#152 - UNFUCKIT, 123123

The Sprinkler Nerd Show

GET YOUR T-SHIRT HERE: https://sprinklernerd.com/unfuckit

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Andy (00:46.717): Joining me again today is Paul Bassett for our annual Prediction Show. Welcome, Paul.

Paul Bassett (00:53.61): Oh, I'm so happy to be here. This is one of my funniest shows of the year, where we get to banter about the year prior and how our predictions were. So, I was looking forward to this day all year.

Andy (01:05.953): And we are going to provide some banter today. This is a guarantee because Paul doesn't have any idea what we are going to talk about today or what this episode is about. I baited him in because we do our annual predictions episode, but I'm going to make a change.

Paul Bassett (01:28.254): Okay, this is definitely new.

Andy (01:29.029): Because, and this is like a resolution, you know, I want, in 2024, I want to be more honest with myself. Not because I've been lying or anything like that. I just want to sort of lean into my own intuition and try to acknowledge myself and what's interesting to me. And like the prediction episode honestly wasn't that inspiring for me. And I think that it's because it wasn't original. So, and what I mean by that is I didn't come up with the concept for a predictions episode. It wasn't my original thought or idea. I copied the idea from my friend, Andrew Udarian, who runs the podcast, Ecommerce Fuel. And I liked what he did with that kind of approach for predictions and looking back. And so I took it and kind of modeled with it, but...

Paul Bassett (02:25.609): And...

Andy (02:25.817): You know, as I think about trying to be more honest with myself, I don't think it was that, you know, it was kind of cool and whatnot, but really it wasn't that inspiring to me because I want to create more original content instead of, you know, sort of copying what somebody else has done and try to make it my own. And so with that in mind, I want to make a change. So what we need to do, Paul, is we need to unfuck this episode, this predictions episode. So this is the unfuck it episode.

Paul Bassett (02:53.742): Thanks, Bill. All right.

Andy (02:55.813): Let's unfuck 2023. You know, what are people still doing in 2023 that needs to be unfucked for 2024?

Paul Bassett (02:59.874): All right, that's a good place to start.

Paul Bassett (03:10.53): Good thought. It makes my mind spin. Are you asking me, or do you just want me to come up with some thoughts, or are these your thoughts?

Paul Bassett (03:38.315): All the time.

Andy (03:40.107): Yeah, I...

Andy (03:48.65): And just sort of like more rapid prototyping in terms of like, what can we do in our lives, our jobs, our industry, to help move the needle and create that change? And change means you got to unfuck something and change it.

Paul Bassett (04:08.826): I love the term. Every time you say it I get giddy like a kid hearing a curse word.

Andy (04:15.569): We're allowed to, right? I mean, yeah, I'm gonna tag this episode as not safe for children.

Paul Bassett (04:17.59): Yeah, yeah, we're on the internet.

Paul Bassett (04:24.718): Oh man, my 10-year-old's not too far from me. And we're gonna say 'unfuck it' at least ten times every minute.

Andy (04:34.165): And if you are interested, I'm not saying this to you, but if you're listening and you're interested, you can get yourself a Bill Beckley original 'unfuck it' t-shirt. Visit sprinklernerd.com forward slash unfuck it, and you will find the t-shirt available for sale.

Paul Bassett (04:44.542): You can. It's one of the best.

Paul Bassett (04:52.278): Well, at least we're going to have more laughs per podcast on this episode than before. Just hearing you say it.

Andy (04:56.697): Yeah, right? And this is original, you know, we are not scripting off of a list of shit to talk about. And I think that, you know, it kind of dawned on me a little bit when I replayed the episode number one. So if you're, you know, if you haven't listened to episode number one, and again, I don't mean you, I just mean the listeners, listen to episode number one, which I just put out there a couple of episodes ago, and I was afraid to put it out. But then...

Paul Bassett (05:13.023): Yeah.

Andy (05:23.961): Once I put it out there and started listening to it, I really appreciated how unscripted our thoughts were, and they were just natural, thought-provoking ideas and conversation, and I want more of that.

Paul Bassett (05:38.142): Okay, I mean, dude, that's how you and I live our life. So I prefer that way than any other way. Although I did have some notes, but my notes now that I look at them, going...

Andy (05:46.345): Well, we can still use your notes because I'm just trying to like loosen the script a little bit so that we can maybe look at your list and talk about them through the lens of like, you know, unfucking things.

Paul Bassett (05:57.45): Oh, and my list was really preparing 10 minutes before our call. Okay, Paul, what are you going to think about? What are you going to do? Like, what are your, you know, predictions or thoughts really? And it's not like I sat for hours at a time and determining, OK, what am I going to think about? I don't need that anymore. It's something you and I do all the time anyway.

Andy (06:20.633): Okay, well, do you want me to start off with something, or do you want to start off with something really? So again, I'm just kind of going, you know, the tip of my tongue here. I didn't have a list and I wanted to be a bit more organic, you know, and just have a thought on the fly. So what I'm thinking about first is more like again that inward reflection sort of set of saying, Let's unfuck a thing or widget or a way of doing something. It's like I think we all need a little unfucking of our own meaning. It's really easy to...

Paul Bassett (06:24.214): Yeah, go ahead. You start it off.

Andy (06:50.365): Grab onto a thought and just ride one perspective, one point of view. And I think we need to carry, we need to think what would it be like if we could carry both perspectives at the same time? So maybe for instance, okay, switching to a matched precipitation rate nozzle might be the right thing to do. We carry that flag, we wave that flag, but what would it also be like if we didn't do that? Is there another way to do it?

Would it be okay as well? So can we carry like the two, you know, sort of contradicting thoughts at the same time?

Paul Bassett (07:31.318): And I think, Andy, you turned me on to this thought. I mean, another podcast you put in front of me, I don't know how many months ago it was, you know, when this thought came up. But of course you can. And the thing that I when you say that is like, who even cares? Who's even analyzing? Did match precip rate and I'll just make a big difference in the way I water my grass. No. Why is that?

You have no way to even freaking tell whether match precip or the regular nozzles infiltrated the soil at a different rate. How do you tell that? Who even cares? How do you know? Does it matter?

Andy (08:11.761): And what will even uniform you can do with?

Paul Bassett (08:16.114): Exactly. So even if you did switch one zone was matched, precip and the other one was not, how in the world do you tell? Is it just visually coloring of the grass? Or is there another way to that? That's about, that's the only way you don't know. You can, you know, one of the thoughts you, you gave me, and when I think about it now, I'm trying to visualize how the water goes through the air.

Andy (08:28.797): Mm-hmm.

Paul Bassett (08:42.25): Hits the ground and then infiltrates into the soil and what that profile of soil moisture moving through the soil looks like. Who's to even know today? I don't know, do you know? No, I don't have a tool to do it. It's just my imagination thinking it's flowing through the soil in the same aspect as it was before.

So it is a thought. Good one.

Andy (09:06.789): Yeah, and again, I literally came up with the MP, or not MP, match precipitation rate thought on the fly. It could be anything. We tend to like to grab a hold of something, stand on a soapbox, say, this is the way. So I guess my challenge would be, what if we were to unfuck that and say, well, what if it wasn't? Can we carry the alternate thought at the same time so that we have two different perspectives or viewpoints so that...

The mind stays open to new thoughts coming in versus trying to channel down a one-way street.

Paul Bassett (09:38.774): And that is a very good thought that a lot of people can't wrap their head around, right? Unless you're open, like either you're a Democrat or a Republican, you can't be one or the other, can you?

Andy (09:51.921): Why can't you just be purple?

Paul Bassett (09:56.071): True that both of us with our purple on today, although because the Ravens are playing right now, but it's true.

Andy (10:02.041): Yeah, why does it need more blue? We need more purple.

Paul Bassett (10:05.194): We need more purple for sure. So that's a good thought. Because sometimes we all get conditioned to think this way is the right way. Why don't you think the other way? Why can't ear green controllers and sprinkler heads work differently than someone else? Because you've been conditioned that this is the way it's always done and we've always done it. And this is the way I'm always gonna do it. I don't wanna change. I like it the way it is. No, you're right. It's so much better to have an open mind.

Andy (10:14.057): Mm-hmm.

Andy (10:22.77): Mm-hmm.

Paul Bassett (10:34.891): And be an accepting.

Andy (10:34.961): So, unfuck ourselves. I guess that was my first thing is like, before we can think about maybe somebody else or a gadget or a gizmo or a process or a software needs to change, what if it was like we could look at ourselves first and see, unfuck our own thoughts to have, to hold both thoughts to be true at the same time.

Paul Bassett (10:57.886): And for you and I, we are open-minded people. We are not red or we are not green. We're certainly purple for sure. I think this thought-provoking is for those of the folks that are listening to Andy and I right now. You know, we're challenging you in the new year to think differently, right? Unfuck the way you think things and think of it another way. Because there are other ways to look at the glass.

Is it half empty? Is it half full? It doesn't matter. You just got to have your own perspective on how you see something. And we are encouraging more thought-provoking thoughts.

Andy (11:37.741): Yeah, and I'll read a quote that you sent to me recently, which has to do with change. And I guess that's what we're talking about here, to some extent. And the conclusion of this quote, I don't remember who said it, was a story about Nokia and Nokia not changing, you know, and getting eaten alive. And the conclusion was the advantage you had yesterday will be replaced by the trends of tomorrow. You don't have to do anything wrong. As long as your competitors catch the wave and do it right, you can lose and fail. To change and improve yourself is giving yourself a second chance. To be forced by others to change is like being discarded. Those who refuse to learn and improve will definitely one day become redundant and not relevant to the industry. They will learn the lesson in a hard and expensive way.

And again, this is not, you don't have to do anything wrong. You just, if you do nothing and your competition changes, that is just like doing something wrong. You don't have to do anything as long as your competition keeps changing and evolving and you don't, you know, that's a problem and you'll learn the lesson the hard and expensive way. So if everybody's switching to Wi-Fi controllers and whatever else and ET and soil moisture and this, that and the other, you gotta give it a shot.

Paul Bassett (13:05.57): You know, it's funny you say that and thank you because, you know, every time I see an article or some kind of quote like that, you know, it's good for me to send to you because you and I think on the same wavelength when it comes to those types of things, right? And I'm a little bit older than you, you know, I'm 54 and I like different stuff. I mean, I could change my entire career and profession every other year because it's not that I get bored, but I like new. I like change. Change feels comfortable and good to me. I don't like stasis. So I like it when something changes. I like when there's new stuff out there. I like new things, right? Because I want to test the boundaries of technology. And that's why you and I are on the same wavelength.

Andy (13:55.557): And the boundaries of people and industry and it's nice to be able to stick yourself out there a little bit and wonder what it's like to fall off the end of the ocean because if the world's flat you might reach the end. So let's go figure out what's at the end.

Paul Bassett (14:11.682): You know, it's funny you say that because, you know, there's something that I see in outside of our business, you can look at other companies and other people and other technology as it comes through and disrupts a company in a business. I'm seeing something similar happening and morphing in the water sector and the irrigation where there's other companies and people entering into our space that is going to disrupt and change the way our irrigation businesses are developed in the future. And that's what I'm seeing, right, Drew, based on the change factor.

Andy (14:53.401): Mm-hmm. And even if we don't know specifically, you can kind of, your intuition tells you that it's out there. It may be to be determined who and what it looks like, but it's out there. Wait, it's coming.

Paul Bassett (15:07.914): I mean, you could feel it, right? I mean, because as long as I've been in this business, there's always some gut, you know, if you have your finger or your pulse onto, you know, the market, you can kind of sense it. You can kind of feel a groundswell coming on. And I'm feeling this similar groundswell coming on right now, whether it happens next year or not, but I mean, it's happening today.

Andy (15:31.593): So let what? Is there anything that comes to mind specifically that you can share?

Paul Bassett (15:37.994): Well, to me, it's more about technology now. When I say technology, that's certainly a big broad stroke, but I feel there's a lot of additional technology from outside businesses and outside our space entering into our space, right? Whether it's wireless soil moisture, whether it's flow, it's solar, there's a lot of different tech coming in our space. And the reason I feel it is because I see it, right? Because I'm in it, we're in the top, right? And you can sense it, but you know, as even at the IA show, you can see more tech coming out when you go to different places and do different things. Because fortunately for me and my business, I'm not just touching irrigation. You know, we're touching a lot of other water stuff.

So there's so many other technologies that are coming into our space because of the perceived abuse or waste of water in our space. And people outside of our industry want to understand why that is and get into it and help.

Andy (16:52.941): Mm-hmm. Yep. I can see that. And so for me, I would agree. And I think that, let's see, what's in my gut and intuition is that there was technology coming, let's say 15 years ago that was new at that time. So let's roll back to like 2003 or four or five or six. You could say that two wire was new and it was technology. You could say that the first ET controllers were new and that was technology. And what I sense that's different is that now users, contractors, people, industry, now kind of questions it more, meaning in order to question it, you have to understand it and learn it. And back in the time, people just said, nope, I'm good, man, doing it the way I've been doing it. And there's a little bit more like, okay, bring it on. What's that? Let me check that out. Bring it on. And 15 years ago, there wasn't really a bring it on attitude. And I'm not saying to bring it on attitude is everywhere, but I feel like it didn't even exist back then. And now there's a little bit of bring it on. In addition, I feel like the technology that was brought on, now people are questioning it. So as it relates to like ET controllers, weather-based, now people want to know why is it doing what it's doing? And in order to have a thought like that, it means you have to be curious enough to want to know and want to understand. And that is, I think it's those thoughts that'll move the industry forward, not just I'm gonna buy this thing and hang it up there, but now we're at a point where users really want to know how it's working, is it working correctly? Is there a better way to do it? And I don't think that was as strong 15 years ago.

Paul Bassett (18:49.862): And you're right, even to a point that I think about as I process your thoughts into my mind, and I equate it to my business, I can see that because I'm more curious even to try to understand what do the algorithms that these ET controllers do precisely to a program? Like, I want to see inside and outside, what is it doing and how is it doing and where is it physically saving me water or schedule times or all the above. So you are right on.

Andy (19:24.977): Right, do you trust it? And that's really the question, is if you don't trust it, it's maybe because you don't know how it's working. So how can you trust something if you don't even know what it's doing? Why it's doing it.

Paul Bassett (19:38.442): So we do, you know, clearly you and I are more curious than most folks in our business. But yeah, I mean, it's true. I personally want to know, I mean, how many times did the device suspend watering due to the ET threshold that we established? Show me where that happened. Right. And why did it do that? Right. So you're right. The technology and the data now that's available allows people who are more curious to really uncover what is going on under the hood of these devices.

Andy (20:10.921): Mm-hmm. Yeah, so again, I think that's just the people are different. They're a little bit more hungry for new than they were 15 years ago.

Paul Bassett (20:23.306): And when you say 15, guess when the iPhone was invented. So more of us have the ability to see the technology a little clearer with these devices at the end of the day. So Apple's certainly done a lot of technology businesses good because now we can see the information a lot clearer at the palm of our hands too.

Andy (20:48.793): Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, maybe just since we're since this is not the end of the predictions episode, maybe we should just talk about when you got on your list that you that you like that you feel more passionate about.

Paul Bassett (21:02.722): Well, whether it's a prediction or not, I mean, I think you and I, you know, we're trying to gain the pulse of tech and industry, right? Every day of every year. So it allows us to at least look back on what we thought at the end of the year and maybe look forward, right? One of the benefits of us is, you know, we were looking at tech, whether it's inside or outside of our business. But I know one of the things that I saw, and we talk about it constantly is I feel there's gonna be more and more controller accessories, meaning devices and sensors in the market coming on, outside of the big companies. I do see that. I mean, I feel it. I'm looking at things that are coming in and the IA show even proved it more to me last, here a couple of weeks back. There are a lot of tools and things that we can now use to help us, whether it's...

Andy (21:38.737): Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Paul Bassett (21:58.498): ...ties directly into a controller or not that are gonna be better for us in the future. So, again, whether it's a prediction for this year, last year, next year, I'm just seeing a lot more of these things and a lot more people getting into our space than ever before.

Andy (22:13.081): Yeah, that made me think just as an example, which does not exist today, but it could based on being an accessory to a control platform is what would it look like if a locator, if a locator was connected to a controller so that data that was coming in from the locator could be connected to the same platform.

That'd be pretty amazing. Yeah. You know, if there was GPS, so you could track and then, you know, there's just some kind of an integration where you're not, the locator is not being used independently, but it's being used with data coming from the controller and it's sending information back to the control system.

Paul Bassett (22:33.898): In the locator like what a wire locator or when you say a locator. Okay. That it had.

Paul Bassett (22:56.394): Yeah, I do like that. And that also spurred another thought because again, I'm just going to reference back to, you know, to the irrigation conference. Not too long back, but I did see that one company that is, you know, using this wireless valve actuation technology, which I'm so happy to see. I've been doing, you know, this 30 some years and oh man, how many valves get, you know, orphaned in the middle of somewhere and you can't communicate to it or takes whatever. So I can't wait to see more and more of these wireless valves come into play and allow us to communicate to these things without power.

Andy (23:39.113): Cool, all right, that's a good one. More accessories to control platforms. And as right now, that's where most of the tech is, is in the control. But I think, like you said, the tech's moving out of the control and into other pieces of equipment as well.

Paul Bassett (23:56.598): I mean, there are technology companies to get into our space where they don't have to build a controller. Really, they can build other things. Even like your the guy that you had on your podcast, it's, you know, was outside of our building those fittings. You know, I thought that was. Thought that was great idea, I mean, hearing him and what he had to say, and that's something that I mean, gosh, I don't know how many swing elves that

Andy (24:14.667): Yeah, yeah.

Paul Bassett (24:24.842): ...my company's installed over the years. I never thought, oh my God, why can't we make one in the two or two in the one, right? Hello. It just takes somebody from outside to look in to make the change.

Andy (24:37.225): Mm-hmm.

Very good. Okay. You have anything else there? Perfect.

Paul Bassett (24:43.302): Oh yeah. You know how... Ha ha!

Andy (24:48.489): Thanks for watching!

Paul Bassett (24:48.834): So, you know, speaking of technology, there's another thing that I'm seeing the ground swell in, and we're gonna see a lot more of it is the increase of tech in the R space, meaning IE as I'm gonna get on it, but AI and wireless, as I've just mentioned before, solar and other things, but I do think that there's gonna be an embrace of automated or artificial intelligence into our space. And I think the first company that's sort of spec'ing it or bringing it on into there, I think is CalSense. I saw that they're the ones that are bringing it to market first, I guess, because they got some folks that they brought into their company that are outside of the irrigation and they see it as an opportunity. So again, you're gonna see more things outside of our spectrum come into the irrigation industry and push it forward, whether we like it or not. And Andy, you know how I feel about AI. I think it's definitely a positive influence on us, help us make and do our job a little easier and faster. So I'm ready. Let's see what it brings on.

Andy (26:10.821): I couldn't agree more. To me, it's just a tool that makes what you do more efficient. So you can do more things in less time, which is very beneficial to be more efficient. And I think that's really, yes, AI is a huge topic. And we could talk about it forever. And there's certainly lots of risk and scary stuff out there. But for the most part, it's a tool that allows someone to be more efficient in their job.

Paul Bassett (26:37.178): And fortunately for me, I have you as a friend and a mentor who just embraces the tech and you know, whenever you tell me about something, I mean, I know it's going to be spot on because we've been buddies and friends and your business associates for more than 20 years. And I don't think there's been anything that you brought to me or maybe one or two, but that we talked about and encouraged and, um, tested that wasn't, wasn't beneficial.

So I mean, I heard the groundswell of AI, but it wasn't until you and I started really integrating it or testing it out where, you know, I'm full on, I'm all in on this tech.

Andy (27:22.117): I'm learning a lot from my son right now, because he's 20 years old in college and uses these tools all the time, you know, and I'll sit with him here at my computer and he'll say, "No, no, dad, you have to do it like this and ask it like this way." You know, and I'm saying, well, how come let's say the chatbot always, you know, kind of rewrites what I've written and I don't, he's like, we have to say don't do not modify this, just simply correct it for grammar and spelling, but don't modify, you know, what I've written. So he's just, he helps me learn how to do things to make improvements where I was getting stuck a little bit. And certainly I could have Googled it and whatnot, I watched YouTube videos, but just the fact that the younger generation, either it picks it up more intuitively, or they're using it so much they're more advanced users, which also means for us, when I'm saying us, anyone probably over 25 better start using these tools a lot because these young kids, you know, are hungry, quick, smart, and if they know how to use these tools, that is a threat to those who don't know how to use the tools.

Paul Bassett (28:23.35): And then too, I like being able to hopefully at some point bring these kids up into our space. It's hard, as you know, one of the hardest things in our industry today is farming the younger generation to come into our businesses. We're a dying breed. I have one of my other associates who works with me. He's in his 60s. He outworks anybody that I know as a human being in his 60s. But it's when he's out, I got nobody to backfill him. Right? We need more people like your son to come into our space.

Andy (28:59.793): Good question because of what if again, this is like having two thoughts at the same time. Yes, we need more people ask anyone in our industry, they will say I need more people. Okay, well, what if that was not going to be fixed? Let's just say that wasn't possible. There are not going to be more people. What if that were true? Then we'd have to figure out if one guy can manage five projects, how could one guy manage 10 projects? How could one guy manage 50 projects without the quality of work going down? How could people do more with less if fewer people are coming into the industry, which could entirely be true.

Paul Bassett (29:44.726): You're going to need some sort of technology to help you.

Andy (29:47.685): You can't keep doing the same thing every day and hoping someone's going to come in and join the company, but that isn't going to happen.

Paul Bassett (29:50.794): And expecting the same results or different results. Yeah, yeah, spot on.

Andy (29:59.137): Or could it be that the tools help us hire someone who is less skilled because it might be that people in our industry are looking for like, you know, they're looking for the needle in the haystack. I want someone who's been doing irrigation for 20 years as an expert and da, you know, and they may never hire him because that is never going to exist. It's easier to hire someone who knows nothing because the tools are available so that you don't have...

Paul Bassett (30:19.774): Right. True.

Andy (30:26.109): ...to have read the 600 page irrigation Bible to know everything.

Paul Bassett (30:32.862): And even for me too, I don't mind bringing in folks who are outside of our industry, as long as they have a good work ethic and they have a good moral compass, we can teach irrigation. You can't teach moral compass. You can't teach integrity. Those are things that it's inside of you. It's in your heart and your soul. So I'm happy to bring in folks that are not irrigation trained.

Andy (30:48.136): Mm-hmm.

Andy (31:00.385): Yeah, as long as they're teachable and they like to learn. And that's it because that's all we have. We need the ability to learn because what we're going to need to know in 20 years probably isn't what we know right now. So we're going to need to learn things every single day.

Andy (31:18.917): All right, well, so far so good on unfucking ourselves a bit, the industry thoughts and predictions. Should we do one more off your list?

Paul Bassett (31:32.278): Well, I kind of, when you started talking to me, I discussed like, I'd started from the bottom up. So I had three initial sort of thoughts, whether we call them predictions or not Andy, when I have thoughts all the time. So it's just a matter of, and I, you know, my last thought really came back to my first thought was that there's just, there's going to be more companies coming into the water space from outside our industry. That was my really first thought, but it came back because I see it and I have seen it and I've seen it in the water business space for the last 15 years, you know, as more tech is generated and created, especially out of the Silicon Valley, more folks want to get into the space. And you can see the hub of tech. Although I can see it morphing now. But, you know, the Silicon Valley, California hub with all of the water companies out there, HydroPoint, CalSense, you know, those creators of controllers came into the big space of Rainbird Hunter Toro, right? And then taking market share. And then there's another move afoot to what I see is the Silicon slopes of the world where coming out of the Utah area where there's a lot of techie guys and gals burgeoning in that space as well. So there's just a lot more people

Andy (32:37.193): Mm-hmm.

Paul Bassett (33:02.562): ...folks getting into our space. And you know, your friends too, in our mind as well, the guys coming in from OpConnect, right? That's something that hasn't been in our space where we've had the ability to connect to our own router or modem and transmit data. We've had it to be dependable or dependent on, you know, what the major manufacturers are giving us. So, you know, those are other things, again, that I see that are happening that are coming into our space which again, I embrace, I think it's beneficial.

Andy (33:36.473): Yeah, 15 years ago. I just keep saying 15 because it's a round number and it's probably pretty accurate. There wasn't a market for OpConnect because there wasn't any connected controllers and I say there wasn't any, there were a few. And so, you know, that market wasn't ready, even if they had what they had and maybe they did, I don't know. But it's like that analogy that you could have the world's most fastest efficient train ever made.

Paul Bassett (33:42.867): iPhone 15 is just to say it. iPhone 15.

Andy (34:03.785): The problem in the US is there's no tracks. You gotta wait for the tracks to be laid. And so some of this tech that might be here can't really be deployed or distributed because the infrastructure that it needs hasn't been built yet. So OpConnect needed there to be some tracks being laid for them to put their trains on, i.e. wireless and Wi-Fi controllers.

Paul Bassett (34:27.853): Yeah, I mean, it's you're spot on. And, you know, I think what was the last I mean, even with the iPhone, but it was device magic. That's what it was. Remember device magic, that little spur of a business from Apple that bounced out initially in those of you who are on the call or listening to this podcast, fascinating story called device magic. And it was it was it was a spawn by Steve Jobs and some of the really unique, creative people at Apple where they wanted to come up with this really neat device that, you know, at least today we know it as the iPhone, but it failed. Originally in Device Magic, the company ended up folding and failing, although all of the people who were part of that now run and have created some other wonderful business. But there wasn't tracks laid yet when that original device came out. And it failed because as you said, they're, they're just the...

The infrastructure was not there and ready for that device 20 years ago.

Andy (35:32.361): Right. And that's why timing matters. You know, somebody said once, you know, luck, timing, ability, you get those three things together and it's going to be, you know, fireworks, timing, timing matters. And like Paul said, if you listen, if you listen, when I say listen to the book, that's how I consume content. Now I listen to books, which again, 30 years ago, people are like, you do what? Well, that's not true because there's this book on tape, book on CD. But I listen to books and you can listen to build.

Paul Bassett (36:09.661): Correct.

Paul Bassett (36:24.694): Because if you're listening to this podcast, you're different than most people, right? You like and you're encouraged by those who are changing and have the ability to change. But yes, Andy and I both listened to Build last year and it was extremely inspiring to me. I mean, we quoted all the time. So if you take anything from Andy and our show today, get that book.

Read the book, listen to the book. I actually got it on audio, because Andy recommended it to me, but I had to buy the actual book itself because there's a bunch of really cool artwork that came out of that book from, again, gosh, I'm quoting wrong, the vice magic. I can't remember, something magic that you see all of the new, because Tony Faddo for all you folks, he was the gentleman who came from that.

Andy (37:13.413): Mm-hmm.

Paul Bassett (37:22.278): And Apple and started Nest and built Nest. And Tony was part of the development of the iPhone and the early iPhone. So part of his book, Build, shows a lot of the initial prototypes that they created and generated when Apple was starting the iPhone project.

Andy (37:42.629): Yep. That's

Andy (38:12.773): So maybe that's a good way to polish this off, Paul, for 2023. I think we unfucked it enough.

Hope that doesn't offend anyone. Actually, I don't really give a fuck if it does.

Paul Bassett (38:28.342): That's my boy right there. Love that. You got to the point now, Andy, where you don't really care what other people think of you, which is amazing.

Andy (38:38.217): I do. That's the hard part. I do. But again, that's why this show is not sponsored because I want to be able to say and do whatever the fuck I want. That's part about being honest with myself is if I can entertain myself with creative thoughts, surely there's someone else that will be entertained too. Even if it's just you, Paul, I'm good with that. Me and you just entertain.

Paul Bassett (38:55.686): You entertain me. I listen to every podcast as soon as you send it to me. I'm listening. I get inspired all the time. So bring it on, brother. Not enough.

Andy (39:06.729): Appreciate it. Likewise. And yeah, sprinkler nerd.com forward slash unfuck it. You can find your t-shirt there. Please buy one. Please post a picture of yourself with, you know, your favorite sprinkler brand in your hand with your unfuck it t-shirt. How fucking awesome would that be?

And that's a wrap, Paul. 2023 in the books.

Paul Bassett (39:26.894): Oh my god.

All right, brother, it's been a good year and I can't wait till next. Appreciate you.

Andy (39:32.517): Yes, thank you.