like maybe four months, and then we got a $10,000 uh Honda pilot. That's how that's how much I don't do not want to go into debt. You know what I mean? Uh it's not that I hate the banks, the banks are doing what they're doing to make the money. They're smart, dude.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:46

Well, that's where the money's at. They're they're making another entity that's exists to make money.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:51

They're making money. There's just something about me being able to go to work and be like, you know what? If y'all don't have loads today, fine. I'm not gonna beg you for them. You know what I mean? I can be like that. I can do that. But I don't say it out loud. You know what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:04

Well, sure, sure. It doesn't ruin your day or your life's not ultimately affected by the fact that there's no work for you that one day.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:09

Exactly. And so the only thing that really bugs me financially is the taxes. Every year, I'm like, dude, are you serious, bro? Same with same windows, same door, same siding, everything's the same, and you're going up in value.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:21

Yeah, I'm not a fan of taxes. You know what I mean? So that's I know we need them, but you know, people would probably feel better about paying taxes is if the folks that we pay to were more responsible with them. Oh, you know, yeah. I'd I'd feel a lot better sleeping at night knowing. You know what? I gave money and they they they were responsible with it, they did, they did right by it. Yes. But they don't. So unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:40

Yeah, and then we can think, of course, we get back to the to the whole how the city spends the money too. We can get into that conversation too. Like, and I'm just like looking at them like, dude, we the refineries have been there for so many years. Like, why haven't we had a solution back then? Like You know what I mean? All that money that's when I mean that's

SPEAKER_06 1:06:00

What I'm thinking, you know what I mean? Everybody's kind of like fat and happy when the reservoirs are full. We got what we need. We got water for years, which you do for years. But if it doesn't rain, it runs out, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:09

It makes sense.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:10

And it's kind of always been a drought here in Corb. You know, we don't get that much rain, you know, growing up. It was kind of like a weird deal when, like, like it was, you know, 12 o'clock, 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and it was dark, you know what I mean? Yeah. That always kind of felt like a strange day for us, you know. We didn't see very often.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:24

Yeah, that's what's up.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:25

A thunderstorm roll in, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:26

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:27

And I do feel kind of cheated this rain we've been. And thank God for the rain, right? That's a blessing. But the thunderstorms happened at nighttime, right? I want to sit on the porch and watch that stuff. You know what I mean? I couldn't, I was asleep. So what what made you, last question? What made you decide to go on this uh journey with Dave Ramsey?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:46

Um we I remember we were at H E B plus Saratoga. We were sitting out there, the bank was in the red, and my wife and I are just looking at each other like, how are we gonna get groceries? How we what are we gonna do? And I was like, man, there's this, there's this guy, Dave, this uh financial piece, whatever. We can try that. Because we were both like fed up, like our money was being gone as soon as we were exactly and it it like like if Dave Ramsey says, he's like there's there just comes a point where you're like, I've had it, I'm done. And we reached that point, bro. And that that's when we were just like, let's do it. And we weren't perfect to begin with, like we made a lot of mistakes. We went into borrowing money after we decided to do that, but then we got back to to you know, ground zero. Okay, remember we decided this, let's continue doing it.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:37

That's blessing. That's good for y'all, man. Yeah, yeah. Real quick before we wrap it up, I'm assuming we're about to wrap it up. I want to shout out my wife, Jessica. Go for it. Made it uh made it possible. My kids are. What's her name? Jessica. Jessica. Yep. Yep, she's cool. She she made what? She's cool. Oh, okay. She's shot up. She she's supportive, you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. I I got with her first, and you know, I got with the kids.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:57

That was my idea, Jessica.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:00

So you know, and I got some advice before I started to do this. Say, like, hey, make sure your kids are on board, you know, people are gonna because you're not gonna make everybody happy, even when you're running, or or if you get elected, you know, people are not gonna be happy. And I was like, my son's 17, he plays football for Miller now, too. Nice, he's good, he's a wide receiver, he's he's a stud. No, he's good. Uh, but I asked him, hey John, would it bother you if people would make fun of me, you know, or or talk ill? And he's like, Wow, no, prefer it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:27

He's like, I'll join him. They have no idea how annoying you are.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:33

Yeah, I didn't think about that, bro. Like, how you know people gotta go along with you.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:37

Yeah, but it's been good, and I got an amazing uh group of ladies helping me with my campaign. Chris Tovar, Gloria Fuentes, Arsilla Padron, and my treasurer Jonathan Seca.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:46

Yeah, that's what's up, bro.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:48

Thanks for coming on the show, John. Hey, I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:49

It was fun, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:50

Yeah, man. It's been a minute since I've seen you, bro. It's Chris, glad to see you, man. Uh, happy to see that you're doing good. You're doing your thing, man. Great alumni, dude. Yeah, shout out Ray Texans, bro. Yep, Ray Texans. Anyways, thanks a lot for joining the podcast, you guys. If you've been watching up until this point, uh give John a follow. Uh, I'll put the links in the description. John Hanselik, um uh for City City Council District 5. If you're in District 5, if you don't know if you're in District 5, figure it out. Uh John John could be somebody you can vote for. He'll be on the ballot. Check him out. But uh thanks a lot, you guys. Cobra Security Regionals Podcast. We're out. See y'all later.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:24

Thank you.