It’s our first collab! Join Trent, Tim Kreger and Allen Knight in the podcast crossover you’ve been waiting for – Pullin’ Weeds meets Reel Turf Techs. We’re talking EM stuff like: professional wrestling, paint sprayers, Pascal’s law, and of course podcasting.
Transcript
Trent Manning:
welcome to the reel turf techs podcast for the technician that wants to get reel follow along. As we talk to industry professionals and address hot topics that we all face along the way we’ll learn tips and tricks. I’m your host, Trent. Manning let’s have some
Welcome to the real turf text podcast, episode 43. This week we’re going outside the shop. With Tim Krieger. And Alan not host the pulling weeds podcast. I had the pleasure of meeting Tim and Allen at the Carolinas conference back in November. Of 2021. There to stand up guys. And right after meeting. They asked how they could help support the real turf text podcast. These guys may not know what causes the hydraulic leak. But they’re a huge supporter of mechanics. And we thank them for amplifying our voices. I had so much fun recording this episode. Of their home office in South Carolina. And I hope you all have half as much fun listening. Jumped on the other day. I think it’s like Twitter’s version of clubhouse almost, but all the turf, Twitter people haven’t been invited to clubhouse yet. So it’s really, you know, what’s clubhouse. It’s another social media app. Are you, are you on clubhouse? I’m not on, you’re familiar with it. Familiar with it. It’s basically like Twitter spaces. It’s they’ve had a ton of like celebrity drop-ins. So like, they’ll do a topic on. You name it sustainability for instance, and there’ll be 300 people. And it’s just a couple of people like lecturing or talking back and forth, just like what’s going on with the Kaminsky’s deal. Right. And you can open up to be invited to speak or whatever, and it’s, it’s grown. I mean, it was a private invitation only type thing to get selected or whatever, before you could get into the app, like you had to be invited by one of the members. But it’s interesting. Cause it seems like it’s very similar to like Twitter. Way of being able to open up for hundreds of people to speak at one time. I did my first one last Sunday. Yeah. Nice. Was talking about that yesterday morning. It was awesome. We’re just on there talking, you know, chit chat and talking about whatever. How long did you go? Hour and a half. Wow. I mean, for that long, no, I was kinda thinking let’s, let’s do it for an hour and see how she see how it goes. And then next thing I know, it’s hour and a half. I’m like, yeah. Yellowstone is about to come on. So I hear you. We got to go. All right. So give me some background. Let’s let’s let’s do personal stuff real quick now, man, since obviously Yellowstone’s a great segue there. Where’d you grow up? I grew up in a little community called free. super small Georgia entity. Yep. In Georgia. Okay. it’s about 50 miles north of Atlanta. it reminds me a lot of right here in Liberty on my way up. I was like, man, this is like home town, right? Yep. Well, no, we didn’t even have stop stoplights. Oh, nice. We eventually got a stop sign and now we do have a red light. Yep. Did you play? Did you tinker with stuff when you were a kid? Oh, you always been here mechanics pretty much. My grandpa was a brick Mason then than start a lot more business. Oh, wow. And when he retired bringing in the old snappers, you know, engine in the back, he would get three or four of them rebuild, you know, make one out of that. Right. So I had that growing up. My dad’s not super mechanically inclined, but yeah, he, he knew, he knew a lot about, engines, equipment. I mean, he grew up in north Alabama and. They kind of had to be their own mechanic. Sure. You couldn’t pay somebody when you didn’t have running water or electricity, you had to fix it, fix it. Right. You had to be your own blacksmith, you know, whatever. So I kind of grew up that way and yeah, I love to tear stuff apart. Nice. And a lot of times I didn’t get it back together, but is that still. No. Okay. Yeah. I figured with job security and all you guys pretty much need to know how to put everything back together, right? Yeah. I’ve got a lot better at that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, so did it take you to like a, a, a trade school, like your passion or what happened? Where’d you go to college? Did you do any how’s the path how’d you end up where you are? So high school had a good friend in high school, and so I’m 16. No. Oh, okay. No, at the time I’m still in high school. This is a whatever. I don’t see any gray hair here to us, so we’ll not compare to y’all but you have like three now island. I got some, don’t worry about it. Holy cow. Anyway, Brendan high school, he knew the mechanic that worked at sitting down Creek golf club and I’m 16 years old. I got my driver’s license. And I know y’all might get to this question about the car, drop it. In 1987 Buick Regal style and class envisioning that tan or that brownish color. No, no. This was gray, gray, gray, beautiful car. Yeah. As a redneck, that was not a cool car to have, you know, all my friends had a truck. Okay. So, and I was a pickup truck kind of guy myself. So I was, my first summer working at the golf course. I made enough money to buy my first truck. Nice. Do you still have in what truck was that? It was a toy. What was it? Did you take the front TNO off and the teenagers have yo no, no, no, I wasn’t that cool. Allen, you did have some 33 inch motor. Nope. 30, 31 fifties. That’s you know, I was working at a golf course, Dave making six 50 an hour. Sure. Working on maintenance as a mechanic, working maintenance. So I just started only accrue and grains, fly Moe and raking bunkers. Sign you out with a weed eater all day long. You breaking thing back then. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? Like that you would have to fix now, let me tell you a quick story. It wasn’t great. So I don’t remember. This was probably 96 97. We had a Toro four 50. Yeah, familiar with that. My work at all red. Other than that, it is red. I just said it was, oh yeah. So it is a fairway unit, roughly. It was a, we used it as a fairway unit. Okay. It had 30 inch cutting units. Okay. And there was two in the front that come up like this, there was one in the center and then two more in the backs gang. Wow. This is real mower, real mower. I don’t think I’ve ever seen. That’s why we used the fairway. But we had air fight all our fairways and we were using this machine to chop plugs up. Okay. Okay. And I’m coming, down 18. It come up with thunderstorm. So I’m hauling, trying to get back to the shop as fast as I can. And it stairs in the back, like most fairway mowers do. Right. I’m going down this hill. I got a little panic, so I let off of the accelerator. You know, it’s a hotter stat. So anyway, I let off wheels come up. I need to turn left. It’s not turning. So I turned some more. And then when the wheel set, I really turned so that, you know, wheels come down in the back. I turn off, I go down the seal that rolls over two times. You said, and I’m assuming. No, no, no. I’ve I’ve went off. Yeah. Okay. Little puncture wounds behind the leg and. It lands up. Right. And it’s still running. I’m like, oh my God, you know, it’s smoking smoke bowling out everywhere. The lucky that I didn’t die. So I go over there, I turned it off and I start walking back the shop, you know, I mean, just pouring down. Right. So I get there and, Courtney young, he’s a director of agronomy. He was superintendent at the time. He said, where’s the four 50. I said, it’s on 18. So I rolled it. He said you rolled the four 50. I said twice. I mean, he just couldn’t believe it, man. but yeah, so Larry Freeman was our. And it back going on a couple of days, really straighten it back out, you know? Cause the reels are all been up. So they get, do you have a nickname after that or anything? No, that did not spawned a nickname. No rolls tumbler. I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s what we call a guy who has to go to the bathroom a lot in the woods of Casper carries two rolls with them. He’s a deer hunter. So wait a minute. I think I’ve picked up on something. Go ahead. I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I know how he transitioned from general labor to, into the equipment side. No, that’s perfect. Cause I got the same question. It sounds like you hadn’t left there. What? No. So this is my second tour. Okay. I think he’s going to answer both questions then. Gotcha. Yeah. So I was there 95. Then I went to build sports fields. Then I went to company as their mechanic that built a golf courses, which one? Forefront. Construction. Okay. Right. Frankie. And then after that I went to work for Ricky Bobby’s cousin. I was thinking Rick flair. Great. I went to work for a Jerry pet as a mobile mechanic. And so when you were an angel, You were just crew the whole time, or did you get the shop? The mechanic a little bit then two or that’s my first two years I was still in high school. So I was just on the crew. My first summer there, they needed an irrigation tech. I said, okay, I’ll do that. So I’ve done that for about six months and then our assistant mechanic left and not always been bugging the head mechanic at the time. Larry, every time I’d walked by, I’m like, Hey, what are you working on? You know, how does that work? And, they offered me a job as assistant mechanic. Did that for about three years and then Larry left and I was the head guy at whatever, 19, 20 years old. And I thought I knew everything. I didn’t know. I’ve been guilty of that myself. Right. So, anyway, it was kind of interesting. So I’ll leave in oh two and Larry came back as the head mechanic. Really? yeah. Huh. So is Courtney. Been there 33 years. He said three mechanics, me, Larry Freeman and Linny day. And that was before y’all too. Yeah. Another kind of funny story. So Lenny was the head mechanic course opened in 88 and that’s Courtney’s first mechanic and Larry had retired from GM and he just loved to play golf and he just working on the crew and Courtney found out, I was like, oh, you can kind of turn around. And Lenny, didn’t have the best work ethic and he may have drank a little too much. so Courtney asked Larry, but you won’t be a system mechanic. Larry’s like, yeah. So he rolls in this Mac tool box. That’s 10 foot long, you know, biggest toolbox he ever slayed right next to Lenny’s little bitty toolbox. I’m going to be your assistant now. That’s great. Yeah. So that didn’t last too long. Bring your own toolbox. I got so many questions for you, right? Do you have a big toolbox? No, seriously. You know what I’m saying? Like the drawers and all that, like, do you have a, I mean, I thought the agronomy questions were going to be pretty good. I’ve been sitting here brainstorming. All right. I’m ready to keep going. I’m over to my tool box has drawers. What I’m saying, you have one of those big, you got pads underneath in each drawer too, so they don’t go clank when you drop stuff. So Larry’s tool box, this big ass tool box. I bought it. Oh, did you not know? No. Did you get a good deal? Yeah, I got a good deal. You don’t even want to know what those things cost down. I know. That’s why my next question. Do you have a tool purchasing problem? Like you like me? I can all there’s something I always want gear wise. Yeah. Yeah, I do. Yeah. It’s tough. And I’m a tool junkie with Horton tendencies. Is there like an antique tool market that you’re in to teach? Do you have like a Phillips head circuit, 18, 12, or something from France or anything like that? Nothing crazy like that. Gotcha. I do gotta set, uh, brass sockets when they get a little soft wet it’s for working on, uh, brought gas pumps and that kind of stuff. Nice. So it’s really, I don’t know that I’ve ever used them, but I got them just in case the day counts. You don’t want a spark when you’re working around gas talent. That makes sense. I’d never considered that. Caught that one. Like that, like that fire not good fire. No, not good at it. No. So podcast, what was the inspiration there? How do you, what can’t you buy trinkets or that kind of stuff now? And y’all like, Trinkets. I’m sorry. Maybe that’s the wrong word. Electrical equipment, like supplies now, instead of his tool fetish can’t, y’all like start swabbing mikes or something. Like, absolutely not. Let me try this one and you get that one and we’ll do this. And right now, no, we’re not swapping equipment. Uh, so how how’d you get started with your podcast? So first I guess I started consuming podcasts and thought, yeah, I like this. I like what I’m hearing. Why don’t we have one of these for mechanic? The equipment managers, turf technicians. What’s the best term. Please help help us all. I don’t. That’s a really good question. I’ve see. In print it’s Em’s yeah, E M a equipment manager, and some guys like to be called a mechanic. Some people want to be called a technician. Is there, is there a term, the term, how about what term is derogatory? Grease monkey grease monkey. Yeah. Grease monkey wrench, Turner wrench, thrower. Maybe you ever haven’t been rich Turner. Yeah. That’s pretty good. A little bit there. That’d be pretty funny, especially if you live down south, I mean, you can just call them that all day long. Oh yeah. I mean, personally, I like Ben have called him. Yeah, because you know what that is, you know, what a mechanic is. If you say technician, you could be any kind of technician in is DM kind of more of a, I don’t know if newer or newish or more what’s the right word up to date term. Cause that’s the classification system that GCSA went with. Wasn’t equipment manager. Yes. Classification. Okay. Does a nation for what we do. So we wouldn’t be Annaline ever, if we said EMS, no, we’re not stereotyping or saying the wrong thing. Okay, cool. No, that’s definitely. That was one. That was one thing I did want to clear up today. I’m glad that came up. I’d been thinking about that before equipment manager is the industry standard right now. All right. All right. So, so we got the OGE here today, Trent. Well, we’re talking about his podcast and I agree there was nothing for equipment manager or. No, it was her. No, no, no podcast at all. And I didn’t know anything about doing a podcast. I was going to ask, are you a technical guy, like when it comes to this type of stuff, videos, do you do all that kind of right. I’d never done any drones. You don’t own a drone. Don’t own a drone. So you jumped in just, I mean, I pretty much got on an iPhone or something and you still got to flip. Nah, nah, nah, you deserve that. You’re pumping out an episode a week to write one episode a week. That’s what I’m saying. That’s that’s a lot. What were you thinking? I wasn’t thinking, oh, that’s the problem. I wasn’t thinking. So originally I said, I’m going to do every other. And I put out three episodes out of the gate. I waited two weeks, put out another episode and everybody on the Twitter machine, which I stole that from you, by the way, Twitter machine I stole from Rob Daniel. So I gotta give credit where it’s at. I love started calling it that, everybody said, why don’t you do one of these every week? And I had some in the can. So I said, let’s do it as long. If you stay ahead, you’ll be okay. But it’s tough. How can you get ahead though? Doing one? I mean, it’s almost like you got to spend your day off one day doing nothing but recording. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I mean, the recordings are close to an hour and then an hour or two to edit. You got kids. Yeah. Did they do the editing? No, I know that’s a good idea though. How old are your. 13 and 17. Okay. Yeah. You can get them on it. Yeah. Yeah. Are they turning riches anywhere? No, not yet. I’m the littlest one. The 13 year old. That’s an activity. I didn’t, I just asked him if they were turning wrenches, call them a name where they they’re not into it. No, the little one, you know, especially when she was even younger. She was my helper in the shop. She liked getting dirty. And, um, I don’t remember. She was probably like third grade and I rebuild a air compressor, replace a pistons in it and all that stuff. And she said, dad, do you think anybody in my class knows how to do this? Like, no, honey, no, not even close. That’s great. I know I’m jumping around here. We’ll get back to podcasts. Did you go to trade school for this? No. Okay. So you can open up one of those little manuals that has all the instructions and that’s how. Fix something you never worked on before, correct? Yeah. That bore the, I mean, don’t do it. You’re not going to say I’ll just tear it apart. Okay. I thought you were going to say you used today. No, no, no, no. Dang. That’s like, man, tell me that’s a passe thing in your industry like that. Like what you mean? Like, man, that’s just, you don’t, you don’t want you to, you either read the manual or you tear it apart. I’m more than a terror dance. You know what I mean? if I’m working on something at the house, like the refrigerator or something, yeah. I might go to YouTube. Oh, Hey. It’s something out of your, out of your comfort zone is yeah, we can angle. I watched the YouTube video to install a winch on my four Wheeler. I do stuff from a car on YouTube, but so that, and it’s still running for that. Okay. Have you ever taken something apart and put them back together and had to be like, oh, where this go? Like an extra piece that left? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Do you just leave the peace? That’s what I mean? That’s one of my pet peeves. I cannot stand if there is one. Just, and what a really mess you up is you take this machine apart, whatever it is, and you got a hundred pieces on your workbench, you put it all back together and there’s one bolt laying there. I’ll beat my head against the wall, trying to find this one bolt and come to find out somebody walked through the shop and threw it over there. Yeah, that’s happened. Yeah, that’s happened. That’s the meanest thing I’ve heard it is really mean. Ooh. But yeah. I don’t think it was intentional to start carrying a handful of screws or bolts around, and I’m going to go visit y’all and look where there’s a rebuild station and just sprinkle a damn hex nut here and there. It was driving us crazy prank. Okay. We might need to edit this whole thing out. Can I ask without making anybody upset your least favorite thing to work on? Maybe it’s an old piece of equipment. That’s not manufactured anymore, that nobody will get mad about. If you say. I see, you’re worried about manufacturers, right? Well, that’s the old piece of blank. Blank, blank. I would say Toro two 16 K, which was a triplex like trim mower, surround mower. The reels were belt driven. This was early nineties. Okay. I mean, I guess it came out probably in the late eighties. So they’re probably not any more those around. Yeah. What are they driven by now? Hydraulics? Yeah. Everything. Yeah. Okay. Direct drive hydraulic right on the real. Gotcha. Well, let’s say you’ve probably seen some good improvements overall and equipment during your tenure. Oh yeah. I mean, equipment has advanced a lot because you went from a belt-driven reel to hydraulic driven. And now with computer control, you can control the frequency, a clip. So how fast that real spin and versus ground speed do you, uh, like to stay in that energy? Just, I just fly around, understand what he’s saying. I got you, but I’m curious. Do you like the ideal 6,000 and appear less 7,000? I’m not an ideal guy. You’re not, no, I can’t wait for the 8,000 series. Whatever is coming out. Then the fantastic 8,000, this conversation kind of learned about this. So there’s just like with mowers, right? Like, you know, there’s red, green horns, right? Tell them about the grinders, weathers, green, blue, and orange. And the green one is Foley, which is what. Yeah, you choose or you use right. I’ve been a Foley guy for a long time. And then the next one is blue, which is the Peerless sip. S I P. Okay. And then the last one is Bernhardt. That’s. British. Yeah, correct. Yeah. English. Yeah. English started in the UK. We’ve been over here for a long time. Correct. And they’re still manufactured overseas right? Far as I know. Yeah. Okay. So that’s trust. We can have that. What’s the name of your grinder? 6 53. The real grinder. Okay. And so the bed in the 6 52? Yes. Was there a 6 52? There was a six feet. Do those numbers mean anything like six foot long, five, whatever reels at a time, et cetera, nothing fancy like that. But so originally sitting down, I, well, I originally I had, I don’t even know what the number was on old Foley and not my favorite piece of equipment. And then we got a six 50, which is like a 95 model, and then we kept it until probably 28. And I got the 6 53. What are you skipped over to? One of the two? Yeah. What do you do with the Owens? Sell it to another club, trade it in, write it down or sell it somewhere else. Don’t use it for all those times when you’re just doing top dressing, sand work and all that. Now, Tim, I could use one for his lawnmower blades. He’s got a real mower. Don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve got a rotary mower. Okay. Pro strap. I remember you telling me. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Don’t get them started. I did see Honda just came out with one or had one that I wasn’t aware of. It’s its competitor that, I think it was Brian Dunn that I saw from over in. England. And I think he said a dare castle or dare manner, maybe one of those places, but he got delivery one and I saw a picture. He put this morning, it had some stripes on it. I was like, Hmm, got a rotary with a, a roller drive in the back. Now that’d be hard to beat GTX X or something. Maybe sounded more like a four Wheeler. How are you a strong machine? How do you book your guests? Do you reach out to them? They reach out to you, but is it hard convincing people sometimes? No, I really. I hadn’t had anybody tell me no. Okay. I’ve had some guys say I don’t have time right now. Yeah. And which is understandable. Right? You doing phone calls on those? Zoom zoom do them all record on zoom. Oh, nice. Yeah. Are you gonna run out of guests? I don’t know. I mean, you’re not two a year, dude. I mean, how many of you guys, you’re not the first person to ask that. So let’s look at some numbers in the United States. There’s 18,000 golf courses, right? 15 and a half, but we’ll go 18 for conversation. Is it 15 and a half? 15 and a half thousand, not all those have mechanics. Okay. But at least half of them do. So you’re not even looking at like membership bases of like the Georgia superintendents or the GGC essay or any of that. I mean, you’re just talking about guys on a golf course. Yeah. I’m going to get you on. I want to talk to you. Yeah. So, I mean, do you have to know the guy or is it going to be like a golf course that you’ve just heard of and you’re going to call. Hey, man. It’s it’s it’s elk stone point. Montana’s number one, place that we’ve all heard of. I’m just going to call out there and get ahold of the dude. Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah. Well, I think that’s what I mean, podcast cold, Colin, the thump, Alan. Won’t do that. He’s scared. He’s like, that’s not true. That’s not true. It’s like, no, you call first, man. I don’t know that guy. I’m not going to just not, and he shouldn’t have to. I mean, ours are, but that’s, I mean, we do know most of them are, have some relationship just from being. Right, right, right. That’s when most of the people that I either know through Twitter or know personally, or they reach out to me and say, I’d love to be out. Oh, that’s awesome. And that’s how it’s been so far. How much time is it taking? Are we allowed to ask that question? Is Courtney going to listen to this? And he said, no, I do this on my own time. And Courtney’s cool as a fan. So yes, I bet. He’s pretty proud of what you’re doing. Yeah, no, he is. He should be. Yes, he gets it. I mean, he’s a little bit more forward-thinking than most guys I would think. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. If you’re sitting at the table with Courtney, you’re not the smartest person sitting at that table. Yeah. That’s always for sure. Yeah. But uh, I answered your question about four hours an episode. I thanks. What I got in it. Yep. That’s about right. Okay. So can we say that a social media, four to four to six hours. Yeah, something like that. Okay. So it’s not 20 hours a week? No, no, no, no. So you’re heading out San Diego. Yeah, I’ll be in San Diego. I’m teaching and I think 40. Seminars. Are you really clear? Where were you in terms of the EDM certification program? Were you one of the first five to get it done, but first ever? Or did you help write it? I help. I help brown it with with Eric. Yeah. Eric. Yeah. Eric Duncanson I can’t even say it right. Well curious. Heck, he’s a good dude. Hector. No, Eric. I know I’m talking about Hector now. Are we done doing Eric? Eric’s the Carolina’s guy. We’d rather talk about him than some guy. Who’s got a shop out there that we don’t know. So say maybe set up a boxing match with Eric and Hector or box any mechanic that I well know. There’s a few in the Carolinas. I’m like, oh really? Who would you now? Hold on. There’s a couple, but I could take him. I got one for you, Alan. So I’ve had Hector on the podcast and I’ve had Joe Mariah. Okay. Which Joe’s one of your guys T tat guy up in cashers or somewhere around there, like talks away, correct? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, both of them were high school wrestlers. Okay. So here we go. I said, we need to have a cage match between y’all two I’m in, we’ll get a set like Greco, Roman. That might be interesting to see them apply like actual wrestling skills to like what they’ve seen on MMA growing up Medicaid, have it choreographed choreographed, but it’s like points, you know what I mean? Like that’s the wrestling they did. Yeah. I’m talking about wrassling you’re talking about, wrassling putting on a show for the people, what you’re talking about. No, that’s excellent. Do you ever, do you grow up in Washington rustling? Oh yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I hear you. Yeah. The biggest thing fan. Well, my kid. Oh yeah. Yeah. Staying. Do you ever paint your face? No. No, I didn’t go there to tell you my adult sister still does that. It’s like games are really, yeah. Some hockey team. Crazy. Yeah. Hockey fans. Are you playing sports? Growing up football. Football. Yeah. No, it’s just trying to think of some more questions that won’t get them in trouble. Oh yeah. The worst tools out there. Oh yeah. What is what’s, what’s the difference between like the standard and the metric thing, and y’all’s around like pain in the ass. Like you have different, like who makes, what are they all like this John Deere and Toro they’re American made. So they’re using that. This is a frustrating. Let it out, man. Yeah, I get it. I got it. So John Deere, for the most part, now it has metric, which is pretty nice. Okay. So metric is good. I don’t care what it is as long as it’s the same throughout the piece of equipment. So the worst thing you can do you want it consistent with the brand or the piece of equipment? We’re both. Both. Okay. I mean, it’s nice. Like with John Deere is the brand. Okay. And most everything that is going to be made in the last 10 years is going to be metric nice. Nothing wrong with that. But yeah, when you have a 14 millimeter and a nine sixteenths, they’re close, but they’re not the same on the same machine, on the same machine, really. And exactly who would do that. I mean, does not anybody talk to production or design or. Yeah. I don’t know. I have no idea have, has, has Touro or John Deere ever asked you or any of your peers to come up their plants and like get involved with the R and D side and all that? Not that I know of, then what they do a class though, for mechanics for like a week or something? Yeah. Yeah. Minneapolis. Have you ever been to that? I’ve not been to Minneapolis. I’ve been to the John Deere. The one is it. No, it’s here. They do one here. Gotcha. What’s the odds that they just did some bad ordering that year and had 50,000 extra screws laying around and said, let’s put these in there. Well, that’s very possible. And maybe it does come down to the budget in or whatever. It was cheaper to buy American this year, cheaper to buy metric next year. I don’t know. That’s a trial. So what does Toro have a Toro mostly’s met? Okay. I do have standard stuff on. It’s probably got to be metric now made overseas. Honestly, I hadn’t worked on Jake and probably 10 years. Okay. So I can’t speak for them. Do members ever bring you things? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What do you, what’s your feeling on that? I can get out of my face or I’m happy to help. Let me tell you a bad story. Okay. All right. I mean, it’s not a terrible story, so yeah. Superintendent says, yeah, he’ll work on your weed eater. So remember, bright member brings the weed-eater down record. I’ve been that guy three different local upstairs shops with superintendents. But go ahead and tell your story, because I know where this is going without even knowing the machine. So God brings the weed eater. I work on the weed eater. I replace, I don’t remember what it was I replaced, but I remember the part was $18 for the park. So I buy the part out of my pocket, put it on the machine, give it to the member. He’s like, how much do I owe you? I said, well, par it was 18 bucks. And he said, okay, here’s your 20. Keep the change. Very generous, generous man. Very generous man. So I made sure to tell the superintendent never again, but, well, I don’t feel so bad because I do at least repay parts with like a case of beer or a 12 pack or something that goes with it. You know what I mean? Like I asked, you know, like what’s appropriate here, you know, like I’m not, I’m not taking their time. You know what I mean? So I had a neighbor, what the army says, will you verify my. Wow. That was a lot. Yeah. He says, do you want a six pack or a 12 pack? I said, I’m here to find your yard. Give me a 12 pack. Yeah, actually that would be a case. It’s funny you say that. Cause I’m thinking about doing some painting this fall. Okay. And I’m, I’m waiting for the first neighbor to come ask, you know, will you do that? Or how much would that be? And I think I’m just going to like make it just stupid, outrageous where they won’t ever ask. That’s probably a smart, that probably is smart, but I’m thinking it’s about 800 an application I saw on Twitter endurance. You can do, I need that wheel, not the wheel, but you can get there. You can become their painter, like a, your own side business. I don’t have Trent many kinda of time. Dude. I got that kind of time. I’m sitting in the woods until the first of the year. I’m just, I’m sorry, but I don’t know. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I want to do mine. So it looks good. And then I think it would Stripe up if it was painted. It would not Stripe up. Not a lot. I think that if, no, but I mean, you can strike dormant, right? Like a big Al question. Yeah. A little bit, but I’m saying, I mean, you see the stripes in dormant rise. A little bit. Yeah. So, I mean, it would show some, or would you think the paint would overshadow the striping? It could overshadow the strap. It depends on how reflective the pain is. It’s at your yard. Yeah. So I, I got some, those, all those little spray bottles. No, no, no, no. You get a five gallon tote. I got a gallon of Millican and so I started putting it down and a fellow superintendent says that looks a little blue. And I sell it and it’s really, it’s not paint. It’s the chemical you put in the tank to show walking the marking. I was committed at that point. I had to do that whole one little area with a two gallon sprayer, man. It took me a couple hours pumping it to oh yeah. And, and where the hose attached to it. It’s finicky. You can lose pressure in a heartbeat. What’s the best way for you to apply paint to small areas, even do paint, dude. We paint greens and we use a commercial. No, we use a commercial paint sprayer. Just like you to paint your house with like a Wagner power sprayer. Well, no, a little fancier than that. The gray. Okay. Airless. You remember those commercials always one-on-one do we move so many times growing up? I’m like, man, we got to paint. Can we not get one of them? So what activities? So wait a minute. Hold on. Okay. How big are those things? I mean five gallon. Well, yeah. Would you use them with a five gallon pail of paint? You stick the suction down in there and feed water in? No, you’re just you’re spraying on the paint. You’re not, I thought you had to mix it like don’t you have to dilute the paint in the water. Yeah. I think there is a ratio that you got it premixed and then you’re putting it in there. Okay. No, I’m just thinking. Cause that would be that’s pretty handy. Yeah. One of those. Interesting. And I’m sure there’s some people up here doing that. How many greens do y’all have say 22? Is that big tree still kind of down there on the Creek? If you look out the back of the clubhouse, wasn’t there just like a big Oak tree right there on the Creek somewhere. I thought there was like a lone Oak or something. Ah, you got to come back out about say you’ve been there. Yeah. I can’t eat for Phil Pendegrass when he was trying to qualify for the U S open. Wait and time out. No, Phil Pendegrass. Yes. This would have been summer of 93. God, I would love to videotape that day. Yeah, it is 93, 93 or 94, us open qualifier. But you weren’t with the associates. No. I was working in the golf shop in the summer. And Phil was still working at Fort Jackson for everybody else. I didn’t know that for everybody who doesn’t know Phil Pendegrass was a golf administrator at CGA for awhile who got me hired there. Yeah. Wow. Because, so he’s an eclectic bird. Let’s say I worked in the golf shop. Sophomore freshmen and sophomore summers when I was transferring between Clemson and Kentucky, et cetera. Right. So Phil was a pro, so I’d go out and play golf with Phil in the afternoons. Then after I got out of school, came back, was working at a starter marshal. Yeah. At Fort Jackson after quitting. My first job, Phil comes out for lunch. One day when he’s working at the golf association and says, Hey man, what are you doing? I told him, I got a degree. What I’d been doing. He’s like you ever thought about raising money for kids to play golf? And I was like, Like a week later I was working for the officer’s station. What’d y’all shoot at the qualifier. Who knows he didn’t make it. Obviously I could’ve told you that, but it was, I think it was a sectional there. Okay. Like that would have been it. I think we went from there to the open. Yeah. Okay, because I think he’d local qualified and then that was the sectional I’ll be doggone. Yeah. Yeah. It was my 86 Honda accord up there. We host the sectional every other year. Do you really? I just remember it was like on the back end of a newly developed neighborhood at the time, it was like, you kind of went around through this col-de-sac down this hill and main, it was like, damn, there’s this golf course on this Creek bottom or whatever. Yeah. So my question was what activity that the crew does wears out the equipment where, you know, when this activity is going to happen, It’s gonna be a lot of work afterwards. Well, obviously aerification greens top dressing because of your Ram element. Yeah. Okay. Because it’s just constant abuse on the, on the metal and the cutting units. Yeah. Yeah. Wearing them down, Nick. What happens. Goals on, is it almost like the old Flint and steel or Flint of the Indians trying to make heads? I mean, it’s the same concept. It’s just constant friction. Yes. Yes. The opposite of sharpness. I got you. Yeah. With that aggregate going through there. All right. Well, here’s my dumb question because I’m going to ask it. So the grinder, the real grinder, right? The real grinder. So that’s putting a fine edge on the circles that are going. Or that’s putting an edge on the bed knife, both at the same time. There’s two different things, every machine. So you got your real grinder, that’s spinning the reel and it usually spends a real backwards. Okay. And the stone also spends the same direction and the stone traverses the real, as it spins, the stone goes up and down the yeah, up and down the real and went. So when you’re grinding a real, you want to make it sharp and you want it to make it back into us. So the real doesn’t wear as a cylinder. Do you want perfect circle on the outside? Like this perfect circle. Okay. And then the bed knife, you reground it. So it’s got two faces. You’ve got a front face and a top face, and you’re going to reground those faces. Okay. And you want them sharp and to bring them back to a. All right. Where do you other different stones to put in your grinders? Like a high-end stone or a cheap stone or stones? Expensive diamond cut stone. Right. So yeah, there is for the real grinders, they, depending on the grinder, you can get different stones bed, knife, grinders, most everybody’s going to the boron stone. So it just takes. Not necessarily bore on you more on that’s a t-shirt. There you go. Put that on the I grind line. I like that. Oh yeah, man. Make it happen. Call them people at turf. T-shirts let’s get this thing done. So Mike Rollins doesn’t get upset. You’re not a sip guy. Y’all he can get past that. Yeah, yeah. Yep. Yep. He can get past that and. We’re just, I would think Dewayne probably can’t get past it. Yeah. Dwayne might not be able to get past that, but I don’t know. I guy, that’s got an alter ego. I don’t have to wait. Now. How long have you known him? Just since he got in a couple of years now? Not even that long. Probably six months. Yeah. Did y’all meet. Or did you go over there? Yeah, I went to east lake the first time I met him was actually at athletic club when they were having the ladies or the LPGA event. Gotcha. I met him over there in person for the first time. We’d talked on the phone a couple of times before that. So how much offsite tournament support do you offer during. Pretty much just east lake, just the one a year over there. Just the one a year. I was lucky enough. I got to go to Belle Reve for the 100th PGA. Nice for a week. That was awesome. Working up there. Courtney, you always send folks or whenever you can. Yeah. It’s usually up to the employee. So I never thought about it on a tournament. They bring in techs too, huh? Yeah. Oh, you got all that extra equipment, right? That makes sense. I mean, I knew you needed more people for the golf course and the extra grinder too, right? I mean, you can be doing more equipment at the same time daily for PGA. How often do you granted general Mo a greens mower. There is no answer for that. So, you know, it all depends on the condition, the top dress the day before I’d probably grind them. So let’s say no, no sands present once a week, once every two weeks, maybe something like that. Yeah. Unless you own four sets of reels, like some people, and then it’s only once a month, but it’s a week long for that month, right? Yeah. Yeah. So the tour, do you granted. Do they want that? Perfect. Well, I mean, yeah, you want it perfect, but you’re not necessarily grinding daily, normally lie. So at east lake, we would probably grind all the greens mowers on Wednesday before tournament starts. And you’re probably not grinding them again. Cause you gotta think, I mean, those things are I don’t want to speak for Ralph, but I’m assuming they’re locked down pretty good. Like there’s probably not a lot of growth going on. No, that week on a Bermuda, right? Like especially mode four times a day. Yeah. So I mean the chances of you doling. Are less likely, right. When it’s just a small amount of plant material, that’s clean that you’re clipping. Right. Right. All right. Let’s talk, hydraulic leaks real quick. Are those your fault? No, they’re still, they’re still prevalent. Obviously. I’ve seen them. I’ve seen the handful of this. I don’t think they happened like they used to, but I have seen some this year, they’ve gone to all metric fittings. Ready to go. What does cause that the operator. Rugged with the equipment, you know, going from one hole to the other, or it’s usually just the houses deteriorating. Okay. Over time, like around a fitting end or whatever, where there’s more pressure potentially wet. No pressure is the same throughout, throughout that’s the thought process. Right. Okay. Yup. But as not a thought processes, Pascal’s law. That’s what you call putting someone in their place drop Pascal’s law. And that’s a first on the podcast and that will not be getting cut. He’s like, nah, that’s true. Okay. So then why would the hoses deteriorate the heat? Maybe he got a aggregation tell you that. Come to mind. Damage from the sun. You’re correct. I was able to, did you know what that was? Photo deGrom getting a second thing. I was going to Google. I gotta do that law for, I can’t say it. How you going to spell it? Spellcheck. Oh, God dang. So when that happens a leak, do you just fix leak? You have to flush out the system and everything? No, just fix it. Okay. Yeah. Fix the leaky spot and then refill, top it off. Yup. When’s the last time y’all had. Man. Don’t say that. Ah, go ahead buddy. Tomorrow. Oh my bad. If that was allowing y’all to hear years. Sorry, we had to knock on the table. You’re right. I probably shouldn’t have to put up 1,312 days accident free and everybody drives by that sign every morning. My man, I hope it ain’t me today. They’re not very frequent. Most manufacturers say to replace your moving hydraulic hoses every three years. Really? Yeah. Okay. So especially like a fairway mower, the wings that are folding up and down, all the hoses going to the cutting units. So is that one of those little like tech tips that you all share? Like somebody grabbed the paint pen and said, you’re going to start putting the date on the outside of the hose when you install it. So. That’s actually probably a pretty good idea to y’all don’t do that. I figured you, you know, then you wrote it on there 3 20 12, you know what I mean? You knew that on all filters, but I hadn’t been doing it on hydraulic hoses. Otherwise you keep records. So you know, which piece of equipment is due or just yeah. Or you can just write. Okay, can you, can we, can that make the Twitter machine sometime? Yeah, I’ll do it just for you. Nice. Recommended from her podcast. Take a picture of it right on the date on the newest hose. That’s the same one where he’s taking a picture of the leak that was caused by that hose. It’d be a place where he’s got the big exclamation, whatever those little blocked out letters are you Allan for jinx and the leak? I know y’all just got 18 holes though, right? Yeah. We built a. Short course behind the shop 20, 20 where’s the shop and the shops just down the hill, kind of behind the driving range. So kind of upset leftish if I’m kind of coming down the hill to the golf shop, how old I remember kind of like back over on that, which would I thought would have been like nine or 18 coming up? That is actually on the other side to the right. Yeah. Gotcha. Man. It’s been a while, man, but I just man, something about that. Because I swear it had like a little didn’t have like a rocking chair logo then. Oh yeah. Yeah. Still does. Still does. Yeah. Rocking chair. I remember that. It was, it’s a special little spot we need to go. Let’s go. Do you want to go? Yeah, maybe we could call Courtney so we just follow him home. Yeah, you can follow me on snap by Tina live at the golf course. We, we can work something out now. Are you going to the Georgia office to, yeah, I’m going to stop by and say Tina on our way back. All right. Let’s just say that could be. First that I’m aware of. So my left here and went straight there. No, no. That has visited two association offices in the same day, other than an employee. You know what I mean? Like, I don’t know anybody who’s ever stopped by to superintendent association chapter’s offices. And actually, I don’t know how many other chapters have offices. I don’t, I think there’s only a handful that actually, I don’t know, you have office space, the uh, E I don’t a long time. Yeah. Yeah. At least. That’s cool. Are you a member of the Georgia chapter? Yeah, I am. That’s awesome. Did you go to Jack lion? No, unfortunately I did not like a good spot. Yeah. Those trees and those photos. I want to see that when I was just talking to her, she said over a million, lots. Oh, down there. It was pretty impressive. Yeah. That’s a lot of. Maybe you can get doll tall like that for our January meeting, you could, if you go early, he came back real quick on that. I’m not a Christmas tree light, man. We had a guy die in the upstate, made the news two days ago, hanging lights. Wow. Not worth it. No. I mean, there was some story, right? That’s okay. It’s like 1600 people die a year from hanging Christmas lights across the country. Boy, that’s rough. Yeah, I wouldn’t want to do it. Do you go, what do you prefer metric? I don’t really care as long as it’s consistent. Yeah. So like in your personal tool array, you’ve got both sets of everything. You’ve got both sets and if a person was only going to buy one set you by the metrics that. Because a lot of times the metric will fit the standard. Even with a little tiny little bit of play, he’ll still work. It itself it’ll work. Yeah. Is there a specific tool that you have always wanted your entire life that you’ve never been able to aspire to get? Or if you need it, you just, you make it happen? No, I would say a lathe. Oh, that’s what I really want. That’s the only, that’s been on my wish list for a long. Yeah. And I would probably have one, if I had a place to put it in my shop. I mean, right now we’re kind of cramped on room, but yet to have a lathe, to be able to make anything I wanted to make. Yeah. All right. You got a hundred June question from Jim hunting. How do you fix stupid? You don’t. Exactly. Exactly. Do you let guys come in your shop? Are they loud like to walk in and get anything they need or don’t mess with. My personal stuff, don’t touch it. Well, and that’s in that toolbox of yours, the Mac one the night, everybody knows that. Yeah. And then the course owns a box, but if they come in, we say, what do you need? And we’ll, we’ll get it for you. And then make sure you bring this back. What’s the biggest, the biggest wrench you on, you got one like that big that’s a little one really. I don’t. I mean, probably the biggest one is a 24 inch adjustable wrench. That’s two feet long size of your forearm. Wow. Yeah. What does that go on? Tractors. Okay. Yeah. I mean, big hydraulic fittings or yeah, stuff like that. Yeah. Fitting. Do you keep pulling, do you keep wanting your car? That was a good weapons. Nice to know it’s in the game clue. If you keep a weapon in your car for awhile, that’s the way we roll. Let’s see, I don’t have that weapon. It’s funny. I have a baseball bat in the backseat of my car and Tim leaving the Carolinas night at the beach. I said, Hey, will you get turf busters? You take them back to the hotel. So we piled them. McGraw, Zach Bauer, Gina Rezi, and Mike Richardson into my car. And Gina goes, why do you have a bat back here? I said, for protection that everybody have a baseball bat in their car. Now just us rednecks from Florence. It’s just funny. Cause you, you gotta get out of the car to use the bad Alana. Yeah. I was like, if they roll up to the window, man, that bad, ain’t getting that right. Unless you can with it. All right. What else we got? We’ve taken up a lot of his time today and we’ve got the car already, but we need to talk about other stuff. NASCAR or hunting? No. Well, do you like NASCAR now? The biggest how much do you know how much you don’t talk fishing? let’s go fishing now. No, that’s not fishing. What is fishing then? So you off shore? No basket. Um, I’m a fish every week, a little pot. Top water depends on the time of year. Yeah, it depends on the time of the year. Is it rattletrap time? Right now? It is rattle trout time of it’s like perfect rattle trap weather right now. Do you get a bunch of Christmas trees and make your own little beds out there after Christmas? Yeah. And I have been known to cut trees down on the lake and put those into, and I’ve only got five what’s really. Yeah, $380 for one tree. What was it? A good one though? Was it worth it? No, we ain’t catching fish out of it. That was the worst part. So, you know, when we put it in a brush pile like that, we normally sink sweet gums and easily 20 foot, you know, and just one center block and the top of it goes straight into the bottom. Did you get caught physically? Like the VNR rolled up on, you know, the cell phone cameras? So my video does putting the tree in from a camp. And called the core. Did you realize that there are witnesses when you do things like now, now there’s witnesses and obviously most of the time we do it after dark and it seems to me this is a covert type mission we should be doing. Yeah, not normally it is, but uh, with some cold beer um, we’ve got a little cocky and we go right up there, fire up the chain saw she got it down. Yeah, drop it right there. You got some lady with two little whatever shoe dogs over there. Just freaking out as soon as she heard the right. Come on. Sorry. That’s exactly what happened. Oh, that’s funny, man. Well, no, I was just thinking in terms of podcast, a podcast, like I just want to make sure that we throw out there from the Carolina superintendents association, how important your role is? Like the M the TT, the whatever, you’re the mechanic, the turf technician, the equipment manager. I got have the opportunity to go meet a good number of the guys at the T tech annual meeting. And whenever I get to go to golf shops, I mean, when they’re willing to come out and say, hello, I have the opportunity to speak to some of your brethren, but. Big shout out to you guys without your equipment manager classification, there would be no product for us to be able to sell to the general public, to have an $80 billion business. So you guys thank you for that. And that’s what I’m trying to do with my podcast is highlight this career path, highlight the people in this industry, turning wrenches and making tall grass. Because that’s all we’re doing. I love it. Turning ranches, making tall grass shorter. Did you get any his stickers at the conference and show? Nah. Yeah, he may have gotten years back. I ended up with two somehow once on the fridge. I’ll give you, I got some in my pocket. They’re like nice that adhesives already heated up and ready to be applied. I think we got some pulling weeds ones for them to hear that we can carry on. But was there anything we left out, man, you want to mention, or let’s just keep the door open where. Um, And anything we can do to cross promote these to, you know, I’d tell everybody, go take a listen, real turf texts, no doubt, you know, go hear what these guys are doing. And that’s one of the reasons we wanted to have you on here was to not only, you know, showcase. Who you guys are, but also your podcast, man. Well, thank you. And I appreciate y’all having me and I mean, this has been a blast. It has been fun. I’ve enjoyed it. And I could ask you stupid questions all day. So we may have to read and write them down and have like a follow-up to this. Like we should make it a point that on our travels this year, we go meet and talk with mechanics and like get all of our stupid questions together and bring them to Trent. Okay. Like truths, Trent, stupid questions from Tim. And now that might not be a bad idea. Pulling weeds, idiots, like, is there a difference between like that little star thing? That’s got like five points and eight points. The Torx tours. Are they all five? I think of all the, no, they’re not all five. See why is it that they use those for deck screws? Does the bit botch. Than a Phillips. That’s why. Yeah. Cause the Phillips, how many points does it have for yeah. And how many of those have we spun through in our lives? Exactly. With a handheld screwdriver gun. Dang. You use a lot of WD 40. No, no, no. That’s bad. I don’t know. I don’t even have any of the shop. So years ago I found a product, actually, Larry, I’m not going to take credit. He found the product is called Crole. Okay. I spell it. K R O a L. Cruel and best penetrating all there is out there. So the lubricant to no, just dependent her then with that. Yeah, don’t be confused. It’s not a lubricant. All right. Why do I just see a picture of directs right now? I want to go get one of them wagon or pink guns. Oh my gosh. Can I borrow it wagon or will you come paint my yard when you get it? No, no, no, no. Because somebody is going to have to hold like the sign going down. The edge of the sidewalks for the overspray. Kristen told me Sam was spraying this morning. Something at the club spraying greens. I was like, well, telling anybody that, taking the head on over to 1 29. Exactly. It’s got some fungicide in there for the old. Well, Trent, thank you, man. Yeah, we do appreciate it. And Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. Oh, prerecorded. We can cut that. Yeah. Thank you, man. And anything we do? Let us know. Thank you.
Trent Manning:
Thank you again, Tim and Allen. For the CoLab. I had so much fun talking to you. And having the tables turned on me as the guests, instead of the host. I know the realtor tax community appreciates your support or the equivalent manager. And thanks for keeping us laughing. Keep up the good work fellas thank you so much for listening to the real turf techs podcast. I hope you learned something today. Don’t forget to subscribe. If you have any topics you’d like to discuss, or you’d like to be a guest, find us on Twitter at real turf techs.