The LoCo Experience
The LoCo Experience is produced and sponsored by LoCo Think Tank - and sometimes others! Our mission is to uncover as much business education as possible while getting to know the founders and leaders of amazing organizations. You'll feel like you really know our guests after each episode, and if we're doing our job well, you'll learn business principles and tips from them along the journey and be both inspired and entertained. Episodes feature a range of local and regional business and community leaders as guests in a conversational interview format. The more interesting the journey, the better the experience!
The LoCo Experience
EXPERIENCE 192 | It’s all about the EXPERIENCE! - Talking Food, Love, and Community with Juli Trujillo, Executive Chef and Juan Rodriguez, Business Manager, Co-Founders of Juli Y Juan’s Kitchen
In my early years of LoCo Think Tank, when I was just getting out of the mobile food catering game, everyone was talking about the wonderful new caterers in town, Juli & Juan! Soon after, we had the chance to get acquainted, and they catered one of our most successful events during LoCo’s strongest expansion year of 2019 - Tips, Tacos, & Tequila - featuring business tips, a tequila talk and tasting, and tacos from Juli Y Juan’s Kitchen!
The colors and flavors that Juli creates, and the sheer beauty of their catering displays, is truly next level, and over time they’ve shifted their business to premium events such as weddings, rehearsal dinners, and private chef engagements. Juli polished her craft as Executive Chef at a resort in Playa del Carmen, where Juan was a leader in creating amazing guest experiences - the owners of which were from Colorado. After a 10-year career, Juli made the decision to leave her job and go on a 3-month solo trek to her native Columbia - through Guatemala, Central America, and the Dorian Gap. At the same time, Juan was involved in a shamanic study program, and through his meditations and reflections he discovered that though he might not yet know the question, Juli was the answer!
Their love and Juli Y Juan’s Kitchen sprouted soon after, and the couple made their way to Fort Collins to launch this new chapter of life. We talked about food, love, and community, plus Colombian and Mexican culture, business lessons learned, working at a resort, shamanism, immigration, race relations - you name it, we touched on it - and we went over 3 hours! Almost everyone who knows Juli and Juan loves them, and I know our listeners will enjoy - as I did - my conversation with Juli Trujillo and Juan Rodriguez, experience creators at and co-founders of Juli Y Juan’s Kitchen.
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Logistics Co op is a proud sponsor of the Loco Experience Podcast. We started Logistics Co op to help Northern Colorado local businesses compete with the big box, big tech monopolies that have put tremendous strain on the family business. If you want to raise your level of competition with service, Logistics Co op can be your solution. We deliver anything from Colorado Springs to Wellington for easy to understand fees that are far less than the national carry. If you are looking to raise your services with delivery to compete with the national behemoths, Logistics Co op is your solution. We're here to help people shop and ship local. Visit logisticscoop. com to find out more. Let's have some fun. Welcome to the Low Cove Experience podcast. On this show you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around northern Colorado and beyond. Our guests share their stories, business stories, life stories, stories of triumph and of tragedy. And through it all you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw and no topics are off limits. So pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest. Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. I'm honored today to be joined by Huli Trujillo. And Juan Rodriguez. And they are the co founders, uh, Juli is the executive chef, and Juan is the make everything happen business manager and sous chef of really the best wedding and event catering business in northern Colorado, in my humble opinion. Uh, Juli, eh? E Huli, Ewan, kitchen. There you go. These panish, uh, ah, is thick with you guys. Here it is growing in us. It's, it's, I've always said Huli, yans, uh, because that's what your email, it's got a y between there. But you know what? When they ask me to spell, actually my company's name or my email is the same, I'm like, Huey at Huey. And I'm like, why? And they're like, W H Y. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. It's just the letter Y. Just the letter Y. And then J U A N. I know. Yeah. It's, I don't know what we were thinking when we put the name, but. I can tell you that if we had another opportunity, probably we would've put that Y in the middle. It would make our lives much easier. You do know, um, That you can change your business name and website and all that stuff. So, so, so, so the reason why we ended up with our name is because it doesn't matter what name we had before. Everybody will say, Oh yeah. Holy Juan. Holy Juan. And one day we were like, screw it. Let's just go. And now 10 years, it could have been amazing food catering or something like that. But it's, uh, they would always say, well, but you guys are, you know, Bigger than life. Like you're, you're part of the experience when you hire Julien Juan is, you know, the smiles and the hugs and the love that goes into the food and kind of spreads throughout the event. That's the idea, I guess. That's part of why I guess we put, it's all about the experience now. Yeah. And It really goes to how is it that we were able to, or we wanted to express what we'd love to do and the passion and everything that goes behind the food and all the journeys, spiritual or not, and all that kind of stuff. And so the experience is, it's a big part, but the experience of having us both is also, it's kind of like a double edged sword in one side. It's awesome. And it's amazing. And it's something fun that you can have, but on the other side, it's hard to replicate. How's that business? Right. There's definitely been a scale. Yes. And we've learned definitely a lot in the past 10 years. Like we've grown a beautiful brand, but at the same time, it's a business that at the heart of it is wanting myself. Right. So cloning yourself, uh, it's still not available. So it's kind of hard. Yeah. Dolly. We only got to Dolly the cheap. I know. Exactly. But, um, yeah. But yeah, it's been, it's been definitely fun. I mean, yeah, it's definitely all about the experience. And I guess at the beginning when it came to be all about the experience is because coming from the culture that we are, which is Latin, we are food is at the heart of everything that we do. It's an expression whether it's, you know, tradition or a celebration of life or whatever it is that you're doing. The food is something that it's core to a lot of our celebrations or traditions or moments in life. And when we experience what you guys do or what you guys had as a base here in the United States, we felt like we could enrich that base experience by, you know, adding a few of our personal touches. And that's, yeah, which is kind of like at the center of what, what we love about where we are here in the United States for us is that no, it's It's an enrichment of all the cultures in the world. That's what I feel. It's like the best embrace of the best of, it's like the best of everything in one place and it comes with its consequences. But I think if you see, um, you know, if, if you can take all the, the rich, the richness of every country and, and, and you kind of like put them together. It's, it's here, you know, and that's a little bit of what we wanted to bring in, in, in the whole idea of Only Juan's Kitchen and the experiences. The places that we already went in, in, in, in Mexico or in Colombia, in Latin America, all the parties that you over go, all that experience that we have over there. We wanted to see how is it that we can share it here because, because it was amazing, amazing memories and amazing food and amazing time. And, and we were like, you know, I think there's something that it's a little too boring around here for you. Yes. I don't know why. Well, it just is. I mean, I don't know if boring, but for example, when you, when you think, when you think of a wedding in Mexico, right, let's put a simple example, a wedding in Mexico, let's say that the actual ceremony starts at three We start our dinner at 10. The party finishes sometime until 2 in the morning. Like, we party from 2 that the ceremony starts and then you just, you know, everything starts to pile up. So our timeline on a wedding day, sometimes you can finish at 5 in the morning with chilaquiles or tortas or cochinita or esquites. Or sometimes we call it the tornavoda, which is You go and you have a horrible hangover and then you wake up early and then they give you chilaquiles or something else early and then they send off everybody from the party the next day with a breakfast. So we have a two day party sometimes in Mexico. So when you come to United States and they tell you that the venue you have it from twelve until ten, a hike. Great, at 10, we start partying at 10, like we're having dinner at 10 and you guys are literally shooting out people like, shoot, like you need to be out of here by 11. Oh, and since COVID, this country is even more dead after, like 10 o'clock at night on a Friday night. It's a ghost town almost, you know, anymore, I mean, and the bars are empty by 1130 a lot of times, they're not empty, but, you know, it used to be they were overflowing with, but I guess, you know, the kids have apps now, and they can just, you know, Find somebody to hook up with without having to go out there again. Honestly, it is different. Yeah, it is. It is very different. I mean, I enjoy what I had when I was growing up on all that aspect. We also had the opportunity to live in party towns, like tourist towns, like Playa del Carmen. I mean, in Playa del Carmen, who goes to bed at ten? Yeah, we lived there for ten years. You don't even see the sunrise on a party night. And That's, that's, you get used to that. I mean, I've heard, I've never been to Spain, but I've heard that in Spain is 11, 12, 1, and they're literally out on the streets enjoying their night. Yeah, well, even Alma's mentioned that even down in Mexico when she goes to visit family or friend things, like, At 11 o'clock at night, you can walk down to the corner and get some food at like five different places. The best places open up at 10. Nothing is open before that. You know what we're missing here that I think it will be fantastic in this, in the community culturally, which is sometimes we've gone, we've gone to places and we see it and we're like, Oh my God, which we had this in in the Fort Collin community. Everything is either in plazas. Or in the center of the town, there's no like, like, if I see the community where I live, fuck, I will wish I had like one of those houses or two or three or somewhere in there nearby walking, I can create, like, we can open up a little place. Why do we have to go to the plaza that it's, you know, driving distance? Why couldn't, you know, so I think like the diversification of, of, um, you know, I don't know how do you say this, but like, um, commercial residential and commercial land. It should be a little bit more mixed. So if we are, if it was a little bit more mixed, we could have more live around. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. Like in my neighborhood is a, Old Town Westside, and we've got like the little restaurant there and the, the fresh foods market. And those are both about, you know, seven blocks away from my house. And I walk there with my dog, you know, not as often as he wishes, but, uh, it's a joy to have those little amenities right there. And it, and it promotes all the mamas and papas shop and all that kind of stuff. I think Sparks also, Like community, like community life within the community because you have this places like we grew up that like Juan was saying, you know, you have like the, como se dice, papeleria. Um, so where they sell all the school supplies, it's like where you buy all your supplies for the school. It would be like the staples from here, but not the office or the office Depot or office shop or whatever. But in a mini tiny garage of a house in that house, Kurt had no idea. Everything you would need for that Monday. From a potato chip and sodas to To, to the, um, we have, I don't know, there's a Pieces of paper that are printed that have information and you have to, you know, the, the school teacher tells you, Oh, you need to bring a monographia from the tough drop or the ice age. And then you go there and you're like, do you have one of these? And they're like, Oh, let me look. And they have like all the shit that you need from the eraser to the pencil sharpener. So you don't have to go to the office, but you just walk. Right. Obviously, it's exciting for nerds. Yeah, and then 10 blocks past that shop, there's another shop that's kind of like that. And you know, like the tiny corner store that also has those things. So, like, we bring more life to the communities, but I guess you get used to everything. We do miss that, and I feel it would be wonderful for us to have it. But at the same time, it also adds, you know, to the residential areas. Which is also fun. Yeah, yeah. No, I agree. I agree. We have the mini golf in our neighborhood too. You got a mini golf? Oh, you don't know about the lightning mini golf? No. Oh, uh, yeah. There's ten, um, mini golf holes that are set up mostly in the, uh, You know, between the sidewalk and the street on the city property and it's there's free putters and you can donate like a monthly nonprofit and we've got the Jurassic Park hole in my front yard. So, um, we need to, we'll have you guys over. Oh, uh, put November 16 on your, well, you'll be busy. It's a Saturday, but not, not the weird. No, we have, we're going to be attending to a wedding, which we haven't done in quite a while. I want to say like eight, nine years was the last time we attended a wedding. This is one of our friends that worked with us at Holy Cross Kitchen. So he's getting married and it's weird. I guess at some point we were like, do you want us? Cause you know, the first time when a friend of ours gets married. It's like, Oh my God, you know, we would love to do your wedding and he's like, no, no, no, no, no. There's no way you're not going to be working that day. So it's nice. They recognize it. That's really cool. They want us dancing there. Well, uh, it will be our, what? Like, uh, 2007. Yeah. 17th annual or something? Thanksgiving? We always have a big Thanksgiving party, but it's, uh, Wow! like 10 days before Thanksgiving, we fill our little Thanksgiving Yeah, we fill our little bungalow with like 25 or 35 people and, uh, I smoke a turkey, I roast a turkey, we make, uh, All the fixing, people bring stuff. But we'll have you over another time since you got to go. So I think I remember, um, before we even got started, you said that Juli and Juli Ijuan's kitchen, uh, started in Mexico. Is that what you said? Like that's where you were formerly and where you're planning to stay or what? Yeah. Tell me. We didn't, we didn't know what the hell we were doing. We, we were just gonna, we work for, for, uh, an American group of investors in Mexico for about 10 years. in Playa del Carmen they were building some sort of uh, last resort. Oh. Okay and and you guys were their food deliver people? Julie was uh, Julie was uh, exactly. And we will go back to the early days later, but yeah. Julie was the executive chef and I used to work in sales and kinda like, Selling the whole experience. So, so getting guests engaged in what was available and things like that. Make them fall in love with the region and who they will make them fall in love with the site and the food and the food being part of it. No, so I was super amazingly fun. So grateful. And we learned so much about the experience there. Sure. So much. And, uh, they're, they're a group here from Colorado. So we were always very. Uh, in tune with, with Colorados from there and people from Colorado. Oh, that was where the investment group was from. Yeah. That's gonna, how, that's what links it here. I was gonna say, that's what it brought us to Colorado. All of those beautiful people that we took care of them for so many years. Oh, interesting. The majority of them were from Colorado, like Colorado area. A lot of them obviously from Denver. Yeah, a few of them form Fort Collins and that's how we Oh, thank you Gabo. And that's how we. You're okay. She's got a big voice. I'm almost chewing the microphone. I even turned her down a little bit, but that's okay. Oh, wait, wait. Um, but that's what brought us here to Colorado. All the group of investors that we took care of them. And I mean, in Playa del Carmen, we, we were not wholly IJUAN's kitchen. Like it was not a company per se. We had a couple of, let's say, adventures in businesses. One of them was also a restaurant. So we were managing our own restaurant. We had a third partner back then. And then Juan and myself was, we were like a second job was handling this experience for this group of people. Um, and then obviously eventually. We set ourselves aside from the project. They could kind of stay there Lingering. They got kind of stuck. Yes, and we got tired, you know, real estate powers. New adventures. You're 30 years old or something I was trying to make my move on Julio for like Five, seven years. And then suddenly she's like, see you people. I'm leaving to Colombia. I'm going with Juan. I'm like, fuck no. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh, really? See, at this point I was not going with Juan anyway. I was, I was going on my own adventure. And then, and I had my own adventures there and all that kind of stuff. But we kind of knew there was something. So you knew each other, but didn't really. Uh, yeah, we, we have kind of like a, uh, How do you call that? Friend or Friend romance? Oh, go, go, go, go. I feel like, at least I'm gonna smoke this. Alright, we're in Mexico. I'll do a hit. Okay. You could be a one hitter quitter. Yes, exactly. I could be that person today. That was my one hit wonder. One hit wonder? One is still a one hit wonder. This is kind of a pin or two. Look at that. Perfect, perfect. That's like your old, like your old Uh, when we used to do more joints, they were always super thin. I like the pinners, you know, they just smoke easy. You don't have runners and stuff like that. I do the little packs now because, uh, like, Oh, you buy them pre rolled. No, no, no, no. The packs, you know, like, Oh, you buy the filter, you pack it yourself. Kind of thing. It's like, um, Oh, no. The thing that the vaporizer, but it burns the flour. Yes. Like it, it, uh, vaporizes the flour. It bakes it. Yeah. Yeah. Those are pretty cool. So, uh, I don't get such a high high, um, but it, it mellows. Well, you don't really get any tar to speak of. Exactly. And it's just more mellow for me. Otherwise my brain goes to corners that. Juan, if we smoke at a certain point and he, he takes a big hit, it would take, it would take like, Four to five hours to get him out of the really. So I'll be like, and he's like, Oh my God. In my own head. Like I try to start trying to fix everything in life. Have you done like mushrooms or anything? Yeah, I actually do more micro doses of mushrooms that we'd now. So in my, my Sundays, when we, Just gonna free ourselves from everything. Um, I take like a micro doses of, of wheat and and Juli does wheat. So, I mean a micro doses of, uh, of mushrooms and Juli does, no, I'll get one from, I got my, my own way of, Oh, you get a second hander. Oh, how cute is that? That's a micro dose right there. There you go. I don't think he can handle more. No, and more with alcohol? I dig it. I gotta keep it there. Yeah, I know. So anyway, so Juli's, like, you guys are working with this group, and you're at a restaurant, you got a partner, and So we had all of that going on with us, and then at some point when we set ourselves aside from the, from the project, I decided to make a change. I think Juan was going through his own thing. You're done. Yes. Thank you, Kurt. So he was going through his own thing, and then I decided that it was, At this point I've been in the industry, I want to say 14 years or so. So I haven't, you know, when you're a part of the industry, your birthdays, your mom's birthdays, your Christmases, all of those things. The fake, the fake Thanksgiving parties that you can't attend. Exactly. So I think I, I saw the opportunity that I could actually enjoy this part of my life again and just take a break from the industry without, you know, Without going too far. I mean, I love what I do and part of the service and the culinary industry. And are you from Colombia? Yes. Were you going back home in a manner of speaking then? Going home, home. Like, I was prepared to leave Mexico behind at that point. Um, my mom and my sister were still in Mexico, but I kind of wanted to go back to Colombia and, and be my roots and with my family. And I love how green, the green in Colombia is, and the food is just, it fills your heart in a different way. And we, We were just talking about this in a wedding on Saturday. I feel like Colombians, when we, when we, we love and hate intensely. Okay. Let's put it like that. And the love for the land is something that, it doesn't matter if you've been away from Colombia for 40 years, it still calls for you. Yeah. So, I was missing that part and I went back to Colombia. I kind of wanted to have, you know, A different project, and um, We've been, we've been in this project, well you've been in this project for ten, like eight, ten years at this point, so What project? In Sereno. Ah, yes, yes, in Cloud Economy. So you were, you were, you were very ready to, Right. And he was stalling a little bit, so. I was ready for a change, so I went to Colombia by myself, and Juan had his own journey, and when I landed in Colombia. His own journey. It seems like there's a story in there, too. Like journey as in shamanism, alternative medicine, as in a medicine man, the old way. Okay. So it was a journey. nothing to do with marketing and communication. It was more existential crisis kind of stuff. More experiential journey without a doubt. Yeah, fair. And then, um, so I went to Colombia and then at some point Juan and I obviously never let go of ourselves. We had a friend of Zon's while we were working together more than anything else. Yeah. Yeah. So. We kind of bonded and connected and we realized that the way that we thought and the way that we did everything and um, it was way more in tune than So you like, you like reached out or like snapchatted? We never let go, Kurt. We never let go. Were you like talking regularly while you were in Colombia and stuff? I, so the way I moved to Colombia is that I, I backpacked for three months through Central America to get my ass to Colombia. Oh wow. So. I was having my own journey. Yes, oh yeah, of course. So I was doing nothing while working on what is the next step for me. If it would have been recently, you would have been passing everybody going the other way. It would have been like a swimming upstream. Excuse me. I'm going down, you guys are going up. I'm heading back. The other way. Um, but so we were obviously talking throughout. I was doing that by myself. So I had some scary moments and you know, some moments that you're like, yeah, that's intense. Yes. Honestly, a lot of beautiful moments. I'm sure some of the scary, some of them I did feel lonely and Juan was always there for me. And we would reach out, you know, every week or so. Yeah. And in my own shamanic journey that it happens, you touch, you, you touch, uh, you get into. Realities that you normally don't, don't, well, you can ignore a lot of things sometimes, but not if you're, well, you're getting in touch with your, properly, yeah, you're getting in tune with, but just your emotional connection with life and earth and, and, and you kind of like block all the, all the noise that regular life like teaches you. Yeah. Yeah. Gets you swirled up in. Yeah. So literally in my meditations and blah, blah, blah. I would, I would feel Hooli struggling. You'd be like, oh, wow. So I would reach out. It would be really magical. I was thinking you were going to say like, Hooli is the answer. What is the question? Hooli was the answer. Hooli was the answer. Always and forever as long as I want to. She took my heart and then I was like, wait, wait. But I had to find myself first. Yeah. We were all in our personal journey, but at the end when, when we reached Colombian, um, we started working in a project together, which was called, I mean, if you translate it as like creative flavor, but it sounds so much better if you say SA TiVo. It just, it has a different tone to it. So we started working in sa, were literally classes, Kurt, so it was, uh, you keep going. Oh, okay. Um, so, we started doing this Thank you. We started doing these classes and we were basically, we rented this beautiful country house outside of Medellin, which is the city where I was born. It's like 40 minutes away from it. So people from the city in Colombia were very used to going to the country. To the country on the weekends, people have like, we went to Puerto Rico, uh, and like on the weekends, the city, people would go up into the mountains and go to dances and stuff like that. Basically we do the same thing. Like we leave the city and a lot of people have the opportunity to have small houses in the country. So you go to the country and you go for lunch and you go for coffee and you go for concerts and you just enjoy yourself out in the country and then you go back to the city. So we rented this beautiful house in the mountains of Colombia and we kind of, um, restructured the spaces inside the house, did a little bit of renovations so we could create like a scenario that we could hose 18 people sitting down on like a farm table, a long table with benches on the side. We put like a mirror on top of the, um, the stove space so everyone could watch where we're doing as we're doing it. We would bring them on this side. So it was really an experiential dining. Completely. It was like eight to ten hours. Where you wouldn't expect it. It was like 8 to 10 hours. Oh, dang. Just all day. And these are, are these like rich people? Is this super expensive? So we No, we were not charging. We didn't make any money, actually. No, no. We did not. We lost it all. But we did have all the rich people. We just didn't charge it. That's why you got them all. It was easy. We had all the market. We just never knew how to actually take advantage of it. We have to learn the business side. We're still learning it right now. I understand. In the United States, oh my God, it kicks you in the butt if you don't know it. But it's a beautiful place to learn that like, when, so we had savings from the work that we've done before with the other job. Okay. So when you have the money to back up your dreams, you never think about the financial aspect of your dream because. So you have that cover, you know, so it's not a neat mistake to all of you out there. Mistake. I'm coming from a spiritual journey. You don't care about that. Yeah. I'm going to be a chef. It's all going to be great. Mirrors over the stove. Life is wonderful and I only need to feel it. But had you only been just pushing a pencil to every event, you'd have been like, Oh, dang. Between our marketing spend and our, and our food costs. Like we can't serve. No, no. Our friends that we had like recruit, like, like people that knew the numbers that had business, they were like, there's no way you're making it. You guys are not going to make it. We don't want you guys to go. Like, we want to keep coming to this and we know that you're, you're just. Well, and honestly, that's. Ben, probably the journey of your time, even here in Fort Collins, is learning how to finally price yourselves appropriately, um, because, you know, you can say, well, we're just building some market share, establishing a following, so that's why we're giving Kurt the hookup on tacos for, did you guys do the tacos for Tip's Tacos Tequila? I think you did. I don't, I don't even remember. At the Anosphere way back when. Anyway. Um, was I food, was I still food trucking when we first met? No, no, no. I was out of that. I had quit that. I think you had just quit that. And I was, was I, but I was probably selling life insurance and investments, but also local think tank. I think you were starting, I think it was like, I want to say like the first, first or second year max. For sure. For sure. You were still at the articulate. Right. And we would have whipped you into shape a lot faster had you joined, probably. Yeah. Kurt. Save you some headaches. Oh my God. You know what? Anyway, love you. No, but, but we can see like now when we look back into those opportunities, now we see them with a very different head because now we see the opportunity, not only the financial expense, which is as a business owner, when you're a small, you see the money and you're like, no, it doesn't make any sense. No, you, that money will allow you to do bigger things. It's an investment. You need to see it as an investment. But we. We didn't have the capacity, nor the mind, nor the maturity. When we were about to start here, a good friend of Uli, like his best friend, childhood kind of brother, uh, gave us a book that it's called The E Myth Entrepreneur. Well, we, I don't know what the hell we did with it because apparently we're reading it again and we did all the fucking mistakes All of it. We put ourselves into all the situations that we shouldn't have. And we're rereading it now and we're like, We're like hitting ourselves in the head like, Did we even listen to this book? Well, sometimes context is what's necessary. Well, now the book makes sense. I guess it didn't back then. I, I think from the outside looking in the last, you know, I think probably COVID and you guys had the kitchen and different things. You probably got the snot beat out of you a little bit. You know, you know how I feel, but I think you learned a lot. And I think you, I feel like you've turned the corner and now you're charging what you need to for the experiences that you can. Yeah. And, you know, at least maybe not getting rich, but at least not going back. We're definitely surviving, but we're learning how to do it better. This is how we feel. We. You know, we got it. We said, Holy shit, you know, it's fun. Our experiences and the community is so kind and has been so amazing to support us and giving us opportunities to do what we love to do and all that kind of stuff. No. And, and, and we were like, all right, I think we got enough business lists. Let's open up a place and grow it. And, you know, do all this. Uh, dream thing and, and, and have a, an actual kitchen of our own where we can move around and all that kind of stuff. We felt like two surfers going into the ocean and you're like looking at the waves and you're like, Damn, that looks beautiful. I'm going to get in. And before we knew it, You're reaching out for your bikini part because it's falling after the wave has just like And your surfboard's way over there. Broken. My shorts, my shorts are somewhere else. I think I saw a shark fin. I'm like shivering in the sand like, what the hell happened? Four years later, no, we got our ass whooped. Like, completely. There's no way. There is no shame on the game. We got our ass whooped, and Hooli opened up that book again, and we started reading it lately. And we started realizing Uh, like, and it just made sense, all the things that we should have done. So like you were saying, you know, we're, we're in this stage where we're pricing, uh, we figured out the pricing, but once you figured out the pricing, now you have to figure it out how to replicate it and there's no way to replicate. Well, and how to sell it, right? Like I'm imagining probably it's too complicated to replicate it. So now we have, now we're in the, How can we simplify it? So we can share more of what we enjoy. I dig it. I dig it. Um, I wanted to ask about Columbia. While I'm thinking about it actually. Um, like You, uh, your, your physical appearance could be like European or something. Is Colombian very Spanish or a very what? Like what's the, I definitely do not look like the majority. You don't look like your accent at all and you're tall. Well, you're almost as tall as me. I'm Eastern European. If you hear my accent, well, and even just your, your physicality, you could be Polish or Czech or something like that. You know what? Like, Sikh food, red hair, I know, really Caucasian, but no, nothing else. Now you see why I went to Colombia? Yeah, I know, but Colombians do not look like this. No, no, Colombia. So I'm, I'm, um, I'm definitely not the, She's a camel in Colombia. Yes. I'm also a weird person. Like now that I was, I was just there visiting my mom. Um, and it's so funny because I was walking in the mall with my mom and she was like, why is everybody looking at you? And I'm like, I was wondering the same stupid shit. I'm like, why is everybody looking at me? But I dress differently. People there have a, a very conservative Regional. I was gonna go for the other thing. No more like more like women in Colombia. Okay, let's put it like this. Um Culturally women in Colombia are known for being very beautiful. All right, and very voluptuous Yes, so we have a lot of front and a lot of back. I have neither of those I have neither of those I mean, some. I said some. Just enough for me. Okay, just enough, but not Colombian. Colombian stereotypes. No, agreed. Yeah, yeah. Usually, uh, you're thinking of the wah wah wah. Exactly, exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Have you ever thought about trying to get your booty bigger? I work on my booty, but I don't have the Colombian food to keep me going. I need the good dairy, the good bread that I don't eat as often. But um, No, but can I back up a step and just talk about Colombia as a nation, um, like, cause I've hosted a couple of Brazilian exchange students. So I know a fair bit about kind of the, the makeup, the cultural and the regions and like, Is, was it Spanish? We are very It's not Portuguese. No, so Spanish settled, but also Definitely Spanish. So, the thing that happened in Colombia is that we were conquered by the Spanish people just like Mexicans did. But the difference between what happened in Mexico and what happened in Colombia is that in Mexico there was a mix between the Spanish, Spanish people that came, got, you know, They get mixed with the indigenous people and produce the mestizo, which is the mestizo, which is one. Yeah, well, the Mayans are a little different part of the mix too in Mexico, right? Well, so you have different, the Mayans, the Mayans have a very particular, uh, physical aspect. Filipino almost or something. With, with, yeah. And the neck is definitely shorter and they have like the, the, The forehead is tilted to the back. Anyway, so they got mixed and it gave us the Mexican race, which who we are right now But within the Mexicans you'll have you also have a lot of Mexicans that look Spanish in Colombia We did not get any type of mix. We just they eradicated our native people Oh, really? So that's so we became Spanish. Really? I had no idea. And Mexico did got a lot mixed. So here's the thing. In Colombia Well, cause all these Spanish soldiers in Mexico are like The Aztecs were badasses. Right. They couldn't conquer them completely. Right. We always say it, love, love broke a lot of the barriers, like, uh, the Spanish started falling in love with the natives. Well, and partly because there's, you No other women around either. Whereas Columbia was like settled by families and stuff quickly after the military was the main poured for all the slave trades, trade, trade, sorry, on the way to us or on the way to Brazil, because Brazil must've had a lot of slaves too, because they've got a very, Black Colombian population. So let's say that Brazil has 60 percent of the population. Let's say that it's black. Columbia has 40, almost 40 percent of our population is black. So we are, we are Caucasian and we are black and our indigenous is very little because it's, it was almost eradicated. So the mix in Columbia that you see, you see mulattoes. It's from black and white people getting married together. Yeah, that's why the Colombians got all into the drug trade good, cause they're just more business like about it. Well, because it rains, it rains every day in the jungle, so you don't have to create a water system. So you just throw whatever and it grows and the earth is beautiful. In Colombia, you spit on the So it's like the California of, uh, should be, what California should be. And the jungle is so dense that there's no way, uh, society can get into it. So Right. They'll get into places where you wouldn't make it. So yeah, yeah, you know, Colombian people are very smart for their own good. Very creative. And then we are physically strong people. And on top of that, our history, like our history as a, as a country. I mean, we were in a. in a civil war for, I don't know what, what was like 60, 65 years with the guerrilla guerrillas and the coke and all the marijuana and all of those things that thanks to Pablo Escobar and everybody before and after him. Sure. We have all of that. So Colombians have been As a race, we know what struggle means. So we're very, you know, think about it. How are race relations in Colombia, like the black populace with versus the area? That's actually a very interesting question, because I recently learned through my best friend, um, that I was born and raised in Colombia, but I was only there until I was 11. So the way I perceive race, very different. When I was a kid, I didn't see any racism. I honestly didn't live it. It wasn't a part of my life. My mom never put that into me. It wasn't part of my family values or anything like that. So it was never a part of my life. So I grew up thinking that Columbia didn't have any problem with racism. Yeah. Only to realize that my almost 40, that it is a very different subject when it comes to actual finding a work and moving in society when you're an adult. And that was, shown to me in a recent trip that we had that is, unfortunately, it seems like it is similar to what we live here in the United States. At least the perception is anyway. Yes. So I guess there is a problem about race. Um, it's not as common as we would like it to be. It's not like It's not like, exactly, like here in the United States that you know, you know that we have a problem, perhaps in Colombia there is a problem but we don't talk about it as much, or we don't bring it up to light as much. Well and like, I think it's a problem maybe regionally, like do you think, Racism is a problem in Northern Colorado. Do you feel like that? I don't know. Cause I mean, you don't see a lot. I haven't perceived it. You don't see a lot of diversity. No. Around here. So. But I think when there are blacks or Latinos or different things like that, I think it's almost celebrated in some respects. I don't see anything here. Maybe that's me. I don't know. I, we, uh, so. I don't know. I'm just asking because I'm not asking for a friend. Of course. Of course. So for example, as, um, well. Let's say in my case, I don't look Latin, right? When you start talking to me, I am very proud of who I am. And I'm, I mean, I have Columbia even tattooed on my body. I love my country, my culture, and I don't care. Like it for, if you're in a naughty kid, uneducated people, I'm just going to say the first thing that you're come to me and say, if you know that I'm Columbia is like, Oh my God, the Coke there is so good. I have never fucking tried. And I am Colombian. And I'm proud to say that, you know, that has nothing to do with who I am. As. From, from, of course. Yeah. Columbia. No. Yeah. Yeah. Like if you ask me, I would bring out our textiles, our biodiversity, our fauna, our flora, our coffee, our, you know, dances, the music, our dancing, the music. So much more to the topic in the conversation. Oh, for sure. Yeah. No, no disagreement. The stigmas are, but we have. Oh, yeah. So you feel like because of, Oh, no, Cord, yes, they have something to me that they have even called me a wetback and they're literally leaving anything coming to the country lately. Like they're telling me like, Oh my God, lately in here in Northern Colorado, Oh, no shit. On a networking event, probably. So kind of this, this nasty talk around elections and illegal immigration has got people twisted around their own axles kind of in their thoughts. So unfortunately, I, and we understand all of those things, yeah, it doesn't happen often and it's only been a couple of times, but it's not in existence. I think, uh, I think the entitlement has probably become more, I think that, yeah, the entitlement of, of, of, uh, I don't know. I just feel like it lures you, you know, when people hear stories about, you know, literally hundreds and thousands of millions of people getting like free housing for quite a while and stuff like that, it's like, well, my family waited for seven years, I think we're in a, we're in a moment where like. You know, when, when we didn't have books and, and suddenly we had the printing press and now there's books. I, I, I assure you that there are books that speak, spoke about reality and books that didn't spoke about the reality. So there was, there was manipulation because there was a new medium of manipulation. Yeah. Social media has become also that. So it's, it's totally, you know, the internet was like that. I mean, a long time ago in the internet, you will find all this crazy stuff until it started getting regulated. Radio happened the same TV happened the same. So I think we're getting into this and. So you think it's good that kind of the internet's being brought under control a little more, or? I think, I think that what it does, it's a megaphone. And who you are, you're able to expand your voice. I don't think that good or bad should always be the thing that it needs to be. It's you are who you are, I root for you. For what I root and I root for what for my beliefs of kindness and I and I judge based on kindness and based on love and not every but not everybody does that. And they're entitled to do that. And I think unfortunately, but they're very loud and they tell you that they tell you that that you know what they feel and because you're not used to it. So fine, you know, if you don't learn not to take it personal, they can speak whatever they want to speak. It says that usually they're They're louder than we are. Like, for example, we are more, um, not assertive, but, um, reticence. I don't know if it's the right word. Like, before we speak something, you kind of think and you're like, is it worth for me to say this? But they, I feel like the people that want to offend you and use this type of tools, they have no process of thinking. acting, you know, they just feel and just spit up the shit. I think anger, anger slips faster than anything else. So if somebody is angry, uh, and then your president is, is talking angry, it was definitely, they're going to feel like they can speak the same language. And, and whether, you know, They think about it that they're hurting or not hurting or this, maybe that just gets overwrote, overrided in a way. And I've seen this change. Like I've seen this change in the United States in the last 10 years. And I, I remember telling Julio since the last, you know, few whole political things. And I'm like, I'm sorry, but this is not the United States that I grew up with. And, and it's sad, but I also believe that, um, you know, democracy, it's an organism. So it needs to, it has a flu and whether we die with the flu or we get better and we, and we outgrow this. So besides the politics all over the world, it doesn't matter where you go. Even like, for example, if we compare, cause we do that, I have family in Colombia, we have family in Mexico and we're comparing that all the time because we are, we have the opportunity that, you know. If shit hits the fan, you have another two countries. I'm going to North Dakota. Well, that could be another whole country. Pretty much. Nobody really cares about it. Do you need a passport? Not yet. You need a snowmobile. We always used to joke that, uh, if the U. S. got too crazy, we could just become part of Canada. But now I'm like, no, Canada's pretty freaking far out. I don't want to be a part of that either. No, no, no. Like, why wouldn't they want global warming in Canada? I know, well, anyway, I digress. It would be very convenient for them, definitely, definitely. Um, so I want to talk about food. Alright. So, like, how would you, oh, and by the way, so you're from Mexico Juan, not to ignore. No, no, it's just more interesting, always. For sure, for sure. But what, what part of, what part of Mexico? Uh, I was, uh, I was born actually in La Jolla in California and then raised in Mexico my mom is Mexican my dad's American Oh, so you're American by birth? Yes, originally. So you didn't have any trolls with the citizenship thing. Well, she didn't have any troubles They gave him more trouble We'll get, we'll get, there's a lot of Juan Rodriguez. I already had that with my parents. There's a hundred Juan Rodriguez's. It's the most boring name in the world, but I guess that they had the reason. So, uh, yeah, I was, so I was born in California and then raised in Baja in the North part and then moved to Mexico city. He's a port, a port boy. Yeah. I grew up in a port, beautiful port. And then, uh, then I moved to. Uh, the United States came back. So having the dual citizenship, I'm able to, my territory goes from the U S all the way to Guatemala. So I can actually go up and down and it's, it's actually pretty cool. And, and I, you can kind of bounce all around, but, uh, Yeah. Well, we're going to get to, uh, we're going to jump in the time machine and go to like first grade here. But I do want to talk about food first. Like how would you describe your style and major influences? Did you go to culinary school? I did. I did. I went to culinary school for four years in Mexico city and, uh, it was a beautiful experience. I think, um, I'm grateful for everything that it gave me, my school, like the technical part, the, the history part about how we came to be in the cultures and the clashes and all of those things are very interesting. But when it comes to becoming the chef that I am, it definitely has to do with life experiences. Like I graduated 20 years ago from college and I went to college for four years. So, you know, at this point, college is, that was a foundation. Exactly. But everything else that has happened has made me the person that I am today. Um, when it comes to Colombian bases, I think that we rediscover Colombian gastronomy or culture in the past. So you would say your food is particularly inspired Colombian right now? No, you know what, Kurt, I think if we were to, like, if I was to, if I was to, if I was to say what is my biggest influence, would that without a doubt, it would be Mexican, Mexican food. Okay. Mexican food is, and I'm grateful for it because. One of the reasons why I love it so much is that it's not only Mexican. Mexican is ancestral cuisine from the Aztecs and the Mayans and all of them that had different things. Right. And on top of that, we were kind of a fusion of sorts. We were conquered there, but then by the Spanish people. And then at some point we were also conquered by the French people. And then you also have Danish. And then, and then we also had all the immigrants, French people conquered. Yes, we had, we had an emperor. We had an emperor living in Mexico City with his wife that after that he was unfortunately killed by a peloton. Uh, platoon? A bicycle. No. Peloton? No, uh, platoon. Oh, platoon. Like the firing platoon? Yeah. Anyway, um, so. Firing squad. There we go. Firing squad. That's the right word. So, anyway, when it comes to Mexican cuisine, I feel blessed because everybody loves Mexican Just in the journey of being a chef and working in Mexico, you are exposed to so many different other cultures, uh, even Asian. I mean, Mexico has the sushi restaurants in Mexico are ridiculous because our flavors and their flavors pair beautifully. So Only by exploring the Mexican cuisine, I feel like I also have French bases, Spanish bases, ancestral cuisine, and I have the Asian one, and I have a little bit of you, and now because I'm Colombian, I have that part as well, and we've been exploring, and here in the United States, in the past 10 years, when we got here, Kurt, I had no clue what a brisket was, how to eat it, how to cook it. People were like, Oh my God, you have to try it. And all the bacon that we tried in Texas. When we first tried the bacon in Texas, I was like, it was like 10 bacons of Mexico stuck together into one. Just like a steak of bacon. It was fucking amazing. Amazing. But so nowadays I feel like our bases are definitely Mexican, but we are exploring, we've been enjoying the American culture and the American cuisines. It's been super fun and playful. Because everything here is super meat. Meat, meat, meat, meat. Right. Slow cooks, uh, you know, smokes. Sauces. Marinades, dry rubs, and a lot of stuff with Oh, let me get you some Steak Shake, by the way. I've got my No Mistakes Everything Shake. Have I given you one of those before? Oh, it's like a, you can put it on ribs, you can put it on vegetables, your eggs, your steak. You can put it in your sandwich. Yeah, whatever. You can put it on a shoe sole, put it on the grill, lick it later. It's that good. That's how I describe the, uh The tortillas over at, uh, uh, Los Cuatros. Yeah, cause that was who I used when I had a food trailer and I was like, you could literally put shoelaces in these tortillas and serve them to people and they'd be like, Oh, these are good. The owner, Don Luis, he does a great, those are the only tortillas that we bring to our events. Las Cuatro Américas, because they actually brought the machine from Mexico. I mean, you walk into that store and it's like, it's quickies and everything, it's quickies in. No, no, it's it's the only way that uh, excuse me. No, no, it's a good It's beautiful it's part of the community and it's the only ones the only tortillas that last so increasingly Kind of American, uh, influence and flavor. Are you smoking things? Are you doing, uh, doing that? You know what? We've never Brisket? No, we haven't explored We have our own weird way of doing things. We haven't explored the smoking. The smoking, we haven't, um, first of all, because I don't feel like we know enough. So you would have to learn a little bit before you can actually smoke. Right. Because feeding 100 to 150 people is a big responsibility and getting there with a really dry brisket that only tastes like smoke would be a horrible thing, but we figured out how to do things where I don't know if it's, it's a French thing. The one that we do, it's like a French thing. So we try to incorporate methods of cooking, like the barbacoa, which are long, slow steam on the ground, which we can do, but then the French people have a different way to do it. They use the Dutch ovens and the cast irons with the ceramic enamel. So we found a way, I use those things a lot as well. Jill gave me the biggest, uh, Dutch oven pot for Christmas last year. It's like. This big and this deep. Uh, it's like the white one that we have. Yeah, it's so nice. Those, I mean, you put anything in there and you can just forget it and it will make the throw a chunk of any meat and a bunch of vegetables and some broth and some herbs, fresh herbs in there. And you rub it with, you know, whatever it is that you want to rub it with. Nothing, and you just leave it on the stove and that thing makes magic. Well, in the, the, uh, we have a, uh, wood stove. And so I love, like, watching football all Sunday and my Dutch oven is just kind of simmering away on the stove top. Making sure that it doesn't get too dry. Yeah. Man, if you have a wood stove, then you don't need anything else. That and a Dutch oven will make all the magic that you need. We'll have you guys over for dinner sometime soon. I'll cook for you. Hopefully for a wood something. You've cooked for me quite a few times. I've never probably cooked for you. Yeah, it's, it's, um, it's not something that a lot of people want to do voluntarily. Cook for a chef. You know, I'm going to put chef Corduco. Oh, I'm not scared. I'm not scared. You, everybody knows how to do something amazing, amazing. And we're like, I'm going to tell you, we eat quesadillas, which is a tortilla and a cheese on any hot surface that you want to put, it can be a microwave. And we literally eat quesadillas at least three to four times a week. We call it quesadillas, it doesn't need to be complicated. It needs to come from the heart. We always have like extra stuff from the weddings or the events. So it's always like quesadillas stuff. We'd like. Pulled pork or whatever is left over or these or that. And it's just, ah, it's a subject. We cook complicated processes for our clients. And then we just use the leftovers. Well, it's easier to be simple when you're just for yourself. Oh, yeah. We don't, we definitely don't do that. But, um, anyway, going back to the subject, we realized that, um, we, we always say we don't like to cut corners. So food, there's so many ways that you can make food, right? You can. You can spend a lot of resources and time like French people do, in all honesty, that is not the school that we have. Like for me, peeling a potato, peeling, no se que, chopping all the edges so it's square and perfect. Taking all the, yeah. That does, for me, that's a huge waste. of time or resources and food. And at the end, I do believe that the fiber is good for you. The fat is flavorful, you know, all of those things just add at the end. So we don't think about those things, but what we do think is if I want to replicate a slow cook, but I don't have. You know, the Dutch oven to put for 110 people, because that would be ridiculous. Right. What other way we can do. And we've learned with time experience and other chefs as well and their processes, because it's fair to say that even though you can create new methods, you always basing on somebody else's work, right? So like a long, slow oven and stuff. So for example, what we do, because it's, it's everything that we do is commercial. So you use the full pans. And what we do is that obviously we never cut corners on the ingredients, the quality, the, the, the good wine, the herbs, the good shore ribs, all of those things. Right. So you put everything together in the full pen. And what we do is that we realize if you have enough, uh, plastic film and foil, you can create a Dutch oven inside. So, so you. Yes. So, so you Saran wrap the shit out of that for like four times. It doesn't melt. So it's, it's a lot of, well, there you go. The temperature and the time. it's a lot of physics and, and chemistry, like everything. If you put like, let's say six layers of that, uh, plastic Saran and Saran wrap, and then you don't, and then the foil on the top, and then you don't lift it, the temperature above 325, the plastic won't melt. So fascinating. But if you only do one layer, it does. Yeah, yeah. Uh, so you create something thick enough and then that plastic will just kinda attach and seal. Yeah, there's nothing, no moisture coming out. Like the Dutch oven, basically. Yeah, and, and uh, and then you create yourself a vacuum. It's a shame that full pans don't have, like, just a, a tight fitted lid. I know. It will probably be bouncing. Like if you have something, but there's not nothing, there's not an option. I mean, well, somebody should make that for the shape. Like just a, you could make a cast even right. Like you could, cause full pans are pretty standard size, although they shape a little bit different, but you could, that could be fun. Like, but because the weight, yeah, the weight would be heavy. Yeah. It would have to be a heavy, it has to be cast iron. Otherwise it is, like you say, going to go, and it all comes to storage room. You can put the pans one on top of the other, why are you gonna put the stupid lids? Well, if the lids didn't have a handle on top, they would stack nicely too. Yes, but they usually have that stupid bump on the bottom, where like, so you can put your fingers. And that bump becomes your worst enemy. Yeah, you would have to do something where you have like a little ledge where you click on it and it just goes up. Well, I have to say that my bourbon has been empty for longer than I prefer, and so I'm gonna call a pause. Oh, perfect. We'll take a short break. Alright. Alright. Alright. Yeah, gordita. Every time we sing, uh, happy birthday. That's his favorite song. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, happy birthday. Happy Birthday to you! Muy bien, gordito! You did so good! So that's a husky and him. I know. Thank you, Gordo, for that. My most recent dog, before the current, was a, uh Pitbull and Border Collie. Oof. Yeah, so she was like, she looked like a Border Collie. Big, shaggy, white with a black eye. Kind of really cute. Oh, it's so cute. But then hose her down and she looked like a Pitbull. She was like built like a brick shithouse, you know. And she could do, like, she had this mouth thing where she could go Like that's how fast she could Yes. And other dogs would be like Respect. I do not want to play with you. When the energy level of that dog. Actually, it wasn't bad because the pitbull always makes them lazy. But for example, they go from zero to a hundred. Oh yeah. No, they could go turn on at any time. And the border collies are like high energy dogs as well. She was a good dog. I mean, she was a good hiker and squirrel chaser. Did you have her for many years? Yeah. Uh, 13. Uh, good. 13 are good. And now we have, well, we've had Tucker now for, he's 12. We've had him for 11 years and he's a miniature Schnauzer Cocker Spaniel. Oh, but that's good because small breeds will give you a little bit. I hope another 5 years or so. I was gonna say, you'll get a little bit more time out of him. Yeah, he got hit by a car a few weeks ago, uh, and got like, maybe a concussion or something, but it's actually pulled through, and then two weeks to the day after, he got sprayed by a skunk. Oh no. And he wanted to go back in there again. So I had to like leave him tied up in the backyard. How do you get rid of the smell? With tomato paste, remember? The tomato paste works like crazy. I've seen tomato, but I don't know, in a dog? I mean Yeah, just buy tomato paste. Time. We just let him sleep outside for a few weeks. For like a few weeks. Yeah, then we get him washed at the groomers. You don't know if it's the, if it's the, the wheat plant or if it is. No, it was a real skunk. I saw the skunk, actually. I went out there that night and Tucker was freaking out and I saw the skunk, he was like pointing his tail right at me. I'm like, okay, he's still here. So it was in your house? In my backyard. Yeah. He lives around there, then. Yeah, apparently. I didn't know we had skunks here. Like, in the city. But that makes sense. If we have raccoons, we have everything else, right? Yeah, yeah. No, I've, uh How many raccoons have you killed? No. None. Zero. Thank god, yeah. Thank god, zero. I've killed five. Oh my god. Yeah, in defense of my chickens. Oh! And for sport. No, not really sport. No, they're vicious with their chickens. Yeah, they're ridiculous. Well, in the most recent one, I've told this story in the podcast, but Tucker jumped and grabbed him off the top of a six foot fence and bled into him. It was like a 35 pound male raccoon. He was way bigger than Tucker. Tucker's 25, 23. And I got bit by the raccoon. Cause I like, Pulled the raccoon off of what I thought was Tucker beat up. Yeah, and it was a raccoon gonna beat up I didn't know the raccoon bit me Yeah, exactly that I threw the raccoon in the ground went get my baseball bat and Tucker like was kicking his butt It wasn't even close Which I was really surprised by Yeah, I would never think that a 25 dog, 25 pound dog would get into a fight with a 35 pound raccoon, especially because raccoons are vicious. I mean, they're tough. Yeah, but yeah, I just, I don't know. The raccoon was all squeals and Tucker was all Proud. You know, he was like, I got this, dad, you don't need the baseball bat. We've never had the need to kill any, but No, this guy just, uh, killed a squirrel not too long ago. Oh yeah, that's impressive. I know. I don't think he even knew No, we gave him the biggest care of his life with that. We don't like him to kill We have I mean, we have a big tree and there's a lot of squirrels, so if he starts killing one before we know it, it's gonna be a family. No, it's hard. No, yeah. Like, they're always hard. Like, Tucker killed one right away when he moved in, and then another one a week later he's gotten like It's always hard for us to see them die, you know, you never want that to happen. We try to teach them a little bit, but they don't understand. With squirrels and raccoons it's okay. There's too many of them? There's plenty of them, yes, both. Well, in our house between the chickens and everything, there's a big community in the house too. We've got owls and probably a raccoon. We lose our chickens to owls and um, hawks. Oh wow, interesting. I found a pygmy owl in my chicken coop one time. He was just like the size of my fist, and he was like trapped in there, like he couldn't find his way out because I had a fence all over the top and the sides and everything. How did he get in? It must have been, he came in through the door, um, but he couldn't find the door back out kind of thing. Ah. Um, and so I got my leather gloves and I, I grabbed him and, and he was like the calmest thing. He was like, I, I think I trust you right now and he was just chill and then I like, you know, got him out of the side of the coop and, and release him and he released him and he flew away. Yeah. Yeah. And he, but he was so chill, like he stood on my leg for, or my finger for a while afterwards. He's like, okay, I guess I'm free now. We were, uh, it was so cool. We're smoking a joint in the morning or, yeah, I wanted to smoke that joint more. Yeah. Talking about, talking about that. And, uh, we were like, I started watering the plant. I have these devices that, uh, they literally just kind of, you put the perimeter of your grass and it just goes around it. And it's the only thing that I have figured out how to. Not have to stand for an hour watering the grass. And we were just there and suddenly out of the chicken coop. And the outside, a little thing started crawling up and we come, we came close to it and it was a bat. Oh, cool. And like 10 in the morning, he was just like, he went all the way up. I see him in my backyard a lot of times. Kurt, we didn't know, we didn't know that we had bats in Colorado. Oh, really? And he was so tiny and we were surprised by the size of them. They look like little sparrows or something. Yes. Not even a sparrow, like a swallow, like smaller than a swallow. Like a swallow, exactly. Um, yeah. He hooked his, his, uh, leg into the wood and couldn't find it for like 10 minutes. I was like, come on, come on. I had it the other day. Where are you? Where are you? He's like, I know you're here, you motherfucking crack. Get in there. Get in there. I already climbed all the way here. Anyways. Yeah. I know. Beautiful living in Fort Collins. It's a beautiful thing. That's it. One of the few things that we love that. So we always jump in the time machine and get kind of the zoom back to the life story thing. We'll have to move fairly quickly to get to all the segments. But, uh, um, why don't we go to, uh, you said La Jolla in California, right? That's where you were born. And through how age of what? Um, I was literally born there, and my dad was, um, studying in Santa Barbara. I see. Photography. And, literally as soon as he was done, we went, we went back to Ensenada. Okay. Which is like about a, an hour and a half, like two hours south of Ensenada. Of the border. Don't worry. Like San Diego, like the first big town, Lebanon? No, first big town south of San Diego. Basically past Tijuana. So you go down past Tijuana, it Tijuana. Sure. Yep. You pass the circus and then you pass the circus. The circus. What's the circus? Tijuana. Tijuana. Tijuana is the circus. Tijuana is the circus. I see. And uh, you literally go to the coast and you go down for an hour. Yeah, yeah. Coasting. Okay, cool. Beautiful coasting. And uh, and you just. You get to this little first town, uh, of Mexico and it's just, or a city, it was just super fun. It was very chill. How big was it? You know where it is? Um, Kurt, have you heard of El Valle de Guadalupe, like the Sonoma Valley or the Napa Valley of Mexico? Sure. It's 45 minutes away from Ensenada. Okay. So, Ensenada is the city that hosts the entrance to the Valley of Guadalupe. Oh, interesting. In Ensenada Well, yeah, you have like, let's say it's just the coast keeps it cool. Yeah. You have like the, the Rocky mountains, let's say that goes all the way down and then it separates into one, uh, that it's Baja, California, all the mountains. And then the other one goes into the center of Mexico. Oh, so there's still mountains on the bottom. So Baja has like, uh, we call it Sierra, Sierra Madre Occidental. I think it's like, um, I don't know how they call it here, but like, so, so it's, uh, I'm fine. Thanks. So it's like, uh, there's huge mountains and then you just kind of have all the planes and then the water. No, so it's kind of like the tip of a, of a mountain. If you take the water off. Yeah. It's a more like European setting for wines. It's like the wines like, like the coast comes in and then you have the moisture. Okay. Very California weather. Cool. Uh, style. And so tell me in, uh, five years old, uh, is your dad a photographer now or? Yeah. My dad is a photographer of another town a little bit southern from there that he, you Can I retire and all his cousins and everybody lives? No, but not, but, uh, back then when you were a five year old, cause we, oh wait, hold on. We'll make this more formal. We're jumping into the time machine. Okay. We're you're five years old. You're in Ensenada. What am I doing? You have brothers, sisters. Uh, yeah, I'm, I'm the youngest of four. Okay. I live in, uh, In a big house that, uh, my parents inherited, and it had a lot of land. Is that why your dad was up in California doing photography school, because he had inherited some wealth or something? He loved photography because his, uh, grandfather, um, gave him a camera when he was a kid. Okay. And he loved So, he Did that. But before he started photography, he was studying economics and all that stuff. They were, he was forced to be smart too. It was no, he never really applied the economics economics. He was there because he was forced. He was a first student for that. So as soon as he was able to get out of that, he went directly into studying what he wanted to. So he did photography and, and, and then he became a photographer for, it was all his life, basically. He's still, he still does that. And, um, He was married obviously already to your mother. Yeah, five years old. Uh, my parents were married and Not they're not anymore, but they were there back then and were there more littles to follow or years of life I'm the youngest of four youngest of so I was always more like, kind of, in my own universe. Because the other three are one year apart, and then I'm like two and three years apart. Yeah, yeah. So, I, I was always too small to do anything. Like they were a clump, and then you were like the straggler. Exactly. That's the same as my family. Yeah? Uh, yeah, cause I'm, I'm fifty, my brother's gonna be forty eight, my sister will be 45. And then my youngest brother is five years younger. Ah, so you he's the, you 35. Yeah. Yeah. And no, 40, so, so there's five years, but so there's three of us. So you have 10 years in different that, so three of us in a group of five. Yeah. And then five more years. And there's one more striker. Oh man. Yeah. I love it. You know, Mexicans do it faster though, you know, one, two, three, and then boom, boom. And then it was like, damn it. So I, so I tell my, I asked my mom one day, I was like, Hey, you know, we're older, not five at that point, but we're older. And I'm like, Hey, did you plan this all? Like all of our, Yeah, with all the love and everybody in each one of you, and then I go with my dad and I asked the same question and he was like, Nope, we only planned the first one. The other three came along. So I'm happy to be the hole in the condom maybe. So I'm happy about that too. Let's zoom to, like, fifth grade or something, like, what, what, you were already kind of a binational citizen, kind of? Yeah, we used to go back and forth. Yeah, it was very common back then that you, uh, you used to go to the U. S. and you do all your shopping and groceries. Oh, really? And then we'll come back. Like, the food was better, or cheaper, or I think it was closer. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was closer to go to San Diego, to a nice supermarket. I guess you have more whole foods and like, uh, just bigger books were a lot in the house. So they'll buy like, you know, all the, all the big bulk stuff. And, uh, we'll, we'll head to, We'll cross into San Diego and they will drop us into a place called Fun For All, which is like a batting cage. Alright, I dig it. It's like Fort Fun here. Sure, sure. And they were like, my parents would probably, oh yeah, can you imagine four kids driving in that place to San Diego? We were like, oh yeah. My, my parents will get so pissed because we were playing like curves, which is all together in the backseat, we're like pushing each other and like laughing or until normally I was the one that something happened and I got, I normally got hurt and I started crying and we used to fight for the windows. Like, who sits in the windows?'cause their arms can't reach when they slap back there. So guys, I grew, I grew up in a time where, uh, slapping your kids was, yeah, the normal thing. Not, not, not very big, but, uh, there were no, I'll sue you. Nothing. It was, was just like, you'll just try to get the windows so you don't get the slap. In Latin America, super common. Also, for example, in Colombia and in Venezuela, we throw the chala, you have a sandal. I like it. Yeah, I got these pretty good. Well, that one would be more heavy. That's like a heavy duty one. Pretty aerodynamic. The chancla fly is like a Frisbee. So they would throw the chancla or the belt as well. That was another one. That was a heavier one. But yeah. Uh, but yeah, well, going back to it, uh, fifth grade, I mean, I grew up in a very beautiful, like in front of, near the ocean, very close to the ocean. And my house had all sorts of. Like, trees, like fruit trees, so my parents didn't give So you were in a pretty privileged setting. Well, I was, I was very free. Yeah, my parents didn't really give a lot of shit about it. Yeah. They were very young and they, they were very free and, and, and they were, my mom's motto when we talk to her now, it, she's like, well, they're gonna do it with or without me. I'd rather them learn when they're young, so if they're gonna climb a tree, I'd rather they learn how to climb a tree when they. We were the same. I mean, uh, me and my friends, like we got a bicycle when we were five and then we were free to wander the town of one hundred people or so. One hundred people. Yeah, yeah. It was a little village, you know, in the middle of North Dakota. I grew up in also a little But there were nine kids under twelve. Of course. You know, or something. And you all hang out together. Of course. Yeah. I was like literally in pieces of land in the middle of There was not a lot of houses, so from my house to the next house, it was like two miles and stuff like, or a mile. So, you know, you get along and then there was a city, but I lived like in the outsides of the city. Interesting. Um, it was, uh, yeah, it was, it was really fun. A lot of freedom on mind. And I think that's part of why. Part of, uh, what, what made me, has made me who I am in that aspect. Be the adventurer that you became. Yeah, I was lifting rocks all, all day long and figuring out life and what the hell was there. So, uh, observation became like my, my best friend. Interesting. In life. Okay. And just. Were you a good student as far as the school system? I was always a great student. The biggest nerd. Until the, yeah, I was, yeah, so I was, I was always been intrigued about life. Okay. So I was always lifting rocks. Yeah. So I was always why? And my, if there was a, a good new book. Yeah. Even my brothers were always just, uh, getting tired of that. I was always asking the whys of everything. And then it would be like, yeah, stop, stop asking everything. Stop. My dad will get, so probably conf, like, so, uh, like, uh, overwhelmed. Overwhelmed that he'll start singing the questions that I ask him. that or, uh, what, and then it would be like, what is the time? So why does it sound right in this? The sun and the moon, they walk down the path. They will never answer me. I was like, so, uh, so I guess, yeah, knowledge has been always intriguing and fun. I feel it feels fun. So going a little bit to, to the culinary side, it's, it's been great. You know, yeah, there's a never ending learning in culinary for sure. It's nature together with spirituality together with chemistry, chemistry, science, it's healing. It's camaraderie. It's community. It's medicine. It's in the center of who we are and what we do and what we are and you move three miles away. I can't wait until we just have IVs that feed us the necessary nutrients to stay alive. Oh God, I wish that would never happen. I need my tongue. I know, I'm like, I hope that never happens while I'm alive. I would like to chew my food and taste it. Can we get out of that time traveling place? Oh, sweet IV. Just a little bit of, uh, a little bit of opium kind of derivative in there too. Well, those type of nutrients are different. So, um, I want to, I want to, like, zoom over in the time machine to Columbia. Um, and you're my part of one or two or five. Yeah. Whatever childhood. So, um, very different, uh, childhood from one Without a doubt. Um, I lived no, see without a doubt. So What age? What age? No, five. Five years. Five. Alright. So, yeah. Um, very different I lived in a, in a neighborhood, in a really nice neighborhood in Meine. Um, Columbia was, which is one of the largest cities of it. It's like the me, me. Well, it looks like Mein for me. Meine is, um, me. You use a J in that context? Double L. So Meine is, it could be Meine or me. Well, you guys, I guess the pronunciation that works too. Okay. But probably I do the double end and stronger on my end. So we're talking about the same plate, we're talking about the same place. Put a a j instead of a double L ine put a gene. So I grew up in ine when I grew up in, uh, there, it was. Um, I was born in 85 and I was there until 96, 97. So let's say in the nineties, Mein was a beautiful city. I guess it was about not a hundred people by any means. It was not a village right? This was probably about a million and a half. Okay. So very urban, the second biggest city in Colombia. Yep. Um, very beautiful, but. In the 90s, it was ridiculously violent, to say anything. Like, if you watch Like kidnappings and stuff? Like, if you watch Narcos Or gangs fighting turf wars? It's not Yeah, I've watched Narcos. So, what you watch in Narcos is what we lived. It was Pablo Escobar. It was Pablo Escobar. And that was the epicenter of his, like, territory. He's from my city. Yeah. So My city was the epicenter of his whole operation. Right, virtually trying to take control of the country through narco trafficking. Yes, so, Medellin was a shitshow, but at the same time it's so funny because people continue on with their lives. What were your parents doing, like, for work, or? Father. My father was a Marine officer. He was working at some point. He was with the, as an, with the Navy. And then he become a merchant, like a commercial Marines. Yes, exactly. So he was, my father was almost never. The guy that helped me, uh, move into my place in Fort Collins, Dave Higdon, shout out. Um, he's in the Merchant Marines. Uh, he like, went through this banker training school, and was a banker for five years or seven, and then he was like, eh. Merchant Marines is way more cool. And he met a gal from Laos and married her and they have got a bunch of littles now. Um, and, uh, I guess you need to be by the ocean to be able to be a Merchant Marine. For sure. Colorado doesn't have any, um, He was a Washington. He was from Washington. Yeah. The islands of Washington there in the San Juan somewhere. I forget. Oh, very nice. Anyway, I digress. So shout out Merchant Marines. So anyway, my dad was a Marine. So that means that I would spend the majority of the time with my mom. Yeah. Uh, in Medellin, my mom was, um, is a hairstylist, just me and my mom. At that point, I had no sisters or nothing. There was only me from my, from my mom's first marriage. Um, eventually, obviously because of how much my dad wasn't in the house, that didn't work for my mom. They got divorced, blah, blah, blah, um, and then my life became, blah, blah, blah, well, blah, blah, blah, as in, you know, divorce is just so common. Like, what was that like from your perspective? Like, did, she was just like, okay, I'm kind of over the merchant Marines, you were five, you were eight. I was, exactly, I was six years old. Whatever, mom, yeah. So, when my dad and my mom got divorced, I don't think I had, Uh, the, the conception or the conscious or the maturity to understand what was actually happening, especially because you're just kind of assumed to be with your mom because your dad was never around being a merchant Marine in some ways, he says that he's probably has brothers. Like when I, when I logged into some old places, I got into 23andme and the first thing that came into my mind, I'm like, I am sure that in the next 5 to 10 years, someone with 50 percent of my genetics will pop out somewhere in the world, because being a Merchant Marine. Well, I mean, I don't know how, like, no healthy man can really spend 6 months at a time away from a woman. Kurt, it was like 10 months. It was like, no. And on top of that, my daughter's not ugly. Maybe some people are better than me. Long distance relationship can be hard. You need to have What did you say? Somebody was ugly? Your dad was ugly? What? No, he was not ugly to look at. He was not ugly. Oh, he was a beautiful man. So he was, and he had charisma, and ah. Oh, yeah, right. I'm sure your mother was beautiful as well. My mom is definitely beautiful as well. Yes, without a doubt. And I actually have a lot of my mom in me. Like, if you put a together. You're like, you're definitely glorious. So it's you and your mom for a while. So it's me and my mom for a while. Um, we're living in Colombia. She has her, her business. Colombia is violent, complicated, politically, politically. Hairstylists know lots of secrets. Exactly. You can imagine. Yes. Yes. We have all the stories. At least they got some intel at least. Yeah. It's the news channel five. It's the news channel. The most dependable news channel probably for most people. My mom would call me when she would have like the salon. She would call me and be like, Hi Juliana, you're not going to believe what my client told me. I was like, don't tell me. I don't want to know. I don't want to know. Like Jesus, this shit would stay with me for like two weeks and I was like, damn you mom. Like she would put the weirdest information in my brain. That hasn't changed by the way. That hasn't changed. Yeah. Anyway. It's still the same. So we're back in Colombia. My mom is doing the hairstyle. My mom is at that point, a single mom. So food in my house, it's not priority. Priority is to make money to put in the household so we can sustain the mortgage and all of those things, you know, that as a kid, you have no fucking clue. And it's really better that way. Um, so my food relationship came from my uncle and my uncles and my aunts that would cook because they were, you know, State at home moms. So they would have the time to cook for their family. My mom was a working mom. Did they bring food over to you or did you go over to them for family meals and stuff? Exactly. So every Sunday we would go either to visit my aunts or my uncle or my grandmother back then. And that's where I would sample food that was not part of my weekly menu. My mom had. Five things that she would knock out to cook. All of them horrible. What was your weekly? Tell me, tell me. Oh Jesus. I want to hear what they are a little bit. Okay. She, she would call, one of them was we eat, we call it, so it's a bean soup, right? Okay. Super simple. So it's just beans and rice. You think that you cannot mess those up. With some broth and some salt and pepper or whatever. Yes, yes. Just, just peasant food at Gruel. Yes, but at least you could make beans and rice soup. Tastes good. My mom would not try. That was not, not part of the agenda. Not a priority by any means. She would make this, I'm going to call saute veggies, but it was horrible. It was just onion and peppers. semi sauteed. So there will still be like fajita. Yes, but, but, but badly, like poorly made. Right. Barely warm. Barely not translucent. No. Yes. Just horrible chicken. Flavorless. Not hot skillet. No. Almost like steam fajitas. The worst type of fajitas that you can have. And then she would make She would call it like a tuna souffle, which has nothing to do with the tuna souffle. Especially because, first of all, tuna in a souffle, no. Wait, you're talking about like a can of tuna? Like, yeah, like canned tuna. Okay. And she would put canned veggies, and probably mayo and eggs, and she would just mix that shit up and put it in a, in a, in a pan, like in a muffin pan. it for a while. And bake, bake it. And then she would cut that like a meatball. That sounds amazing. Oh, Jesus Christ. It was, it was. It was like the version of Spam. It And then obviously, you know, I wouldn't eat any of that stuff. So my mom would have to go to a psychologist and be like, my daughter doesn't eat. And then she would tell the psychologist what she was cooking. And she was like, no wonder why you can't. So, and I gotta tell you, she eats like a cow, like you eat so much. When I, I have an appetite for good food, but it doesn't necessarily need to be. I don't like complicated food. You don't get to me with complicated processes and high end. No, I like, I appreciate that, but you make me a really good rice and I am there for you. You put a fried egg on top of that rice and I'm the happiest girl on life. What do you think about the loco moco? What is that? You don't know about the loco moco? No! Oh it's a Hawaiian dish, uh, and it's rice, usually a hamburger patty. Okay. Brown gravy. And a fried egg. No, I didn't. You know what moco means in Spanish? Booger. Booger. The crazy booger. That's what I heard. I don't know if I want to try that burger. Hooli's favorite thing is a booger. For a while. And that is, uh, Like the meal, like, um, it is the thing, like, it is the thing that if you go to Hawaii, you don't have a local moko. We, we, you know what we tried, we tried the Musubi, uh, oh God, God. Which is the spam with the rice and a little bit of, uh oh. Yeah. Yeah. I had some of those. That was so fucking good. That was so, we love mu we would go to the gas stations and just pack in Musubi. I still, I still have to win her heart by cooking for her all the time. So I'm going to make you guys Loko, moko oh, when we have you over for dinner. It's been, I've been too long since we do, I like to do like, we have a table for eight. So I like to have eight people for dinner and couples that don't know each other. That's such a nice number too. Yeah. Because it's easy to host eight people and be a part of your gathering. So it's not, you know, when you have 15, 16, you know, exactly, exactly. Yep. Yep. And then a corner can be like three or four people and then some people can go outside and hang and whatever, you know. We love, we love that. That number. Makes us feel good. So, um. Um. We'll have to plan like a Tuesday. I was gonna say between a Tuesday and a Wednesday, more likely we can make it. But, uh, and I'm going to ask you to bring something too. Just perfect. Perfect. I'll be the main host, but we can, we can bring a little something. Exactly. So, um, so your mom then remarries, I guess, and that's a new chapter. Yes. So basically this is my life until I was Not not so long after she actually fell in love. So my mom used to rent. We used to own a big house for just the two of us. So she had the salon in the garage. And just like Juan was saying, in Colombia, it's really normal that you have the residential and the commercial areas kind of get mixed in some neighborhoods. So she had her salon in the garage and then we had like another two, three rooms spare in the house. And there was a college close to my house, like a couple of, uh, blocks. Like a boarding house almost? So, so students from other countries, I mean, other cities in the country would come to Medellín to study. So my mom, because it was a family house, like they would come and rent a house. It was a source of income for her too. Exactly, to sustain us as well. So basically, that was my life, blah, blah, blah. One of those. students, basically a guy, 16 years younger than my mom. I mean, this is ridiculous. I'm always like, how old was you compared to him? Um, him and I have 12 years in difference and he has 16 with my mom, so there's less years between the two of us. Damn, like that's cougar action all the way. That's impressive. But my mom, she says that she has no, she had no self control at that point. It was just love. Did she grab him at 16? He was very insistent. No, he was, so he was, my mom was, he was 18 and my mom was, well you do the math, 30 something. Yeah. Yeah. So, and she was like, do you wanna be my husband? So, no. He, he, no, he really like, he wared my mom. Oh. Oh. He fell in love with my mom. And he would, for time, he would write. What like, uh, those like Egyptian parchment papers that you would roll and just like scroll out, he would write just like, you know, 10 letter, 10 page letters to my mom. So anyway, they fell in love and they had this relationship, which was like in the pink stage for what it seemed like years. And then he was working with the textile. He's well, he's my stepdad because him and I had many years and then my sister came along. So he, for, for that, I'm forever grateful, forever grateful. We have, um, I'd say a complicated relationship, but I love him to death because my sister is like the best gift that ever came to me. So anyway, he came to our life and, and then, uh, he was working with the textile. Let's say department in Colombia with the government and everything. And at some point they were opening a market to Mexico, like starting to expand that operation to Mexico. And he was a really good salesman. I mean, he got my mom 16 years different. So he had a lot of, um, yeah, we call it like when you have, um, the charisma, the wording, like That would be a good word for it. Kurt, when you have a way to manipulate the words and you're like, savvy with it and you convince people. Yeah, persuasive. I have that and then if I, Like, I usually vomit too, just intentionally, like, I, I, I sabotaged my own suave, yeah, I have lots of it, and then I don't want to seem to be that kind of guy, I don't want to be around people like that, I just, you know, here, let me say this, anyway. So that moved you to Mexico, your family. Exactly. So, through that, he moved to Mexico. And you're like 10 years older or 8 years older than your 11. No, but how old is your sister? My sister doesn't exist. My sister was born in Mexico. Oh, wow. So, he moved to Mexico and my mom is like, I have my life here, my house, you know, my daughter. I'm not gonna move my daughter to Mexico. Oh, wow. And he's like, okay, I'll go and I'll figure it out. It wasn't, it wasn't even three to six months, I want to say, and they were writing each other and crying over the phone. And then this was just huge. Yeah. So at some point he's, he's like, you know what, just Fuck your life in Colombia just come and let's figure it out together for a while for a while Yeah so my mom put her house in brand and she's like let's go and figure it out blah blah blah and we moved to Mexico and We found a life in Mexico and my mom found a calling to she started working with textiles She went back to the hairstylist You know, uh, years later, but they both started working in textiles and that relationship just flourish. And my sister textiles, like, what is that? What are you like rugs? No, Columbia has really good, um, cotton. Okay. So we, we create. Fabrics that are cotton and then we sell that whether it's fabric, or already confection. It's almost like mining really. Basically. And farming too. I mean, I'm the son of a farmer. And like, there's only a few real pure industries. You know, if you pull gold out of the ground, or you grow crops, or you make clothing, or whatever, like those are the really base industries upon which everything else is built. You know, the reason that we can have a food service organization, cause somebody pulled some gold out of the ground one day, you know, with the farming and all that. And then we're not farming naked, so Right, right, exactly. Maybe some, but I would like to, but I need a little bit bigger yard. One of these days. So anyway, that moved us to, to Mexico. And I guess after a few years, it wasn't temporary anymore. And we found a life in Mexico and my sister came along and, um, Columbia was if Columbia was complicated and violent when we were living there, when the opportunity to move to Mexico came, we were really grateful. That was a relief. That was a relief without a doubt. Like moving aside from all the violence and craziness. No way. Columbia is cooler. That's my home. No, of course. I mean, I love Columbia to death, but the reality is that for example, it was so extreme Kurt that as I was walking to school and I was only, I'm going to say. Eight to ten blocks away from my school, my mom would walk with me and Some at some occasions that there would be bombs happening in, in commercial places that if you were there in the wrong time at the wrong place, it happened to a cousin of mine. I lost family. I had family that was kidnapped and killed and kidnapped and blah, blah, blah. And all of those things, all those scenarios that you guys have in movies that was happening in the city. So moving away your kid from that scenario, knowing that they cannot walk to school. Of course. Right. It's fine to take it out of that. Survival. Yeah. It didn't matter if we were moving from Colombia to Mexico, which Mexico has its own problems, has nothing to do with the problems that we had. And is Venezuela in some ways kin to Colombia in terms of the slave trade, but they don't have as much black population, right? Well, back in the day, it was the great Colombia, all that territory. La Gran Colombia was. Oh. Was. So it was huge. It was all the way to Panama. It was Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador. Oh, which would have been a contender to Brazil. And Bolivia, yes. And somebody decided they didn't want, Well, they divided like everything. They started dividing the land that I don't know as much, but, uh, Venezuela, it's interesting that would have been like the super state of the, of the. South America. So the Venezuelan, the conflict that the Venezuelans have had has, it's completely, let's say, I'm going to say for what I know, because obviously I'm not from Venezuela, so my opinion is not objective. Yeah. Oh yeah. So the conflict that they have had in the past 30 years that I've been living the conflict of being a part of it because it obviously affects my, my country directly. They've had horrible governments that have abused the resources of the country for the benefit of only a few. So, the general population has been fighting with poverty. I've had several financial problems on the podcast over time. And it's super hard because A lot of them are trying just to have a decent living, but it was so prosperous 20 years ago. Before Chavez, Venezuela was one thing. When Chavez came along, the country changed and now with Maduro, it's a whole different situation. So their struggle is more a social political struggle. Our struggle was with violence on the street from guerrillas. There were still factories running, the textile mills were still churning out goods, all that. Everybody was living in dodgy moods. Yeah, exactly. You just don't know if you're going to get blowed up on a particular day. Life has to continue. Like for example, we never had the issues, like in Colombia you go to the store and you can still find toilet paper. Right. You can still buy eggs and shit. You can still. Venezuela, you go to the stupid store and there's nothing on the shelves, and if there was anything, you might not even have the money to buy it, you know? Colombia has never. For two weeks ago, but now you don't. Yes. Our situation has always been very different. When we moved to Mexico, like my reality completely changed and I feel like I'm Colombian inside. Like I have a lot of Columbia in me, but I'm, that's why I carry. The Mexican and the Colombian flag. Like I went to, I got to Mexico when I was 11 and I saw Mexican ground for the next 20, 25 years of my life. I became Mexican, like the tradition, the culture, I got enriched by it. It became a part of me. So I cannot deny, like, obviously I love Colombia to death, but the two countries are, Very important for me. There's a Mexican sassiness. While we're here, um, because I think you're, it's fascinating because of your, like, European lookingness and stuff, like, were you accepted well in Mexico? No, I was bullied so much. Even as an 11 year old and whatever? Oh my god, yes. Were you like, weird, tall, early? I was really tall. Unfortunately. Yes. Sorry, just asking you should I know was super short. I was five foot one at the beginning of my junior year of high school. Oh, so you were like one That's what me, I was Mr. Tiny Pants. I was the first in line. I never had to like worry about anything else except that I was just the tiniest, no, that did not happen for me. I, for me it was. So, you know how, if you put me at 11 years old in, in, in Mexico City, in a place that it's more like, um, for locals, like we were the only, I was the only foreigner in my school and it was a big school. So my accent was really funny. My words were very different, like the way, like to put an example in Colombia, when we, what we call wax. It's called semen, like literally. Oh. So if you are trying to explain a situation that involves wax on your chair in school in year 11. Like I've got semen on my chair. So that would be, you know, and on top of that I had all the braces and all the, Equipment that they could put on your teeth around your mouth already. I had, thank God, no glasses, but I had like the things that pull your teeth that go above your head. Oh, no way. You had to wear it to school? Yes. So I had like the outer part of that. I had like all the tiny, Rubber bands. All the colors. Your teeth are beautiful, though. Look how, compared to my smile. After six years. Yeah, look at mine. Yeah. Yeah, mine's all janky compared to yours. Six years of torture, people. This is what it takes to have this kind of teeth. But anyway, so I was bullied through so many angles and I was miserable, I think, for the first two to three years of my life in Mexico. It was a really rough time. But then, you know what? You find also I agree, because that, like I think you find your way. I think every time you move to anywhere, it Especially at that age, yeah, like, even, even when it happened to me when I moved to Mexico City from Ensenada, Uh, I also, I was a tiniest and I got bullied for two, three years. Yeah, yeah. One summer I just grew and I came back and it was pay time. What was the circumstance of your move, uh, to Mexico City? My parents got divorced. Oh, really? Okay. Now the drama's turned. Um, I'm gonna actually call a short break. Because I have to pee. Good. And I want a little more bourbon. Perfect. And, uh, then we'll jump back in. Sounds beautiful. Alright. And when we left, uh, you had just moved to Mexico City as a young lad. Uh, were you high school, teenage? I was in, uh, Middle school? Middle school. I was 11 years. 11 to 12, somewhere around there. Okay. And funny, um, because I mean, like we were talking, there's, there was a lot of bullying. My accent was super thick for the city boys. Oh yeah. From being like, from there an from Escondido like, or es up in Ada in the northwest of, uh, of Mexico. Well, he literally came with a cowboy, like the ones in the north It's like Gonzalez like. And in Mexico City, we don't speak like that. Literally like a cartoon. Yeah. So every time I was in school, plus my parents, I don't know what they were thinking and not to offend any Catholic out there, but they put me in like Catholic school. So I grew up in Ensenada in a school that it was. It's kind of like a Montessori style. So they taught me how to communicate with plants and grow and everything was very purposeful. But with priests and nuns too? No, this is in Ensenada. This is their hometown. Oh, back there. And then when we moved to Mexico City, Oh, they're like, time for Catholic school. Yeah. I gotta do, no girls, all gray, like all dressed in gray. Right. No bugs. No rocks to flip over. Nothing. Nothing. I was like inside, I was like inside a jail, like literally like if they're for me, like how was that for your mental health? I horrible. It was like, it has been my worst five years of my life. I had, I was like in a reclusorio and like a. Like in jail, literally, like, we will get there like a prison because it was like, in order to get to school, they have to make you go at the end. Well, I was a nice kid. I guess I didn't say anything. I was like following my mom and my mom was a little boy. It was trusting her misery. Yeah. Day after day. Yeah. Well, it was like, you're, you're like the new kid in a, in a new prison, you know, that's how I felt. And with, uh, an accent that I will. Pinpoint me amongst everybody out there. Plus, I was the shortest of the whole fucking place. Talking about that. So, you know, everywhere. It was like. You know, for the bullies, I was, I was the target. So I also think that coming, I think when you're a kid and they move you from the countryside to the capital city, without a doubt, you're going to get bullied like the whole world. Plus I was sure just moving to Fargo, North Dakota, that I was going to be the dumbest person in town almost, you know, and just. Like I felt like a country bumpkin comparatively, and it took me a couple of years, it took me a couple of years to really realize that I'm just as smart as these fucking boners. But the first, the first few years, well, in North Dakota in general, like it's, it's Like a culture that doesn't think it can really compete with the rest of the world, almost, you know? Because you're isolated. Yeah, kind of. It's like, it's kind of that, you know? It's kind of the Guatemala of the United States. Well, there's two Dakotas. Is it the same for both of them? Um, South Dakota, well, South Dakota's got like the Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills. Ah, the Sturgis. Is that the reason why they divide them? Well, the reason that they were divided is because a bunch of people from South Dakota got all butthurt when Bismarck was chosen as the capital, so they split off and made South Dakota a separate state. No, they were supposed to be, it was supposed to be Dakota. And because of the capital? It was the Dakota Territory, and there was like a big fight about where the capital should be, and when North Dakota won with Bismarck, Then the South Dakotans were like, well, fuck you, we're not gonna do that. I'll just recreate, like, my acting. Yeah, we'll just split off, yeah. And, like, there wasn't really, like, armies or things to do, but you're like, alright, well, fuck you too, then, and so, historically, North Dakota State has beaten the tar out of South Dakota State in football, but last year, South Dakota State won the championship in the whole nation. Oh, holy shit. Um, yeah, they beat North Dakota Yeah, for, like, the level below, like, the Alabama and all the fancy colleges. Well, at least you were able to say, well, I got my ass whooped like everybody else. Well, but North Dakota won, like, 12 out of the last 15 championships. So they can have it. They can have it. But, yeah. Anyway, so I digress. Going back to that. I guess it's normal if you live from, if you come from a small place. Yeah. Come from the country. Go into the city. You know what's the worst part? Also, all those kids that they were in, in school, in Mexico is very different than here. Here you go to the system and, and to the school. Public schools. To the public schools and Mexico. You don't go to the public, you go to the private schools. No, but if private, right. If you've got the resources, nobody goes to, but you will think that the private schools are good. No, this is like the worst fucking school in the fucking world. like you're paying for really bad education. You have, you have like, yes. Like, priests telling you, it was like, just, you know. For you at least. Like, there's probably some kids that maybe somewhat thrived in that. Nobody liked the school. Okay. At an educational level, they're better. No, no, like, we all trashed it. We all trashed the school. They didn't teach us shit. The nuns were bitches. The priests were assholes. This is not, uh, this is not a Catholic school here in the United States. This is a Catholic school in Mexico. The priests are, uh, you know, We are the double standards in the Mexican culture. You guys goes all the way to the faith, to the organization, to the Catholic, like expand on that. Like, for example, uh, well, so hypocrisy is, we feel like hypocrisy is something of our culture as Mexicans and as Catholics to a point. I think. Catholic, Catholics in general. Catholics in general. Ask for forgiveness on Sunday. And like I said, exactly. Yes. So, so the culture, the culture of it, and I know probably everybody who's Catholic out there will not think the way that I think, and I'm sorry for what's Fuck them if they can't do a joke. There's no judging. We're not trying to offend anyone. This is me For me This is me going through the pool, to the pool of Catholicism for eight years of my life and getting out and being like, fuck, I'm not going back there. At least for now. All right. So I got into there. I've never been religious. Uh, and when I grew up in my hometown, and then suddenly they put me into this Catholic school. So like, you'd never even went to church hardly. Didn't know what Jesus was, all that kind of stuff. Not like that. Like my mom will be like, Uh, you don't have to go to church in order to talk to Jesus or to talk, not Jesus specifically, but to talk to a God. Yeah. Okay. But she did grow up, uh, Catholic as well. So we did got baptized and all that kind of stuff. But you did it more for, probably for the parties and the traditions. Yeah. You get your first communion because you get a party out of it. The first, the first, Yeah, yeah. All the time that, uh, that I grew up, that I was going to church, I was falling asleep every time, you know, and, and we were going three or two times a year, if at most, but, but that doesn't mean that we were not good, that we were not good people, you know? Yeah. So suddenly everything is about that. Everything is about religion. All the, all the kids that will go there have been together in the similar school system for 12 years. I haven't. So they come from, sorry, they come from the, from the tail system up already. No, they, they're veterans in there. So suddenly there's new kid, there's new rules. There's new, and you're rolling. You're like, I'm in school. And I'm trying to talk to the teacher to ask a question. And it's like, Hey, how do you say it? And then before, you know, everybody's laughing because it's super thick. And then fuck my question. Right. I'm just red faced and like, forget it. So I'm never going to ask a question again. Can I deal when I was always asking questions when you were always exploring always. So this place, this place took, like, they took my colors away. Like probably in the end I learned. Yeah, it was a benefit. Everything is a benefit. Yeah. At the end. If you, if you learn to see the angle, but you know, what was really fun about going to that school, uh, which I still have some of my best friends are from there, uh, came from that being in the place. Uh, it's. Hulu was going actually to the same school, but the girls, we were, we were literally wall fence, wall the fence away. No way before knowing each other. Yeah. Hilarious. I was going to the Catholic side of that same school, a school. And so how was that for you? Did you have a similar experience? So I, when I was going to schools in Columbia, I always went to private. I always went. To private schools. And they were usually Catholic and girls only in Columbia. But when we moved to Mexico for me, it was different because in Columbia, the majority of the schools that are not public are either for girls or for boys. And they're always religious. Those are the options that we had. Well, when I was growing up, probably nowadays, you probably have the Waldo charter school type things, Montessori schools, whatever. But back in the nineties, there was none of that. So the options were limited. So when I moved to Mexico, I actually moved to a school that was, um, Like, um, that, that education and religion does not mix, uh, like you separate that and, and our school systems in Latin America, religion goes hand by hand with education. So we don't have, there's no separation of faith and church. I mean, there is, but there's, but, but, you know, so corruption, you know, which one you're studying, but yeah. So when I went to Mexico and Mexico, there's more of the schools that have no religion in them. Yeah. And less of the ones that have religion. So my first change was from a school of only girls to a school with no religion. Uh, we had uniforms, but there were boys and girls. That was super different for me. That was no, no religion. And then I was there. I moved, we moved a lot with my family. So I moved from one school to another, they were both boys and girls. And then when I got to high school, which is preparatory, you know, when I got to high school, they put me in that school. And I was. It's uncomfortable to say the least because of the same reason. So when you get into a school and you're already 15 and they've been on a stem, like growing up from the same place, following the same rules together, and you get there the way you think. And you barely take anybody new in kind of thing. It's really difficult. It's really difficult because you have no way, first of all, you only have three years and are the last three years of school. So at that point, everybody already has a friend. Everybody's very wise and you're completely different. You're a foreigner. You have to adapt to the new thing. You're the skinny Colombian girl in this, on top of that, with braces, on top of that, they, on top of the fact that they would bully for being Colombian. My mom was. At that point, divorce and marry it again. Which was already hard for me to go into that school, like she had to have recommendation letters from friends. So they would allow me, because I was, my mom was living in sin, quote unquote, for certain religious, you know, groups from the Catholic. You could be living in sin if you're divorced and married again. If you ever marry again. So, my mom got the absolution of the first marriage because my dad did a lot of things that he shouldn't have done as a husband. So, they gave my mom An annulment. Yes, exactly. So, basically, she became a single mom again. From the Vatican. But she never remarried, so she was living in sin with my stepdad. Oh, she never did? She never did. Oh, interesting. Okay. So they continue on that at anyway. So long story daughter of the sinner. So on top of that, they, when you move into, at least that's kind of how you were perceived in this community, right? Like your mom was this. Woman whose daughter they let be in the school. It's not their better judgment because she was like a single mom and whatever. It's not like she's this wonderful person that has this beautiful ethics and all. No, none of those things. It's all the judgment side. So for example, when you walk. That's the hypocrisy that you talk about. When you walk into those schools. Even though I was an A student top of my class, when it came to moral and ethics, which is a subject in religion, I would never get more than a C. Not because of my merits, but because of my family situation. Wow. Which in our mind is corruption. And all of those things are super uncomfortable. And when you're a Let's say a strong Oh, did you want another Pacifico? No, I'm I didn't get you one. No, but you offer me the water, this is better. Okay. I think this, this is a better decision right now. Okay, that's fair. Um, but anyway, so all of those things is like, I mean, they create an opposition from within because they're pushing things on you. So it's not only that So you guys were, when you, when you did meet and become friends, my perception is that at least, Somewhat your shared discomfort with your experience in the Catholic church school system in Mexico was We both came from foreign lands into the city, into a Catholic system that we were not great at. It was a shit show. So, the funny thing is that we have five years of experience. Maybe not a shit show, but not your flavor. Yes! No, it was a shit show. I licked it and it tasted like poop to me. Oh, no, no, no. It was, it was, uh, it was difficult. Yeah. It was all my freedoms. All of them were taken away. Oh, right. Cause you were kind of free range before that. I was a free range chicken. Completely. And I, and you know, I had to start fighting people in order to, to Right. To get some status. Yeah. It was ridiculous. Which sucks. And it took me three years in order to realize Right. You're not a fighter either. Like, you love hugs a lot more than you, like, Zero fighter. I was lucky enough that I, that I went to gymnastic when I was a kid, so I was strong, but I was little. And you had a kiddo too, but I, but huh? You had Aikido too, which probably helped. And a, but I mean, little things like that. And then I was the smallest of two older brothers, so But it wasn't until I get, I gained like, uh, size. Right. Uh, and when was that for you? Uh, it was like the freshman of. Here like the same equal year. It's freshmen. It's like 19 years old. Oh freshman high school. Yeah, I was uh, okay So you were normal timing for you. Yeah, it was like literally in the summer I was like 17 by the time I had my girl. I know I was a little bit late late bloomer I had given up. I was like, I was convinced I was going to be five foot three. This is what you still have here. This is what you still look young. Partly. Yeah. No, I'm, I'm a slow. I just turned 50. Look at my beard and look at your beard. Well, I got some white hairs in here. You're only 40 or something, right? 44. But even me, uh, when I was in that school, I was what we call a years, uh, Swallower or whatever. Whatever say. Yeah. A skip year or something. Like a young like age. A baby face. Baby face. You don't need age. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. When I was in, I couldn't grow facial hair until I was like 28. I didn't like 33, 30 a long time. Really? It was basically I was 34, 33. I was able, I could really grow goatee. Yeah, but I mean, you've been fucking enjoying the color for a while. They gave me two years or three of color and fuck it. I'm like waiting for this fucking thing to grow. And then it grows and it turns white in like three fucking years, but I love it. And I love that you look beautiful. You're a handsome man. I do like the white. It does not bother me. No, I think it's fun. And you know what I like is. Like young gray haired women like that just rocked the gray when they're 34 years old or 37 and they got a young or even when they're 45 but they got a young face. I love it. I'd like, that's one of my favorite things. I think white hair is a, Oh my God, we've been celebrating, we've been celebrating my whites actually lately cause you know, and the red hair is, it's harder. Like, I'm never gonna get this contrast. I'm sure. Because I'm lighter in the base and all of those things. Right. Just like you. You probably have gray, but it's harder to see. Not in my hair, actually. Sorry. But in my beard, yeah. This is like gray. Yeah, yeah. But if you had like a black base, it would probably look so much more, yeah, for sure. Like, Juan and I have been talking, because as a, as a, As a redhead, you usually put like, uh, I don't know, color shampoos and shit like that to boost your color. I've never tint, like, I've never put, like, bleach and did something else on my voluptuous curly hair. Voluptuous. That's crazy for a Ah, it's so fucking cool. Like, nobody with a Hispanic accent, like It has hair like yours, like Irish people have hair like yours, basically. The weird camel looking girl that has hair. Every time we were in Colombia, because I don't know how people perceive me, like, they look at me and they're like You're just another Mexican dude, really. But when in Colombia, I'm not a Mexican dude. Because I look, I look more Spanish in Colombia. You do, yeah, well, especially if you're with this bright red haired gal. And then, for example, he also has some You look very Spanish, actually. I mean, I would say that's, yeah, it's more like, if I was gonna guess your heritage, it would be that Spanish, no Spanish, like not Hispanic, Spanish, like he's kind of classic. He's like a, like a What do they call that the, uh, like the picture in the, in the, in the dictionary, a specimen. He's like a specimen of a Spanish man. If you look the word Spanish man in the dictionary, a picture of Juan would come up. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Even though he's, you know, a half British. Read Mexican, Spanish, uh, you know, with the 23 and me, and that's actually kind of cool. I have like a bunch of friends somehow. And then my dad, he does have like the, and, uh, Native American, I have like 7 percent Native American. Okay. See in him. Like, I don't know. That's the indigenous people. I got the eagle nose. Yes. That's part of the mix. Yeah, the mix. A mestizo. A mestizo, that's what you meant. From my dad's side, they came from, uh, they came from Europe, and then they came to America, and they, it was like a whole fucking shit show. They all got married and remarried. Oh, interesting. So the whole line just got lost. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know their name, uh, uh, historically here, but, uh, where, when parents couldn't afford their kids, the government will take them away. Oh, like an orphanage kind of situation, foster care, kind of, and then they will foster it to families that they could take care of. So my, my dad's side of the family just kind of went through a lot of that. So it's hard to trace back, but, uh, part of it got mixed with, also with, uh, Native Americans. But on your mom's side is a hundred percent Spanish. And on my mom's side is like Spanish. I mean you can see the line, the line of the three brothers that came from Spain. They came from, they came from novelty where there's a, like a, like a shield with the palazuelos, which is my mother's maiden name. So it was almost royalty, not royalty, but you were definitely a significant family. It's like noble, like you have, yeah, you have like the papers. What is it called? Like the, the titles. Yeah, there was like a town with the flag and then, you know, I can, I can see them like kind of going in the horses with the big sticks. What is the, what is the name of the, like, for example, the, the, the icon in a flag, what is the name of that? It's, it's. Um, so like the coat of arms, like, yeah, like the coat of arms, coat of arms. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. When you came from your family had its own, it has like, like its own kind of town, like title, whatever, back in, I don't even know. I don't know a lot of the story on that end, but, uh, it's very clear on your mom's end, on your dad's end. It's a shh. And my dad, it's a mud house. Yeah. Yeah. It's completely, there's like. Cuban and this and that. And yeah, so half of my side is completely a mud. My, uh, like when I first moved to Fort Collins, which would have been what? Like 99, um, the internet was new, right? Like you guys probably remember that a little bit, like when I was coming in, it took like three minutes to watch a porno, right? To download it, it's like, you're almost there. That three minutes, I never actually watched any pornos until more recently. Um, but anyway, so, uh, there was this guy from, um, Denmark, I guess, uh, that, so we're one eighth, uh, Dutch. Dutch? Not Dutch. Not Danish. Netherlands. What's the Netherlands? Let's call it people from the Netherlands. Yeah, people from the Netherlands. Swensen. My great grandmother was a Swensen. Oh, that's how you call it? Um, and, so anyway, he had this genealogy. Going back all the way to like 1591. Yes. And it was already on the internet back in like 1999. Holy shit. Have you looked at it lately? No, I haven't. I haven't like tried to look for it again. Wow. But he had like my, my sister's daughter. On the genealogy, like within three, like within three months after she was born, she was born and they had me and my dad and all this thing. And, and, and so we were like, there was this dude, like 1561, I think it was when this dude like was born and it had like every descendant of him. Like, and that was all from, from his town in Europe, in Netherlands. Like everybody that descended from this guy and it was like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people since 1561. And that was like, we're one eighth Netherlands. Was it Danish? Was it Dutch? I don't even know what they are. I think they've been changing all the time. So here's the thing in, in Spanish, it gets confusing for us because Dutch, like Dutchland or Dutch, we call it was Holland. Well, Denmark is different. Holland. Maybe they're Holland. I think Holland doesn't exist anymore. I think it's the Netherlands. I think it's one of those. Maybe it is. I don't even know. I think it might be Holland. I think it might be that, that, that place with the windmills and shit. Isn't it kind of like in the UK? I don't even know. A couple of them, they call themselves one thing and then a couple of other ones. I remember when I was a kid back in the nineties and the. FIFA World Cup would play. Holland would be wearing orange and they were so good. Orlando, but I don't think Holland as a country exists anymore. I think now the Netherlands, there is like a, a, a group of countries that used to be different ones. I think we all need to take some geography on Wikipedia. Although I don't even know if I trust Wikipedia telling me what actually happened. Anyway, going back home. So that was one of my first really experienced. Yeah. I'm one eighth that. And, um, one eighth. Greek immigrant, adoptee through Lutheran social services, like my, my grandma's dad was a Dimitri and, and was adopted. He was like, like, Greece was, was adopted. A shit show, apparently, at some point in time. I think at some point, they, they had He got, like, adopted as a refugee. I think they had, like, a war going on, and they were, had a lot of kids that had to be pushed. And some people have said that he's, like, more, like, Lithuanian or something. The, the, the demetri is not necessarily Greek. But my dad has black hair and blue eyes, which is really pretty unusual for humans. Black hair and blue eyes? Black hair, blue eyes. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that combination. Yeah. It's like Liv Tyler. And my mom has blonde hair, green eyes. Which is also a very unusual combination, and we're all brown hair, blue green eyes, which is super boring. Which is super boring. Everybody's got that. Yeah, all of us. All four of us. So none of you have the black hair, like the contrast? No, no. Damn. Yeah. Maybe the kids, don't they skip a generation, don't they say? Maybe. Kurt, I was gonna tell you, sorry, now that you're mentioning the thing with Greek, I think, uh, if I'm not mistaken, what was the name of the husband of Queen Elizabeth, um? In England? Yes, yes, yes. Oh, King, um, Philip? Philip. Philip was actually, he was Greece. Oh, is that right? Like, he was Greek from, but he was also Because the Greeks are the, almost the only people that have black hair, blue eyes. And I think he was kind of that, from that conflict or something that we were saying. I think part of their kids had to be blah, blah, blah, and they had to give up nationality. Because Italians have a little bit of that too. Maybe a little bit, yeah, for sure. There's also Italian girls that are like, more black hair. But they usually have brown eyes. They usually have more brown eyes. Usually the black hair comes with brown eyes in that setting. I don't know where the black hair blue eyes come from, honestly. I don't know. It's probably from Istanbul, Constantinople. Constantinople? Anyway, um, so, I feel like we've gone long already, so. Oh, yeah. Uh, we're gonna head into the final episode. We always talk about faith family and politics. We've already jumped into faith a little bit But like where have you guys come? I know kind of where you've come from is like this Catholic school wasn't that great But like where have you gone to like you're you're full of love and energy and spirituality and shamanism and mushrooms Yeah, I guess It's one of us has its own, uh, upbringing and that aspect and philosophy of life, uh, that kind of, we share a big portion of it. And I guess that's allows us to be, and it allows you to also co exist, not be exist the same. Yeah. I mean, I think differences. Yeah. Think about that. We spend all the time together. We're not like a typical married couple that they see three hours at night. Yeah. I was thinking to myself earlier, like. When you're annoyed with him, or vice versa, and you're doing an event At that time, you need to be very professional. I'm sure it's happened. Our marriage carries everywhere that we go. So yeah, but I think, so the good thing about, it makes you stronger too. And the good thing about us Kurt is that before we were partners in business, I mean, sorry, partners in life, we were actually partners in business without being in a relationship. we bumped heads. But you were so sweet on her the whole time. No, no, no, no, no. No? No, no. Oh, OK. I was sweeter than the guys he was dating. Yes. Yes, definitely yes. But work related, we had our fights because he was on a part of the team that would have to push for things, and on my side, I would be receiving the pressure. Right. So we would be having this. Yeah, he's asking you for more. You're like, I'm giving you all I got. They're asking me for more. I'm asking for more. Exactly. So I was, I was, I was always trying. Or even during your work life with the investors and things like that. Yeah, of course. I was constantly, so they had like a house on the beach where we'll use it to bring the investors, sell the whole place, da da da. was part of the big, the big chunk of managing it. So I will always have to come and remind that this was not a vacation. You're like, your cucumbers were a little soggy last time, Juli. Dude, I would not take that professionally by any means. I would take it personally all the way, all the way. Oh yeah. No, no, no. It was horrible. Part of, part of this, the whole relationship that we've had before and how we've been growing together, it has forced us to, to just kind getting my corny side to throw roots beyond. the usual relationship roots that most people know. Okay. Because we, we, If I'm thinking it, Juli is already thinking it. If he's thinking it, I already know what he's fucking thinking. It sucks. Well, it's clear that you're way smarter than he is. Yeah, of course. Clearly, obviously. Sorry, I'm just playing. Until we get to the point of, uh, Here, imagine this. Right, actually make this happen. Uh, not in the kitchen. Not in the kitchen, exactly. Part of the book, you'll be surprised how much I cook for her. I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised. You'll be surprised how much he cooks in general. It's so funny how people think that because I went to culinary school, I'm the one that leads the events. No people Juan cooks for you. 85 percent of the meals that we make because I'm more on the prep side. So I chop and do a lot of sauces, but Juan is the guy that is your design. It's your plan, exactly. But he's the one that is. He's flipping the chicken. He's your labor. He's your, he's your pack mule. He's the guy that is giving the flavor to the meals a lot of the time. But I mean, a lot of this. And in the house, I, I cook sandwiches and cereal bowls. He makes everything else. I literally don't do anything else. It's fun. It's fun. You have lots of leftovers. We do. I warm leftovers really well. Which I put, which I put together, otherwise we get bread for dinner on the table. Sandwiches. And sandwiches. And sandwiches. And sandwiches. And sandwiches. And sandwiches. Like, where, where have you landed in a faith? Ah, okay. I'm sorry. So all this was taking us that, um, we're, we're kind of, we're in a point where if you kind of, uh, jump into different aspects of life in general, um, let's say if you hold a cube and you only see it in one angle, You think it's a flat wall. Sure. As soon as you start twisting that flat wall, or you look into different angles, you can see the form of the reality of what you're looking at, right? I think that's fair. So, if you can do that in literally everything in nature, and you can actually, like, produce For what I call in myself or what I see. A more holistic. A more holistic or a more reality of reality. So if you can only see everything through one lens, you're only going to see that lens forever. But if you get out and you see different angles, you're so. Yeah, if you only come at it from a Catholic school kid's perspective. Or a scientific point of view as well. Or even only scientific. Of course. Yes. It's very limited. It's very limited. So I've, I've, I've, I've. I've been Or whatever. Exactly. So I've been lucky enough that I was raised kind of like in a Catholic environment, but not on a land. So free, watching nature a lot. So mimicking nature was very important and understanding that. Animals, contact, all that. Empathy. Crazy empathy with, with nature. And then, uh, Sorry about my raccoon killing stories, but that is a rhythm. No, no, it's so good. There's plenty of them. And then, uh, so, so, and then we had one of my best friends, her mom was a Christian and she, And then the house that we had, she used to have a Christian, not a Catholic. Yeah. Christian. So she will, uh, she will have like her Christian things that they're like singing and all that. And then my other best friend, he's Jew. Uh, so, and then Jewish, I think, or Jewish. Sorry. If I, uh, you know, you step on an X. Just kidding. I hope you're listening. I hope you're listening. And I love you. I give him shit like they give me shit. I, there's no boundaries on the cultural aspect. If you look for a picture of, of a Jewish person in the dictionary, Uri would be in the dictionary. Like this guy. What's up Uri? But yeah, Hey Uri, love you man, love you man. I hope you listen. Oh yeah, he will. Uh, but, uh, so I grew up in all these environments. And I was never forced to be one of them. My dad's very spiritual in that aspect. Uh, and, and, and I was able to just kind of. Start taking all that in and just taking and I grew up and I tried Catholicism for eight years because I was kind of forced But still I was Yeah, I kid I still wanted to try yeah, because kindness kindness has always been an important part part of my life Do you know that's one of our values by the way? Huh local think tank. We have six values Be smart, be kind, be true, be local, be the change, be you. That's a beautiful. It's beautiful and it comes down to that. So honestly, it's spiritualism, all so it's just been all this thing. So once once you have all those cards in the table, you start trying to figure it out. What's what's a common denominator amongst all of them? Yeah. And that must be the true thing. And if it's something that it's in you naturally, where you're, you're naturally kind, you're naturally this, uh, then it becomes easier for me to try to be that person. Where I deviate from a lot of Christians and I've apologized for breaking in, but I think God can, like, if there's somebody that doesn't say Jesus is Lord, and this is my person. Person or whatever, but they act with kindness and generosity. Like I think God's the decider. Like it's not whatever we read about. It's not for me. It's not who you follow, but there is a, there is a higher power than the decider you believe in. And like a later after life, you believe in probably universal connections in some capacity, somebody other than me or We are not, we are not. The Pope is the decider. The Pope's definitely not the decider. He's kind of a Pope's bag, actually, your current Pope is a total douche, douche canoe, sorry. For those Catholics that are really pissed off, like, I'll take all the fire for you guys, all that, you don't have to take it. Believe it or not, we've had conversations, we've had the opportunity to be sitting down with, people that are very Catholic and us not being very Catholic and exposing the things that we believe are wrong with the organization. Not the people. Not the bullshit that nobody talks about. There's amazing Catholics. I've met so many beautiful Catholics. Including members of my family. Like I, the values within the religion. While they teach you how to be as a person, they're beautiful, they're, they're worth absorbing, totally, totally, but if you, but if you justify the shitty things that you do in order to blah, blah, blah, atrocities, monstrosities have been made in the name of, so that's where we part ways, yeah, that's where I don't, I don't, I don't support it because Because of what they've done back and forward, it hasn't, it hasn't been one time. It's a repetitive thing. And I think instead of Uh, kick, uh, kicking the can forward. I think it's time for like you address the root cause. Yeah. The reality of it. No, but, but the situation. But there's, there's things, uh, outside of our, outside of our control in that aspect. I mean, humans, well, there's so much wealth. Humans, of course, humans. Let's start, let's start with that. I, I believe that has got like, and, and they're like. Oh, poverty right over so poor. And you're like, and you're like, are you, we don't even know. We've like a thousand unlimited price value items that we could sell. Imagine the wealth that they, they could solve the world. Poverty. Just hunger. Kindo. I don't think, well, you can't solve, mean what? I mean, can't, could solve it. But they could do a lot. Totally. I don't think No, no. It's, it's, I, yeah, you can. I don't think you can ever. But who should have that shit instead? No, of course, of course. You give it to someone else and they're gonna do, they're gonna put some in their pockets. Elon Musk put a special museum together and charge 50 bucks a person. He's becoming the biggest disappointment in the world. I'm grateful for his technology, but his, his whole, whatever he's doing is like, it's corrupting. That's where I was trying to go. So humans, humans can only handle so much power corrupts people. Yeah. Well, the church and religion, there's a reason why there's only, that's why I'm a libertarian. That's why we are government. We are basically there in the same place. Like if you, it's hard to choose one or the other. Always. I feel like we're always at the center of the situation. Whatever you ask. We choose to stay more at the center is less conflictive to say, I think, I think we have, like for us, we'd love to concentrate in what we have in common. And not so much into our ideologies. Our ideologies has gotten into trouble even in our business. Oh dude. So Like, you've probably seen me in that space too. Like, it's, um It's hard. Yeah. And you sacrifice Especially in today's crazy ass world. Yes. Because Or you just don't talk about it, but then They do not a real person either. Yeah. And then at the end too, for example, when it comes to politics, the complicated thing about politics is that we choose to stay at the center as much as we can, but then eventually, like Juan always says, you need to pick a side too. Yeah. If a war comes to your door, you need to choose. No. And at the end of making a decision too, you are picking a side. You need to give that vote to someone. You cannot say they are center because you're doing shit because you're neither helping nor, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Like, if you're just, if you just live in, we come from, um, societies that are being more than more than the United States. Yeah, in life, sure. That has lived more, not necessarily like your experience in Columbia. Like that was exactly what, but in us, in us countries, but as countries, they're older. So what history is older than here, Europeans came eradicated, created new things in our countries. Uh, things are, are a little bit more advanced when it comes to, to all that aspect of cultural social, like the whole, the whole idea of the United States, social struggle much until like the whole this, this black freedom thing in the fifties and whatever, but this thing that we're struggling all of us right now with the division, with people in power, trying to divide and control. Through media and whatever sides, right? That's like, it's orange man bad or it's, I gotta say America, United States. That's how the world is. Has been that way for a while. But the United States has been in a bubble. That is what we fight in our countries every fucking election. That, what you're fighting right now. Somebody trying to be Yeah, it's always somebody I saw some mayor in Mexico got his head cut off Of course, all that stuff. Like five days into his term because they go into a position of the, of the guy with the bigger fish. So that's what, that's what we see happening here. There's one guy who wants to be an authoritarian, and then the other one, the other half of the country, he against Trump. So here's the thing. Yes. Yeah, of course we see the red flags because you guys haven't lived situations that, so we're shifting the politics just for everybody's, uh, we're definitely not Trump supporters by any means. Okay. I, I, for me, like I said, I judge by the kindness. So why do you support. Oh, so because she's kind is why you like Kamala? No, I think at this point I'm supporting, uh, I guess the lesser of two evils. Yeah, yeah. Because I, one of them wants to build a new thing. The other one wants to continue what we have built. That's how I see it. Okay. I like what, what the United States has. I, that's why part of why I love here, it's the camaraderie. I love that. We can all speak our mind. I love the fact that in the United States, people really go to the root of the problem and fix it instead of avoiding it because you're afraid of telling your boss that it's wrong. I like that mentality is what keeps this country making it fucking beautiful. But if we get out into the yes man mentality, we're going to go down the shed like everybody else. So you think that's why Trump is surrounded by his yes men? I, I, that's, that's what I perceive. Okay, I'm never gonna know necessarily but that's what I perceive for what I see in social media and everything. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, if I look if I that's what I perceive to what if I look into the media if I disagree I just don't think that like when he goes up and talk I just don't think that we live in a country that is Like a shithole. I just don't think that I think we live in a country that is beautiful and he says that too much Maybe he speaks from a reality that he lives that he lives but what he speaks We do not see we do not see the world like he sees it He's trying to divide to separate to fear The things that the bite us and make us different instead of the things that I don't, I don't see the love speak of love, the speak of union, the speak of, uh, intelligent of hope. So can I ask a question about Kamala's campaign? I'm I'm I'm skeptical, I'll say, and I'm not a Trump fan, I haven't, I voted for Kanye last time and I voted for Gary Johnson in 2016, so. Kanye? I think Kanye West. Oh yeah, Kanye West, Kanye West last time. Yeah, I did the Gary Johnson. Yeah, yeah. And I did a Pete Buttigieg when they were Fair. Um, and so I'm not a fan, but I'm also not a fan of the fact that Like they kinda ran this dementia dude, when they knew he was dementia dude, got him the primary and then swapped him out without a vote. Like that whole thing is not democratic and that just like tweaks me out a little bit. Like when people talk about deep state and government control and like, I don't know who Kamala's puppet masters are, but I know she has lots of them, probably. I think they all do, probably, no? Well maybe, I don't know, I don't feel like Trump has puppet masters, otherwise they would have tied him down a little more. Ah, I just, for me it's hard to, to, to follow somebody that when he gets up on stage says that you have to inject yourself with bleach. In order to get Covid off, I just, I think there should be some sort of a a point that Well, but I wanna go back to the question that I asked, like that wasn't concerning to you guys having been through a bunch of corruption. Yeah. I wish elections, I agree that I wish things like that there was. They didn't even at least have a straw poll at the, at the convention to nominate. They just like, okay, Joe's out, Kamala's in, we've all agreed, but nobody voted. Nobody, no one person voted for Kamala Harris to be the presidential nominee. It was like a finger, basically. Some big finger, like just put her in there. And, like, and they haven't even taken Joe out of the presidency because he's clearly incompetent to be the president, probably. If he wasn't, then he wouldn't be competent to not run, and so it's like, which one? I definitely think that it's It's, I just, I think answering that question, it, it just, it takes you to a corner as well. I think the problem that we have to address for me is not necessarily more cultural. It's it's yeah. It's like, it's like we cannot let our leaders be so old when they get there. I am sorry to say it, but that's be what? So old. Oh, like once you're past 65 or 70, you should not be allowed to be president. Like, Biden could have had, well, but then they shouldn't have run Biden. I agree. I agree on that. But I agree. I agree. But, but the other options were worst. Like, the thing is that I feel, why do we have such shitty fucking candidates for our elections? I feel like in the past, only powerful, only power, power, hunger people want to be in those positions. In the past two elections, there really hasn't been. Like, for me, I can't vote. Let's put it out there. I can't vote. I, I, I'm a, I'm a resident, so I'm not a, a citizen, so Juan is the one that speaks for the both of us in the house. But, uh, You can probably vote if you want to, just, uh, just register, you'll be fine. It's just because it's not legal. There's a lot of information that is hard even for me to understand when it comes to the, like, I see the ballots and one is like researching shit because there's a lot of I want to make sure that there's kind people out there that are thoughtful. So here's the thing. What I, what I feel is like in the past 10 years that we've been here that you guys have had two presidential elections, I feel like there hasn't been good options. No. So what you do is that you end up voting for the lesser of both evils. That's why I voted for Kanye. Like Kanye was the biggest protest vote. Like it's, I would love to have a woman president in our country. I think that's cool. But I didn't want it to be Hillary Clinton. I was gonna say. I didn't want it to be Hillary fucking Clinton. We didn't either. Like fuck that. And I don't want it to be Kamala either, honestly. I want somebody that girls would look up to. What would be your, what would be your candidate? Yeah, what would be like your ideal candidate? For a female? Oh, Tulsi Gabbard. I would have voted for Tulsi Gabbard as president, for sure. She was the Democratic, uh Oh, she was the lady with the, um Yeah, from Hawaii. Okay. Uh, military service, but, like, she criticized Hillary and she got destroyed politically back in 2016. Yeah. And she's been, now she's on team Trump because she's scared of team Biden Harris. And she's kind of right, because they do have, they're the only ones limiting speech. They're the only ones talking about limiting speech. They are? Oh yeah. See, I, this is why I'm talking about politics, the thing is that it also, so it, the climate and the politics changes every freaking day too. It's hot. So if you're not there every day. You don't know what's happening. Like, I didn't even know about that. It's so papa that you have to keep up with. Yeah, it's tiring. You're better off. You're better off, huh? It's exhausting. Well, I, I, yeah. I mean, I have, yeah, I do my research. I vote for what I think the overall, I don't vote for the party or I don't vote for anything. I vote to know that, uh, whoever's gonna be in the, in the leadership or the movement or, uh, or the people around. Yeah, that person. Or you should have their website kind of, I just wanna make sure. Read about it, whatever. I just wanna make sure that they are. Make kindness prevail, just good people. That's us. Like people that think about that are not egocentric or not. I don't know, like, because they're all like, well, that's crazy. They're all egocentric. I agree. He's a narcissist, egomaniac for sure. No, I know. And that's very, and it's very dangerous. Well, for me and or like, that's part of my trust. I'm like, he wants to try to do a good job so that he can think of himself as the best president ever. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. No, no, no. I think, I think he really wants to be the best president ever. I think this is a beauty and, and, and, and the edge source of politics, you know, it's uh, talking about politics, it's like, um, passing each other a knife that is very sharp. A double edge or whatever, you know, it's, it's something that you, whatever, I believe that whatever it is that you want to, that you believe that you have created your own bubble of reality, uh, you want to try to defend it, or you want to try to make sure that it's the right thing right now with social media and all this kind of stuff, you, you see only very, and I love that analogy and, and like, you don't need to use language like wetbacks. You can use anything. Anything like that. Like you can just be very gentle and intentional with the way that you communicate. So if, let's say if Trump was more gentle, maybe it would be more attractive for me. So if I see Trump getting up and he's like, uh, all the rape, all the Mexicans are rapists, how do you think I feel? I feel threatened. They're eating the dogs. They're eating the cats. Those are the Haitians. Not the Mexicans. They don't eat cats and dogs. I've seen so many like little, little songs coming out. That's so funny. It's hilarious. But it's not funny for them. No, you're right. And it's not funny for Haitians. And it doesn't, it affects business, whatever. Right. But where I'm going If you're a Haitian grocery store owner in Ohio, you're like, well dude, you're not making my life any easier. Like, Kurt, when, when he was in his campaign back in 2015 and he was saying all this awful things about the Mexicans and the immigrants and how they come and they steal our jobs and blah, blah, blah. And I mean, this went on throughout his presidential term, right? So for example, us, let's, let's say. Us as a company, 10 years later, we are immigrants without a doubt because we came to America during Trump's presidency, right? We came when he was running the campaign. So we established ourselves, we created a company that not only gives us a job, but gives American kids jobs to perform. We came here both with education, with college degrees. I'm neither a rapist or I'm here to steal your job. And we're actually providing. So, but the fact is that he's putting us, he's putting us in a bubble, all of us, and there's tears within immigration. And I understand what he complained about it too, because there's a lot of the shit that he did say that is true. Like what I'm saying is, for example, has Venezuela been emptying their prisons into America through the Empty border, you know, they've gone to Colombia and everywhere around. It's not only America But there's there's spreading everywhere because our country. Yeah, so you can't take it personally, right? You're right. That's an interesting notion I mean Mexicans are yeah, Mexico has a lot of Venezuelans and everywhere not that they're crossing here. They're staying there Just gotta get the hell out of Venezuela. It's just again If you were there you probably be doing the same thing that they are. Oh totally You know, and some of them come out of their countries looking for trouble, but some of them are picking up an uber when they're lawyers in Venezuela and driving for eight hours because what they're here for is an opportunity to do better than what they're here for. Start a new page. Well, and both of you guys had like, those new pages in your life. But that's the fucking beauty of it. So many times for two. Like, we've had it a couple of times. But that is the beauty of it. That's what feeds the people. There is value to that. The beauty of the value of opportunity, that is what, like, if you're Hungry people make strong countries. Of course! You know, ultimately. Every country is going down in, uh, population. Not hungry, but like No, no, no. Energetic. Of course, hungry for life. For life. Hungry for life. For family, for A lot of countries are going down in population, no? Right, right. People are out there. We're never going to have this problem because of immigration. Yeah. You know, so there's, there's so much goodness. Take the best and the brightest too. Like you guys are kind of the best and the brightest. Well, I don't know that, but I would like to think that we have. or improve the community in Fort Collins, a little, like, even if it's a little bit, we would like to think that we have done better than we have not taken, we have actually given to our community. So, so for me, so I had a hard time seeing a guy telling me that I'm a rapist. If he would, if that whole movement will be more kind, I think I would be more attracted because I am more, I don't like a lot of government either, but I, but I do enjoy the fact that Just his kind of anger, uh, sentiment just doesn't play well with you. Because, because I see, I have seen people hurt by that. Yeah, yeah. In our country. Well, maybe even you guys, right? Honestly, like, even like the, if there is like an increase in anti Spanish speaking people in America over the last few years, 18 months, which there well could be because of all the narrative around it like yes He's at least responsible and you guys also would probably say, you know, you know, I've million Non educated people a year from desperate situations doesn't necessarily makes the country stronger. But you know what, but this is not going to be, we can agree on that. Yeah. Yeah. But this is not, this is not going to be the character of a person or another, this is not about Kamala or, or this is not the blue and the red, or the, I think this is about, uh, the essence of, of the, of the American culture of the, of the United States culture. Kind of the welcomingness of, and that's where Fort Collins is great. Yeah. I think everybody, every, you're, you should be entitled, you should be entitled to be yourself, but the moment. You get aggressive to your neighbor, that's where I put the line in me in Mexico. We have like a phrase that says the moment that like your rights begin, mine end because that line, like I can, I can speak my mind to the point that I'm not offending you. The moment that I start offending you, that's where it ends. I have no need to transpass to be violent to you because you have a different faith. Yeah. We're going to be on the fence into violence. The thing is that in a country, especially that the thing is that, uh, In a country like the United States, if we think about that and a little bit on a, on a metaphysical world, let's say, uh, where, I mean, I'm seeing a table here and it's all like little triangles and there's a center and all the triangles you can see all, all they're all different, little skinny pieces of cheesecake. Exactly. So in the United States, That's about how many different opinions there are. Exactly. In a country like ours, you only have four pieces. Right, right. So when you have so much constraint on what you can or cannot say. Well, you have to hold it more loosely, I think. But also anger builds because you can't, everybody's walking in eggshells here. Oh, you say he. Uh, you can't say black. You can't say this. You can't say that there's so much, you couldn't say people of color, but you can't say colored people. There's so much. Everybody takes it personal. Like it's so crazy talking about that. For example, in specific, it's like, for example, in Colombia, we call our African Americans in Colombia. They're negros. Okay. We call them negros as I am white, but it is what it is, but if we say, if I dare to say someone as a black or African American that he's negro or black, you know, like the word that I don't want to use, obviously, that will be the biggest offense in Colombia. I'm just saying it for the world. That is just the word you're, you're black and white. I think, I mean, I hope, I hope, but I got a lot of friends who are so different than I am in Colombia. color shapes and forms and whatever. And when you have a tight circle, I think you don't give a shit. How, how you, how you handle amongst yourself. And if we could find that love and, and, and, and, and funniness and where we make jokes out of ourselves, instead of taking it so personal, I think we're going to have more fun. Do you think that's good in terms of like a nationalistic style? Like one of the things that I appreciate about Christianity in general, and like You'll read a lot of terrible things about Christians being racist and whatever, but mostly the real Christians are farthest from it. You know, they don't care. They're parts of the same body and they have the same kind of faith and unity within that. Um, like, do you think that same kind of notion could be useful for America? Like is there a, is there a value in the nationalistic kind of element of, I'm not going to try to coax you toward Trump, but like America first, like the, the notion that America is, or should it be more part of the world? The way that I see, the way that I see it is, Should countries in general be more nationalistic maybe is a better question. I would like more, I like more where we were going with globalization. I think, I think, I think I feel better about a global You trust the United Nations to run a good ship better. The same way anybody will trust any organization to run it. Like, I mean, you know, Catholics, church. Right, well that's my concern is that high concentrations of power, Create high concentrations of corruption and that if we have a global government that'll that'll be the worst of the worst I don't think you have to have a global war global government like Uh, per se, no? Like, it's always, it's like here, it's separated by states. That's what I was saying, well, with the, nationalism can be in a global community. Like, they can each be working for their own interests, but with nobody having too much power. It's just, that's exactly where I was going. I feel like there's, I mean, like everything in life, there's a positive side to it. And there can be a really negative side to it. I think the negative side of nationalism or whatever can be fascism. Sure. Because it's like the extreme. Right. So that is horrible. We've seen what happens with that. Agreed. Well, and, and, and even China's current brand of communism is kind of fascism. Yeah. Horrible too. Very much fascism. I mean, you know. When Hong Kong. I was gonna say. When Hong Kong turned into. When Hong Kong started from that. It was a fucking slaughter. Fuck yeah. But, I mean, if you, if you create. Pride in national, like, uh, belonging to your country, to your roots, to your people, to everything. With anger? No, no. Exactly. That's my point. Without anger. Not white Christian nationalism. I'm talking about Americanism. Just love. Like, love for Americans ism. Exactly. It's beautiful. There's nothing bad about pushing Because that's what I have. Pushing your companies first. Nothing bad about that. Why wouldn't you? I mean, Colombians have been doing that for many years, right? Colombians, why wouldn't you like we would not we would not take the american product before we would take the colombian toy 30 years ago It wasn't I so I cannot speak for what colombians are doing right now because I haven't lived in colombia in many years But I can tell you that We had our love for our things much bigger, much clearer. If the American product is, Coca Cola is there, but the Colombian soda is right there. We would grab the Colombiana before we would grab the Coca Cola. Because somebody from Colombia got a paycheck because of making that. And it gives jobs to our people. Right. But also, the products that they make are really good. And honestly, there should be pride around that. There's pride. They have, they have pride on their, on their creations. Yeah. That's a beautiful thing. And because of the pride of the creation, the product is good. And you want to have it better than a product that maybe the builders don't give a shit. Why would you buy? It's not only, it's not only that. It's not only that because of a cultural aspect, uh, of, of whether it's a superiority or whatever, no, no, it's because I think it's because of the product. My Turkish exchange student said, uh, I am not rich enough to buy, uh, cheap shoes or cheap clothes. I can't remember what the price was. Exactly, like clothes that last for six months and then you get holes. Right, or clothes that last for 20 years. That, that's another thing. Exactly. Cause so, I'm like. I feel like if you think about nationalism and you're thinking about investing in those characters, there's definitely a positive side to it because the country and the nation would be better if we support our products, our people, our minds, you know, our entrepreneurs, instead of looking outside to go fish and see what's out there. But the reality is that the United States is what? A representation of what? Here, the United States, it's of every culture. That's, that's a, that's a complicated thing here. So that's, that's a melting pot superpower as well. And so we have to, you have, in my argument of embrace America ism. It's like, we have to embrace it without abusing our power. Like that's one of the challenging things. Like. Even, like, you see my interaction with Alma, like, um, we have a good relationship, right? Like, and, and it's built on respect and trust and all these things. And like, I'm her paycheck provider. Of course. So one of my most important things is not to abuse the power that I wield by incidents of our Of course. Yes, of the situation that we do have. And America is like that, too. Like, to not abuse the power of the situation of being America, being half the world's GDP almost, or a third. Well, that, that, if, if, if we can all, if, if that's the case, then, you know, it's, it's a very honorable way of living. If you If you can do it. If you can resist the temptation for war. Exactly. And I can tell you that And for many other things. Well, yeah, but it's like, for me it's like, uh, let's say the United States is a pond and then you have a little stream, uh, and then you know, the pond's been there for a little bit longer. And then you have the stream, which is all the people that are coming all the time here. Yeah, yeah. Immigration and whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this pond is here, but there's why the pond stays fresh. There's, there's always, but there's always, there's always resistance of the pond when the stream gets in. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's all, this is so fucking natural. We just. Uh, we just don't stop and think enough, I think, uh, to, to understand that the way that the United States reacts and moves and everything, it's so, so typical and natural of uniting so many different, uh, kinds of cultures and mentalities. You guys are trying something different. It's a hard quilt. Oh, it's a beautiful. It's done wonderful. It's beautiful. And I hope it lasts for a long time because it has better all their countries. And you know, I was gonna say, I was gonna say that Kurt and Juan and I talk about it. And I mean, I'm I'm a ruler for all three countries, but I, we do agree on the fact that we miss, even though it was intrusive and it could be intrusive at some points, at the end, I'm sorry, at the end, it was also helpful. The United States meddling in conflicts of countries that cannot defend themselves, your kind of support, what you guys used to give to those countries would help those countries. Like for example, let's put Now that we're talking about Venezuela, if United States was what it was 15, 20 years ago, Maduro would not be in Venezuela causing the trouble that he is right now. If we didn't have the Haiti would not be in the shit that he just got voted out. Maduro got voted out handily, voted out, and then he dismissed completely the election process and kept himself his fucking ass. But nobody's doing anything. I had to run away. Whose fault is that? Um, it's not Biden's or Kamala's fault at all. I have no idea. I wouldn't know. I don't know. This thing goes before. Maduro? This is fault of the people who voted for him. You're right. I mean, it's Well, but No, here's the thing. Maduro is not the fault of the people because he was never voted by the people. He was installed by Chavez. That's so true. Right. So Maduro has never been elected by the Venezuelan. And he was voted out just recently. And he was voted out twice. Twice now. He put So, in the last elections before this one, he put in jail his opposition, the candidate, for four years. He ran away. So, he has done this already twice. And before that was Chavez. And I think Chavez was elected by the people the first term. And after that, he, he elected himself. Well, you can, you can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out. Exactly. So it's, I mean, it's super delicate, right? And we missed that intervention. But then, then we get, let's say we talk about socialism and, and, and a perspective that I seen that it might be a little bit, I'm very drawn to graphics. So I'm looking at your computer and going, uh, um, um, I guess so like, for example, uh, I've heard this thing here, and this is from an outsider, that everybody's so afraid to go into socialism. Yeah. But, I don't know the ciphers, and I'm probably completely wrong in this thing, but if I'm not, anybody can check it out there, whatever. Uh, how many of those people who don't want to be in socialism depend on the government to live? How many people of the percentage of people that don't want to be in socialism depend on the well everybody no, no, no I'm talking about because we get our roads from there and Just in general how many people are a benefactors of social programs that are also for example You go and you collect your stamps for your sure sure and and you don't want to be in a socialist Society, but you still are well very few Yeah, you'd be surprised. Okay Because it's easy to buy those votes that way because, you know, I can either shut off my free money or I can keep it going. It's the, it's the way that it works a little bit, but we can talk about that more later. Um, I want to go into family. Okay. Um, And I think we'll just do it kind of rapidly. I gotta pee, but I can probably wait 15 minutes, I think. Are your bladders okay? Yes, yes. So far, yes. So, um, you guys mentioned that you, you don't have any children. Is that correct? No. No kids. We only have, uh, four legged kids and two legged chickens. But you do have an exchange student. Uh, with you for the first time, uh, we have family in town, which is basically, yes, it's kind of, so our niece is living with us. So she's between living with us and living with Juan's brother. So Juan has a brother here with his wife and his two kids. Okay. So we have family in town and since they became a part of Colorado like five years ago, our family situation changed a lot. Oh wow. So you're not just like. Because now it's not just the two of us. Oh, wow. I didn't really realize the extent of that. Now we, we don't have kids, but we have our nephews and nieces. We have family around all the time. Yes. And that definitely changed our situation. Thank you, Roberta. And, uh, and Ana, which is the new exchange student, quote unquote, uh, she's our niece. And usually in Mérida, which is the city that they, she lives in Mexico, there's a tradition that in the second grade of I want to say middle school or something like that or the first or the first year of high school I don't know one of those the first of us go to another country Okay, so because we are living here and she had an opportunity to come and be a part of the school system Without having too many troubles on the documents because she's a minor blah blah and she's with family So now she is living like an exchange student, basically, uh, but she's staying with family. My brother house in my house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of fun. Well, and she's a budding chef. Oh, Jesus. Yes, she has. I know. She's impressive. She's definitely, uh, dedicated, devoted. She's been a gymnast since she was three. So teamwork is natural for her. So when she goes into a kitchen, she's always on helping mode. What can I do? How can I help? What else is, what there, what, what else needs to be done? Or, you know, blah, blah, blah. She's, she's very easy to, to, uh, have fun with. And she loves food. So she comes to the events, she gets to see the whole production. Everything that holds, that happens behind the show, our wedding. Pretty, pretty enlightening. Ah, super fun. And, and, uh, cause we, you know, we, it's kind of fun to have her around and it's also kind of, it's nice to have our week off and our week on. We definitely enjoy our, our time. That's like, well, that's one of the, this is probably not appropriate for this conversation, but I've noticed over the last 10 years that like kind of the ultimate lifestyle is now to be like a divorced. Parent and you get a week on, you get a week off, you get a week on, you get a week off, you could date this person, these three people. It's like being the aunt and the uncle, you don't need to be the parent. Yeah, exactly. It's so, it's probably terrible for society in the long run because Then nobody will actually take possession of the kids and make sure they're good. And the new generation kids, for what we can see, because we work with a lot of young kids, they are not interested in taking any responsibility. Yes, I'll take the 0. 0 responsibility, but zero. They have no interest in buying a house. Keeping a job with a corporation. Adopting a dog. It's too much responsibility. We live in the age of memberships. So their life is a membership in the United States. Like in their country. Yeah, yeah. They're not investing. You don't buy a DVD and you keep it. Right. Do you pay a membership and you have access to everything? I invested thousands of dollars in music only for Apple to tell me two years ago that all my music library was free and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. My money back. I mean, I have to burn my freaking CDs into somewhere. I mean, my library had like 9, 000 songs that at some point I bought one song at a time or one CD at a time. I'm like pissed. I'm like, no, no, no. Money that I'm never going to see back. I feel ya. Um, and so, excuse me, we talked about, like, you know, you moving to Columbia, him being like. Whatever, but like, what was the, like who was the first one to tip their hand and say, I really like you and I want to spend more time with you and maybe romantically? Me. You and I made my boobs and my, my boobs, my boobs, octopus, octopus, octopus, I mean, I know I said not octopus. I'm just joking. I don't care. I made my moves, moves, moves, as an M O. That's easier for you. For you, then, Trujillo, Trujillo, is for me. So, I made my move. You made your move? I made my move. Uh, a couple of times I want to say, but, whether he was in a relationship or I was in a relationship, alcohol definitely had something to do, but we never Took those opportunities or those moves as we were friends. Didn't quite go there. We didn't, we, I don't think we didn't want it to, there was an attraction. There was, there was a, there was a long term attraction, but not only just physical, there was an attraction that of, uh, like. Um, when you admire somebody, admiration comes with respect and respect comes with, so there, there was like a domino of all the, that section of love and that aspect that, uh, it goes beyond the looks. No. Uh, so like in my, me personally, I knew that if I, if I went as, if I wanted to do a move, it was a, it was a one bullet gun. I needed to like, plan, uh, how, when, because, uh, first of all, we both were with other relationships. relationships while we were friends in playa. So we developed this frenesance that I was telling you about. And were his girlfriends a bunch of dumb shit? They hated him. They hated me. They hated girls. Love ya! Peace. And vice versa, the boys that she was dating thought that you were an asshat. Pretty much. Vice versa. Yes. And everybody could see that in the future we were going to have a relationship, but I couldn't. I was like, pfft. And I only wished for it. You're like, oh, she thought I only wished. I mean, and this, I'm not proud of this, but we were drinking and smoking and having Uh, I used to, with the ex, uh, Hooli's ex, which was, he's my cousin. Okay. It's a whole telenovela. Yeah, I didn't know he existed, but I met him, and then that's when I met Hooli, and I just, it was just, she didn't have any, like, she had like a buzz. I had buzzed my hair. No way. So I had, I've done that a couple of times in my life, and he actually met me when I was looking like a tootsie. And I just thought she was, Just the most beautiful girl that I was like, it was my cousins. I didn't do anything. Uh, so we just became friends. I went through the friend route and then we started getting humor eccentric, uh, as a random chef in Mexico with a buzz cut. All the, all the, all the girls, I was big for lesbians. She was bigger lesbians left and right were, it was so funny. We would be walking up the street and even though Juan and I would be walking together, they would still like, you know, like send me kisses or like ring. And I would be like, what the hell? And they would be like, call me. And I was like, bulls kind of. That was funny. Yeah, it was so funny. I was like, holy, did you saw that? And I was like, no, no, keep walking. So anyway, so you made your move, what was the situation? So we were, well actually, like After her, like, hiking trip from Mexico to We were in Playa del Carmen. No, this is all before. We were in Playa del Carmen. Okay. Uh huh. Yeah, we were in Playa del Carmen, and we were working together, this whole thing. I had a girlfriend, hula da da da, the whole thing. And, uh, and then, um, eventually, you stopped going out with, uh, my cousin, and No manches, I had Santiago after that, too. And then, and then she started going out with another guy. Uh huh. Okay. And I started going out with another girl, but we will, we will always like once a month, we will have our friend assignments and we will go like together. We wouldn't say yeah, we don't, we just go have a long coffee and we will go to like this fucking little place far away, like an hour and a half from playa in a beach. And, and, and we will just sit in a restaurant and with a little table next to the ocean and whatever. Oh, you do this regularly? Yeah, we would have like two places that we would go whether one was in Playa and the other one was closer to work. Nothing happened but friendship, but it was more than friendship. Sure. You were exploring what that chapter could look like. But we were just having the best of fucking times together. And then we will go back to our shitty relationship. And that went like that for a while. For a while. I don't know if we all, but, uh, it's, I've seen more people. I've heard more people than normal that have, that go through really rough relationships that can't get out of it. No, that's how we were. We were like in shitty relationships. We couldn't get out of it. We knew that we liked each other more than where we were and we wish we wanted to be together, but we didn't know how to transition to that. And, and, uh, and then one day Juli made a, uh, a big move and I was like, That was when I decided to leave Playa and go to Colombia and did this, this trip and all of those things. So at that point, my life in Playa was done. That was the end of my path. She was going out with this guy that was going to go with her, uh, to the trip and the whole thing. And then, luckily, the guy decided to fucking say no. And I was like, And I'm like, I'm gonna go. I'll, I'll, I'll, I have this shit going, but I can take a month off and I'll go with you. Oh, no shit. Through this first part. I didn't realize that you were actually also along in parts of it. So he was, he was in the trip for the first, I want to say three to four weeks. Yeah. We were in that first part, but when I cross, when I had to cross from Mexico to Guatemala, that was when he, he had his own, he had things to do. I was in a shaman thing and whatnot. Yeah, I was. No, no, I didn't have the girl and I was, I was more like, no girl, no boy, more self exploration. We're freelancers. Yeah. We're more inwards, right? We were like, all right, fuck this. And were you like romantic right away? Is that rude to ask? No, no, no. It was, I know, honestly. I'm guessing it was more not that way. So here's, here's how it happened. Actually, I remember, we remember perfectly because it was really funny. We were, um, We were having our last dinner as friends, like that was the last time that we were going to see each other and we were just having a bottle of wine and a como como in the restaurant and we were just chatting blah blah just having our normal friendship thing and then at some point we were chatting and we realized in the conversation that I was no longer in a relationship. And he was no longer in our relationship. And we had fucking three days before my flight left. So we're like, It was like, check! I think it was like, Okay, so, bottle to go, please! And it was, and we both realized that it was, It was on like But it took, it took us the three days to make it to the final line, but it was definitely, uh, it was romance right away. It was definitely right away. Cause I think for both of us at that point, we've already been friends for eight to 10 years. Yeah. Well, there was a lot of admiration, a lot of honor, a lot of appreciation. It all came out just like, We don't need to get into the details. No, no, no, no. When we had the chance to actually, do something with our current, uh, back then current boyfriend, girlfriend, we decided not to. And that I think gave the opportunity that when the time was, you know, it was the right, so we had that moment and we had those three days in play. And obviously after having those three days, it was harder for us to let go because at that point I was facing a three month journey. So I was like, And the opposite direction completely. Gal walking to Colombia. Yes, exactly. And he was like stuck in Playa because he was still working with the real estate project and all of those things. And as I was walking, like, he started to I basically flew to my mom's house in, um, closer to Mexico City. And Juan flew Later with me. And then from there, we started this journey through Mexico on the way on the way out to Guatemala. We started in Colombia. And then no, no, no, no. You mean that? Yeah, we did all of those things in Mexico, Guatemala, Oaxaca and all this magic. I was just in my whole spiritual journey. And all that region of Mexico is super chamanic and spiritual. So you've got a pocket full of mushrooms and you're just like, We, we live in an island, one, one was super clean. It was more meditative at the time. My teacher always taught, uh, the way that they taught us wasn't with, uh, would actually, let's say taking a mushroom. Like the way they taught us was to put the mushroom in your hand. And to communicate and absorb the energy of the mushroom, not the actual physical. Yeah. Yeah. And to find that, try to take yourself to that finite trip space like that. So that was more of like her teaching. She wasn't the kind of guru that, and is this a, uh, an established faith background or something like, or, or like talk to me about it. Yeah. Yeah. No, my God, this is like, Chamanism in Mexico is something that you can actually study, but you need to find the right teacher. Yeah. But this is actually. A path that you can choose. So this woman that one had as a teacher, she's actually a psychiatrist, right? A licensed psychiatrist from Spain. Okay. And she has like masters and all of those things. So she's a medical blah, blah. And through this path, I think it was through helping people that were, she was the psychologist. I don't know the name right now, but she was a psychologist who helped people die basically to, to, to make sure that their life, they see their life, like, It was worth it because they died. Do you have, so there's a, a, a brand, it's called which is that people that de devote their lives to helping people, passing to, to help them pass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in that, and in that she found in that context, that could have been the branch that you traveled down even potentially. She found that in, uh, she found that's what she liked. She, her calling in there, I guess, let's say path. And through there she found a connection to the spiritual world. So she realized that she had a connection not only with the living. So, you know, you have all kinds of I'm no judge, you know. And there's all kinds of weird stuff like what we see below. I've seen a lot of weird shit. I always say I believe a lot of weird shit. I've seen a lot of weird shit. When we were kids and you were grabbing a little rock And you were playing with the rock, uh, spaceship. I was asked, was it a rock or was it a spaceship? Right. I don't know. In feminism, they're all spaceships. It's all about the power of the mind. How can you utilize that to create the imagination of it? So anyhow, after all of this, eventually we found each other in Columbia and he was bumping uglies from there. And he, yeah, I camp eight months. What? He followed me, he stayed in Colombia, we did Sabor Creativo, that thing. And then at some point, I wasn't sure that I wanted to be in a relationship at that point. Eight months Kurt, so he was very patient and he sat me down and gave me the ultimatum and said, I'm no longer staying as your pretty boy slash boyfriend slash whatever. You need to define this whether I'm in or I'm out and I cry my heart out and then eventually when he's like, okay, I'm packing. I was like, the fuck you are. You're not packing anything. You're saying you're mine. You're mine. It wasn't eight months. It was five years, eight months. But, uh, yeah, it was, it was, it was more like I wanted to have a relationship and I wanted to spend time with her for the rest of my life. And there was something super strong calling me to be with her. Uh, everything that, that Juli is now. So when that, that time came, I was just like, I want to love this way. Express it. This is how I want to love. Yeah. Like if you see a bandwidth of internet nowadays, I want to, I want to have all these huge gigs. And I was like on 128. It was like, yeah, 14. 4 robotics. I was downloading the email for 15 minutes and Juan was like watching the movie at that point. He's already in the honeymoon. It was coming from cheating guys. I didn't want to be that. I was, I don't like that part. Uh, and, and it took me a minute to get rid of the, and I was like, you know, one of the woman, one of the good things about the world today is that. Average, a little better than average half ass guys can get awesome women because there aren't that many above us You know, it's sad and good for those of us that are slightly above average Not at all. Let's share the the loco experience So the craziest story that you guys would like to share either solo or together Um, with our listening audience, could be an event, could be a near death experience, could be like, I'm sure you've got some Colombian, uh, stories you said you were in danger at times. Yes. So, okay. Let's talk. Uh, that's actually really interesting. I just was. I was touching those subjects with my mom when I was visiting. Um, I think my craziest experience from that time of my life, and it seems like it was pulled out of a movie. It was, um, I was in my bedroom. I was probably nine years old. eight years old, you know, I was never able to sleep with my mom cause I'm a horrible sleeper. Like I would put your knee, my knees in your back the rest of the night. So my mom, as she was, as soon as she was able to, I think she's like, you're getting your own room. So I was very little and I was already sleeping in my room and my mom's room was across from the hall. Right. So I was sleeping, blah, blah, blah. And I just remember it was probably three in the morning and we started hearing, there was like, Like, almost like war just happened to break. Shots, shots, shots. Outside, but it was like boom, boom, boom, boom. Doom, doom, doom, doom. Da da da da da. It was like, all kinds of fires, all kinds of weapons being fired at the house behind my house. Woah. And this is, like, I always tell Juan this story, and I'm like, you don't think, I'm, I wasn't living in a rough neighborhood, I was living, like, Yeah, you were away from the chaos. I was in a, in a really nice neighborhood, very residential like, schools nearby, the usual. The shitty part was that, The drug dealers that were doing the shitty things were also living in the nice neighborhoods. They had nice houses too. They had nice houses too. I was friends with their kids, you know, it was just, you never knew until you knew. And that day, I just remember all of this noise and suddenly obviously you're waking up by what the hell is happening. I just remember my mom grabbing me from probably pulling me from my pyjama, my hair, whatever she had and dragging me into the bathroom with. And a lot of America is normal that you have, um, people that help you, they live in your houses to like, to help you raise your kids like a maid, but they become like part of your like a, almost like an opera, let's put it like that. So I remember my mom pulling me into the bathroom. And before I even realized Maria Teresa, she came running from downstairs upstairs, screaming, obviously in panic and the three of us. Close the door to the bathroom. My mom pulled the mattress from her, from her, from her bed and put it against the door because everything in the bathroom was cement or concrete, which is how we build in Latin America. And then the mattress, but all the bullets were, you could hear them. Bounce off the walls of our house. Well, the windows were shattered. This was like 30 45 minutes Oh shit of us in the bathroom crying the three of us just not knowing what the hell was gonna happen Obviously, I think we slept on the bathroom until it was clear and we couldn't hear anything and the Sun started rising and you get out of the bathroom and The windows are shattered. We had bullets in our living room, in my bedroom, in my mom's bedroom. The thing is that the, the guy that was the second hand of Pablo Escobar back then was living behind us. So they did a raid in his house, obviously trying to get him. the government authorities? This is like the military. They didn't get him? They did. And they, he was obviously, Um, yeah, unfortunately, probably like, like they did to Pablo Escobar. I mean, they all go through the same fate, but it's really hard to know that those are the kids that you were playing with. That is the mom that, cause those are, that's your community. You don't know until you know, but he was, he was a guy that you would be like, Hey, Mr. And I remember that. And when I, I mean, when I think about those things that I'm on, that's crazy People actually go through those life experiences. And like that one, it was the police station getting blown out every two weeks in my neighborhood. It was a bomb in the commercial and like in foothills, they would put bombs in the parking lots just to blow up cars of politicians or just to mess with the community or to do bad things to people that they knew were going to those places. And that was kind of a recurrent thing in my life. And I don't think i've ever lived it Anything as crazy or extreme as that. That is my loco experience for sure. I don't think I have a loco experience. I think we should wrap it up right there. I should have gone first. No, no. I know which one you should say. The one with the cenote. I like that one. Uh, my Your, your near death experience? Near death experience. Oh, well that's always worthy. Um, I guess at some point we started doing, uh, we used to live near the ocean and, uh, in Playa del Carmen. I've been to some of the cenotes in Cancun. Exactly. The underground caves that have rivers flowing through them. The meteor Came to Yucatan, hit, and that's, and that's it. Just kind of impacted, uh, melted. All these limestone, it's like all broken up. Everything, just all the bottles and whatever. I mean, there's nothing to build on hardly down there, right? No, it's just all limestone. Like, you gotta go down long ways before you can put a foundation down. And it's, and it's all like, uh, a circuit that it just flows all around. And so, yeah, there's no rivers on the top of the ground. They're all underground. That's why the trees, for example, only grow a certain height because it's all hydroponia. Right. Natural hydroponia. Right. So they break this all and they go straight into the water. And the river is 15 feet down below the roof of this oil. It's super cool. It's beautiful. But a lot of people die because these are caves. Without any type of, you know, and running water and all that, and it's all done. We used to, uh, we used to go like in reverse. Let's say we'll go into the, into the, the, the caves and we'll find bubbles from the, from the actual divers. Oh yeah. And we will just kind of like backwards. So the water will push you up and you will like jump. In the water. Oh dang. And suck. Breathe the bubble. And then you will go and like crawl and breathe the other bubble and you will cross. So this is, this is free diving with no tanks. This is just free diving. This is you in Playa. Like this is us. Like I did that. I was, did was feeding. Yes. But this was not something that I would do every eight days. Like this was a common thing for Juan when I did that. I was peeing in my pants. I love water. Water is the thing for me. And like even in the house, I have a stock tank that I, we built. Okay. And uh, whenever I need, I just get in the water and I calm myself. Uh, so, We used to go and hunt for these holes that go super deep. And only some, some, uh, certain light can go up into it. And we used to do it in the oceans also. And, and then, uh, with, uh, my sister, ex husband, he was a really good friend of mine. And we used to just kind of hunt them and go in the coordinate. Yeah. We were seeking out the best, just having fun. You know, you're thinking everything just going down fun apneas of, of uh, will practice and you'll like go down for, I don't know, two minutes and a minute and a half. Is it like bubbles coming from them or something? How do you find them? He is just on a map or something. Yeah. A lot of people like you. The one that Hess telling you hiking trails or climbs around Colorado kind of thing. The one that he's telling you think that you're, let's say that you're hiking on a, on a forest, right? And before you even know it, there's a cenote, which is literally a hole in the ground that the soil cave down and you can see, but sometimes from the soil to the river, it may be 15 feet. Sometime it may be 30, sometime it may be 45 and this motherfuckers would jump from the top. Oh, and trust that this cenote was deep enough. So, and they would like, that's what they would do. So some of these holes were not necessarily the ones that you go on the ground, but you just jump into the two that goes down. Assume for the best at the bottom. Yeah, I guess. I mean, you didn't think a lot about it. They were not thinking a lot, clearly. We found, we went and we found this cenote, very small cenote, but, uh, um, probably like four feet wide. Um, And, um, and, and we decided to, it was just kind straight down, just like a tube. A tunnel. Tunnel. So you like going down this tube, like, like a tunnel just wiggling down it? Yeah, maybe six feet, uh, at most. But, so, you know, you have the, the large fans and the whole thing. So we started going a circle tube. You're all set. We, we, we we went down and we started, like my friend went up, went down, and I wait for him halfway. So when he comes out, we spot each other and then we just kinda. Like go all the way to the top. So when I went down, it was just a long way down and we were just, you know, you just kind of calm yourself and you're kind of sucking up all the beautiful, it's such a beautiful part of our meditating. Yeah. You're meditating. You're just totally different scene there as you're going down. It's like being in an anthill virtually. Basically you're crawling where you shouldn't fucking be crawling or swimming down. And eventually about 30 feet down that thing opened up like in a bowl. Now you're talking about under the water. Yeah. Under the water. He was already going down for a couple of feet down with the tunnel and then he found the water here and you swim down in the tunnel. And you swim through the tube. Through the water. So you go through the water all the time. And then the cave opens up. And then we found this cave and there was like light coming. Do you have oxygen? No. No, this is free diving. This is all free diving. And we got, and I got there and there was only room for one on each path. So I got down there and it was so fucking majestically beautiful. That suddenly I got mesmerized by the moment. And before I realized, I remember that I still, that I still had to go up 30 feet and I didn't have enough oxygen anymore. So, uh, you know, fuck it, calm yourself. And you just, I started just going up and going up. Luckily, you know, air expands as you go up, so it helped a little bit of that. Okay. But, uh, I started going up. You just floated up in this cave. Oh, you're just going cenote that you came down. Yeah, I'm trying to go up from the hole that I, what I have enough energy to actually swim. I didn't have enough, enough air. I didn't have enough air. Like my air was gone. You only have X amount depending. No. So I was going up and before I know, I started remembering like, like ants crawling all over me, like just vibration, just very like, and then I started hearing a song, uh, that like just a song that I was bouncing in my head and it was just like, um, kind of like a Coldplay song and it was just bouncing everywhere. And before I knew it, literally, I was just like all white and wherever I was, it was like literally just a little time of nothingness. And then I was like, fuck, you're trying to get up to the, to the surface of this fucking water. And here I am looking at this white light. Yeah, I kinda, when that thing came, that thought came into my mind. I remember just like grabbing the air and you were up there and I was up there and my friend was holding me and I was just like, uh, he saw me going up and he was like, just I, my eyes, I was gone already, but I was still swimming up. Like he literally lost. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You probably died. Like if, if he wasn't close enough to the surface. Yeah. Yeah. Another, another five seconds. Probably that, that, that gulp of water of, of air would have been water. Right. And I probably would have just drowned there. Yeah. So that was probably, that's pretty intense. My most intense. I've never been that close to death. Like I've been close to death quite a few times, but not that close. That was, that was, that was fun. Do it again. That was fun. No, would you do it again? Would you do it again? Uh, I would do it more carefully. Right, with an oxygen tank. Yeah, I would do it more carefully. Maybe with a backup tiny oxygen tank. Right, something. Yeah. Something just a little something. Exactly, just a tiny oxygen tank. You know, that, that, that's fun, but peyote is are more fun. So I would do peyote again. It's safer for the next one. Peyote is way safer. You can go through the tunnel without losing your life. Yes. So, um, for our listeners, uh, that want to follow. hire you guys for their best catering experience, food experience ever. Uh, where would they go? Uh, you can go to our website at, uh, huliehuan. com. You can Google and just put Hulie Y. Y Juan. Y Juan's Kitchen. I am sure that it will come out there and just, you know, fill up a form and we'll be, hopefully we'll, we'll be more than happy to. if you look us up from four columns, if you put Hulie. Kitchen, Juan's Kitchen, I'm sure we are the first ones that will publish. Well, and if you go to a spring event, like, Act now, cause it won't be open pretty soon. That's true, you never know how much you got. Yeah, no, it's fine. We're, we're, we're, we're in a little bit of a transition, uh, where we're trying to reinvent a little bit of what we do. Okay. Uh, we've been We've been Before we close? Yeah, if I can. We'll just keep coming in. All right, cool. Uh, we've been trying to, we've been in the wedding industry for 10 years basically and as much as we love it and everything and it's fantastic and it's wonderful, um, we're also missing the other side. Every event is intense. Every mom is intense. We're missing the community of the little events. Yeah. Our industry, we say the wedding industry is very jealous. So it only allows you to do weddings. And we miss doing other things besides weddings. So we're trying to figure it out a way where, uh, business wise, where we can continue to, uh, you know, pass along, let's say, create something that we can create better experiences for people in the wedding industry. But also have, uh, the things that Juli and I are missing, which is, you know, it's just smaller events with friends and houses, pop ups and beers here and there, jump a little bit more in the creative side, less computer, less computer, more, more cooking, you know, things like that. So we're very interested. We're excited about what's coming. We don't know how it is going to happen, but we, we know just believe in it. Trust move forward. You know, we know definitely that instead of doing, let's say more weddings that Juan and I will be there in each wedding. We're trying to transition into the community that is looking for good experiences. And weddings can still have our food without the need to have us, because there's only two of us. But we know the need for food is bigger than just the two of us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're trying to. Find a way to fulfill that part. Yeah, well, it'll take, it'll be a little different model, right? Because part of the value proposition is when you're there, but also your food is killer. Thank you! I'll try to impress you when we have you over for dinner. Yay! Wait, Loco Moco? There you go. We'll do it. I already learned the name. So you're screwed. I'm on it like a bonnet. No, hey, thanks. Thanks for having me. This to be our longest podcast, uh, so far. So, uh, be proud of that. Thanks guys. Thank you so much. so much. Bye for now. It's an honor to be here. Appreciate it. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Loco Experience podcast produced and sponsored by Loco Think Tank. This is your producer Alma Arellano. Check out our website at thelocoexperience. com to find all of our episodes, nominate future guests, or leave us a message. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn at The Loco Experience. To support the show, please subscribe and share it with your favorite people. Until next time, stay loco.
