Does that compute to you? I mean, does that sort of align with anything? Do you feel like it was 10 years? I don't know. I think, you know, probably longer, to be honest with you. There was things kind of, you know, hindsight's 20-20, right? So there's things looking back. I had had some major injuries. as a younger child, hit a tree skiing out at Hidden Valley, actually, not too far from here. And I fractured hip and had a lot of back problems, you know, compressed joints and this and that. So I always kind of attributed a lot of my back issues to that. And after the fact, you know, I don't have back problems now. So I think it was really the swelling and the inflammation. Putting pressure on things. Yeah. I mean, they took 28 lymph nodes, which is a pretty decent amount. But, you know, you have quite a few. And then two spots off my liver. And just it's been interesting how different my body is now compared to what I grew up with. And, you know, always kind of said it was from that. But I think it's been kind of working for, I mean, before it became. you know, something that was diagnosed, like it's just sort of around. Yeah, well, and the naturopathic doctors, you know, beyond my normal team, they kind of thought maybe that it had started from those injuries and a lack of correct repair. blood flow loss or maybe I had a an internal injury at the time you know it was like 93 when I when I got hurt so you know the technology wasn't all there and you know they think that maybe that was the start of it and and the cancer maybe was a repercussion of of injury old injuries you know I mean there's so much unknown they said it was environmental you know so it wasn't like I don't have to worry about it for my sons or anything like that, you know, being in the family because I did all the tests to know that it's not a gene thing. So from the time, so I kind of pulled you off, but so you went in for a hemorrhoid treatment. You wake up kind of. And overhear some chatter, they put you back out, and they share with you that you had, you know, this is what happened while you were asleep. Yeah. And a week or two, a week later, you're in Denver. Like four days later. Like four days later. Yeah. I mean, it was, my tumor was six inches, 15 centimeters, so, like, that's pretty damn big. You know, that's over half of your rectum, if you consider that. Okay. So they knew, like, they were like, you need to get to the top five and you need to be on this. I mean, they were straight out, like, if you don't get on this, you're going to die. It's now. Yeah. And so what was the regimen? Like, what was the plan? Originally, it was like four years of chemo, a bunch of different radiation treatments. Uh, and I, I got two cycles of chemo. So I was like 44 days into my chemo cycle, which happened pretty quick that next, you know, four days later I had like a port, you know, in my chest, uh, you know, main line to your heart versus hands. Cause being in the fire world, I knew a lot of people had gone through different cancers and the neuropathy. And like, you know, if you get it through your veins, just like kills your nerve system and, and so on. But like my second cycle of chemo, I had dropped 80 pounds in 40 days. I was like 130 pounds. And you probably didn't have 80 pounds to drop. I was bigger than I am now. I mean, so I had a little bit of weight that needed to come off, but that wasn't the diet that I needed. It's extreme. And did it knock you on your ass too? Totally. I mean, I was army crawling to go to the bathroom. I was like hiding that from my family because I was so weak. There was a point that I like a couple days, Had told my wife and, like, made sure I did not go to sleep because I thought I would not wake back up. Yeah. That's painful. It's crazy. And so you have, you know, four days. You go to Denver. They say it's now. And they've got you on this Ð like, you're starting in, like, from the moment you know about this until the moment you're doing chemo. How much Ð what are we talking? A matter of weeks? Less than a week. Less, okay. So this was. I had to have, I had to, you know, I was like four days later, got the port and all that. And then they had to give me like a couple days for that port to heal. And then beyond that, it was just like, we got to go. It's crazy. You get swept up in the system and you're kind of like, it's just like checklist after checklist. Even I'm very much an advocate for myself in those situations. And I ask a lot of questions and apparently that's very atypical. People just kind of get swept in, go through, you know. And so chemo, I mean. That's really just, that's a liquid. It's going in your body through the main port. Yeah. And the idea being that it's kind of toxic enough to kill cancer, but hopefully not you. It kills everything. Yeah. You know, after the fact, it kills the good and the bad. Um, and you know, I think a lot of it, uh, going back to just like my past, the mental adversity that I dealt with was really what got me through just staying positive. I, even if I was crawling, I made sure I'd got, it was the summer in the mountains. So it's a beautiful time of year. Uh, well April, so it was warm enough, but I was making sure I was getting outside every day and getting some sun on my body. um, you know, eating real healthy. We cut out a bunch of stuff and, and got like a nutritionist specific to cancer, um, and just like super regimented on a lot of things, which that could have been some of the weight loss too. Um, but I, it was really just the medicine eat and everything, you know, which was, which was wild. I, I'd seen people die from the, I actually had an ant that was pancreatic cancer. And I believe the, the medicine probably killed her, but, Unfortunately, she didn't want to speak up. I think she just kept trusting and trusting. Oh, shit. I mean, pancreatic cancer is so aggressive. It's bad. It's like Ð and it's always stage four. Like sometimes somebody hears about it. They're like, oh, you've got stage four pancreatic cancer. And I don't know a ton about cancer. Actually, probably so little I probably shouldn't be speaking. But based on what I hear, no. Pancreatic cancer is aggressive. It's one of the biggest killers for sure. But even now, colorectal cancer is rising like 3% a year in age under 50, specifically males. I heard that about a week ago, and I was wondering why. Did they attribute that to anything in particular? Are the screening, are people just going to the doctor more and they just know more about it? This is kind of a controversial topic. Is it? Not for me, but they wanted to know my vaccinations from our childhood, specifically like MMR and then the pink amoxicillin. Yep. And a lot of it, I think, is because it's not so much like the vaccine itself. It's that it kills your gut biome. Okay. And that's where, you know, once you do that, especially like the moxicillin that we all loved because it tastes like bubble gum or whatever. I used to crush that stuff. Yeah, you'd ask for it, right? Yeah. But it kills your biome and then it creates an environment for, you know, other stuff to grow because you don't have like that healthy cleaning of your system. And like I said, that depends on who you talk to. But I was at Anschutz Hospital in Denver, which is definitely a top five for the colorectal stuff. And they were very, very interested in all those old records and what I had had in that time. And I also think they don't know. There's so many different things in our food these days, and we don't always take the healthiest route. The older generation didn't have a fast food place every block or any of that, you know, so. Well, I mean, I'd probably get pushback from the older generation, but they also weren't zipping around like we are either. I mean, there was. This is true. I mean, there's the amount of stuff we get done in a day is just so much to do. And it was generationally appropriate. I mean, as we were discussing, when I was growing up. You know, came home and I went out the door and they were like, you know, grab me some cigs on the way back. And you didn't need an ID. It was just a whole different world. But also, yeah, I mean, we're we're constantly going from here to there. And I think that's the other part that I like after my cancer. kind of long story short left the fire department i was looking for an outlet so i held uh what i called man meetings in my studio um and you know the way i after that and a lot of conversations with other men not necessarily cancer uh but i i kind of think what you what you carry mentally you kind of manifest and carry in your body too and and maybe that's just the way that i um dealt with it mentally but i do think there's something to be said about that and and that fast lifestyle that we live uh because you don't take a minute to be thankful every day unless you're purposeful about it or you know sit down and actually have a meal at a table with your family you know because everybody is in that hustle and and never ending yeah you're just blowing and going and the uh I will say that everybody had a different COVID experience, I think, in general. But I really liked the slowdown of it. I thought it was fabulous to not have to leave work and then go be literally three different places that night to get everything done that had to be done. But look how quick we're right back to it. You know, I've had that conversation with so many people. And, you know, even in my social, people are like, oh, you're just like living the life. And I'm like, well, I'm just being purposeful about that moment. Or, you know, if I get an opportunity, some friends, they call camping. I'll work till 2 in the morning and the night before so that I can leave the next day and go camping. You know, I just adjust it differently. It's being deliberate. About what you're doing. Well, it's the perspective, right? I mean, that's the Ð I actually had this conversation with some older folks the other night, and I kind of felt bad. I did a talk at an art gallery. Okay. And, you know, this conversation usually comes up and people ask. And one of the older gentlemen asked, you know, where do you think you would have been if you hadn't had this? And, you know, I said I'd probably be unhealthy and I'd be working in the fire department. And in the end, I'm probably going to live longer now because of this perspective, putting myself in check because you get in the hustle and bustle of daily life. And, you know, sometimes you've got to step back and be like, oh, crap, I haven't really hung out with my boys in a couple days. Or, you know, he comes in and I'll be in in 20 minutes. And then two hours later I come in and, you know, he's already overshowing me. Now he's into Rubik's Cubes, so he wants to show me how fast he can do it. Oh, well, never mind, Dad. It's like, oh, crap. Can you do a Rubik's Cube? Hell no. I can't either. My son can do it over and over in less than a minute, like super fast. How is he doing that? Is there a trick that I don't know? I think that's the thing now. He, like, watched some videos and, like, took notes of, like, algorithms. And, you know, if you can recognize color patterns, then you can know which of the 300 algorithms to do. You know, and he's just got, like, that. He's got the creative brain, but he's also got, like, the computer. smart side of him he can do it so fast it's impressive i think there are two kinds of people cody i think there's people that can do rubik's cubes and ones that cannot this is true so i remember like at grade school like when i was so young and there were kids over there like and they were done and like they'd slam it on the table yeah if i don't change that That's him, and he's got like four different kinds now. Some are long and skinny, and they're not even cubes. They turn into like 100 different shapes as you do it. Yeah, now you're just showing off. Then you've got to get back, which is crazy. No, it's just showing off. So you've got this chemo going, and you mentioned earlier that you did two rounds, and this thing you're feeling is probably just killing you. And you were scared that you weren't going to wake up the next day. For sure. And so you're just staying up. And what did you do? Right now, you're cancer-free. I have been cancer-free for a little over five years. That's amazing. Yeah. As far as we know. Yeah. Technically. Yeah, I understand. But so how did you get from, okay, I think I can die in this bed tonight, to where you're sitting now? What changed in your regime or your plan? um i went in for a chemo session and told them no more honestly and they i told them how bad it was and they're like well you need to do it and i had them test me and and they told me after they tested my blood i was so toxic i was like building up the chemo but i wasn't processing it the way i should have been okay uh they said i would have died so you're like saturating with it yeah i was great but i was gray and you know you know from fire experience the only people you see gray are dead yeah yeah it was crazy i was like puking up yellow bile and you know and like i said if i wouldn't have said anything if i were just sat in the chair like i normally did and you know they come in and plug in and you sit there for an hour and get infused like i would have they said i would have died in the chair Really? Which is wild. But that's why I'm so open to talking about it and open to having people advocate for themselves. Because if something doesn't feel right, speak up. Don't just trust the doctors because it's a system, right? It's not individual care. It's a system. It is a system. And that's not an outright indictment on it. But it's like it's a matrix. Like you've got this and we go do this. And that's plan one. That's making it sound a little bit more blunt than. No, it is. But that's to a degree, you know, they know that X percent of the time this is the path forward. Yeah. And, you know, X percent of the time it works. Well, and I think the doctors have to kind of. They see it so much, and it's such a hard thing to deal with, to tell people this stuff. They have to kind of detach themselves, and I think that's why they're so regimented with it. And maybe not. That's just my perspective of, like, they can check out a little bit if they just know they're checking all the boxes and the percentages say, you know. You got a better X, Y, Z percentage if you do all the boxes versus if you only do A to G, you know. They walk in, how are you feeling today, champ? And you're like, actually, we're done. Like, this is awful. And my doctors knew. They all knew from the get-go because there were certain, you know, they would tell me like, oh, you know, when the cancer comes back. And, you know, I straight told all of them, like, write it in my chart that you're never going to tell me that when it comes back. We'll talk about that if it comes back. But let's not put it out. out there that way yeah you know like let's not put it in the universe now when i'm trying to beat it the first round you know yeah you're sending the wrong message right now yeah i mean even when i even when i was able to get my resection and you know i had the ostomy bag and i did all that stuff and was able to like get it reversed and um you know even after all that they're like all right you got like an eight percent chance to live five years or something in that 8.0. Yeah. You know, like, uh, which is the same, like, okay, cool. That might be what your chart says, but that's not me. Don't, don't talk to me that way. We'll talk about it if anything happens. And at that point we'll approach it the same way, you know? So you tell them no more. What do you do? Um, worry no yeah well i guess we kind of we went like a holistic thing um you know i did a heavy regimen of like a thc oil where you do like 90 milligrams for 90 days, which is pretty proven to shrink a lot of tumors. And it did. It took my tumor from 15 centimeters down to less than an inch, you know, a little under three centimeters with diet and all that. How'd you get onto that? I mean, you guys just went into full research mode? Yeah. And finding, you know, there's naturopaths that are specific to specific kinds of cancers. You know, even now there's a thing we were going down. Mistletoe is like an alternative to chemo that they use over in Europe, but it's not like FDA approved. So insurance doesn't want to touch it and this and that. And even in 2020, that was like a $10,000 process. And now they've done so many trials and stages that even Johns Hopkins is in like stage four trials with it and proving like that can like shrink it on a more natural way. Um, but you know, at the time that wasn't available and now I can get it sent to me for a couple hundred dollars, you know, as like a, uh, I do it every couple of years is just like a preventative thing. You know, you just give yourself a shot in the belly for 15 days and you know, but even five years ago, you wouldn't, you had to go to like a clinic and pay a lot of money to get it. And so things are opening up and more options. It's just the insurance world doesn't want to, doesn't want to touch it. Yeah. Well, sometimes what is best for us does not always align with what insurance wants. This is true. And those types of experiences can jade a person, form new opinions about pharmaceuticals and insurance and so forth. But that's a whole other thing. Yes. But you're welcome to jump into that. But I would just say that it's hard because... We need hospitals and medicines. We need all of these things. For sure. But there are instances where it's just like, I feel like you guys aren't hearing me. I tell people to like, because unfortunately, there's a lot of people that deal with cancer. and people that know that i dealt with a really heavy cancer and seeing me and how i'm thriving now i get a lot of calls about it and like what'd you do you know what you and not everybody's open to it and i tell anybody i said you got to pick a path that you're comfortable with and stay with that path until there's a reason to change it You know, whether it's not working on the disease or it's hitting you physically harder, you know, you got to have like a confident path and just be confident in that plan because you can go down the rabbit hole forever of different methods or rituals, you know, based on where you are in the world. Wait, so how did you know your path was working? I mean, you got rid of the chemo and then you guys researched, made a bunch of decisions on what you want to do. How long did it take for you to be like, oh, my gosh, was it the way you felt? Yeah. I mean, after about a month or so after my chemo had hit me so bad, I had the ostomy bag, which you don't absorb food as well because you're not. It's not going the full path. Exactly. Yeah. But I was back to, like, skateboarding and surfing. you know, swimming and all this stuff. You know, I felt really good at that point and just stuck with that, you know, which was wild. Just went with it. Yeah. I mean, you don't have a choice at a certain point, right? Like you either choose to keep living or you don't. And I think that was like. Do you think that's a stark decision? Like that's literally a decision that's being made. I think people die because they. Let them, you know, in certain situations, like my thing where I felt like I was so weak, if I went to sleep, it probably wouldn't wake up. Like some people just go to sleep. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, that's hard to hear. It's crazy. Yeah. So what, you know, and my boy was, I had, you know, it was 2016 or 2020. So my son was four years old and, you know. Yeah. Like I'm not going to sleep. I wanted to be here. Yeah. I want to be here. And, and, uh, so. You said cancer-free. Okay, so how did you readdress the medical community to like, okay, I've been gone. I've been doing this thing, and I want to see how I'm doing. Yeah, I went back to myÑ So were they like, dude, get out of here? Or they were accepted? No, I went to my oncologist and said, hey, we need to do something. I can tell something's different, and I want to scan. And they wouldn't put the order in for the scan, and weÑ Kind of the same as we did a lot of it. We just paid for it. Is it an MRI? Yeah, like a CT scan. Okay. You know, pelvis and so on. And, yeah, I hit the markers. And they were like how Ð they had no clue. They're like, oh, yeah, the chemo worked. And I'm like, well, we haven't been doing chemo. How long have it been since your last round of chemo? 90 days. Okay. So this Ð you made all this ground in 90 days? Yeah. Which is crazy, right? I mean, I was supposed to be in that system for like almost four years of every other week chemo type. You know, you do like two weeks on, they take a week off to let your body heal. And then another two weeks and so on. That's extreme. It is crazy. And they didn't really want to accept that alternative option. They can't. No. Well, it's not profitable to the system, which, you know, it's a whole other rabbit hole. But, you know, and even after, like, I was able to get my resection and all that, you know, they had told me if I did any more chemo, it would kill me. And right after the resection, they said, we need to do six more months of chemo. And I said, why? And they immediately said, well, we haven't checked that box yet. I said, thanks. We'll see you later. Yeah. So, OK, so you're kind of. A little bit off hospital grid. A little bit. So how do you kind of keep an eye on it now? Are you just so in tune with the way you're feeling that you just know when something's Ð you know what I mean? Like you've kind of said, guys, I just Ð you guys do good work. It's just not working between us. Currently, I've got a couple scans. But they tell you that since the age Ð of cancer is going lower that they know they'll give you a secondary cancer over time because of all the scans and the dye is gnarly in your system. So I typically I trust my naturopaths and we do high panel like blood screens you know they'll take like 26 vials or something and they're dead set that will find it in the blood before they'll ever find it. in a scan you know so that that's that's pretty much how i do it now is keep up with that and then like i said every once in a while have the conversation with the family like how are you feeling about it you know i think my wife carries it harder than i do you know if i'm out drinking or having a good time or you know things like that um yeah it's on her mind yeah you know for sure it's you know and once again we She gets calls too. There's a lot of people out there that deal with cancer and you never realize it until you're in it. Once you join that club, you're in the club. It's a club you never want to join. Why have you decided to talk about this? I think there are people that all handle things differently. Maybe there is a right and wrong way. I don't know. It comes down to what kind of brain you're carrying around with you. You're open about this. Where did that come from? I think part of it, each time I talk about it, helps me heal a little bit. But I've also seen the reaction that people get, whether they're going through it or they know somebody going through it. It's putting a positive. I've tried to turn something that's really negative, probably the most negative thing in my life, into all positive. Yeah. Well, there's legitimately a lot of positive. Yeah. And it's crazy. Like I said, cancer, I think, will make me live longer because of that perspective, because of the way I treat my body, because of the way I treat my mind. Now I'm doing a career for myself, which was part of that process and learning and the perspective. And just, you know, time's not guaranteed. So you got to. You got to do it today. You know, don't wait. That's fully subscribed to, you know, I don't know if I'm as extreme as today's the last day, but like I maybe maybe this might be the last month is kind of maybe more. Yeah. You live in a big city. There's a lot of driving. You know, there's more people that die in traffic accidents every day than cancer every day. Yeah. So it's not guaranteed. And. You know, and also having now two children, you know, trying to trying to put out that like good positive energy and that vibe of showing like, you know, it's a struggle in the background. But you see some of the highs and some of the cool events that I've been able and fortunate enough to be a part of. And with my son being 10, I start taking, you know, this year I had him volunteer at it so that he can be part of helping and and also see what dad's really doing. Yeah. And that's. I think it's important to involve. I mean, it's part of your life now. Yeah. You know, and, you know, I don't think it was sort of perhaps life-threatening, but, you know, my wife, Sarah, went off and did a stem cell transplant for MS. And it was elective, meaning that MS has a long Ð it's maybe a time bomb, but it's got a longer lead time. than stage four cancer does. But our boys were like seven and five or something like that. And I think today, when we talk about that time, their eyes well up. It was a hard time. And I try and say, guys, it's totally okay to feel that way. But let's talk. Let's not sort of sweep this under the rug. Yeah. Because... It'll always be under that rug if we don't sort of just find a way to talk about it. If we've got to cry about it, let's do it. Totally. But when you talk, she made the decision to be really open about it. And I think it's encouraged people to be proactive. Yeah. Well, like I said, it started in my garage with the man meetings. In that scenario, it wasn't always the greatest because people thought their problems weren't as big, even to the point one of the guys killed himself. And the last meeting, I met him rock climbing, and he was like, oh, I just won't talk today. I know you're dealing with a lot of stuff. Obviously, his problems were bigger than mine. Oh, Jesus. You know what I mean? So there was a lot of stuff that happened in that time frame. deciding to talk about it publicly publicly um you know when i first started my art i didn't want to be the pity party so i didn't really talk about it but yeah there was a couple projects that happened in there that i started donating back to some of the organizations that helped me and i was able to like talk about it and in front of like 400 people at like a songwriter event and even at that event had people you know just the title of the piece uh people came and were like oh that really resonated to me and i appreciate you talking about it and that kind of opened my eyes they can live together like i i totally understand that i don't the concept of i don't want the attention for this reason and I'm not going to make this who I am and let it have that kind of power over me or however you might couch it in your brain. But just like, you know, I want my art to do what my art does. But I think you're right. I think these things can live together in a very positive way. Yeah. I wasn't where I wanted to be in my art in the beginning. And like I said, I used kind of pity party. But I wanted to be known as a metal artist that had cancer and used it as a positive. I don't want to be the cancer survivor metal artist. Right. You know what I mean? Somebody told me one time like Ð That's not the headline. Yeah. And I wish I could think of them, but I really like the way they said it. It's like it's a defining moment in your life, but it doesn't define you. Because, you know, for a few years, everybody just Ð every conversation was about the cancer and how are you doing and this and that. And like at a certain point, you want to move on. Yeah. You know. But like I said, these conversations and conversations that I get to Ð able to put it out there really changed how i think about it and you know i'm fortunate enough to be here uh even being with the heaviest the situation was and i think part of that reason to be here is to have these conversations i think it is the it's uh so i think that what i want to turn to is this really kind of shaped uh well how you think about your art career which is That concept of we don't have a lot of time, maybe. So I'm just going to go a whole hog into this. And this is what I do. Yeah. And I don't want to put words in your mouth, but is that sort of you had a you kind of had this brush with death effectively or totally. And you said, you know what? What am I doing? I can just go do what I want to do. I was actually at an officer. I was getting my officer certification. I was at like a week-long training for the fire department, and I caught myself writing notes, and they weren't about the officer class. They were like, I still have it. And it was like, I want to make the raddest art and be able to build some cars in between. Yeah. And that was like what I wanted to do, you know, and just having that conversation with the wife was like. You know, you're giving up like a good paying job with good and benefits as a cancer survivor. Like, really? Okay, I hear you. And at the time we had, I had built like a tiny house back in the day and we had it on some property. And we sold it. And that was like my like, here's your little nest egg. And it wasn't a nest egg. Here's your little bit of money. And if you can make it happen in that time before that money runs out, then we'll keep going with it. And if not, then we'll have a different conversation again. So it was blessed. So far it's been, you know, there's times you're like, oh, is this the right path? But when I have the opportunity to go camping with my boys or, you know, me and my wife both work for ourselves. So there's mornings I'm, you know, doing dad duty with both of them and run the kids' school and, you know, the eight-month-old and doing all that. And, you know, I even bring them into the welding shop and, you know, put them in the car seat. Get to work. Yeah, you know, here's the grinder. Get on it. So, you know, that goes back to that, like, keeping myself in check and being appreciative, not, you know, I try not to have any days where I'm frustrated. And I definitely don't have any days that I don't want to go to my shop, you know, or my studio, I should say. I just really enjoy the hell out of it. And I think that's part of. Why things are going better now and why, you know, it might not be where I need to be financially, but you can't spend it when you're dead. I never had a patient in the ambulance when they were dying or given CPR or want to know what their bank account was, right? They want to, like, make that phone call or they want to have their family with them riding. And, you know, that's the perspective difference. What I was going to say earlier, I told the gentleman last week, I said I would have been really pissed if I got this perspective at your age. Yeah. You know, if I was 70 years old and got it, you know, I wouldn't have been doing this still. You know, maybe because I'd maybe been retired. You know, but that's what I always thought it was. Like, all right, I'll do my metal work when I retire. And then when it's like, you know, are you going to retire? Like, why not try it? You know? Yeah. How about now? You know? Yeah. Like, just go do it now. Yeah. Well, and like I said, one of the cancer organizations, I saw the director of it in like a... tractor supply parking lot and i just approached her i said hey i you know i've got this chicken scratch drawing of an idea i want to do for your event uh i've never made anything like this and um but i think i can do it and i would like to donate it to you um and that was kind of the that piece of it was strong like bull that was like the one that really showed me like okay you can make really cool art and you can make art that people can feel. And that kind of changed the whole, you know, it didn't kind of change the trajectory. It completely changed what I do now. And I've been able to give, you know, as of July, I've given that, you know, I've donated four years now, four or five, but I've given back $118,000 to that organization. uh that stays locally in my valley for cancer patients and i mean there's no way in hell i could do that on my bank account you know we go to those events and donate 250 bucks or something right yeah that's a big number it's huge i would have never never expected that that feels good you know so how do people find out about you And Fabtech's coming up in Vegas in October. Yeah. You're going to be there. I'll be there with Fabrication Solutions and Technologies and a couple other booths. But this year for them specifically, I'm doing like a big eagle with a flag, kind of a 250th anniversary piece for them. And then it'll be at Fabtech in the booth, but it's going to live in Texas at their headquarters. What's the scale of the eagle? How big is it? Like four or five-foot wingspan with like a three-by-foot. flag it may be a little bigger but i i originally pitched it as a bigger piece but then like the dimensions on their wall at the headquarters are going to kind of confine that a little bit but still pretty good size and and pretty you know it'll be high detail a bronze eagle bronze and stainless eagle and then the flag will actually i'm not sure i'm going to do it but it'll be like fully waving like quite a bit higher detail than some of the other ones that you've seen out there before and really trying to i'd really try to give of the softness and the lifelike motion. I really like trying to get motion out of the stagnant material, which is really cool. Is there a specific metal you like to work with, by the way, or just whatever the piece calls for? yeah i'm just experimenting like crazy you know i started with mild steel because i was like a mig welder and then um i've learned to tig weld over the last couple years and i'm not gonna i'm an artist welder not like a yeah you know i i used to have structural certs but you know when it's art it's different right um So now that I jumped into the TIG, it's really expanded my palette of different colors, bronze, stainless, copper. Which one are you loving right now? Which metal phase do you feel like you're in right now? I think I like the bronze the most. I can do a lot with the colors, patinas, acid coloring. It's somewhat easy to shape. Stainless gets really hard, really fast to shape. And it's a forgiving material. but it's also not because you can see every hit, every scratch, you know. And, you know, I started playing with, you know, the older generation, and especially in an area like we're in here, like the... bronze cast were like the upper echelon right if you had like a cast you you know you were like fancy yeah um so i started playing with that little bit of that perception of when i tell clients like you know it's bronze and copper and yeah like the remington stuff right yeah you know so they they think they're getting this higher end piece which it is you know you know the bronze pricing it's gone through the roof um but um you know that's some of the stuff that i've learned of So from my sales days, right, sometimes you got to, even though I don't like talking about myself and my art a whole lot, you got to turn on that salesperson and, you know, ask the, you know, do you want to buy or do you want to do a commission? Because if you don't ask, most people just have that conversation and move on. And that's how Fabtech, last couple of years I've done, you know, worked into the. what I'll say the higher end corporations that are bringing in the million dollar lasers and this kind of stuff. I've got confidence now that I'm at least willing to approach those people, but it's still a rule of sales, right? For every 100 no's, you get your yes. And you've got to be willing to get those no's. And you've also got to be able to read the people because sometimes that's not the project they wanted, and you circle back around to them with something else. I think we're entering what I'm sort of in my head calling an era of authenticity. Meaning that I think evolutionarily speaking, humans just sort of know when something's not authentic. And it just sort of something's off, right? Yeah. And I think, you know, I'm not jumping to an AI discussion, but I think that because we all spend so much time with things that are generated and they are a little bit sort of just look different or whatever it is, I think that people are going to really start to appreciate things like live music. real art just to get like kind of a blast of authenticity well you get connection back right you know circling back to like the connection and the community feeling we had in covid and then we're right back into real life and then now ai and data stuff is exploding people are looking for like connection. So I think, you know, that's been a part of it that's been really good and being able to have that mindset of it. And even our generation, you know, people want to buy like a handmade belt versus a belt at JCPenney's or something. You know, they're willing to pay a little more for a quality product or a pan or art. But you got to, you know, everybody has their lane and you got to find your people. You know, even if a lot of my stuff is all over the country. But for me, a lot of my work goes down like Texas and Arizona, too. Yeah. And so you're going to be at Fabtech. Where else can people find you? Look at what you've done. You know, if they're feeling compelled by it, which they should. You've shown me some of it. How can they reach out to you and say, hey, we'd like to get something. We'd like you to think about making something for us. I'm on all the platforms, the Instagram, the Facebook, the LinkedIn. It's either Cody Algist, and it's Cody with an IE. That's an IE. IE. CodyAlgettsArt.com is an easy way. And I'll be honest, my website's not up to where it should be. When you're working on the sculptures. That's part of the stuff that I've got to grow and grow my business. In reality, now I don't think my website is up to the level of my work. My work has grown in cleanliness and detail. And I think that my page kind of does a poor job of... that so yeah i need to upgrade which is a good thing right no i mean that's a good problem to have when you feel like your quality of your work is better than your marketing right now and you're like well let's get that caught up uh so well i want to say thank you for coming in today this has been a fabulous conversation and thank you for sharing your story not just not just the cancer chapter but i think the whole thing is is uh And it is just the chapters and more to be written. And so thanks for coming in. It's been fun talking with you. Yeah, thank you for having me. This has been great. Good. Thanks.