Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today I am joined by Mr Alfonso Adonolfi of Boom Theory. Al welcome to the podcast. Bart, nice to be here and thank you for having me. It is my pleasure. I've enjoyed getting to know you over the last couple months we've been talking about different things and and it's it's cool to learn more about your brand because I wasn't aware of all the incredible accomplishments you've had until our mutual friend Lucas O'Connor or Lucas Von Gretch as as he's known online Told me about you and said you'd be a great guest. So Lucas worked with you before correct? Lucas was my production manager for a short period of time and He's one of the most incredible kids I ever met and I love them dearly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah And he's he's a member of the Gretch family and does a great job basically continuing on their their legacy and all that good stuff So yeah, great friend of the show. So All right, Al This is very interesting. I think because we're talking about electronic drums.   So I have a difficult time Getting anything done and usually the only way I achieve anything is I have to bash it first and then fix it So if I can hold it in my hands, I can figure out how to make it work Yeah, very interesting. It's kind of inspirational in a way because I think electronics Engineering it's like Daunting kind of I mean I look at things like oh god, I can't do that I don't know anything about that but a guy like you who just comes in and like like no, I can do this I love that. I think it's really cool and powerful to say like no I can figure it out and people can look at your example and go, you know Well, he did it. Maybe I can do it and that opens up for the next generation too well, it's I never considered myself any great genius at this, but it was more necessity The company started in 89. I was doing industrial soundtracks for Boeing and I was using the little Roland flying triangles Roland was, you know, a very powerful electric drum company even back then and I had to go back into the studio and step right all the dynamic parts and I said this is ridiculous I can make something better and it took me two years and about 30 grand of Unsecured credit card loans and and I figured out how to make an insert which I've always referred to as Almost intelligent in its ability to decide, you know to decipher what is an airborne sympathetic vibration and what is actual impact and and I think that's the the misconception always was that space muffins were drum stuffed with foam but No, you take a drum set stuff with foam on stage and expose it to high decibels and it's playing itself and Yeah, I was able to figure out how to make that work So let's just like completely back up and my goal with this is to like again, you have such an accomplished background with all this stuff I just want to like Make sure people realize kind of the importance of your contributions and your patents and all that stuff so let's go back to the very beginning of boom theory and there's the The space muffins and all that kind of stuff But like as we're starting to hear your background is your introduction to electronic drums Which you sort of did before with working with the Roland stuff What was happening at the time in the landscape of electronic drums that that made you kind of want to change this? Well, you had it started of course with Dave Simmons and Dave made this incredible product Which to this day is amazing And then my first introduction was the Tomatek stars Which are my favorite electronic drum pads and then I moved to D drum and Magnuson and yet I were back in Connecticut And I had the first D drum studio module that I brought out here And I was totally hooked on electronics and I love the idea of playing on a on a natural head but it was killing my wrists and elbows and and then after the Roland episode at the Boeing Studios I said, that's it and that was pretty much the landscape that everything was a pad and I said I'm going to build an electric drum and and that was my first pursuit And like I said, it took me about two almost two and a half years and 30 grand of Experimenting and I finally came up with with a great design and and the first supporter and and booster of boom theory was mr Michael Shreve and Michael is a dear friend and I love him very much and Michael is such an electronics drum expert. He's been playing electronic drums I mean even before I even bought a set of drums And uh, Michael came into the studio where I was working on it and he said Make me a set and I made him a set and uh It's it's such a We the the way the company was capitalized was because they started writing articles about about the space muffins in in local papers and entrepreneurial sort of Focuses on what I was doing the next thing I knew Norm Waite who was the co-founder of gateway computers contacted me through one of his uh, his um employees and Sent a lear jet to pick up Michael and I flew us out to Dakota dunes and gave me two and a half million bucks to start the company So you're on a lear jet with the drummer from Santana Thanks to the guy from gateway computers. I mean, it's just like Wow That's a book in itself. But yeah, I came I came home with with funding for For boom theory and Michael came home with his own record label. So Geez wheeze That was a good day, man. Yeah, but I think that comes down to people want to trust like You as a person and him obviously his background and and you know that that's really cool But uh, that's great that if some people would get put in that position and not walk away with anything They would have blown it but it sounds like people you got you were trusted No, believe me his board wanted me to die. They wanted nothing to do with me at one point in the meeting after I presented the um The business plan norm said to me, what's the first thing you're gonna do? I said, I'm gonna rip up this friggin business plan and throw it in the garbage Because there's no way I'm I'm gonna be able to adhere to this and he said, well, what are you telling me? I said, I'm telling you that if I want to spend two and a half million dollars on green m&m's It's my call and you either believe I can do it or I can't and uh his gatekeeper Uh gentleman named steve selene just said no no we're not doing and It's a long story. Like I said There is a book in itself, uh That was that that was a soap opera that we went through. But yeah, it was it was one of the best days And I'll always be grateful to norm for trusting me and and uh, right in the chat Unbelievable and so people can kind of and I don't know how it evolved over time But so you can visualize it. These are acoustic you look at them from the outside the space muffins And they're acoustic drums that you look at and it's an acoustic kit that has electronics under the heads And this was not around at the time at all, right? This was no The space muffins were the first acoustically formatted electric drum. They were the first full-size acoustically formatted electric drum and um I I love beta testing as you probably know I love sending out products and letting people just beat the crap out of them and tell me what's wrong I have no ego about this stuff. I want to know what's wrong with them And my dear friend mr. Matt Cameron who was one of the first endorses of the company um Agreed to take a couple of small pads out and that was one of the most important beta tests We ever did because that's when I learned that you cannot put a Space muffin pad on the same stage where they kept playing your snare drum and expect it not to false trigger Yeah, oh kept kept builds cannons as you know, and another dear friend great um And that was some of the most important r&d I did and from that I was able um, are you familiar with scott columbus the late scott columbus from manowar? No Okay, so manowar holds the guinness records for the loudest stage volume ever I've heard that. Yes. So scott scott contacted me and he said I'm sending you my drums. I want you to trigger them. I have triggered drums for many many people But scott was the the challenge where I said, okay if I can do this So um, so I triggered scott's drums and we sent him out on the kings of metal tour through europe and uh He had had difficulties the whole time and the drums performed flawlessly and they didn't false trigger and that's when I knew I had perfected the inserts Yeah, with the loudest band on earth So can we just kind of explain that a little bit as we're at that point To trigger the drums would be meaning is he simultaneously playing them as like acoustic drums that are mic'd And also they're it's just like an aesthetic that they look like real drums He was he was he was triggering an 0.0 module, which is that's a whole other thing He triggered the 0.0 module which which we built and uh, and he was also Middying out into a d-drum Uh, I believe he was using a d-drum three with some samples on it But there were I think they had one overhead mic for the cymbals because he was using acoustic cymbals But everything was being triggered. Hmm. What year was that? Before christ was born. I'm not sure But it was like nine nine. That's probably 90 98 99 I'd have to look up the kings of metal tour, but yeah, I ran that period Now, why would someone in his position like like I guess at that point Beyond just experimenting. What is the benefit at that point of totally because I've never really heard of that Someone triggering their full kit with like a metal band like that. What's the what would you say would be the benefit at that time? Well, the problem he was having was the stage volume was so loud and that the the bleed through of the microphones Just from the guitars and everything was just coming through Uh, the monitors coming through the pa. So so it wasn't the drums were being washed out But but there was so much bleed through so he tried triggering and you also have to remember and I actually have this video tape on the on the on the facebook page and and it's scott addressing the european european drum press and uh And he never actually referred to me, but he's saying yeah Well, here's the evolution because it was not hip to play electric drums in a metal band and scott had the balls to do it and uh And the amazing thing was is that he says well, I did this and then I went to this and then I tried D drums And that was okay He goes and then I met this cat from washington and he triggered my drums and they worked flawlessly But he never actually named me, but uh, you have to understand the vibe back then it was like You're playing Electrics what the hell kind of metal drummer are you so that's been the uphill battle forever with with I feel like even now If you see someone playing traditionally like like a v-drum clearly this is electric Kit it does have a bit of a feel to it Whereas when it's a kit that looks totally natural and real and is in these, you know Beautiful shells that you have them on your website and you've got some awesome stuff with with wraps and you can customize it And it looks like real drums, but all right, so you have some patents along the way So so as you created those patents What was that process like because I have looked at it I had an idea for a product years ago and I was like maybe I asked I asked a friend who's an ip attorney That's not a pleasant easy fun experience to get a patent. I mean, what was that the story of that? you patents like we spoke about this earlier and it's like I said a A patent is only as good as your ability to defend it and you have to have some deep pockets. Yeah, and uh I had The japanese companies come in in 1992. They came into my booth with videotape and Started videoing everything we were doing not just me, but everybody in the electronic field even lennie green from midi sims um Everybody's stuff was copied, but not copied to the point where Um where you'd have a clear infringement case But I mean if you've got a membrane touching foam touching a touching a sensor That would be a violation of my patent Or possibly somebody else's patent, but But the difference is in an acoustically formatted drum. There was no question because There were no acoustically formatted drums. There were no full-sized electric drums As a matter of fact, I'm always amazed when When you see the products that are out now and everybody's going where we have a full-size acoustic drums I don't know what an innovation, you know, I mean I mean and it was always about motor memory to me It's like why do you have to play these little drums when you have trained and honed your skill on an entire drum set? so so my desire has always been to be the um The wood-weighted keyboard equivalent of the drum world that is what I've always aspired to be I've always wanted To it's just like it feels just like the drum set and um So yeah, but uh, but you've seen the evolution since then as far as the patents go I I have uh, I've just received my 11th Utility patent on an integrated bass drum which eliminates the need to plug everything in using like a snake That goes directly out of the drum into a db 25 And speaking of the db 25 the 0.0 module was the first electronic instrument in the history of the Industry not just the drum industry any industry to use a multi-input trigger system Which it took everybody else about 10 years to figure out and copy Wow, um, I also built the first integrated rack system which Which competitors tried to duplicate but you know didn't fortunately Um, well, what is can you explain each of these a little bit like and to explain with people? I have experience with db 25s with using pro tools and studios where it would be Backier it's basically from from my perspective of like you've got rack mounted gear where instead of having You know 16 outs of microphones You'd have a deep a breakout cable like a db 25 cable that then goes One little harness goes then to the back of your converter or something, but like what do you Yeah, explain more about the less Best example. Yeah, best example would be um One of my favorite rolling modules was the td 9 Version 2 of the td 15 which I used to this day and on the back You have the db 25 input which they basically copped from the 0.0, which we put out in 1997 And uh, as you know, you have this gnarly snake system, which absolutely sucks So so what I did is I integrated the entire snake into the base drum So it's the lower left and lower right and top of the drum everything that you can plug into the back of a td 9 td Td 15 td 17 td 25 anything that's even even the elicits products that utilize a A multi pin input All you do is plug everything into the base drum and i'm using 3.5 Mini plugs because the idea that you need a quarter inch jack is absurd Yeah, I mean I mean this wire here right here is all you need to send that signal Yeah, so so basically you're plugging everything into the base drum You come out of db 25 into the back of your unit and and it's virtually wireless So that's so that's what I did now the the original incarnation to that was the integrated rack system where You had to you put your toms on a rack and then you plugged everything into strategic points on a Gibraltar rack system Which I would buy the tubing and then we would retrofit it to work and then after I Invented what we referred to as the actual mount system the ax system Which to this second I am the only manufacturer that you can mount Your rack toms on a totally electric bass drum Whack a baseball bat on your toms and you won't trigger either tom or the bass drum That's crazy. This I know so this is the kind of stuff that I've been doing for 30 plus years but I've flown under the radar and um I've made most of my sales to churches and by triggering other people's drums like some people You don't talk about that you triggered their drums because they have a very very exclusive contract and They're not going to lose their ride And some people don't care like scott didn't care or um You know when I did tommy lee's Bass drum he didn't care. That's interesting though. So I mean but like without we're not asking any names or anything But that's interesting to know that there are people out there in the world who are like famous drummers playing You know x y and z brands, but what you're actually hearing Through the speakers are triggered samples From someone like you yeah the the x series, which is another one of my patents which I patented back in the 90s was the world's first fully acoustic and electric drum I would embed the sensors into the shell wall And uh, and I did that because we were in the studio And I was watching them trying to trigger electric sounds off of tape You know, they they roll the two inch tape and try and trigger sound like oh That doesn't seem right. So I took a I took a little while And I figured out how to embed the sensors So you would be able to record in a total analog and digital domain simultaneously you would have Total dynamics total performance data and in post production You could go back and either blend and electric and acoustic sound or totally eliminate the acoustic sound And and substitute it With the electric and you'd have total performance data which d drum then tried to do with their highbred And you know, I was doing that 30 years ago. So again another patent which um They did it differently, of course, but the whole vibe and the whole idea And uh, my dear friend, mr. Brian van Tassel has a whole demo on youtube of his X series and how well they work and um Sure, and every now and then I'll get somebody he'll say yeah build me an x series Which is a fully acoustic kit that uh that triggers simultaneously That's so that's the like, um I guess that's like the the mac daddy series though where you can get the boat best of both world And you can you can play your drums in the room But you're also then simultaneously running out and getting that sound to the board that you can then enhance I imagine people sometimes with the x series that you have would do a little bit of both Where they'd maybe mic it and blend a sample in with The the trigger if they're playing in a live situation, is it like in a live situation And and most of the people that are that have bought x series are in Like casino cover bands and all of a sudden you're just going to drop out the acoustic sounds and you need your 808 Drum set to to do some you know some hip-hop stuff or you need this jazz fusion sound where you can blend it together But um, yeah, that's that's what the x series is all about but it was actually a studio application That brought me to do that and then that brought that yielded the bridge deck Which is now starting to be covered or copied I should say and the bridge deck is the first Graduated layered snare or drum And it started out totally as a As an electronic experiment to give myself a little more meat On the on the shell so I could embed the sensor properly because the snare of course is taking The hardest hits and it turned out to be an incredible acoustic drum um Yeah, I mean explain the bridge deck a little bit more though So like what when someone buys it it so it's an acoustic It's the similar to the x series you have though where it's an acoustic snare that also Is triggered has has but like what makes it Or explain well that the the design started out totally electric But it ends up that now I just build the bridge deck as an acoustic drum I can also incorporate the electronics into it but the bridge deck the bridge deck started out We have to step I'll explain I love thin shell drums and the way I explain this is if you take a cardboard Let's say you have a six inch diameter cardboard tube And you have an industrial size, which is a quarter inch wall really thick and you tap on it It's going to go dink dink dink But if you take the same diameter tube And it's only a 16th of an inch like a paper towel roll and you go dink dink dink It goes boom boom boom because those walls can resonate So so I wanted to build a drum now originally I wanted to build it because I just wanted more meat To put to embed the sensor and because I build thin shell drums But what happened was is I would do layering on So I would start out with say 16 play on top and then Gradually go down to an eight ply then a five ply and then 10 ply at the bottom And what I was getting was all the pop and focus you would expect from a thick shell or a dense shell And all the resonance and tone of a thin shell drum So it I didn't begin it that way that wasn't the intention But it turned out to be a great sounding acoustic drum As is the one I'm experimenting with right now, which is the ice series, which is uh the incremental konga emulation which Um, I'm the response to this drum has been overwhelming and it's just I just I don't want to build what everybody else is building I want to I want to keep looking for new designs a new way to to make things work But but yeah that so I digress the bridge deck from that. Yeah Yeah, and I think uh It it needs to be said that like yes, you have you're extremely innovative in electronic drums You've you've doing all this cool stuff But like kind of like you know, it can't be forgotten that you're like a really Uh, well-established drum builder In general, you know what I mean like that I appreciate that and I I like to consider myself a drum builder as opposed to so many of these people that are drum Assemblers you buy a shell you put a 45 degree edge on it You put some generic stuff on and you say this is the greatest thing since light spread and they may You know, it's sad to me that innovation in this industry has has been reduced to a new finish You know, uh, and I've always referred to this as the war of the wood circles and again drum Drum tone is so subjective and I have maintained for 20 30 years that the single most important part of your Of your drum sound is your head selection And that's really what it comes down to and I could tell you a story about that at the nam show if you want to hear it, but yeah, please. I love it I think it was 2007 And we're in drum row and everybody's a sweetheart and I Well, I'll tell you who won't mind me saying brian spawn my buddy brian spawn was there I think kepp was there greg kepplinger and we had representatives from Um All the major drum companies. Um, I believe the late I think it was phil edelson I think that was his last name from yamaha was there Phil is gone But anyway, the discussion was Wood shells and everybody's well, I like the warmth of rosewood and nothing projects like babinga And this that and the other thing and they're going on and on and on i'm sitting there listening to and i'm going I'm going The most important part of anything is the drum head and they all started You know, it was very good nature and they're going what the hell do you know?   There's a washington mutual i'm going to go out and i'm going to get $5,000 In cash right now. I'm going to come back here.  I'm going to go talk to To Remo I'm going to get all the same heads and I'm going to get I was going to call cap and say cap's going to Tune every one of the drums. I said, we're all going to turn our back Anybody who can tell me which is a rosewood and which is a babinga wood and which is maple I'll give you $5,000. How many people you think took the bat? None I bet So I can barely I can just about tell the difference between a metal shell and a wood shell just barely but um I mean The in my opinion drum head Bearing edge and depth are the three most Uh critical parts of of what your drums going to sound like um There's some woods that I have to admit are really incredible. Um The maypex walnut maple shell what a beautiful sounding drum that is and mr. Paul weary of metro drums in australia has access to some of the most incredible woods I've ever heard and my favorite being turpentine Which i'm trying to get paul to send me some turpentine shells, but he's too damn busy to do it Yeah, but I the turpentine is an amazing wood. I've never even heard of turpentine. I've heard of turpentine like, you know, the like Oh The different chemical or whatever, but yeah, not the wood. No the turpentine tree. They're the average about 600 years old Um, then you've got uh Tasmanian blackwoods another favorite the jihara is a beautiful Um outer ply Go to metro drums and look at what paul makes. It's absolutely beautiful and totally Opposite of what I make I am I am a totally organic builder. I Cannot stand polycoating. I do everything with a burnt shellac finish. I want to be able to feel the grain of the wood in my hands Sure. Um, every time I see a polycoat. I always think of you know, the plastic covering on grandma's couch You know to stop the dog from peeing on it, you know, I am a totally organic builder and Uh, I I think crushed bugs make the best finish on a drum burnt shellacism and squitting That's another one. I love doing is a natural squid ink. What's that process like squid ink? Well, when my shop was in magnolia right by fisherman's terminal, have you ever seen deadliest catch?  And he said it's squitting pouches and I said I said, well What's it do? He goes, do you don't want to get it on your hands? It'll stain. It'll be terrible I said, how much you want for the bucket? He said Just give me five bucks for the bucket. You can have the squitting for free and And I gave him five bucks and I hauled it back to the shop and I started doing squitting finishes and it's almost Uh, it's almost got this violet undertone depending on the light But it's it's an amazing finish. I have heard of many things, but I've never heard of squid ink being used I've seen I remember fishing as a kid with my brother and we got some squid that we were using as bait at some shop And puncturing something. I guess it had ink on it and I remember ruining my shorts Forever as a kid and I was like, I'll never forget that But that's incredible. You don't see that kind of uh, again, it's the innovation That I think you that just kind of oozes out of what you're doing where I'm gonna see you take for granted, but You're you're you're pretty uh, uh, you're very innovative and not no that being said it leads me to the question of innovative guy like you You've got patents. You said the the you know hardest thing to do is defend your patents You have been copied quite a bit over the years Yeah, I've heard other people talk about that. Um, I remember Jason from prologix percussion who made great pads He was talking about how he just found out that they're just making identical pads in china and what do you do when you You got to shut it down What's just what's that process been like for you with with people copying your designs and stuff?  I am so proud that what I did Was the first and and something that I mean I've had people tell me that what I did literally changed the direction of the electric drum industry and Maybe that's true and maybe it's not but It's something that I don't mind hearing and if nothing else if i'm not going to get the cash At least I get the satisfaction Of saying yeah, I I did that one right and and that's what I continue to try and do I continue to try and do it right and I don't necessarily know if um If the payday is ever going to come and at this point, I don't care I just i'm going to do this till they carry me out of the shop and I like it. It's fun Yeah, you've you have accomplished a lot and and I've had things where there's episodes i'll do where i'm like It maybe it's something that I think is a story that needs to be told. It's someone a builder or Someone who founded a business that's a great thing in the drum industry And maybe it doesn't get 50 000 views, but I think to myself. Yeah, that doesn't matter That story now lives on forever And it's just like it's important just to have that information and have that that out there There's some parallels to that where obviously with yours it's much bigger and there's Hundreds of millions of dollars, but yeah That's why what you do is watch by so many people and and I definitely appreciate it and And I think it's it's sort of cool that yeah I get to see my guts for once. So there you go No, you're you're you're I'm honored to have you as a part of it, but before we move forward I do want to I want to cover everything because you talked about the space muffins Uh, which I I think just just in general to kind of like talk about your lines There's a space muffins. I'm looking at your website bridge deck x series 0.0 Is there anything with those that like you don't think we covered yet because like let's talk about the module well for the last Five years I've been trying to do the reissue and between the pandemic the supply shortage stuff and now the inability to get processors the the micro processors that I mean I've got I know companies locally that are buying microwave ovens from Samsung Just to get the processors out of them and put them into their products because You know wow for what happened, but um The 0.0 is an amazing story in itself because there was no way the oh a company of my size and resources could have ever done it and When I tell you the names associated like when I think back of the history of the company like Paul mason from tempest was was a consultant a dear another dear friend in it But we had to get rid of paul because all we did was laugh and tell stories all day and then um Allegra, um Incredible craftsman just incredible craftsman. He came in and he was a consultant for a while then lucas and um I mean there's so many amazing people that have been Affiliated with the company, but the 0.0 module was probably the most incredible achievement of all simply because there was no way If the timing wasn't exactly right it would have happened and this happened because Insonic had had come up with the solution one chip was Remember back in the old days you used to have to take a blade and stick it in the back of your computer to get sounds And creative labs was making billions selling the sound blaster card And then insonic came up with the solution one chip Which was a chip that had 16 bit digital sounds that you could populate directly onto a board And that was that was the death blow for creative unless they either came up with a competitive product Or they did a hostile takeover and of insonic and that's exactly what they did And at the time another dear friend mr.  What do I do and he hooked me up Uh with mr.  I want indy ins. I want indy outs We did two 65k processors so I could actually trigger via midi faster than you could trigger directly into the module you were plugging into all these features and um Joel said, okay, and we started the module and I was able The auto chip just the auto chip alone If I had to start from scratch and just get the auto chip which I ended up using in the 0.0 and Got my own source code too. It would have cost me four million dollars now I yeah, so um, so The first thing I did was uh We took it to the nam show and we introduced it and uh, we had only had enough money left to build 105 units and And then I had to buy my partners out shortly after so we never went to the second round And it took me almost 30 years to raise the money to try it again And then the pandemic happened, but we're still working on it. I I want to put out a reissue but um, I'm doing what um What I refer to as uh It's retro tech Because every time I look at the technology of modules today It's like I talk to electric drummers all the time and I say What's important to you?  I'd say maybe three percent Of the a thousand drummers I've talked to you say yeah, I need this I need that I need the sync code. I need the mapping capability It may be more now that that there's more young kids coming into Into the market and the technology, but for most part Most people just want to plug in and get a great acoustic drum sound or a great Electric drum sound for whatever they're using but um, but uh, anyway that the 0.0 Would never have I could never have done it today It I was at the right place with the right time and enough cash in my pocket and and that's uh And the other the other great innovation that came out of that module was the db 25 multi-pin input Which like again, like I said was the very first time anybody had ever done it in any portion of the industry That wasn't an invention of yours that that input that that db 25 like cable or anything that existed Yeah, db 25 is common on your uh your printer. I mean, okay. Yeah, I was making sure I was like wow That seems like you can get some money. No, I didn't I didn't invent anything So all I all I did was say if you take this and do this and this and this Then you could come out with this and that's and that's where um My visceral engineering components come in like I'll go, you know, I I don't know how to do this But if I can articulate this vision to an engineer and that's the important thing is having engineers with a musical background that are actually able to um Yeah to understand what the hell you're talking about because I I can babble on as you know, so sure well No, and I love hearing it. It sounds like you're you're I don't want to say you're in the right place at the right time a lot But it seems like you uh have been in some key points in the history of this operation where um You're just ready to accept what's happening and kind of ride the wave and I guess that's part of it and And and use your visceral engineering to you to kind of make things work for yourself And I think that's been a very successful way to do it Well, what I'm what I'm working on right now acoustically is You know the i-Series but electronically I'm I'm working on a drum head and If this works And I'm praying it's going to work and you know, I'm starting the testing within the next month or so Uh, and if this works, I will literally make every electric drum on the planet obsolete in 24 hours So Hey We're going to protect it this time Yeah You're the kind of person and I feel the same way in different sort of avenues Where you got to always be doing something you got to always be working on something that's like Trying the next thing and then waiting isn't it just I love the feeling of like um You know if you're just it's even as small as like waiting for an email to come back that might say like hey Al your patent got accepted or something just always working and moving forward and trying something And I completely get that vibe from you where you you are a doer, you know It's just exciting to do stuff like that it is and and when even the the smallest little success, I mean, it's like I say if I if constantly being pissed off could in any way be equated to goodness I'd be jesus and the opposite side of that is that I have the lowest threshold for happiness of anybody I know it takes almost nothing to excite me or make me happy Especially if it's a leggy red head, but that's a whole different That is yeah, um All right a couple more questions here for you. So basically, uh, we live in a time now where things are changing This is a crazy time in technology with artificial intelligence all that stuff Not really related to ai, but but what do you think about what's going on with? I guess it would be last year at this point about with dw Roland, I guess it was the dw e kit where it was like completely wireless Uh, where they're triggering things like that. I imagine it's bluetooth I don't want to say I'm an expert on it at all. I don't really know the the background. What's your thoughts on all that stuff? um I think the uh, I saw the video and chad wackerman genius His samples are incredible. Um, what he was doing was great When I put a bluetooth drum set on the stage with the rest of the rf frequencies up there I don't think I'd try it. Good luck. I hope it works. I'm Very very much into a directly wired system and minimizing the appearance of the wiring, but There's a there's just a lot of frequencies on that stage bluetooth Is not in my opinion while it's a great innovation the great system I don't see it as dependable enough to put on the stage, but Roland is a mighty company. Roland has some of the best engineers in the business And if Roland thinks they can do it, I I think it'd be great. I might even buy a kit if it worked, you know, but um I don't I don't see it happening right now if it was I mean the the video they put out to me was vaporware because if they had if they had a working unit Like when I first saw the dw kit that um Is it what's the german company that that bought the majority stake in dw? Is that? Yeah, I think I think so that's what I was thinking when I when I first saw that kit at the uh nam show a few years back I said well, you know congratulations dw you've finally built a set of space muffins, but um the the idea that That it was gonna they weren't even talking about the bluetooth technology back then but If they do it god bless them, man. I think it'd be I think it'd be a great innovation Again what I put a bluetooth drum set on stage not at this particular point in the technology, but then A lot of weird stuff goes on at nam, but yeah Well, that's the old like and I don't know any of the details But it's the old like you know like there would be the old things with like steve jobs and apple and what he's showing of Like an ipod it like doesn't actually work. It's not ready But uh, I mean I see that and I go man that kind of that's like the the acoustic drums that are electric I was like that's what owl did. I mean that's a space muffin basically just modernized and Attempting to be there.  So um But Like I said, if they can do it, I want to play it I want I want to I want to see what it feels like and and maybe it will reach a point Where electric drums will receive the respect and the recognition for what they are a completely different musical instrument Just like an electric guitar is not an acoustic guitar and never the twain shall meet. Um, I mean I love acoustic drums, but I would never never give up the versatility and the ability to I mean I can't play toblas, but I can pull up an incredible set of sampled toblas on my on my Electric drum set and give you a fairly good representation. You know, but and it's fun I mean that is one of the most fun things is opening things. That's like Like my toms are set to be someone's voice and then there's a tabla over here. There's nothing more fun than that Have you ever heard the the kabuki drum set on my if you go on my facebook page all my goofy videos are there And I did I used to love doing this uh sampled kabuki set That um was part of the insonic sound library Which by the way, I am the only electric drum company on the planet that has rights To use the entire insonic sound library, which is a legendary Um library that's again, joel brazy went around the world sampling these incredible incredible percussion and and voice samples that were incorporated to the uh, wow asrx one and uh, or the asrx pro I just just amazing amazing samples. I've got I've got quite a few videos using them. So yeah that world of I used to do for my old job a lot of like for like commercials and videos and things There'd be sound design where you'd have a sound library Which you would look through and you'd be you know car buys and you would find the the car going That's not quite right car door shutting and you'd look through 600 of them That's an interesting world in itself of the act of sampling these things which is I mean just like a foley artist would use you know all these incredible access to But um, but the editing of those and and you take a sample I It's just mind boggling all the envelopes that you can screw with To make that sample what you want it to be and I have great admiration for the people that have taken the time to learn How to do that because my thimble brain cannot manage it So I just there's nothing I'm ever going to be able to do with that one No, it's pretty cool. Um, but uh, al okay, so as we get kind of closer to the end here Why don't we talk a little bit about the um, which this might not if you're listening to this Make sure you check the description for links and things like that if it's up But you've got a cool raffle coming up that you're putting together for the ukraine Drone. Yeah, let's talk about that This is one of the australian shells, which is the ozzy exotic line. It's a solid tasmanian blackwood reinforced and uh, I started this project a year ago march And I it was my intention to auction it off for relief for um, uh, ukrainian children who had been displaced and Just as a matter of clarity I have no preconceived notions Or I am totally aware of the corruption that has taken place in the ukrainian government But as I see them evolve and try and move towards democracy I I really wanted to do something not and this is not about buying arms or Or the military this is just helping displaced kids who have been bombed out of their homes So I wanted to do that and I immediately called several old friends and endorses and said would you sign this And the first person on board of course was uh, matt cameron. So matt signed the drum. Michael shreve signed it Michael de roger from heart signed it and then the most important would be the late alan white And this alan took the time he and his lovely wife gg took the time between Doctor appointments to meet me downtown seattle and he signed the drum and as far as I know This is alan's last actual Humanitarian endorsement the last signature he would have put on a drum Then of course, mr. greg gilmore who is the Founding father of grunge drumming which you know with his tenure in mother-love bone mr. Ron dunette who another good friend who volunteered to Give me the throw-off and and uh and butt for this and also signed the drum and of course cap my buddy mr. greg kepplinger signed the drum And last but not least and some people will like this and some people won't Governor j insley because this is a washington state project and governor insley also signed the drum So, uh, so we've got four rock and roll hall of famers alan whites probably last uh official signature on anything And we were going to auction it off in may but between All the tragedies uvaldi buffalo new york people just killing each other senselessly And it just sort of sucked the energy right out of it, but Um, I'm getting ready to do the auction. I will Put up on the facebook page exactly where it's going to happen and how it's going to go down And we'll we'll uh put it up for a couple of weeks in the highest bidder We'll get the drum and every penny will go to either unicef or doctors without borders and it will be specifically earmarked For uh for orphaned and um and displaced kids in the ukraine and if this works I'm going to do another drum and we're going to start helping people In the united states in africa wherever we can because drummers are really Some of the most generous people i've ever met i'm not saying that other musicians aren't But drummers really put their their ass on the line to help people and i've seen it many times Over the years so and i'm and i'm just so proud that everybody who participated in this did so Totally all you guys Yeah, definitely and there's there's some videos A video you shared with me of all most of the people signing it which was just incredible Which I will share that as well and once the auction is live I will share it on my social media So keep an eye out Be I am honored to be able to you know Help share what so many great drummers are are are participating in and you is the kind of mastermind and builder behind it Be happy to share it so everyone can keep an eye out in that And if this is if you're listening to this this is 2023 June slash july when this is happening if this is like next year just keep an eye out on The boom theory facebook page and see what else al is working on if he's going to do further auctions So you you can catch more down the road, but al is we wrap up here man? Let me The last question i'm thinking is If you had any tips or advice for someone who's similar to you where they just want to try things They are like kind of you know, they they want to get their hands dirty. They're maybe you don't have a traditional engineering background They're they want to be entrepreneurial. They want to go their own way What advice would you give for people for a young you let's say if you're telling yourself 30 35 years ago What advice would you give or if that doesn't work someone who's coming up right now? What would you tell people to kind of focus on or not do you know just that you've learned Don't take unsecured credit card loans To start your company unless you absolutely have to but don't be afraid to do it If you really believe in what you're doing because Man the interest sucks Sure That would be the first bit of advice now if if you want to do it just do it I mean we're gonna be dead soon, you know, i'm 70 years old I'm rolling into my 71st birthday and and every as soon as I turn 70. I realized that My time here is very limited and uh And so yeah, if if it's something you believe and if something you think you can do you go for it Yeah, um and don't let anybody tell you you can't do it. Just do it What not to do? You don't have enough time Uh, but let's see that I don't a lot of people ask me, you know Would You know the nam show I got thrown out of which is I tell people my finest hour What happened with that? Let's hear about that. Oh I forgot about that. All right.  Can you get my credit? Yeah, I will get it for you early um So I had I didn't want to put the crates Into storage because we wanted to get out of there early to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday So I the crates that my drill presses came in from taiwan were these giant three-quarter inch marine plywood crates And uh, we put the drums in there and and I decided I was going to have a backstage motif And we left the crates on the floor.  We're we're having a great show and uh, a gentleman named kevin johnson who was one of the officers of nam um Came by because he had heard complaints Because john and orange county percussion had traveston there They were whacking making all this noise and they kept saying lord It's boom theory with those damn big electric speakers and I'm going no no no We have headphones you can't hear us But the noise police were blaming us and and everybody was blaming us so uh So to make a long story short, which is now impossible kevin comes over And uh, mr. johnson looks at my booth and he points to the um, he points to the t-shirts and he says He goes that's disgusting because it says everything else sucks on the back And I said what's disgusting goes those t-shirts. He goes and those disgusting crates Those should be in the basement and I said no, that's part of my display. I paid. That's cool I said it's it's a backstage vibe because he goes those are not Part of your because those are going out of here. I said no, they're not going out of here I paid for this booth. It was approved by the fire department. Oh, he said that they were fire hazard I said they it was already improved. I've got the stamp from the fire marshal on here. I've got the um I've got the okay from your design panel who came to inspect the booth and he said he said, yeah Well, you know, it's disgusting.  You're out of the show and I turn to uh I turned to the late mark mazuno my vice president and phil weatherill And I said let's pack it up boys And we were actually happy because we had sold out and we were going to go home Go to the or go back to the hotel and watch the super bowl the next day Which means we didn't have to come in sunday So in the history of nam I am the first an only company To have been completely Disassembled and removed from the floor in the history of the show And that's incredible. It is my finest hour. Thank you Man, I so as an outsider. I've actually never been to nam. I didn't realize the amount of like Uh, just what goes into building the display and you have to be approved and all this and that and I get it man I think that sounds cool to have like crates and the backstage vibe and and things shirts hanging on it Sounds like they were just being nitpicky and in a bad mood and you got called out No, the crates were disgusting. They weren't ata cases. They were filthy and gross I just didn't want to put them in the basement because I wanted to be able to load out quickly without having to wait for my crates I know that's awesome. Well Hey, you you lived to to sell another drum another day. So I didn't yeah, man. That's incredible. Well Awesome. Okay. Well, then if anyone's listening then don't do that. That's the lesson we can learn. No, do it Do it get credit cards.  Come on That's awesome. They charge a lot of money for those booths. So I've heard I've heard Yeah, and I love the little bit of orange county info in there as well Because I've had three episodes about the the history of orange county. So that's kind of cool Oh, we blame each other all the time you go down drummer. No, it's the guys at yamaha They're they're making all those because they come by with the decibel meters and it's almost it's I mean, there's no way It's drummer row. I mean you got It's the nature of the beast. You're gonna make noise It is it is incredible. Well All right, Al as we wrap up here. Why don't you tell people where they can find you and I know you have some cool stuff that's in the works. Obviously you said if if the head that you're working on Everything goes to plan it'll change a lot of things So tell us people where they can keep up with you and see what's happening in your website and all that stuff Until I rebuild the website, which is a million years old um boom theory boom theory corp at facebook is where you can find all my goofy stuff once I've rebuilt the website Then we're going to switch over and we'll use the facebook and instagram sites to do nothing but drive traffic to the To the website because I really want to build a community On the website that has nothing to do with social media and social media has its place in the industry, but I I want I want my own website back. Sure. Yeah, and websites are time consuming and Just a whole thing once you start one thing and they're expensive And if you do it yourself on one of the click-and-drag things like I was trying to build I was looking at a portfolio website to kind of put together for some work stuff and it's like Man, you start it.  I've written a couple lines of text very time consuming, but Everyone can once that's ready boom theory.com just and also just you can google Boom theory and read a lot of cool things and find find them on social media I will share the links in the description for all that per usual. So Al I think this is awesome, man I'm glad to have you on here because I think you're dare I say a bit I think you're you're I don't want to say an unsung hero because a lot of people know about what you've done But um, I think more people need to know about it. So I'm glad to have you on and help and help share that story I appreciate that. Thank you so much


Find joy in being in places that other people don't want to be and live in uncomfortable Hey guys, what's up? It's Andy. This is a big video right here. They could change a lot of your lives Now I want you to look at a key word here. Okay Comfortable comfortable is the death. It's the death of you.  I want you to read this top deal how to prevent from getting comfortable Alright, take notes write this down number one You got two choices right now. You can have two types of feelings the I've arrived Feeling so as you're doing better in business as people start to figure stuff out. They got this It's a nasty feeling that I hate and I kill it every time it gets close to me But a lot of people like it because it's a comfortable feeling and I don't like it I like to live uncomfortable in the feeling is called. I've arrived Okay, so when I see somebody I can tell they're running in one or two places number one I've arrived like I've made it. I'm the man. I kill it. It's not confidence. It's I've arrived I don't need to learn. It's a stench. It's arrogance this It's literally the death of people when they stop learning or how do you prevent?  Okay. I said keep that chip. What's that mean?  Hey guys What's going on? It's Andy a lot of you leave comments Tell me that you need help do me a favor and take the best way to get a hold of me Shoot me a text message right now<PHONE_NUMBER><PHONE_NUMBER> I'll help you with whatever you need.  Let's get back to the video Okay, so you're either gonna have that I've arrived filling which is like you have ego like I know it all man Or what are you gonna do?  You're gonna keep that edge and guess what you're gonna dominate everybody By going back to zero every single day now. Listen to me. All right, I don't care what you've done I don't want you to be one of these people going around telling people about your old war stories What you used to do all that matters is what you're doing right now and what you're gonna do tomorrow That's all that matters. So as you're reading this, how do you prevent from getting comfortable number one?  This is my standard, right? This is what I'm gonna hit. This is what I'm driving for in this vertical There is a milestone that I'm going for once you get to that milestone. Listen to me That milestone is over.  You got to go climb to a bigger place. Look a lot of people when they hit a milestone. They're like, whoa, I made it I made it man. Hey, dude, you're gonna get comfortable real quick with that.  This is the way that winners win and by the way, you look good I know a lot of people that have made money for a couple years. Just a couple. Okay.  You'll be catching them soon guaranteed. Okay, then secondly I put here why always growing is so important So when you grow there's something special in your life that you get and it's called progress Okay, and there's a term that we use in our company. It's called progress over Everything I explained to my guys I say listen to me I'm explaining this to you every single day your goal is to create progress in your life in some area in some way shape or form You have to get better 10% better 1% better 100% better I don't care, but it has to be better if you come in here and work with me tomorrow And you're the same way you were today. I'm gonna throw you through that window. There's no way every day You have to get better.  It's like they're they're ready to go to heaven, right? So when I'm alive and I look around and I see people comfortable. I think dude that guy must be dying They're dying over there Dude, don't get comfortable man. That ain't you it doesn't serve you well It doesn't look good on you. You don't wear it. Well, it doesn't smell good It's a stench and it means you've settled so never be comfortable again Set big milestones once you crush them go to the next level give everything you've gotten by the way Find joy in being in places that other people don't want to be and live in uncomfortable. You'll crush everybody Hey guys, I just want to tell you the true one percenters. You made it till the end of the video Do me a favor share it with the friend that wants to go to another level Make sure you like the video comment below so I know who you are set your notifications and then subscribe to the channel We got daily sales training videos dropping. I'll see you soon


Hey all, what's up? Welcome to a new vlog. My name is Sonali, if you guys are new. And today we got a very exciting furniture delivery. My desk is finally here. Let me move my Elani new. And the office is definitely unorganized right now. Just a lot of stuff randomly everywhere, but this is the desk. It is stunning. It is gorgeous.  And I wouldn't even know because I did not get this up here. I paid for like the white glove service because I knew I was not able to carry this up the stairs by myself or even just like with me and Ryan, and probably like a new crime. So this is what it looks like. And I actually got the same kind of material for our breakfast nook table, which should ship out sometime this month. I'm not really sure. It did say it would ship out early January, but I haven't really gotten any confirmation or whatever. So yeah, this is what it looks like. This is like made out of just stone. It is just so stunning.  So it looks like horrible on the other side, but it is so cute. I stole one of our dining chairs from downstairs just so I could sit at the table today because I really want to use it because I have a lot of editing to do, but I did buy a chair from Target and I'll put a picture on the screen here. I'm so excited to get it. It's from the Threshold and Studio McGee collection, which I've always loved Studio McGee. So very, very hyped about that. And I also want to buy the stool. It doesn't come with it. It's like a separate stool, but that's only available when the chair ships, which is also when the bathroom renovations start, which is next week. I'm so excited.  I don't have to be the one doing anything. So I'm just gonna give you guys like updates throughout the week once everything's in. Like I won't be able to use it for like two or three weeks because the bathroom, at least the guest bathroom is right behind my office. And my contractor was like, at least for demo day, it's gonna be very noisy. And like when we do the tile, it'll probably be noisy.  And I was like, noted. So we will probably be working from coffee shops for the next like couple of weeks or just going to lifetime working out and like using their co-working space. So that's the most recent home update. I was actually between this one and another, I can't remember if it's from CB2 or not, but this one was from like a random, I think it was like interior or something. But the other CB2 desk, everyone voted on that one on my stories, but it was a little bit smaller. It was gonna be able to come faster. So I think I ordered this like maybe around Black Friday. I can't remember like maybe early November. But I think it was worth the wait to be honest. Like I really love this desk so much. I think the other one was a little bit too trendy for me. And I'm really, I'm trying to like invest in pieces that will be timeless and that I will love forever. So this was for sure an investment piece. But again, like I really hope I'm gonna have it forever. So very excited about that. Just cracked open while I knew I had my eggs for breakfast, my new breakfast fixation. I'm pretty sure I put it in the last vlog, but it's literally just like scrambled eggs with onions and this like sweet and sour sauce. It's like an Indian sauce, but it's just so good with the eggs. And I try to have a little bit of caffeine because obviously it helps me not nap throughout the day, which I haven't napped ever since I started working out, which is great because I feel like that's my biggest issue of working out in the morning. I just hit that midday slump like way harder than ever before. So this time around, thank God I found my energy drink of choice. It really does not make me feel anxious compared to Celsius. That made me feel like I wanted to die. This morning I went to the gym with my friend Kiona and she took me through her whole workout routine. So my booty is getting sore. We did booty abs and just like other random things, but it's nice because she asked if I wanted to do like arms or you know, whatever we did today. I was like, let's not do arms because that's the only thing I really know how to do on my own. So she taught me some new machines, which is always so intimidating. Going over to the like the weight section. I'll go into the gym, I'll stay on the treadmill and like if I'm alone, I will literally just stay on the treadmill and knock over the weight section because it's just so intimidating. But anyways, I got a lot of editing to do. I'm trying to like not like sit on my blog footage because the more I sit on it and wait to edit, I feel like it's irrelevant and then I don't wanna post it but I'm like, this is like good content. Like I need to be posting this stuff.  So anyways, I'm gonna stop randomly and get to work. I forgot my SD card at home because I was editing that vlog and don't mind the boxes in the back because we really need to take all this to the dump. We just went into the stone place and it made it so much more complicated than I thought. I was expecting to just like walk through and like see remnants with my own eyes but they said that like it was all on forklifts and like that wasn't a possibility. So they had pictures online which like half of them didn't even have pictures. And then the ones that had pictures were so gray and like I couldn't tell if it was just like the camera and the lighting or if it was actually gray and it didn't end up actually being gray. So I just don't even know. But I picked out a couple and she's gonna send me some quotes. So if it's not outrageous, we might go with custom countertop which will be really exciting and I'm really hoping that it's not like crazy. But I definitely tried to stick to Quartz because I think that's what was gonna be more in my budget. But anyways, if not, we'll just stick to the white countertop. The other thing I thought about is that if we do do a custom countertop we'll be able to choose the sink size and the one that was originally on the vanity that came with it has huge sinks. And I'm like that is so unnecessary because I would love to have like more countertop space and like I don't need a big sink. Like I don't know why I would need a big sink other than for dishes, which I really do want to put in a farmhouse sink in the kitchen. And I told my contractor that's doing the bathrooms like if the guy that's doing my custom countertop for the bathroom, if he could just like really quickly get like cut out a hole because I think I need someone to like actually cut something. We'll cut the ramble short but we're gonna just pop in a Sherwin-Williams to maybe see it about picking out a paint. I really want to do lime wash in the bathrooms. The contractor didn't even know what it was. So we had to look it up on TikTok but he said Sherwin-Williams should have it. So let's go check it out. All right, so the Sherwin-Williams we went to was a commercial sales place. So like they didn't have like all the color swatches so we need to go to another one. And we just like thought we should go one other time cause we didn't really have time. But I got a package that I've been waiting on. These heels. I've been seeing so many people like wear number one just like chrome things in general but like pointy toe chrome heels. I think they're so cute and it's a kitten heel which is great because I just like honestly don't purchase many like shoes if they're over four inches anymore. Because I just know that comfort at the end of the day is the most important. So if I'm gonna be wearing heels they can't be too high. I got these on Amazon. They weren't on prime when I purchased them but I don't think they took like that long to ship. I thought they were gonna come like later this month. So I feel like they got here pretty early but I'll go ahead and link them if you guys want to check them out. I need to take out stuff from the other one and let me try them both on. I just walked upstairs to grab my SD card and it was like on my desk and my computer and I forgot that I got my desk this morning. So I was like very shocked when I walked in but it just looks even more gorgeous. They're the heels on. I feel like they're gonna look so good with like baggy jeans and just being able to dress them down a little bit. And I really don't have like any fun heels like this. So this will be cool for like a night out or something. I edited majority of the vlog that needs to go up today but still better put in some iPhone clips and just shush it up a little bit. I'm about to head out to another proposal. I'm shooting another proposal within like, I guess the past two months. I've shot three, I think. Love is definitely in the air and I'm shooting at the same location that I shot just the last time which was the Auditorium Shores dock. So it has like the awesome skyline in the back and if you guys are ever interested in following along with my work, my Instagram is just at Sonali Productions and I shoot a lot of UT grads. If you're in the Austin area, like I do head shots, I do branding, butter shoots, families, couples. I pretty much do everything just not weddings because I don't like to work on weekends if I don't have to and then also I physically cannot like be standing for nine hours with this camera around my neck. I would be on the way home from weddings because I second shot a couple just to see what it was like and I would be having like back spasms or like close to it. I don't really know if they were like true back spasms but let me tell you, it did not feel great. So I will not be doing weddings probably ever but I'm proud of myself that I try it because I feel like in college, I was like, oh, never do weddings. Like that's so stressful. It wasn't even like the stress of it all especially because I was the second shooter and I was just like this side kick getting all the extra shots. Hacking up the camera bag. I probably know exactly what lens I'm gonna use. I'm gonna do my 35 because that's what it showed on the last time. We set up shop right here on the stock. Today's weather is so nice and it was a little bit windy but I think it'll be perfect. It was a little windy but I think we got some really cute photos and it was so sweet. Honestly, I feel like I haven't cried at a proposal in a while out of like the three I did and then she was crying so much and I was like, oh my God. I had tears in my eyes but I think I'm just gonna watch the sunset while I'm here. It's like so pretty out and so nice out. I've just gotta take advantage before the freeze. I think it's happening next week. I accidentally wore my house slippers outside of the house. I mean, technically you could wear these anywhere but they're usually only worn in my house and now I got rocks up all in my feet. So super fun. Good morning, happy Friday. It is super, super windy out today. I actually almost had a headshot session but then I saw like how windy it's gonna be and I was like, trust me, you will want to reschedule even though it's like a beautiful sunny day. It is so frustrating when there's wind when you're doing like a photo shoot, especially if you're a girl and she was. The hair never cooperates and it's just so frustrating. Even at the proposal last night, the wind was just really not our friend with the girl's hair, even though, you know, we got some cute photos but anyways, if you had the choice to take photos on not a windy day, I would definitely recommend and I forget that that's also a factor, especially during grad season. Rainy weather is one thing but then when it's windy or like really, really humid outside, I'm like, trust me girl, like let's reschedule because obviously I want their photos to be really good too. But anyways, we are starting off the day at a little coffee shop, Mueller. I'm meeting my friend Nancy here and we were supposed to go on a walk around Mueller but it was just so windy this morning. I literally thought I was gonna be blown away if I stepped outside my house. So I was like, I don't know if we should walk but now I'm like, okay, it's not as bad as this morning. So maybe we'll get our coffee and walk. We'll see what she wants to do. Within the past two months, I've had two friends that are moving away, including Nancy, which is so sad because I, well, she just moved here like pretty much last December. So we really only like met up in January I think and she's just been such a good friend this year. And obviously I really did not like think she would move so soon. So I'm really, really sad about it. And my other really good friend Mackenzie moved back to Georgia. She's originally from Georgia. We didn't know each other then but she also went to UGA and Ryan didn't know her either apparently but she moved back for like her job because they wanted her in that region. So it's just really sad to know that Austin is not everyone's forever. And I don't even know if it's my forever to be honest. I don't know what I want. Life could take me anywhere. So I never want to say never but I also think it's so sad that it's very temporary for some people because it's really hard to make friends and like see them go so soon, you know? Oh no.  I'm going to a workout class tomorrow so we'll wash it then. But it is so windy outside that we had to like take our hammock down because it was like twisting and twisting. But Ryan is walking through the door with Chick-fil-A. What? What? Oh my God. Ryan? It's like something that was falling over. Ryan? Like nodding off. What the?  What? Like I'm starving in this.   It's okay buddy. Oh my God the nails.  I don't know if it's like a stray or. Oh. Hey. It has a funny smile.  Sophie literally hates some pretty bright creatures in the house that live in her. And this is not the first time this has happened. It's freezing out there. Oh my goodness. She's not gonna talk. She's not gonna talk. She won't do that. Oh my God I see it's ribs.     What do we do?  Oh my God I feel like it's a skeleton. Oh my God. Where'd you find her? So I was coming back from Chick-fil-A and I pulled into like our, like we live on like this road. So this one goes out to the main road and I was dragging over the speed bumps and it was just like stumbling across. Like it was like hitting the curb and falling over and like I tried to get out and it like ran from me. It was like I felt skittish you know. So walking into a yard and it was like walking into like bushes with its head and stuff. So I just picked it up and I don't think it can see her well. Oh sure. So it's old. I think it has like white fur on its mouth so it's probably as old as a puppy. It's really sad if it's that old and skinny. We put her in the sun with a nice little blanket. Does that feel nice? It's so windy outside. So not a good day to be outside. I'm sorry Sophie. I'm sorry Sophie. You don't like being sister? Okay you need to help people. You can get a treat if you want. How cute is this little treat jar I got on Amazon? I don't know. She's in the vlogs. Okay you can have a treat. If you're gonna be nice to her. What I was saying is that Ryan went to Chick-fil-A to get us some food and I got some grilled chicken nuggets and apparently one Chick-fil-A sauce is like more calories than all these nuggets but I refuse to eat the nuggets without the sauce. So what do you think? How does it taste? Do you want more food or do you think it's enough for now? Oh that's enough for now. Sophie you're okay. We'll get you more food. If you share you can always get more. Sophie's being nice and she's sharing her skim sweater. I think we're gonna maybe keep it like a day or two. Maybe let it just eat and drink as much as it wants without being around other dogs and then being all scared, you know. And then you call Austin Petzel live and see if they can help or what we should do with it. Sophie's also getting pretty old so I feel bad bringing another dog in the house. I feel like she just really doesn't get along with dogs that well. So I don't want her to be the other dog to be all kind of illy needed either but maybe a good foster family out there for her and we'll take care of it. Ryan's watching the dog. I named it Rosie because I don't know why I have like this gut instinct to name every little creature that comes my way. You guys know Fendi. Fendi we haven't seen in a while so she hasn't come back to visit us but we also were home for like Thanksgiving and Christmas so she could have come back and we weren't here. I'm not really sure but I miss seeing her face. If you guys don't know that's like the cat that comes to visit sometimes. She won me over and I'm not even a cat person but I got my desk chair just now, Target delivered and I'm so excited to open it. I wanna film a little TikTok while I do it too. Really hoping it doesn't require like any assembly and that it just comes all in one piece that I have no idea. Shout out to Ryan's mom for buying a season the first one I've done because these are very helpful. I've actually put them on the dining room table, the dining room chairs and I'm gonna put them on this chair. I wasn't home when they did my desk. I really wish I put something under it to like slide it around because it's heavy. I'm going to figure that out when we do move it but for now we'll just put these on the chair. I was thinking about getting a roller chair but I feel like it's just really distracting that I could like roll around and swole around so I've just got like a static chair I don't know what they call it just like a sand still chair. Houston I think we have a problem. So dumb. The office and dining room probably has like the worst lighting of all the areas in the house. Mine's very much like is better lighting but it has a smaller closet and it's a smaller office. So I was like whatever I'll just like film in other parts of the house but I really wanted the closet or just all my stuff. Like I just feel like I have more stuff than Ryan. So anyways, I think it looks so good. I feel so professional with this chair and the desk and everything. I feel like I need a cute little tray over here to like organize the planner and pens and all that stuff. All my dongles, it can have so many of these like ugly little things but overall I'm so happy with this new setup and I cannot wait to like actually work from my desk and not just like the couch or I mean I guess I've been working from the dining room table and I can't remember if I told you guys this but I also ordered the breakfast and a table probably around the same time I ordered this which was in November and they just told me that it's actually back-ordered even longer so it's only gonna ship out in late February but it's fine because I didn't really wanna rush buying chairs for the table and I have no idea what the vibe is that I want so now I can take my time looking for those. Update on Rosie, I think she's in a food coma. Rosie, good girl. Yeah, that's your name now. That's your name. Rosie. She's been peeing a lot so we're gonna put her in the bathroom where it's tiled so that we don't ruin floors until we get back. The freeze is supposed to happen on Monday like now there's snow on the forecast which shall be interesting because this will be our first freeze as home owners so like seriously pray to God that everything will be okay for everyone and the power grid will not, I don't even know what it did the last time but like it won't do what it did the last time because I think that's what everyone's worried about and just like the pipes freezing but thank God we'll be home so we could like drip everything. I just saw something on Instagram that a lot of the H-E-Bs are like fully wiped out and I'm terrified because we just ran out of like meat and stuff so we definitely need to go grocery shopping before the weekend, before it gets like even crazier. We'll try to go to Costco and see what they have. Oh. Stalked up. No we do, we do. I forgot I was vlogging but we're headed actually into the Spurte where our friend's Jack's birthday dinner. This is a bit, everything is rented except that she's there and long there's like the tops heels that I showed you guys the other day, so we're excited to eat. It is Saturday, still have not taken care of these boxes. I don't know when that will happen.  I think it was like bar fusion or something.  Oh my God, they burn so much. I actually liked the running class better.  So anyways, I do it again. Not my favorite, it was just really hard for me and I feel like anything that's really hard and that I'm not good at, I don't like. Ryan is currently taking Rosie over to Awesome Pads Alive and trying to figure all that out. I don't know if I mentioned this but on the next door neighbor app slash like the Ring app we get a lost dog or cat notification every single 30 minutes. Like it is insane. I don't know if it's just this neighborhood. Has it always been like this? Like do other people get these notifications all the time or is it just the area I live in? Like I'm shocked at how many, you know lost dogs and cats there are. But on the way over there he saw a picture of a lost dog poster and he faced me and he was like, this isn't her, right? And I was like, I really don't think so because it was more like Chihuahua-y looking. And I don't know, I feel like Rosie has a very distinct like puppy look even though I don't think she's a puppy. Like we think she's older. So I'm taking Rosie to, I guess the shelter or somewhere like a no kill shelter or trainer to help some food and her nails clipped and everything. And as I was taking her, I found this poster before I'm missing Chihuahua. But when I drove by, I thought it was her but this one said it's a boy and it's sick and needs medicine. So it's not her, but it's unfortunate. I'm really interested to see if she has like a chip in her cause I don't know why but Sophie doesn't have a chip in her. I don't know why we didn't do that. I mean like she was in my family dog so it wasn't really my decision at the time. Right now I'm about to head out to Forehands. It's like a home store. I think it's an outlet store and me and my friend Keana have been wanting to go for so long, so we're finally doing it today. And then I need to return some jeans at Eritzio. We'll probably just go to the domain, walk around and shop. I think she's going to New York in a week so she just wanted to like see if there's any cute stuff around. So that's what we're gonna do. I just had some rotisserie chicken. Costco rotisserie chicken is like so good. I dream about this rotisserie chicken you guys. I actually don't know if I've had others other than Boston Market growing up but like I can't remember getting like grocery store rotisserie chicken unless like my mom did. But like picking at it and eating it, oh my God. It's so flavorful, it's so good. And such an easy, like really quick snack because I didn't really have time to make myself anything but I need to get on the road because I told her I'd be there at 1.15 so let's go. We're finally doing it Keana. How long have we been saying we needed to go here? I mean maybe four months. Yeah, because I guess it was starting when you bought your house. Yeah. And we're finally here. I'm already overwhelmed. There's so many cute things.  Is that only that much? It's only 30% off that. You're choking. No. Oh my God, wow. Insane, okay, I need a console table or like, you know that space near the TV downstairs? I need something that's so like a console table, yeah. Ooh, these little tables. We're in a different store now called a dough I think, right? I don't know. Guys, look at these ladders. I had a vision of putting one in the bathrooms once they're done and like hanging towels on it. I feel like that would look cute. They have such fun little trinkets. Okay, for this, $53. I feel like somebody can sell this for 100 something and people will buy it. Yeah, for sure. Look at this beautiful hutch that I found. I really wanna put something like this in the dining room or somewhere in the house and it's only 800, which so expensive. But for this whole thing, like I feel like I have been finding it to be like $1,000 minimum, probably like $1,500. I found an even better ladder. This one back here. It's $100, but it's so pretty. I love this stain and it's like big enough for an actual bath towel. Got it! I think this is my first decoration piece that I bought from the house because I feel like I've just been finding like just furniture which I guess that's technically decor too, but like, look how stunning. I'm so excited. I am pooped. I'm really feeling the after effects of that morning workout and just like walking around not having like a break after that workout. I just need to like lay down for a good hour or two. We have an update, like a really, really good update. I literally bald in the car and I will turn it over to Ryan to tell you guys the update. I took Rosie to Austin Pets Alive downtown. They said they can't take animals in legally, but to take her to Austin Animal Clinic. And I did that.  So I took her to a Mansa pet right next to it. I got her nails clipped. And my girls were saying that she's so skinny that she can't even get like shots right now and that she's in pretty bad shape. So I took her to, we're actually gonna take her home, but I walked past the door and the lady came out as I talked to her. And she said, given her condition that they may be able to take her even though they're at capacity. So the guy, like the, I guess vet came out and did like kind of looked at her and was like, I'll come back Tuesday if you don't find the owner kind of thing. And I was like, I feel like it is in really bad shape. But I don't want to get it back to the owner even really skinny and like taking care of. And he was like, okay, fine, we'll take it and came back out with a blanket and took it. And then I came home and ate and my mom and I actually joined this, Austin found pets, you know. So my mom's when he sent it to me. I was like, I think this is near you at least. The location was actually on the road that I found her on. And so I like, it was like the picture and it was definitely her, but it's a lot younger picture. So I messaged her and she called me back and she was like crying. She was saying like, she got out while they were at work yesterday, the wind had blown their gate open. And she was windy and it wandered out and it's diabetic and it's lost its eyesight from the diabetes. And then she was like, I stopped giving it insulin because we were going to put her down. And she was really scared that that's how she was going to die is being out in the cold because it's going to freeze today. So she was really worried and she was like, I know she looks like she's really skinny but it's because she hasn't had her insulin and we take a care of her, I swear. Not the guy I gave her a lot of food and she was all warm. I gave her a sweater and everything. So she was happy and really appreciative. So she's going to go pick her up and she'll be back home with her family. And Sophie does not care. Sophie? She said, boo-hoo. She's been a lot long. Sophie, we helped a dog. Yeah. And you're such a good girl for sharing your food and sharing your sweater.  I know you didn't have a choice, but. Yeah, you're a good girl. It's an ally named her Rosie. It was just a gut feeling, you guys. I named her Rosita. Yeah. And how? Like, I literally made a nickname ever. Like within, like not even 24 hours, I already nicknamed her after I gave her a name. But her real name ended up being Runty. Like R-U-N-T-E-E. So I'm really close to Rosie. Yeah. And Sophie didn't think it was very cute. You don't like that name, Sophie? You said it was too close to your name, Sophie and Rosie. Ryan told me that in the car and I literally started crying. We're very glad that she could get home because it is kind of like, you know, not the best feeling like giving it to, even if it was a no kill shelter, right? Yeah. But anyways, we'll always remember Rosie or Runty.